Kai Wright: It's Notes From America. I'm Kai Wright, and you're listening to our special pop-up series on the call. Every Thursday until election day, I'm calling up somebody who's smart about some particular issue that's coming up in the campaign and just trying to get some insight. This week I am thinking about a series of troubling headlines from the past week involving Gaza and Israel's war there. I'm just reminded of the fact that no matter what happens, the Middle East in general and Gaza very specifically is going to be a humongous preoccupation of the next administration. Whether it's Trump or Harris, their presidency is almost certainly going to be defined in part by how they handle the Middle East.

This week on the call, I've hit up Arash Azizi, who, among other things, is a contributing writer for The Atlantic, where he's been writing about these very questions. Arash, thanks for taking my call.

Arash Azizi: Thank you very much for having me. It's great to be with you.

Kai Wright: As I said, we're in the middle of another week of bracing headlines from the region. Polio is back in Gaza. The Israeli military says it found the bodies of six hostages that had been killed, and that discovery led to anger and outrage in Israel. There was a huge strike in which organized advisors demanded that Netanyahu accept a ceasefire deal, which he again refused to do.

The Biden administration, meanwhile, says it's making its final proposal for a ceasefire deal. If that doesn't work out, then that's probably the end of US-led talks at least. It's not a great picture. What do you see happening in, let's say, the next month in the region?

Arash Azizi: Prediction is always hard, especially in the Middle East. We are in a very tough situation. If you asked me a few months ago, I would have expected a ceasefire by now, to be honest, a few times over the last little while. At the same time, the Netanyahu government in Israel seems to be pretty determined to not enter a ceasefire deal. Netanyahu does not seem that in his benefit. Hamas, its workings are also hard to see, but the longer it goes, it doesn't necessarily have the incentive to enter a ceasefire either.

At the same time, what really makes all minds focus, if you will, is the possibility of a broader war. If you had this conversation two, three weeks ago, the question he was very likely asked me is, when is Iran going to attack? Was supposed to be, is it a Monday, is it a Tuesday? That was the top news. We see that that's not really happening.

Kai Wright: How do I understand this public idea that's come from the administration, by the administration itself, that they're putting their best and final proposal on the table for a ceasefire? Now, why would they even be saying that? Is that real? As somebody who doesn't follow diplomacy quite so closely myself, how do I understand that line?

Arash Azizi: It's not clear what they mean. Frankly, the United States for a very long time has kept saying that they're not happy with Netanyahu in Israel, that they're not happy with what he does. The reason there was a generalist strike Israel, and a huge number of people, something like 5, 600,000 people in the country of 9 million, came out to protest after the six hostages are brutally killed by Hamas.

The reason they came out to protest Netanyahu is that many in Israel, including by many, I don't mean like, three hippies somewhere. I mean leading security military officials believe that Netanyahu is not doing enough in the negotiation rooms to release the hostages, that he keeps putting proposals on the table, coming up with deadlines that are not workable. That's costing the life of hostages. That has led to a lot of anger in Israel.

Now the whole, oh, this is our final offer, if you follow Biden administration from the beginning of this conflict, they keep saying stuff like this, that this is a red line, they would not stand for this, but frankly, Netanyahu seems to have calculated pretty well that whatever he does and whatever Israel does, it doesn't get punished by the United States in any way. Some of that is understandable. By understandable, I mean Israel is obviously facing quite a few different threats.

There are all these Iran-backed groups in the region that are faced by the United States, of course, is never going to let Israel alone in facing some of these groups, but effectively, we have a situation in which Netanyahu breaks all these rules and all his promises to the US. In response, he gets an invitation to come to the US Congress and speak more than any leader ever has and gets wide press by both parties. When the administration says this is our final offer and stuff, you contact them seriously because they don't--

Kai Wright: He knows it's bullshit. We've heard this before. You've had many other [crosstalk]--

Arash Azizi: They don't do anything to induce it. They don't put any pressure on Israel. The UK, for example, just decided to cancel some weapons shipment to Israel. I'll tell you, it's almost a symbolic thing. Some parts is maybe 10% of the UK, Israel arms trade, but the United States doesn't even do anything approaching that. This is a Democratic administration. It would be presumably worse under previous Republican administration. When you say it's our final offer, it doesn't mean anything unless you're ready to put some pressure on Israel, which the United States doesn't seem to be interested in doing.

Kai Wright: What if there is a ceasefire? I feel like there's not nearly enough conversation about what comes after that in terms of both the, I guess, just US policy in general in the course of this campaign, but also just thinking about, again, this is going to define, I think, the next administration. Suppose there is a ceasefire. What is the next administration facing?

Arash Azizi: These words are also funny because it's almost like a literary challenge because we hear terms like permanent ceasefire or temporary ceasefire. Ceasefire by its nature is temporary. Even if you agree to a permanent ceasefire, well, it's you agree to it until you decide to break it. [chuckles]

Kai Wright: It's an oxymoron, really, to call it a permanent ceasefire.

Arash Azizi: Exactly, yes.

Kai Wright: That means you're not at war anymore.

Arash Azizi: Exactly. In this conflict, we have these words and we have them all over, but the real question is what is going to happen in the future of Gaza, and who's going to rule Gaza immediately, the day after? Also, what's going to happen ultimately? Of course, again, there is a discordant. United States' official position is that, of course, there should be a state for Palestinians. The State of Palestine should be recognized and should rule over West Bank and Gaza, but again, the United States doesn't do anything to achieve that outcome because now Israel has a government that's very openly committed to preventing a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu is very clear about this, although he's gone back on his own words. As late as 2020, Netanyahu, still in words, would sometimes commit to a Palestinian state. He famously first did in 2009 in his speech in Bar-Ilan University in Israel. Now, not only Netanyahu is not committing to it. The last time this matter came to a vote in the Israeli parliament, not a single Jewish majority party voted for it. Only one Jewish MP voted for it.

This is all to say that the next administration is going to have a very difficult time and that Israeli politics is in a very difficult place where there are two estate solution, which means, again, it's a bit of a euphemism. If you say two-state solution, it sounds like mathematics. The basics of it is very clear. It's the idea that Palestinian people invest back in Gaza, like vast majority of people in the world, should live under a government that gives them citizenship.

It's very rare for an entire population to live under a government that military occupies them and doesn't give them citizenship. It's next to nonexistence, certainly for this period. Of course, Ukrainians are living under Russian occupation. There are other examples, but for like 50, 60 years to live in under foreign government that doesn't give you citizenship and that settles some of its own population on your land and gives them an obviously preferential treatment--

Kai Wright: This is not like, oh, well, someplace-- What happens in Gaza and the West Bank under modern global politics is a dramatic outlier from what we see on almost every day.

Arash Azizi: That's right. As you said, it's a different thing that doesn't really happen. Look, the next administration, it's going to have to deal with that, the Israeli intransigence, if you will, not moving on this question of occupation, and as I said, unfortunately across the Israeli political spectrum, so it's not just Netanyahu who is saying that. That's part of the issue.

Then there's the issue of Iran, which is the only state in the world who is funding these groups that fight Israel, arming them and funding them. What it wants to do. It also has Iran is having its own issues. Its supreme leader, Khamenei is 85 years old. He is going to die at some point. There are succession struggles in Iran already, and there are some signs in which Iran wants better ties with the United States. There are some hopeful signs if you look hard enough.

Kai Wright: A succession struggle is by definition a moment of instability. No US administration wants instability in Iran.

Arash Azizi: While I would say that is often true, maybe it wouldn't be as true in this case because it depends what instability. Khamenei himself, the supreme leader, his policies have brought so much instability to the Middle East that you might actually get some a change in Iran where they are after more stability, actually, in relations with the US. Even under Khamenei, that is possible, by the way.

That's very complex. I don't know how much you want to get into it, but let's just say that a significant section of the Iranian establishment is interested in-- It's basically suffered a lot from all the sanctions and all the pressure the country has under been in, due to its own bad choices, one has to be fair and clear here. It's due to Iran's own bad choices that it has to suffer through this. Because of that, a lot of people want a better relationship in the region and with the world. These are all some things that next administration will have to deal with.

The good news is that some of the people in this administration, like- well, if Kamala Harris wins in November, which I obviously see as a better outcome, much better outcome, some of the people that she has around her as advisors, really good thinkers and people who one can hope, is the sort of people you want on these issues.

Kai Wright: Well, let's talk about that, which brings us to the core of why I called you is that you wrote a piece a few weeks back about saying, well, what can we expect of Kamala Harris in Mideast policy, which is a question that preoccupies me. You started by pointing out that just on her own record, it's actually very difficult to draw anything concrete from her voting record, from her travels in the region as a senator, but you did point to these advisors.

I think you talked about Philip Gordon is one person you talked about in that essay. Who is Philip Gordon, and what can we expect him at least to be saying to Kamala Harris? He's been her main advisor on the Middle East for a couple of years.

Arash Azizi: Now on everything, actually. Philip Gordon is basically national security advisor of Kamala. According to people in DC who know these things, he's the one who she really listens to. Although, I'm the first one to say as a historian, when you look at history, at the end of the day, it's the president who decides, and the president will decide. Presidents don't always listen to their advisors.

The other thing is that advisors don't necessarily always work best when they're in power, unfortunately. There are advisors who are sometimes they're great at critiquing, but when it comes to specific situations, they're not always the best. I'm hoping that that's not the case, but when we look at history, that sometimes happens.

Who is Philip Gordon? First of all, he's a Europeanist. His expertise, his PhD, if you will, was on France and the presidency of Charles de Gaulle in 20th century. It's a classic Cold War dilemma. He has worked on Middle East issues at least since the Obama administration where he was on Middle East issues. He is what we call a defense intellectual, if you will.

This is a tradition, especially since the Kennedy government. You have a bunch of wise guys with PhDs who really focus on international relations and they come into government, a departure from what it used to be. It didn't used to be always in the past. It didn't work so well under the Kennedy government, but what I like, what I find-- [laughs]

Kai Wright: Infamously. This is what led to Vietnam were these wise white men from academia who-- Aanyway, okay.

Arash Azizi: David Halberstam wrote a famous book called The Best and the Brightest. It doesn't work so well. As someone with PhD, I'm the first one to say it doesn't always work well when you give it to people.

Kai Wright: No offense to our friends with PhDs.

Arash Azizi: Exactly, exactly. I do think Phil Gordon has been pretty well. I'll tell you what I find impressive about him. First of all, he has written very widely for different public journals. He's not afraid to err on positions that are not necessarily favorites. In the 2006 Lebanon War, for example, he co-wrote an article in which he really critiqued Israel in that war and the US support for Israel in that war, which wasn't an easy thing to do, necessarily. I mentioned a couple of these things in the article.

He has a lot of links in the region. I saw that he's worked with Turkish academics, for example. Even though, as I said, he's a Democrat, but he doesn't seem to be a prisoner, if you will, of a ideological worldview in which he has-- For example, he wrote about Arab-Israeli peace way before it was popular or way before Trump made a thing. The possibility of peace between Israel and the Arab states, crucially for him, though, had always had to include Palestinian self-determination and the Palestinian state.

Kai Wright: That's always been a crucial part of his particular view.

Arash Azizi: That's right.

Kai Wright: You have to have Palestinian self-determination in order to get anywhere in a peaceful future of the Middle East.

Arash Azizi: Exactly. Yes. It's constant throughout his writings. Also, for example, he really put a lot of emphasis on the importance of the relationship between US and the Arab states in the region. Again, that wasn't always a popular Democratic view. The Saudi Arabia was always viewed rather negatively in huge parts of I would say Democratic base, certainly, and others, but he would stick his neck out there and write that. That's why he makes me optimistic. Then Ilan Goldenberg is even a more, on the particular of Middle East issues, even more impressive in some ways. Ilan Goldenberg, who I think he is supposed to be--

Kai Wright: This is another Harris advisor.

Arash Azizi: That's right. He's supposed to be Harris's liason to the Jewish community, but in addition, his portfolio, according to the campaign, does include advising Vice President Harris on the Middle East, on Gaza, on Israel, and matters like that. He is, again, someone who's always taken this, I think, Palestinian self-determination seriously when you look at throughout his career and his writing, and he's been pretty honest about it.

Again, these are guys who've worked a long time on these issues, have written a lot about these issues, and show some open-mindedness when we look at their writings over the years. As I said, they do make me optimistic. When we say in the Middle East issues, when we say optimistic, the bar is really low [chuckles]

Kai Wright: [laughs]

Arash Azizi: Like, we're optimistic that there won't be a huge bar or something like that. Just like these choices show, she has shown a sensitivity and a seriousness of taking these questions, which we have to remind ourselves of who the rival is, Donald Trump, who really hasn't done any of this and, in fact, shows all this wrong instincts when it comes to the issue.

Kai Wright: There's the choice of these advisors make you feel optimistic. What else is your source of optimism in terms of something she's said or done that's about her temperament that lead you to believe she would deal with these problems in a meaningful way?

Arash Azizi: As I said, the bar is low. I do believe that the one-sided support that the United States shows to Israel, unconditional support that the United States shows to Israel, I believe is ultimately bad for the people of Israel, frankly. There are many people in Israel who agree with me, by the way. I think it's certainly bad for people of Palestine, but it's also bad for people of Israel. Has Vice President Harris shown an inclination that she's going to change that? No. I'm going to be honest and say no. However, in her acceptance of the nomination at the national convention, she did pose the question of Gaza, the war, and Palestinian self-determination in a way that did impress a lot, not everybody, but a lot of people.

Kai Wright: As somebody who follows this, what she said in the speech-- Listening to that stuff, you can be like, okay, she said these words about Israel, then she said these words about Palestine. Like, okay, she ticked it off and moved on to the next thing, but you heard a meaningful difference in what she said from previous Democratic candidates?

Arash Azizi: Not really. It's actually funny for me. Again, it's a historian thing. People have a two-minute history. I saw all these tweets immediately saying an unprecedented acknowledgment of Palestinian self-determination. Not only it's not unprecedented, it could hardly be more precedented. Pretty much every US president, that includes, George Bush. In fact, that includes Donald Trump. Trump himself didn't use these words, but if you look at the plans there, they use these terms, Palestinian self-determination.

No, I would be lying if I say it was a huge departure, but it is a very tough moment because of the war and everything. There, I think her speaking to the necessity to end the Palestinian suffering and importance of the Palestinian self-determination does matter. Is it enough? Is it meaningful? Not really.

The other thing we have to be honest about, here you and I are talking about Middle East, and it really matters to me. It matters to a lot of people, but is it one of the defining issues of the elections in November? Not necessarily. I think for many-

Kai Wright: No, it's not.

Arash Azizi: -people, it's not. My hope is that when we have a President Harris and she will face some unprecedented conditions in some ways, God knows what's going to happen until even the next few months, but Netanyahu, it's certainly a moment of change in Israeli politics. Netanyahu's political life is on the question, as it's been for a while, then she'll have real decisions to make.

When I think about a President Harris, if you have one, I look at some of the previous us presidents. I actually thought of George Bush for some reason, George Bush's the father, which incidentally, by the way, was the last president who really pushed Israel on the Palestinian issue. Obama pushed him on Iranian issue, but the last president who put some pressure on Israel on the Palestinian issue was really George Bush in some ways.

Kai Wright: George H.W Bush.

Arash Azizi: That's right. George HW Bush, George Bush the father. When you study Bush's administration, the four years, which were crazy four years, right-- You have the fall of the Berlin Wall, the fall of the Soviet Union, and he couldn't have more momentous of times, the Tiananmen Square in China. He looks almost like definitely non-excited. It's actually funny to read. You think, what was your feeling when the Berlin Wall fell? It's not about excitement, emotions. It's about what can the US do? It seems pretty practical, if you will, and it's not very ideological.

One hope could be that if you have a President Harris, who isn't committed one way or the other to some of the issues, you can have that decision-making in favor, in line with US national interests, in line with the objectives of the US that are the same. This is the issue. I'm not saying US should be committed to a state solution. It's the US itself who always says that.

Kai Wright: If I'm translating correctly for you here, it's Harris's self-avowed radical pragmatism in the HW Bush style that gives you optimism for how she would handle the [crosstalk]--

Arash Azizi: Again, the bar is low. When I say optimism, the bar is low, especially compared to the other candidate.

Kai Wright: Relative to Donald Trump.

Arash Azizi: Certainly. I will say there is a world in which, because Donald Trump is so unpredictable, it's not entirely crazy to imagine he comes in and he does something else that it might be beneficial for those of us who want peace and others, but it would be a freak scenario. The much more likely scenario is that even if Trump comes in and says he wants the right thing, because he does sometimes says, "Oh, I want a peace with Iran," he doesn't have the seriousness, the staffing, the attention span according to what we know from the first administration to get this stuff done. I don't think it would be.

Kai Wright: Even setting aside the ideology of it, just the work that it would require to deal with the Middle East is [crosstalk]--

Arash Azizi: I don't think he has the ideology, frankly. I don't think it's an ideology. I don't think he has an ideology. Of course, he has people around him who have certain ideologies. David Friedman, this is Trump's ambassador to Israel. He just published a book. Maybe should have him on the show at some point. His views are very clear. He basically believes that Israel should give a second-class citizenship -- when I say second-class citizenship, I'm not like playing with words. Really, he believes Israel should annex West Bank effectively and give some citizenship to Palestinian without voting.

What does it mean if you're a citizen of somewhere but you can't vote? I think we have some names for it. [laughter] These are the people advising him on this issue. Of course, he's already made open anti-Palestinian racism a part of his campaign. He attacked Chuck Schumer as a Palestinian, as an insult and all that. There are many other reasons to be pretty pessimistic about the possibility of him in the White House.

It's clear to me if you want peace in the Middle East, if you want a better conditions in the Middle East, if you want Palestinian sovereignty and all that, it's clear to me between these two choices, it would be very hard for me to see how Harris is not better. Oh, the other thing, by the way, speaking of optimism and all that about the Democratic Party as a whole. The reality is, as we saw in the DNC, there does exist a serious pro-Palestinian camp inside the Democratic Party.

[music]

Kai Wright: I'm talking with Arash Azizi, who, among many other things, is a contributing writer for The Atlantic on the Middle East and US policy there. When we come back, let's talk about this, your thoughts on the movement inside the Democratic Party for Palestinian Rights. Stay with us.

[music]

Okay. Arash, you wrote a piece after the DNC about the direction you hope and argue that the pro-Palestinian movement in the US will take. For those who didn't follow as closely, the protests outside the DNC did not make the stir that many expected back when Biden was the candidate, but you argue that what happened inside was quite meaningful. The uncommitted voters’ movement managed to get 30 delegates as a consequence of their success in the primaries. They had 30 delegates to the convention that had a seat at the table. What did you see that you're saying that's a good thing, this is the direction this movement ought to be taking?

Arash Azizi: Look. The most hopeful point-- I'll mention a few things. First of all, this attempt to seriously build a camp inside the Democratic Party. They leaked a speech of Ruwa Romman a Palestinian American elected state senator in the state of Georgia. She's the first one. Her speech that the speech to be was leaked. It's very impressive.

Kai Wright: Ruwa Romman, that's who the movement said that we would like a speaker on the stage at the DNC. It didn't succeed, but it was Ruwa Romman, state representative from Georgia. That's who was supposed to speak. You've read the speech.

Arash Azizi: Yes, exactly. I think that wasn't their first choice. Their first choice was a doctor who had seen the carnage in Gaza, but her speech leaked. There, we see a very clear attempt to make Democratic Party political home and let's take a position out of it. She attacks Trump for his anti-Palestinian racism, amongst other things, but she takes a position as part of the Democrats.

Look, politics is not about wishes. It's about actual demands. Some demands you can get meaningful majority for them. If you focus on demands like conditioning of sending of arms to Israel-- Nancy Pelosi defended this demand as recent as April. It makes sense.

Kai Wright: It's also US law.

Arash Azizi: It's also US law, yes, of course, because of the Li law. It's within the political reality. What was impressive here is that I saw the uncommitted movement effectively making common cause with the families of the hostages in Israel who organized also and are demanding a ceasefire and for different progressive Jewish groups, progressive Jewish Zionist groups here like JStreet that I mentioned.

Why does this really matter? Because I believe if the pro-Palestinian movement in the US politics is able to unite around actual policy goals that have a very real chance of having a serious majority in US politics, it can really be successful in achieving those goals. It is a demand to, as I said, condition military sales to Israel. It's a very reasonable demand. Every country has to decide which countries it gives arms to. It makes total sense for some in the US to say, well, let's condition these cells.

It will have important support. People like, again, Ilan Goldenberg, who's going to be in the government-- I'm not sure if golden has particularly advocated for this, but if you follow his writings, you will see that this wouldn't be a very strange thing to him as opposed to, I want us to be honest here. Also what allies you want to have?

Like Bernie Sanders, AOC people in the Democratic Party who have now have a seated power, whereas, they often, the pro-Palestinian movement here is associated with slogans and the type of politics that, either they advocate for the destruction of Israel or others, which, I wouldn't support and many people wouldn't support. You automatically basically lose a lot of your allies and they basically focus on the wrong things sometimes. Also if your political allies are people who are always on the margins of the US politics, who, don't get anything done ever. That's unfortunately often the case in these moments. Well, why would you make any advance on these issues?

That was my hope. It's not so much, I don't like this talk of moderation necessarily, because for me it's not really necessarily about moderation. I think when you make it about moderation and radicalism, something gets lost. It's about whether you're able to make a change. It's not just on Palestine. It's not like any other issue.

I can be very radical here. I can say, oh, I'm much more radical than Bernie Sanders. I want the overthrow of capitalism and I want this and I want that, but Bernie Sanders has been able to achieve some actual change. You get people excited, you recruit people, you bring people over when you show that you can make differences as opposed to you just have a cynical program that everything sucks and nothing can change and you hate everybody. This is not a way you can bring change to anything. I think the reason--

Kai Wright: American social movements certainly have always been about, show me some results and then I'll get on board. Get on board.

Arash Azizi: Exactly. That's right. Yes.

Kai Wright: That's a direction you would like to see the pro-Palestinian movement go. That's something you say you saw happening with the uncommitted movement. Let me also say, okay, I could see somebody hearing that, watching what they saw at the DNC and being like, the ask was to get a Palestinian American, not even a Palestinian, but a Palestinian American legislator, office holder, to speak. That was too much [chuckles]. That feels pretty meager in terms of an accomplishment. That was too much for the Democratic Party.

If these kinds of alliances can't achieve that, how is it worth it? If progressive Zionists and the pro-Palestinian movement get together and say, okay, put a Palestinian American on stage, and they can't even have that, that doesn't feel like you're showing me success as a social movement by taking that path.

Arash Azizi: No, that's right. My answer is this. They did this for about five days. This thing that I'm saying, like, oh, people were asking, and they didn't really explicitly work together, by the way. They were just making the same demands. This was tried for five days. I can't tell anybody what else to do, but I'm a writer, so I put suggestions out there. Do this over two years, do this over three years and you can have a different result.

Here's the irony. The fact is, JStreet, a lot of these groups, they're the most likely allies because first of all, because they care about this issue, because they care about the future of Israel and Palestine. They have a commonality in this, which is not true with all other groups necessarily. They don't necessarily care about this issue. It's politically self-defeating to take these people who will agree with you on a lot of issues and not only don't work with them, but make them your primary enemy, which is unfortunately often the case.

Zionist is a swear word, effectively, on huge sections of the left and whatever. I don't care about this word particularly. JStreet's slogan is like, pro-Israel, pro-peace, something like that. It doesn't necessarily even have that right. The point is you will have policy agreements with these people. It's just a fact. If the policies is about putting pressure on Israel for the end to the occupation of the Palestinian territories, you can have a very large coalition of people behind you. It's just a fact. You can have it.

I want to acknowledge something at the very beginning. This is a grossly unfair situation to begin with. Palestinians not wanting to live under military occupation shouldn't be a question. In a fair world, nobody should be born under military occupation, let alone military occupation that has gone on for decades. The fact that the United States effectively doesn't do anything against this occupation, barely they even use the word occupation anymore, it's very sad and it's terrible. It's a very lopsided reality.

Unfortunately, politics needs to begin from the reality as it is. I wish the reality was different. Not that it isn't. I believe there are meaningful ways to change this. You can make a meaningful camp in US politics in the next 5 to 10 years if you follow this politics, but if your politics is to make AOC your enemy, as some have, the biggest socialist organization in this country, DSA, unendorsed AOC, precise on the question of Palestine, even though she's the most pro-Palestinian order.

I'll say something else. You look at the history of Zionist groups in the United States, different groups who-- When I say Zionists, I mean self-avowed Zionists who've advocated for different goals. They didn't do this. They do the very opposite. I use the word funny in a morbid very often, but AOC is denounced by some pro-Palestinian groups, like the DSA, as I said, who unendorsed her, but there are many other Jewish groups and/or Zionist groups who don't denounce her, even though she's already the most pro-Palestinian congresswoman. Why? Because they try to keep and build good relations with her, and they try to--

Kai Wright: Because she has power.

Arash Azizi: Because she has power. That's the way it is. If you want to work in US politics, you can't just denounce everybody and only have your allies be the far-left groups of a few hundred people who struggle to change much. I think that's the wrong strategy, and I hope people would have to better strategy considering, again, I want to emphasize also that this is terrible conditions. We are talking about a daily carnage going on in Gaza. A lot of people who are part of this movement have lost more members of their family than a lot of us can even remember having gotten a cold. There are people who have lost dozens of their family members just in the last few months.

I have a friend, he lost his mother and his sister. Just the other day, some of other family members of him were almost killed when Israel did a strike near this church in Gaza. He's not unique. This is the story of so many people. It's not like you can expect everyone to have a cool, strategic, rational head when--

Kai Wright: To be able to have these realpolitik conversations about something that is literally life and death.

Arash Azizi: That's right. I believe in the long term, that's what we need. It's a tough time. Can I also just say something else about-- I'm Iranian. I'm an opponent of the Iranian regime. The Iranians have done a terrible job of strategizing and having good strategic politics. We are not closer to our goals, either, those of us who oppose the government in Iran.

This is not a question that is unique to one movement or the other. I think it sometimes happens with movements that have laudable goals, but charting the path to get there, it's going to be tricky because it requires compromise. It requires something more than just moral declaration, and that's always difficult.

Kai Wright: Last thing, since you brought up Iran. Those of us who are watching this in the United States, are we over or underreacting to the possibility of a wider war with Iran?

Arash Azizi: It's never overreacting because this danger is very real. This danger is very real. It can happen despite even the sides wanting it, which is the scary part. It can be a situation there. It often happens in history where no sides really wants war, and yet war takes place because of decisions, because of princemanship, because of one wrong decision. There were many people in the Iran establishment in the last few weeks who seriously wanted to attack Israel. This is not made up. I've talked to them. I know what I'm talking about. They really wanted--

It's very easy afterwards to say they were never going to attack. No, they were seriously some who were pushing for it. Thankfully, it hasn't happened yet. No, I say, I think the danger is very much there. This is why a ceasefire in Gaza is also very important Honestly, this is something that is very close to my heart. I was born in 1988 when Iran was in the middle of a war with Iraq. My mother, when she was pregnant with me, would stay in the missile shelters in Tehran. I lost a cousin in that war before I was born. He was killed in that war. I'm not unique. Every Iranian has gone through that. There are many others who've--

Now, I mentioned, of course, people in Palestine are going through the most terrible war you can imagine. Wars are really terrible. I know we just say it, but they really are, because sometimes the way people talk about this, frankly, I'm a little disgusted sometimes. You're on a conversation somewhere in the US and people talk about hit that and hit this. A broader war, it would bring death and destruction for millions of people.

I'm not a pacifist by any means, because unfortunately, wars do happen and sometimes they need to be fought, but we really should do everything we can to prevent them. A broader war in that region is avoidable. My answer to the question is that the good news is that it is avoidable, and the Iranian regime plays a terrible role, but there are many in the Iranian establishment who are also not interested in the broader war.

It's much better to work with them as opposed to what happened under George W. Bush, this plan that maybe if we have a broad conflagration, a new, shiny, democratic, peaceful Middle East is going to emerge. It's not going to emerge. The only thing that will remain out of that, people who advocate that stuff will get other jobs and they'll continue, but the grieving mothers, the grieving fathers, the grieving brothers and sisters, they are the ones who will remain. It won't be in the interest of anyone, whether Iranian, Palestinian, Israeli or American. I hope that we can do everything we can to avoid it.

Kai Wright: War is, in fact, hell. It is a destructive force. Violence does not construct things. It destroys things.

Arash Azizi: That's right.

Kai Wright: That's what it does.

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Arash Azizi: That's right.

Kai Wright: Arash Azizi writes for The Atlantic about US policy in the Middle East and Iran. I'm Kai Wright. I hope to talk with you in our next live show Sunday at 6:00 Eastern on your public radio station or streaming at wnyc.org and, of course, here in the podcast feed on Monday. I'll see you there, or I'll see you on Instagram. Our handle is @noteswithkai. Check us out. Talk to you soon.

 

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