America First (unless Iran...)

0:01This weekend, the current president of the United States did something no former president of the United States has ever done. He bombed Iran. And I want to just thank everybody, and in particular, God. For a lot of people, it was giving Timu George W. Bush. But the vice president had a counter argument. But the difference is that back then, we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives. But are these America's national security objectives? Because most Americans aren't interested in bombing Iran, And certainly most Americans don't want a war with Iran, but it sounds like the president might.

0:41Truth social. It's not politically correct to use the term regime change. But if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change? Mega! Where do we go from here on Today Explained? Weihnachtsschmaus und Silvesterer-Kletz sind gerade vorbei. There comes the next tradition to come. That big Opel-an-grill is definitely at your partner's place. With music, grill-leckereien from the grill and exclusive offers. Like the Opel Frontierer, already at 225€ monthly in Leasing plus Sonderzahlung. And in Showroom is also the rest of the model-palette ready.

1:20Up to the Opel-an-grill on Saturday, 24. January, at your partner's day. More on opel.de.

1:34Today Explained, Sean Ramos from here with Josh Keating from Vox. He's a senior correspondent covering foreign policy and national security. Josh, what did the president do this weekend? So on Saturday night, U.S. time, the U.S. launched airstrikes against Iran's nuclear program. A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities. in the Iranian regime, Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. This ended about a week of speculation about whether the U.S. would join the air campaign against Iran that Israel had launched. It was kind of a major about-face for a president who very recently seemed very committed to a diplomatic path for dealing with Iran's nuclear program.

2:29No U.S. president has ever bombed Iran. Why did Trump go for it? It seems like what happened was a combination of factors. One, Israel presented some new intelligence that they feel indicated that something had shifted with regards to Iran's ability to build a weapon. There's been reporting that basically the Israelis believe that Iranian scientists have sort of squirreled away some highly enriched uranium that international inspectors didn't know about and had begun discussions on, you know, actually building a weapon, on putting nuclear material on a missile. U.S. intelligence officials, it seems like, weren't buying that.

3:16Last March, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003. And U.S. spies, for the most part, seem to be sticking with that. Trump says he doesn't believe that. What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? Your intelligence community has said they have no evidence that they are at this point. Well, then my intelligence community is wrong. Who would the intelligence community said that? Your director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

3:49She's wrong. he doesn't care what she said and that he believes Iran was moving close to a bomb. Maybe he saw something that really convinced him. Maybe Israel's initial success in this air campaign, the degree to which they've been able to launch strikes at Iran almost without impunity, with very little in the way of Iranian defenses, and have been able to absorb the missile strikes that Iran has fired at Israel. Maybe that convinced him that it was time to go. This is a president who likes to back a winner. And he may perceive that, you know, this war was going well and he wanted to be part of it.

4:32He walked down that hallway that many presidents before him have walked down after doing stuff like this on Saturday night. This time he was flanked by his vice president, his secretary of state, and the secretary of defense. What did he have to say to the nation? There's no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight, not even close. There has never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago. The speech seemed to indicate that this was a one-off. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. We're not exactly sure if that's true.

5:10The following day, Dan Cain, General Dan Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that it's clear there was significant damage to all three, but we'd have to wait on final damage assessments. BDA is still pending, and it would be way too early for me to comment on what may or may not still be there. He also said that there would be no more strikes unless Iran didn't— well, he was a little vague about that, actually. The implication seems to be that if Iran retaliates against U.S. troops in the region, that there could be more strikes. But he seemed to suggest that this was a one-off, that there weren't further military actions planned.

5:51He didn't get congressional authorization to do this in keeping with a decades-long tradition now. Who knew he was going to do this? Not very many people. Supposedly congressional Republicans were given some advance warning. Just Republicans. Just Republicans. Congressional Democrats were given very, very, very brief warning. The Israelis do seem to have been involved in some coordinating fashion. So Israelis may have known more about this operation than congressional Democrats? Most likely they did, yeah. Wow. It's worth noting just a couple days earlier, Trump had said that he was going to wait two weeks to make a decision.

6:29And, you know, a lot of I'll be honest, I wasn't sure if he would really go through with this. I mean, he didn't even tell you. He didn't. No, he didn't. I was not on those signal chats. As you mentioned, Trump's own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, expressed skepticism that Iran had the capability to build a bomb. Here we have the president bombing nuclear facilities. Why is he at odds with his own intelligence staff? Well, that's something of a tradition as well. I mean, the lead-up to the war in Iraq seems very recent to me, but I'm realizing I'm just getting old, and that seems like a long time ago for other people.

7:15You know, I mean, in that case, the administration pressured the intelligence community to come up with findings on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program that would build a case for military action. Indeed, the facts and Iraq's behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction. We have not found at this point actual weapons. It does not mean we've concluded there are no actual weapons. It means at this point in time, and it's a huge country with a lot to do, that we have not yet found weapons. This time we seem to be doing like a speed run of the lead up to Iraq.

7:54You know, rather than pressuring the intelligence community to come up with this, you know, favorable intelligence, Trump is simply saying he doesn't believe the intelligence assessments that were given to him, that he believes what the Israelis were saying. And rather than, you know, trying to build a case in Congress, making a case to the U.N., as we saw in 2003, Trump simply kind of ignored those. So it's kind of like we're doing Iraq, but much faster. The obvious difference being that in this case, there really was a nuclear program. You published a piece on Saturday night immediately after this happened titled This Time It's Trump's War.

8:40You pointed out that Trump had overruled objections while, you know, shifting his position on taking military action against Iran. Why is he kind of going alone on this? Do we know? I want to read something that he said in May in a speech he gave in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Just a quick quote. He said he was talking about the sort of legacy of the last few presidential administrations of the Middle East. He said, in the end, the so-called nation builders direct far more nations than they built, and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.

9:24They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves. Now, I read this, and I think it's a fair reading, that this was sort of a castigation, a rejection of, you know, decades of U.S. attempts to remake the Middle East through military action. And, you know, maybe this is just a one-off, maybe it's just a strike on the nuclear program, but, you know, Israel clearly sees this as a potential regime change operation. And then on Sunday, we saw Trump posting on Truth Social that, you know, it's not PC to talk about regime change. But if Iran can't, if the Iranian government can't make Iran great again, then maybe there should be regime change.

10:09We've been hearing and reading that Trump doesn't have much of like a, you know, foreign policy ideology for, I don't know, like a decade now. But as much as he has one, it's America first. This is not that. The first person Trump thanked in his speech on Saturday night wasn't the troops, wasn't the pilots of these bombers. It was Benjamin Netanyahu. It's feeling a little Israel first out there right now. Is Trump diluting his brand, Josh? This is another major shift we've seen. I mean, Trump was basically giving Israel the cold shoulder in the Middle East. It was cutting deals with Hamas for hostages.

10:51It was, of course, engaged in these nuclear talks with Iran that Israel was not too happy about. They stopped bombing the Houthis, even though the Houthis continued lobbing ballistic missiles at Israel. So it didn't seem like either protecting Israel from its enemies regionally or, you know, appearing to be in lockstep with, you know, Israeli foreign policy in the Middle East was really that much of a priority for this administration. This is a major shift. I mean, and I don't really have a good explanation for it other than this is a president who's shown more than once he's capable of shifting on a dime in foreign policy.

11:35I mean, he can go from calling for fire and fury in North Korea to calling Kim Jong-un his best friend. So there were a lot of people on the so-called America First right, as well as some on the left, who hoped that this would be a president who would show more restraint in the use of military force, who maybe wouldn't be as locked step aligned with Israel in the Middle East. The theories about where Trump's foreign policy was headed or who was calling the shots a few weeks ago haven't held up very well. And I think, you know, observing this president over the last decade or so, that's something we should come to expect.

12:21The view from Iran when we return on Today Explained.

12:43Support for the show today comes from none other than Hymns. Erectile dysfunction can make you feel like you aren't yourself. Hymns says they can help you get back to the best version of you with personalized ED treatments that are prescribed by licensed providers, including daily meds, that support more spontaneous moments. Sounds fun. HIMSS says they offer access to ED treatment options, including trusted generics that cost 95 % less than brand names if prescribed. And since HIMSS is 100 % online, you can get the care you need from the comfort of your own home. No sitting around under fluorescent lights.

13:17Reading a week's old magazine while you wait for an appointment. Remember magazines? You can get simple online access to personalized affordable care for ED, hair loss, weight loss, and more by visiting hims.com. That's hims.com. For your free online visit, hims.com. Actual price will depend on product and subscription plan. Featured products include compounded drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions, and important safety information.

13:52Support for the show comes from BoxyCat. There's a lot to love about having a cat in your home. But there's one thing that even the most ardent cat lover could do without. Stinky litter boxes. Boxy says that they can help. Boxy wants to be the last kitty litter you ever try. They say the difference is in their formula, which includes probiotics that can stop bacteria that cause odors. Plus, Boxy says their clumping power is superior, making it easier to scoop, so your litter box could be less stinky without any of the fake fragrances. Here's our colleague, Andrew Malnizik, to tell us more. So my sister is that cat mom.

14:29She calls them her children. So when it comes to trying anything new for them, she's incredibly skeptic and always a little hesitant. That's why I was so excited to hear that she was really enjoying Boxy's cat litter. The first thing she noticed, there was just zero issues transitioning to cats. There was no drama from them. which, you know, cats can kind of push back and be a little bit drama. It was really a miracle. If you're tired of switching litters looking for the one, get Boxy at B-O-X-I-E-C-A-T dot com. It's the last litter you'll switch to. Enjoy 30 % off with code EXPLAINED at BoxyCat.com slash EXPLAINED.

15:09That's B-O-X-I-E-C-A-T dot com forward slash EXPLAINED.

15:23You are listening to Today Explained.

15:29Professor Vali Nasser just published a book on Iran's grand strategy. It's called Iran's Grand Strategy, A Political History. We asked him how long they've been trying to build a bomb. Well, it hasn't been developing a nuclear weapon. It has been developing a nuclear program. It actually started before the revolution under the Shah. At that point in time, the Shah saw it as a mark of Iran having arrived as a great power. But also he saw industrial uses for it. He wanted to develop and modernize Iran. He needed electricity. And he thought that a nuclear industry was critical for that. And I think the Islamic Republic began to think about a nuclear program when they got hit by Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war with chemical weapons and the international community didn't do anything.

16:19According to its own declarations, Iraq used more than 101 ,000 chemical bombs and munitions during eight years of war, including mustard gas and nerve agents. And then they started basically thinking also as a nuclear program, as a way of getting U.S.'s attention to sit down at the table and negotiate with Iran about lifting sanctions and de-escalating. And every time the U.S. balked at it, they built the program bigger. The idea of Iran having a nuclear weapon is unacceptable. And it's unacceptable to the United States, and it's unacceptable to the nations we're working with in the United Nations.

16:57And Obama came to the table. He signed the deal. Because America negotiated from a position of strength and principle, we have stopped the spread of nuclear weapons in this region. Iran gave up much of its program, not all of it, much of it. Because of this deal, the international community will be able to verify that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not develop a nuclear weapon. And then Trump pocketed those gains and then left the deal. The Iran deal is defective at its core. If we do nothing, we know exactly what will happen. In just a short period of time, the world's leading state sponsor of terror will be on the cusp of acquiring the world's most dangerous weapons.

17:45So the Iranians then built something bigger, and they were willing to negotiate over it with Trump when this attack by Israel and then the U.S. came. So until now, I don't think they made a decision to build a bomb. But definitely, the nuclear program had very important strategic value for them, which is the only way in which they can get out of the chokehold of U.S. sanctions, the containment wall that Iran has built around them, is to put the nuclear program on the table and say, what are you going to give me for it if I gave up X, Y, and Z? And now President Trump says Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.

18:29But it feels like there are people out there with different views. What is the best understanding we have of what just happened to Iran's nuclear program? Well, we have the word that's been put out by the United States that this was a very successful bombing that they've used upwards of 13 massive bunker buster bombs on this site called Fordow, which is a massive mountain under which Iran has built its plan. We devastated the Iranian nuclear program. Now, in reality, unless you actually put people on the ground, particularly in Fordo, which is this fortified mountain, you really won't know what has been destroyed and how much damage has been done.

19:14Now, increasingly, there is talk that actually Iran had emptied out these facilities of their centrifuges or sensitive machinery, etc. So the facilities might have been damaged, but not necessarily what was in them. And most importantly, according to Israel, that Iran had amassed enough fissile material for nine bombs. And that's why they were imminently going to get a bomb or nine bombs. And that's why Israel had to do this. But the vice president just said yesterday that we don't know where that material is. It has taken its sensitive material out of these enrichment production sites. We know that.

20:00We know that they've moved the enriched uranium. Well, we won't know anything for sure until we can get in there and we can't. But there is evidence. And in fact, even Israelis have said that there were trucks, evidence of trucks moving near Fardo, this site in the days before the attack came. and maybe that's also what pushed them to move the attack up. When the president said two weeks, they moved it faster. So we really don't know what's been damaged. And then secondly, we don't know how quickly can Iranians rebuild it because they have know-how, they have engineers, they have scientists, they have capability.

20:36So if anything, the U.S. has damaged the program, has initiated a war with Iran at some level, but it has fallen short of its claim that it has completely obliterated Iran's nuclear program. But what we know, John, is they no longer have the capacity to turn that stockpile of highly enriched uranium to weapons-grade uranium. And that was really the goal here. Uranium is not that difficult to come by, John, but enriching uranium up to the point of a nuclear weapon, that is what the president put a stop to last night. What would a war with Iran look like? Many of Iran's proxies and friends from Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, even Russia are either weakened, destroyed, preoccupied.

21:27What should we expect in terms of retaliation from Iran? Well, Iran has enough missiles, short-range missiles, medium-range missiles to hit plenty of U.S. targets in the region. Or not hit U.S. targets, go after the oil and energy supply chain, close the Straits of Hormuz, hit tankers, things like that. So I think an Iranian retaliation will come. I don't think Iran is looking to start a bigger war, but Iran also does not want President Trump to think that this was really easy. Let's do it every day of the week. So I think the retaliation will not be so much out of anger or lashing out or revenge as it will be to still try to give the U.S.

22:15a sense that this is not a good idea. Up until just a few weeks ago, it seemed like President Trump wanted to talk to Iran, wanted to consider a deal with Iran. Is that now off the table? Well, what he thinks about a deal is not what the Iranians understand about a deal. I mean, right now he's talking about, I want you to show up and sign a surrender treaty, an unconditional surrender treaty. That's what his definition of a deal is. A deal would now be much more difficult because I think Iran's experience with this whole thing means that it has led them to a point where they don't trust in anything President Trump says or does.

22:55He says, I make a decision to bomb you in two weeks. He does it the next night. He says, you know, we have one more round of talks going and I only am going to go to a military option if the talks fail. And he allows Israel to start the military option before the talks failed. So why would Iran necessarily trust a deal with the U.S.? A lot of people are scared right now that the United States, the world is about to see another forever war. Maybe World War III if you're super paranoid. Does Iran want that? Does anyone actually want that? No, I don't know if anybody wants that. But I don't think World War III is a bit hyperbolic because World War III sort of suggests that there are circumstances in which Russia or China or other global powers can come into this war.

23:45And I just don't see that. So that's going to hyperbolic. But I think a real costly forever war, another Middle East war that is going to look, Iraq look like child play. And, you know, Israel can start this war, but in the end, the United States will be the one that will own it and will have to deal with it. And it's going to cost the United States trillions of dollars. It's going to divert its attention from varieties of other global issues. It's going to be extremely taxing. I don't think the U.S. wants it. I don't think Iran wants it. But I think we're in a circumstance where President Trump decided that if he struck Iran, there is no risk of having to then put boots on the ground, which is a huge assumption in my point of view.

24:32It has to basically shoot a bow across President Trump's arrow for him to sort of realize that there is serious risk here because only then might he back off. And so for that reason, I do think that Iranians would retaliate, not out of pride, but out of the desire to warn the president that you shouldn't go down this path.

25:11Vali Nasser is a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Johns Hopkins University. His book, once more, is titled Iran's Grand Strategy, a political history. Shortly after we spoke today, Iran said it launched an attack on the largest U.S. base in the Middle East. That would be in Qatar. As of publishing time, we had no reported casualties. Peter Balanon-Rosen and Hadi Mouagdi made our show today. Miranda Kennedy, Laura Buller, Denise Guerra, Andrea Christensdottir, and Patrick Boyd helped. This is Today Explained.

25:49Thank you.