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Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's The Scott Horton Show.
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All right, next up on the show today is Trita Parsi, a founder and, I don't know, chair or president or one of those of the National Iranian American Council, which is NIACouncil.org.
Welcome back to the show, Trita.
How are you?
Thanks for having me again, Scott.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
I'm sorry I screwed up your title there.
You're the what exactly?
I'm the co-founder and current president.
Co-founder and current president.
Very good.
And you guys do great work.
I really hope that people will look up your site and read a lot of what you guys write, because it's very important stuff on the Iran issue.
It's NIACouncil.org again.
And now this new thing, I'm sorry I have not had a chance to read the whole report, but I read your introduction to it at least.
Never give in and never give up.
That's a quote.
The impact of sanctions on Iran's nuclear calculations.
And you say in here a few things, but I want to start with the end.
You have a quote here from one of your co-authors that says, ultimately, capitulation to Western pressure is viewed by the Iranian regime as a greater threat to its survival than even a military confrontation with the United States.
Please explain.
Well, what we're pointing out here in the report, and I think one of the things that's very important to understand, this report is based on a large number of interviews inside of Iran with both decision makers, officials, but also stakeholders in the Iranian system, meaning people who have an ability to influence the decisions of the government.
And part of the reason why we're doing this is because at the end of the day, we've seen a tremendous amount of pain inflicted on the Iranian economy.
And I think that pain has been greater than many people even expected, some of the sanctions proponent expected.
But what we have not seen is that the Iranian government would be shifting its policy.
Their nuclear policy remains the same.
In fact, they are escalated in some ways.
And in the negotiations, they have adopted a very, very tough negotiating position, which does not at all give the impression that the pain of the sanctions have softened them or anything of that sort.
So we decided to investigate exactly what's the impact of sanctions on the decision making, and why is it that it hasn't softened it.
And one of the things we noticed then inside Iran, based on these interviews, which we have cross-referenced and also sought to verify through public sources and open sources, is that A, Khamenei understands that he is running an increasingly unpopular regime.
He has lost a tremendous amount of support and lost several important constituencies over the course of the last couple of years, particularly after the 2009 election.
And what that has done is that it has left him in a situation in which the few constituencies that are left supporting him have become all the more important.
And those constituencies are strict adherents to his narrative, a narrative that says that the U.S. actually is out to get Iran, to destroy Iran, to defeat Iran.
It's not about the nuclear issue.
The U.S. and the West simply does not want Iran to progress, to have access to technology, and to live up to its full potential.
And as a result, the minute Iran gives in to pressure, the pressure will be doubled.
It will not lead to an alleviation of sanctions.
Instead, it will be a fast track towards Iran's defeat.
Since his constituency really buys into his narrative, it has kind of locked him into a corner.
If he were to capitulate or do something that would be perceived by that constituency as a betrayal of his narrative and his commitment to stand firm, then he will likely lose those constituents.
And if he loses those constituents, that's a greater threat in his mind to the existence and survival of his regime than even war with the United States.
Not because the Iranians believe that they can win that war, but because they believe they can survive that war.
And that's an important point, because it means that this blind pressure approach has a higher likelihood, as we have said in the past on numerous occasions, has a higher likelihood of leading to confrontation than to a resolution of this issue.
Well, now, I know you guys don't see eye to eye on everything, but do you agree with the leverage that what it's going to take is kind of a golden offer, Nixon goes to China kind of broad-based deal, where first we decide we're friends, then we decide we'll work out all these outstanding issues?
Because there's so many outstanding issues that, and there's so many interested parties, they'll always seize on one issue or another to undermine any progress that they actually even can make.
Like, for example, mandating, right?
There's no, like, Obama, even if he wanted to, which I'm not so sure, even if he wanted to, he could not go against the basic premise of having this dual track, where on one hand, we beat him over the head with these sanctions all day, and on the other hand, we try to offer them a little bit of a deal.
He would have to break from that in a huge way to break from it at all, I guess, would be the way they would put it.
Something like that?
What do you think?
I think there's a need for a break.
I disagree with leverage in their, first of all, on their analysis of what's happening inside of Iran, but also when it comes to the idea that there's only one way of breaking, and that is to do exactly what Nixon did when he went to China.
I don't think, I think there's more than one way of taking care of this, but a central part of it is that at the end of the day, both leaders on both sides need to muster the political courage, take on the forces inside their countries that prefer to status quo, and push forward with a tremendous amount of investment of political capital.
Now, whether it takes place in the route that the levers have argued, or whether it takes place in a different route, I think there's different possibilities.
I disagree with the leverage that there has to be some sort of a complete embrace of the Islamic Republic.
I don't think that's in the cards, to be frank with you.
I think that it is possible, in fact, perhaps the most likely possibility is to return to the relationship that existed before 2003, which was still a pretty hostile relationship, but it was not on the verge of war, and it wasn't on the verge of putting the entire region on fire.
I think that's the best likely scenario in the short term, and then in the long term, there's other things that can be done.
And by that, do you mean basically just resolving the nuclear issue and getting that out of the way?
Is that what you mean?
It's a little bit more than just a nuclear issue, but I think it's important to realize that the nuclear issue is the reason as to why the two countries cannot have the normal enmity that they had before, that it's put a clock on that enmity and is risking to bring it into full-out war.
I think it's important to stop that clock, bring the two parties a couple of steps away from the abyss, and then later on be able to further address these issues.
That's not to say that it wouldn't be great if something bigger could be done.
I personally don't think that that's very likely, because frankly, I disagree on this notion that there actually is a desire on both sides to have a fundamentally different relationship.
I don't see the Islamic Republic wanting to have a partnership with the United States, and I certainly don't see any desire for partnership in Washington with the Islamic Republic.
But just because that desire doesn't exist doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a war.
There should be things that we can do to prevent that.
Sure.
Yeah, well, and the thing is, too, is even if they don't like each other, and even if they have domestic political reasons for, you know, where it seems beneficial for them to stay hawkish, those things can change, too, right?
Like if Obama, if he had, if he decided that what he really wanted to do was drop the sanctions and say, look, in fact, here's even a security guarantee.
We won't bomb you.
Now come to the table.
Let's work out a thing where you adopt the additional protocol again or something like that.
Then they would, domestic politics, even in Iran, would insist that they would have to, you know, do something like that, right?
And go along with that if he really meant it.
In our report, what we're getting from the interviews and talking particularly to the stakeholders, not people from the regime, but people around the regime that can influence it, is that they have not seen any incentives for them to go and press the government for a different policy.
Why?
Because they have not seen anything be put on the table by the United States that they found attractive.
This is not the regime not finding it attractive.
It's other people not finding it attractive.
So it has to be kind of a consensus, right, for them to move forward in a beneficial way.
At a minimum, there has to be a situation in which harmonies narrative is broken, in which there is an opportunity for others to come and say, look, no, if we give something, there is something to be gotten.
And it actually would bring about a better future.
Right now, there are people who want to believe that that's the case, but they don't see anything on the table that will give them the courage to make that argument, which then means that we have managed to put a lot of pressure and inflict a lot of pain on the Iranian economy and on Iranian constituents.
But we have not been able to direct it in such a way that it actually leads to what we want to see.
Instead, it's just blind pain, punishing a bunch of people who don't have much of a say in this.
And those who actually could have a say in this don't see an incentive for them to change their position because we're not offering anything.
At least that's how they perceive it.
Okay.
And now I'm sorry to switch from big picture back to to narrow a question like this.
But could you tell us real quickly, give us a few examples of what you mean about they've actually even expanded their progress with nuclear technology in response to the sanctions rather than scaling them back in any way.
If we take a look at the report, I think it's on page 27, we have graphed the progress of the Iranian nuclear program, measured by the number of centrifuges they have, the kilos of low enriched uranium that they have, the new centrifuge that they've adapted and installed, and as well as the kilos of enriched uranium at the 20% level.
On all except one of these variables, you see a pretty straight line shooting up, meaning that it doesn't matter what type of sanctions we have put in, it's not affected the trajectory of the program.
In fact, if anything, it is slightly upward bending, meaning that there's more escalation in it, it's accelerating at a small angle.
And we've under that graph, all the new sanctions that have been adapted, and you know, and those are also quite escalate for you.
So we see an escalation game in which both sides are trying to get some edge by constantly escalating.
And there's a significant danger to that, because there's a limit to how long the two sides can escalate and how many escalatory options they have before they're actually standing right on the verge of war.
Yeah, well, now, do you hold out any hope that maybe the failures so far are really just a diplomatic dance that they have to have 10 meetings before they finally have a real productive one, but that maybe they mean to?
Well, to be frank with you, that's not an uncommon scenario, which is a tremendous amount of tremendous amount of negotiations, etc, before you see a break.
That's actually what we should be expecting, you know, a 33 year old enmity and tension is not going to be resolved over the course of three or four meetings.
I think we've seen some positive signs in the last couple of rounds in the last two rounds.
In all maturity, the US actually put some sanctions relief on the table.
It didn't seem to impress the Iranians because it was somewhat limited.
But nevertheless, it's a big step because it means that we're kind of moving away from just thinking that we're going to move the Iranians by issuing more threats against them.
But rather, we actually have to issue some promises.
And I think it's going to be important to see how the Iranians reciprocate that I think it's going to be critical that they reciprocate that that's going to be um, both sides have to tango in order for there to be a real dance.
So I think there's some points of promise.
There's also some points of quite intense concern, one of them being the fact that Congress is playing a very different game, Congress seems to believe that they should just add more and more and more and more sanctions.
And I'm very concerned about that, because if they play that game, they're going to undermine any progress that can be made in the negotiation.
All right, and then one last thing, I'm already keeping you over time, if I can get just a minute, could you give us a word about the effect of the sanctions on the civilian population of Iran?
Oh, it's been absolutely devastating.
We're talking about 50% of the oil income being gone, the currency has dropped about 60 to 70%.
So we're talking about a huge hit to the standard of living.
And obviously, it's always the most vulnerable in society to take the biggest hit.
So it's children and women that are suffering the most, including people who are already in hospitals, because one of the consequences of this, the sanctions is that the Iranians cannot buy medicine, not because sanctions are medicine, but medicine is sanctioned, but because financial transactions are sanctioned.
And as a result, banks are not handling the financial transactions of medicine purchases, etc.
And people are dying at the hospital from, you know, quite simple diseases, but they just don't have the medicine for it.
Yeah, it's really too bad.
All right.
Well, I'll let you go.
But I really appreciate your time, Trita, as always.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
My pleasure.
All right.
Talk to you again soon.
That is Trita Parsi.
He is co-founder and current president of the National Iranian American Council.
Find their new report, Never Give In and Never Give Up, The Impact of Sanctions on Iran's Nuclear Calculations at NIACouncil.org, NIACouncil.org.to expose and oppose our government's most destructive policies, but they can't do it without you.
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