00:01Three weeks into the US and Israel's war on Iran, it's becoming clear both sides are fighting very different wars.
00:08That's according to a leading expert on Middle East politics.
00:11He says the Americans and Israelis are looking for a quick, decisive win,
00:15while Iran is playing a much longer game, where simply resisting and surviving is victory.
00:21Meanwhile, Gulf countries are caught in the middle, bearing the brunt of Iran's retaliatory strikes.
00:26To help us make sense of this all, I'm joined on Euronews by Mehran Kamrava,
00:31professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar.
00:34Professor, when we spoke in January, there was still some hope that cooler heads may prevail.
00:39Now that clearly didn't happen. So from your perspective, what went wrong?
00:43Well, a couple of things went wrong diplomatically.
00:47As far as Netanyahu is concerned, the June war never really ended.
00:52Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who's now dead, refused to kind of meet the United States halfway.
01:02Although Iran did negotiate and although they did engage in negotiations,
01:08Trump wanted direct negotiations.
01:11Iran refused.
01:13Trump wanted kind of a quick and swift resolution to the nuclear file.
01:21Iran dragged it out.
01:23So while Iran did negotiate, it negotiated on its own terms
01:28and did not realize the volatility that characterizes the Trump White House and the unpredictability of President Trump's decision making.
01:43And so that's what got us to this stage.
01:47Iran points to its leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, while Washington says it seriously weakened Tehran's military.
01:55What do you think is happening right now? And where do you see this headed?
01:58The Americans and particularly the Trump White House and the Iranians have two very different assumptions about the war.
02:07The United States and Israel want a quick and decisive victory.
02:12And for them, the destruction of Iran's military capabilities, these very showy explosions are indications that they are winning and
02:25that Iran is losing.
02:27Iran has a very different assumption about the war.
02:31First of all, simply resisting and surviving is tantamount to victory.
02:37And also, Iran doesn't necessarily see the war in quick and decisive terms.
02:43It sees it in terms of a very prolonged conflict, one in which over time,
02:50Iran would grind down American and Israeli resolve and steadily increase the pain inflicted on them.
03:00So what we see are two very different approaches to the war.
03:05And of course, at this point, the question is, who's going to blink first?
03:09And finally, I want to come back to what's happening inside Iran.
03:12There's been a lot of focus on the absence of Mujtaba Khamenei from public view.
03:17What does that signal domestically and who seems to be making the key decisions right now?
03:21Mujtaba Khamenei's absence, both even we don't even have a recording of his voice.
03:30His absence is palpable.
03:35The Islamic Republic system continues to function.
03:38And more importantly, insofar as Iran on a day-to-day basis is concerned, military decisions are being made.
03:48And this is because the system prepared itself for continuing to function militarily, especially, even in the absence of a
03:58supreme leader.
03:58So whether or not Mujtaba is alive or dead or is capable of making command decisions really doesn't matter because
04:08the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian army are continuing to make military decisions the way they determine fit.
04:17And even if Ali Larijani, who's the head of the Supreme National Security Council, even if he's been killed, again,
04:25that isn't directly relevant.
04:29Professor Kamrava, thank you for your insights.
04:32As Gulf states remain on the defensive, the hope is that restraint from Washington, Tel Aviv and Tehran can still
04:39prevent further escalation and open the door to diplomacy.
04:43Adil Halim, Euronews, Doha.
Comments