Insiders warn of nuclear catastrophe as Trump grows 'increasingly desperate'

We get the latest analysis on the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran from Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Parsi discusses the increasing “desperation” of U.S. strategy, Iran’s long-term economic control over the Strait of Hormuz and growing “hawkishness,” and the dangerous possibility of nuclear warfare.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran enters its sixth week, President Trump has threatened to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges unless the Strait of Hormuz is reopened by Tuesday. Trump’s attacks on civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.

In a profanity-laced Truth Social post on Easter Sunday, Trump wrote, quote, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” — three exclamation points. “Open the F—in’ Strait, you crazy b-------, or you’ll be living in Hell–JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” the president wrote — he used the actual word.

Iranian officials warned with retaliating, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Naval Command saying in a post on X, the Strait of Hormuz, quote, “will never return to its former state, especially for America and Israel,” unquote.

Earlier this morning, Iranian media reported explosions after an Israeli attack on the South Pars petrochemical complex in the city of Asaluyeh. The South pars is one of the world’s largest natural gas reserves, shared between Iran and Qatar on the Persian Gulf. South Pars accounts for about 70 to 80% of Iran’s gas supply. A separate U.S.-Israeli strike also targeted South Pars facilities in Iran last month.

Meanwhile, Iranian state media reported today that Majid Khademi, intelligence chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed in a joint U.S.-Israeli strike.

For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, author of several books, including Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy.

We’re certainly not seeing any triumph of diplomacy right now, Trita Parsi. If you can talk about President Trump’s expletive-laced Easter Day message to Iran?

TRITA PARSI: What we’re seeing here is a repeat of previous threats and deadlines, but now, of course, with far greater tone of desperation from Trump. He has issued threats of this kind several times before. He hasn’t fully acted on them, backed down, recognizing that he doesn’t have escalation dominance. He cannot escalate his way out of this conflict, because if he goes after the power plants on a large scale, the Iranians will do the same to the infrastructure in the GCC and Israel, and the situation will become much worse, particularly in terms of oil prices shooting up.

Nevertheless, he is increasingly desperate, because he’s realizing he cannot just end the war by walking away. He has to have some sort of a negotiated settlement. But the negotiated settlement will be very different from the one that he first had in mind, because the realities on the ground are such that he is not in a dominant position. He cannot dictate terms. And as a result, now he’s trying to issue these ultimatums in the hope that the Iranians will surrender.

But there’s no sign whatsoever that the Iranians are in the mood of a surrender or even accepting his deadline. The Iranians are not going to accept a ceasefire that puts them in the same position as Lebanon and Gaza have been put in when they have agreed to ceasefire by the United States and Israel, which have turned out to be just temporary pauses in order for the United States or Israel to be able to regroup, rearm and then relaunch attacks. And this is clearly frustrating Trump, because he’s realizing he’s not in that position of dominance that he thought he would be.

AMY GOODMAN: If you could talk about the significance of South Pars right now, owned — the north part run by Qatar, the south, Iran, and, of course, it is a major source of energy for Iran, like 70 to 80% of its energy, threatening to blow that up, as well as bridges?

TRITA PARSI: So, South Pars is a very important field for the Iranians. It’s shared, a gas field. It’s shared with Qatar, although Qataris are extracting much more gas out of it, because the Iranians don’t have the technology, given all of the sanctions that have been imposed on Iran for a significant amount of time. Asaluyeh is another place nearby that is now being attacked currently by the Israelis, that is critical for Iran’s domestic energy consumption. And we have seen that when those fields or facilities have been struck in the past, the Iranians have retaliated. It was when the Israelis attacked South Pars last time that the Iranians struck at these gas facilities inside of Qatar, that set those back three to five years.

It’s very important to understand the difference here, in the sense that we have an oil problem right now, because a lot of tankers are being stuck in the Persian Gulf. They cannot transit through. But the oil is still being extracted out of the ground. The infrastructure of oil has not been targeted on a large scale. If Trump escalates, then those will likely be targeted. And then you don’t only have a bottleneck problem, you also have a production problem. The bottleneck problem can be resolved relatively quickly, and oil prices can go down. But if you have a production problem, then that means that the production will not go up for quite some time, and that will create a much longer-term problem on the oil markets. And that would be much, much worse than the current situation.

So, the Iranians have a lot of different ways that they can escalate matters further. Trump is aware of this, of course. This is part of the reason why he hasn’t acted on a lot of his threats. But he seems to be getting increasingly desperate, and he may actually take steps that will be absolutely devastating for the global economy and then for his own presidency.

AMY GOODMAN: If you can respond to — The Guardian just said, “Iran confirms it has received ceasefire plan, but says US is not ready for peace. The US, Iran and a group of regional mediators discussed the terms for a potential 45-day ceasefire that could lead to a permanent end to the war.” And then you have Ali Abunimah tweeting a few hours ago, “US is trying with Iran the same approach as with Gaza: phased agreements which the Americans and 'Israel' will break, and vague future arrangements to be hammered out in an indeterminate future.” Your response?

TRITA PARSI: Ali is absolutely right. This is the concern and the fear on the Iranian side, that any type of a ceasefire would be to the benefit of the United States and Israel. They would not end the war. It would just be a tactical pause. In the meantime, the Iranians would be giving up a lot of their leverage, for instance, the control over the straits. So I don’t see any chance of that succeeding at all, unless it is coupled with not this type of a phase approach, but there is actually a full agreement that includes sanctions relief and other measures.

Now, the Iranian position, I think, in some ways, have evolved and, frankly, hardened. The straits is not necessarily a tool they will use for negotiations to end the war, but rather something that they will use after the war, the control of it, in order to establish this mechanism in which countries will have to pay transit fees to go through the straits, and they will use that to restore economic relations with a lot of countries in the world that they used to have economic relations with but who have essentially stopped dealing with Iran economically because of U.S. pressure. All of those countries nevertheless need access to the straits, and the Iranians are essentially planning to use their control of the straits to reestablish those economic relations, rather than as a leverage to end the war.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response to President Trump telling Fox News the U.S., quote, “sent a lot of guns to the Iranian protesters. We sent guns through the Kurds. I think the Kurds kept them,” unquote?

TRITA PARSI: So, here’s a very important revelation. We saw that during the protests in December and January, that there were some things that were very, very different from the past. We saw that there were elements within the protest movement, or acting underneath the protest movement, that used massive amounts of violence, both against civilian infrastructure, mosques, banks, etc., fire stations, but also against government forces — that’s why a lot of government forces were killed — which we have simply not seen before. These were armed elements. They operated in a rather professional and systematic way. And a lot of protesters — and I spoke to some of the protesters who were out there genuinely protesting against the policies of the government — saw these forces and were quite stunned, because they had never seen anything like that before.

Now we have the revelation, which a lot of people suspected, but we have it from the horse’s mouth, saying that the U.S. actually was providing weapons to the Kurds and other armed elements inside the country. This, I think, shows that the image we had originally, that this was just peaceful protesters clamped down by the government, was perhaps a bit simplistic. They were overwhelmingly peaceful protesters, but within them, or underneath them, there were other elements that were using the protests to essentially start a violent conflict and uprising. That was clamped down together with a lot of peaceful protesters. The Iranian government seemed to have not made much of a distinction between the two and killed several thousand people. But it was a very different scenario from what you had in 2009, for instance, in which the protest movement was not only peaceful, but also ensured that it was not hijacked by violent elements. This time around, it seems like that was not a full possibility.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei responding to Trump’s threat to attack civilian infrastructure if the new deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz is not met.

ESMAEIL BAGHAEI: [Iran’s reaction would be one of reciprocating] any such attack. Our armed forces have made it clear that in case Iran’s infrastructure is attacked, we would react in kind. They would — our armed forces would target any similar infrastructure that is owned or in any way or manner related to the United States or contributes to their act of aggression against Iran. This is not something that we will do it voluntarily or by willful decision. This is something that is as part of our defense measures against their illegal act.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson. If you can respond to what he said, Trita Parsi?

TRITA PARSI: So, this is a continuation of what we’ve seen in the past, that the Iranians will retaliate in kind, but they will target the facilities that they have within their reach, that are mainly in the GCC states, which then will be putting not only the GCC states in a terrible, terrible situation, but the entire global economy. We’ve seen that the Iranians have targeted American bases and other facilities, some of them civilian facilities, in those countries.

We have now also seen emerging evidence that many of these countries’ territory and airspace was used by the United States to attack Iran. Now, whether those countries started allowing them to be used after the Iranians started attacking them or whether those attacks were taking place from the outset or whether those attacks from their airspace or territory is being conducted without the approval of these governments is unclear at this point. But the fact that the territory is being used in several cases, Qatar — sorry, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE, at this point is not quite clear. Evidence has emerged of that.

And that’s a very negative and dangerous development, particularly if it eventually leads to the Saudis and the Emiratis fully joining in on the war. That will be — again, we’ve already seen this conflict spread, but that will be major, major escalation and will make it much more difficult to be able to bring this war to an end.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Iranian intelligence agents arresting the prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh at her home, according to her daughter? She’s 64 years old, Sotoudeh, renowned for defending activists, opposition politicians, and women prosecuted for removing their headscarves. Are you concerned about the possibility that Evin Prison — who knows by what side? — could also be bombed, which has been — which, of course, is where so many dissidents are held?

TRITA PARSI: We saw that in the June war, that the Israelis did strike at the prison. Whether they did so because they believed that that actually would be a beneficial act that would bring people out in the streets or protesting or put them on the side of being opposed to the repression of the Iranian government is unclear. But it really did backfire on the Israelis. Whether they would do it again remains to be seen. So far, they’ve been focused more on attacking pharmaceutical factories and also universities.

But I think an important point that we’re seeing here is that the Islamic Republic is being changed, but it is being changed in a much more hawkish direction. This is a direct consequence of this war that was illegally launched by Israel and the United States. It was also highly predictable that under these circumstances, the Iranian government would likely become more repressive and have more restrictions on the political space in the country. We’ve seen that pattern before. So, rather than this being some sort of an effort that would bring about democracy in Iran, as some people apparently have thought, the track record was already very clear that the most likely outcome would be that we would see the most repressive and hawkish version of the Islamic Republic coming out of this war.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us also if you’re able to communicate with people in Iran, the state-imposed near-total internet shutdown now the longest nationwide blackout on record of any country.

TRITA PARSI: It is very challenging, but I’ve managed to get through to quite a few people. It is not the same type of a blackout that we saw on January 8th 'til a couple of days, in which the Iranians really shut down everything, jammed Starlink and everything else. It's not that level, but it is nevertheless extremely restrictive. And I don’t see any likelihood of that opening up as long as the war continues to go on.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, are you concerned the U.S. or Israel would use a nuclear bomb against Iran?

TRITA PARSI: So, I’ve had conversations here in Washington, and I have been quite taken aback by seeing that a lot of former officials are very candid that this is an option on the table. It comes out of the fact that Trump appears to be increasingly desperate. He could end up going on bombing Iran for another two weeks trying to achieve some major spectacle and then just walk away, knowing that he doesn’t have the ability or the patience for the real diplomacy that is needed, doesn’t have the willingness to give compromises. So he may just escalate it in a spectacular way and then walk away, leaving the straits in the control of the Iranians. And that could potentially include the use of a nuclear weapon.

The fact that that actually is being discussed or is being contemplated and discussed by former officials as an option that Trump is looking at, or the Israelis are looking at, is telling us about how badly this war is going, how desperate the situation is becoming, and how tremendously, tremendously dangerous this would be for the entire world. As one former official told me, this would make the United States the absolutely most hated country in the world, if it uses a nuclear weapon as a way of just demonstrating its military superiority.

AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, thanks so much for being with us, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. A number of books he’s written, including Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy.