Iran is not going to surrender. Obviously United States is not
going to surrender. So as long as that is the goal
and the method is coercion, we're just going to see more
destabilisation of war. And ultimately, at least in the
short run, it tends to backfire more on Trump than on the
Iranians. Now the objective is, how do we
get the straight open? They said it was temporary.
They kept repeating this thing Donald Trump says, which is the
rest of the world needs the oil more than America needs it.
Here we are. We're helping you.
We're going to get it open for a bit, but by the way, after that
it is over to you in Europe. Is there anyone, as far as you
know, who's talking whispering truth to Trump power?
Hello and welcome to Trump World.
I'm Anushka Astana in Washington, DC.
And I'm Matt Fry in London. And Anushka, I've got a couple
of questions for you to start off with.
I mean, it seems as if we're at yet another inflection point in
this war that is dragging on and on and on because of Project
Freedom, because of the fact that, you know, there are
reports of economic pain finally being imposed on Iran by the
American blockade. And, of course, the world
economy is yet again watching all this from behind the sofa
buttocks clench. Things are not going very well
at all. The German chancellor's having a
miserable time. Our government here is having a
terrible time. There was an open row between
Rachel Reeves and Scott Besson last week in Washington during
the IMF meetings. So we seem to be at a point
where things have to move either forwards or backwards.
How do you see the situation? Well, I have just been watching
Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, give his one of his
briefings from inside the Pentagon.
I mean, it does feel like something is happening because
we did see a bit of a change in tone from him.
I quite often go to those briefings, although I'm slightly
giving up on it because I think the questions are very planned
out and it's not really a totally open, Free Press
conference. Put your hand up and get tired.
I remember when, when when I was in the White House with Bush, I
always put my hand up and by the end I've had repetitive strain
syndrome because I never got called upon to ask a question.
It was very, very boring. Or you just you just sit there
and observe, hoping that Pete will, you know, will shine his
light on you. Don't get me wrong, actually
watching and observing at that close quarter is really
fascinating, but they do literally put your name on a
seat in a place where they know he's not going to ask a
question. So.
So, yeah, but but it was interesting because I thought
his tone was less aggressive than usual.
They were talking about Project Freedom, which is their attempt
to get ships going through the Strait of Hormuz.
He said it was a temporary thing.
He said it was a defensive thing.
I mean, even in the very name itself, which, you know,
normally, historically, Americans always call military
operations things more like freedom.
But recently we've had Operation Epic Fury.
Midnight Hammer. Midnight Hammer.
Other much more aggressive thing.
Let's just start by having a quick listen to Pete Hagseth
this morning. Project Freedom is defensive in
nature, focused in scope, and temporary in duration.
With 1 mission protecting innocent commercial shipping
from Iranian aggression, American forces won't need to
enter Iranian waters or airspace.
It's not necessary. We're not looking.
For a fight. But Iran also cannot be allowed
to block innocent countries and their goods from an
international waterway. What I thought was really
interesting in there was an acknowledgement by them, I think
for the first time by both Pete Hegseth and Dan Kane, that Iran
has had the ability to hold the global economy hostage.
They said that's unacceptable, but they admitted that that was
what had happened. And actually, at one point they
were asked about the kind of sequencing of all of this, why
the military stuff had come first when Dan Kane in the room
had argued that the blockade was actually the most, you know, um,
successful thing that they were able to do.
And he basically said, well, that's a political decision.
Um, the sequencing of it, but our original objectives were
different to our objectives now is what they effectively
admitted, which was now the objective is how do we get the
straight open? And they they said it was
temporary inasmuch as they kept repeating this thing Donald
Trump says, which is the rest of the world needs the oil more
than America needs it. And so here we are.
We're helping you. We're going to get it open for a
bit. But by the way, after that, it
is over to you in Europe. And I've sat in that room and
heard them many times. Be really critical of Europe.
Pete Hegseth has talked about the fancy conferences that the
Europeans are doing and suggesting that it's never led
to actual action. And and Matt, just explain to us
why it is that we've got to the position where they need Project
Freedom. Well, Project Freedom, which is
essentially means opening up the straight, not completely, but
partially for the passage of some, but not all of the 2000
ships that have 2000 ships that have been marooned there for,
you know, since February the 28th.
They're doing it, I think, in order to prove to the world,
essentially, even though they say they don't need the oil that
comes through there, they're doing it to prove to the world
that they have the upper hand in this conflict.
And So what is so strange about this is they've, you know,
they've got a lot of firepower in place.
They've got 3 aircraft carrier groups, 25,000 troops, including
Marines on various vessels. And remember, about a month and
a half ago, we wondered if these troops will be there to actually
occupy one of the islands, like Hague Island, the oil terminal
or maybe even strips of the Iranian coastline.
And their potential task has been really pared down to that
of escorting a number of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
Now, when they started doing that, of course, the Iranians
said you can't do that without us giving you, you know, the a,
OK, the green light, They went ahead with it anyway.
There's some confusion about how many ships got through and how
many ships got hit by the Iranians.
But the Iranians definitely, you know, fired on at least one
vessel and also exchanged fire with an American vessel.
And it looked as if this could go, you know, horribly South and
we could be back to where we were before the ceasefire.
It is interesting that that has not happened.
So even though there's a lot of bluster, you know, and for
instance, the Americans also took out six of these speed
boats. The Iranians say they were just
civilian speed boats. I can't imagine any civilians
using their speed boats in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Americans say no, they're part of the so-called Mosquito
fleet of little boats that harass the tankers, etcetera.
But the fact that this did not immediately explode into
something bigger shows me that there's an element of restraint
there on both sides, with both sides claiming the upper hand,
both sides saying that they're, you know, resolved to to stick
it out. And, you know, and that may well
be the case. What I find so fascinating is
that once again, the rest of the world, which has been called
upon to help straight open the Strait of a muse, is sitting
there like deer in the headlights because their
economic plans are being shredded on a week by week
basis. I spoke to the governor of the
Bank of England last week who more or less said we may have to
raise interest rates, you know, two or three times this year
when we're supposed to lower them.
We could have inflation at 6 to 7%.
None of this was supposed to happen.
You know, the the German Chancellor is in a terrible
position because his economy is now, their growth forecast has
been reduced to 0.5%. This was supposed to be the year
in which all these economies who were in the doldrums were
supposed to come out of those doldrums and finally start
growing again. And all that has been upended by
this war and those governments. And Starmer will find out, you
know, at the end of this week. There are other reasons there,
of course, as well. But then he will find out to
what extent this war has created real political pain at the
ballot box. And I think this is something
like so much else in this war of choice that is, you know, this
put the cat amongst pigeons. I mean, all these alliances are
being re fought and redefined and and and rearranged.
So suddenly you've got Israel getting on really well with UAE.
They did sort of anyway with the Abrahamic Corps.
But here's Israel supplying the Iron Dome to the United Arab
Emirates to help them protect themselves against the Iranians.
You've got the Pakistanis involved.
You've got China sitting on the sidelines, both helping Iran but
at the same time trying to sort of sound a little bit like an
honest broker. It's fascinating to what extent
this war continues to rearrange just about everything, you know,
on the diplomatic sphere. And the one thing that people
aren't talking about in the White House, unless you, you
know, correct me if I'm wrong, is regime change.
They're not even talking about the nuclear program much
anymore. So it's all become a war of
necessity about this one narrow strip of water.
Yeah. I mean, obviously they do still
try to say repeatedly that the original objective and the main
objective is to try to limit the nuclear ambitions of Iran.
And in fact, on that, Pete Hegseth interestingly kind of
been open about something that everyone thought but they hadn't
admitted so openly as he had both today, but also when he was
in front of senators and representatives last week, which
was they did believe that the nuclear facilities had been
obliterated last June. And the reason for going in now
was because of nuclear ambitions, not because that had
restarted. And I thought it was interesting
to see him admit to both of those things on that point of
the economic impact on the world and why the Strait of Hormuz,
This has become the absolute centre of all of this.
It was so interesting when our Chancellor Rachel Reeves was
over here in Washington DC, speaking to like senior British
government sources here. I mean, first of all, the fury
from her, which I have never seen a minister hit out quite
like she did at the Americans. But secondly, someone behind the
scenes was saying we are all going to, all the incumbent
governments across Europe and across the world are going to
get COVID style backlashes as a result of this.
Now, it's all very well for the Americans to say the oil's your
problem, not our problem. It turns out it is their problem
because oil prices are set globally.
And so even if America can produce its own oil, which it
can, this is all affecting the prices at the petrol pump.
I think petrol is a dollar higher than it was a year ago,
over 440. Now diesel's up $2.00.
So it is a massive problem for Trump.
I mean, again, they were talking today in the Pentagon about
trying to get peace talks going. But you can see the difficulty
of it. They admitted that those small
Iranian boats have very little, you know, actual military
equipment on them. They're people there with guns.
And through that they've been able to 'cause this level of
economic damage, which is why the Americans are reacting now.
So, you know, forcefully to that one point in terms of peace
talks, it, you know, they felt like they were starting then
they weren't starting. There's been no move to send
anyone. Pakistan are obviously still
trying very hard. But at the same time, you know,
I was talking to people here inside Congress who I though are
in Donald Trump's ear. And they're saying, they're
saying to me, we do not believe talks can work in any shape or
form. One person was saying to me, we
just need to absolutely, you know, obliterate Hag Island and
get then get there, get out of there.
And and that's the sort of thing he's also hearing on one side of
the fence here. I think it all gets back to the
original sin of this conflict, which was a conflict of choice
launched by the Americans and the Israelis together.
Now, as I've said before, the Israelis have a very clear logic
in this. And Netanyahu has been very open
in the last few days actually saying this is unfinished
business for us, right? We need regime change.
We're not seeing that. So doing a deal with these
people is not going to work for Tel Aviv in the long term.
And that might mean that the Israelis reserve the right to
get involved again militarily at some stage in the future.
And then the question is, does America, you know, follow them?
And, and, and Hexworth was at such pains today to point out
that actually it's the Americans calling the shots, not the
Israelis. And I think that is a problem
that will not go away. But again, remember this, it
started with 15 different reasons.
They were, they were making them up every 5 minutes of why they
launched this war. So if you have a conflict that
the American public does not see the overwhelming logic of, they
didn't see why this should this war should happen, then it's
down to the effects of the war. You know, you're measuring
everything against the actual tangible consequences that this
conflict is having. And if you're paying twice as
much at the pump as you were before and meanwhile you've got
a president who's obsessed with building a 90,000 square foot
ballroom and a triumphant after Trump, you know, somewhere in
Washington, I think ultimately that will be Trump's Achilles
heel. And it could be manifested as
soon as in the midterm elections, this combination of,
you know, snubbing your nose at the affordability crisis that
ordinary Americans are going through a war of of your choice
that doesn't seem to make any sense to to the rest of the
country that is making their lives even more difficult.
Meanwhile, spending a ton of money on projects that look like
vanity projects that are kind of your branding culture gone
bonkers, right? Everything's got a Trump name,
you know, whether it's an aircraft carrier or Trump,
Trump's face and signature on the, you know, dollar bills or
the triumphant arch. I mean, this is he's always been
a branding guy. We knew that because everything
that he put up in New York was a Trump Tower.
But Even so, this is going to new levels.
And I think, I mean, I wonder what you think.
I mean, does this is this is Achilles heel and the
Republicans Achilles heel in the midterm elections?
I mean, I definitely think it's massively problematic.
I think, you know, we talked a bit about it last week, but we
had a focus group done by Public 1st that I listened to.
And, and just the first caveat to just put in place, lots of
Republican voters still love Trump, his kind of MAGA base, as
you would call it, absolutely love him.
Only 4% are unhappy with him at the moment.
That said, you know, to win a country, you need the
independents who have shifted heavily away from Trump, and you
need the softer Republicans, who are also more likely to say
they're not happy with what's going on.
And I think there are a few things that stuck out to me as
the things they're not happy about.
The first is that the economy is dominating on every front.
People are really feeling the pinch.
So if the economic situation is not sorted out, that affects
him. The second was even his biggest
supporters really don't like the way that Donald Trump talks.
They sort of say we like what he's doing, but we just don't
like the way he's saying it and the way he's going about it.
And I think the kind of putting his legacy down physically
across Washington, DC, across the country into the dollar
bill, the thing he's trying to do more than anything fits into
that category of it's it's just a bit unseemly for people.
They don't really like it. And, and, you know, I just don't
think they have successfully made the argument when it comes
to the Iran war. I mean, the thing obviously
looming ahead of us is the visit to China.
Just tell me what you make of the situation in terms of the
American relationship with China and China's relationship with
Iran right now. I will do that in a second, but
you've got to answer this question first, Anushka, who do
you think is actually whispering in Trump's ear?
If anyone at all saying, you know what, Mr. President, that
meme of you as Jesus, not a great idea, or you as kind of a
Gothic warrior straight out of the Valkyrie on the White House
social feed, not a great idea. Is there anyone, as far as you
know, who's telling, you know, who's talking, whispering truth
to Trump power? Well, I was sitting chatting
very recently to people who had worked with Donald Trump in the
first term, and I sort of asked them this question.
And obviously they're no longer working with him.
So they might have this opinion, but I think their view was that
in the first term, one by one, there tended to be someone who
was willing to say, this isn't OK.
So I said, well, what about Susie Wiles, the chief of staff?
And they felt that she sees her position as basically helping
him to achieve what he wants to achieve.
That doesn't mean, by the way, that she isn't thinking about
the midterms. We know that she spent a lot of
time holed up with Republican strategists in, you know, hotel
rooms around Washington, DC, having conversations about the
midterms. They know that things are
difficult. They know that the war has gone
down badly and that the economic situation is a massive problem
for them. They are trying to shift him in
that direction. But I definitely think there is
a lot less control attempting to pull him down, attempting to
make him stop saying things. It's much more of a let Trump be
Trump administration than the first time round.
The second group of people who are in his ear are the people
who are one step away, the senators, the commentators.
And and, you know, I'd listened to a very long interview, but
very interesting one with Tucker Carlson.
And he was obviously a huge kind of MAGA Trump supporting
influencer on the right who has turned very strongly against him
because of the Iran war. But I thought there was a couple
of things that were really interesting in the run up to the
war. It was very clear that Trump was
having repeated conversations with people like Tucker Carlson
on the one side, but also, you know, the equivalent of him on
the other side, who people like Mark Levin, who obviously had
more influence than he had on this particular occasion.
And it's kind of incredible to think that that level of
influence is also coming in from the inside.
I've spoken to senators who've been like on the phone to him
that morning as well. And so he's listening to all
these people, but ultimately I think it's very hard for anyone
to control what he's doing. Well, as he's told The New York
Times at the beginning of the year, my conscience is my voice,
my inner voice. I live, you know, I feel it in
my bones, all this instinctive stuff that has always been part
of his, you know, trademark politics.
Anyway, you asked me a question about China.
I think China, you know, China yet again, ever since Trump got
back into office, they must have been alarmed during that second
inauguration speech when he talked about hemispheric
control, etcetera. Alarmed and not so alarmed alarm
because they're suddenly thought, OK, this guy's flexing
his muscles the way that he didn't do before.
Less alarm because if they thought that he was going to be
occupied with the Western Hemisphere, then surely he'll
leave us alone in the Eastern Hemisphere.
And then of course, the alarm got worse and worse with the
with Liberation Day and the trade tariffs that were
announced. But the Chinese are also, if
anything has happened this year with the China America
relationship, it is China realizing just just how much
power it has and realizing what the limitations of American
power look like. So first there was the trade
war, which China definitely won because they leveraged the
access to rare earth minerals, you know, in their interest and
against America. It's a little bit like their
version of the Strait of Hormuz And, you know, and using a kind
of toll to say you don't go through this unless you pay us.
And it was that leverage that brought the trade war over to
China's side. And then you've got this summit
that is taking place, in theory, still on the calendar next week.
Now, this summer was supposed to happen in April.
It was postponed after the beginning of the Iran war
because Trump realized it would look really bad to go to China
in the middle of a hot war that was still very much being fought
at the time, upending markets and all the rest of it.
And now, you know, he asked for a second date in in May,
obviously thinking that may would be everything would be
resolved by then, which it isn't.
So to postpone the summit a second time would be highly
embarrassing. And this meeting with Xi Jinping
is one of the absolute kind of the key calendar moments of the
second Trump administration. He has said so publicly over and
over again. So postponing it again doesn't
really work. But going to China, going to
Beijing when the Strait of Hormuz is still?
You know, a chokehold on the world economy thanks to a rump
regime that should have been obliterated by now according to
Trump, is also incredibly embarrassing.
And then there's China's role in this.
I mean, China and Iran have pretty close ties.
Iran is part of China's Belt and Road project and has been for
years. The Chinese have offered through
the Pakistanis, the Iranians, a land import export route so
that, you know, Chinese medicines and various other
things can flow into Iran. And Iranian oil and steel and
various other exports dates, for instance, can flow to China.
So they are facilitating an Iranian work around the various
economic blockades that are going on right now.
And at the same time, of course, crucially, they're supplying
some of the technology that allows Iranian drones to fly
into buildings in the UAE or indeed in Israel, you know, or
into American bases. So what do the, what does Trump
tell the Chinese? What does he tell his friend Xi
Jinping to back off or else? I can't imagine him doing that.
So watch the Chinese in the next few weeks.
I mean, they had their own fears and their own domestic issues,
mainly around their economy. But again, they come out of this
conflict looking like not just winners, but the kind of wise
designated drivers of planet Earth, right?
I mean, you've got Europeans having to make up their mind.
What's better, to be with erratic Uncle Sam or the steely
embrace of Uncle She? Not very pleasant, but at least
we know where he's coming from and we kind of know where he's
going. And on that note, I think it's a
good time to bring in our guest. Before I do, I just want to
mention an acronym that he uses a few times when we spoke to
him, JCPOA, which we also talk about quite a lot.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which is also known as
Barack Obama's Iran deal, the nuclear deal from 2015 in which
there were a lifting of some sanctions for Iran in return for
a promise not to enrich uranium beyond a certain point, the deal
that Trump, of course, ripped up.
We talk about that with Trita Parsi, who is the former
president of the National Iranian American Council and now
at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Have a listen to our conversation with him.
Trita Parsi, thank you very much for coming on the programme.
I mean, we're now into, I don't know what day it is, but you
know, this thing has been dragging on for such a long
time. It does feel as if though this
could be quite an important week because of, you know, Operation
Freedom, the kind of the, the clash of the two blockades, if
you like. Where do you see this conflict
at the moment? Well, I think the first thing I
would note is that according to the administration and according
to the different groups and entities that supported this
idea of a blockade, of a blockade, Iran should have
crumbled about 11 days ago and it hasn't.
And we are now hearing reporting, which is not
surprising at all. It's already been going on for
some time. But it was in the Wall Street
Journal today that Trump is now frustrated that the Iranians
have not caved as a result of this blockade.
Zoom back and you will remember that earlier on, he was also
frustrated that Iran had not caved simply by the military
threats that the United States had issued back in January.
And this is a pattern that we see in which Trump is pursuing
coercive strategies with the goal of achieving Iran's
surrender. Neither of those components
work. You're not going to be able to
achieve anything particularly coercively, particularly after
the way this war has gone and with the leverage that the
Iranians now have gained through that war.
But also surrender was never in the cards.
Iran is not going to surrender. Obviously, United States is not
going to surrender. So as long as that is the goal
and the method is coercion, we're just just going to see
more destabilization of war. And ultimately, at least in the
short run, it tends to backfire more on Trump than on the
Iranians. But they aren't.
The Iranians are losing a lot of money out there.
And they they must be losing hundreds of millions of dollars
in income a week from the oil that they're not selling, you
know, from the steel that they're not exporting.
And even though there's a kind of land route across Pakistan
that's been opened up more, surely that doesn't compensate
to what they've lost in the Strait of Hormuz.
Not at all. They are definitely suffering
and but that is the same pattern that we've seen before.
All of the previous sanctions also imposed a significant cost
on the Iranians. All of them were effective in
terms of making life more difficult for the Iranian
economy, for the average Iranian, as well As for the
government. However, the success of these
measures is not based on the measurement of pain it inflicts.
It's whether the pain is translated into a change of
policy, and this has not changed the Iranian policy, nor has any
of the previous sanctions done so.
The only time the United States has managed to get a significant
national security shift on the Iranian side is through
diplomacy and through the exchange of concessions, and
that was in the JCPOA. Can you explain that a bit
further? You know, Donald Trump is
obviously looking at this. It's maybe a word that's not
always used to describe him, but he was thinking about it in a
rational way that causing this amount of pain would eventually
lead to some form of surrender. But that was not the right type
of thinking for this Iranian regime.
Can you explain why there never comes a point of surrender?
Well, there's several different reasons for it.
First of all, some of these questions are of national
security, existential characteristic for the Iranians,
in which you're not going to see those type of surrender.
I mean, you saw concessions from them in the JCPA, but you're not
going to see surrender. But there's also a different
element here that is really important to understand.
Trump is approaching Iran as if it is a regular Middle Eastern
dictatorship run by a family or one person.
And if you manage to really squeeze that person, you know,
whether it's Saddam or Gaddafi, surrenderers in the cards.
This is not what Iran is. Iran is not a democracy by any
stretch of the imagination. It is an authoritarian state,
but it has a system that is not dependent on anyone single
individual. That's based on numerous
institutions. And in order to get any major
decisions from them, you would have to actually manage that
system. And, and this is what happened
in the JCPA was rather hard making sure that you got the
majority of the system to be in favor of this.
The majority of the system will never be in favor of surrender.
It simply will be the end of the Islamic Republic.
It would be suicide. And I told the administration
before this war that the, you know, they're making a huge
mistake thinking that the Iranians fear war more than they
fear surrender. They fear surrender far, far
more than they feared war. But you're you're talking
obviously about the structures that run Iran and we'll come
back to Project Freedom, I'm sure.
But just just on the kind of a broader point, which is the
Iranian population and the desires of the Iranian
population. We get to a point and and no one
is saying what was the right way to get there.
But the Iran deal that you're talking about with Barack Obama
didn't help. The Iranian people did it in the
same way as they were looking for, or a lot of them are
looking for. Is there any kind of system
technique, you know, that that can happen, that can actually
lead to more freedom for Iranian people?
I actually think that is not entirely accurate.
The Iran deal did not end up favoring the Iranian people in
the manner that it could have had it been remaining in place.
But it was, you know, Trump walked out of it after less than
two years. And as a result, the type of
measures that would have benefited the Iranian people
never really came in. But let's see what happened in
those two first years. The Iranian economy grew between
6 and 7% within the first two years of the JCPOA.
Had it been left in place by now, we would have had it for 11
years. And if Iran's economy obviously
would have slowed down a little bit.
But if it had continued to grow as a result of these sanctions
lifting, undoubtedly the Iranian, the middle class, would
have grown much stronger. And its position vis a vis state
would have actually gone significantly stronger.
Instead we had the opposite. Trump walked out of the deal.
The Iranian economy started to crumble and shrink.
The Iranian middle class was decimated. 1/3 of the middle
class between 2018 and 2019 went into poverty as a result of
these sanctions. That is a far worse way of
treating the Iranian people than the JCPOA was.
Had the JCPA play would have been left in place, we would
have a very different scenario. I personally think the Iranian
people would have been out on the street protesting again for
greater political freedoms, but they would be protesting from a
position of strength rather than from a position of the sphere,
which is the result of leaving the JCPOA.
Of course, they were out on the streets in the beginning of the
year, the end of last year, because of the economic
problems, you know, caused partly by sanctions, but also by
a legacy of mismanagement and so on.
I just wonder at what stage do the people become more dangerous
for the regime that is still taking on to power when they're
really squeezed as they're I'm sure are now, you know, by a
combination of war and, you know, terrible economic
privations? Or are they more dangerous for
the regime once they've, you know, once the the rains have
been loosened a little bit and they feel a bit more
comfortable, which would have involved, you know, sanctions
being lifted in the past, which obviously wasn't the case.
When does the when do the people become most powerful in in terms
of getting rid of the regime? What we have seen in other
countries, and I think the same pattern is repeated in Iran, is
that when economic situations really get very bad, it does
increase the tendency of protests, which is totally
logical and understandable. It does at the same time tend to
decrease the successfulness of these protests, which is very
critical thing. You have more protests, but
they're actually not achieving much.
Whereas if you had them taking place during periods in which
the middle class actually is strong.
And the middle class is the backbone of the democracy
movement in Iran just as much as it has been in almost every
other country. We have very few cases in which
we have seen a country being subjected a type of embargo
style sanctions that Iran has and transition to democracy as a
result. In fact, there's only one
example and that is South Africa.
In all of the other cases when we have this level of sanctions
on a country, it tends to make the state stronger vis A vis the
society. Society grows much, much weaker
and the the state tends to become more repressive
internally and in addition it tends to become more aggressive
externally. That's the track record in most
of these cases. Again, only one situation in
which we can see an embargo style sanctions regime leading
to democracy and that was the very unique circumstances of
South Africa. So if we continue your logic,
then does this mean that a perpetual war with the West, you
know, with America and Israel and perhaps others who might get
involved eventually? And, you know, whether it's a
ceasefire or actually a hot war, but this perpetual state of
siege, you know, including all the sanctions and all the other
privations linked to it, actually helps the regime.
And they're absolutely fine with that.
No, it leads to the strengthening of the worst
elements within that regime, not the regime as a whole.
We have seen a dramatic radicalization of the regime and
much more hardening of the regime as a result of these wars
and the sanctions, etcetera. The reform movement in Iran that
had significant amount of support, I mean, we saw massive
numbers participating in the elections was completely
discredited as a result of the fact that Trump walked out of
the JCPOA and then Joe Biden did not walk back into the JCPOA.
The reform movement had put all of its eggs in the basket of
saying we can resolve the economic situation in Iran if we
resolve the tensions with the United States.
They struck A compromise and yet the United States walked out of
the deal. And this really destroyed the
credibility of the reform movement, which at this point
essentially is an increasingly a non factor.
Those who took over are the much more hardline elements.
And we saw of course, how Raisi became president and later on
was died in that crash. But what we're seeing again is
that these type of policies, just as much as this war, tends
to favour the Hawks within that regime.
So, so can I ask you back on Project Freedom, which we're
obviously seeing at the moment, or as they've named it, from
Operation Epic Fury to Project Freedom?
I thought it was interesting listening to the Secretary of
War, Pete Hegseth, and then Dan Kane running the military
operation next to him, basically admit that their objectives have
had to change because they have seen the power of the Iranians
to be able to hold the global economy hostage.
I mean, just two things on that. It's not acceptable.
Is it for the Iranians or for the Americans or for the, you
know, for a man to try and take an international waterway and
use it for leverage? Where do you see this heading
next? First of all, I, I agree with
you in general that again, there's some murkiness on on the
legality of all of this. And I'm not an international
lawyer to be able to say exactly whether what they're doing is as
permissible or not. There's some arguments in favor
of it, plenty of arguments against, but we should also
remember that we're now in a context in which international
law is increasingly set aside, not just by the United States,
but by Europe as well. The German Chancellor said that
the international law apparently does not apply to Iran.
Well, if it doesn't apply to Iran in the case of war, then it
also doesn't apply to Iran when the Iranians are taking control
of the Strait of Hormuz. So we have to kind of choose
which one it is that we want. And I think Europe's performance
here is really problematic and counterproductive to Europe's
own long term interest. Europe has traditionally been in
one of the strongest supporters of international law and seeing
that being eroded as it has in the last couple of years is
devastating for global security overall.
So just as part of the context, I think that's very important to
understand. Just on that, just on that, what
are your, because, because Europe, I mean, obviously there
have been comments here supporting what the United
States is doing, but Europe overall has obviously not joined
this in an offensive nature or certainly not the UK.
Do you? And the argument our Prime
Minister would make would be partly because they don't
believe in things that, you know, don't pass international
legal standards, but you just don't see it like that.
What? What are the kind of most
egregious examples of Europe standing against international
law, in your opinion? Well, in this specific context,
I think we should also compare it to what Europe did in 2003.
Of course, not the UK at that time, but rest of Europe who
firmly stood against the illegal invasion of Iraq, forced the
matter to the Security Council, paid the price for it, but were
proven absolutely right with the position that they've taken that
Europe is only seen today in essentially Spain or one or two
more countries. So yes, the UK did not join in.
It did reference international law, but it's not at all the
same level of opposition that we saw from the rest of Europe back
in 2003. And I think this is partly
because of the fact that Europe as a whole, unfortunately, has
chosen to become more and more dependent on the United States
and which its manoeuvrability in these situations is much more
limited than what it was before. And again, it's ultimately bad
for Europe. It's bad for global stability.
And from my perspective, it's bad for the United States. the
United States needs a strong European ally that every once in
a while can tell us that's not a good idea.
Perhaps you shouldn't do that because we tend to have a lot of
bad ideas over here. And as of late, it's been more
and more of those. So we need a Europe that can
actually be that type of a friend.
But a Europe that's so dependent on the United States has lost
its ability to stand up and tell us when we're about to do
something that is not in our own interest.
Well, Freddy Mertz, the chancellor, Germany did sort of
stand up in front of school kids and is now paying the price in
in lots of ways that I'm sure he hadn't imagined.
And he's getting a lot of Flack for it domestically from in from
German politicians, including in his own party, when he probably
made those points in order to score political points with with
a home crowd. It's it's highly problematic
from MERS to 1st support the war, say that Israel is doing
Europe's dirty work for it, say that the international law does
not apply to Iran. And then when the war goes
badly, put the responsibility at the feet of Trump as if Germany
itself did not play a role in helping facilitate this.
Remember, he was in the Oval Office during the first couple
of days of the war and just nodding along.
So, you know, and he got. Complimented by Trump, who said
I like you much more than Keir Starmer, more or less.
Exactly. Exactly.
So, you know, is it good for Germany to stand up?
Yes, but not in this manner. Not first supporting it and then
pretending as if he has no responsibility.
But guess what? It's the German car lobby, you
know, the, the petrol heads that run the German economy who said
to him, what on earth are you doing?
You know, you can't possibly be critical of Trump because if
this thing goes on and on and on and we have to pay the price,
which they did with 25% tariffs on EU cars, which is primarily
aimed at Germany, then, you know, he loses out big time.
And he's not exactly riding high in the the popularity stakes.
I just want to move on from Germany to China briefly.
I mean, the Chinese, at the beginning of all this war, we
thought the Chinese would be in a vulnerable position because of
the amount of energy they import through the Strait of Hormuz.
But actually partly because of their reserves and other things,
they've been playing quite a smart game.
The Iranian foreign minister is there this week.
And guess who's going next week? Donald J Trump.
Yeah, I would watch this space A lot.
I do. I do think that the Chinese have
played a role in this war that goes beyond what we have been
able to detect and that they have, without having their
fingerprints on it, without them necessarily being offensively
active in this war, have nevertheless contributed to it
in manners. And there's a coordination
between the Iranians and the Chinese that obviously is very
important. Again, it is no coincidence that
the Iranian foreign minister is there right before the summit.
If it goes forward, as you know, it was already delayed once as a
result of this war. It will be embarrassing for
Trump to show up in Beijing still having to deal with this
war, still having not succeeded in putting an end to it.
More embarrassing than cancelling it.
I mean, cancelling it would be even worse, wouldn't it?
Surely. It certainly would be.
I'm not saying that he has any good options, which is precisely
why he shouldn't have started this war in the 1st place.
It tends to create these situations in which you just
have to choose between bad options, and when it comes to
China, that is the case for the US.
When it comes to the war itself, it's the case.
Thank you very, very much for your time.
We really appreciate having you on.
Thank you so much for having. I really, really appreciate it.
That was Trita Parsi. Very interesting take on all of
this. In particular, the idea that had
the Obama deal remained in place, perhaps the opposition
within Iran would have got stronger over the years.
Next week, Matt, I think we'll be talking about China, won't
we? Yes, indeed.
I mean, I think all eyes will be on China even here, you know, on
the island. They'll be on the election
results significant for everyone on the upside and the downside.
But I'm the big geopolitical moment arguably of the whole
Trump second Trump administration so far will be
this meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump.
What they will say to each other, how much of it we will
know about whether they come out, both of them feeling,
feeling like winners, even if any one of them is.
That's it from Trump World for me in London.
And from me in Washington, DC, see you next week.
See you next week.