SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The second round of potential peace talks between the U.S. and Iran appears to have fizzled. Yesterday, the White House announced special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner would fly to Islamabad for negotiations, but earlier today, Iran's foreign minister left Pakistan before they arrived. Now President Trump says that Witkoff and Kushner are not going, writing, quote, "too much time wasted on traveling, too much work." And he wrote, "we have all the cards. They have none." We're joined now by Alan Eyre. He's a former U.S. diplomat who was part of the negotiating team for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and currently a fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. Mr. Eyre, thanks so much for being with us.
ALAN EYRE: Pleasure to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: How do you read this reversal?
EYRE: I'm hoping it's not just a peak. I'm hoping that perhaps President Trump receives some information. We know that the foreign minister of Iran went to Pakistan to confer with the Pakistanis. Maybe they got information from the Pakistanis that that was surprising in some way. Araghchi leaving Pakistan wasn't determinative because he could have come back. He's going on to Moscow and to Oman. So I'm assuming that again from everything President Trump was saying, he expected the Iranians to essentially capitulate to the U.S. demands, and when he was hearing that wasn't going to happen and that, in fact, Iran was standing with its own demands, maybe he decided to pull the plug.
SIMON: President Trump says the U.S. has all the cards. Does it?
EYRE: No. He does not have all the cards because, to use a pun, the Iranians have the strait, the Strait of Hormuz. So yeah, no. I mean, Iran has actually got a strategic initiative in that every day the strait stays closed, more pain for the global economy, more pain for the U.S., pain that we can ill afford as opposed to Iran, who can take pain better than we can at this point.
SIMON: Both Iran and the U.S. seem to be trying to wait out the other side, both claiming they're in no rush. And here's how Defense Secretary Hegseth put it yesterday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PETE HEGSETH: We have all the time in the world. Iran has a historic chance to make a serious deal, and the ball is in their court.
SIMON: Let me ask you, Mr. Eyre, aren't both sides feeling a lot of pain from this conflict?
EYRE: Yeah, they are. There's no doubt. Iran has got a blockade on all of its ports, and the U.S. has got the Strait of Hormuz closed for 40 days. The question, who's better able to tolerate that pain? The U.S. is heading into a midterm in November. Iran isn't. Iran has an incredibly developed and effective method of suppression of popular anger. The U.S. up until now doesn't. And Iran is fighting for its life, at least in its own eyes, against an Israel and the United States that it feels is trying to topple it, whereas this is a war of choice for President Trump. So I think - with all those in mind, I think Iran is willing to take more pain in order to survive.
SIMON: What do you think might or could get the United States and Iran back to negotiations?
EYRE: Well, again, it's paradoxically neither side is - you know, in - what is it? - in retail sales, you talk about a price point, an optimal price point where people will buy something? For negotiations, I guess there's a pain point. And neither of these sides seem to be at an optimal pain point where they feel they have to negotiate to avoid the pain they're feeling. I think each side is still, instead of trying to negotiate, trying to get that additional marginal leverage that will cause the other side to capitulate. That's not going to happen. There will be no capitulation from either side, so you have to negotiate.
SIMON: But, of course, Iran has lost, I'm not certain how many thousands of people and significant damage to infrastructure and its weapons capacity. And, of course, we've often detailed the economic consequences for the United States. Service people for the U.S. have also lost their lives. There have been a lot of losses, haven't there?
EYRE: Again, you know, people say, who's winning this war? No one's winning this war. You know, it's - everyone's losing. The region will never get back to the way it was, whatever the new normal is, it will not be as good as the one before February 27. Whatever deal President Trump gets will not be as good as the one he could have gotten before February 27. So yes, I mean, all wars are ruinous. Some are putatively just. This is not a just war.
SIMON: As a longtime diplomat, in the minute we have left, what would you advise U.S. officials who might be engaging with Iran right now to say or do?
EYRE: You know, you've got to roll up your sleeves and be ready for serious sustained negotiations. It's not going to happen in a day. There's not going to be this dramatic capitulation because you bomb one more site or you interdict one more Iranian ship. We're pretty much where we were a long time ago, and the only way out of this is to sit at a table in a room for weeks and months on end. And try to work these differences out. Not everything can be solved with diplomacy. Nothing can be solved without it.
SIMON: Alan Eyre, a former U.S. diplomat and a fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. thanks so much for being with us, Mr. Eyre.
EYRE: Thank you for the opportunity. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
