How long will the war on Iran last and who will win it? | Trita Parsi | UNAPOLOGETIC

Three, two, one. Hi, good day and welcome to another episode of Unapologetic. Um, today it's day 10 of the war against Iran and I'm speaking to Trita Pari.

Trita, welcome to the show. >> Thank you so much for having me. >> Uh, Trita is one of the commentators you may have seen making lots of commentary about the war at the moment.

Um, he knows a lot about Iran. He works at the Quincy Institute. Um, so far Trittita in this war, 1300 people in Iran have been killed that we know of.

uh almost 300 people in Lebanon or more than that have been killed. Half a million people in Lebanon have been displaced. Uh probably thousands of people in Tehran, a city of 9 million people have also fled their homes and elsewhere in Iran.

Um we've seen deselination plants been struck in Bahrain and in Iran itself. Uh Iran has attacked almost all the Gulf countries. Um it's attacked Jordan.

It's attacked Israel. It's attacked as far as Azarjan and South Turkey. Um the war doesn't seem to end.

Uh the US has made more than a thousand strikes on Iran. Uh Israel has participated in some of those strikes and been completely independent in others. We've seen schools being hit.

Um you know the situation. Is this war going to end anytime soon? >> Not anytime soon.

I fear we are in a situation in which Trump lost control over the war very quickly. He thought that this was going to be no more than a couple of days. He told regional leaders this would last no more than four days.

He thought that this was slightly more than Venezuela. Now we're in his ninth or 10th day. It's clear he doesn't know how to end this war.

He has lost control. He's improvising his strategy. Uh this took about 5 months to reach this point in the Iraq war as a point of comparison in the sense that the Iraq war went according to plan for the first five or so months.

On the other hand, you have a situation in which the Iranians are not going to agree to end this war until they believe that they have achieved some of their objectives. A premature ceasefire from their standpoint would only allow the United States to regroup, remobilize, and relaunch the war with Israel in a couple of months, just as they did after the ceasefire in June of last year. They believe that they need to inflict so much damage on not just the US, on Israel, but also on the entire global economy so that everyone will conclude that this war was a mistake.

It should never have been started and as a result, it should also not be restarted. Otherwise, any end of the war will only give Iran a short rest bite before they start getting pummeled again. >> Okay.

So I mean one of the important developments actually happened last night. Um actually on day one of the war Ali Khmeni the previous supreme leader was killed and last night Muchi his son was elected uh you know to be the supreme leader of Iran. Now um there's a few questions I want to ask but just initially just what's your response to to to him taking over and do you think Iran's going to change in any substantial direction or just double down given that the son of Kamei is now in charge?

I think the first thing we should recognize that very few of us on the outside have any idea what's going on in the assembly of experts and what the reasoning and calculations have been. It's extremely opaque. Uh much of the information that has been out there is probably misinformation or just pure speculation.

But I think it is fair to interpret the decision to give it to his son as a sign of tremendous defiance. That they have chosen him precisely because of the fact that Trump said that he is unacceptable. That they chosen him to signal that they are in no consiliary mode mood right now and that they will not back down.

They will not surrender. They just chose someone to be the supreme leader who lost his father, his mother, his wife, and his child in an Israeli bombing. That is hardly a a a signal of consil reconciliation.

Moreover, I think it's important to recognize that there's a high likelihood that he would not have become the supreme leader had it not been for the bombing and the killing of his father. I think frankly the outright opposition to him by Trump played in his favor because the Iranians were so adamant to show that they will go with someone uh to show that they want to defy the United States uh and the the more Trump said that Mushab is unacceptable the more he tended to lean in his direction. >> Okay.

Now I mean I think everyone in the region's really you know on edge. Um the oil price is now over $100 $100. It was earlier this evening it was about $125.

It may go a lot more and that's going to impact the entire global economy. Um I mean you've said and it's clear that you know the IRGC and and the the the council of leaders seem to be doubling down. Um we know that Netanyahu is not going to you know he's also going to double down.

He's been he's been trying to get America to bomb Iran for 20 years. Um he obviously I mean I think all of us who who see this channel a lot and see a lot of your analysis agree that he wants to see the degradation of the Iranian state um along with lots of the degradation of the region. Trump obviously is getting getting pulled into this now this contest of two egos but Trump has his own ego.

Obviously um the thing about Trump's ego is he's good at manufacturing it and and mal it's malleable and he can kind of sell it to the American public. Um but you were saying that Trump was hoping you know to end this war in about 4 days. The previous one was 12 days.

The Iranians obviously went sort of preempted this. They don't want to be, you know, sitting ducks like like what Hamas was in Gaza for for a long time and just allow the Israelis and Americans to come and mow their lawn. So, they decided to to retaliate.

Um, that's my reading of it. And now, you know, the war is getting out of control. How can this be reigned in?

I mean, who it seems like there's there's there's there's there's hard egos on all sides and the person with the most ability to end it is Trump, who has his own, you know, non-geeopolitical but very personal ego. So, how does how does this get reigned in? >> I think what you're saying is true, but I think it's also important to recognize that for the Iranians, this is existential.

Both the Israelis and the American side have made it absolutely clear that they seek to get rid of the regime. For Trump, it is about his ego. Now that's not to say that ego doesn't play a role in the Iranian side either, but I think there's a significant difference there which also then suggests who ultimately will have most will in the struggle of wills because for one side it's about their existence for the other side.

It's about their ego and their track record. Getting out of this is going to be very difficult. Now, as you pointed out, Trump could just declare victory.

He could say that he's killed the supreme leader. He's set back the Iranian program. He has taken out a lot of the missiles and Iran has been set back 10 years.

This is what he's already said and it can declare victory and just move on. I don't think however that will be acceptable to the Iranians. I think there's a likelihood that they will continue to strike even after that because they don't want to be in a situation after this war in which they're dramatically far worse off than they were before because their country will be largely destroyed.

their ability to sell oil will be significantly diminished. Their prospects for sanctions relief will have been eliminated. That actually puts them in a dramatically worse position.

So I think they actually have an incentive on their end to continue fighting until they get a pathway that is not just out of the war but out of the economic misery that they have been put in. Whether it is some form of a deal in which they get significant sanctions relief, they may get nuclear concessions, but something that hints at some pathway out of the very dire situation Iran has been. Because if they just accept an end to the war and sanctions continue, but this time around they don't even have the ability to sell oil any longer and the country is destroyed and they can't rebuild it, they can't refinance it, then they're in a much much worse situation.

And that will again likely lead to them getting bombed 6 months from now because of their weakness. Remember, Trump and the Israelis have kept on saying that the the key factor of them bombing Iran was not that Iran was an imminent threat. it was that Iran wasn't an imminent threat.

The fact that Iran was much weaker really fuel the temptation to strike it. If the Iranians have no prospects after this this war ends to actually strengthen themselves, they think they will just be get be getting bombed soon again. So I think the incentive structure on the Iranian side is not to end this war right away in order to just get rid of the immediate pain, but to end it in such a way that they will not get bombed again.

Okay, that I mean that makes a lot of sense, but I mean do do you see the other side accepting that? Do you see the Americans, you know, with the Israelis always trying to convince the Americans of of of not doing, you know, trying to make life better for for the Iranians. So, do you see do you see any sort of pathway to that?

>> I do not see the Israelis at all voluntarily accepting this. There's no doubt about that. I think you're quite right about that.

Whether the US would do it or not, I think is a rather different story. Would they want to do it? Absolutely not.

But there's also voices inside of the US who said who say that it can't just end the war without getting some sort of arrangement on the nuclear program. If they still have the 60% enriched uranium, they have every incentive at this point to go for a nuclear weapon. So just ending the war by declaration is also not acceptable to some people on the American side.

They need more and in that there may be an arrangement that can be struck but it will be extremely difficult and of course given how the Iranians have uh been betrayed at the negotiating table already twice in less than one year. It is undoubtedly going to be extremely difficult. But this is part of the reason why this war should not have been started in the first place.

The very critical question, how does this end? Was never really thoroughly asked before Trump started it. >> Okay.

Okay. Now, there's two things I want to kind of start bringing into the conversation. The one is obviously the the Gulf States, the Arab states.

Um, you know, there was a lot of fractures between Saudi Arabia and the UAE. I mean, in realistically, the UAE and the region for other regions, not just related to Iran, about Sudan and everything else. And that's kind of impacted their response to this.

But obviously, I'm guessing all the Gulf the Gulf nations now even the UAE are trying to to convince the Americans to stop this as soon as possible. Um, you know, do you think they're going to succeed? Because for them, they've got all to lose.

Iran is striking them. They obviously don't want to. They reluctantly uh obviously they're defending themselves, but they're reluctant to, you know, escalate this by by attacking Iran directly, but they can't just sit there and and see, you know, I mean, obviously it's US bases that's being attacked, but it's also the oil refineries.

It's also key infrastructure for them for tourism. Um, are they going to be able to, you know, convince the Americans? >> The GCC states are in a terrible situation.

Many of them worked very hard to prevent this war, yet they're still getting bombed. Uh, so you can definitely understand the fury and the anger that they have at Iran for doing so, but also at the United States for putting them in this situation, mindful of the fact that they warned the United States that this would happen. So I think they're quite unhappy with everyone right now, but probably mostly of course with Irvan because Iran is striking them.

But I think the way this is also going is one way in which the Iranians are aiming to destroy as much of these bases as possible in order to ensure that in the post-war situation they actually won't be rebuilt and that there won't even be a desire on the side of the GCC necessarily to rebuild them because these bases were supposed to provide them with security. Iran was supposed to not be able to attack them because of these u bases. the fact that it attacked them would have been in spite of these bases but in reality it turned out that is attacking them because of these bases.

Now from their standpoint can they put that pressure on the United States? I do think that the combination of collapsing oil markets GCC states pressuring both Iran and the United States to come to an end to this uh as well as pressure from other states who will start feeling the pain of this as well. We saw that Ivan today apparently even shot a missile at American base in Turkey which really I think is quite surprising.

It I did not believe that the I believe the Iranians will do everything they can to avoid any tensions with Turkey at this point. But all of this I think also suggests that there might be another path in which the UAE uh the GCC states altogether because they have one critical thing that the Iranians are really in need of which is financing that the the GCC states may come in and want to be the guarantor of a peace put pressure on both sides to end this but also then offer the financing required for the rebuilding of Iran. Uh which then requires the lifting of sanctions from the United States.

this may be a card that they have in which they can play which is not just putting pressure on the US to stop it but also incentivizing the Iranians to stop it by saying that they're now willing to do something Iran has asked them for some time but they have not been in a position to do because of US sanctions but as a result of a pathway towards ending the war those sanctions may be lifted in order to enable not just the rebuilding of Iran but the ending of the war that would pave the path for that rebuilding >> okay so I mean that's that's the one thing that that I want to discuss the other thing is and I mean We'll we'll we'll come back to that um because it's kind of tangental to a few other things. But the other thing is we we saw a few days ago that Trump mentioned that you know they're going to look at arming militias, Kurdish militias, you know, in the northwestern part of of the country. Um I'm guessing that that you know Netanyahu has been thinking about that for a long time and he he heard that with a lot of glee.

You know, he may have been the one to suggested to the US a long time ago as well. um two things even if the GCC managed to do that say they I mean which I think at this moment is is is quite a stretch but let's just say you know I mean the global economy is important and many many stakeholders can start putting pressure on this uh do you see sort of that operation that happening you know covertly do you see Israel's attempt to continue to convince the CIA to start stoking militia activity in Iran to kind of degradate the state um in addition to Israel just randomly you know once every 3 months taking a few strikes, which honestly they've been doing anyway. They've been doing for the last 2 years, they've been taking strikes at Iranian assets outside of Iran and in Iran, right?

So, so what's going to stop this, you know, the the Israelis, uh, from kind of acting with American, you know, pseudo cover to both do direct strikes on random targets in Iran, um, and then also, you know, starts try to start stoking a sort of a civil war or the degradation of the state. bear in mind that after this conflict, you know, Iran's security is going to be jeopardized and, you know, not as strong as it was before the conflict. >> No, I think uh that is a fair assessment and I think that United States may already now and also after this war try to use these different type of levers to destabilize Iran and weaken the government in this war scenario.

I think it's important to understand that using the Kurds or any other ethnic group will really also have a counter effect of um uh mobilizing much of the rest of the country against the United States. The narrative that the government has been advancing, which is that this is not an attack on just the regime, it's an attack on all of Iran. When Trump says that Iran's map may not look the same as it does after the war, that is not just about changing the regime now.

It's about changing Iran's territorial integrity. That really works in the favor of the regime and people are rallying around the flag. Uh particularly also when he's talking about arming Kurdish militias.

Now he's now said that he's not thinking about that any longer, but who knows? seems to be changing his mind all the time because at the end of the day he's lost control of this war and he's improvising at this point. >> Okay.

Now coming back to the the point about the GCC. Now the GCC obviously will try what they can to to to deescalate the war and I do think they'll succeed superficially at some point. It may be two weeks from now.

It may be 3 months from now. But I do think they may they may superficially succeed. Superficially meaning that you know Trump agrees that yes there be reigning in.

But but you know there may still be operations going on as we just discussed. Um but the thing is you know what what leverage do they have? What what leverage does GC have and how would they want to start rethinking their relationship?

You mentioned that you know their relationship with the US now will be more tenuous because the bases that they put there so they can be protected. That didn't work out. They're obviously going to be very angry.

They already probably are very angry with Israel not just for Iran but what it's done in Gaza. But but this now actually puts them it almost makes it existential for them. Do they have levers in terms of Russia and China or other levers that they could kind of start pulling to you know to in the long term try to try to forge a new path so that you know the the Americans and the Israelis can give them you know can actually respect their wishes a bit more unlike they have in this last two years.

>> I do think that the GCC actually does have a tremendous amount of leverage at the end of the day. They are very very significant investors in the American economy. They also have a lot of business dealings with the Trump family itself, but they've already seen that they have started to hint that this is something that they may play on, that they may actually use uh some of these levers that they have to pressure Trump.

And I also think that this is going to cause a rethink about security in the region altogether afterwards. Again, as I mentioned, these bases were supposed to provide them with security. Not only did it not do so, but they're also seeing and openly complaining that the United States is doing much more to protect Israel and using what far more assets to shoot down missiles going towards Israel than they are in terms of missiles that are going towards GCC territory or drones that are going toward their territory.

So, they're seeing that they're not a priority for the United States. Israel is the priority. So, why should they continue to put all of their eggs in that American basket?

Why should they continue to have an approach towards security in which they think they have to balance Iran rather than reintegrate with Iran? Uh and of course this is going to be very difficult mindful of what Iran has done as well. But I think the entire fundamentals of their security thinking has been put under question by this war.

>> Okay. Now just turning a bit to to you know the pressure that can be applied to Trump inside of America. Uh the MAGA base is kind of split on this.

Trump ran on a platform of not going to war. Um I think he he he in his in his own mind thought that he could do a bunch of wars which they are quick victories not even wars like you know sort of victories. So he went and you know he captured Maduro.

He's been threatening Greenland. Um his previous assaults on Iran were shortlived and I thought he you know he probably like a maverick thought that this is how he can go about solving wars or out invest with deep American investment. Um at the same time there's figures on on on the right inside of MAGA.

Tucker Carlson is probably most prominent among them who are really kind of you know applying pressure now on Israel talking about how the state has been captured or the foreign policy at least has been captured by Israel talking openly about how this is you know going against some of the the MAGA fundamentals. Um do you think that's that's going to be like longlasting? Do you think that's a big shift or do you think that, you know, Trump Trump sees other polling and and he's convinced that Mara actually wants this and he's going to be able to win the the battle for the right in the USA, especially because he can still lean on Islamophobia in terms of of dealing with Iran?

>> No, I think that we have crossed the Rubicon on this. Israel's influence in the United States is going to be waning. The question is how fast.

But there is a generational shift both on the left and on the right that not just are um skeptical of Israel at this point, but they're outright opposed to Israel and they're outright opposed to the USIsraeli relationship in which their view both on the left and on the right the Israelis have far much influence in the United States and have been a key factor pushing the United States into various wars. If there was any speculation about that before, whether that was a theory before, at this point it is an established fact in the minds of a lot of people that are under 40 years old in the United States, whether on the right or whether on the left within MAGA. Frankly, those viewpoints are even stronger than they are on the left.

The left has shifted in this direction in the last 20 years. uh MAGA has shifted in this direction in the last couple of years, but with a pace and a speed that has really taken a lot of people by surprise. In their view, Israel is pushing the United States uh aggressively into all of these different uh foreign policy adventures.

And from their view, any one of these adventures is a distraction from what they think was the critical thing Trump needed to do in terms of the border, in terms of fentinel and all of these different domestic crisis. Anything that takes attention away from that in their view uh is a major major problem and no one no country is doing it more so than Israel and no leader is doing so more than Netanyahu. Now, Trump, I think, understands this, but he's been showing some polls that seem very questionable, uh, that suggest that he has strong support in his base, and he's been referencing those.

I think he understands that the situation is much worse. He is now desperately trying to turn this defeat into a victory by throwing everything he can at Iran in the hope that he will be able to turn the table on the Iranians before his base start actually organizing against this war. At this point, the base is skeptical of the war.

Some elements within it are outright opposed to it, but we're not seeing a lot of public pressure on the White House. his calculation is that he needs to end this war, win this war before that pressure actually starts to become organized against him. >> Okay.

I mean, let's just talk a bit about China, right? So, so there's been an argument in in in in the State Department for almost the turn of the century that, you know, the US should not be focusing on wars in the Middle East. They should be moving out.

It should be focusing on China. China is the real you know competitor to America in terms of economy, in terms of military. It's it's, you know, by many measures it has a stronger economy than the US now.

not all measures but by some measures. Um now you know China also does rely on Iran for a lot of its oil. Um you know if if the if the Americans succeed in in you know in in in degradating degrading the Iranian state and and ensuring that that relationship where China gets oil from Iran you know they will they will you know indirectly sort of you know impact China in some way.

Um do you do you buy that narrative or do you think you know that this is this is no this is more more more more bad news for America. Um or do you think there's some way? >> Yeah, from the standpoint that this someway somehow would be a defeat for the Chinese, I think this is at this point a disastrous development for the United States.

It's the US is getting dragged far deeper into the Middle East. Once again, um it doesn't have a plan for an exit. It doesn't have an operational uh guidance on how to actually manage this war.

Uh so I think this is disastrous for them. The Chinese are very closely monitoring the war. They have ships that is collecting intelligence on a daily basis in the Persian Gulf.

And they are studying how the United States conducts war. Uh and they're also studying how the Iranians have managed to use their weakness to their advantage in this war. Not to say that the Iranians are winning, but again, this war should have been over by now if American planning actually had any uh relationship with reality.

Moreover, I think from the Chinese standpoint, I think there was always a viewpoint here in Washington that if the regime really was close to falling at that moment, perhaps the Chinese and the Russians would step in and try to save it, mindful of the fact that the collapse of the regime probably would be seen quite negatively in Beijing and Moscow. I think there's a different reality. I think the reality is actually that the Chinese and the Russians are more inclined to support Iran now when they see that the Iranians are fighting back.

they're inflicting a cost on the United States and that they are very likely to survive the war. But if you invest now in the Iranians, you actually get more bang for the buck because you're not saving them. You're getting a return on your investment because of the manner that this war is now weakening the United States.

So I actually think that as this war goes on uh and the Iranians are not folding and they're inflicting a cost on the US, it actually increases the likelihood that the support that they already are given from China and Beijing, which probably at this point is mostly intelligence may actually increase. >> Okay, let's assume the war goes on for six more months. What what do you think that type of aid from from China would China and Russia would be?

Well, at that point, if this is going on that long, it will probably be uh measures beyond intelligence in which uh u the Chinese would be providing um both military and non-military material for the Iranians to be able to sustain themselves. The Iranians are going to be in a very tough position if this goes on for 6 months. There's no doubt about that.

The United States is going to be in a terrible position as well. Obviously, the US is a massive country. It's a superpower.

you're not going to have the same type of a problem for the US. But politically, it will almost become existential for Trump if this goes on for six months. The fact that he's party would be going to the polls in November, having started an endless war, a war that was supposed to last four years, but is lasting six months and at a moment in which his base was already starting to get lukewarm because he was not focusing on the domestic issues that they wanted.

He was promising to be a peace pro president, but instead he's now started a completely unnecessary war that has turned into an endless war. This will be a disaster. And part of the reason why this really should be worrying Trump, of course, is that if this leads to that disaster in which the Democrats take both the House and the Senate from the Republicans, then the Democrats are very likely to pursue impeachment of Trump once more.

And that is clearly not something that he wants to see. >> Teriy, thank you so much for your time. It's been it's been good listening from you and best of luck with everything you're doing.

>> You too. Thank you so much. >> Thank you.

Bye-bye.