Latest / The Front / Trump didn’t chicken out. But did he make Iran stronger than ever?

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Trump didn’t chicken out. But did he make Iran stronger than ever? · The Front

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Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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Speaker 1: It's Friday, April ten, twenty twenty six. Jim Chalmers is
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Speaker 1: set to bank a mammoth eight point one billion dollar
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Speaker 1: windfall in company tax revenues, and he might have Donald
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Speaker 1: Trump to thank. Supply chain shocks caused by the Iran
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Speaker 1: War have helped send iron, ore, coal, and other commodity
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Speaker 1: prices up past Treasuries forecasts. That story is live now
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Speaker 1: at The Australian dot com dot a U. Absurd, ridiculous, insane, offensive, fantastical.
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Speaker 1: That's how our foreign editor Greg Sheridan sums up Donald
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Speaker 1: Trump's rhetoric throughout the Iran War. As for the war itself, well,
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Speaker 1: Greg reckons Trump's made massive miscalculations and may have left
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Speaker 1: the despised Iranian regime stronger than ever, and Trump himself
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Speaker 1: is starting to look like a part. Greg's here in
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Speaker 1: just a moment. Greg Sheridan is The Australian's foreign editor,
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Speaker 1: and that means part of his job is to come
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Speaker 1: on the front and have me ask him to answer
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Speaker 1: impossible questions. At Christmas time, I asked Greg if Jesus
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Speaker 1: was real and this one might be a slightly easier question, Greg,
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Speaker 1: Where on the continuum of Donald Trump's decision making are
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Speaker 1: we going to put the Iran war now that we've
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Speaker 1: got what looks like a cease fire? It's Thursday afternoon.
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Speaker 1: Is this if we look back at what started on
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Speaker 1: February twenty eight, a complete disaster or an absolute triumph
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Speaker 1: or where in the middle does it fall?
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Speaker 2: Well, Claire, it was easy to answer the question about Jesus.
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Speaker 2: I know what the truth is there on this matter.
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Speaker 2: Like everything with Trump, it's a mixed girl. The case
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Speaker 2: for taking action against Iran was and is very strong.
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Speaker 2: It is the chief sponsor of terrorism around the world.
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Speaker 2: It uses its proxies has Bala Hamas, the Hooties, the
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Speaker 2: Sheer militia in Iraq to murder its enemies and to
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Speaker 2: wage war against Israel and the United States. It is
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Speaker 2: pursuing a nuclear program which can only be aimed towards
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Speaker 2: getting nuclear weapons. And it is responsible for the deaths
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Speaker 2: of many hundreds of Americans, many hundreds, if not thousands
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Speaker 2: of Israelis, and has conducted terrorism in Australia. So the
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Speaker 2: case was strong. However, Trump conducted this business in a
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Speaker 2: very slap dash way. The military, the US military and
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Speaker 2: the Israeli military were very impressive in doing what they
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Speaker 2: always do very effectively. But Trump didn't take elementary precautions.
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Speaker 2: He didn't fill up the US fuel reserve, didn't equip
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Speaker 2: the Gulf States with proper counter drone capabilities, nor did
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Speaker 2: he quip his own military with proper counter drone capabilities.
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Speaker 2: So the Americans are firing enormously expensive missile interceptors to
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Speaker 2: hit Iranian drones. And then the most recent accounts of
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Speaker 2: the decision making, which show that Vice President JD. Vance
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Speaker 2: was dead against this operation, show that Trump thought Iran
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Speaker 2: would not close the Straight of Hor meoves because it
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Speaker 2: would collapse before then, and thought it would not mount
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Speaker 2: significant attacks on its neighbors. And these were two fundamental miscalculations.
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Speaker 2: Trump also hoped that his attacks would lead to regime change.
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Speaker 3: That hasn't happened either.
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Speaker 2: So we're at a very delicate moment now where we
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Speaker 2: don't know what's going to happen exactly next. But if
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Speaker 2: at the end of all this, Iran keeps its regime intact,
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Speaker 2: which it has up till now, and controls the Straight
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Speaker 2: of hor Moves, Iran would actually, in many ways in
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Speaker 2: a stronger strategic position than before Trump began this war.
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Speaker 2: If Trump gets the Strait of Hormuz definitively, clearly and
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Speaker 2: permanently open without Iranian control, then he can at least
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Speaker 2: say he's degraded Iran's military and nuclear capabilities. And you know,
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Speaker 2: the cost to oil price disruption and so forth was temporary.
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Speaker 3: But all the way through, I'd.
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Speaker 2: Say Trump's rhetoric has bordered on the absurd, the ridiculous,
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Speaker 2: the insane, the offensive, and just the fantastical. And his
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Speaker 2: own rhetoric has done enormous damage to America's position in
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Speaker 2: the world, and it's made it impossible for Allied leaders
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Speaker 2: to support him, because Trump has turned every Western electorate
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Speaker 2: one hundred percent against him, and that has a strategic cost.
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Speaker 1: We've used AI to bring to life this truth social
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Speaker 1: post by Donald Trump about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
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Speaker 1: It's one of many about the war in Iran. NATO
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Speaker 1: wasn't there when we needed them, and they won't be
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Speaker 1: there if we need them again.
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Speaker 2: So that's another one of Trump's grave miscalculations. Apart from
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Speaker 2: the Strait of All moves and Iran's ability to keep
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Speaker 2: its regime intact. The other big miscalculation is the way
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Speaker 2: he has mismanaged allies.
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Speaker 1: We've definitely seen lifting off of one layer of leadership
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Speaker 1: at the very top of the Iranian regime. The Iatola
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Speaker 1: was killed very early on. Various other senior leaders from
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Speaker 1: the IRGC throughout the military are now gone. They've all
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Speaker 1: been replaced, though where do you think Iranian people are
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Speaker 1: now left? Greg As the weeks go on, we'll see
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Speaker 1: how hardline I suppose the replacements are. But will do
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Speaker 1: you think this hardened the regime's oppression and repression of
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Speaker 1: its own people, or is it likely that this regime
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Speaker 1: is now seriously damaged and will ultimately be weakened by
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Speaker 1: what's happened over the past month or so.
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Speaker 2: The internal control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seems
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Speaker 2: to be, if anything, even more absolute now than it
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Speaker 2: was previously. But the Iranian regime is a terrible regime,
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Speaker 2: richly loathed by its people. Earlier this year, the regime
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Speaker 2: murdered between thirty and forty thousand of its own citizens.
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Speaker 2: Now just reflect on that it killed thirty to forty
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Speaker 2: thousand of its own citizens for the crime of protesting
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Speaker 2: in the streets against the nature of the regime. And
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Speaker 2: it's a barbaric and sadistic, theocratic stalinist regime, very unusual
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Speaker 2: in the world. So I don't think you can say
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Speaker 2: this regime needed any pushing to get any worse.
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Speaker 3: But there's no indication at all that this.
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Speaker 2: Regime has become less bad as result of this attack.
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Speaker 2: And in a sense, the poor old Iranian people don't
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Speaker 2: get a vote in Iran. Their theocratic ideology places a
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Speaker 2: particular you know, premium on martyrdom, and their leaders are
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Speaker 2: not hypocrites in this respect. So occasionally a dictatorship will
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Speaker 2: change if you bomb the leader or bomb the leader's tent.
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Speaker 2: So Trump took out Maduro from Venezuela and that changed
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Speaker 2: the regime. The regime didn't become democratic, but it became
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Speaker 2: cooperative with the United States. Ronald Reagan bombed Colonel Gaddaffi's
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Speaker 2: tent in Libya, and Gaddaffi became scared that he would
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Speaker 2: get killed, and the Americans never really had any fundamental
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Speaker 2: trouble with Libya again after that. The Iranian regime is
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Speaker 2: quite different from that. It's leaders, you know, are corrupt
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Speaker 2: and sadistic and stalinist, but they're not hypocrites about their
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Speaker 2: willingness to face death. It's very clear really that these
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Speaker 2: terrorist groups has Bila and Hamas and so on. Israel
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Speaker 2: has been killing their leaders for generations, and sometimes that
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Speaker 2: is a necessary thing to do, but there's no evidence
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Speaker 2: that that really produces any fundamental change. I mean, in
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Speaker 2: World War Two, you probably would have changed Germany if
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Speaker 2: you'd killed Hitler, but the nature of the Iranian regime
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Speaker 2: does not seem to be fundamentally changed by taking out
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Speaker 2: the leadership.
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Speaker 3: JD.
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Speaker 1: Vance is an interesting figure in the story of this conflict.
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Speaker 1: Last year, he in a signal chat that was supposed
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Speaker 1: to be private but was accidentally leaked by Pete Hegseth
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Speaker 1: to a journalist, said that he thought that bombing the
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Speaker 1: Hoofies was a mistake. He's clearly a skeptic about American
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Speaker 1: involvement in foreign conflicts. That's one of the values that
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Speaker 1: he has long less vowsed, and it was something that
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Speaker 1: Donald Trump was supposedly one of his values. To Greg,
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Speaker 1: how do you think we should interpret the balance of
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Speaker 1: kind influence in the White House? Now? Marco Rubio was
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Speaker 1: much more strongly in favor publicly of this war than JD.
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Speaker 1: Vance was, although now it's JD. Vans who is out
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Speaker 1: there in public making statements about the war. Trump, on
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Speaker 1: the other hand, has veered between seeming relatively reasonable to
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Speaker 1: being absolutely crazed in his public pronouncements. What do you
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Speaker 1: think are all the dynamics going on there?
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Speaker 2: I think the primary battle occurs within Trump's mind. There's very,
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Speaker 2: very detailed reporting of the decision making process leading up
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Speaker 2: to this war seems to be extremely well sourced, and
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Speaker 2: you'd have to say it's Vance or friends of Vance
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Speaker 2: getting on the record his historic opposition to the hole
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Speaker 2: Iran war. Rubio was not keen either. Rubio was extremely skeptical.
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Speaker 2: Virtually everyone was skeptical. The American military was very skeptical,
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Speaker 2: The American intelligence agencies were very skeared. There was clearly
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Speaker 2: no imminent threat. What the reporting shows is that no
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Speaker 2: one wanted to contradict Trump at the meeting except Van
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Speaker 2: Spence was the only one who had the carriage to
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Speaker 2: contradict him.
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Speaker 1: Vice President JA D. Vance will head to Pakistan with
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Speaker 1: special on voice Steve Witkoff and the President's son in
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Speaker 1: LAWD Jared Kushna where he'll lead negotiations with Iran to
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Speaker 1: end the war.
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Speaker 4: I sat on the phone a lot. I answered a
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Speaker 4: lot of phone calls. I made a lot of phone calls.
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Speaker 4: And again, I'm happy about where we are. I think
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Speaker 4: the President has struck a good deal for the American people,
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Speaker 4: but fundamentally, the Iranians have got to take the next
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Speaker 4: step where the president has a lot of options to
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Speaker 4: go back to the war.
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Speaker 2: But the others made their objections known by saying, well,
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Speaker 2: mister President, there's this complication, and there's that complication now.
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Speaker 2: Benjamin Netanya, who had put to Trump a case for
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Speaker 2: taking the action, there's nothing wrong with Netanya who doing that.
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Speaker 2: You can't criticize a foreign leader for making a case
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Speaker 2: to the American president for a cause of action.
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Speaker 3: It's up to the pre isn't it what he decides Now.
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Speaker 2: It's very difficult to try to interpret Trump's mind, but
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Speaker 2: we have to do this now. He is an erratic,
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Speaker 2: strange individual. He does some good things and some courageous things.
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Speaker 2: He does some crazy things and some stupid things. I
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Speaker 2: think myself. History will record the single most influential newspaper
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Speaker 2: column ever written in the history of the human race
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Speaker 2: was the Financial Times column which coined the term Taco
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Speaker 2: Trump always chickens out because Trump's pattern had been that
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Speaker 2: he makes bellicos threats and you know, threatens armageddon and
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Speaker 2: then does a deal at the last minute. And the
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Speaker 2: idea is that he scares everybody with these bellicos threats
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Speaker 2: and then he does a deal. But by identifying this
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Speaker 2: with this kind of slightly mocking acronym taco, this convinced
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Speaker 2: Trump that he must demonstrate that he doesn't always check
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Speaker 2: it out. I mean, it's pathetic clear that international relations
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Speaker 2: is reduced to a sort of a psychobabb analysis of
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Speaker 2: Trump's mind. It seems that Trump himself was indecisive or
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Speaker 2: undecided about this, and then the opportunity to kill a
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Speaker 2: lot of Iranian leaders all at once because they were
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Speaker 2: having a meeting above ground in a particular location and
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Speaker 2: they didn't know that the Israelis and the Americans would
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Speaker 2: be able to locate them. So the Israelis presented this
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Speaker 2: to Trump as an opportunity, and I think it appealed
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Speaker 2: to the gambler and the lover of drama in Trump,
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Speaker 2: who thought, well, maybe I can wipe these guys out.
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Speaker 2: Like I did Maduro in Venezuela, and I'll quickly get
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Speaker 2: some military replacement or whatever.
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Speaker 3: Who will do a deal with us? Well, that gamble failed.
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Speaker 2: One reason, I'm quite worried and skeptical about where we
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Speaker 2: are now. Trump is a great one at announcing tremendous
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Speaker 2: historic breakthroughs and then never following them up. Just give
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Speaker 2: you a couple of examples real fast. In twenty eighteen,
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Speaker 2: he announced that he had solved the problem of North
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Speaker 2: Korea's nuclear weapons.
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Speaker 3: Kim John mun had promised.
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Speaker 2: To denuclearize, get rid of his existing nuclear weapons, and
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Speaker 2: have no more nuclear development. Well, we know that Kim
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Speaker 2: John Un has continued to increase the number of nuclear
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Speaker 2: weapons he has and to build ballistic missiles. In this term,
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Speaker 2: Trump had a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, and
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Speaker 2: he announced after it that he'd solved the Ukraine War.
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Speaker 2: There would shortly be a meeting between Putin and Vladimir
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Speaker 2: Zelenski of Ukraine, and Trump might join the meeting as well,
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Speaker 2: and everything was now solved.
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Speaker 3: Nothing happened.
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Speaker 2: Russia did not desist one speck from its attacks on Ukraine.
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Speaker 2: More recently, we had the Gaza ceasepire. Trump announced a wonderful,
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Speaker 2: fabulous plan for Gaza Humas would demilitarize, there would be
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Speaker 2: new Palestinian police force of technocratic government in an national peacekeepers.
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Speaker 2: Not one thing out of that plan has been implemented.
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Speaker 3: And I don't want to be cute, I don't want
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Speaker 3: to be a waste guy. But the riviera of the
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Speaker 3: Middle East, this could be something that could be so bad,
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Speaker 3: This could be so magnificent.
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Speaker 2: And now today, just hours before we speak, Trump has said,
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Speaker 2: far from having the Hall Moves straight completely open as
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Speaker 2: an international waterway as it's supposed to be, He's willing
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Speaker 2: to go into a joint venture with Iran to charge
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Speaker 2: tolls for ships to go through the Strait of Houll Moves,
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Speaker 2: which means, at least on the face that Trump is
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Speaker 2: himself proposing to become a brigand and a pirate and
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Speaker 2: an international terrorist charging an illegal toll, which apparently he
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Speaker 2: doesn't mind so long as America gets some of the money. Now,
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Speaker 2: I think he'll be talked out of this eventually, But
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Speaker 2: the wild girations of Trump are becoming now I think
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Speaker 2: very disturbing. And the natural inhibitor and the automatic stabilizers
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Speaker 2: of the American system. He stripped them out systematically, one
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Speaker 2: by one. He's taken away all the staff in consequence
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Speaker 2: of the National Security Council. There are very few adults
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Speaker 2: in his cabinet. Rubio is one, Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary,
15:17
Speaker 2: is another. Maybe Dvance is emerging that way, but he
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Speaker 2: surrounds himself with ciphers like Pete Hegseth, who has no
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Speaker 2: business being an American cabinet secretary, and even some of
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Speaker 2: his most servile servants Pam Bondi and Christian nomen so on.
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Speaker 2: He sacked those because they're not giving him sufficiently florid results. So, Claire,
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Speaker 2: this is all very difficult for me to say, because
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Speaker 2: I'm very pro American. I think America is overwhelmingly a
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Speaker 2: force for good in the world. They are Australia's most
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Speaker 2: important ally. They are the garrant teur of whatever security
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Speaker 2: there is in the world. But the speech, language and
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Speaker 2: behavior of the president is really very troubling these days.
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Speaker 1: Well, Greeg Sheridan, thank you very much. I feel very
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Speaker 1: lucky to have you help us work these things out.
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Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Claire.
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Speaker 1: Greeg Sheridan is the Australian's foreign editor. This story is
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Speaker 1: moving fast. For all the latest, visit the Australian dot
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Speaker 1: com dot a you