[Host]: I have found myself struggling to describe the war President Trump has chosen to enter into with Iran. The strange lightness with which he seems to have chosen this.

[Trump (audio clip)]: Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere.

[Host]: I would say the war is spiraling out of control, but there's never real pretense that it was under control. I find it hard to say Trump's plan for the war is failing because it is not clear there was any plan at all. There was a decision to strike. There was perhaps a belief that Iranians would rise up and overthrow their government as Trump invited them to do.

[Trump (audio clip)]: When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.

[Host]: But there appears to have been an almost opposite belief held by the same people at the same time that the Iranian regime included senior figures who might take power and make a deal with America much as Deli Rodriguez did in Venezuela. To the extent America imagined who those leaders might be, there was no policy to identify and empower and work with them. Quite the opposite, Trump himself has said the leading candidates were killed in the initial attacks. So, we had some in mind from that group that is dead.

[Host]: We are so used to American wars failing because of the presence of bad assumptions and bad information and bad plans. We're less used to what this appears to be, an almost absence of planning or information at all. There's almost a pride this administration takes in it. Trump appears to believe that it is not his job to know about the world. It is the world's job to know about him.

[Trump (audio clip)]: He acts. The world reacts.

[Host]: To do the work of planning, learning, building coalitions, considering consequences. All that is beneath him, beneath a superpower. But now we are at war. And any better future will require fuller understanding of how America, Israel, and Iran got to this place. So I want to ask someone on who could describe that history or to be more specific those histories because the three countries narratives and understandings are very different. Ali Viz is the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. He was involved in the negotiations that led to the 2015 nuclear deal. He is in fact himself a nuclear scientist and he's a co-author of how sanctions work Iran and the impact of economic warfare. As always, my email escline@nytimes.com. Ali Vayas, welcome to the show.

[Ali Vayas]: Great pleasure. Thanks for having me.

[Host]: So, I want to start back in the Iranian revolution which begins in 1978, topples the sha in early 1979. We remember it now as an Islamic revolution, but at the time it has liberals, it has leftists, it has feminists, it has nationalists. What did these groups want out of the revolution and then how did it take the form it ultimately took?

[Ali Vayas]: Well, the Iranian people had a lot going for them before the revolution. The country was prosperous economically. It had very good relations with the outside world. It's really stunning to think of it, Ezra, but the Sha really didn't have any serious enemies. Um, it had good relations with the Soviet Union. It had good relations with the US. It was the strongest military in the Middle East. Iranian society was opening up and a lot was going for the Iranian people except one thing. They didn't have political freedom and the power was strictly in the hands of Tasha and his political elite who were also very much corrupt and there was also this impression that he was a puppet of the United States that he was not acting independently that was an incorrect perception but it was widespread among the population and what happened was that there was this consensus that was formed that he should go without really having a sense of what will come after.

[Ali Vayas]: Was seen as a transitional leader not as the leader of the country in the future. Uh and he was clever enough to portray himself as one. Um he said all the right things before assuming power. He said that women would be able to have equal rights in the society. He banned the clerics from having any role in in politics. This is why we had this extraordinary situation in which you had leftists and Mauoists and communists and you know conservatives and religious people everybody coalitioning around him as the as the leader of the revolution. But of course, as soon as he touched down in Thran and there were 3 million people on the streets welcoming him, he realized that his power is basically unchallenged. And at that point, he started monopolizing power and established an Islamic republic in the form of theocracy.

[Host]: And very quickly from there, we have the what gets at least remembered in America as the hostage crisis. This is something that Donald Trump talks about in his video announcing and explaining the beginning of the war he has launched in Iran. Now, for 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops, and the innocent people in many, many countries. Among the regime's very first acts was to back a violent takeover of the US embassy in Tran, holding dozens of American hostages for 444 days. What is that? How do you understand that as as a both a political decision and as a historical event resetting American and Iranian relations?

[Ali Vayas]: That is a seminal moment because it created a rupture in Iran US relationship that has not been healed in the past 47 years.

[Host (audio clip)]: Good evening. The US embassy in Thran has been invaded and occupied by Iranian students. The Americans inside have been taken prisoner.

[Host (audio clip)]: The students want the deposed sha returned to Iran for trial.

[Ali Vayas]: The US's first response to the hostage crisis was to impose sanctions. And Iranians wanted those assets released, wanted the Shaw to be returned to Iran to stand trial and wanted the United States to recognize their independence and promised not to interfere in their internal affairs. But it really goes back to another event. It goes back to 1953 when the US and the UK helped topple the popular government of Prime Minister Mosad who had nationalized Iranian oil.

[Host (audio clip)]: Iran where the government of Premier Mosedc with pro red tendencies is overthrown by royalist supporters of the sha. Iran with its rich oil resources focal point of dispute with the British is strategically important to democracy. Masedc held power at the crossroads of conquest in the very heart of the Middle East.

[Ali Vayas]: And therefore there was always this sense of vandetta among segments of Iranian society against the United States. One of the key motives of the revolution was neither the east nor the west the Islamic Republic. In fact prior to taking over the US embassy angry Iranian students and zealots and revolutionary zealots they had taken over both the US embassy and the Soviet embassy but they were kicked out of both of them. And eventually another takeover of the US embassy by the students was successful primarily because it played into the hands of ayati trying to monopolize power. He wanted to get rid of the more moderate forces of Iranian politics and he used the embassy crisis to do that. The entire government resigned and he could bring his own people to power. So the embassy hostage crisis was an opportunity for Iran to demonstrate that it no longer is going to be subjugated to the United States. and it also allowed Kmeni to appropriate all means of power in Iran.

[Host]: I think it's important to stop on what you said a minute ago about the US and the UK participating in coup in Iran. And and I think as we sort of unspool this story, there can be a a a sense in America that we are hated by the Iranian government for no obvious reason. But the counternarrative is that there's been a longer war of America and the West against Iranian self-determination. And I just like to hear you talk for a minute about how those sort of dueling senses of of who started what and who has what interest here have sat and persisted and shaped the decisions of the actors, you know, for decades now.

[Ali Vayas]: It's a very good point Ezra because it is important to understand that Iran as a weak country during the 18th and 19th centuries was one of the only countries in the world that did not become a colony to a western power. There is a very strong sense of Iranian nationalism. in the same way that the Chinese have this middle kingdom thinking that sense of Iran having its own dignity and pride is is really built into the DNA. Um and that created resentments towards the United States that then again showed itself in 1979. Some of these historic events have a long tale especially when you're dealing with ancient civilizations. They have long memories and it is important to understand that many in the US might not even know what happened in 1953 but every school children in Iran has heard of this event and is sort of built into their psyche.

[Host]: To your point that the history is a long tale here. I mean, even now, one of the people being talked about, it seems unlikely, but being talked about for a leader in Iran if the current regime collapses is the Sha's son, who is in exile and has become a more popular opposition leader and has better relationship with Israel and is more favored by the West. I don't think that many people think it would work to install him, but you've certainly heard that hope voiced quite often by people who are hopeful that the current regime will collapse.

[Ali Vayas]: Absolutely. And and again there is there is precedent uh his grandfather Resa founder of the dynasty came to power with British interference in another coup in the earlier 20th century. Um and his father was restored to power by the United States and now he's trying to regain power through help from Israel. Um and and this is why you know even if a formula like this succeeds which I agree as a as a low chance but but we have to see these kind of short-term gains in the longer perspective of how often they come back to hunt us.

[Host]: So let me bring us back to the hostage crisis. How does Iran, how does the Kmeni ultimately agree to give up the hostages? For what, in what context? For what reasons?

[Ali Vayas]: So, this again has a lot of patterns that have been repeating themselves throughout these years. Um they engaged in negotiations and talks dragged on until the Reagan team in the run-up to the 1988 election. Um basically promised the Iranians that they would give them better terms. I have been accused of lately of having a secret plan with regard to the hostages. Now, this comes from an answer that I've made at least 50 times during this campaign to the press, which is that the question would be, "Have you any ideas of what you would do if you were there?" And I said, "Well, yes, and sometimes I think some of my ideas might involve quiet diplomacy where you don't say in advance or say to anyone what it is you're thinking of doing."

[Ali Vayas]: And Ayati determined to humiliate President Carter even though the heavy lifting of the negotiations in Alger had been done with the Carter team dragged the process on until President Reagan was inaugurated and just a few minutes later he released the American hostages. Now, day one. Day one of Ronald Reagan's presidency and day one of freedom for 52 Americans. The new president had not been in office an hour when the former hostages became free men and women again.

[Host]: But the US did not deliver on its promise of not interfering in Iran's internal affairs and did not deliver on its promise of returning most of Iran's frozen assets.

[Ali Vayas]: There's an odd pattern that recurs here. You you mentioned a minute ago Humeni choosing to humiliate Carter and functionally empower Reagan and I would say over time there is this tendency for Iran to act in ways that empower the rightwing of the countries that they are in conflict with. Reagan was going to be in many ways much more hardline over time than Carter was. Iran has in many ways been central to Benjamin Netanyahu's career and certainly some of the proxies that Iran has funded you know Iran we'll talk about this in a few minutes but did a lot to to try to destroy the Azo Accords and and and the peace process what is behind that.

[Ali Vayas]: Um I I think it's it's it really can be boiled down to what comes around goes around in the sense that you know both sides both hardliners on uh on all sides actually they they feed each other um and they um empower one another. Uh it's not just that the Iranians have empowered the hardliners in the west or or in Israel but but the other way around is also true. Um in the 1990s the reformist president Katami started on a consiliatory tone towards the United States and Katami was discredited. Um same happened to Roani with the nuclear deal in 2015 and he was burned by that and and that gave way to more hardline Iranians coming to office. Uh it is unfortunately a pattern in which this enmity has become institutionalized in a way that always benefits the hawks on all sides more than the moderates who've tried to change course.

[Host]: We're going to come back to both those post 911 and and nuclear deal moments. But but here as the hostage crisis is ending, another thing is beginning, which is Saddam Hussein, the the then leader of Iraq, invades Iran in 1980. The US, it's complicated, but basically backs Iraq. Take me through both that war and US policy in that moment and in that era.

[Ali Vayas]: Um, so, Ezra, I was growing up in Iran at that time. Um and my first memories are of the Iran Iraq war. Uh and it was also the formative experience of most of Iran's leadership. Um it was an unequal war in the sense that Saddam was clearly the aggressor. Um and he was backed by almost the entire um region and world powers. Uh whereas Iran was alone. Of course, all revolutions want to export their model. Um and almost always they create a backlash. I mean if you look at the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, they always scare neighboring countries and mobilize them to try to nip them in the bud and prevent them from spilling over their borders, especially Iraq as another country with a majority Shia population ruled by a Sunni minority at the time.

[Ali Vayas]: Um and so Saddam feel felt threatened, but he also saw an opportunity. This was a revolutionary regime that had come to power. Uh had the biggest arsenal, American arsenal in the region, but uh it was purging and killing a lot of US trained pilots and generals and commanders. Uh and it appeared that it is not in a position to be able to fight back. So Saddam went in kind of similar to Putin's calculation in in the Ukraine war in 2022 that this would be a quick win. Uh and it was also supported by other Arab Gulf monarchies because they were afraid of a revolutionary system in Iran, a republic and a system that had politicized Islam. Um and so they all saw Saddam and Iraq as a shield to contain this Iranian system. And for the United States, it was also a means of containing Iran, making sure of all these American weaponry will be degraded and not used by the the Jacobian in Iran. Uh and that sense of strategic solitude really framed and shaped Iranian strategic thinking for years to come. This concept of having proxies away from Iran's borders to deter attacks on on its soil was really born out of this sense of strategic solitude.

[Ali Vayas]: And um and in that and that is the beginning of Iran's own ballistic missile program because it was desperately trying to fight fire with fire and um and and what's important to understand about that war is that it actually helped consolidate the power of a an infant revolutionary regime which was undergoing a lot of turmoil a lot of the purges. that we talked about before were happening in conjunction with this war. Um economically Iran was on its knees. Uh the price of oil had dropped significantly and Iranian oil facilities were were targeted. Uh it was a very very dark and difficult period and yet not only it survived the war, it consolidated the revolutionary system. Uh and it is this is the first war in almost 250 years. in which Iran didn't lose territory. Um it didn't win territory but it also didn't lose anything. Um and that created a narrative of martyrdom of you know sacrifice that that really consolidated the regime's power.

[Host]: So you mentioned a minute ago how something that people are hearing a lot about now Iran's ballistic missile program has its origins in that moment. There's something else we're hearing a lot about now. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also has its origins in in that war. So, so tell me about the IRGC, how it emerged and what it over time became.

[Ali Vayas]: Um so when the revolutionaries came to power the the moment of revolution's victory was the moment that the Shaw army declared itself neutral in the fight between the state and the society. Uh and the United States did play an important role in convincing the army which was trained by the US um and modeled after the US army to take a step back. Um but the Iranian revolutionaries didn't trust the army. Uh they they thought it was too aligned with US interest and so they had to create a parallel army which would do their bidding and that's the origin of the revolutionary guard. If you even look at the title it says Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Uh it doesn't have the word Iran in it because it is really designed to safeguard the revolution.

[Ali Vayas]: Um and they were really trained in the crucible of this horrible war, a traumatic war from 1980, 1988. Uh which was, you know, almost a trench warfare similar to First World War. Um a a a dragged out terrible affair in which chemical weapons were used and it was just very very ugly. and so it created real hard men with very fixed views about the world, the region, the United States, Israel, and how Iran should safeguard its interests.

[Host]: So then there's another dimension of this that I think is worth bringing in in the 80s, which is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps gets very involved in Lebanon after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. it begins to support and help with what becomes Hezbollah. At the same time, Israel is also in the 80s selling weaponry to Iran. So, so there's a complicated relationship going in both directions here that I think a little bit defies the way we think about the relationship today. So, what is happening between Iran and Israel in the 80s?

[Ali Vayas]: Well, I don't think Israel saw Iran immediately out of the gate after revolution as an existential threat. In fact, Saddam was a bigger threat to Israel. Uh and there is this famous saying that it's too bad that both sides can't lose in this war. Um and in the initial phases of the war um when Iraq actually had significant territorial control in Iran and the Iranians were using their bigger numbers to try to push back but they were not succeeding that I think Israel believed that it would be useful to try to change the balance and make sure that the Iranians would not lose. part of the broader arrangement that turned out to be the Iran Contra which has its own complicated story.

[Ali Vayas]: Uh but it is really after the fall of Saddam as a serious threat to Israel um in after the first Gulf War that Israel's threat perception about Iran changes because to a large extent Saddam was neutralized and Iran was still standing and was becoming more aggressive towards Israel and was putting in place all the tools that was that it needed to carry on that challenge to Israel's power in the region. Iran also by that time has a different leader. Kmeni dies in 1989.

[Host]: Um Ali Hamei becomes the second supreme leader. Who is he at the moment of that elevation and how does he become the successor?

[Ali Vayas]: Oh, he's an absolute underdog. Uh he's the president of the country at that point but someone who nobody took seriously um because the presidency was a symbolic position. There are these famous stories of Kmeni chasticizing K in public speeches and Kami going to the roof of the presidential palace and and crying out loud um because he was humiliated. Um and and the second most powerful man in Iran after Kmeni was the speaker of parliament um Akar Hoshimir Raf Sanjani. this very wely statesman um uh sort of like Cardinal Rishilio or eminence gre of of the system um and uh he's the one who ends up becoming the kingmaker he makes uh the next supreme leader he says that was very close to him had designated as as his successor there's no evidence to back that up but everybody that he believed Raf Sanjani at the time because he was so powerful.

[Ali Vayas]: Um but but long story short Makam becomes supreme leader because Raf Sanjani believed that he would he would be he would remain an underdog and he would be able to and Raf Sanjani would be able to run the show without much challenge from Kame but Kam wasn't even an Ayatah when he became a supreme leader um and so they had to overnight uh make him an ayatah but K turned out to be a calculating, very clever man who basically over several decades managed to outwit and outweight everybody else in that system. Uh because he didn't have the right religious credentials quickly looked for another source of of basically backing up his power and that became the revolutionary guards and and this is why he started militarizing Iranian politics. Uh in ways that Kmeni had actually banned had banned the revolutionary guards from entering into politics. Um and and it's it's really an extraordinary turn of events of how he managed to then sideline Rafanjini and everybody else and reach the pinnacle of power in a way that no other Iranian ruler even the the sh of the recent recent past had that much that much institutional power.

[Host]: So I I think it's easy doing the kind of work I do to to sort of focus endlessly on the institutional maneuverings of people in power, but what is life like for Iranians and what are the what are the divisions of of Iranian society at this point? I mean, we've gone in just a decade or two from, as you say, a very modern country with good relations with the outside world, a revolution, the Iran Iraq war, and incredible amounts of suffering and, you know, death. And now you have this sort of IRGC and um you know successor government. What is life like? What is life becoming like for Iranians? How has it changed?

[Ali Vayas]: So look the 1980s were really dark because there was repression at home. There was war of aggression against the country. it was a terrifying period. Uh but you know in a decade after one of the most popular revolutions in the world the system still had sufficient goodwill and support to move forward. Um and but people wanted change to to become much more institutional. And this is why in an upset election in 1997, they opted for gradual change rather than radical revolutionary change by voting for a reformist president.

[Ali Vayas]: Um and when Katami was elected, that's the first election that I voted in and the last election I voted in. Uh but there was a real sense of hope that he was saying all the right things. He wanted to do all the right things. Um and from that point on I would say it was a downward spiral because the deep state in Iran by that point represented by Kam his office and the revolutionary guards were absolutely against reforms. Um and and you can understand psychologically where that came from. For Kam he came to power in 1989 when the Soviet Union was falling apart because it had opened the door to reforms.

[Ali Vayas]: Um and so Kam's view was that an ideological system if you start paying playing with the pillars of it the whole thing will unravel um and so it's really that's the beginning of you know ruptures between the state and the society because the society wanted gradual reforms. But the fact that Katami's experience ended in failure um I think was the beginning of a lot of people losing hope and this regime's ability to change course.

[Host]: So in the 1990s, Bill Clinton is president in the United States for most of it and his focus in the Middle East is on the Israeli Palestinian peace process. And you've already had the the Oslo Accords and Iran enters into this picture funding terrorist attacks in Israel through Hamas and others meant to destroy the peace process, meant to destroy Oslo. Why?

[Ali Vayas]: So one has to understand that um again going back to the Iran Iraq war, Iran realized that one of the only ways that it can project power beyond its borders as a Shia nation surrounded by Sunnis, as a Persian nation surrounded by Arabs and Turks, was to pick up a cause that would allow it to transcend all of these inherent limitations. And that was the Palestinian cause that was left on the ground by the Arabs.

[Ali Vayas]: Um and that's why as of the early 1980s it became the champion of the Palestinian cause. Uh for instance, Israel's invasion of Lebanon in in 1982 provided Iran with an opportunity to create Hezbollah in Lebanon. Uh and then with the attack on in Beirut that killed 241 US Marines, Iran saw its first impressive victory, which was that someone as hawkish as President Reagan in response to that attack, packed his bags and left the region.

[President Reagan (audio clip)]: I have no regret at the fact that we went in there with the idea of trying to bring peaceuh to that troubled country. We are redeploying because once the terrorist attack started there was no way that we could really contribute to the original mission by staying there as a target just hunkering down and waiting for further attacks.

[Ali Vayas]: And so any solution to the Palestinian cause that would not include Iran and its interest by definition would be a threat to this agenda. Um and this is why Iran was trying to sabotage any solution along those lines. And the fact that processes like the Madrid process for instance explicitly excluded Iran played into those fears that whatever comes out of this would be at their expense and therefore they should try to prevent it from happening.

[Host]: Is your understanding that the Palestinian cause for them was geopolitical, it was a a case of rational self-interest or that it was ideological and that their kind of support in a in an ongoing way reflected, you know, values-based commitments as opposed to geopolitical calculations.

[Ali Vayas]: I do believe that it had an ideological veneer but deep down it was a geopolitical instrument that the Iranians were willing to fight Israel to the last Palestinian or the last Arab but they really did not care much about the Palestinian cause. And this is why you see the the rupture between Iran and the PLO for instance over the years because it was very clear that Iran was instrumentalizing the Palestinian cause for its own interest.

[Host]: I feel like there is this tension that that you see emerging here and in and also in the way we talk about Iran here. So there's a vision of Iran you will hear from the American right and from I think mainstream Israeli society which is that Iran is an Islamic theocracy. It is a society that remembers itself as an empire and is patiently and strategically plotting to find its way back to that level of power. And the counter you will hear to that is no no it's a rational regime that is oriented towards survival and it calibrates its diplomacy. It calibrates its projections of power. It calibrates its actions to survive, to to to sort of thrive, to protect itself. It should be understood as as someone you can negotiate with.

[Host]: And in kind of consistently funding attacks on Israel, you know, to some degree against America too, it is making itself the target of the world's sole superpower military and the strongest military in that region even as other countries in the region are cutting deals and beginning to moderate relations. So, how do you understand this tension between, you know, the vision of Iran as focus on regime survival and the Iran that is consistently making itself an irritant an aggressor and a target for Israel and the United States by funding proxy attacks and and and terror.

[Ali Vayas]: It is a very pertinent point Ezra. Um it's it's a question of you know this double um identity in Iran strategic thinking that on the one hand it plays like any other chess player in a in a strategic manner but there is also a an ideological element. A very good example is the story of its engagement or lack thereof with President Trump. Uh a lot of other countries including North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-un figured out how to cater to President Trump's ego. How that it actually doesn't take much to try to open up a channel of communication with him and change his perspective on the country. Um and yet the Iranians would not be were not able to do so because of that ideological rigidity.

[Ali Vayas]: And I think one of the main criticisms towards the Iranian regime that there have been maybe eras or episodes in in the past few decades when it failed to capitalize on its leverage and and doubled down in a way that it actually ended up not just burning its leverage but also hurting itself. Uh you know in the run-up to October 7th they were pretty powerful and and well established in the region they could have negotiated for instance with the Biden administration from a position of strength and found a way out of this deadlock but they didn't and that too has a long history it's it's very Persian uh I have to say and I just give you um quick uh historic anecdotes just just to help you understand the the mentality.

[Ali Vayas]: Uh in uh in Isvahan uh there was an attack by Israel on a on a Safavid era palace uh which has damaged uh parts of the UN UNESCO uh heritage site. Um and it has a magnificent fresco at at its entrance is about a war um between uh the Iranians and the Ottomans uh called the Cheron conflict. Um it is uh such an epic painting. Uh and if you don't know, you wouldn't realize that this is a war that the Iranians lost. Uh what the painting is showing you is is not about victory. Uh is about the the courage and the valor and and you know the fact that the Iranians were outnumbered and outgunned and nevertheless uh you know did fight and tried to defend their country. But I think this gets to a an important fundamental point which is this question and and I think we'll keep circling this of of what does Iran want. When I when I speak to Israelis and these are not just you know Israelis on the right. These are Israelis on the certainly the center left.

[Ali Vayas]: They will say you Americans do not understand Iran. You do not understand this country. It does not just want to survive as a regime. It does not just want a stronger economy. It does not just want better relations with the West. If it wanted that, it could have had that long ago. It ultimately has ideological and imperial ambitions. And as such, deals will only ever be temporary and they will only be, you know, in the regime's interest. And the way you know that is this sort of moving back and forth that you're describing a little bit here between acting like any other geopolitical chess player at the chess board and these more ideological moments where it's not just that they are projecting power out or trying to take over the Palestinian cause, but they are imperiling arguably their own regime.

[Ali Vayas]: And so, you know, the Israelis have said to me for a very long time, and I think this helps explain, you know, Netanyahu's position on Iran and others, that when they hear death to Israel, they take Iran seriously. They take it at its word and they un and in their understanding there is no safety for Israeli society and the Israeli government so long as the you know Iranian regime as it has been composed in these decades persisted.

[Host]: And and I think you can't understand this war and and how hard Netanyahu has been pushing for it for so long without understanding that and so it raises this question of whether or not he and and and the Israelis were right.

[Ali Vayas]: Look, so there is no doubt that what the Iranians might see as defensive could be seen as offensive from from the Israelis. Uh and there is no doubt that we are in a in a in a vicious cycle that um you know whatever Israel does deepens Iran's threat perception and pushes them to double down on policies like their missile program or their support for proxies which deepens Israel's threat perception which in turn would then drag the US further in and put more pressure on Iran and engages in covert operations and sabotage and and so on that again deepens Iran's threat perception. ion and the cycle goes on. Uh the real question is um the way that Israel and the west uh largely have treated Iran in the past four decades which I think is is can really be summarized in in one word which is containment.

[Ali Vayas]: Has it resolved the problem or made it worse? It's a very simple question and even by Netanyahu's own metrics the problem has become worse. Uh the nuclear program he's been warning against for many many years according to himself when he went to war last year had become u an intolerable existential threat. Um in June of last year he said that he had set back Iran's missile program uh 8 months later he's back at war because the missile programs or the missile program is now an existential threat. Um, so again, it's a question of not necessarily the concept. I'm not challenging that. I understand why the Israelis see Iran as an existential threat. I understand why the Iranians believe that Israel is a threat to them. Uh but um I'm talking about the the means of trying to resolve the problem. And again, you know, throughout the past 47 years, with the exception of a very short period of 3 to four years, we have tried tools that have not worked or made the problem worse. And I think we should learn from that experience.

[Host]: You you mentioned the Iranian narrative that much that looks offensive to the rest of the world to them is understood as defensive that Iran does not understand just itself as a threat to Israel but Israel and to the to some degree particularly right now America is a threat to to Iran. So if I were if I were talking to a member of the you know Iranian government and they were giving me their narrative of this or trying to persuade me that the Israeli narrative is wrong, how is the support for Hamas, the support for Hezbollah, the the some of the actions we see in this period, how is that understood in the Iranian perspective, the the the race to nuclear weapons as defensive as opposed to um offensive?

[Ali Vayas]: Well, it's very simple and they would say the proof is in the pudding. U when when Hezbollah had uh hundreds of thousands of rockets and missiles aiming at Israeli population centers, um Israel did not dare uh attacking Iran. When Syria was there, um there was no uh routes for Israeli fighter jets to to come and uh and bomb Iran uh through the uh Syrian airspace. So their their argument is that actually uh this policy worked and protected them for a long time and now that it has uh their regional deterrence has been degraded this is why uh Israel is coming after them.

[Ali Vayas]: So if you talk to Iranian officials they would say that the reason that they were locked into this uh pathway and they there was basically path dependency was because they never saw a viable alternative. Uh it is not as if they were willing to give up on their proxies or to whatever Israel found threatening whether it's their missiles or their nuclear program. Uh that the world would then recognize them uh would allow this theocracy to thrive in the way that Arab Gulf states have that all of these were aimed at undermining and toppling them. Um, nobody was willing to give them conventional weapons to be able to defend themselves. Um, nobody ever recognized that they had some legitimate security concerns. Uh, and so they had no choice other than continuing down this path. That's the argument that they they would make.

[Ali Vayas]: And even in areas that they had compromised like on their nuclear program, um it uh it it resulted in the US not uh delivering on its promises. And of course, that's just one example. There are multiple other examples as well. Um, you know, the Iranians helped release US hostages in Lebanon in the 1990s and the George HW Bush administration didn't deliver on uh his promises to them. Uh again, Clinton sanctioned them and canled the oil contract that they had put on the table for US companies. Um um Obama even didn't fully deliver on sanctions relief. Biden with whom they had a prisoner deal as part of which there was a humanitarian arrangement that moved $6 billion of their assets from South Korea to Doha. Um pulled the plug on their ability to access that money after October 7th even though the money had nothing to do with Iran's regional policies. So there's a long list of reasons that they would bring up to say this was always existential from the other side as well and so we had no choice other than doubling down.

[Host]: And so there seemed like there was this moment where things could change after 9/11. Iran is for the for a moment on the side of the US. It's offering intelligence. Um it's against the Taliban and and al Qaeda. Colon Powell then the Secretary of State shakes hands with the Iranian foreign minister at the UN. And you know 911 was a geopolitically disruptive event and a lot can change in the aftermath of them. So what was happening then and how did that set of possibilities if you think they were real fall apart?

[Ali Vayas]: So the story of Iran US relations is really a history of missed opportunities uh and is replete with misunderstandings and and this episode is is one of them. You know it's it's quite stunning that uh there was a real opportunity for uh a new beginning. Um, you know, Ezra is is now in retrospect is really uh quite something when you think about the fact that Kasam Solmani, the commander of the revolutionary guards expeditionary force uh the goods force uh was first man to arrive in Afghanistan to prepare to prepare it for US fighter jets to land in the operation to get rid of the Taliban.

[Ali Vayas]: Same commander that President Trump assassinated in 2020. Uh but but but Iran believed that by cooperating with the United States um even at the military level, intelligence level um to get rid of a common foe would be the beginning of a new chapter. Uh and then all of a sudden President Bush uh in 2002 in his State of the Union speech designated Iran as a member of the axis of evil.

[President Bush (audio clip)]: Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil arming to threaten the peace of the world.

[Ali Vayas]: And that shut the door to further improvements of relations. North Korea responds to the axis evil speech by accelerating its nuclear program. Eventually Tesla weapon is now a nuclear power. Um Iran is watching that the US invades Iraq which had no nuclear weapons. Um later on Libya will give up its nuclear program and Gaddafi will eventually be decapitated from power um in US air strikes and we'll will die in a ditch. So how do the the sort of how do the nuclear experiences of other countries that are in the axis that are named into the axis of evil how does that end up shaping Iranian politics and and thinking?

[Ali Vayas]: Um so that's not a linear line in the sense that um you know Iran revived its nuclear program in the the mid 1980s during the Iran Iraq war. primarily out of fear that Saddam was going to use nuclear weapons against them because he had already used weapons of mass destruction in the form of chemical weapons and was believed to be developing nuclear weapons and in fact that was the reason the US invaded Iraq in 2003.

[Ali Vayas]: Um and we now know in retrospect that one of the reasons that Saddam didn't want to dissipate that view that he had nuclear weapons was because he wanted the Iranians to to be afraid of him. they might have some secret nuclear weapons. Uh but you see based on US intelligence that the the organized Iranian push to develop nuclear weapons stopped in 2003. What happened in 2003? Saddam was toppled. The threat was gone. So that's the first phase in Iranian calculation that the immediate threat was gone but they could now continue to hedge their nuclear policy basically develop this dual use technology um put all the elements together and then maybe at some point down the road if they needed nuc nuclear weapon it will be a quick political decision to cross the Rubicon and develop a nuclear program. They also used their nuclear program as part of the as as leverage in at the bargaining table with the west to try to get sanctions relief.

[Ali Vayas]: Uh but uh so this was way before they saw what happened to Gaddafi. Um and way before they saw how North Korea was treated with tremendous amount of respect by President Trump. Um and this is why um I do believe that now that they have gone through this experience um especially even after the Ukraine war uh that Ukraine also give gave away its nuclear arsenal in return for security guarantees only to be invaded by Russia. Uh they have concluded that they've paid the price of a nuclear bomb as the ultimate deterrent both economically through years of sanctions and also from a security perspective being attacked. Um and I think that the religious edict that Ayatam had against nuclear weapons probably died with him. Uh and if this regime survives and if his son remains the supreme leader at the end of this war um I almost have no doubt that the regime will be determined to try to develop nuclear weapons because every historic president that you look at uh and their own experience teaches them that that's the only way to try to create a shield for their own survival.

[Host]: I want to come back to that thought, but I think before we we sit there for a moment, we should talk about the the effort of nuclear deal which you had some uh role in helping to to negotiate or try to bridge the gaps on. This happens under Obama happens after the Bush administration after sort of there's an Iranian effort to have negotiations with Bush administration that is sort of ignored in 2003. Obama comes in. He has promised a different approach to Iran.

[President Obama (audio clip)]: Rather than remain trapped in the past, I've made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward. The question now is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build. I recognize it will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude, and resolve.

[Host]: Take me through the thinking that leads to the JCPOA. Um, that doesn't happen until 2015. So, there's a lot of preparatory work and a lot of thinking that goes in before that. But, but what is the basic orientation of the Obama administration towards Iran?

[Ali Vayas]: Look, I I think in his first term, President Obama listened to those who were telling him Iran doesn't respond to pressure, it responds to huge pressure. Uh and so if you mobilize the international community to put massive financial sanctions on Iran, uh cut them off of uh the US uh dominated global financial system. Uh bring international sanctions against them. Even the Russians and the Chinese if they join uh at the UN level to impose sanctions uh eventually the Iranians will uh come to their knees and they would accept to give up uh on uh on having access to nuclear fuel cycle technology which is uh a a a dual use technology with which you can fuel reactors or nuclear weapons.

[Ali Vayas]: Um and at at towards the end of his first term in office uh I think President Obama was smart enough to understand that it's not going to work. Uh that uh a uh pressure ccentric approach uh without an open door and without some sort of a reasonable uh endgame is an exercise in futility. uh and he decided to change course uh and sent uh Bill Burns and and Jake Sullivan uh to Oman for secret negotiations uh with the Iranians in which he made the first concession and that concession was that for the first time since the beginning of the nuclear crisis in 2003, the US agreed that uh uh zero enrichment uh is not uh a realistic policy goal and allowed Iran to have a very limited but very tightly and rigorously monitored nuclear program on its own soil. And that's what uh eventually led uh to the joint comprehensive plan of action in 2015. But between 2011 and 2015 uh it took a long time and a lot of work to get to that stage. Uh but that is what made the difference.

[Host]: What was the theory of the joint comprehensive plan of action? Um, I think to the extent people followed this, it was hard even to know what to think of it because people so disagreed on what it did or didn't do. It was sold as a deal that would prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. It was criticized as a deal that would be unable to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Um, Israel's main interest in all this is that Iran doesn't get nuclear weapons, but they were aggressively opposed to the deal under Netanyahu. And you know, Netanyahu did everything he could to to scuttle it.

[Netanyahu (audio clip)]: This deal won't be a farewell to arms. It would be a farewell to arms control. And the Middle East would soon be crisscross by nuclear trip wires. A region where small skirmishes can trigger big wars would turn into a nuclear tinder box.

[Host]: So what was in the JCPOA? What was the actual both like technical approach and and what was the broader theory of it?

[Ali Vayas]: Uh so the JCPO is a 159page uh very complex document but it really boils down to a very simple bargain uh nuclear restrictions and transparency measures in return for economic incentives. That's really it. Um and Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program roll back its nuclear activities, ship out 97% of its stockpile, dismantle half of its centrifuges accept the kind of inspections that no other country in the world has ever accepted and basically make itself an exception to the norm because in among the non-prololiferation treaty member states, you basically have already two classes. uh one are nuclear weapons states and one are non-uclear weapons states but Iran agreed to create a category of his own in terms of restrictions and transparency measures that he had agreed to.

[Ali Vayas]: Um so this guaranteed that Iran would not be able to have a nuclear weapon for at least a period of 15 years. But a lot of these restrictions had sunsets, meaning that they would expire after a period of time. And that is because um no country would ever be willing to make itself an exception to the norm forever. that is giving up a right internationally that again a regime that had come to power based on the concept of trying to safeguard Iran's independence went through a very bloody war in which it lost half a million of its people in order not to lose an inch of the country. didn't want to give away that right. Um and uh and the JCPOA did secure that right. Uh but it meant that the can was only kicked down the road. Uh and was not the problem was not resolved forever. Uh the other problem with it at the time I used to say the good news is that we have a nuclear deal. The bad news is that we only have a nuclear deal. Uh that it didn't really address other areas of disagreement with Iran about its ballistic missile program, about its proxies.

[Ali Vayas]: But the concept uh for the Obama administration was that you resolve the most urgent problem uh and then maybe based on that you can build trust and improve relations and then tr try to address other areas of disagreement. But we never really got a chance uh because the deal was implemented in January 2016 and of course President Trump was elected in November of that year. Um and and as soon as he walked into the Oval Office he started undermining the agreement.

[Host]: So when you say the agreement guaranteed that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon for at least those 15 years, you know, one thing that Republicans said was they'll just do it in secret. They'll they'll create secret facilities. They'll be underground. You know, we won't know where to inspect. So what were the safeguards there?

[Ali Vayas]: So the entire nuclear inspection regime um since the second world war um has always been designed to look at the file material nuclear material with which you can make a bomb for the first time in the JCPOA u mechanisms were defined to also look after the equipment. So every knot and bolt that goes into the centrifuges uh which would enrich uranium or any other machinery involved in Iran's nuclear program. Uh there were uh online smart detectors. Uh there were um uh inspectors who had access to them 247. Uh there was literally no way that Iran would be able to cheat. And uh when the deal was being implemented for um as I said from January 2016 until Iran started rolling back its uh uh commitments uh a year after the US withdrew from it from that. So that's May 2019.

[Ali Vayas]: Um the IAEA uh conducted uh very rigorous monitoring and issued uh quarterly reports. So there were about 15 reports in this period and in all of them the IEA confirmed that Iran was fully committed uh to all of its uh commitments under the agreement. Now we can choose not to believe the IEA um but even the US intelligence even the Trump administration's own intelligence officials were saying that there is no evidence of Iranian divergence from uh from the agreement. whereas of course the same could not be said about the United States.

[Host]: So there's also a political theory to the deal which is that it was the beginning of trying to create a different relationship over time between the US and Iran that it would pull Iran further into the international system um unwind some of the sanctions so there's more economic development maybe strengthen moderates inside the regime. How did you think about that side of the deal and some counterfactual history where Hillary Clinton wins the 2016 election and there there's sort of time to build on it? Do you think that there was a a possible other path here or there's also of course those who say this would have just given Iran, you know, money and time to strengthen proxy networks. It would have given it more freedom to to pursue expansionistic objectives. How do you think about what was possible and what was not possible building on that deal?

[Ali Vayas]: Um, so I I tell you how I uh perceived it. In my view, um, Iran at the time uh was a country that despite years of sanctions, mismanagement, and corruption still had a middle class that was about 65% of the Iranian society. And the Iranian middle class, for anyone who's been in touch with them, um is extremely open-minded, pro-western, even pro- American despite years of being subject to anti-American propaganda by the state. Um uh moderate and and is basically the west's uh best ally uh in that part of the world. Um and um my concept was that if you get 5% economic growth over a period of 10 years, you can grow this middle class from 65% to around 80 85%.

[Ali Vayas]: And that would coincide with the time that the the ruling elite of the Islamic Republic, the original Jacobines of the 1979 revolution are dying out just by the force of nature. Um so you will have a situation in which these two lines will cross one another and the country by definition would be in a better position to transition to something better even if that transition requires a degree of upheaval. So that was the concept. That was the theory of change that it it wasn't supposed to magically in a year or two make Iran change all of its policies. But it was supposed to put the two countries on a better pathway in which eventually with building trust they would be able to address other areas of this agreement and again put the country on a trajectory that when Kam would die there would be enough material to work with to put the country on a better trajectory.

[Host]: When Trump instead takes office, when he wins the election, he somewhat over the objection of some in his own administration, rips up the deal and begins a policy of what he calls maximum pressure.

[Trump (audio clip)]: We will be instituting the highest level of economic sanction. Any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States. America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail.

[Host]: So, we've talked about what the theory of the JCPOA was. What is the theory of maximum pressure? Both what is the substance of that policy, but but what is the political thinking beneath it?

[Ali Vayas]: Well, I think the theory of maximum pressure was once very clearly described by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who said Iran should reach a stage that it should choose between feeding its own people or continuing the policies that are problematic from the perspective of the United States. And so that really turned the concept that I was describing to you on its head fundamentally in the sense that it really weakened the middle class and strengthened the hard men in the Islamic Republic. Um and in this period again according to the United States and state department and intelligence community the revolutionary guards has become even more powerful than before.

[Ali Vayas]: So we completely changed the dynamics and and weakened our best allies and strengthened our our worst adversaries in that system through maximum pressure which was supposed to bring Iran to its knees. Now the Iranians not only didn't surrender but they doubled down across the board. Uh they doubled down and supporting proxies. Uh they became more aggressive in the region, more repressive towards their own people.

[Ali Vayas]: Uh they resumed their nuclear program uh first gradually and then uh really uh uh speeded uh jacked it up ratcheted it up significantly uh and and reached levels that u we could not even imagine in the past enrichment to 60% or having uh advanced centrifuges um which eventually of course uh ended up uh in the conflict that uh that we're currently in. One of the sort of rupture moments in the Middle East that I think leads to to where we are now in this period is of course October 7th. Uh Hamas is understanded by many to be an Iranian proxy, not fully under Iran's control, but but Iran is a a major fun of it. What to your understanding now is the relationship between Iran and the October 7th operation? How much did they know? Did they give it the green light? what was a communication between them and Senoir because that explodes all of this.

[Ali Vayas]: Right um so this is precisely uh when you can see the major shortcoming of Iran's policy of uh as a state to subcontract its regional foreign policy to non-state actors because they have fun fundamentally different interests at the end of the day and you could see uh that very quickly after the October 7th came out and tried to create distance even though he supported Hamas. Um but uh he wanted to say the Iran was not involved.

[Ali Vayas]: Um but um uh but the reality is that it it really was a distinction without a meaningful difference by that point because Hamas was clearly in the Iranian orbit was clearly financed, trained and supported by Iran. Uh and so by that point Israel was going to go after um not just Hamas but uh everybody who supported Hamas. Uh and so Israel was going to come after Iran and Iran failed to adopt the strategy accordingly um not realizing that the so-called octopus doctrine that was already in place even way before October 7th as of 2021 of going after not just uh Iranian arms in the region but the head of the octopus by targeting Thran directly. Uh the Iranians failed to adopt uh their strategy. Uh at every point uh they miscalculated.

[Ali Vayas]: Uh they either uh responded uh in in a bold way when they had to be cautious uh or were too cautious when they had to be bold. Um and this uh created the circumstances that led uh eventually to this war.

[Host]: When you say they they miscalculated, what was the nature of the miscalculation? What did they not understand about Israel or what did they not understand about Donald Trump? They did not want to be here. So, in the moves they made, what was the uh misperception that led them to miscalibrate?

[Ali Vayas]: So I mean it's a series of miscalculations but uh but let's start with the fact that uh you know the Iranians were trying to put in place in 2023 uh a mechanism that they called the ring of fire which was this concept of uh being able to open four fronts against Israel all at once. Uh and the concept was that this would be um uh so difficult for Israel to deal with that it would never be able to project power beyond its immediate uh near abroad. Um they tested this concept in April of 2023. And the Iranians concluded that uh they're not ready. Uh they're not there yet. Uh and of of course they failed to communicate that to Senoir and they failed to hold Cinear back. And uh I think uh one explanation in that was that uh the elimination of Slemani in 2020 who had personal relations with a lot of these leaders in the so-called access of resistance this network of proxies that Iran has in the region and had uh the charisma and the authority to be able to push them in the directions that he wanted uh did provide more space for freelancing for people like Senoir. Um so that was the first uh first mistake.

[Ali Vayas]: The second mistake was um you know took distance from October 7th but did endorse it and did not try to hold his bullah back from uh entering into this this conflict because Kam was giving was subcontracting a lot of these policies to Nasallah the leader of his he truly believed in his uh strategic vision and he taught that as an Arab in that part of the world he understands it better than Persians a thousand kilometer way. Uh, and that too I think was a mistake. And then the biggest mistake of of all was that when Israel started going after Iran's assets in a much more aggressive way, especially in Syria and and went higher and higher up the ranks, killing commanders in the field. Uh and eventually uh in April of 2024 uh they targeted Iranian uh consulate in Damascus and killed senior Iranian military officials who were there.

[Ali Vayas]: Uh and that's the moment that Kame decided to put aside his cautiousness and become bold. uh and he fired u hundreds of missiles and drones towards Israel. for the first time opening a a a for the first time a direct attack from Iranian soil towards Israel. And that opened the path to a direct confrontation with a military power that is much more capable and much more superior um than Iran, which I think again in retrospect was a was a major mistake.

[Ali Vayas]: Uh but uh but he did it in a way uh that it also didn't really signal strength. It just stren signaled willingness to cross a red line but uh but he telegraphed in advance so that there will be uh minimum Israeli casualties and fatalities so that this doesn't escalate. But these are all um again if you put them together it's a chain of miscalculations that led to Kam's killing uh at the beginning of this war.

[Host]: And and what is happening with the the nuclear program during this period.

[Ali Vayas]: So during this period the nuclear program is advancing very quickly uh because uh the Iranians again in a major miscalculation uh failed to revive the agreement with the Biden administration. Uh I mean there's plenty of blame to go around. Biden uh uh I think missed an opportunity uh to revive the deal u in the short overlap that he had with President Roani who had negotiated at the JCPOA in 2015.

[Ali Vayas]: Uh because uh he postured and was too hesitant uh and that burned a lot of bridges with the Iranians. And then in 2022 the Iranians and the Russians were responsible for not uh reviving the agreement. Uh but since then Iran quickly accelerated its nuclear program. Um and every time Israel tried to set it back through sabotage or covert operations uh the Iranians even doubled down in uh in in accelerating the the program to the point that uh of course by the time President Trump walked into the Oval Office. Uh there's a metric in the JCPOA that success was basically measured against that which is a so-called breakout time. This is the amount of time that it takes to enrich enough uranium for a single nuclear weapon. That timeline when President Trump walked into the Oval Office in 2017 as a result of the JCPOA was more than 12 months. In January 2025, when President Trump walks into the Oval Office, that timeline is 6 days.

[Host]: I've never quite understood what this breakout line means, if I'm being honest. Because if the timeline is six days and Iran's leaders have on some level concluded that there is safety to be found in having a nuclear deterrent, you know, that's January of 2025. Uh they're not attacked for at least some months after that. So why didn't they just run over the line? Um or is the 6day line not everything you need for a nuclear weapon?

[Ali Vayas]: Yes. So you're right. It's uh this is like having the ingredients for a cake. You still have to bake it into a cake. Uh that's the weaponization process that takes uh between 6 to 12 months depending on which timeline you want to believe and depending on whether you want to have a crude nuclear device or a more sophisticated one. Uh but that can happen in secret in any facility in any underground laboratory. Um the part that could be monitored is the enrichment part uh which was done under the IEA supervision. Uh and that's why the breakout time was important because we were trying to prevent the ingredients uh from from being prepared because we knew that the weaponization part would not be done in a visible way.

[Host]: And so then on some level, is Donald Trump right that the only way to stop Iran from going nuclear is to attack first the the 12-day bombing that we saw some months ago and and and and now what we're in or were these negotiations that were happening on and off most recently with Jared Kushner and Steve Whit, could they have succeeded? Was there still a diplomatic path that was viable or was that over now?

[Ali Vayas]: Um, so, uh, look, Ezra, I I've, uh, I've looked at some of, uh, the briefings that, uh, Jared Kushner and and Steve Wkov have, uh, have done since the end of the negotiations in 2026. Uh, and I've now concluded that, uh, these negotiations were always doomed to fail. um they went in uh expecting not a um complex um technical deal but a yes and no uh kind of answer from the Iranians. Um I was shocked that uh you know Steve Wikoff was surprised that the Iranians had uh were able to manufacture their own centrifuges. uh and he describes one of Iran's advanced centrifuges, the IR6 model, uh which is a pretty powerful centrifuge as as probably the most powerful centrifuge in the world, which is not true.

[Ali Vayas]: Um so the the technical understanding was never really there. The patience to uh find uh solutions that would be mutually tolerable and presentable was never really there. um they often didn't take even experts with them to these negotiations. So they were not serious, they were not professional um and it was not going to work unless and until Iran was willing to basically capitulate and that was never on the books. Um so in retrospect I think the these negotiations could have never worked.

[Host]: But but let me ask a counterfactual question which is what if the Trump administration had sent more serious negotiators? What in what if instead of Trump's real estate buddy and his son-in-law, he had sent, you know, under Marco Rubio, the State Department does have a lot of expertise, there are people there. They could have sent a special envoy who had, you know, more experience with this question. Would the Iranians have been open to that? Do you think there was openness on the Iranian side or do you think in addition to the Trump side not being that serious about negotiations that the Iranians at this point weren't that serious? I mean, they'd watched the Trump administration tear up a diplomatic agreement they had made with the Obama administration. They were now under tremendous pressure from Israel and the United States. you know, maybe they were biting for time, you know, at the same time that they would then eventually one day, you know, pop up and say, "Well, the negotiations failed and we have a a weapon now." That was certainly Israel's view on what would happen.

[Ali Vayas]: Well, I do believe that the Iranians were actually desperate for a deal and and and I base that uh again based on experiences I've had with this process. Uh it's been very rare and you can ask any European or or other negotiator who's been involved in this process for the Iranians to come up with their own initiatives. They often prefer to uh react to other people's ideas. Uh and yet in these negotiations uh they were coming up with uh one uh working paper after another putting ideas on the table in the hope that uh it would work. I do believe that they were willing to give President Trump way more than they gave President Obama. Uh maybe not last year, but certainly this year. Um and he could have gotten a better nuclear deal if he wanted to. Uh but again, it was not about marginal improvements. Uh it it was about uh Iran surrendering uh to America's terms.

[Ali Vayas]: And from uh the Iranian regime's perspective, the only thing that was more perilous uh than suffering from a US strike uh would have been uh surrendering to US terms because again all of this history of you know the sort of the debt of this regime of safeguarding Iran's independence of not being uh subjugated uh especially by an American president all of that would be undermined and for a regime that in the process all these years has also lost um you know starting from that very high point of popularity at the beginning of the revolution to a point that it now relies on maybe 5 to 10% of the Iranian society uh who constitute its its core constituents um it cannot afford to alienate them uh because then uh it has uh nothing to stand on uh and that's why it could not ever afford uh to capitulate uh to to the United States. But if Trump wanted a better deal than what Obama got, that was certainly on the books.

[Host]: I think part of Trump's calculation, I mean, he said this explicitly, is that the Iranian regime was under tremendous pressure at home as well. It wasn't just Israel, it wasn't just America, although the sanctions from America were were meaningful here. There were huge protests. Um, the Iranian regime had killed thousands of Iranian protesters, you know, just in January. And there was a sense certainly in America that it was weak enough that if America pushed, if it bombed, if it began to to destroy and degrade the regime's capacity to exert force that the there might be another revolution. Trump explicitly invited the Iranian people to to rise up and take their and take their government back.

[Host]: So what can be said right now of the relationship between the state and the society? You say this is a regime with only 5 to 10% support, you know, by this point. Now it's a regime that doesn't have much support and does not have, you know, its the leadership it has had for some time. Is it weak? Will it crack? Is there some possibility of a of a Iranian revolution coming up from the ground?

[Ali Vayas]: Well, so this is now an example of of American miscalculation. uh because it is true that uh the Iranian regime uh especially with its recent uh act of uh uh massacre against its own people created the kind of rupture that is really um unreparable. Um but nevertheless it is a regime that is very entrenched and is also deeply benched. Uh you know one has to understand that there are two elements that keep this regime in place. One is the fact that it's political elite and security establishment. Don't see a plan B. Don't see an exit Don't see a day after for themselves. These are not the Shaw elite who had their villas in Kotazour or in Swiss Alps or in Southern California. Uh these people have nowhere to go.

[Ali Vayas]: Um second uh is that uh you know with bombs and missiles of course you can degrade military capabilities and uh and kill political leaders but you cannot manufacture a viable political alternative and that alternative does not exist in Iran today. There is no opposition with a ground game with organizational capacity. And so for these two reasons, regardless of how weak the Iranian regime is or how hated it is, it is very difficult to get rid of it, especially through the sole use of air power without boots on the ground.

[Ali Vayas]: Iran's strategy since the beginning of of this assault has been to expand the war in both time and space, to expand it horizontally to other regimes. So they cannot effectively strike Israel or the United States, but they can they can strike Bahrain, they can strike, you know, the UAE, they can strike, you know, into Dubai.

[Ali Vayas]: So they are setting much of the Arab world on fire, which is, I think, destroying many of their relationships. Um, and there seem to be some schisms in the regime around this. There was an apology from some leader from from one leader but they are continuing the the the missiles and the drones. How do you understand that strategy? What what do they get out of that or not get out of that? Is it working for them? I mean how would you assess where we are at this point?

[Ali Vayas]: Um, look, I think the Iranian strategy is uh can be summarized in this way that they know that they're outgunned uh but they think that they can outlast uh Israel and the United States. Uh it is true that the US and Israel uh as uh the world's most powerful army and the region's most powerful military um have the upper hand in terms of inflicting pain on Iran. Uh but the Iranians believe that they have a higher threshold for pain. I mean, imagine uh the 12-day war last year. Iran lost about a thousand of its citizens and yet it it it portrayed that war as a v victory because it survived.

[Ali Vayas]: Um if there are a thousand American or Israeli casualties, there's no way that this could be portrayed as a win. Um and this time uh the Iranians uh I think based on the lessons of the 12-day war decided uh to escalate in a horizontal manner and spread the pain spread the pain not just uh to the rest of the region but to the global economy uh that has resulted in uh energy prices shooting up. Um and this is only because uh the export of energy out of the region is disrupted. Now if this crisis continues and production is also affected either because countries would have to shut down production uh as storage spaces fill up fill up uh or that they would have to if if production facilities are targeted and destroyed uh and then you would have long-term shortages in the market definitely the price of oil will go above $200 uh dollars a barrel and that would be uh an economic disaster for the world.

[Ali Vayas]: And it's a policy that it is also based on stretching ing out the timeline uh because again based on the 12-day war they realized that there is uh another shortage uh which is a shortage of interceptors to shoot down their ballistic uh missiles and drones. And so in the first few days of this war, they have tried to deplete uh the Gulf States uh uh interceptor arsenal as quickly as they could as well as Israel and the United States so that once they bring out their more powerful missiles, they can hit targets much more effectively and end the war on their terms. Now this is their calculation. I am not sure if it stands the test of time and uh you know it is quite possible that the US might be able to completely neutralize their retaliatory capacity especially against uh Israel by taking out their launchers. Uh so it might turn out to be another Iranian miscalculation.

[Ali Vayas]: But one thing that they can do over a long period of time and we've already seen this movie in Ukraine uh is that they can probably continue to fire drones uh into the Gulf States and target shipping through the uh straight of Hormones. And the only way that the US can maybe stem this is to um invade the southern shore of Iran and and put boots on the ground. And that has obviously political and human uh implications of its own. Um so for now the Iranians I think believe that this has turned into an attritional conflict uh and they have more staying power uh than the United States uh and Israel.

[Ali Vayas]: But even if it ends in the way more or less that it did last year which is that both sides would come up with a narrative of victory when President Trump decides to pull the plug. He he would say I killed the supreme leader. I degraded Iran's military and nuclear uh capabilities. and the problem is solved for the foreseeable future and the Iranians will declare victory just by the fact that they survived. Um but that would create a very unstable uh situation uh which is vulnerable to opening up again a few weeks or a few months down the road.

[Host]: Well, that that's actually the situation I've been wondering about. if the war ended in the near term with a bit more degradation of Iran's military capabilities but fundamentally this regime now operating um with Kame's son its leader then then what is left behind here what has been achieved what kind of regime do you think that might turn out to be.

[Ali Vayas]: Well um I think if at the end of this war all President Trump has been able to achieve is to replace one commun with another um and uh leave behind a country that is wounded and angry and determined uh that this should never happen again. Uh it's a very dangerous situation because um you know we still have a stockpile of almost half a ton of 60% enriched uranium which is enough for 10 nuclear warheads uh and four Hiroshima type uh rudimentary nuclear weapons uh and and dozens of dirty bombs um you know and and I don't think the way this war ends would take care of that problem uh unless there's some sort of a negotiated settlement at the end of it which at this looks very unlikely. Uh that problem is still there and as I told you, you know, it is quite possible that uh the younger ham might decide that his father was wrong about uh hesitating to take the last step of uh going for the ultimate deterrent and might try to do so and that in and of itself could be the cost eye for another attack.

[Ali Vayas]: Um so this can go on uh for much longer uh and and obviously is very unsettling uh to um the Gulf countries uh which uh would like to see stability in order to fulfill their long-term plans for economic development. Um, if this regime stays in place, uh, it would also be a stab in the back to the Iranian people, uh, to whom President Trump promised that, uh, help is on the way, uh, and has, uh, has has only managed again, uh, to leave behind, uh, a a a wounded and angrier and probably more aggressive and repressive regime in place. Um, so it would be a very, uh, difficult outcome.

[Ali Vayas]: It kind of reminds me of where uh things ended up in at the end of the first Gulf War uh which uh Saddam was uh uh defeated but remained in power. Um and during that period from 91 to 2003 um the name of the game was containment was uh imposing sanctions and uh and weakening Saddam. But in that period um uh the fabric of the Iraqi society was torn apart. So even when Saddam was forcibly removed uh it became very difficult to put the country back together and and uh and again America paid a very high price for that in blood, treasure and reputation.

[Host]: Are there other pathways though? I mean as as I look at where things are now, the Iranian regime does not appear to be on the verge of collapse and it's not clear what that would mean. There's not some organized opposition rising up to hand power too. Um, you could imagine things cracking in a way that created internal conflicts, civil wars, factional battling, but the idea of some smooth transition to some other regime does not seem viable to me. Or is there something I'm missing?

[Ali Vayas]: No, I think your skepticism is is well placed. Uh look uh I think President Trump's ideal scenario and he has said this repeatedly and that's why I'm characterizing it in this way is a is a Venezuela model in which he he says everybody kept their job except two people. Um the problem in the case of Iran is um that in Venezuela I think the administration started uh the the negotiated transition uh prior to taking military action whereas now uh that kind of negotiation would have to ensue military action. Um and there's very little trust because President Trump has burned the Iranians three times now. He got out of a deal with them in 2018. He bombed them in the middle of negotiations last year and this year.

[Ali Vayas]: So no Iranian official I think is going to trust him. He also humiliated Venezuela in the way that he portrayed himself as the new president of Venezuela in Wikipedia and forced Venezuela to sell its oil to Israel instead of Cuba. Um so all of those things would make it very difficult for any Iranian politician to think that they would be able to survive bending a knee to President Trump. if he had played it in a smarter way, maybe there would have been uh a a viable Venezuela scenario. But I don't think that's really available.

[Ali Vayas]: So all we're left with um is either uh Iraq post uh 91 or continuing this and ratcheting it up uh in ways that we haven't seen so far during this conflict in a way that would actually break the state. Of course, the US has the power to do so. Uh but then what that leaves behind is probably Libya uh post uh Gaddafi's removal in which you would have the country breaking apart along ethnosctarian fault lines or uh uh in between rival generals similar to what is happening in Sudan right now. Uh and that would be disaster for the rest of the region and the and the world uh world security as well. Um so so all is left as some sort of a soft landing um is uh a ceasefire now followed by some more reasonable uh negotiation uh aimed at uh either a series of smaller deals uh that would be beneficial for both sides uh or an outofthe-box idea uh in which uh uh political change is also put on the.

[Ali Vayas]: Uh because as long as as much as that's hard to imagine as at this moment uh but if the Iranian regime survives um it it would have a real hard time governing I mean these people were really struggling to keep the lights on uh even prior to the war uh and now with the cost of this conflict it would be very difficult for them uh to govern. So survival is is certainly victory from their perspective but it's not enough for sustaining themselves and that's when uh there will be potentially a chance for uh some sort of negotiations but again it would require a fundamentally different approach that President Trump so far has demonstrated no sign that he has the appetite or the ability to pursue.

[Ali Vayas]: Um and then there is another great power competition element here that I is I will add to the table which is um I'm afraid if Iran survives this uh you know which is not a a a mean feat. I mean it's like you know it's facing uh it's a David Goliath kind of situation uh and and if they survive it I think Russia and China will start looking at Iran in a different way. We know already Russia has been helping Iran and targeting US assets in the region. We know China has uh been providing Iran with weapons and uh with financial support. Uh but they did they haven't really gone the extra mile of trying to like go all in in supporting Iran as a shield against the United States and against US domination of the Middle East where uh uh hydrocarbon uh resources of the world are still the majority are located there and will be for the foreseeable future.

[Ali Vayas]: Um that too is not necessarily a good outcome because it turns Iran into an arena of great power competition without the United States having any plan other than containment. And so you're saying that in much a way that um the United States thinks one thing that has happened to Russia is it is now bogged down in Ukraine that it could look to Russia and China like this is an opportunity to bog the United States down in an unending conflict that would distract us that would take our missiles and our interceptors that would spend down our capital. I mean other Arab states are not happy about what is happening to them. that you know you don't have to have ground troops to be engaged in uh a quagmire of sorts.

[Ali Vayas]: Precisely. Uh and and there's also another consideration here which is that as long as much as the Arab Gulf states uh and and Iran's neighbors are angry at at Iran for firing at them and they're also angry at the United States by the way for for starting this. Uh but but they're also worried about a region in which there is no uh power left to challenge uh Israel's uh ability to project uh its influence and power beyond its borders.

[Ali Vayas]: Uh they they were against Iranian hedgemony for sure. Uh but they're also uncomfortable and against Israeli hedgemony in the region and they see the collapse of Iran uh as as the last obstacle uh to to that prospect. Uh and this is also another thing that one has to consider about what comes next. it. America really seems to have entered into this without uh forget an endgame, without actually a plan. The initial video invited the Iranian people to rise up. Then he said that he had had two or three people in mind to lead the regime, but they were also killed in the initial strikes. There's been some talk about arming Kurds to have a a sort of ethnic insurgency.

[Ali Vayas]: We wanted to degrade the nuclear program, but we said we had already done that. Um, I think we do care if there's a civil war or a, you know, out migration crisis. It destabilizes nearby regimes. We do have relationships with these other Arab states that very much do not want that to happen. But I cannot actually for the life of me tell what Donald Trump thought would happen and what he now believes will happen.

[Ali Vayas]: No, I couldn't I couldn't agree more with uh with the way you're reading it. Uh Ezra, I think the US followed Israel into this uh and uh was hoping that uh you know uh that the the day after would uh would arrive very quickly and would magically work in a way that uh things would be better. Uh it would it would the problem would solve itself. Uh and hope is not a strategy. The US does not have a strategy for the day after. Um and uh and the game I think is very clear on the Israeli side. Uh whatever comes out of this. If Iran is uh weak and wounded uh but still standing uh that's fine. Uh there will be enough reason to mow the lawn again a few months down the road. Uh if uh the regime uh collapses and the country descends into civil strife, that's also fine. It's too far away from Israel.

[Ali Vayas]: Others that would have to deal with the consequences of refugees or instability spilling over borders. Um, if uh magically the Iranian monarchy is restored or Iran rejoins the western orbit uh well so be it. Uh that that's fine too. Whatever outcome comes out of this I think Israel is comfortable with. uh but the United States is not taught this true is not uh aware of uh the kind of long tale of events that we we started this conversation with uh that how short-term victories even if they are achievable and at this point in the conflict I'm not even sure of that uh but even if they are achievable sometimes come back to haunt you down the road.

[Host]: I think that is a place to end always our final question what are three books you'd recommend to the audience.

[Ali Vayas]: So the first book I want to recommend in this called the Persians the age of the great kings by Lloyd Leon Leon Jones. Um and this is a a really interesting book because most of the stories that have been written or histories that have been written about uh ancient Persia uh have been based on Greek sources. Um but uh uh but what uh what this author has done is that he's actually gone to the Persian uh sources and you see how uh the the history recounted through the original uh references and and Persian books is actually quite different than the way that the Greeks uh perceived Iran. And it helps you also understand that a lot of the problems that we're talking about Ezra in this episode are not new. that Iran has always been the other of the west. This bellweather state uh that the west has had difficulty understanding whether they were Greeks or Romans or or Ottomans and and and Europeans and so on.

[Ali Vayas]: The second book uh is the mantle of the prophet uh religion and politics in Iran by Roy Mutah um which also does something rare. It it it adds texture uh to the Iranian society and helps you understand the post-revolutionary Iran with all of its contradictions and societal trends and um uh and and and culture and and it's it it really defies this caricature of uh things being black and white and how sometimes uh US uh US policy completely papers over all of these things and and that's why it results and uh the US committing mistakes. Uh and finally uh is a book um that is not about Iran uh but it kind of again uh brings uh fits into this trend that these conflicts endure uh when every side clings to their own narrative whether it's uh victimhood or or virtue. It's called tomorrow is yesterday life death and pursuit of peace in Israel Palestine by Hussein a and Rob Mali. Uh and and one thing I really appreciate about about this book is that um it helps you understand how uh in complex situations like this, there's plenty of blame to go around. how um tragedies that happen are not uh often the result of one side uh being evil or or making a mistake uh but that there is plenty of mistakes by everyone uh that leads to uh the kind of Gordian knots that we are unable to untie.

[Host]: Ali Vayas, thank you very much.

[Ali Vayas]: Great pleasure.

[Ali Vayas]: Hey, hey, hey.