SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
U.S. and Iran continue negotiations over Iran's nuclear program and stockpile of missiles as the U.S. has positioned aircraft carriers, warships, fighter jets and more in the Middle East. While both sides have said the talks have been productive, what we see are escalating tensions, and, of course, so far, no agreement. Trita Parsi is co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and he joins us now. Thanks so much for being with us.
TRITA PARSI: Thank you for having me.
SIMON: Let's begin with these negotiations. Can you foresee Iran agreeing to give up its nuclear program and curtail its stockpile of ballistic missiles?
PARSI: I cannot. I can see scenarios in which they agree to significant curbs to their nuclear program, similar but perhaps way beyond what they agreed to in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that the Obama administration negotiated. But anything that demands a complete dismantlement of their civilian program - meaning that they can't even have enrichment, et cetera - we have seen no signs in the last 20 years that the Iranians ever would consider something like that. And part of the reason for that is that they believe that if they were to agree to that, the demands from the U.S. and the Israeli side will only grow, and there would be new demands on other things, including, as you mentioned, missiles that they also have refused to negotiate about so far. So for them, a concession on that is just an invitation for greater demands.
SIMON: What about the threat of attacks or actual limited attacks?
PARSI: So the administration apparently is considering the idea of doing limited attacks in the hope that that will cause the Iranians to cave at the negotiating table. I think that is a huge miscalculation because what is on the table for the Iranians right now is so unattractive. There's not even real sanctions relief offered, only the promise of no new sanctions. But the current level of sanctions are so strangulating the Iranian economy that the Iranians cannot continue to cope with this. They need to have real sanctions relief. And the only leverage they have to get the sanctions lifted is their nuclear program.
The idea that they would give that up just to keep the current level of strangulation makes no sense from their end. As a result, I fear that this strategy will not work. And rather than the administration thinking that small, limited attacks will not be responded to, the Iranian calculation will be that the only way that they can get out of this situation is to actually respond forcefully. And even though they obviously cannot win a war against the United States, the calculation appears to be that if they can inflict significant damage on the U.S., that that will - may cause the Trump administration to back off.
SIMON: Well, what's the feeling within the region? President Trump doesn't have a congressional mandate or popular support for attacking Iran, but what about within the region?
PARSI: This is extremely unpopular in the region, and several regional states have gone out of their way, beyond anything we've seen in the past, and tried to mediate a resolution to this and tried to avoid a war. And there's several different reasons for this. Any war they believe is not going to be neat. It's not going to be short, and it's not going to lead to an automatic, desirable result, but rather to chaos, to refugee flows, instability, potential civil war inside of Iran, a country of 90 million.
We've seen what that type of instability has done to the region when it happened in Iraq and when it happened in Syria. And these states are terrified of what this will do to the region as a whole. And that is beyond the fact that there could also be secessionist movements on Iran's border, such as the Kurds, such as the Baloch, who will then cause long-term problems for the regional countries, such as Turkey, for instance. Turkey is very concerned that this would lead to a scenario that would create major problems for Turkey, not just in the short run, but in the long run.
SIMON: President Trump has said that regime change in Iran would be, quote, "the best thing that could happen." Would that regime change be possible following an aerial bombing campaign?
PARSI: We have no example in history in which regime change has occurred as a result of an aerial bombing. It's just never happened before. And I think the administration itself has concluded that and that, at best, they may be able to cause something else, which is exactly what the region is concerned about, which is regime collapse, meaning that the state collapses, but there's no new regime that takes power. And in that scenario - and that is potentially achievable through an aerial campaign. But that is exactly what then leads to the nightmare scenario for the region, which is that that instability, that regime collapse inside of Iran will then spread throughout the region.
Refugee flow is in the millions, and incidentally, we saw what happened to the politics of Europe when millions of Syrians fled that civil war and went into Europe. Although, of course, the majority went into regional states. Iran is a country several times the size of Syria, and the impact politically, economically, will be devastating for the rest of the world.
SIMON: There are, of course, 90 million Iranians living with the consequences of everything going on now and in the future. What do you think they hope for through these negotiations and events ahead?
PARSI: I think the overwhelming majority of Iranians want to see this regime go. They are tired of it. It's been there for almost 50 years. Life has become more and more difficult in Iran. The economic situation has become absolutely terrible. They are in a state of absolute desperation. But I don't think it is a scenario in which the majority wishes there to be military action. There is a loud and small minority who wants that, and that's different from what we've had in the past. But ultimately, they want peace. They want stability, and they want to get these sanctions lifted.
SIMON: Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Thank you so much for joining us today. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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