00:00Now, as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faces questions over the mounting costs of the conflict with Iran,
00:06let's speak to Trita Parasy, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute.
00:11Thank you so much for your time.
00:12We're hearing now the Pentagon telling us $25 billion and counting for this conflict so far.
00:19Do you believe that is enough to stop the U.S. from engaging in this conflict once again?
00:27It is getting very close to a point in which opposition within the Republican Party is starting to become strong
00:37enough to amount to pressure on Trump to find an exit.
00:41And this is part of the reason why the administration is also looking at ways of just simply declaring victory
00:46and walking away from this.
00:48Trump is in some ways undermining his own position through the blockade because if he had just walked away, declared
00:55victory,
00:56yes, the Iranians would have controlled the straits, but flow of oil would have resumed.
01:00Oil prices would have come down.
01:02By pushing for this blockade, he is actually making sure that even less oil is flowing through the strait.
01:09And as a result, oil prices are going up.
01:11Average Americans are paying a price, which is nothing compared to what people in other countries are paying.
01:16But nevertheless, and on top of that, you have this expensive cost of this war, which continues as long as
01:23this blockade goes on as well.
01:24So we're two months into this conflict.
01:27Shaky ceasefires in place.
01:29Not much progress in talks.
01:32How hopeful are you of an actual breakthrough?
01:36I find the likelihood of a breakthrough to be rather limited.
01:39I would put it at most 25 percent chance.
01:42It requires a much more mature and disciplined approach to diplomacy, something that Trump so far has not been able
01:50to exhibit.
01:51Moreover, it requires a much more pragmatic approach.
01:55None of these maximalist positions.
01:58The United States essentially lost this war.
02:00It needs to make a deal that acknowledges that reality instead of pushing for maximalist demands that may not even
02:09have been achievable had Iran lost the war.
02:11But Iran did not lose the war.
02:13And yet the war of words continues.
02:15President Trump, just earlier today, his latest social media post, no more Mr. Nice Guy.
02:22How do you understand that level of rhetoric, given the impasse we're at?
02:28I think this is part of the challenge in which even if diplomacy was starting to become a little bit
02:34more serious, the discipline and the message control that is needed from Trump himself not to self-sabotage his own
02:42diplomacy through threats of that kind on social media is something that is very difficult to imagine at this point.
02:51It would be necessary, however.
02:53These talks are very fragile.
02:54There's a significant political sensitivity on the Iranian side when it comes to how Trump is messaging things.
03:00And he's actually undermining his own progress in these talks by talking in this manner.
03:05Do you see any graceful exit or resolution to what is going on currently?
03:13Certainly there is one.
03:14Absolutely.
03:15There can be a deal that is based on what the Iranians accepted in Geneva before the war, something that
03:21Trump should have accepted at the time.
03:23He should have declared victory.
03:24Instead, he chose to declare war in combination with some arrangement when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz.
03:30It's absolutely doable, but again, it requires patience, it requires discipline, message control, and a realization that neither side is
03:39going to get everything they want.
03:41There's going to have to be a real compromise.
03:44And even if both sides have a need to declare victory, to have a narrative of victory, it cannot be
03:50a narrative that at the same time humiliates the other.
03:53All right. Thank you so much for speaking to us, Trita Parisi, co-founder and executive vice president of the
04:00Quincy Institute.
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