US, Iran Step Back From Brink; Trump Says Iran Stands Down

January 8, 2020 at 10:18 AM PST

Speaker 1: 00:00 Speaker 2: 00:06 Speaker 1: 00:18 Speaker 3: 00:48 Speaker 1: 01:09 Speaker 4: 01:19 Speaker 1: 01:21 Speaker 4: 01:27 Speaker 1: 01:43 Speaker 4: 01:55 Speaker 1: 02:34 Speaker 4: 02:47 Speaker 1: 03:09 Speaker 4: 03:17 Speaker 1: 03:56 Speaker 4: 04:05 Speaker 1: 04:55 Speaker 4: 05:14 Speaker 1: 06:07 Speaker 4: 06:12 Speaker 1: 07:37 Speaker 4: 07:46 A small group of San Diego ans rallied in Balbo. Apart today to protest rising tensions with Iran. I do fear for um, Iran for the Iranian people, for myself and my fellow running in Americans for, you know, any Americans like we don't, we don't need to go into another war. That was San Diego resident Peter Behravesh. Luckily the threat of war with Iran. Cool. Today as president, Donald Trump did not mention a U S military response in his address to the nation about Iran's missile attack. Trump said no Americans had been hurt by Iranian missiles fired at two bases in Iraq on Tuesday. Iran's government said last night that they would forego additional attacks against the U S if America did not respond militarily. And here's president Trump speaking at the white house this morning. As we continue to evaluate options in response to Iranian aggression, the United States will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime. These powerful sanctions will remain until around changes its behavior. Joining me now via Skype is professor Michael Provence. He teaches modern middle East history at UC San Diego and professor Provence. Welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be back. Is this the kind of response you expected from the U S to the missile strikes by Iran? Yes, I think so. I mean, the president is erratic but somewhat predictable in, uh, in not wanting to respond to, uh, to things that will maybe bring things out of control, put things out of control. Yeah. The president says his response will be more sanctions against Iran. There have been crippling economic sanctions on Iran for years. What more sanctions could the U S impose? I can't imagine what they could, uh, what further economic majors could be brought against your on at this point? I mean, the, the, the problem or the situation of course is it sanctions harm the day to day lives of ordinary people, uh, and make life more difficult for millions of Iranians, but they don't cause any kind of threat or problem for the regime that government, uh, its military structures, uh, at all. And in fact, since people blame the United States for the sanctions, it tends to, to undermine the position of the United States. And and solidify the position of the, of the government. Now the precedent is also asking world allies to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and join together to negotiate a new deal based on how the last deal was formed, how much time and effort do you think that would take? It's not going to happen. The Iranians are hoping, I presume, and European countries, including Russia, are hoping that if a new government comes into power in the United States sometime in the future, that the nuclear deal may be maybe a renewed. So I don't think that anyone's going to seriously consider any of these initial steps from president Trump. But since Iran itself has said that is withdrawing from the nuclear deal, isn't there a concern around the world that something else should take its place? They have withdrawn from elements of it and they have a Zuri for yesterday in an interview on NPR said, we withdraw from the things that, uh, that we, that are not being upheld, uh, by the Americans. But we maintain the ability to renew the nuclear deal, uh, immediately. Uh, if the things that the breaches on the part of the Americans are, uh, are rectified. So this is an open door. It's an open door for the deal as it is not for a deal, uh, in the future. That could be. Now going back to last night's attack, um, that was a risky move on the part of the Iranians. What kind of message do you think they were trying to send? Well, it was pretty major apparently. And at calc, I mean, they have to do something. I imagine it's necessary to, for them to respond in some way. So they launched an attack at the moment, least likely to cause casualties. And in fact, it seems that it hasn't caused casualty. Uh, the, the American forces in Iraq apparently knew about it at a time by radar. Uh, so, um, it was a major and calculated move to, um, to restore the initiative on the part of the Iranian government without further, uh, provoking and American responses seems to me so far. More majored, far more moderate, you could say, than the initial, uh, assassination of, uh, of, of, uh, costume SUNY, Amani now, uh, in response to all this unrest in the region, the Pentagon announced today, it's suspending the fight against ISIS. That was a joint effort of Iran, Iraq and U S and other fighters against ISIS. So where is that fight against ISIS stand now? Uh, I mean, the people who were assassinated, uh, general Sunni Mani and, uh, and, uh, the, uh, Mohandas, the, the Iraqi military leader with the two main military figures on the, uh, on the part of Iraq and Iran in the fight against ISIS. So those two, uh, military figures were assassinated by the United States. So the fight against ISIS is, is dead in the water. It's a, it's finished. And the Iraqi government and the Iranian government probably don't care if ISIS, uh, returns to the upper Euphrates region, the Syrian Iraqi border region, and they don't consider it their problem. Uh, and as long as the, as ISIS doesn't threaten the Iranian or Iraqi governments, uh, in the South, they probably won't be interested in and won't have anything to do with it. Is there still enough left of ISIS to be a threat to the rest of the world? Sure. Well, not the rest of the world, but the region that they have fought, the upper Euphrates region, I'm sure. I mean, they may return to Mosul or Rocco or something like that. Possibly. I suppose. I think that reconstituting, um, ISIS cadres is, is a real possibility, probably likelihood. One interesting thing which has not been widely reported is that in the last few weeks and the last month, big protest movements in Iraq and in Iran have, uh, formed and challenged the government and been met with ferocious repression, uh, and a number of deaths, uh, of, uh, unarmed civilian protestors against corruption, economic hardship, uh, unrepresentative government, uh, the clerical regime and Yurok, a sectarian government senior on or vice versa. And these protests have been destroyed, and the validity and legitimacy of the protestors have been undermined by these U S actions of the past few days. So this is a kind of an untold story, and it's given license. The fact that these assassinations took place, I've given license to both the Iranian and the Iraqi government to, to repress domestic criticism and legitimate civilian grievance more ferociously than they would've been able to do otherwise. So that's really a tragedy and it's something that I think people should know about. I've been speaking with professor Michael Provence, who teaches modern middle East history at UC San Diego. And thank you so much. I appreciate your time. My pleasure.

By KPBS Public Media

The U.S. and Iran stepped back from the brink of possible war Wednesday, as President Donald Trump indicated he would not respond militarily after no one was harmed in Iran's missile strike on two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops.