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--:-- Noelle King: This is Today Explained. I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Trita Parsi: I think what went really right is that both sides recognize that they need a deal and that to get a deal, they need to have reasonable demands and not go for this type of maximalist approach that oftentimes has been the case.
--:-- Noelle King: Trita Parsi, who joins us now, was not as surprised as many analysts. Trita is executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
--:-- Trita Parsi: He's also the author of several books about U.S. foreign policy in Iran. And Trita has been writing that there are real reasons to be optimistic about these talks.
--:-- Noelle King: And he says this past weekend proves his point.
--:-- Trita Parsi: Both sides have politics in their countries that is very unforgiving of any type of a compromise with Iran or with the United States.
--:-- Noelle King: But Trump is very different in that sense. He doesn't really care what the political establishment in Washington thinks about these things.
--:-- Trita Parsi: I think he's very eager to get some sort of a deal because it's kind of part of his persona to be a dealmaker.
--:-- Noelle King: And the Iranians recognize this.
--:-- Trita Parsi: So the opportunity for the Iranians to actually strike a deal is frankly greater now than it was ever during the Biden administration, because Biden, according to his own envoy, Rob Malley was at best lukewarm towards getting a deal.
--:-- Noelle King: And if you're lukewarm towards getting a deal, you're not going to get the deal.
--:-- Trita Parsi: A primary sticking point would be if Trump had adopted the position that the Israelis had pressed on him and pro-Israeli voices in Washington press, which is they want to the complete dismantlement of the Iranian nuclear program.
--:-- Noelle King: The reason why that is a problematic demand is because it will never be accepted by the Iranians.
--:-- Trita Parsi: The United States essentially would have to go to war to achieve that objective, which incidentally is exactly what the Israelis want.
--:-- Noelle King: They are deliberately pushing a line that they know will be rejected in order to pave the way for Trump having to then escalate matters towards a military conflict.
--:-- Trita Parsi: But Trump seems to have rejected that demand and instead is focusing on how he can limit the Iranian program with restrictions, inspections and verification.
--:-- Noelle King: And by that, ensure that Iran can never build a nuclear weapon, which incidentally is exactly what Obama did.
--:-- Trita Parsi: Yes, Obama struck a deal with Iran in 2015. President Trump in his first term pulled out of it.
--:-- Noelle King: Since Trump exited that deal in 2018, how much progress has Iran made on its nuclear program?
--:-- Trita Parsi: The Iranians have made significant progress, which is part of the challenge that Trump now has to deal with.
--:-- Noelle King: But it's also, frankly, out of his own making.
--:-- Trita Parsi: Had he not pulled out of the deal, the situation would have been very, very different right now.
--:-- Noelle King: When Obama started serious negotiations with the Iranians, if the Iranians had made a decision to build a bomb, it would take them eight to 12 weeks to have the material for a bomb, the fissile material.
--:-- Trita Parsi: It doesn't mean that they would have a bomb. It probably would take them another two years to build a bomb, test the bomb, et cetera.
--:-- Noelle King: But to have the material, they were eight to 12 weeks away.
--:-- Trita Parsi: As a result of the JCPOA, they would always be a minimum of 12 months away from having the material for a bomb.
--:-- Noelle King: So he pushed the breakout time from eight to 12 weeks to 12 months.
--:-- Trita Parsi: Today, Iran's breakout time is somewhere between three and seven days because of the dramatic progress they've made in the program because Trump walked out of the deal and the Iranians then stopped respecting the restrictions of the deal since the U.S. no longer was in the deal.
--:-- Noelle King: You recently wrote a very good piece for Time magazine in which you said you are optimistic that a deal is possible here for three reasons.
--:-- Trita Parsi: Walk through those three reasons for me, beginning with your first.
--:-- Noelle King: Both sides, as you said, have strong incentives to reach a deal.
--:-- Trita Parsi: From the Iranian side, they need sanctions relief. Their economy is in a terrible shape.
--:-- Noelle King: The country's official inflation rate hovers at around 35 percent.
--:-- Trita Parsi: And the local currency, the riyal, is on a nosedive.
--:-- Noelle King: There were at least 216 demonstrations across Iran in February.
--:-- Trita Parsi: The protests are largely focused on economic hardships, including low wages and months of unpaid salaries.
--:-- Noelle King: I don't think we're in a situation in which the regime is fearing regime collapse necessarily, because Iran's economy has been in a bad shape for quite some time.
--:-- Trita Parsi: It's a tremendously unpopular regime. But those are not sufficient ingredients in order to get a revolution.
--:-- Noelle King: There needs to be a credible opposition. There needs to be political organization, leadership.
--:-- Trita Parsi: None of those things exist.
--:-- Noelle King: But nevertheless, the Iranians cannot thrive. They can just survive.
--:-- Trita Parsi: And surviving is not enough. If they really want to be able to modernize their country, they need to get sanctions relief from the United States.
--:-- Noelle King: The rest of the region is advancing way ahead of Iran in that regard.
--:-- Trita Parsi: And from the American side, Trump really does not want to get into another war in the Middle East.
--:-- Noelle King: And if this issue isn't resolved, mindful of how far the Iranians advance their program, this is going to lead to some sort of a military confrontation.
--:-- Trita Parsi: And Trump also wants to leave the Middle East militarily. He doesn't want to have 50 troops there.
--:-- Noelle King: And a key factor that has kept the U.S. in the region is the enmity between the United States and Iran.
--:-- Trita Parsi: If that can be pacified, it also paves the way for American troops to be able to come back home.
--:-- Noelle King: Reason number two you cited, you say that Donald Trump appears to not be following Israel's lead here.
--:-- Trita Parsi: What do you mean by that? Why does that make you optimistic?
--:-- Noelle King: Well, when Trump summoned Netanyahu to the White House, Netanyahu pushed for what he called the Libya-style solution, which means that the entire nuclear program would be destroyed and dismantled.
--:-- Trita Parsi: This is what Libyan dictator Gaddafi did.
--:-- Noelle King: And of course, eight or so years later, he was disposed.
--:-- Trita Parsi: So the very idea that that would be an attractive option for the Iranians is somewhat laughable.
--:-- Noelle King: Netanyahu is pushing this line precisely because he knows it won't work, but it will leave Trump in a position in which he will have to escalate after he has failed.
--:-- Trita Parsi: But Trump seems to recognize this, and he has decided not to go down this path.
--:-- Noelle King: He keeps on saying his only red line is no nuclear weapons.
--:-- Trita Parsi: Iran has to get rid of the concept of a nuclear weapon. They cannot have a nuclear weapon.
--:-- Noelle King: But he can't have a nuclear war. Nobody can have, we can't have anybody have a nuclear war for us, you know?
--:-- Trita Parsi: And you can achieve that much easier, actually, by having a verification program, a deal that is based on inspections, restrictions and verification that ensures that the Iranians simply cannot build it.
--:-- Noelle King: And you don't have to go to war and Trump doesn't want to go to war.
--:-- Trita Parsi: And rightly so, in my view, a war with Iran would be a disaster for the region, for Iran, but also for the United States.
--:-- Noelle King: The third reason you cite is that Tehran has been making some interesting overtures to the United States regarding investment.
--:-- Trita Parsi: Tell us what Iran's leaders have been saying and what you think it is they're offering exactly.
--:-- Noelle King: The Iranians are saying that their economy is not closed to American companies because of Iranian decisions, but because of sanctions.
--:-- Trita Parsi: That's up until recently not entirely true.
--:-- Noelle King: Hardliners in Iran could live with a nuclear deal. They could live with a deal with the United States, but they did not want to see American companies entering the Iranian market because they feared, perhaps quite correctly, that once American companies are in Iran, there would also be some degree of American influence in Iran.
--:-- Trita Parsi: And eventually, the hardliners would lose control over power.
--:-- Noelle King: Now they have shifted their position.
--:-- Trita Parsi: And I think a key reason as to why they're shifting their position is because they recognize secondary sanctions relief, meaning lifting the sanctions on Europeans and Chinese, etc., actually doesn't work.
--:-- Noelle King: Most companies will not go into the Iranian market unless they know that they're not doing anything differently from what American companies are doing.
--:-- Trita Parsi: Because they know that if American companies are in the Iranian market, the likelihood that the Europeans eventually would get sanctioned is far less.
--:-- Noelle King: Now, what's interesting with all of this is that Trump is the kind of president that actually cares about this.
--:-- Trita Parsi: He wants to expand American markets.
--:-- Noelle King: This would never have worked with Biden.
--:-- Trita Parsi: And it didn't work with Obama.
--:-- Noelle King: Obama didn't want to go that far, fearing that this would have generated an even stronger backlash from Republicans in Congress against the JCPOA.
--:-- Trita Parsi: So Donald Trump is the businessman president, and Iran is saying, we see you, we recognize that, and we want to speak your language.
--:-- Noelle King: And they are speaking Trump's language.
--:-- Trita Parsi: If you take a look at the op-ed that the Iranian foreign minister had in the Washington Post a couple of days ago, it was interesting because he talked about a trillion-dollar opportunity.
--:-- Noelle King: I have no idea whether it's a trillion-dollar opportunity. I suspect that's quite an exaggeration.
--:-- Trita Parsi: However, the Iranian market is a big market, and it would be the largest market opening up to Western countries since the fall of the Soviet Union.
--:-- Noelle King: On Monday, President Trump gave a press conference in the Oval Office, and he was asked about Iran a couple of times.
--:-- Trita Parsi: He did not have the most articulate answers.
--:-- Noelle King: He said, you know, Iran wants to do a deal with us, but they don't know how.
--:-- Trita Parsi: And I think they're tapping us along because they were so used to dealing with stupid people in this country.
--:-- Noelle King: And I had Iran perfect. You had no attacks. You would have never had October 7th in Israel, the attack by Hamas.
--:-- Trita Parsi: Because Iran was broke. It was stone cold broke when I was president.
--:-- Noelle King: And I don't want to do that.
--:-- Trita Parsi: I want them to be a rich, great nation.
--:-- Noelle King: He wasn't saying this is going to get done, but he also wasn't saying this is not going to get done.
--:-- Trita Parsi: When you look at his remarks on Monday, coming as they did off the back of successful talks last Saturday, more talks this coming Saturday, where do you predict this all might be headed?
--:-- Noelle King: If they continue on this track and say that the red line for Trump is only a nuclear weapon, and the Iranians are also reasonable and agree to significant restrictions on their program, then I think they can have a nuclear deal, at least a framework of a nuclear deal within 60 days.
--:-- Trita Parsi: It will take a little bit longer perhaps to negotiate all of the details.
--:-- Noelle King: But ultimately, for this to work, it has to be done between the U.S. and Iran.
--:-- Trita Parsi: That will make it go faster.
--:-- Noelle King: But that also requires that the Iranians agreed to negotiate directly.
--:-- Trita Parsi: The talks that took place in Oman were for about two and a half hours indirect.
--:-- Noelle King: And then towards the end, they had a chat with each other.
--:-- Trita Parsi: The Iranians really need to immediately move towards direct conversations, because that's how you can get things done fast.
--:-- Noelle King: That's how you can build a bit of a rapport between the different negotiators, which is crucial for a deal like this.
--:-- Trita Parsi: Trump is not known for his patience. He's pretty impatient.
--:-- Noelle King: He wants to get this done fast.
--:-- Trita Parsi: And the Iranians are going to miss the opportunity if they don't go along with a method and a process that can allow this to be done fast.
--:-- Noelle King: Trita Parsi is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
--:-- Trita Parsi: Trita's written several books on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and Iran.
--:-- Noelle King: Gabrielle Berbey and Travis Larchuk produced today's episode.
--:-- Trita Parsi: Amina Al-Sadi edited.
--:-- Noelle King: Laura Bullard checked the facts.
--:-- Trita Parsi: Andrea Kristinsdottir and Patrick Boyd engineered.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
