Dr. Trita Parsi - Expert Guest (2:30)

Good to see. Good to see you again.

Interviewer / Podcast Host (2:32)

Yeah, of course. So let's go ahead and put this Trump truth up on the screen just to get the exact words from the president himself. He says, moments ago, my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle east and totally obliterated every military target in Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island. Our weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the world has ever known. But for reasons of decency, I've chosen not to wipe out the oil infrastructure on the island. However, should Iran or anyone else do anything to interfere with the free and safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision. During my first term, and currently, I rebuilt our military into the most lethal, powerful and effective force by far anywhere in the world. Iran has no ability to defend anything we want to attack. There's nothing they can do about it. Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, nor will it have the ability to threaten the United States of America, the Middle east, or for that matter, the world. So this was the announcement we received yesterday evening, and short enough, you know, reporting is that Car island was hit, that it was the military infrastructure, that the oil infrastructure remains intact. Your reaction to these latest developments?

Dr. Trita Parsi - Expert Guest (3:45)

I think, frankly, we're further seeing him, Trump, losing control over this. Iran apparently seems to have even escalation control at this point because they struck at all facilities, not military facilities, oil facilities in uae. In response to this, I think we have now a situation in which Trump actually is recognizing that the Iranians have this leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, over oil, and he doesn't really have what it takes to go all the way to attack these things because he is now finally recognizing that that would be absolutely suicidal even if he were to strike at oil facilities at that island. It does not mean that the Iranians will open up the strait or that the Iranians will not be able to export their own oil. During the Iraq Iran War, that island was struck constantly by the Iraqis. The Iranians found various workarounds. Obviously, it's very bad for them. I'm not trying to downplay it, but they have workarounds. They put those in place back then. I would suspect that they're even more sophisticated at this point compared to that, whereas they now have really the control over the Strait of Hormuz. They're the ones who decide which ships go in and which ships don't. And just to see as the evidence of that is that India is negotiating itself with, with Iran for free passage, and so is France and Italy. They didn't go to Trump to negotiate free passage. They went to Iran because it's the Iranians that are in control. And now, for the first time in a very long time, the Iranians actually have leverage. They have significant leverage. When they didn't have leverage and in the negotiations, they gave concessions, it didn't get them anything. It got them this war. Now they have leverage. I don't find it very likely that they will give it up without getting major concessions in return. And there's, of course, the risk that the Iranians will do the same mistake as this, the Trump administration did, which is to overplay their hands.

Interviewer / Podcast Host (5:35)

Let me get your reaction to this additional truth social that came from the President. Let me just pull this one fully up on the screen. Sorry. There we go. Many countries, especially those who are affected by Iran's attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending warships in conjunction with the United States of America to keep the strait open and safe. We've already destroyed 100% of Iran's military capability, but it's easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along or in this waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are. Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK and others that are affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area. So the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated. In the meantime, the US Will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline and continually shooting Iranian boats and ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the hormones straight, open, safe and free. So they're hoping that China will join this fight alongside of us to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Dr. Trita Parsi - Expert Guest (6:42)

I mean, look, every sentence there contradicts the next first declaring complete victory, saying that these countries will, and then later on saying, hopefully these countries will join in this effort. You're seeing the words of a man who actually has been defeated and who knows it. This is the desperation phase of this war at this point. The question, though, is it hasn't yet ended and it can end in a much worse way than what we're already in. He's looking at increasingly bad escalatory options to give the pretense that he is in control, hoping that the sounds of more explosions in Iran will cover up the fact that he has absolutely no strategy.

Interviewer / Podcast Host (7:21)

Yeah. And just talk to us a little bit about why reopening the Strait has become clearly so central in Trump's mind. And I think it's also worth noting that all of these moves occurred after the markets closed on Friday, which. Which I don't think is an accident.

Dr. Trita Parsi - Expert Guest (7:36)

Yeah. And even then, he actually didn't strike the oil facilities. If I'm sitting in Tehran right now, I will interpret that as Trump's aim at playing madman has come to an end and that he is now being constrained by others. He probably wanted to go all the way. This is just speculation on my end. He wanted to go all the way. But there was such pushback inside the US Government, pointing out the tremendous negative effects this would have on the global economy, on oil markets, and on the US Economy months before a midterm, that he had to pull it back and instead just did this. Pinpoint attacks against the military facilities, which then tells the Iranians Trump is not willing to escalate further. This further strengthens their sense, false or correctly, that they are more in control of the situation right now.

Interviewer / Podcast Host (8:25)

So you see this, you believe the Iranians will perceive this, in spite of the bluster, as effectively being a sign of weakness that he attacked. He constrained his attacks to the military facilities, is only threatening the oil infrastructure, but is unwilling to go there himself because of the pain that he knows that will create in his own economy.

Dr. Trita Parsi - Expert Guest (8:46)

I believe that that is a likely interpretation on the Iranian side. I think there was an expectation on the Iranian side that he would take attack the oil facilities on that island, that it potentially even tried to seize the island. The Iranians know that seizing the island actually is not that terribly difficult. Keeping it and making it anything of value is much more difficult because the Iranians can then rain drones and missiles on that island, which is right off their coast. I mean, the time these drones would fly would be so short, and they have such more effective short range missiles compared to their long term missiles, long distance missiles, which also have proven to be very effective. But they would at that point also destroy their own island and their own oil facilities, which would be a very high cost to the Iranians. So I think we've seen a point in which the US Kind of backed down, down from a very, very strong escalatory move, recognizing that this would be more or less suicidal. My colleague Amir Hanjani at the Quincy Institute believes that what we're seeing right now and he's an economist, is the beginning of the COVID phase of the global economy, that it's going in that direction, which means that we will have a major, major economic contraction. Covid ended up costing in the first year, negative 3% GDP contraction globally. And that this is now the early phases of that unless this war is stopped. But stopping the war is no longer in the control of Trump. And this is part of the reason why you're seeing this increasingly desperate language. He knows very well that even if he stops attacking Iran, pulls out of the waters in the Indian Ocean, declares victory, points to things that he actually had achieved in this war in terms of degrading Iran's military, the Iranians will likely continue to close the straits and control who comes in and who doesn't, because they have that ability right now. This is not the same closure of the straits as it would have been 20 years ago, in which they would have just put mines in the waters and they would have no control whose ships would be exploded. Now they have full control. They can control whether a Chinese ship goes in or not or whether Italian one goes in. And they themselves are actually been exporting more oil during the war than they did prior to the war.

Interviewer / Podcast Host (10:56)

What did you think of the move on their part to say we will let some ships through, but the it's going to be denominated not in US Dollars, but in Chinese Yuan.

Dr. Trita Parsi - Expert Guest (11:05)

I mean, they're doing everything they can to just squeeze Trump and the US Economy as much as possible. I don't know if that's going to be successful in terms of getting countries to switch over, but many of those countries are going to be quite desperate. I mean, India only has oil reserves for 25 days. The impact on Asian markets right now has already been devastating. Already last weekend they started to cut down on the number of days schools are open, offices are open, because they don't have the fuel for all of these different things. The US Is a little bit further remove, has a much stronger reserve. But all of those things that is happening in the global economy, just as it was with COVID will come back to haunt the US Economy as well, sooner or later.

Interviewer / Podcast Host (11:47)

Let me ask you about this reporting from the Wall Street Journal, which indicates that this is Ali, sorry, Abumna, who's a great reporter and journalist, and he's saying US Military leaking. They warned Trump that Iran would close Hormuz, but he ignored them, thinking Iran would collapse and he'd get swift, decisive victory. And here's one of the quotes from here general Dan Kane, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Trump an American attack could prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz. Kane said in several briefing briefings that U.S. officials had long believed Iran would deploy mines, drones and missiles to close the world's most vital shipping lane. Trump acknowledged the risk, these people said, but move forward anyway. He told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the Strait, and even if Iran tried, the US Support

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Interviewer / Podcast Host (15:36)

That's redfin.com military could handle it. So I think a few things that were noteworthy to me. I mean, first of all, just the fact that these leaks are coming out now of people in the administration, likely in the military brass are trying to say, listen, we tried to tell this guy that this was a bad idea. Which shows you as an indication that on the inside, they also think that this is, you know, a catastrophe on their hands at this point. And then obviously the details here that Trump, rather than listening to military experts, was sort of high on his own supply, coming off what he perceives as this magnificent victory in Venezuela and thought, oh, the Iranians, they'll capitulate. They're just going to threaten this. It's an empty threat, and they'll break before we ever get to this point.

Dr. Trita Parsi - Expert Guest (16:20)

With one small, well, actually very important addition to that, there were some other people also whispering in his ear saying, ignore the advice of the U.S. intelligence service, ignore the advice of the U.S. military. And that were the Israelis, who are telling him constantly, iran is at its weakest points ever. They will capitulate. They have no other option. Go back to what I've been saying for the last couple of months, that the whole approach to the diplomacy was erroneous because he was under the false impression that the Iranians are much weaker than they actually were. He ruined the diplomacy because he thought capitulation was in the card. And now he's turning a war into a debacle because he thinks capitulation is in the cards. And this was not something that he came up with on his own. This was something that the Israelis kept on pushing onto him. I mean, the whole idea that there was a moment to attack was because Iran is at its weakest ever. I mean, just go back and look. Look at the reporting from that time. This was constantly repeated by the pro Israeli crowd in Washington and by Israeli officials. Those are the people Trump chose to listen to instead of his own military. And here we are.

Interviewer / Podcast Host (17:21)

What do you make of the reporting that the Saudis also were influential in pushing Trump towards war?

Dr. Trita Parsi - Expert Guest (17:27)

I think the picture that has emerged is that the Saudi Foreign Ministry actually lobbied against this war, but unbeknownst to them, MBS himself lobbied in favor of it. And this has been a pattern that we've seen in the past in which MBS does his own thing completely above the government, kind of like Trump and the rest of the government is not necessarily even aware of it. We're also seeing now that there is clear evidence that the US has been using some GCC states, soiled Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to attack Iran. And we've seen how the Iranians have struck at Saudi bases and destroyed. American refueling planes are extremely expensive. Seven of them, if I'm not mistaken. So even though those bases may not at that point have been used, and we don't know for certain for direct attacks, they were integrally part of the logistics and the refueling. In fact, the Israeli planes have had their, whatever that thing is called on trackers on, so that, you know, the Iranians could see that the Israeli planes were flying to the Saudi airfields in the midst of that war. So part of the reason why the Iranians are striking as well is not just because they're trying to squeeze the economy, et cetera, is because there is a realization on both sides. Both sides have kind of pretended as if everything is better than it is. But behind the scenes, it's clear evidence that some of these states have actually been somewhat supportive of this war logistically. They may have had great difficulty saying no to Trump. They may not have done it eagerly. But this is part of the reason why the Iranians have also been striking at some of these Saudi airfields.

Interviewer / Podcast Host (19:07)

So I saw, and I'm sure you did as well, the reports that they're bringing in this Marine expeditionary force, some 2500 Marines being rushed into the region. What does that tell you about where this war may go next from the US Side?

Dr. Trita Parsi - Expert Guest (19:23)

It just looks to me as if it's getting more and more desperate. Now. Are they Going to use those 2,500 troops, Marines to go and take that island. They might succeed in taking the island, but then they're sitting ducks. And the Iranians will rain missiles and drones onto them. They will destroy their own island and all the old facilities, but they will get far more American casualties than they have been able to get by striking places. Empty bases in Bahrain and in Kuwait and other places. And what can you achieve with $2500 now troops? Is this about doing some special operations inside of Iranian territory? Going in and taking the nuclear. You know, they have the enriched uranium somewhere under the mountains there. There is still some potential leverage for the Iranians. That would be an extremely risky operation. This is not like sneaking into someone's house and stealing their wallet and going out. This will take hours and hours in which they would be sitting ducks and would be under tremendous attack. This would be extremely so. It's just not clear to me at all. And I think it's not clear to Trump either. He went in with the wrong impression this was gonna be easy. He's now stuck in a war that he doesn't know how to get out of. There is a path out, There is a path out, and that is that the US Will call an end to this war. But there will also be negotiation indirectly with the Iranians. And the Iranians are gonna ask for certain things, and I suspect that some of them will be completely unacceptable, such as reparations. But I think that other things will perhaps be in that moment when it's become absolutely clear that this is beyond insane. At that moment, it may actually be feasible for the United States to also do some sanctions relief for the Iranians. For instance, lifting sanctions on the GCC states or some Asian states that would then start trading with Iranians. And that would be something the Iranians could then accept in order to open the straits. Others are saying, and you will see an op ed on Monday, that this will actually cost a trillion dollars to get the straits open. And most of that will be money that will be coming from Saudi Arabia and the UAE as a compensation to Iran, that they will pay the reparations to Iran for this war. I'm not sure it's going to go exactly in that direction and those amounts. But I think there's a premise in that argument that is true. This is not going to be cost free in terms of ending the war. There's going to have to be concessions, there's going to have to be measures because the Iranians have leverage now. They clearly have leverage now, and they're not going to give it up easily or cheaply.

Interviewer / Podcast Host (21:54)

What do you make of these comments that David Sacks just made? He's a co host of the all in podcast. More importantly for this conversation, he is the White House's crypto czar. And he was warning of a what he described as a potentially catastrophic situation he had. He indicated that, you know, Iran can basically destroy the economies of the GCC states and inflict significant damage on Israel as well, especially over time as their defenses are warned down. And he also warned of the possibility of Israel deploying a nuclear weapon, which, you know, is extraordinary in and of itself. But also for an administration official even to acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons is. Is extraordinary. You know, is that a concern that you share with him?

Dr. Trita Parsi - Expert Guest (22:38)

I do, absolutely. And I've spoken to several people in government or around government who share that concern, including that it could be used by the United States. They do believe, however, that the likelihood of the Israelis using it is greater and faster in the sense that there's still a lot of guardrails around the American side using the nuclear weapons. But that in itself tells you how bad this war is going. I think David did something extremely courageous coming out and saying this, and he might be in a unique position to be able to say it because he can leave the administration cost free, more or less. He doesn't look for a longer political career or anything like that. But I think it's really reflective of what actually has happened inside government throughout this period. Trump was the driving force behind this war with Netanyahu constantly whispering is his ear. Others were not excited about this at all, but they were not pushing back in the manner that they probably should have and could have. Part of the reason why they didn't is because those who did back in June are no longer at the table. And the cost was seen as very high for having done so. So now the ones remaining were a little bit more careful. What they did is like, well, you probably need another aircraft carrier. Actually throw in two of them in there and you need a couple of more weeks to amass more troops. All of these different things to try get it through to the guy. This is a really bad idea. But the point never reached home.

Interviewer / Podcast Host (23:56)

Well, that's a very interesting insight and would sort of square the circle of what JD Vance may have been doing behind the scenes because there was a leak that he was pushing for a bigger attack. And of course, then his people, Lee, that is seen as having come from sort of the Susie Wiles Marco Rubio camp. Then there were leaked scenes come from his camp of no, no, he was reluctant. Could have been that he was reluctant, but the tactic that he used was saying, oh, you need more, you know, we need a bigger armada, we gotta rush more to the region.

Dr. Trita Parsi - Expert Guest (24:22)

This is a very common tactic. I mean, this is actually a very common tactic used by the military because the military hates it when politicians throw them in to unthought through wars, knowing very well the politicians don't have the political willpower to stay in that fight. The military hates to be thrown into wars that are not lost militarily but are lost politically. So what they say is, look, if you want to do this, you're going to need x, you know, 10 times more of this, 100 times more of this, etc. Just to make it clear to the politicians that this is not as easy as you think it's going to be. And if you want to go in this, it's going to be for the long haul, it's going to be much more complicated. Are you really ready to do it? That strategy however, did not seem to work with Trump.

Interviewer / Podcast Host (25:04)

Lastly, we saw the Iranians warning citizens in the GCC states, in particular in uae. What do you think their next move may be as they continue to try to turn the screws on the US and wage, you know, what is already becoming a fairly successful economic war.

Dr. Trita Parsi - Expert Guest (25:23)

You know, when you take a look at the number of attacks, the UAE actually has not been struck as hard as for instance, Kuwait and Bahrain have been. So this may just be one of the things that they're doing, is shifting a little bit of the focus over there. As I'm sure you may have reported as well. The UAE is one of those countries that puts you in jail if you are posting on social media about what actually is happening in the country, or if you're putting out videos of these attacks, these fires, et cetera. There's a 60 year old British guy that just was apprehended by the UAE authorities for simply having posted something about this. So I think the image of the UAE suffering is in and of itself something that further puts pressure on all countries and on the global economy as a whole. And I think again, the problem the US has here is that the Iranians have a very, very rich number of targets throughout the region and different ways that they can really put a squeeze on the global economy. It's just through the straits and again, this is part of the reason why most of them did everything they could to prevent this war. From having started in the first place. I have to say Trump has been one of those presidents that beyond many things that he's done that I think is highly, highly problematic. He's been very careful not to put himself in lose lose situations on the international stage. This is the mother of all lose lose situations and he put himself there against the advice of most of his advisors.

Interviewer / Podcast Host (26:52)

Yeah, I think that is well said. Dr. Parsi, thank you for your insights as always. Appreciate your time.

Dr. Trita Parsi - Expert Guest (26:56)

Thank you so much for having me.

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