168. Why Trump Can't Win This War Alone

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0:37Hello and welcome to The Rest is Politics US. I am Katty Kay. Anthony is swanning around California. So today I am joined by veteran diplomat Richard Haas, who has worked in four American administrations, including advising both Presidents Bush on their forays into the Middle East. So I'm I'm very excited to hear what you have to say about that, Richard. President Emeritus for the Council on Foreign Relations, author of Substack, Home and Away. The list of titles goes on, Richard. Have I got them right? Have I done enough of a sales job? I think more than enough. You left out the tall and good looking part.

1:14But other than that, you've got it exactly right. The embarrassment of riches. Anyway, we're very lucky to have Richard. Thank you for joining us today. We're going to talk about, obviously, the latest on the Iran war. and what I wanted to focus on was what the options are for the president. Anthony and I have actually been hearing some pretty interesting things from the White House about splits in the White House that are emerging and we can talk about that. And then in the second half of the program, we are going to talk about how allies are responding or perhaps not responding to President Trump's calls for help.

1:48So let's start with the options that are, what are we now? Now, early on in the third week of this campaign, I don't know, it seems to me like the president's in a really bad mood. He came back from Mar-a-Lago and spent 20 minutes berating the press. I mean, he berates the press often, but this was really berating the press, saying that, you know, some of them are obnoxious and they're peddling Iran's talking points. And then I picked this up from Politico. I did not count every word myself. But overnight last night, he put up more than 1600 words across multiple posts on Truth Social railing against the Supreme Court, Jerome Powell, John Roberts, Jack Smith.

2:31He was like on a spree of fury, it felt like, overnight. So I think we wake up this morning with the president in a bad mood. And I'm wondering why you think that might be, Richard. He was on, as you said, a spree of fury, if you will, epic fury. Very good. Very good. No, look, it's inconceivable when he and those around him, Cady, were planning this, that they said to themselves, in 17 or so days, this is going to be where we are. They were unprepared, if you will, for what they launched. If Shakespeare could have joined us today, unfortunately, he couldn't. Clearly, your bookers have failed you yet again.

3:09Antony likes to have seances with historical figures. we had Rumsfeld on the program the other day. So you never know. The Bard might join us later. Finally, I mentioned Rumsfeld in a conversation earlier today already. Stuff happens. But in Shakespeare's case, Trump let loose the dogs of war. And he did based upon all sorts of optimism, all sorts of assumptions. I think particularly after Venezuela, he was feeling a little bit like a master of the universe. And when he could employ the US military, it would be quick and easy and successful and all that. And here we are two and a half weeks later, and suddenly so much of his presidency, I mean, I don't know how you feel about it, but I'm struck.

3:48If you look at Trump, the candidate, Trump, the long-term citizen who was wary of big foreign policy entanglements, you look at his own national security strategy, and suddenly we are doing something that is at odds with the man and almost everything associated with him. So given that we got to where we are and none of us really know the reasons because we haven't had a clear reason, as we've spoken about on the podcast many times, for what's happening, it's interesting to look now at what his options are. And I had an interesting conversation with an intelligence, a former very senior intelligence official who said to me that really Donald Trump's best chance of pulling back and legitimately calling this some kind of a win was about 10 days ago.

4:37And that now it's got much harder for him to do that because the Iranians, as everyone has been saying, have a voice in this as well. And that people in the White House, I am told by somebody fairly close to the president, were surprised that the Iranians were able to shut the Straits of Hormuz, whatever the sort of MAGA world is saying. They were taken by surprise by the intensity of the Iranian drones in particular and that the impact that that's having on the straits. So, given that we're in the moment, in the position where the straits are shut, the bombing campaign is continuing, the global markets don't like this, energy prices are rising, what are his options and what are the timeframes, do you think?

5:20You describe it kind of like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They're in a situation, again, they hadn't planned on. Look, there's obviously continuing the war is the most basic option. And that looks like what? Like continuing the war to get rid of all of the nuclear material, continuing the war to get rid of all of the missiles, continuing the war with the aim of doing what? Great question, because you're up against diminishing returns. Imagine Iran started the war with a couple of thousand ballistic missiles. Presumably now they're down to maybe 10 or 20 percent. So it's diminishing returns.

5:55You've destroyed a lot of their drones, but you can't get all of them. You destroyed their navy, but so what? You don't want to really attack more than nuclear. That's not going to help you deal with that. The last thing you want to do is also release all sorts of contaminated radioactive particles or gas or what have you. So you would continue the war if somehow you thought you could force capitulation. Seems wildly unlikely. One of the areas they've clearly got the Iranians wrong is that pressure leads them to capitulate. I mean, there's that line, you probably remember from Steve Whitcoff, The negotiator saying, like, why aren't they capitulating?

6:33Well, that's not what they do. This is a revolution. You and I went through it, 79, where it was anti-Zionist and anti-American. So they're not going to capitulate. I also see no evidence as yet. It's going to trigger regime change. You could say to yourself, let's continue the war because we'll bring about massive defections from the security services. So far, at least, it hasn't happened. We've seen a new Ayatollah presumably come in. But in any case, the security forces seem pretty intact. So I actually think the arguments for continuing the war get weak. It's more that you don't want to stop the war without having achieved something.

7:13But it's harder to make the positive case for going. I mean, disagree with me, if you will. Look, he's got it's in a way it's a binary choice. Do you escalate or de-escalate? And we can get into the kind of splits that are in the White House at the moment. The biggest problem that they are waking up to every day is what to do about the Straits of Hormuz. And my understanding is that they are thinking that they really can't afford for these straits to be shut more than three more weeks. So whichever of the options they choose, whether they carry on bombing, whether they go back to the negotiating table, they've got to try to resolve that.

7:48They have a time crunch on their hands. They're sort of time limited, if you like, because after that, you start having all sorts of problems with the domestic public around oil. But it's not just oil. One of the things that was pointed out to me over the weekend is that there's a critical emergency looming on the supply of helium, which is the byproduct of liquid natural gas. And helium is essential for semiconductors and chips. And a third of the world's supply comes from Qatar. and they're very worried that if they have the straits shut for more than three more weeks, they've got a real supply chain crunch on that side as well.

8:24So it's not, as we've said before, it's not just oil. There's a whole load of things, helium being one of them, that are putting a time pressure on the administration. So the case for escalating is you want to be able to claim a victory and that you don't want to de-escalate. I mean, it seems to me almost that at the moment the White House is thinking The case for escalating is that it's not de-escalating. The case for escalating is that you thought it might bring about capitulation, so then you could dictate the terms, if you will, of the post-war environment, or that you think you would trigger regime change.

8:57I don't think either's in the cards right now, so I don't think there's a good case for escalating. And there's one other downside, besides what you were talking about, the downside of a long war with all the consequences for the economy, would be the chance of war widening. And by that, I mean, we've as bad as things have been over the last two and a half weeks. Imagine if the Iranians unleashed a massive attack on, say, Saudi oil installations or the UAE or Qatar or Kuwait. So bad situations can get worse. That's the history of the Middle East. So I think part of the danger in our escalating is whether Iran, however weakened it is through what missiles or drones they have left, could actually escalate as well.

9:42So bad situations could get worse. One of the things I think the president always likes to do, and Anthony and I are doing this series for our founding members on the kind of Trump early years, Trump in the 80s and Trump in the 90s. And I know you advised Donald Trump in 2016 on foreign policy when he first ran for president. But one of the things we found from that founding members series, and I think is very relevant today, is how Trump hates to admit defeat. I mean, that's anathema to him. So I guess part of his calculation, and you know him, Richard, must be how could he de-escalate and claim victory?

10:24What does he need? If you're right that he's not at this point going to get regime change, and I think he realizes that because he stopped mentioning it, what is the off-road look like to him that is acceptable, not just economically and politically, but in terms of kind of get us back to him? back in Donald Trump's brain. Let's wander around there for a little bit if you'd like to. What is it that's kind of psychologically acceptable given what we know about Donald Trump? Well, I mean, he wants to be able to claim victory, mission accomplished. So I think that points to two things at this point.

10:58One is the reopening of the straits. 20 % of the world's oil close to that amount of the world's gas flows through it. So he's got to get the straits open. And second of all, he's got to have some sort of resolution of the nuclear issue. And even though the nuclear issue has not been central to the military activities of the war, either by the United States or Israel, we can't go to a situation where there's no ceiling on Iran's nuclear activities. So he's got to bring the war to an end, but he's got to deal with those two issues, the straits and the nuclear. And otherwise, it's going to be awfully hard for him to claim that this war left the United States better off than it did.

11:40From your time advising him, what do you think he's going through at the moment? What do you think he's thinking about all of this? Where's his head at, apart from the fact that he's grumpy and sending out loads of truth socials? What do you think he's actually thinking? I'd say it's probably closer to say I briefed him rather than advised him when he was a candidate. His views, by the way, are remarkably consistent. I remember we spent a lot of time talking about an issue not central today, but central to his presidency was his love of tariffs and his hostility to trade. We'll probably circle back to it here.

12:09his real disagreement and differences with allies, who he thinks are freeloaders rather than helping us and so forth. And I think in general, he had a suspicion of foreign policy. He saw foreign policy generically as more cost than benefit. Again, I think here he's probably now, he doesn't kick himself. I think he's more likely to be kicking others, just frustrated that he finds himself where he finds himself. This is, again, so at odds with what he promised. And what the American people care about is affordability and issues like that. He's now increasingly in a briar patch that associates him with policies that are going to exacerbate the affordability thing.

12:52But as you say, he's got to figure out a way to get out of this that he can claim victory. Hence, the call for the allies and others to join with us in escorting tankers and so forth, which would in principle deal with the straits problem. In practice, though, I can't find a single person in the Navy or in the military on our side who likes that idea. The idea that you would put American military vessels in close proximity to Iranian missiles or drones or mines leaves them all wildly, wildly uncomfortable. So it's not clear to me that he's yet stumbled on an approach to deal with the straits that doesn't somehow involve Iranian buy-in.

13:34Yeah, that is clearly the case. I mean, what's interesting is that he may be, you know, kicking at everybody else, and that's what we hear. And it's interesting to see how much leaking there is now going on. There is leaking from J.D. Vance of a kind of I told you so nature. There's leaking from the Pentagon of a, we told you so nature, we warned you that this could happen. And everybody's slightly trying to cover their backs. And I think you're right that Donald Trump blames everybody else. I don't think he is sitting there saying, oh, if I had taken longer to ask the right questions, or if I had listened to those who said to me that the Straits of Hormuz might be shut down, we might not be in this position.

14:10I don't think having covered Donald Trump for the last X number of years. That's the way he thinks. This is where what we said right at the beginning, that the strategy is not clear, is coming back to bite him. This is where reality is coming back to bite Donald Trump's ego. The ego of Donald Trump says, I can do this. No one else can do it. Too much planning is for wusses. That's what the big state has always done. But if you do too much planning, then you end up not taking decisive action. And I am the guy who takes decisive of action. And as Jared Kushner once kind of told me with absolutely zero sense of irony, Donald Trump is the only person who can fix Middle East peace because of his character, because he's the best negotiator there has ever been in the world.

14:54And literally that is what they believe. They believed the shtick. But I had a really interesting conversation with General Mark Hertling on Morning Joe when I was on this morning and asked him how much of this looks like poor planning, the problems that they're facing now. And he said, this is all that that is. If they, for example, if you'd anticipated that the Straits of Hormuz would be shut, you would have had the right equipment and the right military personnel in the region at the right time, but they didn't plan for that. And so now they're having to bring this marine expeditionary unit from the Japan area, 5 ,000 sailors and marines trying to get them over.

15:34These units don't move very quickly. And you're in a position, General Hurtling says, where you can't just wing this and suddenly have ships and sailors move to the straits to shadow tankers. You have to have planned for it. And I think we're learning something as we keep doing about Donald Trump, which is that there's almost a, it feels to me, I don't know what you think about this, but it feels to me like he almost has a kind of antipathy towards planning because that's what everybody else did, that he wants to do things differently. Well, first of all, he doesn't like planning because planning locks you in.

16:09And if Donald Trump is anything, he's an improviser. And it's one of the reasons he doesn't like international institutions, doesn't like alliances. He doesn't like things that box him in. He has, as you mentioned before, tremendous suspicion of the quote unquote deep state, which is simply a pejorative way of describing government. The people around him have very little experience in the executive branch, including his two principal negotiators for this part of the world. He's hollowed out the NSC staff, the National Security Council staff, and he's put one individual, the Secretary of State, in charge of both state and the national security system.

16:48No, this is the most top-down administration. I've worked for four. I've never seen anything in the same zip code as this. And planning is good. coming back to something you said before, one of the things planning does is it reduces the chance of surprise. You never want to be surprised when you're president. And what Donald Trump, I think, is learning is actually a great irony here. Presidents often turn to foreign policy when they get frustrated with domestic policy because Congress or the courts and all these things tell them all these things they can't do. So they turn to foreign policy because that's the area where traditionally American presidents have had greater freedom.

17:22Donald Trump is now in the ironic situation that he's turned to foreign policy and now he's finding foreign policy is constraining him because this country called Iran is not playing the game by the, according to the assumptions that the president and his inner circle seem to have had. Yeah, such a good point. I mean, I think you're right. I think he's been surprised and he's mad at the people who he feels should have made him not surprised. But the Wall Street Journal's reporting is that he didn't listen to those people because he doesn't like listening to people who say no to him. And there's no one in the White House apart from perhaps Scott Besant, who's actually able to manage him and say no to him.

17:59Before we go to a break, I want to talk about these splits that Anthony and I have been hearing about in the White House because some pretty senior White House people are reaching out to say that there is a real schism happening at the moment in the White House between the escalators and the de-escalators. In the de-escalation camp is J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, and interestingly, all of the tech bros. And really interestingly, is not just that people in Vance's world are calling out to reporters to tell them about this split, but also that you've got David Sachs, who's the AI chief, went on the All In podcast at the end of last week and laid out this split in no uncertain terms with even saying that there is, you know, he is in the very much in the de-escalation camp, but suggesting that the escalators in this schism are trying to push Donald Trump to escalate the war, to side with Israel, and that you could even end up with some kind of nuclear strike against Iran, potentially from Israel, is what David Sachs seems to be saying.

19:10I've been told to take David Sachs's comments with a grain of salt, but I do think that there is this split. And the people in the de-escalation camp in kind of the Vance Rubio world are worried that Trump is leaning towards the escalation camp and that that camp is led by people like Lindsey Graham, Pete Hedseth, Jared Kushner, Steve Wyckoff, and that they are trying to get him to ramp up. And you're hearing it from some people in Trump world, too, saying that, you know, some kind of some of the influencer types who are saying, right, we've got to actually go to the max now. We can't possibly back down.

19:45Are you hearing anything about that split and how it's bubbling down and which way is Trump leaning? Well, you're hearing it and you're seeing it. In some ways, the president's caught. He doesn't want to decide between the two camps. So there's been tremendous deference to the agenda of Israel. And I would just simply say Israel has a different and a more narrow agenda than the United States. I don't think those, the escalate camp, ultimately has made the case, as we've already discussed. So I think the de-escalate camp has the better of it. But the problem with that is then you have to negotiate.

20:19And you've got to deal with both the nuclear issue and the straits issue through negotiation. That means we have to give up some things to do it. And I don't think the president has come to the position where he feels he can declare victory, success, and mission accomplished, yet move towards de-escalation. So my own sense is he's caught. Yeah. And he's got a dilemma, shall we say. I think, again, though, for his presidency, moving towards the side of trying to resolve this makes a lot of sense. And then the devil's in the details. What is it he would sign up to? because it's the Iranians that put some really awkward things on the table in terms of reparations, questions of non-attack pledges, questions about sanctions, relief, and about American presence, military presence in the Gulf.

21:07Because I think they sense that there are those around the president who want this to end. So that's their leverage here. So for the president, he's got some uncomfortable choices. It's exactly where he didn't want to find himself, going back to what we're just talking about. But now he's got a set of options in either direction, escalate or de-escalate. Neither one is wildly attractive. Neither one is without risk. That's where he finds himself. And I think at the moment, he's stalling because he doesn't like the choices in front of him. Yeah. So, he's hoping that the choices resolve himself.

21:37Trouble is, the longer he stalls, the more the economic situation makes his choices even more difficult. One person I hope that he is not listening to, I feel a little bad about calling this individual out, but Chris Wright, the Energy Secretary, was on the Sunday shows. Here's what he said, because I'm a little worried about the quality of the team, of some of the team around the president. This is what Mr. Right said. There's no guarantees in war. I can guarantee the situation would be a lot worse without this operation. I swear to God, he said those two things back to back. Then he said on another show, he was asked, should Americans be bracing for the price of oil to go over$200 a barrel?

22:13So Iran calls us the great Satan. I don't think we are the great Satan. In fact, clearly we're not. So that's a no on$200 a barrel. I would pay no attention to what Iran says. I mean, I swear to God, that is the quality of the people that the White House is putting out. That is how deftly, undeftly, that's ironic, they are handling the Sunday shows at the moment. I mean, but the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Energy should stick to their knitting. It doesn't do them or the president good when they start getting outside their lane and talking about military issues and escorting tankers and the rest.

22:47I think this is an administration, this is more your ballpark than mine, where people feel this endless pressure to demonstrate their fealty and loyalty. To perform to an audience of one. Yeah. And they have to even wear floor shimes that don't fit. I mean, there's no limit to what they have to do. And it's just it's not serving. If you buy if guys, if you don't know what Richard is referring to, look him up. This is a pair of shoes. Look up Marco Rubio's and the shoe does not fit quite literally. The president has been handing out shoes. If you happen to go to the White House, you may come back with a new pair of shoes at the moment.

23:20The problem is they may not fit because the president simply guesses what size you need. maybe he likes it that they don't fit after all. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, come back and talk about how the rest of the world is responding to this. This episode is brought to you by Cologuard. Do you know what's really scary? Not screening for colon cancer when you turn 45. The Cologuard test is non-invasive, requires no special prep or time off work, and shifts right to your door. In just three simple steps, Cologuard takes the scare out of colon cancer screening. If you're 45 or older and at average risk, Ask your health care provider about the Cologuard test.

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24:08Welcome back to The Rest is Politics US and my conversation with Richard Haass on the latest on Iran. We are going to spend this half of the program looking at the allied and international response to what Donald Trump is asking for. But first, we have some very exciting news. Both of Goalhanger's political podcast, The Rest is Politics, both UK and US. Alistair Campbell will kill me for calling it The Rest is Politics UK, so it's just The Rest is Politics, and The Rest is Politics US, are joining together at London's South Bank Centre for a live show. It's going to be an amazing transatlantic summit.

24:44The special relationship has never been this strong on stage at The Rest is Fest. We're bringing all four of us together. That's me and Anthony and Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart for full length live show packed with analysis and debate. It's going to be so fun. Trust me, when you get the four of us in one room, things get well, noisy, interesting, heated, all of that. The Rest is Fest is running from the 4th to the 6th of September at London's South Back Centre. Members can get tickets early on the 19th of March at 10am. So if you want to make sure you get a ticket, do sign up at therestispoliticsus.com.