Video interview with Trita Parsi, winner of the 2010 Grawemeyer Award for Improving World Order

Video transcription:

Trita Parsi, 2010 Grawemeyer Award Winner for Improving World Order

“All the major shifts that are taking place between Iran and Israel actually did not coincide with any ideological but they coincided with geo-strategic shifts. Geo-strategic factors was both driving their friendship and collaboration as well as their animity.

This is in a strange way very good news because if this was ideologically driven, that means that conflict is inevitable. Because in an ideological battle you never have a draw. You inevitably have a war. But if it actually is geo-strategically driven, then there are opportunities for resolving the conflict.

The mere fact that it has become controversial is very interesting because at the end of the day it shows, that, in my view at least, I was pushing some buttons.

I have to admit I wasn’t terribly familiar with the award, so I went online to figure out more about it. I looked up who won in the past and I saw that Samuel Huntington, Mikhail Gorbachev. So, I thought well, this ain’t going to happen, so I put it aside. I didn’t even think about it for another second. I didn’t want to get my hopes high. When I got the call I was actually driving home and almost had an accident. I was completely shocked.”