Front Burner - Is Iran becoming a 'forever war'?

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

On Wednesday morning, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to bomb one Iranian bridge or powerplant every time a ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz gets shot at. It’s yet more evidence that the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is over, after twelve days of renewed military escalation.As the conflict wades into this next phase, we look at how things fell apart, the damage taken on both sides, and whether we're headed into endless war. Trita Parsi joins us. He is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute and the author of several books about the U.S and Iran, including Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts 

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Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. On Wednesday morning, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to bomb one Iranian bridge or power plant every time a ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz gets shot at. It's more evidence that the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran has gone from tenuous to toast after 12 days of renewed military escalation. So as the fighting wades into its next phase, today we're going to look at how things fell apart. The damage toll on both sides and whether anyone can expect a different outcome this time around. To answer those questions, I'm joined today by Trita Parsi. He's the Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute, which advocates for diplomacy and military restraint in U.S. foreign policy. He's also the award-winning author of several books about the U.S. and Iran, including treacherous alliance,

the secret dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States. Trita, it's so great to have you on Front Burner. Such a pleasure. Thank you for making the time. Thank you so much for having it. I appreciate it. So after months of fighting, the U.S. and Iran had this temporary ceasefire in place while they worked towards a permanent deal. The attacks never stopped entirely, but there was, it seems, this real tipping point within the last week and a half and everything escalated. And just take me through how this happened. So I think there's, you know, a justified criticism. against the MOU because the language of it was in various areas very ambiguous.

To a certain extent that was by design, it was too difficult to get more precise language and making sure that all sides could sign on to it. Sometimes you need ambiguities to make sure you have an agreement. This one had perhaps too many and too large ones. And in particular, Article 5 was a problem because that's the one that handles the straight-of-horment. moves. And that's where this whole thing, at least on the surface, blew up. The bonding interpretation was that they're solely responsible for the security and the traffic through the strait for this period until a final solution is found, but they're not allowed

to charge any ships. But they have to control it. They are at the end of the day, the ones who mined the strait, and as a result, they're responsible for making sure that no ships go into areas that were mined. The American interpretation is that there's not a lot of the ones. There's nothing in the language that solely gives that responsibility to Iran, although Iran is the only country that is mentioned as being responsible for this. And this created some tensions, but I think the real issue is this. The United States, prior to the MOU, was trying to create a fortified southern corridor through the street that the Iranians could not close down, or at least could not fully close down. So if there was a return to war, Iranians simply would not have the

straighter of hormones as a weapon. And I think one can argue that from a U.S. national interest perspective, as well as the perspective of many countries in the region, that is a very legitimate interest to not allow the Iranians to have that leverage. But there's a problem if you simultaneously sign an MOU in which you're supposed to resolve this issue through the MOU, and then on the side, you're still doing things outside of the MOU to change the facts of the ground. Trump proposing a new plan to keep the Strait of Hormuz open by charging a 20% tax on all shipped goods in exchange for safe passage. It will become the guardian of the strait. Maybe you'll call it the guardian angel of the strait. And we should be reimbursed for that. And this is what

the Iranians reacted to, that there were efforts to send ships through the southern corridor without coordination with Iranians. And on two occasions, minimum, they actually shopped at these ships. And they got a response from the U.S. side and then it kind of escalated out of control. Maritime security expert Martin Kelly posted audio of a warning, he says, the Iranian military is issuing to ships attempting to cross the strait. If any vessels attempt to transit in the strait without our permission, it's responsible for any consequences of any danger. The threat of a full-blown return to war is looking like a very real possibility.

Iran says it's launched fresh attack. on U.S. assets in the region. The U.S. struck an Iranian naval base among its latest targets. Using for the very first time, it says unmanned naval drones with President Donald Trump promising more. We're going to hit them very hard tonight.

And we're going to hit them hard tomorrow. And there's not a damn thing they can do about it. I think the Iranian reaction was too strong. But at the same time, it is a question mark in my mind, why some of the countries who have spent a lot of time trying to resolve this issue felt the need to send ships through the Southern Corridor without coordination with Iran and with their transponders off and escorted by military, American military ships. Undoubtedly, this would be seen

as a provocation by Levi-S. Yeah. I mean, why do you think they did that? I frankly think that they did so because they were pressured by the United States in order to get this type of the alternative channel up and running. And again, if that would be the focus of the effort, I think that's understandable. You don't want to have the Yvarnas have that control. But if you at the same time have signed an agreement that said that we're going to resolve this issue through this negotiation track, then you either pursue that negotiation track or you pursue something outside of it.

But not both at the same time, because if you do both at the same time, they're going to cancel each other out. They're going to sabotage each other. And that's essentially what happened. That's not to say that the Varnia reaction was justified, but I do think that once you commit yourself to that negotiating track, then creating these facts on the ground, that's outside of the NYU. It is unhelpful, and it has created a very unhelpful situation because now we're back at war. There's absolutely nothing that suggests that the United States has a strategy that's going to work better than the previous strategy, which was a disaster. and that actually can end this in a satisfactory way.

Honestly, they haven't seen anything yet. We've been nice. We've been nice. I want to talk to you about what kind of damage Iran has been able to inflict upon the U.S. and its allies at this stage of the war. And these attacks that we have seen from the Iranian, on American military bases. Iranian ballistic missiles hit the U.S. base in Jordan, killing three U.S. soldiers. The U.S. responding with force, targeting Iranian troops responsible for the deaths in Jordan.

For more than a week, both sides have carried out daily strikes. What is Iran trying to accomplish there by hitting this base in Jordan? The Iranians are being attacked from these bases. These are bases that the United States are using throughout the region. Now, of course, to Jordanians say that this is not a U.S. base. This is an Jordanian base with U.S. soldiers at it. But these are bases that the Iranians argue are being used to attack them. And they don't have the ability of striking bridges or critical infrastructure in the United States.

That is what the U.S. is doing. It's hitting bridges, critical roads, even power plants, desalamation plans. They don't have the capacity to do so. But they have the capacity of hitting the bases through which these. types are occurring. So they're trying to raise the cost for the U.S. to attack Iran. They're trying to convince regional states that hosting American bases makes you less secure rather than more secure. You become a target. And in the long term, they're hoping that this will eventually lead to a scenario in which the regional states themselves will opt not to

allow American troops on their basis or allow the United States to set up bases on their term. And when they hit civilian infrastructure, in Kuwait, for example, a desalination plant. Kuwait gets 90% of his drinking water from desalination, a move to hit, a power infrastructure in Kuwait. This is part of the same strategy. It's the same strategy. It's a tit for that.

And this is where some of these states are just in such a terrible position. It's not Kuwait that attacked Iran. The Kuwaitis make that argument, and I think it's a valid argument, they're not the ones attacking. Their territory is being used to attack you on howl. So when the United States hits desalination plants, which is a war crime, the Yuanians respond in Kaip by hitting a desalination plant in Kuwait,

which also is a war crime. And again, the broader attempt here is to raise the cost for the U.S. to conduct these strikes, put pressure on these states to not allow the U.S. to use their bases or their territory for attacks. And to the extent that it may be working, yes, but at the same time, it is also going to make it extremely difficult for Iran to have good relations with its neighbors going forward. Because this is obviously not easily going to be forgotten. Of course, the Iranians make the argument that they're also not going to forget that their neighbors allowed U.S. forces to use their basis and their territory to attack civilian infrastructure in Iran, killing a large number of civilians. this whole thing at the end of the day is just totally unjustifiable. This was a war of choice.

It should never have been started. And as we have seen in many other wars, once the door has been opened for these type of attacks that don't take much regard whatsoever to the norms around the use of force, then that quickly ends up becoming to weigh. And the difference though this time is that it's not the American public, that is paying the immediate price for it. It's the regional states.

And even when it comes to the economic repercussions, it's not the United States because its economy is very insulated from these shocks, not entirely, but still. But the shocks economically that countries in Asia are feeling are devastating. I want to parse with these, though, some restraints that the United States does seem to be under and how important you think these are. They're currently sending more aircrafts and refueling tankers

of the Middle East, but there's also reporting from the Washington Post about how they have a dwindling stockpile of air defense and long-range munitions, as well as limited ability to send more troops and aircrafts into the region. How much capacity does the U.S. have to keep fighting at the moment? So the United States at the end of the day has a tremendous amount of capacity to continue the war. But continuing the war and providing force protection are not necessarily the same thing. So when it comes to its ability to keep a pace with Iranian missiles, the math is against the United States and Israel. The Iranians can build missiles faster than the U.S. and Israel can build interceptors. You need more interceptors per missile on average. And of course, U.S. has a much

stronger industrial base than the Iranians have, but it also have other priorities. This is not an existential fight for the U.S. This is a war of choice. This is part of the reason why you see the American public was never in favor of it, and now you're even in a situation in which amongst Trump's own base, only one-third, believed that this war was worth the cost. It was much higher just weeks ago. Well, Americans aren't against the war. A poll just came out. Americans don't want to have gasoline prices, but they're not against the war. If this was a necessary war, if Iran is an attack to the U.S., we would be in a completely different situation. Then we have seen that the

American public is willing to make significant sacrifices. But they're not willing to do so for a war that they don't believe should have started in the first place, and understandably so. So from that perspective, the Iranians have an advantage. And they're obviously trying to take advantage of that benefits as much as they can. But it is not so that the U.S. cannot sustain a war or, I mean, we saw, unfortunately, the United States could sustain a war in Afghanistan for 20 years, even though it was very difficult to justify it beyond the first year. Do you see this as maybe even more challenging than that? Like, for example, the Pentagon is asking for a record 1.5 trillion defense budget, and they're currently pushing to get $60 billion

in funding to make up for money spent to the Middle East. But given the unpopularity of this war, do you think that they'll have a hard time getting the funding that they need? And if so, could that affect their ability to kind of move forward? So politically, you're absolutely right. politically the U.S. capacity of continuing this war is obviously far more limited than its military capacity to do so. And again, because the starting point is one in which there wasn't much support for this war at all. I mean, the opposition to it was overwhelming. It has gone really badly. Trump is not even trying to sell the war domestically. The money and the cost on the American public for a war that they don't want is very different from Afghanistan. In the case of

Afghanistan, we're talking about a very significant level of support to start off with, because at the end of the day, Al-Qaeda had attacked the United States in a massive terrorist attack, and many of their core elements were in Afghanistan. We have nothing of that kind here. We have a situation at which first the United States, or Trump was saying that he had already obliterated the nuclear program, and then yet again decided, nevertheless, to start away. So given that, the political runway, until you have support translating into opposition. There was no runway at all. There was opposition from the outset.

And the only support level that we can point to was relevant and went down is the support amongst his own base in which it was high in the beginning, but also that one has now started to drop off dramatically. And as a result, yes, politically this may not prove to be sustainable. But we have seen before as well that even, when a war is politically very unpopular, costly, difficult to get the funding, it can still go on for a couple of years. Hi, Steve Patterson here, host of The Debaters.

And while I love a funny fight, there's one thing that's not up for debate. The Stratford Festival is world-class theater right here in Canada. Whether you're a fan of Shakespeare, musicals, or classics like Death of a Salesman or Waiting for Godot, There's no better time to experience Canadian talent and no better place to see it than the Stratford Festival. So get your tickets now at Stratfordfestable.ca and experience world-class performance the whole family can enjoy. You know, we even tape the debaters there once, so I guess we're world class now. Personally, from CBC podcasts, allows you to get lost in someone else's life. From unearthing my childhood grief after the loss of my brother and my series, Sorry About the Kid,

to attempt you to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds, and short-sighted. Each season and personally invites you to explore the human experience and all its complexity, one story or season at a time. This is what it sounds like to be human. Find personally wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk about Iran. Secretary of War, Pete Hagezav has previously claimed to have, quote, functionally defeated Iran's ballistic missile production. Mr. Secretary, you stated four months ago that Iran's military had been rendered, quote, combat ineffective for years to come. Has Iran's military been for the last four months combat ineffective? It's been set back not just years, but likely decades. During the first wave

of fighting, there were questions about whether the country's large stockpiles and missiles and drones would last the duration of the fighting. How would you describe Iran's military abilities at the moment? With the current type of a war that they're fighting, which is one in which to use drones and their capacity has partially taken the United States and Israel by surprise. And partially, it's not that it was a surprise, it was that there actually was a deliberate effort to downplay Ivan's capabilities. In the sense that in order to get Trump to agree to this war, a narrative had been created,

that the previous war was a real success, that the Israelis really defeated the Ivanians in June of 2025, that Ivan's missiles were haphazard, not effective, they were striking the wrong things if they ever got through. All of that was false. That's not to say that there wasn't a successor shooting down a lot of them, but the Iranian missiles already back in October 24, which were missiles that are far less effective than the ones they use today,

were already proving. that they could go through all levels, all layers of Israel's air defense system. So we have now clearly seen that a lot of the statements that came out of the Pentagon were false and that the Iranian capacity is far beyond what the Pentagon has said. We're seeing that very clearly right now. Moreover, their intelligence, whether it's their own or whether they're managing to get it from somewhere else, is also something that has shifted. The attack on the base in Jordan was significant,

not just because they struck Jordan with precision, et cetera. It's just that something apparently had happened there. And the Iranians found out very quickly and struck very quickly. Do we have any indication of what changed and where that information might have come from? I know earlier in the summer there was reporting on Russia giving intelligence to Iran. I can only speculate, of course, but there's essentially three potential explanations. Either is that they're getting the intelligence from. the Russians who probably have it and have an interest in providing it. They're getting the

intelligence from the Chinese that also have it, but are more reluctant to give it, but for whatever reason may have provided them with that now. Or what the Iranians themselves are hinting at in the media in Iran, which is that these were sources in Jordan that provided that information. That may have been a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from where the actual source is, or it may be true. We just don't know. But it's hard to see any other explanation except for those three. We talked before about the potential constraints politically that the U.S. administration is on. I wonder if you could flip that for me. What about the Iranian government and the IRGC that is perpetuating this war? I mean, they have lost a lot of really high-level guys. Has that affected any kind of decision structure negatively?

I don't think the political constraint on the Iranian side is necessarily because of the people they have lost at the higher echelons. Not to say that that is unimportant, but because they have a system that is designed to be able to withstand these type of hits and immediately replace them. And it has actually been stunning to see how fast they have replaced them and how little impact, if anything, it has had on their ability to fight. So I don't think that is where the restraint likely is going to come. It's not more of the fact that if this continues to be a situation for another six months or so, the population is not going to be particularly happy. Of course, they're very unhappy right now, but the economic pain is going to start to become intolerable.

Now, of course, we saw that in the Iraq-Iran war, it went on for eight years. And even though the population was very unhappy, there was still a very strong level of support for the war because the country had been invaded. And again, here, there's no nuance in the debate in Iran. This was a war of aggression by the United States. And worse than Saddam's invasion in 1980, this is an existential threat because Trump made it very clear that he's looking to get rid of the regime. But at times he even said, you know, Iran's map may end or change at the end of this war,

meaning that the territorial integrity of Iran is at stake. We killed all their leadership. And then they met to choose new leaders, and we killed all of them. And now we have a new group, and we can easily do that. But let's see how they turn out. We have really regime change. You know, this is a change in the regime because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems. So this was, I think we can say Jason.

Those type of statements certainly makes it easier. to sustain a longer-term level of support for a war that is fundamentally seen as defensive. But you can have a scenario in which perhaps real negotiations begin, real efforts on aid, an attractive offer actually is put on the table that is convincing. And if the Iranian government chooses to reject that, and it is a return to war, you can definitely see a scenario in which pressure from the population will be on costly for the government. That is not the scenario that we've seen so far. On the contrary, mindful of the fact that the United States has now attacked Yvonne three times in the middle of

negotiations, there is a huge level of skepticism against diploics and against American provinces. And an almost, in my view, very dangerous perspective in which diplomacy is seen as a trap and as a result, rather than pressuring the government to go to the negotiating table, there's a stronger pressure not to negotiate. And what about their coffers, right? So, I mean, we talked earlier about the incredible leverage that they've been able to use when it comes to the straight of Hormuz, but also that's a massive revenue source for the IRTC. And, you know, with it not being open, obviously that revenue isn't getting to the regime.

And so how could money be playing into Iran's like strength or really weakness? as this goes on? I think, again, it's really important to understand a significant difference here. That is always a relevant question, but it is far more relevant as a restraint or a constraint on a government at war, if the war was a world choice. When the war is seen as defensive and existential, everything else will be sacrificed, and that opens up completely different pathways to finance. the war. And again, this is part of the reason why it is extremely important how you communicate

this war at the beginning. And the administration was all over the place. They were talking about using ethnic separatist groups against the country, which just fuels nationalists. And under those circumstances, it's not that money exists in an infinite way, but it means that the capacity the state has to muster support to take money from elsewhere in order to continue the defenses is far more capable, far more permissible than if this was a war of choice of the population were death I guess. So given everything that we've gone through today, on balance, who do you think holds the power right now?

I think on balance, the Iranians have a capacity ofwithstanding this longer than the U.S. House. The Iranians have a capacity to withstand this much longer than regional states can, whose economies are far more vulnerable to the culture of the Strait of Hormuz than the United States. And this is where the Iranians have managed, despite there in many other ways weaker position, of course, to have the weaponization of geography be used in their favor in a manner that the United States fundamentally miscalcated. and underestimated. We saw also that the Ukrainians were capable of using their territory very effectively

against the Russians, a much more powerful military at the end of the thing. This is a repeat of that, and I think it's a reminder that technology and all of these different things, of course, are very important. But in war geography, at the end of the day, seems to be the fact that it matters the most. And just as a final question, I mean, even if Iran is able to, with stand this much longer than the U.S., I mean, you're not getting the sense that the U.S. is going to turn around and pull out in a couple of weeks, right? So, I mean, are we sort of headed towards some kind of Forever War? Forever War usually happens when you have a combination,

many factors, but two factors that are really critical here is to have an unattainable objective. and a political circumstance that makes it more politically costly to end the war than to continue a losing war. That's what you have with Afghanistan, for instance. The cost of pulling out was much higher for Biden than the cost for him to just continue it, even though it wasn't going anywhere. You have an unattainable objective here. It's just thinking that the strait can be open up militarily or that the Iranis can be defeated at an acceptable cost

militarily. I mean, yes, they could probably if there was a full-skilled invasion, but we're talking about 500,000 troops at a year of preparations, et cetera, et cetera. And then with Trump, it's very interesting. He has shown far greater willingness to

end a losing war and take the political hit for it and just make up some stuff about how successful it was than other presidents. So I think, there's still a chance here to avoid that scenario. But if this continues to the next president, then I think we're really in the territory and which just very well could end up becoming at this morning. The fact that it's taken four months is already a disastrous development.

It's not endless, but it's still disastrous. Treata, thank you so much for this. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Pousson. Much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.