MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Let's hear next from someone who has advised multiple U.S. administrations on Iran. Suzanne Maloney was a member of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's policy planning staff in the George W. Bush administration. Later, she was an external adviser to state department officials in the Obama administration. She's now vice president and director for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, which is a centrist policy institute, a think tank. Good morning. Thanks for joining us.
SUZANNE MALONEY: Thanks so much, Michel.
MARTIN: So overnight, Iran's president said he told the foreign minister to go ahead with negotiations, quote, "provided that a suitable environment exists, one free from threats and unreasonable expectations," unquote. What do you hear in those caveats?
MALONEY: Well, it's a little bit ironic that we're hearing from Iran's president, who has very little authority and very little background, frankly, on these issues. Iran's supreme leader is really the person in charge here, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And he's been out in public, somewhat unusually over the course of the past 10 days or so, insisting that Iran will not give up its nuclear program, that it will not compromise with its enemies. So I think that the Iranian position going in is that they're happy to have a breather from American pressure that these negotiations presents, but they're not necessarily going to be in a mood to give up very much very quickly.
MARTIN: So - but there's been some whiplash on the U.S. side. I mean, President Trump said he'd intervened to help protesters. He did not intervene, but he has said that a massive armada was heading to Iran. Iran's foreign minister said it would not negotiate under threat, but those ships are still there and yet Iran says it's negotiating. So does it look like this military buildup is having some effect?
MALONEY: I think the military buildup has certainly brought the Iranians to the negotiating table in a serious way, unlike in prior periods. But let's be clear, the Trump administration has also put itself in an awkward position. President Trump was tweeting, really in the hours before the Venezuela operation in early January, that the United States was locked and loaded to come to the rescue of Iranian protesters. In the days and weeks that followed, Tehran massacred as many as tens of thousands of innocent protesters who were simply demanding a change in their own government. And really, the United States stood by and did nothing, other than bring real military force to the region to make good on the president's threats.
Unfortunately, there's no decisive, quick U.S. action that can simply unseat the regime. And so at this point, I think the administration is trying to use that leverage of having such incredible force in the region, and of course, the credibility of the president's commitments and actions back in June - when, of course, he struck Iran and demolished significant parts of its nuclear infrastructure - to try to see what he can get at the negotiating table now.
MARTIN: Is the central question unseating the regime or is it what happens to Iran's nuclear program, or what remains of it? I guess what I'm asking you is, long-term, what commitments do you think the U.S. should be looking for? What goal should the U.S. be looking for?
MALONEY: Well, this has been the fundamental dilemma over 47 years of dealing with Iran. Are we trying to change the regime's behavior or are we trying to see some kind of different future for Iran? I think, at this point in time, given the crimes against humanity that the Iranian regime has committed against its own people in the recent weeks, it's hard to imagine a tenable deal that would truly produce the kind of change that Iran needs today and that the region itself is demanding. Iran's neighbors are looking for some kind of an off-ramp. The Trump administration may be looking for some kind of an off-ramp. But I think it's also possible that we're - what we're seeing is a prelude to some new escalation and potentially new strikes in the region.
I would advise the administration to use its negotiating power decisively to try to get some kind of a long-term - the Islamic Republic that it's going to provide a pathway to a different future for its own people. I think that's the central question that the region really needs to contend with, and of course, that Iranians risked their lives to try to achieve over the course of the past few weeks.
MARTIN: If you were advising U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff this week, what do you think you'd say? You have about a minute, so let's use it.
MALONEY: I think that the administration really needs to hold a very hard line. You know, there's the opportunity to try to end Iran's nuclear program in some kind of final and formal way, also to try to demand an end to its relationships with its proxies. But the United States has never been particularly adept at trying to manage the internal situation in Iran. And that, I think, is front and foremost in the current moment. And so this is going to be a different kind of negotiation than we've ever seen with Iran. We can't simply settle for some constraints on its prior bad actions.
MARTIN: That's Suzanne Maloney, vice president and director for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, and as we said, an adviser to multiple U.S. administrations. Ms. Maloney, thanks so much for talking with us.
MALONEY: Thank you, Michel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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