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Americanswers… on 5 Live! Are Trump’s Iran strikes breaking the law?
00:34:43
And Defence Sec Pete Hegseth says “no stupid rules of engagement” in Iran
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- [00:00]
Justin Webb
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
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Steve Rosenberg
I'm Steve Rosenberg, the BBC's Russia editor in Our man in Moscow. I'll show you what it's like being a news correspondent in Russia as the Russian authorities wage war on Ukraine and try to silence dissent.
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Narrator
The sound of war has reverberated around Ukraine for three years.
- [00:22]
Steve Rosenberg
Dramatic geopolitical upheaval alongside threats of intimidation and imprisonment. Our man in Moscow. Watch with a subscription to BBC.com and the BBC app, visit BBC.com docs to learn more.
- [00:38]
Justin Webb
This is obviously a huge moment for the whole world, but it is of course, also a huge moment for the Trump presidency, for its immediate future and indeed its longer term success. We have just come off 5 Live, the live program with Matt Chorley. It is 10 to 4 in the afternoon here in London on Monday. We. We were answering lots of questions, all of them, of course, on this subject, with a range, a range going from the impact of US Casualties on the Trump administration's prosecution of the war through to the effect on the midterm elections and indeed, whether or not Donald Trump and his team care about international law. Welcome to America Answers on five Live.
- [01:22]
Anthony Zurcher
Ameracast.
- [01:23]
Justin Webb
Ameracast from BBC News.
- [01:25]
Donald Trump (via video statement)
You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money.
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Pete Hegseth
We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.
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Anthony Zurcher
This is a big cover up and this administration is engaged in it.
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Caller or guest with opposing view
This guy has Trump derangement syndrome.
- [01:40]
Anthony Zurcher
I have four words for you.
- [01:43]
Host or Moderator
Turn the volume up. Okay. Well, needless to say, all of the questions today focus on the situation in Iran. We'll do our best to cover as many questions in as many different areas as we possibly can. We had a lot of questions, actually about how this will play out in America and the prospect of US Casualties. This is Donald Trump speaking yesterday in response to those early military casualties. This is via a video statement, a video he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.
- [02:16]
Donald Trump (via video statement)
Earlier today, centcom shared the news that three US Military service members have been killed in action. As one nation, we grieve for the true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, even as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives. We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen. And sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That's the way it is, likely be more, but we'll do everything possible where that won't be the case.
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Host or Moderator
And in fact, since that Statement we've heard there is a fourth member of the US military has been killed. Well, Stefan from the Netherlands is on the line with a question. Hi, Stefan.
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Donald Trump (via video statement)
Hi.
- [03:09]
Caller Stefan
I was wondering, and now we could start speaking of a full out war between Iran and the usa. How many victims will the MAGA base accept? And has President Trump waged too much and misjudged the power of the Iranian defense and not considered what this will do in the US or does he just not care anymore about the midterms and wants his place cemented in history?
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Host or Moderator
Great question. Thank you for that, Stefan. How will these deaths be received in America? Anthony?
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Anthony Zurcher
I think it's not going to be received well if these numbers keep growing. Americans don't really pay attention to foreign policy, don't care too much about what goes on overseas as long as American men and women are not coming home in, in coffins. And now there is a death count assigned with this, this military operation. And if this becomes a kind of a steady drip, you'll see, I think the same sort of response that we saw in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which is the public sours on it. And when I say source on it, they're already not big fans of, of this war. The polling numbers show that a majority of Americans think Donald Trump should have done more diplomacy. They don't think that this war is justified. So it's shaky ground to start with. And if there are more American deaths, I think it definitely could become a serious political liability for Donald Trump and it could cost him even more in the midterms. Looking ahead to November, when you look
- [04:33]
Justin Webb
back to what happened to Joe Biden, what we tend to forget is that he also pulled out of Afghanistan in catastrophically chaotic circumstances and it led to the deaths of, of American service personnel who the American people felt should not have died. Also, by the way, led to the deaths of Afghans, but just to focus on the Americans, and it also led to the loss of a lot of equipment that was stuck in Afghanistan and is now in the possession of the Taliban. In other words, if things go wrong militarily. I agree with Anthony. I think people who are already a bit leery about a war could very quickly turn quite markedly against it.
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Host or Moderator
We've talked a lot though, about how things that we thought were unpopular because Donald Trump was against them with Republicans or certainly with maga, then when he does them, they stick with him. They suddenly think actually, oh, it must be a good thing if Donald Trump's doing it.
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Justin Webb
Yeah. And I think there is also, there is A certain MAGA cohort who will stick with him, whatever. There's no question about that. He has this group, this sort of praetorian guard of people who will vote for him, stick with him, but it's not enough to win election. And I think that's the point that actually, if you look at recent opinion polls and you look at where the fall off in support for him has been, it's been particularly among those who call themselves independents. We think of independents as being this kind of cerebral group of people saying, oh, on the one hand, on the other, it's not really quite like that. But it's people who occasionally would have been persuaded to vote for him and have in the past and are now saying, you know what, I'm not going to bother. And that's the group that he loses.
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Host or Moderator
Stefan, thank you for that question.
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Anthony Zurcher
This will be an interesting test for the MAGA base because Donald Trump campaign from the very beginning on no foreign wars, on pulling the United States out of these forever wars in the Middle east. And here we are now, him getting into it. So how they react to this, a central tenet of MAGA movement is being called into question.
- [06:29]
Host or Moderator
That's great. Thank you, Stefan. Actually, we'll move straight on, actually to some questions about Stefan mentioned. But the midterms in particular, loads of people asking about the. The timing, the decision to launch the strikes against Iran this weekend. As midterm elections are happening in November, we know the Republican Party could lose control of both the House and the Senate. We've got Simon in Warwick first of all. And we've got Claire in London. Simon, what's your question?
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Caller Stefan
Hello.
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Caller Simon
Hi. Americas team. And everyone, I might be being a bit cynical, but I wanted to ask about timing. How much do you think the upcoming midterms may have factored into Trump's decision to act now? Do you think he would see a successful outcome as politically helpful, but particularly, you know, how his core MAGA supporters would feel about that. It doesn't feel at all taco this time.
- [07:21]
Host or Moderator
Tacko, of course, is Trump always chickens out. Famous acronym, acronym, abbreviation. Very good. Claire, what's your question?
- [07:32]
Narrator
Hi.
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Caller or guest with opposing view
Yeah, so I was wondering if Trump may use this war as grounds for even postponing or cancelling the midterms, you know, due to a wartime national emergency. Because I actually already saw this on the Wrap with Marjorie Taylor Greene raising that as a possibility. So I was just like, wow, is that something that could happen?
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Justin Webb
It's fair to say Marjorie Taylor Greene also, until recently, believed that space lasers are controlled by prominent Jewish families. You know what I mean, myself. But I mean, actually, I mean, I take your point and actually, you know, to argue against myself, we have begun to take Marjorie Taylor Greene rather more seriously than we used to. And I think it's perfectly reasonable to bring her up. I don't know what Anthony thinks of how kind of her views of politics now, but I think she probably will run for the presidency actually next time round. And I think she has got a base as well. But, you know, if you put her to one side, the question number one, can you get rid of the midterms? I don't think you can. Elections are not run by the federal government in the states. They're run in the states and by the states, and they've always been run through any kind of emergency as well. Anthony will correct me if I'm wrong, but you just don't get rid of them for an emergency, however huge it is, unless, I suppose, it was actually on American soil. Isn't that right, Anthony?
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Anthony Zurcher
We had elections during World War II. We had elections during the Civil War. Abraham ran for reelection during the Civil War.
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Justin Webb
Anthony covered them.
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Anthony Zurcher
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So the United States has pressed on. The only one I can remember is there was a primary election in New York City the day of September 11th attacks, and they postponed that just because the city was not able to handle it. But again, they had. They had elections that November, just a few months later. So the American electoral system is resilient, and I can understand the concern. Marjorie Taylor Greene is one expressing them. She is not alone in the least, but I think this is still. We're still a long way from November, although there's a primary here in Texas tomorrow. So the elections, the midterms are already starting. People's names are on the ballots to set up these general election races in November.
- [09:48]
Justin Webb
Yeah. And just on the. On Simon's point about the timing and I mean, you can suggest that this is a sort of effort to take people's minds off whatever their domestic woes are. I mean, you know, everyone will have their own view on that. I tend to think actually that if he wanted to take people's minds off it, he would have done it much closer to the elections themselves.
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Host or Moderator
It's quite a long way off yet.
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Justin Webb
Yeah. In order to kind of have a rallying round the flag thing going on, you look back to 2004. Sorry, this is prehistory. But you go back to 2004 and Bush's. Bush's reelection wasn't certain Then until Osama bin Laden, I think it must have been an audio tape in those days, suddenly injected himself into the election. And at that stage, people kind of did rally enough for Bush in the end to win perfectly comfortably. So if you were being really cynical as a president, you'd probably do that, wouldn't you?
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Host or Moderator
Anthony, the extent to which you think Donald Trump is seized by what happens in the midterms versus securing his legacy and doing the things that he wants to do while he's still president, he's ultimately not. I mean, obviously it's more useful for him if he does control the House and the Senate, although he seems to be plowing on regardless, and lots of ways he's not up for election. Again, how much of this is actually about because he wants to be seen to be the guy that sorted out all these problems and actually the elections are sort of a separate thought.
- [11:13]
Anthony Zurcher
Yeah. I think so much of what Donald Trump has been doing in the past year and a few months is about his legacy. And that's natural for a second term president to try to do some legacy building to try to cement their place in the history books. But putting his name on buildings, renaming geographic areas, the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, the changes to the federal government, he definitely is aware of his place in history and this could be part of it. This, I think, has been presented to him by people in the administration, by the Israelis, as a once in a generation chance to change the dynamic in Iran and thereby in the entirety of, of the Middle East. But you know, Simon said that he was a bit of a cynic. And I think Donald Trump also is a bit of a cynic. I think he does understand that the midterms are coming. And back in 2012 he was posting on Twitter that Obama would probably launch a war on Iran in order to change his poll numbers and in order to secure his reelection. So Donald Trump back in 2012 was the same sort of saying, the same sort of thing that Simon was saying that the, the president might be doing this in order to gain political advantage. So it certainly is a thought that has crossed Donald Trump's mind in the past that these things could change, could shake up an election, foreign wars could change that, change that for the better, perhaps.
- [12:36]
Host or Moderator
Great questions. Thank you to Simon. Thank you to Claire. Just it occurs to me when we're talking about the, obviously the extent that the Americans focus on international news versus domestic, if there does start being an impact on oil prices, on the flow of goods, on the availability of the things that Americans want to buy. That becomes a very real life, tangible thing, doesn't it?
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Justin Webb
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it doesn't focus minds much in the States on the actual supply of these energy products because they've got them all there and they're completely self sufficient, essentially. But of course it does on the price, on the international price, which will eventually affect the price of fuel at the pumps and all the rest of it. And that is one of the kind of key measures of inflation that people get very cross about because they rely so much on their cars. So, yes, it does have the ability to come back to bite him if it goes on for a long time. On the other hand, you know, our assumptions at the moment are that things go wrong and you can see things going wrong and obviously there's the deaths of service people. But if it were to, if he were to be able to find an off ramp and the damage to the US itself wasn't too bad, then I don't see it necessarily, you know, to go back to what Simon was suggesting, I don't see it necessarily as a bad thing for Trump actually, politically, in spite of MAGA and in spite of all the difficulties that he might have.
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Host or Moderator
And he'll argue I've sorted out the thing that no one else managed to sort out essentially in the last 40 years. Let's move on because we've had a lot of questions actually about where the opposition is, both the Democrats, but also just opposition more generally, particularly on the fact that Trump did not consult Congress before the strikes. We have an email from Charlie in Bedfordshire which says, could you explain again how the responsibilities and power of the House of Representatives and the Senate interact with within Congress. This would really help me to understand the key issues and what is at stake for both Democrats and Republicans in what sounds like a crucial phase of the Trump era with midterm elections in November. I wonder if we know anyone who could really explain the. The U.S. constitution.
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Justin Webb
Anthony's very shaky on this stuff. Give him a go.
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Host or Moderator
Do your best.
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Anthony Zurcher
Put me on the spot again.
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Pete Hegseth
Yeah.
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Anthony Zurcher
The Constitution says that Congress has the power to declare war. I mean, just full stop how that has been interpreted in the modern era when presidents can launch military strikes on a moment's notice and that there is has been no formal declaration of war since World War II. And the United States certainly has been involved in a number of significant military operations since then. It's kind of a gray area. Congress should and believe that it has the power to approve or deny military operations, but it tends to be after the fact at this point. Donald Trump has already had three military operations, and he has informed Congress, informed leaders in Congress, as they were happening, but didn't ask their permission. We did see George W. Bush back in 2003 go to Congress to ask for permission for the Iraq war and get authorization for this extended military operation. But there is a question, a constitutional question, about whether they actually have to do that. There's legislation called the War Powers act that sets rules that a president has to abide by. If he engages in hostilities, he has to come back to Congress and get them to sign off on it within a set number of days. Congress has the ability to, to vote that down, and then the president has to wind down the military operation. But Donald Trump is not the only president, since this was passed in the 1970s, to say that that law is unconstitutional and infringes on president's powers. So I think you could see Donald Trump continue to press on and dare Congress to try to stop him. And at least right now, I'm not even sure the way things are going, that there is a will, a majority in either the House or the Senate to tell him to, to cut it out. So it's a gray area. And the presidents, modern presidents, just have such expansive power on authorizing the use of military force that there's few checks that Congress seems to have at this point to stop a determined president.
- [16:43]
Justin Webb
And I'm not sure the Democrats necessarily want to have the choice put to them because, you know, you look at what happened last time Anthony mentioned 2003, I mean, they were asked, and they did pin their colors to the mast, as it were. And Hillary Clinton famously saying, okay, I support it. Barack Obama wasn't there at the time, but didn't support it and enormously politically benefited from that later on. But this time round for the Democrats, I mean, is it a slam dunk to say, no, this is an outrage? What if it's successful? How do you look then?
- [17:12]
Host or Moderator
So those sorts of choices that might benefit everyone. Yeah, that's a great question. Thanks for that, Charlie in Bedfordshire, let's turn our attention to international law. Now. We've got Robert on the line. Hello, Robert.
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Narrator
Yes. Your coverage, as far as I've heard, it doesn't suggest that there's any meaningful concern within the US that the attacks on Iran are contrary to international law, nor any sort of realization that disregard of international law risks turning the United States into a rogue state. Is that correct?
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Host or Moderator
Is that correct? Just logic?
- [17:48]
Justin Webb
Yes, pretty much correct. For this reason that I Think if there were a White House person here and they were to answer your point, they would say international law didn't stop the Russians in Ukraine. International law won't stop the Chinese in Taiwan. International law hasn't stopped Iran doing all sorts of nefarious things to the countries around it, Hamas funding and Hezbollah and all the rest of it. International law, they would say, only really operates to tie the hands of the good guys and allow the bad guys to get away with whatever they want to do. And that is why you can say, well, that's nonsense. And there are all sorts of reasons why we should still support international law. And it puts us in a different category. And we can then say to countries like Russia, you are breaking international law and trying to. You know, I mean, that is a perfectly legitimate point, obviously. But if I'm to say to you why it is that in the White House, and I suspect actually more widely around the United States, international law isn't really at the top of people's agendas, then that's really it.
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Anthony Zurcher
Yeah, international law, there are norms and guidelines, but as Justin says, there's no one around to enforce it. And if you listen to someone like Stephen Miller, who is a senior adviser in the White House, he came right out and said, international law has no teeth. That force and the use of force and power is what determines the fate of nations and influences international affairs. And the United States is not going to, as justice said, have its hands tied. It's going to exercise that power to advance its agenda. But I think you are right that this is a violation of international law, targeting the leaders of a foreign country as a violation of international law, whether it was Israel that dropped the bombs on the Ayatollah and these senior leaders, or it was the United States. Still, this operation contravened a pretty fundamental principle of international law. But I don't think anyone here cares that much about it. The American people certainly aren't looking down at the international norms governing this and saying, oh, no, wait a minute, we broke the rules and we should apologize.
- [20:02]
Host or Moderator
And that's essentially what happens when you've got a president who was elected on the basis of not abiding by norms. Robert, great question. Thank you for that. Just finally, because as we sit here waiting to hear from Keir Starmer in the Commons, Richard has emailed him from Sheffield saying our politicians are keen to emphasize the special relationship the UK has with America, but it doesn't appear to be nearly as special as the relationship the US has with Israel. We're obviously focused on the UK So we're in the uk But I suppose Trump probably, given everything else that's going on, although he was asked about Keir Starmer's support, probably isn't thinking a huge amount about the UK Right now.
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Anthony Zurcher
Probably not. It's the United States relationship with Israel that is front and center right now, and that has been a complicated relationship. You remember at the beginning of last year, there was reports of tensions between the United States and Israel, between administration officials and Benjamin Netanyahu, that he wasn't being forthcoming enough, conciliatory enough, in these negotiations with Hamas to reach some sort of a peace deal. But when push comes to shove, the United States and Israel have been working side by side. The United States took part in that bombing campaign, Midnight Hammer, the operation to drop bombs on some of Iran's nuclear research sites during that short war between Israel and Iran. And of course, now the cooperation is even more pronounced with the United States and Israel coordinating this massive aerial campaign. And that has. That shows that for all of the reported tensions, that the United States and Israel, the Trump administration and the Netanyahu administration are both working towards the same objective, at least for now. We'll see what happens if they're left to pick up the pieces in Iran and whether American priorities depart, move away from what Israel seems to want in the region.
- [22:03]
Justin Webb
Okay, we're off the air with Matt Chorley on five Live, but Anthony and I are still here, and we're going to turn to a couple of other questions that we have that we didn't get to during the course of that live broadcast, including this. Anthony, this is an email from Helena in Gloucestershire in the English west country, with Donald Trump's latest foray into Iran. It's easy to think he is continuing to flood the zone to stop anyone focusing on any one individual policy or event. I've even wondered if the trigger for this is the Clinton Epstein interviews didn't go as he'd hoped they would. So he needs another distracting headline we sort of had. This is an echo, isn't it, of something you hear quite a lot, Anthony, which is that the flooding of the zone has a. Has a purpose.
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Anthony Zurcher
Right? That just so much news, so many different things on so many different fronts. It overwhelms people and no one could focus on it. And therefore, Donald Trump doesn't get called to account for things he is doing that might be pushing boundaries and, or even illegal. Yes, I understand that Donald Trump is moving in so many different ways, and he's moved in so many different ways over the past 14 months or so. It is near impossible to keep up. But another explanation is he just wants to get a lot done and there are a lot of people in his administration who are all trying to get big things done. Now, whether this is a distraction from the Epstein Clinton interviews, I think it's clear that this military buildup has been going on for weeks, if not months. This was not something that Donald Trump on a whim, pulled the trigger on. And there have been reports that the United States and Israel had been jointly planning this operation for quite some time. So I don't think it's possible to tie this directly to Epstein. And if this was a distraction, it's a huge risk for a distraction. I mean, this could really become a huge political liability and Americans are dying. But, but it is true that it is difficult to keep up with all of this. And I think professional journalists like you and I feel sometimes as overwhelmed as Americans and Brits watching this on TV do. Just the churn of everything.
- [24:06]
Justin Webb
Yeah, I just echo your last point, which I think is the absolute clincher. It's a huge risk. This is not something you do as a distraction, is it? I mean, you think back, Anthony, I'm going to put you on the spot now. But I can't remember what it was that Bill Clinton did. But he did something, didn't he? He loosed off some missiles somewhere and that was a sort of, you know, it was a Wag the dog thing, that film that suggests that this sort of thing can be done. And I think there was quite a cogent set of accusations against Bill Clinton, wasn't there? That he was really doing this to take people's minds off, well, his own personal domestic difficulties then. And as I say, I can't remember what he did exactly, but it was a relatively small scale thing with limited risk.
- [24:46]
Anthony Zurcher
Yeah, I think it was bombing in Iraq because you remember there was ongoing US operations in Iraq to keep their military anti aircraft military from getting too developed. It might also have been the operations in Kosovo or the attacks on Serbia, because all that happened around the same time. But yeah, Wag the Dog, which was about a president and his team of advisors who launched or staged a foreign crisis in order to help the president win his reelection campaign. That has become kind of political shorthand ever since then for foreign policy adventurism that is used to distract or aid and domestic concerns advance a domestic agenda. And so anytime it happens, whether it was Clinton or Bush or Obama, with those Trump talking about Obama wanting to bomb Iran or now Donald Trump himself. There's a skepticism among the American public, a concern that, that domestic concerns, political concerns, may be improperly influencing foreign policy actions.
- [25:51]
Justin Webb
Let's move on to what they think the Trump administration thinks is going to happen next and should happen next. In other words, what's the strategy? We know what the tactics are because we can see it unfolding before our eyes. What is the strategy there? What are they trying to do? And on that subject, what which we were saying in a previous episode seemed pretty indistinct. Let's see whether it has been cleared up at all by what the Secretary for War, as he now stars himself, Pete Hegseth, has been saying to the
- [26:25]
Pete Hegseth
media outlets and political left screaming, endless wars. Stop. This is not Iraq. This is not endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better and so does this president. He called the last 20 years of nation building wars dumb. And he's right. This is the opposite. This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission. Destroy the missile threat, destroy the Navy, no nukes. Israel has clear missions as well for which we are grateful. Capable partners. As we've said since the beginning, capable partners are good partners. Unlike so many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force, America, regardless of what so called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history. B2S fighters, drones, missiles, and of course, classified effects, all on our terms with maximum authorities. No stupid rules of engagement, no nation building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win and we don't waste time or lives.
- [27:50]
Justin Webb
Anthony, what do you think?
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Anthony Zurcher
Well, perhaps it's clear the United States is going to blow things up, destroy things. But what happens after that? Hegseth certainly didn't get into it. And I think the United States is going to have to have a plan for what happens next because you can't just knock things down and then hope or believe that what comes next will be better. You know, Donald Trump over the weekend has compared this to Venezuela and how neat all of the resolution that was. You captured Maduro, the president, and all of a sudden there's a next tier of leaders who step in and change policy. And so I think maybe he is hoping that the same thing happens in Iran. But as we both know, the Middle east is much more complicated. And even Donald Trump himself, when asked by ABC's Jonathan Karl in an interview, a phone interview on Sunday, said that the people he had kind of in mind for who would take over for the ayatollah. The second and third candidates, they have both been killed, too. The operation has been so good that the entire leadership of Iran has been decapitated. And if that's the case, just doing that without a plan for what happens next is very dangerous. Power vacuums could be filled by American allies, but it could also be filled by even more hardline leaders in Iran, and it could be even more destabilizing for the region.
- [29:18]
Justin Webb
See, we were talking, Sarah and I were talking about this in a previous episode, and we were saying what they need is a sort of or what they seem to think that they need is a kind of Delsey Rodriguez figure, someone who is part of the regime, but they can just have them there and they'll be compliant and do whatever the United States wants. There's a friend of mine who used to work in the State Department who heard Sarah and my take on it, texted me to say, no, you're wrong. That's not who they're looking for. Really need is an Al Sharar figure, Ahmad Al Sharar, the guy who now runs Syria, or most of Syria, because they need someone who's powerful and has got a militia and can enforce order. But also it has the ear of Donald Trump. If you think what happened in Syria, if you're a Kurd, if you're an Alawite, if you're various other people in Syria, you're not going to think much of the current Syrian leadership, but you are going to fear them. And they are organizing themselves. And of course, crucially, they've now got the ear of Donald Trump. Indeed, Al Shara has been to the White House and Donald Trump sprayed him with perfume, didn't he, Anthony? So, I mean, that's what they're looking for. But it just seems to me that there isn't an Al Shara. There just isn't that figure in Iran. And actually, the person who was texting me was saying that's the problem, is that that person doesn't exist.
- [30:34]
Anthony Zurcher
Right, Right. Remember Ahmad Chalabi, who was advanced in the Iraq War as this outside leader who's going to come in and consolidate Iraq and make it into a modern democracy. And he was a flop. The people there didn't want him to. I've seen comparisons drawn between him and the son of the shah in Iran, who has taken a higher profile, that he's another one that the Americans think could lead the nation but is not popular within the nation and would also not be welcomed. This is going to have to happen from within Iran. But the more people you kill there, the more leaders you kill there, the more unstable the government becomes, the more unpredictable the end result is. And I think that's, that's a very real danger. This is not going to be clean. This is not going to be tied up neatly. Even if Donald Trump talks about exit ramps that he has and that this is only a several, maybe up to four or five week mission, and once we're done bombing, then we're just going to say, okay, we'll move on. We may want to move on from Iran, but the Middle east could continue to be a, a crisis point for the United States because of this for a long time.
- [31:47]
Justin Webb
I mean, could you argue, though, Anthony, that if they do manage to seriously deplete again the nuclear ambitions that Iran might have, and crucially, if they don't just do that, but they also get rid of all the launches for the missiles that can hit Israel and other places far away, and if the Iranians themselves continue to miscalculate by attacking Gulf Arab states, in another words, tearing up any kind of diplomatic clout that they might have, that actually, that would then allow Trump just to say, okay, it's over for the time being, we'll let them sort it out and just leave and allow then the regime pretty much those that are left just to kind of carry on. And provided they don't actually actively attack anyone, at least for the rest of this year, he might be able to claim job done right, just kind of
- [32:45]
Anthony Zurcher
defang them and say, okay, they're no longer able to project power in the region. That's a possibility. I mean, geographically, Iran still sits in a key choke point for the world's energy reserves. So even a defanged Iran could be trouble if it becomes wholly destabilized. If there's a civil war in Iran and it could impact oil exports through the Straits of Hormuz, that would be, that would have serious economic repercussions. It could also become a breeding ground for terrorist cells. We saw, you know, the world turns back on Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal and thinking, well, you know, they can do whatever they want. They're not going to really be a concern. And that clearly came back to bite, bite the Americans. So turn your back on a region of the world that is in a key location and has a lot of people and might have residual anger against the United States. That could work out just fine. It could also be a recipe for disaster.
- [33:47]
Justin Webb
Anthony, before I let you go, I've looked it up while we've been on the air. And the thing that had stuck in my mind was the bombing of the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, which Bill Clinton did. And he did it. This is an interesting added fact, which I certainly didn't know. He did it just after the film had been released, Wag the Dog had been released. So there you are, plus all the other things that you had mentioned. But that was the one that stuck with me. I know you've got to go now, though, Anthony. So let us say for the time being, bye bye.
- [34:17]
Anthony Zurcher
All right. Well, great chatting with you, Justin. We'll see how this all shakes out in the coming days. Bye all.
- [34:26]
Justin Webb
Thank you for listening to another episode. It is you, the ameracaster, that makes AmericasT the community that it now is. If you like what you've heard, please do subscribe to this podcast on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. We always want to hear your feedback as well. We look at every single bit of correspondence that we get so you can send us an email americastbc.co.uk the WhatsApp is 443-301-239480 and you can get involved in the AmericasT Discord server. The link to that is in the description. Till next time, bye bye.
- [35:24]
Steve Rosenberg
I'm Steve Rosenberg, the BBC's Russia editor in Our man in Moscow. I'll show you what it's like being a news correspondent in Russia as the Russian authorities wage war on Ukraine and try to silence dissent.
- [35:36]
Narrator
The sound of war has reverberated around Ukraine for three years.
- [35:40]
Steve Rosenberg
Dramatic geopolitical upheaval alongside threats of intimidation and imprisonment. Our man in Moscow Watch with a subscription to BBC.com and the BBC app. Visit BBC.com docs to learn more.