← The Lawfare Podcast
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- [00:01]
Scott R. Andersen
The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad free version of the Lawfare Podcast. Become a material supporter of lawfare@patreon.com lawfare that's patreon.com Lawfair also check out Lawfare's.
- [00:21]
Trey Farrow
Other podcast offerings, Rational Security, Chatter, Lawfare.
- [00:26]
Scott R. Andersen
No Bull and the Aftermath.
- [00:32]
Dan Byman
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- [01:00]
Scott R. Andersen
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- [01:04]
Trey Farrow
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- [01:23]
Scott R. Andersen
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- [01:25]
Tyler McBrien
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- [01:27]
Scott R. Andersen
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- [01:34]
Trey Farrow
So I, you know, got to enjoy something that has been happening a little too often the last few years here in my hometown of Washington, D.C. which is I got to see the military briefly take over my city for the second time in recent years. A little, little more celebratory at this point than last time this past weekend. I can't say I went to go watch the parade, but it was kind of hard to avoid in terms of traffic and road shutdowns here around town. How did you all celebrate the weekend? Did you, did you get out there and celebrate what is of course the army's birthday, no one else's birthday, with little, little paramilitary militaristic salute or what did you spend your weekend doing?
- [02:13]
Tyler McBrien
I'll just say quickly because I live in New York, as you know, I didn't, I didn't get even the opportunity to decide to go to the parade or not. But I was very curious about it. So I listened to NPR's coverage of it and the NPR correspondent who was at the military parade said with some bewilderment that he really only saw about 10% of the crowd in MAGA hats. And from people he spoke to, there were some people there supporting Trump, some people there supporting the military, but mostly people just really wanted to see the tanks is what he said. And I think that really threw this correspondent for a loop who wanted some hard hitting political coverage. But really it's just kind of like the guns and bombs crowd.
- [02:55]
Scott R. Andersen
I'm curious, has anyone checked on the roads yet? That was all I heard about the tanks beforehand. Are the roads okay?
- [03:02]
Trey Farrow
That is my concern as well. I will say I'm all for people going to get to check out and see tanks and boats and planes and whatever else they want to see. They are cool. Helicopters are awesome. Believe me, I've ridden them for a chunk of my career. They're awesome, but I just don't need them on my commute ripping up my roads in a way that evidently is not guaranteed to get reimbursed by the Defense Department. This may be digging D.C. further into its financial crisis. So we'll have to wait and see exactly what state constitutional avenue is in Tyler. You'll be happy to know I have briefly, when living in New York 20 years ago, right out of college, did step up to the roof of not the roof, a high floor of my office building. I work and there's a federal courthouse in lower Manhattan and looked out a window and saw a series of military helicopters and a tank driving across the Brooklyn Bridge and like soldiers advancing and apparently shooting at a horde of people. And I was looking at this and I was like, just kept checking my. I don't even think I had a smartphone at that point. I think I just kept being like somebody would call me if there was something going on, right? There'd be like an alarm going off and I was just kind of looking like what the heck is going on? It turned out they were filming a movie and they paid to take over the bridge but not announced it to anyone. So there was like an easy eight minutes where I was like, is the city being taken over by the military? So you know, it can happen in New York too. That's all I'm saying.
- [04:22]
Tyler McBrien
I'm not happy to hear that. I'm very jealous to hear that. I would have loved to have seen that. I'm glad to hear though that the it sounds like the roads of the Brooklyn Bridge are still intact after that battle.
- [04:32]
Trey Farrow
So far, so good. Hello everyone and welcome back to Rational Security. I am your host, Scott R. Andersen. Thrilled to invite you back on the podcast where we take members of the Lawfare team and invite you to join us as we trust try to make sense of the week's big national security news headlines. And what a week it has been since I have started on this podcast. We have twice before taken the opportunity to commit a whole episode to a single topic or different aspects of a single topic that seems to be potentially redefining national security as we know it. The fact that's happening quite at that rapid clip is a little disturbing. But we find ourselves back in that boat again because for its last week we saw Israel undertake something it has been threatening to do for well over a decade. That is a set of comprehensive military strikes against Iran, targeting its nuclear weapons program, among other targets. This is a major development, something we have all been talking about. Anybody who touches or works on the Middle east knows this is something people have been worried about, expecting, thinking, some hoping for, some dreading for again, well over a decade at this point. And it's really got the potential to change a lot in the Middle east or potentially not that much. We don't really know yet. But we think it's significant enough to spend the whole episode talking about it. And I'm thrilled to have an absolute all star squad to talk it over with us. First joining us, of course, our foreign policy editor at lawfare, Georgetown Professor Csis Fellow, Senior Fellow, a million different hats. Of course we have Dan Byman. Dan, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
- [06:06]
Dana Stutzer
Thank you very much for having me.
- [06:08]
Trey Farrow
And joining Dan is our other Dan Plessen, a Dana, Dana Stutzer, our deputy foreign policy editor, another professor and academic in his own right who follows Middle east affairs and lots of issues in this space. Dana, thrilled to have you on board as well.
- [06:21]
Scott R. Andersen
It's great to be back.
- [06:23]
Trey Farrow
And also joining us is our managing editor, Tyler McBrien, a man of the world and interested in world affairs and always willing to let me pull him in and be my buddy as we talk about global issues that a lot of our colleagues aren't quite as in tune with. Tyler, thank you for coming back on the podcast.
- [06:38]
Tyler McBrien
Always a pleasure.
- [06:39]
Trey Farrow
So our first three topics Today we've got three topics, all of which are kind of aspects of one topic, but we thought it made sense to still kind of break them down into a few few different subcategories or focuses for our conversation. Our first topic for this week, the nuclear option. Israel crossed the Rubicon late last week and took direct military action against Iran's nuclear weapons program, among other targets, an aggressive unilateral military campaign that has only expanded in the ensuing days. Iran, meanwhile, has reciprocated with volleys of attacks against Israel, some of which are getting through the substantial missile defenses that Israel and the United States have deployed. It's the Middle east war everyone has feared for more than a decade. How will it come to an end and what will its ramifications be? Topic 2 Bibi got back. Israel has threatened to take military action against Iran over its nuclear program multiple times over the past two decades, but has always stopped short. Why did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have the backbone this time? And what will the implications be for his government, which has been teetering on the edge of collapse, and for his relationship with President Trump, his once close ally, who declined back his decision to proceed? And Topic 3 while Israel's official target has been Iran's nuclear and military complexes, many observers suspect their real goal is something else, regime change. And recent reports on Netanyahu proposed killing Iranian political and spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but relented after objections from the Trump administration suggest they may be right. What might Iran look like if its current regime collapses, and will it help or hurt Israeli and US Security interests? For our first topic, I just want to spend some time talking about what's happening on the ground and think about what its short to medium term ramifications are going to be. This military operation started for us on the east coast last Thursday night, I would say Thursday into Friday morning. We're recording this, I should note, pretty early in the morning on Tuesday, June 17th. So you may be listening to this a little bit later, and there might be major developments from then. But the military operations for we know that Israel started with a bunch of kind of COVID actions around the country, taking out air defenses, taking out specific targets related to the nuclear program, then followed by a pretty aggressive volley of airstrikes across a number of targets, including parts of Tehran, including leadership structure in the IRGC and nuclear weapons program. And the latter pattern has kind of followed for a number of days along with sort of more discrete types of military operations. There are reports of there being what has been described, at least in some of the reporting I've seen as a drone factory run by Israelis that the Iranians haven't covered. At least one of. There's some live footage of that that was kind of compelling, although I don't 100% know it' veracity. According to that report, at least they think there were multiple of these sites set up around the country. They're being the hubs of the kind of military operations that are doing the much more targeted work at the lower level below the kind of airstrike level that Israel is still pursuing. And then we've seen Iran respond in a manner that has become a little familiar over the last year or two because we've seen them do it something similar before in these kind of large volleys of fairly indiscriminate attacks against Israel. Not entirely indiscriminate. Usually they are, at least in prior rounds, kind of aimed nominally at military targets, but with not a lot of high level accuracy, have hit some civilian targets. There seems to be less of an effort to tie it directly to those sorts of military targets, but not no effort on the part of Iranians, depending on who you're talking to and the amount of rhetoric. Importantly, it is such a fast moving picture and I don't think we have 100% clear media picture, particularly in Iran, as to what exactly is happening. So, Dana, I kind of want to come to you first on this. Talk to me about A, if I missed any of the big factual developments that jump out at you about this sort of conflict and the way it's playing out, and B, talk to us about where you think the pressure points are. I mean, what is the point that either Iran or the Israel or I guess the United States, who's so far been playing a fairly backbench sort of role, what are their objectives, what are the points that they stop, what are they trying to accomplish and how much control do they have over stopping or starting or escalating to a different level of conflict?
- [10:40]
Scott R. Andersen
Yeah, so I think what this is, I mean, Israel has talked about carrying out a strike list like this for actually decades. And you know this, Israel has a long standing policy of maintaining its nuclear hegemony and monopoly in the Middle East. And it has struck Iraq in the 80s taking out the Osiric reactor. It struck Syria in 2007 taking out a nuclear reactor. And it has this long standing concern about Iran's nuclear program. And after so many years of threatening to actually take out Iran's nuclear sites, now it's finally started to take action on that. And so so far it looks like in terms of targeting, the nuclear program is primarily focused on Natanz, which is the most exposed of Iran's nuclear sites. The IAEA came out yesterday and said this is on Monday and said that there has not been significant damage to Ford out, which is the site that's actually buried in a mountainside and actually would be very difficult for Israel to reach bunker buster bombs that it does not currently have access to. So where does this go so far, you know, it seems like Israel has opened up around airspace and is now has the freedom of maneuver to, you know, strike targets at will, including senior leadership and nuclear scientists. It has hit Natanz, but there seems to be still some, some of that facility intact. What we think is that this might be a longer term process and that now that the airspace is open, there might be further strikes over the course of days or weeks. The hazard of striking sites like this is that you might release radioactive material that would be environmentally damaging to civilians and difficult to clean up. And so there's also the concern about this is nuclear material that in the long term Israel doesn't want Iran to have access to. And so just striking these sites might not actually, you know, remove the material that, you know, this could be, be an issue down the line as well. And so how this proceeds will, you know, have a lot of impact on whether or not Israel achieves its long term objective of eliminating Iran's nuclear program. We'll get into this probably in the third section as well. But there have been other targets outside of the nuclear program, significantly weakening Iran's military apparatus, including taking out its old F14s. Pouring out for the F14s. They lasted a good long time. Didn't do much, but they lasted a long time.
- [13:11]
Trey Farrow
It's going to be very hard to get repair parts for those. Those are left over from before the revolution, folks who aren't following the logic on this. So they've been. I'm not sure what. I'm impressed they're still operational, honestly. Usually the kind of supply tail is deliberately a little constraining on those.
- [13:24]
Scott R. Andersen
There have been reports over the years about how they're basically held together by bailing wire. Yeah. But more significant parts of Iran's military have been targeted as well. And yesterday there was a strike on Iranian state media. There's been discussion now that Ayatollah Khamenei was considered as a target at one point and that was walked back. And so there are indications that this might be about more than just the nuclear program.
- [13:51]
Trey Farrow
And talk to us a little bit before we move on about how Iran has responded in Israel. Is there more rhyme or reason to it than I'm ascribing to it, or are we seeing a pretty target of opportunity structure? I mean, it appears to be kind of an attack en masse. It is really based on scale because they are facing pretty substantial missile defense, air defense systems that Israel has in place. That's the one area where the United States has been directly involved in shooting down some missiles, perhaps drones and things like that as well. I'm not 100% sure. Inbound into Israel, justifying it on the basis of national self defense, pointing out correctly that there are tens of thousands of American citizens in Israel under threat of this, not to mention US owned property, things like that. Is that what it is? Do we see a more deliberate strategy by Iran in terms of responding? And if we haven't seen it yet, because obviously there have been a chaotic few days and a difficult one for Iran and Britain's leadership structure, what might we expect to see down the road?
- [14:47]
Scott R. Andersen
I think Iran's limited ability to respond is precisely why we're seeing this now. Israel has more opportunity to strike Iran with impunity than it has had in the two decades that it's been talking about the strike. In the past two years, Israel has wiped out Hezbollah's major capabilities. So much so that when it attacked Iran, Hezbollah actually came out and said we're not going to retaliate, we're not involved in this, please don't hit us again. The Assad regime is gone. Iran's network in the region now is primarily the Houthis and some fragmented militias. So Israel doesn't have the deterrent that it previously had that Hezbollah might attack or they would face some sort of closer enemy responding to this type of strike. And so Iran has done what it has the capability to do, which is launch these ballistic missiles and possibly drones. And they have got broken through, some of them through Israel's missile defense. And there is a death toll of a couple dozen people in Israel at this point over the past several days. But it's clear that Israel is also trying to degrade Iran's ability to launch those strikes. And they do seem to be tapering off. They were fewer last night than there were the night before. And Iran is now talking about, well, we still have these new drones which are really just prop driven cruise missiles essentially. They're not touting the ballistic missiles that actually have the speed and greater penetration that you would expect to actually make an impact in Israel.
- [16:22]
Trey Farrow
And I feel like I would be loath if I didn't mention what we know about casualty count so far as of this morning, the numbers being reported by the Associated Press, which they're reporting back to the Israeli government and to Iran's health ministry are 24 killed, 592 wounded in Israel and 224 killed and 1,277 people hospitalized in Iran. Obviously a little different threshold for wounded versus hospitalized. I don't know how to compare those exactly. But in terms of killed, you're seeing about 10 times the level of casualties in Iran, but still 224 casualties, a very serious number and not worth playing down, but not at the scale that we saw even in the first few days of military operations in Gaza and a couple of other contexts. This is still, as far as we can tell, at the stage where it appears to be a fairly targeted effort, effort by the Israelis, given the volume of targets they're hitting across the country and they're not doing the types of comprehensive actions you've seen in Gaza, even, I think, in Lebanon, where they're really hitting intense amount of military infrastructure that would inherently involve a lot of personnel being killed. That doesn't seem to be quite where they're at yet, although it's possible they're shifting in that direction.
- [17:35]
Scott R. Andersen
And I also don't want to downplay the, you know, Iran's response here because the, the casualties you just described are, you know, the most significant that Israel has experienced since October 7th and for a long time before that. This is not, you know, like the Hezbollah rocket barrages that land in open fields or, you know, occasionally, very occasionally wind up harming or killing somebody. This is, you know, much more significant. And it has broken through at times through this very comprehensive missile defense. But, but it's not nearly on the scale of what Israel has been able to accomplish in its strikes.
- [18:11]
Trey Farrow
Dan, you wrote an incredibly useful piece for Lawfare on these strikes, kind of setting forth a number of questions, really, kind of like an analytical frame for evaluating how do we feel about the logic behind this? How much does this advance strategically what Israel wants, what the United States wants, as Israel being the main instigator in the United States, at least having being in the room on the decisions or having consulted to some degree, maybe they didn't get a yes or a no or didn't exercise if they did. Talk to us a little bit about how you're thinking about this, if you're thinking it's changed since you wrote the piece for us a few days ago and where that framework is leading you about the success or challenges that this is likely to put forward for the Israelis, for the Americans and for the Iranians, for that matter. And also when can we know with some confidence how big a window do we need to be able to evaluate what's happening and how does that affect things like escalation, expanding scale, how you calibrate this sort of military action?
- [19:11]
Dana Stutzer
Yeah, maybe In June of 2026, we can have another podcast where we look back and see how accurate we were. And then 10 years from now, do it again. And I suspect I'll have different answers for you both of those times. But there are a few things I'm looking at in both the short term and the long term to try to see really from an Israeli point of view and to a certain degree from a US Point of view, were these strikes good ideas? And let's start with the basics, which is how destructive are the Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear program? As Dana mentioned, they've gone after Natanz fairly effectively, but the number of facilities that have been destroyed so far is actually rather limited. There are lots of different guesses based on open source information, but as far as I can tell, Israel has hit about half of Iran's various nuclear sites. And part of that is because Iran, anticipating military action, deliberately dispersed a lot of its program. As was also mentioned, the most important site is probably Fordo, the one inside the mountain, and that has not been effectively targeted as well. And so there's a question of how destructive things will be. But then in particular, how quickly can Iran rebuild? And let's go back, way back to 1981, when Israel took out the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak. That at the time, or I would say in the years after, was certainly seen as a success, that Iraq might have gained a nuclear weapon if Israel hadn't have done that. But once we got access to the Iraqi records after the US Invasion of Iraq, we learned that Iraq really changed its views on its nuclear program and poured resources into a clandestine program after the Israeli strike. And Scott, as you mentioned in the beginning of your remarks, Iran has moved closer and closer to the line. My son called it kind of the Achilles and the tortoise nuclear program.
- [21:14]
Trey Farrow
Right.
- [21:14]
Dana Stutzer
It never quite reached a nuclear weapon. And I think now if it does rebuild, it's much more likely to blow through that line. That negotiations didn't work for Iran, so any hesitation is likely to be lost. A second question is really about the Iranian response. And as Dana said, you know, so far it has been, you know, I'll say somewhat effective, but not terribly effective. Some missiles have gotten through for Israel, 24 people is a lot, but they certainly expected to take some losses. And I think that from an Israeli point of view, this has largely been a success so far. There is always a possibility that one Iranian strike gets through and has catastrophic consequences. There's a possibility of international terrorism. But that said, so far, The Iranian response has been weak, which means the price Israel is paying is relatively low, even as it's inflicting damage on Iran. And I would point out that the damage course goes beyond the nuclear program. It's devastating Iran's military leadership. That has potential political consequences. It has operational consequences. So there's a lot of cost that the Iranians are paying beyond the nuclear program. Another thing I'm looking at is will the conflict spread? And so far it has not. You have this back and forth between Iran and Israel. Hezbollah has not become involved, the Arab states have not been targeted, and of course the United States has not become involved. And so it is something that is consequential, of course, for both Iran and Israel, but it isn't something that is engulfing the region, which, you know, if this were happening five years ago, I would have feared a much wider contest that involves lots of other states. And the last thing I'm watching, of course, is US Policy. If this were a more traditional US Administration, the United States would actively be doing something right and that something might be joining in the bombing, that something might be pushing Israel and Iran to go to the negotiating table. But right now the United States is largely trying to say we are not involved and Iran shouldn't do certain things, but not kind of actively trying to shape the conflict, end the conflict or otherwise have a big impact on events on the ground that might be changing. There are a lot of rumors swirling that the United States is going to be more engaged one way or another. Hard to tell, especially with the Trump administration where there are lots of different voices that are part of the dialogue. And the President's own position can change pretty regularly. But nevertheless, US Policy could have a huge impact. But if the United States doesn't engage, that's a very new form of, I'll say the strategic dynamics of the Middle east where you have major events going on, where the United States is largely on the sidelines.
- [24:04]
Trey Farrow
Your point about the regional response is really, really interesting because this issue of Iran, its nuclear program, its broader regional posture as well, frankly its participation in a variety of destabilizing activ and terrorism related activities, insurgent activities in different parts of the Middle east has been kind of one of the defining cleavages of the Middle east for the last 20 years and kind of the late post global War on terrorism era, I would say it was a major contributor to a big division among the Gulf states between Qatar and kind of the UAE and Saudi backed faction. It's been a major unifying factor between Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, facilitating a lot of rapprochement and engagement there. Yet in the last two years or so, frankly, you've seen a lot of cooling around the issue, particularly on the Arab Gulf state side, which for a long time was really agitating for conflict with Iran, pushing the Americans actively towards military engagement under the Obama administration and the first Trump administration engaging in a proxy war in Yemen with Iran, motivated in large part by these broader regional concerns. But in the last year or two, again, we've seen this pivot where they seem to be much more about rapprochement, cooling down tensions, and trying to live to the point where we're seeing diplomatic engagements of a serious nature, which we hadn't really seen for a while. So how does that enter in here? Does that change the opportunity costs for Israel, given that Israel had been on a trajectory to closer engagement with at least the Arab Gulf states, in part motivated by this common security concern around Iran? And what does it mean for their response? Are they likely to be quiet about this? Are they not really going to intervene one way or the other? Are they going to feel obligated to object to Israel's actions because they have concerns about what Israel is doing in Gaza and in Lebanon? What do you expect the regional reactions to be as everybody begins to get off over the initial shockwave of figuring out what exactly is happening?
- [26:14]
Dana Stutzer
So most regional states have at least publicly condemned Israel. So we do have that rhetoric, and it may be pro forma, but nevertheless, it's real. And in general, I think if you kind of survey most Arab publics, if Israel is going to bomb a country, they're going to be against it. And it almost doesn't matter what's going on beside that. So this is a way of staying on the good side of their own people. And as you said, the Gaza issue is far more emotive for the vast majority of people in the Arab world. And that's ongoing. Right. If you watch Arab language, Arabic language television, you'll still see images of the very, very aggressive Israeli campaign in Gaza that's killing lots of innocent people. So that's going to draw the emotions and put Israel in the bad corner independently of Iran. But the Gulf reaction is a big one, especially the Saudi reaction. And I would say, you know, 12 years ago or so, they really saw Iran as ascendant. They looked around the region and they saw the Arab Spring and believed Iran was making advances because of the Arab Spring. They looked at Syria and they saw Iran backing up the Assad regime, which they opposed, and the Arab Spring in different ways has kind of petered out very significantly. Syria has fallen and the regime truly seems to hate the Iranians. One regime that has not condemned Israel is the Syrian regime.
- [27:45]
Trey Farrow
Right.
- [27:46]
Dana Stutzer
And they're both trying to win over the United States, but they bear a special bitterness towards Iran because of Iran's strong support for the Assad regime. So I think this is shaping Israel and to be fair, clear it's also going to shape the United States. Trump has a very close relationship with several of the leaders of the Gulf states and he will listen to them. Now, will he do what they say? Not necessarily, but they are one of the voices in the room as he decides US Policy. And if he's thinking about pushing negotiations or if he's thinking about bombing, he's going to take their phone call, even if other considerations may win out.
- [28:25]
Trey Farrow
So that question, the United States brings me to the other aspect of this we need to talk about, which is the Trump administration's handling of this so far as Dan described. I think you're the one who said this, Dan. Apologies for attributing it to you. Maybe Dan or Dana, one of you all said something along these lines, which is that they've been kind of trying to stay out of it to some extent. We know the Trump administration has been seriously engaging in negotiations with Iran that they appear to have flagged over the last week or two. We know they were aware that the strike was likely coming. We know because they evaluated evacuated the US Embassy in Baghdad a few days before it happened, which is always a clear indicator that something is about to heat up with Iran. For that reason, the Iranians probably knew something was about to happen as well. It's a good dead giveaway for pretty much anyone who watches the region for the last decade or two. But we've seen them play a kind of unexpectedly anti bellicose role where supposedly we're getting these reports where the Trump administration has said, hey, don't hit Ayatollah Khamenei ratcheting your strikes. They said they haven't participated at least in any sort of over way that they're willing to admit in targeting or any other involvement other than helping to defend Israel from incoming attacks by Iran, something the Biden administration does as well, multiple times. So pretty consistent with US Policy there to the point where until recently, until this morning, it sounded like Trump was not even really willing to sign a G7 statement that was criticizing Iran and supporting Israel in some of its actions. Sounds like the President has come around on that, is going to sign that statement now as of this morning. But still it's a sign just what an interesting rhetorical posture that this administration, who has been more hostile towards Iran than just about anyone, any other presidential administration in recent memory during its first time in office, is really striking. A different posture. I think a lot of people were expecting. Tyler, talk to us about why that is, what is about this conflict that is evoking such strange feelings within the broader Trump campaign.
- [30:23]
Tyler McBrien
Well, yeah, I mean, first I'll just say that with any major event vis a vis the Trump administration, the response has been at times convoluted and contradictory. And it's just a bit, a bit difficult to parse what is happening in reaction in real time versus what was foreplanned. There are a few ways to look at this. On the one hand, I agree there is this anti bellicose or more pacific rhetoric from the Trump administration. So we got the news that the Trump administration was not okay with taking out the Supreme Leader. Trump left the G7 early and told everyone to be ready in the Situation Room. And the sort of crisis management response, there's been, there's been coordination, at least on the defense side, but perhaps not the offensive side. But then you also have Trump taking to Truth Social and telling everyone in Tehran to evacuate with lots of exclamation points. You have these ominous statements on Truth Social that Trump is saying that he told Iran that they needed to make a deal or else this is going to be worse than anything you've ever seen, promising desolation and vast destruction, which doesn't sound very pacific or anti bellicose to me. So, you know, that's the nature of what Trump is saying on Truth Social versus what his administration is saying in the background. But I think you're right to look at the broader MAGA universe because Trump is, I think, getting outflanked in terms of the peaceful rhetoric by some of the most extreme elements of maga. So I'm thinking specifically of Marjorie Taylor Greene who had this very long post on social media saying, quote, anyone slobbering for the US to become fully involved in the Israel slash Iran war is not America first slash maga. So sort of putting a stake in the ground saying that it's America first means staying out of this in a sort of maybe isolationist way, which is, which is kind of, kind of tracks with, with a lot of MAGA foreign policy messages before. But it's just difficult to tell, I think at this point what Trump is reacting to in real time versus what is a thought out strategy.
- [32:41]
Trey Farrow
Yeah, it is a really interesting position the Trump administration is in right now. And I'm curious how long it can sustain it because it's a position that seems to make no one happy. They're a little too involved for the true mega kind of isolationist wing because they're still helping to defend Israeli forces. They can't really extricate themselves. I mean, think the Iranians are going to see them as engaged in some extent in this, as having greenlit this, if nothing, something else, even if they're not directly participating, maybe having engaged in negotiations under bad faith, knowing this is coming. Although again, I think the Iranians, at least the last few days before it happened, knew something was likely coming down the pike. But at the same time they're not fully engaged in a way that Israel is likely to like. The one party that might understand where they are coming from are the other countries in the Middle East. The Arab Gulf states that we know the administration is close to has been particularly listening to more than the Israeli government on Syria and other sorts of regional issues for the last couple weeks. At least in terms of major policy developments in Syria and Lebanon. They're the one people who are also walking a very awkward line. They may understand where the administration is coming from, even if it's different from the position that they're carving out. But it's a very difficult line to walk that Trump is walking. So far, some of the people who seem most on board with it may be Democrats kind of. So far I don't have heard a lot of criticism from Democrats along on these lines because I'm not sure they 100% know what the right approach is either. But they don't have such strong priors as the mag wing of the Republican Party or that other very, very real wing of the Republican Party foreign policy establishment, which you have to acknowledge, which is you can call them neocons, you can call them whatever you want. A strong contingent of people that has been committed to trying to isolate and engage in up to regime change with Iran in a very serious way. And those people really helped drive Trump administration policy towards Iran during the first Trump administration here, this administration not so much. And in this particular conflict, I don't think the administration's policy is what they would want. I think they would want much more robust engagement in support of Israel. It's not happening yet. Dana, do you have any thoughts on this before we move on to think about the Israeli perspective? I'm Kind of curious where you think the Trump administration is headed on this, whether we're about to see a pivot in one direction or the other or they're going to try and keep walking this line.
- [35:00]
Dana Stutzer
So to be clear, I don't know. And I want to stress that, let me say two things. I think it is more likely the United States will be more engaged, including militarily, in the coming days, than it has been in the past few days. I think it's, as you said, it's hard to walk this line. It's satisfying no one. And Trump's rhetoric seems to be shifting towards a bit more belagos. And the success of Israel makes it easier to think about piling on, to say, okay, look, the Middle east is not going to be engulfed in flames if the United States joins in. And Iran's response seems to be limited, so maybe the United States can finish the job. That said, President Trump himself shifts his views dramatically based on who he talks to, based on what is going on with various people he follows on social media, on Fox News, and it's highly erratic. And so I think there's possibilities of change, possibilities of dramatic change, but exceptionally difficult to predict.
- [36:06]
Trey Farrow
Well, speaking of weird incentives and difficult to predict, let's go to our second topic and bring it in here as well. And that's this question about the Israeli government and the particular Bibi Netanyahu, this unique figure who is always full of surprises, to say the least, particularly in the last few years. Again, the individual who has threatened to do this multiple, multiple times over the last 20 years, exactly the sort of military action now finally pulling the trigger. He is in a uniquely vulnerable domestic position. We know that he has been under a lot of pressure since the October 7th massacre because of security failures that contributed to that, because of the controversy of the Gaza conflict and the perception that he is reality, that he is not making recovering hostages a priority as opposed to pursuing the military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. All these things have made him a very controversial figure in Israel. He's on a coalition that is on the brink of collapse or was as of at least prior to this conflict, in part because of those issues, in part because of domestic issues, disagreements over military conscription, religious communities in Israel, among other issues that may leave to the coalition which unites him with a number of even further to the right figures in Israel to collapsing. So it's kind of a unique move for him to do something with that very high risk, high reward at this moment. At the same time, it's not the first time he's done this. Remember, he also launched a military campaign in Lebanon less than a year ago with actually pretty remarkable success, despite early skepticism from me and lots of other people watching it change the security situation dramatically in Israel's favor, mostly because of the collapse of the Assad regime, which resulted from that, which I don't think was an intentional consequence or anticipated consequence, but got very lucky in that regard if it wasn't anticipated. So, Dan, I want to come to you first on this question. What do you make of Bibi's decision here? Is this just a moment of opportunity? As Dana kind of carved out earlier about air defense systems were weakened, regional allies and proxies are weakened. We can do this without as much risk of a serious response. Is it because Iran has been revealed to be a little bit of a paper tiger compared to what people thought it was three years ago, five years ago in terms of its regional response capability. Is it these domestic factors, what's driving Bibi's decision and what does this mean for his coalition, his government, his agenda?
- [38:29]
Dana Stutzer
So I think there's a lot going on. And as you said, Bibi is a master politician, right? Love him or hate him, you have to admire his political instincts. And there's an old line attributed to Henry Kissinger that Israel doesn't have a foreign policy, just domestic politics. And I think there's often some truth to that where it's clearly the domestic situation is shaping Israel's foreign policy. So let me throw out a few factors that I think are driving this operation. So one, as Dana made clear, is there's a moment of strategic opportunity. And I would highlight the takedown of Hezbollah in September and October and how big that is. You know, if we were talking three years ago, I would have said, you know, Israel hits Iran, Hezbollah is going to go nuts. It's going to be really hard for Israel. Not happening.
- [39:19]
Trey Farrow
Right.
- [39:19]
Dana Stutzer
And so the ability to both respond against Iranian missiles effectively and not have to worry about the most dangerous proxy is a huge shift. Second is the post October 7th environment, where the response to the October 7th intelligence failure was that Israel should not be living with risk. That to say, oh, don't worry, we can deter Iran, we are stronger. You know, that logic could have applied to Hamas, and Hamas shouldn't have attacked by that logic, yet it did. So Israelis are much less willing to rely on basic deterrence and far more willing to go after capabilities, even if it means much higher risk. And we saw this in Gaza, we saw this in Lebanon. Now we're Seeing this in Iran, I would add to that the obvious point, but important to say there was widespread concern, not just by the Prime Minister, about Iran's progress on a nuclear program and how it could quickly lead to a nuclear weapon. And this is something that is shaped Israeli policy for a while. The US And Israel have worked against this for quite some time, but it's still there. Let me highlight the three other issues. One is there is the possibility that Israel had preparations for this in Iran, and those might be finite in how long Israel could keep that capability present. And we saw this in Lebanon when Israel went after Hezbollah, where there were concerns on the Israeli side that it was going to lose the ability to do the kind of pager operation in particular. And that tactical concern shaped a whole bunch of operations and strategic decisions. I don't know if that's true on Iran, but it's at least plausible to me. A second is US Talks about the United States was making progress on talks with Iran, and one can debate how close they were, but Israel saw this as a bad deal and thus having these talks not succeed was something that Israel saw as in its interest. And the last thing I'll say which is the most political. There are two narratives that are being presented in Israeli politics. The first are Netanyahu's critics who say this is the leader responsible ultimately for October 7th, the worst disaster in at least recent Israeli history should be laid at the doorstep of this man and as a result, of course, vote him out of office. And Netanyahu's narrative is, look, I'm the guy who settled all family business, right? We had a threat from Hezbollah, we don't anymore. We had a threat from Hamas gone, and especially the big bad of Iran. I'm the one taking it down. So two, two starkly different narratives. And obviously Netanyahu has strong incentives to push the muscular, successful one.
- [42:11]
Trey Farrow
Daniel, what is your reaction to that? I find that bundle of strategic and political considerations persuasive in terms of why, if you're Bibi Netanyahu, you might see this as the lowest risk moment to roll the dice. But this is still a high ceiling, low floor proposition. He is rolling the dice on something that could pay off big, but comes with a big risk factor as well, in terms of international relationships, potential regional destabilization. How do you think this fits in? And particularly this legacy Netanyahu is carving out for himself, which might be about his immediate political fortunes or might be about his historical legacy. He is a probably the most significant historical figure in Israeli leadership of the last half century, maybe longer at least, but at least the last half century. He's a man later in life who's probably thinking about not just his political future next week, although that's always a concern for Bibi, but thinking about how people will remember him. So how big a step is this towards that legacy? Or is there too many complicating factors to be confident that's going to play out one way or the other? I mean, how risky a bet was this, essentially?
- [43:27]
Scott R. Andersen
Gosh, I can't speak to Bibi's thinking about legacy and the domestic politics of it, but certainly what Dan said about the opportunity. Israel, especially since October 7, has seen major strategic goals being reshaping the balance of power in the region. And that has involved, yes, destroying Hamas, but all its enablers and all the things that could pose threats. Eliminating Hezbollah, taking it off the battlefield, really. And my impression is that Israel's strategic assessment is that underneath all of it is Iran sending funding and technical know how to all these proxies throughout the region. And, you know, without addressing the threat posed by Iran and its role in the region. This was, you know, all sort of temporary. And so having now destroyed Iran's deterrent strategy through its proxies, now it has to take out Iran's capabilities itself. But whether that's effective in the long term, as Dan was saying previously, when you take out the deterrent proxies, it only reinforces Iran's incentive to have a stronger deterrent, which is ultimately the nuclear weapon that they're are working towards that threshold capability of having. And whether this only hardens their resolve will really be the ultimate thing that determines whether or not this was effective and how the legacy of this offensive.
- [45:02]
Tyler McBrien
I'd also add I don't have survey data necessarily to back this up. I haven't looked into the public opinion polling, but I have a sense that as the war in Gaza grinds on, it grows less and less popular. It's harder, harder and harder to justify a continued military campaign against an enemy that has been just absolutely decimated, against a civilian population that has been destroyed as well, versus opening a new front against what I imagine to be a very popular campaign. Iran is the perennial enemy. Israel has been fighting its proxies, and now it's striking at the heart of the actual parent state. The interviews I've heard with Israeli civilians who are facing consequences. People have been killed, residences have been destroyed. But at least from the reporting that I've heard, there is this sense of greater purpose and sacrifice that it's something that's always needed to be done and we're finally doing it. So I think it's just, it's a lot more palatable as well, at least on the domestic front. And then the only other thing I would add is that I think one of the reasons we're seeing this happening now, you know, we've learned that this has been planned in place for at least eight months, is that I think what Bibi and the Israeli government, at least the hardliners have learned since October 7th in their response in Gaza is that they can operate with impunity. I think there are very few restraints put on on Israel's military response, at least by the Americans. Of course there are some restraints. Trump said no to Khamenei. But, you know, even under the Biden administration there, there's just little that Israel has done that they've seen consequences from, from the Americans, even when the Americans have said that they didn't want Israel to do something. So I think there's this sense that they can operate fairly freely. And so, like we said, this is a low risk moment and a high reward in the eyes of the Israelis.
- [47:00]
Trey Farrow
That point about the Americans, I think, is worth dragging out a little bit point a little bit more because this administration did not put a brake on what we're doing, at least to the extent it could. But it doesn't sound like, or they have no report that it really tried to really hard dissuade the Israelis from doing this. It's not always the same as a green light. They don't appear to have been involved in any meaningful way. It doesn't mean they were enthusiastic about it, but they weren't willing to exercise what leverage they could to stop the Israelis from doing this, even though it's controversial in Trump's own coalition, could have regional ramifications. But more fundamentally, maybe for Bibi, this could have ramifications for his relationship with Trump, a relationship that's incredibly close and has both legacy and domestic political implications for him, not to mention strategic consideration for the United States. The Trump administration is going to renegotiate US Security assistance MOU with Israel in the next year or two. And in America first, foreign policy is harder to square with the incredibly generous amount of security assistance the United States has traditionally provided to Israel. A lot of people talk about the potential there being real pressure there. The United States obviously is involved in helping defend Israel, but less involved in this military operation than some might have expected. We've seen the Trump administration not go around Bibi's back, but act on a parallel path that Bibi may not have been thrilled about in terms of negotiating the release of hostages in Gaza. Gaza and pursuing Gaza negotiation generally. Although it also hasn't put many limits on military operations there in the last few months or really pushed for much of a humanitarian solution. So, Tyler, talk to us a little bit more about that. I mean, what does this mean for the US Israeli relationship and how much should that, or will that end up entering into Bibi's calculus, whether for politics or for legacy? Is this a breaking point with this? What has been a close relationship between Bibi and Trump and frankly between Bibi and the Republican Party as US Israeli relations have become more politicized, or is there more that was likely to endure there?
- [48:59]
Tyler McBrien
It's a good question. I think it will depend on Israel's success when the dust settles, or at least assessments of it. And then also I believe it hinges will hinge on how successful Trump can see himself being in negotiating the end of it. You know, I think you already see messaging from Trump that he's, he's trying to seize the narrative of what, what MAGA means. So you see these, these posts from him saying America first slash MAGA means Iran can never have the bomb. So he's trying to already, you know, steer. And you know, what you make of that is it's kind of hard to see the, harder to see the line there. But then also, you know, you see Trump has always has a, a deal making instinct, at least outwardly. So, yeah, obviously he wants to be a part of the settlement, the ceasefire, whatever it is. And then finally, you've seen this with a few different allies. He prizes strength. And so this is, I think, how Ukraine started to get back into his good graces by pulling off a stunning military success. I think he wants his allies to be strong, to be successful, and I think that's a factor. So I think all that is to say it's all up in the air still, depending on where it lands, because it's not like I think I've said this on a rational screen in the past. He's not a true believer like Biden, who always talks about, as a young senator, sitting at Golden Meyer's feet and looking into her eyes and truly believing in Zionism. You don't have that with Trump, obviously, so everything is more negotiable.
- [50:41]
Trey Farrow
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- [53:35]
Trey Farrow
To stay ahead of the curve@meltzerhellrung.com so let's go and bring in our third topic because Dan, I know you have to leave us in a few minutes. I want to come to you first on this, this question of regime change. It is the agenda item that a big contingent of American politics on the right, American policy folks that have a voice in this administration has been pushing for, for a very long time, really for decades at this point. They have lots of allies in the Israeli political spheres that are tied in with Bibi. We've seen the Israeli government disavow it as an official goal of what they're doing, but clearly is a possible consequence and depending on how much you push on your other goals, it could be a consequence. You could accelerate or not. Dan, talk to us a little bit about where you see regime change fitting in here as a priority and as a potential consequence. Is that something the Israelis and Americans will actually should want?
- [54:29]
Dana Stutzer
So regime change is a big question mark. I'm on the skeptical side in terms of how likely it is and that's in part because I don't think Israel or the United States really has a theory of regime change.
- [54:43]
Trey Farrow
Right?
- [54:43]
Dana Stutzer
You bomb, you blow stuff up and then what happens? There is no coherent opposition in waiting ready to take power. So you end up with a popular uprising. That doesn't seem very likely right now. People are fleeing the capital and hunkering down. There may even be a rally around the flag effect. Certainly it's not encouraging people to kind of rise up against the regime or there could be some form of military coup. Killing lots of senior military leaders is not something that is kind of winning over the Iranian military. So in general I don't see a kind of short term logic of how regime change might happen. The long term is a different matter. But here things get really messy. So I can imagine a scenario, let's say three months from now there has been some sort of ceasefire and Iranians look around and they say we inflicted very minor damage on Israel. Israel inflicted significant damage not only on our nuclear program, but it successfully attacked a lot of our military leaders leadership. It hurt A lot of our economy and this is after decades of this regime saying part of the reason for our existence is to fight against the Israeli enemy. And you have Iranians with lots of other critiques of this regime. And now you have military humiliation. And in the Arab world you had a tradition where you had military defeat often followed by military coup. And that's how it number of leaders at different times rose to power. That's at least plausible. Where the regime loses legitimacy and you have a leader come in who says, look, I'm going to do things very differently. He can throw some sops to the liberals on social issues such as greater role for women, for example, and reducing other restrictions, but it still is effectively a military dictatorship. So that's plausible to me as a long term consequence, but hardly predictable. There would have to be 20 different other things going on at the same time. So I see this largely as a way of weakening the regime, of having it have to go to the negotiating table at an unfavorable position, being willing to accept a lot more restrictions on a future nuclear program rather than a set of attacks designed to change the regime in Iran.
- [57:07]
Trey Farrow
So Dan, I want to come to you on this next and dig a little deeper in this because it strikes me that Iran is a weird regime to think about regime change generally. I mean, look, regime change is a. If we've learned anything as Americans growing up in the post 911 era, I think it's that we should have learned at least regime change is a very risky proposition in the best of scenarios. Right? No one should be confident going into a regime change scenario that they're going to be able to control facts on the ground and Iraq and Afghanistan, among other cases, really demonstrate that. I can say from firsthand experience, experience that said, even in the universe of thinking about regime change, and because I like you, I think I may be a few years older than you, but grew up more or less in the post 911 era. I spent a lot of my poli sci days in undergrad and my grad student days reading through a lot of cases studies of regime change and exactly how it could be done better and how it might work. Iran is strange because it has such a layered, bizarre formal and informal power structure. You have kind of a conventional parliamentary system of government, but overlaid on it a religious superstructure in the Walayat al Faqeeh, kind of like Khamenei Ayatollah led religious structure that plays a strong hand in a lot of different elements of the political system, legal system, Juridical system. And then you have perhaps most importantly as an adjunct, but often, sometimes, sometimes a kind of separate center of gravity from the religious leadership, but often in coordination with them. You have the IRGC and in reality kind of actually like a number of factions within the IRGC that kind of hustle for leadership and act independently. But the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, this paramilitary unit that's not just paramilitary, they also control industrial sites, they are involved in lots of businesses, they have their own sort of like patronage networks in parts of Iran and they of course run their own foreign policy doing things that don't line up with what the actually sometimes elected leadership of Iran is, where we've had credible elections in Iran that have within very, very determined constraints that have led to leaders who sometimes describe a different sort of path for Iran, but they've never been able to go that far because of these other constraints of the IRGC being provocateurs, being internal constraints, because all of the religious kind of leadership. So what's being knocked down from this? Exactly. That's the hard part because the nuclear program is closely tied with the IRGC and a lot of components and a lot of the other. I don't know this. My strong suspicion is a lot of the other non strictly nuclear military targets they are hitting are IRGC affiliated in part because they do have that nexus to the nuclear program, as I understand it. But what happens in a structure like that when you start knocking out the conventional pillars of government? Do we know that that weakens the IRGC hand or strengthens them? Because they're a parallel structure, they don't have to stand up for elections. Right. How much more chaos does that sort of weird super redundant structure that Iran has enter into? These sorts of questions.
- [60:15]
Scott R. Andersen
Yeah, there's no government like it. And so it's opaque. It's absolutely Byzantine. And so I think the best I can do is try to go back to basics. And every authoritarian regime is propped up by a ruling coalition that supplies it with the guns and money that allow it to function. And if there is a renegotiation and a rebalancing of the distribution of power and influence within the ruling coalition, that coalition shifts to accommodate that. And so, so if you take out the IRGC, or at least its leadership, then possibly down the line, like Dan was saying, you create a generation of free officers, but in the near term it strengthens the hand of the remaining, the matchless and the elected parliamentarians and potentially the theocratic leadership. And so possibly it weakens that sort of hardline domestic faction. But it's going to be difficult to say what that will look like based unless we have more clarity about what is actually being taken out and how that's going to affect it in the medium term.
- [61:29]
Tyler McBrien
One thing I've been wondering about, and this might bring us all back full circle to the first topic, is regardless of whichever faction emerges as the ruling coalition, if there is regime change, I could see a through line or a commonality being more resolved than ever to acquire the bomb. I think I could see the logic being that, look, you know, the Israelis have superior air power, so the only way to, to balance this asymmetry is to acquire the bomb. I can only, I can see that being a prevailing logic, regardless of the regime that eventually emerges from this current moment, that this is just, this is the only option, is the nuclear option, given this latest defeat. And that worries me is what I'm saying, very understandably.
- [62:23]
Trey Farrow
That worries me as well, to say the least. And that has always been the background concern about why a succession of American administrations, including the first Trump administration, has pushed back against the Israelis when they want to do this. Because there's always this concern, which is that these Iranians only need one. And at least right now we have a fair amount of visibility because there are the remainders of the Iran nuclear deal and other arrangements where you have a sense about where the program is, you force it entirely underground. You force them to rely on Thailand for dao, start building other sorts of locations that are difficult to hit militarily. You can accelerate this program. You may delay it in the short term, but you can accelerate in the medium to long term. The Iranians have seemingly, as I understand it, kind of at various points, slow rolled their nuclear program because it gives a negotiation leverage, meaning they haven't been sprinting towards the finish line like conceivably that they could. So that's always been the calculus here. How much is it worth negotiating to try and stop them from wanting to reach the finish line? And how sustainable is that versus knocking down their current capability but changing the whole incentive structure for years to come potentially, certainly for the current leadership, assuming they do stay in place. Before we wrap, I want to circle back on one more question for you, Tyler, although, Dana, curious about your thoughts on this as well, which relates to this question of regime change, but kind of ties it back again to some of our other topics and that is what that means for the United States in particular and for the Trump administration in particular. We know the Trump administration pushed back on what seems like the clearest nod towards regime change the Israelis wanted to pursue may still, still yet pursued. They haven't taken off the table. And that is killing the Ayatollah Khamenei, the kind of head of the religious structure, really the head of the government in Iran, even though his day to day involvement isn't clearly as direct as it is for a conventional head of state. That is something the Trump administration pushed back on. But they could have pushed back on that for a variety of reasons, not just opposition to regime change. So if the Israelis do take that plunge, how does the Trump administration react? Is this something where they just refuse to get involved? Even though the United States has been very involved in a lot of regime change cases, in part because they have the funds and at least some people who kind of know how they're doing certain things governments have to do when they're kind of coming out of a conflict situation and rebuilding. Although again, the record on that is spotty at best. Who does take responsibility for helping the Iranians to get out of this? Just what does that situation look like from a US Policy and politics perspective?
- [65:02]
Tyler McBrien
My short answer is I have no idea. The only thing I can think of is looking to how the Trump administration has tried to react to and deal with regime change in Syria, for example. I think one nice thing I can say about the Trump administration, if I'm being charitable, is that they, they, they don't seem to take any options off the table, which can have very adverse outcomes, but can also have dynamic and new outcomes that, that we usually don't see in American foreign policy. So I could see, you know, whatever the regime being, that the Trump administration would, would have some willingness on negotiating with it, on working with it. That's my only guess. I assume Steve Wykoff will play a big role no matter what happens, because he seems to just be there, Swiss army knife negotiator, send him in, sort of shadow Secretary of State in a way. But I can't say anything on that, on that score with certainty.
- [66:05]
Scott R. Andersen
I mean, building on what we were talking about previously, about how the Trump administration will respond to the strikes in the first place, I think they're seeing this as an opportunity to sort of, of be the good cop. And here we are. We want to make a deal. Won't you come back to the table? We'll get Israel off your back. And if there is a reshuffling of the government, I think the Trump administration will be looking to say, okay, who wants to come to the table? Who wants to negotiate with us. We'll make it worth your while if you form a government that will negotiate with us because we want to cut a deal. I think the more troubling outcome, and I don't think this is likely now, but we don't know how long this offensive is going to go on, is if this really does fracture the government and especially the IRGC and the Iranian military in a way that divides the chain of command and creates different feuding power centers competing over influence in the government, then you run the risk of some sort of violent competition. That state collapses like a small percentage chance of what could happen here. But I think that would be the most difficult to manage and have the most severe ramifications both for Iran and for the region.
- [67:24]
Trey Farrow
Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's really the key point and the advice that I think the president is getting and I will be honest with you something I think this administration has been actually pretty good in managing the Middle east among a variety of policy issues. I'm going to give them some points for that. I'm not sure exactly who's doing it because I know they just fired their senior director at the National Security Council, although he's going somewhere else in the administration, Eric Traeger. But they've been sharp and non ideological and very pragmatic about a lot of things. And so my thought in this is that's the big calculus for them, which is that the upside to get the upside from any sort of regime change, which is the dreams of a democratic, stable, friendly Iran, is a decades long undertaking of massive resources and frankly low probability payout. Who knows? I would like to pretend otherwise, but certainly experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan shouldn't give anyone a lot of confidence on that. That is a type of investment that this administration doesn't want to make and has politically vilified for its last three presidential campaigns. That's a really, really hard sell internally. And I kind of suspect that's going to be the biggest cap that they're going to put on the Israeli military campaign, which is that we actually can't push for regime change. They're not going to be able to say it like that because there are too many people who really want that to happen inside the political circles, inside the Trump administration. Even those people are still, really very much still there. And they've been vocal about it from think tanks and other places from for two, three, four decades about the need to get regime change in Iran, but the possibility of it leading not to regime change but state collapse is far too high. And the Trump administration, I don't think wants to do the work or commit the resources. And frankly, with the tearing down of the US Foreign assistance infrastructure, doesn't necessarily have the ability to commit the resources to help averting that outcome. So I have to think that's a big risk that weighs high on them. That will make the MAGA crowd happy. I think it will make pragmatic pro stability policy folks like me happy and that don't usually like to take big dice rolls with international politics in volatile corners of the world. But there is this big part of the Trump administration's coalition that's not going to make happy, and there's Israelis that might not make happy, including Bibi. And if he really, really decides to go for it anyway, that could be a real point of. I think it could be a breaking point between Bibi and this administration. We'll have to see how strong the pushback is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a lot stronger than we're hearing. The relationship has already been a bit on the rocks. And this is the sort of thing that I think Trump might take quite personally, particularly from someone who I doubt he sees as a political equal, honestly in Bibi, but has always seen as a political ally and someone very loyal to him. For somebody who really prioritize loyalty, I don't know that's a risky proposition. So I think the ramifications, I don't know, could be pretty significant if this begins to move into the regime change direction on a lot of different fronts, not at least for Iran and the Iranian people, for whom it could prove maybe a chance that it could lead to something much better, but also a lot of chance it could lead to things much, much worse.
- [70:35]
Scott R. Andersen
And I just want to be clear, because right now the Israeli government has said, or at least the IDF has said, it's not part of the strategic goals for this operation. And I think so far the analogy is not to Iraq and Afghanistan, at Least not Iraq 2003, but it's to Iraq 1991. And so you have Netanyahu saying this is, you know, Iranians, this is your opportunity, go out, take your government back. But there's no clear comprehensive strategy for how Israel would support that. It would be a deeply de. Legitimizing 2A is an Iranian political movement to have Israeli military support. And so it's really just an encouragement to go out and get yourself killed by the besieged at this point.
- [71:16]
Trey Farrow
Well, folks, that is all the time we have to talk for this week, but this would not be rational security if we don't leave you with some object lessons to ponder over in the week to come. And I'm sure we'll have opportunities to come back and talk about this issue again probably for the next decade. I'm looking forward to when we can have you all back on the podcast and finally assess Dan's framework and see how well we think it's served us in evaluating what is really good government has done. Dan has of course had to step away. Apologies, folks. So he's now here for object lessons. But Tyler, I'm curious, what do you have for us for object lessons this week?
- [71:48]
Tyler McBrien
So, in keeping with the tradition of music recommendations, this week, I'm not recommending an album per se, but an online radio station. It's called nts and the URL is NTS Live. I think this is my shot across the bow at music discovery algorithms because they use real DJs, they're based in London, I think. And then specifically I would turn people to what they call the NTS Guide to something. So they have these amazing musical rabbit holes that you can go down. There's one that's the NTS Guide to Texas Prison Rodeo Bands. There's an NTS Guide to Italian Disco and it's just really fun to and they often have the DJs, you know, come in between tracks and speak about them and just learn a lot of music history and a lot of good music discovery because they also post the track list and things like that. So for any music nerds who have a very wide ranging musical appetite, definitely check out NTS Live.
- [72:45]
Trey Farrow
Oh, I'm very excited about this. This is great. I have not heard about this and I at least at one time aspired to be somebody with eclectic musical tastes that I just don't have time to indulge anymore. So I'm definitely going to check this out. Excellent. Well, my object lesson is also musically related. This was of course, this past weekend we had the podcast Big Military Parade President Trump has been scheming over for eight years here in D.C. and we had corresponding no Kings rallies all around the country, a few tragic events at one or two of those, but all around, I think pretty remarkable events with lots of citizens coming out and expressing their political will, which I think is a very good thing to happen, done peacefully and determinately, no matter really where your political views are. I'm just a big fan of people getting out there. But the thing that was growth refreshing, at least where I Lived. I'm not sure where you guys lived, which is that driving around when I would drive by these events, because I did not go to any of them because I have young children to take care of. It was almost entirely populated by boomers and older people. Gen X as well. Strong, strong representation. The Millennials and the Gen Zers, I think, were either working or taking care of their children because it was really like a delightfully right side of the bell curve of the age distribution crowd in almost all the ones I walked by, which is very charming. And it made me think, what would be the anthem song of this? And of course, I stumbled upon a. I think it would be Gen X sort of anthem off an album that I actually had a copy of on CD that I picked up, used at some point back in high school or college and had long since given away, unfortunately. But it was an amazing album. In the, I think, 90s, early 2000s, the Schoolhouse Rock Rocks, where they had a bunch of rock bands from the 90s cover a bunch of songs. And one of them, it was a song no More Kings, which is a Schoolhouse Rock song about the revolution. And it was covered by the band Pavement. Rock gods, rock legends having attended their 20th anniversary concert for one of their albums, I think, last year, the year before, I can testify their fan base is the right demographic to be attending these no Kings rallies at this point.
- [74:45]
Tyler McBrien
And a recent documentary, if I'm not.
- [74:46]
Trey Farrow
Mistaken, a recent documentary I have not gotten to see. I keep trying to see it and have not gotten to see it, which I'm very excited about. It's supposed to be really, really interesting. I'm forgetting who the director is, but the director is someone whose work I've really liked in other domains. So phenomenal band. And what's amazing about it is that the song, even though it's a Schoolhouse Rock song, sounds so much like a Pavement song. Pavement just has a sound. When you hear a Pavement song, you're like, oh, that's Pavement. Obviously, it just works perfectly with their kind of languid sort of pacing and different tempos. It's great. So highly recommend checking that out if you're looking for a your next no Kings rally. If you're looking for a good anthem, pump Pavement, get some Gen X indie rock cred, make it work. And the album itself is worth checking out. I mean, this is like, again, I had this album, I gave it away years ago. I haven't thought about it in probably a decade. But listen to These Lists of 90s All Stars, Chavez, the Lemonheads, Moby's on here man or Astroman. I mean, this is if you're around 40, give or take five years, your heart is beating.
- [75:46]
Tyler McBrien
So we're better than Ezra covering Conjunction Junction. Personally, I'm gonna go listen into that after this.
- [75:54]
Trey Farrow
It's amazing. Blind Melon. It's just phenomenal.
- [75:56]
Scott R. Andersen
Yeah, but who did. I'm just a bill who did do that.
- [76:00]
Trey Farrow
Wait, it is Deluxe Folk Implosion, who I do now know who that is. So not all of them made it out of the 90s, but most of the contributors did make it out of the 90s, for better or for worse. And that brings us to you, Dana. What do you have for your object lesson this week?
- [76:15]
Scott R. Andersen
Mine is less fun in doing the reading to be ready for this conversation this morning. This was a really great conversation and it's the kind of analysis that I was trying to find where people are taking Israel and Iran's strategic calculus seriously. I unfortunately read Thomas Friedman's column from yesterday, which did not do that, and described Iranian strategy as trying to out crazy everyone, which just further feeds into this narrative that Iran is not a rational actor when all this is about deterrence and how do they calculate deterrence and their own security and Israel as doing this as a doctrine of once and for all. When I think even in what we're seeing of the strike so far, in terms of having not necessarily taken much damage out of Fordo yet, and there's this idea that actually they're degrading a nuclear capability and this is in some sense again just mowing the grass. It's just, it's bad analysis and I just had to get that off my chest and share it with you, especially as a coda to this conversation.
- [77:21]
Trey Farrow
I also read that article and felt the same way. I almost included it in our preparatory Google Doc for this chat, and I decided not to. Here's what I'm going to say. Thomas Friedman has not been somebody worth reading about the Middle east really for a long time. Fembre Route to Jerusalem is still a very good book and worth reading. I don't necessarily agree with all the analytical points he takes away, but it's an excellent reading. But I don't know what I would circle back to since then. But that's worth checking out if anybody to flip it out. That's a good book. Still check out from Beirut to Jerusalem thing and put Tom on the map, so to speak. Well folks, that brings us to the end of this week's episode. But remember that rational security is of course a production of Lawfare, so be sure to Visit us@lawfairmedia.org for our show page, for links to past episodes, for our written work and the written work of other Lawfare contributors, and for information on Lawfare's other phenomenal podcast series, including Escalation, our docu series hosted by our very own Tyler McBrien and Nastya Lapatina, documenting Russia's war in Ukraine and its intersection with US Foreign policy. Check it out now in podcatchers near you. In addition, be sure to follow Lawfare on social media wherever you socialize your media. Be sure to leave a rating review wherever you might be listening and sign up to become a material supporter of Lawfare on Patreon for an ad free version of this podcast and other special benefits. For more information, visit lawfairmedia.org support our audio engineer and producer this week was Noam Osban of Go Rodeo and our music, as always, was performed by Sophia Yan and we are once again edited by the wonderful Jen Patchett. Behalf of my guests Tyler, Dana and Dan, I am Scott R. Andersen. We will talk to you next week. Until then, goodbye.
- [79:01]
Scott R. Andersen
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- [79:05]
Trey Farrow
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Scott R. Andersen
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Tyler McBrien
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Scott R. Andersen
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