Trita Parsi on post-war realignment prospects for Iran, the Arab states, and Turkey
Glenn Diesen interviews Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, on the collapse of the Iran ceasefire and the prospects for a new regional security architecture.
Summary
Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, examines the breakdown of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the US and Iran, the resumption of hostilities, and what a durable peace in the Middle East might require. He argues that both sides overreacted to a dispute over ship transit through the Strait of Hormuz, and that the resumption of fighting — though damaging — has not yet formally killed the MOU, with both sides still leaving the door open. He contends that the deeper problem is structural: the existing US-led security architecture in the Gulf is fundamentally incompatible with a stable peace that includes Iran, and that a new inclusive security framework — modeled loosely on the Helsinki process — is both necessary and increasingly within reach. He also addresses Israel's role, arguing that Israel's security paradigm, premised on regional military dominance underwritten by the United States, makes it the principal obstacle to any durable regional settlement, and that the only viable path forward involves a standing open door for Israel contingent on the creation of a Palestinian state. Throughout, he draws a pointed contrast between the Middle East's tentative movement toward political maturity and what he describes as the intellectual deterioration of European security thinking, particularly criticizing the abandonment of Oslo-era norms around international law and civilian protection.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
The MOU: Still Alive, But Under Severe Strain
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back. We are joined again by Trita Parsi, the Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and also an excellent writer on his Substack channel — my go-to Substack when I need to know what's going on with the US and the Middle East. Thank you very much for coming back on the program.
Trita Parsi: Thanks so much for having me again, Glenn.
Glenn Diesen: We see now that the United States has gone back to war against Iran. Trump even took to Truth Social and wrote recently that the ceasefire is over. He also made some comments at the NATO summit. Kar Island could be taken by the US. Is it too late to save the Memorandum of Understanding now?
Trita Parsi: I don't think it is too late, but we're definitely reaching the point at which it would be too late. It's very noteworthy that the Iranians have not said that the memorandum is over with yet. They're keeping the door open. Trump has said that he thinks it's over, but he hasn't been categorical, because at the end of the day this latest round of fighting is probably not going to lead anywhere. It's not going to change the fundamentals of the situation, and then there's going to be a need to return to diplomacy. And if the MOU technically is still alive, you save yourself a tremendous amount of time and political capital. If you have to start from scratch, we saw how difficult it was to get to the MOU — and the MOU clearly was imperfect. The ambiguities in it ended up becoming perhaps a little bit too big, particularly Article 5, which is a key reason as to why the fighting is taking place right now.
So I think it's noteworthy that both sides have not stated anything categorical about abandoning the MOU. The ceasefire could be over without the MOU being over. Now, is it good that we're in this situation? Absolutely not. I think this is an absolute disaster and it bodes very badly for the MOU at the end of the day. This was not the way it was supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a bumpy ride — that was very understandable given the difficulties involved. But this type of return to fighting, which we've now seen twice, and the second round being much worse and much more intense than the first, is really not something that does an MOU any justice. I think it was Ali Hashem who at this point called it not the MOU but the MOM — the Memorandum of Misunderstanding.
Glenn Diesen: That's what I thought when Trump referred to going after Kar Island. That would be an incredible escalation, as would sending in ground troops. So this would be very different. But I also assume that the US would try to renegotiate the MOU as they went along. Could this be part of the American approach — using a bit of military force in order to try to make the Iranians shift their position, for example, on the administration of the Strait of Hormuz? Because I think they were hoping they could get ships in and out without falling under the control of Iran. But making this a twofold question: for the US to simply go on — if it is an approach to renegotiate — you know, bombing, going back to ceasefire, bombing again — at some point the Iranians would reach the conclusion that why would they give this kind of escalation dominance to the United States? Why allow the Americans to decide when the bombing starts and when it stops?
Trita Parsi: This is a very dangerous control to cede. I frankly am not convinced that this is a thought-through renegotiating tactic. Is it an effort to strengthen the US position? Yes. But is it a renegotiation tactic — meaning that they actually know exactly what to do with that additional supposed leverage? No.
And let me take one step back and also say that at the end of the day, there was a solution to this issue about the strait on the table that both sides were converging towards after the first round of fighting, which was now about thirteen or so days ago. There was diplomatic activity and an idea had emerged that said: okay, the Iranians do not want to see any ships go through either the southern or the northern corridor without coordinating with them — that's their reading of Article 5 of the MOU. The US and most of the GCC do not read the MOU or that article in that manner, that it is solely the responsibility of Iran. But an idea emerged that was actually attractive to both sides: that all ships would report to both sides — not just to the Iranians. There would be a designated country on the GCC side that would also receive all notifications from all ships going through the northern and southern corridors. And as long as that was the case, the Iranians would be fine. In fact, they have been fine with countries going through the southern corridor as long as they report. And the reporting is nothing insurmountable — it's essentially sending an email saying that they're seeking to transit. There are no fees, nothing of that kind.
What happened, though, is that they never managed to fully come to a conclusion on this. They were on their way, but then because of the funeral of the Ayatollah, the diplomacy was put on pause. And during that pause, there were several ships — three in total, at least one of them Qatari, one of them Saudi — that were trying to go through the southern corridor with their transponders off, which the Iranians viewed as a major provocation.
Part of the reason the Iranians are concerned about this — and I write about this extensively on the Substack — is because they fear that the US is trying to use the MOU to create a new solid corridor in the southern part of the strait that would be operational even if war were to resume. Meaning that if full-scale war goes back and the Iranians want to close the strait, they won't be able to do so because of this new corridor that the US Navy is setting up. This of course would be very detrimental for the Iranians because it was their ability to close the strait that gave them significant leverage in the war. They fear that the US is quietly trying to undo that capacity. And I think there are reasons to believe that is exactly what the US is doing, because it is in the interest of the United States to take away that leverage from the Iranians.
So this is why this is a very sensitive point. But had there not been this pause as a result of the funeral, and this effort to go through the southern part of the strait during the funeral — and I have to say, on the one hand you can make an argument that these countries have an ability and a right to go through the southern part of the strait by their reading of the MOU, and on the other hand the Iranian argument is going to be there's nothing that prevents them from transiting through the strait, it's just that they have to register and turn on their transponders — this then caused the Iranians, after several warnings, to shoot at these ships. Not in a way to sink them or anything like that. Which then led to the US taking military action.
I think personally that both sides overreacted. There is an overreaction on the Iranian side in the sense of shooting at the ships — there are probably better ways of dealing with this, and I'm not saying they shot right away, they sent several warnings and tried to redirect them, but there are nevertheless probably better ways. But I also think it's a massive overreaction by the US to essentially restart the war over this issue, because at the end of the day this really doesn't matter that much. This arrangement would only be lasting for roughly ten more days — the first thirty days of the MOU — and then the final agreement is not determined by the intermediate agreement. So a lot of things are being sacrificed for a temporary period of ten days that ultimately doesn't matter that much.
Both sides in my view are unfortunately not showing the discipline that they should. I think Trump — I'm not talking to him, so I'm just going by what I observe — appeared very out of balance at the NATO summit. I'm sure it's very hard on him to have to spend that time with European leaders whom he seems to despise. No progress on Russia-Ukraine. And then Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio come into the Oval Office and brief him on additional violent attacks and push him to take military action. And it shouldn't be a surprise, because neither Hegseth nor Rubio appear to have been in favor of the MOU in the first place. I think all of that contributed to what I think at the end of the day is an overreaction and a very counterproductive one.
The Need for a New Regional Security Architecture
Glenn Diesen: It feels that the MOU in general — attempting to establish some kind of peace — is placed on top of an alliance structure which doesn't really permit it, because the whole region is built up in terms of an alliance system and an economic security architecture in which the Gulf states and the US are seeking to undermine Iran. So the fact that the Iranians would fear this dividing into two separate corridors to undermine Iran's ability to shut the strait down — that seems reasonable, because it's a continuation of the conflict. My point isn't to fuel further distrust in the US, but to suggest that perhaps one needs a more profound solution — a wider economic security architecture which is able to accommodate to a greater extent. Because if you can move away from this bloc politics, where the whole security and economic architecture is essentially bloc politics, and pull Iran into this, put some common deal between Oman and Iran to administer the ships going in and out — do you see the possibility? Because one would think that as a result of the war, the Iranians have strengthened their position in the region quite significantly, and there would have to be some change to the architecture, both economic and security.
Trita Parsi: Absolutely. And I have a piece in Foreign Policy that talks about exactly that. And this is what I think unfortunately is being jeopardized by this dual overreaction, because again this arrangement would only last for another ten days before a final arrangement is negotiated. And that final arrangement is much, much more important in terms of whether a southern corridor actually gets established that would be a threat to the Iranian leverage — which, from their standpoint, having been attacked twice in the midst of negotiations by two nuclear weapon states, it's understandable that they're going to do everything they can to keep that leverage.
But it's exactly that leverage that is actually jeopardized with this overreaction, because it's part of the larger deal that should come about — and frankly was moving in that direction — which is to have a new architecture in the region in which Iran is rehabilitated. The Qataris, for instance — the prime minister has been explicit in saying that they're looking for economic interdependence with the Iranians going forward. Now, it's clear that not all GCC states are on the same page on this issue. I think the Bahrainis, the Emiratis, and the Kuwaitis are probably of a different view. But even the Saudis, who matter far more, were planning to host a meeting — a session with the GCC plus Iran and Iraq — to build confidence-building measures that would feed into a new architecture. They even explicitly said that they've been studying the Helsinki process.
And again, in my view — what I write in the Foreign Policy piece — is that anything that returns to bloc formations is going to be detrimental to the region. It's really about getting rid of all of that and having a security architecture based on collective security, inclusive security, that by definition rejects bloc formation. That is the path that is actually open, but it requires the MOU to work and to be finalized, and it requires that in the intermediate period there's no overreaction by either side to temporary solutions for the strait.
Glenn Diesen: Well, since you refer to the Helsinki process — this would also require the US to accept a very different role in the Middle East. The Helsinki process beginning from 1975, the Helsinki Accords moving forward, was a key issue in why the Cold War came to an end. But Gorbachev made a comment in the last months of the Cold War where he pointed out that both the Soviets and the Americans had to address the hawks within their own camps, because once you abandon bloc politics, both the Soviets and the Americans would see their power diminished — because bloc politics forms a power structure. Once peace breaks out, suddenly why would your allies remain obedient to the same degree? And I think you saw earlier, when the Chinese were pushing for improved relations between the Saudis and Iranians, the fear that peace might break out — you saw the US recognizing this too: who's going to help them contain the Iranians? Why would the Gulf states listen to America if peace breaks out? So how do you see this — would the US have to completely reconceptualize its role in the Middle East?
Trita Parsi: Yes, it would. And at the same time, I think it's important to recognize two things. One: even if it doesn't, the rest of the region is abandoning the idea of relying solely on the American security umbrella, because it has proven to be unreliable and its limits turn out to be stunning as a result of this war. So the very idea that existed before — which is that even if the US wanted to move itself out of the region, the GCC states would be pulling it back, Israel would be pulling it back — that is no longer the case, at least not to the same degree. These countries are not going to abandon the US or their relations with the US in a security sense, but they're not going to rely solely on it. And that in and of itself is going to break at least that element of the bloc formation to a certain extent. It could go in the wrong direction and they just build additional bloc formations on top of it, which again I think would be a mistake. But it's important to recognize that now we're in a scenario in which the demand from the GCC is not at all what it was prior to the war, because they've seen what that bloc formation leads to. It leads to a disastrous war in which the US bases are not protecting them — in fact, they're magnets for attacks. And on top of that, in that war, the United States did not prioritize the safety and security of these states. It prioritized almost entirely Israel. So what's the point of this? At the end of the day, it didn't deter the Iranians. It led to a war. And in that war, they couldn't rely on the US. So I think that most GCC states realize this, and as a result, the demand for that old formation is no longer there, at least not to the same extent.
And then on the American side, you have thinking that is very different from what the Biden administration had. The Biden administration — if you remember, and you do very well, Glenn, because of all the coverage you did — they were all about strengthening the existing alliance system, and by that sustaining existing enmities. You needed those enmities in order to strengthen the alliance system. So they were really status quo. They didn't want to see any change whatsoever, and as a result they reacted very negatively to the Saudi-Iranian deal and the Chinese role in it, because again it showed the US is not the only game in town. Other states can intervene quietly — the Saudi intelligence chief was in Beijing for five days and US intelligence had no idea. It tells you how limited the insight is. And some say it was because the US was solely focused on something else, which was just Israel, Israel, and Israel's normalization — it wasn't paying attention to these other things.
So you have in the restraint community arguments that I know resonate at least with some in the Trump administration, which is that the US should simply move away from its dominance in the Middle East. It's not paying off for the US. You have numerous American presidents for quite some time promising to get out of the Middle East. So it is not that controversial any longer for American politicians to be very explicit about this. I see this as a massive opportunity for the United States to turn this around and say: let's have a different arrangement in the region that is not reliant on the United States. The US can move its bases and its forces out, focus on things that matter more to the US, while leaving the region in a state that is actually more stable than it was before, while the US actually retains good relations with the majority of those states and perhaps also — thanks to the MOU succeeding — a decent relationship with Iran. That's a huge win at the end of the day for the US as well.
Glenn Diesen: Yeah, and again that's why these deals which just tinker a little bit and try to make some minor changes — I think they won't necessarily be able to accommodate this massive shift in the international distribution of power. The hegemonic order had two main implications in my opinion: one, it would exhaust the United States, which it did; and the second, it would incentivize all of America's major opponents to essentially band together to collectively balance the US as opposed to balance each other. So I think one has to adjust to the new world. I'm just wondering if politicians are able to do so, because at least in Europe we have an ideological political class which I can't imagine reconceiving anything other than the world which is already over. And I think this absolutely creates a strategic vacuum.
Trita Parsi: Yeah. So I think what you're pointing to is a limit to imagination and political will rather than the opportunity not existing. The opportunity clearly exists. In fact, the opportunity is begging for attention because the realities of power have shifted away from what these politicians would like them to be.
And this is where you have the paradox of the Trump administration. It has absolutely no path dependence whatsoever. It is not path dependent on the previous structures. In fact, an argument saying "well, this is what the US has always done" is presumably a demerit in the eyes of the Trump administration, because they constantly seek to rupture things. And I think there's also a tilt towards believing they should be pulling out of the Middle East. But that is then accompanied with another problem, which is an administration that seems increasingly incapable of striking a single deal and holding on to it. The patience of Trump is very, very limited. I think one of the problems with the MOU and any negotiations with the Iranians is that Trump constantly needs positive reinforcement and constantly needs to feel like he's moving in the right direction. And if he isn't, he has the capacity to just do a 180 and move the other direction, which may be what he's doing right now. Diplomacy in twelve days didn't work out, so screw it, I'm back to bombing. And then in a couple of days he's going to realize, well, that ain't going to work either, and then he's going to try to go back to diplomacy — not realizing that others are not willing to play that game with him.
So you have a scenario in which there isn't that ideology, there isn't that path dependence, which creates a massive opportunity to actually make some of these shifts. But then on the other hand, you have an administration that for a variety of reasons is not staffed in the right way and does not have the top leadership with the patience needed to actually make a massive change as this would be. Remember the National Security Strategy of December 2024? He was talking about a hemispheric focus, getting out of the Middle East — and two months later he starts a war with Iran.
Iran, Arab States, and Turkey: A New Regional Alignment?
Glenn Diesen: How do you see the regional actors — putting the United States aside — because you see a similar development in Europe: the US can't be everywhere at the same time, the US begins to pull back a bit, but instead of the Europeans reverting to the Helsinki format of indivisible, pan-European security, they essentially want to recreate a Europe-only NATO — continuing bloc politics but without its main player, which is a crazy proposition if you ask me. But how does it look in the Middle East? Do you think that as a result of this war there could be a shift in relations between the Iranians, the Arabs, and the Turks?
Trita Parsi: I do. I think it's actually very interesting. When I grew up — and I grew up in Sweden — a lot of folks were looking at Europe at the time as this miracle that had managed to get over all of these different hiccups despite having two world wars that killed more people than any other wars combined. Nevertheless, it had reached this unforeseen level of political maturity and managed to live in conceptions of indivisible security. And now you look at Europe and you're wondering what on earth happened, because the deterioration — the intellectual deterioration — is just stunning. And at the same time, the Middle East, that no one looked at as some sort of model for security or political maturity, is actually demonstrating that right now.
First of all, the center of diplomacy is no longer Switzerland or Europe. It is increasingly Istanbul and Doha — and perhaps even Islamabad, although it's a newer actor in that field. Secondly, they are moving towards recognizing that they cannot go back to the same formulation. They can't do it without the US and they cannot do it with Israel. The Emiratis are thinking that is still a viable path, but no one else is convinced. And I think the war and the outcome of the war has further convinced the other states that any type of alliance with Israel — an Abraham Accord that would create some sort of a Sunni-Israeli alliance against Iran, which frankly has always been the case but hasn't been as explicit — is no longer in the cards. Even weeks after October 7th, it seemed like the Saudis were still toying with the idea, but at this point it seems to be really past them. And if the Saudis won't do it, it doesn't matter if Somaliland does it. It just won't make much of a difference.
So I do think that we're seeing the region moving in that direction, trying to see if that can work. I'm not saying that the political maturity is evenly spread throughout the region, but I think it is beyond what we're seeing in Europe at this point. And I think there's a clearer understanding in the Middle East that you cannot successfully contain and balance Iran in a hostile way without the United States — compared to the Europeans thinking that they can do it with Russia without the United States.
Glenn Diesen: Well, if there would be some restructuring of the Middle East — the Arabs, the Turks — they would all more or less have to recognize that Iran can't be contained, the former alliance system is dead, and we need to find some collective, indivisible security format. How does Israel fit into this? Because the discourse is often framed as pro-Israel or anti-Israel, but that's kind of beside the point. It's a country with nuclear weapons backed by the United States. Indivisible security does mean that one has to take into account the security concerns of all actors in the region, and Israel is an actor in the region. There's a lot of hostility, especially in Iran, towards the Israelis. But if you want peace for yourself, you do have to make sure your opponents do not fear for their existence. So is there any way of pulling the Israelis into this?
Trita Parsi: First of all, I want to express my complete agreement with you that there is no such thing as inclusive or indivisible security unless you actually include everyone. To have it in a corner of the region and think that actually yields what indivisible security is supposed to yield is just an illusion. It has to be complete. And this raises the question: what about Israel?
This goes back to the piece I had in Foreign Policy — I think it was on Monday. I argue there, based on a proposal developed by the Better Order Project at the Quincy Institute over the course of the last three years, that there is a pathway forward. But what the region may risk doing right now is, instead of actually going towards a fully inclusive security, it may just change the fault lines — in which Iran's decontainment is coupled with Israel's recontainment, and Iran comes out of its state of isolation while Israel returns — not fully, but towards the position of isolation it had prior to Oslo.
I think often people forget how isolated Israel was before the Oslo process. Roughly thirty-six countries normalized relations with Israel after Oslo, including India, including Russia, including the Holy See. So these are some heavyweights that had not even normalized relations with Israel prior to Oslo. And we may see a scenario in which this is what happens in the region — just a shift in the fault lines rather than an actual graduation from bloc formation towards a non-bloc formation. And my argument — and what we put forward in this proposal — is that ultimately that will not work. So you need to put forward a proposal that at least has a door open for the Israelis.
Meaning: the Israelis cannot join right now and they won't join right now. But there should be an effort to have two parallel processes. A process of creating this architecture that should go on without Israel at the outset, because it's just politically impossible to include Israel at this point. But that architecture, as it gets formed, should have a standing open door to Israel. The ticket price for Israel to be able to join is that there also has to be a Palestinian state created based on the 1967 lines — not a political horizon, not a pathway, but created, or whatever the Palestinians decide in terms of their own self-determination. And once that is done, then the Israelis have to be included.
But the ticket price is very clear. And this actually could be a way of also incentivizing the Israelis to move in the right direction — to shift away from the direction they're on right now, which I think is a suicidal direction. I understand that right now this sounds extremely unrealistic, and I agree it is unrealistic today. But imagine if this process continues for five years and the actual infrastructure, the architecture is set up — the organization is set up, these defense ministers and foreign ministers have their quarterly meetings in a rotating state throughout the region, whatever is inspired from ASEAN, inspired from the OSCE, the Helsinki process, etc. And that infrastructure is tangible, visible, and clear. I think it could have an impact on the perspective of the Israeli public if they understand that they're being left behind, but the door is open if they're willing to change their approach and actually give the Palestinians exactly what they deserve — their right to self-determination, dignity, and statehood.
I think it would have far more of an effect than just thinking that you can isolate and contain Israel. I'm not arguing against isolation. I'm just arguing that there should be isolation and containment coupled with an open door that says: you can come back in, you can be part of this inclusive security, but there is a ticket price, and that is a Palestinian state.
And I think if they go in this direction — I know it's difficult — but just to clarify: this proposal was not put together by people who live high in the sky. The key authors included Nabil Fahmy, the former Egyptian foreign minister who has now started his term as Secretary General of the Arab League, Daniel Levy — the former Israeli negotiator, whom I'm sure you're familiar with — and altogether about 130 other people in the Better Order Project from forty different countries.
Glenn Diesen: Well, such a deal — even if it's not politically available at this point in time — still serves a purpose. That is to set an objective, a goal of where we want to go. So again, if you want to bring it back to the Helsinki Accords of 1975, we didn't establish anything conclusive immediately. But the general idea — recognizing that competing blocs fuel conflicts and fuel a security dilemma, and that we should be moving towards some inclusive system based on indivisible security — at least putting that goal forward allowed us to get off course sometimes but still know what we were aiming for. Because now there's no such thing in Europe. If you talk about inclusive, indivisible security with the goal of overcoming bloc politics such as NATO, it's seen as treason and they will come for you.
Trita Parsi: Exactly. So we don't have that goal, and at least something to work for. There's no such thing. So it does serve a purpose. You need to have that vision.
Yeah, you need to have a positive vision — and a positive vision that actually works at the end of the day. And it did work. I mean, the unprecedented level of peace and prosperity — and this is what really upsets me, and I try to stay away from European politics, but it upsets me deeply to see what is happening in Sweden, in which they're talking about the previous seventy years — or even longer when it comes to Sweden's foreign policy — as some sort of a disgrace and failure. It is the most successful period in European history in terms of peace and prosperity. And what they have shifted towards is a disaster. To think that the previous leaders of Europe were naive — in which they were putting together the Oslo process, pushing for very strong norms around the use of force, protecting civilians in conflict, international law, respect for human rights, all of these different things — that was naive, but what they're doing now is the smart and realistic approach? That is preposterous.
And the Middle East right now has an opportunity to move in this direction. The combination of the region itself recognizing — by and large, not everyone — that the previous approach was a failure, together with the fact that the US is neither capable nor increasingly willing to play that old role, is a unique opportunity that I hope is taken advantage of. And it requires as its first step that the MOU leads to a final deal between the US and Iran and does not get derailed over different interpretations of Article 5 or exaggerated overreactions over what is happening in this intermediate period.
Israel's Fear of the Peace Process
Glenn Diesen: Let me ask a last question — on Israel. Not just the possibility of joining some new security architecture of the Middle East, but also its view on the MOU. Why is Israel so terrified of this peace process? Because it has become one of the key obstacles — as you saw, the strikes on Lebanon, for example, seemed very deliberate, throwing a wrench into this whole system.
Trita Parsi: It's a very important question, because it also comes back to what we just talked about regarding Israel joining in. While the official requirement — at least in our proposal — is that there is a recognition of a Palestinian state and that Palestinian state gets created, a deeper requirement is that there has to be a complete transformation of Israel's security paradigm.
Now, that is required for all states. All of them are coming from a mindset of bloc formations. But the Israelis are coming from something that goes even further than that, which is the belief that the only way they can be secure is if they're completely dominating the region militarily. For them to be secure, everyone else has to actually have a degree of insecurity, because Israel needs to be able to deter everyone else — but no one is allowed to deter Israel. Only under those circumstances will Israel be secure. Not even peace. Peace is beyond even what they're thinking at this point. Peace is not a politically correct word in Israel — it hasn't been for some time. They accuse you of Beilinsim if you talk about that, going back to Yossi Beilin, who was one of the architects of Oslo.
But with that paradigm of security, Israel will never be able to be at peace or at security with its region, in my view. So it requires a paradigm shift that goes deeper in Israel than it does in some of these other countries. But precisely because of that outlook, they believe that any deal between the United States and Iran that ends the enmity — regardless of its other terms — is a disaster for them. Because it means that the United States would pull itself out of the Middle East and no longer put its military finger on the scales in the region, shifting the balance artificially in favor of Israel. And Israel wants that support because it's the only way for it to be able to dominate the region militarily. Israel itself cannot do so. Israel itself cannot even have a war with Iran without active American support.
So the idea that Israel would become some sort of a hegemon I find very questionable, because Israel doesn't have the capacity to be the hegemon. It's just the edge of someone else's hegemony, and that someone else is no longer that interested in that hegemony. So it creates a major problem for the Israelis. But they're fighting tooth and nail to keep the United States as a dominant military power in the region, which necessitates keeping the enmity with Iran as alive as possible, because it's the key motivator for the United States to be involved in the region militarily.
Glenn Diesen: I see that intent, but I'm thinking: if the United States out of necessity can't have the same role in the Middle East, then the Israelis — as you say — wouldn't have that capability to have that security strategy based on regional dominance. So you would think that rationality would kick in at some point and force, as you say, a paradigm shift — reconsidering what security actually means. Because the last thirty years, as we've seen, this security through dominance, weakening or destroying neighbors — it's a recipe for disaster.
Trita Parsi: It is. And if I can give an example — I don't know if we talked about it last time I was on this show, but I've given this example of a senior Israeli military official who told me — I think it must have been 2004 — that he was very worried about Israel's future. He said that when he fought in '67, when he fought in '73, he and his peers thought: if we just win this war, eventually the Arabs will have to come to terms with Israel as a reality and make peace. So winning the wars was a crucial step towards achieving peace. And he said: but when I see the youth of Israel today — and this is, mind you, twenty-two years ago — they don't believe in peace. They believe that Israel is always going to be in a state of complete warfare and that the only way to have security — not peace — is to dominate everyone else. And he said that this is just going to destroy Israeli society from within.
I think he has been proven right. Twenty-two years later, we see that this mentality is even further strengthened. And part of the problem of getting that reality check is that this current paradigm is teaching Israelis to think there is no other security than the approach they currently have. All of these other things that we would say — look, if they were realistic, they would realize they would have to shift to it — in their view right now is a pathway to their destruction. I don't think that's right. I think their current pathway is the pathway to destruction. But they're deeply ingrained in the belief that this is the only way for them to be able to be secure.
Glenn Diesen: Well, again, I think this is a thing that defines our days — that America's allies or frontline states, they do have to also adjust to this new reality that the US is no longer the hegemon. They have to readjust to a multipolar world. And I think Israel, like the Europeans, like the Gulf states, they will have to change. But again, after decades of not having to make any concessions or compromises, always looking towards the Americans standing behind them for the final say — it's going to take some time, and a lot of horrible things can happen in the meantime.
Anyway, do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up?
Trita Parsi: Yeah, just on your last point — you're absolutely right. This is not going to change unless the context changes and forces a shift. And in that context, I think again it is necessary to have those pressures, but I think it's also necessary to have a theoretical pathway open for rehabilitation. This is what never existed with the thirty years of isolation of Iran. There never really was a theoretical pathway open. It was supposed to be permanent, and it didn't work. It was a disaster.
And I do believe that at the end of the day, Iran is a country of ninety million — it's much more difficult to indefinitely isolate it. But Israel is also a very sophisticated country technologically and it has nuclear weapons. And I think it would be a mistake to pursue the same strategy with Israel as was pursued with Iran. It would also be a missed opportunity, because if one doesn't open up that pathway, then one is also not doing much to use this momentum that exists in the region to ensure that it doesn't just create stability for the rest of the region, but also does something for the plight of the Palestinian people. And that would be a huge missed opportunity in my view.
Glenn Diesen: Well, thank you so much for taking the time. It's always very enlightening to speak with you.
Trita Parsi: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.