Trita Parsi on What May Be in the U.S.-Iran Peace Deal & Being Threatened with Deportation

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN : Donald Trump is meeting with world leaders at the G7 summit in France, with much of the world’s focus on Iran. On Sunday, the U.S. and Iran signed a framework agreement extending the ceasefire by 60 days. Iran has agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while the U.S. will lift its naval blockade. The text of the agreement, though, has not yet been released. According to Iran, the deal calls for a permanent and immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts, including in Lebanon. But Israel, which is not a party to the agreement, says it plans to keep troops in parts of southern Lebanon. Earlier today, President Trump spoke about Israel at the G7.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP : We’ve had a very effective relationship. Without us, without the United States, there would be no Israel. Without me, there would be no Israel, because no other president was willing to do what I did. I’ve had a great relationship with Bibi, but now Bibi has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon. … No, I’m not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah. They should have been able to do the job faster. It just goes on forever. And when that happens, it throws a negative light on the big deal, and that’s the deal with Iran.

AMY GOODMAN : We’re joined now by Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He was in the news himself last week after the right-wing online outlet The Free Press published an article claiming the State Department has opened a probe into Trita Parsi that could lead to his deportation. The Free Press was founded by Bari Weiss, who’s now editor-in-chief of CBS News. We’ll talk more about that in a moment, but let’s begin with the U.S.-Iran agreement.

Trita, your latest article is headlined the “Next 72 hrs will tell us whether Israel plans to kill Trump’s peace.” Explain.

TRITA PARSI : Well, as we have seen, the Israelis did everything they could last minute to make sure that the deal would collapse by escalating matters and going into Beirut itself. There had been skirmishes between Hezbollah and Israel for the days prior to that. At the end of the day, the Israelis are invading Lebanon, of course, so that’s not necessarily surprising, but both sides have managed to keep it at a level in which there wouldn’t be any major escalation and no violation of the red line that both Iran and the United States had put forward, which was no more attacks on Beirut. But just hours before there was supposed to be a signing or an electronic signing of this agreement, the Israelis struck at Beirut, which is part of the reason why Trump now for several days has been lashing out at the Israelis, because it’s very clear to him, ultimately now, that the Israelis are trying to destroy this deal, and they will continue to try. They did so with the Obama deal. They will do so with this one, as well. And it will require persistent, consistent pressure by Trump on the Israelis in order to hold them back.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Trump is now over in Europe at the G7 meeting. The European leaders are facing increasing opposition among their own people to the continued wars, Israel’s war on Gaza. Two million Italians went on a general strike in solidarity with Palestine last fall, a 24-hour general strike in Italy just less than a month ago, on May 18th. What do you sense is happening among the European governments?

TRITA PARSI : Well, the European governments are under tremendous pressure from their own populations, because they’re pursuing foreign policies, at least when it comes to Gaza, but also to a certain extent other places, that are just not in line with what the publics there want. They’re tired of these wars. They don’t want to see the support for a genocide. Even in countries such as Germany, that has been so supportive of Israel, beyond any other European state, the public is 60, 65% plus in opposition to Israel’s handling on all of this.

And at the same time, you have this tension with the United States that is going its own ways, and the Europeans finally realizing that they have to have far more strategic autonomy than they have had before. They have put all of their eggs in the American security basket, made themselves so dependent on the United States, so dependent on NATO , that they have lost the ability to pursue an independent path, an independent path that in many ways actually was good for the United States itself. The Germany of 2003 that stood up against the Iraq War, that spoke out against it, led the opposition to that war, is a Europe that the United States needs, because we do tend to have bad ideas over here every once in a while, and we need a partner that can tell us that this is not a path we should take. But Europe has lost that ability. It’s made itself so dependent on the United States that it has no longer that maneuverability to push back. And t…