Latest / The Nation Podcasts / After Iran War, Can America Still Be Trusted? w/ Annelle Sheline | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

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After Iran War, Can America Still Be Trusted? w/ Annelle Sheline | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer · The Nation Podcasts

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: The old world is dying, the new world struggles to reworn, now is the time of monsters.
• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: With those words from Gramshire, welcome you to the time of monsters podcast.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm G.T.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: of the Nation magazine, which is the sponsor of this podcast.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: This week we'll be taking up the big news, which continues to be the war in the Middle East.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm happy to welcome back on an L.C.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: line.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute.
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was a particular research interest in the Gulf countries and their relationship with the United States and with Israel, which has become highly burdened.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, first of all, welcome to the program.
• 0:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: So let's just sort of like the, we're recording on Friday.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do you think is the current state of the play of the war right now?
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, unfortunately, it can be a little bit hard to tell sometimes.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, a part of any war is also the information war.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so on the one hand, you have each side incentivized to show that they are doing very well.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they have no intention of backing down.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: When in fact, you know, this is going much more badly than I think Trump certainly expected.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, so I think at the moment the most relevant thing that I'm focusing on is the the apparent reading of ground troops, it's not all on invasion, at least the mobilization of
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: several thousand U.S. service members, the assumption is that they would be mobilizing to try to take hot ag island, which is an island just 15 miles off the coast of Iran, and, you know, well into the Persian Gulf, you know, it's not sort of near the straight-up for moves, it's way up near Kuwait, you know, so in order to get there, whether they did, whether the U.S. troops would do sort of an amphibious assault from boats or on helicopters or
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: They have a lot of exposure and would have quite close to Iran for a while and then even if they and the reason the Trump administration and and others in the past have have suggested taking Khadog is just because it would really
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: as severely curtail around the ability to export oil, which would be a very severe economic blow, and I think this is part of why Trump assumes that this could be a real game changer.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: When in fact, it's more likely that the Iranian government has already factored this in, they are, this is completely existential for them and has been from the beginning.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: If US service members, you know, Marines end up taking it, they're sitting ducks, either to be killed, you know, they would be very easy targets of the short range missiles that Iran hasn't even had the chance to use yet or drones or, you know, other.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: other artillery, or they could be taken hostage, and the U.S. could once again find itself in the position that has motivated such anti-Aran animists for almost half a century, which was this feeling that the Islamic Republic had humiliated the United States by taking the hostages from the U.S. Embassy back in 1979.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I feel
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I feel extremely bad for for the service members and their families who are mode of who are being mobilized for what could essentially be a suicide mission.
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, and on the one hand, we have either something, so if let's say this happens, let's say they send in these these Marines to try to take the island.
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: They take it, Iran's oil facility, oil export facility capacity is destroyed in the process, but we have a massive casualty event for U.S. service members.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: So then where does that leave us?
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Probably escalating, that Trump would then feel he has to do something more to hit Iran harder to try to re-establish this perception of American dominance.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, everything, my, I understand, could happen.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, things like, whether it's the United States or Israel using a nuclear weapon on Iran.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, all of the possibilities are truly horrific and also don't necessarily end things.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: They certainly don't do anything to address the, the,
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: increasing rise in fuel prices, the block on fertilizers that need to, you know, just the fact that the state of Formus is such a significant global transit point won't necessarily be addressed by this escalation.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I think we are clearly on some sort of escalation ladder and, you know, like, they're increasingly sending American marines into the region, I guess with the idea of some sort of ground invasion, it's not, but as you say, like, it's unclear how a ground invasion would solve any of the problems
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: that the U.S. and Israel are facing.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I will remind listeners that at the beginning, it was said that the bombing around would precipitate regime change in regime collapse.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And now Benjamin Netanyahu is saying that having troops on the ground will cause regime change.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, so it's unclear.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: how it could achieve the goal, but I think it's also equally unclear what the goal is.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like maybe it's worth demarcating like what do you think the United States is aiming and hoping to get out of this and what Israel is aiming and hoping because it seems like those are two different things.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I think they're very clearly two different things and I think Israel has a much clearer understanding of what it wants out of this, you know, Israel doesn't really care if you end up with kind of total regime collapse in it like just complete chaos of a war waves of refugees, you know, from from Israel's perspective, that's fine.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or if somehow there could have been some sort of a regime change, you know, the replacement of the Islamic Republic with some kind of government that would be more amenable to American and Israeli objectives for the region.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think Israel ever saw that second one as likely, but I imagine that was what they sold to Trump.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was the idea you could do this sort of Venezuela outcome and just get it, essentially a puppet government in there.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think Israel wants that complete annihilation.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, similar to what the U.S. did to Iraq.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: where Iraq no longer poses any real security threat to countries around it.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's certainly fairly dysfunctional and not in no way been good for the Iraqi people, but you're not looking at the concern that predated the Iraq war where you had Saddam Hussein and the fear of what might he do against other countries.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Whereas the U.S. objectives are really unclear and keep changing.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, the regime, you know, the idea of regime change was one of the ideas.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's been talk of eliminating the nuclear facilities that were ostensibly already eliminated.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Last summer, removing Iran's ability to pose any sort of threat from its missile program or providing support to any of the its regional allies, like the Houthis or Hasbullah.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: But increasingly it seems like the the US is willing to follow and is really model and just pursue destruction for its own ends because that is is sort of seen as as preferable.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Although I do think in the long run, Trump has at least some understanding or the Gulf countries have tried to impress upon Trump that they certainly don't want a completely dysfunctional Iran with waves, you know, 90, whatever percentage of the 92 million persons strong population of Iran that would
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they have refugee flows into the Gulf countries just at the time that they're trying to struggle to re-establish themselves as a good location for foreign investment, for tourists, for travelers.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And in the long run, Trump also was very mindful of oil prices and doesn't want the instability that would continue to keep oil prices so high if the street of foremost continues to be either controlled by a run or sort of just made so unstable by this completely dysfunctional country.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so part of what you raise here is something you've written about before, which is the DCC countries and like what they want out of this.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a little bit not completely opaque as to what their situation is.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think there's been a lot of censorship in the war as you alluded to earlier.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And particularly, I think in both the DCC countries and in Israel,
• 9:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: what the impact is.
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it's really in terms of both oil getting out and then also the other region just returns.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's no way to see the current situation because anything positive.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: So what is the, yeah, what are the, what are those countries thinking?
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the Gulf countries are understandably apoplectic.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: They had, they were tried to be very clear with Trump about this being the outcome, that this war was a very bad idea, and they did everything they could to try to prevent it.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because now they're in this impossible situation, whether being hit by Iran,
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: they don't want to allow the U.S. to use U.S. bases to launch attacks on Iran and they themselves don't want to launch attacks on Iran because they know at the end of the day whenever it happens the Americans are going to go home and Israel will also be largely insulated from whatever comes next and they won't.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: They have to deal with a fallout again either and an increasingly aggressive and paranoid
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: regime, government left over in Iran, or or chaos, you know, and thinking about the long-term disruption of the removal of the assess, I mean, the...
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: In 2011, when the U.S. led the effort to take out Codafi in Libya, that 15 years later, that whole part of the world remains highly destabilized in terms of small arms, in terms of, I mean, people often refer to the open-air slave markets that take place in Libya.
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was not only a catastrophe for Libya, but for the countries around it too, who have had to absorb this violence and weapons and instability.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so the surrounding countries, including the Gulf countries, are really in this awful position.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think one big question continues to be, well, will the Gulf states get to a point where
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: The war is dragging on, their economies are getting hit, their infrastructures being destroyed.
• 11:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: In the end, they would rather speed up the end of the war, speed up the destruction of the government in Iran in order to just try to get to the day after that much sooner.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And thus far, we've had the Gulf countries saying, no, we would prefer to not make ourselves even more of a target.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: However, they have said they reserve the right to do so.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think the Saudi Foreign Minister in particular was was talking about that possibility, likely trying to get the Iranians to stop hitting them so much to say, look, we're exhibiting restraint right now, but we could get involved.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So stop hitting us.
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I mean, it does seem like there's a trap in between the two.
• 12:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I actually, because if you're expertise in this area, I just want to get your thoughts on this, because there's with other press reports, you know, I think in the Wall Street Journal in elsewhere, suggesting that actually these calls for restraint are just a public show and that the Saudi government and others are actually egging on the war and like support it.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I wasn't quite sure, like, how seriously to take those, like, they are sort of based on anonymous sources.
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they certainly, you know, would suit the, I guess the line of the Trump administration.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, like, what are your thoughts about those reports?
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I mean, this is the big question.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm very skeptical of reports that, in particular, the Saudis were secretly trying to egg on, or otherwise indicate support for this.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: In part because Saudi Arabia, in the absence of this war, the Saudis have been focusing intensively on vision 2030, which is just around the corner.
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: They've certainly achieved some of the benchmarks that they set out to achieve and certainly in terms of attracting tourists.
• 13:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: But they still have a long way to go.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they've had to scale back some of the really big aspects the mega projects that were part of vision 2030.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, and the Saudis had concluded back in 2019 when likely it was in Iranian attack on the Abkhaykh oil facilities.
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's still not entirely sure, but probably Iranian and the US shrugged the shoulders.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Didn't do anything to respond.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as a result, the Saudis decided that their interests were best served by de-escalating with Tehran, which resulted in the March 2023 normalization of relations with Tehran.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Liz has been a policy that has largely worked well for Riyadh, as it has tried to shift its focus domestically, to focus on employing more Saudis, building up, and especially Saudi women who were previously barred from working outside the home, build up their private sector, build up.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: The tourism infrastructure, because Saudi Arabia is pretty far behind countries like the UAE or Qatar that had already established themselves as these big hubs.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the UAE in particular is far ahead of any of its peers as far as the infrastructure, the reputation, the number of travel, I mean, you know, it's building self as a financial hub.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, if you're a young go-getter and then at least you probably want to be in Dubai, and that's kind of the place you could go to make money, you know, innovate, have a nice lifestyle.
• 15:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's, you know, that's not only true in the Middle East, I mean, kind of people from all over the world that are very attracted to that, that model of knowing come tax, you know, very cheap, manual labor, and this very nice lifestyle, which is
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: that image has now been punctured and so it is going to be very difficult moving forward for these golf countries to once again attract to the same kinds of investment.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I've seen some analysis that says there are these concerns that the guest workers would all leave.
• 15:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I suspect that's not true.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, unfortunately, the reason the guest, the foreign workers come
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, unfortunately, they are very, very dependent on the resources, the earnings that they can make in the Gulf, which are much higher than what they could make in their home countries.
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: So again, even if you have some guest workers who decide it's too risky, I don't want to be in this part of the world anymore, I'm sure you will have others who, unfortunately, are driven by poverty and desperation.
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't think that's the real concern.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think the real concern is people coming from Europe, or from Russia, or from North America, who otherwise were attracted to the lifestyle and the glitz and the luxury, and are now going to say it's not worth it, you know, like these hyper-welfing individuals who previously thought that this was all sort of insulated from the reality of
• 16:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: of the region and so I think that's where it's going to be a challenge is to attract those people to come back.
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: So all going back to the fact that MBS is depending on those kinds of people, you know, he has invested so much money in building up Saudi Arabia, you know, with with soccer, you're getting like Cristiano Ronaldo, you know, the F, the Formula One, just, you know, golf, like all kinds of been trying to throw money basically at it.
• 17:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: The comedy festival, yes, yeah.
• 17:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: They have invested so much in trying to make Saudi Arabia attractive and to emulate the model that the UAE has been so successful at.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, until war with Iran just doesn't, you know, like even in Donald Trump's best case outcome where he got a Delcy Rodriguez type figure to take over.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the US military just launched an intervention, just like right across that little body of water, like maybe I don't actually want a vacation, right there, you know, maybe I don't want to invest my millions.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So from MES is perspective, although, although sort of if he could wave a magic wand and have a different government in Iran, I'm sure he would, but he's aware enough of the reality there that his interests were best served by de-escalation.
• 18:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, and that's what he was doing.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, and, you know, in similar dynamics for the other Gulf states, it's just in Saudi Arabia, you have this ground print who has staked his entire reputation on the success of vision 2030, and he's dealing with a much bigger population.
• 18:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you know, that it's just, it's going to be hard.
• 18:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be harder for him to pull that off.
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that for Saudi Arabia, it's a real problem.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm also kind of interested in Dubai and the UAI's you were suggesting because they have been like actually very closely aligned with Israel and like do you have like any sense of like how that's working on because in some ways they've been like the kind of the most hit by that totally
• 18:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, you have heard Emirati, because you know there, so this whole war has brought up some questions of like, will this, will this take part the Abraham awards, you know, countries that thought that the path to security.
• 19:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: went through Tel Aviv in order to signal their utility for to Washington.
• 19:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then Ron Tetsk have been very clear about, no, this just kind of re-emphasizes that Iran is the biggest threat in the region.
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we need to adhere even more closely to kind of the United States in a real.
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't expect that the UAE, at least under the leadership of Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi, I think he is pretty set on that approach.
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: At the same time, I'm sure there are a lot of people in Dubai who are
• 19:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: a poll, you know, came for the, for the party and the, the light style and to, would really probably feel that that their policy might be better served by, by not partnering so closely with Israel such that I think, I think this is part of why they've been targeted so heavily so that they pay a higher price whereas although there have been some,
• 20:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, certainly Iran has targeted Qatar and has targeted Oman.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's been less so and a common in particular.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's been less there.
• 20:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think Iran is sort of trying to signal kind of who would especially annoyed with which it's UAE.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, okay, yeah, let's listen to the other countries as well because I think Oman has kind of been very interesting And when what I can see they've been sort of taking the lead in trying to curtail this effort and trying to like, you know, map out And all the traders are strategy or you know, like an alternative position.
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is that right or what do you think they're sort of standing is?
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think from the Omani perspective, they're partly just, they're foreign minister who has just kept saying over and over again that like weed had had a deal.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like we were so close to a deal that Trump could have taken as a win.
• 21:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, Trump could have said I did the thing I promised.
• 21:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got a better deal than Obama got.
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: They basically were gonna have zero enrichment.
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: They weren't gonna be allowed to keep any of the enriched uranium.
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: This would, this, you know, and, and, and that basically with cough and cushioner, either were too stupid, you know, like didn't didn't have like the the capacity to understand what it was that the Iranians were offering, which just speaks to the fact that the, they're not diplomats, these are real estate dudes or they were not interested, which I think may be closer to the reality that.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: they, you know, Kushner in particular, very much driven by what he sees as best for Israel and whipped coffee.
• 21:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's similar.
• 21:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Israel has wanted this war.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Netanyahu specifically has wanted this war since the 1990s.
• 21:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so the idea that negotiations were ever going to avert war
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: the Iranians are not interested in learning the negotiations.
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you keep hearing WICHAV saying, oh no, the Iranians reached out, like they want to talk.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the Iranians are like, no, WICHAV keeps texting.
• 22:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: He wants to talk.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: He wants an off ramp.
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: But they have no interest in doing that because their concern is,
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Israel and the U.S. just do this again in six months or a year, who knows, but that the Iranians want to re-establish deterrence to make this hurt enough such that the U.S. will prevent Israel, at least, from re-initiating these hostilities.
• 22:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, I think that's right.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we should emphasize from the Iranian point of view, like this is actually for the second time that they were like in negotiations with the United States and attack.
• 22:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so like, I actually think, like if they have any sort of desire for self-preservation as a regime, they actually do need to inflict a lot of pain, which is what they're doing.
• 23:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're from their own point of view.
• 23:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is a completely rational action.
• 23:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: 100%.
• 23:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And unfortunately, Israel also keeps assassinating figures within the government that might have otherwise been a little bit more pragmatic.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And instead, because they don't want this to end.
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: They see it as, you know, again, this sort of mowing the grass strategy or the idea that you just have to periodically hit the countries or actors that Israel basically says a threat,
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: On the one hand, works in that you address the immediate, the immediacy of that threat, but it just increases your insecurity in the long run.
• 23:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this date of Israel is not made more safe in the long run by
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: continually generating increasing enmity and in particular, if Israel pursues this project of greater Israel and tries to steal additional land from its neighbors, it's really...
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just speaks to what this unconditional U.S. support for Israel has engendered in their psychology, in this belief that what we can always get more weapons, and strengthen the iron dome, and people can just hang out in their bomb shelters, which aren't available to Arab Israelis or aren't available to Palestinians.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, but that security lies in this continual aggression, which is non-sensical, but that's kind of what Netanyahu has sold his population, unfortunately, that seems to, they seem to be under that impression.
• 24:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I mean, it doesn't seem like just on a theoretical level, like there's a contradiction between the sort of greater Israel project and the sort of Abraham Accord's project.
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like, if they have chosen the greater Israel project, that like, I don't see how even UAE is going to be able to go along with this, like it doesn't seem viable.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 25:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think Israel is aware of the fact that the long-term prospects for American support have been severely undermined by Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
• 25:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And already you had seen the fact that Israeli politicians were really just relying on Republicans,
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're no longer trying to necessarily build the same relationships with Democrats.
• 25:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you certainly have plenty of pro Israel Democrats who take lots of money from APEC.
• 25:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: They certainly exist in Congress.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: But just the, I think Israel, even before they launched the genocide,
• 26:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: were aware of the possibility of the United States no longer prioritizing the Middle East as much, which administrations have said for a long time, and that Israel is to establish itself as the regional military hegemon.
• 26:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is part of why you see the UAE continuing to
• 26:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: a lie itself with Israel, because I think that's kind of the bet that they've made.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Along run, and in many ways, you know, kind of this these small, very well-armed increasingly authoritarian contexts.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they, they, the UAE has always been a little bit threatened by the presence of, you know, it's very large and wealthy neighbors out of your Arabia.
• 26:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, and so I think I think there's a certain fellow feeling there in terms of.
• 27:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: being, you know, not only that they sort of see eye to eye, but also that they, they are interested in destabilizing some of these larger countries, so whether it's a run or Turkey, we know the Israelis have talked about.
• 27:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: even Saudi Arabia when I was doing, you know, conducting interviews back in December for the report I put out on this question of should Gulf States reconsider their reliance on the United States.
• 27:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was concern expressed by Saudis about, you know, for now the Israelis say they want to normalize with us, but what if they suddenly decide?
• 27:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're a threat too, you know, especially without getting nuclear capacities, which is what it's interested in getting at the moment.
• 27:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're just civilian, but they're taking off the guardrails.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So who knows?
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know.
• 27:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, yeah, I don't know.
• 27:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it does seem, I don't know, if I were like any of these newspapers, this policy of destabilization would be
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe if we can sort of just widen the lens a little bit, like it does seem like the sort of questions you were saying that the DCC countries were asking themselves, you know, what reliance in the United States, I mean like to me it also would apply to countries in Europe and Asia, like if the United States is a destabilizing forest, then like
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: is the alliance worth it.
• 28:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in particular, I mean, like some of the rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration this week, which is both that, like, you know, the American allies are like stupid and parasites that we don't need them.
• 28:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: and also that they want to provide aid in securing the strait of her was.
• 28:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I feel like it does seem like to have an ally that's acting in that way.
• 28:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: It looks like insult to you and then also asking for help.
• 29:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also creating a lot of destabilization which is leading to immense economic problems.
• 29:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Much more so in Asia and in Europe than like it is being felt in America right now.
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, do you think, you know, we're in a position where getting to a situation where those allies also need to be rethinking your relationship with the U.S.
• 29:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I hope all of America's allies are rethinking because it's just so clear that there's very little there to prevent an actor like Trump from doing things like this.
• 29:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, whether it's threatening to take green land, kidnapping leaders, assassinating other leaders,
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, when you have a country like this, behaving just kind of willing to exert power in any way that it sees as benefiting itself.
• 29:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's really very little to stop it.
• 30:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, obviously international law prevents all of this.
• 30:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think a lot I've seen sometimes people saying, well, why isn't the UN doing more?
• 30:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, well, the UN doesn't have
• 30:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: a coercive capacity, like the one wasn't designed to step in, when you have the UN Security Council, which theoretically, then the permanent members and the temporary members, you know, like there are mechanisms you can activate, but they still require countries to send troops.
• 30:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: and you can't have it be vetoed.
• 30:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: But again, the UN doesn't have the capacity to kind of impose governance, you know, we still live in an anarchic world order.
• 30:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, you have both United States and Israel acting in ways that are completely
• 30:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: essentially irrational in the long run, given that they're not conducive to their long-term security or partnership from other countries.
• 31:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if there's any silver lining, it may be that all of this
• 31:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: speeds the process towards decarbonization, emphasizing that countries should no longer depend on fossil fuels or they should try to reduce their exposure to that dependence as we're observing as the U.S. blockades Cuba and is
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: potentially killing people for what I mean, I believe is killing people for a lot of fuel, like in hospitals.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And also, hopefully, the silver lining may be that we get an actual left candidate.
• 31:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: or more clearly articulated demand from the American public for someone who is actually anti war that is committed to not engaging in these unnecessary wars of choice.
• 31:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I mean another, I mean I work at the Quincy Institute where we push for less militaristic US foreign policy.
• 32:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I, again, I don't, I don't necessarily want to see this outcome because I'm worried it would be accompanied by a lot of chaos, but that if other countries recognize that their interests are not actually that well served by hosting US troops.
• 32:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: hosting bases, you know, maintaining these kinds of security partnerships with US because they are in fact not actually all that useful in a crisis.
• 32:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that would probably be good in the long run for for future American governments to no longer be quite so powerful and able to to act in this way.
• 32:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 32:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it does seem very self-defeating for like all the sort of reasons you outlined.
• 32:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Perhaps like towards the end of this discussion where we should take up, I think some of the sort of like economic consequences like on the one hand.
• 32:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, like the war is disrupting oil, you know, raising oil prices, and the Trump administration is taking some mitigating steps which are perversely like undercutting its own sort of war aim.
• 33:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they're allowing a rainy oil to continue to flow because that gives the price of oil a lower.
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they also see some sort of shenanigans with the federal reserve, possibly interfering in the oil market, the release of the reserve.
• 33:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: But like my sense is like at some point all these mitigation factors aren't going to like work anywhere And like so reality will kick in, but like yeah, I don't know like what's your sense of that like Yeah, you know like well whenever you actually don't really get a start seeing the pinch unless like There's a radical change of course
• 33:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, as you said, some of these effects are already being felt much more acutely in other parts of the world.
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And at this point, I don't think Americans are quite feeling them.
• 34:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, gas prices are up.
• 34:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think people are kind of aware of the possibility of this, but I don't think it's really hitting yet.
• 34:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Whereas, yes, in some countries,
• 34:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: at a point now where they're cutting work hours.
• 34:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think Egypt was like cutting the hours that children are in school because they didn't have, you know, the few old, the lights on.
• 34:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's, and again, this just reiterates the fact that as Americans, we are insulated from the effects of what we do to the rest of the world, whether it's violence or just wreaking havoc on the global economy.
• 34:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it was similar to thinking about the 2008 financial crisis, and I mean, many Americans were hit hard by that, but also all these other countries around the world who was bankers had it engaged in the same sorts of financial shenanigans, were also hit and really suffered as a result.
• 35:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so again, just the
• 35:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: the inordinate influence of the United States, whether it's as an economic partner and then countries are susceptible to defects of tariffs or as a security partner and then countries realize they've invested a lot in that security relationship and it's not paying off.
• 35:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, if I were a leader, I'd be looking to reduce my exposure to the U.S. and
• 35:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I think that's right.
• 35:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, I'm one instead of seeing some of this, at least being thought out, all the other was acted on, like from Mark Carney's speech at Davos, which I think really lays out the situation.
• 35:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's a lot of path dependency that keeps the American Empire going like this.
• 35:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: But at some point,
• 35:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think things are bound to change, but on that note, I think perhaps the one as you said silver lining is that there might be actual political forces changing.
• 36:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I guess the big news of the week was Joe Kent, you know, very senior.
• 36:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: national security official resigning in opposition to this war and articulating a sort of very right wing anti war position perhaps as a like to end our conversation like do you think that that has a sort of political future or where do you think this sort of anti war energy is going to come you know as the consequences of this war ripple through America yeah i mean that i think that was very significant he was a more senior official than anyone
• 36:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: he was a political appointee, and I think it also speaks to this divide within Trump's base, this question of why or how is this America first to fight a work for Israel?
• 36:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And just to go back to what we were talking to at the beginning, like in the event that the U.S. launches a ground invasion of Iran,
• 36:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're looking, you know, Iran is so much bigger than Iraq, or the terrain is, you know, much more similar to Afghanistan than to Iraq, like people talking about, oh, you know, a ground invasion.
• 37:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, no, then we just get bogged down.
• 37:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you, you know, it's Iran is so much bigger and harder to,
• 37:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: sort of establish military control over.
• 37:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be an order of magnitude more of a catastrophe than either the war in Iraq or Afghanistan.
• 37:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that, you know, I do want to commend Joe Kent for doing what a lot of people in the Biden administration did not do, just to say, I cannot in good faith continue to serve in an administration that is engaging in
• 37:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I really, while he, I think, I think part of the reason he adopted those essentially anti-Semitic, you know, like basically blaming Israel for everything in ways that are inaccurate.
• 38:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I imagine he was doing that partly in order to try to get Trump to listen as, you know, as Trump won't listen if you blame him.
• 38:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 38:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Whereas he's very much should be blamed, he is to blame.
• 38:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, a lot of it was the sort of rhetoric of, you know, the Zarr is a good man.
• 38:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: He just has bad advisors.
• 38:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, right, right.
• 38:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not, I'm not so surprised that, you know, if he was trying to make it through to Trump, he knows you can't criticize him, he's quite skilled.
• 38:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and so to try to shift the blame all onto Israel, which is inaccurate, but but Israel, again, like, yeah, I've been trying to get this more for 40 years and Trump was the first president's stupid enough to go for it.
• 38:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, no, there's plenty of blame to go around.
• 38:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: But so, but I want to thank, you know, once again, for speaking on this, I will link actually to her earlier report on the golf countries, which I think is very illuminating for understanding what's going on right now.
• 39:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, thanks for being on the program.
• 39:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for having me.