Front Burner - A changed Iran emerges from war

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

This week, after more than a hundred days of fighting, the United States and Iran have reached a preliminary agreement to end the war, set to be signed in Geneva this Friday. This deal is meant to end the fighting, open the Strait of Hormuz and as U.S. President Donald Trump put it, “let the oil flow”.Iran’s top military command has framed the deal as a defeat for the US and Israel.To talk about the peace deal and how Iran will emerge from this war, we’re joined again by Vali Nasr, Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the author of ‘Iran’s Grand Strategy: A political history.’For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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Hey, I'm Erin Wary filling in for Jamie. This week, after more than 100 days of fighting, the United States and Iran have reached a preliminary agreement to end the war, set to be signed in Geneva this Friday. This deal is meant to end the fighting, open the Strait of Hormuz, and, as U.S. President Donald Trump put it, let the oil flow. Iran's top military command framed the deal as a defeat for the U.S. and Israel. To talk about the peace deal and how Iran will emerge from this war,

we're joined by Valley Nasser, professor of international affairs and Middle East Studies at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and the author of Iran's grand strategy, a political history. Professor Nasser, thanks for joining us. Good to be with you. Thanks for inviting me to the program. So first, let's discuss this deal or memorandum of understanding. We're talking at about 1 p.m. Eastern on Monday.

Details are still coming out. But what do we know at this point about what they've agreed to? We know the contours of disagreement, which first of all, in principle, it is a cessation of hostilities deal. In other words, this is the endpoint of the war that's, started in February of 28, 2026. The first phase of the war was hot war with missiles and air campaign. President Trump vowing Iran will, quote, be hit very hard, saying the U.S. has identified new targets for, quote, complete destruction and certain death as the war rages on.

Then the United States shifted to a military blockade or an economic war on Iran. Our first images tonight of what the U.S. naval bloc. of Iran looks like up close. You do not comply with this blockade. We will use force. As American warships today, broadcast warnings to vessels near the Strait of Hormuz not to dock in or depart from Iran. And now this agreement essentially closes that phase as well.

So both sides basically are agreeing to a cessation of hostilities. The most important achievement here is that Iran will lift its chokehold. on the strait of hormones, allow petrochemicals, oil, varieties of other things to go through, and the United States will lift its economic blockade on Iranian ports. And then the rest is details of what does Iran get, what does the U.S. get in terms of ceasefire in Lebanon, money, et cetera. And then there is a promise that now that the hostilities would be stopped with this agreement, that the two sides agree to have negotiations over much law.

larger issues like the fate of Iran's nuclear program or the final status of the Strait of Hormuz to be done over the next 60 days. And on the straight, do we have any sense of the expectation of how that's going to operate moving forward? For instance, President Trump has suggested that it will be 100% toll-free. Well, I don't think there's any agreement about the final status. In other words, I think the United States and Iran are both kicking the count down the role. What we have after this war is that Iran now claims essentially sovereignty over the strait. It says that it's within its territorial waters.

It's the main power there sitting on top of the strait, and it's going to control the state. Now, whether it exacts toll on ships going or not, it says it will control it. The United States is not dealing with this. I'm very happy to say, very signed, the deal's all signed, and the strait is already partially open. It's sort of in this agreement, I think, approaching it as a don't ask, don't tell for now. Now, as the president's saying, well, the strait's going to be open and there's going to be no tolls. And that may be very true for the next month or two months, but it doesn't mean that Iran has ceded the right to exact tolls from ships in the future. nor has Iran basically taken off its claim to sovereignty over the strait off the table.

So I think what they're agreeing is that the strait will open the best it can right now. In other words, Iran will allow many more ships to go through. The president also said on Sunday that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon and that if the two sides fail to reach a nuclear deal, the U.S. will launch fresh military attacks. Do you have any sense that both sides are ready to make progress towards a deal on that front? I think they're ready to make progress. But whether they will make progress is a whole different issue.

In other words, the statement that Iran will not have nuclear weapons, the Iranians say, well, we know, we even had a fat war about this. We've never said we want nuclear weapons, and we're ready to sign and say we will not have nuclear weapons. But that's kind of like a 50,000 feet statement. I think during the negotiations, the U.S. will want to get verification on varieties of things which at least gives a semblance of an assurance that Iran will not be able to get nuclear weapons or is not working in that direction. That includes whether it will do any enrichment or at what level, whether it will stockpile

any enriched material, whether it would give up, it's already existing, stockpile of enriched materials and what kind of inspections would Iran agree to submit to going forward? And then a very big issue here that is not really discussed often in foreign media is that we often ask, what is Iran willing to give up? But the question is not what we don't say or is not discussed is what is that the United States is willing to give Iran in return? I mean, the difference between negotiations and the dictate is that you have to give something to get something. Of course, you want to give the least amount necessary and get the most amount you can, and the other side tries to do the same thing. So we know the list of things that the United States wants from Iran on the nuclear issue, but we don't have any sense of what the United States might be offering.

And we already got a taste of this in the negotiations for this memorandum of understanding. In other, the U.S. was asking for certain things, and Iran was saying, well, you have to unfreeze my frozen assets. You have to give me oil waivers, and you have to have ceasefire in Lebanon. And so if there is a serious conversation about the give and take, we may have progress at a diplomatic front. But even that does not guarantee that the end of the tunnel, There's going to be light. So we just have to see that. You just mentioned Lebanon.

As the parties got closer to an agreement on Sunday, Israel carried out airstrikes on southern Beirut. Trump said that shouldn't have happened. There should be no more attacks by Israel, he says, anywhere in Lebanon, but there should also be no more attacks by any other party, including Hezbollah, against Israel. This could be the beginning of a long and beautiful peace. Let's not blow it.

Fighting has stopped, but Israel says they won't be withdrawing troops from Lebanon. They say they are not bound by this deal. What's your sense of where things stand on that front and how much of an issue is that for these discussions? I mean, it's an Achilles heel to this agreement, and it has been all along, and it will be an Achilles heel to a larger agreement. I mean, strategically speaking, United States and Israel went into this war with Iran, February 28, 2026, with a shared strategic aim of destroying the Islamic Republic and destroying its nuclear program and changing the equation in the Middle East completely. They've come short. In other words, the regime didn't fall. There was no popular uprising. Iran held its own,

closed the strait of hormones, forced the stalemate on the United States. And then there was a ceasefire and then we've had the past two months of economic blockade and negotiation over disagreement. There is a separation of strategic perspectives between Israel and the United States. Israel is not reconciled to having any kind of an agreement with Iran because that confirms that the Islamic Republic will remain and it will get a certain amount of economic relief. The United States clearly wants the war to end. Israel wants the war to continue. Now, having been partners in the war, the question will become, can they be partners in any kind of a ceasefire settlement afterwards? This is now really open to question. Israel is showing its discomfort with American negotiations, and President Trump is showing his discomfort with the Israeli discomfort.

But at the same time, also, because Iran has tied Lebanon to its own agreement with the U.S., it does give Israel the ability to be disruptive. Now, there's Israel would have always objected to this deal by sort of mobilizing its opposition in Washington, mobilizing those who support its point of view or his allies in Senate, Congress, et cetera. Now it can also be disruptive by basically attacking Lebanon or refusing to withdraw because it does have its finger on one of the issues that Iran has made very important to disagreement. So that also puts pressure on President Trump. And we're seeing this play out. Now, between yesterday and today, President Trump, very publicly chided Israel for attacking Beirut. But, you know, in the next 30 to 60 days, this may become more frequent and it will become a headache for President Trump to manage. On another front, you mentioned the Iran's frozen assets. The UK, France, Italy, and Germany have now said they're ready to. to lift sanctions on Iran. How important is it for Iran to ensure some immediate economic relief? It's very important for it. I mean, Iran is cognizant of the economic pain that the country is in.

I mean, after all, there was massive popular uprising in Iran in January that the Iranian government had to suppress very bloodily. And it's very clear that regardless of how angry the Iranians, population may be about all kinds of issues in the Islamic Republic, that the trigger for that uprising, which is perhaps the most serious and bloody uprising of modern Iranian history, was economic pain that created a vast coalition of opposition in Iran against the government. Now, that subsided largely because U.S. and Israel waged water in Iran, but the fundamental issue of the degree of economic pain in the country hasn't gone away. And to that, to that has been added upwards of probably two to three hundred billion dollars worth of damage done to Iran's

infrastructure as a result of the bombings, including major industries, steelworks, petrochemicals, etc., that hire a lot of people or are sort of base industries for a lot of other industries. So I think the Islamic Republic, particularly under a new leadership, since the war, is very cognizant that it cannot have stability at home unless it has economic release. So this is a very big part of it. But I think what is that issue here is that Iran is not confident that the United States or Europe will actually give Iran economic release. In other words, the economic carrot is on the table, just like it was after the

they signed a nuclear deal in 2015. but is the United States and Europe actually willing to go through with the carrots? And why that is important is because that will be very key to whether future deals or larger deals with Iran would be possible. Because the end of the day when we talk about could there be a nuclear deal with Iran, let's say, in 60 days or in six months, it really comes down to whether Iran trusts the fact that there would be economic relief in exchange for giving up its nuclear program. And so we often talk about how Iranian economy is really in dire straits. But whether Iran changes its behavior because of its economic pain is directly contingent

on whether its change of behavior will actually be rewarded by real and material economic release. Let's see if Toronto advisors know their group insurance providers. Who has extensive expertise in both traditional group benefits and special risk solutions? Beneva! Beneva! Looks like people are starting to know Beneva pretty well. You're stronger with the right partner, Beneva.

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Hunting the Suicide Salesman. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. You mentioned the new leadership, and I want to take a sort of step back and look at the larger picture here of where Iran stands and perhaps where the country is headed, when the U.S. Israeli strikes took out Iran's former supreme leader and other officials, a new guard took over. In the recent piece that you co-wrote for Foreign Affairs Magazine,

entitled Iran's new grand strategy, you write that one of the defining characteristics of the new cohorts were worldview, is that they came of age after the 1979 revolution. How does that shape their approach? Well, they were not the ones who carried out the revolution. They were born into a state. And so their assumptions about nationalism, the role of nation state, defending the nation state, national security is different from their forefathers. What else it distinguishes them is that this new generation that is coming up also were never outsiders fighting their way to be accepted, the way the older generation who are on the margins of society politically during,

the Pahlavi period, were in jail, and then they assume power. This new generation was born into power. They were born into a state that was already the Islamic Republic. So I think the mark of it is that they are less driven by Islamic ideology, not to say that they are unimpressed by it or don't subscribe to it, but their goals are not ideological. Their goals is essentially management of the Islamic Republic into which they were bored. So their points of reference is the nation state of Iran under their tutelage rather than an Islamic ideology that expands beyond Iran. And so, you know, their experiences with the political experiences of coming of age

inside IRGC inside the state is very, very different. And you wrote that this new guard has, quote, separated revolution from statecraft, unquote, use the word technocratic several times to describe them. Does that suggest they'll be better at running the bureaucracy of running a state? That's actually the big debate. I mean, the assumption is that they should be because they've been so much better at running the war. I mean, one of the big surprises about this war is that ultimately, at the time, technical level, how well did Iran manage it? And especially between the June war and then the

February war, how quickly this new generation basically changed Iran strategy, addressed shortcomings in its military tactics and strategy, supply chains, et cetera, to enable Iran to withstand this you know, extremely powerful war with the world's premier superpower and the Middle East's premier military power and forced them into a standstill. And none of that was possible without a very competent management of the run-up to the war and then the management of the country through the war, both on the civilian side and particularly on the military side. And that suggests to you that, you know, when they wake up and they go to sleep, they're not thinking about Islamic ideology.

They're thinking about knots and bolt issues, about strategic issues, about, you know, political and military calculations. And then they've been able to implement whatever vision they have extremely effectively. So the debate in Iran, and a lot of people we talk to, they were saying that if they were to, apply the same kind of, you know, focused management that they have done to the war to the civilian side of the state, they would be different than the way Islamic Republic was under the previous Supreme Leader. And so, and also what we are seeing and we mentioned in the article is that in the previous regime under the previous Supreme Leader, the Revolutionary Guards were a very, very powerful force. But they were one.

one of the forces among a group of other political power centers, the clerics, the various civilian political alliances. Now, since the war, the Revolutionary Guards have become far bigger and more important part of the Islamic Republic. In a way, they are really now the backbone. So Islamic Republic is now much more of a military dictatorship than it was before the started. And so the question is, does the military dictatorship now apply the kind of competence that it brought to the war to running the state as well? Speaking of the way things were before the war, and just to remind people, prior to this war beginning, Iran was rocked by major civil unrest. The demonstrations have been escalating for days, sparked by worsening economic conditions

in the country. Cost of living is high. Inflation is soaring. And Iran, currency recently crashed to a record low against the dollar. Hundreds of thousands in the streets. Security forces open fire in effort to suppress the crowds. But they only grow larger. Thousands take to the streets in the capital Tehran. In the largest rally since protests began nearly two weeks ago. Tens of thousands reportedly killed in brutal crackdowns.

And there was the idea of the population rising up and overthrowing the ruling theochry. that was at least part of the narrative that Donald Trump pushed at the outset of this year's war. But now Iranians have these enemies to rally against the United States and Israel. You're right that they've compared them to previous invading armies like the Mongols and Alexander the Great. Do you think this rally around the flag effect will remain in place moving forward? I mean, you're correct that the January uprisings in Iran was perhaps one of the

most significant political events in contemporary Iranian history and perhaps the largest, most brutal crackdown on protests going back a century, if not more, in Iran. So if the war had not happened, I think the Islamic Republic and its population were on a very different trajectory. And the singular issue in Iran was this chasm that existed between the state and society, which had been even further widened because of the uprising and the brutal crackdown. But the war has sort of complicated things for a number of reasons. One is that a lot of Iranians before the war thought that U.S. and Israel will come and liberate them, or that the Islamic Republic could be easily replaced, or that war is just sort of this theoretical,

cost-free thing that can happen and it cannot touch you. And that was basically the population in Iran was disabused of all of that. So the political calculations of even the most ardent anti-regime Iranians going forward would be different. Secondly, there's a lot of Iranians, as you mentioned, that thought during the war that the most important thing was not a political fight against an unpopular state regime was actually protecting of the country, that it was Iran that was being under-establishment. assault, not the Islamic Republic. And ironically, it was the Islamic Republic and its previously most dreaded and hated element, the Revolutionary Guard, that actually was defending the country. Now, these are confusing thoughts. In other words, political movements are most effective if they are built around a very clear, simple, uncomplicated sort of axiom.

The regime is bad. We're fighting it. We want to overthrow it. When you have competing sets of issues on the table, the population, even among the opposition, begin to fracture along that, along responding to these other impulses. It's the same thing in political campaigns in the West. And political campaigns are won most easily if there are single-issue campaigns. If there are many issues in a campaign, it's much more difficult to build a winning coalition here.

Now, having said that, you know, the fundamental issues that brought the people into the streets in January are still there, although the regime in Iran has changed in a very important way and the psychological impact of this war has not fully settled in Iran. But the issues of economic hardship, of poverty, of difficulty of making ends meet, which was a very big part of energizing. the January uprising are still there. So the key question, and I think that Iranian leadership is very alert to that, and that's why the issue of unfreezing Iran's frozen assets has been such a big part of this conversation about this agreement is that they need to address that. You know, there's not going to be any stability in Iran long term if the economic chokehold on Iran continues. You know, the Islamic Republic could try to rally people to nationalism, can give them cultural freedoms, can try to, you know, ameliorate the situation in many different ways.

But if it cannot address the economic issue, once the war is over, once the urgency of the spending the country subsides, then it will have a great difficulty in stabilizing the new political order. that has taken over during the war in a meaningful fashion. And the leadership has started announcing aid packages and rebuilding efforts. Do you think that will help to maintain that support? And do you think in a way it's a test of their ability to be that kind of technocratic, that technocratic leadership that you mentioned? Well, at least at the outset is an acceptance and acknowledgement of, of the fact that they need to do this.

I mean, partly, you know, the technocratic capability comes with what they can do in terms of addressing war damage or providing services to the population, improving the economy, with what they have. That's where the technocratic part comes in. But to increase the size of the pie with which they can work in order to rebuild bridges, steel factories, you know, petrochemical plants, pharmaceutical factories, give subsidies to a population who has lost work, et cetera, facilitate investment in the economy, they actually have to be able to resolve their sets of issues with the United States. In other words, that has to happen at the diplomatic table. And it's possible. I mean, Iran's calculation under this new leadership is that if you're aggressive with the U.S., you're likely to get more. And so I wouldn't say that, you know, we're going to see the escalation sort of threats

subside as we go forward into a diplomatic negotiation because ultimately whatever this new generation in charge of Iran can do or can think it can do, it's all contingent on what purse they have to work with. If they're not able to solve the diplomatic issues, then, you know, technocracy can only go so far. And ultimately, they will not be able to address a lot of the war damage. Obviously, there's a lot that remains to be seen here. But at this point, how do you think Iran's new position and its new leadership after this war? How do you see that reshaping the Middle East?

Well, in two ways. I mean, one is that Iran has managed to diminish the United States in the Middle East considerably. because the U.S. basically was the sort of a 10 feet tall actor in the Middle East capable of deciding outcomes, removing regimes in Iraq, et cetera, although in Afghanistan, it already, the signs were that he couldn't do it. But under President Trump also, he was basically imposing its will left, right, and center. And now it basically has suffered this serious strategic setback. It couldn't impose its military will on Iran and now has been forced into negotiating an end of the war with Iran. The value of an American strategic military umbrella to the Gulf countries has diminished considerably because of the way that this war battered them and the U.S. couldn't stop it.

So the U.S. has a lot of work to do in order to gain the ground that it lost in this war. And so that in of itself gives Iran a lot more room to maneuver. And also there are at least a group of Gulf countries and other Arab countries, Turkey and Pakistan, who believe that, okay, you know, this wash has happened, what has happened, this happened. And Iran is still a highly dangerous country to them. But you have to integrate it into a regional order in order to basically contain it. and influence its behavior. And so you may see far more receptivity to a far deeper degree of engagement with Iran once the war is over. There is a lot yet that we don't know, because every

country is almost like dizzy with the whiplash of this war, how quickly things changed, how the outcome was unexpected, that everybody's recalculative. what they need to do and what has happened. And often in our conversations outside, we just sort of look too much to the past as if it's going to be the model for the future. I think something completely new will come out of this war for the region. And depending on where Iran and the U.S. go, I think for Iran, the circumstances of its existence in the region could be significantly different from before. Okay, Professor Nasser, this has been fascinating. Thanks very much.

Thank you. Good to speak with you. That's all for today. I'm Aaron Wary. Thanks for listening to Frontburner. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.