Special - How the War on Iran Is Breaking the Gulf w/ Annelle Sheline

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Hello American Prestige listeners, this is Derek.

I'm joined as always by my friend and comrade Danny Bessner.

And we're very pleased to welcome back to the program.

And now she's aligned.

She is a research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute.

Previously served as a foreign affairs officer in the US State Department before resigning over the conduct of the Israeli genocide.

And now thanks so much for coming back on the program.

Thanks for having me and I was just saying, I really appreciate all the work you all have been doing in the context of this stupid, stupid war.

Great, great guess. It's been really informative.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You appreciate the flattery as I say.

We'll get you everywhere.

It's always nice to have a little flatter at the beginning of an area.

But we did want to have you on to talk about the war.

To talk about the war and especially the parties, we haven't really spent a lot of time talking about the Gulf States.

We certainly talked about Iranian attacks, but we haven't tried to get into their perspective.

And that is one of your areas of specialty.

So we wanted to have you on to talk about that.

I guess maybe before we really get into the Gulf States,

if you just want to give your sense of the war and how stupid it really is and how it's been going for the last two and a half weeks,

we could start there.

That would be helpful.

Sure.

How stupid it really is.

I think there's been a lot of talk of this question of who do we blame here?

Is it Trump's fault? Is it Israel's fault?

And I think it's just really important to keep in mind that Netanyahu has been trying to get US presidents to fight Iran for him since the 90s.

And Trump was the first president who was stupid enough to take him up on that.

So I mean, really, although there is, I think, going to be a lot of blame assigned to Israel going forward,

we really, you know, Trump doesn't get to get out of this one.

And it's just, I think just indicative of, you know, where we are as a country that Congress has been as yet unable to get its act together to pass the war powers resolution.

I mean, that does reflect a Republican control of Congress.

But still, just you'd think that people would start to see the writing on the wall of just how incredibly unpopular this is.

And that ostensibly people briefed Trump on this, that all of these scenarios, like all of this was completely foreseeable.

And yet here we are.

So that, that's sort of where I am as far as just like the level of stupidity and the fact that we really, this does go back to Trump because Israel has tried to do this for a very long time.

So thinking about this from the Gulf perspective and the Iranian retaliation focusing so much on the Gulf states, I asked this question.

I don't feel like this should have been a surprise to anybody.

I mean, they telegraphed that this would be the response to a major Israeli U.S. war.

But and yet, it feels like the, there's some level of surprise or manufactured surprise, maybe every time a U.S. official or, you know, somebody in the Gulf states talks about what Iran has done.

Were you surprised that the retaliation focused so much or has focused so much on the Gulf states?

No, not, not surprised. What's, what's sort of amusing, and you know, this is always the case with, with the academic, I think, or, you know, anyone who's trying to sort of write about current events.

I had published a report for the Quincy Institute that came out on February 26th about the fact that Saudi Arabia and Qatar really should be rethinking this.

It should be rethinking their reliance on the United States, given that historically, the premise of that whole relationship is that the United States was going to be the best guarantor of security, which enabled the Gulf economic model, which, you know, not only was based on fossil fuels, but increasingly as they've tried to transition off of fossil fuels, is based on being these commercial hubs, centers of finance, you know, a very attractive place for investors and tourists.

Just travelers to transit through there.

And so they really needed security, and the long-term belief had been that the United States was the best guarantor of that security.

And there had been certain instances where Gulf countries felt really alarmed about the fact that the United States wasn't really providing that security.

So the report I put out was based on conversations I'd had with officials and academics and think tankers in Riyadh and Doha back in December.

And at that time, the concern wasn't so much necessarily that the US was going to launch this attack on Iran, but just the broader fact that the US was enabling Israeli aggression and this project of greater Israel, the fact that it was very clear that the United States was not going to reign in Israel.

They didn't under Biden. They have an undertrum.

And we had those statements from Mike Huckabee saying, you know, supporting this project of greater Israel.

And so increasingly, the Gulf states, I argued, ought to be reconsidering their reliance on the US in the aftermath of, for example, Israel's strike on Doha on September 9th.

And just that moving forward, and the Gulf states had already gotten here themselves.

They had recognized at several points in the past that the US wasn't actually as committed to their security as they would have liked.

For example, the 2019 Iranian attack on the Abkik oil facility in Saudi Arabia where Trump basically shrugged and said, well, it wasn't an attack on the US.

And the Saudis were sort of like, excuse me.

This is a major oil facility like this.

We thought you were going to, you know, you a Trump who's motivated by oil markets and, and, you know, the sort of buddy, buddy Gulf relationships he has with people like Muhammad bin Salman.

They felt extremely betrayed.

And so that set in motion, the eventual normalization of relations between Riyadh and Tehran that Beijing served as essentially sort of the final guarantee for in March of 2023.

That you saw what was used to be seen as really inconceivable that Iran and Saudi Arabia would reach normalized relations and would really try to reduce the possibility of tension.

And we'd seen this as a broader trajectory among the various Gulf states that had kind of just come to the conclusion, you know, they, they were very unhappy about the Iran nuclear deal in 2015.

They felt very betrayed by that.

But then the subsequent US actions had had done very little to reassure them and they had come to the correct conclusion that they're not going anywhere and Iran is not going anywhere.

And so the best thing they could do would be to achieve some kind of modus of a Vendee, keep tensions low.

And then increasingly, as it became clear that Israel and the US were going to sort of serve as spoilers for that effort, that was where my report came in and essentially said the Gulf would be wise to reconsider this reliance on the United States.

And now here we are.

So I've got a pretty broad question because I want to think about the Gulf a bit macro perspective lead, not a term, but here we are.

So the Gulf has a problem, right? They're seeing the writing on the wall that there probably will be a turn away from fossil fuels, whether it's in 10 years or more likely 50 or certainly 100, there's going to be a turn away from fossil fuel.

And so the more far-sighted leaders of the region have essentially tried to turn their city states into essentially playgrounds of the bourgeoisie that could be, you know, where your rich westerners and child traffickers could go to hang out and drink alcohol when they want.

But that to some degree was premise on this notion that they are secure.

And so I think regardless of what happens in the media future, that fantasy has been shattered.

So it does seem to me that this actually puts the Gulf in a very difficult position because one of the only things, and no, I'm no expert, but tell me if I'm wrong, one of the only things that has been keeping both the politics and political economy going is the fact that they sit on this gigantic resource.

That basically is a life but of the global political economy. That is going away.

And so I always joke with friend of the pod, Mean Jean Bazillon, that whenever we talk about the Middle East, what we're really just talking about is the coming apart of the Ottoman Empire.

And so there is this concord dot here that lasted, you know, from the 30s forward ish that that is coming apart.

So this could lead to, I think, incredible political instability in the region, particularly the number of guest workers that are there, as you've seen elsewhere throughout the world.

So this seems to me to be an apoccal hinge point in the history of the Gulf that things are never going to go back to the naughty audience 2010s period in Dubai or Abu Dhabi or wherever it may be.

So what is the potential future of this? And then we can get back to sort of the more nuts and bolts of what's going on with Iran, but really this seems to be a gigantic moment in the history of this region.

Yes, absolutely. And as you said, it is in the Gulf, sort of economic model. And in particularly, you know, thinking about like really the really.

So so Qatar and the UAE are the two examples where they have just these teeny, teeny tiny populations and massive amounts of of of oil wealth or fossil fuel wealth, Qatar is mostly natural gas.

And although interestingly in the UAE, Dubai never had as much of that oil wealth as Abu Dhabi had. And so this is part of why we've sort of, you know, Abu Dhabi has the military and the power and increasingly the, you know, like Muhammad bin Zaid has been centralizing that power and what used to be more of, you know, this confederation of the seven Emirates, it's become much more concentrated.

And partly that reflects the fact that they have the source of the wealthy have the oil.

And then I mean, so an often I think when people talk about the Gulf, they're really thinking about the Emirates and Qatar as these inordinately wealthy places.

I mean, you also have, you know, Kuwait, you know, also quite wealthy Bahrain less so that's where you have a Sunni minority, the rulers are Sunni, the majority of the population is Shia, Bahrain used to belong to Iran, which is part of that history.

And then you have like Oman, for example, which has a much larger population and much much fewer, like per capita, the fossil fuel wealth is much, much lower.

And, you know, you also think about the history of these places. I mean, Oman historically, what like existed, like Oman is in the Quran, like it was, there was an empire there, although the Persians also controlled it at various points.

But, you know, like Oman was like a real place historically, just like Yemen historically was a real place.

And this is sort of a center of civilization. And part because Yemen had water, you could have agriculture in Yemen.

And in parts of Saudi Arabia, especially the southern Saudi Arabia and along the coast, like Jeddah and you know Mecca and Medina.

But everywhere else, historically just didn't have that many people because you couldn't sustain life here.

There just wasn't enough water. You couldn't do much.

There's nomadic, right? I mean, like different type of culture, yeah, wasn't settled in the same way.

Exactly. And even if you had some settled populations, I mean, there were certain waysys where you did have a population that wasn't moving around.

There were not enough resources to sustain major population centers.

And so thinking about the long term, the long term lack of viability or the sort of the artificiality of these glittering cities on the Persian Gulf that are entirely premised on fossil fuel.

I mean, unfortunately, in the long, long run, you know, if we're thinking 100 years from now, probably we won't see anything like, you know, that these will have kind of arisen and fallen away.

And we'll have gotten back to the reality of if you don't have water, if you can't sustain yourself,

agriculturally, it's really not a good idea to live in these places.

And although you have seen some of these states really trying to stick the dismount and achieve that transition, you know, Dubai, for example,

next year it was supposed to bring on, I believe, the largest solar-powered desalination plant, you know, thinking that they could achieve this transition.

It's not looking good because, as you already pointed out, this as kind of a sure bet for investors or somewhere that's attractive for influencers,

just, you know, wealthy people who wanted to avoid income taxes, it's just, it's not going to look as attractive as it once did after this.

And I think you're right that this is truly a transition moment, you know, I'm not forcing you.

You could go other places. I mean, just the reality is you don't need to go to the Gulf, right? I mean, like it was, I think it was close to Europe.

You know, it is, it is in the Middle East, so it is in the middle, but you could go to other places.

I mean, like, and rich people will just go, they'll fly the extra four hours when they're private planes, you know, start it interrupt.

But you don't need to be there. You just flat out don't, you know.

Right. And what's interesting is you had already started to see this operating even in the absence of this kind of a crisis,

but you, you know, the fact that, you know, Dubai was kind of the first mover and was, as you said, you know, they were willing to kind of cast off all of the cultural constraints that were still very much in place in Saudi Arabia and remain somewhat still in place in Saudi Arabia.

Just an, you know, alcohol prostitution, you know, gambling, like just the, this sort of willingness to attract people by whatever means necessary.

And that competition, you know, that other other like Dubai is Dubai, and then you have Abu Dhabi was its own thing.

They tried to be a little bit more cultural than you had Doha, which was also kind of trying to do a similar model, but in a slightly different way.

And then you have Saudi Arabia in this, you know, massive vision 2030.

And, you know, while obviously Mohamed bin Salman shouldn't, should never be forgiven for the heinous murder of Jamal Hashoggi, I think some credit is due to his attempt to really transform his society.

And in particular to make it so that women, you know, can work, you know, to incentivize companies to hire women, they had to completely transform their economy.

Because previously it was predicated on the idea that you have foreign workers do the actual labor.

And then the state pays Saudi men so much money that they can support all of the Saudi women who were not permitted to work outside the home.

And that is just not a sustainable way to run an economy.

And so that's what MBS has been trying to do since announcing vision 2030, which is, you know, at this point less than four years away.

So this really, this crisis couldn't come at a worse time for MBS or for any of these states that have been really trying to transition and also just compete with each other.

One more point there, which was what I had come on previously to talk to Derek about with the Saudi Emirati rivalry.

And this, that attempt by the, by the Saudis to sort of displace the UAE in terms of requiring companies to locate their headquarters in Saudi Arabia, if they wanted to do any business in Saudi Arabia.

And so that meant taking the headquarters often out of the UAE, this rivalry played out in many ways, but we saw it especially in Yemen, where you had these kind of differing goals and we can get into more of that if you want.

But just we had already seen this rivalry and competition among the Gulf states, because they're just there aren't necessarily enough tourists and investors and people to kind of all go around.

And now that we're going to see that all decline likely precipitously.

So this leads to a couple of questions, somewhat geared toward a post war scenario, but there's a lot to unpack in that sense.

I do want to ask since you brought up our friend, MBS, there have been, there have been some reports, there's been a, there's been a bit of reporting, not the greatest sourcing, a lot of anonymous, you know, scuttle butt type reporting that

Gulf officials and in particular Saudi officials were talking out of basically both sides of their mouth and the run up to this war that publicly they were saying one thing we don't want to war, we're trying to, you know,

tamp things down privately, they were coming to the US and saying, you know, you really got to go in and nail these guys like go take a run out.

I don't, I haven't put much stock in those reports again because they don't seem to be well sourced, it seems self-serving for the US now to be like, oh no, actually, you don't have US officials being like actually the Gulf states were really on board with this.

But if you have followed the career of Mohammed bin Salman through the war in Yemen, through the line, through the ski resort that's now, you know, I don't even know what they're going to do with that.

He has a history of doing things that are maybe not the brightest things to do.

And this may be one of those cases, it's fully possible for somebody who came into power, you know, as Crown Prince Gungho to destroy the Islamic Republic and, you know, feeling that Iran was the greatest threat in the region, perfectly plausible that he was double dealing behind the scenes encouraging this war.

But let's spend your take on this reporting, both before, you know, in terms of the discussions that we're being had before the war.

And now I've even seen, you know, Gulf reporting the Gulf officials are going back and saying, well, now that you've done it, you have to destroy Iran like we can't, this has, this can't continue like it has to be ended with Iran unable to project power, military pressure on the Gulf ever again.

What do you make of that reporting?

So I think it's much more the latter that, you know, I was very skeptical of these initial reports that you had the Saudi Defense Minister, MBS's brother coming and saying to Washington, you know, we actually support you, you know, we can't say this publicly.

Like that completely goes against everything that Muhammad bin Salman has been trying to do with vision 2030.

Like again, going back to sort of the Abqaq attack and the effort by the Saudis to defuse tensions with Iran and also to get out of the war in Yemen.

I mean, basically, as you said, MBS came in and did a lot of flailing around and a lot of people died as a result.

But he seemed to have eventually come to the conclusion that the Saudi economy was best served by stability and the best way to achieve that was deescalating with Iran and, you know, ending the war with the Houthis.

And so war like the US and Israel launching a war on Iran is the complete opposite of that.

Because even if you, you know, even if it had gone the way Trump hoped it would and seems to have been under the impression that it would that you could get someone else in there very quickly, you know, like get a Kelsey Rodriguez type to take over.

I mean, that still can spook investor. I mean, you know, none of that is positive from sort of someone looking to invest in some of these projects that MBS is trying to get people to invest into attract tourists, etc.

I mean, that's just kind of a reminder of like, oh, this actually is kind of a scary part of the world. And maybe I don't want to do my vacation at the new red sea resort that the Saudis are desperate to have people come to.

I mean, apparently these are just like these fantastically gorgeous and completely empty resorts on the red sea and had been previously, but especially now.

And so that's why it was so skeptical, you know, in particular, I think just knowing that the US would be quite well served by, as you said, being able to spread the blame around a little more to say, well, the Arabs were actually in favor, at least the Saudis were in favor.

And Israel is very well served by that. In particular, both Israel and the US have been desperate to try to get the Gulf States involved. And I mean, to get them to attack Iran, they are involved to get them to attack and to also allow the US to use American bases in the GCC States to attack.

And thus far the Gulf States have really resisted that because as we said, they're going to be stuck with this the day after, you know, whenever, whenever we're in the day after phase, the US gets to, you know, trump gets to go focus on China or Cuba or like whatever he wants to focus on.

And Israel is going to be largely protected from the destabilization that will result, you know, Iran has 92 million people.

You think about the destabilization of taking out Qaddafi in Libya and the effect that that has had on North Africa in the previous 15 years.

I mean, Americans don't hear about it very much, but, you know, this is also then people may have heard of the war in Sudan, which is very much fueled by the small arms, the militias.

I mean, the Sudanese context goes back to the genocide in the early 2000s. I mean, there were internal predicators there, but it's not it's not helped by the the violence that an instability that has engulfed this part of North Africa since the ouster of Qaddafi.

And so, like none of that serves MBS's interests, which is convinced everyone this is a great place to be, convinced investors, they want to be here, convinced tourists, you know, and try and, and, you know, kind of elbow his way into an already crowded field where you have the UAE, which is several decades ahead of Saudi Arabia as far as the, the infrastructure, you know, the reputation, the, just the,

just the financial research, like, and then cut that also is ahead of Saudi Arabia. So, so I'm extremely skeptical of the idea that the Saudis were actually pushing for this in advance. However, I do think you're right that at this point, given that the Gulf States are looking at the destruction of their fossil fuel facilities, potentially destruction of desalination facilities, certainly the complete annihilation of their image of sort of luxurious stability.

They, you know, it's kind of like, well, you know, we lose either way. So maybe we just need to, to get involved to try to end this sooner in hopes that we can get to that day after sooner rather than the later and maybe we can kind of salvage our economies at the end of this.

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So thinking about the day after and thinking about getting back to your point about the Gulf States reassessing their security relationships.

Do you think they're going to take a harder look at that right now they're saying and you know publicly what are you going to do in the middle of a war but but you know every comment I've seen from you know cutery officials or Emirati officials is like no this is actually convinced us that we need even closer relations with the United States but what come on right I mean not only have they you know to the extent that any of them were trying to influence the Trump administration away from going to war found out that they have no influence on US policy.

No matter how many four hundred million dollar jets they give Donald Trump or you know whatever else they do investing in the United States they they cannot compete with the Israeli government and they can't compete with the you know neocons inside the US establishment when it comes to setting policy so they they've learned that clearly.

And you know they've had now multiple experiences compressed into a very short time frame of basically repeats of previous Iranian attacks on Gulf infrastructure where the US reaction has been kind of I mean you know whatever it's not our problem you know US air defenses don't work the US can't keep the straight of war moves open the US you know like there's a lot of limitations to what the US is capable of doing that are being exposed to the US.

So I think you're right that we're going to still hear the Gulf country saying we you know we want US security we want to maintain this relationship but I think it'll also be important to look at what they're actually doing and we had already seen them starting to do this so.

I mean cut that had already experienced the extreme betrayal of Trump basically green lighting the 2017 blockade that the UAE and Saudi and Bahrain you know and Egypt I think all imposed on Qatar.

That Trump basically was like yeah that that's fine and and you know the idea that possibly the Saudis were going to march across the border and and trying to seize.

Cut that and that it was Rex Tillerson apparently that you know made the calls that were like no no no no it's like that's that's our scent calm forward HQ there like you can't this is a very bad idea.

And so the cut that is during that time had made some very you know they they purchased French planes they purchased British planes they allowed the well they had already allowed the Turks to build a military base which is Turkey's first kind of military base in the broader Middle East.

They they were keeping it within NATO but they were certainly building some on and again these are existing relationships I mean the the cut that he British relationship for example far predates the the US cut that relationship since they had been a sort of part of the British Empire.

And so we're likely to continue to see that effort to just diversify to have more you know to not have all their eggs in the US basket.

At the same time we know that after the the Israeli attack on Doha when all these questions were very much at the four.

The cut that he said no we're not interested in diversifying we're very you know we we fully trust the US they did get that that statement from Trump the essentially a NATO like article five statement of an attack on cut that is seen as an attack on the United States.

So I think again and I think the Saudis are similar you know eight days after the attack on Doha the Saudi sign that defense agreement with Pakistan.

You know the question immediately then was like is Pakistan going to extend its nuclear umbrella to the Saudis clearly we haven't seen that happening and you look at a map of you know Pakistan and Iran share a pretty long border so I don't think Pakistan is is looking to open up.

I don't you know a direct war with Iran which is already lashing out at everyone it can reach pretty much.

So I think we are in the short term likely to hear the Gulf states reempre literating that they want to maintain this relationship with the US and at the same time trying to look elsewhere.

And another big component of that is these these Gulf countries have been really trying to build up their own local defense industries and again the UAE is way out ahead of everybody else on that because they started sooner.

And now I mean the UAE is a very significant sort of weapons dealer itself and also just a sort of a big hub there's like a great big conference that happens every year in the UAE where.

You know the the weapons manufacturers come to show how great they are killing people.

So I think and I mean this is part of just a broader question of given that the United States under Trump has demonstrated that it's not trustworthy in the economic realm and it's not trustworthy as a security partner.

So I think about the US pulling like patriot missile systems out of South Korea to send them to try to defend against Iranian drones.

You know I imagine people all over the world are wondering about the wisdom of continuing to rely on this system that has really depended on on the United States.

So I'm going to talk about that I'm I'm thinking through this right now for a piece.

So I'm trying to think of like where things are going in this new multi polar world.

And to some degree I think the ultimate outcome of the American century will be the US now sphere of influence includes the Middle East.

Like the big the big outcome of this 80 year project is that the US has its traditional western hemispheric hegemonic sphere.

The Middle East and obviously Europe is somewhere in between vassal and independent strange place.

And it really and and now I'm very curious what you think about this.

I mean it's still relatively early days, but it does seem like China is just like this is yours.

You know we broker the deal.

That was a different moment.

If the United States wants it's to play risk in the Middle East from now until the future.

This is an increasingly less important region.

So go for it.

I'm curious your thoughts about what this all means.

I'm certainly I think China has been like you have added guys like you continue to shoot yourselves in the foot in this region.

And you know all of the alarmism about well you know the US could never pull back from Middle East because then China would come rushing in.

And it's like China's already there.

They're just not interested in doing the same kind of things that the US continues very foolishly to do in terms of these like supposed security guarantees which again often incentivize more aggressive behavior like when the Gulf states thought that the US was going to back them up.

They behaved more aggressively towards Iran and each other whereas when it was clear that the US wasn't actually going to back them up.

That's when you saw these efforts at detente and sort of de escalation.

And this is why we see Israel continuing to behave.

So with that sort of apparently irrational aggression is because they they have this unconditional support from the United States.

I mean the broader question of whether the US fear of influence in the long run will sort of continue to include the Middle East.

I kind of doubt it. I mean it depends what the like what time scale we're looking at.

But I do think that I mean Trump has already acknowledged this just sort of pointing out that like the US doesn't actually benefit that much from the effort you know from sort of like the expense of maintaining this big military footprint in the region.

And really China and other countries that depend on oil coming from the Middle East should do more to help guarantee it.

I mean he's right that that it's not really clear why is the US the one that's responsible for that.

I mean the underlying logic there is just that you know American primacy and the US does this because the US is the global policeman and.

You know any any any stepping back from that would be to sort of acknowledge the reality of American decline in a way that is completely incompatible with Washington's self conception of like you know the world will fall apart if if the United States isn't there.

As opposed to recognizing the fact that often is the US presence that is making things fall apart.

So yeah I mean I think in the short to medium term we will continue to see the US doggedly hanging on to this part of the world because anything else would be seen as as acknowledging defeat.

But I do think over the longer term whether it's driven more from inside the United States or if it's driven more from these countries themselves.

I I don't foresee the US maintaining this this long term presence in the region.

I mean part of it's going to have to come from re thinking the US is a relationship right I mean this is the thing that sucks the US and more even than the.

You know protecting the golf or protecting this trade of hormones or whatever it is we think we're doing.

Like that relationship it is funny to me when people talk about this will if the US leaves the Middle East you know somebody's going to have to step in to provide security.

The US leaving the Middle East would be a net benefit for security in the region because it would mean that the US is really relationship which is the main source of instability would no longer be a factor it's just sort of.

It's it's the logic just doesn't doesn't hold unless you're I guess you know part of the DC blob.

Totally 100% the the extent to which the Israel lobby and think that that that the US policy towards the Middle East is really driven or buy this factor of of the US is a relationship is I think insufficiently understood or examined.

Although I can do a plug now for my colleague Eli Clifton along with I and Lustik are writing the well coming out with a book on this of looking at the Israel lobby a follow up to me or she I were in Walt's book.

And they're basically looking at you know when you're Shimmer and Walt wrote their book it was pre citizens united and so sent citizens united you've had the super charging of the sort of plutocratic effects of these like major donors like the late children and now his widow Miriam Adelson driving these outcomes various other very well you know people like Larry Ellison driving outcomes as well.

To the extent that you also now seeing kind of what the Israel lobby is pushing for is fairly divorced from the American Jewish community and you look at especially in the context of the war on Gaza that I believe it's a majority of American Jews are opposed and are are certainly very alarmed by what it is the US is enabling Israel to do.

But that the sort of Israel lobby as such that exists in Washington isn't isn't dependent on sort of its grassroots base and and so really doesn't matter if the American Jewish community no longer supports that it's just what it is huge donors want you know and if they if they want the war on Iran if they want you know whatever the political establishment is quite beholden to them.

So that that book I think will will sort of get into some of the ins and outs of just this outsized influence of just these wealthy individuals which is a microcosm of of our broader political dysfunction.

So to to that point I guess I mean we've talked about the potential long term economic impact on the Gulf States from this in terms of the transition to to more you know influencer or you know business pro business finance away from fossil fuels but there's a short term danger to the fossil fuels now increasingly because we're recording this you know a day after.

The Israelis attack the south part gas field in Iran and the Iranians responded by escalating attacks against Gulf energy sites.

Do you feel like that attack on the attack on south part says put this conflict on a more dangerous escalating footing in terms of what it could mean for oil and gas sites around the Gulf.

Absolutely you know unfortunately we continue to see often Israel sometimes the US as well like for example when it was the US that first struck an Iranian desalination plant I believe on March 7th and then Iran responded by hitting the desalination plant in Bahrain and then subsequently we because that would result in kind of mutual assured destruction in particular in the Gulf.

For for a hundred million people to lose the desalinated water that they rely on it seems that maybe there was a they've reestablished we're not going to hit desalination infrastructure but if you hit energy infrastructure that can take these desalination plants offline and in particular my understanding is the the I mean the custody facility that they hit provides 20% of the world's liquid natural gas and this is huge.

And and so my understanding is that also has direct implications on desalination in the UAE for example and I'm sure elsewhere and so yes I think that because you have the US kind of flailing and not pursuing a clue we don't even know what exactly the US military objective is.

We know Israel's military objective is is basically chaos you know they just want to destroy as much as possible and and sort of take out Iran the same way the US took out Iraq such that it's really no longer able to to threaten much of anyone and no longer able to function no basic level yeah and you know so from Israel's perspective.

Hitting you know you even then you have Trump then saying you know Israel's not going to hit again like whatever his his true social post last night of you know Israel won't do this again trying to kind of reestablish some guardrails even though the US itself has been disregarding any kind of guardrails and the Iranians keep responding in kind it's sort of like you had our desalination plant we're going to hit one in the Gulf you know you.

I mean with the Americans hitting the girl school within the first hours you know that is is just an absolute nightmare of a war crime and luckily so far we haven't seen the Iranians hitting schools in the Gulf but we could get there US already did it.

So certainly I see this climbing up the escalation ladder and Trump increasingly feeling like he's not able to find any way out of that this in a face saving way and then you have Israel assassinating key leaders inside the Iranian government that might otherwise have been able.

Potentially I mean again the question now I'll just quit like the just this stupidity it's like you know how many he was going to die soon anyway and that could have possibly precipitated a real rethinking you know a real kind of shake up of power because that's often what happens is is you have.

Like everything that was in place as a result of his leadership would have to be reorganized and then it's possible that could have led to different thinking inside the Iranian government by by assassinating him he's a martyr now we have his son in place his son who was already a high hard liner but his mother father wife and child were all killed as a result I mean it's just we're just in the dumbest timeline and this is.

And it's likely to continue to escalate and I and unfortunately when I'm hearing is that you know all options the US is considering are completely horrifying.

Such you know it's so it's like is it is that nuclear weapons is that letting Israel use one of its nuclear weapons you know thus far when I've gotten questions about you know could this lead to world were three.

I'm like well I mean world were three means you have the great powers involved and thus far we have basically Russia and China they're best served by just letting the US hit itself against the fact that the you know Iran doesn't have to win this where they just have to survive.

Similar to the Taliban Afghanistan and however if you've got nuclear weapons involved suddenly the stakes get that much higher you know this is breaking the nuclear taboo that has stood since the US bombed.

Russia and Nagasaki and then you know that that makes the threat perception that much higher and you think you know maybe then Indian Pakistan which are both nuclear armed powers are needing to sort of reconsider I mean this this is.

It does start to increasingly look more like a world were three scenario except that now we've got nukes and we're looking at nuclear I'm a guy.

Assuming that it doesn't escalate or were three with that that would obviously change things quite a bit but the near term outcome here that seems most likely that even US intelligence and Israeli intelligence have assessed is most likely even the Israelis you know as they're calling for Iranians to take to the streets and overthrow their government.

The private assessment is that those people will be slaughtered on behalf of the Israeli war effort I guess.

So the the likeliest scenario it seems like is a post war reality in which Iran has been weakened militarily it's been weakened politically a lot of people have been killed in these decapitation strikes they've expended a lot of you know weaponry and had you know some of it destroyed.

But they're still there the Islamic Republic is still in place except now it's really just completely run by the IRGC as opposed to only partially run by the IRGC as before so maybe they're more aggressive maybe they're more you know more on more of a hair trigger in terms of provocations and how they might respond to those things and the gold states have to try and live with this in their near abroad how do you imagine they will.

Manage that if that is the outcome that we get from this sir I think this this is the sort of clearest explanation of why the Gulf States have thus far been so resistant to get involved because they want to be able to say at the end look we tried to talk him out of this and we were not involved in the aggression against you.

Again if it comes to a place where they're being destroyed anyway they may just say well let's just let's just do this faster rather than slower but certainly the the prospect of you know and again sort of it doesn't it doesn't even matter who's left in charge I mean ostensibly yes the IRGC but kind of anyone in that situation is going to be trying to get a nuclear weapon.

Is going to be re asserting that power that look we can effectively close the street of our moves except for the million barrels a day that Iran continues to be able to export.

And so just nobody mess with us you know we can really hurt everyone and and it's not that hard for us to do so.

And so yes this is exactly why you know the Gulf States are just in such a terrible situation and I and again this is why I think they they want to be able to say at the end of this.

We weren't part of this you know we in the long run don't hit us and I mean what's been I mean Iran has made this an explicit demand you know that they'll allow fossil fuels to be exported from countries that kick out the United States.

Thus for we're not seeing the Gulf countries do that but I mean that is the long term objective of the Islamic Republic to get the US out of the region.

I think in the long run that would also broadly serve US interests I mean you think about the fact that we've had this you know mass 40,000 troops stationed in this part of the world and yet we can't you know all of these bases that we've built up over you.

Build up over years are our strategic liabilities putting at risk US partners and we can even use them you know they're they're not that these countries aren't letting us use them to stage attacks.

So then it's just a question well why have them and that gets back to the fact that well if if we pull out of them that's completely incompatible with Washington's world view you know that that would really be seen as just completely unacceptable sort of admission of defeat.

And but I imagine and this gets back to your question Danny about kind of will is the Middle East going to stay kind of part of the US sphere of influence.

I mean I think it's a question of does the US do this in sort of a controlled manner where we recognize that actually our security and is better served in our resources are better used by having a smaller military footprint or do we have to do it.

By necessity where we you know we're just sort of willy nilly and that will be extremely chaotic and likely very dangerous I mean just another big factor here is like even best case scenario somehow we get to the end of the war Iran feels it's reestablished deterrence.

You then you have all the countries in the region wanting a nuclear weapon and so when you have like that many different countries you know just this is why nuclear non proliferation was predicated on just the fewer variables you know the fewer nuclear arm powers we have.

It's just that much easier to manage and the more you have the more likely that you have either either in a horrifying accident or attacks.

So my my last question here getting away from the war and into DC I'm sure you saw that the director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent resigned over the war.

I you don't got a hand it to him I don't think I mean he's a mag a style style where he wrote a resignation letter that placed all of the blame for this conflict at the feet of the Israeli government which I think is not.

Entirely accurate and also blamed Israel for dragging the US into the Rockwell which seemed completely over the top so I do understand people who are concerned about the reasons why he resigned and whether there was some anti-Semitism involved there you know leaving aside the question of whether you can criticize Israel without being called an anti-Semite.

But I did want to get your perspective as somebody who resigned from a position in the Biden administration over Gaza as you saw that you know unfold what were your thoughts in terms of you know where where he must have been coming from and kind of you know that what that means for what may be going on inside the Trump administration.

Yeah I mean so two things first I do think that it just it speaks to this broader division inside MAGA you know the people who voted for Trump because they really did believe that he wasn't going to drag the US into any more of these endless wars and I think Joe Kent is an example of someone like that who had fought who lost his wife in Syria.

That he believed in that lie that Trump was saying that that he wouldn't do any more of these stupid words in the Middle East and I do think a lot of folks in the MAGA coalition are also feeling that way.

And the Queen seems to with the amcon American conservative magazine did a poll of people who voted for Trump so not people who still identify as MAGA necessarily because that's kind of a self selecting you know they're going to support Trump but people who voted for him in 2024.

79% of them want him to just declare victory and go home to just end this war I mean that that sort of ignoring the fact that Trump can't really do that anymore because both Israel and Iran are likely to to continue.

But that's what the vast majority of people who voted for him say and only 19% say no they want this to continue.

And so you know and I mean you also think about like that horrifying clip of the former Marine who was dragged out of the Senate committee hearing so violently that they snapped his arm and he's shouting you know no one wants to fight for Israel.

So this is and acknowledging the fact of like you know these are the same people that shouted in Charlottesville like the Jews will not replace us like anti-Semitism is right inside the MAGA coalition.

But even even for those who aren't motivated by anti-Semitism there is this very widespread perception that the reason Trump is fighting this war is because of Israel and as I opened with no the is always been trying to do this for a very long time and Trump was the first president stupid enough to do it.

I think a second thing to consider there is you know under Biden not a single political appointee resigned myself and everyone else you know these these were we were you know and you know I had not been in along in the state department for long.

But many of the people you know they they were professionals they were diplomats they'd spent their whole career there and they quit you know they resigned on principle.

And you and you didn't see any of these political appointees resigning you know we had those comments recently from Samantha power being asked again how could you possibly have not resigned.

And so I do think that the fact that you had someone that high up inside the Trump administration resign I think mostly is just an indictment of the Biden officials who didn't resign even when they were opposed to what was happening.

So I you know I do think you got handed to him that way however you know unfortunately as as you said I think the the people inside the you know that that that element and this is what can't talk about in his resignation letter as well that was that Trump had dinner had done a relatively good job of kind of sticking to that you know these very limited military engagements.

And that that was in keeping with his understanding of what a make America great again foreign policy would look like but that and then as you said he's sort of like puts all the blame on on Israel and on the neocons and which is which is inaccurate.

Although they're a factor there again the blame does lie with Trump but I think that the.

You know the again this just this just gets to this fundamental breakdown inside the mega coalition and the final thing I'll say is just you know my hope is that given that.

So many Americans are opposed to what's happening I hope this does yield candidates in the future that are actually committed to no more stupid wars and to rethinking.

The trillion dollar military budget you know how do we actually keep American safe and and that that politicians respond to that I mean the only other silver lining to come out of this may be some degree of decarbonization of you know.

The sort of intensifying or speeding the transition off of fossil fuels.

I mean I think it's sort of horrifying to to try to look for a silver lining in in what is likely to be a much higher civilian death you know that like the civilian casualties were likely to see before the end of this I think we're really only at the beginning of that.

So it's it's really kind of dark to try to look for a silver lining here but that's that's all I've got.

It's it's 1.5 trillion dollars now we're shooting for next year so we could we we will be quickly looking back on the days of the one trillion dollar military and thinking wow if only we can get back to that right.

I think if you want to talk about dark but and now thank you so much we always appreciate having you on the program and we're grateful for your time thanks for doing it folks you can find a nails work at the Quincy Institute and find her on social media we'll have relevant links in the show description thanks again I know.

Thank you so much and thanks to you both for all the work you've been doing.

Thank you.