Does the Iran War Put America First?

15:47Curt Mills:Absolutely. I think foreign policy is complex. I think it needs leadership. I think it would need a president to explain why we are doing this to the American people. But I think the people who lose their minds when the president pursues a new type of foreign policy, whether this be Donald Trump or even Barack Obama, it is a elite driven game. It is a D.C. and New York thing. That is who's actually opposing it most vociferously. It is not protests in the streets to keep our bases in Bacrain. It is not protests in the streets to make sure that we Borat bag Nicolas Maduro. It is a D.C. New York intelligentsia thing fundamentally.

16:28Curt Mills:Okay.

16:29Ross Douthat:Let me make a counter argument and see what you think. If you look at polling on the Iran war so far, and again, we're four or five days in, and obviously it can change dramatically. But right now, initially, overwhelming numbers of Republican voters support the war. It's not popular nationally, but then Donald Trump himself is not popular nationally. But within the Republican coalition, there's plenty of support for the war in polls. Doesn't seem just elite driven. I think if you looked at polls for the Venezuelan operation, you would probably see something similar. And then over time in polling, I think if you do it on the basis of philosophy, right, you find a lot of sort of default hawkishness among Republican, conservative and right wing voters.

17:15Ross Douthat:And there's people who look at the kind of anti-war right or the war skeptical right that you represent, but that's also associated with really prominent figures like Tucker Carlson, who you already mentioned, Steve Bannon, all the way now through figures like Megyn Kelly and others. And people say, well, that's actually the elite driven phenomenon. That's, you know, a group of people who found a way. This is an attention economy to monetize a lot of people who are really intensely focused on foreign policy or, you know, sometimes really hostile to Israel. We'll talk more about Israel in a minute, right?

17:53Ross Douthat:But that ultimately, Bannon, Carlson, others, they speak for a really sort of hyper engaged 10 % of the Republican coalition. But most people are just hawks on the right. And if you say we're going to go to war and kick some ass in the Middle East, yes, if it goes really badly, people will turn against it. But there's there isn't like a philosophical support for restraint. What do you make of that argument?

18:17Curt Mills:Most voters are deferential to their party and their politicians. So, I mean, I just think the counterfactual to your counterfactual needs to be interrogated. What if President Trump had signed an Iran deal? I think overwhelming numbers of Republicans would have supported that. What if President Trump had opened up business dealings with Nicolas Maduro, like he's doing right now with Delce Rodriguez, or trying to? I think that would have been uncontroversial in the population. uh what if president trump had pulled out of ukraine and ukraine hadn't collapsed and there was an enduring deal where an armistice freeze the battle lines i think that would have been very popular on the right as well so you see a level of partisanship in this country that is extreme you see a level of trust on the right and president trump which is notable but i'm not sure entirely unique i think you know the democratic standard bearer biden was a weird president i I think a younger - We can agree on that.

19:12Curt Mills:We stipulated that. I think Barack Obama, if he was president today, would have similar dynamics on the left. And I think that was frustrating for liberals that were -

19:20Ross Douthat:Meaning that the left was notionally anti-war, but when Obama did things, they supported it.

19:25Curt Mills:Obama and Trump have similarities, right? Or the phenomenons have similarities. There was a lot of left-wing intellectual ennui with Obama in the mid-2010s, I'm sure you recall. And it didn't really show up at the polls, okay? Okay, so I think Trump is a big deal. I think whoever leads these parties are big deals. I think presidents are big deals But I don't really see that as evidence as for hawkishness. Actually, I see that as evidence for trusting The president or trusting who leads the party or trusting your party and I will say this I's not a big fan of bush certainly and but also of obama who I think were both failed presidents They both tried to marshal support in fairly traditional ways, which is this is what I believe I'm gonna do this I'm going to spend political capital on it.

20:08Curt Mills:Iraq, Bush did that. Obama did it for mediocre health care reform. Wouldn't you at least agree, though, that there is a strong generational

20:17Ross Douthat:division here where older conservatives and Republicans? Yes. And again, I think you can see this in opinion polls, have a stronger hawkish default. For sure. Going back in part to, you know, some of the veneration of Ronald Reagan you talked about. But again, I think just connected in a kind of profound way to how conservatives, older conservatives, think about their country, right? That, you know, we were the country that won the Cold War. And if you're a patriotic American, you should expect us to be able to do good things abroad. That seems like still a powerful force in public opinion that can't be just reduced to Trump says it, therefore people go along.

20:57Curt Mills:But I think the story ultimately is an elite one, because I'm still going to focus on the counterfactual. Let's say Trump did a deal with Vladimir Putin. Let's say Trump did a deal with the Iranians. He said, I solved Biden's war. I did a better Iran deal than Obama. Yeah, there might have been some people in the country, some right-wing radio shows who are like, you know, the mullahs are still up to stuff. We got to do this or do that. But I don't think there would be revolt from the older clientele of the party if Trump had chosen diplomacy versus Trump is choosing war and there is revolt. Is there revolt?

21:31Curt Mills:I think you're going to see. I think it's going to be pretty bad. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it depends. It stipulates how long this war goes. Trump may still off-ramp. Trump should off-ramp. But I'm arguing succinctly that it actually would have been politically more savvy for him to do the diplomacy. And the only real explanatory variable, in my view, is the elite story. That's who was losing their mind at diplomacy.

21:54Ross Douthat:What about the explanatory variable of non-American actors? Oh, I think there's huge, too.

21:59Curt Mills:I was being maybe diplomatic.

22:00Ross Douthat:Well, but not, so I don't mean our allies. We'll talk about our allies in a moment. I mean our adversaries, right? So when I look at what's happened with Russia and Ukraine, right, it seems to me that the administration made a big diplomatic push. Right. They twisted the Ukrainian government's arm, as you mentioned, when, you know, in the famous Oval Office meeting and elsewhere to get them to be more open to a peace deal. And for various reasons, Vladimir Putin has decided that it's in his interests to let the war go on. And that has left the White House still, you know, they're still negotiating.

22:39Ross Douthat:It's a hawkish summary.

22:40Curt Mills:I mean, I think they could have come to a deal that would have been attractive enough for Putin to not continue the war. But that's life. I mean, like, you have to offer him a deal that makes it more attractive than the status quo.

22:50Ross Douthat:Right. But to take the extreme example, if Trump made a deal with Putin and six weeks later, the Russian army took Kiev and occupied, you know, two thirds of Ukraine, the public would turn against that, don't you think?

23:05Curt Mills:I think the driving force on why they would turn against it would be hysteria driven from the media and by foreign policy elites. So I'll stipulate to that. And look, I don't think it was really an offer, though. I mean, we debated Ukraine all day. But I think let's just narrow the zone of what was actually discussed. Like there wasn't discussion of giving them Kiev. There was discussions of giving them these four oblasts. There was discussions of security. There are discussions of security guarantees. these are the things that are actually being talked about in all these various negotiations if trump did let's say the 28 point plan which critics say is a russian plan from 2025 late 2025 i think if that was initiated i think that the ukrainians and the europeans would complain and liberals in the united states would complain but that ukraine would not collapse that there would be a deal and that that would solve the conflict for the short to medium term okay and And I think the public would not revolt.

24:03Curt Mills:Right. I guess I just. I think the Afghanistan scenario is what you raise, basically, which is if the administration had incompetently allowed Ukraine to collapse a la Afghanistan. Yes, I do think Trump would have been blamed. But I also think the big story there is media and foreign policy elites hammering that issue and making it, you know, everything on the airwaves. I guess that was the story. That was the Fox News story in Afghanistan.

24:28Ross Douthat:I guess this is a point where we somewhat disagree. in the sense that I supported the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I wrote columns in favor of it. I defended Biden at the time against his critics. At the same time, observing the dynamics of that, how it affected perceptions of the Biden presidency, and obviously that reflected the way it was handled as well as the policy itself, it just gave me a sense that there are limits to how anti-imperial and withdrawal-oriented an American president can be because a lot of Americans are just bought in. And sometimes I think for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons too, are a sort of broadly ambitious role in the world.

25:12Ross Douthat:And certainly that things that appear as national humiliations, it doesn't take Fox News whipping them up for that to cut into presidential support. I think the execution would have solved.

25:20Curt Mills:I think if Abbey Gate hadn't happened, I think if the images in the airport had been less chaotic, I think that would have gone a long way.

25:26Ross Douthat:Okay. Well, let's talk about, as you say, let's stipulate that disagreement and talk more about what you see as the other actors shaping U.S. foreign policy. So you argue that restraint-oriented anti-imperial foreign policy could be popular with the right leaders. We've both been writing about these issues for a long time. It has not found the right leaders, even in the form of Donald Trump, a partial Buchananite. so what is the obstacle what is the core obstacle to elites embracing this kind of foreign policy those are kind of different questions yes okay right i mean i mean the fundamental option

26:09Curt Mills:obstacle is a president who believes in it and advances it and goes for it i mean i would say the same thing we went into ancient history uh you know the early 20th century uh world war ii was not popular getting into it before it was. And FDR cleverly marshaled public support and world events to get us into that war. And now that's remembered as this sterling success of American power. But it wasn't popular. It was extremely unpopular actually in the late 30s. And he basically had to pledge to not get us into the war when he ran for reelection in 1940. And so I think that the idea that Americans have extremely strong convictions on any of this stuff is not true.

26:51Curt Mills:But I also think that is an argument against their extremely strong convictions for hawkishness. And you mentioned the Bannon, Carlson, Kelly, right? Whatever you want to call it. And, you know, because I see this line of critique, but I also think it's very notable that the highest information members of the party and the most engaged voters, because I think you picked up on something smart. Carlson I've known a while, and I think he would be doing this regardless bannon pretty much the same but if there wasn't a market for what they were saying they wouldn't be doing this probably you know 10 years ago uh i was always told on like television that foreign policy you know it just didn't it didn't track like we could barely get me on tv could barely get people on tv to talk about it you know even when carlson had me on it was like it was really just kind of almost a favor um that's not the way it is anymore people are getting madder and madder and more engaged on this subject organically

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29:05Ross Douthat:And if you already do, thank you.

29:20Ross Douthat:I would say that the way that they're getting madder and more engaged centers around having one very specific villain, right? Like a primary focus of Carlson especially, but others as well, right is israeli policy israeli influence on on the united states right it's true okay so it's just true it's just true good all right so what tell me about israeli influence on u.s foreign

29:48Curt Mills:policy israel's foundation was always twinned with the united states i mean this this happened in the 1948 election truman tilted the scales and helped you know it helped him win the election in 1948 but fundamentally since the 90s since the assassination of it's akrabin israeli politics has gone in a different direction and it has been highly twinned with particularly center-right intellectuals and elites in the united states with a certain perspective and it is a perspective that says that Israel can only be secure by thrashing everybody in the neighborhood and breaking them into bits until they're weak.

30:32Curt Mills:It is a siege mentality. It is a garrison state. And of course, it is very linked to the U.S., where I believe the numbers are 45 % of Jews live in Israel, 45 % of Jews live in the United States, 10 % live elsewhere. It could be stipulated roughly correct. And, of course, when the other half of the world's Jewish population is here and is a highly emotional issue, there is an attempt to say any criticism of Israel is ipso facto anti-Semitic. I think it is, well, number one, it is the kind of argument that the right is supposed to be against, which is woke political correctness. It's also just fundamentally untrue.

31:16Curt Mills:And I think it's a silly and dulling thought technology.

31:22Ross Douthat:Okay, but five years ago, right, I would say it was fair to say that that kind of critique had a fair amount of purchase in American politics. The critique that says, if you criticize Israel too strongly, you're anti-Semitic. I don't think it has any substantial purchase right now. I think the Democratic political coalition has been fractured repeatedly, right, in the last few years by debates that are profoundly about Israel and Israeli policy. And as we were just saying, some of the most influential voices on the right in terms of sort of interest and engagement are intensely critical of Israel.

32:04Ross Douthat:So it seems to me that like, one, that taboo is gone to a large degree. If it's gone, then let's actually be substantive. What is, it can't just be that Israel is -

32:19Curt Mills:I think you're brushing aside the fear that Israel still engenders, especially among the establishment. And you know this. You know that people feel that their careers will be destroyed if they're at all critical of Israel. And that is still a controlling mechanism. People where? People in media and politics. People in media and politics. People in media and politics and to an extent corporate America.

32:42Ross Douthat:But since we're talking about foreign policy, just focus on foreign policy. Is that then an actual driver of U.S. policy? Sure. For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So you would say that a big reason that a lot of Republican elites take a much more hawkish line in the Middle East, towards Iran especially, than you would favor or than you think most of their voters would favor, is not because they're sincere Iran hawks, but because they're afraid of having their careers destroyed? I think it's a mix.

33:15Curt Mills:I think particularly of older, as we mentioned, this age, the variable is huge. I think older people are more inclined to actually believe it. And then additionally, I think the clear separation between the interests of the United States and Israel wasn't as obvious in generations past. I think there was a view, especially in the Bush administration, that, you know, the world was fukiamist. And so, yes, this was the Israeli position. But if we knock over all these strong Muslim states, Jeffersonian democracy will actually blossom. And like, look, I understand you can say that different elites in the Bush administration fundamentally said this or disagreed on this or, you know, Bolton wanted to go in for this reason it's different than paul wolfowitz right okay fine but fundamentally the the marinade was uh the only acceptable style of government and organization in society is western liberal democracy and other societies that organize themselves in a separate form are fundamentally illegitimate and i think right because because israel stylized itself as a quote Western liberal democracy.

34:28Curt Mills:I'm not sure it's Western liberal or democracy at this point. They are naturally able to latch on to that cast of mind. That cast of mind is discredited among younger people because this is a heavily indebted society and Americans don't believe in the future, broadly speaking, anymore. But for older Americans, it is a more attractive mode of argument.

34:54Ross Douthat:But do you think, see I guess I just don't think that's where the pro-Iran war right is right now I agree that that was a big part of the story of where the right was in the Bush era not not universally but a sense that I'm not so sure we're out of the Bush era to me I look I look at the Trump era and I look at not so much even the people who always supported war with Iran like Lindsey Graham right Right. But people who have sort of oscillated back and forth between being anti-war, pro-war, who are shaped, I think, by loyalty to Trump in the ways you describe. I think for a lot of those people, the story they tell themselves now is we don't have any fond illusions about democracy and the end of history.

35:37Ross Douthat:We think the world is a tough place. We think there's a bunch of powers, Russia, China, Iran, most notably, that are hostile to American interests. We think there's a set of powers in the Middle East that are friendly to American interests, including Israel, also including Saudi Arabia, which has also played a substantial role, I think, in pushing for a more hawkish foreign policy from Trump in a way that gets less attention from Tucker, Bannon, people like that. No one is out there telling a podcast host, you can't criticize Saudi Arabia, right, in the American media. Right. Right. And yet, there's much more criticism of Israel in the American media than Saudi Arabia.

36:19Curt Mills:Yeah, but Israel is much more enmeshed in U.S. society than Saudi Arabia is.

36:23Ross Douthat:But is Israel more enmeshed in the decision-making patterns of U.S. foreign policy than Saudi Arabia over the last 25 to 50 years? I feel like there's a fundamental underestimation of the place of Saudi Arabia from the anti-war right. I think there's a bunch of Americans who support working with Arab states and Israel to fight Iran for what they think of as tough-minded, realist reasons, not just Gaza. Americans or elites? I think Americans who like Trump and currently say they support this war.

36:58Curt Mills:Yeah, he advances. Yeah, he advances that that he has picked a side pretty clearly at this moment.

37:04Ross Douthat:But I think he may flip again. Well, no, no. Well, yeah, no, I want to I want to end by talking about the future.

37:10Curt Mills:But it might be likely. Yeah.

37:11Ross Douthat:But I mean, seriously, I mean, like, I mean, the guy flips constantly. Oh, yeah. No, no. He could he could absolutely flip again. But even in terms of foreign policy elites. When I look around the Republican Party, I just it just seems to me that there's yeah, there's a lot of people who are like Israel's tough. You know, Saudis are allies. We're you know, we're weakening an enemy and strengthening.

37:33Curt Mills:an ally i think this is i think this is a supine uh ideology and i think it is it has gotten the essential incentive structure is this uh you can discard the things that are unpopular so the 2000s oh the naive democracy building right oh you know this is enough on iraq we're not going to do that again right the essential lesson of the iraq wars don't evade iraq right but everything else that has power israeli influence on the united states the large military uh conservative of institutions that are still bought in on this. You keep that and you just cook up something new, slightly different, and sell it as fundamentally a rejection of the 2000s.

38:12Curt Mills:It's not a rejection of the 2000s. This is why the administration is so vulnerable to the criticism that this is so similar to Iraq, because it is so similar to Iraq.

38:21Ross Douthat:I don't think it is a full rejection of the 2000s, but I think the people who are supportive of the war have - Again, people or elites. Including elites. Well, I think it's very different.

38:32Curt Mills:I mean, look, I think George W. Bush, who was a worse president to this point anyways than Donald Trump. He's the worst president by far in American history, in my opinion. He lost two wars and he crashed the economy. And when he left in January of 2009, 22 percent, low 20s of Americans support him. What does that tell you? Half a Republican supported him even as he was leaving the White House. I think that matters. I think that will fundamentally be true no matter what Trump does. But I think it's only so interesting.

39:01Ross Douthat:Right. Now, I'm just trying to get at like, what are the actual conduits of forces that are shaping foreign policy right now? And it just seems like you you're telling a story where Israel in particular exerts this kind of influence over people who don't fully agree with Israeli policy, but are afraid to argue with it. And I want to say it's not the it's not the not the or or are. or in the thrall of like, yeah, early 2000s ideas about the spread of democracy. Let's just just to be very concrete, like how much power do you think Benjamin Netanyahu is exerting over U.S. foreign policy right now?

39:40Curt Mills:A disgusting amount. I mean, I mean, this has been going on for a while. I mean, the Benjamin Netanyahu, when he spoke to Congress under, I believe, Speaker Boehner, he was greeted more warmly by the legislature than the president of the United States was at the time. So the Republicans took over Congress in 2014 and he gave an address and it was like he was the president. I think a lot of Republican congressmen want Netanyahu to be the president, frankly. Like if, like, I mean, it's obvious for everyone to see, but it just is fundamentally a, again, an elite thing. Netanyahu is not that popular in the United States.

40:15Ross Douthat:No, but among Republican voters. Lawmakers and elites, he is. But the lawmakers and elites reflect. Sort of. Yes and no.

40:24Curt Mills:Reflect the broad opinion.

40:27Ross Douthat:I mean, no. Most industrial races are low information. Okay, but you know Republicans. You know American Republicans. And you know that a default support for Israel that is rooted not in fear of political persecution by Zionists, but by some combination of historical affinities, religious affinities, and hostility to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has done a lot of bad things to Americans over the years. Like, that's a real core part of Republican sentiment. It may be ebbing among the younger generation.

40:58Curt Mills:But it is not in a majoritarian perspective in the country. I mean, if that was true, Trump would never have been the Republican nominee. Right.

41:08Ross Douthat:I'm just trying to stay with Israel because it seems so central to the actual inside the right critique. But Trump ran for president as more of a dove than other Republicans. But throughout his first term, he also constantly boasted about being the best friend that Israel has ever had. He was moving the embassy. He was doing all kinds of things.

41:32Curt Mills:He's in bed with them. He accepted large Israel adjacent financing for his campaign. And you mentioned the Gulf before. The family is obviously in business in the Gulf. And the Gulf was far more of a driver of hawkish foreign policy in the first term.

41:49Ross Douthat:I'm trying to understand in certain ways just the future of the right and where right wing foreign policy goes from here. Right. And so it makes a big difference whether we understand Israeli influence on Republican foreign policy as, A, primarily about the opinions of conservative voters who are pro-Israel for a range of reasons, two, the opinions of elites who are pro-Israel for a different set of reasons, some mixture of sincerity and fear, you're arguing, versus three, this narrative where, well, no, it's about Trump's business deals and deal-making in the Middle East, right? Those are three quite different perspectives.

42:32Curt Mills:They can all be true. They can all be part of the story. I don't understand the contradiction.

42:35Ross Douthat:Well, I'm just curious what we think is sort of the defining force here. He can't say no to Israel.

42:43Curt Mills:He's not saying no to Israel. This will not stop unless he says no to Israel. Right.

42:47Ross Douthat:And is he not saying no to Israel because he is fundamentally too agreeable or because he's fundamentally corrupted?

42:55Curt Mills:He's agreeable. He is too close to them politically. And I think, yeah, I think he's somewhat afraid of them. Why is he afraid of them? I think they're an intimidating society. And I think people are afraid of Mossad. I think people are afraid of Israeli influence in foreign policy. They are afraid what it can do to people's careers. I think this taboo, as you mentioned, is breaking, but I think it has a lot of explanatory power. For Trump. Sure. Sure. Yeah.

43:25Ross Douthat:I mean, I think you think Trump are you? You think he's afraid of Israel as a force? I don't could break him that could attack him and call him an anti-Semite or as a force that could like expose dark secrets about him.

43:37Curt Mills:Yeah, I mean, I think the Epstein story is somewhat relevant. I don't know. We don't know because the government's not being transparent. But I think he was in alliance fundamentally from the beginning because of campaign donations and the structure of conservative foreign policy elites with the Israeli hard line. and the Israeli hard line is they don't, yeah, they want regime change. They also want state collapse in Iran. They don't really want Iran to exist anywhere close to its current form.

44:09Ross Douthat:Right. I guess I've just, my sense is just that these things from watching Republican foreign policy in this administration and previously, that these things are overdetermined and that it ends up being easy for the anti-war side to say, well, you know, it's just Israel. And if we fix America's relationship to Israel.

44:32Curt Mills:I think it's a huge deal. I mean, do you think this would be happening without Israel?

44:35Ross Douthat:I don't think it would be happening without Israel in the sense that, like, if an entirely different Middle East existed, the world would be entirely different. But I can certainly tell a very straightforward story where the U.S. relationships to Saudi Arabia, Cold War issues, the Iranian revolution, a lot of different things lead to a longstanding U.S. rivalry with Iran without Israel being part of that story. Yes, I can certainly tell that story. I think that Israel matters profoundly to this, in part for reasons related to what actual Republican voters believe, which is something that I think you think is more malleable.

45:11Curt Mills:I'm not arguing that we're going to be a naturally good relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran. I think we're a long way from that happening. if the Islamic Republic of Iran exists in a year. I think the story, though, is why is this a crisis? Why do we have to do this now? Why do countries have to be evacuated of U.S. citizens? Why does oil prices have to go up potentially$100 a barrel? Why is the administration seemingly more interested in being defiant on this issue than its central issue, immigration? I mean, say what you will, and I don't want to debate Minnesota, But the administration caved on that.

45:50Curt Mills:And they may cave because it's too much on this, but they are really putting their back into this one in a way they didn't do on their central issue.

45:57Ross Douthat:Yes. But part of that is that presidents in second terms can find foreign policy crises easier to sort of feel like they have freedom of movement in. Oh, they do have more. policy, right? And Trump himself is - But he had a lot of freedom of movement on immigration.

46:15Curt Mills:I mean, like, the Congress isn't really stopping him.

46:18Ross Douthat:Congress isn't stopping him, but I think that courts and public opinion are, from his perspective, actually more difficult adversaries than foreign dictators seem to be, especially in the aftermath of Venezuela, which again, to me, has more explanatory power.

46:33Curt Mills:No, no, I think that has a lot of explanatory. I'm not discounting that at I think he has become besotted with these, quote, quick actions. So the assassination of Soleimani, the 12-day war, the abduction of Nicolas Maduro. No, I think that was a huge story and why he thought, okay, there's all this pressure on me. A major part of my coalition is losing its mind about Iran. You know, we got to do everything the Israeli hardline wants, but maybe it won't be so bad, right? And then additionally, there are a number of smart conservatives that are, I think, basically doing the anti-anti what we're putting forward.

47:09Curt Mills:They're not putting forward 2002, 2003 neoconservatism. And I sense it in the tone of your voice a little bit. Maybe my view is overheated. Maybe it's too much. Maybe I drew too many elections from the 2000s. And I don't know. This looks pretty bad.

47:54Ross Douthat:So let's say it's pretty bad just to take your own language. you get state collapse in Iran. We don't make any kind of, you know, Venezuelan style deal. I don't think the U.S. stays at war with Iran for six months or puts 50 ,000 troops in.

48:11Curt Mills:I don't know. The government has very tellingly moved the Overton window on that immediately. Now troops are possible.

48:19Ross Douthat:Now forever wars are sneer quoted. I'll just give you a scenario where we don't do that, but it is perceived in six months that this was a failure and Iran is a kind of festering landscape, right? There's some kind of civil war inside Iran. Maybe we are backing Kurdish militias. We've stopped bombing. There is a more hardline government in power in Tehran that can't control its provinces, let's say, just as a scenario that is not maybe the worst case, but it's quite bad and people agree this policy has gone badly. What does that do to Republican politics and conservative politics in in going going into 2027 2028

49:01Curt Mills:and successors to Donald Trump yeah I think there are probably two main views on where the party and where the movement can go and I think this has been true throughout the Trump era there is view number one and it is that it is a cult and it is just trump as a celebrity and once you get rid of trump once he's off the scene then it can go back to business as usual a la 2013 2014 2015 status quo ante the other view and these are obviously extremes and so i think there's there's truth in both perspectives the other view is that the ideology really does matter and additionally the fact that the reigning ideology keeps failing will create a more and more radicalized polity that is actually going to that trump will look in some ways on like a moderate right and like we've we've kind of like talked about it before it's like this this is the sort of idea of like i would say president tucker carlson something like that right like this is the real thing this time that trump will be remembered as this like you know wobbly you know you know interregnum before you know we get real right-wing policy or something like that i think obviously both of these things are kind of extremes as you just said but i am far more towards that yeah and i think uh because why don't i support the iran war because it doesn't work and i think when it doesn't work it is actually going to be accelerationist do you think republicans

50:37Ross Douthat:conservatives turn on Trump explicitly in that scenario, the way to some degree they turned on Bush. I was just looking at Tucker's, you know, his post-Iran episode, right? And it had a title like Israel's war on Iran. He didn't call it Trump's war on Iran, right? Is there a day, like, and you see a lot of that. Is there a dam that breaks?

51:00Curt Mills:For the record, I think they're equally culpable. I just want to be absolutely clear. I think Israel and that dynamic set the table but i think president trump is responsible president trump is okay so 50 blame so trump

51:13Ross Douthat:do we get to a point where conservatives and republicans agree with that where anyone from tucker to megan kelly to bannon and beyond is saying not not you know the neocons have failed

51:26Curt Mills:but trump has failed the economy sets the tone so it all depends what the economy looks like But let's say we keep the - Same economy roughly. Yeah, we're keeping the money machine going on. We're going into debt. We've basically been doing the same thing more or less since 2009. I think you will see the administration, if this war goes on for a while, or if we go into something that's, Iran looks like a disaster, like what you described, say in the autumn, I think you will see an administration that will be in the low 30s, maybe even the high 20s of approval rating. So today, I think Trump is in the high 30s.

52:04Curt Mills:So I'm postulating a five to seven point knock on his approval rating. I think you will see them. This is just projection. I think you will see them in this scenario. If Trump hasn't cut bait, which I think he still very well might.

52:19Ross Douthat:But just to pause, even if he cuts bait, if Iran is a disaster area, the policy is still a source of ongoing unpopularity.

52:29Curt Mills:I mean, is the IRGC government lobbing missiles and shot-hack drones at the Gulf still? I mean, to an extent, it would imply that we can't get out at that point, right? And we have to get back in to defend our assets and defend commerce and air traffic, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't I think this projection is hard to do. But I think what you're asking is, like, what does it look like if this actually takes a chunk out of his approval rating? And how does the infrared dynamics go from there? I think you will see an administration that you're already seeing elements of this leaning, you know, Vance and Rubio get all the attention.

53:00Curt Mills:but like aesthetically and spiritually this is very hexathian right which is just like it's screaming at the media it's uh absolute fetishization of combat and the troops it's leaning into the most uh loyal republicans which are often religious republicans i mean some of the reporting and the language out of the pentagon on why we're doing this is pretty astonishing i think you will see the white house do that uh i think you will not see them denounce trump outside critics you mean right on the right yeah i don't i mean like look they didn't the democrats never denounced biden until they cooed him right so like i think this is the equal and opposite on on the republican side um but i think you will see and this will be criticized you will see uh would-be successors and you will see the right-wing dialogue uh be all but explicitly condemnatory of trump not him and you know there's there is the perspective that like this is uh cowardice, right?

53:57Curt Mills:Like, you know, Tucker's attacked, just announced Trump, et cetera, et cetera. Why won't you? Because I think it's not actually the zone of argument that will make the most impact. And so I think you will see the primary debate be pretty vicious and openly condemnatory of the policy, maybe not the person.

54:15Ross Douthat:And so what happens to the vice president, J.D. Vance, in that scenario? Vance is someone who is very explicitly, as we've said earlier in this conversation associated with some kind of politics of restraint. He is someone who is friends with Tucker Carlson, is sort of broadly associated with anti-interventionist populism. You're telling a story where there's a big breakdown, an attack on the administration from the anti-war right. What happens to Vance?

54:43Curt Mills:Well, I think, number one, that the biggest macro question is whether or not Rubio is going to run against Vance would be my number one. And I think I think it's a weird zone where Rubio actually profits politically from the administration failing. So I think if the 2028 primary race is not attractive, he'll just pass. And in 2032, he'll be remembered as this grand man of state representing a Republican super state Latino. You know, yeah, he was for the Iran stuff, but it wasn't his thing. Venezuela and Latin America is his thing. You could see him, you know, like people thought Condi Rice could run, right?

55:24Curt Mills:Like it's just, you know, she had more going on than just that. It wasn't Dick Cheney running. And I think that could be very attractive to Rubio because the reality is, is Rubio being VP with Vance all that attractive, right? I mean, if they win, he has to wait eight more years to run in 2036. If they lose, I mean, not since FDR has a losing vice president on the ticket, become the president. So it's not great. So I think that's the first open question. Because you can imagine a Vance-Rubio duel, right? And then I think this stuff actually becomes extremely salient because Vance's clear allies are the interventionists.

56:04Ross Douthat:Rubio's clearly the establishment. But Vance can't make an argument that his own administration's policies have failed. I think he might have to.

56:11Curt Mills:I want to be clear. So what was the what was the central mistake that Kamala Harris made among many? But the central one was, I think, the no daylight policy with Biden. I think Vance is going to have to innovate beyond that if he wants to be the president.

56:26Ross Douthat:And is there anyone besides Tucker who you imagine as a standard bearer for a right wing insurgent campaign?

56:33Curt Mills:Yeah, is there going to be a right-wing insurgent campaign challenge to Vance? So Vance is, we're talking about flanks basically here, right? So there's the establishment flank because you got DeSantis, Haley, Cruz. Those people are all going to try to flank Vance from like, you know, it's just a cult. We can go back.

56:49Ross Douthat:But if the Iraq war, sorry, Freudian slip right there. It's happening. Everyone who's kind of for the war is doing it. This is where we end with the Freudian slip. If the Iran war is seen as a failure, it seems to me that the action in the party is not Ron DeSantis running against. Tell that to Ron DeSantis. I'm not saying what the party elites think. I'm just saying the action is who becomes the voice of, you know, a kind of this failed narrative. You're saying, one, it could be Vance himself. It's the Sanders lane, right?

57:26Curt Mills:That's what Sanders did in 2016. He was implicitly critical of the incumbent Democratic president. Right.

57:31Ross Douthat:But it seems to me incredibly difficult for Vance to do it. Yeah, I agree. So then it's Tucker. Is there anyone else?

57:39Curt Mills:Well, yes. I think it depends how many of them run. But I think there's clearly four potential anti-interventionist critics of Vance who could run. It is Carlson. It is Bannon. It is Marjorie Taylor Greene. It is Thomas Massey. those were the four i would i would i flag i struggled to imagine any of those four

58:02Ross Douthat:winning a one-on-one race but i but it may be against vance against vance my imagination

58:08Curt Mills:it's not going to be a one-on-one race i mean i i think i think it's very clear that vance will probably have at least one competitor within his own administration so if it's not rubio hegseth christy noem i think i've been talked about sorry i'm sorry you're not taking seriously no well let's cory lewandowski's managed one successful last then last last question is this

58:31Ross Douthat:though if the war goes if the war goes badly does any of this conversation matter or is it just a poison chalice and no one should want to be the republican nominee that's why rubio's incentives

58:41Curt Mills:are so perverse i think he is the most untrustworthy politically in the administration

58:46Ross Douthat:because you think he benefits from an Iran failure. I think he benefits from an Iran failure. Okay. I'm skeptical that he thinks that way, but I think we've argued enough. Kurt Mills, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you.

59:21Ross Douthat:Interesting Times is produced by Sophia Alvarez-Boyd, Victoria Chamberlain, and Emily Holsneck. Jordana Hochman is our executive producer and editor. Original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Amin Sahota, and Pat McCusker. Mixing by Sophia Landman and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy and operations by Shannon Busta, Christina Samulewski, Andrea Batanzos, and Emma Kelbeck. Special thanks to Jonah Kessel, Alison Brusik, Marina King, Jan Kobel, and Mike Puretz. And our director of Opinion Shows is Annie Rose Strasser.

1:00:18CHARLES