Trita Parsi on why global opinion is shifting toward Iran amid the US blockade and war
Glenn Diesen interviews Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about the US-Iran conflict, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump's political strategy ahead of the midterms, and shifting international opinion.
Summary
Glenn Diesen speaks with Trita Parsi about the evolving US-Iran standoff following the war and naval blockade. Parsi argues that Trump's "economic D-Day" announcement is largely performative — designed to maintain a manageable status quo until the midterm elections rather than to genuinely escalate pressure on Iran. He reveals that US service personnel in the region are deeply demoralized, are watching alternative media to make sense of the conflict, and view the war as being fought primarily for Israel's benefit. Most strikingly, Parsi reports that senior officials from countries firmly in the American and Western camp are privately rooting for Iran — not out of sympathy for the Iranian government, but because they fear that a swift US victory would embolden Trump to move against other countries. He attributes this view to private conversations, including one interlocutor who specifically cited Cuba and Greenland as potential next targets. Parsi also discusses how the US capacity to remove countries from the international financial system — demonstrated when Russia was sanctioned off the global financial grid — has alarmed Global South nations and accelerated the desire to balance against American power. He also discusses Germany's historic failure to win a UN Security Council seat, which he attributes largely to its abandonment of international law in supporting the war.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Trump's "economic D-Day" and the blockade strategy
Glenn Diesen: Trita Parsi joins us today — the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. I wanted to ask a few questions today about articles from your Substack. Let me start by welcoming you back to the program.
Trita Parsi: Thank you so much. Great to be with you again, Glenn.
Glenn Diesen: One of the issues I wanted to ask about was that Trump announced this economic D-Day with a new sense of optimism that he now has leverage. How are you assessing this? Has Trump been able to find a better bargaining position vis-à-vis the Iranians?
Trita Parsi: I think those are two separate issues. The bargaining position has, to a certain extent, strengthened, because I do think they have managed to get a larger number of tankers and, more importantly, a larger amount of oil out of the strait than they did before. Some of the numbers that are out there are a bit exaggerated, but using these VLCCs — these massive tankers that can take up to two million barrels of oil — you just need to get about five to ten of them a day and you've actually recuperated a very significant amount of the oil that used to go through the strait.
An element that complicates that picture, however, is that the Iranians are not shooting at these ships simply because they can't. Some of that oil is Iran's own oil. The Iranians are actually selling some of their oil through Iraqis and others because they too need a way of getting out of the blockade. If they can get their oil through the southern channel under the flag of someone else and then sell it and find ways to get paid for it, that serves Iran's interest as well. At the end of the day, everyone knows it is in Iran's own interest to make sure there's at least some opening in this trade.
Nevertheless, I do think Trump has created a scenario in which the status quo is probably slightly more painful for the Iranians than it is for the United States. And this is where we get to the D-Day announcement. It is precisely this status quo that the Trump administration wants to keep, at least until the midterms. Perhaps after the midterms they'll make a decision as to whether they want to go back to negotiations or war. But they want to keep this for a period now to make sure that nothing major happens until then. They want to get Iran off the front pages, out of the headlines, out of mainstream news coverage, because as they get closer to the midterms, they don't want the connection between Iran and higher gas prices to be made too visible.
From a political standpoint, that makes sense. If you have a lot of activity — whether escalation or diplomacy — it leads to a scenario in which Iran is back in the headlines. So I think they're trying to create a new status quo. That means they're likely not going to try to impose these sanctions in a very dramatic way, meaning there will be far more bark than bite when it comes to the announcement. Far more decibels on the announcement, far less on the implementation.
If they really tried to implement this firmly, first of all that means they would have to take on Chinese purchases of oil, and that's a different conversation I don't think they're ready to have. But even if they did and managed to impose a lot of pain on the Iranians, the Iranians are going to counter-escalate. The administration fully understands this, and as a result they would break their own status quo and undermine their own interest in keeping these things out of the headlines.
It makes sense from their standpoint to do this big announcement, make it sound devastating — all the stuff that Trump is actually quite good at — make a lot of noise, and then have far less substance behind it. But this time around I think it really is deliberate, because it serves their interest to keep the status quo until the midterms. After the midterms, it's a different story. Perhaps they're using this time to restock interceptors, move them from Europe and Asia to the region in order to prepare for a third round. Or perhaps they'll wait and see whether the new situation with more oil going through the strait puts the US in a better negotiating position and then go back to the table.
But the message sent so far by the administration, privately and publicly, is that they're not interested in lifting the blockade. If they're not interested in lifting the blockade and they're not engaging in any diplomacy, it means there is no deal right now that the United States is interested in. I suspect that will be the case up until the midterms.
What Iran does is a different story, and it can completely uproot things. Let me add one other thing. I've had a lot of conversations with European and Asian diplomats. Not a single one of the ones I've spoken to said that their capital or their DC embassy was contacted by the US Treasury with specific demands about relationships or connections with Iranian banks that they needed to sever. If this was really going to be implemented, I would have expected at least a couple of those phone calls by now.
Iran's counter-strategy and the threat of retaliation
Glenn Diesen: I guess I have two questions about that. What will Trump do with this leverage — is this just politics to make it through the midterms, or if you have leverage, wouldn't you have to use it to renegotiate something with the Iranians? And also, as you said, Iran will not be very passive, especially if the sanctions are enforced. It seems to me the Iranians are trying to take a more active position — they want to deter not just countries from striking Iran with impunity, but also the ability to put sanctions on Iran and try to weaken it. The message I seem to be getting from Tehran is they will no longer accept any of this. Any country that uses sanctions against Iran, the Iranians will have to fight back in some way. How do you see this?
Trita Parsi: I think you're quite right — the Iranians are going to take a much more unforgiving position on these issues. But if the implementation of the sanctions is actually very limited, then there's also much less for the Iranians to react to. The administration is presenting one picture and pursuing a very different one. As long as they're pursuing a very different picture, the Iranian retaliation or counter-escalation will either not happen or will be very limited.
What the Iranians are doing right now is actually a counter to this strategy. First, they're waiting to see if Trump gets over his emotional hiccups and is willing to come back to the table. They've made it very clear what they want to see — a return to the MOU. They're not asking for a stronger or a different MOU. They may want more clarity on certain parts of the text, but they're not saying they want a fundamentally different agreement. The US has signaled they're not interested in the MOU right now, but they haven't said they're not interested in it permanently.
So what I think the Iranians are doing right now is, first, waiting to see if there may be a change on the American side. They're waiting to see whether these sanctions will actually be fully implemented and how biting they'll be. If they turn out to be very effective and costly, then I think Iran will retaliate directly and in many different ways. If they end up being impactful but not dramatically so — meaning the cost of the status quo is more painful to Iran than to the US, but not in a dramatic way, and over time Iran will be in an increasingly relatively weak position — then I think the Iranians are likely to retaliate or counter-escalate as well, but perhaps not urgently. In that scenario, I suspect they will retaliate sometime closer to the midterm elections in order to get maximum impact on the US — perhaps waiting until mid-September or early October to make sure the retaliation has the maximum political impact on Trump.
In the meantime, they're also doing something else which I think is very interesting. They are engaged in diplomacy with the Pakistanis, the Qataris, and the Omanis. They're working with the Omanis on a proposal on how to handle this trade, knowing very well that the Trump administration is saying it's not interested in anything right now. That's fine. I think the Iranians are doing this for three reasons.
One, they want to show their domestic audience that they're the ones engaged in diplomacy and trying to be reasonable. So if there is a return to war, the population does not blame Tehran's negotiating position for it, but rather sees Trump as the problem — which is going to be relatively easy given what Trump himself is saying. He's making the Iranian government's job here much, much easier.
Second, they want to show the regional audience that they're playing ball, that they're engaged in this diplomacy, coming out with proposals, and that all of these proposals are currently being rejected by the Trump administration. That too is very valuable for them, because it would be very problematic if the regional view was that the Americans are trying to solve this and Iran is the intransigent party.
Third, I think it is a preparation for a potential return by Trump to negotiations — getting as far ahead as possible on what potential solutions can look like. If Trump then comes in after the midterm elections thinking he is in a better negotiating position and wants to make a lot of changes, he's going to have to unravel a lot of the diplomacy that has already happened, a lot of the agreements within the region that may already have occurred. That will put him in a weaker position, or at least a more problematic one, because he's not coming into a scenario where there's been no talks and no principles established — in fact, a lot of it will already have been established, and he's going to have to abide by that or try to dismantle it, which again puts him in a potentially negative situation vis-à-vis the regional countries.
The possibility of seizing Iranian tankers and why Iran hasn't attacked the blockade
Glenn Diesen: I saw a Bloomberg article arguing that the US was considering the possibility of passing a law — or reverting to an existing one — that would make it legal under American law to seize Iranian tankers and essentially claim them as US property and sell their oil as a way to offset the economic pain of this war. It seems like if the blockade turned to piracy essentially, that would be one of the triggers for Iran to directly attack. But do you see this as likely? And also, why isn't Iran attacking the ships of the United States? Many people are asking this because they've been pounding US military bases and hammering anyone who assists the United States, but somehow the blockade is allowed to stand. How do you explain that?
Trita Parsi: On the first part — yes, if you start seeing the US Navy intercepting and taking Iranian tankers on the high seas, the vast majority of them going to China, if that were to happen — and we have to keep in mind this is not just a provocation against Iran, it's a provocation against China ahead of Xi's visit to Washington — I'm not so sure this is what the administration ultimately is going to do. But if it does, yes, in that scenario I see the Iranians going after a lot of things in the region, potentially kinetically, not just economically — a strong counter-escalation. We have to remember this has already been done by the US, both by Trump and Biden in the past, not on a large scale but on a couple of occasions, and the Iranians back then — with a different leadership and a much more restrained mindset — did respond, but not as forcefully as they probably could have. This time around, I have no doubt they will respond very, very forcefully if that happens, and they will likely have China on their side as well.
The second question is a really interesting one and I don't have a clear answer. The Houthis just shot a ballistic missile at a Saudi ship moving in the northern part of the Red Sea — 1,200 kilometers — and hit it. If the Houthis have that capability, then certainly the Iranians have that capability. Why they haven't used it, I don't know. Particularly if the blockade ends up becoming very problematic for them, it makes it very difficult to understand why they haven't done this, given that they have been very aggressive in targeting bases. It's a very good question. Perhaps it is one of those things that the Iranians have decided to save for worst-case scenarios within this already very bad scenario — similarly to the Houthis, for instance, closing the Strait of Aden, which was also a card they wanted to keep for a later stage of this conflict.
Global public opinion shifting toward Iran
Glenn Diesen: I did want to ask about a different article you were writing, which points out that the international community — well, the public around the world — has a surprising sympathy with Iran in this conflict. There have been a lot of interesting developments in terms of support for the United States. Early on it was pointed out that there's a lack of support by the US public for this war, which is unusual because usually at the beginning of wars the public is somewhat gung-ho and then drops off as it drags on. So it's important to get the war wrapped up early, but this time around it was unpopular pretty much from day one. And also the military in the United States doesn't seem too happy about this either. You posted a picture of some comments about the war and Netanyahu which apparently made some rounds on the internet, expressing profound dissatisfaction with the war overall. But your article focused on the wider world, and I never thought I would see the day when public opinion around the world seemed to side with Iran, given the demonization of Iran over the decades. How do you explain this?
Trita Parsi: I think it's a very important question. Let me answer the last part, but I want to say a couple of things first.
I think you might be quite happy to hear this actually — on the first thing I put on my Substack, which was that I've been in touch with US service personnel in the region throughout all of this. I can tell you they're watching your show, and they're watching a lot of other YouTube shows, because they're very upset and they're trying to make sense of this. For them, the most immediate thing is they want to understand when they're going home, because they've been put on this indefinite mission that just never comes to an end. We saw, for instance, that the folks on the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier had been on the water for more than nine months — a record — with still no sign of it coming to an end. The only reason they were pulled back was because their family members went public about it. They're watching the regular news and making no sense of it. No one can, because it doesn't make any sense. So they're watching a lot of this alternative media — your show and other shows on YouTube — and through that they've gotten in contact with me.
One service person shared with me an image of what soldiers had been scribbling on the dust of an aircraft flap. I posted it and it went viral, showing the comments of the servicemen themselves, which were very critical of the war, very critical of the administration, and particularly critical of Israel — viewing this war as something that was done for Israel. One of them sent me a comment about how difficult it is for them to remain motivated in what is a very difficult region, on an indefinite mission, for a mission that doesn't have any moral backing in the first place. I think all of these things come together in that sentence, because if you feel there's a moral reason for what you're doing, you can soldier on. But when there isn't, and there is no end date, no plan, nothing — it really creates a tremendous amount of problems for the servicemen and women out there right now. This is also a missing piece of this story. As you mentioned, the public was never in favor of it, and now you have clear evidence that at least at this stage the servicemen and women don't seem to be particularly favorable towards it either — which, frankly, at the end of the day, is not surprising.
Then you have this other dimension — the public opinion question, which I'm not as surprised by, but I agree it is quite stunning. Given the demonization of Iran, given what the Iranian government did in January and the clampdown on the protests, the large number of people that were killed — even though a lot of the numbers circulating are most likely highly exaggerated, something very, very bad happened there. This is not a government or system that has much of a positive image, not just in the West but throughout the world.
But now we're not just talking about public opinion having shifted in Iran's favor. What I've come across, and what I wrote about on my Substack, was how stunned I was to see senior officials — in private conversations with me — from countries that are squarely in the American and Western camp secretly rooting for Iran. And this needs a bit more explanation.
I think there's a very clear realist logic as to why this is happening. The bottom line is that states are looking to see where the most acute threats are coming from and trying to balance against them. The current situation, particularly given how Trump is conducting himself, is that being an American ally is by no means a protection against Trump's mood swings. And for many of them, they saw what happened in Venezuela. They saw that it was seen as a major success, and militarily it was. It really put Trump on a sugar high and made him overconfident about his ability to replicate it elsewhere. He thought he was going to bring down Iran in four days. And as one person told me, had it not been for the resilience of the Iranians at this point, the United States would likely have invaded Cuba by now and potentially have annexed Greenland as well. The only reason this appears not to have happened is because Trump got stuck in the Persian Gulf and in the Strait of Hormuz.
So it's not necessarily that they are rooting for Iran, but they're seeing a value in the US not succeeding in this, because otherwise the US would likely have gone after other countries. What you're seeing is a picture of a world that is yearning for balance, and the country that right now needs to be balanced against more acutely than anyone else is the United States — because of the conduct of the Trump administration, which has led to a lot of senior officials in Western governments who are otherwise very close to the US secretly rooting for Iran to at least disabuse the US of ever trying this again.
The global south, international law, and the narrative of hegemony
Glenn Diesen: About the servicemen — I can understand why they would lose heart in all of this. I remember in the 1990s I was quite optimistic about the Cold War being over. I thought, a bit like after World War II, you were going to see Russia integrated into Europe. I joined the army in 1998 or '99. In March of '99 you saw NATO expand, essentially cancelling a common Europe, and a few days later we went bombing Serbia — German planes again bombing a European capital. I find it disheartening when you see wars you don't believe in and see as very destructive.
On that note — that they're not necessarily rooting for Iran but would like to see the US face some resistance and come off Trump's sugar high — there are some similarities to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I remember Kishore Mahbubani, the Singaporean diplomat who became president of the UN Security Council, making a point back in 2022 or 2023 that the reason why the majority of the world did not join in on the sanctions was not because they supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but because — if NATO and the United States were able to break Russia and essentially return to a unipolar moment — this would be a horrible situation for the world. He used words like "intolerable" or "suffocating" — can you imagine how suffocating the US and NATO would be if they could break the Russians, and we go back to the '90s but with more arrogance? So this was the argument for why it was better not to see NATO succeed in that proxy war.
But in terms of framing — for the US it's selling the idea of the war against Iran as liberal democracy versus theocracy, while the narrative in many other parts of the world is this is the hegemon versus the counter-hegemon. Do you see the Iranians leaning into this struggle of the Global South or the East? How close is this to reality — the US being balanced by China, Russia, Iran?
Trita Parsi: On the first thing — what Kishore Mahbubani wrote — I think that's very interesting. I observed something slightly different, which was not necessarily rooting for the Russians to somewhat succeed because you didn't want to see NATO become too powerful and go back to an American unipolar moment. I think there were a lot of countries in the Global South who were very concerned about what this would mean for international law and the territorial integrity of countries, and didn't want to see that norm further weakened.
But I think it was also a scenario in which, very quickly after that war — five days after Russia invaded Ukraine — the United States took Russia completely off of the international financial system. This rang alarm bells around the world because it showed a capacity that the United States has, because of the use of the dollar, because the international financial system has essentially become an American instrument of statecraft rather than an international one. Yes, what Russia did in invading a country was a violation of international law, but Russia cannot replicate that in many places, certainly not in many places in the Global South. So what Russia did is wrong, but it's not a threat to a country in Africa, for instance. What the US did in taking Russia off of the financial grid is not necessarily wrong, but it is a threat to a lot of these other countries, because the United States has already proven itself to be quite unreliable. Even though the Biden administration did not necessarily behave the way Trump did, the world had already tasted what an unpredictable America could be like and what it could do. And now with this capacity, it terrified a lot of countries. So again, the desire for balancing against the US was emerging there — not because they thought Russia was right, not even because they thought it would be good for Russia to come out of this somewhat successful, but because of what is the more immediate threat to them. Russia was not that. That's not an endorsement of Russia, but America's ability to strangulate a country economically that is completely dependent on the dollar for trade was terrifying for a lot of these different countries.
On the issue of framing — in the past, perhaps it would be accurate to say there was a narrative of liberal American democracy against the theocracy. I don't know anyone who believes in that these days, because it's not as if the Trump administration itself is using that language, or that its conduct is what people expected of a liberal democracy. What the Iranians are using more than anything else is the struggle against a foreign hegemony in the region — a hegemony that has underwritten and enabled a genocide in that region. This is the narrative they've had for a very long time, and I think now that narrative has far more receptivity in many different places, including in pockets of the West itself, than it did just years ago. Gaza is a very critical element of that, and Israel's critical role in starting this war is of course a very critical element as well.
Germany's UN Security Council defeat and European credibility on international law
Glenn Diesen: I feel like often Europeans are willing to go along with any of America's wars as long as it's dressed up in the right language. With Venezuela, the Norwegians gave the peace prize to Machado, everything was lined up in terms of legitimacy. All Trump had to do was come up with some catchphrase about democracy and human rights. But he wouldn't stop talking about oil — "this is our oil" — and European leaders, as long as they can walk around embracing sanctimonious rhetoric, they're willing to join any war it seems. But Trump didn't give it to them. He just hammered on about oil, which was a problem.
And I think the European conduct on this — particularly the pattern we've seen in Iran in June, Venezuela in December or January, and Iran again in February — international law was very conveniently set aside. It was even attacked, deemed an academic conversation, "this is not the time for it." This came from Germany, from Greece, from several European countries. And that again, I think, is part of the reason Germany failed to win an elected seat on the Security Council just a couple of months ago — it lost to Portugal and Austria for the two elected seats allocated for Europe. This was the first time ever that Germany had lost such a campaign. Germany still has a claim for a permanent seat, but now it couldn't even get elected to a temporary two-year seat. That was a huge blow to Germany.
Trita Parsi: A lot of that has to do — I would say the overwhelming majority of the explanatory factor here — not just that the Germans joined the race a little bit too late, though they did, and that partially explains it. But what really is behind this is the manner in which Germany completely collapsed in terms of its support for international law. This is no longer the Germany of 2003 that stands up against an illegal invasion of Iraq. This is a Germany that applauds an illegal war against Iran, that says Israel is doing its dirty work for it, that sat right next to Trump a day or two into the war in the Oval Office endorsing this war and saying that international law doesn't matter — saying they were going to "study" the ruling of the ICC when it came to the arrest warrants of Gallant and Netanyahu.
The expectation on Germany has always been much stronger because traditionally it has been very fiercely in favor of international law and stood up for it even at high cost, such as in 2003. Now it has completely caved and turned into something completely different — even though just months earlier it was referencing international law as completely sacrosanct in the context of Ukraine, but suddenly nowhere to be found in the context of Gaza. Overall, internationally, you've seen a complete collapse of any confidence in the Europeans actually standing up for principle, despite the fact that countries like Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia prior to this election still held up that flag and tried. But the big European countries have completely vacated that space.
Glenn Diesen: That's a great point. If the Iran war hadn't been preceded by the genocide, things might have been different. But as you said, the US and many of the larger European countries very enthusiastically backed the genocide, and then the Iranians were almost alone in leading the pushback in support of the Palestinians. So after that genocide, having thrown away our entire moral compass, to then try to legitimize those who backed the genocide attacking the Iranians — I guess it does put it in a different light.
Netanyahu, Israeli elections, and the prospects for a post-midterm deal
I just want to pivot back to what we discussed first, because you mentioned Israel in terms of the war with Iran. If Trump now has this leverage and can negotiate, I can't imagine Netanyahu has a very strong interest in seeing Trump take advantage of this improved bargaining position. How do you see that dynamic working out?
Trita Parsi: We're going to go back to where we were before, and of course this would be after the elections. The Israeli elections are in October. The midterms are the first week of November. So we will have a scenario in which Trump will likely have lost the House, potentially the Senate. He will be on the defensive, but he may end up becoming more reckless after the midterms and more disregarding of other interests. Not that the midterms seem to have constrained him that much, but perhaps there was a constraint on him that wasn't very visible that will be lost — particularly if he loses the Senate as well and you have impeachment proceedings.
We should remember that some of the most dangerous moments with Trump were actually after he lost the elections in 2020, in November of that year. That's when he was actively looking for an opportunity to start a war with Iran absent any provocation, simply because he was looking for ways to make sure he could remain president and essentially avoid a peaceful transition of power to Joe Biden. That is of course the same period in which we see the January 6th events. So I think he may end up becoming more reckless after that.
But if he chooses to go down the path of diplomacy, it will obviously be interesting to see who is in power in Israel at the time. Not that I think it makes a huge difference in terms of the direction of Israeli policy, but it may make a difference in one specific aspect. Netanyahu is more astute than the other candidates for the prime ministership in Israel in dealing with and maneuvering the American political space. I'm not saying he's a genius in any way, shape, or form — because Israel has clearly lost most of the American public — but when it comes to maneuvering the electoral spaces and the donor bases, I think he's actually quite a bit more effective and has far more experience in doing so than any other potential Israeli prime minister. That may have an impact.
But the bottom line is, if Trump wants to go back towards a deal, the deal is not going to look particularly different from what the MOU did, and the Israelis will be dead set against it. They will do everything they can to at a minimum make sure that the next deal does not include Israel and Lebanon. And I have zero confidence that the Iranians will agree to an MOU or any other form of a deal that does not include Lebanon, because I think Lebanon is essential from Iran's standpoint and from their own security needs.
Glenn Diesen: As you said before, the Iranians would like to deter further aggression against Iran, and if further aggression is now a reason for getting a better deal, they're sending out the wrong signal. I think one thing they were hammering on about was the idea that if someone goes down this path, then every time Trump comes back to the negotiation table he will get a worse deal. This is essentially how they would incentivize him to stick to diplomacy. So if this is a possibility, it might go against what the Iranians are willing to accept.
Just a last question about Yemen, the Iraqi militias, and all these other actors in the region, because they're often very casually — and I would argue incorrectly — dismissed as simply being Iranian vassals or satellites, as if Iran picks up the phone and they start taking orders. They have their own interests, and the conflict between Yemen and Saudi Arabia has a life of its own. How would that work out now if Iran and the US stabilize things a little? It seems like the Saudis are intent on hitting back against Yemen, and the sentiment in Yemen is the same. How does this affect the wider conflict between the US and Iran?
Yemen, the Houthis, and a potential regional ceasefire
Trita Parsi: If there is another deal, I think the Iranians will insist on a regional ceasefire. And the regional ceasefire goes both ways. It means that the Israelis need to stop bombing Lebanon and get out of Lebanon, but it also means that Hezbollah has to stop shooting at Israel once Israel is out of Lebanon, and the Houthis have to stop shooting at the Saudis. So there will be responsibilities on Iranian shoulders to use whatever leverage they have — and I agree with you fully, they don't have control, but they do have leverage — to pull the Houthis back. And American leverage on Israel and potentially on Saudi Arabia to also pull back.
If I was in Saudi Arabia right now — yes, clearly the Saudis did not want to see a new situation emerge in the region in which the Houthis would be strengthened because of their relationship with Iran becoming less constrained, in the sense that the blockade of Yemen would have bigger holes in it. We saw that the airplanes flying from Iran to Sana'a airport was part of the reason why the Saudis intervened militarily at that point. But ultimately I would think the Saudis are looking at the situation. They have a Mecca pact with Pakistan and Turkey. But what has that done so far? The Houthis are striking at Saudi ships. Turkey and Pakistan are not intervening on behalf of Saudi Arabia. The Israelis are striking Turkey and Syria, and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are not intervening on behalf of Turkey. So far that agreement doesn't seem to have any practical implications, and perhaps it won't for some time.
So if I was Saudi Arabia and there's a deal on the table that would compel the Iranians to hold back the Houthis to the extent that they can — and they would be incentivized to do so because it's part of the equation that would also get the Israelis to pull back from Lebanon — I would rather go with that than see a restart of the war with the Houthis. And we know exactly how that ended up last time for the Saudis.
Glenn Diesen: Fair enough. Well, thank you for taking the time, Trita.
Trita Parsi: Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you again for having me. Talk to you soon.