The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Marc Steiner:

Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us. We are on the verge of a war with Iran, a war that could unleash a conflict that can lead to a wider war in the region and have devastating effects on the world economy. Egypt, Qatar, Turkey have been trying to pull DC and to Iran back from the brink. And Israel is ready to pounce and Iran prepared for a war to defend itself. And joining us today is one of the leading experts and analysts about Iran. Trita Parsi, who is co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He’s also the founder and former president of the National Iranian American Council, whose family opposed to Shah and then was forced to flee Iran for opposing the Islamic government. He’s the author of numerous books, including Treacherous Alliance, The Secret Dealings of Israel-Iran and the United States, and losing an enemy, Obama, Iran, and the triumph of diplomacy.

So Trita, welcome. It’s good to see you again. Appreciate you taking the time with us.

Trita Parsi:

Great to see you all.

Marc Steiner:

Let me start out with kind of a dumb question first. Just how close do you see the possibility of an engagement with Iran? I mean, clearly you have a President of the United States who wants it for his own ego reasons, and this has been brewing for a long time. The situation Iran inside is volatile as well. So let me just get you a sense of where you think we really are.

Trita Parsi:

First, I think what you just said there is correct. We are not faced with a situation in which his advisors are the driving force for this war. We’re in a situation in which Trump himself has been convinced, primarily by the Israeli prime minister, to go down this route. He’s been convinced to a large extent, I believe, because the Israelis have sold him the idea that the Iranians are much weaker than they actually are. And that with a relatively small push, he can become the president that finally defeats Iran militarily gets rid of the regime, whatever you fill in the blanks, but something that is just historic and is the type of things that excites Trump. He’s constantly wanting to outperform everyone else and get the biggest, baddest type of a reputation. And as a result, it is different from earlier scenarios in which you had a split White House and which half the advisors were pushing him in this direction.

Others were not, and he himself was kind of reluctant. And then he kind of does a half measure. Frankly, that is what happened past June, in which he did something that was not the full scope of what the Hawks wanted, but it wasn’t the full scope of not getting involved at all, which the non-Hawks wanted. This time around, he’s the one who’s actually constantly pushing and wanting to things get done. Part of the reason why the delay is happening is because the Pentagon keeps on telling him, “We don’t have enough assets. This is going to be more difficult.” And instead of that, getting Trump to think through this a little bit more carefully and back off, it’s actually prompting him to say, “Okay, that’s fine. Just get more assets in. Just get more assets in. ” Because we’ve been sitting in this situation now for almost a month and a half, in which constantly we hear that the attack may happen.

And then we hear, “Well, actually, no, he’s going to bring another carrier in. He’s going to do another thing.” I do think that we are now likely reaching a decision point based on what the Iranian offer is going to be like. The Iranians did hand it over earlier to the Omanis. The Imanis are conveying it to the US. My understanding is that the White House is currently looking at it, whether it will have an impact on his thinking, all remains to be seen. We’ve seen that in the past, he greenlit an attack right before another round of negotiations. This is what happened in June.

So I suspect that the Iranians are probably preparing themselves for every scenario, a scenario in which perhaps the Thursday meeting is another decoy and that the attack will come earlier. But I think a big reason as to why he is admittedly frustrated, according to Steve Witkoff, is that he doesn’t understand why the Iranians have not capitulated yet. And the only reason that he expects them to capitulate is because he’s been sold a narrative that says that they are much weaker than they actually are. And as a result, that feeds into him putting forward maximalist positions that are unrealistic and also rejecting Iranian proposals that are actually very attractive to the US. It just happens to be that they’re not that attractive to him because he’s under the false belief that he can get something even better.

Marc Steiner:

And what do you mean by attractive? What do you think?

Trita Parsi:

Attractive in the sense that on the nuclear file, they’re actually offering him a deal that goes way beyond what the Obama administration got. More restrictions when it comes to the enrichment, it would go below the levels that they’re currently doing or that the Obama deal allow them to do much smaller stockpile, perhaps not a stockpile at all, potentially a consortium so that Iranians are actually not enriching on their own. They’re doing it in conjunction with other countries, all kinds of things that he objectively could go out and say, “This is a much better deal than what Obama got.” But those deals are not still as good as this fantasy surrender deal that he has been led to believe is achievable.

Marc Steiner:

And I think that seems to be the issue. I mean, ever since the Ayatollah and the revolution that took over Iran, the United States has been obsessed with getting rid of them. And I think that this has as much to do in some ways with the Israeli conflict with the Arab world and Iran’s part in that is the fact that Israel was pushing Trump into the possibility of war with Iran. They won Iran out of the way.

Trita Parsi:

They do. And getting Iran out of the way incidentally does not necessarily mean regime change.

More effectively, it would be regime collapse, meaning you actually don’t bother to change the regime. You just bother to take out the existing one. And then if you have chaos, vacuum, civil war following, that’s totally fine. It consumes Iran’s power internally, prevents it from being able to project power regionally, and ultimately takes Iran off of the geopolitical chessboard of the region in the same manner that the invasion of Iraq did with Saddam Hussein’s regime. I mean, there’s an honesty in what John Bolton says when he says, “I think Iraq war was successful,” because his objective was never democratization or any of that stuff. He just wanted to eliminate Iraq as a geopolitical player. And as such a player, it would be a challenge to Israel and to the United States. And for the next two, three decades, Iraq is going to continue to remain a weak state that will not be able to challenge Israel’s designs for regional hegemony in any way, shape, or form.

And this would be the ideal outcome for the Israelis as well. And in fact, if it leads to secessionist movements, the Kurds, the Baluchis, the Azaris, for instance, that would frankly be an added plus from the Israeli perspective. They are completely insulated from the refugee flows and the instability that would happen in the region in case of that type of a war and civil war. In fact, they had a civil war in Syria, none of those refugees fled to Israel. They fled everywhere else. But if you have that type of a secessionist movement, if it’s not successful in the sense that you don’t have a Kurdish state, that’s still fine because it will embroil Iraq and Turkey, very importantly, Turkey, into a major problem for another two decades, which is exactly what would be desirable for the Israelis now that they are increasingly seeing Turkey as their next challenge.

And if it turns out that it’s successful and you actually have a car of a Kurtis state, even better, that state would be very dependent on Israel and would be most likely a close ally

Marc Steiner:

Of the Israelis. So you’re painting a very interesting scenario on different one that most people are talking about. I think that the idea of an internal collapse of Iran and what that would mean geopolitically in the region, but also for the strength of the United States and in fact, our economic interests around oil and more that plays into all of that. So this is a different kind of chess game than most people talk about when it comes to Iran, United States. How close do you think we are to that point?

Trita Parsi:

Well, let me, one point of clarification. I think that is the Israeli interest. Not 100% sure that that is actually the perspective shared by the administration. I think we’ve seen in the past, at least, that the administration is quite sensitive to instability. They do not want to see that type of chaos for a variety of reasons, including refugee flows. We have seen that in the choices that they made in Venezuela, for instance. In the case of the Middle East, obviously those refugee flows do not affect the United States in the same manner that it affects regional states or Europe for that matter, but nevertheless, Trump is also particularly sensitive to the desires of some of the GCC states because of his own business dealings with them, et cetera, et cetera. And they are very concerned about the repercussions in the region and the instability that follows.

So I think we have a divergence of interest between Israel and the United States on this crucial point.

Marc Steiner:

Even if there’s a difference here, the destabilization of Iran, like the destabilization of Iraq, changes the political and military dynamic inside the Middle East completely, and allows for greater control of the oil coming through Hermus and more to the West. I mean, these are some of the factors people don’t talk about that are part of this almost insidious chess game being played. And I’m not saying this because I have any love for the Iranian regime, which is absolutely oppressive, but this is part of the game. Destabilize the region, we keep the oil flowing, it helps our profits, and we stay in control.

Trita Parsi:

Well, the thing is though, I think it’s quite clear to the planners on the US side that there is no such thing as destabilizing the regime without there also being a significant destabilization of the oil markets. It is not that difficult for the Iranians to close down the strait of hormones today compared to what it was 25 years ago. 25 years ago, the manner in which they would’ve done this would by mining the region, mining the waters, and it would take the US military a week or two to debine it and eventually would open up again. Today, if they were to do it, they would do it in the same manner that the Houthis did, which is that they would shoot rockets at the ships going through. And the benefit of that strategy for the Iranians in that scenario would be that they don’t actually have to hit the ships.

As long as rockets are being shot at the ships, no ships will go through because the insurance costs will be too high, the risk would be too high. So you’d effectively close that trade and that is 40% of the world’s oil by simply shooting at them, you don’t even have to hit the ships. So the ability for the Iranians to close off the strait, I think is much easier than it was 25 years ago. Secondly, they have clearly very, very effective missiles and their short range missiles are even more effective than the long-range missiles that did hit Israel in June, and they could use that to destroy a large number of oil facilities in the region in case their own facilities are being attacked or in case that they’re in an existential situation. There is no way the United States with its own reserves, et cetera, would be able to do enough to protect the global oil markets in that type of a scenario, which means that old prices would skyrocket, which means that there would be inflation in the United States.

And this goes to the very core of what likely is the Iranian strategy in case of the war. They understand they cannot win that war militarily, but what they can do is that they make sure that they don’t lose the war before they have first destroyed or gotten very close to destroying Trump’s presidency and essentially bet on that in order to make sure that if they can last for eight or so weeks or whatever it would take, eventually Trump would back off. And that way, by not losing the war, they have won the war.

Marc Steiner:

So taking it back to the United States for a moment, given what you just said, what’s your analysis about why this kind of right-wing Trump administration in the United States is actually pushing it to the point to the Brink of War and into war, thinking they can actually do something in the Gulf, actually do something with Iran? I mean, what do you think is the dynamic inside of there?

Trita Parsi:

I think it goes back to what I said earlier on. Trump has been led to believe that this is easy, and then he foolishly did something he should not have done, which is that when Netanyahu came back to him in December of last year, December 29th, he accepted the premise of Netanyahu’s argument, that the missiles are still a challenge, that the nuclear program is still a challenge, and he managed to put the Iranian dostier back on the president’s desk and Trump agreed. He should never have done that. By agreeing to the premise, he put himself in a trajectory that eventually would lead to him having to make a choice between going to war or managing some way somehow to get a deal or something else. But the combination of him agreeing to that premise and at the same time buying the narrative that Ivanians are so weak has led to a scenario in which a deal is very difficult for him to accept because he has an unrealistic view of what that deal needs to achieve.

And then he has put himself on this trajectory of making all of these different threats and starting to talk about missiles and things of that nature that he for a very long time did not talk about at all. In fact, he never really said anything about missiles during the entire campaign. All that he said was that, “I just don’t want to have the Iranians get a nuclear weapon. That’s it. ” And that he wanted to make a deal. But we’ve seen several times that as soon as he accepts a premise of the Israeli argument, the negotiations crash and he’s back on a trajectory towards war. He was doing quite well in the negotiations last year in the spring until he decided that he adopted the Israeli red line of zero enrichment and then quite predictably swallowing that poison pill, that poison pill ruined the negotiations and eventually he took motory action.

And now he’s done the same thing by accepting the idea that the missiles are now suddenly another issue that the US has to deal with, even though those missiles are actually a threat to Israel, and they’re only a threat to Israel when Israel attacks Iran. We’ve not seen the Iranians shoot first at Israel with any of those missiles, but once Israel attacked Iran, obviously the Iranian responded. So if the problem is that they are a threat, well, the way of dealing with Afraid is not, don’t attack first, but that is not the Israeli doctrine. The Israeli doctrine is that they need to eliminate any capacity in any state in the region to be able to challenge Israel’s domination. Now, if that’s the strategy that the Israelis want to pursue, that’s up to them. But why should the United States underwrite that strategy, that strategy of domination, not strategy of security for the Israelis, with American weapons, with American taxpayer money, and potentially even with American lives?

Marc Steiner:

Let me explore this a little bit more with you. I think because you’ve mentioned this a number of times so far in our conversation, and I cover Israel-Palestine a lot in what’s happening there. And the Israeli factor in this is something people don’t talk about. I mean, it’s in Israel’s interest to destabilize Iran. And part of what you’re saying here is that destabilization is part of the strategy pushing what’s going on and why Trump wants to see it happen. To destabilize Iran like Iraq has been destabilized, then you can control more once you do that, once the government’s going to disarray. You think that is a thought-through strategy on the part of some of the people pushing this in DC?

Trita Parsi:

No, I think what they’re thinking is that either they will get the Iranians to capitulate by agreeing to a surrender deal or that if there would be a military strike, it would be something that would be more limited that would then ultimately force the Iranian government either to agree to that surrender after they have been bombed, or that it will be so problematic that other elements within that same regime would do some sort of a coup and take control. I don’t think the administration is looking for the chaos and instability that the Israelis are looking for.

Marc Steiner:

So I remember covering Iran when it fell apart, and the question always comes up, is that part of the disability in Iran has destabilized the Middle East and destabilized America’s ability to do what they want in terms of oil? So I’m curious how you think it plays out. I mean, let’s say A, America attacks, or B, it doesn’t whether it’s options, given what they’ve already done. And I think that we’re in a very precarious place, and I’d really like to know you’ve been covering this forever. What do you think the various scenarios are about how this plays out and what the effect will be?

Trita Parsi:

So again, it’s very difficult to know, but let me put it this way. I don’t believe that a limited strike scenario is going to play out the way the administration thinks or hopes that it would. They essentially hope that they can strike in a limited way. The Iranians do not respond or respond in a very polite manner, and then they go back to their negotiations and then the Iranians ultimately surrender. I don’t think that’s the way it will work out. Surrendering is worse for this regime at this point in its lifetime than war. War actually offers the Iranians from their standpoint, and they may be very wrong, but the war offers them an actual better chance of surviving than surrender. This is a theocratic system now that already has lost a tremendous amount of support. They didn’t have a tremendous amount of support to begin with, but it means that the remaining percentage of the population that still supports it have become not only more important, but it also tends to be the most fanatic and ideological elements of their previous support base.

And for them, any surrender is completely unacceptable. If they were to go down that route, they would jeopardize the few remaining percent of the population that actually supports them. So their ability to survive that in their assessment is lower than in a scenario in which there is a war, the United States bombs them, they will take huge hits, but they also have the ability to strike back. They’ve shown that in their attacks against Israel when Israel started that war with Iran, they have an ability to hit ships. They believe they have the ability for CERN to hit all installations in the region. They have the ability to hit softer targets in the region. They have the ability to expand the war along several different theories rather than allowing the United States or Israel to dictate where the war happens. And as a result, inflicts such damage on the Trump administration that he eventually backs off as he did with the Houthis.

And that prospect, even though it’s very, very costly, may not be great, they may be miscalculating, but nevertheless, their view is that it offers them a better chance at survival than capitalization. And this is where I think the administration is completely getting Iran’s self-perception wrong and is continuing to insist on something that they hope evades war, but actually increases the likelihood of war.

Marc Steiner:

Well, Ted Parsi, I want to thank you for joining us today for this time and with your kind of very concise analysis. Look forward to more. And I think that we are on a precipice here, a deeper one than most people realize when it comes to what this work could be. So thank you so very much for your work and thank you for joining us today. I really do appreciate it. Thank you.

Trita Parsi:

Thank you so much.

Marc Steiner:

I want to thank Trida Parsi for joining us today. And as we teeter on the edge of war, we’ll keep our eye on Iran and the Trumpet administration for all of you and for our future. And thanks to David Hebdon for running the program today, our audio editor, Stephen Frank, and producer Rosette Sowali for making it all work behind the scenes, and everyone here at The Real News for making this show possible. Please, let me know what you thought about what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at mss@therealnews.com, and I’ll get right back to you. Once again, thank you to Trita Parsi for being our guest today. So for the crew here at the Real News, I’m Mark Steiner. Stay involved, keep listening, and take care.