ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
Today, B-2 bombers took off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and appear to be headed towards Guam. The move comes as President Trump weighs whether the U.S. will join Israel in its bombardment against Iran. For more than a week now, Israel and Iran have traded airstrikes that have killed at least 430 Iranians and 24 Israelis. That's according to each country's government. President Trump says he wants to see if there's any chance at a diplomatic solution before entering the fight himself. But as the region inches closer to an all out war and tensions escalate, is diplomacy still possible? Seyed Hossein Mousavian is a former Iranian diplomat and nuclear negotiator who is currently a visiting research collaborator at Princeton University. He's with us from Frankfurt, Germany. Welcome.
SEYED HOSSEIN MOUSAVIAN: Thank you, Andrew.
LIMBONG: All right, so you were on this program less than three weeks ago. And at the time, President Trump said he was close to a deal with Iran over their nuclear program, and you were telling us what a possible deal could look like. All right, now things are very different. Is there one thing that sticks out to you about this past week of fighting?
MOUSAVIAN: The most important issue is about a reality that there was no immediate and serious threat in order to justify any military strike by Israel or the U.S. The claim that Iran has enough enriched stockpile to build 10 nuclear bombs in two weeks is only half of the truth. The other half is that even if Iran decide to build a nuclear bomb - which they never have decided - but even if they decide, it would take them one or two years to develop the delivery system such as nuclear warheads. Therefore, President Trump and Congress - they should be very cautious about such a dangerous and false narratives manufactured to drag the U.S. in a devastating war.
LIMBONG: Just to get a sense of where tensions are at now - I was just reading a piece in The New York Times that was reporting that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is naming possible successors in case he is killed. Now, that would be a major shift, and if that were to happen, what would that mean for Iran?
MOUSAVIAN: I really don't know whether this is true or not, but I would not be surprised because three years ago also, we read in Iranian news that Ayatollah Khamenei has proposed the Assembly of Experts to think about two, three candidates as successor. Therefore, this is not really something very exceptional and new.
LIMBONG: Iran and Israel have lost civilians in these air strikes. Is diplomacy possible?
MOUSAVIAN: It is possible. First of all, if the U.S. would be ready to make a deal based on international rules and regulations - Andrew, we have the only major international convention on nuclear, is nonproliferation treaty, NPT. Any deal between Iran and the U.S. should respect this convention, this treaty, and should be in the framework of this treaty. This treaty has entitled every member of state to enjoy peaceful nuclear technology. Therefore, the key issue would be whether uranium enrichment is going to remain peaceful or not.
LIMBONG: What is your sense of the likelihood of that route being taken?
MOUSAVIAN: If President Trump is going to follow the line and the objectives of Prime Minister Netanyahu, there is a big danger that the U.S. will be engaged in transregional war because Prime Minister Netanyahu's objective is not only to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities, but to bring regime change in Iran, to create instability in the country and to turn Iran, like Syria, Lebanon, and Libya, into a failed state and then break it apart. This is going to have major consequences for the region and beyond.
LIMBONG: Here in the U.S., though, we've been having this debate, you know, about the U.S. providing specialized weapons to go after an underground nuclear plant in Iran, right? But Israel has already struck a number of Iranian nuclear sites and has killed scientists. Do you think lasting harm has been done to Iran's nuclear program?
MOUSAVIAN: Israelis - they have done this before. You remember in 2010, there was cyberattack. In 2010, before and after, they killed many Iranian nuclear scientists. What was the outcome? It was really counterproductive. I mean, assassinating or destroying more nuclear facilities or nuclear scientists would make Iran to become more radicalized and to believe more and more that they need nuclear bomb as deterrents.
LIMBONG: That's former Iran nuclear negotiator Seyed Hossein Mousavian. Thank you so much.
MOUSAVIAN: Thank you, Andrew.
LIMBONG: And later in the program, what are the hazards of bombing a nuclear plant? We'll learn more about the underground Iranian nuclear facility where America's bunker-busting bombs may be used. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
