Iran just offered to broker peace in a war it's accused of arming
5 days ago · 26 September 2026Share
Iranian presidential campaign rally held at Shiroudi Stadium on June 24, 2024. File photo. Rulebased · CC BY-SA 4.0
Iran's president just tried to make peace in a war his own country gets blamed for.
Masoud Pezeshkian says Iran has nothing to do with the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia.
He said it on Al Jazeera, in an interview that went out a day ago.
Pezeshkian says quote "not linked to Iran".
So he's saying the Houthis are acting completely on their own.
Then he offered something bigger. Iran, he said, will help end the whole dispute. Let the Houthis and Saudi Arabia talk it out instead of fighting.
He put it simply. A brother should not fight his brother.
Here's the problem with that. The Houthis are an Iran-backed group. Western governments have said for years that Iran arms them, trains them, funds them. Iran always says no, we don't control them.
And the timing is not great for that denial.
The Houthis have been on the attack for weeks. 16 days ago they captured the port city of Mocha. A day after that, they took Perim Island, right at the entrance to the Red Sea. Then the nearby Hanish Islands too. And a day ago, Saudi Arabia says it shot down another Houthi ballistic missile.
So while the Houthis keep hitting Saudi Arabia, Iran's president is offering to be the peacemaker.
Pezeshkian didn't stop there. He accused America and Israel of stirring up division between Islamic countries so they can control the region's resources.
That flips the whole story. Suddenly this isn't a war Iran backs. It's a war being done to the region by outsiders.
He said Saudi Arabia could unite the Islamic world. And he said the region doesn't need what he called a regional policeman. That's a jab at America, and everyone knows it.
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Contains modified NASA Aqua MODIS satellite imagery showing a dust storm across the Arabian Peninsula on March 26, 2011. File photo.NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA · CC BY 2.0
This isn't the only peace plan Iran has on the table right now.
Two days ago, Pezeshkian and Iran's Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, put forward a seven-day plan for the bigger war. The Strait of Hormuz would reopen on day six. Nuclear talks with America would start on day seven.
But there are conditions. America would have to end its naval blockade of Iranian ports. Lift the sanctions on Iranian oil. Hand back around $12 billion in frozen Iranian money. And agree to a ceasefire covering Lebanon and Yemen too.
Donald Trump already said no. The Wall Street Journal reported it, quoting US officials.
So Pezeshkian says Iran doesn't trust Washington anymore. He said quote "We have no trust in the American side".
Qatar and Pakistan are still passing messages between Iran and America. That's based on an understanding from June. It lapsed last month.
While Iran is talking peace, Saudi Arabia is building something else.
Seven weeks ago, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey signed a joint defence pact in Mecca. A day ago, the military chiefs of all three countries met in Riyadh, Pakistan's Field Marshal Asim Munir among them, and agreed to turn that pact into real military cooperation.
So here's where things stand. Iran offers to mediate. Saudi Arabia lines up allies instead.
Saudi Arabia has said nothing publicly about Iran's offer.
One more thing from that interview. Pezeshkian says he's met twice with Iran's new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, since the war started. One meeting ran seven hours. Iran's last Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a strike when this war with America and Israel began seven months ago.
We don't know if Saudi Arabia will take Iran up on this. We don't know if the Houthis see Iran's denial as useful cover or a headache. And we don't know what America thinks about Iran brokering Saudi-Houthi peace, right after rejecting Iran's own peace plan for the bigger war.
Right now, Iran is asking to be trusted as the peacemaker in a war it says it never started.
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