Latest / The Nation Podcasts / War Clouds Over Iran w/ Amir Handjani | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

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War Clouds Over Iran w/ Amir Handjani | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer · The Nation Podcasts

• 0:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: The old world is dying, the new world struggles to be born.
• 0:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now is the time of monsters.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: With those words from Graham Shia, welcome you to the time of monsters podcast.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm G-T here of the nation magazine, which is the sponsor of this podcast.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So once again, we have workloads over the least, the sort of interminable conflict between U.S. and Iran continues the United States to send out what Donald Trump has referred to as a massive
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: claiming that they will do in Iran what they did in Venezuela, which seems like an odd kind of metaphor.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's a much larger country and I'm not quite sure if the planet's just to kidnap the antula and replace them with someone else in the regime.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, Trump's own words seem very sort of like confusing.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: It says I get clarity on what is happening.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm very happy to have on.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Amir and Janney who is non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute and knows the region very well, so first of all, welcome to the program It's nice to be with you, Jake.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so Can you like basically just start with primer like what do you think is happening right now?
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is the sort of like prospects for war and what is the trumpet administration trying to achieve from these military exercises?
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think that the prospects for war are very high.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think we're on the precipice of US strikes on on Iran.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think the Trump administration, as you said, or she said, quote unquote, the Armadas is at or near the Persian Gulf.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: and they're there for leverage for President Trump wants to bring their items to the table to really discuss three main things with them.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want them to enrich Urania which they are not doing at the time because they've been over the summer the United States blew up there.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: What should they're Uranium infrastructure?
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Uranium processing infrastructure.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: He just wants that to be permanent.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want that to be built again.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want the Iran to support proxies in the region anymore.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It has will La Hamas or the Kouthis.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he doesn't want Iran to have any long range missiles that can hit or threaten against Israel.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: He wants to bring Iran at the table to talk about these three things.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: For the Iranians that's not war but negotiations,
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: or else.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think they're in lies the rub.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: They don't want to be dictated to.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: They want to have a negotiation and extract and that negotiation, what they feel is in their best interest long term.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, like, if there's the negotiations, like obviously the Iranian regime would have such a request.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you want to smell those out?
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I would imagine that they would involve sort of lifting of sanctions and
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think the first thing is, after what happened this summer, they were in the middle of a pretty robust negotiation with the US national bond would call and in the middle of that negotiation they were attacked by Israel and subsequently by the United States.
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think they don't want to have that situation happen again, and so they want the threat of use of force to be caught off the table, so they can, you know, they don't want to negotiate with the government they're out.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think there's little chance that that happening now because of the U.S. assets and the regions or any negotiations going to be happening with the backdrop of U.S.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think they are happy to negotiate with this.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've seen this movie before, to have your rainy enrichment at a very, very low level on their soil, a far gap between whether they want to enrich and weapons great, enriched up.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: but they believe it's their sovereign right to have because they're a number of the NPT to have some sort of domestic and racial program.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: They've, and from their perspective, they've spent a lot of money on this.
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: They've lost a lot of blood and treasure on them.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So to just give that up, even for sections relief, I don't think is an option for them.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: That being said, we're talking about in many ways of ghosts because they're not enriching right now because their facilities are gone.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it would take them years to even get back to that capability of a virtue.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if is it possible for them to agree to or an interim period to not have any stuck domestic enrichment, it's probably more than likely they're not going to have it anyway.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's possible, but I think the devil is in those details.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: What are they going to get from that?
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what kind of sanctions we're further going to get?
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: What kind of integration into the international financial structures, you know, their banks should cut off, their central bank is cut off.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that there's an negotiation there.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're even on the proxies, I think there's a way to negotiate that.
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're here because the proxies have been decimated to the large extent.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be very, very tricky for the Iranians.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be on the missiles because it's very hard for nations and it's going to attack by other countries that have nuclear capabilities to have long-range missile capabilities to save that word of going to not have missiles to defend ourselves.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's why I think that it's going to be very, very hard for them to accept.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, no, so I mean, what you're sort of describing is a situation where like around is actually like quite weak, but both because of last year is sort of like bombing and various decimations of their proxies in Lebanon and elsewhere, and the loss of their strength and Syria, the regime itself has very few cards to play.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: But like to my mind, that would add to you make it more reluctant to give up what to do that they have, right?
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: The third long-range missiles, increase in salience, as they've lost their enrichment capabilities and proxies.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is that the sort of logic that's playing out right now?
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I think we, they're weaker than they were a year ago because the proxies, but they still have
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: with a 12-day war with Israel and it was the Israeli suit passed through a ceasefire because they were running out of interceptors.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this is the strength of the Iran's missile program.
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: The reason why it's become such a catches issue is because with that missile program there, they're never going to beat me get off to be overtaken if the missiles are still there because they're always
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: box missiles and fight back.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Israel had dominance over Iranian airspace.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yet the missiles were so fine.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why is that?
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because Iran's a big country.
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: They have missiles everywhere.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think their reluctance to give that program up is only heightened because of the 12th day.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, that makes sense.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that point is maybe worth clarifying an expanding bump because I think as the war progressed, around ability to sort of get past Israeli air defense increased and that there was an offensive capability proved stronger than Israel's defensive capabilities.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: That makes the missile defense program,
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: more salgid on both sides, both for Israel and the US because they know that this is like Iran's big area of strength and also for Iran that like know that you know this is the really the core of their ability to defend themselves.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: So so in some ways this isn't like a legacy of of that war that Iran's missile program now has a much greater salience.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it is.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that that that that was as we saw as you said as the war continued to progress.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were launching fewer missiles, but the missiles that they were launching at more potent sea actors.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that became something that is really more planners than the United States.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is this is the next thing we have to deal with.
• 8:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now that we've dealt with the enrichment program.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's it's the long range missiles.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I mean, for what you're describing to me like it doesn't seem like there could be like any real sort of diplomatic settlement because like the two sides have this sort of like fundamental court disagreement like Israel and the US don't want to run to have this Discussed capabilities and the Iranians out of basic rationality would would not give it up because it's all it would be an existential threat for them to you know give up in a core part of their defense
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, like, how can we imagine sort of diplomatic settlement in that case?
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's very difficult.
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't see a situation where everyone will give up its missile capability.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, the political maths do they get together and they come up with what interesting formulations to get around things.
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: As a starting point, I think for the U.S. general, to be able to sit at the table and talk.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: with these, cut these issue on the table, look for ways to explore how to, how to meet the middle.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Would be a good first step.
• 9:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: They do the same thing they can get that first step.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're talking in back channels to the Turks, to the Omanes, to the Qataris, possibly the Saudis as well, because they're onions view with the U.S. demands as maximalists.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And now a conducive to a negotiation, a negotiation as we have these are the things.
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: The negotiations are gives and takes, right?
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here is what, you know, what we're offering at here is what we walk along.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: The way the trouble in the church is flooding, they did.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, she is what we're asking for.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we're not just asking, but we're demanding it.
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in that scenario, there are audience of few reasons to sit down in the negotiate.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I know, I mean, yeah, so for me, like the negotiation issue is a hard one, especially since I don't think like given that corporate administration's postures, this is like a government that really knows how to negotiate.
• 10:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like it seems to does seem to want to like sort of like dictate terms.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: But maybe another aspect is on the Iranian side, what they can get out of negotiations.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: At end of last year at the site this year, we saw really fierce protests break out due the economic problems inside Iran.
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's very hard, it's an opaque society, it's hard to know how many people have been killed through the protest.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's like, at the very least, we're talking about thousands, it could be higher, we don't know, but I mean, these protests
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: even though now they seem to have been well did rock Iranian society and they did have this sort of like economic basis.
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So do this sort of shadow of the protest hang over this like both insert in terms of giving the Iranian regime an incentive to negotiate to, you know, ease the economic sanction, but also on the other end of things to the degree to which they feel that themselves under existential threat from enemies that want a regime change.
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think, first of all, the protests, I think, definitely rocked the leadership, we are all.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I actually think it's happening the opposite, in fact, to make them harder to negotiate with, because they don't want to seem weak.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: They don't want to seem that the protests had an influence on their emotion and posture.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to be less confident to give up, to give concessions.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that the roots of the protests are as you set it, years of sanctions, years of economic mismanagement, years of corruption, a realm that around the occurrence it's been devalued, you know, almost 100% in the little bit of a year.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: The cost of the central goods price out, many middle class.
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Iranians from milk and bread, and this is a huge, huge problem, the valuation of currency, inability to get hard currency, and then later on top of that, the corruption of the regime.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's not hard to see a scenario whereby thousands of hundreds of thousands, millions go on the streets and demand a better life.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: because their choices are going home and seeing the refrigerators empty and their lives, the children, you know, has to do a lot, why don't we have the necessary goods to survive or, you know, let's go in the street and try and tackle the regime and get something better in place.
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think this is the core of the conundrum of the erotic energy faces with it has an international community that by the United States, Europe, and just to extend Israel that wants it overthrown.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: But also has a domestic, sizable domestic contingent that is also dissatisfied with the revolution that it's ability to meet its most basic needs, and they also want the
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if the numbers are that important.
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, are high enough to have that happen, but certainly they're swelling in the ranks, getting larger and larger as years go by.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think the one way to think about the protest is there's actually been a series of waves of protest in around, you know, going back the last quarter century.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: One thing what I think one can confidently say despite how opaque the news inside around is is this is probably, this is definitely the most largest and most intense wave of protest that has happened.
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's a kind of legitimacy crisis within the regime.
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think one thing that I'm a little bit unsure about is how these two things interact, the both the American threat to attack,
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: and the sort of legitimacy crisis.
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And normally the normal pattern is that when a country is being bombed, you see sort of rally behind the government effect.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: National unity increases.
• 14:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think there's a lot of good social science going back to the second world war, showing that bombing campaigns are not actually a good way to achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve.
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's extremely national unity.
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: In this case, I'm not sure whether, you know, regime that has faced the kind of legitimacy challenges that Iran has, how bombing would interact with that.
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd be very curious about your thoughts about that.
• 15:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, generally, as you said, the literature and the academics find it is that there's a rally around the flag, when there's a bombing campaign regime chains just by bombing rarely if ever works, it's you have to put on the ground and size will think about Iraq.
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: think about, even Afghanistan or every, fought the Taliban for 20 years in the Taliban.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Still there, we're gone, we had special forces, Army Rangers, teams of U.S. combatants, they're working with local populations.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's none of that right now, everyone.
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that if there is a bombing campaign is an unknown, I don't think a bombing campaign alone is going to open through the regime.
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it actually could pull along with the regime.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But given as you set these down, the protests just happened two weeks ago, three weeks ago, they were called, there is size will unrest.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is it possible that the bombing campaign
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: those people go back on the streets in larger numbers with much more confidence in doing things that could rock the regime.
• 16:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's possible.
• 16:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is it likely?
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's an open question.
• 16:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure because I think much of the apparatus, but when countries are being bombed, generally the people are worried about getting caught in the crossfire.
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're not as apt to go on the street, they want to make sure they're in safety and their children are safe.
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they're thinking about the external threat, about the internal threat.
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, maybe like another aspect of this is like what would be, I mean, if regime change is on the table, like what is this sort of like imagine future that United States is pushing for, I know that the, you know, monarchist faction.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: tried to put itself up front as he'll turn it up and has a strong sort of social media presence outside of Iran.
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there's need to be some echoes of that in protestors within the country is like a return to monarchy, this sort of preferred alternative, or is it like, I mean, there's also suggestions that from the point of view of like Israel, like just sort of chaos would be fine,
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: something like Syria where, you know, there really, you know, there might be a nominal government, but really there's no central force of power to challenge them.
• 17:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I really wonder, like you like, you know, if there is a sort of regime change faction in the West, what's her future to their magic for Iran?
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's a huge, huge fraction of the West.
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that, and there are elements in Iran that want, you know, regime change.
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Clearly the exiled Crown Prince has fought some support.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll pick that support as it is, it's hard to say.
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: There, you know, as you said, there are a lot of, it's okay, it's not clear.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: But many, you know, he called for people to go on the streets that camped the streets.
• 18:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: That being said, the other step foot in our own 47 years.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you look at President Trump's last statement about the ex-style craft crisis, he said, you know, nice scented, but I'm not sure he's the guy I'd really to rock.
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's a lot of truth to what he said because this regime that's been there for 47 years has been situationized.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's got roots.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: It has millions of supporters that feed off it
• 18:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's somewhere along the line, President Trump has gotten that intel and probably knows that.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that to him, it doesn't really matter if it's the Sloan-micropublic or the on-shall regime, they used to call it.
• 19:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: If it's imperial or not, as long as it's in Iran that's compliant to his wishes.
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think he would be more than happy to have sort of, if he was conducting strikes of knocking off a cadre of the Iranian leadership, but then having the next in line come up and be open to do business within human do business with them.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think he's trying to do a regime change operation whereby he's trying to impose the monarchy back into Iran.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is that that?
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: between people.
• 19:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think the Crown XL Crown Prince has said, you know, he'd be sort of a figure ahead of it, sort of shepherding a democratic movement to your own, but that that's it's hard to do that from Washington and lug the Paris if you're not there.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the odds that you would actually fly there and do that even after a U.S. uniform, I don't think very likely.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, the crown prince, I mean, seems to have this kind of standard problem of an exile that would require American boots on the ground to run, you know, which is the we saw in Iraq and as you were seen out in Venezuela, it's not always so easily doable.
• 20:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then Trump himself seems to look pragmatic enough to realize that, you know, this would be
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I think with President Trump, he prefers the Venezuelan model, which is then just bring a minus one, minus the door, but he left the essentially the governing structure of Venezuela as it's.
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: because he said, they're gonna do business with me.
• 21:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't really care who runs Venezuela as long as they do business with me.
• 21:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's his view on Iran too.
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't care whether or see a son like a public or the public, but how let me monitor it.
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: As long as they do business with him.
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think he realizes more likely than not, it would be some form of the a son like a public that would be left after a war that would, she'd like to do business with.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I wanted to let you situate what's going on with the sort of like larger dynamics within the region, because I think the sort of Islamic Republic has sort of served as a foil for many of the other regimes in the region and has actually been responsible, I think, for the sort of alliance, the covert alliance that is built up between Israel and the democracies.
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: but that seems to be sort of like changing a little bit in part because Iran is weaker and is no longer so effective of foil, but it's somebody's also because of Israeli's successes in the region.
• 22:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now what we want to see now is the middle of America.
• 22:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think in these sort of military attack on Iran, they will require some of the military bases that they have with their Arab allies.
• 22:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think my understanding is that the Arab regimes are at least as their public posture trying to say, like, they're not in favor of this or, you know, they're trying to distance themselves in some ways.
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there might be other features opening up, but I'm very curious to your thoughts on like, yeah, how that sort of like older anti-Aran coalition is holding up.
• 22:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, if we go back 10 or 12 years ago, when they were in the JCPOA, the Arab, the JCC states were with the exception of all bond.
• 22:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And maybe, come to our lower, less and less, and say, we don't like this.
• 22:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't want to deal with that bond.
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't want to integrate around back into the international community.
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't want the US and Iran having diplomatic, positive relationship.
• 22:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's very different, because I think they
• 23:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: even though Iran is weaker, Iran is still their neighbor, and Iran possesses missiles that those missiles can reach Israel, and break through Israeli or defences.
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: If they're much easier for them to reach the Gulf states, and could do a lot of damage to the Gulf states, who don't have the same defensible architecture that Israel has.
• 23:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: and they don't want a situation whereby they are caught in between the crossfire, between the United States and Iran, because all over the Gulf States, there are US bases from Kuwait all the way down to the UAE.
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And not just US bases, UK bases, French military bases.
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: So those are easy targets for the Iranians and the aftermath of the US bomb a campaign.
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think that number one, you know, it would see that they're well the prosperity would be a danger if Iran is launching missiles that their energy infrastructure for instance.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Which they've done in the past, if you've got go back 2019, the drone attack by Saudi Arabia, knocked off the refining capability for a number of months.
• 24:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this is, this is, I think, for, for, for, for their month.
• 24:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Second to that, as you've said,
• 24:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: The perceptions of Israel have changed after the gospel work.
• 24:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think many goffs, it's Saudi Arabia, and not just goffs, it's Turkey, Pakistan, Qatar.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: View it.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is really doctrine of we can strike anyone anywhere any time as unacceptable to them.
• 24:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: They don't want an Israel that can go about targeting wherever they want whenever they want with impunity.
• 24:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: over the summer with Qatar, right?
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Qatar has the largest U.S. base outside the United States that's coming out.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yet, as is a ally of the United States, is central to the U.S. as forward to France posture and that part of the world is real, and the less attacked it.
• 25:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's something that I think many of the Gulf states can't abide by, and many in the region can't abide by.
• 25:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so you're seeing a fragmentation of that anti-iron coalition with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Kuwait on one side of it, and the UAE has real on the other side.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like it seems like any sort of, this is like one of the real risks that like a war, especially if it's a prolonged war could have like to my mind, like it would just sort of like open up those divisions like all the more, right?
• 25:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: For sure, we're not only those those those divisions, but we'll also exacerbate them because in the aftermath that war, what's the region and look like?
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the Iranians attacked energy infrastructure, the price of the oil is north of $2 a barrel.
• 26:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: If we're finding capabilities of taking off like for months, that the Gulf states will enact it, you know, that they're looking right now to invest in themselves and grow and prosperity, do more infrastructure and more AI investments, but all of a sudden, you know, the life part of those investments, the revenue for those investments, the energy infrastructure,
• 26:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: they have to make those investments back into that energy structure.
• 26:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this is something they don't want to do.
• 26:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: The same time, what's your algorithm look like is that the regime and Iran is still there, that makes them very uncomfortable because they're always good target.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's why I think you're seeing a flurry of diplomacy right now by Qatar.
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: by Sunribe, by Turkey, by Omba, trying to look for an off-front filter of the administration, and you're on, because they know that if there was war in the region, ultimately economic crisis that were there, they had to have to bear and clean it up.
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, no, absolutely.
• 27:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like, so if we're thinking about,
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's possible that the war will have broken up by the time this airs, but could be, yeah, could be, now obviously the Trump administration, they don't listen to like many conventional sources, they don't listen to like, they tend to be just stateful of like certain the European allies, but I mean, I think one thing what one will say about Trump is,
• 27:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: that at the very least, he's very mindful of what the oil rich Arab states say.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like he does seem to want to have good relationships with Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, going further field with Turkey, so is this like the sort of like the major hope for diplomacy that Trump's kind of like desire to be on good terms with those regimes?
• 28:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then it's sort of like economic interest even in those regimes offers one sort of like pathway for diplomacy.
• 28:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely right.
• 28:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's that's I think with the Iranians are betting on that.
• 28:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 28:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think so are the region, the regional actors, Turkey, Saudi Arabia.
• 28:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're all being on that, too, because.
• 28:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Trump has a very special relationship with the golf monarchies.
• 28:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: He wants to keep that relationship, and he doesn't want to do enact policies that would hurt that.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: At the same time, he is facing, I think pressure of his own making with some of his tweets.
• 28:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, he said to the protesters, I'm going to come out of him or chill with him.
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: help us on the way.
• 29:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was through weeks ago, processor by and large as you send up your belt.
• 29:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was really no help on the way.
• 29:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, he likes to do precision strikes where with little blowback and one and done.
• 29:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think the Iranians have been signaling that's not going to be what's going to happen.
• 29:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: If they're hit, they're going to respond much more forcefully, and they're not going to just allow for the U.S. for the Trump administration to hit them and Trump tap a tweet and say,
• 29:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: that would we get their deterrence moving forward and they want to strike like their deterrence.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that you kind of like points into the real danger of the situation because of one can't say that like of Trump's military actions.
• 29:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: As you say, that they tend to be very quick, he likes the sort of spectacular displays of dominance and violence.
• 30:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I mean,
• 30:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: is one thing to sort of like make a deal with the Venezuelan regime to facilitate a kidnapping or to be bombing, you know, like these ships in the Caribbean and the Pacific that are coming for like very poor countries that don't have the ability to punish the US and go against a regime like Iran, which you know, you know, as we can as it has been still has like a real deterrence capability, like that seems like a very risky
• 30:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a different, you know, these are, these are apples, apples.
• 30:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's right.
• 30:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this way is longer, longer, longer.
• 30:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 30:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, and, and, and, and, and, and, as a state with depth, it's been a weekend, but it has strategic depth, that has, keep indigenous capabilities, that it can bring to their, uh, and it's been planning for the stop of scenarios since the beginning of the revolution.
• 30:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's always been sort of thinking about what would war with the US look like, and how would we defend ourselves and what
• 30:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: what capabilities can be printed there.
• 31:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's very different, very different scenario for an, I think the president actually recognized this.
• 31:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's why he said, you know, Brazil pound look is in my sky.
• 31:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure he's the guy for this.
• 31:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he's saying we're talking to Iran, even though the, you know, the armatoes that we're talking, because I think he himself recognized that the world with Iran would look a lot different than going into Venezuela and taking the door.
• 31:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.
• 31:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Despite the fact that he was tweeting against a person, I do like at least hope that there are wiser ends.
• 31:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then this might be a place to kind of conclude on because I'd like your thoughts on the sort of domestic politics in the United States in the US.
• 31:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now obviously there is a sizable pro-war faction, pro regime change faction, and when it's seeing people like Lindsey Graham making these arguments,
• 31:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's also the case that both Republicans and Democrats have changed.
• 31:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: But particularly, like on the Republican end of things, there are now people like Tucker Carlton, like Steve Bannon, that are like, you know, like very against this war.
• 32:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's your sense of the sort of domestic politics?
• 32:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, like, do you think those sort of voices who Trump does on occasion listen to will they have a role to play on this?
• 32:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: a lot of a great, great portion of the MAGA base feels very duped by the president because he ran on anti-interventionists anti-nour policies.
• 32:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he derided the Obama administration to buy the administration for being more bonkers.
• 32:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yet, we're one year, a little over one year just residency, we've had the war with Iran, we've had
• 32:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: permission of Venezuela where we took up of its leadership.
• 32:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've conducted, I don't know, how many bomb they can't paint around the world.
• 32:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in our little backyard, too, in the Caribbean, as you said, this is really neat.
• 33:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: At this point, many in the marketplace, like you said, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Mills, they are saying, this is not what we voted for.
• 33:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we are not.
• 33:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Going along with this, you're presenting, you ran against being the anti-neal con, and yet you're actually fulfilling the neoconagenda.
• 33:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I guess it goes to show where, or because someone goes into the White House.
• 33:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: the power the president has over the immense US arsenal becomes too hypnotic to ignore and that this is so any any type of war.
• 33:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: So right now he's gotten away with it.
• 33:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of this because it has in the much blowback in the US.
• 33:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: There haven't been body bags that have been coming back home has a you know the price where it has a jumped.
• 33:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: The economy has been relatively isolated for his foreign.
• 34:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's say he's must
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: save for the terrors.
• 34:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if any type of prolonged war were to start affecting the base, oil pricing, jump, body bags, something old, there could be a big revolt for him, work with his face.
• 34:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And much bigger than just standing at top of the cross.
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, no, exactly.
• 34:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 34:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I had to say, like, even just by the fact that, you know, he hasn't seen this sort of negative
• 34:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: imagery.
• 34:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's very interesting with the polling.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of polling suggesting that his base is very unhappy with how much he's focusing on foreign policy.
• 34:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's always as you suggested a very tempting area for American president because this is something where they can show that they're strong, but there does seem to be like, what's our widespread sentiment that, you know, like he should be focusing on things at home, like the affordability,
• 34:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: economic concerns and that you know like the degree to which he's become a foreign policy president I think as he has contributed to his own popularity I'm not sure that the he realizes that but I mean I think that that that might actually plates up out if it's a costly one that no so tariffs
• 35:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: are part of foreign policy, right?
• 35:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because if you think about the tariff issue, you know, we were settled decades ago, you know, we want to become a free trading nation.
• 35:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: We want other countries to be free trading with us to bring the price of goods cap.
• 35:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's turned that on its head.
• 35:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we have, we have inflation.
• 35:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we have monetary, you know, wars going on with our allies and our adversaries.
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And layer off top of that now,
• 35:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: elements of what regime change and more, more, more hot wars, which is something that he ran against.
• 35:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's sort of, you know, shades of LBJ and Vietnam almost, right?
• 35:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: He wanted to get out of it and then anybody got in and he got further into it.
• 35:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, absolutely, yeah, no, no.
• 35:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, there's obviously these are issues that are, you know, play themselves out in the coming days and weeks that they're.
• 36:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But for now, I think we've, you know, covered a lot of ground.
• 36:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to thank, um, we are Henjani, uh, from the Quincy Institute for, like, you know, bringing a lot of clarity and insight into these issues.
• 36:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks.