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NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks to Mehrzad Boroujerdi of the Missouri University of Science and Technology about the status of the Trump Administration's negotiations to end the war on Iran.
ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
We're entering the 11th week of war with Iran now. The status of the ceasefire as well as the negotiations are up in the air. Here is what we know. Iran continues to block the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. continues to blockade their blockade. Iran and the U.S. also exchanged fire in the strait in recent days. And as far as the negotiations go, Iran has been reviewing a Trump administration proposal for several days now. It has yet to issue a response.
Mehrzad Boroujerdi is vice provost and dean of the College of Arts and Science and Education at Missouri University of Science and Technology. He joins us now. Mehrzad, thanks for being here.
MEHRZAD BOROUJERDI: Thanks for having me.
NADWORNY: So we don't have details on the U.S. offer just yet, but going into this week, do Iran and the U.S. seem any closer to a deal?
BOROUJERDI: I think the two sides are closer, but it's still unclear if and when they will cross the finish line. In the meantime, they are trading fires in the Persian Gulf. My sense is that, you know, we have moved away from the sort of maximalist demands that were articulated in the earlier stages of this war, you know, such as unconditional surrender of Iran or, you know, doing away with its missiles, etc. And now we have sort of the dawn of a more realistic assessment on both sides in terms of what, you know, can happen.
But, you know, the law of unintended consequences has taken hold. The war has basically produced a more radical and increasingly confident leadership in Iran that believes it can outlast U.S. political will while sustaining domestic repression to suppress internal resistance. It reminds me of what that Taliban fighter once said to his U.S. captors - you have the watch, we have the time.
NADWORNY: OK. So how do these U.S. asks line up with Iran's sovereignty?
BOROUJERDI: You know, I think it's - we should divide these asks into three categories - the yes, the maybe and the no. For me, the yes is things such as immediate inspection of Iran's nuclear, you know, facilities by IAEA, having some penalty for violations, giving Iran sanctions relief, guaranteeing that they will not be attacked again, etc. The maybe category has to do with the fate of roughly 1,000 pounds of Iran's enriched uranium and whether Iran is going to get any type of fees for transit of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. And then the no category, I think, encompasses the request of the Trump administration about dismantling all of Iran's nuclear facilities or doing away with their missiles that they basically see as their only asset and perhaps, you know, the fate of Hezbollah and other allied forces in the region.
I think it's fair to say that, you know, it really takes two to tango, and what we are going to end up eventually, in my view, is going to be a framework that is going to be similar to the 2015 nuclear deal in content, if not necessarily the circumstances under which it's going to be signed.
NADWORNY: Fascinating. OK. So you mentioned other allied forces. I'm wondering, are other countries in the region watching these negotiations, not just from the perspective of wanting the conflict to end, but perhaps from the perspective of realizing that their own vulnerabilities, you know, what they might be to foreign intervention?
BOROUJERDI: Absolutely. So the countries in the Persian Gulf - the Gulf Cooperation Council states, such as Qatar, Bahrain, etc. - which really for a long time have followed the strategy of rent a superpower and are now thinking about, OK, what are the shortcomings of this strategy, and is this our best deal, or do we need to put our, you know, eggs in different baskets? You have sanctioned exposed states, like Russia and North Korea, that are watching to see how far Western, you know, sanctions can degrade a state without direct occupation. You have China that is looking to see if economic sanctions coupled with military pressure can successfully isolate a resource-rich state like Iran. And certainly, others like Turkey, you know, Pakistan, India are also watching this thing with close attention.
NADWORNY: Yeah. A lot of eyes on Iran, for sure. CIA intelligence shows that Iran can outlast the U.S. blockade for months and that it still has considerable ballistic missile capabilities. This was first reported by The Washington Post and confirmed by NPR by a source who's not authorized to speak to the media. President Trump had initially said that this war would be over fast. As an Iran scholar, what do you think the U.S. gets wrong about Iran?
BOROUJERDI: Yeah. You know, it is said that war is instructive, if a harsh teacher. And I think, in this case, perhaps the Trump administration, thinking about the success of their last conflict in Venezuela, you know, mistook this for the next one and thought that Iran was going to be a, you know, cakewalk in a way, and that didn't work out. I think they also had this caricature of Iran as a one-bullet state, that you eliminate the supreme leader, and everything will, you know, fall. I think we ended up underestimating Iran's resiliency, its will to fight, its appetite for escalatory attacks on neighboring states, as well as U.S. and Israel, and really its willingness to inject pain into its own citizens.
Look, this is the 11th week that they have closed the internet. So you can imagine, you know, what type of impact it's having on Iranian businesses and ordinary citizens who are, you know, dying for information about what's happening outside Iran at the moment. So in a way, we have learned, I believe, that, you know, a state can be weakened, but it might still be able to deny decisive foreign control.
NADWORNY: Yeah. That's Mehrzad Boroujerdi with Missouri University of Science and Technology. Thank you.
BOROUJERDI: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF BONOBO'S "KERALA")
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