← PBS Washington Week with The Atlantic - Full Show
PBS Washington Week with The Atlantic - Full Show
Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, 3/27/26
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- [00:02]
A
The question looming in the country today is simple. What does victory in Iran look like? Asking the president isn't much use. He's provided strikingly different answers based seemingly on his mood. What is definitively true is that Iran remains in control of the Strait of Hormuz. And it is unclear how President Trump plans to open up this crucial choke point. Tonight, we'll ask another question as well. Is President Trump's war of choice because becoming a war of necessity next?
- [00:33]
B
This is Washington Week with the Atlantic.
- [00:37]
A
Good evening, and welcome to Washington Week. There are at least two Iran wars taking place right now. There's the war being waged by the US Military and the Israelis. In this war, Iranian targets are being methodically destroyed according to carefully designed plans. The other war is playing out inside the brain of Donald Trump. We don't know the goals of this war, the metrics of success, or even whether Trump is assimilating information the way his military commanders are. Trump has been notably inconsistent in telling us what he believes the purpose and the goals of this war are. On any given day, he'll threaten to destroy all of Iran's energy infrastructure. And then the next day, he'll tell us that negotiations are taking place to bring about the war's quick end. He'll tell us that the goal is the overthrow of the Iranian regime. And then he'll say the goal is the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war. And then he'll let us know that opening the Strait of Hormuz doesn't actually matter. All wars are covered in a fog of misinterpretation and misinformation and uncertainty. This one even more. I'm going to try to riddle all of this out with my guests tonight. Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent at the New York Times. Susan Glasser is a staff writer at the New Yorker. David Ignatius is a foreign affairs columnist at the Washington Post. And Missy Ryan is a staff writer and Pentagon correspondent at the Atlantic. Thank you all for joining me. This week's edition of what is happening in the Middle East. Apparently, that's the new theme of this show. David, is the US Winning the war? Donald Trump just said a little while ago today, he said. He said it in the past tense. He said, we beat the hell out of Iran, as if he's moving on to Cuba.
- [02:25]
B
When you asked the question, I could hear the quotation marks around the word winning. Yes, because what does winning mean day by day? As you said in the introduction, the US And Israel are destroying targets. They must be running out of some targets to hit. So in a tactical sense, there's no question that overwhelming military powers being brought to bear and Iran is being degraded. But today we had a day when the US financial markets plunged dramatically. We had a day when 10 US service people were injured in Saudi Arabia as Iran struck back. So this war continues. And the more I watch this process of a weak enemy being pounded and pounded, I'm reminded of the Gaza war. Israel for two years hid Gaza. It invaded, it did what we haven't done in Iran. And yet today, with the war over, Hamas still controls most of the Palestinians in Gaza. Even with all that power, Israel wasn't able to win. And I think that's what we're all worrying about. As Donald Trump says, we won, it's over, it's over, it's over. We think about how far we are from a kind of decisive victory that would really end this in a way that everybody could be confident it's over.
- [03:50]
A
Is the only decisive victory the overthrow of the regime by the people of Iran, most of whom hate the regime.
- [03:58]
B
So the decisive change that I think many people want, certainly people in the region, is for Iran to be a different kind of country, to no longer threaten its neighbors, for the regime no longer to threaten its people. Iran to be, as Henry Kissinger famously said, a nation, not a cause. And that will require a different regime. And I think, you know, that's the hard part about this war. So many of us would like to see that change, but you can't do it through military power. That's what we're learning.
- [04:29]
A
Right, Susan, what's your definition of winning?
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C
Well, you know, to the point of we've been told so many different things. I think it was the former Trump's first term Defense Secretary, Jim Mattis, who famously broke with him over Trump' treatment of American allies. He made the point this week, first of all, that the US Is unfortunately fighting without its allies for now and further alienating them. But I think most importantly, you can strike 10,000, 15,000 targets, but if you don't know towards what end, then you can't really define winning. It was the Pakistani foreign minister who was asked the same question the other day. And he said, right now, the only strategic goal I can identify for the conflict as reopening the Strait of Hormuz that was closed as a result of the war. And it's hard to imagine the US Leaving the war unfinished in that way. And I think that's where so many people I've started to Hear the Q word thrown around, and that's not a good word quagmire when it comes to how is the US Going to even plausibly extricate. Trump may have moved on, but I don't see any realistic way where things stand as they do right now that it actually can be ended.
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A
I thought the Q word was Quidditch, but that was just me. Peter, to be fair to the Trump administration, they have degraded Iran's ability to fire missiles at its neighbors. They're still firing missiles, but they destroyed some. So we'll talk to Missy, the Pentagon expert, about just how far they've gone down this road. They've degraded Iran's ability to be a threat across the region. That's more than just the Strait of Hormuz. Yeah.
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D
No, look at the sum total of the last couple years is that Iran is a far different country than it was before October 7, 2023. Right. Its ability to project force through proxies in the region has been degraded by the Israelis, particularly in Lebanon and Gaza.
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A
Syria regime is gone.
- [06:38]
D
Syria regime is gone. Right. The last war in June out a lot of their air defenses, which is why we're having so much more success this time, because we don't feel the threat in going in to take out these nuclear sites and other things. So, yes, it's not the same country it once was. It is absolutely, certainly degraded in that sense. The ballistic missile stockpile has been, if not wiped out, is certainly down significantly. But the question then becomes, if you don't have a new regime, if you don't have a change in the country, as Dave was talking about, does this mean then we have to do it again in 5 years or 10 years or 1 year? Who knows? Because they have made clear that they're not giving up. They're not going to simply roll over and say, okay, Donald, you're right. We're going to be your vassal state now, and we're going to do everything you want us to do.
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A
But if you're saying that to Marco Rubio, he might say in return, okay, so we'll do it in five years. But we have five years where Iran is not a threat.
- [07:35]
D
And if you're living in the region and you've been threatened by Iran all this time, that might not feel like the worst bargain in the world, but it's not a permanent solution. And I think one thing we've seen is that they continue to be a menace in the Strait of Hormuz to the world economy. In a way, they had not been prior to this war starting out, as Susan made the point. And in that sense, they have a vote on when this war ends, too.
- [07:58]
A
Right.
- [07:58]
D
Trump can say tomorrow, I'm done. I've gotten everything I wanted to do. But if the Strait of Hormuz is closed or still in their control in a long term sense, then they've won something as well.
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A
Right, Missy, from the Pentagon perspective, from the actual war that's going on, how far along the pathway laid out by Pentagon military planners is the US So
- [08:20]
E
at the beginning of the conflict, we were told that they had about three or four weeks expected campaign in terms of the target set that they had developed with the Israeli military. We're now almost at four weeks. The combined US and Israeli strikes have hit more than 15,000 targets. As Peter said, they've significantly degraded their ballistic missile, their defense industrial and their naval capability. And now what is happening is the US Is getting in position the forces that it could require to try to clear the state of Hormuz militarily. That's at this time, we know.
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A
And that's the insertion of Marines.
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E
Marines. And they have, it's about 8,000 marines and paratroopers. They've got two marine expeditionary units heading to the Middle East. You know, the most likely scenario is that they are holding those in reserve potentially to clear the Strait of Hormuz, but they could be used in other ways as well. But the issue here is that there's an asymmetry. Even though Iran is weakened, its military capability has been degraded. There's an asymmetry in its ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, keep it closed with, you know, a small number of mines, a small number of missile strikes on commercial tankers. And there's also an asymmetry in its ability to threaten Gulf countries with the kind of drones that even though, you know, the US Military has been hitting some of its manufacturing sites, it's easy for them to, you know, hide them in a garage, you know, put them in the back of a pickup truck and launch those and really continue to wreak havoc, the kind of havoc that's going to have an impact on oil markets, on financial markets here in the United States as well.
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A
If one drone out of every hundred, I mean, a drone packed with explosives gets through, that's a 1% victory.
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E
I mean. Exactly. And that, you know, I mean, I don't think we should underestimate Trump's ability to at least try to declare victory just out of the blue, because he thinks that that suits his interests. But, you know, there really is the reality of continued strife that could bring down the kind of economic reality that I think is more resonant for him.
- [10:24]
A
David, if they don't open the Strait of Hormuza and make it safe for commercial shipping, that's obviously not a victory.
- [10:35]
B
That is what's called defeat. That is failure to achieve the fundamental war aim that the President has or should have. Iran has taken the Strait of Hormuz hostage. And so when there's a hostage taking, you have a choice. You either try to free the hostage by force, Missy was talking about sending in Marines and other troops to seize territory, or you free the hostage by negotiation, or some wily combination of the two. And I think that's basically the choice that Trump has. If he tries to walk away from this, having left global commerce in a very precarious situation, global markets really now being affected by the closure of the strait, walks away. We've achieved our goals. That's it. It's up to you fellows. I think the world will just irate. And I don't think he can get away. I heard today from an Arab who's been involved in parts of these discussions an idea for some kind of international process that in effect oversees the Strait of Hormuz. That is like what the UN did in the negotiations that opened the Black Sea commerce again in the Ukraine war. I mean, the Black Sea was a no go zone. The UN Negotiated a process. It got buy in from everybody. And it's not inconceivable that something like that could be done for the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is demanding that it charge tolls. Well, that's not going to work. But it's conceivable that you could have some kind of international regime that that's a way out that actually would get buy in from just about everybody.
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A
How hard is it to open the Strait of Hormuz militarily?
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B
Militarily. So I think, you know, landing troops who are going to be there as targets indefinitely is a terrible idea. The problem, I mean, I've been up there and seen it, as others around the table may have. It is really such a tiny area. It's so easy to mine. It's so easy. You know, you could float a tanker out at midnight, you know, with no transponders, and sink it and you block a big part of that passageway.
- [12:51]
A
Peter David wrote this week, Trump is convincing as a risk taker, but not a suicidal one. He has an instinct for self preservation. Amid the chaos he inflicts oil prices spiking, markets, NASDAQ in correction territory.
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D
Yeah.
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A
You covered this man for a long time. Is he just going to throw his hands up?
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D
Well, I think one thing that's been surprising is his willingness to absorb that pain for as long as he has because he's a famously impatient man. Right. But and one of the things we've seen also has affected his policies in the past have been pressure points on economics. When the bond markets reacted badly to some of his tariff decisions, he's been willing to reverse course or switch gears and he hasn't yet so far on this. But I think his calculation is that once it's over, and it'll be over and two weeks, three weeks, however many weeks you want to say, it'll all be back to normal and everything will be fine. Or at least that's what he's telling himself, right, that that gas prices will come back down, the markets will recover by the time the midterms come along. Whether that's lost or not for the Republicans, we can argue already, but it'll all be back to normal. People won't mind. But the problem is that if there's a big disparity between saying we've won, which is what he says, we've won already, past tense, we've won and sending 8,000, 10,000, 20,000 troops to the ground. And even if it's a fake out, even if it's a strategic ambiguity in order to leverage negotiations, what he's at least putting on the table is a much more extended and extensive involvement on a long term basis in the region, which is exactly what Americans thought they were voting against when they voted for him.
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A
Right. Whatever he does, he's not going to be doing it with many European allies, the Europeans, of course, as well as Asian countries more dependent on the oil and gas that flows through. Susan, you wrote this week America's friends in Europe ought to take note of what the president said at 6:16am on Thursday when he started his day by denouncing not only the ayatollahs of the Islamic Republic, but the nations of NATO that have so far refused to join the US in its war on Iran. This is in all caps. The USA needs nothing from NATO. But never forget this very important point in time. I'm not even 100% sure I understand what he means by never forget this important point in time, but he's trolling NATO precisely when he could use some help. It seems like he has more anger at US Allies sometimes than he has the anti American ayatollahs who run Iran,
- [15:26]
C
for sure, or, for example, the leaders of Russia, you know, who have now become beneficiaries of this war. And in fact, in many ways, Vladimir Putin is getting, I think it was a $38 billion windfall. And that's even if the war stops in April, which there's no guarantee that it will because we've allowed lifted temporary sanctions on some of its oil in order to ease the pressure in the markets created by Trump's war. Donald Trump, there's a through line here. You know it well. You know, he has consistently denigrated America's allies and its alliances going back to the very beginning of his time in politics. And, you know, my theory of the case is, you know, pay attention to what Donald Trump is fulminating about late at night and early in the morning. That is as close as the world has ever come to a direct pipeline into the ID of an American president. And Donald Trump has it out for NATO. He has it out for America's European allies. He continued after that posting to complain about it in a Cabinet meeting in increasingly strident terms again on Friday. We'll see if he follows through. But I think what you are seeing over the last six months, especially after Donald Trump's threat to hold out the possibility of using military force against our NATO ally Denmark to seize its territory in Greenland, that was a real breaking point for many of America's partners. It's remarkable that our partners, both in Europe and Asia, by the way, who were also asked in Japan, South Korea to participate in this conflict to help open the strait, they all said a very loud no, this is your war, Donald. And I think David's point about, you know, if we can continue in a sort of limbo here in the Strait of Hormuz, Donald Trump declares victory, war walks away, and it's still not safe for those tankers to go through. The resentment which was already building up is going to be enormous. And I think it's very hard to see a scenario here where this doesn't represent a big blow to American international power and standing in many ways.
- [17:32]
A
No, if the strait is not open, the US Will look like the thing that Donald Trump professes to hate more than anything, a loser. But, missy, just to make a point of clarification here, could the. The US does not need NATO or Japan or South Korea to open up the Strait of Hormuz. It would just be harder, and it would. It would be more resources, American resources.
- [17:56]
E
No, the US Military doesn't need, you know, the French military or the Danish military. What the United States would do if it took the decision to do so, it would first, the biggest barrier to trying to clear the strait is making sure that the countermine ships are not hit by drones, they're not hit by missiles. So that is why they're not in the region. That's why they haven't started this work yet. So what they would need to do is have, you know, enough, feel confident enough that the anti ship missiles, that the drones aren't going to come out and hit these ships. Then the United States would get combat air patrols up around the littoral combat ships, which are the counter mine ships, they would have destroyers go in. And technically it's something that can be done. There's always mines that are missed. We saw this in the Gulf War in 1991, we saw this in the Tanker wars in the 1980s where American ships were hit despite, you know, despite the belief that they already had been cleared. So it can be done. I think for Trump it's more of another grievance against these countries where he feels like he's doing the heavy lifting. We don't need this oil. And you know, I think that he wants the moral support. He wants to be head of a coalition just like Joe Biden was in Ukraine. And it's more about that than the military capability.
- [19:16]
A
I have a large question for the panel which is prompted by a moment that I want you to watch courtesy of the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Let's watch this for a minute. And so tonight we have created a new award. We're going to do something we've never done before. We're going to honor him with a new award that we'll present annually from this point forward. But he is the suitable and fitting recipient of the first ever America first award. We can think of no better title for what that is. That's this beautiful golden statue here, appropriate for the new golden era in America. Peter. I mean, I'll ask this of everyone. It's a real challenge for the United States not only on this issue, the war currently, but others that the President is unusually susceptible to flattery and unusually resistant to criticism or self reflection. This was extraordinary. Yeah, it's one of the many extraordinary things that happens all the time now. But talk about a president with that kind of personality in a situation in which he has to be assimilating vast quantities of intelligence, including intelligence you might not want to hear, right?
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D
Yeah. No, flattery is the way you get to them and you know, information Is not. And look at the other one that happened this week, by the way, Mike Johnson giving him this made up award. The other thing that's going on this week is the Treasury Department. Donald Trump's Treasury Department has decided to put Donald Trump's signature on the dollar bill and every other dollar bill. No president has ever had their signature on the currency before. But it's one more way of steering, stamping his identity on not just the buildings he built as a developer, but on American institutions. Right. His name is now in the Kennedy Center. His name is now in the Institute of Peace. He wants his name on Dulles Airport, on Union Station, on Penn Station. He wants his name on programs for tax cuts and prescription medication. And it's all about his ego and narcissism. It's not subtle. And everybody plays with that. So if you are a Speaker of the House or you are a foreign, you know that. And that's the game, you know, that needs to be played. You're not gonna win him over by logic. You might win him over by flattery.
- [21:35]
A
I would just make a small editorial note. I've made this before, that if I were trying to be more popular, I would not put my name on Dulles Airport. I just want to. That's special for the Washington metro region. But, David, let's, we could wrap this up here. You spent a career covering Middle east dictators, leaders, men with massive egos who had difficulty assessing reality around them. We are now in the most serious war of Donald Trump's presidency. Talk about his personality and his psychological and emotional needs in the context of how the decisions are going to be made.
- [22:19]
B
So if you want to understand how Trump sailed through intelligence warnings, what appear to have been warnings from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Kaine, into this war, just watch one of the Cabinet meetings or the clip that you just showed with Speaker Mike Johnson. I mean, the degree of flattery, the inability, it seems, for people just to level with him and say, Mr. President, don't. Mr. President, stop. He just, he is not a person who's able to hear that. I'm reminded of Vladimir Putin, sorry to say it, in February 2022, who sailed into Ukraine thinking it would be over in a week. You know, that it was going to be a easy kind of march to Kiev and is still stuck four years later in a war he can't get out of. And, you know, it happens when people are flattered and they don't listen to the evidence.
- [23:27]
A
We'll talk about Ozymandias. Next week on this show. I'm sorry that we're going to have to leave it there, but I want to thank our guests for joining me. I want to thank you at home for watching us. For more on Iran's use of asymmetrical warfare, please read Missy Ryan and Nancy Youssef's Latest article@theatlantic.com I'm Jeffrey Goldberg. Good night from Washington.