STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Our next guest is Karim Sadjadpour. He's a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He specializes in Iran. He's given us advice for many years, and he's back once again. Karim, good morning.
KARIM SADJADPOUR: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK, Hadeel just now mentioned expanding target lists. We started with nuclear and military facilities that Israel was targeting, but then oil facilities and now state TV. What have you thought about as the Israeli target list seems to get bigger?
SADJADPOUR: Well, since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has spent decades seeking to eradicate Israel. And it now seems to be that Israel is pursuing the same goal, trying to eradicate the Islamic Republic. Their targets have expanded. They've established aerial dominance in Iranian skies. And it doesn't seem that Prime Minister Netanyahu is intent on ending these military operations anytime soon.
INSKEEP: You make a helpful point in that while Israel conducted a preemptive attack here, a preventive attack, as they would put it, it's almost as if these two countries have been at war for almost half a century.
SADJADPOUR: That's true. And it's unfortunate because in contrast to most modern geopolitical conflicts, like between Russia and Ukraine or Israel and the Palestinians, this isn't, in my view, a geopolitical conflict. There's no direct land or border disputes between Iran and Israel. Persians and Jews, you know, go back thousands of years. This is really an ideological battle. And it's, in my view, a war of choice for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Prior to the 1979 Revolution, Iran and Israel had cordial relations. So in my view, this antipathy toward Israel, the official slogan of death to Israel from 1979 onward, is not a reflection of the national interests of Iran.
INSKEEP: OK, so it was a war of choice by Iran to target Israel. Now in the more recent frame, it is an attack of choice or an offensive of choice by Israel to go after Iran in this bigger and bigger way. You said that it raises the question as to whether Israel is seeking regime change in Iran. What has President Trump said over time about that possible goal?
SADJADPOUR: Well, that's an interesting question because as recently as 30 days ago, in President Trump's speech in Riyadh, he lambasted those who have sought regime change in the Middle East, interventionists and nation builders who he said have destroyed far more nations than they've built and had no ideas about the realities of the societies in which they were intervening. And, you know, early in President Trump's term, the fear that the Israelis had was that he was too aggressively seeking a deal with Iran, seeking diplomacy with Iran. And now the fear that a lot of Trump's MAGA base have is that he's getting sucked into another Middle East war that they've long feared.
INSKEEP: Well, I want to talk about the realism of regime change, what's possible and what's not. Hadeel mentioned that a large number of military leaders have been killed. People are asking if political leaders might be targeted next. Israel certainly seems to have a lot of capabilities. But then the question is, does Iran have a bench? Can they elevate new leaders? Is their system set up to be durable and produce new leaders as well as maintain political support?
SADJADPOUR: Well, this is a large country - right? - 90 million people. It's a regime which has been in power for 46 years. It's true they have an old supreme leader, 86 years old, and there's a lot of talk about succession to him. But the bottom line is that despite the regime's unpopularity - and I suspect they only have about 15% to 20% popular support - the idea that Iranian society can organize a protest movement while they're under aerial bombardment is just highly unlikely. As Hadeel alluded to, people are incredibly anxious and they're thinking about their daily safety and security. And so I think that, you know, Israel can effectively eliminate Iran's top military and perhaps even political leaders. But that's not - doesn't seem to be a strategy to transition into a different type of a regime.
INSKEEP: Is a collapse as we saw in Syria last year just not very likely here?
SADJADPOUR: Anything is possible, Steve. You know, even up until a week before the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, U.S. government officials were talking about engaging Assad. So they didn't see that coming. But in this context, it's tough to see a regime imploding while it's fighting for its life, and it believes that it either needs to kill or be killed.
INSKEEP: And as you point out, there's not a viable resistance movement as there was in Syria, at least not something that we see publicly.
SADJADPOUR: Yes.
INSKEEP: Karim, thanks so much for your insights, as always.
SADJADPOUR: Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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