Ali Vaez Discusses the US and Iran

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Are we, Ali Vaez, and welcome to the program, on a march to war with Iran as Mayor de Blasio was trying to get a word in edgewise on this?

ALI VAEZ, IRAN PROJECT DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: It’s great to be with you, Christiane. For sure, we are on a collision course with Iran and I think we’ve never been closer to the possibility of stumbling into a conflict with the Iranians. In fact, in June, we came just minutes away, according to President Trump, from entering into a conflict with Iran. And the problem with this latest designation of Foreign Minister Zarif by the Trump administration is that it really puts on full display the incoherence of this administration. On the one hand, the president says all the time he’s ready to negotiate with the Iranians without any pre-conditions. On the other hand, his administration sanctions Iran’s diplomat in chief. On the other hand, Secretary Pompeo says Foreign Minister Zarif is powerful enough to be sanctioned. But on the other hand, he says he’s not powerful enough to engage with. And that’s precisely this kind of inconsistency, it’s precisely what is pushing us towards a disastrous conflict with Iran.

AMANPOUR: So, let’s just take the tweet. He basically says, “Donald Trump has sanctioned Iran’s supreme leader who enriched himself at the expense of the Iranian people. Today, the U.S. designated his chief apologist, Javad Zarif, he is just as complicit in the regime’s outlaw behavior as the rest of harmony Iran’s mafia” So, these are very ratcheted up words, the language is very, very out there. What is the desired effect of this?

VAEZ: Look, I think the desired effect by, at least, the State Department and the National Security Council is to hinder diplomacy with Iran. We know that although the president is primarily interested in negotiating a better and broader deal with the Iranian government, his advisers, almost everyone in his National Security team, does not share that objective. There are people like John Bolton and Secretary Pompeo who have — had a long track record of pursuing regime change in Iran, pursuing a military confrontation with Iran, and I think that is the real tension at the core of this administration. And in fact, President Trump’s Iran policy is at war with itself. If the president really wants to engage the Iranians, I doubt that he would be able to do it with the people around him. And that’s maybe why he is starting to look around to Senator Rand Paul or Senator Lindsey Graham or to French President Emmanuel Macron to help him get out of this situation.