Loading summary
Transcript56 lines
- [00:00]
Gordon
Foreign
- [00:04]
Host 1
Exclusive interviews, bonus episodes ad free listening early access to series first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter and discounted books. Join the Declassified club@the restisclassified.com this episode
- [00:19]
Gordon
is brought to you by HP in
- [00:21]
Host 1
Intelligence Work, it's rarely the obvious problem that causes failure. It's the overlooked detail or or the flaw nobody quite solved the kind of vulnerability intelligent services look for.
- [00:32]
Gordon
And running a business is the same, especially when you're building or growing a team. It's the risks you can't see or don't understand. HP designs technology so devices, collaboration, tools and security work together as a single system, helping teams keep everything running smoothly at home, in the office and out in the field.
- [00:52]
Host 1
The the protection is built in hardware level security working quietly in the background, helping reduce risk without creating more work.
- [01:01]
Gordon
With a team of business advisors, HP helps businesses of all sizes find technology that fits their needs and budget.
- [01:09]
Host 1
To see how HP helps businesses work securely and productively, visit hp.com classified the rest is classified. Listeners also benefit from 10% off HP business technology which with code TRIC10 it's time to refresh your yard during Spring
- [01:27]
David Ignatius
Backyard Days at the Home Depot.
- [01:29]
Host 1
Get low prices guaranteed on propane grills starting at $179 like the next grill 3 burner gas grill. Or get $50 off a select Weber Spirit Grill and bring big flavor to your backyard. Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together.
- [01:46]
David Ignatius
Shop Spring backyard days for seven days
- [01:48]
Host 1
at the Home Depot now through May 6th exquisitions apply seahomedevo.com pricematch for details.
- [01:56]
Announcer
Ready to soundtrack your summer with Red Bull Summer All Day Play? You choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep end dj, a road dog or a trail mixer? Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer All Day Play Red Bull gives you wings. Visit red bull.com brightsummerahead to learn more. See you this summer.
- [02:30]
Gordon
Hello and welcome everybody to this very special live stream from the Rest is Classified. We've just been finishing a two part series examining what's been going on inside Iran CIA operations, the issues of rescues of pilots, but in particular the issue of what an operation to snatch Iran's highly enriched uranium might look like. And to complement those episodes as well as examine some of the bigger issues about Iran and U.S. foreign policy in more detail, and how the Trump administration might be thinking about its next moves, we're very lucky, aren't we David? To be joined by a journalist who really sits at the nexus of Washington intelligence and national security.
- [03:09]
Host 1
Indeed, we are very fortunate today to be speaking with David Ignatius, who is a best selling author and prize winning columnist for the Washington Post. He has been covering the Middle east and the CIA for well over 25 years. He lives in Washington where in addition to doing all of that, he manages to write some absolutely fantastic spy novel. He's the author of a dozen of those. His latest, Phantom Orbit, is an exploration of the modern day race for supremacy in space warfare. One of them, Body of Lies, which is a fantastic book, was made into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. And his first novel, Agents of Innocence, I have to say is perhaps the best novel ever written about CIA operations in the Middle east and was on the in house required reading list that I received when I joined the Central Intelligence Agency as an intern in the summer of 2006. The CIA at one point called that book a novel but not fiction, which is a high piece of praise indeed for a novelist. And David and I also just in a personal note shared the same editor at W.W. norton, the legendary star Lawrence before his passing and David wrote a wonderful piece for the Post after Starr died, which I would commend to all listeners who are curious for a peek into the author editor relationship. The title of that piece, which made me both want to cry and laugh at the same time, was these editor's notes are poison. I learn from every drop. So we share a similar awe and reverence for the man who poisoned us over many books. So with all that said, David Ignatius, welcome to the Rest is classified the
- [04:55]
David Ignatius
thank you so much, David. Such a generous introduction, I must say. I've heard for so many years about all the CIA officers who read my first novel and I've come to the conclusion that you must have all taken it out of the library. Library? Because it's never shown.
- [05:15]
Host 1
No one purchased it. No one bought it.
- [05:17]
Gordon
They're passing around the copies.
- [05:20]
David Ignatius
It's obvious to me that you didn't buy it, but thanks. We did share a great editor and star. The lead of my piece about him after he died was all in quotation marks. Ugh. Please, must we, Must we? This is a series of things he'd written in the margins of my bad writing.
- [05:43]
Host 1
It made me feel better to know that we had received similar treatment from Starling. We are unfortunately not here to talk about spy novels, which I think you and I could talk about all day. Much to Gordon Carrera's chagrin. But we are here to talk about Iran. And I thought, David, the first question I'd put to you just to set up one of the key, if not the key, character in this drama, which is President Donald J. Trump. Now, I suspect that many listeners to this, maybe you have a sense that over the past few months he has been acting rather erratically and impulsively. And I'm curious how you think the president sees his position right now amid the ceasefire and the negotiations that are ongoing in Pakistan. Is Trump a man under pressure to do a deal or how do you think he's feeling about the situation that he's in right now?
- [06:41]
David Ignatius
So the first thing that I've noticed about Trump since the Venezuela operation is that he's just flying. You know, he's a teetotaler, famously, but it's as if he's, you know, intoxicated with the excitement and power of being commander in chief. And I thought to myself, there can't be anything quite like it in the world to be astride that, you know, massive military power, the ability to operate so stealth, stealthily as in Venezuela. And he, you know, he's just roaring with it. He's good at the big boom at the beginning of something and he's good at the big show at the end of something, but he isn't very good in the middle and he isn't very good at the aftermath. I'm just struck by how many of these peace deals that he touts and who's not in favor of peace in our miserable world just don't get finished. The Gaza deal, actually, if you look at the particular details, is pretty good. They recruited first rate people. The person who's the executive director, Nikolai Mladinov, as good as you could find them, at least. I talked at length with the Palestinian who's there to oversee the technocratic committee, first rate person, but nothing's happened. I just have a feeling that the follow up that should be present if Iran is really going to make a transition from this revolutionary country to something different, some kind of managed IRGC run state capitalism that's going to need more work than this team can put in.
- [08:31]
Gordon
I mean, just watching it here from Europe, where I am, David in London, I mean, the perception is that Donald Trump has partly because he didn't have clear aims going in to this conflict and they had all these multitude of different aims, whether it's regime change, whether it's the nuclear material, whether these other things on the one hand that gave him a kind of Flexibility at one point about declaring victory, but it's also now making it very hard to see what the end game looks like. I mean, do you think opening the strait, maybe saying there's a nuclear deal, that's what he's looking for now, just to basically get out of this?
- [09:07]
David Ignatius
Yes. So I think, Gordon, that he wants an exit ramp. I was told that he had come to understand that the deeper you get into this conflict, the more it's like Quagmire certainly has warned through his career about the danger of that, and now he found himself in one and he wants out, but he wants out thunderously, victoriously. So you have this weird oscillation between claims that the war is already over and we've won. They're dying for a deal and sending. As of today, I think we have 10,000 additional troops heading to the Middle East. So this undamped oscillation is a feature of Trump, and I think it's increasingly Gordon and David undermining Trump's ability to get the success he wants to have as president. I think the world's really kind of wised up to it. The people are sick of it. First, Europeans are sick of all of this badmouthing NATO and crazy talk about seizing Greenland. I think the Chinas and Russias of the world are kind of going, yeah, yeah, you know, and some of that too, with the Iranians. So I think he wants out. I think he is close to a deal. I got a very detailed readout of the negotiations that took place in the Samad, which I published in my column, gosh, the beginning of the week. And it's turned out pretty much as people said it would. It was a very generous offer on the table from the U.S. surprisingly generous. It's not all that much better than what the JCPOA offered for all of Trump's talk, but it does provide what I'm told Trump negotiators said to Mohan Galiboff, the Iranian representative, would be a golden bridge, that was their phrase, into a new era for Iran. Iran, as I know, having visited there, perhaps, Gordon, you've been there as well. Iran is poised to be a fantastically successful modern country. It has great intellectual capital, resources. It is a one of the most civilized cultures I encounter. So that's been part of the Trump team's pitch. Walk with us into this future. You're going to be superstars. We'll help you. We'll find capital for you. And Golly Bash, who's no stranger to big time deals, from what I know was Pretty receptive to that.
- [11:49]
Host 1
David, what do you think the shape of that deal would be? What would the Iranians have to give up and what would they get first?
- [12:00]
David Ignatius
The highly enriched uranium stockpile that they have. The question is how they give it up. And what they were pretty much prepared to offer before the war started was a process where the IAEA would supervise dilution of the stockpile from 60% down to some very low level of enrichment. So I think that's already out there. Trump seems to want the IAEA to supervise removal of the canisters that contain this material. That would be better for sure, but they seem ready to do that. Trump has said in the last several days that the Iranians have agreed to no nuclear weapons. Well, it's kind of a crazy formulation because, A, they don't have a nuclear weapon, B, they've said for decades under the fatwa of the previous supreme leader that they didn't want a nuclear weapon. Nobody believed that, but that's then their official policy. What I think Trump means is that they've agreed to give up what they've always claimed as their right to enrich uranium for civilian nuclear purposes, which is a pathway to a bomb. And my guess, I don't have this hard enough to I'll just describe it as a guess, is that they're ready to sign on to some kind of international consortium that would include other Gulf countries that would get enriched uranium together. So they wouldn't be enriching inside Iran, but they would have enriched uranium. So I could say we still have the right to it. We're exercising that right through this consortium. And there'll be various other aspects of the deal, but those I think are the principal ones. And then the straight up Hormuz, I mean, as of today, they're already agreeing to open it. But the problem is that once you've unshielded that weapon, it's always there. It's like the guy who pulls back his coat and you see he's got a gun. I mean, Iran going forward is always going to have the, you know, opportunity to use its Strait of Hormuz bomb. It's a better deterrent, frankly, than nuclear weapon would be. You can't use a nuclear weapon. You can close the Strait of Hormuz again. And this is not the last time we'll hear the Iranians say, unless you listen to what we want on such and such, we're going to close this Strait of Hormuz, which makes it feel
- [14:24]
Gordon
like that Iran, Iran comes out of this stronger with a more hardline regime maybe having been militarily battered, but actually with this new weapon and with the potential to use it in the future. I mean, that is a world away from the regime change that had been talked about.
- [14:43]
David Ignatius
It's certainly not a regime change. It is a leadership change. I think it's a mistake analytically to say they come out of it stronger because they really have been battered. Their network of proxies staggers forward, but the damage done to Hezbollah is so enormous that Hezbollah is accepting the Lebanese government negotiating openly with Israel for ceasefire. And my money is on the Lebanese government moving forward with disarmament in some more meaningful way of Hezbollah. The proxies in Iraq, I think, are on their back heels some and internally we haven't gotten every weapon that they possess, but an awful lot of them. So the idea that Iran is stronger I don't agree with because I don't like the regime. I think it's done enormous harm to Iran and the region for the whole time that I've been following the Middle East. Good riddance is what I feel about the Iranian regime. My concern is that the process of evolution into some post revolutionary Iran that is a modernizing player, but also just a less rigid, a more competent regime that's faithful to its people, I worry that that's been set back. That process was happening. Foreign ambassador who served many, many years in Tehran said to me once, this regime is on a one way street down toward its end. And I think that's still true. But I worry that the street is lengthened, that weirdly, we may have put some time on the clock. The Ayatollah was going to die soon anyway. From everything I know, there was increasing dissension, factional fighting, jockeying for position, all sorts of opportunities for the transition process we've all awaited in Iran that stopped as soon as he was killed. Galiba seems like the strongman for the moment, but I'm told by friends in touch with people in Tehran that he's getting a lot of pushback from harder liners. I've been following Golubov literally for 20 years. I wrote my first column about him in 2006. That's how long he's been kind of hanging around convincing people like me that I'm really a modernizer. But anyway, that'd be my worry. I don't think, Gordon, that they're stronger, by the way, as I would define that, but I think they may be more durable because of regime cohesion.
- [17:44]
Host 1
David, this the series we did this Week on the. On the pod was looking at of the. The prospects for, and how a special operations mission to go after the highly enriched uranium might happen. Just to kind of lay out what it. What it could look like. My sense is that a few weeks ago, that was on the table inside the White House. Do you think it's still on the table, or do you think that it is unlikely to happen?
- [18:12]
David Ignatius
So I think it's such a crazy idea, to be honest. I mean, it is a mission destined for failure. I think it was probably always more talk. Special operators always want to do the impossible. And I'm sure there was chatter and options were prepared and submitted, but the idea of seizing and securing enough space for, you know, to build a little, you know, mini airport and get the trucks to run back and forth to the site and load the stuff, and meanwhile, you know, entire army around, someone's shooting at you. Yeah, it just doesn't really seem all that realistic. I mean, I'm sorry. Yeah, if it were me, and I wanted to have a really kind of nasty option, I just mine everything in the area and say, okay, boys, you know, you still got the hu. If you try to go get it, you're gonna blow yourselves up. And if you get through the mines, we're gonna. We're gonna shoot you from the air and just leave it there. But what do I know?
- [19:19]
Gordon
You're a seasoned observer of the intelligence world and its relationship to politicians. I just wonder, when you look back at how Donald Trump could got into this and what he does next, how much does he listen to those voices? And does he have voices around him who are giving him kind of serious advice? Because obviously, Tulsi Gabbard doesn't look like she was in the room. His dni, you know, he is there. Are there people who are telling him what is realistic and what the consequences are, who have an impact and who he will listen to.
- [19:49]
David Ignatius
So you, too, might well have better sources on this than I. But I'll tell you what, what my impression is, first, you worry that this was an intelligence failure, as October 7th was for Israel. I don't think so. I think our intelligence analysts, as battered as they are, basically got it right. From what I've been told by people who read the assessments from the National Intelligence Council and other analytical work, it was stated clearly, decapitation will not lead to regime change. The IRGC will backfill. And that strategy that Trump obviously believed, much as Putin believed, that within a week of going in the Ukraine, the regime would fall. Trump, I think believed that they would capitulate when faced with this overwhelming, decapitating power. He was told, sir, not likely. He ignored that. He was told that it was a significant possibility that Iran would strike at the Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates. They don't seem to have really believed that. I think they were shocked by the degree of Iranian offensive attacks. But again, Trump was warned about that. He was warned that the Strait of Hormuz might be. Be closed. So I think the intelligence agencies and General Kaine and the Joint Staff did a pretty good job. I've come away from both Venezuela and this operation with increased admiration for General Kane as a chairman and on the CIA. Again, this really is, what do I know, land. But I am told by a number of people that Ratcliffe has protected enough of the people and capabilities and prevented the sort of crazy cash Patel score settling, house cleaning. A lot of people left because they just weren't comfortable with the situation. A lot of older generation. But just a last comment. If you're a young operations officer, what could be better than this? You got two wars, you got all kinds of crazy stuff that people want you to do. How cool is that? So I'm sure operations officers think this is great and thanks, boss, for helping us out. For analysts, this is a terrible time. Their analytical work is ignored and for everything I know they're demoralized and. But they kept telling the truth and nobody listened to them in the White House. But that doesn't mean that they were. You know, the fear would be that they would end up producing bad intel to suit their, their customers. And I don't think that's happened.
- [22:53]
Host 1
David, we started this conversation talking about Trump being intoxicated with the use of military power and the promise of it. What do you think is next for him? What is it? Cuba? Is there somewhere else that he's going to turn his energies? If indeed he does get a big shiny deal with Iran that gives them a golden bridge into a better future? Where does he turn next?
- [23:22]
David Ignatius
Clearly a concern. This is a Florida group that surrounds him, Marco Rubio most prominently. Rubio is passionate about Cuba, but I think the Florida centric nature of this administration means that Cuba, until it's resolved in some way, will always be a big issue. My guess is that he'll make one last big push on Ukraine. I think he understands that that's the most dangerous issue that he faces and the one where he's had the least success. My fear is that he's going to try to muscle Zelensky into accepting a concessionary deal to Putin, and that would just have terrible consequences. I wrote a column this morning about the looming danger of a Russia Europe confrontation and the possibility that Trump basically would join Putin in stuffing a dangerous settlement down Europe's throat. So that's what I think is most likely in terms of a big project and the most dangerous.
- [24:40]
Gordon
Yeah. Because I think here in Europe, definitely the feeling is that the Iran war has had a significant impact on NATO on those issues of trust and alliance and reciprocity and the arguments over basing and which bases can be used, whether it's between Spain, but also the UK and the president's criticism of the UK and people are worried, is Greenland going to be back on the agenda? So I do think Iran almost more than Ukraine recently has contributed to the sense that NATO may be in crisis, actually, and that the relationship is in a really bad way.
- [25:16]
David Ignatius
Europe, frankly, made a mistake and not been involving itself more directly in thinking about ways to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. I think there was a moment where European disdain, in particular Stormers, was overdone. I get it. I was in Davos when Trump was just on a tear, all spun up about Greenland, and people just got sick of it and that they've stayed angry. I remember Alexander Stubb, arguably with Ruta, Mark Ruta, Trump's best friend in Europe. He just had it enough. And so I think it was that that led them to take a very standoffish position on the Strait of Ramos beyond what was reasonable and sensible. I know that's probably an unpopular view for your viewers, but that's what I think.
- [26:16]
Gordon
No, but it is interesting to hear that because I think it's obviously been quite popular at home for Starmer and others. It plays well domestically to be standing up to Trump. And there's a certain view which is, okay, we've had enough and the better policies to stand up to him, but there may well be implications of that and consequences for that, which I'm really ready to go.
- [26:39]
David Ignatius
The question I would ask your viewers, and both of you, I mean, if Europe's really ready to go it alone in security terms, you know, okay, let her rip. I don't think that's the case.
- [26:52]
Gordon
Not yet. No. I mean, the answer is given.
- [26:54]
David Ignatius
Given that you have to be careful. Yeah, yeah.
- [26:59]
Host 1
David, there's a question from the, the chat here about Congress, the role of Congress and potentially enabling or constraining Trump's kind of foreign adventurism. Do you see that as a factor in his decision making or Any kind of potential hurdle for him going forward or is it just a non issue?
- [27:25]
David Ignatius
I don't think it is going to be a hurdle because Congress is just determined to chicken out. The willful surrender of its Article 1 powers is amazing. Justice Neil Gorsuch, in his, I guess it was a concurring opinion, put it right to Congress like, where are you? Why have you given up the role of the Constitution mandates? And it's become increasingly clear to me that although Congress has been ducking war decisions now for more than 20 years, they don't want to make these decisions. They don't want to go on record. They need to. The whole reason that it's so important for Congress to declare war is that once you're in a war, you need to keep the public with you. And what America increasingly does is start wars that the public isn't prepared to see through and then it bails out with real damage. That's been the theme of almost every one of my novels to be honest, is we start things that presidents write, checks the public isn't prepared to cash. So that's why you need a declaration of war, so that Congress and the people are on board. And until you have that, I think we're going to be a pretty feckless superpower that has trouble following through because we don't go through our own process.
- [28:56]
Gordon
One more question we've got from the chat about maybe restraints or constraints on Donald Trump is the economy. And I think there was a lot of assumption that that would be that's the thing which will change his policies. You know, whether here, whether it's fertilizers and fuel prices or whether it's China when it did, you know, kind of threatened tariffs itself, that he will respond in those kind of situations. I mean, does that work in the current crisis or do you think he is kind of legacy building and thinking I really want to do I want to expand American power whether it's Greenland, whether it's Cuba and do these things even if there is a cost to them.
- [29:36]
David Ignatius
He does now have this heroic self image, legacy building, as you said. And he says often when asked about short term costs of things when people fear that tariffs would have a significant negative impact on the economy. It didn't turn out they didn't. But his response was, that's okay, I'm ready for that because we need it in the long run. We need to rebuild American manufacturing. Which is true. His program for doing that was not a very good one. But he believes that that leadership requires, you to take the hit in the short run because it's the right thing to do. Even though it's Donald Trump. I don't want to naysay the commitment of a leader to do unpopular things. I think he's got that. The problem is that he just has none of the discipline of leadership to see things through, to have coherent, to avoid saying the opposite thing the next day. He's like a bouncing ball, as I said earlier, undamped oscillation. And he also, the world suspects when he's about to take a short term hit for all is talk about willing, being willing to bear the pain. He isn't. The Trump always chickens out. I don't like that phrase because it sort of eggs him on the show that he's not at this time, he's not going to chicken out and nuke somebody. But I think he, financial markets think he's going to end up settling and you can see that reflected and the behavior of the markets for the last two weeks.
- [31:25]
Host 1
Yeah, very last question from the chat, David, was what do you make of. And this, I realize this is venturing a bit into pop psychology here, so I ask with some trepidation, but what do you make of Donald Trump's mental state? Now there's been obviously some speculation based on, I would say some of the truth social posts and general behavior that he is perhaps behaving more erratically than he was in the past. What do you think about that? What are your contacts hearing on that front?
- [32:01]
David Ignatius
Well, I hear from every direction concern about his erratic statements. You know, picking a fight with the Pope, what a crazy thing to do. And rather than letting it go, he just keeps coming back to it, you know. Why? I don't know that that shows a chronic mental state, but it's just a dumb thing to do politically. But he can't let these things go. If he's in a fight, he's just gonna, he wants to have the last word. This sort of, you know, dress up thing, you know, releasing AI images of himself as, I mean, you know, he's done, Jesus Christ, most recently infuriating people
- [32:58]
Host 1
who's a doctor, right.
- [33:00]
David Ignatius
I mean, that was to say that with a straight, straight face. Oh, I thought, come on. But you know, he's, he's posed as a, I think as a Star wars guardian. He's posed as the Pope, he's posed as a king. You know, there are these, it's like, you know, kids, it's dress up. And that part of his behavior as president is mysterious and you know, we're going to see what kind of shape our republic is in, not just in terms of the machinery, the ability to have good, fair elections, but in the quality of our electorate, because people have a chance to say what they think about all this. Everybody's watching the same thing that the three of us are. And if people ratify that conduct by voting for people who support it, all the worries about the United States are justified. But if people say, no, I've had it, that's it. And they either don't turn out, and there's a lot of expectation that this will be close to a wave election with a big public repudiation of what we're seeing, then I hope people around the world will feel a little bit better about the United States and that our machinery is a little more resilient than it's appeared this last year.
- [34:29]
Gordon
Yeah, that's an interesting note to end it on, because going back to the view from Europe, I think it is that feeling, you know, as you raised about, well, you know, can Europe stand on its own two feet? And the answer is, you know, not yet. How quickly can it do that? Who knows? Has it got the will to do it? Who knows? You know, does it need to? I think that, you know, and, and, or can it. Can something of the relationship be salvaged? You know, I think, I think that still feels like a bit of an open question, but an important one, you know, and as you said, I think people are watching what happens within the US and some of those constraints and the elections and those things very carefully to know, you know, I think, you know, things are never going to go back to where they were, I think, but, but, but, but whether they'll be in a relatively stable place or really a really bad place, it's hard to tell, isn't it?
- [35:16]
David Ignatius
Yeah, Indeed, indeed.
- [35:20]
Gordon
Well, David, thank you so much.
- [35:22]
David Ignatius
Yes, I'm a big fan of both, both of your works on intelligence and it's really a privilege to be on your show. Thank you.
- [35:32]
Gordon
Well, thank you. We enjoy yours for very much as well too, David.
- [35:35]
Host 1
Thanks. I will say, unlike all of the CIA officers who have checked David's books out of the internal CIA library, I would urge everyone to go and purchase it, full price in hardcover. Phantom Orbit is the latest one, the first one, Agents of Innocence. All of the other 10 in between go and check them out. But David Ignatius, thanks for being with us today.
- [35:57]
Gordon
Yeah, thank you everyone else for joining us. Thank you.
- [36:06]
Announcer
Your next chapter in healthcare starts at Carrington College's School of Nursing in Portland. Join us for our open house on Tuesday, January 13th from 4 to 7pm you'll tour our campus, see live demos, meet instructors, and learn about our Associate Degree in Nursing program that prepares you to become a registered nurse. Take the first step toward your nursing career. Save your spot now at Carrington. Edu Events. For information on program outcomes, visit carrington.edu.si.
- [36:37]
David Ignatius
some follow the Noise Bloomberg Follows the money. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at bloomberg. Com.