Iran’s Long War: A Conversation With Ali Vaez and Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar

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  I'm Dan Kurtz-Phelan, and this is the Foreign Affairs Interview.

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  This expectation that we are one coercive push away from regime collapse or economic collapse,

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  I think is really magical thinking,

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  and it is not going to, in any way, put us in a better place.

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  I'm not saying that this could go on forever now with the sanctions and the and the blockade.

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  No, I think at some point there might be a break breaking point.

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  I just don't know if we are there yet.

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  I think we tend to underestimate the capacity of Iran as a state, and also the society, to absorb pain.

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  Nearly eight months since it began, the war in Iran has settled into a grim stalemate.

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  Two essays in the new issue of Foreign Affairs consider just how long this stalemate could continue

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  and what decision-makers in Tehran think they can achieve in the coming months.

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  In "The New Forever Wars," Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group argues

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  that Iran prefers deadlock to any plausible compromise with Washington.

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  In "Why Iran Escalates," Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar of Texas A&M argues

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  that Tehran will pursue a more ambitious goal:

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  forcing the United States out of the Middle East altogether.

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  Senior Editor Daniel Block spoke with Tabaar and Vaez on Monday, October 12th,

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  to discuss U.S. and Iranian strategies, the future of Iran's Axis of Resistance,

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  and the durability of a regime that Western policymakers have often underestimated.

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  Ali, Mohammad, welcome to the Foreign Affairs Interview.

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