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Hello, and welcome to the Point.

Today we take a closer look at one of the most challenging relationships in global affairs.

The relationship between the United States and Iran.

For more than 70 years, the two countries have been moved between tension and limited cooperation shaped by revolution.

Sanctions, regional conflicts and concerns over nuclear weapons.

The current conflict has raised new questions about Iran's influence in the region, and the role of the United States in trying to contain a wider war.

What lies at the heart of the mistrust between the United States and Iran?

How does the current war change the balance, and what options exist to avoid a broader and more dangerous conflict?

Today we break it down clearly and directly and to the point.

I'm Doni Miller.

And that discussion begins now.

You know that you can connect with me on social media anytime you want.

You can also email me at Doni underscore Miller at WGTE dot org.

And for this episode and any other that you'd like to see, don't hesitate to go to wgte.org to the point we have with us our remarkable, guest who is going to lead us through the complicated discussion, very complicated discussion about the relationship between the United States and Iran.

Doctor Ellen Gorsevski is the associate professor in the School of Media and Communications.

She's also affiliated faculty in the Peace and Conflict Studies and the Ashland Center for Nonviolence at Ashland University.

You are both a researcher and an author, a newly published book I noticed in my research, and I'm really glad to have you here today.

Thank you so much for spending this time.

So this is as I mentioned in the open, an extraordinarily, extraordinarily difficult and complicated, relationship between the United States and Iran.

Could you put it in some context for us?

Yes.

Just to give you, you know, roughly mid 20th century to, fast forward to present time, in 1953, the U.S.

decided to assist the British in shoring up their oil interests, and the U.S.

helped in the coup to overthrow Prime Minister Mosaddegh, who was quite popular in Iran.

And, it and he was democratically elected.

It should be pointed out.

And so, following that, the U.S.

helped install the Shah of Iran, who was later revealed to be a despot who even tortured people, in the basement of his own palace.

So, the Iranian revolution happen for a reason, and the U.S.

is implicated, as in many global conflicts with sort of meddling in the Democratic historical progression.

And so, ironically, that in a way, has set Iran's, trajectory towards a more representative democracy back, by creating, you know, this great, great revolution that, instantiated the the hostage taking of the American hostages under the Carter, presidency.

And, and then finally, in the transfer over to, President Reagan arriving as president, the hostages were returned, but, really, up until the Obama administration, I give President Obama a great deal of credit for trying to begin a process of normalizing relations, of opening Iran up to better international, IAEA, atomic energy and monitoring.

And then during the Biden administration that sort of, crumbled a bit and, fast forward to today where, you know, many, historians and geopolitical experts, that I've been reading lately, posit that the conflict in Gaza has emboldened Israel, to encourage the U.S.

to participate in expanded ending rather than targeted strikes.

And so that's a really important question.

And I think that, I'd like to spend some time on that.

But if you had to describe, the base, the baseline relationship between the United States and, and Iran right now, how would you do that?

I would say, given that history.

Right.

I would say the, the Iranian people have a long and rich history.

So many, beautiful sites of architecture, great works of art and, you know, immense, contribution to humankind has come from the Persian Gulf and region.

And, and we have a very large Iranian American population in Los Angeles.

I think it's it's around a quarter of a million people.

And the greater Toledo area locally, we don't have as we have more, Iraqi Americans and Lebanese Americans in, the, our local area.

But seeing how the conflict has expanded into, Israel bombing Lebanon and southern Beirut, and it's just become a human, catastrophe, as well as, creating environmental problems.

Through all of the, the weaponry, the U.S.

did use uranium tipped, munitions in Iraq.

I, I do not know.

I would have to defer to munitions experts whether or not that is currently happening in the munitions being dropped on Iran.

But it is environmentally catastrophic, particularly hitting oil refineries.

The, dust and smoke, and all the toxic chemicals are sent up into the atmosphere.

And I think we're not we're not really talking about those those very important things.

But the United States, for some reason, has felt compelled to take this action, whether it be by the influence of, of, Israel or some other reason.

And I think we still kind of struggle trying to figure that out.

What is what are the long term implications of this attack on, Iran so long term?

I think it's really anybody's guess.

I just saw, it was recorded a few hours ago that Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi, whose, amazing peace building work I've been studying for many years, and I wrote a book chapter in my book, Dangerous Women, about her efforts.

And she, she does believe, as of a few hours ago, that the Iranian regime was weakened.

However, because of disastrous, accidents, like hitting the school, with you know, nearly 170 school children and all girls, that does not buy goodwill.

The U.S has not had great success historically with, trying to sell democracy.

You know, the bottom of bombed out rubble.

And so it's really anybody's guess moving forward, you know, to what extent, this, conflict will help promote democratic processes.

Shirin Ebadi says the U.S.

would have done so much better to support nongovernmental organizations and civil society elements to strengthen the already preponderant, very large youth, demographics in Iran that want peace, that want democracy.

They want internet.

They want rock n roll.

So it, it remains to be seen if this will, you know, make it make a difference in a positive way.

So, so here's what, our research shows that most Americans are concerned about when it comes to this conflict.

They're concerned about the, first of all, the vagueness around the effort.

There's not been a formal declaration of war.

So the reasons that we are there, or at least under the what guys we are under being there, is still vague and not well-defined.

There is a grave concern about this escalating into a larger conflict that, includes the United States, a country that has never had a war on its land since the Civil War.

And there are concerns that economically and environmentally, the impact of this war is far greater than what we see.

Do you think, given all of those things, that there is, a pathway out of this conflict that doesn't worsen things for the United States?

Yes.

Well, in the short term, you know, we've seen, nationally and, even here in northwest Ohio, gas prices jump about a dollar from a month ago.

Fertilizer, much of it, for our local farmers.

We have great agriculture here locally.

Comes from the Persian Gulf region.

So fertilizer prices, typically farmers will purchase their fertilizers, in around December, January.

So most farmers should be relatively set for the current season.

But the coming season is anybody's guess.

It could potentially really still have an, hangover effect of increasing those prices.

Which really harms, you know, the bottom line for a lot of our local agricultural producers, corn, soybean crops, and then, just locally already people are struggling with inflation and high prices.

So those problems are particularly, difficult for our greater Toledo area.

Folks, and then in terms of the administration's, rationale, which has been, as you mentioned, very fuzzy for, creating a reason as to why, the U.S., entered into this conflict to begin with.

First, it was said that there was, more enrichment going on and that needed to be controlled.

And then other reasons were given.

So that's really been, vague and a vague, undefined.

Fine.

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To the point.

Doctor Ellen Gorsevski is with us today talking about this very complex relationship between the United States and Iran.

And we want to break with the thought in mind, reiterating the fact that many people in this country are still very confused about why this is even happening.

Yes.

And another, a somewhat, unprecedented I defer to presidential historians, but having, President Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, be very instrumental in, the initiative discussions that underpinned, the effort as well as, from recent reports, earlier this morning having, participating in some way in some sort of backchannel, negotiations or pre mediations, assisted by Pakistan and other countries as intermediaries.

It has long troubled, even in the first Trump administration.

It has long troubled, presidential observers and those who have looked at historical, security cabinet posts and advisers who were career long diplomats.

For example, George W Bush had served as America's representative in diplomacy in China for many years.

And before he took a post as head of the CIA.

So, George Bush, the first senior, had that peace building perspective.

And even George W Bush in going into Iraq, although, historians now say, yes, you know, it turned out Iraq had no yellowcake.

And that didn't pan out.

Nonetheless, he was still surrounded by, people like Colin Powell who were who were career military people who knew the, the cost of war.

And Colin Powell, in fact, before going in said, Mr.

President, we have to prepare, for thousands and thousands of graves because this is what war is, you know, people who really cost and, care and, being circumspect.

And that has seemed, quite lacking.

And in fact, I would also add, the, release of videos, kind of equating war with a video game and incorporating AI, fun video game characters with blowing up targets.

In terms of just war theory, it's just unheard of.

It's unseemly.

It's, it's shocking and appalling even to quite conservative Republicans.

So these are developments that are quite, quite concerning in terms of prospects for future peace building.

What an excellent perspective, and one that we've not heard, we've not heard consistently as we walk through, as we walk through this process with our, our current administration, I have a question based on, Netanyahu, frankly, and the influence of Israel in this process.

There is concern and great discussion around the possibility that our administration is being manipulated by Israel in in this process, and that we are actually pursuing the goals of Israel as opposed to the goals that benefit the American people in this process.

What's your perspective on that?

You know, historically, all American presidents, have been deeply scrutinized for potential proclivities to over, extend US power and influence on behalf of other countries.

For example, for a while when there was talk of changing the US Constitution to enable, then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president, well, would he, if he became president, would he then, you know, somehow, be overly, protective of Austria and Austrian assets?

Same thing happened with President Kennedy.

Well, then the Catholic pope is going to control us.

And what would happen there?

So that all those really turned out to be not, non-issues.

But in this case, it's quite unique.

So in prior, all prior, you know, 20th century elections, American presidents needed to appear, very strong in terms of its, U.S support for Israel in order to win the US election.

Historically, that has been consistently true.

However, the difference now is, having, a, an extremely, active, leader such as Netanyahu, as opposed to someone like Itzhak Rabin who is probably rolling in his grave, who greatly wanted all the peoples of the Middle East to get along and create long lasting peace for their descendants.

So having Kushner, who is a non standard, non trained, representative in a way, as a proxy to build that, you know, does create, great cause for pause and, and concern.

And I think a lot of observers are, are really, worried about that, including people in Israel themselves, themselves.

Absolutely.

So we're all wanting a path for peace out of this.

We no one likes war.

The the the penalties of that kind of engagement, are sometimes more visible than the benefits of the engagement, given the complications provided by the presence of Israel in this discussion.

Given the fact that this war is badly defined by most observers, is there a path to peace out of this, or do will we find ourselves being continually, enmeshed in, in the vision of others or the realities of others, the needs of others in this process?

I think the one hope is that seeing all of the, human and environmental cost in the greater Middle East, including now Israel, is under attack.

Yes.

I think that will, hopefully provide a pathway, for, incentivizing an end to the hostilities.

And also in terms of Trump's base, he was able to swing the votes of, the religious right, including Catholics.

Well, we've got 300,000 Catholics here in the greater Toledo area.

And Pope Leo just came out with a plea to end the hostilities.

Yes.

So, you know, and then also we have, a very large, Muslim American and Arab American and Middle Eastern Americans, second, third, generation, whose vote matters.

And they were very instrumental just north of us in Michigan's vote, swinging it to Trump.

So I think if, the Republicans want to maintain presidential control as well as in the midterm elections, precipitating overtures and trying to negotiate for peace, is going to be necessary because, you know, locally and nationally, people are hurting under inflation.

Gas, rising gas prices, tankers can't get through.

We're throwing all the ethics out the window, in terms of support for Ukraine in the war of Ukraine, as well as broader straining NATO partners, because we just bought Russian oil, which funds their war against Ukrainians.

Which does not help the rest of Europe and our NATO allies.

So I'm hoping that some of these other constraints will put the brakes on the conflict and incentivize, more, peace building and diplomatic overtures to negotiate, a settlement long term, it's going to be a difficult road for all parties concerned.

Yeah.

We have just a few minutes left and given your your background, given your research, what would you most like to see happen in the relationship between the United States and Iran?

I would I think it's reasonable to have that right.

I would like to see, a cessation to all hostilities immediately.

I would like to see the State Department rehabilitated.

Its been completely gutted, of our Foreign service and, and diplomatic corps.

I would also like to see programs like the Fulbright program and other, soft power academic approaches, which, incidentally, the Chinese are fantastic at that.

China is amazing at their soft power.

The U.S.

needs to re initiate some of these, more, cultural exchanges and, interpersonal exchanges that, help strengthen ties, amongst colleagues worldwide.

I have, you know, lovely colleagues in Iran and elsewhere.

And so, you know, the current, sort of 1950s Red scare style tactics of attacking academia are quite counterproductive.

So if we just, you know, follow our own example or currently the Chinese example of using our soft power, our statesmanship and all the the really rich assets the United States has in terms of peace building, that would benefit all of, of us, and, and regional partners, internationally.

Thank you so much for your insights on this discussion.

Thank you for joining us, and I hope you come back.

This is a huge topic and there's an awful lot to talk about.

Thank you, doctor, and thank you for spending this time with us.

I will see you next time until the point.

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