Tensions remain high in the Persian Gulf as the U.S. and Iran exchanged fire late last week, calling into question whether an already fragile ceasefire still holds. Meanwhile, President Trump called Tehran’s response to an American proposal to end hostilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz “totally unacceptable.” We’ll talk about the latest diplomatic efforts, the risk of escalation and the impact of the war in the region and at home.
Guests:
Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft; author, "Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy;" former president, National Iranian American Council
Joshua Keating, senior correspondent, Vox
This partial transcript was computer-generated. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.
Mina Kim: From KQED, welcome to Forum. I’m Mina Kim.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Meet the Press Sunday that the Trump administration would be open to pausing the federal gas tax to give Americans relief from surging prices, though the savings would still leave gas prices higher than before the war in Iran. Meantime, experts predict only weeks before the global energy crunch turns catastrophic.
Yet prospects for a negotiated end to the war remain dim, as President Trump yesterday called Iran’s response to the U.S. proposal to end the war “totally unacceptable.” And on the show Full Measure, Trump undercut his administration’s messaging last week that combat operations were over.
Full Measure (clip): So is it accurate to say you think the combat operations are over and done?
Donald Trump (clip): I didn’t say that. I said they are defeated, but that doesn’t mean they’re done. We could go in for two more weeks and do every single target. We have certain targets that we wanted to hit, and we’ve done probably seventy percent of them, but we have other targets that we could conceivably hit.
Mina Kim: Joining me now for reaction and analysis is Trita Parsi, cofounder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Trita, welcome to Forum.
Trita Parsi: Thank you so much for having me.
Mina Kim: I guess the mixed messaging from Trump should come as no surprise, given that shifting messaging has been a feature of this war since it began in late February, as you’ve pointed out.
Trita Parsi: Yes. I think this is part and parcel of how Trump tends to do things. But the question really is, at this point, is it part of a strategy, or is it just him being in his regular mode without much deeper thinking or calculation behind it?
If it is the latter, it certainly has succeeded in confusing everyone. Frankly, if you’re not confused, it just means you’re not paying attention.
Mina Kim: Before we evaluate Iran’s response, given all of this mixed messaging, I think it’s important to remind our listeners what the U.S. has actually asked for in its one-page interim peace proposal. Can you help us?
Trita Parsi: First, we have to recognize there are a lot of different versions of these proposals floating around, reported by various media outlets, but often rejected both by the U.S. and the Iranian side. So we have to be careful about taking any of them fully at face value.
What I can tell you, based on conversations with decision-makers, is that at the very core of the American proposal is a desire to get the entire stockpile of Iran’s sixty-percent enriched uranium shipped out of the country, along with a moratorium — although I don’t think the Iranians would accept that framing — but essentially a stop to Iranian enrichment activities for ideally twenty years.
The U.S. can come down on that. The Iranians initially offered three to five years. It seems the Iranians can go up, so it appears some sort of compromise can be found on that issue.
The stockpile issue is much trickier. In return — and this is important to understand — Trump is willing to offer far more sanctions relief than any previous American president because sanctions themselves are not particularly important to him. He’s not pro-sanctions in the sense that he tends to view sanctions as punishing American companies.
Now whether he’s willing to offer enough for the Iranians to agree to ship out the enriched uranium, or whether that issue is nonnegotiable for the Iranians, remains to be seen. It wasn’t nonnegotiable in the past. They shipped out ninety-eight percent of their stockpile under the JCPOA.
At this point, though, it’s really coming down to those two issues. That doesn’t mean everything else is resolved, but there appears to be more flexibility on the other questions.
Mina Kim: Interesting. So what have we learned about how Iran responded that made it so “totally unacceptable” in Trump’s eyes?
Trita Parsi: The U.S. side — and I’ll avoid relying solely on what Trump himself is saying — seems a bit surprised by the Iranian response, partly because they don’t quite understand exactly what the Iranians are proposing.
It seems the Iranian response added more ambiguity rather than specificity to earlier conversations. The Iranians, meanwhile, appear to have been under the impression that the U.S. actually wanted things to remain somewhat ambiguous because that would enable both sides to spin the outcome in the way they preferred.
There seems to be, frankly, a failure to communicate properly between the two sides that may be at the root of this latest round of challenges. It again reinforces the tremendous importance of mediators when you have two countries that have not been on speaking terms for such a long time and have such deep mistrust of each other.
That mistrust has deepened dramatically during the Trump era because, at least from the Iranian perspective, Trump bombed Iran twice during negotiations. From the U.S. side, there’s frustration with the Iranian negotiating strategy and a tendency to assume the Iranians are merely trying to waste time, which occasionally may be true, but not always.
Under those circumstances, you need facilitators and mediators who can speak more openly and frankly with both sides and help explain these misunderstandings.
We’ve seen this in the past as well. The U.S. has never succeeded in reaching a significant deal with Iran without the help of mediators and facilitators.
Mina Kim: Media reports say Iran’s demands include U.S. war reparations, recognition of its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, and an end to American sanctions. But you think there was a significant move on Iran’s part in the documents, based on reporting by The Wall Street Journal, that got lost. What was that?
Trita Parsi: Again, if some of this reporting is accurate — and I mean specifically the reporting in The Wall Street Journal — then at least the element concerning the moratorium appears credible.
I don’t think there is sufficient appreciation on the American side for why it is such a big deal for the Iranians to agree to stop enriching uranium for a period of time, especially a long period.
Back in 2003, the Europeans — the E3: France, Germany, and the U.K. — intervened because they were terrified the United States would launch another war after Iraq and invade Iran. They tried to find a middle ground and succeeded in getting the Iranians to voluntarily suspend enrichment.
Without Iran enriching uranium, the casus belli for the United States was dramatically reduced, if not eliminated. But the suspension was tied to negotiations continuing toward a final agreement. As long as talks continued, Iran had to keep enrichment suspended.
This incentivized the Europeans to drag out the talks as long as possible because they had already achieved their main goal: preventing war by stopping enrichment. A final solution that permitted some enrichment was, in some ways, less attractive than the interim arrangement.
The Iranians eventually felt trapped. By August 2005, they restarted enrichment. By early 2006, Iran was referred to the U.N. Security Council, and that marked the beginning of major U.N. sanctions against the country.
As a result, any pause, suspension, or moratorium on enrichment is viewed by the Iranians as a trap because restarting enrichment later comes at such a high political and economic cost.
Nevertheless, they now appear willing to accept somewhere between five and twelve years. That’s a very significant concession given how they interpret the experience of the last twenty years.
I’m not sure the U.S. fully appreciates how large a shift that is because under the JCPOA there was no moratorium. Iran continued enriching uranium throughout the agreement, albeit at very low levels and under strict restrictions.
The reason Iran never agreed to a full pause under the JCPOA was precisely because of what happened between 2003 and 2005.
Mina Kim: I see. So you’re saying that if the Wall Street Journal reporting is correct, Iran has offered not to enrich uranium for somewhere between five and twelve years, and that’s a much bigger concession than it may appear on the surface.
At the same time, though, Iran’s semi-official news agency has suggested that reporting isn’t accurate. And you’ve also been pointing to how difficult communication has been through mediators.
So based on all of that, how close do you think the parties are to reaching some kind of negotiated agreement?
Trita Parsi: It does not appear that they are particularly close right now. It also appears there is a growing line of thinking on both the Iranian and American sides that perhaps another round of fighting is necessary before both sides show greater flexibility and actually reach a deal.
Mina Kim: And where are you seeing that sentiment?
Trita Parsi: Both in discussions coming out of Iran and in conversations here in Washington. I don’t think either side necessarily sees it as desirable, but they’re at an impasse.
There has been progress — and that’s important to understand. Progress has been made on several issues. But they remain stuck on these final variables. A lack of patience, along with the amount of prestige both sides have invested in this process, is pushing people toward the belief that perhaps another, possibly more limited, round of military exchange is necessary before there can be greater flexibility.
Mina Kim: We’re talking about the status of the U.S. war in Iran, especially as both the United States and Iran appear far apart on any negotiated agreement or ultimate resolution.
We’re joined by Trita Parsi, cofounder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an expert on U.S.-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign policy, and Middle East geopolitics. He is also the author of Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy.
Listeners, what questions do you have about the status of the war in Iran and how it could resolve? How has it felt to watch this administration conduct this war? And how are you feeling the impacts of it?
You can email forum@kqed.org, find us on Discord, BlueSky, Facebook, or Instagram, or call us at 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786.
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