← Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files
Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files
Was Israel justified in starting its war with Iran?
00:38:02
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- [00:03]
Christiane Amanpour
This is a Global Player original podcast.
- [00:05]
Jamie Rubin
You know, Jamie, since the strikes, since Israel started attacking Iran, I just cannot help but remember a time in Davos, you know, about maybe about seven, eight years ago, and I was walking to the bar there to get a coffee and I passed a figure almost hiding behind a curtain, sitting in a chair. And I turned around, I saw that it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And I introduced myself and he said, I know, I know, I know, you're always interviewing those Iranian ayatollahs. Why don't you ever interview me? And I'm a little shocked. And I said, well, actually I've been trying for years and you've never accepted. And he says, okay, go over there, there's my guy. You ask him, he'll set it up. So I did. I went over there, asked his guy and he never set it up or Netanyahu never accepted.
- [00:50]
Christiane Amanpour
Yeah, he's a big talker about interviews, but when it comes to actually delivering a fair, tough interview, he'd prefer to go on Fox, I guess.
- [01:02]
Jamie Rubin
So this week it is very serious, as it always is. But now we're talking about a brand new war started in the Middle east with Israel's massive strikes on Iran bursting out of the decades long shadow war they've had together now into a direct confrontation with Iran retaliating. So we're going to try to address this week what does this actually mean in terms of trying to control Iran's nuclear program? Will this attack backfire? Could it provoke Iran into actually going for a bomb, which it has not done as of this moment. And furthermore, is this about regime change? Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the X Files with me, Cristiana Manpour and Jamie Rubin. I've been a longtime correspondent for CNN in the field Iran to all over for about 35 years now. I have my own program in which I try to hold world leaders accountable.
- [02:01]
Christiane Amanpour
And I'm Jamie Rubin and I've been a senior State Department official under two presidents, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden.
- [02:07]
Jamie Rubin
We also happen to be a married couple for 20 years, but now we've been divorced for about seven years. Nonetheless, we decided to restart the conversation.
- [02:16]
Christiane Amanpour
Hence the word X Files. Let's see if ex married couple talking across an ocean and across a divorce. If we can talk together, if we can address the hard issues, well, maybe some of the world leaders can too and come up with some real solutions.
- [02:31]
Jamie Rubin
And boy do we need that. We need some real leadership. So hopefully it'll spur lots of people across a lot of very difficult partisan divides to actually get together for our common future. How's that for lofty?
- [02:43]
Christiane Amanpour
That's lofty.
- [02:45]
Jamie Rubin
That is lofty. We are going to launch this episode, and I think the really big question is, will this backfire? Will it make Iran finally go underground, so to speak, more than just physically and go for the bomb that it has not yet built? Jamie, what do you think?
- [03:07]
Christiane Amanpour
Look, I've been studying the question of nuclear proliferation my entire life. My first job, Christiane, as you remember, was working on nuclear arms control during the Reagan administration for Joe Biden and then the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when treaties began. So I understand this nuclear question very well. One of the things that most people. People in the world don't appreciate is that the Iranians have been building the capability to make a nuclear weapon by building the hardest part, enriching uranium to degree that it's necessary for a weapon. But since at least the mid 2000s, they have not been seeking to weaponize that capability.
- [03:48]
Jamie Rubin
I think it was early 2000s.
- [03:50]
Christiane Amanpour
Yeah, early 2000s, they made a decision after initially having an actual weapons program in the late 90s, early 2000s, they chose to stop it.
- [04:00]
Jamie Rubin
Just to be clear, when you said in the early 2000s, they had a weapons program, that wasn't physical, was it? It was about diagrams and building blocks, but not actually enriched uranium to that level, and not actually because Israel did find some plans and this and that. But what did that turn out to be? This is actually crucial because Benjamin Netanyahu and his government has said that they have intelligence now that Iran is moving towards building a bomb. And that was not the intelligence a few months ago.
- [04:31]
Christiane Amanpour
You're absolutely right. Look, I left the government six months ago, and without getting into any details, I was very, very focused on this question because I have been my whole life. And as far as I can tell, there was not, as of six months ago, any real drive towards weaponizing the enriched uranium that they are now building in droves. That the capability they're building, which is real enriched uranium, increasingly the amounts and increasingly the percentages, but that still has to be weaponized, has to be tested in a device. What we found back in the 2000s was that they took certain steps towards weaponizing. They had a program, they had scientists, they did some weapon type testing, but then they stopped it, and then they began to try to negotiate with the West. Now, whether they've done a good job of negotiating or we have is a whole nother question. But the suggestion that this military operation was premised on stopping an urgent rush by Iran towards a bomb, as best as I can tell, is not accurate.
- [05:41]
Jamie Rubin
I want to tell you a little story which I didn't really report at the time because it was a conversation in about 2002, I think I was in Afghanistan. The Iranian ambassador to Afghanistan invited me to the embassy for a conversation. I had known him, in fact, from Bosnia when he was ambassador, and he told me, because I asked him about a nuclear program, because, you know, things were brewing about whether George W. Bush was gonna go after Iraq and all the rest of it. And he said to me, frankly, that, yes, there had been a discussion before about whether we as a regime should go and weaponize this material and go for the bomb. And then he said, we had a very long conversation with all the stakeholders in the government, and we decided flat out that we would not do that, that it was too dangerous and it would put us in more danger and it would not make us safer. So I think that also is important. But it also goes, Jamie, to the origins of all of this. This has been going on for decades, this row between Iran, the United States and Israel over the nuclear program.
- [06:50]
Christiane Amanpour
When we first got together in the 90s, Iran's push for nuclear capability was essential concern of the Clinton administration. Obviously, the Israeli government at that time, they were far, far less advanced than they are today. The reason for the concern was because Iran and the United States were at loggerheads. Israel and the United and Iran were at loggerheads. And I remember how important it was to figure out whether Iran was really rushing towards a bomb and how to negotiate with them. And we can get to that in a later segment about some of the stuff that you said and did and I said and did in that area. But this issue of IR being the ultimate enemy of the United States, and the United States being, as the Iranians put it, you know, the supreme arrogance. What did they used to call great arrogance? The Great Satan and the great arrogance as well. Let me give you an example of why I'm concerned. President Trump has been involved in this, and it's unclear to what extent he approved this operation or wanted it to happen. Under President Biden, we had real war diplomacy because, remember, the Israelis attacked Iran back in the Biden administration. So we made a deal with them, essentially, and Tony Blinken and Joe Biden were involved. I was there when Joe Biden called Tony Blinken to sign off on the final pieces of the puzzle. And that was we would give Israel the thaad, the most complicated and effective defense system. We would Give Israel a full fledged regional defense architecture with the United States, the British, the French, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, all our aircraft carriers, our Aegis Cruisers, which are regional defense systems and aircraft as well. And we would use that to defend Israel against Iranian retaliation if they limited their attacks to their air defense systems of Iran and their missile systems of Iran. And they didn't attack oil facilities, the nuclear program or the leadership because there was a risk of a wider war and a question whether attacking the nuclear facilities would backfire.
- [08:57]
Jamie Rubin
But here's the thing, clearly, and I thought about it immediately when I read the list of those who had been assassinated on the first night. One of them is Ali Shamkhani. Ali Shamkhani was a Defense minister. Briefly, he was either head of the navy or very serious senior position in the Navy. But now he is Khamenei, the so called Supreme Leader's man to shepherd and direct Iran's nuclear negotiations with the United States. They killed him and that means it's a direct attack. In my analysis on the idea of negotiations, Bibi Netanyahu has never wanted negotiations. And my view and my question to that is, when people say, oh, you know, negotiations have failed, which is what Israel says, hence we had to take different steps. Actually they were successful under Obama in 2015, they did form a not perfect but good arms control regime. It was working. Iran didn't have the level of enriched uranium in the quantity that it does now. But this was a successful campaign to add, end the negotiation process, the diplomatic process. They couldn't convince Israel or their government, any other American president. But finally they get Donald Trump, who thinks potentially that this war is just another negotiating gambit and let them do it.
- [10:17]
Christiane Amanpour
That's exactly right. And that's why I worry about what I call Trump's weakness in the area of war diplomacy. This is some high stakes stuff. It's not some real estate game where you can say, oh, this is just good for the negotiations. Uh, this is a very complex thing, arms control with the Iranians. And you have to know a lot about the technical and the potential diplomatic possibilities. You're exactly right. This Israeli regime, Netanyahu has always hated the idea of an agreement with Iran in the nuclear field. Some Israeli leaders like Ehud Barak and others believe that we were better off under the Obama accord. I believe that because we had controlled Iran's rush to build enough enriched uranium, not a bomb, but enough enriched uranium, we would know that would take them a year to get enough enriched uranium. That's what the Obama deal did. And so the Idea that the Iranians are going to capitulate now, even though Israel has air superiority and even though Israel is very effective, seems unlikely to me. I don't know. You're an Iranian. Your father was Iranian. What do you think about the Iranian people's willingness or the regime's willingness to capitulate, which is what Israel and Trump is asking for?
- [11:31]
Jamie Rubin
The regime doesn't seem under any maximum or any other kind of pressure over 45 years to have capitulated over anything. You're right. The JCPOA was a deal that would have provided them with sanctions relief and provided everybody else with nuclear security and assuredness under very tough monitoring regime. But what I do know is that the people who have no love for their regime, as we've seen the Green Revolution in 2009, the Woman Life Freedom Revolution uprising in 2022, the majority of the people of Iran after 45 years are fed up with this regime for many, many reasons, including the lack of freedom, including the dictatorship, including putting any kind of uprising down violently and including the horrendous economy into alia because of the sanctions. Yes, there's been economic mismanagement, but the sanctions over decades. But even though they want the end of this regime or at least the majority, now that I'm talking to people inside Iran and friends who have friends and family, and I still have family right now, they're scared right now. They have no idea what's going to happen. Right now they see that Israel is attacking, including civilian structures, including apartment blocks, which are not just complexes for the military. I know for a fact that that they got one top military leader on the Friday morning, but the place practically collapsed and civilians were trapped in it. So I know that that's being repeated. And I also know because I asked the Israeli ambassador to London, are you into regime change? Is this what it's all about? Because you may not be able to set the nuclear thing back significantly. She said no, we are not into regime change. As you know, it didn't work out very well for America in Iraq and elsewhere. But that flies in the face of evidence because they've expanded their targets away from just the military, the missiles and the nuclear to what is civilian infrastructure and buildings and a densely populated capital city, Tehran, but also Netanyahu. And we're going to play this for a second. Netanyahu has said in Persian that people should take their destiny into their own hands. He also said it to Fox News, by the way, that they were encouraging Iranians to take their destiny into your amusement.
- [13:56]
Christiane Amanpour
Other Israeli ambassadors have said that Khamenei is on the target list. I don't think their diplomatic corps knows what they're talking about.
- [14:03]
Jamie Rubin
But let's just play Netanyahu. And it's not the first time he's addressed the Iranian people. To rise up, let your voices be heard. Woman, life, freedom. Zan Zande, he said, woman, life, freedom. And that was directly referencing the last 2022 uprising after the death in cust in Iran of the woman Mahsa Amini. And since then, Jamie, he has said on Fox News that this military campaign could very well result in the toppling of the Islamic Republic because the regime in Iran is very weak.
- [14:39]
Christiane Amanpour
I think the Israeli assessment of the regime in Iran is as flawed as many of their other assessments. You know, Israeli intelligence likes to brag a lot about what they can do, and they do some great things, as we've seen. But this is the same as Israeli intelligence that had no clue that Hamas was going to attack them on October 7th. And so when they throw out Israeli intelligence, one should be skeptical. I am skeptical that Israel has a good assessment of the stability of the Iranian regime. Why am I skeptical? Because throughout our marriage and since then, we've observed what happens when the Iranian people stand up and try to call for changes in at least policies of the regime, let alone regime change. And what do they do? They have thousands of monstrous security people who shoot and kill anyone who wants to change the regime. That hasn't changed. This regime is maybe scared now because they are vulnerable, but they are not about to fall. And any judgment about launching a regional war based on an assessment that weak would be foolhardy in the extreme.
- [15:46]
Jamie Rubin
Okay, so it is worrying. And the question, of course, is where does the most important and powerful country and the biggest ally of Israel, America, stand? And we're going to talk about that, but also tell really interesting stories that we haven't really told before about the various times Iran and top leaders tried to make openings to the United States and tried to close the files, so to speak, on this conflict. So we're back the exes, and we're going to tell some stories about our encounters with senior members of the Iranian government trying to get closer and essentially close the file on the ongoing conflict with the United States. It started, I think, with the exclusive interview I got in 1998, January 98, with the reform president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami. Now, now, anti Iranians will say, there's no such thing as Reform or Madras, but there are. There is a stripe and stripe and stripe of various political colors, just as there are in Israel, just as there are in the United States. They're the hardliners, and then they're the less hardliners. Cut to. I got the exclusive interview with that new president, me and my colleague, Parisa Khosravi. And I'm going to put her in there, too, because we both went to Iran, two girls, women, and we managed to win the exclusive away from all the other major competition. But what was interesting, Jamie, and you might remember that we had just got engaged about a week before that interview, and I was nervous about how I was going to conduct this interview. And we were in Trinidad and Tobago and we together figured out how to ask the main question about addressing Americans. And of course, at that time, the hostages were a nightmare and a hangover for America. The hostages that the early Iranian revolution had taken, for more than a year, 52Americans for 444 days in the Tehran Embassy. Jamie, do you remember how you told me to phrase it, how you suggested I phrase it? Because God forbid I was doing the government's bidding.
- [18:02]
Christiane Amanpour
God forbid. Look, you. And I knew there were three public issues between Iran and the United States. The nuclear question, Israel, and the regional Hezbollah terrorism account. Those were the public issues. We knew you were going to address that, but we talked about what would really have an impact on people. And I said, look, my whole life since I was a student, Iran's taking of the hostages was a taboo breaking event which really made Americans hate Iran, hate the regime, that they did something that hadn't ever been done before, take an entire embassy hostage during their revolution. And so I said, if we could get an Iranian leader who really wanted to show he was different to express some regret for that, that would have impact on people who average Americans and Americans beyond the policy community, which was always going to focus on the three big policy issues. And I think that's what I said to you. And then I think we sat down with the. Because you were a very careful preparer of things, and we sat down very carefully and constructed what I think was a brilliant question, if I must say so myself, with our combined wit to say it exactly right and get the right result.
- [19:20]
Jamie Rubin
Yeah. And we did. I did. And I'm just gonna say that I'm a journalist and I just asked my fiance for some advice. This was nothing to do with anything but a good interview and getting a good answer because it was very frustrating. And by the way, I was a student in America while the hostages were taken. And it was not pleasant being an Iranian in America at that time. So it was a longish question and there was a longish answer. Here's the nut of what I did. Would you say that taking the American hostages at the beginning of the Iranian Islamic Revolution falls into the cap category of early revolutionary excesses? With regard to the hostage issue which.
- [20:01]
Christiane Amanpour
You raised, I do know that the feelings of the great American people have been hurt. And of course I regret it.
- [20:09]
Jamie Rubin
He said it and he said some really interesting things also about the Palestinians, Hamas and the nuclear issue. At that time, they didn't have a nuclear reactor at all. Even the civilian reactor had not been completed at Busheh. You were government spokesman when that interview was played out for a whole hour on cnn. We don't do that stuff anymore. But it was really a manifesto by a new looking, new thinking Iranian president.
- [20:37]
Christiane Amanpour
The question was, could one of his last big, big divides be bridged? Iran and the United States? And so your interview was a major event in Washington policy. And the whole government of the United States under Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger had a lot of discussions about how to respond. And in the end, there were basically two kinds of responses there. I think President Clinton said something short, and then I had the State Department response. I still think it was a decent response. I know the Iranians ended up complaining about it, but they always had something to complain about. And we really did respond to the essence of the interview because, remember, Madeleine Albright ended up giving a speech in which she did what they asked, make real sanctions changes. We lifted sanctions on pistachios, carpets, and one of my forgetting caviar. All right, that was real. And they ended up, instead of taking that as a yes, they ended up focusing on two words where she said Khamenei was the unelected leader because we didn't regard him as a democratically elected president, which he wasn't. He was a student, which he wasn't. And instead of taking yes for an answer, remember, in the end, Hatami was trying to change things, but the regime wouldn't let him.
- [21:57]
Jamie Rubin
Yeah.
- [21:57]
Christiane Amanpour
And if he succeeded back then, the whole world would have been different for the Iranian people. Sanctions would have been lifted. They would have been brought into the modern world. They wouldn't have to rely on Russia and China and the rogue regimes to survive. And Israel wouldn't have even dreamed of attacking them if they had transformed their country and relations with the United States. That was a missed opportunity.
- [22:20]
Jamie Rubin
Yeah. And to be fair, you know, the skeptics were always skeptical of Khatami it surprised everybody, including the hardliners that he won. I was there for his actual election. It surprised the whole world. And. And members of his own team were assassinated by the hardliners. They really tried to stop him. But let's now move on to another instance a few years later, after Khatami's two terms were over. Then the old president, Rafsanjani, who also eventually was considered as more of a moderate and less of a hardliner and also wanted to send out an olive branch to the United States, called me. They literally lifted a ban that I'd been under for some reporting I'd done. And we did a live interview on CNN where he said, Rafsanjani, in 2005, that I want to end all of this. I want to use my presidency to meet America in a diplomatic space and try to resolve all these issues again. A first time for an Iranian president. But he didn't win. The horrendous Ahmadinejad won and things went crashingly downhill from there.
- [23:29]
Christiane Amanpour
But more importantly, Christiane, let's tell a story we've never told and I think is revealing of the Iranian desire to always find a negotiating solution to their problems. And they get very dramatic about it, but maybe they don't negotiate properly in the end because they don't end up getting what they wanted. But remember how they reached out the group of Iranian inside the government, the Rafsanjani types, in the intelligence community, in the diplomatic community, and they've reached out to you to try to meet with us. Maybe you can start that story and I'll add to it.
- [24:04]
Jamie Rubin
Well, I'm a journalist and all I wanted to do is do the interviews. They actually wanted to meet with you because they thought you as a former government official, which you were at that time, former, but I believe you were working at that time on the Hillary Clinton campaign of 2007. And they thought Hillary would win the nomination, Obama did, and they wanted to get to you to try to send a message that we want to end this and we want to make resolve these outstanding issues.
- [24:34]
Christiane Amanpour
So, yes, they wanted to talk to someone in the Democratic world, Democratic Party world, and they saw me as someone close to Hillary, and they probably imagined that she was going to be president, I might be national Security Advisor. And they thought, great, Christian, cool your jets. That's what they thought. I didn't think it. They thought it. Those jets don't need to be cooled. I'm being precise. We had three meetings and they were all quite dramatic. They made us give up our Phones and take them apart and walk 20 yards away from the phone and then discuss how to talk between the United States and Iran. Those meetings took place over a year and then they actually invited me to Iran. And we went plausibly as a family. Darius we took with us because we thought this was a unique opportunity for him to meet your side of the family. I mean, this was something they spent a lot of time on. I know how these things work. When we arrived, I don't know if you remember this, but a deputy foreign minister, someone in the Ministry of Foreign affairs, met us at the plane and took us through their system without any trouble. And that guy was my handler for three, four days a week. They set up a meeting for me with their highest ranking intelligence official. I remember this. They picked me up in a car, There were two car changes. And then I arrived in this nondescript office building. And they were very upfront and they said they had given up on trying to negotiate with the Bush administration. I think the 2006 elections had either happened or were about to happen. And they knew there was changes coming in our politics. They wanted to develop a relationship with the United States in which they could begin to bring Iran out of the box. The containment that they were in by working with potential Hillary Clinton administration. And of course that's what Obama ended up doing. So they were on point. I came back and I reported it all. I reported it to the CIA watcher in London. I reported it to the FBI because I wanted to get a clearance in the future and I thought it was the right thing to do. And then I reported it to Obama's top officials. I said, the Iranian government is reaching out big time. They want to make a change, they want to make an agreement, they want to negotiate with the United States.
- [26:51]
Jamie Rubin
I actually took all that stuff and all the background, you know, conversations, which they were, or even off the record. And I wrote something for CNN Digital. I remember that because I'd been approached several times because as we remember, CNN was also viewed as a bridge in those days. It was pretty much the only international, you know, media that really covered the world in a serious and in depth manner. But didn't they say to you, why don't you bring Secretary oh, no. Back then she was Senator Clinton and it'd be great for her campaign. We can make peace. What do they say?
- [27:29]
Christiane Amanpour
Well, this is, what this shows you, is that they love the drama, but they don't always get our politics. So this was at the height of the, the battle between Obama and Clinton for the nomination. And they actually thought it might be good for her to come to Iran on a big trip that was highly publicized and reach out to the Iranian people and make peace. So Nixon went to China, but they didn't understand that in order to get elected, you needed to get elected first. Nixon didn't do that until after he was elected. And he told the Republican Party by.
- [28:08]
Jamie Rubin
Being hard line, by the way.
- [28:10]
Christiane Amanpour
Right. And he told the Republican Party he was going to be making an opening to China. He might not have been the nominee. So it's not the kind of thing you do during primaries or you do during election campaigns. It's the kind of things you do once you're president. And even then, you don't travel very often to the root of the evil. Regimes like North Korea or Iran usually send somebody like Madeleine Albright was sent to North Korea.
- [28:34]
Jamie Rubin
Okay, so, so a lot of, in my opinion, missed opportunities. Some people listening will say there was never a chance because that's just the way it is. There was never a real chance, but a lot of missed opportunities for Iran and the United States to resolve this huge issue a la Nixon goes to China, which is a pretty relevant comparison. Instead, they did get a arms control agreement under Obama ala US Soviet Union. And in the end, the skeptics, the Israelis, the Republicans in Congress, even then, the Saudi crown prince, MbS prevailed upon Trump to pull out of that deal. And here is where we are now, and it's gone much further. Not a Trump negotiated peace, but a war between Israel and Iran, which Trump said he didn't want. We are going to talk more about this when we come back. Okay, so we're back to talk now a bit more about America's role in this current war and what will happen. What can Trump do? First of all, let me just observe that every issue of mega importance on the international stage that Trump said he would fix in however many hours or days has in fact got worse. Russia is doing much worse damage and harm to Ukraine. Israel has been doing much more damage and harm and a siege on Gaza and the Palestinian people there. And now instead of a negotiated deal with Iran, Israel, with apparently his green light, is in a full scale war with Iran. So what next, Jamie?
- [30:15]
Christiane Amanpour
Well, you're right. A couple of weeks ago we did this program and I predicted the possibility that Iran would be an opportunity for Trump to really make a peace agreement, an actual nuclear agreement that could stop a war and prevent a threat. And I said if he won the Nobel Prize, great. That was his most likely Opportunity. It was the most ripe. The Iranians were ripe for an agreement, for negotiations, for diplomacy. Obviously, Netanyahu didn't want to see that happen. So what happens now? Well, Trump has a decision to make. There's a divide inside the Trump administration between the true MAGA of America, firsters who want to avoid wars everywhere and avoid American involvement abroad, and the hardline pro Israel supporters who want to see Israel go all the way and change the regime or make sure they've destroyed the nuclear program. That debate is going on and it will be important because if Trump learns anything from this and the administration learns anything from this, there is an opportunity for war, diplomacy. Israel needs American help if they're going to ever destroy the Fordo facility where the enrichment could take place covertly, deep underground. We have a weapon, it's called the mop, the Mass Ordinance Penetrator or something like that. We could help them. If we did, we would be wise, the way Biden did with the Thaad missile system, to leverage that into a war ending diplomacy so that we can not see this war go on indefinitely. Meanwhile, there's the question of whether the US Will support Israel in the incoming missiles into Israel. I think it's going on, but oddly enough, the Trump administration think about this. If the Democrats were doing this, we'd be getting screamed at that the Trump administration isn't admitting how they're helping to defend Israel, how they're using aircraft carriers and other weapons and defensive systems in the region to attack Iranian missiles and drones going to Israel. They're not talking about it. I think it's happening, but they're not talking about it. And that's.
- [32:19]
Jamie Rubin
Why do you think it's happening?
- [32:20]
Christiane Amanpour
Well, I think I know it's happening because I know of sources in the military who've told me what's going on. It's not happening as strongly as it was under Biden when we had an Aegis Cruiser and we had an aircraft carrier battle group and all of the aircraft in the United States and none.
- [32:35]
Jamie Rubin
Of the other are involved. Right. I mean, the uk, France, certainly not the Saudis.
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Christiane Amanpour
Think about this.
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Jamie Rubin
Yeah, but even the European G7s.
- [32:42]
Christiane Amanpour
Yeah, right. The French and the British were involved last time. Now they may get involved slowly, especially if Iran is stupid enough to start attacking wider.
- [32:52]
Jamie Rubin
Do you think the Israelis will try to provoke it? They need the US to come in if they're going to go down.
- [32:57]
Christiane Amanpour
And yes, I think they're going to be pushing, pushing very hard on Trump and using all their cards to try to get the Americans to help them destroy the nuclear program. And I personally might be supportive of that if it was part of a strategy. I would fact leverage that for Netanyahu. Finally ending this bloody war in Gaza that's going on as we speak, with dozens dying, there are more Palestinians dying in Gaza than Iranians dying in the Israeli attack, and nobody's paying attention to it. That war is the root of the problem in the region. Until that war ends, Israel cannot be recognized and accepted by the community of nations in the region or the world. And Netanyahu could end that war. There's a way to do it. We've talked about it in the past. I won't spend any time on it. There's a way to do it, and that's the way I would recommend Trump approach it. You want us to help you destroy the Fordo facility? Well, we'll do that. But you've got to end this war in Gaza that is going to destroy your reputation of your country indefinitely. And that is going to prevent you from achieving any of the objectives you want to achieve.
- [34:10]
Jamie Rubin
Let me ask you then, because every time I look at a newspaper headline, hundreds of U.S. foreign Service staff to lose their jobs. And, and, and, and we know that he's hollowed out national security. You know, big, big bureaucracies that are tasked with these very difficult issues and to come up with options to try to do what you're just saying, whether it's the State Department or whoever. Does he have the people now to be able to do this? Cuz it's all about Trump.
- [34:38]
Christiane Amanpour
No. And Steve Witkoff, you know, the one guy he trusts is supposed to be responsible for everything. He's not even ever done foreign policy before, let alone high level negotiations with Iran, movies with Israel, with Ukraine. I mean, it's madness to have this one guy trying to do everything and he's unsupported by a responsible set of officials who can look to the long term, the next step. Trump is all tactics and the Israelis are all tactics. They can do some dramatic stuff, but when it comes to the second, third and fourth objective, they seem to be not as intelligent as their intelligence.
- [35:17]
Jamie Rubin
Oh, they don't want it, Jamie. Netanyahu's government and Netanyahu himself, himself, his whole career has been about refusing a Palestinian state. Sorry, it has. And I know the Palestinians have said no to various other things, I understand that. But the people who are surrounding Netanyahu now, that's what their strategy is anyway. We can discuss that another time because we don't know where this is going to go. I just want to maybe end by repeating what we just said, that the Iranians always tend to over negotiate and think they're such great negotiators. They had no idea that Netanyahu were using this Oman talks this past weekend, potentially a cover for surprise for Israel to make this attack. But when it comes to the people of Iran, I just want to say, you know, no matter how much you dislike a regime, when Iraq, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran back in 1980 and launched an eight year brutal war, millions of people killed, chemical weapons used by Iraq, shipping stopped in the Straits of Horm. Complete and utter chaos all over. My cousin whose father was a general in the Shah's regime, he could have got out of fighting because he could have got an exemption because he had the contacts. But he said, I'm going to fight for my country. And he went for two years to the front and he got injured several times. And it wasn't about the regime, it was about his country. It's a patriotism for your country. So I think that that is maybe an answer to what some people think right now about is this going to lead to immediate regime change? It might in the future, but at the moment it's a very, very complex situation for the people there. Goodbye and thank you all for listening and make sure you follow the feed so you never miss an episode. We'll see you on Thursday for our bonus episode where we answer your questions. So keep them coming. We do love hearing from you. The email is amanpourpodlobal.com or you can find us on social everywhere at amanpourpod and you can listen to Christiane Amanpour and the X Files with Jamie Rubin on Global Player. Download it from the App Store or go to globalplayer.com next time.
- [37:32]
Christiane Amanpour
Okay, goodbye. Let's do the goodbye. I'd like to have a cigarette, please.
- [37:40]
Jamie Rubin
Oh my God. Just light it. What has ever stopped you?
- [37:43]
Christiane Amanpour
I'm in an apartment where I can't do that.
- [37:49]
Jamie Rubin
You have never been stopped from smoking. Okay, get the vape out. Are you allowed to vape?
- [37:53]
Christiane Amanpour
I am. Please, just say goodbye already. This is a Global Player original podcast.