Iran expert says Trump's 'war of choice' has morphed into a 'war of necessity'

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is the son of the former supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli attack at the start of the war. How does Mojtaba compare with his father? And what kind of leader might he be? Before the war, the ayatollah's regime massacred thousands of protesters. President Trump sent the protesters this message. When we're finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. But has this war helped the protesters? And are we on the verge of World War III?

Those are some of the questions my guest, Karim Sadjadpour, will address. He's one of America's leading experts on Iran. He's a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on Iran and U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East. He's also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. His parents are Iranian, but he was born and raised in the U.S. We recorded our interview yesterday.

This morning, we learned that an Israeli attack killed Ali Larijani, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. He was close with Ayatollah Khamenei and was expected to be a close adviser to Mojtaba. This morning, we asked Karim Sadjadpour about the significance of Larijani's death. He says, quote, "Larijani was one of Iran's most powerful men, a ruthless pragmatist. After the ayatollah's death, Larijani was one of the men running the country. At a time when the regime's survival is at stake, Larijani's decades of domestic and foreign policy experience make his loss a significant blow for a revolutionary regime whose political ideology is premised on martyrdom. The central question is whether these assassinations will ultimately extinguish the ideology or help revive it," unquote. Here's our interview.

Karim Sadjadpour, welcome back to FRESH AIR. So the official successor to the ayatollah is his son, Mojtaba. He hasn't been seen by the public. We don't know what his injuries are. Do we know if he's the one who's even running the country, even though he was voted by the council who does the official voting to be the successor?

KARIM SADJADPOUR: Well, it's great to be with you, Terry. And the honest answer is that the inner functionings of the Iranian regime are right now for us a black box. It's inaccessible to us. On paper, Mojtaba Khamenei is the most powerful man in the country. But I think in practice, really, it's the Revolutionary Guards and the military who are the power behind his throne.

He's inherited an incredibly difficult position in that he's been injured. The missile strike that killed his father and his mother and his wife injured him. He was reportedly in an adjacent room. What I've heard from sources inside Tehran is those injuries are not life-threatening, but he has been injured. He's obviously got to be in enormous emotional distress, given that he's lost many members of his family, and the Israelis are actively trying to kill him. So he's probably in hiding underground somewhere. And he's not someone who has really any experience in senior leadership roles. Even though he operated in the shadows - he was his father's right hand for many years - he's never formally held a senior position. The Iranian public doesn't know him. His image, his voice are not familiar to people.

And so he's inherited this incredibly difficult position in that he's now meant to rule a country, which I would argue overwhelmingly dislikes him and the regime, and he's fighting a war against the greatest superpower in the world, the United States, and against the greatest military power in the Middle East, Israel.

GROSS: So you said that the Revolutionary Guard and the military right now are running the country. Are they all on the same page?

SADJADPOUR: So the Revolutionary Guards are approximately 150,000 men, and so they're not a monolith, and you have internal views amongst them. But the senior commanders of the Revolutionary Guards were all handpicked by Ayatollah Khamenei, who ruled Iran for 37 years. And so they, by and large, are individuals who are loyal to what I call vision 1979, the principles of the 1979 revolution, chief among them being antipathy toward America and Israel and this ideology of resistance.

And what the regime decided to do before it was attacked was essentially to decentralize their military structure. Instead of having one general in Tehran who's commanding orders to everyone, they have essentially 31 different units that are, as far as we can see, operating somewhat independently from one another. It's like 31 legs of an octopus. And for that reason, you've seen an Iranian retaliatory strategy that has really been all over the place.

GROSS: Because there's no central commander. But...

SADJADPOUR: Yeah.

GROSS: Do they agree on the basic principles of upholding what the father, the Ayatollah Khamenei, stood for?

SADJADPOUR: Absolutely. On that point, they all have seemingly closed ranks around - obviously, No. 1, paramount for any dictatorship is regime survival. And two is this belief that we're not going to abandon our principles. We're going to uphold our principles of defiance against America and Israel. And up until now, Terry, I think they believe that their strategy has been effective in that they've been able to spike the price of oil, and they've been able to negatively impact popular opinion in the United States. We see from polling that perhaps 3 out of 4 Americans oppose this war. And they're hoping that President Trump is going to be restrained by popular opinion in the United States and be forced to abruptly end the war.

GROSS: So if Israel succeeds in assassinating Mojtaba, the son of the ayatollah, who's next in line? Do you know?

SADJADPOUR: So I'd first start off by saying that I don't think this is a one-assassination regime, even if they managed to kill Mojtaba Khamenei, which Israel has really penetrated the inner workings of the Iranian regime. And so it is well possible that they do succeed in killing him. I suspect, if they were able to do that, there will be another senior cleric with a very similar worldview to Mojtaba Khamenei. There's different individuals who have been mentioned. There's one guy called Ejei. There's another guy called Arafi. They, I would say, all kind of will broadly support the principles of 1979 - vision 1979 - and whoever would potentially succeed Mojtaba Khamenei would likewise, in my view, be really controlled by the military, at least early on.

GROSS: Yeah. And 1979 was, of course, the year of the Iranian Revolution.

SADJADPOUR: That's right.

GROSS: So Trump has said that Mojtaba might already be dead. Is that speculation or did he have some kind of grounding on that?

SADJADPOUR: Well, obviously, the president sees intelligence that I'm not privy to. What I've been told from people inside the country who - some of them know Mojtaba Khamenei - is that he's alive. The injuries that he suffered were not life-threatening. But, you know, that could also be incorrect information. We don't know, and part of the reason why we don't know is that the Iranians haven't given any concrete evidence that he's alive.

Mojtaba Khamenei gave his first message, his first speech as supreme leader. But it was read on official state television. He didn't deliver that speech. What someone told me is that he's not someone who's capable of public speaking. He's never really spoken publicly. Whereas his father kind of rose to power because of the power of his oratory, the son was, in many ways, kind of a coddled dictator's son.

And that was given to me as the explanation for why he didn't speak publicly, because his first public speech would not only be watched by 90 million Iranians, but the entire world is waiting for him to speak. I suspect that they also don't want to give any information about where he's currently located for fear that, you know, he's a strong target of assassination.

GROSS: Well, we need to take a short break here, so let me reintroduce you. My guest is Karim Sadjadpour. He's a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. We'll hear more of the interview after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE AMERICAN ANALOG SET SONG, "WEATHER REPORT")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the interview I recorded yesterday with Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. And for four years before that, he was an analyst with the International Crisis Group based in Tehran and Washington. And we're talking about the war with Iran.

Well, let's continue the comparison between father and son. The way you describe it, the son is not nearly as smart, as good a speaker, as well-read. He doesn't speak English like his father. His father studied Western and Islamic texts. He was a great speaker, he was smart, he was more charismatic.

SADJADPOUR: So I'm reminded of a observation which the North African historian Ibn Khaldun made in the 14th century. He talked about how empires are built and destroyed over three generations. And the first generation are men who have fire in the belly. They're the builders. When it reaches the second generation, they're the consolidators. They consolidate power.

And when it reaches the third generation, by no fault of their own, the third generation are born as princelings. And they're not born with the grit and the fire in the belly of their grandparents. And the Islamic Republic of Iran has entered its third-generation leadership. Mojtaba Khamenei is the third generation. The father of the Islamic revolution in 1979 was Ayatollah Khomeini. He was the guy who, you know, had the steely determination and fire in the belly to create this theocracy. He was succeeded by Ayatollah Khamenei, who ruled for 37 years and consolidated the power of the Islamic Republic.

And now, when we arrive at Mojtaba Khamenei, he's someone who, as I said, has operated in the shadows all of his life. Whereas his father spent many years in prison as a revolutionary political prisoner. He suffered torture. You know, he did a lot of dastardly things to rise the ranks of power. And he oversaw a state which during his watch probably killed tens of thousands of its own citizens, as recently as last January, when there were popular protests and a massacre which took place.

And Mojtaba Khamenei has not served in any of those roles. He wasn't a revolutionary leader. He wasn't a revolutionary. He's inherited power. And so by virtue of that fact, I'm skeptical, Terry, that Mojtaba Khamenei is going to be Iran's new powerful leader who's going to be with us potentially for decades to come, like Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia.

GROSS: You think that one of the reasons why Mojtaba might not last long, or even the person, maybe, who would replace him if he - if Mojtaba is assassinated, is that Iran, for its own survival, needs to switch from its basic organizing principle being, like, the U.S. and Israel are the great Satans to nationalism, to something more positive like building the economy, modernizing? Like a lot of the Gulf nations have, including Saudi Arabia, which have moved away from dependence on oil and gas to, you know, modernize, to create an economy based more on tourism and, you know, other things that they can export. Can you elaborate on that?

SADJADPOUR: So that's a very good question, Terry, because if you look at the countries in the Persian Gulf who I would argue have kind of this rivalrous relationship with Iran, the three ones that get the most attention are the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. And the UAE and Saudi Arabia in particular have very different national visions for the country than the Islamic Republic of Iran. As I mentioned, Islamic Republic of Iran's organizing principle since '79 has been death to America, death to Israel, the mandatory veiling of women, which Ayatollah Khomeini once called the flag of the Islamic revolution.

And those Persian Gulf countries, their visions are forward-looking visions. Saudi Arabia calls its vision Vision 2030. The United Arab Emirates has a version of that, Vision 2031. And they have very different outlooks for the region. The Gulf countries, their security is premised on partnership with America and Israel. Those countries are really trying to socially reform. You know, the UAE, for anyone who's been there, is socially a pretty free place. Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman is trying to lead a social revolution, whereas the Islamic Republic of Iran is anchored in social repression.

In the regional context, they also have very different visions. Iran is a country which had been dominating five Arab lands - Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza. What did all those five places have in common? They were all essentially five failing states. And Iran's ideology, the Islamic Republic's ideology thrives when there are power vacuums and state failures and it can fill those vacuums with its militias, like Lebanese Hezbollah. Whereas the Gulf countries, they need stability.

You know, they are trying to become international hubs for tourism, for transportation, for technology. And you can't have that if there are constant wars or insecurity or, you know, your airports are being threatened. And so these countries have very different visions for their future. And the Iranian public has no interest in Vision 1979 anymore. It's a population, the vast majority of whom were born after the 1979 revolution. You know, my line about them is they want to be South Korea, not North Korea. And Mojtaba Khamenei's vision is for a Shiite North Korea. And I just don't think there's many takers for what he's selling.

GROSS: And everything you mentioned about the strengths of the Gulf countries who are modernizing, those are the things that Iran is attacking. The hotels, tourism, modernity itself, like, the airports. So Iran's strategy seems pretty smart, like, horrible, destructive. But for Iran itself, for its survival, it seems like a smart strategy, including not allowing ships into the Strait of Hormuz and threatening to shut down the Red Sea.

SADJADPOUR: You know, Terry, I did a Fulbright scholarship in Beirut two decades ago. And one of my biggest takeaways from that year in Beirut - a country which, in Lebanon, has suffered from terrible civil war - Beirut, which once used to be the Dubai of the Middle East, is that it takes decades to build places and it takes weeks to destroy places. And those countries have spent decades and trillions of dollars trying to become, as I said, hubs for artificial intelligence, transportation, media, entertainment. And they recognize that the Islamic Republic of Iran can come by with its missiles and pretty cheap drones and destroy what they've sought to build.

And you see that economic asymmetry in their attacks on the global economy as well. So in the Strait of Hormuz, which on any given day, 20% of the world's oil passes through that corridor in the Persian Gulf - a lot of the world's natural gas, a lot of the world's fertilizer passes through that. And these are $100 million tankers filled with hundreds of millions of dollars in cargo. And Iran has been shutting down the strait and harassing these ships with $20,000 drones. And so it's a poor man's strategy, which up until now has worked for Iran in frustrating the ambitions of President Trump.

GROSS: And I think Iran's strategy, like closing off the Strait of Hormuz - and, you know, you could try to get through with a ship that accompanies you. But the people who had been America's allies are reluctant to really get involved in this war. Trump has alienated NATO. He's alienated China, who he's asked for help. So it's making - Iran's strategy is making Trump look weak.

SADJADPOUR: You know, Terry, General David Petraeus, who used to command U.S. troops in the Middle East, also former CIA director, said something that was quite perceptive. He said that America's seemingly swift victory over the Taliban in 2001 kind of distorted our understanding of how difficult the Iraq war would be two years later. And that's relevant here because Iran is a country in which, as I said, we haven't had an embassy there for 47 years. So we have very limited understandings of the inner workings of the regime, limited diplomatic context with the regime.

And I don't think there was a great amount of planning. The hope was that we were simply going to subject Iran to enormous political and economic pressure, in the hopes that either it would capitulate, or if it didn't capitulate, we would quickly attack it, kill its leader and then do a deal with the successor leadership. I don't think President Trump, in his own words, frankly, understood what he was getting into. For example, Iran telegraphed from the very beginning that they planned to regionalize the war. And President Trump said that that took him by surprise when Iran started to attack the Persian Gulf countries or close down the Strait of Hormuz.

And I think, Terry, we're now in a situation in which this began - in my view, it was a war of choice. It was not a war of necessity. There was no imminent threat that Iran was about to acquire nuclear weapons or launch missile strikes on the United States or our partners. But what began as a war of choice, in my view, has actually morphed into a war of necessity. Meaning that I don't think that President Trump is going to simply be able to end the war and claim victory so long as you have a pariah government, the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has the world economy hostage and can control this critically important, not only energy corridor, but agricultural corridor, given that the Strait of Hormuz is also a major thoroughfare for fertilizer.

GROSS: Well, we need to take another break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Karim Sadjadpour, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, formerly an analyst with the International Crisis Group. And at that time, he was based in Tehran and Washington. So we'll talk more about the war with Iran after another break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JEFF PARKER'S "SEA CHANGE")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to the interview that I recorded yesterday with Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He formerly was an analyst with the International Crisis Group, and at that time, he was based in Tehran as well as in Washington. And we're talking about the war with Iran. Our interview was recorded yesterday.

Let me share with you two of my biggest concerns about how this will affect the U.S. and the world, and the biggest one is World War III. And we're in a partial world war now with, I think, like, 13 countries involved in some way. But I'm talking about a real full-blown World War III with the threat of nuclear weapons, depending on who allies with Iran if more world war breaks out because Russia, North Korea, China, who all have nuclear weapons, have some kind of alliance with Iran. So what are your thoughts about a larger world war and the likelihood of one breaking out?

SADJADPOUR: Well, fortunately, Terry, I don't think that is a high likelihood, and I'll tell you why. It's because...

GROSS: Thank you. Yes. Reassure me.

SADJADPOUR: You know, the countries that Iran has been attacking most over the last few weeks are, as I said, these Persian Gulf countries - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates in particular. I think as I mentioned, they've been the target of over 2,000 Iranian missile and drone attacks. And when you look at those countries, they actually have probably more robust relations with China and Russia than Iran does. And so it's not the case that, you know, Iran is this country with very strong allies who have its back and those Gulf countries are only allied with America and Israel. In fact, the Islamic Republic of Iran is probably the top one or two most strategically lonely countries in the world. It really has very few reliable allies in the world. And so I think that the Chinese are not going to come and fight on Iran's behalf against Gulf countries with whom they have even closer energy relations. And Vladimir Putin actually has strong relations with the leadership in Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, with the leadership in the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed.

So I'm not concerned that this will deteriorate into a World War III. But you are correct that this has just set a very dangerous precedent, and I don't think that the world or, you know, especially the Middle East is going to feel like a stable place for the foreseeable future. I spoke to a senior leader in the United Arab Emirates recently. He said, we're a country which has been changed forever. And they realize, as I said, how fragile what they've built is. And I don't think any of those countries are going to sleep well at night so long as this current Iranian regime is in power.

GROSS: One of the goals - I think the primary goal that Trump initially stated for attacking Iran - was to get Iran to give up all of its nuclear material. They said in negotiations they were willing to compromise and give up, you know, any aspiration for a nuclear weapon. And the only thing they really wanted to hold on to was uranium enriched enough for medical purposes, which isn't usable for nuclear weapon. That doesn't mean they were being truthful about it, but it's what they said. And Trump wanted a complete, no, you can't even have that. You have to give up everything. And now, now that we're really at war with Iran, what's the likelihood that they would give that all up? And what's the likelihood we could, you know, attack it? We've already attacked the main places where it's buried. We'd have to, like, go in and take out the nuclear material, which is, like, really dangerous and really complicated. So are we in worse shape now than we were before?

SADJADPOUR: We're in a predicament, and I think that there really are four main priorities when it comes to our potential negotiations with Iran. One is obviously nuclear and that highly enriched uranium, which is ostensibly under rubble now the - after the bombings of last June. That needs to be accounted for because if Iran gets its hands on that uranium, highly enriched uranium and tries to - you know, it can convert that into fuel for a nuclear weapon. Now, my sense is that given how penetrated their system is, it would be very difficult for them to make a mad dash for a nuclear weapon, but it's something which needs to be addressed. It can't be neglected.

You know, second point now are their missiles and drones. And again, speaking to officials in the Persian Gulf, they say, you know, before all of this, we would have been happy with just the nuclear deal, but now no longer. We need a deal which also addresses their use of missiles and drones. A third issue are their proxies - their support for groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the Iraqi Shiite militias. Now, these proxies have been degraded, but they still do pose a real threat to regional stability.

And then the fourth issue is the reason why we're even in this situation, which is Iran's brutality toward its own population. If you remember, Terry, last January, Trump on nine occasions warned the Iranian government that if they kill protesters, the United States would intervene. And that was his red line he issued, as I said, on nine occasions, and Iran tore up that red line. And that's what actually motivated for - him to start this military buildup in the Persian Gulf. But what we've seen is that the president has kind of been all over the place. When he's asked what his goal is, some days he says it's just to get a nuclear deal. Some days, he says he wants a Venezuela deal. Some days, he wants to implode the regime. And that lack of clarity, in my view, has been deeply detrimental because, you know, if you don't know what it is that you're trying to achieve, then you're putting both the U.S. military and our partners in very difficult positions.

GROSS: My guest is Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Before that, he spent four years as an analyst with the International Crisis Group, and he was based in Tehran as well as Washington during those years. We'll hear more of the interview after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MATT ULERY'S"GAVE PROOF")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the interview I recorded yesterday with Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. And for four years before that, he was an analyst with the International Crisis Group based in Tehran and Washington. And we're talking about the war with Iran.

So when President Trump expressed support for the Iranian protesters - many of whom were massacred - and then decided to attack Iran, he said, when we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. It would be impossible now, probably, to protest. People would be just totally massacred. I mean, do you agree with that?

SADJADPOUR: When I listen to President Trump's language, Terry, it reflects someone who probably hasn't spent any significant amount of time under a brutal dictatorship. Because when you're living under a brutal dictatorship, it is very scary when you go out in the streets. And, you know, the people of Iran are unarmed and unorganized. And you see, you know, many thousands of the Basij militia or Revolutionary Guards who are carrying automatic weapons and have their fingers on the trigger. That's an incredibly intimidating atmosphere.

And I think one thing that people don't really understand about dictatorships, when, you know, people ask - well, how much support does this regime have? - and doesn't matter so much what is the breadth of your support if you're a dictatorship. It matters much more the depth of your support. So in my view, this is a regime which probably has at best 20-, maybe 15% popular support. But they - their supporters, at least for now, are a ruthlessly devoted minority that believes that if they lose power, they're going to be killed. It's kill or be killed for them. And that has been proven to them even more the last three weeks - that not only, you know, does their own population want to unseat them, but obviously America and Israel do as well. And for that reason, they've shown themselves willing to kill potentially tens of thousands of people to stay in power, and I don't think that that calculation for them has changed. It's probably only been amplified, given the events of the last few weeks.

And so I think that simply the president telling people, go take your institutions, without having any whole-of-government strategy about, OK, how did the United States during the Reagan administration help to bring down the Soviet Union? What were the institutions, the policies, the languages, the strategic communications used during that period? - and this isn't 8-Minute Abs. You can't simply, you know, order something and two or three weeks later it happens. As nice as that would be, for people in Iran to take over their institutions, this is a ruthless regime.

And one of the things very different about this particular Iranian regime compared to the monarchy, which collapsed in 1979, is that the political and military elite of Iran's monarchy - many of them had studied in America and Europe. In some cases, they probably had foreign passports, and they spoke foreign languages. And so when things got difficult, they could remake their lives in Los Angeles or London. But the political and military elite of the Islamic Republic have oftentimes provincial backgrounds. They weren't educated abroad. They don't speak foreign languages. They don't have foreign passports, and they have nowhere else to go. And again, for that reason, for many of them it's kill or be killed.

GROSS: In the meantime, a lot of Iranians are fleeing bombs. They're inhaling smoke and being the victims of black rain because of all the oil that has been bombed. So, I mean - and, you know, the consequences of toxic smoke and black rain - that can last a lifetime. That can lead to cancer and kill you.

SADJADPOUR: Absolutely. And again, this is - war is hell. It's not just a cliche. I think people are experiencing that inside Iran. And for many people, they're probably thinking about the lesser of evils. I've heard some people say, listen, we fear this war. You know, we're fearing for our lives under bombardment. But we fear for our children's lives if this regime manages to stay in power and further retrenches itself. So I think there are a wide mix of emotions among 90 million Iranians inside the country and within the diaspora. And unfortunately, there are no quick fixes or quick solutions to this terrible predicament.

GROSS: Do you know if there were any leaders in the protest movement that could have emerged and, you know, if the regime truly was toppled, that could have been a leading contender as the leader of a new Iran?

SADJADPOUR: The one thing that the Islamic Republic of Iran does effectively is repression. It's a government built to stay in power, and they've been practicing the art and science of repression for five decades. And so they are skilled in crushing protests and also identifying individuals who are capable of potentially playing leadership positions.

I remember a European ambassador in Tehran years ago said to me, the Iranian Vaclav Havel is either dead or in Los Angeles. You know, they either kill people or exile people. And for that reason, a lot of the opponents of the regime have turned outside of Iran in looking at the person of Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former crown prince of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah, who - Reza Pahlavi's lived in exile the last 47 years. And for many Iranians - certainly not all, but for many who oppose the regime - he's kind of become an inspirational leader for the opposition.

There's a wonderful book by a guy called Jack Goldstone on revolutions. And he said every revolution needs two kinds of leadership - organizational leadership and inspirational leadership. The organizational leadership is lacking, but for many people, Reza Pahlavi has become the inspirational leader.

GROSS: Yeah. That's really hard for me to understand because the shah westernized Iran. And, you know, there was a lot of education and Western values and modernization. However, his secret police, the SAVAK - they were severe. They tortured people. They rounded up and disappeared people.

SADJADPOUR: You know, Terry, this is a population inside Iran now, around three-quarters of whom were born after the 1979 revolution. And so when they think of the era of the shah, what they think about are social freedoms, which - you know, they see the photos of that era - economic dignity, a time when Iran as a nation had a positive place in the world. The Iranian passport could get you places. And they compare that to the life they've experienced under the Islamic Republic that has not only been far more brutal than the shah's government, but it's been socially and economically authoritarian as well.

And so I think there's been a lot of revisionism in the last decade or so among especially the younger generation of Iranians, who see documentary films and movies and read about what was like - life was like under the shah. And it's kind of the ultimate middle finger to the Islamic Republic to say, you know, long live Pahlavi - we want to return to Pahlavi - because this is a regime, the Islamic Republic, which has spent, you know, its - from the time children are small in Iran propagandizing against the shah's government. And in my view, it's kind of like a forward-looking nostalgia that people have. They want Iran to once again be a nation with a prosperous economy and social freedoms and an upstanding place in the world. And the idea or the example which is perhaps most palpable for many people is how things once were.

GROSS: All right. So we need to take another break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and formerly an analyst with the International Crisis Group. And during those four years, he was based in Tehran as well as Washington. We'll continue the conversation after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and formerly an analyst with the International Crisis Group. And for four years, when he was with the ICG, he was based in Tehran as well as Washington. Our interview was recorded yesterday.

What, to you, would be the best-case scenario for ending the war?

SADJADPOUR: I always try to distinguish between best-viable-case scenario and best-case scenario. Best-case scenario obviously would be we have a different government that comes to power in Iran, in which it's either, you know, Iran transitions to a democracy or a government whose organizing principle is the national interests of Iran - long live Iran rather than death to America. I don't think that that is a short-term prospect.

So in the near term, I think best-case outcome is that we liberate the Strait of Hormuz from Iranian interference, and you reestablish the safe passage of trade in ships through the Strait of Hormuz, and obviously, Iran has ceased all of its attacks on its neighbors and on Israel. That would require the United States and Israel to also cease those attacks. But even then, we're going to be leaving - there's going to be some outstanding things which we can't afford to ignore, which is what happens with that highly enriched uranium inside Iran. How is that going to be accounted for? What about Iran's ballistic missile and drones? You know, that's been proven to be a real menace to regional security. How are we going to address that? What if Iran starts to rebuild and refinance its regional proxies? That's a challenge we have to address.

And then finally, as I emphasized before, the whole reason that this conflict has begun, which was the Iranian regime's brutality toward its own people. That's something that - I fear that this regime is so deeply unpopular that the only way that they'll continue to manage to stay in power is by even - being even more brutal than before. You know, do we have a strategy for addressing that? And this is not - you know, this - I think the president was hoping for something quick and easy, something that - something seemingly quick and easy, like Venezuela appeared to be for him. But this is anything but.

GROSS: But even securing the safety of the Strait of Hormuz - how hard would that be?

SADJADPOUR: I don't want to pretend like I'm a military expert. When I speak to experienced folks who've served in the Navy, I think most people would say that it's doable. But it's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be quick.

GROSS: How are you, and how are the people who you know in Iran? Your family is from Iran. You grew up in the U.S., but you've spent a lot of time in Iran. So how are your loved ones? How are your friends? How are your sources?

SADJADPOUR: Well, I appreciate you asking that, Terry. For me personally, I've been doing this long enough that, you know, I can kind of separate as best as I can emotions and personal feelings and analysis. But for my family members and loved ones both inside and outside Iran, it's obviously a very harrowing time. People were really, either directly or indirectly, traumatized by the massacres of last January.

I think - obviously, everyone knew how brutal this regime was, but they didn't fully appreciate the scale of it. I think many people were hoping that this conflict could be a quick way to help the people in Iran get rid of this regime. And I still hear from people inside Iran that, you know, perhaps they are still holding out hope for that - such is their level of desperation - where, as I said earlier, I think others have now buyer's remorse or real second thoughts about this intervention. But I think there's a bottom line which, you know, I feel, I know most people in the U.S. and European governments feel and tens of millions of Iranians feel, which - this is a country which isn't where it should be.

This is one of the world's oldest civilizations. It has enormous human capital. It has enormous natural resources, this rich history. It should be a G20 nation. You know, there was a time in 1978 where Iran and South Korea had the same GDP levels, and you look at those countries now and where Iran is. And so modern-day Iran is really a tragedy. And it's a tragedy above all for Iranians, both inside Iran and in the diaspora. But it's also been a tragedy for the United States because, in my view, America and Iran actually should be natural partners, and instead, Iran is one of our worst adversaries. And unfortunately, I don't see that dynamic changing in the near future.

GROSS: Why do you see the U.S. and Iran as natural partners?

SADJADPOUR: You know, I always quote Henry Kissinger here. He said there are few nations in the world with whom the United States has more common interests and less reason to quarrel than Iran, but Iran has to decide whether it's a nation or a cause.

For Iran, the national interests of the country should be that which advances the prosperity and security of its people. And before 1979, Iran and America enjoyed an - a fantastic partnership, and America actually was an ally for Iran against Soviet and Russian encroachment vis-a-vis Iran. And so I think this modern period is an historic anomaly whereby Iran is allied with Russia against the United States. It really should be the opposite. And I think most people inside Iran understand that so long as the organizing principle of its government is death to America and death to Israel, the country will never fulfill its enormous potential as a nation. The organizing principle needs to be the national interests of Iranians, and that requires a fundamentally different relationship with the United States.

GROSS: Karim Sadjadpour, thank you so much for your time and for sharing some of your knowledge with us. I really appreciate it.

SADJADPOUR: It was my honor, Terry. Thank you so much for having me.

GROSS: Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a contributing writer at The Atlantic.

Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, how to get ahead in business when you're a young woman in sexist World War II London trying to survive the Blitz, navigating romance and fighting time-traveling fascists. That's the premise of the new novel "Nonesuch." Our guest will be the author, Francis Spufford. His earlier novel "Cahokia Jazz" made our book critic Maureen Corrigan's best books of 2024 list. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram - @nprfreshair.

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GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

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