Trump Preps For War With Iran While Seeking Peace in Gaza

0:00War and peace in the Middle East. Could Donald Trump succeed where so many others have failed? This country was stone cold dead. Hello, hello, everybody. Carlo here. Reporting today from Newsweek's Brooklyn Bureau, where I'm still digging out from the latest winter storm. We're supposed to have a guest for today's show, but they just canceled. So you're stuck with just me. And I wanted to talk a little bit today about the Middle East, what's going on there, where we are both simultaneously preparing for war in Iran while also looking for a durable peace, at least as it pertains to Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

0:36So let's talk about Iran a little bit first. And we're recording this on the eve of the State of the Union, where Marco Rubio is currently in Congress briefing members of the Senate on our plans to perhaps launch an attack against the Iranians at any moment. So President Trump continuing to mull his options over what to do with Iran. We have a massive amount of firepower that is either in or headed to the Gulf. There's already the most air power in the Gulf region since U.S. air power, at least, since the Iraq war in 2003, which tells you the scale of a potential attack that could come. Now, this is, of course, part of Trump's play, right?

1:14He wants to pressure the Iranians into negotiating over their nuclear program, which we are currently doing with talks in Geneva, though those talks have not, by any account, led to any sort of breakthrough. There are a lot of experts who are saying in the media that the Ayatollah and the regime in Iran, they believe that they actually might be better off surviving an attack from the Americans than actually demonstrating themselves further with a deal, by making a deal with Trump. So that adds a little bit of concern to this also. It's basically a big game of chicken, and it's unclear that the Iranians are about to fold anytime soon.

1:49The New York Times just this week reporting that unlike the successful operation in Venezuela to oust Nicolas Maduro last month, there are members of this administration that are not fully on board with going to war or really any sort of strike in Iran. And that includes, at least according to reporting in the New York Times and elsewhere, General Dan Raisin Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who, according to Axios, is a, quote, reluctant warrior when it comes to the Iranian operation. And he is advising the White House that this could turn into a prolonged conflict, which is not something I think anybody in America really has the stomach for at the moment.

2:27So President Trump actually took to Truth Social this week to refute that story, particularly about General Cain, which, of course, suggests that it is true, or at least there is some truth to it. Now, the question of whether a military intervention in Iran could turn into a prolonged conflict versus one of these quick and dirty in-and-out missions that Trump seems to favor is a real question, right? There is a lot of concern within the military apparatus that, frankly, we don't have enough bombs to do a big war in the Middle East right now. There's concerns that a significant operation in Iran would turn our assets in the region and our various military bases and our allies into sitting ducks for a potential Iranian counterstrike.

3:07And then also there's the question of whether it would weaken our ability to respond to another conflict should one develop, something like perhaps Taiwan. To that end, The Wall Street Journal reporting this week that Pentagon officials are sounding the alarm about U.S. preparedness, Quote, advising that war plans being considered carry risks, including U.S. and allied casualties, depleted air defenses, and an overtaxed force. End quote. This comes on the heels of another journal story about the morale aboard the Gerald Ford, which is our biggest, baddest aircraft carrier that's currently steaming towards the Gulf, being redirected from where it was in Venezuela to assist with the Maduro operation.

3:43So the Ford has now been deployed in active theater since June. That's much longer than these deployments typically last. It's now been extended twice, and there is reporting in the journal this week that the morale aboard that carrier is not good. The sailors are wondering what they're still doing out in the open seas. They are missing birthdays, deaths, other family events, and also, notably, that a lot of the toilets on that ship aren't working. So that's just one of the many elements to keep in mind as we apparently steam closer to a conflict with Iran that would almost certainly involve those sailors aboard the Ford.

4:23Now, the fact that you're getting all of this leakage from the Department of Defense, from the Pentagon in the form of these stories leaked to Axios and the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, that's important because that suggests that there are people on the inside of this administration who believe that we could be walking into a disaster of our own making. We didn't see these kind of leaks ahead of the Maduro operation. That's notable as well as ahead of the 12-day war that we assisted the Israelis in last year. So that tells you something right there. So that is the state of play with Iran.

4:54So we talked about war. Now let's talk a little bit about peace. As this situation with the Iranians continues to unfold, President Trump is making a legitimate, I would argue, effort at peace as it pertains to the Israelis and Palestinians. So he's doing this by something that he has called the Board of Peace, which he, of course, is the lifetime chairman of. And I understand a lot of people have said, look, this just screams, you know, a Trumpian sort of scam that, you know, he's self-dealing here. And perhaps that's all true. You know, we don't really know yet. And I admit that my first reaction was to assume that this was indeed a scam or at least scammy because it's got a lot of that, a lot of those elements.

5:38Any organization, first of all, that calls itself a Board of Peace and has countries like Pakistan and the Saudis as founding members, should probably be taken with a grain of salt. That said, I think let's try and unpack this and let's look at the other side of the argument, if only for argument's sake here. So the first thing I think to keep in mind with the Board of Peace, remember every single attempt to solve the Palestinian and Israeli peace problem, the conflict in that area, in that region. has failed for years, for decades, right? The closest we got is Bill Clinton attempting to get a Palestinian state at the end of his presidency, came very close, but Yasser Arafat, who was then the head of the PLO, didn't allow it to happen.

6:22That was the closest thing we've got. So again, we are in a place where essentially, at least as far as I'm concerned, any progress is good progress. So with that in mind, look, is it possible that President Trump will fail here? Yes, of course it's possible. It's probably even likely. But we should also note that he has been more successful than any of his predecessors, arguably at least since Clinton, in at least getting some version of peace done in this region, right? He did get the ceasefire between Hamas and the Israelis done. He got the Israeli hostages home. Now that ceasefire is pretty tenuous.

6:57Palestinians have still been dying in Gaza. Israel has still been making strikes. But the war itself is in a state of pause at the very least, if not outright, you know, having ended by now. So all of that said, there are some, at least some reasons for optimism, I think, with the Board of Peace. For one, Trump has shown that he does really actually care about this issue. He has been deeply involved since day one of his presidency on this. Some would argue to the, you know, detriment of other domestic pressing issues that are more important to voters. But this is something that he cares about.

7:30He, I think, probably sees it as legacy-defined. We know that he has coveted a Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe that's all it's about. But suffice to say, this is a priority for the president. it. Second, you know, you can make fun of the signatories all you want, as I just did, right? I mean, there's countries, let's actually look at the countries that are on the board of peace, so you've got the Saudis, as I said, you've got Qatar, Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain, Belarus, Turkey, Indonesia, that's just some of them. So look, that's not exactly a murderer's row of democratically enlightened countries, that's obviously true, but I think that's also the point that a lot of people are missing, right?

8:12These are countries that they may not be paragons of sort of Western values and idealism, but they do have one of three things, money, a desire for more geopolitical influence, or at the very least, a vested interest in regional stability, right? It matters to these countries that Gaza specifically is in a state of at least stasis rather than all-out war and humanitarian catastrophe. These countries are sending money. They've at least promised to send billions of dollars towards the Gaza rebuilding effort. Some of them are even sending troops who will act as peacekeepers in Gaza. That's important.

8:51Now look, is it better for those troops to be Pakistani or at least Muslim or Arab than Western or US or European? I think probably it is for a number of reasons. So that's an important thing to keep in mind. It's also going to at least help, or at least hopefully help, turn the screws on Hamas to disarm. They don't listen to us. They don't listen to the Israelis. Perhaps they will listen to this broader peacekeeping force. Again, will it work? Who knows? Probably not, but at least it's something. And if anyone can get the Hamas fighters to put down their guns long enough for a real reconstruction effort in Gaza, it'll probably at least be their neighbors.

9:30It won't be us, and it won't be the Europeans. Now, here's the most important thing, and this keeps getting dismissed in the media. The way that the Board of Peace is set up, at least right now, based on its founding charter, it makes it so the Israelis do not get an automatic pocket veto over what happens in Gaza. I'm going to say that again. The way that the Board of Peace is structured, the Israelis cannot unilaterally decide that, you know, something that somebody proposes or some idea that somebody has won't happen, right? They don't have ipso facto control over the future of Gaza under this agreement, under this organization.

10:05Now, Barack Ravid at Axios has made this point several times, but it has gone undercover, I think, in the rest of the media. And I think it's very important. It's the most important of this whole thing. And it alone is the reason why I'm at least somewhat cautiously hopeful or optimistic that we could get some real progress here. So another question a lot of people have asked me. President Trump has said that he will promise$10 billion. He's pledged$10 billion from the U.S. Treasury to help cede the Board of Peace. So a lot of people's reaction to this immediately was, okay, this is a way for Trump to take money from the Treasury, siphon it into some sort of slush fund that will benefit, you know, he or his family.

10:45And again, there's a reason I understand why people think that, but keep this in mind. First of all, that money has to be authorized by Congress. Trump can't just take it from the Treasury and put it into some slush fund that he calls a Board of Peace, right? Congress is going to have to vote on and authorize that money. And also, if that money actually does get authorized, the World Bank is on record as saying that they will oversee how it is dispersed, how it is used. The head of the World Bank was at the inaugural Board of Peace meeting a few days ago, so they are on board with this. Now, you could say, who cares about the World Bank?

11:15Trump will just walk all over them. But they are a real sort of international, multinational, supranational organization that understands how to take in and disperse funds for humanitarian issues and other reasons. So the fact that the World Bank is on board, again, that's another good sign. And look, the Board of Peace, there already are signs of momentum, which again, have not been vastly covered in the media. 2 ,000 Palestinians have already applied to be part of a new U.S.-backed transitional police force that would patrol Gaza. That's a big deal. And that's coming from the chair of the Board of Peace himself, who said that there's many more where that came from.

11:54This is just the beginning. And again, these are Palestinians who would be patrolling the streets of Gaza. They would not be Americans. They would not be Europeans. They wouldn't even be, you know, from other Arab or Muslim countries. They would be Palestinians. They would have a vested interest in policing that territory. So all of this taken together creates some building blocks for eventual Palestinian statehood, or at least it could, right? Again, will it work? We don't know. Nobody has any idea. But this is a real effort meant to establish security control in Gaza, which is the precursor for anything to happen, right?

12:26You've got to get the situation on the ground under control first. Then you can talk about development, talk about bringing people back in. That's the first thing. And the thing even before that is you need Hamas to put down their weapons. Of course, will Hamas play ball? Who knows? Will Trump's friends and family stand to benefit in any sort of longer term Gaza rebuilding effort? Probably they will, right? That's kind of how he operates. But frankly, I would take it. I would gladly let Jared Kushner become even wealthier in the form of developing real estate in Gaza, if it meant that the situation on the ground was in a state of at least somewhat peace, right?

13:06So you got to take the good with the bad when it comes to Trump and these issues. When it comes to the Middle East, you can never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And again, this is by no means perfect. I'll say it again. The structure alone, the way this is structured, it screams corruption, right? For one, Donald Trump is named as the Board of Peace's lifetime chairman who can control all of the funds and name his successor. So that alone is a little bit sketchy, even though the World Bank says that it will be the final arbiter of those funds, especially given just all the other self-enriching and self-dealing that he does.

13:39There's plenty of reasons to believe that This is corrupt ipso facto in and of itself. So it's okay to be skeptical about this. But all I'm saying is give yourself a little bit of room to be slightly just a hint of cautious optimism as well. Because when it comes down to it, President Trump has a sort of particular brand of self-dealing that can veer into scheming and even corruption. that's, again, kind of a feature rather than a bug of how he operates in the Middle East, right? His zero-sum worldview actually kind of works there, whereas it doesn't work in other places. It doesn't work when we're, you know, dealing with Greenland or the Europeans or Canada or Mexico.

14:22It does, for whatever reason, work in the Middle East, or at least it has shown that it can work. He has this ability to sort of, you know, build individual relationships, even with unsavory characters that other presidents in the past wouldn't have done. And again, I think that that ends up getting him closer to being able to make a deal as he's shown he's been able to with the Middle East. And again, all of this has been bad in many arenas, but it happens to be well-suited for dealing with the autocrats and other various ne 'er-to-wells in this region. And Trump has successes here, right? He did get the Abraham Accords done in the first term.

14:58He got the ceasefire and the hostages back in the second term, maybe, just maybe, he's got one more success in him when it comes to the Middle East. So that's my reported monologue on issues of war and peace as they stand in the Middle East. Tell me what you think. You can email me. You can chat with me on subtext. All of that information is in the newsletter every day. Please tell me why you think I'm wrong. Everybody else does. And thank you. We'll be back here, hopefully, with a new guest in the next couple of days.

15:28Thank you.