‘We Are Going to Deeply Regret This War’

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0:31This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.

0:48Robert Siegel:Hi, I'm Robert Siegel in conversation about politics with two very insightful political writers. Joining me at the New York Times Washington Bureau are political writer and author E.J. Dionne. Great to be with you. And joining us today is Mona Charon, policy editor at The Bulwark and host of The Mona Charon Show. Thanks so much. Thanks for joining us. We're recording this on Wednesday, so it's possible that some of our discussion may be overtaken by events. But I think that our focus today will likely be unrevised very much for the near future. We're focusing on relations under stress, under stress from the war in Iran.

1:29Robert Siegel:Quite apart from what this war has done to Iran, it has also wrought changes in U.S. relations abroad and even changes with our politics, too. To start, how do you think Trump is doing in handling this war, E.J.?

1:46E.J. Dionne Jr.:I think we are going to deeply regret this war precisely because of how he handled it. I mean, I think the idea wasn't good in the first place, but he made it so much worse. This war will raise questions about our lack of staying power in the world. He goes back and forth to the point where even the Iranians sound like political commentators when they say, oh, he's saying this stuff about negotiations because he's worried about the markets and oil prices. He's creating all this division and alienation among our allies that we're going to talk about. He's strengthening Russia by lifting those sanctions.

2:20E.J. Dionne Jr.:He is taking everybody's eyes off Ukraine, which is what I think we should be in the middle of. And these inconsistencies and contradictions about our purposes, sort of the world will look at us and say, what kind of leadership does this country have on one of the most serious questions a country faces, which is whether to go to war?

2:41Robert Siegel:Mona? It's a profoundly serious challenge that Iran represents to the world. It is a vicious, expansionist, revolutionary regime bent on getting nuclear weapons, bent on the destruction of one of our allies and the undermining of others, an enemy of ours for all of these years. But to approach a problem of that seriousness with such an unserious leader who seems to act on whim, on impulse, on feelings in his bones, we have reached this critical mass of Trumpism where it is laid bare. Even the Trumpiest explainers out there cannot say that he's playing some sort of three-dimensional chess here.

3:32It is obvious that he is winging it and he is making gross errors.

3:37Robert Siegel:Well, now on to some relationships, starting with our relationship to NATO and our NATO allies. Back in his first term, President Trump was often criticized for talking to the NATO allies in very transactional terms, not drawing upon some deep fraternal democratic spirit that we had in common. Compared with the past couple of weeks, those were the good old days of the alliance. E.J., is the NATO alliance on the rocks?

4:05E.J. Dionne Jr.:It's in deep trouble. And I think you can tell how much trouble it is in when Mark Rutte, the general secretary of NATO, is getting criticized for saying he supports the president's action in Iran. Because so many countries in Europe, our longtime allies, are at best extremely skeptical about what the president is doing. And I think there are many reasons we're going to regret that the president took us into this war. I think that one of the top reasons is that if there was any hope of sort of putting the Western alliance, if I can call it that, back on some sort of track, this set it back even further.

4:46E.J. Dionne Jr.:Here was President Trump. First, he puts big tariffs on all these allies and says they're supposed to take it. And then he says NATO isn't really important. And then at times he seems to side with Vladimir Putin in the Ukraine struggle. And he does all this to our allies. And then when he says they need to help me in the Strait of Hormuz and they're a little reluctant, he says, oh, my God, why aren't they helping me? Aren't they terrible for not helping me? And so how to lose influence with friends is the title of, I think, the president's memoir about this period. Yeah.

5:24Robert Siegel:Mona? Well, E.J., there's a long list of Trump's insults and threats toward Europe, toward NATO. You forgot to mention Greenland, where the president basically did something that was inconceivable when we were contemplating a second Trump term. None of us, I think, anticipated that he would actually threaten a fellow NATO member with an American invasion. And yet that is where we were a few short months ago. And then regarding this war, there was no consultation. He did not inform our allies. He simply acted in a way that affects them far more than it affects us because they are more dependent on oil, fertilizer and other things that go through that part of the world.

6:16But in addition, he then insulted the premier of Great Britain, who at one point, early March, was saying he might send two British aircraft carriers. And Trump, proving that he is the greatest boor ever to serve in the White House, said, oh, no, we don't need any help from people who are just trying to get in on the war after it's already been won. A few days later, Trump was reduced to begging the Europeans for help opening the Strait of Hormuz. So, yes, the strain is immense, but I think the Europeans have no choice but to attempt however they can with string and glue, whatever it takes, to keep this alliance together because of the huge role that the United States plays.

7:08Robert Siegel:I was forced to think about the state of the alliance to think back on pretty big crises that NATO has weathered. And it may be a more durable alliance than we'd think. In the 1950s, Eisenhower over Suez told the Brits and the French they couldn't have the Suez Canal back. It was a big crisis. NATO got over it. In the 1960s, Charles de Gaulle threw NATO out of France. NATO was in France until 1966. He withdrew French troops from the integrated NATO command. It was a crisis. NATO somehow survived and got over it. So perhaps this is, at least in the past, was a pretty durable institution. Well, it depended for its durability on the strength of its premier member, and that was the United States.

7:56And in this, Trump had part of a point. The U.S. spends 10 times more on defense, and plus the U.S. provides the nuclear umbrella. And so while the Europeans are now having to think about possibly looking for friendlier climes, looking for people who do agree with them about democracy, about the rule of law, about international law, and all of those things, where Trump seems far less like a traditional American and more Putin-esque. And yet still the challenge, the actual just physical challenge of Europe, the idea that they are going to be able to replace the American contribution defense-wise is very tough.

8:39Robert Siegel:Let's look at one other international relationship that is between the United States and Israel. Twice last June and this year, the U.S. and Israel have conducted coordinated airstrikes against Iran. It's hard for me to remember any time when the U.S. and Israel were militarily this close. On the other hand, when it comes to public opinion in the United States, Gallup has been asking Americans for decades about their sympathies for Israel and for the Palestinians. They'd been converging for several years, but this year was the first time that more people said they felt sympathy for the Palestinian cause than for the Israelis.

9:19Robert Siegel:Mona, as Trump continues to coordinate an air war with Netanyahu, and as American support for Israel seems to wane, what do you think about the relationship going forward? So it is worrisome on many levels. First of all, there's sort of a pincer movement where you have people on the progressive left who despise Israel because they consider it a settler-colonialist imposition on the Middle East that is a sort of a cat's paw for imperialism in the West. And then you have the hatred of Israel and, frankly, end up Jews coming from the hard right in the United States, the Tucker Carlson's and so forth, who are influencing the younger generation of Republicans.

10:07So the hatred for Israel is coming from both sides. And Netanyahu seems to have made a calculation that he's aware of this declining support for Israel in the United States. And he seems to be saying, yep, in the future, we're not going to have the U.S. And so we're going to go for everything right now while we've got Trump, try to get everything done, Eliminate Iran as a threat, eliminate Hezbollah, Hamas, and then we will be secure and we won't have to worry about American good opinion.

10:45Robert Siegel:So you're saying the loss of some American support has the perverse effect of creating a greater complaint against Israel in the United States.

10:55E.J. Dionne Jr.:It's very possible. E.J.? I think that you can go all the way back to when Netanyahu appeared before Congress, and he was invited by the Republicans notably, not the Democrats, and gave a speech attacking President Obama's deal with Iran. And to have a foreign leader come before Congress at the invitation of only one party, I think, began to drive a wedge through our politics. And I think, you know, historically, liberals and progressives were broadly sympathetic to Israel. Most liberals and progressives also very strongly supported, you know, Palestinian autonomy, two states. But that was the consensus.

11:38E.J. Dionne Jr.:I think after Gaza, that began to break up. You know, many of us are old enough to remember Prime Minister Rabin, are old enough to remember Labor Israel. For many young people, they have only known this Israel under Bibi Netanyahu. The war is, I think, very awkward. And, you know, the administration itself has made it more awkward when Marco Rubio came out and said to try to explain this war and said, well, we knew Israel was going to do it. And so then we had to go out because we had to defend our bases. First, it was nonsense in terms of whether we went into the war. But it was a remarkable thing to say.

12:17E.J. Dionne Jr.:And so the administration in its many inconsistencies about this war has opened that door. And I also think it's simply the fact that the interests of Israel and the interests of the United States do not totally coincide in this war. And the Times had a really interesting story where there's also a difference, it appears, between Israel and the Saudis, where the Saudis really want the war to go on until there is regime change. Israel could probably live with easier with a much weakened Iran. And so I think you're going to see another fight in that area. Although, I don't know, it could be that the Israelis are happy to see the Saudis being the ones to push Trump to continue the war so that it doesn't fall on them.

13:05But I think they would be happy to continue the war as well.

13:08E.J. Dionne Jr.:And let's assume that. And I think that creates a real problem for Israel because I think there are a lot of people in the United States, you know, majority opinion is against this war. Our friend Bill Galston the other day cited the polling average, 39 percent support for this war. That's unheard of at this point. So most Americans want this to end. And so to the extent that the Saudis or the Israelis are pressuring the United States, that's a real problem for both countries, I think, in the long run. So could I just, I agree with pretty much everything you said, with one exception, where you talked about the progressives were broadly pro-Israel until Gaza.

13:47I don't think that's quite right. Right after October 7th, you had celebrations of the Hamas attack. And you saw campuses around the country, you know, leftist groups on campuses celebrating that attack. So it didn't start with Gaza.

14:05E.J. Dionne Jr.:I think that was a very small piece of the left, and that people allied with that grew as the war continued, as the destruction in Gaza continued, and Israel didn't end the war much earlier than they did.

14:19Robert Siegel:I'm thinking about this in our own domestic politics. we've gone from very strong bipartisan support for Israel to each party having a pretty considerable faction within it that is extremely anti-Israel. Looking ahead to the next presidential year, I mean, the conventions, do you expect fireworks over Middle East policy? Is it that big an issue? So it very much depends on whether this war is perceived as successful. If the war is unsuccessful, then what Trump will have succeeded in doing, and Netanyahu as well, is they will have given a huge gift to Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, Joe Kent, that whole wing of the Republican Party.

15:09The conspiracists, the anti-Semites, who are more than happy. First of all, they already think that Israel killed Charlie Kirk and that Israel was responsible for the Iraq war, for which there is absolutely no evidence. And now they can, with Rubio's stupid comment, they can even claim that Israel dragged us into this war. And so they will be empowered tremendously if the war goes badly.

15:36E.J. Dionne Jr.:I'm not sure how this goes well sitting here on this day by the end. So I'm very curious how if Americans will look back and say this was a good idea. But I think you're already seeing even splits within the pro-Israel camp. There is a real rebellion against AIPAC within the Democratic Party among very mainstream Democrats, particularly after their intervention against Tom Malinowski. who was historically very pro-Israel, but said, no, I will not give a blank check to Israel. And they intervened. Their candidate failed. And they ended up electing someone who is far more anti-Israel. And so I think you will see within the Democratic Party, certainly a real distancing from the, you know, it's AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, from that wing of the pro-Israel movement.

16:27E.J. Dionne Jr.:And I think you're going to see a real fight because of this generational split. I think you cannot underestimate how radical the split is younger people in their attitudes versus older people when it comes to Israel. And that's a real problem for Israel in the long run. It sure is. And it's in both parties.

16:44Robert Siegel:Yes. This brings us more broadly to Democrats, Republicans, and the election coming up this year in November. Republican loss of the House of Representatives is talked about quite a bit. It's very possible. There's even some talk about the possibility of Democrats winning the Senate. Obviously, in states where the Democratic Party has a pulse, Donald Trump is not a big help to Republican candidates. And E.J., I wonder, what do you make of what seems to be a very strong loyalty to Trump among Republicans, even as he makes very public, unpopular moves, whether they're in the war or with the economy or in his remarks about the passing of former FBI Director Mueller?

17:28E.J. Dionne Jr.:Well, let it be recorded that in the state legislature in Florida, thanks to a special election in Florida, the people in the district that Mar-a-Lago is in elected a Democrat to the state legislature. And there was another state Senate race that also swung to the Democrats. Every election we've had since Trump's election essentially has shown an average. I think the last time I looked, the average was about a 13-point swing, and some of them were even bigger. So this is a real problem. In a normal world, some Republicans at least would start backing away from Trump. But we don't live in a normal world.

18:07E.J. Dionne Jr.:We live in the world of Republican politics that President Trump has created. And Republicans are not only so afraid of losing primaries to the Trump faction, which is now the dominant faction in the party. They're also worried about those folks turning out in the general election. And I think when you look at the problems Republicans face, where I do agree that the Senate is now at the point where it could come into play, I think that the most consistent number are in the polls are when you ask people not only do they approve or disapprove of Trump, but do you strongly approve of Trump or strongly disapprove of Trump?

18:47E.J. Dionne Jr.:The strong disapprovers outnumber the strong approvers by three to two or two to one. That's a real problem for turnout. And I think you're seeing that in these races. So it's a combination of the country swinging against Trump and the enthusiasm swinging against Trump. That's real trouble for the Republicans. Maybe they will discover later this year after their primaries are done that they have an interest in distancing themselves. But I still think many of them are very afraid. Speaking of if we lived in a normal world, part of what makes our world abnormal now is that we live in an era of this personalized politics and it has been vastly exacerbated by our system of partisan primaries.

19:33And it is the case now. Our elections are determined by a tiny slice of voters who turn out in primaries. And so, you know, the primary is the only race that matters.

19:47Robert Siegel:The general election is a given which party will win. And so because of gerrymandering, because of self-selection and sorting, because of the kinds of media that we all consume. And as long as the Republican Party officials or Republican politicians fear their primary electorate, which is the only thing that they have to fear in most cases, They are not going to depart from Trump no matter what. And we will see how that turns out for them in the generals this time, because the cratering of his support among independents does not bode well for the general election this time.

20:31E.J. Dionne Jr.:And I think part of the problem is not just the existence of the primary system. It's also that over time, since Trump appeared on the scene 11 years ago, a lot of people who are more moderate or even moderate conservatives aren't Republican anymore. That's exactly right. This goes back even longer. Actually, there's been a long drift of moderate Republicans out of the party going back to the 90s. And the collar counties around Philadelphia are a good example of that. Places that were very loyal for people like George H.W. Bush or Senator John Hines. And now a lot of those folks just don't think of themselves as Republican anymore.

21:13E.J. Dionne Jr.:So you're reducing this party to a party of Trump. Yes. And by the way, you know, Trump just the other day was touting, you know, somebody had done a poll where they said, you know, 100 percent of those who identified as MAGA Republicans approved of his actions in Iran. Well, of course, if you are willing to identify yourself as a MAGA Republican, then you're going to be in favor of any. This is circular reasoning. That is the definition of a MAGA Republican. Exactly. And there are fewer people who do identify as MAGA now than before the Iran war started. 100 % of Celtics fans root for the Celtics.

21:51E.J. Dionne Jr.:Here is, I think one of the interesting questions, and we don't know the answer to this yet, is can the MAGA base begin to break up? I was really struck by, I think it's a Reuters Ipsos poll that came out last week or this week, where only 29 percent of Americans approve of Trump on the economy and only 25 percent approve his handling of the cost of living. And I think one of his biggest problems, and I also think there's a real problem for the country, is this kind of mega politics means that real problems we face now and in the future, housing, health care, child care, elder care, how to give young people entering a really difficult economy a leg up, particularly people who didn't go to college, all these big questions.

22:39E.J. Dionne Jr.:If we were talking about these, Mona and I could have real arguments about real problems that matter to people. And the MAGA Trump obsessions drive substance out of politics. And boy, that's bad for every party. Especially for people like us.