Iran had to be stopped
Patrick Clawson is an American economist and a leading scholar on Middle Eastern affairs, particularly Iran. Clawson serves as the Director for Research at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and is a senior editor of Middle East Quarterly. Clawson is widely recognised for his expertise on Iran’s political economy, nuclear ambitions, and regional strategy. He directs the Institute’s Iran Security Initiative, a flagship program focused on assessing the challenges Iran poses to U.S. and Western interests across the Middle East. His prolific output includes over 150 articles and more than eighteen books or studies, such as Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos, The Andean Cocaine Industry, and Iran Under Khatami: A Political, Economic, and Military Assessment.
Clawson has been an advocate for decades for tougher action on Iran to stop its nuclear weapons programme. Now that the US has bombed Iran's most critical nuclear sites, including the most highly protected Fordow, Clawson spoke to Hindol Sengupta about what is likely to happen in the future.
Clawson believes that the US and Israeli action has stalled, not stopped - Iran's quest for nuclear weapons but with many of its top personnel involved in the nuclear programme now dead, the timelines have been pushed forward considerably. He also says that the possibility of a regime change in Iran after the death of Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei (86) cannot be ruled out, though it will be through the demands of Iranians themselves who are unhappy with the Islamic regime.
In the conversation, Clawson and Sengupta spoke about,
- why Iran had to be stopped,
- why Trump tearing up Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, as imperfect as it may have been, was a mistake,
- how Iran assumed that blocking its nuclear sites would make them safer, but the US bombed the sites through shafts, which did even greater damage,
- why the Chinese rapid expansion of nuclear arsenal threatens the whole world,
- whether Japan, Taiwan and South Korea are moving towards acquiring nuclear weapons,
- concerns on Pakistan trying to acquire Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs),
- and why Trump is trying to end conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine, to focus more on the Indo-Pacific to tackle China.
Chapters :
0:00-0:33 Opening
0:58-2:56 Why Iran had to be stopped
3:24-4:51 What did the strike on Iran achieve?
5:20-7:45 Why tearing up the Iran deal was a historic mistake
8:17-10:15 Can Iran be stopped the way Iraq was?
10:51-12:32 What really happened at Fordow?
13:15-16:10 A regime under pressure: is Iran near collapse?
17:16-18:40 What’s really going on between Iran and Pakistan?
19:29-20:50 Is the Sinosphere really reliable?
21:46-22:59 Are we entering a new nuclear age?
23:41-24:39 South Korea, Japan and the question of self-deterrence
25:13-25:46 Should India rethink its nuclear doctrine?
26:30-28:02 Is there still hope to stop nuclear proliferation before it’s too late?
28:55-30:21 Gaza, Netanyahu and the question of lasting peace in the Middle East
31:05-33:25 Is the Indo-Pacific still a priority?
33:28-33:53 Closing
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