Raed Jarrar discusses the current state of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, escalation of the regional conflict destroying fossil fuel infrastructure and disrupting energy supplies, the prospect of the deployment of U.S. troops to Iran and the consequences for international law.
Jarrar is advocacy director with Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), founded by Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi before his assassination.
SCOTT HARRIS: We begin our program this evening by welcoming back to our program, Raed Jarrar, advocacy director with the group Democracy for the Arab World (DAWN) which was founded by Saudi U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi before his assassination by the Saudi government in 2018. Raed, thanks so much for making time to join us tonight. Appreciate it.
RAED JARRAR: Thank you for having me again on the show.
SCOTT HARRIS: So Raed, I wanted to just have you briefly talk about your group, DAWN, and the kinds of work you and your colleagues do there.
RAED JARRAR: DAWN was founded by Jamal Khashoggi right before he was killed by agents of the Saudi government in 2018. And he didn’t even have time to launch the organization officially because of the assassination. So we ended up launching it officially in 2020, a couple of years after his assassination. And we are a small group. We’re based in the U.S. and we have staff in New York, D.C., where I’m based, and Chicago, a few other cities around the U.S. And our main goal is to advocate for reforming U.S. foreign policy. We want to see a world where the United States government stops aiding and supporting abusive and apartheid and genocidal governments in the Middle East and North Africa. Because our theory of change is that the U.S. is a part of the problem. The U.S. continues to support the dictatorships in Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Emirates, and they continue to support the Israeli government committing its gross violations of human rights and crimes against humanity.
So one of the most important things we could do is to ask our government here to stop its support to those governments. That’s our contribution to peace and justice in the region.
SCOTT HARRIS: And that’s a topic I’d certainly like to invite you back to talk about more generally beyond our discussion tonight about the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. And just to recap some of the latest news from the war that’s now in its 24th day, its fourth week. We continue to see an escalation with more missile attacks targeting Iran while Iran launched missile and drone attacks against U.S. military bases, energy infrastructure and Gulf nations aligned with Washington. And on Saturday, Iran hit Israel’s main nuclear research center, injuring 180 people. And what Iran said was in retaliation for Israel’s attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear site. Iran was blamed for launching missiles targeting Britain’s military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, which Iran denied. And Trump warned Saturday night that he would obliterate Iranian power plants if the Strait of Hormuz was not fully opened within 48 hours.
Iran responded by warning it would destroy essential energy infrastructure, including water desalination systems across the region if Trump followed through on his threat. And then this morning, Monday, Trump withdrew his initial 48-hour threat, instructing the Pentagon to postpone all the airstrikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for five-day period, claiming that Iran and the U.S. had had very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East, something which Iran has categorically denied is taking place.
But one of the interesting impacts was that the stock market was tanking, right? And oil prices were skyrocketing as a result of this threat of a very severe escalation of the war. And as soon as Trump said that, the stock market and oil prices came down. I think it’s fair to say it was market manipulation, given the fact that Iran said this was fake news.
Anyway, Raed, there’s so much to react to. I wanted to first ask you to share with our audience, why do you think this war was launched by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump? And we’re four weeks into this conflict. Is there any diplomatic opening to end this war and end the killing of thousands of Iranians, Lebanese, many in the Gulf states, as well as in Israel, too? And then of course the critical question of resumption of oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz. Do you see any breakthrough anytime soon?
RAED JARRAR: No, I don’t see a break anytime soon. And I’ve been saying this unfortunately for the past few weeks. And I mean, none of us should be in the business of predicting the future. But what I have feared from the first day was that this is not going to be a short war. This is not what Trump envisioned as an operation similar to what he did in Venezuela, where he does a quick decapitation move and then puts another person to run the country who’s friendly to him and then moves on to the next target to bully and bomb because this is a very, very different ballgame. And that is a part of my answer to your question. Why did Israel and the United States attack Iran? And I have a good answer for you and my answer is they attacked Iran for very different reasons because Israel and the United States are really not fighting the same war.
Israel, what Netanyahu is doing, it is what he’s done all over the region. He is fighting a war of destruction and domination. He’s done that in Palestine, he’s done that in Lebanon. He has talked about that in other places. He has attacked seven different capitals around the region last year. And what he wants to do with Iran is the complete destruction of Iran because he sees Iran as a threat to Israel’s hegemony in the region. He sees Iran’s existence as a threat to his personal and political projects. So what he wants to do is not to create a prosperous Iran. He wants to completely destroy Iran. He wants to destroy Iran as a nation and as a nation state. Wants to assassinate Iranian scientists. He wants to destroy Iran’s infrastructure. He wants Iranians to get into war with other Iranians and have a civil war. He wants Iran to disintegrate into smaller states that are fighting against each other.
He wants to “Syria” Iran. He wants to “Iraq” Iran. Wants to do what the United States and Israel have historically done to other countries where they viewed them as a threat by fragmenting them and weakening them and destroying their economy and destroying their everything. So that’s what he wants to do to Iran.
Trump, on the other hand, he was duped into thinking that Iran is going to be a Venezuela. And that is actually what he believed. He thought that he’s going to amass all of the U.S. forces the same way that he amassed a lot of U.S. forces around Venezuela. And he’s going to do a quick decapitation hit and insert someone else and say goodbye. And the United States in general, whether it’s Trump or even Lindsey Graham or other crazy leaders in this country who have been advocating for war against Iran, they haven’t really advocated for the full destruction of Iran as a nation.
So when Israel started bombing Iranian oil industry and refineries, everyone was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” Even Lindsey Graham came up out publicly saying, “Oh my God, why would you attack their oil infrastructure? Because we don’t want to destroy Iran. We just want to change its leadership.” Which is a very naive and almost laughable notion to think that the United States and Israel can just go and install a new government in Iran and leave. That is not going to happen. So the answer is the United States and Israel are fighting two different wars and we see this deviation becoming more and more and more clear every day where Israel is trying to pull Trump into their war, into this very expensive, lengthy regime-change, nation-destruction kind of war.
And Trump is trying to figure out what the heck he’s doing there. He’s in trouble. He’s in very, very serious trouble. And as you said, he’s trying his best to control the damage. So he lies and makes up stories every morning to control the price of oil. But this is not very sustainable. You can’t lie your way out of war because this is very, very serious. What we’re dealing with now is a serious situation that will continue to devolve over the next few weeks and months, not hours and days.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well said, Raed. Thank you for that analysis of the conflicting goals of Israel and the U.S. in this or the Trump administration at any rate. We’re speaking of Raed Jarrar, advocacy director with the group, Democracy for the Arab World Now, DAWN, which was founded by Saudi U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi before his assassination in 2018. Raed, I wanted to ask you about Iran’s goals here. Iran’s response to this attack by the U.S. and Israel has been to regionalize the war, attacking the nations that host U.S. military bases and responding tit-for-tat in terms if their infrastructure is attacked, they, Iran in turn attacks these other nations, their regional neighbors’ infrastructure. There’s been a lot of commentary about what Iran wants here, given that they have what many see as a very powerful card in this conflict and that is their ability to close down the Strait of Hormuz and really restrict the flow of oil and gas to the rest of the world.
I’ve heard that Iran’s goal here is not simply to get a ceasefire or end this war, but to get some kind of reliable guarantee that the U.S. and Israel won’t resume military attacks on the Islamic Republic again in three, six months or a year or anywhere down the road. They want something more than just a simple cessation of hostilities.
RAED JARRAR: That’s right. And I think what Iran has been saying very loud and clear that they will attack other countries that are contributing to the war on their country. So they’re saying, “We did not attack anyone. We didn’t initiate any hostilities, but we were attacked one morning by the United States and Israel. They killed our leaders and they bombed our country and thousands of Iranians, destroyed tens of thousands of houses and residential units in Iran, bombed the main refineries in the country.” They said, “It’s our right to respond militarily against any other territory that the United States is using to wage its attacks.”
So they’re making an argument that is actually rooted in international law about states’ neutrality. If you’re hosting the forces of a belligerent state, then you’re no longer neutral. So Iran understanding their neighbors is, “We’re going to attack U.S. bases there, but we’re also going to attack U.S. interests in these countries.” And these countries haven’t really figured out a good response.
And I know that all of these countries, the Arab countries in the Gulf region and in Jordan, they are truly questioning why are they having U.S. spaces on their soil? Because from their perspective, after spending hundreds of billions of dollars building infrastructure and buying weapons from the United States, 2026 comes and the U.S. wages a war that did not consult them, against Iran and now they are paying a very heavy price where these U.S. bases on their land has become a target. And guess what? The United States is not defending them at all. The U.S. is actually putting all of its resources to defending Israel and Israel only.
And on the other hand, most of these countries had okay relationships with Iran now. This is not 1980 anymore, where there were hostilities and negativity with Iran. Some of them have excellent relationships with Iran. Some of them have good relationships with Iran, whether it’s diplomatic or economic. So they’re thinking, “What the heck have we done? What the heck have we done?” Our relationship with Iran is fine. Iran would not have attacked us and we brought the United States into our land and now those bases are literally bringing death and destruction to our people and our economy.
So it’s a strategic realignment moment, honestly. And Iran is saying that they would continue to attack because they’re being attacked. And some of Iran’s responses are a violation of international norms and international law, but you can’t have a tit-for-tat. If your civilian infrastructure is bombed, you can’t threaten to bomb someone else’s civilian infrastructure. That is completely outlawed under international law. But then at the same time, I say that as someone who understands international law, but also understands politics.
The question for us is, is it fair to actually expect a small country like Iran to uphold international law after Israel and the United States have literally destroyed any international mechanism and international institutions that have been built after World War II? Is it fair to actually look at our states and say, “Okay, you guys should actually not bomb other people’s schools.” I mean, at this point, it’s really becoming almost borderline insane, even for us as human rights organizations to say, “Excuse me everyone, there is something called international humanitarian law, and it’s the law of war, and you are violating it. ” It’s almost like a joke after what we’ve seen from U.S. violations in Afghanistan and Iraq through the years, but also what Israel and the U.S. have done in Gaza during the genocide. So I would say it’s a very difficult moment for respecting human rights and international law.
And we try to tell our own government here to stop the erosion of international law and international mechanisms, but to no avail. So it’s a very, very difficult moment. And what we’re seeing happen in Iran and the Gulf region is like, on our schemes, in lives, a continuation of the destruction of the rules of law, the rules of war and international law happening by the United States and Israel, whether it’s the fact that this war is a war of aggression that was weighted in a violation of international law or the conduct of the war itself, also is filled with violations of how war should be conducted.
SCOTT HARRIS: Raed, do you think Iran has the leverage now to demand some kind of guarantee that there won’t be future attacks? Or do you think the United States and Israel will continue this war until there is what some believe is their ultimate goal, which is regime change?
RAED JARRAR: Yeah. I mean, the same way I was saying earlier that the United States and Israel are fighting two different wars, should also think about how Iran views this war, because from an Iranian perspective, this war is a war that is close to an existential war. Existential war for the government, many people now view it as an existential war for the people as well. Maybe in the first few days, the United States and Israel were claiming that, “Oh, this war is just to kill the bad guys at the top of the regime.” Twenty-four days into the war, I don’t think many Iranians believe that. Honestly, even those Iranians who advocated for their country to get bombed, the few Iranians here in the U.S. who are pro-war who brought upon their own country bombs and destruction—even those are against the war now, saying the U.S. has gone too far.
So imagine what Iranians inside Iran who are actually at the receiving end of bombs are saying. So it’s an existential war and for that, the stakes are much higher. For us here in the United States, the war becomes unsustainable if it becomes inconvenient. That is our threshold of pain, you know?
SCOTT HARRIS: Yeah.
RAED JARRAR: It’s inconvenient for us. We go to the gas pump and then we pay $6, $7 for a gallon of gas. We’re going to be like, “Oh my God, stop this war already.” “Oh my God, my retirement account is like losing money.” The inconvenience affects us.
But for Iran, their firepower is much smaller than the U.S., but their tolerance is much, much, much higher—for their tolerance to pain and sacrifice and this war is much higher— because for them, this is an existential war. That’s why I don’t think it’s going to end very soon because what the U.S. and Israel have done there is very serious, you know? Very, very serious. The number of people who were killed the way that they attacked the country, the violation of Iran’s sovereignty, the crimes that were committed killing children in school, hospitals, Iran’s leadership, Iran’s religious clergy. It’s very, very serious.
So it’s not an issue where Iran is going to be like, “Oh yeah, you want to stop with a pinky promise that you’re not going to attack us again? Fine, stop.” I don’t think that’s going to happen because Trump has really gotten himself in serious trouble here by initiating a very serious regional war.
SCOTT HARRIS: Raed, we’re almost out of time. And I wanted to ask you this question. In 2015, President Barack Obama successfully negotiated with Iran, the international nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) as it’s called, which was by all accounts being observed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Then Trump unilaterally tore up this nuclear agreement that was working, which led to the earlier U.S.-Israeli attack in June, the 12-day war, and of course, the current war. Most observers, if they trace it back, will blame Trump for what we are in today.
But in the aftermath of this war and the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader and their whole leadership structure, there are many observers who believe that now Iran may be considering that in the aftermath of this decimation of their government, they may need to build a nuclear weapon as the only effective deterrent to prevent a future attack. It’s a scenario that I think follows some logic that we all have to understand.
RAED JARRAR: I mean, listen, in the first few days of the war, there were all of these funny memes posting online about the North Korean dictator posting pictures saying, “And that’s why I built nuclear weapons.” So I mean, it’s obviously like conventional wisdom now that the U.S. and Israel have no respect for international law or sovereignty or U.N. charter, but it seems like they would respect strong countries with nuclear weapons.
So unfortunately, that’s the new world order that is being created under this U.S. government over the last decades, where the erosion of law would lead more countries to —going into a nuclear race. But I’ll tell you something important here. Iran has never ever said or done anything that will indicate that they’re building a nuclear weapon and unlike Israel, they actually have signed all international treaties and got all of the inspectors of everyone to come and verify that.
But now with these attacks, we have 450 pounds of enriched uranium that no one knows where it is anymore. Like it’s either under some rubble or in someone’s truck in their basement, I don’t know where they are, but what we know is that they’re enough to create 11 nuclear bombs. And this is the legacy of Trump, the loose nuclear material, the giving incentives for more nuclear death and destruction.
But let me say one last thing before my time ends here, Scott, because I do want to say one thing, which is there is a way out of this and we actually just published an op-ed in Foreign Policy a couple days ago under the name of our new executive director, Omar Shakir. In our op-ed, we say the way out of this is what Trump did with the Houthis, because in May of 2025, last year, less than year ago, Trump signed a bilateral ceasefire with the Houthis in Yemen that did not include Israel.
And Israel was not happy about that. Israel wanted the U.S. to continue to fight with our blood and treasure to protect Israel from whatever they’re doing. And at one point Trump was like, “You know what? This is not worth the fight.” So he had a bilateral agreement with the Houthis. And what we say in the op-ed, and I encourage folks to read it on Foreign Policy. What we say is the way out is a bilateral ceasefire agreement between Trump and Iran that does not wait for Israel’s approval. We don’t need to have Israel’s approval for a ceasefire agreement that would end the war between the United States and Iran. Now, if Iran and Israel want to continue to have war, that’s their business.
SCOTT HARRIS: Yeah. Well, I’m going to have to check that out and I’ll advise our listeners again. That’s in Foreign Policy magazine, right?
RAED JARRAR: Yep. That’s right.
SCOTT HARRIS: Okay. Well, Raed, thank you so much for sharing your perspective on this horrible war. And as we said, we can’t predict the future. It doesn’t look great, but contributions like advice to the United States to pursue a different path from Israel because of those different objectives are quite useful. So thanks for interjecting that into our conversation. So Raed, thank you. And leave our listeners with the website for DAWN, if you would.
RAED JARRAR: Yeah. It’s Dawnmena.org. So D-A-W-N M-E-N-A as in Middle East and North Africa, M-E-N-A.org. And we are also on all social media: Twitter, Facebook, whatever the other venues are under the same name.
SCOTT HARRIS: Excellent. Raed, thanks for joining us. I look forward to staying in touch to talk about this conflict and the many other things you’re working on there at DAWN. Appreciate it.
RAED JARRAR: Thank you.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thanks. Goodnight. That’s Raed Jarrar, advocacy director with the group, Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN. This is Counterpoint.
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