主持人: Hi everyone. Welcome to my podcast. Today I have the honor to invite Professor Vali Nasr to my podcast. We're going to discuss the current US and Iran war. Professor, thank you for doing this.

Vali Nasr: Thank you very much. It's very good to be with you.

主持人: So, what do you think about the current situation? President Trump is announcing that we are having this victory over the US-Iran war for maybe 60 times, but now it seems like the negotiation is in a stalemate, with no progress right now.

Vali Nasr: Right. The war itself, even the military side of it, is in a stalemate, and so is the diplomatic side. Yes, the President is claiming victory, but he might have had tactical victories by being able to bomb large parts of Iran. But strategically, the US war effort has not achieved its goals. Iran was able to survive 40 days of intense bombing by Israel and the United States. The objectives of making the regime collapse, making the regime surrender on the nuclear issue, having a popular rebellion in Iran to change the regime, none of these things have happened. So, America has not achieved the strategic goals in the war. It is having difficulty achieving the same strategic goals that it had at the negotiations table. In the meantime, Iran was able to create strategic advantages of its own by closing the Strait of Hormuz and putting pressure on the international energy markets and the global economy. So, I would say the US may have won a few tactical battles here and there, but it definitely has not won the war and is still unable to break Iran's will.

主持人: Mhm. I don't know if you follow X, formerly Twitter, owned by Elon Musk, which is a news outlet. There are some rumors going on that this weekend, they may be resuming military action, with both the US and Israel attacking Iran again.

Vali Nasr: Well, I wouldn't be surprised, and I think the Iranians have been operating on the assumption that war is very likely for two reasons. One is that twice before, they were negotiating with the United States when war started, both in June of 2025 and in February of 2026. So, they are not convinced by the idea that if the US says "we want to talk to you," it means there won't be war. Secondly, they see that the US still has maximal demands. It's not willing to truly negotiate with the aim of arriving at a solution; it's demanding everything it asks for. Thirdly, I think the Iranians are also looking at troop movements in the Gulf. They're looking at American troop buildup, and all of it points to the US perhaps getting ready for resuming the fighting. President Trump may be calculating that another round of fighting would end up changing Iran's position. So, I would say that it is not at all surprising, and I think in fact, the Iranians are expecting it.

主持人: Do you think that's going to be similar to the Iraq War, which is going to completely occupy Iran and then do a real regime change to try to form a democratic government inside Iran? Or is it just going to be a kind of limited-scope ground operation, maybe occupy a couple of islands and then control the Strait of Hormuz? Which one do you think is more likely?

Vali Nasr: I mean, we may at some point in time end up in a larger war, a larger ground war, but the United States is not ready for a ground operation in Iran. In other words, it would need at least a year of troop buildup. Iran is such a large country with mountainous ranges, and its capital city is about 2,000 kilometers away from the closest port. So, the United States would literally have to bring back the draft. In other words, compulsory military service if it wants to invade Iran. And then, you know, if you start a war like that with Iran, it's going to change the global geostrategic position. The United States' effort to focus on Asia, to focus on the Pacific, on the South China Sea, on all of these things will be compromised. The ability to deal with the war in Ukraine. So, you know, going after trying to sort of forcibly change the regime from ground operation in Iran is a very far-fetched idea. However, resuming bombing and also trying to capture certain islands or territory may very well be in the works. But you know, that will only escalate the war to a next level. An air war against Iran will probably bring Iranian retaliation. Occupying Iranian islands would lead to again Iranian escalation in the Gulf, in the Persian Gulf region, and also it all sort of opens the United States troop to much more direct engagement and possibility of having casualties. So, these are not simple decisions for President Trump.

主持人: Yeah, I think also his war decision is not popular in the domestic politics. You see the poll, his polling number is hitting the all-time low, and also a lot of Americans, especially the independent and democratic voters, they're against this war in overwhelming number. So, I just think it will be very difficult for him to gain any domestic political support except for the Republican party, like there are for the war even though President Trump is not really campaigning on that. So, my question for you is, do you think that's going to also change the domestic policy because you mentioned like they're going to be in forced draft that's going to be not setting well among the independent voter and also Democratic voters.

Vali Nasr: Well, you're correct that the war is not popular right now. But it's not a top priority issue for Americans yet. For instance, the price of energy, the price of fuel at the fuel pump hasn't gone up high enough. That this becomes a number one issue for Congress. But taking the war to the next level may very well do that. But you know, it's also true that American presidents end of the day would have to make a personal political decision about whether they want to compromise in a military conflict or are they're looking for absolute victory and then are they willing to pay the price for that absolute victory. I mean, he's very clear that one of the issues that is at play right now is President Trump's ego. He started this war. He was expecting a decisive and quick victory, and now he still wants a decisive victory, and it looks like he constantly thinks that if he were to escalate the pressure on Iran, he's going to get what he wants. And it's a very dangerous sort of a slippery slope of getting entangled into bigger and bigger issues. It is what happened in the United States under President Johnson when he began escalating in Vietnam and largely on the back of the fact that he would not as a Texan he would not tolerate being told by Vietnamese and the Vietkong what to do, that the United States was going to stand tall and it was not going to tolerate push back. So, you know, we don't know what's going on in President Trump's mind, but he clearly is very driven by this notion that if he compromises now, it's going to be seen as defeat. Personally and as well as politically. And so, he's still trying to figure out a way that he could arrive at an absolute victory here.

主持人: Do you still think there could be a pathway for negotiation to really settle this war? I think from President Trump's tweet, he in January want a way out. He want to have a negotiation deal looks like a victory. Looks like better than the JCPOA, but it seems like the Iranian government doesn't want to give him that.

Vali Nasr: Well, I think President Trump right now is asking for maximal goals. I mean a deal is always possible if both sides are willing to compromise. And also they can show the other side that the deal can be trusted. In other words, it will actually be implemented. And I think President Trump is asking Iran to basically accept surrender. You know, accept zero enrichment, hand over all of your nuclear material, promise not to do any more nuclear activity for a 20-year period. And then it's not even clear what is he promising in exchange. And so essentially, he's not saying, "Let's find a common ground we can both live with." He's still demanding that Iran basically gives everything.

主持人: Do you think President Trump was depicting the Iranian side? They have the internal fight like they don't know who is making decisions and there apparently divisions among the hardliners and the people who want to negotiate. Do you share the same viewpoint? Do you think Iranian side actually have some internal conflict that kind of inhibit this negotiation?

Vali Nasr: No, I mean at this stage they don't have any internal conflict to negotiate. After all, they did send a team to Islamabad to meet with Vice President Vance. I mean, divisions happen if there is something solid on the table they can react to. So, when there is nothing solid on the table from President Trump and they all agree that what was discussed in Islamabad is not acceptable to Iran, there is no division between them. And I think there is some division between them as to whether, given America's attitude at the negotiating table, given that President Trump continues to put tweets out there where he claims all sorts of things, changes his position, is it wise to continue with the diplomacy or not? They are debating is this a trap or is the diplomatic possibility real? I mean that's where the differences are. It is not over the philosophical issue. Do we talk to the United States?

主持人: What's the point of talking to the United States? That's a question I have as well because if you look at the past two negotiations as you mentioned like US basically tricked Iran into negotiation twice and they killed Iran supreme leaders. They bombed Iran immediately after the negotiation. So it's really difficult to build trust after those two incidents. Do you agree?

Vali Nasr: Yes. I mean the trust is the biggest thing lacking. We often get focused on what happens to Iran's highly enriched uranium or do they agree to suspend enrichment for 10 years or 5 years or 15 years, we get bogged down on the terms, but the reality is after the United States under this president left the deal that it had signed, Iran had signed and Iran had implemented, and then twice more when he was negotiating with Iran, he bombed Iran or open war on Iran. When Iranians basically have a fundamental distrust in what President Trump says, whether he's serious about it, even if they arrived at a deal, even if they arrived at an agreement and tomorrow they were willing to sign it, would President Trump actually implement the deal? And would he not just leave the deal, let's say, a year later? And so this question of trust is pretty important. And at this stage, I think diplomacy needs trust building, and trust building would have come, let's say, after the Islamabad meeting, Iran said you need to impose ceasefire in Lebanon, and President Trump pushed for ceasefire in Lebanon. Iran then said, "Okay, we'll lift the restraints on traffic of ships on Strait of Hormuz." They were expecting that President Trump would say, "Okay, I'm going to lift the naval blockade." And President Trump said the exact opposite, that Iran is opening the Strait of Hormuz, but I'm doubling down on the naval blockade.

主持人: Yeah. So then there was no trust building like this argument about right now can the two sides lift their respective naval blockades is pretty important in creating some kind of a trust so that they can agree on the bigger issues of the nuclear program.

Vali Nasr: Yes. And also if you add up President Trump pull all of the JCPOA, I would say like they basically tricked the Iranian three times, right? Like they already signed a deal and then they pull out of the deal. So, I think what do you think about the JCPOA compared to the current situation? Like are you in favor of JCPOA? Do you have any criticism about it? Because a lot of people say, "Oh, the JCPOA is a fake deal. Iranian is never going to follow up on that. They're going to make a nuclear bomb in the end." Well, you know, every deal like when you buy a house, you know, you ultimately arrive at a terms and it's the United States agreed to terms. Iran agreed to terms. Iran fully implemented its part of the deal very quickly, and in fact 11 times between 2015 and 2018, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran had fulfilled its part of the deal. Now when you sign a deal, you're not responsible for doing things that you didn't sign on to. On the other hand, the United States actually did not implement this part of the deal. The United States did not lift many sanctions on Iran. The sanctions remained in place even under President Obama. And so, in a way the Iranians also say that this was not a good deal. The bottom line was that it was a deal that both sides signed. It was an international deal. It became a document within the United Nations Security Council. And so you could have then gone back and built other deals on top of the Iran nuclear deal. I mean, people who criticized the Iran nuclear deal really did not want a deal at all.

主持人: Yeah, I think that's in general. Yeah, Israel's position is...

Vali Nasr: Its position, its allies, many of the new conservatives in Washington, they actually objected and still object to deal making. They basically want Iran to essentially the Islamic Republic to disappear, that there would be a military solution to it, and they don't want the United States to actually deal with it.

主持人: Yeah. You mentioned about the sanction actually that kind of raises interesting question because my viewer of really focus on the actual effectiveness of the maximum pressure campaign. In your book Forces of Fortune, you argue that the true change in the Middle East come from rising globally integrated middle class. Ironically the years of this American sanctions seem to have decimated Iran's middle class while empowering the hardline fractions like the IRGC who really control the underground economy. Do you think has the US sanction policy fundamentally backfired by destroying the very demographic that can actually change Iranian from within?

Vali Nasr: Yes, I think, you know, everywhere what the United States wants, which is pro-Western governments, democratic or otherwise, who are integrated into the global economy, have always been associated with the growth in the size of the middle class. And the middle class needs private sector to grow. Private sector needs trade to grow. So if the United States really wanted to change Iran, the opportunity that came about 2015 was that it would use international trade, expansion of business and private sector in Iran, direct foreign investment from abroad to gradually force fundamental structural change in Iran. And the larger Iran's middle class became, the more integrated over time it would become with the international economy, it would gradually create a pressure from within for shifting in the direction of globalization. But when you cut a country out of world trade, then it's not part of globalization. When it's not part of globalization and it's not trading like other countries, the kind of forces that an open economy imposes on different countries don't exist there. Its economy, as in Iran, becomes poorer. Like in the first two years after President Trump put maximum pressure sanctions on Iran, 20% of Iran's middle class fell below the poverty rate. Or that Iran's economy and most sanctioned economies like in Venezuela, Russia, gradually become dark economies. In other words, they go underground. They become illegal economies. And then that concentrates power in hands of oligarchs and economic networks that are then no longer subordinate to the state and don't participate in rule of law. They go around rule of law. And so, all of those problems have arisen in Iran, and it has worsened the situation. There's more poverty in Iran. There is more concentration of wealth at the top. There is more black economy activity. There is more government control of the economy. I mean all the indices in terms of Iran becoming like, let's say, like many other countries of the global south who are integrated into the global economy, Iran began to go in a very different direction.

主持人: I think President Trump and also the neocons's playbook is, they apply this massive pressure and the sanction on Iran, and then the student and citizens will become protesting on the street which happened this January, but it didn't really topple the regime and you have this massive crackdown on the protesters. Now you see under the threat of the direct war with the US and Israel, do you think the Iranian public support is for current regime or is for actually they're encouraging the US and Israel to occupy the Iran and then basically topple the IRGC regime.

Vali Nasr: Well, I think neither one of them has the capability of occupying Iran. So, Israel's strategy with Iran was always that, you know, encourage sanctions and economic pressure. The population is angry and getting angrier, and then you find ways to weaponize the population. There are television stations in London that continuously broadcast into Iran. I would say their effect on the Iranian public is like the effect of Fox News TV was on Republicans in 2016, for instance, when people were all of a sudden surprised by the kind of views that took over and then eventually helped Donald Trump to be elected. There are widescale social media campaigns that are directed at Iran on weaponizing the population, and you know, particularly nowadays, and we saw it in the US, we see it in Europe where people only see and read what the algorithms push to them. Yes, and gradually basically are in this kind of a bubble where they begin to see reality only from a particular point of view, that the population began to become more and more driven by this propaganda that was being driven on it. Of course, the population was unhappy, was angry at the Islamic Republic, is tired of its policies, is at the same time suffering economically. But all of this was sort of sharpened by this weaponization of the population campaign, and then perhaps Israel in particular had also people on the ground.

主持人: Yeah. Assad, right? Yeah.

Vali Nasr: Right. Whose job was to, you know, direct economic protest in the direction of being much more political, anti-regime and even sometimes violent. Now the protest in Iran and the anger of the public towards the Islamic Republic is real. But I think Israel saw in this as an alternative to sending troops into the country, right? That you could make a country basically go to war, a government go to war with its own population, and the population basically would serve as the boots on the ground for the foreign forces. So when President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu would say, "We're going to destroy all the instruments of oppression in Iran, Revolutionary Guards, the Basij force, to open the door for a popular uprising." It's almost like they think that this is a substitute to the way they wage the war in Iraq, that you can't put troops on the ground, but you can bomb from the air and then you can put economic pressure and then you could basically wage information warfare on the population. All of which then creates a situation where the government collapses and then you basically achieve regime change without an actual invasion. So basically from your description what they want is really a Syria or Libya situation, right? You have a lot of proxy war going on. Iran just become a really nonfunctional state and the central government is basically paralyzed and you have all the civil war happening in cyber. I think that probably is more to Israel's liking than it was to the United States because for the United States there was always a sense at the beginning that a failed state in Iran would be catastrophic for the region and particularly for the Gulf countries. Whereas for Israel, Iran doesn't border on it. It's somebody else's problem. It's not their problem if Iran is a failed state. And I also think that Israel was never threatened by Syria being a failed state. It was more threatened when Syria was an actual state than when Syria was a failed state.

主持人: Yeah. So right now, US is doing this blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and how do you think is Iran managed to survive given this current blockade situation? And also, I saw there's some saying that the Iranian has to stop pumping oil because of the blockade. The storage area is already used up, and their treasury account is kind of depleting, maybe in two months they don't have any foreign currency reserves. How do you think the IRGC can survive this given the current blockade situation because you already have the hyperinflation going on?

Vali Nasr: Yeah, I mean there is definitely enormous economic pressure on Iran, but the calculations of where the break point is and how the break point comes is highly subjective. I mean first of all there is no firm information about how much storage space Iran has, you know, how much of its wells can it shut down and reopen later. But also, where is the break point for the population? I mean you could economically estimate various shortages, availability, supply, demand, but you cannot calculate what is a population's willingness to suffer? Before it does something politically. That is not something that economic theory can predict. But in other words, we could predict that oil in the gas prices in the United States can go to $6 a barrel. What we cannot predict is whether that would actually impact the midterm elections. Yeah, we can assume, but we cannot tell. Secondly, I would say that Iran actually faced a very similar situation during COVID. I mean rate of Iran's exports today is similar to that one year under COVID, and Iran survived that one year of almost no trade. The rate of exports and imports in Iran are very similar to that time period. So, I would say Iran's probably capable of absorbing this kind of economic shock for a matter of months, not weeks. Then at the same time, this is becoming with the United States a test of endurance, a test of wills. It's not about guns in this case. So, is the global economy more susceptible to the kind of economic pressure that the closure of the Gulf is creating or is Iran? Right. You know, the impact of this on Asia, on Africa, on Europe is quite significant. Now the question is which one of them is willing to put up with this more? So, it's Iran's calculation is they can outlast the United States.

主持人: So I actually look at the current situation and I'm thinking about what do you think about this war impact on the support from the normal Iranian people because I heard a different podcaster like interviewing Iranian from different perspectives. Some of them think that the earlier year like January protest, those bloody crackdown already make the current government illegitimate, right? Like it lose the legitimacy among the population. But others think this war actually have a really around the flag effect like making the nationalism become the top priority. A lot of Iranian people will support the current government to really fight US and Israel. Which do you think is more likely to happen?

Vali Nasr: I think both are true, but I think as angry as the Iranians are about January, I think the reality they are facing today is a war on their country, and the war has become increasingly not a war on the regime but a war on the country. So, when you know the bombings target universities, hospitals, infrastructure, you know, the population no longer thinks this is about the Islamic Republic. They believe it's the war on the country. And so, I think the Iranians public opinion about the regime, about the war, about the situation is now much more complicated. It's not black and white. It's not either or. It could be like yes, the regime lost its legitimacy in January, but then, you know, it is the force that's defending this country, and the same Revolutionary Guards who are responsible for what happened in January are the ones who have actually put their lives on the line fighting for Iran and defending it. And so, like any population, this becomes much more complicated, it's not that simple. Secondly, you have to think that this is a large enough a war that is shaping the Iranian public and is shaping the Iranian government going forward. And so, I think we have to see how this war ends, and I don't think the past is a very good predictor of the future. One thing is for sure, and that is that the Iranian public have not risen up. There is no public demonstration. The most important demonstrations we see publicly by Iranians are when every night they go in the streets to protest the war. Now, these protests are often organized by the government, but a lot of Iranians go anyways. Women without a job, people who claim they are anti-regime, but they say they want to stand with the other Iranians protesting the war. The other way in which the Iranians did public protest is when President Trump threatened that he was going to destroy all of Iran's power plants. Iranian people themselves, they took their children, wives, fathers, mothers, they created human chains to protect these facilities. So, you know, you look and say you don't see anti-government demonstrations in Iran. What you see is anti-war demonstrations in Iran. Now, that doesn't mean that in the future anti-government demonstrations will not come back, but at this point in time, you know, January is not defining Iranian politics at this moment.

主持人: Iranian politics.

Vali Nasr: Exactly. So in your book, The Dispensable Nation, you actually warned about the heavy prize of American strategic retreat from the Middle East. You know, some analysts like Zbigniew Brzezinski historically warned a China, Russia, Iran alliance. Looking back, did American strategic contraction actually pave the way for this perfect adversarial coalition? And do you think is American currently really paying a price for its past retreat?

Vali Nasr: Well, yes. I mean, the past retreat had a different kind of a price to it and different implications. But the current war is actually very different because this is a moment where it looks like America's coming back to the Middle East. But America also tackled an issue where it has come up short, right? It sets itself to destroy a country that it thought was weak. He thought it would be a few weeks war, and now it has proven that it is not capable of defeating Iran. Not easily. It has destroyed the economies of the Gulf countries. It proved that it cannot defend them militarily. All of America's bases in the region have been heavily damaged. And so globally, the United States has basically reduced its own international stature. So as the United States, I mean, the president has already cancelled his trip to China once. It's open to question whether he will go on May 21st. And if he does, under what circumstances? But definitely the way in which the world thought the balance of power between United States and China was shaping up before the Iran war is now very, very different. America is now a wounded giant, and it's not wounded by another superpower. It's wounded by a middle-level power.

主持人: Do you think like given like you mentioned a lot of US bases in the Middle East particularly those Gulf countries got really severely damaged. I saw there's a new article come out from the New York Times and also US hasn't show any willingness to really defend it when it's in a dire situation US actually pull all it resource to defend Israel and do you think this actually substantially show US has lost the dominance in the Middle East and all the traditional US allies like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries are actively seeking new protectors.

Vali Nasr: Well, yes. I mean, there are two things here. One is that the United States, you know, for over four decades there has been this assumption that the United States is providing a security umbrella to the Gulf countries much like it does to Europeans under NATO, for instance, or it now wants to do in Asia under the Quad and all of that. And even though there are times when it didn't really come through like when in 2020 Iran attacked Saudi oil fields, the United States didn't come through, but now it is very clear that this four-decade-long American strategic umbrella has collapsed because the United States created all of these bases to defend the Gulf countries against Iran, and all of those bases are heavily damaged, and he was not able to protect them against Iran. Now not only say oil facilities being hit, which you can repair, but the damage to the fundamental Gulf economy is not easily reversible. In other words, all those companies, data centers, technology companies, banks, people who were moving to the Gulf believing that the Gulf is absolutely risk-free and secure now have realized that it is not risk-free and secure. So, they want to take their money out. They don't want their people there. They don't want to invest if they think war is returning. So, the entire picture for the Gulf of creating a post-oil economy around services industry and technology industry and tourism, trade, Europeans, Asians, the old people moving to those countries, that's all gone. And so, the United States started the war and was not able to either win the war quickly or to protect the region from the consequences of the war. So, it's actually United States following Israel's advice became the bigger threat to the Middle East than the Iranian threat was. Now, so yeah, the currently the rhetoric has not caught up with this reality. I mean the Arab governments are furious at Iran. They're angry. But when the dust settles, Iran was always an enemy to them. That hasn't changed, and okay, it's now more dangerous. The problem is that they had a theory about how they would defend themselves with the United States, and that theory has collapsed. And I think despite all the talk that we will double down on our relations with the US, we will rebuild the bases. In reality, at a deeper level, there is a great deal of doubt about the value of the same old containment strategy. I think the US base become a liability now because US could attack Iran again and then those base will become obvious target.

Vali Nasr: Exactly. And so, in a way we don't know which direction the future would go, but so we have a lot of talk about we're just going to go back to where we were in the Gulf, but I'm not sure that's going to be the case.

主持人: Yeah. If the current wars and heavy sanctions against Iran persist, do you foresee this accelerating a long-term global trend of ddollarization in the energy trade because Iran is already using some Chinese RMB or crypto to trade oils.

Vali Nasr: I mean for some period in time there's been incentive to ddollarize. I mean even if countries like China, Russia, other global south countries looked at Iran, Venezuela, and saw how the United States uses the dollar as a way of pushing countries through sanctions and putting them under very strict pressure to get them to do things. You would say they would have had an incentive to find an alternative. I think that incentive has grown, but there is not as yet a real availability of an alternative. You know, there's no other currency that can take over because there's no other currency that is as available and as liquid and as readily transactionable. Right. Yes. Iran can buy sell its oil for Renminbi, but beyond the point it still needs dollars. Yes. And also the Renminbi is not as available for if every country wanted to do the same thing as Iran. Right. Yes. In other words, it's not easy for Iran to give Renminbi to Congo and then Congo give Renminbi to Brazil and then Brazil give the Renminbi to Colombia.

主持人: Yeah. The infrastructure is not ready yet. Yeah.

Vali Nasr: Right. The infrastructure and the availability is not there. And so yes, everybody is desirous of an alternative, but there is no real alternative. And cryptocurrency provides some single transaction options but not a systemic option.

主持人: So how do you think this Iran and US war will reshape the geopolitics in the Middle East because you see UAE just left the OPEC and they need a swap line from US. A lot of those Gulf country they used to be really rich with all the surplus but now this seems are running into the economic crisis because of this current blockade.

Vali Nasr: I think everything about the Middle East has changed. In other words, the Middle East operated under the assumption that most of it was under some kind of an American security architecture. That security architecture has collapsed, and so different countries are going to react to that differently. There are countries that are going to try to expand their zone of influence. Iran is one, Israel is one, Turkey is one. There are those that feel that with lesser American presence and America's inability to assert its strategic will, that they are going to lose ground, and it's true of most of the Gulf countries. So countries are going to be looking for an alternative. The alternative is not very clear. We may have more conflicts. I mean the UAE leaving OPEC and now becoming a threat to Saudi Arabia may eventually lead a conflict between those two countries. Correct. I mean and then, you know, it actually may give Saudi Arabia and Iran a reason to collaborate and cooperate. In many ways you could say the GCC is over. The fact that there's a group of countries all oil rich, all in the Persian Gulf, who have a common interest against Iran is no longer there. GCC is now more like an address like saying Southeast Asia. But it doesn't really strategically mean anything. I mean the positions of Oman and UAE are diametrically apart. The UAE-Saudi conflict is now intensifying, and maybe for Saudi Arabia it may overshadow the Iranian threat because the level of Iranian threat to Saudi Arabia is real, but UAE is actually going after Saudi Arabia's fundamental bread and butter, which is oil revenue. Or that UAE may invite Israel to a greater extent into the Gulf, which will not be welcomed by Iran or by even some other GCC countries. And so the picture is becoming more and more complicated, and there will be new conflicts that need to be settled. There are old conflicts that will have to be settled in a different way. There is possibility of more wars within the region itself, and so we're going to go through a period of difficulty before a substitute can be found to the order that existed before this war.

主持人: Mhm. So there's a narrative circulating in US, you know, this is a best chance if US and Israel don't strike Iran now they will never have a chance again. Do you think this closing window argument hold any strategic logic or just pure propaganda from the Israel government?

Vali Nasr: Well, they did it twice. I think they believed in it. They did it twice and they failed. In June, they thought that they could bring down the Islamic Republic if they killed some 30 Revolutionary Guard commanders, tried to kill its leaders, encourage the population to rise up. They only needed the United States in June 2025 to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities because the US has the most powerful bombs that can penetrate hard bunkers. But Iran didn't fall. And then in February, Israel decided that it actually needs the United States from the very beginning. And the two of them jointly, the two most powerful, if you want, air forces and offensive weapons in the offensive capabilities in the Middle East went to war with Iran and they failed again. And so the window perhaps was never there. The window was perhaps imaginary that this notion that Iran was so weak that it was about to fall and all he needed to do is to go to war. You could say cynically that Israel always knew this but used this argument to get the United States to support war. Or you might say that Israel also made the mistake just like the Americans of overreading into Iran's weakness. But I think that window is already closed.

主持人: Maybe that window never maybe that window never exist like just from your description.

Vali Nasr: That's right. That's right. That window never existed. Now, United States has the military capability to destroy many countries completely, but it comes at a cost. It comes at a cost of owning the day after or having to put troops on the ground. So, the war that the United States and Israel signed up to was that you could topple the Islamic Republic from the air. And it hasn't happened.

主持人: So many of my viewer actually puzzled by the US decision making process right because you know US has a brilliant diplomat minds like yourself and other like really experienced diplomat and strategic thinkers yet many decisions in this government like assassination during negotiation or appears very erratic and not well thought through. So you have served at the highest level. How do you see the rational analysis getting distorted by the domestic politics before it's reaching the president? Or do you think the Israel lobby just has such a impact on the current administration that all the conventional strategic mind they got kicked sidelines? They they actually their voice not really get heard by the president.

Vali Nasr: Well, I think also we're dealing with a very peculiar American administration, in the sense that President Trump does not really rely on the institutions and the capabilities of the US government to analyze intelligence and provide advice, and that the decision making also really does not engage the various institutions and the experts in those institutions, State Department, Pentagon, CIA. It's a decision process that is highly centralized in him as himself and the group of people around him who are also detached and divorced from American institutions. People like Steven Witkov, Jared Kushner, you know, a lot of the billionaires that are around him.

主持人: I don't really think those people are qualified to do the job.

Vali Nasr: They're not qualified, but also they don't try to reach out to experts. So even those people who are secretaries like they run cabinet positions in the US administration are more focused on being next to the president at the White House all day than being in their own agencies. I mean we have a secretary of state that is never at his ministry roughly.

主持人: Yes. Yes, national security advisor or so in a way, you know, you have a highly personalized decision making that is very centered on whatever information the president gets from whatever source which is usually not coming from bottom up within the administration, is coming from his courtiers and the kinds of people who have access to him, and so it is not like other administrations.

主持人: I don't know if you read the article coming out of the New York Times like describing the decision process. They have very detailed description about what happened during the meeting President Trump and the Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and all the other top cabinet members. I think from my perspective the CIA head and also Marco Rubio they are fully aware of about the current decisions like what it could lead to it could lead to current mess but they didn't put their political capital on the line to try to stop the president.

Vali Nasr: Well that also goes to the peculiarity of this administration, highly personalized. It's like you're dealing with an emperor.

主持人: Why do you think the current Congress didn't do anything to try to stop this war? Because I saw there are already two vote and both vote failed. Even I think the Democrat didn't use this opportunity to really put some restriction on the president.

Vali Nasr: Well, the Democrats could not fundamentally. I mean some of them may be driven also by the same political influence that supports the war and they have in the past supported the Iraq War or other wars as well. But by and large the Republican party which is right now dominant in both Senate and the House is so intimidated and dominated by President Trump that on no issue domestic or foreign policy, it actually challenges President Trump. And so and that goes to the fact that President Trump is able to decide which congressman can get elected, the Republican congressman can get elected or not. And so long as he has that kind of a control over the voters then, you know, congressmen who want to stay congressmen are not going to cross him and congressmen who want to cross him are not going to get elected again. And so he's having a kind of domination over Congress that is very unique.

主持人: I think this upcoming midterm will be a really test of that influence. If Thomas Massie can win against the candidate President Trump endorsed, that would be a really big signal to all the other Congressmen or Congresswoman.

Vali Nasr: No, I agree with you. But you know that that decision is months away, November. And so, there are very few Congressmen right now want to hold the president accountable until we get to that point.

主持人: Do you think Iran given the current IRGC and basically the security need they're going to pursue a nuclear bomb in the near term?

Vali Nasr: There are voices in Iran who say that Iran's nuclear doctrine of the past 20 years was a mistake. Iran either should not have pursued this path or should have just gone for the bomb because all they did of this having a program that is open to inspection but the world doesn't trust it. All it did is to bring Iran war and sanctions. But I think if they there is an argument that, you know, Iran needs a nuclear deterrence if it doesn't want to be attacked every six months. But the problem with that is that it's not easy for Iran to get to enough number of nuclear warheads that actually can provide a deterrent. So that might be three, four years, five years away, but those five years can be very dangerous to Iran. In other words, it is found out that it's doing anything, it could end up in a bigger war again, very costly war. And so it is not a straightforward decision that we should do this.

主持人: Yeah. And also it give US legitimacy to really invading Iran to really get rid of those nuclear bombs. Right. Like right now the war doesn't have any domestic support.

Vali Nasr: Exactly. Because there's no credible intelligence showing that Iranian government is pursuing a nuclear bomb. But if that really happens, it will be much easier to sell to the US public, just like the Iraq WMD situation.

主持人: Very true. Very true.

Vali Nasr: Yeah, exactly.

主持人: So, what do you think could be the pragmatic endgame for this US and Iran conflict?

Vali Nasr: I mean, the most pragmatic endgame is a deal to end the war. That would be a cessation of hostilities. That would also include a nuclear element that would remove the reason for the United States to have to worry about Iran and would give Iran enough economic incentives to want to protect a deal as well. It will be less than what President Trump was hoping for, but trying to, you know, get what he wants is actually far more costly and dangerous to the United States and to the world. And so, I mean, I still think that the best scenario is a diplomatic end to the war.

主持人: Do you think that's achievable given the current situation? Two side like you know hardliners are all in control.

Vali Nasr: Well, I mean, I think even if we go back to the conflict, the two sides still will have to think about a negotiated settlement. An unending war can escalate into bigger, uglier, more damaging phases for both sides. And anytime you're in a war, the alternative to fighting is talking. There's no third way. Unless the United States basically just says in the middle of the fight says, "You know, I'm going home. I'm not fighting anymore," which is not a very good outcome. But I think at even if the two sides are not ready right now, even if they went back to fighting, at that point in time, again, the exit would have to be through negotiations.

主持人: Mhm. So, do you think what if President Trump just say, "Hey, we're not going to resume the bombing Iran infrastructure and we're not going back to, you know, invade Iran, but the blockade will still be in place and we just leave. We just leave a blockade there forever."

Vali Nasr: The Iranians will not agree to that. I mean, they will challenge the blockade and essentially then the US either has to lift the blockade or go to war. I mean, you know, in these kinds of things, you don't have the you're not the only one with a vote. The other side also has a vote.

主持人: What if a president just say, "Hey, we're lifting the blockade. We declare victory and we just left. We pull American completely out of this Middle East and let Israel fight this war, right?"

Vali Nasr: Then you then you're going to have a very different then basically the countries of the region have to figure out how they put an order back together.

主持人: Yeah. You basically lost all the GCC allies.

Vali Nasr: Countries may some of them may want to ally with Israel. Some of the other ones may say we have to sit down with Iran and negotiate. There will be a bigger role for other actors like Russia or China because end of the day the only countries that both the GCC countries and the Iranians trust at the same time is China and the role that let's say China played in the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia a few years ago. So, you know, with the United States out of the way it's like you create a giant vacuum and once you create a vacuum, you know, air rushes into it and ultimately we don't know what the shape of the order would be but there's always going to be a post-American order in the Middle East. It's not going to be just this order.

主持人: Do you think, you know, Israel clearly have very different strategic endgame compared to US? Right. So I think Benjamin Netanyahu want Iran to become a failed state and they can do what they did to Gaza which is like bombing Iran every few months and they they call it mowing the grass. What do you think the current Israel's influence on the US politics can sustain? Like you know there's already rising populism among the left and the right in US against the Israel influence like against the AIPAC.

Vali Nasr: So I don't know, I mean we have to see in the next elections how this plays out and how important it is actually for the voters. But the reality of it is that where we're standing right now, Israel's geo, you know, strategic game plan for the Middle East has failed. And Israel has sort of reached the limits of what it can do with Iran, at least with open military conflict. And so once the dust settles, Israel also will have to go back to the drawing board and re-examine, you know, how is he going to manage Iran? How is he going to manage the neighborhood? The assumptions that Israel had between the October 7 attack and today that is militarily so powerful that it can settle everything militarily is no longer working. So yes, it can keep influencing the US. But this card of using America to go to war with Iran was already played and it didn't work. You're not going to be able to play the same card twice, right? So they would have to have a different end game. And I don't know what it would be, but it doesn't mean that their issues with Iran are going to go away. It just that means that the assumptions and strategy that they have followed in the recent past would have to be evaluated because they didn't work.

主持人: Mhm. Do you think, I mean I saw Professor Robert P say Iran is going to coming out of this conflict as the force power in the global stage. Do you agree with that judgment? Do you think that's...

Vali Nasr: I think that's overstating it, that has kind of a statement that has shock value. I mean I would put it lesser. I would say yes. Iran has come out of this war battered, damaged but also having won certain important strategic victories. Now the key question for Iran to become any power of any sort is can it translate those strategic victories into something solid. In other words, that's still not determined. And so Iranians have performed well in this war. They have surprised the US. They have frustrated the US. But I don't think they have emerged as a global power. That's putting it too strongly.

主持人: Yeah. I also watched your presentation a months ago. You basically say that a lot of people's view on Iran as you know those bureaucratic government is not accurate. The Iranian IRGC is actually a militant control government that's really have a deep concern about its own sovereignty and security.

Vali Nasr: If we thought about IRGC, let's say historically, its origins is closer to, let's say, PLA. You know, it's a military force that came out of a revolution and its origins it supported the ideology of that revolution. But when it's matured, it has actually become a professional military force. Its politics in Iran may be nationalistic. They may still talk about religion, but end of the day, these are military men. Their day job is military. And what we can see is that the decision making in this war with missiles, with psychological operations, with information warfare, their tactics, basically built on military professionalism, and ultimately the way they're ruling over Iran or they would rule over Iran is not that different, let's say, with the way in which Russia is ruled today. And Russia is still ruled by the same security forces that existed under the Soviet Union. I mean Putin was old KGB. The same KGB exist in the form of FSP and GRU. And you cannot look at these people and say they're communists, right? They're not. In a way, you could say their politics is nationalistic, it's right-wing, it's undemocratic. You could say all of those things, but you actually have to think that they're these are not people who are driven by ideology. Yeah. They're driven by nationalism and in their mode of behavior they are legal rational. They're technocratic, bureaucratic, right? And so this war has shown that it is a mistake to think of Iran as just a religious ayatollahs reading religious texts and that you're dealing with a sophisticated military machine that is able to perform at this level exactly because it is run on the basis of certain legal rational mechanisms.

主持人: Mhm. So, so given your description, given the opportunity like what China had open and reform, do you think Iranians IRGC can do the same?

Vali Nasr: Well, you know, following the China path for a very long time has been a big debate in Iran and even debate among Iran watchers in the West that perhaps there is a moment where, let's say, when you would have had the same kind of a period in China under Hu Yaobang, that you had the Gang of Four, but you also gradually had Deng Xiaoping, and China ultimately made the decision that the Communist Party would evolve in the direction that it did. Yeah. Right. But the difference and no two cases are the same. I mean there's a lot of similarities historically between China and Iran. But ultimately they're two very different countries, two very different revolutions. Where it's different between Iran and China is that when China was thinking about this transformation, it was not entangled in the kind of security issue that Iran has with Israel and the US. In other words, the transition in China came at a time of peace. Yeah. In fact, it came after China and the United States at least had an initial meeting when Nixon went to China to essentially at least create a certain direction with the US although it would take many for normalization. It wouldn't come until the Carter presidency. But nevertheless, that happened. And then China was thinking about its future. Debating between Gang of Four and Deng Xiaoping was happening not under the gun, not under bombs falling from the sky. Yeah. But in an open environment. The second difference between the two countries is that at the time when Nixon went to China, that's as early as 1977, China had begun to look at the Soviet Union as a mortal military threat to China. Exactly. Which made the United States a lesser threat, and therefore there was a strategic common ground that allowed Kissinger to go to China and meet with Zhou Enlai and meet with Mao and to have a strategic conversation that whatever differences we have, the fact that we fought in the Korea War, the fact that we have a lot of bad blood between us is now superseded by the fact that we both are facing the common enemy. That kind of situation doesn't exist with Iran. Iran does not have a kind of land threat that China perceived in the Soviet Union in 1971 that would force the Iranian leaders to rethink their hostility towards America. In fact, the other way around, America has become itself the biggest threat to Iran. Yeah. Previously, this was only an ideological threat. It was a threat in the imagination of Iran's revolutionary leaders. Now it has become an actual threat.

主持人: Well, very good. Thank you so much for this opportunity to speak with you.

Vali Nasr: Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time here.

主持人: Not at all. Hopefully, we'll do it again.