Trump needs a "LAST CHAPTER" in Iran | Trita Parsi

[00:00:00] Hey, they're talking about a deal, but it's probably not going to work. And if this war with Iran continues to escalate, it's going to turn into one of the most catastrophic events of the modern era. Good morning and welcome to the At the Water's Edge podcast, where we look for insights beyond the headlines and take a practitioner's view on national security and geopolitics. It's the 29th of September, 2026. Let's get started. We are back today with Trita Parsi from the Quincy Institute to get his take on what's going on with the war with Iran and just how bad things can we get if we don't make a deal.

[00:00:30] And is there any possible way for us to do just that? Check out his sub stack, link in show notes. Be sure to like, subscribe, share an episode with a friend, all that good stuff. And with that, let's get to Trita Parsi. Well, Trita, good morning. Welcome back. It's a pleasure to speak with you once again. Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure. So we've got the UN General Assembly just wrapping up. They're going to committee work. See Iran's president actually flew all the way to New York. Very interesting to see the president of a nation that we're at war with actually come to America.

[00:00:59] Actually might be a feather in the cap of the rules based international order. Might be a small feather, small feather. Feathers on fire, but it's there. Iran actually showed up last week, though, with a deal that they wanted to offer the United States. Looked a lot like the MOU. And ostensibly today, the U.S. and Iran are actually still negotiating in back channels about it. What's going on with this deal? Is this something that you think the U.S. might actually sign up for? So first of all, you're quite right. It does look a lot like the MOU. The Iranians admit it.

[00:01:28] They just don't use the language or the term MOU or Islamabad agreement because of their awareness that Trump is very much against the MOU, that he's really turned off by the MOU, which in and of itself, I think, is a bit of a red flag. Here is Trump. He signs the MOU. He brags about it. He does it in the Versailles sitting next to Macron.

[00:01:54] Three weeks later, he hates it. And that type of a very quick shift in his mood does not instill any confidence anywhere in the world about the stability of any deal with the United States currently. But the Iranians are clearly trying. They came here. I think this was, as you mentioned, the first time that a country that the U.S. is at war with actually shows up.

[00:02:19] I don't think it was an easy decision for them. They put forward this proposal. I'm sure there's additional details that might be more attractive and some elements less attractive to the U.S. than what has been shared publicly. I think it's also noteworthy that at least during the time that the Iranians were publicly talking about it, the U.S. side told me that they have not received any proposal at all. They're just hearing about it in the media, but they've not actually received the proposal.

[00:02:48] I don't know if that changed later on or not. But what I worry about is that at the end of the day, I'm not seeing any flexibility on some of the important variables in this negotiation. Trump, for instance, does not want to lift the blockade. He is very confident that the blockade is doing wonderful work, impressing the Iranians,

[00:03:13] that he has managed to open up the strait to a very large extent so that the costs on the Iranians are much higher than it is on the U.S. and the rest of the world. And as a result, fears also that if he lifts the blockade, it will just enable the Iranians to sell oil, get more money and prolong this conflict because he doesn't have faith that the Iranians actually want a deal in the long run with him. They are more interested in destroying his presidency.

[00:03:42] This is the perspective that I'm getting from the administration. And as a result, you know, if the U.S. is not willing to lift the blockade, it doesn't matter if the Iranians are willing to open up the strait. It's just not going to be a deal. Are there any signs or indications that the economic pressure campaign that Trump is pursuing is actually working inside of Iran? Is it actually pushing pressure on the administration? Absolutely. But I think it's very important to define what working means.

[00:04:12] If working means that are they putting pressure on the Iranians? Absolutely. The economic situation is very bad. We just saw the Iranian currency hitting an all time low. We're also starting to hear about shortages of medicine because of the manner in which the U.S. is now also trying to prevent Iranian airlines from flying to any countries, any airports around the world.

[00:04:35] So, and almost all of the previous sanctions that the U.S. has imposed on Iran have worked in that sense, meaning they have been effective in imposing a cost on the Iranians. But to actually be successful, that cost needs to translate into a change in their policy. Otherwise, you're just imposing pain for the sake of pain.

[00:04:59] What you want is to make sure that that pain translates into a desirable change in their policies. That we have absolutely not seen. As you pointed out yourself, what they're putting forward looks very much like the MOU. So, we're not seeing a shift in their position in a manner that would say, oh, wow, that pain from those sanctions really got them to soften their position.

[00:05:22] And, you know, looking at it over the course of the last 20 years, I think we hardly see any evidence of that pain really eliciting flexibility on the Iranian side. The one times or during the period in which it did, in which we saw Iranian flexibility, it wasn't because of the pain. It was because the U.S. itself offered a concession. And I detail this in my book on Obama's deal, in which, yes, the U.S. had all of these sanctions, etc.

[00:05:51] But Obama actually concluded that the sanctions were not going to work and that he was heading towards war. And he went to secret negotiations and offered to accept Iran's red line. And that's what opened up the entire issue. So, it wasn't the sanctions, even though that became the narrative. Because a superpower always wants to push forward a discourse that said that it's because of its power, because of its pressure that he got what he wanted.

[00:06:16] Whereas in reality, what happened was American flexibility elicited Iranian flexibility. And the same thing I suspect is going to happen here. Since I'm not seeing any flexibility on either side right now, I'm very worried. So, you brought up Obama. You know, he paid a huge political cost for reaching a deal with Iran. We see Trump administration gets elected saying no wars with Iran. And, of course, we end up in a war with Iran.

[00:06:44] Do you think the last seven months of warfare has changed the general tenor in D.C. amongst political leaders of both parties as to what the U.S. relationship with Iran should look like? Are the hawks finally conceding that this isn't going to work at any level unless we actually invade and take over the country? Which, as a military man, that doesn't actually make sense. We don't have the goods to do that right now.

[00:07:09] No, I'm not seeing the slightest introspection amongst the hawks or, frankly, amongst many people in Washington about this at all. It is not, you know, the forte of the foreign policy establishment to actually really have deep introspection and ask themselves some fundamental questions about our foreign policy. If that was taking place, we would have a very different foreign policy by now.

[00:07:32] The reason it is changing at times and it will change is not because of the brilliance and the wisdom of the foreign policy establishment. It is because of the pressure that the American people will put on politicians at the ballot box for a different policy. It's only because of that pressure. It's not because of the foreign policy establishment seeing the light.

[00:07:53] Right now, the hawks are pushing the narrative that the reason why this war hasn't worked is because he just hasn't bombed enough, that he hasn't gone in for the kill. And this is a narrative that I think that Trump himself is actually believing in right now. I think he believes that he tried diplomacy and ended up paying a high price for it without getting something that worked. Nothing conclusive. He tried blockade. It helps, but it doesn't finish the issue.

[00:08:21] He tried war, but he never tried the many different threats that he actually issued, but never exercised. He said that he was going to take out the Iranian energy infrastructure, desalination plans, all of these different things. And he never acted on it. He never took an eyelid in the Persian Gulf. And in his mind and in the narrative that the hawks are pushing, that's the reason why this hasn't ended yet. Not that the whole thing was a mistake from the outset.

[00:08:50] What do you think the odds are that the U.S. actually takes an additional escalatory measure, whether it's seizing terrain, destroying infrastructure, or even employing, you know, a quote unquote tactical nuclear weapon in vicinity of Pigsax Mountain? I would put it at somewhere between 70 to 80 percent at this point that it will happen if it is up to the U.S. after the midterms. But it may happen before because the Iranians may take preemptive military action. And I say this again, going back to what I said before.

[00:09:18] In Trump's mind, I think he is once again in this disinformation phase or space in which he is led to believe that this blockade is far more effective than it actually is. That the Iranians once again are much weaker than they actually are. Combined with the thought that the only thing he hasn't tried is to do full-scale military action. Take an island, take out energy infrastructure, etc.

[00:09:46] And what he's looking for is not just something that ends this issue. He's looking for a last chapter in this story that makes the full story worthwhile. Something that concludes by saying this war was worth it. And I think he has concluded that diplomacy won't give him that type of a victory. Whereas there is a chance in his mind, and in my mind, absolutely not.

[00:10:12] But in his mind, there appears to be a chance in which that full-scale war actually can provide him with that conclusion. So he can say, I won and the war was worth it. Do you think that if the Democrats actually take control of the House and or Senate after the midterms, they actually would take steps to end the war with Iran? Because if I was going to be extremely cynical, I would say we see these war powers votes, which are very popular. But they almost seem designed to fail in the Senate on purpose.

[00:10:41] So if the Democrats actually do take power, do the votes just stop happening? Do they actually move forward with impeaching Pete Hegseth or take any other affirmative steps towards reining in the administration? I think a couple of things. Again, if they take the House and the Senate, I want to be very clear about that. If they take the House and the Senate, there will be impeachment efforts. And I think Pete Hegseth is the first cabinet minister they will go after.

[00:11:08] And I do think that they will be under a lot of pressure from their own voters that they have to put an end to the war. Because once they control both chambers of the House and they completely control the purse, they are no longer spectators in an illegal war. They are complicit unless they end it. So I think there will be a lot of pressure on them to do it. Will they do it fully, etc.? It should be very clear that there are plenty of Democrats, unfortunately, particularly in the center of the party,

[00:11:35] that are not just happy about this from the standpoint of thinking that this is great in the manner that it really has hurt Trump, but also because they think that ultimately now when it has been started and it's not them who started it, it's good for it to continue to create the type of a balance and the type of benefits for Israel that is necessary. Now, another factor that is important is who is the next prime minister in Israel.

[00:12:02] If you have an Israeli prime minister that is not Benjamin Netanyahu and that the Democrats will try to rehabilitate, they will try to blame all of the problems of the last three years, not on Israel, but on Netanyahu. Make him the fall guy in order to be able to salvage their own relationship with Israel, which at the end of the day, in my estimation, is what ultimately led to all of this.

[00:12:26] And if that is the case, then perhaps their efforts towards stopping the war will be more half-hearted. But if it's Netanyahu, I think there's a higher likelihood that they will be under pressure from their own base to really put an end to this because they will be complicit. They will be funding this. It was interesting to hear the Iranian president talk about the General Assembly that they actually want to reach a deal with Trump before the midterms. Why do you think they would want to deal with him before the midterms versus after the midterms,

[00:12:55] where ostensibly Trump would be in a weaker position? I think there's a couple of reasons. First of all, if they really believe that a deal is possible, saying that they want it to be done before the midterms is a way to signaling to Trump they're willing to do things that will be helpful to him in the midterms. The Trump administration doesn't believe this, however.

[00:13:16] They believe that the cost of the war has already been factored in to the huge loss of support that they currently are faced with and that if there is a deal, the economic impact will not come fast enough to have an impact on the elections. But the attacks from the hawks and from hawks in the Democratic Party will come right away. So it would actually be more costly for the administration to strike a deal before the midterms.

[00:13:47] But then there's also the other factor, which is I don't think the Iranians believe that the likelihood of a deal is in any way, shape or form as close as it is to the likelihood of further war. They see what Netanyahu is doing with his travels to the Emirates, meeting with other GCC folks, meeting with the Germans, etc. And I think they suspect that there is going to be a third round, that the Israelis are going to be part of it and perhaps other constellations as well.

[00:14:15] As a result, they want to keep the option open of preempting this war, meaning that they will take military action before Trump does so that they deprive Trump of the luxury of deciding the timing of this war. By pressing for a deal before the midterms, essentially wanting to have a fast answer, they're trying to prevent the Trump administration from dragging this process out so that it goes post the midterms

[00:14:41] and then the timing of the war will once again be at the discretion of Trump rather than the Iranians. When Iran shows up at the General Assembly and they put forth this, you know, very MOU looking deal, it almost seems like, and it's interesting to hear a comment before that, the folks on the American side were hearing about it publicly along with everyone else for the first time, that this was a messaging attempt to the international community trying to put Iran into a better light because it's the same deal that failed before.

[00:15:11] Did Iran really have any expectation that this was a viable offer when they brought it to the UN General Assembly, or was this more about messaging to the international community? I think it's both. I think they do want to message the international community. I think for them to have the United States reject the deal as explicitly as Trump has now done,

[00:15:35] actually makes it easier for them to get away with a decision of starting the third round of war. And I think it's very important, even though I use the term preempt, I think it's very important to understand the war never ended. The war is still going on. It's just at a different level of intensity. And as a result, it is not about starting a war or preemptively starting a war. It's within the rhythm of an existing war. And having the Trump administration so explicitly reject their deal,

[00:16:05] I think makes the Iranians think that they are on better grounds to be able to justify to the international community why they may end up starting the third round of this. But beyond that, I do think also that it's important to understand that there's also a domestic audience for this, that the Iranians are doing this to show their own domestic audience precisely because they think a third round of war is going to come, precisely because they think that war is going to be even worse than the previous one with far more suffering.

[00:16:34] They need to show their own public that they went the extra mile, even traveling to New York in the middle of a war, taking the risk of Trump actually kidnapping the Iranian foreign minister and the president. I mean, again, we have a precedent of that only from, what, seven, eight months ago, nine months ago.

[00:16:56] So to show them that they did everything they could to prevent this war so that they're not blamed by their own population for that war. You know, another interesting development we're watching this is that we saw, you know, France's president last week, I think I was on Thursday, talk about they're actually going to get ready to send French troops to Saudi Arabia to help defend them against the Houthis. You know, Europe is looking like they're going to have a devastating winter with not enough oil to get through.

[00:17:24] This could be a mass hazard event just on the European continent if they can't wrap this up in some way. Does European powers getting more involved in the conflict put more additional pressure on Iran to reach a resolution? Or is that a sign that Iran is going to read into that what they're doing as far as putting pressure on the international systems actually working? I think the way the Iranians view it is that Europe already is a party to this war and has been so from day one.

[00:17:52] One, because the United States has been using British and German bases. I think also some Cypriotic bases. And there's been now talk about using Bulgarian bases to launch attacks on Iran. The Iranians warned the Bulgarians that they would strike at those bases. And now there is a suspicion that perhaps this alleged plot against this base in the UK may have been connected to the Iranians. It's not clear at this point whether there is any evidence for it. But if there was, it would be fitting that pattern.

[00:18:22] The Iranians have made it very clear that they consider any base that is used, regarding whose territory it is, to attack and kill Iranians, that that is a legitimate target. And they will target those. That's part of the reason why the Saudis have not allowed the U.S. to use Saudi bases and Saudi airspace since about a month into the first round of that war. Whereas some of these other states in the GCC continue to allow it, and they have been hit very hard by the Iranians. Same thing with Jordan.

[00:18:51] The U.S. moved a lot of its assets to Jordan and further and further away from Iran because of the effectiveness of Iranian missiles. And now the Jordanians, who had nothing to do with this war, by and large, have been hit several times by the Iranians as well. And it's only been hitting, of course, the bases. They're not hitting other things at this point. So I do think that from the standpoint of the Iranians, the Europeans are already involved. And if we just flip it a little bit, I think perhaps it would be easier for people to understand it.

[00:19:21] If the Iranians allowed Russia to use Iranian bases to launch attacks on Ukraine, Europe would view Iran as a direct party in that war and a legitimate target for the Ukrainians to strike at. The fact that the Iranians are providing weapons to Russia has been sufficient for the Europeans to essentially believe, even though they may not say it explicitly, that Iran is a legitimate target for the Ukrainians.

[00:19:48] And the Ukrainians have attacked Iran in the Caspian Sea. So when you look at it from that perspective, I think it's not surprising to see that the Iranians actually follow that very same logic. Now, on top of that, you have European leaders, such as the German chancellor, sitting right next to Donald Trump a day after the war was started, didn't say a word of objection to it. Earlier on had said that the Israelis were doing the dirty work for Europe

[00:20:16] when they launched that illegal attack back in June in 2025. So I think that European leaders, with the exception of someone like Sanchez in Spain, have been very, it's been very asymmetric. They're very crisp and clear in their denouncements of the illegality of their view of closing the straits and then completely opaque and imprecise and essentially hiding the message

[00:20:44] when they're making any statements about the war itself, not even going anywhere close to saying that it's illegal. So from the Iranian standpoint, they see this. And even though they know that many European states want to stay neutral, in reality, from the Iranian perspective, that is not neutrality. Even when you can't even make the simplest statement of calling out the illegality of this war, you're standing as someone that is neutral is very, very questionable.

[00:21:11] It's interesting to bring up the connection between, you know, Iran and Russia and how there's been weapon chambers back and forth. I was talking with Paul Post, University of Chicago, who made the argument that we're actually already in a global world war right now. It just looks different than what we think of a world war. You know, if this conflict continues and escalates to the next step, whether it's Iran initiating or us initiating, is there any chance that other world powers, China, Russia, maybe European direct involvement,

[00:21:41] actually gets involved directly in the Gulf states? The signs that we've seen so far is that the Russians and the Chinese are not willing to go to war over the Persian Gulf. They have potentially provided Iran with targeting intelligence. I think that's quite likely. Some of it may actually not even be the Chinese government.

[00:22:08] It's Chinese commercial satellite companies that are not susceptible to pressure from the U.S. So a lot of European satellite companies stopped selling images because they want to make sure the Iranians couldn't get that. And they did so because of pressure from the U.S. The Chinese are not susceptible to that pressure. And as a result, the Iranians have been able to buy those images and use that to be able to target American bases. But there may also be more valuable intelligence that has been provided by the Iranians,

[00:22:37] by the Russians and the Chinese and the Iranians. But beyond that, we're not seeing any evidence of the Iranians using Chinese weapons or Russian weapons at this point. There's been plenty of missile strikes by the Iranians. We've seen no evidence that any of those missiles actually were not Iranian missiles, but something that had been sold to them by the Chinese. Now, perhaps something will emerge later on, but I think the U.S. itself, if the Chinese were providing weapons to the Iranians and the U.S. knew it,

[00:23:04] I don't have any doubt in my mind that the U.S. would call it out right away and would, you know, respond by doing something with Taiwan, for instance. But we're not seeing that. I think, frankly, there's a higher likelihood, although the likelihood is still slim, that the Chinese, if they get involved, it will be to get involved diplomatically. The Chinese managed to insulate themselves from the cost of this conflict in the first two rounds

[00:23:31] by using their reserves and other measures. And they're the key reason why oil didn't go above 120. They are the swing producers, sorry, consumers, and they dramatically cut their own demand in order to, frankly, save themselves and save the global economy. That, of course, helped the U.S. and hurt the Iranians, but it wasn't aimed at hurting the Iranians or helping the U.S. It was aimed at protecting China because that's what the Chinese pursue. I find it quite admirable

[00:24:00] that they're actually quite dedicated to their own national interests. But I don't find it very likely that they will be able to insulate themselves from the repercussions of the third round if the third round goes in the direction that I suspect that it will, which is that Trump actually will exercise the threats that he has issued before but not been willing to actually see through. If that happens and you'd end up having production facilities in the GCC being destroyed,

[00:24:30] then it's no longer about which pipelines you build. There's no oil being pumped out of the ground. So you can build the pipelines, you can protect the ship lanes and all of these different things. It doesn't matter. There's not any oil coming out of the ground. And as a result, it will have a devastating impact on the economy, on the Chinese themselves. And I think once the Chinese start seeing that this is a likely direction, the Chinese may decide to step in diplomatically. They've done so before. It goes against their instincts.

[00:24:59] They don't like it. But we've seen them do it before in specific circumstances. And I find that more likely than them actually stepping in militarily. Let me also say one other thing because there's so much buzz right now that the Trump administration has succeeded in getting more oil out of the Persian Gulf. And I think by and large, that actually is true. What I think is an unfounded conclusion from that is that the tables have turned. And there's many reasons for it.

[00:25:29] But the one reason I think is the least discussed is that the immense cost that it takes for the U.S. to actually escort all of these different ships out of the Persian Gulf. I spoke to a U.S. service person in the region about this who said that the service person cannot make an estimation of, you know, whether more oil is coming out or not. But the service person could say that the cost of all of the sorties and all of the ships, etc., that are now escorting all of these ships

[00:25:58] is just not sustainable in any way, shape or form. And the irony, of course, is that before all of this, there was an argument, particularly in the Trump administration, that why is the United States paying for the security of the Persian Gulf and the U.S. is not buying Persian Gulf oil? And China is getting 40% of its oil from the Persian Gulf. It means that the United States has been subsidizing Chinese oil imports for decades and that this should end.

[00:26:26] Well, whatever that subsidy was before, it is 10, perhaps 20 times higher now because of the cost of escorting all of these different ships. It's just simply not sustainable. Well, it's great to hear that the Trump administration is doing so much to help our Chinese friends and neighbors. It's lovely that they're that invested in the community of nations. I know we're getting close on time, but we're looking at this potential third stage escalation. Every scenario that I can think through is absolutely catastrophic for the entire region.

[00:26:56] Is there a point at which Iran has been very deft in how they've approached the conflict so far that they miscalculate and overplay their hand? Is it better for them to give Trump the story he needs to wrap this up prior to getting to that third round escalation? The administration certainly believes that the biggest strategic mistake the Iranians did was to start shooting at ships again and giving the administration an exit out of the MOU.

[00:27:26] That this was the first big strategic mistake they committed. I'm not entirely sure. I think there's some truth in that, perhaps. But I think the key problem at this point on the Iranian side is that all of these arguments, and I made these arguments, I think now fall completely on deaf ears, which is make a deal with Trump. He's the only president that actually is willing to make a deal with Iranians. The only president that is actually willing to lift sanctions

[00:27:56] because he doesn't like sanctions in American companies. All of those different arguments is part of the reason why the Iranians spent so much diplomacy with Trump. Despite the experience that they had with him in the first year, despite of the fact that he bombed them in the summer of last year, they nevertheless went back to the table. And they put forward proposals of investments and all of these different things that they thought would be attractive to Trump and none of it ultimately worked. And I think they have now reached a conclusion, right or wrong, that Trump simply

[00:28:26] is not mentally stable. And as a result, can you really give major concessions? I mean, to actually get the type of a conclusive deal that Trump is looking for, the Iranians would have to give nuclear concessions. Many of them would be irreversible. If they ship out their 60% enriched uranium, they will never get it back. Will you do that with someone who three weeks after signing a deal says that he hates it so much that you're not even allowed to mention its name in his presence? So the confidence

[00:28:55] on the Iranian side that any deal with Trump actually can last more than a couple of weeks, couple of months, makes it very difficult for them to muster the political will to make that deal and certainly muster the political will or to convince themselves that they should give irreversible concessions to Trump when they have so little faith and there's so much data that suggests that he will not stick to a deal. And by the way, this is not an Iranian experience. This is the experience of almost every other country in the world dealing with the Trump administration right now.

[00:29:26] Well, on that very depressing note, I know we're out of time. Thank you so much for talking with us today. Thank you so much. Where can folks find your work? They should go to the Quincy Institute's website, quincyinst.org. They can also find all my stuff on my sub stack, which is treataparsi.substack.com and of course on Twitter at tparsi. Awesome. Links to everything mentioned will be in the show notes. Treataparsi, thank you so much. Appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for watching, folks. Be sure to like and subscribe. To support the show more,

[00:29:55] you can sign up for The Briefing Room, our members-only community on YouTube. In exchange, you'll get my undying gratitude and also exclusive members-only content every week. We'll see you there.