MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We wanted to get additional perspective on all this from Ambassador Dennis Ross. He is a former U.S. special envoy for Mideast talks. He also co-founded the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, and he's with us now. Ambassador, welcome back to the program. Good morning.
DENNIS ROSS: Good to be with you. Thanks.
MARTIN: So, you know, there have been strikes and retaliatory strikes throughout this ceasefire period. What is it about this new round of attacks that seems to have pushed the ceasefire toward collapse?
ROSS: Well, I think the key here is that the president was getting one thing, one achievement out of the MOU, and that was the opening of the straits. We were waiving sanctions for the sale of Iranian oil. We were allowing them to receive dollars for it into the Iranian banking system. This was providing a windfall for them, and we had lifted the blockade on them. All this was what the Iranians were gaining, and the only thing we were gaining was the opening of the straits. But it turns out we were not gaining the opening of the straits.
So I think what happened was the president decided he had no explanation for why he was observing this, and he decided he would then make a point by bombing harder. What we've seen is the Iranians now have a regime that will respond in kind. Is this going to be another tit-for-tat arrangement? - which, by the way, the Iranians don't mind a tit for tat because it puts them on an equal plane with the United States, the world's strongest military superpower.
But this now looks like the president is trying to make a point. Is he trying to make the point to get the Iranians to come back to the table and open the straits, talk about their nuclear program? Or is he trying to effectively say, look, I don't believe any longer we can negotiate an outcome, but I don't want this to go on, so I'm going to hit the Iranians hard? Yeah, they'll retaliate. But after it, I'll be able to declare we achieved all of our objectives. If the straits are not open the way we want them to be, he can say - he's always said the straits is everybody else's business, not necessarily ours. Others depend on it more.
So I think we're at a point where the president isn't really clear on what his own endgame is, but I wouldn't be shocked if his endgame is to declare success after maybe a more intensive set of strikes for a few days.
MARTIN: Who has the advantage here? I mean, a lot of the discourse now is that Iran actually does, now that they have figured out how they can essentially cripple or at least damage the global economy.
ROSS: I think the Iranians believe they have an edge. I mean, look, we're dealing with the reality of what's objective and what's subjective. The Iranians right now, especially after a week of preparing the burial of the - Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader, there's a kind of momentum that built up psychologically. The regime is feeling more emboldened, I think, ideologically more secure. They demonstrated their control. And they feel they have the - they have a control over an international choke point that affects the global economy and oil prices. The president at this point is signaling he wants this over. In my mind, he's signaled that for a long time. And the Iranians have read that as giving them an edge and believing they have the ability to outlast him.
So I would say, at least from their standpoint, they think they have an edge. The president claims we've defeated them. We destroyed their air force. We destroyed their navy. Neither their air force or their navy were the real forms of leverage that they had in the region. I think right now, certainly, the Iranians think they have an edge.
MARTIN: I'm curious what you think about the president's language. I mean, last month, President Trump called Iranian negotiators rational, smart and strong. This was when he was at the G7 summit. Yesterday, while he was wrapping up his visit to NATO, he called Iranian leaders scum. He called them sick people. You know, that's words, but - and then the Iranians have had their own words for the president and past leaders as well. But I am curious what you make of that - A, that change in tone, and B, what effect do you think that kind of language has coming from the president of the United States?
ROSS: Well, I think, to put it mildly, it's not the normal language that presidents use. But then again, President Trump is not a normal president. He doesn't approach diplomacy in what might be described as a normal way. The fact that the Iranians, as you said, use their own language, and also have put a hundred-million-dollar bounty on killing him - I guess I'm not really shocked by the language. But I'm also - we've seen the president - not just even a month ago. A couple of days ago, he talked about how rational, pragmatic this new leadership in Iran was.
They may be many things. They're probably more nationalistic than Ali Khamenei was, less religious at a certain level. They're probably also a leadership that is less risk averse than Ali Khamenei was. They're more of a challenge in a lot of ways, I believe. And as I said, it comes back to them thinking they actually have an edge right now. The president's language probably reflect his frustration more than anything else.
MARTIN: I wish we had more time because I would love to know what you think the U.S. could do to get things back on track. Do you have an answer for that in 10 seconds?
ROSS: Well, I think the key is the options we have are kind of limited. We could try to open the straits. That would take away the leverage that the Iranians have, but that's really hard to do and would take a lot of time.
MARTIN: That's former U.S. special envoy for Mideast talks Ambassador Dennis Ross. Ambassador, thank you once again.
ROSS: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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