The Paikin Podcast - World on Edge: Will Iran Become a Forever War?

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

MP Ali Ehsassi joins Janice Stein on World on Edge to discuss the ongoing Iran War, if this could become a forever war, why regime change doesn’t come out of the barrel of a gun, and what the United States failed to understand about Iran. They also discuss the economic fallout in Iran, the Iranian diaspora in Canada, if Iran is farther away from a nuclear weapon, the possibility of nuclear proliferation across the region, the weaponization of the Strait of Hormuz, and why this is one of the worst performances ever by a United States president. Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail] 

It's been almost three months since the United States and Israel launched their military strikes against Iran. Since then, we have seen significant death and destruction, Iran striking back against neighboring countries, ceasefires imposed, negotiations undertaken, and ceasefires broken. What's been accomplished, and where are we now in this Middle East crisis? That's next on World On Edge on the Paken podcast. We are delighted to welcome to the Paken podcast, the member of Parliament for the Toronto Riding of Willadale, there's Ali Assasi. Ali was born in Switzerland, but is of Iranian background. His father was an Iranian diplomat and his family left Iran during the 1979 revolution. We also welcome

back Janice Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. And our first question has to be, okay, Ali, who was your favorite international affairs professor at the University of Toronto 35 years ago? Well, as you can imagine, it was certainly Janice Stein, and I had the great pleasure and the privilege of attending her lectures at Convocation Hall during the first Gulf War. So I'm really dating myself. You're not dating yourself. It's me. I was old enough to teach at that point.

Well, it's great to have you two together again, maybe for the first. first time in 35 years. And Ali, let me put you to work right away here. I'm wondering how conflicted your feelings are about Iran being at war with the United States at the moment. I think it's been a very difficult period for anyone who has ties to Iran or anyone who cares about developments in that country. I think this war, before the war started, the opinion amongst a lot of Iranians, especially in the diaspora, was that this could very well be the war that delivers the country from evil. However, given all of the ramifications it's had over the course of the past several months,

I think there is quite a bit of disillusionment within Iran and within the diaspora as well. Disillusionment with whom? I think everyone has really come to recognize how. how incredibly entrenched the Iranian regime is. They've come to realize that it's a lot more complicated. I remember vividly that there were protests on the streets of Toronto. The day it was announced that Ayatollah Khamenei had died. There was jubilation all around.

I think a lot of people thought that that was the beginning of the end. But regrettably, that doesn't seem to be the case. Janice, did you think regime change at any point over the past three months was a possibility? No, because regime change doesn't come out of the barrel of a gun. Unfortunately, it's very rare. You have regime decapitation, but that doesn't change the regime. And knowing the Iranian diaspora, well, in this country, they're really, And let's go back to January, Steve and Ali, when we had, you know,

untohold thousands of protesters on the streets in Iran, not only in the capital city, but widespread demonstrations throughout around. This was the fourth or fifth round of major demonstrations by Iranians against their own government, the largest. And it ended with an internet blackout and the slaughter. frankly. Again, we don't know the numbers. They range anywhere from 7,500 to 40,000. We don't have accurate numbers, but thousands of people. So the opposition to this regime was growing. But what happens often in these kinds of situations? First of all, the clerical regime led by

Ali Khamini made plans four levels down in the event of a war breaking out. And he was sick anyway. So he anticipated his death one way or another. So the chaos that would normally come did not happen here because if one leader was taken out, there were two people standing behind. And then when that became apparent, and bombing usually creates some rally around the flag effect inside a country,

and that's precisely what happened. And I think Ali rightly talk now about, I would say almost a kind of depression among Iranians that if this failed, what will work? And certainly not a willingness to go out into the streets and be shot again by Basi, and by Revolutionary Guards. Let me follow up with Ali on that because they've shut down the Internet, I don't know how much communication you've been able to have with friends or family in Iran, but to the extent that you have, where are they at right now in terms of their own sense of possibilities?

Well, I do remember in their early days, there was some optimism in the voices that one would listen to within Iran. Now what I do here, generally speaking, is fatigue. And imagine, if you will, a country that for the past three and a half months has really been living in the shadow of a war that they have no control over. They weren't the ones that are the cause of this, the Iranian population, and they have no idea what awaits them. So I would say it's very fair to say there is disillusionment and there's fatigue as well because they can't see their way through this fog. And let's have one other thing. One of the things to, which speaks directly to what Ali was talking about now, there was ruinous inflation inside Iran right now.

Ruinous. It's really difficult for outsiders to understand that. 70% inflation and a rapid fall in the Iranian currency. So there are large numbers of people in Iran now who are struggling really, really badly. They're struggling to get food. They're struggling to pay for basic necessities. This has been, this war has pushed the economy for a very large middle class in Iran. This is a very educated society has pushed a large number of middle class Iranians into poverty, frankly, which we don't talk about enough.

If I could follow up with that and confirm that, we know that as a country, approximately 80% of Iranians are debt set against this regime. That has been the reality, I would say, for the past five or six years. However, what sparked these latest protests was the dire economic situation. So it's been terrible. The economy had been battered and was not doing very well. But now, as Professor Stein rightly pointed out, now you have new grievances. because first of all, those who work for the public sector have not been paid for approximately two months now. Inflation, as was pointed out, is at 70%.

And also, the country has had to deal with devastated infrastructure. So not only is Iran no longer able to export oil, it's also incapable of exporting petrochemicals, and other goods that it previously was capable of exporting. Let me get both of you on the notion that the United States launched this war pretty clearly with an understanding that they thought it would be over very quickly and that they would succeed in whatever the mission of the war was in relatively short order. That obviously has not happened. Janice, you first and then, Allie, after that. what did the United States not understand about Iran that obviously has made this war go on for a lot longer than they thought and without necessarily the achievements that they thought?

So let's distinguish between the United States team and the president and his team, okay? Because it really, really matters in this case. So let's talk for a moment about the president and his team, a very narrow team, unsupported by experts because they dismiss expert. and they dismissed expert. So plenty of people in the broader U.S. administration never expected this war the last three days. The person who did expect it was Donald Trump

because he was able to decapitate the Venezuelan regime in one day in 24 hours. And he walked away from that. He said, oh, wow, this is really easy. And that's the set of, I mean, yeah, well. And that's the set of expectations. that he brought with him. You know, Dan Kane, who was appointed by Donald Trump, don't forget,

his predecessor, Charlie Brown, was fired by Trump, and so Dan Kane owes his job to Donald Trump. Despite that, he told the president, very unlikely this is going to be three days, and very unlikely also that the regime will fall in three days. And Donald Trump just said, well, I don't agree. Ali, what did the president and by extension, maybe others in political leadership in the United States, not understand about Iran? Well, I would say Iran is a very, very complicated country. One of the things that has made it very complicated for people to comprehend is despite the fact that there is a huge gap between the population and the government,

We have not seen any significant defections from the government during the course of the past 47 years. So I suspect that people outside Iran were speaking to officials within Iran, were promising them that they were willing to break from the regime. And I suspect that is part of the reason that some individuals did think that this would be. a short war and that things would change within the governing circles within Iran. You know, just to add to what you said, Ali, if you look at the Revolutionary Guards, right, which are, were set up by the first Supreme Leader to protect him against a coup from the regular military.

So they were set up as a competing military force. So you have two, and then the offshoot of the besiege. Those are the people you see on motorcycles racing through the streets armed with guns, shooting at protesters. The Revolutionary Guards, which is, I think, something that most people mess in Ali will weigh in on this, I'm sure. They control the economy. They own huge chunks of the current Iranian economy. they benefit from sanctions because if you keep imports out and it's very hard for anybody to buy anything

except through the channels that you control, you do very well even though the population doesn't do as well. So the Revolutionary Guards are totally invested in this regime. The worst thing that can happen to them is that this regime falls or changes. Their whole economic livelihood depends on. then. So people who expected that the Revolutionary Guards would splinter and that they would, because you were, everybody's really looking for military defections, armed forces defections, because that's what determines the fate of a regime. But these people have no incentive to defect. And that's why they shoot at their own people. And I think that was a big miss when people looked at this. Ellie, you want to follow up? Absolutely.

I think what everyone has to bear in mind is that the IRGC is not just masterful at repressing Iranians. They have huge business interests by some estimates. They control 70% of the Iranian economy. And despite the fact that we have seen many sanctions, they are experts. at circumventing these sanctions, and they're very, very good at smuggling things in and out as long as they can make quite a bit of money. Another aspect that should be very disconcerting for all of us is that the IRGC also has links to criminal organizations in South America and throughout the Middle East as well.

So they, as Professor Stein, rightly pointed out, have nothing to lose. And they are very much entrenched. And what we are seeing is that men in military fatigues have replaced men in clerical ropes. Having said that, would you point to, would you be able to point to anything that the Americans have done and or the Israelis and said, oh, this worked? I'd have a hard time pointing to anything concrete. There's no doubt that as the top officials from the regime were taken out, Iranians were very optimistic. They thought that the system would crumble. But I think with every passing day, they've come to realize that this is a regime that is very well entrenched.

and will do anything within its power to cling on to the political levers. Janice, what about it? Anything worked here? I'm going to give you that the answer, you know, that Deng Xiaoping gave to Henry Kissinger and say it's too soon to say. Too soon to say from this perspective. You know, when Deng Xiaoping said that to Henry Kissinger, he was talking about the French Revolution in 1789.

I know. He wasn't talking about this. Right. So, you know, I think in some ways the test comes when the funding stops and when it officially stops, right. I think it's impossible to exaggerate the economic challenges that this regime, which is a revolutionary guard-driven, top-down, controlled regime faces. The option of continuing to live with heavy sanctions and making money hand over fist through. criminal and monopoly activities, can't last given how bad the economic situation is for Iranians.

And once the shooting stops, if they went into the streets in January, it will not. The regime cannot count on a quiescent public that is pushed to the edge of poverty, the way they are now, simply staying quiet and not coming back to the street. So I don't think this story is over yet. I really don't. So it's not anything that the United States or Israel did during the war that worked, but history writes itself in a very slow way often. We'll be back right after this.

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If that turns out to be the case and this war is actually over, would you be happy about that? I don't know if I can say happy because there's a lot of foreboding as to what will. happen once this war is definitively over. The reality is that the regime is very much emboldened. It will recognize full well that it can take out its frustrations on Iranians. So I'm very much concerned about the human rights situation that will follow. But I suspect given what we've been reading in the media accounts. We do know that the Iranian foreign minister was in China. We know that the Pakistanis have been very much engaged. We know that the Saudis actually leaned in as well. So to the extent that something can be worked out, it will strictly be focused on opening

the Strait of Hormuz. But it does not have to do with uranium. enrichment and what that moratorium will look like. It seems like they've managed to leave that for another day. So this could very well be a forever war and having a conclusive end to this war may prove quite challenging. See, Janice, that's one of the things I'm trying to get my head around here because to the extent that the administration was able to articulate a mission for this war, it clearly seemed to be we want to degrade. any possibility of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. I'm not sure they've achieved that, have they?

No. Amin Ali is right. The Iranians have put something on the table that was not there before. So let's just talk about the JPOCA, the agreement that was reached under the Obama administration. That was 10 years of enrichment to the level of 3.4. which is what you need to make medical isotopes and for people research. But then that was it.

So the agreement only lasted a decade, and then there were no restrictions on enrichment whatsoever. That, frankly, was the best that the Obama administration could get after 18 months of tough negotiation with the Iranians. What the Iranis have now talked about, and they acknowledge that they've talked about, 15 years of no enrichment whatsoever of any kind. And after that, enrichment to the level of 3.67.

When you actually stop and look at it, it's very different, much better than what the Obama administration got. Because there's no end date to the limit on enrichment to 3.67. Now, is that going to be wrapped up in this first? framework agreement, which is three pages long, which we may get in the coming days, no, but it is a reason that the United States will sign the framework agreement because the Iranians have put that offer on the table. So there's grounds not to despair here, is what I'm saying. Grounds not to despair, but I do wonder, and I think this is a fair question, Ali, I wonder

whether or not this has actually encouraged nuclear proliferation and has encouraged countries around the world to pursue nuclear capability because they well they realize Janice that once you you know once you get nuclear weapons the United States is not going to attack you if you're

not there you're susceptible to attack that's wrong I think that argument is wrong okay I think it's wrong and let me just tell you why I think it's wrong and I think actually the Iranians have discovered a far more effective weapon than a nuclear weapon which they were never going to use or I think very, very unlikely.

That's the closest street of Hormuz. And boy, does that, that is real, and it creates tremendous pressure. Look what happened. Israel has nuclear weapons. Everybody knows. The Iranians fired ballistic missiles and drones at Israel three times, and were not deterred. And they fired it against Israel's homeland.

People don't want to talk about that, but nuclear weapons did not permit the attack. Russia has the world's largest nuclear nuclear. force and Ukraine right now is busy firing missiles at Russian infrastructure, energy infrastructure, and the Russians are not responding with a nuclear weapon, and their nuclear weapons do not deter the attack. In fact, by pursuing the nuclear weapon, Iran has paid a much higher price. If it's going to learn anything from this war, it's going to learn how valuable that choke point is at the straight of all moves.

That's the takeaway. Janice, as much as it pains me to say so, that makes abundant sense, what you just said. Ellie, you want to weigh in on that? Well, just following up on your question, I can't disagree with Professor Stein. But I think the reality is that this has elevated tensions in the region considerably.

When you have a country such as Iran, just flagrantly attacking all the countries in the Gulf region. What will happen is those countries will certainly be spending a whole lot more on military hardware, but it's going to be very, very difficult for some semblance of an entente to be worked out between Iran and its neighbors. And that should be something that should concern us all. I agree. I mean, we should look at what happened. You know, the Emirates just, first of all, there's an ongoing dispute between the Emirates and the Saudis. Because the Emirates were received far more, they bore the brunt of the Iranian attack, not the Saudis. It was very, very shrewd of the Iranis. They've just withdrawn from OPEC.

And Saudi Arabia has signed a defense agreement with Pakistan. which is a nuclear power. Convincing the United States will not be there for them, they've signed a defense agreement with Pakistan last year, which effectively commits one to come to the assistance of the other. So Ali is right that regional tensions are at an all-time high, but I don't think we're going to see nuclear proliferation in this part. Well, this is not something that Saudi Arabia wants.

It's threatened to do it. Should Iran ever break out? the Saudis have made it very clear they're next and right behind the Saudis are the Egyptians. But that's why the nonproliferation effort against Iran really matters here.

And we'll be back right after this. All right, well let me get the two of you to weigh in on this. Ali first. We've talked about the ability of Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and how much the attack has degraded that capability, not completely, but maybe some. We've talked about

regime change and whether or not the American attack has been able to affect that, the answer clearly is no. Number three, number three mission in this war has been to prevent Iran from sort of exporting terrorism as much as it has in the past. Ali, from what you've been able to see, has that happened? I don't believe so. Obviously, the last several years have been very, very damaging to the Iranian regime, given developments in Syria and elsewhere. However, I think one of the issues that is not really being focused on is the situation in Lebanon, which is very, very fragile. Some believe that if we do want to see an end to the war in the Middle East,

that these two issues have to remain locked into one another. However, there are others who are suggesting that the situation in Lebanon should be decoupled from the situation in the Gulf. But what we are seeing in Lebanon is really a cause for concern as well. The national government in Lebanon has for the past year been saying that they will undertake disarmament of Hezbollah, but that has certainly not happened. and the situation remains very, very challenging indeed. Janice, what about it? Has the United States had an effect on Iran's ability to export terrorism? You know, the principal relationship, as Ali said, that's left.

There, too, is Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is a significant forward defense for Iran. It's significant. And they, you know, they, at the beginning of the war, they put real pressure on Hezbollah to open that northern front. And, you know, Hezbollah fired five rockets, which were ineffective. And we have the escalation that we've got now in Iran. Because the Lebanese government, frankly, doesn't have the military capability to disarm Hisbalah.

It's so strong. And it's worried about a civil war if it tries. So the relationship between Hezbollah and Iran will remain intact. And that's a very, very. very important relationship. And it allows Iran to exercise influence way beyond its borders and directly on Israel's borders. And that's a cause for continual fighting and escalation, frankly, Steve.

The other thing that I think is worthwhile talking about, we, and again, we don't get enough time. I'm so glad we're doing this. Is the Iranians ran one of the most sophisticated, disingen, disingeners. information campaigns throughout this war, you know, the quality of the memes that they produced, they were so much more sophisticated than anything that the United States ran. And they have a wide following throughout the Middle East and beyond. It would be worthwhile, you know, just having, showing, putting some of those up on a screen one time

when we talk about disinformation because they're animated, they're, sophisticated, you know, there are Lego memes that they've used. They're really, really remarkable. And it speaks, frankly, to the cultural sophistication of Iran, that you get this kind of creativity. That, I think, is only going to accelerate as we go forward. And it's to be blunt here, and Ali can speak to this better than I can. But it's an issue for the Iranian diaspora in Canada,

where they feel they're very careful. Most Iranians, they're worried that they're being surveyed. They're worried that information is being collected about them by people who transmit that information to Iran. This is an ongoing issue right in our own country, Steve. Ali is the only not in his heaven. Yes. The first thing I would say is, yes, I think everyone's been quite shocked

as to how good Iranian propaganda has been throughout this conflict. The one thing I would say is that this is a regime that was born out of revolution and then fought an eight-year war. So since the beginning, they've been very, very good at creating propaganda. The only people, I would say, who don't fall for the Iranian regime's propaganda are the Iranian people. And they have really learned how to tune it out after 47 years. But others have been very much impressed. What does concern me, as was pointed out, is this regrettably given where we are right now. This will create fissures within the Iranian diaspora.

But also, I think everyone can agree that we should be very, very vigilant when it comes to agents of the Iranian regime in North. America and in Europe as well. These are individuals who will do anything to spy on the diaspora abroad and to send reports back to their puppet masters within Iran. So that is a cause for great concern for our government as well as other governments in Europe as well. I want to be careful how I ask this next question because obviously nobody wants war where we see innocent people being killed and a disruption to life and liberty in the way that we've seen over the last few months. Having said that, this war was supposed to be about degrading Iran's nuclear capability. Not sure it's happened. It was supposed to be about regime change. Hasn't

happened. It was supposed to be about stopping Iran's terrorism capabilities. Hasn't happened. It was supposed to be about making Israel safer. Not sure that's happened either. In which case I don't like the way this question sounds, but I'm not sure how else to ask it. Should we actually be hoping for an end to the military hostilities, or does this war need to go on in hopes of achieving any of those four things? Al, you first then, Janice. Well, again, I would say for the past 47 years, a lot of times I've had to check my logic.

and I continue to be very hopeful about the situation in Iran, but this has really been a sobering turn of events. And I certainly hope that the Iranian people will succeed in getting rid of this regime. But in terms of all the objectives that you have outlined, I would say it's probably far too early to make a definitive. assessment. And I would certainly hope that given that Iran is a menace to the international order, that we learn some lessons, and we continue to guard against that regime. Janice, over to you. Look, I hope the war stops because I don't believe, first of all,

there is tremendous suffering and impoverishment of the Iranian people. There's destruction infrastructure, as Ali said early, which will take years, frankly, to rebuild. But more than any reason, Steve, I don't believe the war can accomplish these objectives. I think the best chance for regime change was after the fighting stops and the reality penetrates about the costs

of this pursuit of nuclear weapons and the forward-defense Iranians that already turned against the forward defense. They were complaining bitterly, bitterly about the support that was going to Hispala and Hamas and in demonstration after demonstration argued against it. I think there's no solution to the nuclear problem with Iran except an agreement

because you have to then have inspectors and verification. And the only way we're going to get to there is when it's so apparent, even to the Revolutionary Guards who benefited in the past from the status quo, that those benefits are not there because the economy has deteriorated to the extent that it has and that something has to give here. And that something is this vain pursuit of a nuclear weapon that has led to the enormous cost that they've paid. It's got to come through negotiation.

It's not going to come through war. Okay, let me put one more issue on the table here and get you both to comment on that. and you have both no doubt heard this acronym in the past that President Donald Trump is a taco. TACO, meaning Trump always chickens out. We heard the most outrageous rhetoric from him on his social media feeds, threatening to, you know, bomb a 3,000-year-old civilization into nothing.

He had other awful things to say as well. And at the end of the day, you know, he's stopping this war well before some in the United States and certainly some in Israel would like it to be over. And I wonder what you think this has done to the president's credibility and his standing in Washington and the world right now. Janice, you go first. Look, it's a shambolic performance. It's one of the worst performances.

Anybody has ever seen by a U.S. president. it's not only what's happened on the ground, Steve, it's this incredibly rambling, erratic stream of consciousness, you know, posts to truth social, followed by press conferences that go all over the place where he contradicts himself in the same day four times. So almost independently of any of the outcomes, you've talked to the failure to achieve those outcomes,

that performance alone would be enough to undermine his credibility as somebody who actually delivers on what he says, because it's often impossible to decode, frankly, what he's saying, to be blunt here. Ellie, your view? I would say, I think it's fair to say that the U.S. administration did not lay the groundwork. And I say this because there was no consultations that took place between the administration and other countries. And we see the impact of that. The reality is that British American relations are at an old time low right now. We haven't seen this much friction between the UK and the U.S.

since the Suez crisis in 1956. The same goes for American relations with Germany and with Italy as well. So the lesson to be learned is that one should not necessarily act in haste. It is important to keep those diplomatic channels open and make sure that everyone appreciates full well what the plan of action is. Ellie, when's the last time you were in Iran? 30 years ago, a short visit 30 years ago. Do you hope to go back someday? I would love to go back for a visit, but I could assure you I will never go back if the Ayatollahs and the IRGC remain in control.

But I certainly look forward to hopefully a free run. Understood. Let me do a little business here before we sign off. We'd like to remind people that this show is for. free, and we will always keep it free, but there are ways to support the work that we're doing here if you want to by going to our Patreon page. That's patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast, and some people have done that, and we like to thank them every time we do a program to thank them for shelling out a few bucks and helping us keep the lights on. Rhonda Lenton, who is the outgoing

president of York University, went on Patreon and signed up, and we're grateful for her support. Sean Dinn from Toronto said, I've always enjoyed watching and listening to your shows over the years as far back as the days of Studio 2 on TVO. Holy smokes, Janice. You remember we did that show? How many years ago was that? More than 30 years ago.

And he says, so glad you're continuing on with the Paken podcast. Sean, thank you for that. And one more here, Deb Robinson, who was originally from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but lives in Toronto now and says, thank you for all you do to educate this American about the richness. of my adopted country.

Deb wonderfully said, and thank you so much. We should let everybody know that all of our programs are archived at Steve Paken.com. Ali Assasi, the MP for the writing of Willardale in Midtown, Toronto. We are grateful for your participation on our program today. Janice, as always, great to have you alongside and continuing to teach both Allie as you did 35 years ago and me and our viewers and listeners today about your wisdom as it comes on foreign affairs.

And great to be with Allie. Let me say that, Steve. I'm so glad to have spent some time with you on Allie. Thank you, everybody. We'll see you next time. It's been great being on the world on edge. Thank you. Thanks.