Vali Nasr: Have strategic realities in the Middle East changed?
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 538 Ratings
🗓️ 10 January 2020
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Who’s gained and who’s lost after the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani? HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Vali Nasr, US foreign policy scholar and former adviser to the US State Department. Phase one of the fallout from America’s assassination of Iran's favourite General appears to be over. Washington and Tehran are both talking tough while taking a step back from the brink of all out war. For now. What might happen next?
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:07.0 | Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it. My guest today is one of |
| 0:13.1 | America's foremost foreign policy scholars specialising in the turbulent politics of the Middle East, |
| 0:18.8 | Afghanistan and Pakistan. Valley Nasser was born in Tehran, |
| 0:23.6 | schooled in the West, and he made his home in the US after Iran's Islamic Revolution. |
| 0:29.3 | He served as an advisor to several administrations, including a two-year stint as special advisor |
| 0:35.4 | to Barack Obama's Afghan envoy Richard Holbrook. Right now, the Obama |
| 0:41.1 | years of foreign policymaking feel like distant history. Donald Trump came into office |
| 0:47.2 | promising to undo Obama's Iran strategy, and he's been as good as his word. He walked out of the nuclear deal struck with Tehran, |
| 0:56.3 | and last week he delivered a dramatic military blow, ordering the assassination of Iran's most |
| 1:02.4 | prominent general, Qasem Soleimani, the architect of Tehran's assertive regional strategy. |
| 1:08.4 | To many observers, the hit on the general looked like a move that |
| 1:13.0 | could spark a hot war. Thus far, it hasn't. But it has raised urgent questions about US and |
| 1:20.4 | Iranian strategic intentions in a highly volatile region. So what comes next? Well, Valley Nasser joins me on the line from Washington, D.C. |
| 1:31.4 | Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you. Donald Trump and his supporters say that events of the past week |
| 1:39.7 | show that his strategy towards Iran, that of maximum pressure, is working. Do you agree? |
| 1:49.0 | No, I don't. Maximum pressure was economic pressure. It never brought Iran to the table. |
| 1:54.5 | It didn't change its regional behavior. And the president himself was forced to resort to military action in order to contain |
| 2:02.8 | reaction of Iran to his maximum pressure strategy. |
| 2:06.2 | Well, in a sense, there is a logic then to what he did, because Iran's provocations |
| 2:12.6 | were intensifying and we saw the killing of a U.S. contractor inside Iraq. We saw the attack on the U.S. |
| 2:20.0 | embassy in Baghdad. Because of all of that, Trump went to the next level. And this was the next level, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.