Raging Moderates: Did Trump Already LOSE the War in Iran? (ft. Ian Bremmer and Dan Senor)

24:31It's not going to be what J.D. or Marco or Radcliffe come in and tell him or suggest. And what they suggest will only be a piece of what they're telling their people they're going to suggest, because with Trump, they're like, yes, sir. How high, sir. But but I do worry that even though Iran's capabilities have been seriously degraded, there are other big issues that will persist on the back of where we are likely to be coming out of all of this. So just a couple of things in response, Dean. One, you mentioned a second time the deployment of ground forces or troops. I just think we should establish just for the audience what you and I are talking about when we refer to these troops.

25:12Because I think people hear this now and they think Iraq, you know, 2003, 2004 and beyond. And it is not that. It is not that, right? So 7 ,000 troops total, right? Yeah, exactly. So in the lead up to the Iraq war, we had the equivalent of the naval and air power assets that we have now in the region for this war. But the one other thing we had in the lead up to the Iraq war was a quarter of a million troops. We do not have that in the region. And wisely so, by the way, Iran is about four times the size of Iraq, and it's about, you know, more than double the size in terms of population. Iran's population is more than double the size of Iraq's.

25:46So we're not sending troops to occupy Iran. There may be some targeted operations like the Marine Expeditionary Force that is going to probably wind up there on the coast there to deal with the hits on the tankers by the drones and these boats and the mines. So it's very targeted, small number. I'm not saying it's Not a risk. It's not a form of escalation. And obviously, as Ian said, there's a risk to lives, even if the total number of forces deployed is smaller, but it is not some massive ground operation. That's the first thing. Second thing, the Iranian people have been courageously fighting against this regime at various points over the last couple of decades in ways that we in the West don't pay enough attention to and deserve extraordinary respect and support and should have called for presidential support and presidential acknowledgement to put a spotlight on it.

26:42In 2009, there was a big uprising in 2018. In 2022 was a big uprising. The Iranian people have been taking to the streets and risking their lives against a regime that was brutal and strong. And I would say, I agree with you, Ian, that this, whatever's left of this regime, if it remains in power, will its intentions will be to be brutal and perhaps even more strident and more, you know, than what if you can believe that than what the Iranian people have had to deal with. But one big difference is I think they will be weaker. Right. The principle tools and instruments of repression in Iran are being weakened every single day as a result of what the U.S.

27:26and Israel are doing. They're taking out the commanders and the infrastructure and the bases of the besiege domestic security force. They're taking out the leaders and the infrastructure and the personnel of the IRGC. Now, as you know, the history of uprisings and when they're successful and when they're not, we always get it wrong. No one ever sees it coming. Who knows? You know, everyone was anticipating that Kiev would fall, you know, after 72 hours when Russia invaded Ukraine. Everyone was saying that the Taliban, you know, would never fall after the U.S. went into Afghanistan after 9-11. I mean, the intelligence community didn't see the fall of the Soviet Union.

28:04Did anyone see Assad's fall coming? No, absolutely not. So getting it right is very hard to anticipate. There's a whole flywheel of what has to be in place. But I got to believe if the Iranian people have this history of taking enormous risks to challenge this regime, they probably will be more inspired to do so when they see that what is left of this regime is a shadow of itself as a result of what the U.S. and Israel are doing right now. And it may be easier for them to do something about that regime than it was just a few months ago. We saw what happened just two months ago. Over 30 ,000 Iranians were slaughtered in like a couple of days.

28:46Who knows what their capabilities will be now, A. And B, who knows what the morale is of the personnel in these institutions that do the repression in the country will be after so many of their colleagues and supervisors have been killed. My fear is that this Iranian government, as much as it is being eroded and hit militarily, they are showing a lot of capacity because of what they're doing in the strait and because of the money they're making. So again, I think that there is a give and take there. And this is not, if Trump had a uniform strategy that was, we're gonna do everything possible to ensure that this regime will be degraded, then I'd feel more comfortable with what you're saying.

29:28I don't think that's true at all.

29:29Jessica Tarlov:If you aren't already, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube page to stay in the loop on all the politics news. Let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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32:41Jessica Tarlov:Welcome back. I just want to talk a little bit about an operational execution here. So I think there was a really, there was real valid justification. There are no good wars, but there's just wars. And I was more hopeful about and saw the justification for at least what I'll call military operation. Air defenses are down, unique moment in time, a wobbly regime, the ability to further neuter connection and support for terrorist groups and proxies wreaking havoc all over the globe, take their munitions capability or production capability, industrial capacity for producing weapons down, destroy their missile launch capabilities.

33:21ability, perhaps topple the regime, secure the nuclear sites. I think there was a lot of very valid reasons for why to do this, why now? And quite frankly, it feels like operational excellence with strategic incompetence. And I'll start with you, Dan. Where are we? Okay. No clear messaging. Hard for Americans to identify a set of objectives around what we're doing, why now, and when we're going to declare victory and leave. Two, a disaster, in my view, for global opinion of Israel and Jews. Communications that I think have been errant and ignorant and misplaced from the Trump administration and former Trump administration officials, essentially saying that Israel is wagging the tail here, which I think is going to be disastrous for Israel over the long term.

34:13An inability to do any sort of scenario planning that didn't see the choke point of the Straits of Hormuz, which will likely put the world into a recession, inability even at the most basic level to extract Westerners or a plan for extracting Westerners out of the region. So hats off to the military execution of U.S. and Israeli forces, strategic incompetence that I would argue right now the momentum has shifted and that Iran is winning and that Iran has basically said, you know, the enemy gets a voice. They get a say in a war. And right now it feels like their voice is winning and that this has been what I call arguably the greatest snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in recent geopolitical history.

35:06Dan, I'll let you respond to those comments first. So, my gosh, we are, what, 25, 26 days into this war? It is, you guys are talking like it's over. You guys are talking like it's over and the U.S. is walking away with its tail between its legs. It's just, I think every, imagine if we were commenting on other very important wars. Think about if World War Two was being covered like this war, where every day there were a thousand tweets, tweets and posts and podcasts analyzing, you know, hour by hour, every, you know, this person just met with FDR and FDR's mood is this.

35:45Jessica Tarlov:Can I just, like, because I love what you're saying and it's important. I just want to add, inject into it. Those were also wars that we bought into and that were sold to us. And this literally, everyone woke up and was like, WTF is happening, except for, you know, people in the highest levels of government. So don't, doesn't that affect the support? I actually think since World War Two, you'll be hard pressed to find wars fought by the U.S. that weren't deeply wound up being deeply divisive in American society and American politics. So but but but it almost that doesn't matter. The point is, I take your and Scott's point that the president needs to do be out there explaining and persuading every day, every week what we're doing and what we're trying to achieve in a consistent way.

36:37I you know, whether or not that could unite the country, I'm dubious because I think many on the left are rooting for failure in the war against Iran because they want Trump to have a political setback. And they have a narrow, much narrow. It's far less. If you look at MAGA Republicans, the polling shows their overwhelming support for what Trump is doing. There's not this consistent across the board, Congress, the House, the Senate, people running for president, you know, they're just like rooting for failure. So I don't know if that would have the effect in this environment, in this highly polarized, highly political environment.

37:11I don't know, Jess, if it would have the effect that we want it to, but it's still we should do it anyways. The president should be doing it anyways, because strategically, we need to just be explained to the American public constantly what we're doing. First of all. Second of all, Ian said that the thing, you know, I laid out what is working and he laid out what isn't working. I do want to add the reaction of the Gulf states to me is really, really interesting. I have been following for some time relationships, warming, cooling, maybe warming again, then cooling again between Israel and the Gulf states.

37:47What we are seeing today, I have never seen before, where the chief of staff of the IDF is on the phone multiple times a day with his counterparts in Arab countries across the region, where Israel is fully integrated into CENTCOM with all these Arab states, where the Arab states, as you said, MBS and the Emiratis and I think the Bahrainis are as pushing for as an aggressive response to how Iran has fought this war as Israel has. And so that'll be very interesting to see when this war ends. But I think from Israel's perspective in the region, Israel is not feeling so alone. You know, after October 7th, they were feeling alone.

38:27Last couple of years, because the war on Gaza, they were feeling alone. It made life complicated politically for these Arab states. The way Israel is fighting the war on Gaza, I supported that war. But there was no doubt that there was a very political calculated response for many capitals in the Sunni Gulf. I do not think that is the case now. And if that has durability, if that has a shelf life after this war, I'm not so sure we're going to look at this as Israel so isolated. The last thing I'll say here is Walter Russell Meade has a very thoughtful piece in The Wall Street Journal today that, like, he said what I've been thinking.

39:01So even though I was thinking it, I do want to give him credit. He basically said the Hawks and the Dubs both got this wrong. OK, he says the hawks underestimated how hard it would be, the Iran hawks, the Iran doves overestimated how accommodating Iran the regime would be if we just worked with them in mechanisms like negotiations and the JCPOA. and the wake-up call, as I said at the beginning, for the Iran doves is there's no accommodation with Iran. So it's, we're at war with Iran. I think everyone basically understands that, even if not everyone for political reasons wants to say it out loud.

39:39We're in war with Iran. It's a matter of when that war happens or whether it goes on and then off and then on again, how we fight the war, how we explain the war. But I don't think anyone could have any illusions that we are at war with Iran and this war revealed it. Well, it's funny because you could say the same thing about Russia. And yes, yet Trump clearly disagrees and has acted in ways that shows he disagrees for reasons that he thinks are aligned with America first, which is it's important point that I want to make. But let me address the first two first, which is that, you know, you said that it's only 25 days.

40:12And so the American people should show patience. You're right, of course. But President Trump on the phone with the G7 leaders said that the war was going to be over within days and that the Iranians were about to surrender unconditionally. And when Trump himself is telling the American people that this is going to be easy, it's going to be over, there's going to be no cost, don't worry about it, the president is driving the messaging of we don't need to be patient. We don't need to because this war is going to be easy and it's going to be out, going to be done. And he failed. He utterly failed because he thought it was going to be that easy.

40:50So that's why there's no patience. It's not because the American people can't handle it for the right reasons, war for the right reasons. American people can fight for the right reasons. But this is the president is not has not been communicating with his people truthfully or trustfully. And therefore, he has lost a lot of the American people on this and on other issues. So that's that's a point. I agree. There's no question that the level of Gulf alignment with the United States and Israel militarily and on intelligence and fighting Iran has become of necessity, but has become higher. That is, of course, very different with the way the Gulf states feel about what's happening in the West Bank right now, but the way the Gulf states feel about what's happening on the ground in Lebanon right now.

41:31And those things are going to be problematic for Israel, in my view. And I also think that there's going to be big consequences for the Israelis long term globally. we've already seen how much anti-Semitism was picking up before this war. That's obviously going to continue. I worry about that. Different story, longer point. The final point is on like whether or not Trump is going to succeed in selling this war to the American people and the consequences will eventually have. And I think that Trump, Trump got the American people right in a lot of ways because he understood that Americans were sick of not having secure borders, said, I'm going to secure the border.

42:10And they were sick of being sold a free trade message without people investing more in U.S. manufacturing. So I'm going to do something about that. And his implementation was poor on both of those things in some ways. He over, over egged it in tariffs and he over egged it with ICE. But the baseline message, he got the American people. He also got the American people with, I am sick and tired of Americans fighting for wars that aren't actually in the primary interest of the United States. And he did that on Ukraine. I believe the United States should be supporting the Ukrainians. I do. In a way that Trump does not.

42:45Right. I believe it matters because the Russians invaded Ukraine. It's a sovereign nation, democratic. Russia's a dictatorship. We invited them to NATO. Our words should matter. And I believe that. Right. And then Trump unilaterally says, no, it's far away. It's thousands of miles away. The Europeans should spend all the money. We shouldn't spend any of it. And you know what? That's pretty popular among the American people. And, you know, I now see on Israel, Iran, this war is very popular in Israel because, of course, you know, in the same way that supporting Ukraine is very popular in Poland and the Baltic States and the Nordics, but it ain't popular in the United States.

43:25Why not? Because you've elected a president twice that said, we're going to stop doing this. And so, now you might think that Trump is completely misguided in that message, But the point is, he's aligned with where the American people are going. You've forgotten about us. So stop this. Don't fight for Ukraine. Don't fight for Europe. Don't fight for Israel. Don't fight for the Gulf states. Don't fight for Taiwan. Don't fight for Japan. Stop this. And I think that the longer this goes, yes, only 7 ,000 troops, but every troop matters. Yes, only$200 billion he's asking for in the special distribution for the Pentagon, but only$181 billion was spent on Ukraine over three years.

44:01And yet Americans are like, why are you doing this when you're not taking care of me at home? And yeah, I don't think 4000 kilometer lying about their ballistic missiles is a credible ex post argument for the average American Trump voter. I don't. I just don't. You and I can have a very intelligent, pointy headed conversation about like, you know, grand strategy and realpolitik and what it means for America long term. But I'm talking about like what got Trump elected. This did not get Trump elected. Absolutely not. And I think he's going to pay. Among Trump voters, I really think that there's a tendency among many of us to fixate on a handful of very loud, high volume, self-appointed evangelists for the MAGA right and listen to the things they're saying and over interpret what that means where the Trump electorate, where Trump's coalition is.

44:58The reality is if you look in poll after poll after poll, CBS just came out with a new poll. It's over 80 percent. Trump voters well over 80 percent support what he's doing right now. What he's doing in Iran. I'm telling you, I think it won't be. I'm not saying I'm not saying it is right now, but I but I but but the support is high. I think there is this tendency in to to think about decisions in war and national security, particularly post 9-11 in the last couple of decades in very binary terms. So we either think of war as endless war. If we get involved, we'll never get out. If we get involved, it's quagmire.

45:33So that was the characterization of Iraq and Afghanistan. Or it's do nothing. Yes, there's bad things happening around the world, but our only option, the only responsible option is to do nothing. Obama draws the red line in Syria, 600 ,000 people are slaughtered, many more permanently displaced, and we do nothing. And he uses chemical weapons and we do nothing. And so those are like the two extremes. I do think where Trump is, is this possible model of a third way, which is not saying we're never gonna use military force, but if we use it, we are gonna be very targeted, very surgical, and we're not gonna get ourselves bogged down.

46:10Now, we'll see how this goes in Iran. He's been doing this a number of times over the last year in various parts of the world, most recently, obviously, Venezuela at the end of the year, but, and obviously in Iran in June of 25. We'll see where this lands in that. But we are we are. My only point is we are so far from Trump violating the the core commitment from his campaign in terms of how he would conduct national security. I'm not saying it can't get bad and we could go on some kind of detour, but we're just not there now.

46:41Jessica Tarlov:I just want to add, you're definitely right. I mean, it's 80, 90 percent in some polling in terms of support for this. But when you mentioned boots on the ground, it plummets and you are seeing it show up in other ways of judging the president, like how they think about him on the economy, how they think of him on immigration. You know, whether he's paying attention to issues that affect me over 70 percent say he's not focused on that. So, you know, it's manifesting in different pockets. Here's where we are. Can't secure nuclear stockpiles. Unlikely to register regime change without boots on the ground.

47:15There are amphibious warships. There are Marines being deployed. 60 seconds or less, if no one has a crystal ball, Ian, you go first. What do you think happens here in the next 30 days? On balance, I think it's really close call. I think he does actually deploy these ground troops because he feels like he needs to do something more on the nuclear side. And because leaving the straits this vulnerable to the Iranians is a really bad place to put the Gulf states and eventually and to put the global economy. So is it take Karg and traded for opening the or securing safe passage through Hormuz? What do you think it looks like?

47:54If you do that, right, all I'm saying is you take Karg and the Iranian, the likelihood that the Iranians respond in really damaging ways is high. So maybe in part, the decision on taking Karg comes to how much they think they've really degraded Iran. So even if they want to, they can't do that much damage in return by the time they get there. Again, this is it is really hard to make a call on this, but we're talking about really big stakes. Dan? I think this war will probably go approximately 60 days from when it started, which means we still have a few more weeks. I agree with Ian. I don't think, well, first of all, I don't think negotiations are going to go anywhere, A.

48:34And B, I think Trump still thinks he has some tools in his toolkit that he can use militarily before he wants to wind things down. And I will say that I just want to come back to something Ian said. He talked about Russia and Ukraine, and I agree with him. There are four major threats to the United States today, China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Three of those four have a capability that makes it a nuclear capability that makes it very hard for the United States to ultimately confront them. Iran doesn't have one yet, and it wants one. And I think they are going to wind up coming out of this much farther from that, reaching that goal than they were three weeks ago.

49:14Jessica Tarlov:Scarily enough, I believe we are early days. And so Ian and Dan, thank you so much for your time. I hope you'll come back and we can do this again. It was, I loved it. And to have you together was super valuable. It helps that Ian and I are friends. Dan Cienor, Ian Brannner, thanks very much.

49:35Jess, thoughts?

49:36Jessica Tarlov:I love civil disagreement. I do it for a living, though. Sometimes it's way less civil than what we just saw. I thought they brought really important points to it. And I'm better prepared for the five today than I was when we started. So thankful for that conversation. What about you? Yeah, I think we as a society are desperate for a thoughtful civil conversation that softens the beach where you're willing to listen because you're not focused on them basically calling each other idiots. So and also, I just have a lot of affection for both of them. I think they're good men and smart. And I learned from both of them and I disagree with both of them on a lot, but I just always come away smarter.

50:13Anyways, good luck on the five.

50:16Jessica Tarlov:I'm going to use that mowing the lawn thing with the Israelis. That's important that they have signed up to continue to do these kinds of things. And the question is whether we are going to sign up to continue to do these things to keep the region safe. Have a good show. Thank you.

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