Raging Moderates: Did Trump Already LOSE the War in Iran? (ft. Ian Bremmer and Dan Senor)

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Now here's today's show.

I would argue right now the momentum is shifted

and that Iran is winning and that this has been

what I call an arguably the greatest snatching defeat

from the jaws of victory in recent geopolitical history.

So my gosh, we are what, 25, 26 days into this war.

It is, you guys are talking like it's over.

You guys are talking like it's over in the US

is walking away with its tail between its legs.

We're a war with the Ron.

I think everyone basically understands that,

even if not everyone for political reasons

wants to say it out loud, we're in war with the Ron.

It's funny because you could say the same thing

about Russia and yet Trump clearly disagrees

and has acted in ways that shows he disagrees

for reasons that he thinks are aligned with America first.

And when Trump himself is telling the American people

that this is gonna be easy, it's gonna be over,

there's gonna be no cost, don't worry about it.

The president is driving the messaging

of we don't need to be patient.

We don't need to because this war is gonna be easy

and it's gonna be out.

We're gonna be done.

And he failed.

Your turn.

Welcome to Raging Modern, so I'm Scott Galilee.

And I'm Jessica Tarla.

So I'm really excited about this.

Today we're doing something a little bit different

and that is I actually really enjoy,

I like Pierce Morgan and I've been on the show

a few times but after watching it sometimes

I wanna shower and at the same time occasionally

I watch CNN Show with Abby Phillips

which I think they should rename.

I feel stupider where they basically have someone

come on and say something really fucking stupid

and then have a bunch of be league progressives get outraged.

God, I'm falling into the same trap here.

Anyways, I wanted to bring on two people

who have sometimes similar views, sometimes down

and have a really thoughtful conversation

and especially about the war in Iran.

And I couldn't think of anyone better or two people

that I not only respect,

but I like a great deal and would call friends.

And that is Dan Sino, our host of Call Me Back

and Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group.

And obviously my partner in crime here,

Jess Tarloff, our goal here is simple.

We want to cut through the noise, figure out

what actually is happening in this war

and what it all means for the US,

the global economy and what comes next.

So let's set the table.

Trump says the US isn't very strong talks with Iran

and his delayed potential strikes,

but Iran is denying that any negotiations are happening,

accusing the US of trying to calm volatile energy markets.

I would agree sending false flags

so we can engage a massive insider trading,

but that's just one theory.

At the same time, there are reports of indirect

back channel communications through intermediaries,

including Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkopf involved.

But those appear to be early stage

and focused on de-escalation, not resolution.

There's also a new reporting today

that Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman MBS

has been encouraging Trump to continue the war

seeing an opportunity to remake the region.

Meanwhile, the fighting continues

to escalate across multiple fronts.

US and Israeli strikes in Iran, Iranian retaliation

and ongoing conflict in Lebanon.

And the global stakes are increasing quickly.

Oil prices have surged.

The state of hormones is still partially blocked

and the death toll has now crossed 2000.

I just tried to provide some context.

One, where do I have this wrong?

And what nuance would you add

or different pieces of information?

Would you inject to try and set the table

for our conversation?

Ian kick us off.

Sure.

Well, first of all, very happy to join all of you.

I also think this is a very thoughtful group.

And people I generally like,

which is always nice, so it made it easier.

So yes, don't know how much we're gonna agree on here,

but that's fine.

I think that the big news as I see it

over the last couple of days

has been Trump's unilateral escalation

that he's gonna blow up all of Iran's

civil energy production capability,

grid capability, if they don't open the straight.

And everyone understood that that was

an utterly disastrous idea

because the Iranians would likely be able to take out,

for example, desalination plants

that would cause mass panic and exodus in the Gulf

and would be likely to do so.

The Iranians did not back down.

They did not open the straight.

And Trump himself said, okay, I'm not gonna do that.

So that's kind of the big news.

Is that finding an off-ramp?

No, but it certainly is recognition

for the first time by Trump

that full on straight escalation

is probably gonna cause greater danger for him

than he wants to experience greater backlash.

Look, the Saudis definitely,

and I think the Emirates too,

they are increasingly prepared,

not just do they want the United States not to stop,

but to continue to do great Iranian capabilities,

but they've been having conversations

about getting directly involved in the war themselves.

The Saudis involved in the fighting the UAE

may be taking a couple contested islands

between Iran and the UAE.

Both of those things might happen over the coming weeks.

That's different from the UAE and the Saudis saying,

we want you to go full on,

take the oil in Carg Island regime change.

I'm not hearing that.

I'm hearing particularly,

make sure you get the ballistic missile capabilities,

all of them.

Make sure you do something about the nuclear capabilities.

Like deal with that.

We don't wanna have to get back,

keep getting back to this.

Every few months,

because this is very vulnerable for us.

Now, I will also say that in Trump-Landia,

not only is this kind of war becoming more unpopular

among his base,

though it's still unbalanced popular,

but it's also, I mean,

he is now hearing from people internally

that, hey, let's really, let's have a pause.

Let's have a pause.

Like JD Vance, my understanding,

is bringing a 30-day pause suggestion to Trump.

The thing, let's see if like,

in the conversations we're having with the Iranians,

let's see if we both accept that.

And then we can talk the markets down for a while.

And by the way,

we don't have the ground troops ready to go

for all of the military options you're thinking about.

And they won't be in place until like April 6th,

anyway, the latest being sent from San Francisco.

And I have no idea how Trump's gonna respond to that,

but the fact that that conversation is happening

implies that there is more scope

for at least calming this down for now,

even if we're very, very far from a potential cease-fire.

So I think that's what I'm watching very carefully now,

whether they end up having conversations in Pakistan,

which look increasingly likely at this point,

who is directly involved,

I suspect it would be the foreign minister,

not Callaboff, it'd be too risky for him

to actually go and leave.

But we'll see.

We'll see where it goes.

It is definitely moving very fast.

And obviously the danger for the global economy

is really high.

A lot higher than I think people have been presuming

over the past weeks.

And Trump is gonna have to deal with that.

He's gonna have to deal with the consequences.

This is gonna be from a domestic perspective.

This is going to be, I think, unpopular,

irrespective of what the outcome is in the next few days

in weeks given that there isn't regime change

and Americans are gonna be paying for it economically at home.

Well, I've been seeing similar reports as Ian

on different proposals there being presented

to President Trump.

I would caution council healthy skepticism

about any of these reports.

Simply to say, I'm not saying there aren't different people

proposing different things to Trump.

But if we've learned anything about Trump,

is that he talks to a lot of people

and who he talks to and what they're proposing

is typically not a signal as to where he is heading.

He keeps everyone guessing.

He maintains optionality.

You'll recall in June of 2025,

two weeks before the operation against Fordo,

he was deep in negotiations and there was all the press speculation

that what he wanted was some kind of negotiated out

with the regime in Iran and then boom,

he joined the operation midnight hammer fast forward

to February.

Negotiations are going on.

Kushner and Whitcock are there.

The Omani Foreign Minister says there's stuff happening.

And then there we go.

End of February, beginning of June, epic fury.

So I think reading into what game Trump is playing

with negotiations on, negotiations off, negotiations on again.

This person heard him say this.

This person's presenting that, who knows?

There are about four to five people in Trump's orbit

that actually know what's going on.

And I would say maybe that circle's even smaller than that.

So that's the first thing.

The second thing I would say is, you know, Scott,

you're like, you try to set the table like where are we?

What do we know now versus what we knew

a week ago, two weeks ago, a month ago?

I would say the two big developments,

I mean, in what's going on with the Gulf States

and their interest in what appears to be finishing this

and not positive and not leaving a wounded regime in place

is a very interesting development.

The two others is, I think there was a consensus

among analysts, among political players in the US

and in the West from right to left.

There was a consensus that Iran had nuclear ambitions

before this war, had nuclear weapons ambitions

before this war.

There was a consensus that Iran is behind a lot of bloodshed

of Americans and others in the West, right?

There's no one disputed that.

How we dealt with that, how we restrained them,

how we deterred them, that was open for debate.

But whether or not Iran was responsible

for the slaughtering of a lot of Americans,

and uniform innocence was not disputed.

I do think there was not a consensus

on Iran's non-nuclear military capabilities.

I think people said, oh, Iran is saying

the range of their projectiles, their missiles,

they can't go farther than 2,000 kilometers.

That's what they've said and we,

and we just kind of got to stay on top of them

and continue to reach, you know, JCPOA

like the accommodations with them

and they won't spring out of that.

And what we've learned in this war is they have been lying.

Like really lying and that is,

I think it shouldn't be a surprise,

it's a surprise to many.

When they hit Diego Garcia,

there's a wake-up call that, wait a minute.

They have capabilities that they've been hiding

and lying about.

They're not necessarily about their nuclear weapons capability,

but they can just be as terrorizing

to the region and to Western interests.

And I think that is a whole new wake-up call

if we head into negotiations, unlike the JCPOA,

you can expect that the non-nuclear weapons capabilities

will be a big part of the negotiation.

Super interesting what you guys have said so far

and so thankful that you could join us

and those schedules are crazy.

I want to talk about what success looks like

because Scott and I have been obviously talking about this

over the course of the last month

and trying to make room for the potential

of what could go right.

And my politics are very clear.

I am not a big fan of Donald Trump in this field,

rushed and all the reporting around the pressure

that Netanyahu was putting on Trump to do it on his schedule

versus what might have been best for the United States

that are was clouding my vision of this.

So could you guys talk a little bit

about what a mission accomplished,

not necessarily in the bush sense,

but really a feeling of success for us looks like.

And quiet those, I guess, who are saying

or maybe amplify if that's what you agree with,

those that are saying there is no way

that we can actually degrade their capabilities

that this won't crop up again

and this will have to be a recurring nightmare

that we come back or they will, to your point Dan,

have these ballistic missile capabilities again

in a year or two and then we're back home

and either have to go back or we leave our partners

in the Gulf with a huge mess again.

I think that the Israeli leadership

and the American leadership have two different measures

of what is success, Jess, what should be the focus?

That there are some overlap,

but they do have two different measures of success,

which is to say, I think Israel's experience is,

the Iran has been a menace to Israel,

to the region, to the West, to the world,

and there's no negotiating with this regime,

the regime has to go.

Now, how it goes and what replaces it is open for debate

and obviously is a subject of discussion

within the Israeli leadership

and the Israeli leadership is not explicitly saying

success or failure is determined based on regime change,

but that's effectively where they're at.

Whereas the American leadership,

I think Trump in particular is open to that

if it doesn't require a long drawn out multi-month war,

he's also open to a version of Venezuela, right?

Delci Rodriguez, who's our Delci Rodriguez?

You know, it's not regime change

as Neil Ferguson is going to term its regime alteration.

Can we just alter the regime to one

that's much more manageable than we can deal with?

So that's, you know, I think if Trump could accomplish that

and I think so far it appears it's going to be harder

to do that than many thought,

but if Trump could accomplish that, that would be success.

Where I think there's overlap between the US and Israel

is, as you said just the degradation of the capabilities.

We may not agree entirely on the outcome,

but let's just make sure that whatever Frankenstein

emerges from this war in Tehran

and in the form of a regime or a post regime,

they simply don't have the capabilities to wreak havoc.

So let's just literally,

which is what they've been doing,

they've been taken out their navy capability,

naval capabilities, they've been taken care

of a lot of their offensive capabilities

and their defensive capabilities.

And really now the whole, what they're trying to do,

especially these Israelis,

is taking out the whole industrial base

that supports the production of missiles and drones.

And so just systematically take out

the menacing weapons infrastructure of Iran

so that even if there is not regime change

to something much more constructive and responsible,

at least whatever exists will not be able to pose the threat

to the US and Israel at the end of this.

And by the way, on that front,

we can get into conversation about the straight.

And on that front though,

I do think they're making a lot of progress.

And I think Trump doing what he's doing right now

with this with negotiations,

our way to few days, it's buying him time.

If you look at the military operations

that are happening day to day right now,

it's the taking out the industrial base

that supports weapons production in Iran

is still happening right now,

even though Trump is talking about negotiations.

Do you think that that can be an enduring solution

or is it a question of in a few years

when you have a theocracy?

I mean, Delsey Rodriguez isn't an IOTOla, right?

She's just a girl.

I'm not yet.

Not yet, Lucy, give her time.

Yeah.

She's only been in there for a couple of months,

but is this doomed to repeat

as so much of what goes on in the Middle East?

You know, these Israelis have this term

that they use mowing the lawn,

which has basically been the essence of their policy

with regard to Hamas ironically

over the last couple of decades,

which is they are never gonna get,

this is probably October 7th.

They're never gonna get into a long drawn out

full front of war against Hamas

and try to eliminate Hamas.

Obviously that attitude changed after October 7th.

So everything between basically 2005 and 2000,

October of 2023 was Israel mowing the lawn.

Every couple years, the 2008, 2012, 2018,

2021, and I mean, every couple of years

there were these skirmishes between Israel and Hamas.

And what Israel would say at the end of it,

and these operations is,

I mean, unofficially they'd say we've mowed the lawn.

They've been degrading their capabilities.

They can rebuild their capabilities

and we'll have another skirmish again.

I'm concerned, and I think this is where you're going

with your question,

that that is where we're heading with Iran.

So is it better than doing nothing?

Yes.

If we seriously degrade their capabilities,

and then Israel or the US

or both have to go back in in a few years,

well, if that gets a some semblance of quiet

and it sort of reigns in Iran's ability

to threaten the region and threaten us,

that's better than doing nothing.

But I do worry that it's gonna, to your point,

wind us up back in a situation where Israel or the US

or both have to keep mowing the lawn.

Dan is focusing on the part of this

that is going the best for the US and Israel so far,

which is that the military,

the conventional military capabilities of Iran

are being very significantly degraded,

very significantly.

The naval capabilities, the ballistic missile capabilities,

they had more than the Americans had believed going in.

It's taken longer time than they thought it was going to take,

but they are making that progress.

That is the positive side of this.

You cannot stop there, right?

I wanna add two components here

that make me feel less upbeat

about what is happening and what the future will bring.

The first component is that while it is true

that today the United States and Israel

have different thoughts on regime change,

Trump was kind of hopeful

that this was gonna go to regime change.

I mean, he was the one that said,

we're gonna rescue the Iranian people.

He was the one that said at the beginning,

Iranian people take your government.

And then a few days ago, he's like,

well, I understand why they're not taking their government

because they're gonna get blown up.

Those are two different things, right?

So the fact that it is more likely than not

that the regime that is going to continue to be in place

is a brutal repressive regime

and that the people that will suffer the most

before the war, during the war, and after the war.

We'll continue to be the Iranian people is a loss.

Maybe, I'm not saying a lot of Americans

or Israelis care that much about that,

but we should and it matters.

So that's one component.

The second component, which is the other side of this,

is that although Iran's conventional military capabilities

have been significantly degraded,

their economic capabilities today are a lot higher

in terms of leverage and position over the street

than it was before.

And they're making a lot more money from exporting oil.

This is coming from the same Trump administration

that hammered repeatedly the Obama administration

for the Palace of Cash that they were able to get

as part of the JCPOA, the Iranian deal.

And now, because Trump is so focused on,

we need to make sure that we get as much oil out as possible.

He's allowing the Iranians to sell their oil

at a premium to non-Chinese sources.

The Indians just agreed, reliance just bought

that oil at a $7 premium, $110 to $120 a barrel.

And the Iranians, the estimates are going to end up

making like $14 billion on the back of that.

And that's if the sanctions that have been lifted

snap back in 30 days and no presumption

that's actually going to happen with the same regime.

And we know what they're likely to do with the money

because the regime hasn't been removed.

And so that's a real problem.

Where I see this going is,

I think there have been two big places of major overreach

that have been unilaterally brought by Trump

on the Americans internationally.

The first was Liberation Day, China.

The United States puts tariffs on every country

around the world using IEPO,

which they didn't really have the legal right to do

as we've seen from the Supreme Court.

A lot of countries very, very concerned about that.

Back down, Mr. Trump, what can we do?

We'll cut a deal with you.

The Chinese don't.

The Chinese say, actually, we've got real leverage.

Our leverage, even though you're a bigger economy

than we are, our leverage is critical minerals.

And we will take the pain because we can outlast you.

We are more patient than you are.

We can take more pain than you will.

And as a consequence, we're going to force you to the table

and we're going to have more influence.

And I've seen that happen.

Over the last year, China has more leverage

with the United States now in bilateral dealing

because the Chinese showed the Americans

that they are more prepared to take

long-term economic pain than the Americans are,

or than Trump is.

And I think that what the Iranians have just shown

on the Strait of Hormuz is a similar strategy,

much smaller scale, but Iran is saying,

we're a lot less capable than you are.

Militarily, you just blew us up.

But we believe that we can outlast you

and that you're going to taco eventually

because we can cause more pain

and we can handle all the people you're killing.

And we can handle all the conventional military strikes

because we can stop these tankers from going through.

Now, we don't yet know how Trump is going to respond to that.

We don't know.

Maybe he's going to use these troops

and he's going to take coastal areas

and take islands in the Strait

and eventually take Carg Island.

And maybe that'll work for him.

Maybe in the medium to long term,

the US will control Iran's oil

and the Strait the way they control Venezuela.

Maybe that's what Trump wants.

But that's enormously risky.

It might not work.

It'll cost immensely economically

and it's going to lead to a lot more Americans getting killed.

He'll make the decision.

Trump's decision, nobody knows, as Dan said,

but he also might back down.

And I think it's wholly plausible that he will back down

as he has with the Chinese

because he understands that ultimately declaring a win

is better than what ends up following from all this.

I don't have a strong,

I certainly don't have a crystal ball

and I agree completely with Dan

that ultimately Trump is keeping his own council on this.

It's not going to be what JD or Marco

or Ratcliffe come in and tell him or suggest.

And what they suggest will only be a piece of what they're telling

that people are going to suggest because with Trump,

they're like, yes, sir, how high, sir.

But I do worry that even though Iran's capabilities

have been seriously degraded,

there are other big issues that will persist

on the back of where we are likely

to be coming out of all of this.

So just a couple of things in response to you.

And one, he mentioned a second time

the deployment of ground forces.

I just, or troops, I just think we should establish

just for the audience what you and I are talking about.

We refer to these troops week

because I think people hear this now

and they think a rock, you know, 2003, 2004 and beyond

and it is not that, it is not that, right?

It's not like 7,000 troops total, right?

Yeah, exactly.

So in the lead up to the Iraq war,

we had the equivalent of the naval and air power assets

that we have now in the region for this war.

But the one other thing we had in the lead up

to the Iraq war was a quarter of a million troops.

We do not have that in the region.

And wisely so, by the way, Iran is about four times the size

of Iraq and it's about more than double the size

in terms of population.

Iran's population is more than double the size of Iraq's.

So we're not sending troops to occupy Iran.

There may be some targeted operation,

like the target operations,

like the Marine Expeditionary Force

that is going to probably wind up there on the coast there

to deal with the hits on the tankers

or by the drones and these boats and the mines.

So it's very targeted, small number.

I'm not saying it's not a risk.

It's not a form of escalation.

And obviously, as Ian said, there's a risk to lives,

even if the total number of forces deployed is smaller,

but it is not some massive ground operation.

That's the first thing.

The Iranian people have been courageously fighting

against this regime at various points

over the last couple of decades in ways

that we in the West don't pay enough attention to

and deserve extraordinary respect and support

and should have called for presidential support

and presidential acknowledgement to put a spotlight on it.

In 2009, there was a big uprising in 2018,

in 2022 was a big uprising.

The Iranian people have been taking to the streets

and risking their lives against a regime

that was brutal and strong.

And I would say, I agree with you, Ian,

that this, whatever's left of this regime,

if it remains in power,

will its intentions will be to be brutal

and perhaps even more strident

and more, if you can believe that,

than what the Iranian people have had to deal with.

But one big difference is,

I think they will be weaker, right?

The principle, tools and instruments of repression

in Iran are being weakened every single day

as a result of what the US and Israel are doing.

They're taking out the commanders and the infrastructure

and the bases of the besiege domestic security force.

They're taking out the leaders and the infrastructure

and the personnel of the IRGC.

Now, as you know, the history of uprisings

and when they're successful and when they're not,

we always get it wrong.

No one ever sees it coming.

Who knows?

Everyone was anticipating that Kiev would fall,

you know, after 72 hours when Russian invaded Ukraine.

Everyone was saying that the Taliban,

you know, would never fall after the US went into Afghanistan

after 9-11.

I mean, the intelligence community didn't see the fall

of the Soviet Union in the fall.

Did anyone see the sawdust fall coming?

No, absolutely not.

So getting it right is very hard to anticipate.

If there's a whole flywheel of like what has to be in place,

but I got to believe if the Iranian people

have this history of being taking enormous risks

to challenge this regime,

they probably will be more inspired to do so

when they see that what is left of this regime

is a shadow of itself as a result

of what the US and Israel are doing right now.

And it may be easier for them to do something

about that regime than it was just a few months ago.

We saw what happened just two months ago.

Over 30,000 Iranians were slaughtered in like a couple of days.

Who knows what their cables will be now A and B?

Who knows what the morale is of the personnel

in these institutions that do the repression in the country

will be after so many of their colleagues

and supervisors have been killed?

My fear is that this Iranian government,

as much as it is being eroded and hit militarily,

they are showing a lot of capacity

because of what they're doing in the strait

and because of the money they're making.

So again, I think that there is a give and take there.

And if Trump had a uniform strategy

that was we're gonna do everything possible to ensure

that this regime will be degraded,

then I'd feel more comfortable with what you're saying.

I don't think that's true at all.

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I just want to talk a little bit about

an operational execution here.

So I think there was real valid justification.

There are no good wars, but there's just wars

and I was more hopeful about and saw the justification

for at least what I'll call a military operation.

Air defenses are down.

Down, unique moment in time, a wobbly regime.

The ability to further neuter connection and support

for terrorist groups and proxies

wreaking havoc all over the globe.

Take their munitions capability

or production capability industrial capacity

for producing weapons down.

Destroy their missile launch capability.

Perhaps topple the regime, secure the nuclear sites.

I think there was a lot of very valid reasons

for why to do this, why now, and quite frankly,

it feels like operational excellence

with strategic incompetence.

And I'll start with you, Dan.

Where are we?

Okay.

No clear messaging.

Hard for Americans to identify a set of objectives around

what we're doing, why now,

and when we're going to declare victory and leave.

To a disaster, in my view, for global opinion of Israel and Jews,

communications that I think have been errant and ignorant

and misplaced from the Trump administration

and former Trump administration officials essentially saying

that Israel is wagging the tail here,

which I think is going to be disastrous

for Israel over the long term.

An inability to do any sort of scenario

planning that didn't see the choke point

of the Straits of Hormuz, which will likely put the world

into a recession, inability, even at the most basic level,

to extract Westerners or a plan for extracting Westerners

out of the region.

So hats off to the military execution of U.S. and Israeli forces,

strategic incompetence that I would argue right now,

the momentum is shifted, and that Iran is winning,

and that Iran has basically said,

you know, the enemy gets a voice,

they get a say in a war,

and right now it feels like their voice is winning,

and that this has been what I call an arguably the greatest

snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

in recent geopolitical history.

Dan, I'll let you respond to those comments first.

So my gosh, we are, what, 25, 26 days into this war.

It is, you guys are talking like it's over.

You guys are talking like it's over in the U.S.

is walking away with its tail between its legs.

It's just, I think every, imagine if we were commenting

on other very important wars.

I think World War II was being covered like this war,

where every day there were a thousand tweets and posts

and podcasts analyzing, you know,

hour by hour every, you know,

this person just met with FDR,

and FDR's mood is this, and I mean,

can I just, like, because I love what you're saying,

and it's important, I just want to add, inject into it.

Those were also wars that we bought into,

and that were sold to us.

And this literally everyone woke up and was like,

WTF is happening,

except for, you know, people in the highest levels of government.

So don't, doesn't that affect the support?

I actually think since World War II,

you'll be hard pressed to find wars fought by the U.S.

that weren't deeply wound up being deeply divisive

in American society and American politics.

But it almost, that doesn't matter.

The point is, I take your and Scott's point.

The president needs to do, be out there explaining

and persuading every day, every week,

what we're doing and what we're trying to achieve

in a consistent way.

I, you know, whether or not that could unite the country,

I'm dubious because I think many on the left

are rooting for failure in the war against Iran,

because they want to have a political setback.

And they have a narrow, much narrow.

It's far less.

If you look at MAGA Republicans,

the polling shows they're overwhelming support

for what Trump is doing.

There's not this consistent across the board,

in other words, the House, the Senate,

people running for president, you know,

they're just like rooting for failure.

So I don't know if that would have the effect

in this environment, in this highly polarized,

highly political environment.

I don't know, Jess, if it would have the effect

that we wanted to, but it's still, we should do it anyways.

The president should be doing it anyways

because strategically, we need to just be explained

to the American public constantly what we're doing,

first of all, second of all.

Ian said that the thing, you know, I laid out

what is working and he laid out what isn't working.

I do want to add, the reaction of the Gulf States,

to me, is really, really interesting.

I have been following for some time,

relationships, warming, cooling, maybe warming again,

then cooling again between Israel and the Gulf States.

Well, we are seeing today, I have never seen before,

where the Chief of Staff of the IDF is on the phone

multiple times today with his counterparts

in Arab countries across the region,

where Israel is fully integrated into Senkham

with all these Arab states, where the Arab states,

as you said, MBS and the Emirates,

and I think the Bahrainis, are as pushing for

as an aggressive response to what how Iran has fought this war,

as Israel has.

And so that'll be very interesting to see when this war ends,

but I think from Israel's perspective in the region,

Israel is not feeling so alone.

You know, after October 7th, they were feeling alone.

Last couple of years, because the war on Gaza,

they were feeling alone.

It made life complicated politically for these Arab states.

The way Israel is fighting the war on Gaza,

I supported that war, but there was no doubt that there was

a very political calculated response for many capitals

in the Sunni Gulf.

I do not think that is the case now.

And if that has durability, if that has a shelf life,

after this war, I'm not so sure we're going to look

at this is Israel so isolated.

The last thing I'll say here is Walter Russell Mead,

has a very thoughtful piece in the Wall Street Journal today

that like he said what I've been thinking.

So even though I was thinking it, I do want to give him credit.

He basically said the hawks and the dubs both got this wrong.

Okay.

He says the hawks underestimated how hard it would be,

the Iran hawks.

The Iran dubs overestimated how accommodating Iran,

the regime would be, if we just worked with them,

in mechanisms like negotiations in the JCPOA.

And the wake up calls, I said at the beginning,

for the Iran dubs is there's no accommodation with Iran.

So it's, we're a war with Iran.

I think everyone basically understands that,

even if not everyone for political reasons wants to say it out loud,

we're in war with Iran.

It's a matter of when that war happens or whether it goes on

and then off and then on again, it how we fight the war,

how we explain the war.

But I don't think anyone could have any illusions that we are

at war with Iran and this war revealed it.

Well, it's funny because you could say the same thing about Russia

and yet Trump clearly disagrees and has acted in ways

that shows he disagrees for reasons that he thinks

are aligned with America first.

Which is, it's a important point that I want to make.

But let me address the first two first,

which is that, you know, you said that it's only 25 days

and so the American people should show patience.

You're right, of course.

But President Trump on the phone with the G7 leaders

said that the war was going to be over within days

and that the Iranians were about to surrender unconditionally.

And when Trump himself is telling the American people

that this is going to be easy, it's going to be over,

there's going to be no cost, don't worry about it.

The president is driving the messaging of we don't need to be patient.

We don't need to because this war is going to be easy

and it's going to be out when it be done and he failed.

He utterly failed because he thought it was going to be that easy.

So that's why there's no patience.

It's not because the American people can't handle it

for the right reasons, war for the right reasons.

American people can fight for the right reasons.

But this is, the president has not been communicating

with his people truthfully or trustfully

and therefore he has lost a lot of the American people on this

and on other issues.

So that's, that's a point.

I agree, there's no question that the level of golf alignment

with the United States and Israel militarily

and on intelligence and fighting Iran has become of necessity

but has become higher.

That is of course very different with the way the golf states

feel about what's happening in the West Bank right now

but the way the golf states feel about what's happening

on the ground in Lebanon right now.

And those things are going to be problematic for Israel in my view.

And I also think that there's going to be big consequences

for the Israeli's long-term globally.

We've already seen how much anti-Semitism was picking up

before this war that's obviously going to continue.

I worry about that.

Different story longer point.

The final point is on like whether or not Trump is going to succeed

in selling this war to the American people

and the consequences will eventually happen.

I think that Trump got the American people right in a lot of ways

because he understood that Americans were sick of not having

secure borders so that I'm going to secure the border.

And there was sick of being sold a free trade message

without people investing more in U.S. manufacturing

because I'm going to do something about that.

And his implementation was poor on both of those things

in some ways.

He overegged it in tariffs and he overegged it with ice

but the baseline message he got the American people.

And he also got the American people with I am sick and tired

of Americans fighting for wars that aren't actually

in the primary interest of the United States.

And he did that on Ukraine.

I believe the United States should be supporting the Ukrainians.

I do.

In a way that Trump does not.

I believe it matters because the Russians invaded Ukraine

to sovereign nation, democratic, Russia's dictatorship.

We invited them to NATO.

Our words should matter.

And I believe that.

And then Trump unilaterally says, no, it's far away.

It's thousands of miles away.

The European should spend all the money.

We shouldn't spend any of it.

You know what?

That's pretty popular among the American people.

And you know, I now see on Israel Iran,

this war is very popular in Israel because, of course,

in the same way that supporting Ukraine is very popular

like in Poland and the Baltic States and the Nordics.

But it ain't popular in the United States.

Why not?

Because you've elected a president twice that said,

we're going to stop doing this.

And so, no, you might think that Trump is completely misguided

in that message.

But the point is he's aligned with where the American people are going.

And so you've forgotten about us.

So stop this.

Don't fight for Ukraine.

Don't fight for Europe.

Don't fight for Israel.

Don't fight for the Gulf States.

Don't fight for Taiwan.

Don't fight for Japan.

Stop this.

And I think that the longer this goes,

yes, only 7,000 troops, but every troop matters.

Yes, only $200 billion he's asking for

and the special distribution for the Pentagon,

but only $181 billion was spent on Ukraine over three years.

And yet, Americans are like, why are you doing this

when you're not taking care of me at home?

And yeah, I don't think 4,000 kilometer

lying about their ballistic missiles

is a credible ex-post argument

for the average American Trump voter.

I don't.

I just don't.

Now, you and I can have a very intelligent point-de-headed conversation

about, like, you know, grand strategy and realpolitik

and what it means for America long term.

But I'm talking about, like, what got Trump elected?

This did not get Trump elected.

Absolutely not.

And I think he's going to pay.

Among Trump voters, I really think

that there's a tendency among many of us

to fixate on a handful of very loud, high volume

self-appointed evangelists for the MAGA right

and listen to the things they're saying

and overinterpret what that means

where the Trump electorate, where Trump's coalition is.

The reality is if you look in poll after poll after poll,

CBS just came out with a new poll.

It's over 80%.

Trump voters well over 80%.

Support what he's doing throughout his doing in Iran.

I'm telling you I think it won't be.

I'm not saying it's right now.

But the support is high.

I think there is this tendency

to think about decisions in war and national security,

particularly post 9-11, in the last couple of decades,

in very binary terms.

So we either think of war as endless war.

If we get involved, we'll never get out.

If we get involved, it's quagmire.

So that was the characterization of a rock in Afghanistan.

Or it's do nothing.

Yes, there's bad things happening around the world.

But our only option, the only responsible option

is to do nothing.

Obama draws the red line in Syria.

600,000 people are slaughtered.

Many more permanently displaced.

And we do nothing.

And he uses chemical weapons and we do nothing.

And so those are like the two extremes.

I do think where Trump is, is this possible model of a third way,

which is not saying we're never going to use military force.

But if we use it, we are going to be very targeted, very surgical,

and we're not going to get ourselves bogged down.

Now, we'll see how this goes in Iran.

He's been doing this a number of times over the last year

in various parts of the world.

Most recently, obviously, Venezuela at the end of the year.

But, and obviously in Iran and in June of 25,

we'll see where this lands in that.

But my only point is we are so far from Trump violating

the core commitment from his campaign in terms

of how he would conduct national security.

I'm not saying he can't get bad

and we could go on some kind of detour,

but we're just not there now.

I just want to add, you're definitely right.

I mean, it's 80, 90 percent in some polling

in terms of support for this.

But when you mentioned boots on the ground, it plummets.

And you are seeing it show up in other ways

of judging the president, like how they think about him

on the economy, how they think of him on immigration.

You know, whether he's paying attention to issues

that affect me over 70 percent say he's not focused on that.

So, you know, it's manifesting in different pockets.

Here's where we are.

Can't secure nuclear stockpile,

unlikely to register regime change without boots on the ground.

There are amphibious warships.

There are Marines being deployed.

What, 60 seconds or less, if no one has a crystal ball,

then you go first.

What do you think happens here in the next 30 days?

On balance, I think it's really close call.

I think he does actually deploy these ground troops

because he feels like he needs to do something more

on the nuclear side.

And because leaving the straits this vulnerable

to the Iranians is a really bad place

to put the Gulf states and to eventually end

to put the global economy.

So, is it take-carg and trade it for opening

or securing safe passage through Hormuz?

What do you think it looks like?

If you do that, right?

All I'm saying is you take-carg and the Iranian,

the likelihood that the Iranians respond

in really damaging ways is high.

So, maybe in part, the decision on taking-carg

comes to how much they think they've really degraded Iran.

So, even if they want to, they can't do that much damage

in return by the time they get there.

Again, this is, it is really hard to make a call on this,

but we're talking about really big stakes.

Dan?

I think this war will probably go approximately,

approximately 60 days from when it started,

which means we still have a few more weeks.

I agree with you, and I don't think,

well, first of all, I don't think the negotiations

are going to go anywhere.

A, and B, I think Trump still thinks he has some tools

in his toolkit that he can use militarily

before he wants to wind things down.

And I will say that I just want to come back to something Ian said.

He talked about Russia and Ukraine,

and I agree with him.

There are four major threats

to the United States today.

China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

Three of those four have a capability

that makes it a nuclear capability that makes it very hard

for the United States to ultimately confront them.

Iran doesn't have one yet, and it wants one.

And I think they are going to wind up coming out of this

much farther from that reaching that goal

than they were three weeks ago.

Scarily enough, I believe we are early days.

And so Ian and Dan, thank you so much for your time.

I hope you'll come back and we can do this again.

It was, I loved it.

And to have it together was super valuable.

It helps that Ian and I are friends.

Dan, C&R, Ian Brammer, thanks very much.

Jess, thoughts?

I love civil disagreement.

I do it for a living, though.

Sometimes it's way less of all than what we just saw.

I thought they brought really important points to it.

And I'm better prepared for the five today

than I was when we started.

So thankful for that conversation.

What about you?

Yeah.

I think we as a society are desperate

for a thoughtful, civil conversation that softens the beach

where you're willing to listen because you're not focused on

them basically calling each other idiots.

And also, I just have a lot of affection for both of them.

I think they're good men and smart.

And I learn from both of them.

And I disagree with both of them on a lot.

But I just always come away smarter.

Anyways.

Good luck on the five.

Good luck on the five.

I'm going to use that mowing the lawn thing with the Israelis.

That's important that they have signed up to continue

to do these kinds of things.

And the question is whether we are going to sign up

to continue to do these things to keep the region safe.

Have a good show.

Thank you.

Thank you.