Former Secretary of State on the Two Keys to Ending War in Iran

19:44David Gura:Yeah, I think that's a real concern. I would assume that the remaining material, and again, I don't know. We've seen lots of reports that it's likely that they were able to preserve, safeguard a lot of uranium, but I don't know that for a fact. I would assume that they've tried to disperse it, as you said, presumably in places that the regime has some control over. But if a country winds up in some kind of civil war, yeah, that's a real concern and something that we have to factor into our thinking. If we're going to start dropping matches there in terms of arming various groups, we better watch out in terms of getting what we wish for.

20:25David Gura:but you've seen extraordinarily courageous people uh beyond imagination who are out in the streets looking for looking for change getting mowed down by this regime and we all want to see a different future for them different leadership for them but it's very very hard if not impossible to uh to do that from the outside as we were saying and the risks now are that um instead of having a change having a transition, you have an implosion and then maybe even an explosion that has real effects outside the country. Our partners in the region have far fewer interceptors, air defense interceptors than we do.

21:05David Gura:If it gets to the point where they're running out and the Iranians have enough to continue going at their infrastructure, at their people, I think there's going to be a pretty strong demand signal on the administration to take an off ramp to stop. We've had other second and third order consequences here. At the very time when Russia is really reaching a weak point because of its dependence on oil to fuel its war economy, in large part because the price of oil has gone down, it's having more trouble exploiting oil because of sanctions and restrictions that we put on technology. That's been a huge and growing factor.

21:39David Gura:And the thing to do now, ideally, would be to squeeze the shadow fleet that they have that's going around the world. And that's the one thing that's able to keep them going. At the very time when that's possible, and that that might force Putin to finally cut a deal on Ukraine, they get a lifeline. And the lifeline is the price of oil is going up. And the value of that shadow fleet oil is going up. And people will need it and want to buy it. The Europeans, in turn, having moved away from Russian gas, are now more dependent on the Middle East. And if that gets tied up, if the Straits of Hormuz remain problematic, that's going to put a lot of pressure on them.

22:16David Gura:So mapping out, gaming out, planning out, and then making sure you have something in place to deal with all of these second and third order effects, usually important. And it's not at all clear to me that that was done.

22:27Antony Blinken:From where we sit today, are you confident that the U.S. can extricate itself from this without putting boots on the ground in Iran?

22:35David Gura:It depends what the objective is. I think that yes, in short, as i said a moment ago you know the president could theoretically declare victory tomorrow and claim that you know severe damage was done to the regime to the missiles to the nuclear program to the navy and call it a day but then for what um most of that stuff ultimately can be rebuilt and absent a change in the um governance in the regime which right now in this moment doesn't seem to be forthcoming. Huge risk without the support of the, well, without the, in effect, the buy-in from the American people that leaves us actually potentially for some time and strategically weakened position with regard, for example, to China or Russia, because our own stockpiles of critical long-range precision-guided weapons are down.

23:28David Gura:Our air defense stockpile um interceptors is down um that's uh usually usually questionable uh but that is i think that is an off-ramp that's available to the president if he wants to take it as you've

23:41Antony Blinken:pointed out president trump pulled out of the iran nuclear deal during his first term when you were secretary of state there was an effort to reanimate that to get another iteration of it what were the challenges of that and and why was it the case that in 2022 those talks broke down?

23:57David Gura:Look, we tried very hard to get back to the deal. But at that point in time, and especially with the passage of time, there were two things that were critical. One was that, of course, the Iranians, not without reason, said, how can we trust anything? We can do a deal. And then, you know, maybe the President Biden's successor does exactly what President Trump does. So there was a limiting factor there. But the bigger limiting factor was getting the Iranians to agree to terms that we deemed necessary and sufficient to make the deal the right deal to do. And in particular, re-extending the timelines, the constraints that the original deal had in them on the nuclear program.

24:38David Gura:We couldn't get to where we thought we needed to be to make it worthwhile. And we were doing it in partnership, in very close partnership with our European friends and allies, with the French, with the British, with the Germans, with the European Union, something that hadn't been the case in the immediate previous years. And I think we all agreed that the deal that the Iranians were willing to sign on to was simply not adequate. I wish we could have gotten there. But more than that, I wish that President Trump had not torn up the original deal. We'd be in a very different position and a very different world.

25:09Antony Blinken:I want to ask you about something that your successor said this week. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was talking about the motivations for this war. He said Israel was planning attacks that lead to reprisals on american troops so the u.s had to get involved militarily he since walked that back a bit but what does that say to you about the relationship between the u.s and israel and the influence that the u.s has over israeli policy look you know this is this has been a

25:32David Gura:a long story when it comes to iran and back during the obama administration the israelis were pushing president obama to take military action against iran and were warning that they would do it themselves if he didn't. And he wouldn't because he thought the better way to get at the nuclear program, which is what we were focused on, was through very muscular diplomacy backed up by very, very strong sanctions that we rallied the world to put in place. And then we got the Iran nuclear agreement. In the days after the October 7th attack on Israel, the horrific attack on Israel by Hamas. The Israelis were insisting that in the north, Hezbollah from Lebanon was about to attack.

26:16David Gura:And they wanted to strike preemptively against Hezbollah. And President Biden said, look, we're with you. We'll always be with you in defending Israel. And if you're attacked, we're there. But we're not there if you're going to start something. And we came within about 30 minutes of having a war in the north based on bad information that the israelis had about an imminent attack from hezbollah we were able to avert that but the president was biden was very insistent we're not going to do something uh that you initiate that you start it's very different than than defending israel when it's been attacked i i can't speak to what the dynamic was this time i you know i heard that then it was walked back the president said it was the other way around there's been a shifting rationale a shifting explanation uh for why this why now um and again that's why it's so important uh to have ideally laid this out before the american people and our partners and allies we might have had less friction with them if there was a compelling case to be made to make sure that we laid that out in advance and had them with us on the takeoff not mid-flight or on the landing you have faced protesters when you've given speeches i remember

27:26Antony Blinken:there was an interruption in the press briefing room at the State Department when you were giving remarks. And the criticism you faced has been you and the administration, the Biden administration effectively gave cover to Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu for them to prosecute the war that they prosecuted in Gaza that led to 75 ,000 people dying. In hindsight, do you regret not exerting more pressure on or trying to do more to constrain, yes, Israel, but principally the prime minister in that war.

27:55David Gura:Look, David, when there's been such terrible loss, such terrible suffering, when so many innocent people, Palestinian men, women, and children lost their lives, you're always going to ask yourself, I always ask myself, could we, should we have done something different? And we had to make judgments in the moment to try to achieve a number of objectives. And in a way, I should really start with where we ended, which is we ended with a ceasefire that we handed off to the Trump administration. We ended with the hostages coming out, prisoners being released from Israeli jails, tens of thousands of trucks going into Gaza.

28:35Antony Blinken:I see that as a mutual achievement between the Biden and the Trump administration.

28:38David Gura:Well, I think it was largely President Biden's, but I'm very thankful for the role that Steve Woodcoff in particular played in supporting that in the moment. And that's what we were able to hand off. And then in that agreement, in the ceasefire agreement, it was for six weeks. And And during those six weeks, the notion was that the parties would negotiate the terms of an enduring ceasefire. That didn't happen. They went back to war. And then finally, President Trump, eight or nine months later, landed the current ceasefire. But do I wish that we could have gotten that sooner with less suffering?

29:12David Gura:Absolutely. But there were a lot of things that were going on that we had to factor in. One was we were trying, obviously, to make sure that October 7th could never happen again. And october 7th was almost written off immediately by much of the world starting practically on october 8th And you had a traumatized israeli society and then now you've had a traumatized palestinian broader society From october 8th on but we wanted to make sure that couldn't happen again We wanted to avert a wider war which would have caused even more death destruction and suffering and probably would have prolonged gaza Even more and so that meant making sure among other things that there was a strong deterrent in place including israel's deterrent to say to would-be uh aggressors who were prepared to jump in pile in because they thought israel was was down if not out hezbollah iran the houthis etc uh don't do it and so we had to preserve israel's deterrent we wanted to get we thought the best way to to end this was through the deal that we ultimately got the ceasefire and hostage deal but part of the problem was, part of the challenge was that Hamas was constantly strong-arming things because of two factors.

30:24David Gura:One, it thought the cavalry was eventually going to come to the rescue, the Iranians, Hezbollah, et cetera. And until it was clear, and that didn't happen until really September of 2024, with the death of Nasrallah, with other leaders who were taken out by the Israelis, with the decimation, if not, well, or diminishment, at least, of Hezbollah itself. That wasn't clear till then. And that notion of the cavalry coming to the rescue was still there. The second thing that was really problematic was that, and we know this from all the information we had, Hamas was looking for any gaps between us and Israel and Israel's other supporters.

31:06David Gura:And as soon as they saw something emerge, they would step back. so in public it was critical that we preserve as much solidarity as possible even as in private we were hammering them every single day on humanitarian assistance for uh palestinian people uh on civilian casualties and of course they were operating in a unique environment where hamas was hiding uh among and below all of the civilian infrastructure and civilians themselves and schools and mosques and hospitals, that doesn't excuse some of the actions that Israel took in trying to get at Hamas, not at Palestinians, but it is necessary to understand that that was part of the environment.

31:49David Gura:I also think at the end of the day, this is just my judgment, and I may be wrong, that this was perceived in Israel among the vast majority of the population, not just Prime Minister Netanyahu, people in his government, but the vast majority of the population, including many who don't like him at all, to be an existential matter. And irrespective of what we did or anyone else did, they were likely to continue with or without us. So for us, it was how do we bring this to an end as quickly and effectively as possible? again, making sure that it's not likely to happen again, averting a wider war, and all the while trying to look out for people who are caught in this horrific crossfire.

32:35Antony Blinken:Is it wrong to look at this as a continuum that Prime Minister Netanyahu is able to prosecute the war in the way in which he wanted? That led him to feel him bold enough to take these strikes in concert with the United States?

32:49David Gura:Certainly, there's a profound connection there, because I think in the past, he has probably been reluctant to go at Iran directly because of the threat of retaliation, a response from Hezbollah. But with Hezbollah vastly diminished, even though they did respond, not in such a significant way. And by the way, something truly remarkable, the prime minister of Lebanon denounced Hezbollah for getting into this and firing it at Israel. That's remarkable. But for sure, I think the Israelis, yes, were in a position where something they hesitated to do in the past, that is direct confrontation with Iran because of the likelihood that others would get in and go with them, that was taken away.

33:30David Gura:And that did open the door to them doing what they've done.

33:36Antony Blinken:More from my interview with former Secretary of State Antony Blinken after the break.

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36:19Antony Blinken:I want to wrap up with where this leaves us, where this leaves the world. And Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada spoke recently, and he said this is just another example of what he's talked about before this rupture in the global order, that that's happened on two counts here. There have been two failures, the first of which was the multilateral institutions that we've relied on, weren't able to constrain Iran effectively. That's one. The second is you have the U.S. and Israel now going it together without the consent of the U.N. or other multilateral institutions. Do you agree with him as he talks about the way that that hegemony, the global order, has changed?

36:51David Gura:Look, we're very much at an inflection point in the global order, in the rules-based order that we spent 80 years building up, and that was premised on one, I think, profound insight, and that was enlightened self-interest, the notion that the success and strength of others would be our own as well. And we were able to build a system that avoided other countries ganging up against us, as is usually the case when one country rises above the others. We had new markets for all the stuff we wanted to sell. We had new partners to deal with different conflicts, different problems. We had new allies to deter aggression, especially with NATO.

37:33David Gura:And now that system is being put in the, for now at least, in the dustbin and being replaced with, there are different versions of this. Some people believe that the president's engaged in going back to a kind of spheres of influence world where the Russians do what they want in their part of the world. The Chinese do what they want, except maybe on the economic issues in their part. And we do what we want to do in our part, particularly in the Western Hemisphere. And then you've got these problematic areas that are dealt with by force. That's a profound thing. And that's what's happening now.

38:05David Gura:But I think at the same time, and this is what's maybe most frustrating of all in the Middle East, is that there's also an extraordinary opportunity. If, very big if, this does produce some kind of real change in Iran, then you have the prospect of a region that heads in a very different direction, that is integrated with its people, it's moving back and forth, its economy is integrated, greater success, greater prosperity for folks. But there remains one catch to that vision besides how Iran resolves, and that's the question of Israelis and Palestinians. The truly big vision right now would be to actually resolve that question, not to try to put it under the rug yet again.

38:57David Gura:The bottom line is this. There are roughly 7 million Jews in Israel. There are about 2 million Arabs, 5 million Palestinians between the West Bank and Gaza. No one is going anywhere, despite the efforts of some on both sides to make that happen. And so tell me how this ends. I don't see how this ends without some kind of genuine political accommodation that realizes the rights of Palestinians. This is the moment for that big vision because that brings with it something incredibly powerful, normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and then potentially other countries will follow suit from Qatar to Indonesia.

39:33And then if the Iranian problem is diminished and Iran really has to face a choice between being a pariah gadfly or mending its ways, I think that's the most likely way we're

39:47David Gura:actually going to see real change. Unfortunately, tragically, given the trauma on all sides after October 7th, on the Israeli side and among Palestinians, it's awfully hard to get there. But that's where you need people of vision to try to move things in that direction. There is actually an opportunity to do that. I worry that that opportunity will not be seized. And we're going to just see a continuation among Israelis and Palestinians. And also, Iran is, again, likely in this moment, if I had to bet, again, we're replacing one Ayatollah for another. And the nature of the regime in this moment doesn't seem likely to change.

40:24David Gura:I hope I'm pleasantly surprised and the Iranians get the leadership that they deserve. But the jury's very much out on that.

40:30Antony Blinken:Something you warned about during your tenure as Secretary of State was the role that China could play in subverting or reinventing the international order. How do you think about that now in this moment?

40:40David Gura:Well, you know, nature pours a vacuum. If we're disengaged, if we're not leading in the effort to shape that order, then China is going to fill the void. The flip side of that coin, David, is we've got to be doing it with allies and partners. We need, in all of these problem areas, to be working in concert. Whether it's dealing with the problems that China poses, we're much stronger when we're allied and partner. When we're dealing with China alone, we're 20 or 25 percent of world GDP. When we're aligned with the Europeans, with Japan, Korea, India, where suddenly 50 or 60%, that's a lot harder, you know, bigger weight that China has to account for.

41:19Antony Blinken:Last question is what this war in Iran means for President Trump's other ambitions, be that Cuba, be that Greenland, continued project in Venezuela. How do you think about what this may or may not lead to?

41:32David Gura:Well, in some ways, Iran's the outlier because these other areas that you just mentioned are all within what would be our so-called sphere of influence. And that's why I said, you know, before the president seems to see the world in terms of these spheres of influence and anything within our sphere, we should in one way or another control. And there's kind of a very 19th century view that actually controlling the territory is the most important, most important thing. Nevermind that there's absolutely no need to do that. I mean, in the case of Greenland, simply asking would have gotten the right answer in terms of putting more military forces there or striking deals on their raw materials.

42:11David Gura:But that world, the spheres of influence world, where the big guys on the block, and it is guys in this view, get to do what they want in their area, that's the way things were for much of the latter part of the 19th century, but it didn't end well. We ultimately end up with World War I. I'm equally concerned, David, with another alliance that's been shattered, and that's an internal alliance. You know, when we started the 20th century, there was not a major pursuit of science in which the United States led the world. By the time we got to the 21st century, there was not a major pursuit in science and technology where the United States did not lead the world.

42:48David Gura:That didn't happen by accident. It happened because we built an alliance between the federal government, universities, research institutions, national labs. the amount of gdp that we dedicated to research and development went from about one and a half percent after world war ii to by the time president biden left office three and a half percent and that produced extraordinary innovation coupled with this welcome mat for the best and brightest from around the world who would do their studies here attracted by being with the best and brightest and an open system then they stayed around and created things that made us a leader in all of these fields, which redounded to our economy and redounded to our national security.

43:30David Gura:As that system is being blown up, I think that may be the biggest threat of all. If we lose that, we lose a lot. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much.

43:40Antony Blinken:Great to be with you.

43:43Antony Blinken:This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gurra. To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg.com, subscribe today at Bloomberg.com slash podcast offer. You can watch this episode on YouTube. If you liked this episode, make sure to follow and review The Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.

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