Global Affairs Expert Webinar: Iran and the World
Ray Takeyh, the Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle East studies at CFR, leads the conversation on Iran and the world.
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Speaker
Ray Takeyh
Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies
Council on Foreign Relations
Presider
Irina A. Faskianos
Vice President, National Program and Outreach
Council on Foreign Relations
Transcript
FASKIANOS: Welcome to the first session of the Fall 2025 Global Affairs Expert Webinar series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR.
Today’s discussion is on the record. The video and transcript will be available on education.CFR.org, and you can share these assets with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.
We’re delighted to have Ray Takeyh with us today to discuss Iran and the world. Dr. Takeyh is the Hasib Sabaggh senior fellow for Middle East studies at CFR. Previously, he served as a senior advisor on Iran at the State Department and was a fellow at Yale University, the Washington Institute of Near East Policy, and the Middle East Center at the University of California, Berkeley. He is most recently the author of The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty; and he’s written over 300 articles and opinion pieces in many news outlets including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Foreign Affairs; and has testified more than twenty times before various congressional committees. I commend to you his recent article in Foreign Affairs, “The Right Path to Regime Change in Iran: How America and Israel Can Create the Conditions for the Toppling of the Islamic Republic,” which we also circulated in advance of this call.
So, Ray, thanks for being with us today. I thought we could begin with you giving us—setting the table about what is Iran’s current position on the global stage and what historical and contemporary factors have shaped its foreign policy and your recent thesis about how regime change can be achieved in Iran.
TAKEYH: Thank you for having me.
It’s been a couple of months since the end of the war and a lot of the assumptions that we had, including in the article, have been challenged and, if not, discarded. There are a lot of surprising things that have taken place since the end of the war.
Internally, you can make a case—and actually a rather plausible one—that the regime has come out of the war somewhat stronger than it went in. That’s a surprise to many people, given usually an unrepresentative regime that has forfeited much of its legitimacy over the years manages to actually lose a war and come out in decent shape, I guess, a greater degree—some degree of stability and there are several reasons for that.
Number one, you saw during the war and its immediate aftermath unity of the elite. This is a fairly cantankerous elite. They’re always a very factionalized political system. But somehow, they all came together across the political spectrum and put the regime’s survival ahead of their own parochial concerns.
Some of that elite unity has been fractured since. You have many people on the left in the reform camp in Iran who were essentially arguing for a course change in terms of foreign policy, given some of the cataclysmic misjudgments that the country has made. But there is still a greater emphasis on national unity, which means elite unity.
So anytime somebody criticizes the regime they are reminded that this is a very precarious time for the regime and they have to be—everybody has to be on the same page.
Second, the regime is much more vicious today. Amnesty International issued a report about 20,000 arrests since the war. I suspect a lot of those detainees have been released—sort of a catch and release. Some 260 executions, not all of them pertaining to the crisis, maybe about fifteen, twenty.
So there is an attempt, essentially, to—under the banner of cleansing the system of Israeli spies and informers there’s a national dragnet and such national dragnets usually capture more guilty than the innocent—innocent than the guilty.
So the regime is much more concerned about internal security and you see the more vicious aspect of it, and that has stabilized the internal situation.
Finally, in terms of internal situation, the population is largely discombobulated. The sort of mental equilibrium has been all settled. You saw a great degree of I wouldn’t say nationalism but some degree of communal solidarity during the war—people caring about each other.
I think at the—some point during the war, I think President Trump said, well, people should leave Tehran. That’s fourteen million people—where are they going to go?
So as the Iranian people sort of have come together and as they have come together it’s not necessarily redounding to the benefit of the regime but, certainly, not to the foreign actors as well.
So there is a degree of sort of a shock in the system. I think the country and the political system are still very much in shock and they live in that sort of an atmosphere.
So some of those calls during the war—the twelve-day war—for a change of regime that were invoked by Prime Minister Netanyahu I think were premature; I think in some cases were counterproductive.
At the time when the country was being bombed to suggest that people should come out to the streets and displace the regime because it’s weakening makes some degree of political science sense, perhaps, but it wasn’t consistent with the national mood.
So one of the things that we have seen is losing a war doesn’t necessarily cause a popular movement against the regime, at least not in this case. You have probably seen it in other cases in a comparative political sense.
In terms of foreign policy, again, we see some of our assumptions changed or at least contested. It should be noted that after decades of talking about this, Israel, and later joined by the United States, actually bombed Iran. For twenty years people kept talking about when it’s going to happen, is it going to happen, how cataclysmic the consequences would be.
Well, it happened and the consequences have not been, at least now, cataclysmic. So what has the Iranian government done since being attacked?
Well, it has continued to reach out to the United States for a dialogue. According to the Iranian officials, they have asked for dialogue fifteen times and have been rebuffed. Whether that’s true or not I don’t know.
Reaching out to European—there have been ministerial meetings with European foreign ministers and so forth. Obviously, reaching out to China and Russia there’s been a lot of traffic back and forth between the two—three capitals, although there was a lot of talk about axis of resistance and axis of upheaval, whatever that union was supposed to be—Russia, China, Iran, North Korea.
From the Iranian perspective, during the twenty-one-day war—Twelve-Day War, you know, there wasn’t that much reciprocity on the Chinese and the Russian Federation toward Iranian internal security. So now there’s talk about China rebuilding Iran’s shattered air defenses. We’ll see.
And, of course, one of the most hated people in Iran during the war was Rafael Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It was, largely, suggested in Iran that his inspectors had acted as spies for Israel, and if you recall in June just prior to the war, the IAEA board of directors had censured Iran for noncompliance with its nonproliferation obligations, and for many within Iran that was a legal justification that the Israelis used for attacking Iranian facilities.
I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think Israelis looked for legal justification. They look for opportunity. But Rafael Grossi was a much more demonized figure than you have seen.
Well, recently in Egypt there’s an agreement between the Iranian foreign minister and Rafael Grossi about the return of the inspectors because previously the Iranian position was actually a rather clever one, I have to say—that they cannot guarantee the safety of inspectors in safeguarded facilities because those safeguarded facilities were bombed.
But there is an agreement for a return. It’s a theoretical agreement. It hasn’t happened yet. So why is the Iranian government behaving with greater degree of temperance, moderation, pragmatism than was anticipated by many people?
Well, there are several reasons for that. Number one, there’s concern about a reimposition of sanctions through something called snapback mechanism this October, where United Nations Security Council sanctions that were suspended as a result of the Iran nuclear deal of 2015 can be reimposed before expiring. So some of that diplomacy is designed to thwart that measure. Now, I don’t think snapback is a big deal at this stage, but the Iranian government tends to be very procedural.
Finally, fear. There is a large body within the Iran political system who believes the war is not over, that there could be a possibility of additional strikes at any time. The Israelis have proven that they could penetrate Iranian air defenses and attack facilities with relative impunity, if not complete impunity. So there’s a considerable degree of fear that this war is a continuation. And the Israelis suggest that it is. They have announced something called the Doctrine of Enforcement, which means that if they see something untoward they reserve the right to use military force.
So the Israeli government has essentially announced a new doctrine of counterproliferation. Previously, counterproliferation efforts would go to IAEA inspectors, and they would go to the United Nations, the Security Council would impose sanctions, there would be an attempt to negotiate an agreement—as it was the case in 2015. Now the Israelis are no longer going to rely on international institutions and international agreements to enforce their proliferation concerns. That’s what Doctrine of Enforcement is. So if they see something, say something, they’re going to do something.
So that has caused a considerable degree of anxiety and fear, both among the Iranian people—because they’re about—at any point they may get bombed again, and about 1,100 people were killed in the Twelve-Day War. Or, but certainly on behalf of the government which, at this point, still has not rehabilitated its air defense, assuming it can ever do so again. So there is an attempt to essentially behave with some degree of circumspection. And that’s largely, as I mentioned, motivated by fear.
Now, fear is a perishable commodity in international politics. So when the regime steadied itself, perhaps it could resume some of its nefarious practices once more. But that’s what the picture looks like today. And it’s a work in progress, as you can imagine. And we’ll see what happens in the future. But for the foreseeable future, I think we have seen a new way of dealing with proliferation in the Middle East—namely, kinetic action. And no more reliance on diplomacy, sanctions, or international institutions as the arbiters of agreements.
And that’s a new thing. The Israelis essentially have changed the rules of the game. You saw this at all places—whether it’s Tunisia, or whether it’s Qatar, or what have you. So we’re in a—we’re in a different kind of a position with Iran as well. And the Iranians know that. And there’s considerable anxiety in the body politic and the larger public. But I’ll stop there and entertain any questions or comments there may be.
FASKIANOS: Wonderful. Thank you, Ray, for setting the stage. Let’s go to all of you for your questions.
(Gives queuing instructions.)
So with that, let’s see who is lining up to ask a question. And, OK, I will take the first question from Ellen Frost.
Q: Thank you, Irina and Ray.
This may be heresy, but it seems to me that our policy towards Iran has been focused overwhelmingly on nonproliferation. And I’m wondering if you could step back a bit and broaden the framework. For example, Iran is a middle-sized country with a long and rich history. What are Iran’s legitimate interests in the region? And when you broaden our interests to go beyond nonproliferation, could there be some overlap? And is that kind of strategic thinking even taking place?
TAKEYH: Sure. I’ll provide a response to that, which may be a minority opinion. And you should certainly seek other opinions, because a lot of people will probably disagree with me on this. And those should be taken into account. In my opinion, the Iranian regime remains an unusual regime, in the sense that it has maintained its revolutionaries. It hasn’t moved on from the revolution. Thus, my view, as I said, that’s a minority view within the field. The majority would probably disagree with that. So, so long as it remains a revolutionary state animated by anti-Americanism, you begin to see areas of overlap diminish, if not marginalize altogether.
However, let me give you the perspective of those who would disagree with me. They would say that Iran does have interests, and it has pragmatic in terms of its approach to those interests. It seeks stability in the Gulf waterways, because that is its principal connection to the global markets. But at the end of the day, whatever revolutionary rhetoric may animate it, it is still a country of ninety million people with legitimate interests in its boundaries and borders and its immediate neighborhood. And so long as it seeks some degree of stability, there are possibilities of two countries coming together, in a limited basis.
So those are two contrasting opinions. I tend to subscribe to the former, but I would say a large body of scholarship probably sides with the latter. The truth will be probably somewhere in the middle, that it is a country that tries to amalgamate national interests with revolutionary values. And like most countries that try to balance such imperfect variables, it inevitably leads to a lot of confusion. There are certain things that the Iranian government does which are inexplicable, such as this hostility to Israel, for which it has no common border or a history of antagonism.
Yet, it is a conflict that has cost the country much, including the war that we recently saw. There are certain things that Iran does that makes perfect legitimate sense, such as its penetration of Iraq. Iraq has been a security concern for Iran before the revolution, after the revolution, it continues to be. That makes perfect sense. So there are areas that people would say possibility of the two countries working together. As I said, I try to offer you both contrasting views and you can pick which one you find more hospitable.
FASKIANOS: I’m going to take the next written question from Yuri Lyashenko from the Marxe School at Baruch College: Given the apparent lack of support from Iran’s closest allies, Russia and China, who took no actions not even symbolic ones, to defend Iran following a hypothetical U.S. strike on its nuclear facilities, do you believe this factual betrayal could paradoxically create a wedge or opportunity for U.S. foreign policy toward Iran?
TAKEYH: To be fair to the Russian Federation and China, what did the Iranian government expect them to do? China has—historically in the Middle East—has never sought to take sides. The largest Chinese foreign investment concentration is in the other side of the gulf. The Chinese always like to have diversified sources of energy. And they obviously prize their relationship with the United States, for obvious reasons, over Iran. So I’m not quite sure what the Iranian government thought the Chinese government would do or ought to do. It was perfectly clear that it would essentially respond in a symbolic way, condemnation of violence and calling for stability. The Chinese purchase Iranian oil. Ninety percent of Iran’s export of oil goes to China. They purchase at a discount rate. The Chinese tend to be very exploitative, if not mercantile, in their approach to Iran. And the Iranians have always exaggerated the anti-Westernism that could bring the two countries together. So that’s one side.
On the Russian Federation, the Iranians have more of a complaint here. As part of their great-power alliance, as they thought of it, they became implicated in a war in Central Europe, for which Iran has no material interests, by providing drones to Russia in the war against Ukraine, Iran implicitly went to war against NATO. There’s no Iranian ideological or practical interest at stake in Central Europe. And the Russian Federation did not respond with anything. I don’t know if they could have done anything. The relationship is strong in terms of mil-to-mil technology, selling military hardware, but the Israelis have demonstrated that they could essentially penetrate that hardware and air defenses, that probably will be refurbished with the aid of Chinese. There’s one thing that China/Russia can do that will materially change the equation, namely, assist revival of Iran’s nuclear program with the purpose of weaponization. That would be a gamechanger. So far, at least, I’m not aware of them doing that. But if they were doing that, I probably wouldn’t be aware of it anyways.
Are there opportunities in this for the United States? Well, you know, if the Iranian government is being truthful, they are willing to negotiate with the United States some sort of a nuclear compact. The position of the United States at this point is zero enrichment, that no enrichment can exist in Iran. The position of the Iranian government is enrichment as a right. And they were willing to talk about safeguards and so forth, but not necessarily abandon their right. As a practical purpose today, there’s no enrichment taking place in Iran. The facilities have been bombed. So that point of dissonance between the two nations still exists.
Maybe in that there are some opportunities for creative diplomacy, but at the end of the day it would be—it would be difficult for United States to abandon zero enrichment, given the fact they just bombed the country. If you’re going to allow enrichment, why bomb the country in the first place? It would be difficult for Iran to give up enrichment because it just got bombed. If it was going to accept that principle before the war, acquiescence at this point, after the war, would be kind of a capitulation that would be very difficult for the regime to absorb. So paradoxically, the war has entrenched the positions of the two countries in a way that makes a nuclear compact difficult, unless there is some unusual pragmatism.
At this point, I don’t know if the United States has any incentive for coming to an agreement with Iran. You know, there’s no enrichment taking place. And if there is, Israelis are going to bomb it. (Laughs.) So that’s kind of where we are.
FASKIANOS: I’m going to take the next question from Edoh Agbehonou, who’s an assistant professor at Bethune-Cookman University. I believe there was—they had their hand raised. If you want to ask your question and you’re still on—
Q: Yes. This is Edoh Agbehonou. I, you know, asked the question through the chat, but I’ll still ask it.
Thank you so much for your presentations. I’m from BCU, Bethune-Cookman University. You make some points that Iranian or the Iran government accuse the inspectors of—International Atomic Energy Agency, inspectors as a potential spies of Israel. Did they have any argument to back the accusation? Do you have any supporting evidence? Because in the past, whether it’s Iran or North Korea, they are always suspicious of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors and not allowing them to fully inspect their nuclear sites. So this time around, since they have—we have some kind of a bombing going on, airstrike going on, do they have any evidence that those inspectors are actually spies of Israel?
TAKEYH: If they do you have evidence, they have not proffered it. And you’re quite correct that most countries tend to be suspicious, but particularly most countries that are engaged in illicit activities. That has—obviously, there has been no evidence. And frankly, I don’t believe the Israelis actually relied on International Atomic Energy Organization. What IAEA does is give you some baseline understanding of the uranium program. But for the sort of attacks that Israelis and assassinations—targeted assassinations that they did, I think they probably used their own intelligence capabilities, however it is they penetrated Iran. So I tend to agree with you that the accusation is not corroborated by evidence that that’s true.
All I’m trying to suggest is that, despite those accusations and the vilification of Rafael Grossi, the Iranians are willing to, at least nominally, have an agreement for the return of inspectors. That was not the position of the country when it was bombed. And I should say, the position of the Iranian government is not entirely illogical. These were, at the end of the day, safeguarded facilities. They were imperfectly safeguarded. There were a lot of ambiguities. And there was lack of access, and so forth. But these were safeguarded facilities. And the international agreement has always been that, you know, if the facilities are safeguarded then they’re relatively immune from retaliation, without United Nations sanction, which happened in this particular case.
So what the Iranian government’s position initially was, that it is Rafael Grossi’s responsibility to condemn Israeli strikes as illegal because they attack safeguarded facilities without approbation of the United Nations Security Council Chapter Seven resolution authorizing the use of force. If you want to be legalistic, there’s some merit in that argument. On the other hand, the Israelis argue that their relationship with Iran is in a state of war. That in April and October, Iran did launch missiles against Israel, which did not do as much damage. So there’s a state of war between the two countries and therefore they take measures to protect themselves. And that is also recognized in international law.
So I’m not a lawyer, but how lawyers adjudicate that dispute I don’t know. But you see, that’s the kind of vilification of Rafael Grossi and IAEA that was taking place. But your larger point that those inspectors have not been revealed to be espionage agents is correct.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to take the next question from danah boyd from Cornell University: What are the dominant narratives unfolding within the Iranian public in the aftermath? In other words, what are the different groups of the public hearing from the media and from government? And what’s flowing through private messaging channels?
TAKEYH: I don’t know about private messaging channels. In terms of popular press, you begin to see in the reformist press—and I should say, Iran is a kind of unusual country because there’s some degree of press vitality, irrespective of the fact that it’s an authoritarian state. It still has some degree of critical media. On the left side of the ledger spectrum, there is a consideration that perhaps we should maybe even abandon enrichment, come to terms with the international community, focus on economic betterment, as opposed to spending billions of dollars on nuclear apparatus which was, at the very least, severely damaged. So a course correction. Two former presidents, former President Rouhani and former President Khatami, have essentially echoed that kind of sentiment.
On the right, the narrative is that Iran actually won the war because the purpose of the war, for the conservatives in their telling, was not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, but to attack Iran as a means of provoking a popular insurrection that would topple the regime. And that didn’t happen. So in that context, they won the war. (Laughs.) So where is the Iranian people in middle of this? The New York Times actually had correspondents return to Iran for a week or so. And what that reporting captured, and you see it in similar international press, is fear among the population. The possibility of being striked again, and the concerns that they have had with inflation, with a lack of fuel, the ecological problem of the country with water shortages. All those problems remain unaddressed.
The nuclear program was something that siphoned off billions of dollars over the years, over twenty years. It was something that the regime celebrated as an extraordinary national achievement. Now it lays in ruin, and there’s some accountancy for that as well from the public. So there’s the dominant narratives are—essentially, there’s a debate. I suspect the debate will be settled on the conservative side because they hold levers of power. And we’ll see if the regime revives its nuclear program and how it revives it, because it’s likely not to do what it did before, build large installations that are easily exposed.
FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next question from Gary Prevost.
Q: In a way, I think you just may have answered my question. It’s fascinating that what you declare as the “left” has sort of laid out a very pragmatic approach for the country that basically says, we suffered a significant defeat and this is a time for a recalibration of where we go. And that the main problem that the international community seems to have with us is our nuclear program. And therefore, if it’s going to go forward it needs to go forward somehow in the framework of nonproliferation and in the framework of the IAEA. It’s obviously difficult to know what argument will ultimately work out, but can you talk maybe just a little more about why you’re of the belief that it will be the argument of the right that ultimately prevails?
TAKEYH: The argument of the left—actually, there was an eleven-point plan put out by a reformist coalition that calls for expansion of political rights and so forth, and time to recalibrate the overall national compact. Those particular arguments were censured heavily by the right. There was a threat of judicial action against them. They were accused of essentially undermining national unity. And so some of those voices for change have died out. And the reason why I think at the moment the argument of the conservative right will prevail, because they control the government institutions. They control the judiciary, the supreme leader’s office, the important nonelected institutions such as the Guardian Council, so on and so forth.
However, the argument that is out there by the reform movement may, in fact, at some point resonate with the public, once the public comes out of its shock, and call for recalibration itself. It’s hard to say. At this particular point, as I say, the country is in a state of shock. And the conservative right that has instruments of power at its disposal is quite concerned about not making any concessions, because that would provoke an image of weakness. And that could—once you pull on that string, you don’t know where it ends up. And actually, some of the arguments, particularly of former President Rouhani, were condemned as arguments similar to those that General Secretary Gorbachev made, a series of reforms that eventually led to collapse of the Soviet Union. So the Gorbachev analogy was even used in their condemnation. Now, some of those voices have died out, actually, on the left. They may resurface again.
FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going next to Donna Shalala. If you can accept the unmute prompt. There we go.
Q: Has the fact that President Trump—that they leaked the fact that he told the Israelis not to kill the supreme leader—had any effect on the future negotiations between the United States and Iran?
TAKEYH: Well, the United States’ position during the war was interesting. The first statement that was made when the Israelis attacked was a statement by the Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And that statement said that we are not involved in this and it is very important for American lives not to be endangered. He didn’t mention anything about Israeli lives. Once the Israeli military operation began to succeed, then you began to see the United States and the president gradually warm up. And finally, active American intervention at the end of the war, which was actually decisive. Without American intervention, the Fordow Nuclear Facility would probably not have been destroyed.
The idea that the United States purposely spared the life of Ali Khamenei, would that have an effect on the negotiations? Honestly, I’m not sure. There have been reports that the Israelis did try to decapitate the leadership. They bombed the supreme national security council when president and military—and other leading officials were there. And Israelis, for their own reasons, they even may not have had the capacity to essentially eliminate Ali Khamenei. One thing that has happened as a result of that war is Ali Khamenei’s authority has diminished. He makes public appearances rather rarely and the cascade of misjudgments against—that he has made are likely to be counted against him in the regime’s internal deliberations.
But your overall point, whether that expedites negotiations or not, I think the Iranians are asking for negotiations. They may be doing this as a ploy to delay snapback or as a means of preventing another Israeli attack. So in that sense, what happened or didn’t happen with Ali Khamenei has not seemed to have affected their diplomatic approach, for whatever reasons, and those reasons may be entirely wrong, they’re willing to have some kind of a dialogue with the United States. Whether the dialogue will produce anything reasonable that either party can accept, I’m not sure. I have my doubts.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
Next question I’m going to take is from Eunju Oh at the Korea University Graduate School of International Affairs: Thank you for the presentation. Learned a lot. One thing that stands out from the Iran case is how the United States approach to diplomacy and deterrence may actually backfire. And this may have important lessons for dealing with North Korea. Given the experience with Iran, especially—particularly the breakdown of the JCPOA, which we expect in terms of implications for any future nuclear talks with North Korea?
I think this might be a little bit out of scope for you, Ray, but I’ll leave it to—
TAKEYH: Yeah. Well, I think we may be on the threshold of a new age of proliferation, where you begin to see the utility of nuclear weapons experienced in real time, in two very different arenas. In Central Europe, if Ukraine had nuclear weapons would it be subject to Russian invasion? By the way, the answer to that may still be yes, but that’s something that certainly the Russian—the Ukrainians could think about. The Iranian case is also similar. If the Iranian government had the bomb, would it be bombed? The answer to that may still be yes. But if you’re sitting in Tehran today, you’re thinking that if we had nuclear weapons that gives us certain immunity. And certainly, it raises the cost of aggression.
So the idea of nuclear expansion and proliferation as a means of defense has been validated by recent events. And maybe South Korea, Japan, and other countries will reassess their decision to forego nuclear arms, given everything that has taken place. So one of the things that we have had with the sort of breakdown—essentially, global breakdown of the global proliferation regime, there are no arms control talks taking place anywhere. Not between United States and Russia, between United States and China. The sort of arms control regime as experience in the past fifty years has essentially broken down. So in that sense, we may be entering a new era of how people think about proliferation, how they think about the value of nuclear deterrence, and whether there are any international mechanisms—existing international mechanisms can be rehabilitated to exercise some control.
NPT, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, whatever you think of it, and Christ knows it has had limitations and defects, served as a way of regulating the expansion of nuclear energy. That agreement is—that entire regime is in tatters today. And that has ramifications for all countries, including South Korea, I suspect.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
Next I’m going to a group of international relations students at Colorado College: How does the snapback mechanism affect the changes of reaching a long-lasting agreement on Iran’s nuclear program?
TAKEYH: Well, snapback was a mechanism that was devised during the Iran nuclear deal. And essentially, it was a fast track to reimposition of the United Nations Security Council without veto by Russia and China. It was worded in that sort of a careful way. We’re sort of past snapback because, you know, Iran was bombed. But nevertheless, it would reintroduce a new set of sanctions on Iran. The Iranians seem to take snapback seriously, I think, more seriously than it’s deserved. Even some of the proponents of snapping back those sanctions will privately tell you that there’s not that much left to be done in terms of sanctions regime. You know, can you get Chinese—the Chinese government to stop purchasing Iranian oil? Unlikely. Can you impose financial penalties on the Chinese government in a manner that will cause them to do so? That has all kinds of second- and third-order effects, and I’m not sure if there’s much appetite.
Now, finally, I think the entire issue of sanctions is now—has to be considered with the viability of dollar as international currency of exchange. The United States has used its predominance in the international economy to essentially impose demands in a secondary way. For instance, it says to South Korea, if you buy oil from Iran you’re going to lose market share in the United States. Secondary sanctions. And so long as dollar is the global currency of exchange, you can do that. But the viability of that is going to be contested over time. I don’t think this case will do it, but there are concerns that overuse of sanctions essentially may cause governments to begin transactions in currency other than the dollar.
FASKIANOS: Fantastic.
I see Amy Sands. And, Amy, if you can accept the unmute and identify yourself. Thank you. Oh, wait. You still need to unmute. I’m going to give her one more minute to try to unmute.
OK. I’m going to go next to—while we’re working through that issue—to Jacques Kahindo, professor at Wilberforce University in Ohio: In your own opinion, what is your assessment of the peace deal between Iran and the Obama administration? Was it a success or failure, and why?
TAKEYH: It was a failure in one respect, that it did not have bipartisan agreement and a bipartisan foundation. And that made it essentially vulnerable to being discarded. Now you can say whether such bipartisan agreement is possible or not. But so in that sense it failed to have sufficient support within the United States that was essential for sustainability, given the fact that it was a controversial agreement. You can talk about the individual terms of the agreement. It was 156 pages and was probably one of the most controversial arms control agreements of the post-Cold War era. And it was quite a—subject of quite heated discussion and division.
And we can talk about the terms of the agreement, whether it was possible to craft better terms, but I think overall the argument that I think the Obama administration made was that if the agreement had international support, and it did—it was actually accepted by the United Nations Security Council unanimously—that that international support would deter domestic detractors from tearing it down. By the way, that agreement—that argument may have had some degree of resonance if John Kasich had become president in 2016. But I’m not quite sure it would work with Donald Trump, or perhaps others. All Republican presidential candidates in 2016, with the exception of Jeb Bush, committed themselves to ripping up the agreement.
So it was a consensus position within the Republican Party. All the Republican members of Congress voted against it, without exception. So inability of crafting a bipartisan foundation, I think, damaged it. The proponents of the agreement would say that almost anything that President Obama negotiated would be subject to that degree of partisan rancor in an election year, 2016. And there’s perhaps something to that. But one of the lessons of that is, you know, in arms control, it’s better for arms control agreements to be presented as treaties as opposed to executive agreements, because treaty still has, at least, the support of the United States Senate or a majority of senators.
FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you.
I’m going to go next to a written question from Alireza Mamdouhi, who’s at Norman Paterson School of International Affairs: You described Iran’s animosity toward Israel as “inexplicable.” Could you clarify this characterization, given Israel’s history of expansionist foreign policies and how it has acted in ways that destabilize the region?
TAKEYH: Well, I will say it’s inexplicable in terms of Iran-Israel relationship. They have no common boundaries. They have no history of antagonism. As a matter of fact, before the monarch—before the revolution, the two countries had good relationships, commercially and so forth. Iran was one of the major oil sellers to Israel—the major one. And Iran is a Persian country, not an Arab country. So in that sense, that sort of ethnic connection to the region is somewhat attenuated.
Now, I think today there is a history of animosity between the two countries because of forty-five years of antagonism, mutually. It’s been built up in the post-revolutionary period. It didn’t have to come to this level of animosity. I don’t think either country benefits from that. I don’t think Israel benefits from being subject to Iranian sponsorship of various groups that oppose it violently. And I certainly don’t think Iran benefited from the TwelveDay War and the attack on its nuclear facilities. So in that sense it is inexplicable to me, from the perspective of U.S.-Iran relations. Now, if you want to situate that in the larger region, you say, well, Iran is responding to the regional policies of Israel. That may be. But Iran is a nation-state and has to be concerned about its own welfare and wellbeing.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
Next question from Brett Marottoli, who’s at the University of Cambridge: With President Trump perpetuating the narrative that U.S. strikes completely obliterated Iran’s key nuclear facilities, could this actually benefit Iran by giving the regime plausible deniability of a nuclear program?
TAKEYH: Well, that’s an interesting proposition because, you know, increasingly all American intelligence pronouncements have to be viewed with caution because they all have to say it was obliterated. And we don’t actually have an accounting of the damage done to Iranian nuclear program, at least in terms of public record. And we probably won’t have that until there’s onsite inspection by the IAEA, which is probably unlikely to happen irrespective of whatever agreements that Foreign Minister Araghchi negotiated with Rafael Grossi. So, you know, there are varying assessments. I can’t adjudicate in between them.
Does that give Iran license for kind of a surreptitious nuclear program? I suspect if they revive their nuclear program it is going to be rather surreptitious. But again, as I mentioned, I think we have entered a new era of nonproliferation where you rely on national intelligence measures. Israelis will rely on their own intelligence services and use military force when they think they see things that they find suspicious. So in that sense, the sneak out option that Iran may exercise is there. It’s a big country. They can disperse and defuse their nuclear program in a manner that will make it difficult to disable.
But that’s the era we live in. The president’s saying Iran’s nuclear program was obliterated. He’s not saying the future program was obliterated. But he is saying that it would be. President Trump has also said that he is open to striking Iran again should there—should there be a revival of the nuclear program. And that has to be taken—it is taken with some degree of seriousness in Iran.
FASKIANOS: Question from Deeya Jain from New York University: Khamenei is already eighty-six years old and is coming towards the end of his life. With a power vacuum, do you think the U.S. will try to influence a regime change? And how will that affect nuclear talks?
And I guess another question to that, follow-on question, is: Is there a succession plan for Khamenei?
TAKEYH: If there wasn’t one before, there probably is one now. There were hints and suggestions that there was before, but this is something that has been speculated upon a great deal. But I would say at this particular point both the person, Ali Khamenei, and the office is a diminished one, and other claimants to power. There’s succession happening throughout the system that we’re not paying much attention to because we don’t know the people who are coming up. One’s person’s martyrdom is another person’s job opportunity. You know, when thirty generals are killed, 400 military personnel, that’s a lot of job openings. And the thing about the next elite that’s coming to power in Iran is we don’t know much about them, if anything.
This is not to suggest that the existing elite was comprehensible to us, but the existing elite tend to have been a talkative bunch. President Rouhani and others would constantly write memoirs. They found themselves profoundly fascinating. The new elite is—doesn’t explain itself that much. And these are the people whose international perspective was actually formed in Syria and then in the Twelve-Day War. And the lesson to be drawn from both those episodes is what you build up over years can crumble very fast—Syria, three weeks; Iran nuclear apparatus, twelve days. So they’re coming with a different set of experiences.
We don’t know much about this elite. Their next supreme leader, whoever that is, is unlikely to have as much authority as the supreme leader did before the June war. So, in a sense, the perennial fascination with who will replace Ali Khamenei is a less-salient question today than how is the system as a whole changing. This system has been around for forty-five years and, you know, you begin to see a new generation coming to power. And that’s the generation we don’t know much about, if anything.
FASKIANOS: Amy Sands, I don’t know if you want to try again to ask your question. I know you put down your hand, but I’m going to give you—see if we can—you’ve got to unmute again. No.
(Pause.)
All right. We tried. If you want to put your question in the chat, happy to take it that way.
So I will—I will take the—give you the next question, Ray. Oh, we actually have one—another written question from Steve Shinkel, who is at the Naval War College: With Israel striking Qatar yesterday, are there impacts to Iran’s regional position/support? Especially since Iran struck Al Udeid AB in June, will it just be noise in the noisy Middle East or something more? And what are the impacts to U.S. support in the Middle East?
TAKEYH: Well, what the Israelis have suggested and they have acted upon is they view the rules of the game in post-October 7 as completely different, whether it’s the—what happened in Tunisia, Lebanon, Syria, Qatar, Iran. This is a massive use of force across the region, rather effectively and thus far with impunity. This actually has to chastise the Iranian leadership, who are essentially fearful that, oh.
Does it change Iran’s position in the region? I’m not quite sure if it does. But it does, again, suggest that in the Middle East—I think my colleague Steven Cook has talked about this a great deal—we are in a new Middle East with a whole new set of rules, and the—rules that are being defined as they go along. So it’s kind of improvisational theater. And you’re beginning to see the Israelis are very confident in their ability to enforce their perspective through military action. If they don’t like something, they do something. They seem less concerned—and maybe wrongly—about international opinion and less concerned about opinion within the United States.
Israelis always say they do tactics; Americans do strategy. That statement’s actually not true: Americans also don’t do strategy. But the Israelis are very tactical and short term. From their perspective, obviously, they have succeeded in a manner that they would not have had they listened to American advice. So nothing succeeds in life like success. Whether this has long-term ramifications about Israel’s position in the global opinion or in the United States itself, and the impact of that, I don’t think that’s what they’re focused on right now.
FASKIANOS: So at this point in time, what policy recommendations would you give to the Trump administration given the unprecedented time that we’re in, the changing landscape in the Middle East?
TAKEYH: Honestly, I don’t really do that. But they probably—(off mic)—ask my opinion, nor, I think, it’s necessary for them to do so.
I would say that at this point Iranian hesitancy is predicated on Donald Trump’s—the marriage of Donald Trump’s unpredictability and Bibi Netanyahu’s bellicosity. How much can you keep that variable in the air will determine how restrained Iranians are. You may be able to do it for a long time. And fissures in U.S.-Iran relations, fissures that—in U.S.-Israel relations, fissures that Iran is trying to cultivate, are likely to undermine that. I’m not sure that’s advice; that’s just a perspective, because at this point I think the Israelis will probably do whatever they want irrespective of American advice.
FASKIANOS: Wonderful.
I think we are—let me just—I’ll ask one last question, from Waheguru Sidhu from NYU: Is Iran likely to withdraw from the NPT, or follow a “bombs in the basement” strategy and stay within the NPT?
TAKEYH: More likely the latter. It’s likely to stay within the NPT but not necessarily comply with its obligations. If I had to guess, I would say once they seriously think about reviving the program—and at this point, you’re trying to figure out who’s alive and who’s dead—then I suspect it’ll be the latter strategy. That makes more sense.
FASKIANOS: Wonderful.
Well, Ray, thank you very much for this hour. And thanks to all of you for your questions. We really appreciate it.
The next Global Affairs Expert Webinar will be on Wednesday, September 17, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware, who are both at CFR, will lead the conversation on counterterrorism and homeland security.
In the meantime, I encourage you to learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowships for professors at CFR.org/careers. And visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues; and education.CFR.org for free expert-informed teaching and learning resources.
So, again, thank you, Ray Takeyh.
TAKEYH: Thank you.
FASKIANOS: And we look forward to your continued participation in our next webinar.
TAKEYH: Thank you.
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