As U.S. and Iranian officials continue negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, President Trump has ordered a buildup of U.S. forces in the Middle East, including two aircraft carriers. “This is an extremely dangerous situation, which both sides are actually incentivized to escalate,” says Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “Both sides actually believe that a short, intense war may improve their negotiating position.”This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.We turn now to news from the latest round of talks between U.S. and Iranian officials, which took place in Geneva, Switzerland, Tuesday against a backdrop of heightened saber-rattling between the two nations, President Trump has ordered a buildup of U.S. forces in the region, including two aircraft carriers, dozens of warships, hundreds of fighter jets and multiple air defense systems. On Friday, President Trump told reporters regime change in Iran would, quote, “be the best thing that could happen,” unquote.Shortly after the talks began, Iran temporarily closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key international waterway, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned, quote, “The strongest army in the world might sometimes receive such a slap that it cannot get back on its feet,” unquote.After Tuesday’s talks, Tehran’s foreign minister cautioned more work still needs to be done on reaching a nuclear deal, but expressed some optimism about the negotiations. ABBAS ARAGHCHI: [translated] I can say that in this round there were quite serious discussions and a more constructive atmosphere than in the previous round. Various ideas were raised, and these ideas were seriously discussed. And finally, we were able to reach a general agreement on a series of guiding principles. From now on, we will move based on those principles and enter into the text of a possible agreement. AMY GOODMAN: Three unnamed Iranian officials told The New York Times Iran had indicated an openness to suspend nuclear enrichment for three to five years in exchange for lifting sanctions and the embargo on its oil sales. Vice President JD Vance, speaking on Fox News, painted a more mixed picture of the talks. VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: I think the president has a lot of options. We do have a very powerful military. The president’s shown a willingness to use it. He also has a remarkable diplomatic team. He’s shown a willingness to use that, too. And so, what the president has been very clear with the Iranians — and, actually, I just talked to Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner this morning about some of the negotiations — is the United States has certain red lines. Our primary interest here is we don’t want Iran to get a nuclear weapon. AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, author of several books, including Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy.Trita Parsi, talk about what’s happening in Geneva, the U.S. moving in aircraft carriers, one the largest in the world, the USS Gerald Ford, which he had just previously, Trump had, off the coast of Venezuela, where they attacked Venezuela and then abducted the president, Maduro, and his wife.TRITA PARSI: We have a very dangerous situation, because both sides actually believe that a short, intense war may improve their negotiating position. The Trump administration, of course, believes that because of its overwhelming military power that it has now gathered in the vicinity of Iran, it will be able to take out Iran militarily rather quickly and then force it to capitulate. The Iranians have a different calculation. They believe that they have the ability to inflict significant damage on the United States in the short term, including on civilian oil installations in the region, closing down the Strait of Hormuz, that would shoot up oil prices, and the initial cost of this to the United States would be so immense, and the United States would recognize that it would have to go for a longer war, which it cannot afford, and as a result, it would get the United States to back off.Essentially, the Iranians are counting on the U.S. having a much lower threshold for pain tolerance than what the Iranians have. And they’re basing this partly on how the Houthis fought back against the U.S. for several weeks, and eventually Trump, essentially, lost interest in it and did not want to have a prolonged conflict and backed off. The difference, however, is the Houthis never managed to kill an American soldier. They tried, but they didn’t manage. And we have not been in a situation in which 30, 50, perhaps 200 American soldiers are killed under Donald Trump’s watch, so we do not know how his psychology will react to that type of scenario.