← The Rest Is Politics
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- [00:01]
Alistair Campbell
Thanks for listening to the Rest is Politics Sign up to the Rest is Politics plus to enjoy ad Free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to the restispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com the rest is politics is efficiently powered by Fuse Energy.
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Rory Stewart
If you've got an electric vehicle or if you're thinking about it, Fuse has a smart tariff with overnight charging for only 5.5pence a kilowatt hour and that's.
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Alistair Campbell
Now available on both Apple and Android app stores and works with a wide range of chargers. No faf, no filibustering, no unexpected U.
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Rory Stewart
Turns, so quite unlike Politics. And you don't even need a PhD in engineering. You just plug in your EV before bed and it'll be ready before the headlines hit your inbox.
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Alistair Campbell
So if you need a charger installed, Fuse will sort the hardware, the fitting and the setup, often in under a week.
- [00:52]
Rory Stewart
And when you sign up, you'll get the trip members deal completely free ad free listening, early access to Question Time, bonus episodes, and pre sale tickets to our live shows.
- [01:03]
Alistair Campbell
So while your car recharges, your podcast feed gets a power boost too.
- [01:07]
Rory Stewart
Just head to getfuse.com politics Download the.
- [01:11]
Alistair Campbell
App and use the code Politics Smart Tariff Swift installation. No white papers, green papers or red tape required. Welcome to the Rest is Politics with me, Alistair Campbell.
- [01:31]
Rory Stewart
And with me, Rory Stewart. And you're in Cyprus still.
- [01:34]
Alistair Campbell
And you're in London still. And this is alive, which will, unless anything unbelievable happens in the next 24 hours, which it might well do, will, as it were, replace our main episode this week. We'll still do a question and answer which we'll put out in the normal way. But it does strike me as though things are moving so fast and so unpredictably that it's worth doing this as a live I was saying to Rory earlier when we were discussing this that I was out for dinner last night with some of the President's team and their phones were pinging, their watches were pinging, and just my phone was going off. It was just endless breaking news, this and breaking. And so last night there was a sort of sense you thought, oh my God, this is really, really, really kicking it off.
- [02:23]
Rory Stewart
This is because Iran last night was attacking the US military base in Qatar. And then this morning you woke up, obviously two hours ahead of us on time, to see the announcement from President Trump.
- [02:36]
Alistair Campbell
No, Rory, before I went to bed I saw the announcement from President Trump. But as with all of President Trump's truth social posts, you never quite know.
- [02:46]
Rory Stewart
Israel and Iran came to me, this is Sri Asgha almost simultane and said peace. I knew the time was now. In capitals, the world and the Middle east are the real winners. Both nations will see tremendous love, peace and prosperity in their futures. They have so much to gain and yet so much to lose if they stray from the road of righteousness and truth. The future for Israel and Iran is unlimited and filled with great promise. God bless you both. So that this is President Trump announcing a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Ceasefire is now in effect. Please do not violate it. Donald J. Trump Trump President of The United States 22 minutes ago as if.
- [03:24]
Alistair Campbell
We didn't know that. What was incredible about Trump's communications, and you have to hand it to me, and I was thinking last night that Israel very proudly is saying we now have complete control of the of the skies over Iran. Trump has complete control in a way. I can't think of any other leader in the world at any time that we've been alive of the airwaves in terms of media. Every single thing he posts like that immediately becomes top of the news everywhere. And then you have to go kind of underneath to try to work out what is actually happening. So on the back of that, Israel was saying, well, hold on, fair enough, but Iranians are still sending missiles. Iran came out and said, well, provided the Israelis stop, we're prepared to stop for now. And I think we talked yesterday or the day before about this horrible word off ramp, which is where people get into these fights, your bar room brawl, and then they want a way out. And what the way out may seem for the time being is that Iran tells its people, we attacked, we've done damage, and now we hold back because the Israelis are going to stop. And the Americans, Donald Trump comes out and says, I've broken a peace deal. And Israel, meanwhile, says, okay, for now, we sort of hold fire. But I think you're pretty convinced that on both sides, this doesn't necessarily mean the end of trying to fulfill their strategic objectives.
- [04:51]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, I think that the central thing to understand is just how much has been broken in the last 12 days and that you can't, as it were, put it all back together again just with a post on Truth Social. So the last 12 days has upended nearly 45 years of relationship between Iran, Israel and the United States. So really, for the last 45 years, what we've had is an Iranian regime absolutely convinced that the United States and Israel Are its mortal enemies? Israel absolutely convinced that Iran is its mortal enemies. US convinced that Iran is part of the Axis people. So very, very bad relationships. But it's been a shadow war. They haven't directly confronted each other in this way. There's been proxies attacking, there's been assassinations, Israelis assassinating Iranians, Iranians assassinating Israelis. But the whole thing was held in check. It was held in check because of course, Israel and the United States have nuclear weapons and that's a big deterrent. And Iran had this very formidable missile shield, people thought, and a very formidable series of proxies. So they had, people thought, control over Shia militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and in Syria, and the Houthi and Yemen. And that meant that there was a sort of cold war, a sort of stalemate between them where things never quite escalated above that threshold. What we've seen in the last 12 days is that the whole world has shifted very, very dramatically. And suddenly Iran feels almost as vulnerable as Gaza. It's lost its air defenses entirely. It has no way of defending itself. And whenever Israel and the United States want to send bombers over and attack it, they can, apparently almost with impunity and with very little risk to themselves, because as the missiles are depleted, you produce this situation, which maybe we should talk about a little bit on another podcast, which is the new way of war, the way that technology essentially allows, provides. You've got enough money to pay for these incredible. In the case of the US Stealth bombers that can refuel in mid air and things, you can wage war with very little cost yourself. You're not putting your troops in on the ground. And that reveals something very attractive to Trump, because in the end, it turns out it's not quite as he suggested, that he doesn't want to get involved in wars. It's that he wants to be seen as a winner. He doesn't mind getting involved in wars, provided he's seen as a winner and these bombs allow him to do that.
- [07:34]
Alistair Campbell
This is why those posts that he's putting out, if you remember we said the other day, he wants this operation that they did on the three nuclear sites. He wants it to be term two equivalent of the killing of Soleimani, who was the Iranian commander that they took out, national hero in Iran to some extent. So people were expecting a massive Iranian response. There was a response a little bit like the one we've just had, but then it calmed down again. So he's hoping that that will happen. The only thing I say, though, Rory, about the the military stuff, this mop, this sort of 30,000 pound bomb that they use, the bunker buster, they don't have that many of them, and they used quite a few the day. And the one thing I think the danger to Trump for this black and white form of communication, we've obliterated it, we've won. This is a triumph. This is the end. I bought peace, I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize kind of communication is that where's his leverage in relation to if it suddenly emerges that either through the intelligence services or through Iran indulging a bit of bombast, they actually show that, no, this wasn't quite damaged to the extent that you say that it was. We are now able to revisit the development of our nuclear program. What leverage does he then have? So I think this is one where the nuance that you need in foreign policy and diplomacy and proliferation, all these big stuff that governments are dealing with all the time, without that nuance, things I think become even more complicated.
- [09:10]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, I mean, there's a big contrast between Trump and Netanyahu here. And it's partly that Trump is able to declare victory almost whenever he wants and spin it in any way he wants because he's not really beholden to a coalition, he's not really beholden to his cabinet, and he doesn't really have any sense at all of what he said last week and whether or not it's consistent with what he's saying next week.
- [09:36]
Alistair Campbell
And all his followers come behind and agree with whatever the new truth is. That's the point.
- [09:41]
Rory Stewart
Absolutely extraordinary. And as you say, we covered the fact that Charlie Kirk and people had come out strongly against the intervention, are now coming behind him. Netanyahu's in a slightly different situation because he, of course, is under pressure from the far right in his cabinet, Ben Gvir, and people who are very, very explicit about regime change. He has also been talking about taking out the Iranian nuclear program for at least 20 years, but probably 30 years. Just a little quick reminder on this. I was just thinking about this in terms of my own life. I. I first saw Netanyahu say that Iran was going to develop a nuclear weapon within three to five years before I went to university in 1992. He said it again when I graduated in 95.
- [10:30]
Alistair Campbell
So was he following your. Was he tracking your life?
- [10:32]
Rory Stewart
No. But he went to university.
- [10:35]
Alistair Campbell
Now he's leaving university.
- [10:36]
Rory Stewart
My life tracked him. So just before I deployed to Iraq with the British government, he was testifying to Congress saying, we need regime change in Iraq and Iran because of their weapons. When I turned up in Harvard in 2009, he was saying Iran was just one to two years away from a weapon. When I became an MP, he said by spring or next summer they'll have a nuclear weapon. When I turned up with the Foreign Affairs Committee In Washington in 2014, he was giving a speech to AIPAC saying that they were just about to get a weapon. When I became chairman of the Defense Committee, he was telling the joint meeting of Congress that they were just a few months away from a Nuclear Weapons 2015. And when I was a minister in 2018, he was in Tel Aviv presenting on their nuclear weapons. So all I'm getting to here is that this story.
- [11:25]
Alistair Campbell
I'll tell you what you're getting to. When you were heading off to university, I was my first ever in person sighting of Bibi Netanyahu, where I scribbled a note to Tony Blair's foreign policy advisor, John Holmes, what's this guy really like? And he scribbled back 24 carat bullshitter. So you're, that is sort of what you're suggesting?
- [11:50]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. Well, so anyway, so the, the, the. I suppose what I'm getting to though is that defining victory for Netanyahu is tougher than for Trump. And the risk that we have to look at here is that if you look at Israeli policy towards Gaza, you can see that there is a very strong national commitment to the idea that Israel is under existential threat and that there is almost never an end in sight. Because they will want to continue in the case of Gaza until they feel that every last threat is removed, every last part of Hamas is removed.
- [12:28]
Alistair Campbell
The difference though, in relation between Gaza and Iran, I think is that in Israel public opinion is fundamentally divided on Gaza, whereas I think in relation to Iran, Israeli public opinion is pretty solid.
- [12:41]
Rory Stewart
Which makes it potentially even more dangerous because if Israelis all feel that Iran is an existential threat and that it's about to launch a nuclear weapon and that it's committed to wiping Israel off the face of the earth, then the temptation to go back in again will be very, very, very strong because there will continue to be voices saying we need to finish the job without quite defining what finishing job is. And you could see that just in the. I was talking to Christopher Lake who's if people want some serious reporting on this, has done some great recent pieces that we can share with people. There's one on the Sunday Times two days ago, there's one on Unherd, there's one in the Washington, the Wall Street Journal. But he'd been talking to people in the streets of Iran, and what he's noticed is the way in which the Israeli strikes moved from initially being target against nuclear infrastructure to expanding. So they began to hit the state broadcaster, hit the gates of the prison, the electricity and water went down. There were cyber attacks on the banking system. And it was at that point that the Iranian people really, in the last few hours, began to really think this is getting completely out of control. Felt much, much more vulnerable because it no longer felt like this was an attack which people, some people could get around. If you're an opponent of the regime, and the vast majority of the Iranian people hate the regime, think that they're engaged in ridiculous international adventurism, wish they wouldn't bang on about Israel all the time and can get behind Israel humiliating them on their nuclear program. But as soon as the attacks get closer to civilian infrastructure, get closer to the cities, the Iranian nationalist sentiment really rises up and everybody feels under threat.
- [14:25]
Alistair Campbell
What do you think? I was confused by the inclusion of the prison, this notorious prison where lots of torture and repression goes on.
- [14:33]
Rory Stewart
Evan Prison.
- [14:34]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, that. Were they being bombed in order to allow prisoners to get out or they. Because it seemed to me, I'm assuming that most of the people in there are going to be opponents of the regime. So how do you. Is there not. You're not sort of bombing people who are more likely to be on their side. So is that about bombing the prison to make it impossible to guard?
- [14:54]
Rory Stewart
It appears to be that they bombed the gate of the prison. So it appears to be that what they were trying to do was. And along with hitting the state broadcaster, these are classic moves often made in a coup d' etat. Now, I don't know whether that's full on, but certainly there are some people in the Israeli regime, in the Israeli government who really want regime change. And so these are classic moves towards regime change. You just take out the state broadcaster, you release all the political prisoners from prison and you hope there's going to be a massive uprising against the government now. And this also goes to the heart of what Israel understands about Iran and what it doesn't. It has clearly, fantastically penetrated the Iranian military, defense and security infrastructure. It's amazingly good at every level. At every level. Really knows where all the senior leaders are, can assassinate nuclear scientists, can find uranium, and that's almost certainly because they're relying very strongly on the Mujahideen Al Haq. Who are these? Resistance Iranian group that used to be funded by Saddam Hussein. In fact, I was based in one of their bases in Iraq, which had been created by Saddam Hussein for this Iranian resistance group now. But what they may not get as much on because they're relying so much on opponents of the regime. They may be getting an over optimistic view of the capacity of regime change. They may be able to get very precise locations on where the vulnerabilities are. But in terms of the big judgment calls, will the people rise up? They may be being overly optimistic.
- [16:25]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. Let's come back to regime change in a bit. And also, I'm really keen to talk about Ali Khamenei because I think he's a much, much. Well, it's not that he's misunderstood, it's something a lot of people don't know that much about him, even though he's actually been the Supreme Leader since the Berlin Wall fell. But just, I think it's worth maybe just reflecting a little bit on the role of Qatar in all this. I think it's, and I don't know, I've not spoken to anybody in the Qatari setup. I think it's very hard to imagine that this ceasefire, if it has been pulled off, has been pulled off without the Qataris at the highest level having. Talking to the Iranians at the highest level. And I. That both the Emir and the Prime Minister have been kind of backwards and forwards talking to the Iranians, talking to the Americans, because it seems to me that they were. I, I suspect they were pretty shocked and taken aback that it was their American base, or is the American base on there in Qatar that they went for. But I. The logic behind that, of course, is it's the biggest. There are 10,000American troops there is the one that's kind of, you know, probably, I don't know they'd have had their sights on before, but I think that what Qatar. I think Qatar actually will have been the key to this. I know Trump will take all the credit because that's what he does, but I suspect Qatar will be the power that sort of got the Iranians, for the time being, into the space that the Americans want them.
- [17:49]
Rory Stewart
Well, I haven't got an inside track at all on what happened in the last few hours with Qatar, but you're definitely right that Qatar is playing an increasingly important role internationally in peace negotiations. So it was very much at the heart of what the peace deal between Rwanda and DRC sounds quite a long way from Qatar in Africa. It's obviously been very, very important in Syria in getting support behind the new government in Syria. It's obviously been very much at the heart of the negotiations with Gaza and has been hosting a lot of the stuff on Iran. So Gaza isn't a very interesting city, a very small country, much smaller than Saudi Arabia. And it's gone on a very different path, hasn't it? Because this focus on peace negotiations is a really interesting departure. And it's in a very difficult position because it tends to be kicked often very unfairly internationally, particularly in the US and by others, because it's seen as traditionally supporting extremist groups. Anyway, I think it is now playing a much more constructive, positive role in the world.
- [19:01]
Alistair Campbell
So yesterday you and I were speaking to the President of Cyprus, Nikos Khistad, and it was interesting because a lot of the things that we were talking about relate to what you just said. He was echoing the point that you made earlier, that whether we like or not, the new world order has changed. It's changing very, very fast. And there was one point where you asked him this question, you know, is there a sort of, do you smaller countries, because Cyprus, we're talking about a million people. Do you smaller countries ever get together and discuss the role of smaller countries? And he had a very interesting response. He was basically saying, in a way, smaller countries have to act in the diplomatic sphere as if they're big countries. In other words, express your view, take the strength wherever you can find it. And it seems to me that's what Qatar is, is doing. And he was indicating, because this, you know, I'm sitting here in Cyprus with, you know, surrounded by all of these, you know, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Gaza are not far away. Egypt to the south in this incredibly important strategic place as a small country. Well, so is Qatar, so is Kuwait, so is Bahrain. These smaller countries perhaps have disproportionate power within this diplomatic, these diplomatic maneuvers. And they, and they sort of go along with the idea that Trump's pulling their strings because ultimately they know that's how. The way, the way to deal with them. I don't know if you saw already all around Israel at the moment, these massive billboard posters, picture of Trump looking, you know, blood, his blonde hair, he's gold skin and waving just American flag in the background, just says, thank you, Mr. President. You know, so they know how to play him in a way.
- [20:50]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. Let's look at the international picture for a second. But before we do that, let's take a quick break.
- [21:02]
C
Hello, I am Marina Hyde and hi, I'm Richard Osman, and we are the hosts of another great Goal Hanger show. The Rest is entertainment. Each week Richard and I talk about our favorite entertainment news stories and incredible behind the scenes facts.
- [21:14]
D
Like for example, often when people do podcasts they are reading off a bit of paper. Well, when they do the trailers, you.
- [21:19]
C
Cannot not draw the curtain back, can you? You're drawing it back right now.
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D
Wait, I'm about to read off a bit of paper now. Our two part deep dive into the chaotic making of Jaws has already been absolutely massive with our club members. They've been calling it Marina, one of our best bonus episodes ever.
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C
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D
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C
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D
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- [22:06]
C
Or go to thereesticentertainment.com and dive into the whole Jaws series for free.
- [22:16]
Rory Stewart
Welcome back to the Rest is Politics. Me, Rory Stewart.
- [22:19]
Alistair Campbell
Carry on, Rory.
- [22:20]
Rory Stewart
So let's just run through what the last 12 days has changed. Number one, it's changed the role of the United nations in the world. So Trump did not try to make big arguments around international law or get the UN on side or try to put together a vote in the Security Council. So the UN has been completely marginalized in this major operation. Number two, changed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. The Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty set up late 60s, early 70s and the whole idea was that you would stop countries getting nuclear weapons by this very complicated inspection mechanism and the International Atomic Energy Authority. And the whole idea of it was that instead of relying on countries dropping missiles out of the sky to control nuclear proliferation, instead you had this complicated inspection mechanism. Well, that's now out the window. Thirdly, US relationship with Europe. It's been an extraordinary humiliation for Europe. This whole thing, there was no sense at all that President Trump consulted with Britain, France, Germany, the eu. In fact, the great humiliation for them was that after the Israeli strikes, Trump announced. So the Israeli strikes, just to remind people this was on Friday 13th June, just and give a piece of how quick this has been. 15th of June was Trump turning up at the G7, 19th of June, Trump is announcing there's going to be a two week window. And Abbas Aragchi, who's the Iranian Foreign Minister, goes to a meeting with David Lammy, the UK Foreign Minister, the French Foreign Minister, the German Foreign Minister and the EU foremost. This is just last Friday, I guess that's four days ago. And they believe they've got a two week window in which to negotiate with the Iranians. And the German Foreign Minister, Johan comes out saying, we leave with the impression that the Iranians are fundamentally ready to continue talking. So it's a very, very optimistic statement. Meanwhile, we actually know that by that stage, Trump had already decided to launch these strikes because it takes a long time for these planes to fly that distance. And of course, the strikes take place in the early hours of the morning on Sunday 22nd June. So great humiliation. They're negotiating, they think they've got two weeks to get a peace deal together. Meanwhile, Trump has already launched the bombers. And then the next thing, right, put in the bluntest possible terms, we have a government in Britain that is putting a huge emphasis on international law. And this is of course the main driving reason why Keir Starmer's government decided to leave Die Garcia Chagos Islands, because they thought that Britain was in contravention of UN international law and it couldn't continue to have these islands handed them over. Massive political risk, actually quite a lot of financial cost to the British government. And then Trump does something that is clearly in violation of international law and we hear nothing at all from the British, from the French, from the EU and from anybody. So really, Europe feels very, very weak indeed. Can you give us a sense, just remind people what was the response that we got out of people, David Lammy, after these Trump strikes?
- [25:44]
Alistair Campbell
And just while we're on the politics of all this, and this underlines how tricky this is for world leaders right around the place. Somebody has just sent me the front page of today's Daily Mail, the paper, let me remind you, that backed Adolf Hitler in the run up to the Second World War. And the front page headline, so whose side are you on, sir? Keira? In other words, they want to be in the place where if it's bad for the government or it's tricky for their own government, that's good for them. This underlines that. The answer to the question, whose side are you on? He's on the side of trying to bring this, doing what little any European leader can to keep this on a. They keep using the word de escalation. And I think from their perspective, they just have to keep going with that. And interestingly, again, sorry to sort of give away spoiler alert on our interview with the president of Cyprus. He was talking last night, and as you will remember, in very, very, very flattering terms about how it's felt for the Europeans to have a British government back that actually at least takes these things seriously, that they feel they're proper dialogue with, etc. Etc. So I just wish our newspaper sometimes would be less tribalistic, less ridiculous, less hysterical and less about clickbait. But I think that what the leaders would just to go to your question, what were the leaders saying? I mean, I saw an interview that David Lammy did where it was obvious a bit like the president of Cyprus yesterday. They don't want to say anything that can be fed back by ambassadors around the world to Donald Trump, as Britain has criticized or Cyprus has criticized. So what they're doing is having a public position that frames this as, yes, let's all try to prevent Iran from having a nuclear bomb, but given quotes, we are not directly involved, not become commentators on the legalities and all the rest of it that I think Carl Bildt put out a very Carl Bilt, former prime minister of Sweden, very respected diplomat around the world, put out a very, very strong statement really condemning the Europeans for not focusing upon international law. But that's a debate that's going to go on through this because this is not the last of it.
- [28:02]
Rory Stewart
And sorry, Al, on the comm side, given that this is a political problem for the government, is there a possible route for the government to say, of course the US Are our allies, of course Iran are not our allies, of course we're on the side of the US Against Iran. But equally, we believe that international law is unbelievably important. And we make a joint statement by European leaders totally.
- [28:28]
Alistair Campbell
And in a way, that was what President Cristo Dunadez was saying yesterday. He's saying, look, we are very, very clear that we are in favor of Israel's right to exist and right to defend himself. He also made the point that, you know, we're literally a short flight away. He actually made the point if, for example, there had been nuclear radiation release from the attacks on the three plants in Iran, that would have been here pretty quickly. So he, but he's making the point pro Israel, not going to be calling out Trump, focusing upon the the sort of potential positives for American diplomacy, but at the same time emphasizing we all have to understand that international cooperation is better Rule of law is important and so forth. So I think it is possible to do it. But I thought, you know, I think that underlines that Daily Mail front page underlines just how the sort of venally difficult circumstances in which British political leaders have to operate when we get to these big foreign policy issues.
- [29:32]
Rory Stewart
But the problem with all these European leaders coming so strongly and behind Trump and not caring is that it puts the UN in a completely impossible situation. I was thinking about.
- [29:45]
Alistair Campbell
Hold on, you're saying that, but there's Keir Starmer being criticized for not coming behind. In other words, what the Daily Mail hope is that that front page gets sent by American diplomats to the American system so that Trump can start to think. And then you have the Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson's, who both got a bit of obsession about the Labour government coming out and saying, well, we can't rely on Britain. I mean, they are so irresponsible, these people. They really do make me sick.
- [30:11]
Rory Stewart
But I was just sort of thinking this through. If you're Grossi, who's the guy from the International Atomic Energy Authority, and you're trying to run an agency which is works on complicated inspections, very complicated relationships, not just with Iran, but other governments around the world that are trying to on the cusp of acquiring nuclear weapons and relies on people believing you, your credibility and being supported by the permanent members of Security Council when things go wrong. And Grossi came out and said, he did an interview with Fox News, in fact, he said Iran has enough material for several warheads. But this should not be equated with a nuclear weapon. Weapon. We do not have at this point any tangible proof that there is a program or a plan to fabricate, to manufacture a nuclear weapon. Right. So this is the statement from the main UN agency whose job for more than 50 years has been to try to stop nuclear non proliferation. And of course they assume that people will support their judgment. What's actually happened is that his judgment is completely swept aside by politics and he must feel his job becomes almost entirely impossible.
- [31:23]
Alistair Campbell
Well, and of course, the other question that we don't know, and I suspect we won't know either in terms of what's actually happening or the nature of this ceasefire agreement that's being reached, is what has actually happened to the highly enriched uranium which Iran already has. We don't know for sure that it was at any of those three sites. And the other thing, the worry I have about this black and white declaration, it's over. Relax, world, it's all going to be Fine. He actually said, you know, congrats, congratulations to the whole world, is actually that the, the reaction, the next step reaction from Iran could be something that isn't even directly related to Iran. They do have these sort of sleeper cells around the place. They do have very, very highly motivated people sort of planted around the place that could take out somebody or take out some sort of piece of infrastructure, whatever it might be. So I think that's why it's so, so important not to overstate. Yes, people would rather Iran and Israel weren't whacking off weapons at each other, and yes, people would rather the Americans weren't sort of dropping these 30,000 bombs and, you know, putting at risk water and radiation, all the rest of it. But it doesn't mean that just because Donald Trump says this is all over, that it's all over.
- [32:42]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, because you've just put your finger on the reason why this could start again quite quickly. So if you are Israel and you've just heard your point, which is absolutely right, which is we don't know what's happened to all of this enriched uranium, and you really feel that Iran is an existential threat and that your entire mission in life is to make sure it never gets a nuclear bomb, well, then you'll think, well, we haven't finished our job. We're going to have to bomb them again until we deal with the 60% enriched uranium. And if you look at the fact that Iran is still able to fire missiles into Israel and just killed another four people overnight, again, you'll feel the job isn't finished. So it doesn't seem to me that there's anything naturally stable here. It's very difficult for President Trump to say this is the end of it. If Israel feels it hasn't achieved its objectives on the one hand, and then let's just flop to Iran and then maybe some root into what you were going to say about Khamenei. Iran is now into a different world. So Iran, as I say, has been used to playing a shadow war. And they have done these responses over time, which are calibrated always well, well below what they could do. That was true after October 7, where they appear to have restrained Hezbollah's response. Hezbollah had, whatever it was, 100,000 missiles. It fired missiles into northern Israel, drove populations out of northern Israel, but it used a fraction of what it could have used. Again, as you said, after the killing of Gassim Suleimani, the Iranian response wasn't just to attack a US base, but to actually signal in advance that they were going to do so, so that the US could put everybody into bunkers before the attacks happened and did it again with Qatar. So this is the normal playbook, which is Iran does just enough to keep their pride intact, just enough to convince the hardliners that they're not going to take this lying down, but never quite enough, they feel, to sort of rain hell down on themselves. But something's changed.
- [34:47]
Alistair Campbell
And also they have, you know, even greater control over the dissemination of public messaging than Trump. You know, Trump's a very, very powerful communicator, but there is a sort of free press, whereas, you know, in Iran, he's got total control. I think that just to talk about Ali Khamenei, I mean, he's a fascinating character. And last night when we announced, or this morning when we announced that we're doing this podcast and the real Rory in my life, my son, he sent me this clip. He said, have you seen this before? And I hadn't. We'll put it in the newsletter. It's some footage of the actual event when the assembly of Experts, which is the decision making body, appointed Khamenei as the successor, a supreme leader to Khomeini. I mean, it's quite interesting that you just have to change a couple of letters in the neighbor. So Khomeini had appointed Khamenei as a sort of very senior advisor. He became a kind of very low profile president for a while and then this assembly of Experts meeting. So Rafsanjani, who was Khamenei's main advisor and who wanted and did become president, and the feeling was that he was manipulating Khamenei into this place as that he would become a very, very powerful presidential figure. But the truth is that Khamenei, and the speech that Khamenei made is incredible because he basically says, I'm not remotely qualified to do this job. I don't have the religious and clerical qualifications. It was like a sort of, it was like somebody who does the Sunday school, less sessions at your church, suddenly becoming the Archbishop of Canterbury. He wasn't that high up the religious ladder and yet he becomes. And so they appointed him first of all as a temporary supreme leader because he didn't have the qualifications. They then changed the constitution. Rafsanjani engineered it. So as they changed the constitution to get him in there. And he's an amazing survivor who's always, always, always been underestimated, Very poor background, second of eight kids, and he's now the second longest serving leader in the History of Iran after the old Shah.
- [37:06]
Rory Stewart
Well, we should do a special episode on him, but just in terms of what this means. Now, he is somebody who was formed through the Iran Iraq war. And we can talk a little bit more about why the Iran Iraq war matters. But essentially the revolution happens. And to remind listeners, almost immediately, Saddam Hussein invades Iraq, and then for the next eight years is Iran is fighting Iraq. And the sacred defense of the regime is right at the heart of what he's doing. So when Khomeini is in, is the Supreme Leader. Khomeini is essentially organizing much of that fighting. And it's a crazy form of fighting in which 500,000 people are killed and martyrdom, etc. After he takes over as Supreme Leader, he begins to craft an entire narrative, which is about identity. It's about the United States. He's always believed, from the very beginning, since 1979, that the United States has only one objective, which is regime change in Iran, and that anything they say, anytime they attempt to be nice, any treaties they offer, any compromises they offer, are just a ruse. In the end, what they want to do is topple the regime. So the question, I guess now that I'm getting to is will his responses now change? And this is where the world could get much more dangerous. Because up till now, as I say, they've tended to think that what they do is these slightly calibrated responses enough to placate the hardliners, not enough to unleash hell against them from Israel and the U.S. now the hardliners will say, and he himself will feel, wait, the hell has now been unleashed by Israel and the US it can't really get much worse. I mean, what is it we were afraid of? We were not doing too much because we didn't want them to unleash massive bombers and blow up our nuclear facilities. So what can we lose now by striking back? And if he begins to feel it's getting existential for Iran, if he begins to feel that these people are actually pushing for full regime change, and he's felt that that's been the American policy since Mossadegh was toppled in a CIA coup in 1953, then you may begin to see much more extreme stuff. You'll begin to see stuff where some of that spirit of the Iran Iraq war begins to come out. And that's the moment at which you really do begin to think, will they start looking at dirty bombs? So when you've got Iranian enriched to 60%, you can make it into 90%? Yes, it's going to take you a year to develop a ballistic missile, but it's much easier to make a little dirty bomb again. What do you do, as you say, with all your proxies, your sleeper cells, and what can you do with pretty low technology? They have the missiles to strike the Straits of Hormuz. During the Iran Iraq War, they drove sort of crazy suicide missions with boats into tankers. Now, it doesn't feel like they're quite there yet. At the moment, he's still being restrained, but it's going to be quite interesting as the regime settles down. Will they think the last 12 days have changed everything and we now need a very different approach and we can't continue what we've been doing since the early 90s?
- [40:19]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. The only thing I'd say about that is he's now old. He's been in power, as I say, since he's been the Supreme Leader, increasing his power as he's gone along. He has real control over. He's very good at divide and rule. All the various parts of the institutions of Iran, the military, the intelligence, the parliament, the presidency. He divides and rules between them, and he's always the final arbiter of any big decision. And like a lot of people, it's like Putin, it's like xi. Like a lot of people who've been in power for a long time, they tend not to get their fundamental views challenged, or. So I don't. I don't think there's any much reason to think that he will change. And if you go, I was talking to a friend, an Iranian friend of mine who lives in the uk, who was saying that if you go back to all the difficult points that he's faced in the past, whether it was the protest in 2009, before the presidential election, the general strike they had, I think it was in 2018, the protests they had more recently in relation to the young girl who Mahsa Amini was killed. The response has always been to whip up more nationalism, but actually to clamp down, to be more repressive. And so I think you're probably going to see, because don't forget, there will be those within Iran and Iranians outside Iran who want regime change. They will be trying to exploit this, and they will. So they will come under greater repression. And he will feel, in order to stave off the people, the real hardliners, I think he will feel that he can't just let this lie. That's why I don't think this will be a kind of One off Soleimani thing. And on the nuclear program point. Interestingly, early in his reign or his period of rule, he issued a fatwa against all developments of any weapons of mass destruction. And that actually has played a role in some of the kind of legal discussions that have gone around about Iran and nuclear weapons. I think he's gone well beyond that now. I don't think anybody believes that he any longer thinks that it's wrong to develop weapons of mass destruction. He did say it was anti Islamic at one point. And so I think we're talking now about somebody who is old, been there a long time, will be very scared in terms of his own survival. I don't think we should doubt his personal courage. This is a guy who's. I don't even know this Rory. I always used to wonder, why does he always shake hands with his left hand when he's sort of working the crowds? And it's because he was almost killed in the aftermath of the revolution by. He was doing a. He was taking prayers and somebody went up and put a tape recorder up as if to tape what he was saying. And it was a. It was a bomb. It exploded and he ended up sort of. I think he. One of the reasons his voice is so weak or weaker than maybe a leader would like it to be is because his vocal cords were damaged, paralyzed down his. His right side, his right arm. So this is somebody who, I think, who will. We should not think that. This is somebody who's just going to kind of think, okay, well, America's told us to stop. Israel looks like it's got more weapons than we have. We'll just sort of hide away.
- [43:32]
Rory Stewart
Well, there's been some quite interesting stuff in the comments, some of it cheerful, some of it typically rude. That's somewhat important.
- [43:41]
Alistair Campbell
Give me the rude stuff first.
- [43:42]
Rory Stewart
Give me the rude stuff. Rude stuff. Well, one thing is they're accusing me of looking at my phone and multitasking when you're speaking, along with a lot of people saying Rory never listens. And then stuff saying, alastair's wrong. But anyway, apart from some of that stuff, no rude stuff, guys. Will Trump expect a peace prize? On Will Trump expect a peace prize? Just for a moment on Serena L. Will Trump expect a peace prize? I was talking to a senior Pakistani politician yesterday who'd reminded me that we'd missed one of the extraordinary stories last week, which is that President Trump welcomed into the White House the Pakistan chief of the army staff didn't bother to invite the prime minister or President to Pakistan, just the chief of the army staff and the head of the Interservices Intelligence Agency sat them down for a halal lunch, a kosher lunch in the White House with Marco Rubio and Hegseth and the President, two hour lunch. I mean, incredible honor for the US President, Secretary of State, Defense Secretary, to sit down with the Pakistan army chief. And at the end of it, the Pakistanis came out and have nominated him formally for a Nobel Peace. For a Nobel Peace Prize.
- [44:57]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. So. And I wonder whether over the lunch, Donald Trump had gave a verbal version of the post he put out last week, saying, I bought peace to Ethiopia, I bought peace to Kosovo and Serbia. I bought peace to. I mean, this desperation for gongs and adulation. I had a very interesting email this morning from a woman who is. We should maybe talk about this another time. Today's probably not the day, but she said, you guys keep scratching your head about what motivates Trumps. And she sent me the 10 factors that doctors use to analyze narcissistic personality disorder. And obviously I did, I did tick them all off, but we'll maybe come back to that.
- [45:39]
Rory Stewart
So I, I was talking to my friend, my friend Emma sky, who's a colleague at Yale and who knows Iraq in particular far better than almost any other international commentator. She was pointing out a couple of things. One is that point that I stole from her at the beginning, which is that what matters to Trump is not avoiding war, but seeming like a winner. The second is how astonishingly pleased Netanyahu will be. He has achieved the great objective of his political career, which is to get the United States to come in behind him. Bombing Iran. It will be seen as an enormous triumph for him to have got Trump on side. A huge win for Netanyahu. Final thing, just before we stop, we've got Sarah Lane. Keep it up. Pakistan now joined China and Russia calling for peace. The China, Russia peace people haven't talked about enough. So Russia is Iran's ally. They signed just seven months ago a very special pact between them, a public pact. And Putin has invited the Iranian foreign minister yesterday to Moscow. And Iran was really supporting Russia and Ukraine. It was giving them drones. It actually helped them build a drone factory. It's been the main conduit for smuggling stuff into Russia to break sanctions. And yet Russia did not really come out and support Iran when the chips were down.
- [47:09]
Alistair Campbell
Even when Putin had a meeting with Iranians and they brought the cameras in and he said a few words and he talked about this unprovoked aggression and so forth. But the body language was not. I'm all in with you guys.
- [47:21]
Rory Stewart
It's really interesting. So 10 years ago, Russia was playing the role of stepping into Syria against the west, saving Bashar Al Assad's regime against the wishes of the Gulf and the West. This time round, not only have they refused to sell them planes and air defense systems, but they've been remarkably quiet. And I wonder what people around the world are doing looking at that, because it's becoming part of a pattern from Russia. They didn't support their ally Armenia, when Azerbaijan went in and helped itself to Nagorno Karabakh. I would be beginning to wonder, if I was a country relying on Russia as an ally, will Russia actually help when the chips are down, or will it, as it's just done now, calculated. Well, it's got relationships with Israel it cares about, it's relying on the Gulf to help evade sanctions and it's not going to take any risk because all it really cares about is Ukraine. So I think there's also a sense of a weakening of Russian power around the region.
- [48:19]
Alistair Campbell
Interesting. There's a question here from Jabberwocky gb, what do you think about Mark Rutter stating that the US action didn't break international law? Marut, of course, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, who's now the head of NATO. I hadn't heard him say that. I looked up the UN law on this. All members shall. This. This is Article 2.4 of the UN Charter. All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the un. There are only two exceptions. One, when the UN Security Council authorises force, that doesn't apply, and two, when a state acts in self defense. So the whole argument here is about whether genuinely this is about self defense. And the interesting thing, we've talked about the similarities and the differences with Iraq and if you go back to I said the other day, the reason why we did the intelligence dossier in the end was because the public and parliament and the media were saying, well, you keep talking about intelligence, where is it?
- [49:28]
Rory Stewart
And.
- [49:29]
Alistair Campbell
But we're now in a place with Trump and Netanyahu. They simply assert we have intelligence to show, etc. And it was interesting. The reason why, I think that un. Why that's important is if you look at the statement that Trump has put out about Congress, he essentially has said that he's done a note to Congress effectively saying that they took part to support our ally of Israel in its self defense. In other words, I think the lawyers have been over that to try to give a sort of post facto legal justification. But we are, as you keep saying, we're in this era of impunity.
- [50:11]
Rory Stewart
We're in a very, very different world. There's a good article by Suzanne Raine in Engelsberg, ideas on the idea of preemption. And she focuses on Sir Daniel Bethlehem QC, who managed to produce 16 principles on what constitutes the right of self defense. So this is Article 51 of the UN but basically it comes down to the fact that you can attack someone else, provided you can demonstrate that an armed attack is imminent, was being planned. So the threshold would need to be that the US and Israel could show that, that an armed attack from Iran was imminent. And the whole thing comes into the nature and imminency of the threat, the probability of the attack, the relationship to pattern, the likely scale of the attack, the likelihood of other opportunities to stop it. But I think that's the issue here. And this is where I was talking about Eisenhower on Sunday where he said it's not enough to say that this is an enemy. It's not enough to say that in the long term term it's a threat. You cannot get into a world of using force just because you think someone might in the future attack you. Because if you open that up, there's no end to it. I mean, literally any adversary you have anywhere in the world, definitionally you'd think might sometime attack you. And certainly if you're the Iranians looking at the US and Israel at the moment, you'd be absolutely right to think they might at some time attack you. But that wouldn't be considered in international law a justification for striking.
- [51:45]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. Now before we go, my final point about how many, Because I don't want to give the impression this is some sort of, you know, guy who's absolutely dedicated to his cause and just sort of toils away as a leader. He's also phenomenally wealthy. Reuters did a huge investigation a few years ago where they put together an analysis that they reckon he's got a financial empire worth not short, not a lot short of $100 billion. And not necessarily because he wants to live in great lavishness. I don't know whether he does or he doesn't, but because he wants himself to be independent of the other financial structures of the, of the state. And the other thing that makes him slightly oligarchical, Trumpian in, in another way as well is that there's a lot of talk that he wants one of his sons. I think it's his second son. Son, that he wants him to be his successor. So we're talking about somebody who's been in power so long that he's developed a lot of the characteristics that go with long term dictatorial leaders.
- [52:49]
Rory Stewart
And this be my final observation. I think let's not underestimate the level of his belief or the level of belief within the inner circle. It may be shrinking. I mean, there are fewer and fewer people who believe in the revolution, but there is still a hard core of millions of people who surround him who I think are genuinely, profoundly, ideologically committed. And he, I think, is one of them. I think he was formed by the revolution, formed by the Iran Iraq War. And I wouldn't conclude that he's just somebody who's going to sort of give up, shrug and run for the hills if people attack him.
- [53:24]
Alistair Campbell
There's quite a few. You talked about the criticism. I'm getting quite a lot of criticism trying to say that Iraq was different, that people saying it's actually just the same. We can argue about that. Rory and I already, already have. But there's also quite a lot of argument about my glasses. Some people like them and some people don't. So there we are, the big debates. We'll have them on this podcast.
- [53:44]
Rory Stewart
Let's do a podcast on your glasses. I mean, I can see some agreeable disagreement about that. No. Tell you what, we could do a podcast on. You've been a real man for occasionally reminding us of Prince Reza Pahlavi. So Gen X ray Prince Reza Pehlavi, of course, being the son of the last Shah of Iran, who's now to be found appearing on Laura Kuenberg on a Sunday morning saying anybody who attacks the regime is fine with me. And essentially seemed to be saying it was okay and he was on the side of the US with their strikes because it would topple the regime. I think that is a massive error. I think Iranians around the world, whatever they think of the regime, are not happy with somebody purporting to be leader who says he's okay with the US just attacking Iran whenever they feel like it.
- [54:33]
Alistair Campbell
I think some, some will be and some won't. Surely some, some will see anything that undermines the Iranian regime. We're happy, others not. Maybe I think we should do more about Iran in, in future.
- [54:44]
Rory Stewart
And Lynn Williams finally asked about the mug. I'm really pleased people take an interest in my pots and my ceramics. This is a this is a really good cup available for, for, I think £9 99 on hoof guys. Good sellers, but I'm not here to promote. Anyway, thank you.
- [55:01]
Alistair Campbell
This is a. This is a recyclable, I always insist, recyclable coffee cup from a coffee shop in Nicosia.
- [55:09]
Rory Stewart
Marvellous. Well, see you very soon. Alistair, thanks for tuning in and thank you so much to all the people, followers, members of trip class, people who've been on YouTube. Been great to have your voices in this conversation. Have a great day today, five to eight here in the United Kingdom, signing off.
- [55:27]
Alistair Campbell
Thank you very much.
- [55:33]
D
Hey everyone, here's that Jaws clip that we mentioned during the break. You can listen to the whole episode for free on thereses entertainment.com there's no cast at this point as well.
- [55:46]
C
The cast is so last minute for this.
- [55:48]
D
It was nine days before principal photography was due to start. Two of the three main parts, Quentin Hooper still hadn't been cast nine days before. So everyone's ready, everyone's ready to go, you know, the whole universe, who are.
- [55:59]
C
Eventually played by Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfus in the movie. And those two have a massive feud. There were so many other different people that they considered now Brody, who is actually played by Roy Scheider, and it's a brilliant performance. He's so sort of. It's an amazing performance.
- [56:12]
D
He's so put upon and like Everyman.
- [56:15]
C
But yeah, I mean, the other people considered were, but Paul Newman, Charlton Heston, Robert Duvall, Gene Hackman, like definitely the last two of those could have done it.
- [56:22]
D
Yeah, I think Charlton Heston was desperate to be in it. And Spielberg, again, you know what, he was smart right from the beginning. Spielberg, he said, think about Charlton Heston, he's too big a star.
- [56:31]
C
Why is he too big? Because, you know, Charlton Heston always wins. That's the problem. You know, Charlton Heston is going to defeat the shark. You don't know what Roy Scheide is going to do. You just don't know. So it's really important.
- [56:40]
D
Roy Scheider has the look of a man who could be eaten.
- [56:43]
C
Who could definitely be eaten.
- [56:44]
D
You'll be like, yeah, I can see it. I don't know if his agent is, you know, going to be. He's gonna be in it, but he can't be eaten. It could definitely be eaten.
- [56:52]
C
Charlton Heston eats sharks. The end.
- [56:54]
D
Charlton Heston eats sharks. Another, again, another great title for the book.
- [56:58]
C
Roy Scheider actually heard Steven Spielberg talking about it at a party and Steven Spielberg was saying, he'd have this idea for how he could get the shark to jump onto a boat. Roy Scheider thought, I'd like to be in that movie.
- [57:09]
D
That sounds good. I like this kid.
- [57:10]
C
And he said, I would like to be in this movie anyway.
- [57:13]
D
Charlton Heston, by the way, vowed never to work with Spielberg after that.