As the conflict between Israel and Iran enters a fourth day, there’s no clear path to an off-ramp. Israel seems set to make the most of a moment where Iran is historically weak, and Tehran, even while weakened, is looking to show the region—and its own people—that it won’t let Israel’s attacks go unpunished.
On the latest episode of FP Live, I spoke with Vali Nasr, an Iranian American academic who has advised several U.S. administrations on Middle East policy. Nasr’s latest book is Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History. Subscribers can watch our discussion on the video box atop this page or follow the FP Live podcast. The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.
Ravi Agrawal: It seems like Israel has taken out a large part of Iran’s air defenses and degraded Iran’s ability to launch missiles. If that’s the case, how does that impact the next few days of this conflict?
Vali Nasr: It’s very clear that Israel has the run of the skies. They’re able to target a variety of cities, civilian infrastructure sites, residential areas, and assassination targets. It remains to be seen whether they have a free run at actually hitting nuclear sites. Some of those nuclear sites can be hit from a distance without long-range air defenses. But whether they can carry out more saturated bombing, and whether Iran has capability to launch short- and medium-range missiles to defend those sites, is still open to question.
RA: For the nuclear plant at Fordow, which is buried about 90 to 100 meters underground, you need 20,000 to 30,000-pound bunker-buster munitions that require a B-2 plane to drop them. Israel doesn’t have that. How much can Israel do alone? At what point might it want or need American support? And how does Israel think about how much damage it can cause?
VN: Israel’s attack on Iran has been two-pronged. On the one level, it’s gone after the nuclear sites, which supposedly was this campaign’s main aim. And at the second level, it’s gone after the leadership of the state, particularly the security and military apparatus, in order to make it difficult for Iran to plan and conduct a war. It has been most successful in eliminating seven top Iranian generals, virtually the commanders of all the key forces in Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the commander in chief of the army, and even the intelligence chief of IRGC recently. But the damage is limited because, clearly, Iran has regrouped and is capable of carrying out the missile attacks against Israel.
On the nuclear front, Israel has hit the key Natanz facility. But according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, it’s unclear whether the cascades of underground centrifuges are actually damaged. And we won’t know unless there’s an inspection of the site or some other secondary evidence.
The main source of concern is the Fordow facility, which is deeply buried inside of a mountain. Israel really needs the United States in order to do any damage to that site. It’s unclear, even after this lot of bombing, how easy it might be for Iran to reconstitute (its nuclear) program. The war’s aim at this stage is to hobble Iran’s program, to create more distance between where Iran is and where a nuclear weapon would be. But Israel is nowhere close to achieving those war aims yet.
RA: How capable do you think the people who have replaced top IRGC leadership are of managing Iran’s defensive and offensive operations now?
VN: They’re showing that they’re perfectly capable. The IRGC, regardless of what you think of it politically in terms of its behavior, is a professional military organization. It has a chain of command. People who have stepped in obviously have been in positions of control. They know how things are done.
But it’s not very clear how war planning is happening. These are younger commanders who still have to consolidate their own position. Their relationship with one another and the political leadership of the state, particularly the supreme leader, is new. No country can lose the commander of its air force, navy, ground forces, and intelligence all in one swoop and not have it impact decision-making and war planning. That the IRGC has been able to carry on, push back, and retaliate at this pace is surprising. But we know a lot less about these new leaders than we knew about the ones that were eliminated.
RA: One year ago, what we’re seeing would have been unimaginable, in part because of Hezbollah’s forces being arrayed against Israel on one border. But they’ve largely been neutralized after the coordinated pager attacks last fall. Do you anticipate any of Iran’s proxies—Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi rebels in Yemen, militias in Iraq—playing a role in the next couple of weeks?
VN: I don’t think Iran intends to activate them, largely because it would only expand this war in ways that might bring in the United States. That’s not something Iran is looking for. It is also conceivable that at some point those proxies may feel an existential threat and act on their own because of Iran’s changing role. Or, if Iran’s command and control over the Houthis or Iraqi militias erodes much faster, those militias will not necessarily disappear into thin air. They may act in a variety of ways, from making peace and integrating into the Iraqi state to becoming more radical and dangerous. Currently, the Houthis have a cease-fire agreement with the United States. That’s very convenient for Iran. They have a cease-fire agreement with Saudi Arabia. Iran is not looking to disturb those. They don’t want to change the Saudi or American position. They don’t want to invite an attack by Israel or the United States in Iraq. And therefore, they’re not disturbing the scenario in Iraq. So, at this moment, Iran’s proxies are not really part of this war. This is a war of missiles, air force, drones, and cyberattacks.
RA: Iran canceled the meeting with Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, that had been scheduled for Sunday. Now, we’re getting reports that Iran might want to restart talks to de-escalate this current conflict. Does Iran want to end this quickly? Or do they need to be seen to be imposing some serious costs on Israel?
VN: We’re going through a process here. First of all, Iran was shocked by the Israeli attack. The fact that its senior commanders were not in bunkers hiding and were sitting in their houses suggests that they expected military conflict to only follow a collapse in the talks. Neither Iran nor the United States had seen the diplomatic process to an end, and they were actually supposed to be meeting.
So, Iran’s conclusion was one of three things. One scenario is that (U.S.) President (Donald) Trump pulled a fast one on them and never intended to negotiate. In fact, negotiations were pretty sporadic, never sustained, and never really got going. There were these meetings and exchanges of papers, and that he was playing along until Israel attacked. The second scenario is that Trump allowed Israel to attack Iran, thinking that it will soften Iran’s position at the table. So when he said it’s going to be either diplomacy or war, he didn’t mean it. He was using war as a stage in diplomacy. Therefore, they lost trust in the process and weren’t ready to go back if they didn’t quite understand Trump’s position. Or the third scenario was that, actually, the United States is feckless. The decisions are made in Jerusalem, Israel decided that the diplomatic process was at an end, and Israel basically imposed its will on the United States. So, if you looked at any of these three interpretations, it was not really grounds to go to Oman and have a meeting.
I do think Iran wants an off-ramp and is reading the signals that Trump is sending very carefully. He vetoed Israel’s decision to assassinate the supreme leader, which was basically him playing good cop and trying to create political cover for Iran to come back to the table. Or Trump thinks Iran and Israel must make peace, come to the table, and that there’s still a good deal to be done. He’s keeping that option open. But the Iranians can’t go to the table with their tail between their legs. Now that Israel has pounded them, they’re going to go to the table weaker. They need to show that they’re still standing, that their nuclear program is still sufficiently strong to merit serious give-and-take with the United States, and that they have held their own enough with Israel to actually make the threat that they can unleash on Israel anytime if the United Staes doesn’t sign. But it’s not easy for them to get there. I think they want to get to the table, but they don’t think Israel has been sufficiently bloodied that the United States could actually restrain it or convince Israel that there’s no military option with Iran. So diplomacy is there, but not yet.
RA: There were multiple carrot and stick measures short of war before Israel acted unilaterally. What do you think (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu was thinking? On the one hand, he said he was “preempting” Iran getting the bomb, but his critics might argue he was preempting diplomacy because he didn’t want that outcome.
VN: I tend to agree with the latter view, that he was preempting diplomacy. He was never interested in a diplomatic solution with Iran because the diplomatic solution would have never ended Iran’s nuclear program. But more than that, any de-escalation or agreement between Iran and the United States could pave the way for Iran to have more economic breathing room diplomatically and the United States losing its vigilance in containing Iran. That’s what happened with (former U.S.) President (Barack) Obama. Israel does not want a scenario in which Iran is accepted as part of the Middle East by the United States, has relations with the United States, and has more breathing room to retain its regional position. A nuclear deal would address the nuclear problem, but it would not address Israel’s Iran problem. Israel wants to solve its non-nuclear Iran dilemma, which is that this state is too big, it’s too powerful, it’s too influential, it’s too capable, and it shouldn’t gain any degree of strength because it will then become more unmanageable.
RA: Netanyahu has faced constant domestic pressure, including corruption charges and a recent attempt to dissolve parliament, and lots of international criticism over the continued attacks on Gaza. How might that have played into some of his thinking on starting these attacks on Friday?
VN: I think the domestic factor is important in both countries. Israel is still engaged in a war in Gaza. Aside from the opposition to Netanyahu from the more liberal voices, that war still has to conclude and has its own ramifications. Netanyahu has, for many years, used the Iran bogey to posture himself as Israel’s (Winston) Churchill, as the one person who can defend Israel against Iran. If he were to give a knockout blow to Iran, it would serve his political ambitions greatly.
Conversely, Iran also has a domestic issue. Iran’s population has been arrested for a while. It’s tired of isolation, it’s tired of economic pressure, it’s tired of authoritarian pressures that enforce rules on the population. Actually, the majority of Iranians want a normal state like any other country in the world. Not necessarily pro-American or pro-Israeli, but they don’t see why they need to be this isolated, and they’re not supportive of their government’s position. I think both of these are playing out in this war.
RA: It was interesting to hear Netanyahu a couple of days ago speak directly to the Iranian people. It almost seemed like he was telling them to think about new leadership in their country, that he was doing this on their behalf. When you have attacks like this, one of two things could happen. There’s what Netanyahu wants, which is a weakening of the regime and maybe a popular uprising. Or you could have a rally-behind-the-flag movement as people see their country being attacked.
VN: It’s a very complicated picture, and it will continue to change. First, Netanyahu has addressed the Iranian people for a long period of time and has posed as Iran’s savior to liberate them from the Islamic Republic. This perhaps attracts segments of Iranian opposition both outside and inside Iran. And when Israel first killed five or six (Islamic) Revolutionary Guard (Corps) commanders and attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities, there were celebrations in Tehran and other cities because people disliked these leaders and saw them as oppressive and responsible for Iran’s problems.
But then the next day and onward, when they saw attacks against apartment buildings and residential areas, with civilian casualties, a different mood set in. Not only was there a rally to the flag, but also there is a fear that Israel actually has a “Gaza solution” in mind for Iran. And some comments by Israel’s defense minister—that they will apply the south Beirut Dahiya rules to Tehran—have resonated with the Iranian public very strongly. Gaza was ruled by a government that Israel characterized as enemy terrorists, and so was south Beirut and south Lebanon with Hezbollah, and Israel basically took the war to the civilians in those places, targeting civilian buildings and populations. If that’s what Israel has in mind with Iran, then Israel is not a friend. Whatever the Iranian people’s issues are with the Islamic Republic, they are viewing this war as directed at them.
Iranian people often can be characterized as two-dimensional: either they are pro-Islamic Republic or anti-Islamic Republic. Like many other people, they can be simultaneously opposed to the Islamic Republic and be patriotic. The longer this war goes on, the more you’re going to see that the Islamic Republic opposition is going to divide and fracture between those who believe that it’s the defense of the country and oppose Israeli action, and those who will believe that this is a moment where the Islamic Republic can be toppled.
The reality is that Israel can erode the cohesion of the Islamic Republic as a state and perhaps hopes that it will implode. But beneath it, there is no democracy movement, no opposition movement, and no opposition leadership to take over. There’s not a ready-made state standing out there that can step in. So, the permutations for what would happen if the Islamic Republic collapsed are more like Libya, Iraq, or Syria than it would be a transition to a different kind of a state right away. And the more this dawns on Iranians, I think, the more they’re going to resist a simple argument of “let’s topple the state.”
RA: You make the point in your book, Iran’s Grand Strategy, that in the longer term, Tehran wants to weaken American hegemony and become a regional power through religious appeal and its network of proxies. How much of a setback has that strategy faced in the last year?
VN: That strategy is really reaching the limits of its usefulness. Not only because Iran has failed to extricate the United States from the Middle East, but Oct. 7, (2023), showed that its tactic of using proxies and fighting against Israel is extremely costly and not workable. But also, there’s now serious questions in Iran as to whether the state can sustain this kind of a strategy in the long term under economic pressure. It has maintained its independence, which is a big national security objective, but the costs are mounting, and the population is beginning to ask hard questions about this strategy’s viability. Iran is really keen on engaging on the nuclear issue because it is a way of revising that strategy or getting out of an ongoing conflict with the United States. This war is pushing Iran back into the same mold that it has been in. Israel prefers Iran fighting against America and the West, as opposed to an Iran that might recalibrate itself somewhere in a gray area, which would make things very different.
RA: We tend to think of autocratic regimes as having a fixed mode that doesn’t adapt much and basically favors repression to survive above all else. But what you’re describing sounds a little bit more nuanced, that Iran’s leadership doesn’t have fixed views on nuclear weapons or even the nuclear program. Could there be an opening to change Iran’s behavior longer term?
VN: There hasn’t been, until now, a moment where Iran would drastically change 180 degrees. But there have been many moments where Iran could have changed 10 degrees at a time. And if you kept pushing it 10 degrees at a time, ultimately those tactical shifts might have become a strategic shift. The Islamic Republic is ideological, but when it needs to, it has shown flexibility. It did so when it signed a deal to end the Iran-Iraq War (in 1988). It did so when it signed a nuclear deal with the United States in 2015. If you look at how the Soviet Union changed gradually, you see a series of shifts, sometimes two steps forward, one step backward. Iran’s not that different. For Iranians, until now, the nuclear program was up for negotiations because it’s the only issue that the United States and Europe are willing to negotiate sanctions relief and a degree of breathing space. And the United States will not come to the table on anything else other than Iran’s nuclear program.
RA: Let’s zoom out, Vali. For the last 20 years or so, there were two main military poles of power in the Middle East: Iran and Israel. And it seems now that Israel is emerging, at the very least, as the military superpower. It’s decimated Iran’s proxies and significantly weakened Iran in the medium term. So, is Israel now the regional hegemon? Are we seeing a realigned Middle East?
VN: Yes, Israel is emerging as a singular hegemon. It’s behaving like it. It’s very confident in its military capability. It feels unrestrained and with no international pressure about how it uses its military now. Iran is an obvious target because of the profile that Iran has and the animus that it has had toward the United States. If Iran was removed from the scene altogether, then essentially Israel would be the singular power in the region. Yes, Turkey is there, but Turkey is only partially in the Middle East. But none of the Arab countries are able to stand up to Israel, so Israel will dictate the regional order.
RA: And how are the Gulf countries, which are wealthy and rising in influence, viewing this week? I’m thinking of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia.
VN: First of all, they see danger. If there’s war between Iran and the United States or a broader regional war, it lands on their economies. The Gulf countries are Iran’s neighbors. Israel is actually far more removed from Iran than the Gulf countries are.
But looking past that, if Iran collapses into chaos, that has implications for Gulf security and for their investments in advanced technology. But they also have to consider the implications of a Middle East where the rules are dictated by Israel across the board. They can normalize, and they can be partners with Israel, but they would be the junior partner in the relationship. When Saudi Arabia talked of normalization with Israel, it wanted a normalization of equals. It still wants a normalization of equals. It does not want to accede to being a second-tier power in a Middle East where Israel will be the dominant power. Now, the Arab countries may not have a choice, but that’s not their preference.
RA: And to step further back now, how is China watching this? Because Beijing played an important role in bridging relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023.
VN: For Beijing, Iran has value largely because it’s a very big part of their vision of a Eurasian landmass outside of U.S. control. So, China, Iran, and Russia are all at odds with the United States and seek strategic depth in one another. Iran is obviously the smallest piece of this. But if Iran were to be removed from this calculation, it does change the way China looks at the Middle East, Pakistan, and its relationship with the Gulf. Its presence in the Middle East becomes more precarious, so China would have to recalculate. So, the Chinese don’t have a direct stake in this, but they’re not impervious to the implications.
RA: Let’s turn to the United States. Trump has long said that he’s a peacemaker and doesn’t want foreign wars, but the MAGA base is quite unhappy about America potentially getting drawn into a protracted conflict with Iran. How is that debate within the Trump foreign-policy team playing out?
VN: This debate is fascinating because it’s the first time that a very loud sector in American politics, including people in the House and Senate, is willing to break with traditional genuflection of American foreign policy. Whether Democratic or Republican administrations, American policy was committed to global leadership, to asserting American power, to upholding American commitment to Israel, and to a willingness to militarily engage in conflicts like Iraq or Iran at will. Now, you have open criticism of this policy coming from within the Republican Party.
How the United States plays this hand, and whether Trump gets involved, will be decisive. The Iranians were following the same debate and perhaps thinking that Trump would not get involved nor allow Israel to get in. They thought that the diplomacy had more legs, war wouldn’t happen, and so they didn’t need to hide in bunkers. Now, they’re wondering whether the MAGA base can restrain Trump from getting involved more directly or whether they were wrong and that Trump ultimately will veer with the neo-cons and listen to Netanyahu instead.
China and Russia will also be watching this very carefully because they are also wondering about the influence of the MAGA base on the trajectory of military conflict and American global leadership. The next few weeks will be very telling.
RA: Last question, Vali. You closely follow international order and the role that norms and rules play in it. And I should mention that, of course, these attacks took place as diplomacy was underway, so we hadn’t finished that process. There hasn’t been any proof shown in the public domain that Iran was irrevocably close to acquiring nuclear weapons. There have been violations of the Geneva Conventions already with attacks on civilian infrastructure, civilian energy infrastructure. I’m curious when you look at this and you couple it with the other wars that are going on around the world—Russia, Ukraine, and just last month, India and Pakistan—where, again, in a lot of cases, countries acted without resorting to diplomacy, without feeling that they had to prove anything in public, without feeling that they needed to show proof, just acting. Are we entering a world now where countries feel like they don’t need to abide by the old rules?
VN: I think so. And I think particularly in the Middle East, this is a big, big debate largely because of the way the Gaza war unfolded and particularly the position that European countries or the United States took on it. I think it’s not just that they’re not making the case for war ahead of time or giving diplomacy a chance. It is also the way in which war itself is being conducted. For instance, if you look at Iran now, it is okay to assassinate leadership of a country, right? Okay, when Israel killed (Hezbollah leader) Hassan Nasrallah or (Hamas political leader) Ismail Haniyeh, it was possible to say these are nonstate actors, call them terrorists, and say this is no different than the United States killing terrorists in Afghanistan or northern Pakistan. But when you have military commanders, whether it’s in Russia, Ukraine, or in Iran, killed very openly in their homes, not in their bunkers or at work—in their homes along with their families—and you openly are discussing that, actually, the killing of the head of state is on the table and it was discussed with the United States. And so, then you’re in a different world because it’s not a question of whether Khamenei deserves to be killed or not, but it becomes that if you can kill him, then you can kill any leader of a state as part of the campaign. And that changes, you know, the balance of the way we discuss war. And I think the international roles are now completely inadequate in dealing with the way war is being waged, and the West is not. The erosion of these rules and how the West responding to that erosion is going to impact the international system going forward.
