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Hello everyone and welcome to Amanpour. Here's what's coming up as war expands from Iran to Lebanon to Saudi Arabia. I asked former senior US Military commander David Petraeus what he sees as the most likely outcome. Then Israel sees a historic opportunity to end the Iranian regime. But will Trump stay the course? Defense analyst Amos Haro joins from Israel and how war in the Middle east impacts the war in Ukraine. Walter Isaacson speaks to Krish Freeland, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Goldrig, New York, sitting in for Christian Amanpour. Today, another strike at the heart of the Iranian regime. Israel bombed the assembly of Experts compound in the holy city of Qom, meaning the strike to hit while its members were voting to elect the country's next supreme leader. But Iran says the building had been evacuated prior and the war continues to expand across the Middle East. In Beirut, the Israeli Air Force is striking Hezbollah targets as their forces seize ground in southern Lebanon. In in Saudi Arabia, the US Warns there is a threat of imminent attacks after its embassy was struck by suspected Iranian drones. The US State Department ordered the departure of government personnel from Jordan, Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE due to security concerns. And inside Iran, more than 700 people have been killed since the war began, according to the U S. Based Human Rights Activist News agency. Speaking in the Oval Office alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, President Trump was asked about his worst case scenario for Iran. Here's his response.
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C
I guess the worst case would be
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D
we do this and then somebody takes
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C
over who's as bad as the previous person. Right?
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D
That could happen. We don't want that to happen.
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C
That would probably be the worst. You go through this and then in five years you realize you put somebody in who was no better.
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A
Here to respond to President Trump's worst case and to consider the risks as the war escalates is General David Petraeus. Before he served as CIA Director General Petraeus headed the US Central Command, which is directing military operations in Iran. General Petraeus joining us now live. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us. Really appreciate it. You have called the strike that ultimately killed the Supreme Leader an extraordinary success. But does his removal actually take away the country's leadership, the country and its leadership's opportunity and access to both ballistic missiles and their threats to the region, potentially even the United States, as President Trump laid out, as well as their nuclear program and their proxies?
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D
Well, I think it was an extraordinary achievement. And so were the killings of the head of the Defense Ministry, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs equivalent, and a number of other security force leaders. These are degrading their capabilities, needless to say, as are the strikes against the headquarters and all the rest of that. What's going on, though, is it's very clear that there was a decentralization, a devolution of authority that took place before all of this. And those subordinate units are carrying out what appear to have been pre approved targets with missiles and drones and I think foolishly expanding the war, undergoing horizontal escalation, if you will, to attack not just US Bases and diplomatic facilities and so forth throughout the region and in Israel, but also to go after civilian targets, to go after seaports, airports, loading locations for oil and gas and so forth, which is really forcing the hands of the Gulf states who wanted to stay out of this. Remember, they did not allow our forces to use their bases and now they are being brought into it. The same is true of the UK whose base in Cyprus was attacked by apparently a Hezbollah launch drone. And you see the French and the Germans. The French have had a base attacked also. And the Chancellor, who is in the Oval Office today, has been relatively supportive as well. So what you see is not only an expansion of targets, but an expansion of countries that now are willing to enter this, at the very least in terms of probably opening their bases, the UK did, and participating in defensive operations, but also in some cases considering entering the offensive action against Iran as well. And you see steady progress, I think, against the various targets on which the Israelis and the Americans have focused the missile program, its launchers, even the manufacturing facilities. Same with the drone facilities. And these have been quite problematic. There have been some extraordinary successes, like the UAE just knocking down many, many hundreds out of the numbers of Iranian drones sent their way. But it appears that the killing of our soldiers in Kuwait was a result of drone attacks. So that's a challenge. Those are being focused. The Navy has been hit very, very hard. Other capabilities that could retaliate. But at the end of the Day it really comes down to what the president discussed in the Oval Office and that is in essence who is going to follow the Supreme Leader. The assembly of Experts met today. That's their version of a conclave to select the new leader, but it was bombed as well. So the question is, will there be some element that after we have in a way set the conditions for possible toppling of the regime, noting that it does not appear that we're going to put boots on the ground to ensure that. Can there be the emergence of a break off force, maybe out of the regular army, Navy, air force or Marines? Certainly not. Probably from the regime protection Revolutionary Guards Corps with sufficiently charismatic and effective leadership and real military capability. Because I don't think that the people alone. This is not going to be a situation like the color revolutions after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, when it was just literally people power on the streets that were able to topple force regimes from office.
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A
Yeah. And I in the last hour, just moments ago, spoke with a man I know, you know quite well, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. And I asked him about whether or not regime change was a priority as well for Israel in this operation. He has long said that you not bomb your way from the skies to regime change on the ground. But he also seemed to rule out Israeli military presence on the ground, boots on the ground, though he did suggest that perhaps some sort of soft power intervention has been in the works for a bit of time. Now, I want to get to all of the points that you just raised, but in terms of what led the United States to take this action. Now there have been some questions raised about the narratives here coming from the president and some of his top advisers. President Trump laying out yesterday that in fact it was their ballistic missiles that he said were nearing striking distance of the US Potentially they served as a threat to the United States and notably that they served as a shield for its nuclear program. And thus that led him to decide to attack when he did. And yet just a few hours later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said something quite different. Let me play that knew that there
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was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't
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preemptively go after them before they launched
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those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and, and perhaps even higher those killed. And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn't act.
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A
Okay. So just a few moments ago President Trump was asked about this, whether or not Israel essentially forced his hand to enter this war, and he said, no, if anything, I forced Israel's hand here and reiterated his view that Iran did pose somewhat of an imminent threat to the United States. What do you make of these shifting narratives, and do you think the president did enough, enough in justifying why he decided now?
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D
Well, there's been a number of explanations for this. My sense is that there has been an expectation that Israel was going to take strikes again against the Iranian missile program, in particular, that its reconstitution was particularly worrisome to then. Many of us expected that that would take place within a month or at most two. Then I think that there was a recognition if this is coming. And the nuclear talks didn't seem to be going anywhere, despite what a third party said about potential progress. They were being stretched out and the negotiators seemed to be playing our negotiators to a degree. And then I think there was probably a recognition that we had so much pattern of life information, so much exquisite intelligence, that if we struck that we would be able to take out the supreme Leader and a number of the other important leaders. And of course, that proved to be the case. In fact, it was stunning arrogance that the supreme Leader gathered in a location that was bombable during daylight, I assume because they said, well, they didn't attack in the early morning hours last night. Let's get together one more time. They won't attack until the lights go out. And that proved to be obviously a catastrophically bad assumption. So I think it's a number of these different factors that all came together and the decision was made, let's do it. Now, you recall that President Trump had a degree of tactical surprise the last time, and this certainly had that in this particular case as well.
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A
And that then raises the question of what are the opportunities and obviously what are the concerns, concerns that remain if there is in fact, a power vacuum right now for the country. Karim Sajapour last night on our air said that the regime currently resembles a chicken with its head cut off. This is no doubt a zombie type of regime that, while weakened, still can do quite some damage here. What are your biggest concerns as more and more time unfolds, as attacks against regional partners continue, without that stable leadership that the west that Israel is hoping for?
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D
Well, I'm not sure that there was stable leadership prior to this. I think a better characterization, I'm sure Karim, for whom I have enormous respect, would have labeled this as just absolutely hardline Ideological leaders that were in place. But what has happened, as I mentioned earlier, is that there's been a delegation of authority in advance. By the way, there are other leaders stepping up and taking over. They all have deputy commander succession plans. Indeed, there's a three person council that is in essence is in charge right now. It's the President, the senior judicial official and a cleric who's been selected who could be the next supreme leader, by the way. But they're not in the kind of active command and control. You know, they've got to stay away from any electronic devices unless they're very deeply buried underground and it's landlines and so forth. I think the short term concern is our ability to find and destroy the remaining missile stocks, launchers and the manufacturing facilities for those as well. To really put that very substantially out of commission for quite a long time. And then to do the same with the drone capacity that they have as well. That has proven again to be problematic. Some countries have very good shorad short range air defense systems that they invested in over the years. It does not appear that all have that capacity though. And that has been challenging. Just as were the shahed drones provided by Iran to Ukraine to Russia, so challenging for Ukraine. And then in the mid to longer term, as we are able to degrade all of these different elements of the regime leadership, the regime forces and so on, can that be sufficient that the people with some kind of charismatic leader who emerges with real military capability? Keep in mind that sadly in most of these situations, the side that prevails is the one that has the most guys with the most guns and the willingness to be ruthless in their employment. As we have seen from the regime forces in putting down the demonstrators, by the way, we're Talking about nearly 1 million men under arms in the regime forces, unless they actually break away. And again, possibly the army or others might do that, but we don't see signs of that though perhaps there have been activities behind the scenes, as Yoav Gallant has hinted, and maybe there are not boots on the ground, but there might be sneakers on the ground that are trying to carry out covert action that can enable the emergence of this kind of force, but we certainly have not yet seen evidence of that at this point in time.
- [14:44]
A
Yeah, well, we know that from a lot of reporting that there was a lot of signals intelligence that Israel had access to in terms of locating where the Supreme Leader was and that it was ultimately, according to reporting, a CIA source on the ground that confirmed the signals intelligence from the Israelis. But in terms of what can be done moving forward. We heard the president over the weekend calling for IRGC members to put down down their weapons and that they would be given blanket immunity. It does seem that some sort of lessons from Iraq are at play here right now. And then there was reporting this morning that the president, perhaps after speaking with some Turkish or Kurdish, excuse me, militia officials, is open to having them join on the ground as well. Would that be advisable from your standpoint?
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D
Well, there are numerous elements within Iran. There are Azeris, Azerbaijan in Iran. There are Kurds, there are Turkmen, there are Sunnis. There are various disparate elements that might rise up to some degree, but they don't have a particularly impressive capability, although being admirably intentioned here against a 1 million strong force. There's also the Mujahideena Kalk Mek. Some have called it a bit of a cult. They're actually, you know, pretty serious and secular. They've actually identified a parliament in waiting and this kind of thing. So there are various elements out there, but can any of them develop real military capability and capacity? You know, where is the Ahmed Shah Massoud in the Panjshir Valley of Iran. To hearken back to what you'll recall took place in Afghanistan right before we went in. And then he put together the Northern alliance, in large measure, sadly, was assassinated before he could see the outcome in the toppling of the regime there, the Taliban. So is there something like that somewhere? Is there an effort ongoing? Keep in mind that Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, ran drone bases from inside Iran that picked off and very precisely targeted over a dozen of the nuclear scientists in Iran and a number of other senior leaders. Is there something going on there? We don't know that. We do know certainly that the penetration of Iran is extraordinary. Remember that Mossad was able to steal the entire library of nuclear records right out of Tehran some years ago, in addition to these more recent pinpoint strikes against very significant leaders and nuclear scientists.
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A
Yeah, and now they seem to have full control over the skies of Iran, Given their operations over the past year and a half or so to that point, of soft power winning over hearts and minds, lessons learned from past experiences, particularly in Iraq war is tragic. There are a number of casualties among civilians, even the youngest of them. But just your reaction in the early days and hours of this war to the killing of what appears to be over a hundred young schoolgirls. It may be that the United States was actually the one who had launched that missile. We don't have clarity on that front. Either way, a tragedy, and one that the regime is really playing up here from a propaganda standpoint, never mind the number of civilians they are accused of killing. Just your reaction to that and some lessons learned here early on into this war.
- [18:42]
D
Well, I am very confident that neither Israel nor the United States deliberately targeted a girls school. But history is full of cases in which there were errant strikes, sometimes mistaken strikes. I remember, in fact, I was the executive, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when we hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. And that was definitely by mistake, although it was pretty hard to convince the Chinese of that. So these things do happen in war, and they are absolutely tragic. My experience, though, Brianna, is that soft power is what solidifies the gains achieved by hard power. In other words, you achieve security, as we did during the surge in Iraq, which I was privileged to command, and we went into a neighborhood, we would clear it of the extremists, the militia, insurgents, gate it off, and then you solidify the security gains by what you build on top of that with soft power by rebuilding markets, bridges, schools, clinics, you name it. And that's what convinces the people that they should actually support you rather than tacitly or actively supporting the people that were against you. But that's, in a way, premature. Now, it's not to say that there shouldn't be thought about providing some kind of medical assistance, perhaps outside or some other way, but at the end of the day, this, right now, this is all about hard power, and it's about who can actually take control. And if those that we appear to support can take control, then we should pile on with the soft power to show the people that there can be a better life. Let's keep in mind, Bianna, somebody calculated the other day that the Iranian rial, their currency, is down by 99% since the revolution of 1979. And they've been ruled by a regime that has driven them nationally into poverty and internationally into isolation. And that's, of course, the source of the enormous unrest by the vast majority of the people, including those who are out on the streets and killed in the tens of thousands, with tens of thousands more detained. So, again, there should be outrage about this. The question is if those who are so outraged, even if it's the bulk of the population, can generate the kind of hard power that can take down a regime that even after all of the damage and destruction and degradation, will still number in the many, many hundreds of thousands of guys with guns and a ruthlessness that they have demonstrated in the past.
- [21:27]
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Yeah. A regime for nearly half a century that has prevented their country, their population from their utmost potential. A country that could have been a Jichuani country, to quote Karim Sajapur. Again, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. General Petraeus, we are out of time. I did want to ask you that final question because you yourself say the first question in war is tell me how this ends. We're four days in. I hope to have you back so we can try to answer that question as well.
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D
I look forward to discussing it.
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A
Thank you as always for your insights and do stay with cnn. We'll be right back after this break.
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I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service, I often hear questions about how to keep our parents and grandparents empowered with access to technology to help us out with ways to protect our older loved ones. Online, I have Tazeen Khan here with me. She is the founder and CEO of a nonprofit called Cyber Collective which helps make people Internet street smart. These scammers do a lot of high volume rinse and repeat scrubbing through these lists to see who has a vulnerability, who never changed their password. The biggest one is slowing down. If you're getting an email or a text message from UPS and you don't have a package that you ordered and you're not expecting anything from UPS, click that link. Listen to CNN's terms of service wherever you get your podcasts.
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A
Now, as Iran continues launching strikes on US Allies in the Gulf, our correspondent Nick Robertson is on the ground in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The United States closing one of three embassies there in the region, Saudi Arabia being one of them. And Nick, we hear from a number of officials, the president commented on this and General Petra Reyes just did as well. And what their view was a really dumb decision from Iran to strike a number of those GCC countries. UAE I believe is the hardest hit in terms of being on the receiving end of missiles and drones. Just tell me how these countries are responding four days in.
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F
Yeah, they're taking all the defensive measures they can to defeat the ballistic missiles, the drones that are incoming. And I think the perception here is that Iran has done something that it hasn't done before, that it's made this major miscalculation that it's always used the sort of Gulf states as pressure points. Look back to Saudi Arabia in 2019 when it was Iran that was accused of sending a multiple and complex drone attack at several Saudi oil facilities with devastating short term impacts there. So Iran has a history And a record that's well known here in the region for trying to send messages through attacks. Attacks. But the assessment here is that Iran would attack one or two of the Gulf countries, but not the others, to sort of try to divide them, to use them, to put, to put, to put pressure on, to put pressure on the United States. Sorry, I think we have a small problem here. So.
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A
Okay, Nick, was there an audio issue? Okay, Nick, apologies for that. We seem to be having a technical issue with Nick there. Our thanks to him. Let's go to our next guest. As US Leaders continue to offer contradictory objectives for war with Iran, President Trump cited the nuclear threat in a long range missile program that, quote, could soon reach the American homeland. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth cites Iran's non nuclear weapons, which he calls a conventional gun to our head. And as we've heard, Secretary of State Mark Rubio says a planned Israeli attack forced the US to strike preemptively Here now to parse through America's shifting justifications for war and how it all relates to Israel's interests is Amos Harel. He is the influential military analyst for Haaretz, Israel's oldest daily newspaper, and a frequent guest on our program. Amos, it is good to see you. Thank you so much for taking the time. So there we have it. The President saying one thing, notably that the United States was facing somewhat of an imminent risk from a strike from Iran and citing not only its nuclear program, but also its ballistic missiles program that at some point he said were shielding the nuclear program and also perhaps threatening the west region and the United States. Marco Rubio, you heard saying that this was an action taken because Israel was going to strike for first. The president appeared to just clean that up a little bit in the Oval Office as he was meeting with Friedrich Merz, saying that if anything, he may have forced Israel's hand. How is all of this playing out just four days into this war?
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E
So there are quite a lot of contradicting statements there, mostly from the American side. It's not a precedent, we have to admit. We have seen President Trump in the last year or so making all kinds of statements about developments and changing his mind in retrospect about some of those events. But I would focus on the President's last statement saying that he was just an hour ago that he was actually quite convinced that the Iranians were about to initiate a surprise attack and that it was he actually who pressured Netanyahu into agreeing for a joint strike. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Netanyahu has been Preaching for quite some time, the Israeli prime Minister, that the United States should deal again with Iran, that there should be a joint campaign against Iran, and that the end result, not always has he said that publicly, but I think the prime minister believes that the end result should be regime change in Iran. The question from the Israeli side is, how much time do we have? Will this end within a few days? And President Trump seems to have hinted in that direction just a few hours ago, or do we have quite a few weeks to deal with that? And even then, in spite of the fact that the first attack was quite successful, it eliminated the supreme leader, Khamenei, and dozens of other leaders and commanders on the Iranian side. I'm not sure anybody knows, neither in Israel or in Washington, how to get from point A to point B to actually achieve a regime change and persuade the Iranian people to get back to the streets and fight the regime in order to finally bring an end to this saga.
- [28:26]
A
I spoke in the last hour with former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and asked about how regime change would unfold, if that is the ultimate goal by Israel and the United States in Iran without the President. Of US Boots or of Israeli boots? Both. President Trump, while he didn't completely take that off the table, would clearly like to avoid that. And Yoav Gallant, while no longer in the government, said that he didn't believe that Israeli boots would need to be on the ground. But he did suggest and intimate that some sort of soft power would be perhaps involved here in determining and helping the Iranian people figure out what. Who their next leadership will be. Just talk about that, the pressure there and the challenges that come with that.
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E
So this seems quite vague to me as well. Sort of wishful thinking. If we do this, then maybe they do that and maybe we get the desired result of what we are trying to achieve. But President Trump has not even said that. We don't get a. A real picture of what he's interested in. Will he settle for some kind of an agreement, some kind of a nuclear compromise, which would be enough for him? Would he say, I did my share? We eliminated Khamenei, we started a massive military campaign. Now it's up to the Iranian people. None of this is clear yet. Now, paradoxically, I think the golden hour or the opportunity to change something serious in Iran has passed. That happened around the beginning to mid January of this year, the terrible night between the 8th and 9th January, when the regime slaughtered thousands and thousands of protesters on the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities. And that time apparently we now know in retrospect that neither the American intelligence community or the Israeli one knew exactly what has happened then. The President was deliberating for a few days. He was about to strike January 14th. And he was persuaded, both by the Pentagon and by Netanyahu, strangely enough, not to act because the assumption was that the Americans were not ready. Not enough defense layers to protect American forces in the region and to protect Israel, and not enough options on the attack to overthrow the regime. So that golden opportunity was missed. And that was six or seven weeks ago. Now, when you finally have what Trump called this beautiful armada in the Middle east and there are so many forces and so many fighter planes there, it gets messy and complicated to actually achieve those goals because the Iranians are ready than before and they're taking no prisoners. It's quite apparent that they're willing to do anything in order to stay in power, by any means necessary.
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A
And now that Hezbollah has entered the war, obviously a much weakened fighting force, but nonetheless capable of doing damage inside of Israel, Israel vowing to continue to fight Hezbollah now, in that fragile ceasefire now coming to an end. We've had General Petraeus and others describe Iran's decision to attack G neighbors as a stupid one. And many are now saying that is the same characterization for Hezbollah in deciding to join this war. Nonetheless, does Israel view this as an opportunity to finally eliminate Hezbollah? Or could you see potential risks and challenges and even strains on the resources that now Israel is having to expend not only against Iran, but to its north?
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E
So there has been a recent development. Just about 30 minutes ago, there were sirens in northern Israel and in the center of Israel around the Tel Aviv area, because apparently Hezbollah had launched a few rockets, two or three rockets, towards the north and the center of Israel. Thankfully, they missed their targets, and some of them, at least two of them, were intercepted by the Israeli forces. So Hezbollah means business. It's quite clear by now. And yet Hezbollah is much weakened. If we look back, you probably recall that at the height after October 7th, things got more tense on our northern border. And between, I'd say, July and November of 24, there was a massive military campaign which ended in clear Israeli victory and a ceasefire, which forced Hezbollah to put down its arms and to stop fighting Israel directly. They're not as strong as they were. They have less weapons. They have less experienced commanders, less fighters. And the man in charge, Naim Qasem, is not a charismatic leader. He was not somebody who was born for this job. He replaced, of course, Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by Israel in late September of 24. So they're playing this game with different cards now. On the other hand, they don't have much choice. It's the Iranians who've been financing them for decades with probably close to a billion dollars a year supply of weapons, salaries and so on, who are demanding their help, considering what is going on in Tehran. But Hezbollah is not going all the way. And Israeli reaction for the time being is rather limited. There were a few assassinations in Beirut. Israel has announced that it will deploy more forces on the ground in southern Lebanon, but this is a very narrow zone close to the Israeli border. For the time being, it doesn't seem as if Israel is about to launch a massive ground campaign in Lebanon. The main priority right now is Iran and Lebanon. But this is not working out very well for Hezbollah. They practically stepped into a trap. And this trap was prepared by Netanyahu and the Israeli military.
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A
How significant is President Aoun's sort of defiant pushback and threats against Hezbollah to not enter the fray?
- [34:55]
E
This is extremely interesting from an Israeli perspective, I think from an Arab or Lebanese perspective as well. A year or two ago, one could not have imagined that the leadership, both of the political leadership in Beirut and the leadership of the Lebanese military would be that vocal in their opposition to Hezbollah and their demands that Hezbollah would stop fighting. I think I'm not an expert on Lebanon, but from what I've followed the news there in recent days, it's quite clear that most of the political arena and most of the public are deeply against another Hezbollah military campaign because they know that they, as the other citizens in Lebanon, would pay a dear price. So Hezbollah is stuck into a corner, not unlike the situation in which the Iranian leadership finds itself. Now, of course, there are those in Israel who say we should not waste this opportunity. We should hit harder against Hezbollah, hoping to finally change the status quo there. We'll see how this plays out. But this, in my view, this remains the. The second arena and not the first one. Things would be decided about Iran and in Iran, and the decisions would be made in Washington more than anywhere else in the world.
- [36:13]
A
And while we heard Secretary Hegseth describe Israel as a model partner, the two countries working in lockstep here, the mood on the ground in Israel among the population is quite different than sort of the skeptical reaction that we're seeing from not only Democrats here in the United States, but even some Republicans as to the urgency of the United States having to take these actions. Now, this in Israel is viewed Iran is Viewed as a first and foremost its biggest existential threat. Not the case here in the United States. But in terms of where Israel sees this going and the Prime Minister's ultimate goal, this operation is being called Roaring Lion. Is this the end of the so called lion operations, or is this one of those promises the Prime Minister is making like he did in Gaza, that military officials are not quite sure or as confident they will be able to accomplish?
- [37:13]
E
So I wouldn't say that people are elated by this, the beginning of this war. Saturday morning, Israeli time took us, most of the public, by surprise. There were sirens all over Israel and pretty quickly there were missiles being launched and drones being launched from Iran towards our population centers. People are not happy about that. We've been fighting since October 7th. There haven't been long. Ceasefires and stuff was happening all the time. And this was not an easy experience for Israelis, especially after the trauma of October 7th. And yet I think there haven't been many public opinion polls, but I think the majority of the population for the time being sees this as a necessary step. And of course, it's happy to see Khamenei, who preached the defeat of Israel and wanted us annihilated completely. We're not happy, we're not sad to see him go. Nobody here is going to miss Khamenei, the dictator. On the other hand, I think at least half of the Israeli population is very suspicious of Netanyahu's intentions. He's not a popular prime minister. Many Israelis demand his resignation because of what they see as his responsibility for the massacre, for the mistakes that led to the massacre on October 7th. And people remain suspicious that he's using this for his political gains, that he's actually. His strategy is to maintain war on all fronts in order to avoid discussion of what has happened on October 7 and other issues that remain open in Israeli politics.
- [38:46]
A
Maskharl, I do apologize. We are tight on time, but it's interesting to see that the opposition thus far has publicly embraced this operation. We'll see how long that will last, but thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it. And we'll be right back after a short break.
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A
Well, as the world reacts to the spiraling situation in the Middle East. Our next guest says that it is part of the wider collapse of international rules based order. Kristia Friedland is an economic adviser to President Zelensky, having previously served as Canada's deputy prime minister and foreign minister. And she joins Walter Isaacson.
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C
Thank you. Bianna and Kristia Freeland, welcome to the show.
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B
Great to be here. Walter.
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C
This attack on Iran by the United States has produced a response from Canada. Your prime minister, Mark Carney, you were once foreign minister of Canada. I'd like you to explain it to us. What the Canadian prime minister said was that Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security. Explain what Canada's position is on this war.
- [40:38]
B
Well, look, Walter, important for me to be very clear, I stepped down from the cabinet in the fall and from parliament a few weeks ago. So I'm not here speaking on behalf of the government of Canada. And I want to be really, really clear about that. But I am a Canadian. I am a liberal and proud of both things. I think a really important starting point for me when it comes to Iran is recognizing the incredible suffering of the people of Iran, recognizing how oppressive this theocratic regime has been and how hard and how bravely the people of Iran time and time again have been fighting this regime and rising up against it, including in recent weeks. There is a large Iranian Canadian community here. Many of them, my friends. And I have to say over this weekend, while no one knows what the future will hold and you know, Iranian Canadians, many of them have family in Iran, they're very well informed. They are as smart as any analyst you will talk to about knowing that there could be all kinds of difficult and hard to predict developments in the future. But one thing that I did hear from my friends this weekend is celebration that a tyrant has died. And from my perspective, all of us need to really start there and recognize
- [42:29]
C
that one of the things that the Russian officials have been saying is that this kind of unleashes them to do regime changes, attacks. You obviously will talk soon about Ukraine. You've just come back from there, but they even said on Estonia, maybe now Russia will start acting this way. Is that something you fear?
- [42:50]
B
I think we need to be worried about a few things. One is if whatif the precedent that is being set is any country with superior military force simply has the right to take out the leadership of another country, that's really, really troubling. I think there are also some real concerns that we should be talking about, about nuclear proliferation. Because if you are a smaller country that is concerned about this precedent, it's going to be pretty tempting for countries to think that in a world where there are no rules, where there are no rules of war, where that post war liberal order, imperfect as it was, is now completely being disregarded. If that's the world we're in, it's going to be hard for smaller countries to resist the view that they need to develop nuclear weapons. And that makes the world more dangerous for all of us.
- [44:01]
C
Let me unpack something you just said, which is that this notion of a strong power deciding to take out the leadership, in other words, to kill the leadership of another country, is that a line that's been crossed here that somewhat unusual and may have a dangerous precedent?
- [44:21]
B
Well, you know, Walter, it's not that unusual. It is, after all, what Vladimir Putin tried to do in Ukraine. And thanks to the remarkable resistance of the Ukrainian people, in February of 2022, he did not succeed in taking out the Ukrainian leadership. So this has happened before. What I do, you know, it's pretty trendy right now, Walter, to say, oh, that rules based international order that we had after the Second World War, it wasn't really real anyway. It was hypocritical. It was actually just a mask for American hegemony. And lots of bad things happened anyway in that Post World War II era When this rules based international order ostensibly existed. And I think those criticisms of course, are just, of course, terrible things happened in that period. But I think, I hope that we will all now start to reflect on the fact that there was an order of some kind. There was a view that a degree of international consensus was necessary. There was of international consensus was necessary before intervening in foreign countries. There were rules of war. And I think that all of us need to be very, very thoughtful about supporting the creation of a world where anything goes and might makes right. And I'm especially glad to be talking to you, Walter, because you are American and America is still the preeminent power, the superpower, the global hegemon, you really can do pretty much what you want. And I hope that this is a moment for Americans to reflect on the fact that the rules based international order, which did act as a constraint on American power, also provided America with some meaningful protection.
- [46:54]
C
You've just stepped down from the Canadian Parliament to become an unpaid advisor to President Zelensky in Ukraine. If Russia, looking at what we just did in Iran, decided, why don't we just send in large amounts of planes and drones and track Zelenskyy and kill him and everybody. Do you think that's possible for them to do and might they be encouraged to do it by what we did in Iran?
- [47:25]
B
Vladimir Putin needs no encouragement to go after Ukraine and President Zelensky, he has been trying to subdue Ukraine, to conquer, to decapitate the government since February of 2022 in the full scale invasion and in fact since 2014 it has been an explicit effort to control Ukraine and to unseat the government. So Vladimir Putin needs no encouragement. He is already throwing everything he has at Ukraine. And it is a testament to the strength of the Ukrainian leadership and the Ukrainian people that after more than four years of war, they are still strong and independent. President Zelensky has been publicly clear and supportive of this attack. At the Munich Security Conference, he singled out Iran as a country which is supporting the Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine. And he is right. It is Iranian shahed weapons which are being used to rain down death on the Ukrainian civilian population. That's important to remember that that alliance exists. President Zelenskyy has been clear that this attack is an attack on the Iranian, North Korean, Russian, Chinese alliance that has been doing so much harm to Ukraine. He's also said that Ukraine has a lot of expertise in shooting down shahed drones and would be happy to lend that expertise to the US And Israel.
- [49:15]
C
You've just come back from Ukraine. Tell me what you saw on the ground, Walter.
- [49:20]
B
I saw people who were really tired, as I'm sure your viewers know. What has been particularly horrible about this winter is that Russia attacked the power grid. It attacked the power grid in major Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv. And that meant that a lot of people, in a winter where the temperature dropped to 20 below zero Celsius, a lot of people went for hours and hours, days even without heating in their apartments. This is a city of Soviet skyscrapers. So when the power is out, the elevator doesn't work either. Often the water doesn't run as well. There was a lot of real personal hardship for people. And you could see it on people's faces. Everyone I talked to said they were really tired. But what I was also struck by is being tired didn't mean that people were inclined to give up. What really. Every single person I spoke to, and that includes I spoke to a lot of soldiers, I spoke to a lot of their commanders. Every single person I spoke to said, yes, we're tired, yes, we hate this war. Yes, the cost is very, very high, but we can't give up because the alternative to fighting is to be subjugated and we're not going to accept that.
- [51:04]
C
Do you think what's happened in Iran will make it more likely this gets resolved, or will it continue to drag on for another four years?
- [51:16]
B
You know, Walter, no one gave me a crystal ball when I was a cabinet minister and no one gave me a crystal ball when I stepped down from elected politics. So I'm not gonna make a prediction. But. And I think actually the international outlook is more volatile and harder to predict than it has been for a long time. It's one of those moments, you know that great Yates line. The worst are full of passionate conviction. The best lack all intensity. I think people who tell you that they know exactly what's going to happen are either ignorant or liars. And I'm going to try to avoid both. What I will say though, about Ukraine and a very smart Ukrainian civil society leader, someone who was a Russian prisoner of war for a couple of years and that is a horrible thing to be. They the torture is really vile. And who today is a civil society activist, a writer, a historian. I spoke to him over the weekend and he said something I thought was very powerful to me, which is he said, Ukraine has already won this war. We didn't know, we didn't know how as a society we would respond to a full scale Russian invasion. And now we know we have consolidated as a society, there's a high degree of social solidarity. And also what Ukrainians have learned about themselves is they're pretty good at fighting. It is actually remarkable. The Russian army, the second largest military in the world, has been basically held to a standstill by the Ukrainian military for more than four years now. So I would say people of Ukraine are exhausted, they're bleeding, they're wounded, they're paying a high price. But they are absolutely determined to maintain their independence, their sovereignty, their democracy. And I think they're very confident that they will succeed. They don't know how long the war will last. They don't know if there will be a ceasefire in the near future and then a further Russian invasion in the years to come. But they're confident. I think that the bigger challenge now, the bigger question is not whether Ukraine can resist Russia. It is whether there will be in the future a further Russian incursion into other parts of Europe and how prepared Europe would be to resist such an incursion. I think that's the big question now.
- [54:23]
C
Chrystia Freeland, thank you so much for joining us.
- [54:26]
B
Thank you. It's wonderful to be with you. A real honor.
- [54:31]
A
And that is it for now. Thank you so much for watching. And goodbye from New York.