How IRAN Wins and AMERICA loses with Professor Vali Nasr

We have Professor Vali Nasr. Professor Vali Nasr is at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, an author of several books about Iran. And lo and behold, his last book was Iran's Grand Strategy and Political History. Vali, thank you so much. First time you've ever joined The Left Hook. I've been wanting to have you on for the past 4 weeks. Before we get into it, and I framed this as how Iran wins. And America loses. And I want to talk about the long plan, the war gaming that Iran has already done. Did you ever think, Vali Nasr, because you've been following this your entire career, that the United States or a United States president would be so reckless and stupid to ever agree with Benjamin Netanyahu to assassinate Khamenei?

I mean, it's unfathomable. But although I have to say that even during the June war, Israel tried very hard to assassinate Khamenei. And they didn't find him then. And then during the subsequent months also, Khamenei was largely absent. For some interesting reason, he decided basically to come back to his office exactly when the likelihood of war was at its highest. I think President Trump probably got very taken with the Venezuela model that, you know, there is a scenario in which, you know, I can take out a leader, kill a leader, then basically claim a very quick victory. And there is a version of Delcy Rodriguez or that scenario in Tehran. And then, you know, we will call it, I can come out and say, I solved the Iran problem, the 47-year-old, you know, indigestible Gordian knot of Iran. I solved it. And I've done something that no other American president since Jimmy Carter has been able to do. And I think that basically led him to the idea that killing Khamenei is a good idea because probably he was sold on the idea that Khamenei is the only obstacle to the Iranian, to Islamic Republic changing itself completely. And so they killed Khamenei and the impact has been the opposite. The regime did not fall. Like Israel had hoped. The regime did not change and metamorphose into a more amiable version like Trump had hoped. Actually, the regime became much harder. It became completely dominated by the Revolutionary Guards and by that faction of the Revolutionary Guards, which is actually the most hawkish, the one that believes that restraint invites aggression. And you have to take two eyes for every eye that United States or Israel takes. And that the only deterrence that Iran can achieve in this scenario is by escalating. And I think they had also underestimated Iran. They thought that they would hit it hard and Iran would collapse. They had not calculated that Iran probably had organized itself like a boxer, for those of your viewers will remember the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman fight, that Iran has actually organized itself like Muhammad Ali. It's actually wants a long 15-round bout, believes that US and Israel were not prepared for going beyond second and third round. And then also that Iran decided to fight the war on a completely different battlefield that Trump had not calculated, and that's called global economy. Energy markets, the Gulf. And it was very clear that US had made no preparations, not only for the war being more than 3, 4 days, but actually that Iran would be able to so successfully open a whole new front where it actually can, can, has escalation capability. In other words, Trump says, I'm going to escalate. They say, we're going to escalate. And they showed it with when Israel attacked Iran's gas fields. They immediately attacked Qatar's gas fields, irrespective of the fact that they had had good relations with Qatar. They were basically making a point. In other words, in the Gulf, in this war on the global economy, you are not capable of preventing us from escalating. And so you don't have leverage. And I would say like now we're 28 days, 29 days into the war, President Trump most likely is going to move to a next phase of the war, which is ground invasion, occupation of territory. But during these 28 days, it is Iran that has been building leverage and strategic advantage, not the US. And the strategy that President Trump went in with has basically failed. And he essentially is struggling to find how does he end this war, and he's trying to escalate his way out of it.

He's digging up, literally digging up. And I want to quote what Donald Trump said when on Today, he's ratcheting up pressure on Iran after the negotiations that he promised are very close have clearly failed because Iran says, nah. Iran literally kept saying for the past week, nah, no negotiations. We're talking to Iran. He goes, no, you're not. 15-point peace plan introduced by Pakistan, not interested. And so he warned them today, quote, We'll just keep blowing them away. And clearly it doesn't seem to be deterring Iran because Iran says, okay, you keep blowing us away, you keep committing war crimes, Israel, you go ahead and blow up the desalination plants. All right, you blow up the oil refineries. Yes, this is terrible. We'll just choke the Strait of Hormuz. And then a couple of days ago, Iran said Strait of Hormuz is actually open except to our enemies. And what we're seeing now, Vali Nasr, is something interesting is that I think due to the realization of foreign countries that they need Iran, that they need the Strait of Hormuz, this is having a type of escalation in the global markets that this is not their war. And I saw Spain, Spain was the first country that said, nope. And now you're seeing even India and China and Europe saying, nah, it's okay, Donald Trump, we're not going to get involved. And they're making side deals with Iran. Doesn't that just help Iran?

Yes, it does. And I give you an example. This is how bizarre this war has become. Before this war, Iran was selling maybe a million barrels of oil on the sly. In other words, secretly. It was selling it at huge discount at $47 a barrel, roughly. Now it is selling 1.5 million barrels of oil at $120 plus. With no discount. So it's actually gaining a lot more money than it did before the war. And then you have a situation where the Secretary of Treasury says, actually, we will unsanction Iranian oil. Although Iran said, no, thank you, we're selling enough as we want. But basically, he was offering something to Iran that Iran could not get during peacetime at the diplomatic table. So if you're Iran, you would say, I'm getting more out of this war than I got out of negotiations. And you're right, the rest of the world is basically also hurting. Like India's running out of cooking oil because they all come from deep in the Gulf. World is going to face a huge fertilizer shortage. There's all kinds of trades in commodities, intermediary goods that relied hugely on the enormous port facilities of Dubai. Which are now all locked up because of the Strait of Hormuz. And this is not the worst that can happen. I mean, the Iranians are basically right now restricting the strait, but they could actually completely close it by mining and varieties of things. But then if Trump escalates, Iran can actually go after oil infrastructure in the Gulf. In other words, hit refineries, explorations, et cetera, which then would make the oil issue much bigger. And also the Houthis may come in in Yemen and they can also close or restrict passage from the Bab el-Mandeb into the Red Sea and out. And that would put additional pressure on the global economy. And the longer this goes on, the more we're going to have inflation and recession across a wide area of the world. And Donald Trump, all he can do is to threaten more bombing. But it's kind of like threatening Iran with more sanctions and it never worked. So he could threaten them with bombing. If it doesn't work, then he has to basically begin thinking about escalating on the ground. So first is I'm going to take this island and then what? If that doesn't work or there are more US casualties or Iran does something bigger in retaliation, then the US is being put in a position of having to escalate even further. So, you know, he's in a dilemma that, you know, you would say Lyndon B. Johnson and then Nixon had in Vietnam. In other words, you can keep escalating and like Nixon, he's now trying to escalate his way out of the war. I mean, they were negotiating in Geneva with, during Nixon era while they were also bombing North Vietnam. And in the end, they couldn't break North Vietnam's back. It was the US that left Saigon at some point. It's the same what's happened with the Taliban. And I think the entire—

Iraq, ISIS.

ISIS. I mean, the entire theory that Trump has about winning here is going to basically get him deeper and deeper. And it doesn't matter what he says verbally. They love me. They gave me 8, what is it? 8 boatloads of oil as a gift with Pakistani flags. I mean, the more he says these things, the more it's obvious that He's trying to put the best face on what looks like a strategy that has come undone during the past 28 days.

I don't think there was a strategy, Vali Nasr. There was no exit strategy, clearly. There was no entry strategy. He didn't even sell the war. He didn't win over our allies. He didn't win over the American public. And he came in, did this lie about an imminent threat. There was no imminent threat. Then Marco Rubio, a week later, backtracks and says, actually, Israel said is going to attack. So we did a preventive proactive attack. And then he's like, well, regime change. Then he said, okay, no regime change. Then he said no ground troops. Then he said ground troops. Then he said, okay, well, or let's just get an off-ramp. And now he's like, no, we're going to blow it up. So clearly the world's most incompetent people. I think you're right. Based on all the reporting we've seen from Reuters, Bloomberg, New York Times, and Washington Post is that the people who had his ear, this according to the latest reporting, the final conversation was with Netanyahu. And Netanyahu said, you and me will take credit for killing Khamenei. You know, we'll be heroes. And then Donald Trump thought, based off the war rush he got in Venezuela, he thought, oh, Iran will just be like Venezuela. And folks, I want you all just to remember, because I know there's a lot of information, he was always, he was already bragging about Cuba. So he thought, oh, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, bombs, bombs, bombs. And there was Lindsey Graham in his ear and Pete Kekseth in his ear and Christian nationalists in his ear. And Netanyahu in his ear and they said, you're the boss, you're the man, you can do it. No entry strategy, no exit strategy. Now we're stuck. I want to talk about some of these allies or some of these other partners. Israel's long game in this.

Well, Israel has viewed Iran for a long time, right or wrong, as its main enemy, main nemesis in the Middle East. I mean, for a while now, the Arab world is not a threat to Israel. The only forces in the Arab world that are a threat to Israel are non-state actors, which Iran backed. Otherwise, Arab governments, it's been a while that they don't threaten Israel. They're not a factor in the Palestinian issue. There's a lot of talking. Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties. You know, Iraq and Syria are a mess. And the Saudis and the Gulf don't have military threat to Israel. And in fact, we're making deals with Israel. The only country here, which was basically a thorn in Israel's side for a long period of time was Iran. And after October 7th, especially after Israel got a victory against Hezbollah with the decapitation of its leader and the pager bombing, et cetera, Israel saw an opportunity to finish off Iran. You know, the Islamic Republic looked exposed, looked weakened. Its skies were defenseless. Let's go after it. So he went after it in June of 2025, and it didn't achieve its goals in that war. Iran was battered but was still standing. The regime didn't fall. There was no popular rebellion. And in fact, Iran's missiles shocked Israel. So it was not— Netanyahu decided we need to go back. We need to finish them off. Now, what does finishing off mean? At the least, it means that the Islamic Republic has to go. Now, whether it goes to complete chaos in Iran, that's not Israel's concern. But what Israel— and if there's a new regime in Iran, Israel wants it to be like the Syrian regime today. In other words, no military, no military capability, no ability to project power, potentially fighting internally against different divisions, ethnic groups, et cetera. And Israel's goal is really to take Iran out as a player in the Middle East, not just the Islamic Republic, but a country that is multiple times larger than Israel, has imperial ambitions, even under a different kind of a regime could still be a menace. And if you take Iran out of the picture, then Israel has a much easier way of asserting hegemony over the region. In other words, create a political order in the region that is dictated by Israel. And so Israel has much more expansive ambitions in Iran. It didn't just want what it didn't want. It doesn't want Adelzi Rodriguez. Because the Delsi-Rodriguez scenario means the Islamic Republic survives, the machinery survives, the Revolutionary Guard is there. They didn't want Larijani. That's why they killed him.

They killed him.

They don't want Ghalibaf. In fact, Iranians say the only reason the Americans are asking to meet Ghalibaf is to smoke him out and kill him so that Israel can kill him. One reason they don't want the talks is because they don't even trust that the talks are real and another leader doesn't get killed. So what is this Israel's after is something much bigger. I mean, and so Trump may be satisfied with some Iranian who wants to cut a deal. But, but if that happens again, Israel would not have achieved its, its war aims, which is IRGC would stay there. The Islamic Republic would stay there. Some degree of its missiles will stay there. And, and Iran will be there to fight another day. So, so I think, uh, uh, And at some point also, when Trump keeps talking about, I'm ready to talk to Iran, what we're not asking is, are you bringing Israel along? How are you going to manage Israel? Because this time, you know, in June, Israel started the war and the United States only came in for 45 minutes to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. This time the US is in, US wants to do the ground invasion, US is a big part of this, but it's really not a war between US and Iran. It's a war between three parties. Iran and, uh, Iran is fighting both Israel and the US. And what is not being asked is what is Israel's position about when this war ends? What is its, what is, what is, are its desires? And whether if Trump tomorrow, even by some miracle, there's a way in which he and Iran could make an agreement, what is the strategy for actually bringing Israel along to accept the endgame.

And I really appreciate that point. We're going to get to that. And you explained it very succinctly, is that people aren't really thinking about Israel here. Because if I'm Iran, and I'm going to put myself not in Iran's shoes, okay, United States, you and me have a deal, even though we did have a great deal with the Iran-US deal and Donald Trump, you blew it up. And Donald Trump, you escalated. But I don't trust Israel because Israel convinced you to blow up the deal. Israel convinced you to join in and degrade our nuclear facilities. And even though you and me are okay, Israel has clearly signaled to the world that they want us decapitated. And then, by the way, now they're being so arrogant, they're openly saying after us, they're going to go after Erdogan. So we know that you are the cucks of Israel. You do what Israel says. You love Netanyahu. We don't have any faith in Republicans or Democrats who take money from AIPAC. So it is not in our interest to actually stop because even if you and we are okay, you have literally given the aid of Netanyahu to do what he wants to do in the West Bank, in Gaza, in Iran. I think the Israel component here, and you can't even bring this up, Vali, because you know how frustrating it is. The more you and me, people who look like us with our names bring this up, We get called anti-Semites, right? You know how it goes. Oh, you're criticizing Israel only. But we're like, if you just look at the facts, we have both sides of the aisle essentially giving a free pass to these pro-Israel and also Christian Zionist, Christian nationalist war hawks who refuse to in any way, shape, or form turn off the tap, if you will, to Netanyahu. And if you don't turn off the tap, And if you don't restrain Netanyahu, we're going to be stuck in this quagmire. And I'll give you an example. You already mentioned it. It seems very clear that Israel further dragged the United States into this war because they're the ones who bombed that shared border between Qatar and the gas field between Qatar and Iran, knowing full well Iran would respond. Iran responds, like you said, by attacking Qatar. Qatar then goes to the United States, says, what the hell, man? Then I'm sure you saw a couple of days ago, Trump for the first time ever criticizes Israel, right? Says, okay, okay, Israel. stop, but then Israel, but then Iran then retaliates, which then draws United States more and more in. So my question then is, if you're Iran, you're, you're sitting there realizing Israel is going to be belligerent and the United States eventually is going to be like led by Israel anyway. Why should we stop? Do I have it? Do I have this wrong here? Am I being unfair?

No, no, you're not. I mean, uh, I think the Iranians are following a two-tier strategy. One is that They continue their missile attacks on Israel. I guess in a belief that at some point Israel would also believe that war with Iran is not that easy and maybe it doesn't want to pay the price for it, or the Israeli public would also come to see that this is really costly. I mean, the Iranians are not trying to break Israel's back with 5,000 missiles or 500 missiles. All they need to do now, now that they have depleted a lot of Israel's interceptors is to just keep hitting 20, 10, 20 missiles a day, some getting through, some not getting through, some days more, some days less, just to disrupt Israel's economy and also play psychological warfare and then try to hit bigger and bigger targets so that they bring home to Israel that this is not cost-free. Let's put it that way. That's the strategy. I don't know if it's working yet, but That's, that's why they keep hitting Israel. The second is to actually escalate the cost on the United States and the global economy in a way that the US and the rest of the global economy comes to the conclusion that with Iran, not all options can be on the table. You cannot defeat Iran militarily, whether Israel wants it or not, that there has to be a diplomatic solution because part of the whole strategy with Iran since Donald Trump came out of the Iran nuclear deal, since Israel, UAE, Saudi Arabia, these countries persuaded the US administration to abandon the deal that it had signed, was that war with Iran would be easy. And that's why they kept pushing for it. And now gradually the war is becoming more and more costly. Yes, Donald Trump may be stuck. And he has no choice but going forward. But Iranians want to sort of prove to every politician in America, those who might be running in presidential elections 2 years from now, every senator, every congressman, that your assumptions about Iran should not be Iraq 2003. That it's that Iran is a— yes, although Iraq should have taught us a lesson and Afghanistan, but it seems that the lesson was not learned that, look, if you want to go down that path, I mean, you deliberately sabotaged a nuclear deal you yourself signed under the assumption that you could afford escalation and war. And so the path that you followed has led you here, and the cost has to be high enough for the US to actually agree to change course. I think the Iranians say it right now very openly, we don't want ceasefire, we want end to war. So the United States has to come to a point that it also wants end to war. Now, end to war obviously includes Iran giving some things like no more enrichment, no more nuclear, etc., but that the United States also has to give Iran some things that Iran wants, which is a guarantee that you're not going to do this every 6 months or every 2 years, that there has to be an end to war. And secondly, that you have to give us economic relief, most fundamentally. You basically choked our economy for 7, 8 years. You had your knee on our economy's neck. That created mass rebellion in Iran, which was hugely costly to the regime. And now you've invaded us and inflicted a huge amount of damage on the country. And you have to compensate for that and you have to actually relieve economic pressure. So the Iranians see this war as a way of renegotiating with the United States, uh, the situation that they were in, and they think they can get there. So why stop? Uh, because the, the, the policy that Israel sold to the United States has been following hasn't worked.

Nope.

Uh, it hasn't worked. And at some point, this becomes much more obvious. I mean, there's a, there's a point after which doesn't matter what Lindsey Graham says. I mean, people will begin to see that the emperor has no clothes. Doesn't matter what fibs Donald Trump spins out, how many ships of oil have I got, they really are desperate to talk to me. In the end, he comes to the conclusion that the United States either has to sign up to a much, much bigger war, and the global economy has to suffer through the consequences of that war, or that I have to sit down and talk to these people. And talking to these people doesn't mean that I put a piece of paper in front of them and expect them to surrender. It means that I have to actually negotiate in earnest. And the Iranians think the longer they go, the more their hand will be stronger and Trump's hand would be weaker. And I would add one other thing here that is important. I mean, the way this war is going, the US has depleted a lot of its weaponry, particularly defensive weaponry. If you're China or Russia, you might say this is the time to act. This is the time to expand a new front with the United States. Its capability to actually, you know, counteract militarily is the lowest. The US has run through something like three-quarters of its interceptors globally in this war. It's not able to reproduce them. Very quickly. And so the war is also costly to the United States at a much, much bigger arena outside of the Middle East.

A lot there, Vali, a wealth of knowledge. I've been saying, I remember on the day this happened, I was just planning it out. I'm like, if I'm Iran, what I would do, and the word that I used was gouge, I would gouge Israel and the United States and our Sunni allies, gouge, gouge, gouge. It reminded me of what Osama bin Laden His strategy, even though Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were the ones who were responsible for the terrorist attacks on 9/11, they were proactive. But his, uh, strategy was this will, uh, create retaliation and blowback, and the United States will overstretch and overreach, and we'll just engage in, uh, a death by a thousand cuts. I believe that was a strategy, right? Cut here, cut there, cut here, cut there, bleed here, bleed there, add it up day after day, week after week, month after month. We'll bleed. We'll take it. But we don't think you have the appetite to bleed. We'll take the hits. We don't think you have the appetite to take the hits. How long are you willing to tolerate this, you know, economy? How long are you willing to tolerate oil shortages? How long are Americans willing to tolerate more and more dead and wounded American soldiers coming home? How long are your Sunni allies willing to tolerate insecurity? How long are Israelis willing to tolerate being stuck in bomb shelters and their economy being messed up and their flights being grounded? Okay, we know you'll come and kill us. There'll be war crimes. So many of our civilians will die. But much like Vietnam and Iraq, we'll take it. We'll take it, but we'll gouge you and we'll keep gouging you to teach you a lesson and to make sure that you don't do this again. So it seems like that's what Iran is literally doing over the past 4 weeks. It seems that was their long-term plan. It was, dare I say, even though reckless in the sense that so many civilians are going to die, it's very smart. Right. You're going to get stuck in a quagmire. And oh, yeah, by the way, like you mentioned, we also have this thing called the Strait of Hormuz. So we're going to engage in economic warfare. And thank God, Vali, so far, so far, we haven't seen the type of retaliation in the sense of asymmetrical terrorist warfare. I fear that as long as the war continues and the more and more idiots like Lindsey Graham say religious war and the more and more idiots like Andy Ogles and Randy Fein mocking Muslims, then it becomes a religious war. And then you have fodder for religious extremist groups and propaganda and recruitment. And then basically any American, any Jew, any Muslim around the world is a target. Right. So people still haven't talked about that dynamic of the war that will inevitably, I think, arise because that's what happened last time. So inshallah, there's an off-ramp there. But Iran seems to be winning with the gouging and specifically what the United States didn't really take into account is that it doesn't have to gouge the United States. It could gouge our allies. So we have Bahrain, we have Qatar, we have Kuwait, we have Saudi Arabia, and we have US bases. I want to ask you about the Sunni allies. We know Saudi Arabia, for example, no fan of Iran. Reporting says that MBS tacitly gave the thumbs up to remove Khamenei. This seems to be a massive mistake by Saudi Arabia and UAE and Qatar as well. They thought that Iran would go quietly and now they are screwed. And I don't think, you know, UAE, from my family and friends who live there and do business there, they're saying that UAE is not going to be the same for at least 5 to 10 years as a result of this.

Well, I mean, yes, I mean, partly Iran, that all of these countries, some of them were more neutral or friendly to Iran, like Oman and Qatar before. Some were much more, had had a much more history of animosity with Iran. Saudi Arabia only normalized relations with Iran fairly recently. UAE lobbied against the nuclear deal and Bahrain still doesn't have relations with Iran. But none of them wanted the war. They actually all argued against it. But it was very clear that compared to Israel's influence on Trump and Trump's own ego, in the end, they really were not a factor in that decision.

Can I ask you a question, Vali, real quick? Because there's some reporting that Saudi Arabia disputes that MBS gave a thumbs up to it. Where are you on that?

I don't think so. I think some of that beforehand had to do with the fact that just before the war, there was a massive tiff between UAE and Saudi Arabia over Yemen and over Sudan. Saudis bombed UAE's positions and there was a start of a campaign in the US to call Saudi Arabia antisemitic, you know, really an Islamist state, died in the war. And I think Saudi Arabia started trying to say certain things that would ameliorate the sort of the pro-Israel voices in Washington. So I think some of it was that. But I think the reason I don't believe it is because I think the Saudis, Emiratis, Qataris, They were all smart enough to know that the United States is not going to knock Iran out. And what they're going to do is actually just inflame the situation in the Gulf, although they hadn't calculated on this degree of inflammation. And basically, they knew that the US will not finish the job. So why start something you're not going to finish? They had no confidence in the US being really not leaving a mess behind. It's not that they liked Iran, it's that they thought that the US would actually not provide a final solution. And that's why the solution they had found, like open embassies, do minimal trade, you know, go between Tehran and the Gulf, was their way of basically de-escalating. The US decided to go to war. Now that the war has happened, at least the UAE and Saudi Arabia are openly saying, okay, now that you've done it, Now that you've created a much harsher, more risk-taking IRGC-dominated Iran, you need to finish it. Because any scenario that they stay there, our economies won't come back. I mean, end of the day, you would say all of these governments, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, their economies in a way has been hugely damaged by this. It's not about oil. Oil impacts US and than the rest of the world. In fact, maybe those countries are also collecting much higher oil revenue right now with higher oil prices. But for UAE and Saudi Arabia that invested trillions of dollars in the future economies, travel, tourism, banking, AI, data centers, airlines, the Gulf being the hub of the world, trade, et cetera, all of that has basically been shattered. And it's not going to come back until risk is lifted from the Gulf. Now, how will risk get lifted? UAE's now position is risk will get lifted if the Islamic Republic is completely removed, which means that the US, they're asking the US to sign up to a maximal campaign against, because they're not capable of taking Iran out. Israel is not capable of taking Iran out. They all need the United States ultimately to do with Iran what they did with Saddam. So that's basically their solution. Others are more cautious. Like Qatar is basically saying, you know, we have to live with Iran. Doesn't matter what ends up in Iran. We're neighbors and they're not going anywhere. We need to coexist with them. So it's a very different kind of an approach. And I think end of the day, the Gulf is stuck between a stone and a hard place. What they've discovered, Pajareed, is that the United States cannot defend them and will not defend them. The US only defends one country in the region. And that's what it had prepared for. The USS Gerald Ford, the USS Abraham Lincoln were there to intercept Iranian missiles directed at Israel, not what would be coming to the Gulf. And since this war has started, the Gulf has been on its own. Whether they're attacking American bases or attacking infrastructure or they're attacking gas fields, oil refineries, the Gulf has been left on its own. So the country that they thought for 40, past 47 years was basically their shield against Iran clearly has not only malfunctioned and also has brought the war to them. So the only value American bases have had is to invite war, not to protect against war. And then they're looking at Iran that now has become extremely aggressive and has basically crossed the line with them. You know, the line that had never been crossed before has been crossed. It had once been crossed in one occasion when they attacked oil facilities in Saudi Arabia in 2019, in Abqaiq, but not in this scale. So now the question is, how do you de-risk the Gulf? It's not a question for the Gulf of only punishing Iran. I can fully understand Saudis, Emiratis, Qataris, Kuwaitis, feeling that their nationalism, their patriotism has been aggrieved. Everybody would be. I mean, even average people aside from the overlords. But getting into a war with Iran, you know, every step they take, they are unprotected, first of all, by the US. And secondly, it doesn't de-risk the Gulf. A prolonged confrontation with Iran only means that the shadow of war will remain on the Gulf even after the United States leaves. And so the dilemma the Gulf has is that it's now also caught in a bad place, which is how do we go back to normalcy? And I think you are seeing very different strategies here. In the past 2 days, United Arab Emirates has become much more aggressive. Like if you read their ambassador's op-ed in Wall Street Journal, is diametrically the opposite of what the Qatari spokesman of the foreign ministry put on the table, which is we have to coexist with Iran, right? And it suggests that the Gulf has to basically, when this war is over, really rethink its future, which is how do we get our economy back? How do we protect ourselves? You know, what kind of, do we need bases? I mean, if these bases only bring war but don't defend you, what is the point of that? Right?

They literally make them into targets.

Made them a target, but then having made them a target is not defending them. Right? In other words, when Iran hits, Iran first hit a billion-dollar radar system on the major base in Qatar, the argument was, well, the radar is being used to attack us and it's on your base. So then debris fell from whatever was incoming on the streets of Qatar, Qatar Airways suspended flights, et cetera. Then in retaliation for the Israeli hit on their gas fields, they hit the gas fields in Qatar. And in none of these occasions was the United States actually able to protect them. Right? So when the war finishes, they will have to do some really serious thinking about how do you bring peace and security back to the Gulf? And I think that's not an easy answer for them. So, you know, what's happened in this war, Reza Hadad, when we sort of step back from looking at the trees right now, the shape of the forest has changed. The Middle East has completely changed. You know, if Iran disappears, it's a huge change for the Middle East. If Iran survives and the United States has to make a deal with it after a ground invasion, before a ground invasion, The security structure of the Middle East will also change because then Israel would have failed to defeat Iran. It has to live with whatever is left. The Gulf will have to live with whatever is left. The idea that the Gulf is kind of like this splendid, beautiful villa in the middle of a really rough jungle, but there's a suspension of disbelief. When you're in the Gulf, you're not in the Middle East. It somehow has nothing to do with war happening all over it. That has also been shattered. And so everything about the Middle East has fundamentally changed with this war. And Donald Trump has no theory. I mean, he has no theory of actually how you stop the fighting, but he has no theory of what's the day after like, right? I mean, that's actually an equally problematic issue, particularly for these Sunni Arab countries saying, okay, you couldn't manage the war. You started a war you can't end. We really want you to bring this to a closure, a satisfactory closure. But then Mr. Trump, what's your theory of the day after? How's the Middle East gonna function the day after? And there isn't one.

And what, you know, that was fantastic, Vali Nasr. And I appreciate you being so clear and connecting the dots for so many people. There's a reason why he's written several books, folks, and he's a professor at Johns Hopkins University. He spent his life thinking about these issues. You know, speaking about how America loses, I've been thinking about this as well. And based upon your analysis, it seems like a complete reordering of the post-World War II era. And it seems that the winners, dare I say winners, I want to put them in quotation marks because I don't want to say that there's any winners during war crimes and such death and devastation. America clearly isn't the winner. America is going to be more isolated. America is going to be weaker. America is going to have less national security. America is going to be less trusted by our allies, like you just mentioned, our Sunni allies. Like, what's the point? You literally did not help us. We have no Iron Dome. Israel has the Iron Dome. We suffered and we're screwed because of our alliance and partnership with you, and you still didn't help us out. Israel, I think, will be stuck in a perpetual war. And the type of Israeli leadership right now wants a permanent insecurity for their region for permanent security for itself. So they think they're winning in the short run, but in the long term, I think it's devastating for Israel. They still haven't realized it yet. If anything, our allies will say, well, let's go to a more reliable partner, someone who can actually be trusted. And then that leaves an opening for both China and Russia.

Yes, absolutely. I think the Chinese and the Russians are big winners right now by virtue of what's happened. You have a moment in which the United States under Donald Trump imagined itself as the uberpower. It can bully Europe, it can demand Greenland, it can get everything, and every world leader literally say, for Khamenei, bend the knee and was willing to kiss the ring as a way of managing him. And now it has basically ended up in an imperial overreach. In other words, the way it looks, and America loses in this war because it was expected to win and win easily. If the world's greatest superpower is not able to get its way easily, then by definition, its power is not what people believed, right? I mean, Donald Trump has brought the United States very close to that kind of a scenario. So that already is good for China. It's a humbling moment, if you were to say. And the more Donald Trump is struggling to deal with a bunch of Revolutionary Guard commanders in a country that is supposed to be supposed to have been a cakewalk for the US, suggests that the US's power is not what it was. Secondly, the US is in great danger of reversing what has been the wisdom since the Obama era, that we have to put endless wars in the Middle East behind us and focus on where great power rivalry, China, Russia, Asia, Europe, et cetera, And here we are. He's back to the George Bush Jr. moment of getting us into a mother of all endless wars in the Middle East because Iran is orders of magnitude larger and more complicated and difficult than Iraq is. And if the United States ends up in, you know, stuck in the Middle East for 5, 10 years from now, it is a total win for China. Thirdly, both China and Russia are even in the short term, benefiting from this. The Russians are selling a lot more oil at much higher prices. And also the Ukrainians are being denied critical weaponry, which now the United States has to ship to the Middle East to protect against, you know, Iranian weapons. It's almost like the Iranians are depleting Ukraine's air defense systems for Russia's benefit. And for the Chinese, the more the United States gets bogged down in the Middle East, the more it will have to take its eyes off of Asia. So Asian security, the Quad, you know, supplying Taiwan, Korea, et cetera, with varieties of defensive, offensive weaponry gets put on hold. And then thirdly, I would say that in the end, the way the Iranians are talking, that when this war ends, The United States will not be the only outside power with outside role in this region. We want the Chinese and the Russians on the table because those are the only countries we trust. And the United States, I mean, partly Iranians saying the United States will not have a say in that. I mean, Iran's foreign minister at one point a few weeks ago said that we will, the new order in the Strait of Hormuz, will be coordinated with China, which, you know, it's a very interesting open-ended vague statement, but basically that, you know, China will be part of regional security. And actually the Gulf countries may be very open to that because they also are going to want to hedge. And ultimately the Chinese may be in a much better position without having, you know, spend a bullet in the Middle East, without having put a dime in the Middle East, to actually see the United States weakened in the Middle East ultimately, and they having a much bigger role as a sort of an outside arbiter that can help with security of the Gulf and its maritime traffic. And so, you know, in a way, Donald Trump took his eyes off the ball, the ball that he himself put on the table, that it's all about China. It's all about that great power rivalry. I mean, the fact that Bajaj, that he had to cancel his trip to China right now means that Middle East has come to dominate what should have been his big agenda, which is global trade and the balance of trade with the Chinese. That's now on the back burner.

And he's messed it up. And this was, folks, before he did this folly, this illegal and unnecessary and self-damaging war, with Iran. He also had the trade war, which already further weakened and isolated the United States of America. So it's back-to-back hits. It's, it's the murder-suicide of America. And what I said was, if I'm China and I'm Russia, I'm sitting back, I'm smoking a cigar, I'm seeing America literally destroy itself, and then I'm gonna just reap the rewards. And furthermore, if I'm China and Russia, why not saber-rattle a little bit? Why not be the raptor testing the fence around Taiwan? If I'm Russia, why not test the fences around Ukraine and Poland? Right? Because if you have expansive ambitions, which both of them do, you can help now remake the, the shattering of the post-World War II order, and you can carve up the sphere of influence. So more and more China, more and more Russia, less and less United States of America. You already see Pakistan. I want to ask you about Pakistan. China, folks, if you haven't followed, has been making billions of dollars of investment in Pakistan, also in Africa. And Pakistan and Africa and a lot of the African countries already have been swaying towards China because of this massive investment China has made in the Pakistani economy. Right. So many Pakistanis have also been won over by China and they're like, hey, good business with China. They're the ones who built this infrastructure. So here comes Pakistan. And I know Pakistan is pursuing the leadership within Pakistani— I could tell you, communities, they say there's a word, walam, which means, I don't know if you had known in Farsi also, Vali Nasr, servant, servant, a servant of Saudi Arabia, right? So Pakistan's like, I have a 15-point plan. Uh, so they're like, all right, maybe Saudi Arabia and China's like, okay, Pakistan, go forward and see if you can be the negotiator and get Donald Trump to the table. You've seen the 15-point plan, which essentially is a reboot of the, the US-Iran deal that Obama made, which is so painful. You really, It's us literally going back to what we had. And Iran is saying, for the reasons you mentioned, nah, we're okay, we're good. But Whitcoff and Kushner are on it, Vali. So I'm sure you have faith in Whitcoff and Kushner. Your opinion on this 15-point plan and the insertion of Pakistan here to try to mediate some peace?

So first of all, Iran said that it won't talk to Kushner and Whitcoff because it believes that they misrepresented what had happened at Geneva before the war, and they referred to them as having backstabbed Iran. So they said they would not meet with them. And if they are going to be the emissaries, they need to have a chaperone in the form of JD Vance. So there's an alternate ear in the room than those two. The 15-point plan probably came from Washington. It's a rehash of what was on the table in Geneva anyways. Now, how did Pakistan come into this? Maybe the Saudis maybe put them up to it, but also the Pakistanis are really worried that if the war gets out of hand, the Saudis may invoke this strategic partnership that they signed with the Pakistanis and say, you know, we've given you so much money, we signed a deal with you, you need to go fight the Iranians. And the Pakistanis definitely don't want to do that. And so it is to their advantage to play good. And then, you know, maybe there was also conversations between the Pakistanis, the Turks, and Egyptians when all of them were in Saudi Arabia for this extraordinary meeting the Islamic countries around the war about a number of days ago. Now, the Pakistani military chief has good relations with Trump, has good relations with Whitkopf. Maybe he reached out. He probably got an okay to sound out the Iranians. And they tried to actually have a meeting this weekend, but then this morning, the Pakistani foreign minister basically indicated there's no meeting happening. It's not going to happen. And I think largely because the 15-point plan is very far from where Iran is in that sense that the Iranians actually are not interested in this 15-point plan. They're interested in guarantees that no war would happen, economic compensation, American bases leaving the region. I mean, much bigger sets of renegotiating a post-war order in the region, not just going back to the ceasefire that would be what Trump has in mind. And secondly, I think the Iranians don't trust negotiating with Trump easily because twice they were negotiating and he attacked them. So they're convinced that negotiations with, with, um, in Islamabad this weekend would only be a diversionary tactic for what would be a ground invasion because they don't think Trump is ready to actually negotiate in earnest. And so their estimation is that the war has to go on longer for the United States to really calculate that its fortunes have changed. And, you know, there are some fundamental facts here. You know, Iranians may listen to you. They may also listen to Tucker Carlson and say, well, yes, for the first time, actually, it is very strong, you know, left of center and right of center opposition to the war. But the war has not really impacted the Americans in a way to really create a veritable pushback against Trump. Now, yes, oil prices and inflation have gone up, but not long enough to actually, for average American to connect the dots. The war has not really impacted families in the form of American casualties. The news is still Trump can control the news by saying, look, it's kind of like a video game where we're destroying everything in our path. But there's not images or pictures of those setbacks. So the Iranians think the war has not really impacted, you know, deep in America. And they're not going to get a change in Trump's attitude before the war begins to bite a lot harder. In Europe and Asia in the form of inflation and recession, in the Gulf in terms of economic costs of the Gulf, and in the United States in terms of, you know, prices at the gas pump, inflation, you know, American casualties. And they think that, you know, everybody might still be under the impression that the end of the war is very near, so they don't need to get too upset. But if the Iranians can show that the end of the war is not near, and the cost can keep going up, then gradually the mood will change. And then it's only then that Trump will get serious about talking.

And that's why I'm so afraid, because it's in Iran's best interest to keep it going for 4 to 5 to 6 months deep into the summer, and not, if not beyond, to keep gouging, gouge, gouge, gouge, bleed, bleed, bleed, and to ensure that Americans remember the pain of the folly. And if, God forbid, there is a ground invasion— and yesterday, folks, 2,000 paratroopers were sent— that means dead US bodies. Iran is a country of 90 million, folks. 90 million. It isn't just like Iraq. And even with Iraq, if we remember, folks, many thousands of US soldiers died. And what's worse, even now, Vali Nasr, I'm sure you've read the reporting that many of the troops that are being sent The reporting says that they're like, this is a pointless war. Why are we going? And then Huffington Post had him quoted, why are we dying for Israel? And usually, you know, in our lifetime, anytime the United States bombs Middle Eastern and Muslim countries, the initial approval rating of that war is what, 90%? He started off on the back foot with a majority of Americans against this war, right? So I'm hoping, this is me. Gosh, the world's worst, you know, optimism because the bar is so low that because he messed up so bad, because we don't have the appetite for war, because already a majority of Americans are against it, because the right wing is against it and it's not rah, rah, rah. Maybe, maybe, inshallah, this, this off-ramp doesn't have to take 1 year or 2 years or 6 months. Maybe it could just be done in 2 or 3 months. I don't know. But you have made a very convincing case that it is in Iran's best interest based upon the history of Donald Trump, his unreliability, his, his recklessness, his lack of, willingness to negotiate in good faith that they're like, all right, never again. Gouge, gouge, gouge, bleed, bleed, bleed. And we're going to make sure that the rest of the world no longer has appetite for this war, even though Israel might, and even Israelis, we're going to make sure that you realize the folly of this war and maybe you'll turn against it as well. The final question I have for you, Vali, and thank you so much for coming on. Come back anytime. I've been wanting to get you for a month, uh, is, uh, what's the off-ramp? If you could consult Donald Trump right now, knowing his personality, knowing this is a man driven less by, if you will, a theory, less by strategy, less by any sort of interest in national security or the protection of America or the protection of the rule of law. He doesn't care about any of that. He cares about being seen as a winner. It's all about placating his ego. And you also know what Iran wants. And you also know how Israel's behaving, specifically Netanyahu, who needs forever wars to stay in power, right? What would be your advice to Donald Trump right now to give him an off-ramp that would bring Iran to the table and at the very least bring the temperature way down and gives everyone a type of face-saving win?

Well, I mean, the first thing is that I think a ground invasion would actually make it much more difficult for him to even claim victory, to grasp at anything. And it would actually maybe play to Iran's advantage because the question is not who is more powerful. The question is who has more tolerance of pain.

That's right.

I mean, one thing for Iranians, people, government, et cetera, they know how to suffer. They've been suffering for 47 years. People under their own government, in wars, et cetera. And the Revolutionary Guards that are leading Iran, they're veterans of many wars. And they're prepared to go through that sacrifice. But I think if he were to stop at this point and then try to explore ways in which he could have a meaningful dialogue about an exit strategy, then he's not going to get everything he wants, but he's going to be able to stop the bleeding. I'm afraid that he's not going to see it that way because the way he made decisions about this war was not thinking about all the pains and everything that can go wrong at the beginning, but rather basically thinking we should go to war and now realizing gradually that it's actually not as easy as he thinks. And I'm not even sure how much he knows because New York Times had this report that the way that he's being presented things is not giving him bad news, showing him videos of things blowing up, and that he might not quite understand exactly what's going on. The only things that register with him are the stock market and oil prices because those are the two things that he's gauging. And we're not at the point— so in a way, I'm not sure how much he's open to actually really thinking about an exit. I mean, he's a chameleon. In a way. So when he makes a decision that he wants out, he's going to find a way to declare victory and say, I'm coming out. And I actually have serious negotiations with the Iranians around ending the war. But this can only get bad from this point forward. I mean, the likelihood that the United States is going to just land a lucky knockout punch to Iran is not is there, but it's not very high. I think this regime in Iran had prepared itself for this kind of a slug. United States, after close to a month, has not knocked it out, and it's not going to knock it out easily. So the question is, you know, how much tolerance does the United States have for a, for a very long bout? And the longer this goes on and Trump doesn't get his way, the more You know, then the advantage is on the Iranians. And the more the Iranians sacrifice in this war, the less they will be in the mood of giving something big on the table to get ceasefire. I mean, after everything's devastated, they're going to want a very big price before they let you off the hook.

It's the, we're being led into disaster by the world's worst people. And folks, after 4 weeks into this war, The United States managed to replace the older, dying Khamenei with a younger, more radicalized Khamenei.

Yes, exactly.

Where the Revolutionary Guard is digging down and deeper, and the Iranian people, even though 85% of them are so Vali Nasr, right, were against this regime now because literally their girls are being killed by US Tomahawk missiles, are like, okay, let's rally around this regime that we hate, but just for the sake of our survival. And Iran says, okay, if you're going to come after us, well, we'll just bleed you and we'll bleed your allies and we'll choke off the world markets. And we're going to make sure the world remembers what happens when you go after Iran. So you never do this again. And you have white Christian nationalists, Zionists, Christian Zionists, the world's worst people giving Donald Trump the advice right now. Pete Hegseth and Mike Huckabee and Lindsey Graham and Benjamin Netanyahu folks. So any adults in the room have been replaced by genocidal psychopaths and the most incompetent people. And I unfortunately agree with you, Vali. It seems like we're going to be stuck in this for a while. And I hope, I hope somehow, inshallah, there is some random opening that, that happens that you and I don't see right now that, that creates an off-ramp. But this is going to be very, very painful for a while. Vali, thank you so much for your amazing analysis. Vali Nasr. Is a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He's the author of several books on Iran. He's been thinking about this, writing about this, warning about this. In fact, his last book was Iran's Grand Strategy and Political History, talking about how Iran has war-gamed these scenarios and how Iran is planning for the long-term plan in case Israel and the United States attack it. And voilà, here we are. And folks, every president before us has been presented with the option of removing this regime. But even they were like, you know, that would probably be disastrous until Donald Trump. And voilà, here we are. Vali, how can people shamelessly, first shamelessly promote yourself and tell us how people can listen to you, read you, and where people can find you?

Well, I'm on social media on X. On Blue Sky, on Substacks, and I post things. So, you know, I don't have my own outlet as such, so you can follow me on those platforms. And then, you know, my book is available. It came out only in June of 2025. It's available on Amazon. It's called Iran's Grand Strategy: A Political History, which really delves into what's the mindset in Iran, where does it come from, and to understand the, you know, the Iranian side and the adversary that the United States is confronting.

People really loved you. I hope you can see the love in the chats.

Thank you.

They're asking, can you come again?

Anytime. Would be my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. It was great to be with everybody.

I love it. We're going to bring Vali back, inshallah, in a week or two when he's free. Thank you all for watching. I'll be back at 3:15 with Emma Vigeland. Everyone else, in the meantime, there's about 1,800 people, almost 2,000 people watching this. I'm talking about Vali Nasr. We will have this conversation up. It's a very important conversation. If you really want to understand Iran's long-term plan and how Iran actually might win, how China might win, how Russia might win, and how the United States will lose in this unwinnable war, please go back and listen to this conversation. I'll have it published. Thank you all for watching. Please subscribe to The Left Hook. Everything is free. I'm a terrible capitalist. I'm a terrible son of immigrants. I kept everything free. If you can become a paid subscriber. Subscriber. It's only $3.75 a month. If not, I get it. Uh, at least listen to this. Uh, it's free information, uh, and spread the good news. Everyone else, uh, be kind, be informed, and please, oh please, don't be a fascist. Vali, come back, please.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Thank you, brother. Take care.