Poised and confused: the will-he-won’t-he of Iran strikes

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1:06Gregg Carlstrom:The Economist

1:13Gregg Carlstrom:Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

1:27Gregg Carlstrom:Here's what I would call a 50-cent word, semi-quincentennial. It means 250th anniversary, and the American experiment is about to have one. Today, our second chapter of a deep dive into the economist's archive on the country. And my goodness, there is an insurmountable pile of entertainment out there vying for your free time. However to choose, we are here to help. Today, we've got a recommendation on one thing to watch and one thing not to bother with.

2:04Gregg Carlstrom:First up, though.

2:15Gregg Carlstrom:For weeks, America has been moving military hardware into the Middle East. By now, it's the biggest buildup in more than 20 years. Donald Trump campaigned on a promise not to get entangled in foreign conflicts. But with one country in particular, he's got history. For decades, it had been the policy of the United States never to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. Many decades. Since they seized control of that proud nation 47 years ago, the regime and its murderous proxies have spread nothing but terrorism and death and hate. In his State of the Union address this week, Mr. Trump claimed he preferred diplomacy when dealing with Iran.

2:58Gregg Carlstrom:But in what might just be tactical ambiguity, he didn't rule out an attack. We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words. We will never have a nuclear weapon. Actually, Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, has said those words many times before. They were in the preamble to the nuclear deal signed in 2015, the one Mr. Trump tore up three years later. Maybe he just wants to hear them again? Actually, it's not clear what would satisfy him at this point. Perhaps not even to him.

3:36Jason Palmer:Donald Trump has essentially backed himself into a corner here. Greg Karlstrom is our Middle East correspondent. He finds himself in a situation where either he has to go ahead with a strike that he doesn't seem particularly keen on doing, or he has to find a way to beat a retreat, to back down from months in which he's promised to take action against Iran.

4:02Gregg Carlstrom:And quick recap on how we got here from the idle threats of the past.

4:08Jason Palmer:If you cast your mind back to December, which feels like years ago at this point, we had demonstrations led by shopkeepers in Tehran that quickly turned into a nationwide protest movement. And Trump began posting warnings on social media aimed at the Iranian regime, telling it, do not kill peaceful protesters. If you do that, the United States is ready to come to their rescue. Iran, unsurprisingly, ignored those warnings. It went on to kill at least 7 ,000 protesters that we know of. The real death toll may be much higher. And so Trump found himself under pressure to make good on those threats.

4:48Jason Palmer:Now, initially, America wasn't in a position really to take action. It didn't have aircraft carriers in the Middle East. It didn't have a sizable military presence in the region. So Trump began to order this buildup. The first aircraft carrier arrived in late January. A second one just reached the region in the past few days. And so now, after weeks of preparation, America is in a position where if Trump wants to follow through on his warnings to the regime, the Pentagon is able to do so.

5:18Gregg Carlstrom:But in Mr. Trump's State of the Union address, he sort of glossed the topic. But the one thing he mentioned was, again, the nuclear question. How did things turn to that and away from the protests?

5:29Jason Palmer:I think what's become clear over the past two months is that Trump would rather not strike Iran. He would rather use the threat of military force to make some sort of a deal with the Iranians, something that he could sell as a win and then use as an off-ramp from this saber rattling. The problem is if you want to make the sort of comprehensive deal that the Israelis want, that some of Trump's Republican allies want, a deal that would restrain Iran's ballistic missile arsenal, that would end its support for regional proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza, that's simply not possible.

6:03Jason Palmer:The Iranians are not willing to discuss those issues. They've flat out refused to negotiate there. And so that leaves the easiest path to a deal as a nuclear-only agreement. And a nuclear deal, of course, has been a focus of American diplomacy for two decades, going back all the way to the George W. Bush administration. And so Trump has had two rounds already of talks with Iran's foreign minister. A third meeting is scheduled in Geneva today. But it still seems unlikely that they're going to find a way to a nuclear agreement, I think for two reasons. One is the difference in what the two sides want.

6:42Jason Palmer:The Trump administration, at least in the past, has demanded that Iran give up on uranium enrichment entirely. Iran is not willing to do that. And then I think the other issue is a nuclear deal just doesn't feel as urgent as it did in years past because the airstrikes that Donald Trump ordered last summer on Iran's nuclear facilities did real damage to those facilities. And so where a year ago, it seemed as if Iran was really close to the threshold of being able to build a nuclear bomb or at least accumulate a bomb's worth of enriched uranium, they are very far from that point now.

7:17Gregg Carlstrom:But the messaging around that from the administration within the administration has been really murky on exactly that point.

7:23Jason Palmer:It has on exactly what does Donald Trump want out of this deal and then is that deal urgent? I mean, we heard a few days ago from Steve Whitcoff, his diplomatic envoy who told Fox News that he thought the Iranians were just a week away, one week away from being able to accumulate a bombs worth of enriched uranium. There's simply no evidence that's true. And in fact, he was contradicted a few days later by Trump himself, who posted on social media that Iran's nuclear program had been blown to smithereens, he said. Now, both of those things can't be true. But I think on the nuclear question, it's important to stress it's not just the assessment of various people in this administration who don't always play straight with the facts.

8:06Jason Palmer:You listen to Rafael Grossi, for example, the head of the UN's nuclear agency. He has not been able to, his agency has not been able to physically visit the sites that were last summer. And so this isn't a perfect assessment. But his view is that Iran is not currently enriching uranium and that most of the highly enriched uranium that it had before the war last summer is currently entombed underground at these sites that were bombed.

8:32Gregg Carlstrom:For the sake of argument, let's game this out. If an American strike or strikes come, what do you think that might look like?

8:38Jason Palmer:The American military buildup in the region is the biggest air and naval buildup in the Middle East since 2003, since before the invasion of Iraq. It's not just these two aircraft carriers, it's dozens of fighter jets and bombers that have been deployed to bases around the region. So it has the capabilities in place to carry out a sustained days or perhaps even weeks long aerial campaign against Iran. And it also has air defenses in place in Gulf states and Jordan and elsewhere to protect against possible Iranian retaliation. So we're looking at something bigger than what happened last summer, these one and done strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.

9:22Jason Palmer:But what America plans to strike and what it wants to achieve with those strikes, we just don't know at this point. Is it planning to bomb what remains of Iran's nuclear facilities? Is it planning to target Iran's ballistic missile capabilities, which it's used to target Israel numerous times in the past? Or will this be something even bigger? Will this be an effort to decapitate the regime, to assassinate key leaders, perhaps even Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader? We just don't know how ambitious the administration's plan is going to be. And that makes it very hard to assess how successful it might be and what the consequences might be.

10:00Gregg Carlstrom:And in the gaming it out, what are Iran's options? What do you think the regime may be thinking?

10:07Jason Palmer:In years past, Iran's options would have begun with its allied militias across the region, with groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. Obviously, they have been badly weakened by years of war against Israel. So Iran is going to have to, by and large, retaliate by itself. It can certainly strike at U.S. bases in Gulf countries. It did that in a symbolic way last summer in the aftermath of America's strikes on Iran. It carried out a missile attack on the U.S. air base in Qatar. It will probably do that again if there is a conflict. And it's also threatened to widen its targets in the Gulf. So not just attacking Qatar, but perhaps the U.S.

10:47Jason Palmer:naval base in Bahrain or other U.S. military facilities in neighboring countries, which is a source of a lot of concern for leaders in the Gulf. Iran could also target Israel. I think whether or not it does that will depend on whether Israel is involved in this war. But again, they certainly have capabilities. They have cruise missiles. They have drones. They have a large arsenal, and it certainly will plan to use them.

11:10Gregg Carlstrom:Now, along the way there, you've used the phrase saber rattling, and America, Mr. Trump, has assembled quite a lot of sabers. Is there a sense that with that much of a buildup that something must happen, he must do something?

11:23Jason Palmer:For a normal American president, that's probably the case. you could not deploy this many troops to the region and not use them without really risking your credibility. And I think Trump on some level is probably keen to avoid repeating the mistakes of Barack Obama, who threatened to attack Syria if it used chemical weapons back in 2013 and then ignored his own red line when the Assad regime went ahead and did that. But I think it's Trump and anything is possible. I mean, he could decide to make a deal even if it's not a very good deal right now and then turn around and sell that to at least the 35 % of the American public that still supports him.

12:01Jason Palmer:So I think he has an opportunity here to do an about face. And if he does that, I don't think most Americans are going to be bothered by it. Polls over the past few days suggest first that majorities of Americans are either opposed to attacking Iran or just not sure about what the US should do. And they're bewildered about why Trump is doing what he's doing. There There was a CBS News poll recently that found almost three in four Americans think Trump hasn't explained his Iran policy. They don't understand his Iran policy. He didn't really offer any clarity during his State of the Union address.

12:36Jason Palmer:And so even as America seems to be on the brink of this imminent conflict with Iran, I would say the vast majority of the American public doesn't know why, isn't pushing for it and probably wouldn't mind if Trump found some sort of diplomatic off-ramp here to prevent the conflict.

12:54Gregg Carlstrom:Greg, thanks as ever very much for your time.

12:56Jason Palmer:Thank you, Jason. Thank you.

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13:43Gregg Carlstrom:We optimize hydration, movement, supplements, and sleep, but most people completely ignore the air they're breathing. And when your air is off, your body feels it first. The Blue Signature Air Purifiers by Blue Air quietly remove airborne pollutants, odors, smoke, and allergens, supporting deeper sleep, better recovery, and clearer focus. It's the most customizable air purifier you can get, with exclusive accessories designed to fit your space and your style. Visit blueair.com and use code SIGNATURE30 to elevate your wellness routine.

14:24Gregg Carlstrom:America is turning 250 this year, and at least until recently, she was looking just great for her age. The Economist is charting the big moments in the country's history, taking extracts from our own archive to tell the story of the American experiment. We started last month with the birth of American liberalism, the legacy left by the founding fathers, and the greatest stain left by that origin story, slavery. Today we'll look at how that led to a reckoning and a civil war.

15:06Alexandra Suich Bass:In the 1830s, President Andrew Jackson fought against entrenched elites.

15:15Alexandra Suich Bass:and made some small progress towards helping the United States live up to one of its founding principles. All men are created equal. He was the self-styled champion of the common man, and he made some changes that helped poor white men. But he also doubled down on the subjugation of other groups. 60 ,000 Native Americans were banished from their ancestral lands by Jackson's Indian Removal Act. And thousands died as they were forced to march west. Black people and women also saw little improvement.

16:00Alexandra Suich Bass:In the late 1840s, the U.S. acquired new land after winning the Mexican-American War. This transformed the question of slavery from a regional dispute to a national crisis. Should slavery be allowed in the new territory too? The Economist at the time wrote,

16:21Gregg Carlstrom:What a slur it is upon this self-styled model republic for its most eminent citizens to be contending as to whether slavery shall be extended or not, when other civilized nations are abolishing it unequivocally and promptly.

16:36Alexandra Suich Bass:But America's rulers did not agree. In 1857, Dred Scott, an enslaved Black man, sued to obtain his freedom after the death of his owner. The Supreme Court ruled that Black people, whether free or slave, were not and could not be American citizens, and that in fact they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect. The court also ruled that Congress had no right to ban slavery in the territories because slaves were property and the property rights of slave owners could not be infringed upon. It remains the worst ruling in the history of the court. Some weeks after the ruling, the economist wrote,

17:23Gregg Carlstrom:This verdict is one of the most serious occurrences of the last 20 years and is likely to entail consequences that will shake the Union to its center.