From the heart of Tehran, India Today speaks with Professor Mohammad Marandi on the escalating 39-day-old conflict. Marandi asserts that despite heavy damage to Iranian petrochemical and pharmaceutical infrastructure, the leadership remains unified. He characterizes the U.S. "maximum pressure" and naval blockade as a global economic catastrophe that Iran is prepared to outwait. Marandi specifically warns neighboring regimes, like the UAE, that hosting U.S. ground troops and drones makes them direct participants in the war. Defiant and resolute, he emphasises that for Iran, this is a "fight for survival" that they are destined to win.