Mm-hmm.

Um, when that document was signed and, and written, there was overwhelmingly, um, celebrations in the street of s- streets of Iran, um, a- and, and strong support among Iran's human rights and pro-democracy community because they realized by, you know, by removing the threat of external war, uh, internal conditions for struggling against the authoritarian regime would, would open.

And but when Trump came in, things went, you know, from bad to worse.

Um, that door was quickly shut.

Uh, Trump imposed crippling sanctions, largely at the behest of, you know, um, um, uh, pro-Israel supporters in the United States, largely because, you know, also because he was just very jealous of, of Barack Obama.

And then crippling sanctions were imposed in Trump's first term.

Um, the US and Iran almost went to war three times.

Nadar, I'm curious what you think about this idea of [clears throat] that, that the war could have produced regime change in Iran and, and then, and, and maybe if, if U- the US had gone along with this Israeli plan of trying to arm insurgents inside Iran.

But I'm wondering whether or not this is more about Trump's personality and after the elections, he'll feel free to go ahead and bomb the hell out of Iran.

Well, Ian, I'm hearing similar things, although your sources are much more solid than mine.

I'm just interpreting what I'm seeing on the ground and what I'm hearing from both sides.

For Donald Trump, everything is personal.

I think his policies, both domestically and internationally, are driven by his ego and by how he's perceived in the public domain.

All of this talk about his obsession with this ballroom at the White House, which seems to be something that he's much more interested in than solving domestic and international problems, speaks to the point that I'm making.

Recall just recently what Donald Trump said at the United Nations, where he threatened once again to obliterate Iran.

It's almost worthless.

But Can you just flesh out a little bit more about what you argue in that piece and what you feel like U.S. pressure on Iran, how does it relate to domestic movements against the very real repression of the regime?

Yeah, so what I was trying to argue in that piece in Foreign Affairs was to reflect upon the domestic consequences for the internal struggle for democracy in Iran that this war is producing.

And if you study the academic literature on democratic transitions, internal struggles for democracy, Scholars agree that there are a set of internal preconditions for democracy that overlap with a certain level of modernization, a certain level of education level, sizable middle class, the existence of an administrative state, a suitable political culture where most of the participants agree to the rules and procedures of democracy.

And I argued in my piece that if you go through all of those preconditions internally, most of them are actually in place in Iraq.

I listed sort of six internal preconditions.

Five of them are actually in place.

You know, this is a revolution that is 47 years old.

Who on the panel wants to take that one?

Is Tehran still using that pressure to get back to a deal or has prolonged confrontation become part of the strategy itself?

Well, it's both.

The official Iranian position is that they want to return to the June 17th Memorandum of Understanding that was signed between the United States and Iran.

And if you look at that document, Article 5 of the document, in fairly clear terms, explicitly says that Iran is supposed to manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The United States was not, even though they signed onto the document, I think they thought it meant something else.

There's different interpretations over the meaning of particularly that article.

And so that's the Iranian position.

How much influence can countries outside the immediate conflict actually exert on Washington and Tehran?

He led his final broadcast at the CTV National News desk in September 2011.

We have had the usual ups and downs of the news cycle, from natural disasters to royal weddings, and I am deeply grateful to the many of you who have stayed with us through it all.

In your estimation, who moves first then?

That's a great question.

Um, the one issue that's in the background here is the looming Israeli elections that are gonna happen in October.

Uh, Netanyahu has no chance of getting, uh, reelected if he's perceived to be soft on Hamas, uh, which is why since Trump made the announcement last week, um, close to three dozen Palestinians have been killed just in the last week, um, in Israeli attacks on Gaza.

That helps, um, uh, Netanyahu's reelection prospects.

So because of this election that's supposed to happen sometime in, let's say, October, um, I don't see the Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu, uh, making any concessions, um, uh, along the lines of respecting the terms of the ceasefire.

Do you think there is a world in which, you know, by accepting disarmament, Hamas is acknowledging that its strategy has failed?

Uh, that's a good question.

I've seen several interviews from Hamas, um, uh, spokespersons.

Um, in fact, there was an interview just yesterday with Piers Morgan where a leading Hamas, uh, uh, official was asked that precise question.

Like, "Hasn't your strategy failed? Look what's happened to you." Um, and he refused, of course, to concede the point.

But I think objectively speaking, you know, the Palestinians, um, um, their, their national movement, both the secular version and the religious, uh, as- uh, uh, aspect of that national movement, find themselves in very tough conditions.

One, they're [clears throat] dealing with a formidable adversary that's one of the largest military powers in the world, backed by the superpower, uh, the lone-- one of the remaining superpowers in the world, backed by the West.

Y- you know, i- is that tantamount to surrender, or do you think Hamas could still be strong enough to maintain its, its coercive power over Gaza in the future?

I guess what I'm saying, Nada, is that you've got crazies on both sides.

Yeah, the Iranian side is certainly unscrupulous.

I would interpret what's happening in Iran in a slightly different manner.

The end of time scenario that you hear sometimes coming out of the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a worldview that shapes national policy and security policy.

It's a line they feed to their most loyal and devout observers, which is a small percentage of the population to keep them on board.

This is very much a regime that wants to stay in political power because they're benefiting from a certain authoritarian system, and they don't want to give up power.

A regime doesn't last for 47 years if it's driven by irrational sort of end of time scenarios.

What is it that Iran might have up its sleeve if it's not just bluff?

So then what are the options on the table? I mean, what does this mean for countries that have ships waiting to pass through?

Well, those countries are, um, gonna have to keep those ships in place because there's an active war going on, and Donald Trump has just announced that he's, um, you know, putting a blockade on Iranian ports, and Iran is gonna, um, um, a- assert its control over the Strait of Hormuz.

So those countries that have ships are stuck until this war is resolved, and it's not just those countries that have ships in the, uh, Persian Gulf.

It's the entire global economy that hangs in the balance.

Um, the price of global oil is rising.

Um, uh, global inflation is increasing, and of course, the price is being paid by the poor and the vulnerable people on this planet, who are, um, um, gonna pay the immediate price, um, because of costs of energy.

Um, it'll be passed down to those consumers.

W- what d- what leverage do both sides have to keep this war going? And how much longer can we keep it going? How much longer can both sides sustain?

So is there any possibility of a compromise here?

I believe there is going to be a compromise, and it's going to be a compromise in Iran's favor.

Because the way this war ended, Iran was able to outlast not just the American and Israeli attempt at regime change, but when the United States put a blockade on Iranian ports, there was effectively a standoff, a game of chicken to see who would blink first.

And it was Donald Trump who blinked first for reasons that we all know.

There were economic reasons.

There were political reasons related to the lack of support within the United States with respect to this war.

And so Iran believes it has a much stronger position to assert its will And to flex its muscle and from Iran's perspective, it's the Strait of Hormuz that gives it leverage over the United States and the talks that are slowly starting to take shape with respect to all of these outstanding issues that separate the United States and Iran.

But Hezbollah is not going to agree to its own extinction, right? So how are they going to work that one out?

And Nader, I wonder if I could just ask you kind of to talk at a broad level about how you think Iran's role in the Middle East may be different as a result of this war.

Yeah, great to be with you, Peter, and with Dana.

That's a great question.

I think...

It's tough to make any definitive conclusions now because we're still in the early phases of this war.

One thing that has jumped out in my mind that appears pretty accurate as a significant development is that Iran has been able to increase its soft power influence in the region, particularly at the local level.

After the Arab Spring, Iran took a huge hit by virtue largely of its catastrophic intervention in Syria to bolster the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the previous sort of soft power influence that it had on the so-called Arab street as the leading voice of anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism.

I'm curious what you're hearing in terms of how people are making sense of this moment and how that scrambles the thinking of Iranians at home and abroad who wish for a different kind of leadership.

Mm.

And its regional alliances have largely collapsed over the last two years.

So Donald Trump, uh, at the encouragement of Netanyahu, sort of, uh, thought that this would be, uh, the time to bring Iran down into s-- break it down into size, weaken it.

I think the broad goal here that the United States and Israel and Western countries, uh, sort of share, um, is, uh, preventing Iran from, um, projecting power beyond its borders, weaken it, weakening, uh, Iran militarily, economically, so that Iran becomes something like Libya, Lebanon, or Syria, um, a weak state that can barely control its own borders, but critically cannot project power beyond its borders, thus allowing for an Israeli-centric and Arab dictatorial-centric sort of regional order to take shape in the Middle East along the lines of the Abraham Accords that were, you know, announced in 2020.

That's the broad vision.

Um, and Donald Trump, of course, you know, thought in his great naivety and stupidity that Iran was like Venezuela.

You know, you just, you know, send an armada to Iran's shores, and the regime will collapse.

Mm

What stands out to you in what you heard Prime Minister Netanyahu say there and other rhetoric he's used around this war?

Uh, the, the, the religious references might be different, but the driving forces behind what Netanyahu is saying is not that dissimilar from what we're hearing and seeing in the United States.

In other words, the driver of these statements by Netanyahu and American politicians, the driver of it is, um, uh, geopolitics.

It's about a sense of a, a desire for, you know, a contestation over political power in the Middle East and who will be dominant, who will be hegemonic.

Uh, they're using religion and religious references as a tool for mobilizing people to, um, validate and promote those very secular political causes.

So in that sense, what Netanyahu is saying here is not that different than what we've been talking about here in the United States.

And this is often a confusion over, you know, this particular topic.

But Nader, I'm curious how you view that choice, both through a political and religious lens.

These kinds of images are viewed with a tint of romance and nostalgia, but d- does that tell the whole story?

Uh, no, it doesn't.

It's a deeply distorted picture.

All of those things that you described are true and accurate, but I think one needs a deeper understanding of, of how these things were playing, playing, playing out in Iranian society and who was really benefiting and who wasn't.

So yes, the Shah of Iran that's restored to power by the Americans after the coup is a very pro-American, pro-Western...

You know, he spent most of his time at a boarding school in, as a young man in Switzerland, speaks fluent English and French, and he is very much America's man on the job in the Middle East, and he pursues a policy of modernization.

Everything that you said is absolutely correct.

Mm.

But politically speaking, does the Supreme Leader's demise create an opening for the Iranian people to realize their democratic aspirations?

Unfortunately, no. Um, I think we-- everyone who's knows anything about Iran, cares about Iran realizes this is a, this is a very brutal and ugly regime with a horrific human rights record.

Uh, in early January, they committed a horrific massacre on par with the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in China.

Thousands of people were gunned down in forty-eight hours.

But the, uh, political reality of, um, the regime that's in power in Iran is that it's not like, uh, Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, Bashar al-Assad's Syria, or Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Power isn't concentrated in the hands of one person, so if you, you know, remove that person, then the entire system crumbles.

Power is, uh, distributed in Iran.

And, you know, while Iranians have been very brave and, and willing to protest and, and risk their lives for a better future, I mean, how could ordinary Iranians at all heed the US president's call to overthrow their government?

Explain what happened to Badr Khan Suri.

So, um, uh, last Monday, exactly a week ago, um, in the afternoon, um, some of the staff that work at my center noticed some suspicious men hanging outside.

They were clearly out of place.

We now believe these were federal agents trying to arrest, uh, Badr Khan Suri outside of his classroom.

Uh, for some reason, they weren't able to apprehend him, um, on campus.

Um, but roughly around 8:00, uh, last Monday, as he was returning home after he broke his fast, um, agents arrested him.

Uh, they were masked.

Um, can you respond to what she's saying and then talk about Georgetown's response?