How do Iranians feel about the deal with the U.S.?

0:01Every episode of It's Been a Minute, NPR's What's Happening in Culture podcast starts by asking three questions. Who? How? Why now? If the culture's asking it, we're talking about it. At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and indulge your cultural curiosity. Follow It's Been a Minute wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll break down the zeitgeisty topics that are filling your feed. Today on State of the World, how do Iranians feel about the deal with the U.S.?

0:33You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories, up close where they're happening. It's Wednesday, June 17th. I'm Greg Dixon. We're learning more about the deal between the U.S. and Iran that aims to end hostilities and reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz. It's called a Memorandum of Understanding, and it's a preliminary agreement to set up negotiations for a final agreement. Major issues still need to be worked out in those negotiations, like the fate of Iran's nuclear program and the lifting of U.S. sanctions. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, President Trump said it's a very strong deal, but he also threatened to continue bombing if he's unhappy about its implementation.

1:17But how do Iranians feel about this deal? In today's episode, we'll hear from a variety of different Iranians. In a few minutes, we'll hear from a former nuclear negotiator who spent decades representing Iran. But first, reporter Duri Bouskarin has been getting reaction from people inside Iran, and she finds opinions are mixed, with hardliners wanting the war to continue and many opponents of the regime feeling betrayed by the United States. To some hardline supporters of Iran's clerical government, the Memorandum of Understanding is a capitulation.

1:54In this video, released by Iran's Fars News Agency, which is linked to the country's Revolutionary Guard Corps, demonstrators in Mashhad call for the execution of Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, one of the architects of the deal. While state-controlled news outlets touted the agreement as a battlefield victory, some conservatives said it's a betrayal of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, killed in an airstrike on the first day of the war. Other government supporters framed it as a tactical pause to prepare for a wider war. But in the desert city of Yazd, a retired bank manager mourned the memorandum quietly.

2:36She says it felt like a sledgehammer to her head and her heart. She asked NPR not to share her name, out of fear of repercussions for speaking to foreign media.

2:49She says she's participated in multiple protest movements, seen them all squashed with remarkable cruelty. In January, thousands of demonstrators were massacred by security forces in a coordinated crackdown across multiple cities. Iran's government has continued to execute people who participated in the demonstrations. And yet none of the protesters' demands will appear in the Memorandum of Understanding, she says.

3:19What happened to our killed people? What happened to so many grieving families? The political prisoners? Many anti-government protesters hoped that a foreign intervention would topple Iran's clerical government. The U.S. and Israel bombed Iran constantly for six weeks. According to Iran's health ministry, the strikes killed at least 3 ,400 civilians and military personnel. There was the massive inflation and the high cost of living, the strange and overwhelming hardships and the lack of food. These are the things we endured in the war, and we were willing to endure twice as much, several times as much, just so they would go away.

4:00She said she fears that the agreement will include the release of frozen funds to Iran's government.

4:09They are not aware that they are making them stronger. The monster that hurt me and my people today, tomorrow it will catch up with you and devour and destroy you as well. Despite the deaths of dozens of top officials, Iran's post-war leadership is not much different than the one before it. The new generation is younger and more closely aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And this is exactly what the regime's opponents feared.

4:38Speaking from Tehran, this man asked NPR not to share his name due to the risk of arrest. He says he saw the war as a small window of opportunity for the regime to be overtaken and for Iranians to create a better government for themselves. An agreement was reached, and it was shown that the lives of people inside Iran were of no importance to any country, he says. Now, he says, thousands of people have been killed, and the same criminal regime is in power. The last thing that dies in a person is hope, he says. If not for themselves, then at least their children could have a vision of a good life.

5:19For NPR News, I'm Dari Bouskarin in Istanbul. For another Iranian view on this memorandum of understanding, we're going to hear from Sayed Hossein Mousavian. He's a former Iranian diplomat who spent decades representing Iran in nuclear negotiations and is now a research scholar at Princeton. He spoke to NPR's Scott Detrow, who asked Mousavian if he thinks this is a significant agreement. To me, I think the most important part of this agreement is its first three fundamental principles. Number one is cessation of armed hostilities. Number two is respect for national sovereignty. And number three is non-interference in each other's internal affairs.

6:07I think this is the first time after Algeria Accord 1980, Iran and the U.S. they agree on these three major principles, which practically are based on UN Charter for those countries which they want to have peaceful, respectful relations. I think this is the most important part. It seems like you're saying you do see a fundamental difference in this agreement compared to the U.S.-Iran relationship before this war began. Yes, I do. Because now both parties, although they need to agree on the nuclear, They are going to negotiate on broader regional security issues. These are something very new, very different.

6:56We have heard President Trump and other members of the Trump administration talk at length about what they want to see out of this agreement, what their framing is in it. What to you are Iranian negotiators' top priorities here? It seems there are strong incentives to end decades of hostilities and military confrontation. This is a big issue to me. Because the recent conflict demonstrated the enormous cost of escalation, not only for Iran and the U.S., but also for the regional stability, regional U.S. allies, for global energy and so. So while there is a strong public support for avoiding war and reducing tensions, but there is also limited confidence that any agreement with the U.S.

7:52will sustain. The reason is once Iran fully complied nuclear deal, JCPOA, and the U.S. withdrew. This is the historical issue which Iranians have never forgotten. Do you think, based on everything you have seen and heard so far, that when it comes to those nuclear conversations, the end agreement could be fundamentally different in any way from the agreement that President Trump pulled the United States out of several years ago? On the nuclear issues, I think any agreement ultimately should be and would be based on two principles. Iran will accept an arrangement which includes all objective guarantees that we'll never have nuclear weapon.

8:40This is principle number one, which President Trump always has been insisting. And I believe Iranians, they were ready during Obama, during JCPOA, and even they want more objective guarantees, Iranians, they have no problem. But the second issue is that Iran will unlikely accept any agreement that can be portrayed depriving Iran from its legitimate and legal rights on their non-proliferation treaty because it will be a discrimination, humiliation and domestically a surrender. You know, President Trump was again saying today that the U.S. still has the leverage that he said this several times he would resume bombing if negotiations don't go well or if they're not followed up on or followed through on.

9:30How does that affect the types of continued talks that we expect, if at all? I think this will have definitely negative impact on Iranian public opinion and politicians because the first principle already they have agreed is cessation of armed hostilities. Repeating threatening languages, the language of threatening the other side, I think this will add to already a huge ocean of mistrust to the U.S. because once Iran and the U.S. agreed, Iran fully complied, and the U.S. withdrew from the deal. Seyyed Hossein Musavian, former Iranian diplomat, now a scholar at Princeton University. Thank you so much.

10:23Thank you, Esqad.

10:32That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening. This week on Up First from NPR News, President Trump is at the G7 in France and is supposed to sign a peace deal with Iran. That deal, if it happens as planned, will have big effects on the global economy and more, and we will track the changes as they unfold. On a week of major geopolitical news, listen to Up First every morning on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Every story from Shortwave NPR Science Podcast starts with a question. Like, why do we have nightmares? How does AI affect my energy bill? At NPR, we are here for your right to be curious about the world around you.

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