STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We're with you live this morning. Vice President Vance has been talking with the media in Switzerland today. He is preparing to duck out of the talks there and leave them to experts to continue. And we're going to work this through with Representative Adam Smith of Washington state. He's the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. Representative Smith, welcome back.
ADAM SMITH: Hi. Thanks for having me on, Steve. I appreciate the chance.
INSKEEP: So I've been taking some notes as Vice President Vance has been speaking, the last little bit. He said that they'd made a lot of great progress on setting up the process. The technical talks will continue over the weeks and days to come. But he then goes on to say, I can't stay here for 60 days, the period where they're supposed to work everything out. But he says we laid a good foundation for a successful deal. That is his analysis of what's happening. What do you make of that?
SMITH: Well, I think it's really important that we end this war. I mean, it was a disastrous decision to go into it in the first place. You know, and certainly we can analyze that. But we are where we are, so the question is, what's the next best step? Does it make sense to keep trading bombing campaigns, to have Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz? No, it doesn't. We need to negotiate the best deal we can to get the strait back open and hopefully have something in place that enables us to deter Iran and the aggressive behavior that, you know, caused the conflict in the first place.
But this really shows why the war, and the idea that somehow military force was going to bend Iran to our will, was a colossal mistake. And your previous report analyzed that. You know, now Iran knows they have the Strait of Hormuz as a major leverage point, and their regime is every little bit as hard-line and their nuclear weapons program has not gone away. So - but let's get to a better place. We need to stop this war, so I hope the negotiations can lead to that.
INSKEEP: I want to ask about a phrase you said. You said the need was to set up some way to deter Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz or doing whatever else they might want to do.
SMITH: Yeah.
INSKEEP: And I have a question about that. Over the weekend, the president continued to threaten Iran with various forms of destruction. But he has also said in recent days, as Mara told us, he said, I don't want to be Herbert Hoover. I don't want to have $4 gasoline. Can't do that again. When you admit that as president of the United States, do you lose all your leverage?
SMITH: Yeah, well, you don't lose all of it. You certainly make it clear what you're not willing to do. And basically, what he's not willing to do is what he did - OK? - which is, you know, start the war and cause this chaos. But look, the incentive that remains for Iran is their economy is in shambles as well. And as hard-line as their Iranian leadership is and how focused they are on sort of the revolution in power, they don't want their country to be, you know, an economic backwater either.
So the threat going forward is that if this descends into another conflict of one kind or another, if we ramp up sanctions again, that Iran could pay a price. Look, this was always the leverage point we should've used instead of starting this war. You know, Iran had been substantially weakened. Hezbollah was weakened. Hamas was weakened. We had them in a very vulnerable place prior to the start of this war.
But instead of pressing that advantage and negotiating the best possible deal, Trump entertained the fantasy that he could be the guy that would eliminate the Iranian regime and fundamentally remake the Middle East. And where have we heard that before? We are not going to fundamentally remake the Middle East with the use of our military, a lesson we should've learned in the previous two decades. So hopefully we've learned it now and we can negotiate the best possible deal. But there's no question that this war in Iran was a major strategic blunder that's had huge negative implications for us and for the global economy.
INSKEEP: Now, as you recall, of course, congressman, back in 2015, the United States made a nuclear agreement with Iran. It included $1.7 billion for the Iranian government. It was effectively their own money that was being returned to them or released to them.
SMITH: Yeah.
INSKEEP: There were lots of objections about that at the time. But I guess my point here that's relevant is the Iranians agreed to that. They agreed to limitations on their nuclear program. Critics said they weren't that valuable or that strict. But they did agree to limitations, and it was a relatively small payment. Now the United States is talking about somewhere finding them hundreds of billions of dollars if they perform properly, if they restrict their nuclear program properly. Do you think there's plausible room for a big agreement here?
SMITH: Well, there's room for it. But I think it points out the fact that whatever we do now is going to be worse than the JCPOA. The JCPOA was working. You know, Iran was adhering to it, and the inspectors were allowed in. And I think the other aspect of this - two things, quickly. One, this is sort of Obama derangement syndrome.
Because Obama negotiated the deal, every Republican thinks it has to be terrible. And look, as we move further and further towards this fact-free universe, where my side is right and the other side is wrong no matter what, you make mistakes like this. You got to think through it. You know, sometimes your political opponent actually does something intelligent, and you ought to acknowledge it, instead of this knee-jerk, partisan, the other side is always wrong. And I think that's what drove Trump to tear up the agreement.
The other problem, of course, is Trump's not the only one who entertains the fantasy that somehow Iran can be eliminated. Benjamin Netanyahu entertains that fantasy, too. He thinks he's going to be able to kill and vanquish all of his adversaries. Instead of making the peace deal that was there on the table prior to the start of this war, started that war, which of course, kicked off the Lebanese war. And now Israel is trapped in this cycle of endless conflict. We're not going to eliminate Iran We got to figure out a smart way to deter them. That's the bottom line.
INSKEEP: I'm glad you bring up the idea of reflexive partisanship. We've seen a bit of a break from that in recent days because there are some Republicans, conservative Republicans, who really don't like this agreement, have a lot of questions about it and are aware that there is a law that Congress has passed that would seem to require Congress to vote in some way, or at least give the opportunity for Congress to vote in some way, on any nuclear agreement with Iran. A few days have passed. Are your Republicans who raised concerns still admitting they are concerned? And are they going to do anything about it?
SMITH: Well, it's interesting because there's a couple of different layers. I mean, you do have a lot of Republicans, you know, I mean, who are just going along with it, no matter what. But the other problem here is, of course, a lot of the people who are disagreeing with Trump are the hawks. They're the ones who think, no, we can, in fact, fundamentally break Iran and we should keep trying.
INSKEEP: Oh, their objection is there should be more war?
SMITH: Well, I think their objection was sort of less logical than that. It's like, no, we want more. We should get more. It's unacceptable that Iran is doing these things. I hear people say it's unacceptable. OK, well, it's unacceptable. What are you going to do about it? Is there an option on the table to actually change that? And they kidded themselves into thinking that if we just bombed enough, that would have that effect. But it won't.
So you have to manage the world as it is, not as you want it to be. And I think a lot of the hawks are still imagining that world where if we just apply enough pressure to Iran, they will break. Again, Iran is a major threat. We have to figure out how to deter them. But thinking we're going to eliminate them is a problem. So I think we shouldn't have got into the war in the first place. But now, the people who say, well, let's just keep at it - I mean, the first rule of holes is when you're in one, stop digging. So I hope that's the lesson the Trump administration has learned.
INSKEEP: Representative Adam Smith of Washington state. Thanks so much.
SMITH: Thanks, Steve.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPOKES' "WE LIKE TO DANCE AND STEAL THINGS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
