I’m happy to be here today with Trita Parsi. He’s the executive vice president at the Quincy Institute. Trita, thank you for joining the Trends Journal. Thank you so much for having me. Right off the bat, I saw you mentioned on your Twitter post, your ex-post about this new survey that came out about Americans and their support for Israel and the Palestinians. And for the first time, the edge now goes to the Palestinians. I’m going to read from Gallup. This is the first graph on the Gallup report. It says 41 percent of Americans now say they sympathize more with the Palestinians in the Middle East situation, while 36 percent sympathize more with the Israelis.

The five percentage point difference is not statistically significant, but it contrasts with a clear lead to the Israelis. Only a year ago, that number was 46 percent in favor of the Israelis versus 33 percent in favor of the Palestinians. Trita, does that poll surprise you? Not at all. I think what we have seen is very clearly that the public has been moving in this direction. For some time, obviously, accelerated by the genocide in Gaza. But it actually started even before that, in which we saw that both on the left more than 15 years ago and on the right about seven, eight years ago, we started to see this trend.

And on the right, it is very much driven by a perception that Israel is a key factor, is a key state in terms of pushing the United States into various unnecessary wars. And I think the last year has given a lot of proof of concept to that, because we saw already in February of last year, one month into Trump’s presidency, Netanyahu came on his first visit, immediately pushing for a war with Iran, eventually got that war, and now we are now on the precipice of yet another war with Iran pushed for by the Israelis from their December 29th meeting.

So that is something that I think the only reason why some people may be surprised is because mainstream media does still not reflect these changes in the perception of Americans of Israel. And as a result, if that’s all you watch, you may think that everything is as it was before, but you just have to go outside in the real world. And you can clearly see that there is a tremendous amount of fatigue, both on the right and the left, with the manner in which the Israelis have conducted themselves in the region, as well as their approach towards the United States.

You mentioned the mainstream media. Also in Washington, if you noticed during the State of the Union address, the one time that Congress stood up in a bipartisan applause was when Trump mentioned how Iran can never have a nuclear weapon and how the US would intervene. So it’s interesting, no matter, you know, Republicans and Democrats hate each other, but they come together on one issue. Yes. So, you know, the politics here in Washington is still somewhat removed from where the rest of the country is. In fact, the fact that Trump himself got elected in the first place in 2016 is, again, a reflection of the fact that a rejection of the establishment populism rising, that has still not led to a scenario in which Congress has started to reflect the Americans’ perspectives on Israel and Palestine to the extent that it has changed.

But it has nevertheless changed. I mean, Congress today is still very different from the Congress of 15 years ago when it comes to Israel-Palestine. We’re going to have a War Powers vote probably on Tuesday, and it’s going to be interesting how that goes. It may very well end up being that the president has denied the authorization for the use of force. We’ve seen how both in the Senate and the House bills have been introduced that have managed to get a decent amount of votes, not a majority yet, actually calling for a complete cut off of funding to Israel or arms sales to Israel.

So these were unthinkable things just 10 years ago. The mere idea that it would be introduced was unthinkable. The fact that he got a couple of dozen votes and the debates is just beyond what’s even perceived to be doable. So things have changed, but it’s not moving as fast as public opinion. Public opinion is moving very, very fast on this issue. And I think, again, it’s to a very large extent because the public is increasingly not watching the mainstream media any longer. And that’s why you see a particular shift in the perspectives of young people. How much do you blame more focused now on the possible war with Iran? How much do you blame on the administration’s inability to develop a narrative on why we need to go to war with Iran? First, we heard about the protesters.

That was what we heard earlier in the year. Then we hear about the ballistic missiles. Now we hear about the nuclear program. They’re now very close to developing or at least having the potential to develop a nuclear weapon again. And this is like Americans, my generation, know that we’ve heard this our entire lives. We remember Netanyahu at the U.N. with the board holding it up with the bomb. Is the Trump administration doing a good enough job selling this war to the public? How do you see that unfolding? I think, to be frank, which I don’t think the administration is really trying to sell the war to the public.

I mean, there’s statements here and there coming out, but nothing compared to what we saw in 2003, in which there was like this onslaught from the Cheney administration to try to brainwash the American people and sell them a whole set of different lies. And some people have pointed out that at least the Bush administration bothered to lie and the current administration seems to be just moving towards war even without really trying to get the American public on its side. I think the Trump calculation on this is that the support within the media establishment, particularly in that Fox News and conservative media, mainstream media, is so strong that once it happens, they will go out on his behalf and sell this in a manner that will help him in the same way that it did back in June, in which Fox News was really praising Trump wall to wall for having conducted that military attack.

So I think Trump’s approach to this is a little bit different. He doesn’t feel the need of selling anything until he’s done it. But I think he’s counting on mainstream conservative media, Fox News and the Murdoch Empire to do the job for him if he so decides to go down that path. Do you think Trump understands the danger of going to war with Iran? We heard the Washington Post came out with a story earlier this week about how he’s being warned by top military officials against going to war, at least considering it again, taking a second thought.

Do you think Trump understands the risks and that’s why he’s holding back? Sorry, you were breaking up for a second. My question was the Washington Post had a story earlier this week saying that Trump’s top administration or I’m sorry, military officials came out and told him that warned him about the threat of war with Iran and us not having enough artillery there or military support there. Do you Trump understands the risks of going to war with Iran or he’s so obligated almost to his Zionist supporters that wars, that doesn’t really play a role? I think he understands that there’s significant risk and that’s part of the reason why this hasn’t happened yet and why he has constantly amassed more military power to the region.

I don’t think, however, he fully understands how tremendously dangerous this would be. I think he is on a sugar rush from the Venezuela operation. He is and he repeated it today. He has formed this narrative in his head that every time he has conducted military action like this, whether it is the assassination of Soleimani, whether it is the bombing of Fordieu, whether it is all the things he’s done for Israel, such as moving the embassy, recognizing the Golan, that all of those things have ended up working out really well for him. And as a result, those who are warning him of all of the different risks are simply wrong.

They’ve been systematically wrong in his view because he haven’t faced that type of a backlash from most of these different actions. So I think he’s kind of lulled himself into a narrative in which he almost acts as if he’s invincible and he believes that once again he will be proven right, that the difficulties that people are warning him of are exaggerated. It’s an overcorrection to the Iraq War in Afghanistan, etc. And as a result, I think there’s a higher likelihood that he will go forward with this than not. What’s also interesting is that on the other side, on the Iranian side, they believe that Trump has a very exaggerated view of how much Iran has been sent back in the last two years and that this is what is fueling his demands for surrender by the Iranians.

And they believe that a military confrontation actually can correct Trump’s perception. The Iranians believed, obviously, they’re not going to win this war, but that they can fight back and that they can give Trump a bloody nose, and that will cause him to back off. And in that backing off, there might be new negotiations coming later on in which both sides have more realistic positions. That is an extremely risky assumption on the Iranian side. But I think it is one that is partly rooted in the fact that the offer that Trump has put on the table for the Iranians is so unattractive that they think that their chances are actually better in a military confrontation with the superpower than this type of surrender and capitulation that Trump is trying to coerce them into accepting.

My last question for you, Trita. And again, thank you for joining the Trends Journal. We’re going to have all your links down below. Could the Iranians be on a little bit of a sugar rush themselves after seeing how the Houthis did, how they fared against the U.S. and the Red Sea? It’s not too long ago that we were fighting them with major air power in the region over the Red Sea. Do you think the Iranians see that and see serious vulnerabilities in the U.S. military? And if the Houthis can do that, a country of 90 million with some of the most advanced missiles on Earth.

I mean, I would imagine they would think that they would stand up. I don’t know what they think. But what’s your take on that today? I think you’re on to something. I think much of their narrative and their calculation is based exactly on Trump’s conduct with the Houthis in which after eight or so weeks he kind of lost interest and gave up and the Houthis fought back. And he even praised them publicly, saying that they’re a tough bunch of nuts or something like that. But I think one very, very significant potential miscalculation by the Iranians here is that the Houthis never managed to sink an American ship, shoot down an American jet or kill an American soldier.

We have not been in a scenario in which Trump has been president and on his watch a large number, 50, 100, 500 American soldiers have been killed. So we do not know what his psychology will be in that scenario. And to just assume that that will just be an exaggerated or a larger version of what he did with the Houthis, I think is a very, very risky assumption. And this is the challenge in all of this, the tragedy of all of this. Both sides are willing to accept significant risks at the battlefield without having actually tried a bit more of a risky approach, a bit more of a flexible approach at the negotiating table.

This war is completely unnecessary. It absolutely can be avoided. But both sides have really dug themselves in a way that is detrimental to both. And I think most likely this war will be a lose-lose for both sides. Do you think, very briefly, do you think we go to war with Iran? Would you say yes or no if someone asked you? Based on the statements that Trump has said today, it certainly looks far more likely that he’s going to go down the path of military action than the path of a more reasonable negotiation between the two sides.

Trina Parsi, thanks for joining the Trend Journal as always. Thank you so much for having me. [tr:trw].

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