Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. The war in Iran continues to occupy the political attention here in the United States and around the globe. And here with me today to provide some deeper context and understanding of the situation and how it might develop is Mehrzad Boroujerdi. He’s one of the leading experts on Iranian politics, and currently serves as the vice provost and dean of the College of Arts, Sciences and Education at Missouri University of Science and Technology. For many years prior to that, he was on the faculty at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Among his many publications is a massive compendium of the biographies of all the political leaders and elites in Iran. It's titled "Post-Revolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook." Dean Boroujerdi, welcome to the program.
Mehrzad Boroujerdi: Thank you, Grant, for having me.
GR: We really appreciate you making the time. So let me start with something I heard you say the other day. It really caught my attention, and I wanted to get you to talk about it again. I've heard you argue that the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7th, 2022 are essential in understanding the decision making regarding this current war with Iran, it really provided a turning point. Explain that briefly.
MB: Sure, my pleasure. Yes, so, October 7th really became significant in the sense that, you know, that terrorist attack by Hamas convinced Israel that, you know, they want to go and try to really subdue Hamas once and for all, right? And therefore, we have had this ferocious war, you know, for the last few years, even though supposedly, you know, a peace deal has been reached, there are conflict and killing, it still continues on that front. What was significant about that was that Israel then decided, all right, not only am I going to be going after Hamas, but also I want to try to weaken Hezbollah because of its attack from the Lebanese, you know, land, right? And then, you know, they went ahead and did that with a great deal of success. And then the question was, well, you know, while we are on it, why not go after the puppet master, which is Iran, right? Because of Iran's support for those two entities. Therefore, Netanyahu, who as we know, you know, has been the longest serving prime minister of Israel. And from the get go, you know, he has been dreaming about, you know, a regime change in Iran. I think he managed to really use the weight of the October 7th events and, you know, convince President Trump that this was really the time to go after Iran. So, as a result, we had the 12 day war of 2025, right, where, with US help they really managed to, you know, destroy a good chunk of Iran's nuclear capability. The fact that it was such a one-sided event, right, you know, led President Trump to declare victory. However, for Netanyahu, this was an unfinished job, because if his endgame is regime change in Iran, right, calling it quits after 12 days, they feel that they still have some unfinished business. And therefore, my sense is that, you know, he really did his best to try to convince Trump once again that we can go and this time bring about regime change, right? So that's how President Trump, you know, was declaring things such as, we do the bombing, then the Iranian masses, you come out and you take things into your own hands. Of course, this is happening after the, you know, December-January uprising in Iran, where, you know, millions of people express their opposition to the regime, right? So, they felt it's ready, the situation is ready. And yet I think they perhaps underestimated the resilience of the Iranian state in terms of staging a fight, right? And I think that's why we are now, you know, into whatever day, you know, for the fourth week of this conflict, right? Imagine Grant, you know, we're in 2003 when the US toppled Saddam Hussein, it took three weeks. So, this conflict is already, has taken longer than the 2000 war with Iraq. In 1991, when the US went to get Saddam out of Kuwait in that Gulf War, that thing also took 41 days, right? So, we are approaching that type of a, you know, time limit where U.S. military excursions have lasted, you know, 4 or 5 weeks, etc. but there is really no end in sight right now that this is going to pan out the way Netanyahu and Trump were envisioning it.
GR: Really interesting comparisons to previous US involvement there in that region. You've anticipated a couple of my other questions here, I wanted to draw on one of them. One thing that I have heard in the criticisms of the Trump administration and this war is that it has been overly influenced and perhaps even duped, depending on who's making the criticism by Israel. It sounds like you are saying, well, let me ask it this way, would you go that far in that account of why we're here?
MB: Yeah. I wouldn’t go really that far to say they were duped, because, you know, my exposure to the US government has led me to believe, right, that this idea of regime change and, you know, confronting Iran dates back, right? Many, many decades even, right, because of the hostage crisis and everything that that happened with Iran. So there have always been contingency plans, you know, by various US agencies, you know, to think about, you know, what might happen in Iran, right? But I think this time the forceful personality of, you know, Netanyahu, perhaps President Trump's lack of experience with the Middle East, the fact that he dispatched two real, inexperienced negotiators, right, to carry on the conversations with Iran, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, etc. I think all these elements and what they were seeing in the streets of Iranian cities led them to this false assumption that this is really the moment to do it. You see, what is fascinating is that Iran, since 1979 really, has been sort of the Bermuda Triangle for various US presidents. I mean, think of Jimmy Carter, right? What happened to him? Lost the election as a result of the Iran hostage crisis. President Reagan, the Teflon president, right? His reputation got damaged because of the Iran contra, you know, affair and so forth and so on. You know, Clinton tried to deal with Iran, you know, his secretary of state apologized for the 1953 coup in Iran, etc., hoping that, you know, there will be reach, but it didn't happen. And now I think this is the last chapter, right? President Trump really getting involved in a military confrontation that, of course, is going to, you know, leave an indelible mark, right, in the lives of ordinary Iranians for years and years to come, because the damage, even, you know, four weeks into this conflict is already more than the eight years of war between Iran and Iraq, right? Because the Iraqis could not really inflict that type of damage on Iran's infrastructure the way U.S. and Israel have been able to do over, you know, 13,000 strike points so far.
GR: Yeah, really interesting points. I'm Grant Reeher, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is the Iranian politics expert Mehrzad Boroujerdi, and we're discussing the war in Iran. So, what has been Iran's kind of master counter strategy to these attacks? How is it seeing what it's trying to accomplish or trying to avoid?
MB: Right, so, I think from the Iranian perspective, it's important to realize that they feel, you know, that they are the morally right party. Meaning what? Meaning that, you know, it was President Trump that in his first term got out of the nuclear deal with Iran, the JCPOA, right? So, they feel, you know, they remain faithful to it, it was Trump that left the thing. Then they feel that they were negotiating twice. One in 2005 and now in 2006 with the US administration and then all along, right, the next day, the US attacked them along with the Israelis, right? So, from their perspective, they say, you know, we've done some wrong, we do not trust this administration, all right, we are not going to be fooled and, you know, get involved in a third round of, you know, negotiation only to be bombed again, etc.. President Trump might be buying time for orchestrating yet another attack for us, right? So, they are coming at this, you know, with that type of a mindset. Now, it's also important to realize that these guys have a realistic sense of their capabilities. They know that they are not really a match for the combined power of Israel and the United States, militarily speaking. Yes, they have, you know, an adequate supply of drones and missiles, right, that are, you know, indigenous to Iran. They made these things because, remember, Iran, a country of 92 million, has an enormous human capital, a highly educated, technically savvy population. And, of course, the government over the last four decades has concentrated a lot of its, you know, energy and money into building up its military industry, right? So, the Iranian strategy is that, okay, if we cannot be a match for the US, you know, Air Force, Israeli Air Force, what it is that we can do? Their thinking is that, all right, we will fire as many of these missiles and drones that we have as a way of doing a number of things, inflicting political pain in Washington and Tel Aviv so that these folks will rethink their decision about continuation of the war. But parallel to that, they think that by closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most, if not the most important choke point, right, for global economy, they realize that they can, you know, play havoc with the world economy, and, you know, successfully so, so far, right? They have shown that they can really increase the price of oil. They can impact this stock market and everything else around the globe, right? I mean, it's fascinating, Grant, when you think about it, that it's not just the price of oil that is going up, everything is now going up. Fertilizers, right, you know, semiconductors, because they need helium, the gas helium, right? Much of that gas comes from the Gulf region, right, etc.. So in the Iranian thinking that, you know, this is now a contest between military might of U.S. and Israel on the one hand, and the economic pressure that they can exert on this global economy, etc. and as such, they are going after their neighboring states because they know, A, these are key players in the world economy, countries such as UAE and Qatar, right? And that they have, you know, Washington listens to their concerns. So, by attacking them, right, they are sending the message to these folks that you need to become active, otherwise, look what we can do to your countries.
GR: Well, and so is it fair to say that Iran's goal is probably survival? Is that what they're thinking? And then in that regard then, it sounds like the way you've just described it, Iran has some pretty good comparative advantages in this if that's their goal.
MB: It does, it does, but also some important liabilities. You see, this also remains a regime whose legitimacy is contested domestically, right? It has a population that does not necessarily care for the Islamic Republic because of its repressive policies domestically, right? So, the question really for them right now, it's an absolute case of existential angst at the moment. They want to survive this war, right, and for them, survival, lack of regime change, is success enough regardless of what type of price they have paid in terms of destruction of the infrastructure, right, that's the bottom line, all right? But the question really is, what will remain of Iran as an entity, as a nation state the day after? What will these folks inherit? How will they be able to rule? How fragile of a state will it be economically, politically, right? You know, you have to feed 92 million people three times a day type of thing, right? And that's going to be a challenge for what remains of this state.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Mehrzad Boroujerdi. He's a leading expert on Iranian politics and the vice provost and dean of the College of Arts, Sciences and Education at Missouri University of Science and Technology. So, to follow up on what we were talking about before the break there in how Iran sees this, you also talked about what Israel wants, what Netanyahu wants, and what the United States and the Trump administration might want. Is there a probability that the Trump administration and Netanyahu, or the United States and Israel are going to start to see this thing differently as it continues to play out?
MB: Yes, absolutely. I think it's important to keep in mind that the US aims and the Israeli aims are not, you know, the same, right? As I said before, I think Netanyahu wants regime change, if not disintegration of Iran as a whole, because, again, his argument has all along been, as Israel being such a tiny country, Iran, one of the largest, you know, in the Middle East, and this history of animosity between the two, he wouldn't be shedding any tears if Iran disintegrates. You have a Kurdistan of Iran, you have a Balochistan and so forth and so on, right? But for the Trump administration that has other concerns, right, as a global power that has to deal what's happening with China, what's happening with, you know, Russia, Ukraine, conflict, etc., etc.. right? The US should not, cannot be as gung-ho as Netanyahu is about regime change in Iran. I think for the Trump administration, either leadership change or even behavioral change on the part of Iran might represent success, right? So, the question is, I think that moment will come, indeed. You know, there is reporting, recently about how Netanyahu was, again, encouraging Trump for calling upon the Iranian public to come out and try to demonstrate under, you know, these circumstances. And apparently the White House said no, right, because they knew what was going to happen and they have seen this movie before type of thing. So, I think it's just a matter of time where these differences, you know, appear. But look, you know, U.S. is the senior partner in this coalition, right? And just like Trump did last year with the 12 day War, when he applied the brakes and said, enough is enough, right? He can still do that. Israeli planes without, you know, support from the US in terms of aerial fueling and so forth and so on will have difficulty, right, conducting all these sorties over Iran, day in and day out. So, I think what the White House decides is going to be crucially important.
GR: So, you've covered a lot so far, but what would be the most important thing you think we haven't talked about yet that our listeners need to know about this situation that they might not know or sufficiently appreciate? What else do they need to know? Go ahead.
MB: I think it's important to realize that this was a war of choice, right? I don't think the US really was facing any imminent danger from Iran. And look, at best Iran is a regional power and a fragile one at that, right? If you compare it to, let's say, a next door neighbor like Turkey, right, that is a major player politically, economically, militarily, etc., Iran is not there. So, I think this was a war of choice. And, you know, with the war of choice, you have to, A, ask questions about its legitimacy and also, what price do you want to pay? So for example, imagine if, you know, the current reports about us sending, you know, Marines etc., there, you know, for a, you know, ground offensive, right, materializes, then okay, this is a really a deepening of this conflict, right? And it's going to have repercussions because, you know, again, considering the assets that the Iranians have, you know, we will see bodies come back in bags, you know, again and again. So, this is something that I think the audience need to, you know, keep in mind. Secondly, you know, I think it's important to know that, both sides need to be able to come out of this conflict with the ability to save face, right? So, they have to be an off-ramp where both sides can claim some sort of a victory, right? It's not going to be a zero-sum game type of a scenario because again, of the internal dynamics, I mean, imagine for the Iranians, right? Total surrender is tantamount to political suicide, right? You have been attacked by two countries and you give in, right? So whatever legitimacy is left for the government will be lost in the eyes of the public. So, they cannot, you know, do that, they have to fight back as much as they can, etc.. On the other hand, we also know President Trump is not the type of politician who likes to, you know, suffer any defeats, right? So, you need to couch this in such a way that he's able to come out and still sell it to the American public as some sort of a political success story.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is the Iranian politics expert Mehrzad Boroujerdi. I wanted to ask a couple more personal questions if I could. You're originally from Iran, you know, you grew up there as child. And you also have some tragic family history in that country. Does that complicate the way you're seeing things right now? Does that make it difficult for you?
MB: Yeah. So my father was assassinated in the course of the Iranian revolution by a number of individuals who then came to occupy the most important military post in the country. I mean, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Minister of Defense, secretary of the supreme, you know, National Security Council, right? So these guys became household names in Iran in terms of the important positions that they have occupied. So, two of these individuals have so far been killed in the American Israeli raids, right, so in that sense, you know, I say justice served for these individuals. But, you know, Grant, really, throughout my career, I have tried to keep these sort of personal feelings, etc. separate from my, you know, more objective, you know, academic analysis of Iran, right? And indeed, up until recently, I wasn't even talking about what had happened to my own family as a result of, you know, these things because I wanted to sort of, you know, establish my own credentials and not necessarily, you know, be under the shadow of my father and what happened to him in this sense. So even today, you know, I try to formulate, I think a position that is morally right, meaning saying no to the Islamic Republic because of its oppressive reign, but also no to wars, because, you know, we have seen how destructive really wars can be, right? You know, I am from the southwestern province of Iran, near the Iraqi border, right? And I saw how my city of birth was basically damaged in the course of the Iran-Iraq war. And years later, over 30 years later, you know, these places have still not been reconstructed to what they were, you know, supposed to be, right? So that and, you know, the negative experiences that we had in this country with the Afghanistan war, with the Iraq war, right, leads me to believe that, no, war was not really the solution to settle, you know, this dispute. Iran was a nuisance for the American, you know, political establishment, but again, something that could have been dealt with short of a hot war.
GR: And going back to where this goes from here, you talked about the importance for both sides to save face and be able to claim victory of some kind. Okay, so what would it take for productive negotiations toward that end to happen, and what's the likelihood of that?
MB: Right. So, at this moment, the positions of the two sides are diametrically opposed, right? They are, you know, but, you know, that's sort of part of the posturing that has to happen in any type of negotiations, right, both sides put on their most maximalist demands and then they negotiate down from those type of, you know, positions. There can be common denominators that can, you know, lead one to think that an eventual agreement is reachable. Let's look at it this way. Iran's nuclear facilities really have been destroyed, right? Since last year, Iran has not been able to do any enrichment, so why not make that into, you know, a positive point? Why wouldn't the Iranians, for example, say, okay, you know, we cannot really do any enrichment, but now we are going to present it to you as a, you know, part of a package for which we are getting to get brownie points, right? No more enrichment, etc., but as a matter of necessity, they can't do that, all right? But this means they have to change some of the rhetoric and discourse about insisting on this right for enrichment and so forth that, frankly, has gotten us into trouble in the first place. On the other hand, I think, you know, Trump might be able to say, now, look, I killed the Supreme Leader, and many of the Iranian military leadership, I have inflicted serious damage on Iran's, you know, military infrastructure from, you know, naval forces to Revolutionary Guard forces, etc., etc.. right? So, he can, you know, come and claim victory in that sense. And perhaps if they have the diplomatic dexterity, right, and foresight to be able to realize that again, the other side needs to save face, right, then I think, you know, we can have the contours of an agreement. So, for example, you know, Iran's support for its proxy forces. I don't think it is, you know, something that is a sacred cow that the Iranians will not touch, right? That can be part of the negotiation. After all, Hamas and Hezbollah have been weakened, right? The Israelis are not going to let go of, you know, Hezbollah and Lebanon anytime soon, right, because of geographical proximity, Hezbollah has a front seat, you know, from southern Lebanon into Israel, etc.. So, if the Iranians are rational and I think they are a rational actor, right, they will then think about what it is that I can give up and what it is that I can get in return. Promise of no longer, no more attacks, lifting of some sanctions because they have to put their economic house in order, right? And you need some of that frozen Iranian assets to be able to do some of that reconstruction, etc.. Keep in mind, that on top of all this thing, you have a rather inexperienced, brand new supreme leader that needs to establish his credentials and so forth.
GR: So, we've only got about a minute, and I hate to put you in this position with only a minute to answer, but I wanted to make sure that I squeeze this question in, you've kind of already anticipated it, but I want to put you in the Situation Room with President Trump, okay? We're in the situation that we're in now, it's Thursday, March 26th. What's the most important thing that you would have to tell the president?
MB: I would tell the president, look, the longer this conflict continues, the longer US national interests and that of our allies is going to be damaged, right? So, let's find a creative way to bring this thing, you know, to an end, right? You have managed to inflict enough harms that Iran is not going to be a nuisance, right, in a serious manner, right, forget the rhetoric, the action. I mean, for a long time to come, right? Call it quits, you know, declare victory, etc. and move on.
GR: Okay, we'll have to leave it there. That was Mehrzad Boroujerdi. Dean Boroujerdi, I just want to thank you again for talking with me. I have learned a tremendous amount about this region and situation that I didn't know before. So, thanks for making the time.
MB: Thank you, Grant, for having me, it was a pleasure.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
