The Atlantic: TRUMP LOST THE WAR WITH IRAN - w/ Middle East Analyst Trita Parsi

Hinzugefügt: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]There's an um an article by the atlantic saying why did Trump lose? Trump started this war for personal reasons not a cle strategy and is now on the path of losing those same person for those same personal reasons having decided only himself. The president who always called his predecessors stupid and himself smart ignored that everyone from Carter and Reagan to Biden was wise enough not to start a major war with Iran. Trump demanded Iran's unconditional surrender, but is now negotiating a deal that meets more of Iran's demands than Washington's.

[00:00:31]That would that would drive Trump insanely mad reading those articles.

[00:00:36]That's like the exact opposite of what he would have liked to see following this war.

[00:00:43]>> So, you're in the camp as me. You think that Trump calls the shots more than Netanyahu. A lot of people believe that.

[00:00:48]And when we say Netanyahu in the Netanyahu and the Israeli lobby, the neocons in the US, put them all in one bucket. Do they have enough influence to be able to sabotage this deal? And I'm in the camp of no. But then I don't know how to explain things like the mention of the Abraham's Accords, which make no sense. The only explanation I have is trying to give Netanyahu some sort of political bone to play with back home, but that's about it.

[00:01:14]>> Yeah. Well, I I think that is a very big part of it. It's a way for Trump to say, "Hey, I tried I tried to make sure that I got the other Arab countries in on this." Uh, so that this is not just a deal with the Iranians, but this there's something in it for Israel as well.

[00:01:31]Something that the Israelis already said that they wanted. And then whether he succeeds or not, he can nevertheless say, "Hey, look, I tried." But he also does something else with it. He uses it to remind everyone how much he's already done for Israel. And I think there is a narrative that will come out in case there is a deal and there's attacks from the pro-Israeli crowd in which he will essentially say, "I moved the embassy. I gave you the Golan. I got the Moroccans to u normalize and gave them the Western Sahara and just completely change US policy of decades overnight for you. I started two wars with um Iran on your behalf. I've done so many different sanctions, agreed to all of these assassinations, etc., etc. There is nothing on your wish list that I actually have not given you.

[00:02:18]So if I now choose to go in a different direction and try something else, you're just going to have to live with it.

[00:02:24]Because at the end of the day, there's no president that has done more for you than me. And keep in mind, that's something that he keeps on saying.

[00:02:30]There's no American president that has done more for Israel than I have. and and uh I I do believe that he probably believes it, but I think it's also a tool for him at the right moment when he wants to push back against him, say, you know, you can criticize as much as you want, but at the end of the day, I've done more. And keep in mind also the manner in which he put out those earlier tweets. I think we talked about it last time. when he puts the names of all of those different senior officials who were there and said that all of them asked him to do this deal, he's kind of reminding the audiences back in Washington, this has strong regional support. And if it then afterwards turns out that the Israelis are against it or that the pro-Israel crowd in Washington is against it, he said, well, you know, there's many different countries in the region that are partners of the United States. It's not just Israel. So, he's already kind of laid out the way that I think he will respond to some of these things and they will, you know, make it uh, you know, the Israeli the pro-Israel crowd will have to make a decision as to whether they want to have that fight or not. Uh, some of them will because their own entire fundraising is based on these different kinds of fights. But I do suspect again that not only will the Israeli government have a much more muted response, he will point to that and probably say that there is support of the deal in order to try to defang the criticism coming from the pro-Israeli crowd in Washington.

[00:03:55]>> Um, what can go wrong? Because me and you are more on the optimistic side.

[00:04:00]What could happen to to drag us back into some some some sort of kinetic war?

[00:04:06]Look, the list of things that could go wrong is very very long. Um, plenty of things can go wrong. Everything from uh the fact that, you know, they have not fully yet come to an agreement on what would happen to the stockpile or enrichment suspension um uh sanctions relief schedule.

[00:04:29]uh you know there's a lot of details that have not been worked out there and I think the Iranians are disappointed that when it came to the sanctions relief the JCPA was much less precise than it was when it came to all of the different things the Iranians needed to do on the nuclear front. So in an ideal situation they want to have far greater clarity and detail when it comes to the sanctions relief. It just so happens to be that they're negotiating with a president that hates details, hates long agreements, just wants to have a page and a half of a bunch of principles and leave a lot of things uh not necessarily unclarified but uh at a non-detailed level. So the two of them are coming at this from a very very different standpoint on what what their preferences are and what their past experience dictates that they should be doing in this type of a situation. And then of course you may have a completely different type of developments in the region. Um uh real or cooked up uh a false flag attack on Israel. There's plenty of things that could go wrong.

[00:05:32]>> I'm getting more and more reports. Uh Iranian uh report Iranians a lot of reporting several explosions in the city of Jean Busher province an hour ago. The jam is home to an airport and a missile city. And then a missile just came in now a couple minutes ago. reports that the missile a missile was launched unconfirmed report that a missile launched from Shaman air base in Busher that was six minutes ago and the missile was launched towards the straight of Homus um similar seems similar to if it's true but it seems similar there's multiple sources I'm getting more of them now uh especially the explosions happening in u in uh southern Iran in Busher um if this is true what do you think the targets Siren, what would you make of this?

[00:06:23]>> I suspect that this is an continued effort by the administration that will continue until there is a answer from the Iranians on on the proposal and on the memorandum. Uh I think it is probing but it's also kind of constantly trying to ratchet up the pressure just to make sure that this doesn't go on forever.

[00:06:43]That would be the most optimistic interpretation.

[00:06:47]Uh a far less optimistic one is that this is a longer term effort to really measure where the Iranians are as as your previous guest said uh try to probe and understand where their weaknesses and strengths are and then slowly but surely erode their deterrence and then potentially do something bigger as well.

[00:07:06]I'm less convinced that that is a path that they will take because I I'll I'll say put it this way. I was on a panel with Joe Kent who had resigned from the administration himself, a decorated soldier >> who said something that I think >> Yeah. So I mean Joe I think is is absolutely right on this point. He said if there was a military option that Trump could use that would just reverse the situation, he would have used it last week. He doesn't need to do this kind of small escalation in the Persian Gulf towards a larger war. If his actual objective is to get to a larger war, he would just do it right away. The reason why he isn't is because he doesn't have any good options. But I so I I'm more inclined to think that this is a way to just slowly but surely increase the pressure. The targets are probably not super important. In fact, some uh person on the Iranian side said that it doesn't seem like they're targeting really important things. These are more signals and it's aimed at ratcheting up the pressure in order to get make sure that the Iranians don't take too much time.

[00:08:00]But that again, it is admittedly an an optimistic take on the situation.

[00:08:04]Similar to the scrambling of jets on Friday last week, you remember that when they were scrambled all the way to Syria, Iraq from from Israel along with the refueling tankers, that's when the Qatari delegation was in Iran. The Qatari delegation left by then, but Asamir was from Pakistan. That's what that was as [clears throat] well. Just pressuring Iran as the US wait for their response. Correct. Look, if you suddenly have an American attack on Tehran, that's a completely different situation than going after whether it's bases or whether it is silos or whatever exactly it is on the coastline, which is not unimportant, but if you have an attack on Thran, I think that would definitely indicate more than just a little bit of a probing.

[00:08:43]>> Oh, look, if we see a resumption of the war, I think me and me me and you should both just resign from what we're doing.

[00:08:48]Just live somewhere on an island because it's all just not worth it. because it's beyond [laughter] there understand there's certain things that make logical sense um and things that just don't make logical sense in politics but there's just pure stupidity and that would fall into that category. Um the last thing I want to cover for you with you for the next couple of minutes is the um the region how it's going to look like.

[00:09:09]You've already talked about the UAE and Lebanon the dynamic there which is just fascinating. Um, another thing I'm trying to understand now is how, because I'm in the camp that this the war is pretty much wrapping up, is how the region is going to look like. And um, is it going to be a a a a tripolar world, a bipolar world, a multipolar world? I had Brendan Ward earlier today said, Mar, it's going to be a tripolar world. It's going to have the Sunni axis, Pakistan, Saudi, Qatar, Turkey. Then you're going to have Iran and then you're going to have Israel with with maybe some countries like the UAE getting closer to Israel. And in a tripolar world historically that's generally not hasn't brought peace. Usually a multipolar world you know four poles or more is usually better for peace but tripolar generally leads to conflict and his worries that the Middle East will be more unstable than ever. And I added to it. I think like you know there is a you know a good argument being made there especially that we crossed so many red lines that we wouldn't cross before for you to even entertain the idea and I know you're not just randomly saying it you've spoken to people in Iran but just the idea that Iran is entertaining to strike the UAE as a way to deter Israeli strikes on Lebanon. Um this is not the world we lived in before. So, what's