The Current - The Iran war: a “high-stakes game of chicken.”

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

The Iran war has shifted power to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, creating a much more militarized state. Ali Vaez, the Iran Project Director for the Crisis Group, who was part of the negotiating team for the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal, explains how this, coupled with US President Donald Trump's rhetoric, is complicating this “high-stakes game of chicken.”

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They had a Navy with 159 ships, and now every ship is blown to pieces and lying at the bottom of the water. They had an Air Force, lots of planes, and they don't have any planes. They don't have any anti-aircraft. They don't have any radar left. Their missiles are mostly decimated. They have some. They have probably 18, 19 percent, but not a lot by comparison to what they had. And their leaders are all dead.

So I think we won. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump declared victory over Iran. He has done this before, but negotiations between the two nations continue. With this war now in its 11th week and a fragile ceasefire still holding on, how this ends and what this means for the people of the region is uncertain. Over the course of this war, we have spoken with Ali Vez. He is the Iran Project Director for the International Crisis Group and was a mediator during the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal.

and he joins us back on the program. Ali, good morning, man. Good to have you back. You hear Donald Trump, he says, I think we won. What do you make of that? Well, as you said, it's not the first time the president is declaring victory, but if you look at the results, the U.S. objectives in this war, one could outline at least a few.

Number one was to topple the Iranian regime when the president announced this military operation. He called on the Iranian people to come to the streets and take over their institutions. The Islamic Republic is still in place, and in fact, it is even more radical and aggressive than it was before. Iran still has a pathway to nuclear weapons, as Israeli Prime Minister has been saying, over the weekend.

Iran still has, according to U.S. intelligence, 70 to 75 percent of its missiles are still in place. And Iranian proxies in the region, the Houthis, Hezbollah, the Iraqi militia, they're all still in place. In addition to that, the Strait of Formos remains closed now almost for three months, which was not a problem on the day that President Trump launched this conflict. You told the New Yorker that the tensions between the United States and Iran are a high-stakes game of chicken.

Why is this war so difficult to end? Well, it is very difficult to end because both sides believe that they have the upper hand. The U.S., of course, has severely degraded Iranian capabilities and has now its own naval blockade in place, which is putting more pressure on the Iranian economy, which was already in trouble even before this war. And President Trump seems to believe that Trump time is on his side, that with passage of time, Iran would run out of oil storage capacity, that because of severe depreciation of Iranian. currency, inflation, unemployment, that the regime would implode. And therefore, they would either come to capitulate or they would collapse. And the Iranians also believe that time is on their side because President Trump is now going to China without being able to open the strait of hormones.

So he's already in a weekend position. The World Cup games coming up in the United States and there are severe jet fuel shortages in the world, which would overshadow those games. And then there's the midterm elections in November in the U.S. And already with high gas prices and low approval ratings of this conflict, the Republicans would be in dire straits. So both sides believe they have the upper hand and therefore they're not really making the painful concessions that are necessary to reach a deal. And add to that a high, high degree of mistrust. Iranians, of course, have had very bad experience with President Trump.

He withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal in 2018 with no good reason. He bombed them in the middle of negotiations last year and this year and even did not comply with the terms of a ceasefire that was negotiated through the Pakistanis. So there's a lot of bad blood and very little trust. And so you have these proposals that are being traded back and forth. The United States puts a proposal out, waits for Iran to respond, Iran responds. and then the president says on social media, it's totally unacceptable. Iran then posts saying that the issues that are up for dispute are around sovereignty of the Strait of Hormuz, wanting war reparations, wanting an end to American sanctions.

What do you make of the back and forth and back and forth? Is this a negotiation? Is it talking about the possibility of talking? What is this? So it is a negotiation the most ineffective way. of negotiation, which was indirect through intermediaries. And it's about a one-page document. So just to remind your listeners, the 2015 nuclear deal was 149 pages, very, very detailed

technical, detailed agreement. And it took two and a half years to negotiate. What the Trump administration is trying to do now is to get not a full deal with Iran, but a framework of a deal with Iran. It basically describes the endgame in an agreement without filling the details. And it will postpone that to a later stage. So it would basically, these 14 points would include a cessation of hostilities and a non-aggression understanding by both sides that Iran and the U.S. will not attack one another or the respective allies in the region.

and that would then obviously extend the ceasefire to a place like Lebanon where you have tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. Then it will have a few points on the nuclear issue. And that's one contentious area because the U.S. still wants Iran to accept the kind of restrictions on its nuclear program that would not allow the Iranians to save face after having resisting years of sanctions and now two wars of aggression against them, they're not going to completely dismantle their nuclear program, which is still what the U.S. wants broadly. And then you have the question of the future of the Strait of Hormuz, which again remains a contentious issue,

because Iran wants to not just be able to maintain control, but it also wants to impose a tolling system, which is unacceptable to the U.S. and other Gulf states. So these are areas that there's very little overlap between the two sides. And again, they're not compromising because they feel they're winning. So who has more to – you hinted to this, but who has more to lose as this continues? The New York Times was reporting that the Iran economy, which is already in dire straits, has cratered a million jobs lost over the course of this war. And then the United States, to your point, you have gas prices that are soaring.

We had the head of the International Energy Agency on this program last week, who talked about the concerns globally around fertilizer and jet fuel. So who has more to lose as the strikes on? Well, this is already a lose-lose game for both sides in the sense that the U.S. has spent at least around $100 billion on this conflict so far and has, as I said, not been able to achieve any of its key objectives. and the Iranians have suffered hundreds of billions of dollars of damages. A lot of their sources of wealth, including steel manufacturing and petrochemical companies, pharmaceutical companies have been destroyed.

Infrastructure has been damaged. And this is on top of, of course, years of sanctions and stagnation in their economy. But the difference in Iran compared to the United States is that, the Iranians have no hesitation to absorb this pain and also to transfer it to their own population, because at the end of a day, it's an authoritarian system, and it would do anything for its survival, because for them, this is an existential battle, unlike for the United States, where it's just a stumbling block on the president's pathway towards the midterms. But what the cost that people often don't talk about is the cost for the global south.

with fertilizer, urea, helium, some of these key products being blocked in the Persian Gulf. What it means, basically, is that there will probably be tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who would lose their lives in East Africa, in places that there would be serious food shortages as a result of this confrontation. This Mother's Day give Mom something she wants. Space, space to breathe, space to relax, at XYZ Storage. Our Make Space for Mom's Sale is on now. Five months of savings at up to 80% off. Clear out the basement, tidy the garage, and finally move those boxes she's been tripping over.

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his unpredictability is part of this. There's been reporting that he has become bored with this war. What do you make of, as you mentioned, he's going to China later on this week. He's wanted to deal before he gets there. What do you make of how he himself, I'm not asking you to psychoanalyze, but how the U.S. president himself has approached this war. Well, a lot of this is about psychology. But I think President Trump went into this war with a hot hand coming out of Venezuela,

thinking that it's going to be easy. We know that U.S. military had warned him that there is a risk that the Iranians would shut down the Strait of Formos, this critical choke point, and he had dismissed it because his view was that the Iranians would capitulate before they get a chance to do so. In the same way that even before he launched a war, when he sent the armada there, his special envoy, Steve Wetkoff, came out and said, We're surprised the Iranians have not capitulated, given the amount of military equipment we've sent to the region. And that desire to see Iranian Iran surrendering to U.S. terms has always been there. In his first term, with the imposition of maximum pressure sanctions, and his second term with the war, now with the naval blockade, with the threats of civilization or erasure, he has always taught that his just one turn of the screwdriver pressure away from being able to bring the Iranians to

their knees. And I think that view is precisely why he has committed this mistake of now ending up in a situation where his only options are escalate in an unwinnable war. Because at the end of a day, if he is to change the Iranian regime, he has to put boots on the ground, probably half a million American troops and get bugged down in another very costly Middle Eastern War, or an unpalatable deal, because if he gets a deal that is acceptable also to the Iranians, it is going to very much look like the Obama deal, probably even weaker than that. And so he's trapped in a trap of his own making, unfortunately.

It's the United States in Iran that are at war, but Israel is also part of the war. And the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Njahou did an interview on 60 minutes last night. And he was asked whether this war is over. Have a listen to his response. I think it accomplished a great deal, but it's not over because there's still nuclear material enriched uranium that has to be taken out of Iran. There is still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled. There are still proxies that Iran supports. There are ballistic missiles that they still to want to produce. Now, we've degraded a lot of it, but all of that is still there, and there's work to be done. Ali Vez, what are the motivations of Israel? And is your sense that Israel is

looking for a ceasefire? Well, first of all, the irony in what Prime Minister Netanyahu said is actually admitting defeats, because a lot of the things that he said he wanted to accomplish, have not been accomplished, as he said, they're all still problems, outstanding problems. And also take into account, Iran would not have a stockpile of highly arranged uranium if the 2015 nuclear deal was in place. Which he was very opposed to over the course of that deal. Exactly. And the streets would not be closed if this war had not been launched, which we know, again, he played a very critical role in encouraging President Trump to start this conflict. Now, for Prime Minister Netanyahu, it appears that forever war,

are a synachanan of a prerequisite for political survival. And if the war in Iran ends, he has to continue the war in Lebanon, and preferably the war in Iran could also continue in one form or another. And that, unfortunately, is not really a sustainable situation because there is now serious shortages in munitions. It's one of the key calculations of the U.S. military is that, you know, they have now spent about, exhausted about 60% of U.S. high-level interceptors for ballistic missiles and rockets. This is the stockpile ever produced, basically what the U.S. could have used in protection of Ukraine or in a scenario that China tries to take over Taiwan. And if you think about that, just one single equation of exhausting 60% of U.S. munitions, when Iran has 75% of its ballistic missiles in place, you realize what kind of a folly this conflict has been.

So there's that consideration. There is diminishing political support for Israel in the United States, generational, and also now among key sectors of the Republican Party to. to consider and also exhaustion of the Israeli population to add to all of this. So, you know, and at the end of a day, I think once President Trump decides that he's done with this conflict, Prime Minister Netanyahu would have to fall in line. He has a more open hand in places like Lebanon, which are right next door. But there is no scenario that he can continue the conflict with Iran without the United States being involved. because Iran is 1,000 kilometers away from Israel, and the U.S. would have to be involved, even if it not, in offensive operations, in defensive operations to protect Israel.

When this war began, and you've hinted at this, one of the goals that was stated was regime change, that this was the opportunity for the Iranian people to rise up and take their country back. And we have not seen that, obviously. We have seen the regime, yes, been decimated, but it is still very much in control. Who is now in charge, as you understand it? of Iran. Well, there is no doubt that it's the Revolutionary Guards that is in charge. In fact, what this war did was that it changed the power balance between the Office of the Supreme Leader, which was at the pinnacle of power, and the Revolutionary Guards. They have now switched places.

The Revolutionary Guards is at the top, and the Supreme Leader is basically subservient to them, and therefore is no longer really supreme. Plus, because of security reasons and the fact that the new supreme leader, the son of the former supreme leader, has suffered serious injuries. He's not as involved in decision making as his father was. He doesn't have the authority that his father had after several decades of being a supreme leader. So in a way, it is now really revolutionary guards that is calling the shots. and within the Revolutionary Guards,

the most hardline hawkish faction has gained power. And that is a transformation that is not in the U.S. or Israeli interest. Or the interests of the Iranian people as well, presumably. Certainly. Where does that leave those people? In a worst possible place. A lot of these people have now taken charge, the new national security advisor,

the new commander of the Revolutionary Guards. these are people who have been involved in serious acts of domestic repression for many years. And I'm afraid once this war is over in one form or another, this would be a wounded, paranoid regime that would now think that because the U.S. and Israel couldn't topple it using hard power, they would now try to do it through creating internal rifts and turmoil. and therefore they will double down on repression against the Iranian people, then they would see any act of dissent as colluding with the enemy. So unfortunately, the Iranian people were hoping that these shocks that the system

would bring about some kind of positive change are now going to be economically more miserable and politically more repressed. Let me just ask you a couple of things before I let you go. One is, and this is a comment that was also made in that interview on 60 Minutes by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, he talked last night about how he sees an opportunity for what he calls strategic alignment with Arab countries in the wake of this war. How do you think the war is reshaping this part of the world? Well, there is strategic alignment with the countries that signed the Abraham Accords in 2020, the UAE and Bahrain. But in fact, I think Israel is now more isolated in the rest of the region. in a more difficult position because a lot of the countries and the region that have suffered as a result of this war blame Prime Minister Netanyahu for starting it and are also afraid that if Iran is vanquished,

Israel would be the dominant power in the region, the new hegemon. And because of what it has done, including bombing Qatar or bombing Syria, even after Syria, there was regime change in Syria and Syria was trying to accommodate. Israel is going to be an assertive power that would try to dominate them. And that's not a formula that they like. So I'm afraid what Israel has achieved is basically creating a more fragmented region in which parts of the region are more aligned with it. But that was the case even before the war. But the other parts of the region, countries like Saudi Arabia or Qatar or Roman or Kuwait, would be now fundamentally more opposed to any kind of rapprochement with Israel.

Last question, and it goes back to something you said earlier, that this is in some ways a lose-lose scenario. How does that lose-lose scenario come to an end? Well, look, at certain point, President Trump would have to decide whether he's going to escalate or he's going to agree to a framework agreement that is less than ideal. And that's how this would end. If he escalates, it would be sharp and devastating escalation.

And then at the end of it, we would get back to some sort of a framework that would be less than ideal. And that, I feel, would never get into the next phase, which is a comprehensive detailed agreement. It would just remain a placeholder until our shifts either in Tehran or in Washington or Jerusalem, and cooler heads prevail. You see that on the horizon? Not any time soon. But this is why we might end up in a situation that appears stable, but it is pretty fragile. The one thing that I think for the world would be important is for the straight to reopen under any kind of arrangement because of just how critical it would be to the global economy. This is really, really helpful in just understanding a situation that is, is,

so confusing and complicated and baffling to many, many people. I'm really grateful for your time, and I hope we have the chance to speak again. In the meantime, Ali, thank you. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Ali-Va-ez is the Iran Project Director for the International Crisis Group. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway.

Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.