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Thanks for listening to the Rest Is Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to therestispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com.
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Welcome to the Rest is Politics. Question time with me, Rory Stewart, and me, Alistair Campbell. And today we've done something rather unusual, which actually Alastair deserves credit for, which is that he said, rather than the two of us answering endless questions on Iran, we might actually get a genuinely deep Iran expert. So we've got my friend Karim Sajadpour, who is himself obviously originally of Iranian descent, but has been the leading analyst at the International Crisis Group and then again more recently, the Carnegie Endowment. He is somebody who understands Iran very well, but actually, perhaps even more, he understands the US Debate on Iran very, very, very well. He is going to be with us as we answer your questions. And my goodness, we have had hundreds of your questions.
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A
We are absolutely delighted to have you with us. Karim, Rory and I have quoted your work in Foreign Policy Magazine many, many times in recent days or weeks. Let's just kick off with where we are in terms of the theme of nationalism and Iranian public opinion more generally. Leo why are the Iranian people so split in their opinion of this war? Mattia, why do we see so little or no sign of uprising? Is this Iranian regime control of the rally around the flag effect? And Iris Seram asks a similar question. So let's start with that.
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C
It's great to be with both of you, and those are very important questions which, to be honest, are not easy to answer because we don't have good polling inside Iran, like under any authoritarian regime and now an authoritarian regime in a state of war. A lot of what we get is anecdotal. But what I would share is that first of all, the questions from your listeners are absolutely right, that Iran is one of the most nationalistic populations on Earth. It's a population which feels proud of its very ancient history. And that nationalism can take you in multiple different directions, because you could say that Iran should be a great nation. In my view, it should be a G20 nation. It has the human resources, the natural resources, the history to be one of the world's 20 wealthiest nations. But under the Islamic Republic, it's a pariah. And therefore, for Iran to fulfill its potential, you need to get rid of the Islamic Republic. The nationalism could take you also in an opposite direction to say, no matter what you think of the regime, we're a sovereign nation and we oppose external intervention I would argue, Rory, that Iran is a deeply polarized society these days. But in my view, it's not polarized. 50, 50. It's polarized probably around 80, 20, 85, 15. In that I would say around 80, 85% of the population is opposed to the regime. The regime has a hard core of 15 to 20% support. And what we know from dictatorships is that what matters most is not the breadth of your support, but the depth of your support, meaning you don't need a majority. You just need a devoted minority that is armed and organized and willing to kill on your behalf. And so I suspect that that devoted minority has been reawakened in Iran the last few weeks. I am skeptical that those who were opposed to the regime several months ago now are supporting it. But this goes to the second question. Why haven't we seen any popular uprisings? And the reason why is that people are under bombardment at the moment, and they're just thinking about staying safe, and they're not thinking about political mobilization. And the big question is, what happens once the dust settles, Whether that's one month from now, several months from now. Are people then going to think about political mobilization, or is it a situation in which they believe that the regime is just too ruthless to be challenged in the near term and they may look for opportunities in the future?
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Julia Kellner asks, what do we need to understand about the new ayatollah? And Vincenzo Maresca, at what point does decapitation of Iran's leaders start causing genuine systemic collapse? And I think what's interesting there was my sense, correct me if I'm wrong, is that the new Ayatollah, in a sense, is a product of Donald Trump and some of the things that he's been saying about, you know, it's got to be somebody that I approve of. And we'll sor. And the Israelis saying they'll take out anybody that they don't approve of. So is this a guy that you were surprised became the new ayatollah, and what do we not know about him? And if I can add one question to those from our listeners, should we be surprised that we haven't yet actually seen him physically speaking to his people? This episode is brought to you by Fuse Energy.
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C
All very good questions. So Mojtab Al Khamenei is someone who was widely known to the Iranian public. Given that he was the son of the guy who ruled the country for 37 years, Ayatollahi Khamenei. But he was not heard, nor was he seen. There's only really one grainy video of him which exists. So he always was someone who operated in the shadows, and he had long been in the conversation for succession. But I don't think it was a foregone conclusion that he would succeed his father until the father was assassinated. And I think that really helped his chances pretty significantly because not only did he lose his father, he lost his mother, he lost his wife, and the regime wanted to essentially continue with the status quo and was reluctant to bring in someone new who would perhaps revisit the Principles of 1979. And so he obviously has inherited an almost impossible situation in that first, he's injured. We don't know how badly he's injured. I'VE heard from people in Iran that the injuries he suffered are not life threatening, but nonetheless, he's been injured. He's obviously in probably great emotional distress given he's lost much of his family. He's having to live underground in hiding because Israelis are actively trying to assassinate him. And he is someone who, he's inexperienced. He's never really given a speech before a large audience. And suddenly, not only are 90 million Iranian eyes on him, but the world's eyes are on him. So I think he's inherited a very, very difficult situation. I would not predict that he is going to be like a Mohammed bin Salman figure, someone who is going to be with us for many years to come. I'm a little skeptical that he has that within him now. The other question is, could a political decapitation lead to the regime's implosion? And anything is possible. Certainly in the first three weeks of this war, it seems much more from the outside that the regime has actually cohered and they've closed ranks around a common threat. As they say, there's no factions and foxholes. It's a regime which, despite its internal differences, recognized that its life is on the line and they need to project a unified front. But once the war concludes, as I said, this will be a regime which inherits economic wreckage already before this war, it was virtually economically bankrupt. Its population largely despises it, and it's one of the most sanctioned nations in the world. And now its neighbors largely despise it because it's been going after its neighbors in the Persian Gulf the last few weeks. So it's not for me, a foregone conclusion that six months from now, a year from now, they'll be able to continue onwards with the status quo. But I think basically they have a few options. Number one is retrenchment. We saw that with Saddam hussein after the 91 Gulf War. There's a possibility of implosion, as we saw in the case of Milosevic after military humiliation. And then what we saw in Vietnam was after years of putting dogma before interests, over time the regime adapted, but that was a multiple year process, and that is also possible in Iran.
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Karim, one of the other scenarios you talked about in an article that we shared quite widely was a parallel that you saw, possibly with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a period of instability, and then the re emergence, in essence, of Putin, who represented the KGB at the heart of the old Soviet Union, re emerging after a few years as the new structures of a new authoritarian regiment.
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C
That's Right, Rory, that was one of the an essay I wrote last fall in Foreign affairs looking at five plausible scenarios for post Khamenei Iran. And that was obviously before Khamenei was assassinated. But I've long thought that perhaps the best parallel with the Islamic Republic of Iran is the Soviet Union, and that two deeply dogmatic regimes, but not suicidal regimes, they want to stay in power, but they've consistently put revolutionary ideology before the national interests of its population. And Russia, similar to Iran, is a resource rich economy. And so I could easily see a scenario whereby the Islamic Republic simply is incapable of putting interests before ideology. And when they eventually tried to do that, like Gorbachev did, it doesn't actually prolong their shelf life, but it hastens their collapse. And what we saw in the Soviet Union was period of power vacuum and a great wealth disparity between these emergent oligarchs and everyone else. And you could see that scenario also in Iran. Unfortunately, authoritarian collapses and power vacuums are not filled by moderate intellectuals, usually just as there was very few people who were interested in being ruled by a mid ranking KGB agent when they were protesting the Soviet Union. Well, Vladimir Putin was someone who understood how to mobilize power. And likewise in the Iranian context, it could well be someone who emerges, who is an alum of the security forces or the Revolutionary Guards, who understands how to mobilize power. Even though, as I said, if there was a free and fair vote, I don't think that's what people would vote for in Iran. What happened in the Russian context, to really simplify, is that Putin throws out Communism, replaces it with grievance driven Russian nationalism. And that also can be a potent tool in the Iranian context, a nationalism. That nationalism, as I said, can take you in multiple different directions because you could try to harness a grievance driven anti American nationalism as Putin has. But in my view, Iran, historically, in contrast to Russia, has actually been a partner to the west, whereas Russia, China, they always see themselves as great powers in competition with America. Historically, Iran has sought to have the United States and Europe as a partner against its more predatory neighbors to the north, like Russia. And so in my view, it's not a foregone conclusion that the next stage, whatever comes after the Islamic Republic, will inherently be anti American, because in my view, it's in the Iranian national interest to have a much better relationship with the United States.
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A
I got an email this morning from somebody called Gillian Curtis. She said you and Yori said on the podcast that Donald Trump was surprised that Iran attacked America's Gulf allies. I wasn't, and I'm a 17 year old student. Were you surprised that Iran reacted in the way that they did?
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C
Not at all, because they had telegraphed that that's what they were going to do. They telegraphed that on several occasions. Ayatoll Khamenei said that they're going to regionalize this war if they're attacked. So they made good on that promise. And I think the logic of their attacks are several fold. Their hope was that they were going to attack these Gulf countries whose leaderships are very close to the United States, to President Trump in particular, whether that's the uae, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and that those countries would go to President Trump immediately and say, please stop this war. You know, I don't think that that has actually played out as they anticipated. But another logic for their attack on their Gulf neighbors was obviously to spike the price of oil. And they have succeeded in spiking the price of oil. They've succeeded in largely closing down the Strait of Hormuz, which everyone now knows is a key energy thoroughfare for the global economy. And here, Alistair, their strategy has been to really negatively impact American public opinion. And they've been successful at this over the last decades. And I say it's one advantage that dictatorships have over democracies when fighting wars against one another, because whereas dictatorships have contempt for their popular opinion, democracies and American presidents are much more sensitive of that. So we already see that perhaps three out of four Americans seem to be opposed to this war. And this is very much part of Iran's strategy to continue to spike the price of oil. You know, a lot of explosions happening when people are watching their television sets. And the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan is still in recent memory for most Americans. And so they want Americans to be asking their members of Congress and the White House, how are we getting ourselves into another quagmire in the Middle East? And I think Iran is hoping that that is going to be the winning strategy for them.
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Kareem, One of the mysteries, I think, for me is that they've gone quite so far with the Gulf states. I see your logic around oil attack, oil facilities, but they've done much more than that. They've been shutting down Dubai International Airport, they've been attacking the financial centres. They seem to be going much, much further in their attacks on the Gulf countries than they need to. In fact, all they really needed to do was control the Straits of Hormuz to drive up the oil price. Is that because at some level, the regime actually really dislikes the Gulf states, that there some form of, I don't know, suspicion of Arab allies of the US and that there's something more ideological going on there, that it's not just
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C
practical, that's 100% true, Rory. This is not just kind of a military tactic or strategy. It is also a reflection of a deep ideological antipathy toward these countries, in particular the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, because they have polar opposite visions for the Middle east than Iran. I think UAE has now been on the receiving end of over 2000 Iranian missiles and drones. Saudi Arabia a little bit less so. But if you look at those Gulf countries, they all have forward looking visions. Saudi Arabia's is called Vision 2030. UAE's is a version of that Vision 2031. And I say Iran's vision is Vision 1979. And you know, very different goals for the Middle East. Iran benefits from regional instability. Those countries need stability. Iran's model is anchored in social repression. Those models are anchored in social progress. Those countries, their security pacts are with the United States and Israel. You know, Iran's official slogans are Death to America and Death to Israel. So very, very different visions for the region. And in particular the example of the uae, United Arab Emirates. I'm sure many of your listeners have visited places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi and Iran is quite striking. And I really attribute this to the leadership of two different men in the uae. There was a leader, the founder of the modern day United Arab Emirates was a guy called Sheikh Zayed. And the father of the 1979 Revolution in Iran was Ayatollah Khomeini. And I say that these two men, Sheikh Zayed and Ayatollah Khomeini in 1978, essentially went to the same elevator and Sheikh Zayed pushed up and Khomeini pushed down. And the gap between these two countries is truly enormous in that Iran is five times the size of the UAE. It has perhaps 10 times the population. In the 70s, its GDP was several fold that of the UAE. Now UAE, a much smaller country, has eclipsed Iran in terms of gdp, significantly eclipsed them in terms of GDP per capita. The UAE has become a hub for international transport and finance and technology. And Iran is this global pariah. And so one of the lessons I learned, Rory, having lived in the Middle east several years, was living in Beirut two decades ago. And my big takeaway from my year in Beirut is that it takes decades to build and it takes weeks to destroy. And those countries understand that They've put trillions of dollars into their business model. They want to build soaring cities, societies, economies. And they know, unfortunately, that Iran has the capacity with $20,000 drones to come in and destroy or significantly disrupt everything that they've built. And for that reason, those countries are really in a bind. But, and I'll conclude here in saying that one of the Iranian goals has been to kick America out of the Persian Gulf. And I think these attacks on the Gulf countries have actually just only further solidified and cemented the need for that partnership that they have with America and their demand that America retain a significant presence in the Gulf to deter future Iranian attacks.
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A
Okay, let's just stick with kind of military strategy. Alison Kennedy, is there any military logic to what the Americans and Israelis have done in bombing Kharg Island? Can you explain what Kharg island is and what your reaction is to the attacks upon it over the weekend?
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C
So Kharg island is where Iran primarily exports its oil. And so it's a very key node of the Iranian economy. Oil exports, energy exports are the lifeblood of its economy. It was essentially a move by President Trump to try to threaten the regime into opening up the Strait of Hormuz. And what I should emphasize here, Alister, is that the Strait of Hormuz is this very narrow thoroughfare in the Persian Gulf. And the way that Iran is preventing safe passage, in the past, they would do that with mines in the sea that could potentially explode any passing ships. But this time around, they've been doing it effectively with drones essentially swarming and attacking ships. And, you know, you look at the economic asymmetry of this warfare in that these tankers, these large oil tankers, are sometimes hundred million dollar tankers carrying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cargo of oil. And they are being effectively threatened and disrupted and attacked by $20,000 Iranian drones. So Iran essentially right now is holding the global economy hostage with far less resources, obviously, than the United States. And I think as we've talked about, most of this oil, and it's not only oil, but it's also natural gas and fertilizer, is not bound for Europe or the United States is primarily bound for Asia. And so the question for President Trump, the challenge is, can he bring in those countries like China and India, South Korea, to try to get those countries to help keep the strait open?
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B
Let's take a quick break, Karim, and then we can come back for many, many more questions. But thank you very much. And I think the first one we'll come back with is some sense of when you think this war might end. But thank you so much for your time.
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C
Sure.
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A
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B
Welcome back to the Rest Is Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart and
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A
me Alistair Campbell and we are with Karim Sajidpoor who is an Iranian expert, as you'll have, I hope experienced so far. So Rory, where do you want to take us now?
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B
Well, I was going to come to what happens now and how the war will unfold. So Araz what's Karim's best estimate of how long this war will last? Ishangayur, analytically speaking, not what he hopes. What do you foresee happening over the next six to 12 months? Lindsay Bennett, how does Kareem see this ending? Can I just, before you come in on that, just sort of, I look at this and I think Israel and the US Are now actually in a bad situation. I mean, effectively the regime has not been toppled and Iran is demonstrating that it can completely destroy the economies, the Gulf and hold the Straits of Hormuz hostage. And they will fear that if they stop the war now, Iran, essentially the regime emerges in a stronger position because people will think, well, if you strike them again, they're going to be able to destabilize the Middle east and hold the Straits of Hormuz hostage. And that will be an incentive for Netanyahu and Trump to keep pushing on, to try to either topple the regime or somehow guarantee the straits can be opened. But maybe those things are not achievable. So then I don't see how this thing comes to an end. Over to you.
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C
So let me first look kind of six months out and then come back to the immediate term. And I don't think, Rory, that unfortunately there's going to be a resolution to this conflict, because President Trump's goal was essentially to try to change the character of the Iranian regime. It wasn't only about degrading them militarily, which obviously the United States and Israel have done, but to kind of end this 47 year menace of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Chanting Death to America and death to Israel. And that doesn't look like it's a near term possibility. And so what, Iran wants to cease hostilities? Among other things, they want reassurances that the United States and Israel are not going to attack again. But those assurances cannot be granted Iran, so long as Iran is, as I said, not so much its hostility toward America, but toward Israel because Israel is within missile range of Iran and it feels an existential threat from Iran's nuclear ambitions. And so I think there's going to be no deterring Israel from potentially taking military action in the future so long as Iran's identity is premised on death to Israel and death to America. And so I don't see this conflict being resolved in the next year. Now we could definitely see a cease of hostilities. I think President Trump's challenge is that in my view, this was not a war of necessity, it was a war of choice for President Trump. There wasn't an imminent nuclear threat. There wasn't an imminent missile threat. There was an imminent threat to President Trump's credibility, because on nine occasions last January, he warned the Iranian government that if they killed their protesters, America was going to intervene and support those protesters. And obviously, we know that Iran shredded President Trump's red line, and they killed up to 30,000 protesters, according to some estimates. So the reason why Trump intervened was a threat to his credibility, not an imminent threat to US national security. And what began as a war of choice, in my opinion, has essentially evolved into a war of necessity in that I don't think that it's possible for President Trump to simply now end the war and say, okay, we're good, we won't, when you have a pariah regime essentially holding the global economy hostage. And so it is a predicament. You're absolutely right. It's a predicament for the United States and Israel. From my vantage point, virtually every country here has been a loser, with the exception of Russia, which as its oil coffers, have been significantly enriched over the last weeks. And one could argue that Israel's endgame is perhaps a little different than that of the United States, whereas the United States goal was not to turn Iran into a failing state. That genuinely, I think the Trump administration's goal was something along the lines of Venezuela or if not better. But I think Israel wanted to significantly degrade the Iranian threat, which has happened. And, and they are prepared to do, as they say, to mow the lawn every several months to prevent Iran from regrouping militarily.
- [30:10]
A
There's a question here, Karim from Sarah, why are the US and the west more broadly, so bad at understanding the cultures of other countries, including Iran? What do we miss as a result? And can I just add to that, what do you think we don't understand about Iran?
- [30:25]
C
Well, there hasn't been been any relationship between America and Iran since 1979, so 47 years in which there's no US embassy in Tehran, no Iranian embassy in Washington, and there's not that much expertise on Iran and the senior ranks of the US Government. Off the top of my head, frankly, Alistair, I don't know of a single person at the White House, Pentagon, State Department, or elsewhere who has real expertise on Iran or has visited the country. So that, obviously, is a challenge. What we're also talking about here is not just knowing Iranian culture or speaking the Persian language, but it's understanding the ideological and strategic culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is very different than understanding Persian Culture. I would say that someone asked me this question last fall. What have been the biggest mistakes that US And Western policymakers have made on Iran? And I would say there's two related mistakes. Number one, I think people overestimated the ability of this Iranian regime to reform. And when I say people, that's been primarily a critique of the left and academia. Those who said that the Islamic Republic is capable of changing its identity, well, in 47 years, it hasn't shown itself capable of changing its identity. But I'd say the other mistake is those primarily on the right side of the spectrum who have overestimated perhaps the fragility of the Iranian regime. And if only we increase the pressure or if only we decapitate their leader or attack the militarily, the entire system will collapse. And that is also so far been proven incorrect. And so that's why I've kind of over the years leaned on this idea of the containment model which worked vis a vis the Soviet Union. And listen, this is. I know it's very unsatisfying because in modern times, we want to see a quick resolution, a quick fix, which is either going to change the Iranian regime, which would, in my view, be in the interests of the United States to have an Iranian government which represents the national interests of the country, or even a democratic Iranian, that would be wonderful for the United States, for Britain, or if we can't change them quickly, we want to do something which says, okay, let's just do a deal with them. We're the problem. Let's just be nicer to them. But you can't normalize relationship with a regime which needs you as an adversary for its own internal legitimacy. And so that's why over the years, I've kind of fallen back on this idea of the containment model, which just on that.
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A
Karim.
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C
Yeah, please.
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A
Would you say that the JCPOA was a form of containment? Was that as close as we've got as the west to being in a kind of broadly an okay position?
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C
So I supported jcpoa, which was a very polarizing issue in American domestic politics. My critique of the way the JCPOA was managed was that in my view, Iran is not only a nuclear challenge at that time. When the JCPOA was signed in 2015, I believe there needs to be three pillars of an Iranian strategy. One is certainly nuclear. You need to contain the nuclear ambitions. A second is the regional context. And regional context, I mean, their support for regional proxies like Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas, and also their use of drones and missiles and the third pillar of an Iran strategy, in my view, needs to be thinking about how do we advance the cause of change inside Iran. And this was somewhat similar template to our strategy towards the Soviet Union. President Reagan believed that standing for freedom and, and democracy was an important component of challenging the Soviet Union. And I think that was proven right. So my only critique of JCPOA was that I didn't believe that the entire strategy could only rest on one of those three pillars.
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B
Question from Alex from Oxford. To what extent does weakening the regime potentially make the former Iranian proxies more dangerous?
- [34:53]
C
You know, the counter to that is that most of these proxies are significantly reliant on Iranian resources. And so in the event that there is political change in Iran and a new Iranian government decides that supporting these regional proxies, opposing Israel are not in the Iranian national interests. And that happens to be my view. You know, it may be that initially you start to see lashing out from some of these groups, in particular the Houthis of Yemen. But over time, when the mothership has been changed, that source of revenue will largely dry up. And I don't really see any other country in the world filling that financial vacuum that Iran fills for them.
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A
The question here, that relates to something that Donald Trump has been saying and then slightly walking back from it and then walking forward again. And we don't quite know what he thinks, but I think that's what prompts this question from Zirian Aziz in Manchester. What is the likelihood that Kurds will be involved in a ground offensive in Iran? And are we likely to see an independent Kurdish state anytime soon? Just talk us through the whole. And it's a massive issue with the Kurd issue, and in particular, this idea that was floating around for a few days as to whether the Kurds might be involved in some kind of ground campaign.
- [36:15]
C
Yeah. So, just for context, even though the words Persian and Iranian are often used interchangeably, about 50% of Iran's population are ethnic Persians. And you have also other minority groups, like, for example, about a quarter of the population are Turkic Azeri. You have Iranian Arabs, Balochis, and Iranian Kurds. And Iranian Kurds constitute about 10% of the country's population there in the periphery, along the borders with Iraq and Turkey. And in my view, Iranian Kurds are a wonderful part of Iran's population who have been disproportionately repressed, brutally repressed by this regime. So both politically and economically, they've been significantly repressed and disenfranchised, and they have Very, very legitimate grievances against the government. Now, Kurds have large populations in four countries in that region and Iran in Iraq, in Turkey, and in Syria. But I would argue culturally, historically, linguistically, Kurds are closer to Iranians than they are to Turks or to Arabs. And for that reason, I think if Iran had a decent central government, many Iranian Kurds are very happy to be part of Iran. The more brutal and repressive Iranian government is, the more you will see separatist tendencies among Iranian Kurds. And so, as you said, Alister, there was a moment of only a few days in which this idea was floated of America potentially coming in and arming or financing Kurdish groups. And the challenge there is that, in my view, the most potent opposition to the Iranian regime is nationalism. The most potent opposition to kind of Islamist radicalism is Iranian nationalism and what I call pluralistic Iranian nationalism. So it's not a kind of a chauvinist Persian nationalism, but a pluralistic nationalism which encompasses Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Baluch, Arab, et cetera. And the danger is that many Iranians are sensitive about the country's territorial integrity. They really fear the Yugoslavia outcome of the country fracturing along ethnic lines. And so when an outside power comes in and is allegedly or in reality arming or financing different ethnic groups, you're going to lose a lot of nationalists who want to see the regime go. And so that is, in my view, a dangerous strategy of playing with fire. But I do want to emphasize that Iranian Kurds are wonderful and critical and integral part of the fabric of Iran and deserve a much better role than they have now.
- [39:15]
B
Karim, as my last question, I'm going to be wicked and ask my own question. So, Karim, you said something that you thought that the war was a war of choice that's now become a war of necessity. And the story seems to be that there wasn't any pressing reason for the US to intervene two weeks ago, but now they've intervened. It's very, very difficult for them to leave this regime in place, given the chaos it can cause for the whole world. But at the same time, you've also explained many reasons why 20% or 15% of the population, if they have deep enough support and are determined enough, can hang on for a very, very long time. And good reasons to question whether simply striking this regime from the air is actually going to get rid of them. So you seem to be suggesting it's a war of necessity, but it may be a war that the US And Israel can't win, in which case they need to accept that aught implies can. They don't have an obligation to do what they can't do, and they need to stop trying to do the impossible.
- [40:16]
C
So the nuance I would add there, Rory, is when I say we've gone from a war of choice to a war of necessity, that doesn't mean to imply that I believe that President Trump's metric for ending the war is changing the regime. That would be obviously a wonderful outcome if it leads in a more positive direction. But I didn't believe before the war or even now, that as the last 25 years of experience in the Middle east has shown us, that the United States has the power to dictate political outcomes in the Middle East. And so what I mean as a war of necessity is that I don't think the President can end this war with Iran still essentially holding the global economy hostage by deciding which ships can go in and out of the Strait of Hormuz. I think that challenge needs to be addressed. I think that many of America's Persian Gulf partners also agree that that's not the war can't be ended like that. But ultimately, I think about an observation that Kissinger made. I believe when a conventional army is fighting against guerrilla fighters, conventional military like the United States, if you don't win, you lose. And for the guerrilla fighters, if you don't lose, you win. And so I do think that when all is said and done, this war militarily was obviously won by the United States and Israel. But the narrative war could well be that Iran is the winner because it survived, having withstood this incredible show of fire by the world's greatest superpower and the Middle East's greatest military power, Israel.
- [42:06]
A
Question here from Beth and Mallory. What is the real view of Russia and China of Iran?
- [42:13]
C
So that is an important question because those two countries are commonly lumped together, Russia and China. And I actually believe they have different interests vis a vis Iran. The China Iran relationship, in my view, is pretty straightforward. Iran is an energy producer. China needs energy. And so their relationship up until now has been fairly transactional. 90% of Iran's oil exports are bound from for China. And I actually think that a lot of Iran's conduct is not necessarily in Chinese interests. For example, the Chinese benefit from having stability in the Middle east in order to ensure the free flow of oil. And there's been no country in the Middle east which has been more detrimental to stability and the free flow of oil than Iran. I also believe that if Iran really fulfilled its enormous potential as a nation if it, you know, Iran should be a natural gas superpower. It has the second largest proven reserves after Russia, but it's not even top 10 when it comes to exports because of its isolation. In 1978, Iran was producing 6 million barrels per day of oil. Post revolution that the average number has probably been half. So if Iran really fulfilled its enormous potential as an energy superpower and as a global market, in my view that's good for China. I don't think any of that is good for Russia. I think Russia benefits from Iran being a nuisance to stability in the Middle east because it increases the risk premium of energy. Russia benefits from Iran being a thorn in the side of the United States. Russia benefits from Iran which is isolated and not able to exploit its natural gas resources and compete with Russia and European gas markets. Russia benefits from an Iran which isn't competitive with them in their historic sphere of influence, which is Central Asia. So even though we commonly lump China and Russia together on Iran, I actually think the two countries have very different endgames.
- [44:19]
A
Final question from me, Kareem, thank you so much for your time and your insight. I think our listeners and viewers will really, really appreciate what you your contribution. But I think if we had one area where we had the most questions, it's kind of in this area of what are the alternatives? What are the alternatives to what Trump and Israel have done? Sarah, what would you say is a solution to the problems of Iran besides foreign intervention? Sabina, do you think military intervention is the only way to achieve regime change in Iran? So I guess people are just saying America, Europe, all saying Iran is a problem. So I guess that is the kind of question I think is most asked, is how else do you try to get them to be less of a problem?
- [45:02]
C
Well, I think one of the most important tools in our toolkit, and I say this as the west, both America and UK and Europe, is our values, Western values of democracy, liberty, human rights. These were very important tools which helped us prevail in the Cold War. And what I've seen over the years, certainly in D.C. and since the Trump second term, is that those great American institutions, whether it's places like National Endowment for Democracy and Voice of America and institutions within the US Government, whether that's within the State Department, usaid, that played important roles during the Cold War, have essentially been, in the words of Anne Applebaum, unilaterally disarmed or they've atrophied. And it's my view that the U. S Iran Cold War is Not going to really end until you have a government in Iran which either is representative of its population or at a minimum, reflects the national interests of Iran rather than the revolutionary ideology of 1979. And as what we've just seen over the last three weeks is that military power, hard power alone, cannot resolve that for you. And I think we really need to think much more seriously about a strategy which helps to empower and stand with the aspirations of people inside Iran who want to be South Korea, not North Korea, and a strategy which helps to kind of accentuate Iran's internal fissures. And I understand this is not a totally satisfying answer because this is not 8 minute abs. All right. This is not something that you can achieve in two weeks. It can potentially take years. But I do believe very much that there's no country in the world with a greater gap between its government, its people than Iran. And it's one of the few places, certainly in the Middle east in which you could argue Western values and Western interests intersect.
- [47:16]
A
Very good. Well, and of course, not helped by the fact that Donald Trump occasionally appears to be more interested in the dictatorial approach to life than the democratic. But, Kareem, honestly, it's been fantastic to talk to you. I hope we'll maybe do it again one day. But thank you so much for your time.
- [47:30]
B
Kareem, thank you very much. It was a great privilege.
- [47:32]
C
Thank you both. It was great to be with you.
- [47:34]
B
Great privilege. Thank you.
- [47:35]
C
Thank you, Rory. Likewise.
- [47:36]
B
Have a great day. Bye. Bye.
- [47:41]
A
Well, Rory, that was great. Really interesting.
- [47:44]
B
I'm really pleased. It's extraordinary how even for Karim, all the contradictions and impossibilities and tensions there, I mean, there is a real sense now in which Trump and Israel have created a world in which there are no good options. I mean, he keeps reinforcing the fact that I think he would agree very strongly with us that this was a catastrophically stupid thing to do. But I guess he's leaning into the idea that now you've done it. Leaving this regime able to claim a victory feels not just sticks in the craw, but is actually a real problem, because how on earth is the economy of Dubai going to get off the ground again? How is Qatar going to start exporting gas again if a regime is left there, which at any moment potentially triggered by another strike from Israel? And as he says, Israel is not going to stop striking them, is going to strike Middle Eastern countries, shut the straits, et cetera. And yet it slightly felt, listening to him, that that may be the situation for Quite a long time to come because he didn't sound very optimistic that the regime was about to disappear or become pro Western anytime soon.
- [48:52]
A
No, on the contrary, I think you got the sense from that. He thinks that they feel they've withstood this extraordinary bombardment, and they withstood it without uprising on the streets, without any real push back internally. They may have worsened relations with the people with whom they got reasonably well in the past, but they won't worry about that. I also thought it was interesting the way he talked about the. This is something we said when this thing first blew up, that if you are a dictatorship, a real dictatorship, you can hold out for longer. And for them, he was saying there that this is not something that's going to get resolved in weeks. It's going to take years. And I think that question from the listener who said, what do we keep getting wrong? I think one of the things we get wrong is that we assume too often that countries and cultures that are very, very different to ours are going to react in the way that we would.
- [49:49]
B
The other one, I would add, is that we understand that these regimes are horrible and are hated by very, very large numbers of their people.
- [49:59]
A
And.
- [49:59]
B
And we talk to Iranians or Libyans or Iraqis or Afghans, often outside the country, but sometimes inside the country, who just say, this regime is absolutely horrible and none of us like it and we want to be rid of it. And that can tempt you into an intervention, thinking that the intervention is somehow going to topple the regime and create a much better situation. And of course, when the son of the previous ruler of Iran, the Shah, is saying, this regime is going to collapse like a pack of cards, or when optimistic Israelis are saying, this regime's going to collapse like a pack of cards. We just have to remember, maybe remember Hamas in Gaza. It's true Hamas was a horrible, brutal terrorist group. It was profoundly unpopular with so many Palestinians. But that didn't mean that the Israeli campaign in Gaza has somehow got rid of Hamas. Hamas is still basically the de facto power. Or maybe the most dramatic one in my life is Afghanistan, where the Taliban government was unbelievably unpopular, brutal, theocratic, hated by the majority of the Afghan people. In 2001, we intervened. We spent 20 years on the ground. We spend $2,000 billion dollars. And now the Taliban have taken over again. And I don't think they're popular now. I think they're probably much like the Iranian regime, 15, 20% support, 80% against. But that doesn't mean that our Massive investments of money can achieve what, understandably, Iranians want.
- [51:37]
A
My final point is this, that if you're Trump and you're the Americans, you are absolutely obsessed with the idea of being able to say, we won, okay? At the end of whatever happens, we won. Partly because they haven't been clear about what their objectives have been. They've been one minute regime change, one minute taking out their nuclear weapons, one minute killing Khamenei, and they've changed. There's not been a sort of consistent sense of what the strategy is to meet a specific objective that becomes harder for them. Whereas for the Iranians, victory for them in this context is that the war stops without them being utterly destroyed. Because that is the rhetoric and the language that was used by Trump and Hexith and Co when this whole thing got launched. They are in an absolute mess of their own making, both politically, strategically, militarily, and I think the fact that they don't have allies kind of rushing to help them in the way that they think they should. Just Trump clicks his fingers and everybody goes running because the rest of the world is looking and say, well, excuse me, what is it that you were trying to do? I think if the Trump regime had any sense and actually listened to somebody like Karim, who's basically saying, look, you've underestimated what these guys are up to and what they're capable of, and because there's a lack of clarity about what you're trying to achieve, they're just going to sit you out.
- [53:01]
B
The problem, of course, on that one is that the best case scenario for ending the war would have been Trump saying something like, this was all about their nuclear program, and I've damaged their nuclear program more and they've got fewer missiles. But it's now so obvious to the rest of the world that he's exposed their ability to attack the economies of the Gulf and drive up oil prices and close the Straits of Hormuz. If he just says, well, mission accomplished, I've taken out the MSL programs, I've destroyed their nuclear weapons, we've won. Everybody will be saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You've now created a state which is effectively able to blackmail the whole of the Gulf and the global economy. You can't walk away.
- [53:45]
A
Well, listen, thank you to you for having the idea of getting Kareem on. Thank you to all our listeners and viewers. You sent in hundreds of questions. And above all, thank you to Kareem for being such an engaging and interesting guest. See you soon.
- [53:59]
B
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A
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B
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