This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We begin today’s show in Iran as Israel’s military says it’s assassinated Iran’s security chief, Ali Larijani, one of the most powerful figures in the Islamic Republic. Larijani was seen as the de facto leader of Iran following Israel’s assassination of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war, on February 28th. Israel claims it’s also assassinated Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij military.
We begin the show with Trita Parsi, an Iranian American, 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.
Trita, if you can explain the significance of this moment? Iran has not confirmed this, but Israel says it has killed the security chief, Ali Larijani — who is he? — and also the head of the Basij militia. Talk about both of them.
TRITA PARSI: [inaudible] also was killed —
AMY GOODMAN: Trita, if you could start again? We just didn’t have your audio up.
TRITA PARSI: I was just saying that it is confirmed that Larijani’s son was killed in this attack, but it’s not clear at this point whether Larijani himself was killed. It appears likely, but we don’t know yet for certain. And it would be a very significant development, almost on par with the killing of the supreme leader. In the past couple of months, he had emerged as a critical person within the Iranian theocracy. He was not so much a decision maker as he was the person who was creating consensus, the consensus maker within that system, but also someone that was seen as much more open to the idea of reaching a diplomatic solution. In fact, there had been some diplomatic outreach between him and a very key person in the White House prior to this war, back in December. So he was definitely seen as someone who the United States potentially at some point could deal with.
Whether the Israelis deliberately targeted him because they just had the opportunity, because it was an effort to kill any potential off-ramp for Trump by eliminating those who could engage in diplomacy with him, or whether this is something that has more to do with the fact that perhaps the strategy now is shifting back towards regime decapitation, after it’s become clear that reopening the strait militarily is going to be extremely difficult, and as a result, the U.S. and Israel are shifting back towards what they started off this war with, was by trying to see if they could decapitate the regime and cause regime implosion — I don’t find that very likely. This is definitely a huge tactical blow to the Iranians, but the system already has preparedness for eventualities of this kind. We saw that after the killing of the supreme leader, and the same thing will happen with the head of Basij that has now also been killed.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Trita, in a recent article you wrote — I’m wondering your sense of where this war is heading. You wrote, “one of the main mistakes on the American side” is they believed “the Iranians feared war more than surrender. In reality, they fear surrender far more than they fear war.” Can you expound on that?
TRITA PARSI: Yeah, I think that the United States and the Trump administration went into this war with a very false perception of Iran’s state of strength or weakness. They believed that Iran was much, much weaker than it actually was. This was also a narrative that had been dramatically pushed by the Israelis, knowing very well that the argument for attacking Iran would very much be premised on the idea that it would be a relatively easy and quick thing to do. You need to convince Trump that it’s easy and quick in order for him to go along with it. They succeeded in that. See what Marco Rubio said in his testimony in the Senate in January, essentially saying that there is a window of opportunity attacking because of this unique weakness of Iran, the weakest it has been since 1979, was the line.
And the perception on the Trump administration side was that either the Iranians would simply be forced to capitulate and surrender, or the regime would implode, and in order to avoid that, they would strike a deal. They would essentially surrender in order to safeguard their own survival. But this is a fundamental misread of the theocracy in Iran, not just because its strength was clearly not as weak as the U.S. thought. On the contrary, we see now very clearly they were very well prepared for this type of a war and have managed to, in some ways, increase their power, particularly their leverage, through the Strait of Hormuz, but also because of the fact that at the end that they surrender was never in the cards. This is a theocracy that could survive war. It could even survive losing a war. But if it were to surrender, it would lose its base of support, the 15 to 20% of the population that still support it. They would be completely unforgiving of any such measure. And that would be a far clearer death knell to the theocracy than even a military loss.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita, before you go — I know you have to leave within the minute — what do you say to the analysts who are now saying, with Larijani, if in fact he is dead, killed by Israel, that Israel recognized him as a negotiator behind the scenes, whether it’s with Russia or the United States, and that they don’t want these negotiations to take place?
TRITA PARSI: No, from the Israeli standpoint, it’s absolutely clear they want this war to continue as long as the U.S. is in the war and actively bombing Iran. They’re very fearful of Trump declaring victory and just ending the war. They have still achieved quite a lot, because the Iranian military has been significantly degraded in several different aspects. However, the Israelis have fought so hard to get the United States to go into a full-scale war with Iran. For more than 20 years, they have tried to do this. So, now when that has finally been achieved, it is in their interest to prolong this war as long as they can, and kill off any potential off-ramps that Trump may be looking for.
And if there were to — if Trump actually were to look for an off-ramp actively, a critical counterpart of his would most likely have been Ali Larijani. And we’ve already seen that several people who could have played that type of a role have been killed, and the remaining people within the bureaucracy tend to be the much more hard-line ones who would — who also see a benefit in prolonging the war rather than negotiating an end to it.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, we want to thank you for being with us, 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.
Coming up, Harrison Mann, a former U.S. intelligence officer who resigned from the Army over the war in Gaza. His new piece, “I Was a US Intelligence Analyst. Here’s What a Ground Invasion of Iran Could Look Like.” Back in 30 seconds.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Dear Someone,” performed by Lila Downs in our Democracy Now! studio.
