LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Let's bring in Trita Parsi now. He's an expert in U.S.-Iranian relations and the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. That's a think tank that supports U.S. military restraint worldwide. Good morning, Trita, and welcome back to the program.
TRITA PARSI: Good morning.
FADEL: So we're in the third day of this war, and it's engulfing the region. President Trump is now saying Iran wants to talk, an Iranian official says it absolutely does not. In your view, is there a diplomatic path out at this point of this war?
PARSI: At this point, I don't see it. At some point - hopefully, not too far away from now - there will be one. But at this point, it's very clear the Iranians do not seem to be willing to accept a ceasefire despite efforts by the Trump administration to see if they could secure one quickly. And part of the reason for this is that their belief is that unless this war ends in a manner in which the war also was costly for the U.S., then this will only be a temporary respite. The ceasefire will be used by the United States and Israel to regroup, remobilize and then relaunch a war again. As you remember, in June of last year, the Iranians did agree to a ceasefire after Israel had started bombing Iran. And here we are several months later, with the Israelis and the Americans bombing the country again. So the Iranian belief is that this can only end in a durable way if it has been costly for all sides. And so far, it hasn't been costly enough for the U.S. from the Iranian perspective.
FADEL: Is that because Iran's government believes that if they go to the table, their actual existence is in jeopardy, which is, in some ways, the stated goal of this president in the United States.
PARSI: There is no doubt that the theocracy in Iran now views this as an existential fight, and that's also part of the reason we see that they are expanding the war without much consideration of what this will do to Iran's relations with its neighbors after this war. Trump has spoken about this as an existential fight for the Iranians, and there's no reason for the theocracy to think otherwise at this point. And that's why we see them essentially go all out.
FADEL: Is there moves - I mean, you said about their alliances following this war. Is Iran's goal here to create such instability that U.S. allies will pressure the U.S. to stop the attacks? And is that backfiring because we're watching a lot of these countries condemn Iran?
PARSI: Their strategy is to inflict as much pain as possible on the U.S. And the only U.S. elements it can reach are the ones that are in these countries because of the U.S. bases there. The U.S. Navy is keeping itself at a pretty far distance from Iranian waters in order to make sure that the Iranians cannot reach them. But U.S. bases are right there in the Persian Gulf, and the Iranians are attacking those. To a certain extent, yes, they want these countries to put further pressure on the United States to stop this war. But also it's about, you know, destabilizing oil prices. It's about making sure that gas prices go up, inflation goes up, so that the cost for the American public increases to the point in which a very skeptical public - only 1 out of 5 Americans support this war - eventually will pressure Trump to stop this war.
FADEL: What do you make of President Trump attacking Iran while the U.S. was still engaged in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear capabilities?
PARSI: Well, it showed again that in the midst of negotiations, Trump is willing to start wars. But I think the most important thing here is that it was revealed by the Omani foreign minister, the person that the United States itself had tasked to mediate this conflict, that significant progress had been made at the negotiating table and that there was an offer on the table that was much stronger than what the Obama administration had managed to negotiate in which the Iranians would have zero stockpile of low-enriched uranium which makes it completely impossible for them to get a nuclear weapon. So Trump had the option of declaring victory. Instead, he chose to declare war.
FADEL: The administration says it wants Iranians to stand up a new democracy to, quote, "take over" the government. Do you see a scenario in which that plays out?
PARSI: Well, not in the short term that Trump had hoped for. I think the administration had really hoped that after the assassination of Khamenei, people would be pouring out to the streets and taking over government buildings and essentially doing a regime change or a regime collapse. But that is not what we saw. I think the administration hoped that this war would have been wrapped up by Sunday evening, so by the time the markets open on Monday morning, this would be over with. It does not appear to me that that is the likely way this is going to go forward, at least not for another week or two.
FADEL: Trita Parsi is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Thank you for your time.
PARSI: Thank you.
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