Isaac Saul (21:23)
Alright, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So in his inaugural address in January, President Trump hit an applause line that invoked his view on foreign wars that he's been campaigning on for years. He said, quote, like in 2017, we will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into. My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and a unifier, end quote. Those words have been making the rounds since Saturday night, when the Trump administration ostensibly entered Israel's war with Iran. The administration, naturally, is insisting that this isn't what happened. Trump himself called for peace immediately after bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said repeatedly that this was a targeted strike, not the opening of a new Front. Vice President J.D. vance flatly denied the U.S. was at war with Iran, telling NBC's Kristen Welker that we're, quote, at war with Iran's nuclear program, end quote. I'm not convinced. In the same NBC interview, Vance attempted to further reassure the country by explaining that the difference between present and past entanglements is that we don't have a dumb president like we have had for 25 years. In the same breath that he promised the US wasn't going to get into some long drawn out thing, he also said that we are now going to work to permanently dismantle Iran's nuclear program over the coming years. Vance and Hegseth each insisted throughout Sunday that they had no interest in regime change. And then that evening Trump came out and said that regime change would be a good thing if the current regime can't make Iran great again. Furthermore, the Pentagon's official assessment is that these nuclear facilities were severely damaged, not permanently destroyed as the president initially insisted. New reporting seems to indicate that Iran was able to prepare the facilities and move some of their equipment before the strikes, in part because Trump was broadcasting on social media during the week that an incoming strike was likely destroying Iran's nuclear capacity without a ground invasion may be impossible and at the least is incredibly dangerous and complicated. So absent confirmation that the enrichment program has been fully dismantled and given the administration's own assurances they won't stop until it is a follow up strike is a logical and predictable outcome here. Meanwhile, the more immediate concern is the nature and scale of the Iranian retaliation. The United States military is now briefing troops that the strikes will likely result in counter strikes on U.S. bases and facilities in the Middle east and likely activate Iran and other foreign terrorist organization cells abroad, including the United States, to conduct strikes against US Persons and facilities, according to a briefing obtained by the journalist Ken Clippinson. Reuters Phil Stewart also reported that U.S. officials expect Iran to retaliate against U.S. forces in the coming days. The open question is whether the Trump administration has the discipline or intent to respond with restraint, which may determine whether this is a short and hot conflict or a long and protracted one. Unfortunately, none of this to me seems like a recipe for a brief engagement. As I said, after Israel's initial strikes, a war with Iran could realistically produce some good outcomes. Israel has spent a lot of time fighting groups like Hamas and Hezbollah that are largely supported and radicalized by Tehran. If you want to take an optimistic view here, it's that Israel and the United States are directly confronting the power center now, not just engaging the proxies. If Iran is severely weakened or a new leadership comes into power, that could cause a positive downstream impact in Iran and regionally 90 million Iranians with free expression, fewer proxy wars across the Middle East, Hamas and Hezbollah without funding and weapons, and a new opening for a grand deal that brings Israel and its Arab neighbors into a lasting, sustained period of peace and economic development. A lot of people obviously believe it's Pollyannish to think this is even possible, but the regional snowglobe hasn't been shaken up like this in some time, and I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that the region is better overall a year from now than it is today. Frankly, a lot of the theorized worst cases feel less realistic than the more optimistic scenario I just described. It's surely possible that we are in the first steps toward World War three, but Iran to me looks weak, isolated and desperate. That may make them dangerous in the short term, but I think it also makes them less likely to attract the support of their purported allies. I've seen no indication that China is interested in coming to Iran's rescue. Russia is clearly occupied. India, another BRICS nation many fewer are talking about, has strengthened ties with Israel and other developed democracies. However, a lot of the bad outcomes are still very likely. My primary fear, as I said before this weekend's airstrikes, is that Iran conducts effective, coordinated and targeted cyber attacks against US Businesses and infrastructure. This kind of low cost, high impact, non military attack still seems far more realistic to me than kinetic warfare between Iranian and American soldiers. Although mainstream pundits seem focused on the latter response, intelligence experts are sounding the alarm that the former is an imminent threat. Second, Iran seems prepared to disrupt shipping out of the Persian Gulf. If Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, which they are capable of, it could strangle the region's ability to export oil from the Gulf, which represents about a quarter of the entire globe's seaborne oil trade. We had a surprisingly difficult time tangling with the Houthis when they were firing on ships in the Red Sea, and it's not at all clear to me that we'd be able to dislodge Iran. Third, Iran obviously has the capacity to strike US Bases across the Middle East. If it does, it's hard to imagine Trump not responding with more attacks, which is exactly how long drawn out military engagements come to fruition. Then there are all the known unknowns. Are the rumors about Iranian sleeper cells across the U.S. legitimate? Will Iran continue to break through Israel's air defenses? Would China get involved if its access to Iranian oil is disrupted? These are the kinds of questions that should keep Trump officials up at night, and none of them more so than this. Is Iran more likely to pursue a nuclear weapon now as a deterrent for future attacks? It would be a rational response to look around and think racing to a bomb covertly is a better option for them than trying to participate in international programs that limit their abilities in exchange for fewer sanctions. And if that is the case, how far back did these strikes set their programs? Months? Years? Decades? A few weeks ago, I expected direct US Engagement in Iran to be a political disaster for Trump. But after watching how quickly the mainstream media, independent media, and dissenting voices within MAGA have fallen into line, I'm not so sure. It was rather alarming, frankly. Fox News ran a segment comparing the strikes to Top Gun and preemptively blamed former President Joe Biden for any terrorist attacks that happened in the United states. In response, CNN's Jake Tapper referred to Iran's Reid nuclear weapons program, despite CNN's own reporting insisting that no such weapons program exists. Editors at independent media outlets like the Free Press offered resounding, unambiguous praise for the strikes, describing Trump's decision to carry them out as presidential. Meanwhile, in a triumph of low expectations, Trump's backers celebrated the lack of leaks before the attack, even though the plans did actually leak. And and in a matter of four days, surrogates like Charlie Kirk run from tweeting that 60% of Americans don't want to be involved with a war in Iran to America stands with Trump. Even Director of National Intelligence and anti war voice Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump has repeatedly undermined publicly and apparently wasn't in the Situation Room during the strikes, updated her own assessment of Iran's nuclear ambitions to match President Trump's. And get this, it might be working. According to YouGov polling, support for Republicans bombing Iran went from 25 to 53 approved disapproved to 68 to 13 approved disapproved in the matter of a week. What happens next is anyone's guess. Democrats are now trying to mount opposition to the strikes by claiming Trump doesn't have the authority to order them, which at the very least is not a straightforward claim. The president can issue limited strikes in response to direct threats. But no justification of the bombing comports with a U.S. intelligence that has repeatedly said Iran was not building a bomb. I'm sure Trump's critics will continue to advance legal arguments, and I'd love to see Congress wrest its war powers back from the executive branch as much as anyone, but it's funny seeing Obama Biden cheerleaders act like they didn't cross the same lines during their terms. This story produces a lot of tangled threads that make it hard for any honest broker wrestling with the facts to stake a clear ideological position. Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or jcpoa, or Iran nuclear deal, and many people, including President Obama and Trump's former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, predicted that tearing up the deal would lead to a war. At the same time, Trump gave Iran 60 days to get a deal done, which they didn't do, and he stuck to his word. Axios even reported that he made a last ditch effort to avoid a strike, hoping to create a back channel with Iranian officials. But the effort collapsed because Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was hiding from a potential Israeli assassination and couldn't be reached to authorize the meeting. Perhaps more to the point, the Iranian regime is an oppressive, radical group that is responsible for much of the violence across the region. Yet any group rising to fill the power vacuum created by its absence might be even more destructive. Wars are unpredictable and violence often begets violence. But Iran appears incapable of controlling its own skies, let alone managing to do serious damage to US bases or Israel. It seems just as likely that this regime collapses as it does that the US pays any serious price for joining the fray. At which point a whole new set of unpredictable futures come into focus for Iranians and for the world too. We'll be right back after this quick break.