Latest news with #TritaParsi
Al Jazeera
3 days ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Will Iran double down on its nuclear programme after the war?
The Bottom Line Iran expert Trita Parsi on the fallout of Israel's unprovoked 12-day war against Iran and implications for Gaza. United States President Donald Trump can force Israel to end the war on Gaza if he shows the same gumption as he did with Iran, argues Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Parsi discusses the wider implications of the 12-day war on Iran with host Steve Clemons, including: Will Iran double down on its nuclear weapons programme? Will improved Iran-US relations lead to sanctions relief? Why did European leaders legitimise the unprovoked US and Israeli attacks, instead of calling for the 'rules-based order' as they do in Ukraine? Does Iran have allies? Video Duration 24 minutes 01 seconds 24:01 Video Duration 23 minutes 56 seconds 23:56 Video Duration 24 minutes 08 seconds 24:08 Video Duration 24 minutes 01 seconds 24:01 Video Duration 24 minutes 03 seconds 24:03 Video Duration 24 minutes 10 seconds 24:10 Video Duration 24 minutes 01 seconds 24:01
South China Morning Post
22-06-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Iran retaliating against US inevitable as window for diplomacy narrows: analysts
Iranian retaliation against the American air strikes ordered by President Donald Trump is inevitable, despite a diplomatic backchannel message from Washington to Tehran before the attack that it was intended as a one-off, according to analysts. The only uncertainty, Middle East experts say, is how the Islamic republic will balance its responses so as to preserve the regime and show its potency within the region – if only to buy enough time to clandestinely build nuclear warheads. 'Trump just guaranteed that Iran will be a nuclear weapons state in the next five to 10 years – particularly if the regime changes,' said Trita Parsi, executive vice-president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington think tank. According to James Acton, co-director of the Carnegie Endowment's nuclear policy programme, 'retaliation – especially ballistic missile strikes against US regional assets – is highly likely'. But what comes next, including the US response, is unclear. 'That's why this may well not be 'one and done'', despite Trump's warning to Tehran not to retaliate, Acton said.
Malay Mail
22-06-2025
- Politics
- Malay Mail
Trump's Iran strikes: Tactical win or strategic gamble?
WASHINGTON, June 22 — For nearly a half-century the United States has squabbled with Iran's Islamic republic but the conflict has largely been left in the shadows, with US policymakers believing, often reluctantly, that diplomacy was preferable. With President Donald Trump's order of strikes on Iran's nuclear sites, the United States — like Israel, which encouraged him — has brought the conflict into the open, and the consequences may not be clear for some time to come. 'We will only know if it succeeded if we can get through the next three to five years without the Iranian regime acquiring nuclear weapons, which they now have compelling reasons to want,' said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst and supporter of the 2003 Iraq war who is now vice president for policy at the Middle East Institute. US intelligence had not concluded that Iran was building a nuclear bomb, with Tehran's sensitive atomic work largely seen as a means of leverage, and Iran can be presumed to have taken precautions in anticipation of strikes. Trita Parsi, an outspoken critic of military action, said Trump 'has now made it more likely that Iran will be a nuclear weapons state in the next five to 10 years.' 'We should be careful not to confuse tactical success with strategic success,' said Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. 'The Iraq war was also successful in the first few weeks but President Bush's declaration of 'Mission Accomplished' did not age well,' he said. Weak point for Iran Yet Trump's attack — a week after Israel began a major military campaign — came as the cleric-run state is at one of its weakest points since the 1979 Islamic revolution toppled the pro-Western shah. Since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, which enjoys Iran's support, Israel — besides obliterating much of Gaza — has decimated Lebanon's Hezbollah, a militant group that would once reliably strike Israel as Tehran's proxy. Iran's main ally among Arab leaders, Syria's Bashar al-Assad, was also toppled in December. Supporters of Trump's strike argued that diplomacy was not working, with Iran standing firm on its right to enrich uranium. 'Contrary to what some will say in the days to come, the US administration did not rush to war. In fact, it gave diplomacy a real chance,' said Ted Deutch, a former Democratic congressman who now heads the American Jewish Committee. 'The murderous Iranian regime refused to make a deal,' he said. Top Senate Republican John Thune pointed to Tehran's threats to Israel and language against the United States and said that the state had 'rejected all diplomatic pathways to peace.' Abrupt halt to diplomacy Trump's attack comes almost exactly a decade after former president Barack Obama sealed a deal in which Iran drastically scaled back its nuclear work — which Trump pulled out of in 2018 after coming into office for his first term. Most of Trump's Republican Party and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long seen Iran as an existential threat, attacked Obama's deal because it allowed Tehran to enrich uranium at levels well beneath weapons grade and the key clauses had an end date. But Trump, billing himself a peacemaker, just a month ago said on a visit to Gulf Arab monarchies that he was hopeful for a new deal with Iran, and his administration was preparing new talks when Netanyahu attacked Iran. This prompted an abrupt U-turn from Trump. 'Trump's decision to cut short his own efforts for diplomacy will also make it much harder to get a deal in the medium and long runs,' said Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defence Priorities, which advocates restraint. 'Iran now has no incentive to trust Trump's word or to believe that striking a compromise will advance Iran's interests.' Iran's religious rulers also face opposition internally. Major protests erupted in 2022 after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who was detained for defying the regime's rules on covering hair. Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on social media that Trump's strikes could either entrench the Islamic Republic or hasten its downfall. 'The US bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities is an unprecedented event that may prove to be transformational for Iran, the Middle East, US foreign policy, global non-proliferation and potentially even the global order,' he said. 'Its impact will be measured for decades to come.' — AFP
Japan Times
22-06-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
Bombing Iran, Trump gambles on force over diplomacy
For nearly a half-century the United States has squabbled with Iran's Islamic Republic but the conflict has largely been left in the shadows, with U.S. policymakers believing, often reluctantly, that diplomacy was preferable. With President Donald Trump's order of strikes on Iran's nuclear sites, the United States — like Israel, which encouraged him — has brought the conflict into the open, and the consequences may not be clear for some time to come. "We will only know if it succeeded if we can get through the next three to five years without the Iranian regime acquiring nuclear weapons, which they now have compelling reasons to want," said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst and supporter of the 2003 Iraq war who is now vice president for policy at the Middle East Institute. U.S. intelligence had not concluded that Iran was building a nuclear bomb, with Tehran's sensitive atomic work largely seen as a means of leverage, and Iran can be presumed to have taken precautions in anticipation of strikes. Trita Parsi, an outspoken critic of military action, said Trump "has now made it more likely that Iran will be a nuclear weapons state in the next five to 10 years." "We should be careful not to confuse tactical success with strategic success," said Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. "The Iraq war was also successful in the first few weeks but President (George W.) Bush's declaration of 'Mission Accomplished' did not age well," he said. Yet Trump's attack — a week after Israel began a major military campaign — came as the cleric-run state is at one of its weakest points since the 1979 Islamic Revolution toppled the pro-Western shah. Since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, which enjoys Iran's support, Israel — besides obliterating much of Gaza — has decimated Lebanon's Hezbollah, a militant group that would once reliably strike Israel as Tehran's proxy. Iran's main ally among Arab leaders, Syria's Bashar Assad, was also toppled in December. Supporters of Trump's strike argued that diplomacy was not working, with Iran standing firm on its right to enrich uranium. "Contrary to what some will say in the days to come, the U.S. administration did not rush to war. In fact, it gave diplomacy a real chance," said Ted Deutch, a former Democratic congressman who now heads the American Jewish Committee. "The murderous Iranian regime refused to make a deal," he said. Top Senate Republican John Thune pointed to Tehran's threats to Israel and language against the United States and said that the state had "rejected all diplomatic pathways to peace." Trump's attack comes almost exactly a decade after former President Barack Obama sealed a deal in which Iran drastically scaled back its nuclear work — which Trump pulled out of in 2018 after coming into office for his first term. Most of Trump's Republican Party and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long seen Iran as an existential threat, attacked Obama's deal because it allowed Tehran to enrich uranium at levels well beneath weapons grade and the key clauses had an end date. But Trump, billing himself a peacemaker, just a month ago said on a visit to Gulf Arab monarchies that he was hopeful for a new deal with Iran, and his administration was preparing new talks when Netanyahu attacked Iran. This prompted an abrupt U-turn from Trump. "Trump's decision to cut short his own efforts for diplomacy will also make it much harder to get a deal in the medium and long runs," said Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, which advocates restraint. "Iran now has no incentive to trust Trump's word or to believe that striking a compromise will advance Iran's interests." Iran's religious rulers also face opposition internally. Major protests erupted in 2022 after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who was detained for defying the regime's rules on covering hair. Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on social media that Trump's strikes could either entrench the Islamic Republic or hasten its downfall. "The U.S. bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities is an unprecedented event that may prove to be transformational for Iran, the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, global non-proliferation and potentially even the global order," he said. "Its impact will be measured for decades to come."
CNN
18-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
A US strike on Iran could open a ‘Pandora's box' in the Middle East, experts warn
The United States appears to be moving closer to joining Israel's conflict with Iran with a possible strike on the country's key nuclear facilities – including the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, which is hidden deep inside a mountain. Days into Israel's attacks on Iran and its nuclear program, Israeli leaders are waiting to learn whether US President Donald Trump will help them finish the job. Trump is increasingly warming to using US military assets to strike Iranian nuclear facilities and souring on the idea of a diplomatic solution to the crisis, two officials familiar with the ongoing discussions told CNN. 'I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran's got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate. And I said, why didn't you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction,' Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. Iran experts warn that a US attack on Iran could draw it into a quagmire even more challenging than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – a drawn-out confrontation that could last the duration of Trump's presidency and exact a heavy toll on American lives and resources at Israel's behest. 'Any attack by the US will lead to full-scale attack by the Iranians against US bases in the region, and a full-scale war between the US and Iran,' Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute in Washington, DC, told CNN. Tehran may not be able to sustain a long fight with the US, but it won't be an easy war for Washington either, he said. 'Iran is a very large country, which means there would be a very large number of targets the United States would have to hit to take out Iran's ability to strike back,' Parsi said, noting that this would be happening when there isn't widespread support for a war with Iran in Trump's own camp. A US strike on Iran would open up a 'Pandora's box' and 'most likely consume the rest of President Trump's presidency,' Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN. 'Once you open up this Pandora's box, we have no idea where things go,' Geranmayeh said. 'Trump has, in the past, stepped back from the brink of war with Iran, he has the ability to do so again.' The Islamic Republic already sees the US as complicit in Israel's attacks on Iran, saying the Israelis are attacking it with American weapons; and some Iranian officials have said that Tehran has already prepared itself for a 'full-blown, drawn-out war.' On Wednesday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would not back down, a day after Trump called for 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!' in a social media post. 'Let the Americans know that the Iranian nation is not one to surrender, and any military intervention on their part will undoubtedly result in irreparable damage,' Khamenei said in a national address. Direct US involvement in the conflict could see Iran activate what remains of its proxies across Iraq, Yemen and Syria, which have previously launched attacks on American assets in the region. Knowing that it can't outright win a conflict against Israel and the US, experts say Tehran could seek to engage in a war of attrition, where it tries to exhaust its adversary's will or capacity to fight in a drawn-out and damaging conflict, as it did during the decade-long war it fought with Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1980s. 'The Iranian strategy may end up being just to try to sustain themselves, strike back as much as they can, and hope that Trump eventually tries to cut the war short, as he did in Yemen,' Parsi said. After months of strikes on Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the US in May struck a ceasefire deal with the group, to Israel's dismay. 'Here is how Tehran sees a chance of winning such a war of attrition,' Abdolrasool Divsallar, senior researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, wrote on X. 'Benefiting in the long term from its offensive capabilities and exhausting US-Israel combined defense forces.' 'US entrance into this war is a bad and costly decision for everyone,' Divsallar added. In a Persian language post directed at Trump on X, former Iranian nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian, who now lives in New Jersey, called on the president to be a 'president of peace,' warning that a strike on Fordow would be both fruitless – as Iran has probably moved some of the advanced centrifuges to other locations – and likely to push Iran to a seek a nuclear bomb. 'With one wrong decision, you may not only be responsible for Iran's decision to build a nuclear bomb, but also lead the United States into a war whose consequences for the American people will be far more damaging than the US attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq,' Mousavian wrote. Parsi said if Iran's nuclear program is destroyed, it could just be a matter of time to build a bomb should the government choose to do so. 'The Iranians have the knowhow and capacity to rebuild everything,' Parsi said. 'All it (an attack) does is that it sets it back while dramatically increasing Iran's motivation to build a nuclear weapon.' Fordow is seen as the most difficult and sought-after target for Israel in its desire to destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure. But what exactly is inside the secretive facility is unclear, Parsi said. 'The main enrichment was taking place in Natanz (nuclear facility). Fordow was doing other things, more research,' he said, adding that it's not entirely clear where Iran keeps its stockpile of enriched uranium. Whether a US strike can successfully destroy the complex that is hidden deep in a mountain close to the holy city of Qom also remains unclear. Fordow's main halls are an estimated 80 to 90 meters (around 262 to 295 feet) underground – safe from any aerial bomb known to be possessed by Israel. Yechiel Leiter, Israel's ambassador to the US, has said that only the US Air Force has the weapon that can destroy the site. But analysts caution that there's no guarantee that even America's 'bunker buster' bomb – the GBU-57/B, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator – could do the job. Israel's relentless bombing of Iran and its nuclear facilities has raised regional concern about potential radioactive fallout, which could spread far beyond Iran's borders should a nuclear plant be struck. Iran has only one nuclear power plant, located in the southeastern city of Bushehr – and Israel has not targeted it. Bombing Fordow wouldn't create the same risk as bombing a nuclear reactor, two experts told CNN. Scott Roecker, the vice president for Nuclear Materials Security at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said there wouldn't be a major radiation dispersal risk at Fordow 'because that enriched uranium is fresh, as we call it in the industry.' 'It's not been run through a reactor, and so you wouldn't have radiation spread out over a large area, like you would, for example, if they would bomb Bushehr, the operational nuclear power plant, that would result in the dispersal of a lot of radiation.' 'It'd be localized around the site, and because it's buried underground too, I don't know you know how much of that would even be released,' Roecker added. Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior director at the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based pro-Israel think tank, described the potential damage as being a chemical problem – a different kind of fallout than bombing a nuclear reactor. There would be some concern, he said, but noted the risk is not as large as hitting a live reactor. CNN's Christian Edwards, Olivia Kemp, Jeremy Diamond, Vasco Cotovio, Brad Lendon, Alayna Treene, Kevin Liptak, Kaitlan Collins, Kylie Atwood, Jennifer Hansler and Natasha Bertrand contributed reporting.
