Will the U.S. Go to War With Iran? — with Karim Sadjadpour

23:03Scott Galloway:And so for that reason, their willingness and an ability to respond in a major way against the United States is not likely to happen. because they know if they were to unleash massive amounts of missile fire against America in the region or against our allies, that it could trigger a massive U.S. response. And I agree with what you said, Scott, that 100 % the United States is going to be coordinating this with Israel. But I also agree with the quote you mentioned. Lawrence Friedman wrote the definitive book on strategy. And that book, which is about 700 pages, starts with that sentence from Mike Tyson, that everyone has a plan until you get punched in the mouth.

23:53Scott Galloway:And we don't know how Iran is going to respond this time to a potential U.S. attack. It may be that they exercise restraint and they're going to hunker down like a hedgehog because they want to stay in power. Or it may be that their lesson from the previous conflicts was that by not really retaliating in a meaningful way, they projected weakness and they didn't exact any cost from the United States. And it's now a moment to stand up to this American bully. We don't know that. And so I want to emphasize that it is a risk. And if you're President Trump, you perhaps like your odds because American military power has prevailed in the past and the United States is several thousand miles away from Iran.

24:44Scott Galloway:But if you're sitting not that far from Iran and the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia, you have much greater ambivalence about what Iran is capable of doing and whether the United States will maintain that massive military presence to protect against them.

25:07Karim Sadjadpour:We'll be right back after a quick break.

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27:32Karim Sadjadpour:So let's talk about that, because it feels like my understanding is Israel and Jordan are firmly in the ally camp who will provide infrastructure support. And what's strange is the allies we used to rely on, including the UK, have basically said, we're not going to provide you with infrastructure support, landing rights to Diego Garcia, which is really unusual, that we might have some Gulf nations who are more supportive of the U.S.'s military actions and some G7, which I think speaks to just crazy head-up-your-ass geopolitical strategy of the U.S., but a different talk show. Run us through the region.

28:08Karim Sadjadpour:In your mind, what do you think the various players in the Middle East are saying to the president? Do they endorse the strategy, or are they trying to coordinate and help? Are they bereft and just saying he's going to do this, but we want some sort of security guarantees? Or are they trying to talk him out of it? Go across the biggest players and what you think their view is on a potential strike on Iran.

28:32Scott Galloway:Well, we can start with Israel by saying that Israel is both publicly supportive of a strike. They're privately encouraging the president and they will very likely be part of any U.S. operation against Iran. And then if we move to our partners in the Persian Gulf, countries like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar. As I said, there's much more profound ambivalence. Publicly, they're going to oppose a U.S. strike, and they publicly said they're not going to allow the United States to use their airspace to attack Iran because they don't want to be complicit in any operation because they fear the Islamic Republic of Iran.

29:16Scott Galloway:Iran has attacked them in the past. They've used their regional proxies like the Houthis in Yemen, who are still a menace to attack those countries. And one of the lessons I learned, Scott, I did a Fulbright in Beirut about over 20 years ago. And my big takeaway from that year is that it takes decades, if not centuries, to build things, and it takes weeks to destroy them. And those countries, I take my hat off to them, in particular, the United Arab Emirates. You know, I tell people in 1979, Iran and the United Arab Emirates went to the same elevator. And Iran pushed down and the United Arab Emirates pushed up.

29:59Scott Galloway:And the gap between these two countries is really enormous. When you think about, Iran is more than 20 times the size of UAE. Iran has the human resources, the natural resources, the history to be a G20 power. But it's none of those things. It's a global pariah. And the United Arab Emirates, which was really a backwater five decades ago, has emerged as this global hub for transport, for technology, for geopolitics. and they have a lot to lose here because they know that Iran could come by in a week or so unleashing its missiles, rockets and drones and destroying what has taken them many decades to build.

30:48Scott Galloway:And for that reason, none of those countries in the Gulf are going to publicly support U.S. military action against Iran. I think privately the advice they give is probably a little different. But one of the things I would argue that they are all worried about is what they call a hit-and-run attack. They're worried that President Trump could attack Iran, and then a week or two later, his attentions are diverted back to whether it's Venezuela or Taiwan or another issue, and they're left naked and vulnerable, and they don't have the luxury of being many thousands of miles away from Iran. Now, you mentioned earlier, and people can look online at this map of this incredible, American buildup right now in the Middle East.

31:35Scott Galloway:If you talk to people at the Pentagon, they will tell you that most of that buildup is for defensive purposes. It's not that we're going to unleash all of that firepower against Iran. That buildup is there in great part to protect our allies, protect our bases against the Iranian retaliation. But the reality is that those forces aren't going to be able to remain in the Middle East forever. And there's no guarantee that any U.S. military action will topple the regime in Iran. And so that is a risk that I think President Trump and a vast majority of Iranians are prepared to live with. They're prepared to roll the dice in that way.

32:16Scott Galloway:Those Gulf countries have a lot more to lose.

32:19Karim Sadjadpour:What was it Sun Tzu said? Unless you want to slaughter everybody, you always want to give your enemy an out. And have you heard of, or what's the state of, is there a situation where we say to the leaders of the Islamic Republic. You've murdered tens of thousands of people, but get out now, get on a plane to Russia, similar to what we did or what they did in Rwanda. They said they had a name from the genocidary. We're going to exonerate you or come up. In other words, give them incentives so they don't fight to the death and start launching drones against Dubai and just last gasps of desperation.

32:57Karim Sadjadpour:A, do you think that's a possibility? Is there a scenario where we say to the leadership, and I would think the one level down, all right, here's a potential exit plan for you, such that we don't, you know, a cornered animal is frightening, right? Thoughts?

33:14Scott Galloway:I mean, there's actually a Persian expression that corroborates that, which is if you have a wild cat trapped in a room, you need to leave a door open to allow it to go out. And again, And I actually do think that President Trump and his top advisors on this issue, if they could push a button, they would like to see a diplomatic outcome. They would like us not to have to go to war. The challenge at the moment is I don't see a Venn diagram in which American demands and Iranian concessions currently intersect. Because what we're demanding from Iran, not to get too technical, but we're demanding that they don't enrich any uranium, something that they insist on.

33:58Scott Galloway:And we're also demanding that they significantly curtail their missile program, they cease their support for these destructive regional proxies like Hezbollah and the Houthis, and that they treat their population better. What the Iranians have said is we will only speak to you about our nuclear program. None of those other things are on the table. And we refuse outright to agree to zero enrichment. So at the moment, there is no overlap in what we're demanding and what they're prepared to offer. And again, I go back to the person of Ayatollah Khamenei, 86 years old. His only big idea over the last decades has been resistance.

34:44Scott Galloway:he's long believed that if you capitulate or you compromise as a result of pressure, that's not going to ultimately prolong your shelf life. That's going to convey and project weakness to your adversary, and they're going to take a step forward. And so I think at his age, at the moment, he seems prepared to die a martyr more than he is to die a capitulator. The other challenge we have, Scott, is that in contrast to the government that existed in Iran before the revolution, the Shah's government, in which most of the government's military elite had studied in America or Europe and spoke foreign languages and potentially had foreign passports and can remake their lives in Los Angeles and London, these guys, as I said, they're probably one of the most isolated, friendless regimes in the world.

35:38Scott Galloway:and there's not a lot of places they can go to for plan B. And so for that reason, what we've seen from them internally is they're prepared to kill tens of thousands of their own people rather than seed power. And vis-a-vis external adversaries, the mindset of the Supreme Leader is that if we give in to this pressure, it's not going to save us. It's going to invite even more pressure.

36:05Karim Sadjadpour:I mean, no one wants to talk about boots on the ground. Do you think that right now a military strike just involves—my understanding is it's very hard to execute a regime change from the air, that there has to be the special ops. And also, I think the Islamic Republic has the benefit of believing this is probably coming. do you think what do you think it feels like at least the prediction markets are saying before the end of march there's about a 60 or two-thirds likelihood that there's going to be some sort of military action but there's a difference between quite frankly bombing from the air where the air defenses have been mostly wiped out and putting boots on the ground and a lot of military professionals will say you can wreak havoc but you can't foment change from the air.

36:55Karim Sadjadpour:What do you think are the chances of some sort of boots on the ground strategy?

37:01Scott Galloway:I think the likelihood of boots on the ground is very slim. I don't see any support within the Democratic Party for that, nor do I really see it among Republicans. I think even people like Vice President Vance would probably profoundly oppose that. I think you have a lot of people and the MAGA base to even oppose air power against Iran and the threat of getting pulled into another Middle Eastern war. So I think the likelihood of boots on the ground is very low. But one possibility, which I've spoken to a lot of people, both within the United States and Israel, is that if the United States decides to take military action, there's a decent likelihood that we will try to take out Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

37:50Scott Galloway:And he goes underground in these moments of crisis, perhaps 150 feet underground in a bunker. But that didn't protect the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. The Israelis bombed his bunker. And what's interesting is he died from suffocation. He didn't die because the bombs dropped on his head and killed him. His body was intact, but he died from suffocation. And so that is certainly a possibility. And the reality, Scott, is that no one can predict what comes the day after that. And the big question for the future of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the cohesion of its security forces. Up until now, we've seen enormous popular protests, enormous popular discontent.

38:41Scott Galloway:But the regime's security forces, the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij militia, who collectively probably number in the hundreds of thousands, Revolutionary Guards are probably 150 ,000 men, Basij perhaps double that. We haven't seen yet signs of splinters or fissures amongst them. And the question is, if the United States decides and carries out an assassination against Iran's supreme leader. What happens to the cohesion of those forces? Do they rally together? And do they believe it's either kill or be killed and hunker down and survive to kill another day? Or is Khamenei the glue that holds them together and they eventually disband?

39:28Scott Galloway:And the honest answer to that is that we don't know. And we don't know, Scott, because I don't think they know. We oftentimes underestimate the extent to which when people are put in these crisis situations, you oftentimes don't know how you're going to react. Every person is making mental calculations. And this is a gamble. And it could go in multiple directions. And again, I think President Trump feels probably pretty good about his odds. I think the Iranian people would welcome that gamble from the United States. But other countries in the region, you know, are concerned about the blowback against them.

40:09Karim Sadjadpour:We talked about bunker busters. So Trump calls the military operation where we went after the nuclear sites a resounding success. Was it, in your view?

40:19Scott Galloway:You're talking about last summer? Yeah. Yeah. So it depends what your metric is. I mean, President Trump had said that he had obliterated Iran's nuclear program, and it was end of story. You know, the program was done for. Now he's saying that we need to get a nuclear deal with them. And his envoy, Steve Witkoff, recently said that Iran is perhaps weeks away from weapons-grade uranium, uranium, which it's not really clear that—I think they don't actually have a great grasp of the issues that they are tasked with negotiating. So, you know, oftentimes their language is a little bit money. But there is a tension there because, you know, he declared success, the program was obliterated, and now the question is, well, why are we negotiating, wanting to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program if we already obliterated it?

41:15Scott Galloway:And, you know, here my view is that what's lacking here is one of the strategy that Ronald Reagan applied to the Soviet Union, which is, if you go back and read Reagan's speeches, the language was quite simple. He believed that one of the most powerful forces in the world was the desire of human beings to live freely, to live under free societies. And he aligned American power and American foreign policy with that goal of Russians to live under freedom. And he stood with those freedom seekers in Russia, those dissidents. And we had a whole kind of institution, multiple institutions in the United States, places like Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, National Endowment for Democracy, which stood for those aspirations and those goals and help those democratic and freedom movements.

42:17Scott Galloway:And that doesn't really exist at the moment. Those institutions have really atrophied. And I don't think, you know, President Trump, he issued these warnings against Iran not to kill protesters. But, you know, living in Washington, I can see that there aren't a lot of people right now, whether in the State Department or other NGOs that are empowered to be thinking about, how do we advance the cause of change in Iran? How do we potentially help Iran's opposition? And you're ultimately correct, Scott, what you said earlier, that it's my view that the U.S.-Iran Cold War, which has now persisted for 47 years, it's not going to be ended by American negotiators or even American bombs.

43:08Scott Galloway:It's going to be ended when you have a government in Iran that reflects the country's national interests of wanting to advance its own prosperity and security. And, you know, we can destroy a lot with military power, as we've seen in a lot of other places. But I think those institutions that help kind of solidify the day after and the day after the day after in those countries, those institutions have atrophied in the United States.

43:41Karim Sadjadpour:We'll be right back.

44:11Scott Galloway:StepStone. Just find the right talent for all jobs.

44:41Karim Sadjadpour:the far left as being not anti-war, but anti-West, that I find that there's such a hypocrisy of what Elika Lebon refers to a moral color code, that when the oppressors are seen as brown, we call it culture. And when the oppressors are seen as Western or white, we call it genocide. I'm curious on your thoughts around the lack of protest or concern around these 30 ,000 people who, in my opinion, have been murdered by state-sponsored terror, and the lack of what I'll call a protest movement in the United States.

45:23Scott Galloway:You know, I'm always reminded of that old quote attributed to Winston Churchill, who said, I'm paraphrasing here perhaps, but if you're 18 and not a leftist, you have no heart, and if you're 50 and still leftist, you have no brain, which is that there's long been this tendency among young people to want to stand up against imperialism. And how that's manifested is to oppose governments, the conduct of governments that are allied with the United States. And those governments who are opponents of the United States, whether that's the Islamic Republic of Iran or Bashar Assad's Syria in modern times, there's very little criticism when they kill tens of thousands of their own people.

46:14Scott Galloway:And, you know, in a previous generation, it was dictators like Stalin and the Soviet Union or Mao who killed millions of their people. And yet, I think the anti-imperialists were obviously opposed to American power and the conduct of American allies. And that's just something that I've kind of resigned myself to, that that's the reality of college campuses in a lot of places. And I guess if someone who represents that point of view were on the call with us now, they would say, well, the issue is that we don't have any ability to influence how Iran or Assad's Syria or Putin's Russia conducts themselves because, you know, they're U.S.

47:04Scott Galloway:adversaries. But we do have influence over how our allies conduct themselves. That would be their counter argument. But I've just kind of, to be honest, Scott, for me, that's just a lot of noise. It doesn't really, at the moment, have any impact on what the United States is going to choose to do. And I don't think it profoundly impacts popular opinion inside Iran. The college campuses inside Iran are overwhelmingly hoping for some kind of U.S. intervention. And yes, there's a great deal of resentment towards those on the left who have shown sympathy for the Islamic Republic. But I don't think that noise is really that meaningful or impactful.

47:56Scott Galloway:It gets a lot of attention on social media, but it doesn't really move the needle one way or the other, in my view, when it comes to the policy choices people are going to make.

48:05Karim Sadjadpour:It just strikes me that if you were to go back two or three years and say that Iran had basically been emasculated and that the clear superpower in the region appears to be Israel, just how much things have changed. Do you have any thoughts? I mean, you're called on at the highest levels to provide advice, and I imagine people are constantly asking you to speculate. Have you game-theoried out where you think the Middle East is and how the different centers of power will likely change over the next several years?

48:39Scott Galloway:So there is an essay I wrote in Foreign Affairs that came out last fall. It's entitled The Autumn of the Ayatollahs about scenarios for post-Kharmony Iran. And it is my view that this is a regime on borrowed time. Whether or not the United States chooses to take military action, this is a regime which I think is like the last years of the Soviet Union. It'll eventually crumble under the weight of its own economic malaise and unpopularity. You know, one of the things I tell people, Scott, is that this is a regime which is a theocracy. It rules from a moral pedestal, and it's elbow deep in corruption and repression.

49:27Scott Galloway:And that is especially insulting to people, because, you know, if you find out your rabbi or priest or imam is stealing from you, that's much more offensive than your local grocer stealing from you. And so this is a population which is really outraged, and that's palpable. And this status quo is not sustainable in Iran. The question is, what happens in the years to come? And one of the statistics that has jumped out at me in my research is that from World War II to the present, only around one in five authoritarian transitions lead to democracy. More than 80 % of the time, it leads to another form of authoritarian regime.

50:13Scott Galloway:So as I said, I would love to be able to say I see Iran transitioning to Norway or Denmark. The statistical odds aren't great for that, but that doesn't mean that change inside Iran won't be an improvement for the Iranian people and for the United States, because ultimately, this is a government which has been acting against its own national interests, in my view, the national interests of its people, meaning the economic prosperity and security of its people. And so even if you see this regime replaced with a government whose ethos is not death to America and death to Israel, but long live Iran, that is a geopolitical game changer.

50:57Scott Galloway:The Middle East, in my view, is not going to change so long as this regime remains in power in Iran. As long as Germany was ruled by radicals, Europe was not going to change. And the impact will be felt beyond just Iran. The impact will be felt on global energy markets. You know, Iran should be an energy superpower. It's got the second largest reserves of natural gas, the third largest reserves of oil, and it's punching way below its weight because of its isolation and economic sanctions. So that would be a geoeconomic game changer. then all of the mischief that Iran is up to in places like, you know, supporting essentially all American adversaries throughout the world, whether that's governments in Venezuela and North Korea supporting Putin's war against Ukraine.

51:54Scott Galloway:None of that, in my view, is a reflection of Iran's national interests. And so I do think there is Great upside if we see a transition in Iran from revolutionary government to nationalist government. But what we also know from history, Scott, is that the popular will doesn't always prevail after dictatorships collapse. I'll give you a couple examples of that. But in 1990, when people were protesting against the Soviet Union, probably no one said that we want to be ruled by a mid-ranking KGB agent. But that's exactly what happened when Vladimir Putin came to power several years later, and he's been ruling Russia for more than two decades.

52:41Scott Galloway:In Egypt in 2011, where people were protesting the government of Hosni Mubarak, probably no one's preferred outcome was to be ruled by another military general. And that's the outcome that prevailed in the form of the General Sisi, who has been ruling Egypt with an iron fist over the last decade. So, you know, unfortunately, this is something I'm mindful of in my work, is hoping for the best and, you know, always looking what are ways in which we can advance U.S. national interests, what tools advance U.S. national interests. And I think Iran is a very good example of a place in which American values and American interests intersect, meaning if we did have a representative democracy in Iran, that would be fantastic for the people of Iran.

53:32Scott Galloway:It would be fantastic for U.S. national interests. And I think we should try to work towards that outcome, at the same time recognizing that, you know, we don't unfortunately have the power to push a button and dictate our ideal outcomes.

53:46Karim Sadjadpour:Karim, when was the last time you were in Iran?

53:49Scott Galloway:The last time I was in Iran was 2005, and I was nearly imprisoned. I had been based in Tehran. I was based there with an organization called International Crisis Group. I was in my 20s. And they had taken away my passport and prohibited me from leaving the country for several months. I was subject to interrogation. And there was a moment when I was trying to leave when, you know, a couple hours I thought I was about to be taken to prison. And, you know, fortunately I was allowed to leave. And I was later warned by Iranian officials that if I go back, I would be arrested upon arrival at the airport.

54:35Scott Galloway:And so I heeded that warning and I haven't been back. But many of my close friends didn't heed that warning. And some of them were taken hostage in Iran for many years. And so, you know, Scott, you alluded to it at the beginning. Iran has one of the most successful diasporas in the entire world. Captains of American industry, people like Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of Uber. These are people who are very proud of their heritage, and they would love to contribute to positive change in Iran. But you have a regime which essentially views its diaspora as adversaries. And rather than enlisting their support, hostage-taking has become a business for this regime.

55:25Scott Galloway:And so, you know, for the foreseeable future, certainly as long as this regime is in power, you know, I'm not going to be visiting Iran.

55:35Karim Sadjadpour:So, and again, this might be Pollyanna, and we'll wrap up in a second, but generous with your time. I was in Mykonos a couple summers ago, and we went to one of those super high-end restaurants where everyone ends up dancing on tables. And, you know, young people are spending thousands of dollars and signaling and, you know, all the rest. And there were a lot of kids from the Gulf. And I'm making stereotypes here, but they all are spending a ton of money, all incredibly respectful. I got the sense they were basically told by their parents, here's a credit card with no limit. Just don't embarrass us.

56:07Karim Sadjadpour:That's the vibe I got. And there were some negative comments from people about all these Gulf kids are so glad. This is a sign of hope. These are kids from the region who are capitalists. They want some of the accoutrements of Western society. this is a positive that they want to be part of, whether you find it obnoxious or douchey, whatever. It's better than them going hard right or becoming religious fundamentalists who hate the West. Am I being Pollyanna in that there is an emerging younger generation in Iran that wants to look West and is more capitalist and wants to enjoy, I won't even say the freedoms, because in the Gulf, we don't usually end up with democracies.

56:56Karim Sadjadpour:And it's unlikely we'll end up with a democracy here. I heed the point. But is there an emerging generation of people in Iran that quite frankly want to look west, want to take advantage of some of the capitalist accoutrements that want to take advantage of the incredible resources and economy that Iran can start producing? And is that an unrealistic vision of what could happen here? Because I'll go back, I'll finish where I started. You mentioned some people. One of my mentors when I was at San Francisco, a guy named Hamid Mogadam, who came over during the revolution, CEO of Prologis, probably the biggest read in the world.

57:36Karim Sadjadpour:And I can go on. My friends in the fraternity, David Asile, Karius, they all just literally struck me as being more American than Americans. Is there an emerging generation of people who really would embrace the capitalist Western mentality?

57:52Scott Galloway:A hundred percent, Scott. This is probably the most secular society now in the Middle East, and that's what 47 years of theocracy, that's the legacy that's left for Iran, that you have a population desperate to separate mosque and state rather than join it. It's the most anti-American regime probably in the world. It's probably the most pro-American population in the Middle East. I think everyone in Iran or the vast majority of young people recognize that Iran will never fulfill its enormous potential as a nation so long as their official slogan is death to America. But, you know, I say there's kind of two kinds of actors in the Middle East to go to your mentioning of the Gulf countries.

58:41Scott Galloway:So you have countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and they have forward-looking visions, Vision 2030, Vision 2031. The vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran is Vision 1979. It's a backward-looking vision. The Gulf visions are appealing to people's aspirations and hopes. The Islamic Republic of Iran is trying to appeal to people's grievances. I call them falcons and vultures. The falcons want to build soaring societies and cities and companies. The vultures are just trying to feed off the misery of others. And that model has been totally proven bankrupt inside Iran. No one wants to live under this model.

59:30Scott Galloway:I would even argue within the regime, the vast majority realize that this is a broken model that's not going to work. And so I am hopeful about Iran's future. You know, I say there's light at the end of the tunnel, and the challenge is to create that tunnel so people can fulfill the enormous aspirations and enormous potential they have as a nation. And so I just want to emphasize, I think that that is also a U.S. national interest. Iran is probably the best example in where American values, whether it's democracy or free markets or liberal societies, intersect with American interests to see a different kind of Iran.

1:00:18Scott Galloway:And I think we've been underestimating our soft power and our ability to align ourselves with the aspirations of people. And, you know, that was, in my view, one of the great lessons of the Cold War. We prevailed because our values prevailed and think we should muster that same kind of energy vis-a-vis Iran now.

1:00:42Karim Sadjadpour:Kareem Sajjapur is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, specializing in Iran and U.S. foreign policy. He joins us from a snowy nation's capital today. Kareem, I love having you on. I find you just so, I can see why you're so effective. You're just very reasoned, very rational, have an ability to speak to both sides. I love the fact I can't discern your political leanings. I have a special respect for people in this day and age. Trump, Mike, I have no idea what political party this guy belongs to. I think we need more of that in our think tanks or in positions of influence such as yourself.

1:01:19Karim Sadjadpour:Very much appreciate your time, Karim.

1:01:21Scott Galloway:Thank you, Scott. It's very kind of you to say and always great being on with you.

1:01:27Karim Sadjadpour:This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Laura Genere. Kami Reek is our social producer. Bianca Rosario Ramirez is our video editor. And Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G pod from Prop G Media.