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- [00:00]
A
Hi, I'm Ben Parker from the Bulwark.
- [00:02]
B
And hi, I'm Mark Hertling from the Bull Work. And before we get started, Ben, I have to tell our listeners who are our watchers, actually, that I have an eye problem because I had surgery on Monday. I was not in a cage match with Tom Nichols, although his eyes look bad because he's been writing so much. Mine look bad. My left eye looks bad because of a little. A small minor surgery, but I'm okay. But thanks for everybody who wrote me yesterday asking me what the hell is wrong with me, but it's great to be with the great Tom Nichols again. Tom, a dear friend and a just unbelievable oracle of common sense and the current events that we're in.
- [00:50]
C
Well, thank you. Thanks for having me, guys. And yes, Mark, now you've got that scene. Those of us with lazy eye, now you get to join the big fraternity of those of us that always look like. Like Colombo,
- [01:03]
A
you know?
- [01:04]
C
Yeah, it's bothering me.
- [01:09]
B
We have a lot of things bothering us.
- [01:11]
A
Yeah, I was gonna say, speaking of
- [01:12]
C
things that are bothering us, one more thing, Mr. President.
- [01:17]
A
We're gonna be talking all about this Iran member memorandum of understanding, what it all means and how awful it is, uh, this morning.
- [01:26]
C
But let's start seeing it, right?
- [01:28]
A
We've only seen reports of what's in it, and not that it's even necessarily finalized yet. We'll start with what the President said just this morning.
- [01:38]
D
Is the facts to the agreement now
- [01:40]
B
final or are you still.
- [01:41]
D
No, it's not final. It's a memorandum of understanding. And if I don't like it, we'll go back to shooting at him, dropping bombs on their head if I don't like it. If they don't behave, we'll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, okay? Because they've misbehaved for 47 years.
- [02:04]
A
So I just want to point out two things before we get to the actual substance of what Trump said. The first is he is speaking with the Egyptian dictator Sisi, who Trump once called his favorite dictator. I know a lot of people think that's Putin, but the actual answer is it's Sisi of Egypt. Because Trump straight up said he is my favorite dictator, which is a wild thing to remember. And also, did you notice what Sisi was wearing? Do you think he usually wears cobalt blue suits with a bright red tie? Do you think he dressed up special for Donald Trump just like every other 20something white dude in Washington? It is so annoying.
- [02:40]
B
Anyway, Ben, If I can inject something here, though, I hope that you were listening very closely because, you know, the President has written the book Art of a Deal. But you being a new parent of a recently born child, I hope you took some great parenting advice for what happens when your children misbehave from that statement.
- [02:59]
A
Just go right back to bombing them because they've been misbehaving for a long time. Tom, let's start with this. What the hell is a memorandum of understanding?
- [03:11]
C
It's a page of paper that says at some point we'll talk about other stuff. And so that's not even fine in this case. It's a get out of the war free card for Donald Trump, that that's what he really wants. Just give him anything, any reason to get out of this. You know, it's not a deal. It's a deal to make a deal. It's an understanding to make a deal. But again, there's only so much I can say because all we've seen are leaks of it rather than the actual text. And if it's such a great deal, if it's so strong, you know, the accordion hands are always the tell. If it's so strong, then why not just show it to everybody? And by the way, I'm the President on one thing and one thing only. I don't think Congress actually needs to bless this. It's not a treaty, it's an executive agreement at this point. But the President said don't, you know, just show it to everybody. That's all anybody, you know what, what
- [04:13]
B
I'd say, Tom, I'd kind of go a little one step further and say that, you know, my understanding of memorandums of understanding, which I've participated in multiple times through my career, is it's, it's the military or diplomatic equivalent of what you get within a corporation, which is called a meeting agenda. It's just the things you want to talk about. And we all know from the business arena that agendas are always, you know, the start point, but you never get to all of them unless you've got a really good organization. And it is an opportunity for people around the table to say, okay, I got your talking point or your agenda item, but I'm going to go sideways on it. So again, everyone who's been saying this is a deal, and the President has been one of those, it is nowhere close to being a deal. It is an agenda if it's what
- [05:13]
C
we're seeing leaked now, you know, every time the leaks come out, the President says That's not what it is. Nobody knows what's in it. And then Vance basically says, well, that's kind of what's in it, if that's what it is. It's basically an agreement to stop fighting, to set up the talks, to give the Iranians all the things they want and to get. And to get nuclear talks down the line. And the only difference between the MoU and a deal is that nothing in it right now is binding, but it's all setting the, the road, the, the setting up the, the. What am I trying to say? The, the markers, the road sign toward where we're going. You know, we're, we're going to pay them. They're not going to pay us. We're all going to stop fighting. They're going to talk to us about a nuclear deal. Okay, fine. We used to have that. There's, you know, this again. I think this is a way of. For Donald Trump to. And I think, you know, I think one of the things Trump's pissed about, he wanted this done on his birthday, and it didn't happen.
- [06:17]
B
Yeah, Tom, Is this. I got to ask this important question, because this is what I've been struggling with. I have never seen so much emphasis put on an mou. So you taught strategy to naval officers and other officers of the military force at the Naval War College. You taught at Harvard. Is. Is this what you see as part of a strategy that includes diplomacy, or is this strategic impatience dressed up as diplomacy?
- [06:53]
C
Yeah, I.
- [06:54]
A
There.
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C
I don't see any strategy here at all. I mean, a strategy is, you know, a. What we, you know, you know, this market was. What we teach at these colleges. Ways, means, ends. Right. You know, how. What are the goals of national policy? How are you going to apply the various instruments of national power to attaining those goals? A strategy is. I used to say, look, a kid who wants to get cookies out of the jar on top of the shelf has a strategy. Should I ask Mom? That's a strategy. Should I put up a ladder? That's a strategy. You know, you have different paths to it. This is. I screwed up. I don't know what I'm doing. Get me out of this. That's, that's. And I mean, I, you can see it. I mean, it's palpable. It radiates off the president. So I don't think there's a strategy here because we're telegraphing to the enemy we want out of this, and then saying to the enemy, now tell us what we have to do. You know, it reminds me. I'll just digress for one minute and say that this reminds me of something. One of my army colleagues, you know, one of my friends that I taught with years ago said about the Vietnam peace negotiations that when they start to falter, we started bombing. And he said we were bombing them. We were bombing Vietnam to coerce them to accept our surrender.
- [08:20]
B
Right.
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C
Which I thought. Which I always thought was just such a fantastic line. We bombed them to coerce them to accept our surrender. And I think that's kind of where we are. There isn't a. There isn't a strategy here. What is the goal that we're trying to. The only goal that you can point out is Donald Trump's personal goal of this one. South on me. It's bad. I want it to stop.
- [08:44]
B
Yeah.
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C
So beyond that, I see no national goals in this other than things that people are kind of putting on it, like post its like, get a discussion about nuclear weapons, you know, set up a reparations fund which, you know, kind of mind blowing, but okay. You know, beyond that, no one can. We don't have any POWs to exchange. We don't have any territory that we have to exchange or go back or back and forth on. This is we want out. Tell us what we have to do to get that.
- [09:16]
A
Yeah. I would say that's because we entered the war without any clear goals.
- [09:21]
C
Sometimes it was the outset of the. I mean, the first thing I wrote about this conflict was if you have no, you know, if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. There is no strategy here. This is all the celebration, and we saw it with, you know, Pete Heth and Donald Trump oing about, you know,
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A
about
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C
videos of explosions. Okay. Those are operational successes. Well, maybe the operation at that level of fly to this area, destroy these targets were successful.
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B
Right.
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C
It's not like the pilots came back and said we couldn't find them or we got shot down or as an operation. Each of those discrete operations succeeded in the assignment that they were given. But, you know, I think this is if there are still war colleges after Hegseth gets through. But I kind of hope there. I think there still will be. But certainly in any program where they discuss war and strategic studies, this war is going to replace the first few years of World War II in the Pacific as the example of how a string of operational victories do not produce a strategic effect.
- [10:40]
B
Yeah. You know, it's interesting, Ben. Both Tom and I have been beating this drama and, you know, this The. The very simple model of ends, ways and means. I mean, it could not be any easier. And they put it. I think the war colleges put it in those three words, because sometimes military personnel can only take three words at a time and say, okay, I can figure that out. But that operational campaign, they all sit
- [11:08]
C
on the same flashcard, Mark.
- [11:11]
B
But that operational campaign of the military strikes is a way of reaching an objective, and there are means attached to it. A carrier strike group, Tomahawk missiles, logistics and all that. But we went into this without a true end state desired. So those things were just spending money,
- [11:31]
A
spending resources, spending American lives, in some cases American lives.
- [11:37]
C
But the President didn't want to say it out loud because he didn't want to, because of the implications that would come with it. But the end state was the regime falls and they build a golden statue of Donald Trump in the middle of Tehran.
- [11:50]
B
Yeah, that was it.
- [11:52]
C
The rest would all flow from that. Right. That new regime of Iranian democracy would not engage in regional terror, would dismantle what's left of the nuclear program, would turn the Strait of Hormuz into the Riviera. You know, on and on and on. Trump. And to their credit, I mean, I, you know, you don't have to hand it to the Trump national security team, but you can say, well, you know, at least one or two cheers for Marco Rubio and John Ratcliffe and a few others who said, it's not going to happen. Yeah, that's not gonna happen. So, but then, but then, shame on everybody else. They're saying, okay, if that doesn't happen, what do we do next?
- [12:34]
B
And because this is a military command post that we call it, I'll add one more name to that list. And I don't think you should take the blame. And that's General Dan Kane. I mean, his job is to offer military advice. We don't know, because the military shuts up after they give that advice. They don't give it to anyone but the Secretary of defense and the president. We don't know what kind of advice he gave, but I can only suggest that if he didn't give the advice of, hey, this is not going to turn out well, this is going to be a lot harder than you think, Mr. President. This is going to take a long time. And just because Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to take you there and thinks he can undercut the Iranian regime and help his existential threat go away, if he didn't say, you're, you're being sucked into a military adventure which we have been sucked into before because of civilian, basically civilian orders. Then he's wrong, too. But we don't know what he said. So he may be in the same level as Radcliffe and Rubio.
- [13:47]
C
I'd like to make the answer he was given was Shut up in color.
- [13:50]
A
Yeah, I think that's right. I'd like to make one point here about, about something I think Trump and Netanyahu have in common. And Tom, you got at this a little bit. I don't think Trump identified American interests vis a vis Iran. I don't think he went in and said, the Iranian regime sponsors a lot of terror that is bad for America's interests. It, you know, they attack American targets around the world. They make it much harder for us to secure our friends. They, you know, sponsor international terrorism all over. It's very expensive and dangerous for us. It's our. In our interest that there's free trade in oil around the world because it's to going good for our economy, good for the global economy. When there's not, it causes upheaval and violence. We generally want the Middle east to be stable and we'd like Iran to be a sort of free, democratic country that, you know, isn't a huge sword on our side. Those are American interests. I think you're right that Donald Trump went into this thinking of Donald Trump's interests, which is, wouldn't it be great if I were the guy that solved Iran? And I can do that with enough, you know, tonnage of tnt, basically. I also think real quick, I just, I also think he got snookered basically by Bibi Netanyahu, because that's kind of the way Bibi Netanyahu thinks about strategy, too. Netanyahu doesn't really have an end game for what's going on in Lebanon or in Syria or in Gaza or with Iran. He just thought, well, wouldn't it be great if instead of being the guy who was responsible for October 7, or instead of being the guy who has basically ruined the Israeli American relationship over the past decade and a half, I heard the guy who solved Iran. And so these two guys went and tried to solve Iran and look what happened.
- [15:24]
B
Well, let me, let me posit this to you based on what Ben just said, and this is a kind of a thought that I've been having recently as I've watched over the last year. Plus, Ben's point, I think, is a good one, but it only addresses one leader, and that's Netanyahu. What? You know, one of the things they teach in the Reduced in the succinct course of the word war college are the four main things we need to remember. And one of those things is personalities matter. When you have someone like a President Trump who likes to be considered part of the tough guy club, when you have Netanyahu whispering in his ear saying, hey, we can take this guy out and it'll solve my problems and your problems, that sounds an awful lot like the kind of advice that Trump may be getting from Putin saying, we just need to disband NATO and take over Ukraine or Kim Jong Un. Hey, you're my best friend. Now I'm a dictator. You're my best friend. Although nothing happens in terms of the nuclear elements of this or Sisi this morning, he's being a tough guy again. After we all watched yesterday. He was basically shunned by all the leaders of the G7 when they were doing their. Their. Their photo for the G7 competition. You could tell by body language no one wanted to associate with him as they were lining up for that photo. Is this a personality issue that's creating the kinds of dynamics that we're now seeing across the board?
- [17:00]
C
Yeah. And I think there's an additional problem with the. Well, as you said, he, like, be perceived as tough. So I'm sure he thought he would come out of this war and he'd call all these guys and say, you know, I'm the guy. You know, I'm the guy that scragged the ayatollah instead of what's happened. But I think there's an added dimension to this, which is that Trump is visibly declining and that people are noticing it and they're not paying attention to him. I mean, I don't know. I really want to know what George Maloney said to him yesterday. I don't know if you guys saw that little, you know, when the. With she got it right and wow. And I was like, I. I said, you know, I. I'm not. I haven't been a fan of Maloney on some things. Certainly on Ukraine, she's been great. But I. I am. I wouldn't want to get reamed up by some, you know, angry, small Italian woman like that the way he just did. And I think that's a sign that these people are just like, they've had it with this tyrannol man who speaks gibberish, who makes no sense, who swans in, like, this morning, he swans in. I'm the boss. I'm here because I'm late, but I'm the boss, and I'm sure everybody around the table went, yeah. Anyway, as you know, and then back got back to work because you can't talk to him. And I think they've come to realize that even the Trump from seven or eight years ago, where they could talk to him, you remember that picture with Merkel and the rest of them kind of crowded around him. You're not seeing that picture now. Now they're like, he's, he can't, you know, he's beyond talking to. There's something wrong with him. He's not processing this information. Just, you know, give him presence and smile while he says stupid things during these pressers. So I think, you know, this is a metaphor maybe of, you know, our general decline, but the President is in decline, and I think other people are noticing it.
- [18:55]
B
Yeah. Tom, a question for you. Let's talk about alliances, allies and partners. Let's talk specifically Israel and the Gulf leaders. If you're an Israeli, are you reassured or furious about what is happening right now? If you're a golf leader, if you're one of the. The Gulf states, are you buying that this is going to provide stability, or are you questioning the thing that popped up as part of the leaked memorandum that Gulf nations would contribute to the $300 billion proposed reconstruction gift? And then finally the last one, a partner of ours, not an ally of Trump, that's for sure. What is Zelensky thinking when he hears Trump praise this kind of operation and a fast negotiated settlement with Iran that's not really in existence, which Trump has been pushing between Zelensky and Russia? That's a long question, but it talks about world dynamics that we haven't considered as it's us against Iran.
- [20:15]
C
You know, let's start with the last part first, which is Zielinski. I mean, Zelensky's got to be. There's got to be a part of Zelensky saying, yeah, huh? Just roll over and do regime change. Not as easy as when will you guys learn? You know, because this is. I mean, when people get. Get mad at me. When Trump's people online get mad at me and say we didn't lose where we kicked their ass, I'm like, well, we're losing the same way the Russians are losing in Ukraine. Every day that Ukraine exists as an independent state, Zelensky wins, and God bless him for it, you know, but the Iranians took the same approach. As long as we come out of this still in charge of Iran, we won because that what I mean, this is the, this is the most disingenuous I mean, of all the lies Trump is telling about this. But when Trump says, I was never, I was never interested in regime change. Yes, you were.
- [21:14]
A
That we know, because you said it.
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C
You went, you said it. You know, this is why I said in the piece, this is a classic Trumpian move to dare us to forget today what we knew yesterday. So there's that. And I think Zelensky, you know, like, again, like the Europeans at the G7, you know, Zelinsky is saying, you can't, you can't talk to the guy. I mean, there's just nothing. There's no there, there anymore. I mean, I really, I don't want to overplay that, but I really do think that there are people realizing that he, you can't, you know, there's no point in a conversation with Donald Trump, in part because he'll only remember whatever the last thing was, you know, when. And this. Now I'm going to jump over the Gulf allies for a minute to the Israelis, which is why, if you, if, if I were an Israeli, I'd be freaked. You know, Trump's going on about the, all the deaths in Lebanon. Who was the last person he talked to? Who, who plugged that talking point into his head? I mean, Donald Trump is basically saying, I am siding with the Iranians to restrain the Israelis against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
- [22:24]
A
Do we.
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C
I mean, what. So, you know, again, and that could change tomorrow because Trump doesn't think in term, in linear terms or in, you know, causal relationships. But also, this is clearly, I mean, that whole section yesterday of, and I wrote about this in the piece, that whole thing he went through yesterday in, in his interviews at the G7, where he basically, like, oh, come on, you know, Hezbollah, that's a little pin prick. And he's basically, the Israelis need to stop being hysterical and calm down because I have more important things to do here. And I think he basically just sold the Israelis out and said, but as I also say in the piece, you can't cry for Netanyahu. He brought this on himself and he brought this on his country because he thought he was going to be the one that was going to be clever and persuasive enough to keep Trump pointed in the direction he wanted Trump to go, and that wasn't going to happen. I think the Israelis, I, I'm going to disagree with the idea that, you know, Netanyahu didn't really have a strategy. I think since the, since, for years, decades, Netanyahu strategy has been, is Iran like Carthage? Right? You know, you know, Iran, Delinda est. You know, it has to be destroyed. This regime has to be destroyed. And I think he took a shot a year ago saying, we're going to go after the, you know, know, this is purely a nuclear run, but if the Americans jumped in and turned it into a regime change war, that'd be okay, too.
- [23:58]
B
Yep. That's exactly what happened.
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C
That's exactly what he did a year ago.
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D
Right.
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C
And that. That became Midnight Hammer. And then Trump said, okay, we did it one night. And I think the Israelis, you know,
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A
crap, that was it.
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C
This was supposed to go on. This is supposed to go on a little longer. So I think Netanyahu took another bite at that apple. But we can't reduce this to, well, you know, the sneaky Israelis talked him into it. Trump wanted to do this. Trump's had a pebble in his shoe about Iran and being the liberator of Tehran for a long time, going all the way back to his first. One of the last things I wrote about Trump before he left office in 2021 was beware that he does not start a war with Iran as his parting gift on the way out the door. He's been wanting to do this for a long time.
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A
And.
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C
And the first time around, he had real people in the room with him saying, this isn't. This is a stupid idea. There's a reason other he's. No president's ever done it. Yeah, no president's ever, you know, stuck their hand in a blender either.