Is Trump really done with his war with Iran?

0:00Support for Here and Now Anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. We may have blown up a bunch of stuff, but we haven't reached our strategic objectives. And we're probably the ones who are going to pull out because we don't want the strait being closed and we don't want to escalate. We're sort of backed into a corner. A ceasefire with Iran is putatively the start of a negotiated end to the U.S. and Israel's war.

0:49It's Wednesday, April 8th, and this is Here and Now, anytime from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley.

0:59Today on the show, reactions to the two-week ceasefire deal announced between the U.S. and Iran. An Iranian expat says the war is not going to end with a new government in charge. I don't see it ending with a regime change. You don't? No, I don't think bombs will cause a regime change. Also, an American nonprofit has fielded hundreds of calls from active duty military since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. They want to register as conscientious objectors. Many people in the country, they had their consciousness shifted over Israel-Palestine throughout the war on Gaza. And many of our callers referenced that, saying that's when they started to wake up, but there was a layer of separation between themselves and the U.S.

1:44military and the conduct of the Israeli military. Well, now here we are fighting a war with Israel, doing the kinds of things that, you know, Israel became notorious for throughout the Gaza war. That story coming up in about 15 minutes. But first, what to make of this ceasefire deal? The U.S. cast it as a victory. Here's Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. This new regime was out of options and out of time. So they cut a deal. They know this agreement means that they will never, ever possess a nuclear weapon. President Trump, in a post on Truth Social, called Iran's 10-point plan a workable basis on which to negotiate.

2:24That proposal includes things like sanctions relief for Iran and the withdrawal of American troops from the region, as well as Iranian military control of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's Supreme National Security Council said negotiations will begin with complete distrust of the American side on Friday, April 10th in Islamabad, Pakistan. So is this really the beginning of the end of the war? Herein now, security analyst Jim Walsh stopped by to share his thoughts with Scott Tong. Jim, do you sense this war that the U.S. and Israel began is ending? I do. You know, the administration always said that President Trump would decide when this war has ended.

3:09And I think he's decided to end it and walk away. I mean, nothing's ever certain with the president, but that's my best hunch. Why? He put himself in a trap of his own making. As the New York Times reported yesterday, he went into the war thinking it would be quick and easy with the emphasis on quick. And when the Iranians didn't roll over after a couple of days and then responded by closing the straits, he found himself in a situation where he was on the clock each day that this goes on longer, higher prices that have political consequences. And the choice was either escalate or walk away. And we sort of, we may have reached that inflection point last night.

3:49And I think the decision is to walk away. Yeah. And if that were to happen, what are the most important questions, the immediate questions, the U.S. and Iran have to discuss in this ceasefire? Well, I think there are two parallel questions in play here. One is, you know, is there really going to be a negotiation? I got to say this sort of last minute announcement seemed a lot more like fig leaf than anything else. You know, both sides simply recognize the fact that the other's agenda exists and the agendas are totally opposite. And they're going to do this in two weeks. It took more than two years to negotiate the Iran nuclear deal.

4:29So I think if that doesn't happen, then the parties will find a way functionally in practice to make this work. Iran will give enough assurances to shippers. Things will die down. There'll be a period of inactivity. That'll give the cautious more confidence to give it a run, give it a try. But the region is left aflame. If the U.S. now walks away, it's still under conditions of war. Israel's still attacking Lebanon. Iran is angry, and the other Gulf states feel vulnerable. So that has all yet to play out, and it's unclear how that will be going forward, but it's not going to be good. Let me ask you about Iranian military capabilities.

5:13capabilities. So this morning, Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon said military officials, he and military officials in the U.S. said 80 percent of Iran's air defenses are destroyed. We also know just Friday they shot down an American F-15E fighter jet still controlled the Strait of Hormuz. So what can Iran still do right now? I think the problem with the secretary's comments here, he falls into the same habits of previous secretaries of defense who were ahead of losing wars. You're counting the wrong thing. The question is whether you're achieving your strategic objective. It's not how many buildings you blow up or how many ships you sink.

5:53Just like in the Vietnam War, it wasn't body counts. It was whether you were winning or losing, whether your side was facing more pain or the other side was facing more pain and who was going to give in first. And I think on that score, that is to say at the strategic level, we may have blown up a bunch of stuff, but we haven't reached our strategic objectives. And we're probably the ones who are going to pull out because we don't want the strait being closed and we don't want to escalate. We're sort of backed into a corner. Now, as to the particulars, Iran continues to, well, up until today, fire 15 to 30 ballistic missiles, 100 drones.

6:28They have enough capability to threaten the strait, enough to threaten the regional oil infrastructure. That's all they have to do to achieve their military objectives. And how about the strategic item of Iran's nuclear program? As best we know, Jim, it still maintains a large stockpile of highly enriched uranium, still has engineers, still has these centrifuge machines, right? Absolutely. And we don't really know absolutely for sure where that 60 % uranium is, but wherever it is, Iran knows where it is, and it controls it. And over time, you know, that's the question. Do they come out of this more angry and more determined to become a nuclear weapons state?

7:05Because they had not made the bomb decision before, according to U.S. intelligence. They had sort of stayed at the line. But now will they cross that line because of two attacks in a row? That's the big question going forward. You mentioned the Strait of Hormuz, right? Only a handful of ships reportedly have passed through today, even though the ceasefire deal kind of specifies that it eventually reopened. Is that easier said than done? I think that's easier than many of the other tasks ahead that require repairing infrastructure. I mean, once the shippers have confidence that they won't be attacked, it's really a psychological barrier.

7:42And overcoming that, I think things should resume to normal over time as cautious gain more confidence. But the question is, is Iran going to set up what some have called the Iranian toll booth? Are we going to be operating with a different set of circumstances? That remains to be worked out. Yeah. And Jim, finally, you know, this ceasefire was negotiated largely through Pakistan and reportedly with the help of China. Does this moment tell us something new about the new world power map? You know, I'm a skeptic. I think not. I think Pakistan played a good hand and they came out a winner because Trump was looking for a way out, and they were the ones standing there with a piece of paper.

8:23I mean, I think it's good for U.S.-Pakistani relations. I'm sure it makes India mad, but I don't think it really tilts things one way or another very much. In the end, it's the parties that decide what's going to happen, while the bystanders hope for the best. And in this case, the main player, Trump, I think decided he wants out. That's Jim Walsh of MIT's Security Studies Program. Jim, thank you. Thank you.

8:53We've got to take a short break, and we'll be right back.

9:04Let's get another perspective on the Iran news from Radin Yad. He was born in Iran, studied in the U.S., and is now an English-language linguist in Budapest, Hungary. Much of Radin's family is still in Iran, and he told Scott Tong the ceasefire announcement comes as a relief. To be quite frank, I was not expecting to get much sleep last night. I kept waking up, but I resisted the urge to look at the news. Eventually in the morning, I looked at my phone and I saw that there was an announcement of ceasefire. It was a relief, better than Armageddon to wake up to. What were you worried about? The threats that had been mentioned to the threat of wiping out a civilization.

9:56It's not a light threat. And I was worried that some people might not reach some sort of initial steps for their agreements for a ceasefire. and something bad could happen. Things could escalate even further. The nuclear power plant in Iran was attacked again for the fourth time, I believe, just a few days ago. I was just worried that it could be targeted again and that would be catastrophic for not everybody, not just people in Iran, people in the region because it's in the southern coast. so it was just like a very horrifying image to have you told us last month that war changed everything in iran streets on fire windows shattered in your relatives homes in tehran from the strikes internet unstable have you heard from your family members the last few days yes i got a message this morning everybody's safe uh i was very happy to hear the ones that have left the city have stayed away, as far as I know.

11:07They might come back during these two weeks to just maybe get more stuff from home and leave again. But a lot of them remain in Tehran because there are not a lot of places for people to go. Cities across the country are being attacked. What do your relatives tell you, if you've been able to get details, about everyday life right now? Well, I heard from a friend whose brother is a university student, and their university was bombed just a few days ago. And I fail to see any justification for that. But from my own relatives, everybody's so far safe. They are worried things are going to get worse.

11:52But they try not to make me worried, so they probably don't share a lot of the details with me. They call, they say, hey, we're fine, we're okay. And we speak for a minute only, and then that's it. Wow. What do you know about, if you know, their ability to eat, get food, travel around to the extent they need to travel? We never get enough time to talk about these things. It's the conversations about, hi, we're safe, I just wanted to hear a voice, I love you. That's it. Hmm. This regime has engaged in a brutal crackdown on protesters earlier this year, killed at least 7 ,000, according to the Human Rights Activist News Agency.

12:38Other groups estimate the number is multiples higher. Now this war in Iran, is it going to bring more internal support to this unpopular regime? I think yes. I'm seeing people that were not particularly engaged with politics before becoming more engaged in sort of a forsake of the country rather than the regime. I don't know if you saw pictures of people on bridges and around power plants. I did. A lot of those people are not necessarily fans of the regime, but love the country. So it's creating a scenario where it's bringing more people in to defend the country. And in this situation, the country and the regime become synonymous for the purpose of people living there right now.

13:31Nobody wants to see bombs dropping on their heads. Radin, there are huge financial sanctions against Iran, including international money transactions. Is there any way you can send help from the outside to your family in Iran? Unfortunately, there is not. Banking system in Iran is completely isolated from the rest of the world, which also makes importing medicine difficult as well in the country. The majority of the medicine in Iran is locally produced for that reason. So now, given the kind of the limits and what you can do for your family, given the limits on your ability to talk to them, internet connections and otherwise, what will you be paying attention to in these next couple of weeks?

14:19I mean, this is a very short ceasefire. In these two weeks, I'm going to be hoping that more sensible people will be in charge. I want people with clear heads, with peaceful objectives, being in charge of negotiations. because I worry that if people that are not willing to negotiate in good faith are in charge, the two weeks will be up with nothing to show for it. And we'll be right back where we started. Back where we started. We've been talking to Radin Yad, an Iranian expatriate. He was born in Iran, has a lot of family there still, now lives in Hungary watching all of this. Radin, thank you again for speaking to us.

15:07Thank you, Scott. Have a nice day.

15:15Well, it's not just Iranians. Americans also say they're tired of war. Coming up, Indira Lakshmanan talks to a U.S. veteran who says there's been a surge of troops filing as conscientious objectors just days ahead of their active duty deployments. That's after the break.

15:47During the Vietnam War, nearly half a million American men applied for conscientious objector exemptions to avoid being drafted to fight, and more than a third of those applications were approved. Since the U.S. military became an all-volunteer fighting force in 1973, the number of people applying for conscientious objector status dropped to a few hundred a year. Mike Pryzner is a U.S.-Iraq War veteran and executive director of the Center on Conscience and War, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of conscientious objectors. And he joins us now from Portland, Oregon, to talk about the calls he's been getting since the start of the war in Iran.

16:28Mike, welcome to Here and Now. Thanks for having me. So first off, as a U.S. Army veteran who fought in the Middle East, what's your reaction to the ceasefire announced last night in the Iran war? Well, it's definitely encouraging. I would hope that nobody gets their hopes up because the Trump administration has used the guise of negotiations before to launch a war. And, you know, if this is over, that's a very good thing. But we have to be really cautious. Trump has also said that he's ready to go to war with Cuba to have an easy victory there. Now, you say that you have heard from many active duty troops in recent weeks who are raising objections to the war in Iran.

17:07What kind of folks are reaching out to you? Yeah, well, typically in a year, we handle about 50 conscientious objector applications for members of the U.S. military. Since this war started, we fielded hundreds of calls from active duty military who do not want to participate and are strongly opposed to the war. of those around 100 have actually begun filing as conscientious objectors working with us, and many of them had submitted. And we're talking about people, many of them were hours or days away from an actual deployment to the Middle East, and many of them were able to keep home. And the types of people that we're hearing from, I mean, it's all ranks.

17:41It's private through majors, our highest ranking. There are fighter pilots, there are infantry people, there are intelligence personnel. They're all branches of service. It's really a diverse group. There's really no one demographic that we're hearing from, but the universal thing that they are saying is they don't want to be a part of killing people in Iran for no reason. The number one thing cited by our callers and our clients as a breaking point for them was the U.S. bombing of the Minab girls' school, and that being the moment where they realized, you know, I'm not going to take part in the killing of children.

18:10And you're referring to the bombing of a girls' school in Iran at the beginning of the U.S. and Israeli operation that was apparently adjacent to a military facility in Iran. That's right. Now, what are the main reasons that people cite to you for being conscientious objectors? Is it religious grounds, moral grounds? Yeah, well, up until the Vietnam War, it had to be religious, but it was challenged in the courts. And in 1970, the courts ruled that non-religious moral beliefs apply. I would say that most of our clients are people that have non-religious moral beliefs. But I think the important thing is, you mentioned in your intro that this is very common in the Vietnam War.

18:51That was because so many people were drafted who registered their moral beliefs when they were drafted. CO today exists for people who join the military and have a profound change of heart after they join, which is really the essence of human nature. People change. People change in profound ways. And so everyone that we talk to are people who join the military thinking one thing, And then through their own experiences or through witnessing actions of the U.S. military abroad, they go through a deep and profound moral crisis, which leads them to realize, you know, they can't actually do their job if they're deployed overseas.

19:22Now, this is a really important point that you're making because, of course, active duty forces in a volunteer military are men and women who chose a job that comes with paid education, benefits, a secure career track. And U.S. military law allows people to have a profound change of mind and object to warfare overall. But you're not allowed to object to a particular conflict. So from reading the law, it seems to me you can't just say, I'm opposed to Iran. I don't want to be deployed for that. You would have to say, I've changed my views and I'm against all war in general. So does that mean that those people then have to seek an honorable discharge from the military or can they seek other non-combat roles?

20:08What happens next? Right. Well, you know, if it was open to particular wars, we would have had many, many hundreds of clients rather than just 100 throughout the duration of this. It is true, but it is actually also valid that a conscientious objector is inspired by recent events. And so, of course, the vast majority of our clients in the past month have been people who it was the Iran war specifically, and actions that they saw the US military commit that they realized they couldn't be part of was the trigger for them realizing that they are a conscientious objector. And that's totally valid on a CO application because oftentimes people in the military, they don't really have to think or ask the deep questions to themselves.

20:43What are they capable of doing? What are they willing to do? What kind of person do they want to be? And for most people, when they're faced, myself included, when they're faced with an actual war and actually having to do the thing, that's when you really go through that deep exploration of yourself and what you are willing to do. And for many of these people, they've realized that they can't take part in it. And I would say that that large number of people that we've taken on, this is a really small sample size. The vast majority of people in the military do not know about our organization, do not know that they can call us for help.

21:13And so the hundreds of soldiers that reached out to us directly represents just a small percentage of soldiers in the military as a whole. So how many have you actually managed to have success with in getting their conscientious objector status? And then what happens next? Do they get honorable or dishonorable discharges, or do they get reassigned to non-combat roles? You know, you get an honorable discharge. As soon as you submit your application, you are reassigned to non-combat roles. Your command is obligated under the regulation to accommodate your beliefs. That's how we had several clients who submitted applications right before they were deploying to the Middle East, and their command kept them home because they did the right thing and followed the regulations.

21:56In our experience, you know, our previous executive director, who was here for 15 years, if you asked her our rate of success, she said about 99%. And so it is very, when people work with counselors, like our professional counselors, there's a very high success rate of getting these applications approved. Because, you know, the thing that they're looking for is sincerity. I mean, that's the main thing that the investigation is. Our clients are sincere people. They deeply believe that they do not want to take part in killing. And, you know, that's the burden of proof in these investigations. Okay.

22:24Your counseling director at your organization, who's been there since 9-11, says that what's happening now is unlike anything they've experienced before. So say more about that. What about during the years of the worst U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan or the big political scandals like the offenses committed by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib prison? You know, what's changed that you're seeing more people objecting now? Right. You know, the Iraq war logs, the Afghanistan papers, the troop surges in Iraq and Afghanistan where U.S. casualties skyrocketed. Yes, of course, there is a steady trickle of clients, people filing a CEO during that time, including infantry people who are frontline fighters.

23:06You know, there is a couple that filed a CEO while they were forward deployed to Iraq. But it's nothing compared to the level that we're experiencing today by a large magnitude. And there's a lot of reasons for that. The war on terror being part of it. People who are young people in the military today, they grew up with the war on terror. They grew up with the lessons of those wars, wars that were disastrous, that they found were based on lies, the Iraq War in particular, wars that with the U.S., you know, you could argue very much lost those conflicts and left the countries in far worse shape than when we went there.

23:34And wars that, you know, once they were lost, the politicians didn't do the right thing and just leave. Of course, look, many people in the country, they had their consciousness shifted over Israel-Palestine throughout the war on Gaza. And many of our callers referenced that, saying that's when they started to wake up, but there was a layer of separation between themselves and the U.S. military and the conduct of the Israeli military. Well, now here we are fighting a war with Israel, doing the kinds of things that, you know, Israel became notorious for throughout the Gaza War. And so, you know, there's a myriad of things.

24:04And then, of course, Trump coming in, deploying U.S. soldiers to American streets. protecting ICE while they carried out what many recognize as constitutional and human rights and civil rights violations, including the killing of American citizens, the bombing of drug boats that turned out to be fishing vessels, or narcotics operations that turned out to be dairy farms. I mean, there's been an accumulation of lessons for people in the military today, both before Trump and during Trump, that have led them to make these decisions. So you mentioned changing views because of the war in Gaza, the bombing of alleged drug boats, use of troops on American streets for immigration operations that resulted in the deaths of at least two American citizens.

24:44I'm also wondering, late last year, six Democratic lawmakers who were veterans or intelligence officers made a video reminding service members that they should refuse, quote, illegal orders. Has that played a role as well? I think it helps give credibility to the argument that if something's not violating your conscience, you should not be forced to take part in it. And what they said was very important, but that protects soldiers in particular circumstances. If you are ordered to commit something that you believe is illegal or ordered to carry out an action you believe is illegal, you have the right to question that and to not do it.