Welcome back to The Voices of War. As wars rage in Gaza and Ukraine, trust in the so-called rules-based international order is eroding. Diplomacy is on the defensive. Western media is increasingly accused of double standards. And the line between legitimate defense and disproportionate violence grows ever more blurred. In this moment of global realignment, we urgently need to ask, what role should the United States play in shaping the future? Can restraint be a form of strength?

And how do we hold both ourselves and our adversaries accountable without fueling endless war? Here to help us unpack these questions is Dr. Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, founder of the National Iranian American Council, and one of the most influential and controversial voices in US foreign policy circles. Trita has spent over two decades at the heart of US-Iran diplomacy, Middle East geopolitics, in the ongoing debate about whether Western power stabilizes or destabilizes the world. He’s written several books on the subject, including the award-winning works, Treacherous Alliance, The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the US, and A Single Roll of the Dice, Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran. His critics accuse him of being too sympathetic to the Iranian regime, while his supporters hail him as a clear-right advocate for peace through diplomacy. Today, we’ll challenge some assumptions and explore what it really means to practice responsible statecraft in an age of deepening global division. Trita, thank you very much for joining me on The Voices of War. It’s a real pleasure to host you.

Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for describing me as controversial. These days, if you’re trying to make change and you’re not controversial, then you have failed.

So that’s success. That’s right. And if everybody dislikes you, that’s also a good thing.

It is, it is. It’s an honor. Not necessarily. I’m not in the school of yearning to have as many critics as possible, but I think we’re at a stage in political evolution, particularly in the West, in which the type of strategy that may have worked in the past—with social media and everyone having an opinion and governments spending a lot of money faking Twitter accounts to tear people down etc.—it’s come with the territory that unfortunately you cannot have an impact without at the same time being controversial, I fear.

Absolutely, yeah, rocking some boats. I’ve certainly not as much as you, but I’ve certainly experienced that even through my own podcast, which is a scary reality. But just before we dive into the geopolitics, maybe I would like to start with getting to know you a little bit better, because as we briefly touched on before we started recording, I think you have a very fascinating background and one that perhaps explains your choice of career rather well. So can you give us a quick snapshot of how you came to do what you do?

Sure. I was born in Iran. My family fled to Sweden right before the revolution. My family’s from the southern part of Iran. My dad was a university professor who was jailed both under the time of the Shah and then later on under Khomeini’s government as well, having been a critic of both. We ended up in Sweden. A couple of months after we arrived in Sweden, the war began. As I said, my family is from the southern part of Iran, which is exactly where Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. So what was supposed to be a temporary refuge, as hopefully things would calm down or some movement towards a better situation in Iran, ended up essentially becoming permanent because of the war and also because of the direction that Iran took after the revolution—the more Islamic and the more repressive the revolution became. And then I went back and forth between Sweden and the US and relocated here permanently 25 or so years ago to do my PhD at Johns Hopkins.

Yeah. Well, again, as we alluded to before you and I started recording, I have a special place in my heart for Sweden, having lived there for three years. But also I can certainly connect to the displacement or the adjustment, sudden as it might have been for you, as it was for me, certainly coming from Bosnia to a new environment and recognizing that one’s own little bubble that one grew up in is but that bubble and that there’s a big world out there with very diverging, oftentimes, views of the world. And that, I guess, brings me to our topic—geopolitics and Iran’s role in the global shift. It’s a very true statement—the world is very unstable at the moment. How do you see the current geopolitical rebalancing shaping the Middle East? And what role do you believe the United States should play in the region?

The entire global geopolitical configuration is being reshaped right now. I think there is a view oftentimes, particularly outside of the US, that Biden and his approach were seen as status quo. Trump is this disrupter, and he’s now back disrupting things. And there’s definitely elements of truth in that, but I think it also overlooks a larger picture that is more subtle and frankly, very dangerous as well, which is that under Biden, as part of what I think is an overreaction to the anxiety of the United States losing its unipolar position, you saw that the Biden administration, after first having kind of flirted with restraint—they pulled out of Afghanistan and said that this is the end of these forever regime change wars, et cetera—once Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden went straight back into his Cold War persona, which he’s obviously far more comfortable with, having had that persona on the front stage of American foreign policy for more than 50 years.

Within that, we also saw how the Biden administration really started touting the rules-based order. It happened before Ukraine, but Ukraine really pushed it to the forefront. That was oftentimes seen as some sort of an effort to retain a status quo and prevent countries such as Russia and China from challenging the global balance and the governing structure of the world. But I think if you scratch the surface, you see that actually it wasn’t a status quo instrument. It was an anti-status quo instrument. It was a revisionist instrument, because he wanted to essentially move the world from a law-centered order to a rule-centered order. And the difference between the two is quite critical.

The law-centered order means that at the end of the day, it’s based on international law. And there’s a very objective process for which international laws are promulgated and what countries sign up for. It’s voluntary. You sign up to certain treaties. The United States never signed the Rome Statute. And as a result, it’s not obligated to arrest Bibi Netanyahu if he travels to the United States. Germany is, because it signed the Rome Statute. Now of course Germany has also been quite active in undermining several of these institutions at this point because of Israel.

That’s a very different type of an order than one that is rules-based, because it raises the question: Who’s making the rules? What is the process? And why is it so that Western states take the lead in putting together rules and then expect countries that were not part of the process to be bound by them? It is a complete flipping of how law actually works. So this movement, I think, was part of the American overreaction to the anxiety of having lost its unipolar power.

What you’re seeing right now is a different manifestation of that same reaction, of that same anxiety, in which the Trump administration is deliberately trying to destroy a very large number of international norms. Norms-breaking seems to be the name of the game. They’re going to take Greenland. Canada needs to join. Or using military force and the Pentagon to take out alleged drug smugglers from Venezuela, which should be a police job. There are rules and laws governing these things. And the criticism against the administration is something that they seem to be welcoming, because the entire point is to change the norms—reduce the restrictions on America’s ability to use force. Because in this world, if there’s one strategic comparative advantage the United States has, it’s that it is still the most powerful military in the world. Increasingly, on the economy and many other things, they are challenged. But on the military front, there’s no country that can really challenge the United States at the end of the day.

And within that, see this assault on multilateralism, withdrawal from multilateral institutions. And it is so much more blatant. So it’s understandable that people think this is where it started. But I think if you scratch the surface, you see, it actually started before. It was just much more subtle, much more sophisticated. It was under the guise of the status quo, but it was actually a revisionist policy back then as well. It’s just now naked, on overdrive, explicit, compared to what was before.

Mmm. Yeah, in fact, that was the point I was going to make. I mean, when we talk about between laws and rules, is it that we had laws or that we projected an image of legality? Because there’s many countries in the world who would say, well, no, as you rightly put at the end there, this is merely the facade coming down, the mask of Western hegemony, US hegemony coming down and its abuse of power. Is it then also that the kind of ramped up muscling of the US through Trump is really trying to be a deterrent as he, I mean, he’s trying to sell it. I mean, he’s bringing, you know, America’s back. How much do you see in that? Is it actually having a deterrent effect or are America’s, i.e. Western enemies, hunkering down and getting ready for a bigger battle?

Those are two great questions. Let me start off with the first one. Undoubtedly, there is a tremendous amount of valid criticism against international law to point out that there has been a significant double standard in the manner that it’s been implemented. There’s huge holes in it. There’s always been this exception for the United States. It has put itself above the law on numerous occasions, as have other superpowers. So all of those criticisms are absolutely valid.

But I think we also have to recognize that those are usually assessments based on examples in the use of force—some of the most egregious and tense conflicts in the world in which you see that type of behavior. There is, on a daily basis, a tremendous amount of international law that is being abided by everyone. And there’s a huge difference between seeing that, yes, there’s a body of international law and perhaps the top 5%, unfortunately, is not being followed in the manner that it should—and law is not strong enough—and it’s a problem. But it’s a completely different scenario if you actually have total anarchy or even if you go to a situation in which half of the different international laws are being completely ignored or broken.

So I think we won’t fully understand how much stability and predictability the international system provided until we lose it. And then we’ll realize that, yes, even with all of the hypocrisy that existed before, it was actually quite useful. And it did help a tremendous amount in reducing transaction costs of a whole set of different decisions, creating circumstances in which collective threats and challenges could be addressed much more effectively.

We are dangerously moving towards a situation in which either under Trump you will have a significant weakening of these institutions, perhaps even their collapse, or under Biden, a movement in which the rules-based order would essentially become the Western Bloc—plus Australia, Japan, a couple of other states—and there would be a set of rules within that order. And then there would be another order, perhaps led by China, perhaps led by Russia, perhaps led by a coalition of Global South states. And then you would end up having a multi-order world—not just a multipolar world.

And there’s a significant destabilizing danger in that. Because even during the Cold War, as much as there were clearly two different orders, there was a super-order. Both sides acknowledged and respected the authority of the Security Council. They may challenge many of its decisions, but they both played along with that super-order. And there were arguments of how to interpret law, etc. And that was very, very important. In fact, much of international law came during that period.

Now, in a multi-order world without that type of a super-order above it, you would have a conflict not on how to interpret law, but you would have competition between different sets of law. And that would be far more destabilizing than what you have right now—or even under the worst era of the double standards. I wouldn’t put a number on it as to whether it would be worse or better compared to what Trump is doing. But it’s important to recognize that both of these orientations of the United States—whether it is the Biden democratic approach, or the much more aggressive Republican or Trumpian approach—both of them are, at the end of the day, hollowing out international law, hollowing out the international order, and being a challenge.

And that’s not to say that other states are not doing the same thing. I think a lot of criticism can be put forward against Russia, for instance. But it’s important to understand this, because otherwise there’s this rather naive perception in the West that the US is the guarantor of this and, as a result, is a protector of it. Yes, the United States in many ways was a guarantor. That doesn’t mean that it always was a protector of it. Because once these institutions no longer serve its immediate interest, we saw how the US shifted.

And a future world that will be multipolar—which means it’s not bipolar, it’s not that there are two superpowers and then there’s a huge vacuum and a bunch of states at the bottom—but rather a multipolar world in which there may be two or three major powers, but then there’s going to be a large segment of middle powers, which is a very different constellation than what we had during the Cold War.

Under those circumstances, we need to build a much more inclusive order that is not reliant on one single guarantor, and certainly avoid a scenario of either collapse of these institutions or a multi-order reality.

That is so nuanced. There are so many strands to perhaps take it from through there. I want to, and I’m sure we’ll get to it. I want to zero in on Iran. So given what you’ve just said—the transition, inevitable or not, stable or not—what role does Iran play in this multi-order world that we’re ever so increasingly, you know, speedily entering?

I would say compared to what it could have played, a rather limited role. Iran had all of the potential to be one of these middle powers today. Take a look at Turkey, for instance, which is playing quite a significant role. It has an economic foundation. It has become a diplomatic hub. We did a big project, for instance, called the Better Order Project—a lot of what I’m talking about now is actually coming from that. We brought together 130 scholars, former officials, defense ministers, foreign ministers from 40 countries to think through and develop detailed proposals on how to address these issues. We had our physical meetings in Istanbul because you couldn’t have a meeting with Russians and Chinese and Europeans and Americans in Europe any longer. The Russians wouldn’t be able to get visas.

When it comes to where are the international airport hubs that have the largest connections to other capitals—Istanbul is number one. It has the largest number of direct flights than any other international airport. So in some very symbolic, physical ways, the movement of the center of the world was already shifting east. And you see much more taking place in Doha and Istanbul now than in traditional hotspots for multilateral diplomacy, which used to be in Europe.

Yeah, which is interesting about Istanbul as well. It’s the Bosphorus and the bridge between the East and the West. There’s also significant symbolism in that as well.

Exactly. Iran’s economy—I don’t remember the exact numbers—was quite a bit larger than that of Turkey in the year 2000. And today it’s, I think, one-fifth or one-fourth of what the Turks are. So Iran, as a result of its own policies, its own mismanagement, corruption, mafia-style running of the economy, but also international isolation and massive sanctions over the period of more than two decades, has led to a scenario in which Iran is nowhere near the full potential that it could be. And as a result, maybe missing this window.

There are these windows in history—and they’re not necessarily very positive because they’re usually very turbulent times—in which a new order needs to be built. We are in one of those windows right now. We don’t know how long that window will last. Post-1945 was another window. Prior to that, you go back to Congress of Vienna, etc. But we are now in one—or entering one—in which we will either succeed in building some sort of a new, more inclusive order. We worked a lot on, for instance, what the new Security Council should look like in those circumstances.

That’s either now or in the next couple of years. And if you’re well positioned during that period, you will be able to—with the right diplomatic finesse—get your country a very favorable position in that new order, which may not be justified by the actual power and influence that you have, and certainly not over time.

I think perhaps the best example is France. France, through very clever diplomacy, managed to get a seat and a veto in the Security Council after 1945. Arguably, it did not deserve it then. Very few people would argue that France and the UK are such superpowers that they deserve a permanent seat and a veto in the Security Council. But the legacy of that moment is such that they’re still there. And frankly, there’s no way of getting them out. There’s no permanent member that will leave the Council.

This is a window. If Iran had its act straight—if the circumstances were different, had it pursued different policies, but also if it wasn’t for this at-times-inherent hostility towards Iran that has existed from the West—then Iran, I think, could be in a very strong position to have a tremendous influence. It doesn’t. I think Turkey, interestingly enough, does have that. And 20 years ago, it wouldn’t necessarily have been clear that that would be the case.

I think if you take a look at the example of Australia right now—I haven’t followed this case—the accusations that the IRGC had something to do with some antisemitic attacks in Australia. So I can’t speak to that, but just looking at it from afar, it looked kind of funny to me. That’s not to say that the IRGC hasn’t been involved in things in the past or perhaps even in the present.

But it sounded like Australia taking a strong step against Israel on Gaza needed to compensate that with something else. And the question—if that is true, this is all speculation—but if that is true, it raises the question: why is it that the cost of doing it with Iran—essentially making that accusation, seeing deterioration of the relations, perhaps a complete break of the relations—is one that the cost is sufficiently low that it could be considered worthwhile doing?

That in and of itself is a reflection of both the loss of influence of Iran and the loss of connectivity between many Western countries and Iran as a result of more than 20 years of sanctions. 10–15 years ago, 20% of Spain’s oil was coming from Iran. Italy similarly had significant imports. So there was economic interdependence. It meant that both sides thought a little bit more carefully about how they handled their relationship because it was costly to see it deteriorate.

After all of these different sanctions—particularly after Trump left the JCPOA and the Europeans did not live up to their obligations of the JCPOA—there’s no trade whatsoever. Iran is a marginal economic player, if even that, in Europe. And I would assume similarly so with Australia. And if you are marginal with Europe and with the United States, then by definition, even though the world is becoming more multipolar and the West, by and large, relatively is losing influence, it nevertheless means that your influence is also taking a huge hit.

Yeah, and it feels to me like it’s the solidifying of lines even more so. So you made the point about both France and the UK and of course Germany is part of the E3 and the snapback of sanctions—which, and then to bring it to Australia, also coincides with Australia’s expelling of ambassadors, mutually expelling ambassadors—as I think you rightly point out, that is perhaps a small price to pay for waving the Palestinian flag at the UN General Assembly.

I have no doubt—and especially, you know, one has to be a little bit suspicious when the information that triggered Australia’s response comes from Israeli intelligence. The cynic in me must look at this as a bit of a trade—a trading of cards. And if the cost is rather low of expelling the Iranian ambassador—and forgive the pun, nuking that relationship—then so be it. As long as we stay on the right side of history, because of course, this is a fundamentalist regime, etc., etc. So can you try and make a little bit of sense about that from your view? Is that how you perceive it? And of course, how dangerous is that?

Again, I don’t know the details of that case, so I’m not going to make an assessment yet. But yeah—on the E3—I think we can speak more firmly about what happened here. And I think it’s important to recognize that the whole constellation of the E3 is something that was born in 2002–2003 as a very valiant, in my view, effort by the Europeans to try to prevent the United States from invading Iran after having invaded Iraq.

There was no such thing as the E3 before that. In fact, it was a very controversial thing because a lot of other European states were very unhappy about it. They asked: who elected these three countries to be top-tier European states, and then speak for all of the EU on a major foreign policy issue?

Interesting.

Exactly. This was particularly irking countries such as Spain, Italy, and Poland, who did not like to see themselves as second to France or Germany or the UK.

Especially Poland with its military.

Exactly. So I think by now that hierarchy has more or less been nailed down and is established. But back then it was very controversial. But it was done out of good intentions because the invasion of Iraq was disastrous. The Brits obviously were in favor of it, but even they realized that it would be quite disastrous if the US went into Iran immediately afterwards—which was clearly part of the plan.

So they intervened. They managed to engage with the Iranians because they had a relationship. They had trade. And they convinced the Iranians to suspend—halt—voluntarily, enrichment of uranium. And by that, essentially take away a major pretext from the Bush administration to start a war with Iran.

Fast forward 20 or so years, and the circumstances have changed dramatically. Back then, the Europeans did not see Iran as a threat. They were concerned about Iran’s nuclear program, but they knew it was highly exaggerated. The biggest threat was actually war with Iran rather than that suddenly they would wake up one day and Iran would have a nuclear weapon. Remember, Benjamin Netanyahu has been saying that Iran is two years away from a nuclear weapon since the mid‑1990s. Time passes, but they’re always two years away. So, the Europeans took a lot of that with a grain of salt—and rightfully so. That’s not to say there was nothing to be concerned about, but the hysteria was designed to push the U.S. into war, not to push the U.S. towards a diplomatic solution.

Twenty or so years later, things have changed dramatically. First, after decades of economic sanctions there’s no trade left between the Europeans and Iran. So it doesn’t cost much to see the relationship deteriorate, and within that both sides have been more willing to do more aggressive things against each other. There are a lot of accusations that the IRGC or other elements of the Iranian government have been active in recruiting criminals in Europe to conduct assassinations, etc.—which, at a minimum, was not the kind of accusation you heard for 15 or so years.

Second, you have Ukraine and the Russian invasion, which has completely changed the atmosphere in Europe. An identity crisis: a Europe that stood for diplomacy and multilateralism had dialogue as its “religion,” and yet was on the forefront of opposing diplomacy to resolve the Ukraine‑Russia crisis. Within that, the Iranians supported Russia, and Europeans describe Russia as an existential threat. I personally find that characterization problematic; if it were truly existential, Europe would have sacrificed much more and sent troops, etc. But nevertheless, that is the talking point. And Iran now supporting Russia changed the perception of Iran dramatically in Europe—it was no longer a distant issue that the Israelis were constantly nagging about; it was closer to home.

On top of that—perhaps the most important factor—Europe’s relationship with the United States, the transatlantic link, is under tremendous, unprecedented strain because Trump and much of the American public are tired of Europe—tired of the idea of paying for Europe’s security when Europe is wealthy and could pay for it itself. It has gone quite a bit beyond that and taken a life of its own. Trump comes back in, there’s a lot of pressure, and at some point he’s moving closer to the Putin position. This worries the Europeans. They look at the construct of the Trump administration and see that there is an element—the more hawkish elements, Rubio and others—who are much more sympathetic to the Europeans on Russia, more aligned with Biden’s earlier stance on Ukraine, and who probably will be the most sympathetic ears to the Europeans. But that element also has another pet issue: Iran—and supporting Israel against Iran.

So one thing that may have happened here is that precisely because the cost of conflict with Iran or deterioration of relations is much lower—because there’s not much of a relationship in the first place—because of the changed perception of Iran due to its support for Russia, and because this may be one of the best ways for the Europeans to endear themselves to elements in the Trump administration who can push Trump in a more Europe‑friendly direction on Ukraine (which is far more important to Europe than Iran is), the Europeans have gone forward with snapback. And they designed it in a way almost to make it impossible for snapback not to be triggered—and it has.

Snapback is the mechanism within the Iran deal (JCPOA) whereby any one country that is a party could trigger the reimposition of all previous UN sanctions on Iran, including an arms embargo, and crucially the Chinese and the Russians would not be able to veto it—they pre‑emptively gave up their veto. This was designed to disincentivise the Iranians from cheating because everything would quickly be “snapped back.” Much of the JCPOA focused on making sure the Iranians didn’t cheat; nothing was focused on making sure the United States didn’t abandon the agreement. History showed the latter was the more likely and did occur. Now that snapback provision was set to expire in October, so the Europeans triggered the 30‑day process for which, after those 30 days, if nothing is agreed, all the old UN sanctions on Iran come back in. I don’t think they did this because of a particular nuclear concern—mindful that so much of Iran’s nuclear program apparently had been destroyed by Trump—but rather because of their relations with the United States and the desire to push the U.S. in their direction on Ukraine, and because Iran is no longer a costly card to sacrifice.

Okay, that brings us to the scary reality. If we’re building this narrative that Europe—thank you for that clear explanation of how Europe might be viewing this—because it’s dangerous. If Iran is cheap enough to cast out, the cost is low while the benefit to Europe is potentially huge (rebuilding the U.S. relationship, flying the flag with the U.S. against Iran, Israel’s arch‑enemy), we have a coalition building the narrative against Iran—even countries like Australia, who I’d suspect are unwillingly doing this. But the reality is that the key power centres of what we’d call “the West” are really standing up against Iran, even after the ‘12 Day War’ promised us that the Iranian nuclear program was obliterated. Why are we doing this? Why is this happening? And can you tie this to your public statements about the likelihood of another war between Israel and Iran? Over to you.

Then we have to understand what the objectives of the Israelis were in the war they started on June 13 of this year. In my assessment, they had three key objectives, of which only one was partially achieved; the other two were largely failures.

First, they wanted to get the United States into a direct military confrontation with Iran. The Israelis had tried to do this for more than 20 years. They finally succeeded—but not to the extent they wanted. They didn’t want just a one‑off; they wanted the United States to engage in a full bombardment of Iran and all of its military capabilities, particularly the missiles. Instead, Trump did a one‑off against the nuclear sites, declared victory, said it was “obliterated,” declared the issue over, and then pushed for a ceasefire and credited himself for creating peace. That’s not what the Israelis desired; they wanted much more.

The two other objectives were largely failures, even though initially there were signs of some success. One was to take out the Iranian regime—not regime change in the sense of replacement, but state and regime collapse. In the first 24 hours they seemed successful: they assassinated a large number of Iranian top officials, including military officials, nuclear scientists and their families—civilians, incidentally—with not a peep of objection from the West or any reference to rules‑based order or international law. To add a parenthesis: attacks on nuclear facilities are illegal; when the Russians did that in Ukraine, Europeans were screaming on top of their lungs. Here they did not say a word. The German Chancellor even said Israel was doing Europe’s “dirty work.” So, not just tacit approval—explicit approval.

Despite initial successes, the Israelis did not succeed in disrupting Iran’s command and control for more than about 12 hours; after ~18 hours, those officials had been replaced and the Iranians started shooting back. Many of their missiles were effective in penetrating layers of Israel’s air defences. Regime collapse did not happen. Instead, we saw a resurgence of nationalism in Iran. That doesn’t necessarily strengthen the regime—it’s still unpopular—but there’s someone even more unpopular right now, and that’s Bibi Netanyahu, who is killing Iranians with indiscriminate attacks—about 1,060 deaths, the vast majority civilians, similar to Lebanon (and not as bad as Gaza, which is another dimension), but nevertheless a very high civilian toll.

The third, longer‑term objective was to reduce Iran into the next Syria or Lebanon: a country Israel can bomb at will, with impunity, and crucially without U.S. involvement. Israel doesn’t need American protection to bomb Lebanon or Syria, because there’s nothing those countries can do. But it’s different with Iranian ballistic missiles. The Iranians have a huge stockpile, far more than Israel has interceptors, and it takes Iran less time to build missiles than it takes Israel or the U.S. to build interceptors. The Israeli strategy has a name—“mowing the grass”: you attack, take out capabilities, and every 6–12 months you bomb again to ensure the capacity hasn’t been rebuilt. They likely expected several waves and more first‑wave success than they achieved. Having started, they can’t afford to stop; if they give Iran too much time, Iran will rebuild air defences (perhaps buy better from China), root out Mossad presence, prepare, and build more missiles, while Israel can’t build interceptors fast enough. So time is not on Israel’s side. Having started, they need to attack again and degrade Iran further—even though Israel will take hits—until they manage to turn Iran into the next Syria. I’m convinced they’re preparing another attack; it may happen this month, with an outer time limit around December, because after that the U.S. enters midterm season. Within MAGA this war isn’t popular; Trump only got away with it because no Americans died and it was over quickly. Another war dragging the U.S. in during midterms is complicated; hence Israel’s preference to act before December.

Wow. Okay. Given how you’ve laid that out—it makes sense why Israel might want that and how it could drag Trump in sooner rather than later, with Europe seeking a tighter U.S. relationship. What’s the risk of this blowing out? Iran has growing ties with Russia and China. Many worry about an incident sparking a much bigger, perhaps global war. How worried are you that Iran becomes the hill we all choose to die on, with cascading domino effects—especially given Europe and its own follies?

Quite a few circumstances would have to change for China to shift strategy. They’ve very cleverly stayed out of these conflicts; they’ve grown tremendously precisely because they don’t have 750 bases around the world and aren’t dragging themselves into everyone else’s wars. This is what we do in the U.S.; this is why restrainers believe the U.S. needs to shift its grand strategy and not allow itself to be dragged into others’ wars. The entire infrastructure of America’s military is designed around liberal hegemony; shifting strategy will be challenging but not impossible—it requires different infrastructure too. But I don’t think the Chinese are likely to get involved directly. Could they provide intelligence or sell air defences and aircraft? Yes, but it would take Iran years to make those operable—and once Israel has started mowing the grass, you can’t allow the grass to grow.

On Russia, Iranians are a bit more disappointed; they expected more. The key issue now is political rather than military. Iran should have no expectation that Russia will sacrifice its relations—or the opportunity to improve them—with the U.S. for Iran’s sake. That’s not how Russia works. However, snapback may not be as clean as Europe and the U.S. want. Russia and China may fundamentally question its legality and legitimacy. It will probably still pass, but will it be the same kind of UN sanctions if two P5 members question it? The end result may be a further weakening of the Security Council and international law, and many countries may go along with Russia/China and not abide by it, arguing this snapback was illegitimate—it wasn’t designed for a scenario where Iran is bombed but for when Iran cheats. That’s where Iran focuses now: political support from Russia and China.

Where I’m very worried is the risk of a larger war. Precisely because Iranians understand the Israeli objective is to turn them into Syria, the previous Iranian strategy—playing the long game, strategic patience—won’t work. There is no long game unless there’s a short game. Saving bullets won’t work if the other side aims to degrade your capability completely. I suspect Iranians will hit back very hard, very fast in the next round, to make it as costly as possible for Israel to pursue mowing the grass and to dispel the notion that Iran can be turned into the next Syria. This could mean mass‑casualty events in Israel, dramatically increasing pressure on the United States. Even if Trump wants to stay out, the pressure to get in offensively—not just defensively—would be tremendous. That can create the nightmare scenario largely avoided thus far: a full‑scale Iran‑U.S. war, with the entire region as the arena.

When you do the strategic calculus—and as we discussed at the start about spheres of influence and a multi‑order (not merely multipolar) world—I’m sure, in Western halls of power, Israel is seen as the outpost. That’s how Netanyahu sells it: “we are the West in the Middle East.” That worries me. If the lines are drawn as West vs. the rest—or about the West’s survival as the norms and rules setter—then I wouldn’t be surprised if—

But it would also be the worst example of that framing, because you’re talking about a country whose leaders—two of them—are fugitives from the ICC, wanted for war crimes, and with a genocide case at the International Court of Justice; a vast majority of genocide experts have called it genocide; polls worldwide—including in the U.S.—show a majority now view Israel as committing genocide. A couple of years ago, the question “Is Israel an apartheid state?” was controversial; now it’s essentially settled in public opinion, and the most important human rights organisations say that is the case. If Israel is the example of a rules‑based order, you’re doing the work of China and Russia for them—they could not have wished for a more problematic, weak, and frankly absurd example of a rule‑setter or rules‑abider for which everyone else must die on that hill.

This has tied the West in a knot. Shockingly, as someone who grew up in Europe, I see the degree to which Europe is willing to sacrifice international norms, international law, international institutions—an entire security paradigm—for the sake of protecting Israel as it commits genocide. This is shocking. When the Rome Statute was signed in 1998, it was seen in Europe as one of the biggest victories—a civilisational leap towards a world in which laws would matter more than power. South Africa wouldn’t allow Putin to travel for BRICS because he was wanted by the ICC; Brazil abided too. But when it became Europe’s turn regarding Netanyahu—who has the very same warrant—Hungary invited him and said they’re leaving the ICC; several European leaders hinted they could invite him and essentially said they don’t care about ICC rulings. That civilisational leap was sacrificed—reversed—for Bibi Netanyahu. As someone who grew up in Europe, I can’t wrap my head around that strategic calculation.

As someone who also grew up in Europe—and were we foolish to believe? I’ve written that the bubble has burst and the liberal order was an illusion. Did we believe in vain? I joined the army to fight for those liberal norms, ideals, and aspirations. It feels like we have to look in the mirror and realise maybe it was a farce. That’s a hard pill to swallow.

I’m not willing to swallow that quite yet. Not because I have a romanticised, whitewashed view—it had plenty of ugly sides. But looking at the longer course of history, those 70 or so years did prevent wars, limited others, and enabled many things that would have been much more difficult in the past; we could have ended up in a much worse scenario. Keep one thing in mind: the very idea that using force to acquire territory is illegitimate is relatively new—early 20th century into post‑WWII. Prior to that, it was legitimate to conquer territory by force; if you managed it, congratulations—you owned it. That changed as a result of WWII and the norms established afterward. Again, not perfect—but imagine a world where that norm didn’t exist. This goes back to the effort to break norms: talk of annexing Greenland or Canada is about reversing norms designed to restrain all states, making the world less prone to war. We should be careful not to wish to go back to the pre‑1945 world; it was much uglier.

I’m conscious of time and we haven’t touched much on Iran itself. To close: what’s happening in Iran domestically? There was internal pressure and years of protests. As you noted, the identity of being Iranian has been galvanised through the ‘12 Day War’—not surprising; it happens everywhere. What does all this mean inside Iran?

It’s a very interesting, and worrying, scenario. Right now you see some hope that the regime has understood its biggest weakness: its very problematic relationship with the population and the tremendous unhappiness. The Mossad would not have been able to recruit this number of Iranians to work for Israel had there not been significant unhappiness. Iran is not an exceptional case in nationalism, but it is a nation‑state with very deep roots: a nation for more than 3,000 years, with an old bureaucracy, and a very strong nationalism.

Nevertheless, Israeli penetration was significant, and that has raised hope that an external attack could force the regime to meet the population halfway. There are hints on issues like the forced veil on women—it’s still on the books, but not implemented the same way—and perhaps this leads to deeper changes written into law. If it goes that way, I would be extremely happy; it’s better for the population. But the historical track record is not one where war leads to liberalisation; it tends to do the opposite. I worry that initial reactions give way to a darker reality. The population will ask serious questions: how could this happen in the first place? Why doesn’t Iran have proper air defence systems? What did investment in aligned groups—Hezbollah, the Houthis, others—actually achieve when Israel could penetrate society and even deep into the regime? If the regime can’t answer satisfactorily, it will intensify repression. So we’re at a moment where there is hope for liberalisation, but history suggests the opposite is more likely—particularly under external pressure.

Especially with all the external pressures being put on it. On that note, Trita, this hour has flown. Thank you for a really insightful conversation. I hope we can do this again as this unfolds—thank you very much for your time. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.