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- [00:00]
Alistair Campbell
Thanks for listening to the Rest Is Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to therestispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com. Welcome to the Rest Is Politics, with
- [00:22]
Rory Stewart
me, Alistair Campbell and with me, Rory Stewart. We did a session yesterday, Saturday on Iran, and it's Sunday. We're doing another session. Thank you. The production team who' come in over the weekend to get this done. But we felt, I think, that this really is one of those events in the world that really requires this amount of attention. Give me a sense about, I mean, I had a terrible night sleeping about this because it, it made me think about all these different questions about what on earth Trump is doing, what's going to happen in the world. But give me a sense of what your reactions have been over the last 24 hours.
- [00:58]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I think you're right that this is one of those moments in history that people remember and talk about for a very, very long time. So I think the events unfolding in Iran, across the Middle east and actually beyond, not least in some of the world, got deaths happening at protests in different parts of the world. And of course, I think the most significant development is the death of Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. I'm slightly tempted to say you heard it here first, because if you remember, as goal hanger supremo Tony Pastor was on his way to Burnley and we were recorded live. He texted me that Channel 12 report saying the Israelis believe that Khamenei may be dead. And I was actually resistant. I didn't know whether to raise it because I hate doing that thing of not being sure. But I thought, well, it's so consequential and it is what we were talking about was regime change. And anyway, now we know he is dead. It's hugely consequential. Leaders are always important in any organization, any government, any country. But I think maybe especially so in dictatorships because ultimately power flows to the top and when that ultimate power falls, there is inevitably a vacuum. And we'll obviously talk a lot today about who fills that. I think also, Rory, you know, we are generally very critical of both Trump and Netanyahu on so many levels. And we will continue, no doubt, to be so again today. But I think it is worth just pointing now, as with the Americans decapitation of Maduro in Venezuela, or the U.S. israeli hits on the Iran nuclear program, or the amazing operation by the Israelis to take out the Hezbollah leadership by making their pagers all simultaneously explode. You have to recognize the extraordinary intelligence penetration, particularly, I suspect, of the Israelis, but also the Americans and the military prowess. And so I think from that perspective, I think you have to recognize this has been a phenomenal operation.
- [03:00]
Rory Stewart
I agree. I mean, just on that one. I mean, one of the things that was. I was thinking about it, too, in the morning, is that we've entered a very, very new world of warfare because of technology. I mean, basically, this way of behaving wasn't really an option first, Second World War, Vietnam War, you know, if we were dealing with Nazi Germany, what we were not doing is sending in precision missiles to take out Hitler, Goering and Goebbels on day one. And what it means is that the US And Israel now are able to deploy this extraordinary technology much more instantaneously and at much lower cost to themselves, it feels, in the short term. In other words, one of the challenges of this is that for the countries like the US And Israel that have these kinds of missiles and this kind of targeting and this kind of satellite intelligence, it feels as though war is much more low risk than it would have felt even five, 10 years ago. And therefore, it increases the chance of them doing it again and again around the world. We'll get on to the other things that are keeping me up at night, which is that I think we haven't talked properly about what kind of threat Iran really posed and why I don't believe it actually posed an imminent threat with the capacity to do what people are suggesting. And we can also talk about the, I think, the really big legal moral problems with the way that US And Israel has conducted itself. But in the background, it becomes more and more tempting for Trump to use these sort of, I don't know whether I would say, weapons or even toys in his arsenal almost at whim, because he's beginning to get the impression all around the world that he can do this stuff and there's no consequence. And anyone who would have said in the past, oh, be very careful here, what could happen? What could go wrong? He's beginning to get the idea that he can do this wherever he wants with zero US Casualties.
- [05:09]
Alistair Campbell
Well, and so far in this one, zero US Casualties, which is pretty remarkable, I doubt whether that's going to stay the same, depending partly on how Iran react. But, you know, historically, they have tried to find targets where there will be Americans, will be Israelis, not necessarily in America and Israel that may happen. This episode is powered by fuse energy.
- [05:33]
Rory Stewart
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Alistair Campbell
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Rory Stewart
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Alistair Campbell
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- [06:02]
Rory Stewart
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- [06:10]
Alistair Campbell
Switch to Fuse Energy and save around £200 on your energy bills. Use the code Politics for a free trip subscription. Fuseenergy.com politics that point though, that you made there about how Trump thinks about this, because of course he thinks that during his first term he had all these great ideas and all these so called grown ups around him stopped him from doing them. And he thinks that first, for example, when he said I'm going to move the embassy to Jerusalem and everybody in the foreign policy establishment said don't do that, it will create violence, it will create protests, it will create American civilians being killed in Israel. And none of that happened. So he said, you see, I was right, you were wrong. Now what's the next thing? And then he did it as a similar pattern with the Iran nuclear hits. Don't do it. It will only provoke them even more. And again, not that much happens. So I think he's thinking he's very, very special, he can get away with it. There's a very I mentioned the piece in the Foreign affairs magazine yesterday. I read another one last night which actually was published before these strikes, but it was by a guy called Nate Swanson who was an advisor on Iran to Trump and to Biden and who said that this is the pattern with Trump now. But on this one he's making a big mistake because and it goes to the point that we made yesterday that the Iranians fear subordination and defeat much, much more than they fear war. And he actually made the point. It's very telling given what's happened overnight. One of the pieces I read in Foreign affairs said that Ali Khamenei would rather be martyred than ever even to indicate that he might give the sorts of concessions that the Trump administration is being asked for. Being asking for in relation, for example, to nukes. But I think just on the intelligence point, Rory, I think still think of Intelligence, as you know, it's sort of James Bond and all that stuff. And that still goes on. Don't believe me, don't get me wrong, there will be very, very, very brave people on the ground in Iran, on the ground around the Gulf, who are intelligence operatives. But you're talking a lot now about technological stuff. And it seems that what happened is that they had an idea where Ali Khamenei was going to be at a certain point in the day. They then discovered that he was going to be there earlier, they expected and they decided to go for it. What I don't think they banked on was that there were going to be so many people in that compound, not just his family, but serious senior military intelligence. I mean, the Times of Israel published a list of the names of the people that the Israeli government says have been taken out. And it's a kind of who's who of the Israeli defense and military and
- [09:00]
Rory Stewart
politically established of the Iranian defence military,
- [09:03]
Alistair Campbell
of the Iranian military establishment. Now they're replacing them pretty quickly. They've already got a new head of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, they've already got a new head of those parts of the military that have been hit, but they have taken a very, very substantial hit. And then, I don't know what you're hearing about where that might go now in terms of how the overall response is now measured because there is a vacuum. They're trying to fill it by saying there's this had a process in place and, and by the way, it's inevitable they will have had a process in place because, you know, it's his, most
- [09:40]
Rory Stewart
of his for two, two reasons. They saw Israel do it to their proxies, Hezbollah. And what happened when the 1200 members of leadership were knocked out instantaneously. And then they saw it when the US Israeli strikes a few months ago took out or attempted to take out all the senior leadership at that point. And they were lucky actually that they weren't all killed then, although of course the IRGC commander was killed then. So the guy that's just been killed is the successor of the guy that was correct killed by the American strikes a few months ago.
- [10:07]
Alistair Campbell
But there was. So I was, remember I said yesterday that I wondered whether that what might happen here is that we end up with a sort of Delsey Rodriguez type situation. And somebody who knows Iran very, very well sent me a message saying, if you're looking for Delsey Rodriguez in this, look no further than Ali Larry Janney, but then said, assuming he's not dead too and this is a guy who was the ex speaker of the Parliament. He's currently secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. And interestingly, he was the one who was first out of the traps saying, no, I'm not dead, and being very, very belligerent in his language about what would now happen to the Zionist criminals and all that stuff. But he was also the first person out there who was setting out something of a process, what he called a temporary leadership mechanism. The president, the head of the judiciary and the jurist from what's called the Guardian Council. They would take control for now and then an assembly of experts clerics would decide the next supreme leader. Now, Ali, this guy, I hadn't, I must be honest, I didn't know who this guy was at all. But I checked him out. He was involved in nuclear negotiations. He was their principal coordinator with Russia, Qatar and Oman. He was the guy who put together Iran's 25 year partnership agreement with China, worth billions. The only thing is he's not a senior Shiite cleric, so that he may end up being the fixer rather than the next leader. But his role today, it seems to me, was to say, the king is dead. There will be another king along shortly. And you get the feeling they may even have already decided who that may be. But I think that what now, I think people are starting to work out because my big worry and keeping me awake at night last night, Roy, and I don't know whether this is the. One of the things that was keeping you awake is Trump is almost openly admitting that he doesn't really have a kind of day after plan in place. They've done the strikes.
- [12:12]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, yeah, go on. Well, I mean, I just, I mean I just, I mean I was in a. Been talking to people who are close to the Israeli position and people who are close to the US Department of War position and people who are actually close to the hawkish side, weirdly even of the Australian governments. But their take on this is, well, who knows? I mean, when I say, well, what's going to happen next? What are you actually expecting to happen, right? Are you expecting this to be a new regime, person taking over and nothing changing, you've just got rid of the top? Or are you expecting a civil war which could have the Baluch and the Kurds fighting Persians? Or are you expecting a standoff between a new liberal regime and former regime elements battling it out? Are you expecting floods of refugees? Or are you expecting a military dictatorship which is more friendly towards the Israel and us? What is it? And their Answer is, well, we don't know, right? And then I say, well, it's not good enough. What do you mean you don't know? You can't do this and not know. And the response then is, well, I'm sure there are some very smart people in the Pentagon who've thought this through.
- [13:32]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I'm sure.
- [13:32]
Rory Stewart
Which again, I'm like, well, I'm not so sure there are some very smart people in the Pentagon to sort this through and that's not good enough. You can't just rely on, well, I'm sure somebody else has thought this through.
- [13:43]
Alistair Campbell
You won't be surprised when you, when you said that I had a slight Iraq shiver.
- [13:50]
Rory Stewart
Well, the other thing that you get is, look, the fundamental experience, if we go back to, you've just made the Iraq comment, if we go back over the last 25 years, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, the fundamental lesson is that the apparently very smart people sitting in the capitals in Washington and elsewhere didn't anticipate how badly and unpredictably things can go wrong. And this doesn't feel so much like Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq and Afghanistan were nation building failures. They were failures where we put hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground and, and the US and its allies spent thousands of billions of dollars trying to rebuild them. This feels more like Libya where effectively we went after the bad guy, in that case Gaddafi. And all the same arguments, right? It's the, you know, when you questioned it, you said, are you saying Gaddafi is a good guy? Look what he's doing in Benghazi. Look at all the political prisoners he's killed. Look at the fact he tried to get a nuclear weapon. So we go after Gaddafi, we topple him. The result is not just that Libya was plunged into civil war and that it remains to this day basically split as a state, but actually that it shoved problems right across the region. So one of the reasons why we've had military coups, Chad, Niger, Mali, collapse in Sudan is directly the result of the problems we pushed out of Libya by toppling Gaddafi. So, you know, I do think this question of consequences, I think there's three different things to ask. What kind of regime was this? And is there a way of saying this was a wicked, evil regime that gunned down, murdered its own people, supported Hezbollah, supported Hamas, supported the Houthis? The Shia militias had proxies through the region. But also get into the question, but how much of a real threat was it on Friday and Saturday did you need to do this to them now?
- [16:03]
Alistair Campbell
And what was the legal basis, I mean, if I. Again, thinking back to Iraq, if I think through the. The processes and indeed the enormous political pain that we went through in the pursuit of a legal route, both legal, as in parliamentary, us, Constitutional, United nations and all that went into that. And what Trump is basically saying is, I don't care about any of that. And what that means for governments like the uk, for European governments, for Japan, for Australia, for Canada and countries that you might normally expect the Americans to reach out and say, support us, be alongside us, is that they would find it impossible to say there is a legal case. It was very interesting. John Healy, the UK Defence Secretary today, was. Was saying his basic line was, nobody's going to weep for Ayatollah Khomeini, Terrell Mann, et cetera, et cetera, but it's for the US to set out the legal case for this. In other words, I can't quite see it because there is. There was no imminent threat.
- [17:11]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, well, we're just going to just sort of step back for a second because I think the thing that's really been winding me up is the sense that the fact that we have to try to explain why traditionally US Presidents were supposed to explain and justify what they were doing legally to Congress. It's meant to approve the war, ideally to the United nations, certainly to their European allies. We took it for granted that they needed to do that, and they needed to do that because we understood that it's very dangerous to have a world where the US President can himself, individually, on a whim, suddenly say, this country deserves to have its entire leadership killed and I'm going to go to war with that country. Because a single individual can be motivated by a lot of weird things. They could have wrong information, they could have irrational fears, they could be corrupt, they could be a megalomania, they could be trying to wag the dog, they could be doing all the things, just hypothetically, Mr. Trump, I'm not, by the
- [18:18]
Alistair Campbell
way, you know, that you're a corrupt megalomaniac on Wag the Dog. Tommy, Vita pod Save America, who normally shares our utter loathing and cynicism about Trump, he actually said, I'm not sure about your wag the Dog thing. I said, why not? He says, because attacking Iran like this is even more hated than Trump and the Epstein files. So the idea he's getting away from Epstein by doing this, he wasn't convinced. But I still think there is something, not necessarily on distraction per se, but I think, look, the one thing we've said again, and again, about Trump, even when he's right, and I'm not saying, well, I think he may be doing the right thing, but he's doing it very much in the wrong way with potentially disastrous consequences. But he is always all about attention. And boy, has this given him attention. And boy, does it mean that we're not talking about all the other stuff that he doesn't want us to. But that's true.
- [19:16]
Rory Stewart
But it's amazing because the basic argument that I was hearing from people supporting him this morning, even very, very smart, educated people right at the center of government, is pretty straightforward. Either you're with Trump or you're with the ayatollah. And if you suggest that what Trump did was illegal and reckless, you must be a supporter of the Iranian regime. And it's a real sense that something has gone wrong. I sort of feel that it's a really desperate indication of something leaving the soul of our entire civilization. If we can't understand that, you can say that somebody is evil, a regime is wicked. Right. And, and that would be true of Iran, deeply true of Iran, probably true of Myanmar, true of Sudan. I could probably name another five countries in South Africa.
- [20:14]
Alistair Campbell
Putin says it of Zelensky, Putin says Zelensky, absolutely. And Trump a lot of the time supports Putin.
- [20:21]
Rory Stewart
But, but I mean, we, we, I think it's odd that we, presumably domestically, I hope, still understand that it's not enough to say I think this person is evil for me to justify suddenly shooting them lawlessly in the street. Right.
- [20:38]
Alistair Campbell
No, but Rory, can I just say as well on the domestic politics of this, because, look, war is always difficult for any government. And the UK special relationship and all that is in a very, very tough place on this. In a way, it is like a sort of reverse of Iraq. You know, Iraq, uk, US joined at the hip. Keir Starmer's first statement on this yesterday was very much to say we were not involved. And then he did talk about how awful the regime was, but he also talked about the importance of law, the importance of alliance, etc. And I do think we maybe are reaching that moment. If we go back to Mark Carney's speech at Davos, where he talked about the middle powers coming together, re establishing a sense of order and what's right and what's wrong. Maybe this is the point at which we've reach that. But just to underline your point, so yesterday, Keir Starmer spoke to Merz, spoke to Macron, and I think the E3 thing, Britain, France, Germany is beginning to mean something in this context. And Lindsey.
- [21:37]
Rory Stewart
And they made a joint. A joint statement, which is something that we've been doing for a long time.
- [21:41]
Alistair Campbell
For some time. Yeah. And it was very much making those big points. Out comes Lindsey Graham, who's a hardliner on Iran, and he's a Republican. He's very close to Trump, and he says, to say, I'm disappointed would be an understatement to the leaders of France, Germany, and the UK The Iranian people are not wrong to demand the end to their oppression from the bloodthirsty ayatollahs regime that has American and European blood on their hands. You collectively are the ones that are wrong by refusing to come to their aid. Adding insult to injury, you're suggesting we should continue to negotiate with religious. Which, by the way, Kushner and Wyckoff were doing up until Thursday. It is pathetic how far Western Europe has fallen. You have gone pathetically soft, lost your zeal for confronting evil, unless it's on your own front porch. So sad. He's even sounding like Trump.
- [22:38]
Rory Stewart
Well, exactly. Well, let's push back. Okay. I mean, if Lindsey Graham wants to have this argument, they have completely missed where the real threat is in the world. Completely missed it. What Iran has demonstrated in its response over the last 36 hours is that Iran was not an imminent existential threat to the United States, to Europe, or even to the region. Iran appears to have tried to release its maximal response, and it ended up killing, I don't know, less than half a dozen people. This is not a country that is an existential threat to global security. Yes, it funded proxies. Yes, it funded terrorism. Yes, it did horrendous things in the past. But in terms of the legal test, which is, is this an imminent threat, and does it have the capacity to existentially threaten? No. Which country does? Russia. I mean, just try to compare for a second Trump's attitude to Russia and Trump's attitude to Iran. As I just pointed out, Iran is an impoverished, bankrupt country that was able to fly a few ballistic missiles in and kill less than half a dozen people. In this latest round of attacks, Russia has launched a war in which they've seized 20% of a European state, has caused 1.2 million casualties, threatens the entire existence of NATO, the Baltic, and the
- [24:11]
Alistair Campbell
Western alliance, $600 billion worth of damage.
- [24:15]
Rory Stewart
And what is Trump doing in response to that?
- [24:18]
Alistair Campbell
Helping.
- [24:18]
Rory Stewart
He's removed $50 billion of U.S. financial support for Ukraine. He's threatening to cut off satellite support. He's weakening the NATO alliance. He's flattering Putin. If these guys actually cared about regional security, if anything, any of this was actually to do with making the world a safer place, they would be focusing on Ukraine and Russia, not bombing Iran.
- [24:43]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, well, on the back, I've never met Lindsey Graham, but on the back of it, because we've got our interview on Leading with Gavin Newsom coming out tomorrow, I, I said, I whatsapped him and said, is Lindsey Graham as big a slime ball as he seems? And he came back 200%. So he's obviously got Trump's double percentage issue. I'll tell you the other thing, Roy, that when I mean, we said at the start, you know, this is a kind of historic development, historic event, no doubt about that at all. It'll be written about and, and talked about for decades and right into the future and sometimes how history moves on, actual at the time, possibly seemingly small decisions. This came from this piece by this guy, Nate Swanson, and he said that when Trump said he was going to come to the aid of Iran's protesters. Do you remember a few weeks ago.
- [25:38]
Rory Stewart
Yeah.
- [25:39]
Alistair Campbell
But then he held off and he offered negotiations. Okay. And what this guy Swanson is saying is that was a massive opening for Tehran, if they could have taken it, but it squandered the opening. The idea apparently was a regional summit in Turkey between foreign ministers and which was deliberately made to look a little bit like the framework that Obama had. And then he had this really interesting line. Iran simply couldn't bring itself to let Trump save face and score a symbolic win. In truth, this is when Khamenei is still alive. Khamenei is just as obsessed with appearances as Trump is. He's made it impossible for his negotiating team to offer even minor compromises, much less the kind of big concession Trump is demanding. So it's interesting, you know, the negotiations and we said on, when we did the podcast yesterday, the Omani negotiator, the foreign minister, and by the way, Oman's now been added to the list of countries that have been attacked by Iran. But the Omani negotiator, he was actually talking about confidence and progress and felt things were moving in the right direction. But what this guy seems to be saying, we've thought about Trump in terms of fake negotiation, but maybe Khamenei was doing the same.
- [26:53]
Rory Stewart
Well, listen, I mean, I think we, we keep circling around the same problem, which is Khamenei was a terrible man. He was a blood soaked autocrat opposing as a cleric without much deep theological learning. He was Basically, a frontline revolutionary, and his regime was horrible. And tens of millions of Iranians turn deeply against this regime. It had almost no support left, and they're desperate for it to be toppled. But, but, but anyone who believes Trump claiming that the reason he did this was for the human rights of the Iranian people, which is the Lindsey Graham argument, or that, you know, what got Netanyahu out of bed in the morning, is what they really want to do is help the human rights of the Iranian people. It's for the birds, right? This is, at best them saying, this is a nasty regime that had proxies with Hezbollah, Houthi, Hamas, and the Shia militia. And this is our opportunity. This is the best chance we're ever going to get. Not because they're a threat, but because they're weak. Yeah, we're going to take them out actually, at the moment, not when they pose a threat. We're going to take them out at the moment when we know that really, they're not going to be able to do much damage to us. They were not on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. They were not on the verge of being able to wipe other countries off the map. And why am I saying that? Not to whitewash them or say the Iranian regime is pleasant, but to say that the whole global order depends on a much higher bar than just saying this is an unpleasant regime that in the past threatened regional stability. Once you start that game, look at what's happening with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Look what's happening with Thailand and Cambodia. Look what's happening with Azerbaijan and Armenia. Look what's happening with Rwanda and the Congo. Look what's happening in the Sudan. Look what's happening in Libya. I mean, so the. The world is a very nasty place, but you don't make it better by the US And Israel getting out of bed in the morning, arbitrarily saying, this is the number one priority in the world, ignoring much bigger problems like Russia and Ukraine and killing the leadership of Iran.
- [29:14]
Alistair Campbell
And then people like Lindsey Graham, who will then be ventilated by people like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe. And all these people basically turn on your allies because they're not 100% echoing what you have suddenly just decided to do without any consultation with your allies whatsoever.
- [29:34]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, well, Boris Johnson will do this initially. I mean, he's, you know, you were teasing me about the liberal bedwetter article when he said, rory, there's a lefty bedwetter. Lefty bedwetter. Okay, lefty. And basically what he was saying there is, because I am saying that Trump is engaged in illegal, reckless, immoral foreign policy. That must mean that I'm a great defender of the Iranian regime or the Chinese regime. And am I not aware of how nasty the Iranians are or how nasty the Chinese are? Is it? Why? How can somebody like Boris Johnson, who pretends to be educated, be in a world where he thinks it's enough just to say, here is a nasty regime and therefore anything Trump does. Anything he does.
- [30:19]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, I blame the school.
- [30:20]
Rory Stewart
Must be fine.
- [30:20]
Alistair Campbell
I blame the school he went to, Roy. I just don't think he got a proper education there. I really do. But also, look, I would really like to do some terrible things to Boris Johnson, but I'm not going to go out and do them. Well, you know, depending on, obviously on how I feel.
- [30:36]
Rory Stewart
But I mean, apart from you taking that example, which is a decent example, the reason also we set a much higher bar and we demand an imminent threat is also because of the unintended consequences, because you're stepping into a dark room, because we've seen in Iraq and Syria and Libya and Afghanistan what happens when these things go wrong. So, again, one of the sad things is, of course, I completely understand so many Iranians are so relieved that Hamany's died.
- [31:10]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah.
- [31:10]
Rory Stewart
So many of them are saying, you know, as many Venezuelans did after Maduro was, you know, why are you not celebrating this horrible person's gone? But of course, I remember so many educated Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans celebrating the removal of the Taliban, celebrating the removal of Gaddafis, celebrating the removal of Saddam Hussein, because they assumed that once the person at the top had gone, things would get much better. And then, of course, what they went into is a massive journey of disappointment in which the United States gets blamed. That's the other thing Trump isn't remembering right either. They try to do nation building, Iraq and Afghanistan, and it goes wrong. And you're told that you did the wrong kind of nation building, or you don't do nation building, which is what they did in Libya, in which case you're accused of having just toppled the person and left civil war to unlevel.
- [31:59]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. But you've also got a situation now where so the president possess Kian. He's out saying that they now have the duty, the legitimate duty and right to avenge the killing of Khamenei. And it. And then you see immediately these huge protests in Pakistan, in various parts of Pakistan, which have led to quite a few people being killed. I'm not seeing the latest numbers. But there were people being killed in these. As this violence erupted, you're seeing similar protests being put down pretty violently in Bangladesh and other parts of the world. Because what the Iranians inevitably are saying is this is a declaration of war against all Muslims and then particularly against Shiites everywhere in the world. Pezeshkian said that in terms now then that will play in because of our, you know, nasty populist extremist politics in Europe as well. That will play into the debates around some of these issues here. And that's the reason why politicians actually have and states people have to be a little bit more careful. This is the point, my friend. The diplomat said yesterday when he couldn't understand the hubris and the arrogance of basically saying, because we're America, we're going to do this and it's going to work out exactly as we think it will and we want it to. And look, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, there's plenty that you've mentioned where that's been the case. But in this one, they haven't even spelt out really what they see the objective as being. They haven't said it's about building a stable Middle East. They haven't said it's about get developing democracy in Iran. They're basically saying we're going to get rid of the Aya. Well, they've done that. And now what.
- [33:47]
Rory Stewart
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- [33:57]
Alistair Campbell
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- [33:59]
Rory Stewart
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- [34:14]
Alistair Campbell
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- [34:17]
Rory Stewart
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Alistair Campbell
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Rory Stewart
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- [34:53]
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- [35:29]
Rory Stewart
I also think we're not thinking about what the consequences will be. A long way beyond Iran. So what people can now see is an American presidency that effectively says, if we don't like you, we will come after you. If you decide to prosecute in Brazil, my friend Bolsonaro, I'm going to put 50% tariffs against you. If I feel a meeting in the Oval Office hasn't gone well, I'm going to ask for $500 billion worth of minerals. If I've had an argument with you, I'm going to put your tariffs up to 37%. Oh, and in this case, if I think the negotiations aren't going very well, despite the fact you don't have a nuclear weapon, you haven't really got a ballistic missile threat to the region. I'll come in and I'll kill you all right? And now. And I'm not going to consult with the UN and there's not going to be any norms, it's not going to be legal arguments. I'm just going to do it whenever I want, about almost whenever a su I want. And the result, I think, is that people who do not consider themselves the United States closest allies, and I wonder who those people still are. But the rest of the world, the kind of global south, to quote your friend the president of Finland, is going to be thinking, wait a second, are they going to come after us like this? Right when an American ambassador turns up in country X and sub Saharan Africa?
- [36:52]
Alistair Campbell
That's why they're looking to China. Yeah, that's why.
- [36:56]
Rory Stewart
And by the way, if you don't do it, we're going to come and we're just going to assassinate you. Your entire cabinet, all your military command, you're all going to be dead now. And we're not going to do it with the un. We're not going to do it. So I was thinking about man for All Seasons, and I don't even remember this kind of great moment where Thomas More says, what would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil. And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide the laws all being flat?
- [37:33]
Alistair Campbell
I ought to be able to beat you on this one, because I played Roper.
- [37:37]
Rory Stewart
Oh, my Lord. You were Roper.
- [37:39]
Alistair Campbell
I was Roper in a school.
- [37:41]
Rory Stewart
Well, that's addressed to Roper, isn't it?
- [37:43]
Alistair Campbell
That's. But I don't remember it. You've just got a far, far better memory than I've got. I mean, I think that I do. I do think, though, one of the other things that's coming out of this and this comes through all this, we should actually put in the newsletter some of these foreign affairs magazine articles. A time like this, you'd, you know, looking through their back catalog of the stuff they've written about Iran over the last few years is really, really interesting. But one of the points that Rob Malley made in our interview on Leading recently, Rob Malley, the former Biden adviser on Iran, he said, and he wasn't just sort of criticizing Trump on this, he basically said US Administrations generally don't really understand Islamic cultures and don't. I think Trump is imagining that their motivations are somehow the same as his. And I think they're very, very, very, very different. And I do think the more I read into this, it's very interesting. I was reading a lot of the Israeli media today because I think it's, you know, it's very interesting reading there. You really get the feeling, reading the Israeli media, Netanyahu is driving this every bit as much as Trump is. And I think you even pick up little signs of the Israelis being a little bit pissed off that Trump is sort of, you know, doing all the blowhard stuff on this. The Israelis talked. They dropped 30 bombs on that compound in the first few minutes of this conflict. Now, I don't know what the exact numbers are, but you get the feeling the Israelis were driving this. And I think Netanyahu is absolutely clear about what he's trying to do with Trump. I think you have all sorts of different, a sense of different kind of motivations for what he's doing. It might be a bit of wag the dog. It certainly is about showing off American power. It is definitely saying, I'm not Barack Obama. I'm doing things that no other president would do. There may be financial interests at play. He's got so many different kind of games going on at the same time. And I think that is what makes people like you and me. And I don't think we're alone in this. In fact, I know we're not alone from the sort of messages we got yesterday. And, you know, we had over a million people watching and listening yesterday. Roy. Yeah, yeah. I think people are genuinely alarmed by his motivations.
- [39:57]
Rory Stewart
I'm so interested in the comments and thank you guys for coming in because basically what we've got here, I think, is people putting pretty well so many of the different arguments here. There's a fair number of people saying Rory's a bed wetter. There's Rory plays on a rug, which I assume means they think I'm a Muslim. Quite a lot about British appeasement. Brits always have the answers but never want to fight. From Cyber Trader246 with an American flag. That's a good American line. Brits always have the answers but never want to fight. That's exactly, presumably what Trump had to apologize for saying.
- [40:37]
Alistair Campbell
Exactly when he said that the allies will say that they sent a few people to Afghanistan.
- [40:42]
Rory Stewart
So maybe we need to send Cyber Trader 246. Al Khan says rather good video on the fighting he did in Afghanistan. And then all you idiots blathering about Russia and Ukraine, nobody's going to attack Russia. Get that stupid idea out of your head. Okay, listen, why am I talking about Russia, Ukraine? Because there's some people now on social media you might have seen saying Trump is a strategic genius, that the world is in a much better, safer place today than it is a year ago. And the argument they make is this, Hezbollah have been wiped out, the Syrian regime has been toppled, the Iranian leadership has now been wiped out. And all of this is seen as a sign that Trump has made a much safer world. Right. But they're missing this enormous Russian shaped elephant in the room. The really big test on whether Trump has made a safer world is Russia and Ukraine. That's the much, much bigger issue than any of these things. It's only Russia and Ukraine that really poses an existential threat to the West. It's only Russia and Ukraine where 1.2 million people are killed, 20% of the territory is taken, et cetera. And there's Trump has completely failed. And if I look at all the data since the first Trump presidency, look at the number of refugees, the number of internally displaced people, the number of civilians killed in conflict, the amount of conflict in the world is accelerating. And people defending Trump and saying he's a strategic genius don't seem to be able to understand that he can get a short term success killing an ayatollah, but the medium long term consequences, you can see you can see it in Afghanistan, Pakistan, you can see it in Thailand. Company see it in all these called peace deals that Trump does, which are basically a list of conflicts which have been sparked under his office.
- [42:30]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I mean, the most obvious cartoon, which virtually many, many cartoonists around the world seem to have done yesterday, was a picture of the Board of Peace and Trump saying, I'm bored of peace, because he was, as it were, launched. I mean, this is. He talks about he's brought eight wars to an end, but he's bombed an awful lot of places. Now in our lifetime, it is not unusual that American presidents use military action, but he does seem to be doing it quite a lot. He likes to do it in a way where he does it quickly. Venezuela, he says what the objective is, he says he's met it and he sort of gets out and then he kind of does lots of deals. I think the point that Nate Swanson was making, that in this one it is much less straightforward because the Iranians are much more powerful and they are even without their leader, they will get another one and they are much more organized. Now, we should also say, Roy, as you said earlier, I mean, I've got a friend who's Iranian who lives in London who has been messaging me for days. You know, is it true? Is he gone? Is he going? Is he going really, really excited and happy, possibly even thinking that, you know, someday they might be able to go back. Our friend Justin Forsyth, who's working with the Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah. You know, there are a lot of people to whom this is an amazing positive moment. We should acknowledge there are on the streets in Tehran, some people are out mourning, but other people are out waving flags saying, we love Trump. Thank you, Trump. That is going on.
- [44:02]
Rory Stewart
Can I interrupt for a second? Why? Look, Lewis James Phillips at 2:59pm don't his regiments.
- [44:08]
Alistair Campbell
Rory.
- [44:08]
Rory Stewart
His regime was horrible. I think it's a wonderful way of looking at public opinion and the way in which people frame this. His regime was horrible, nasty, killed many, many people. Rory. They'd made the world a safer place and to have the front to be coming out with garbage like you. I'll get a life now, why is it so difficult to explain, dear Louis James, Philip, that the regime can be horrible and nasty and kill many, many people. And also Trump doing what he's doing doesn't make the world a safer place.
- [44:38]
Alistair Campbell
Doesn't necessarily.
- [44:41]
Rory Stewart
We should just think about Iraq, right? I mean, Saddam Hussein was horrible, nasty, killed many, many people. Louis James Phillips, do You think the intervention in Iraq made the world a safer place? Gaddafi was horrible, nasty, killed many, many people. Do you think what we did in Libya made the world a safer place? Right.
- [44:56]
Alistair Campbell
The thing I say about Libya as well, I think is relevant to this. Libya was a very good example of when you try, when you get regime change largely using air power. This is air power that's being used here now, Iraq, at great cost both to the US And UK and Denmark and Australia and others was also boots on the ground. And we just don't know this. The other point this guy Nate Swanson makes, we just don't know where this war develops, whether eventually you do end up up getting dragged slowly into a situation which caused. This is the other strategic point for the MAGA crowd. Trump was adamant somebody was playing the clips on, I think it was CNN or yesterday, playing all the clips of when he said during the campaign, you won't get any new wars under me. There will be no wars. There will be no wars with me and all these people waving Trump for peace. Trump the peacemaker. So I think there's. Look, I think it's important for you and me, Rory, to try to park what Gavin Newsom, as you'll hear on the podcast tomorrow, rightfully acknowledged, is my Trump derangement syndrome. I do have a little bit of that, just as I probably have a bit of Johnson derangement syndrome. But what these people who are saying, why can't you see it so clearly? This makes the world a safer place. We don't know that it's going to make the world a safer place. You and I both think it probably won't in the long term. But the truth is, none of us know, and that includes Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.
- [46:24]
Rory Stewart
Well, it's that, but. Okay, so let's say you're right. I actually disagree. I think we've got pretty good reason to think it won't make the world a safer place because of these second thirds.
- [46:33]
Alistair Campbell
I said that. I said that.
- [46:34]
Rory Stewart
No, but you said we don't know. I think we do know that it'll make the world more dangerous. Because I think what we're not thinking about is almost regardless of what happens in Iran, what are the second third order consequences? And what I was trying to get to is if you were a country that began to sense the American President could do whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted without international things. Yes. As you say, you ally with China. You also rush to get nuclear weapons. Right. Who are the countries that they're not doing this to who are equally nasty and unpleasant, just like the Iranian regime, North Korea, Russia. Why? Because they got nuclear weapons. Right.
- [47:05]
Alistair Campbell
And. And also North Korea is fighting them for Russia against Ukraine.
- [47:08]
Rory Stewart
Let me know. Let me, Let me just suggest this. Imagine you were a wealthy Gulf state at the moment. Right. And you look at this and you think, well, what if a future American president got out of bed in the morning and thought, suddenly decided that I was an autocratic regime and that I had locked a lot of people up, or I'd chopped somebody up with a chainsaw and he was going to take action against me and try to wipe me out and my leadership out. Or let's say you were another Gulf state and you thought that Israel was going around Washington telling everybody that you were a state sponsor of terror, a backer of Hamas, and the world would be a better place if you were wiped off the map. And in fact, Israel had already been firing missiles at you. Right. Are you going to feel, looking at this, as though you're in a situation where you can relax? No. You're going to be feeling you are now on a knife edge of the United States being influenced by somebody into thinking that they have the right to go after you. With no UN process, no international law, no allies, what do you do? Well, if you've got a lot of money, you buy a nuclear weapon. You build a nuclear weapon. Of course you build a nuclear weapon. So I think that this is why Trump may be lucky if Iran suddenly turns out to be a liberal democratic state in a year's time. That's a wonderful thing for the Iranian people. Great. But that doesn't justify what Trump does. Right. I mean, let's say I do something completely reckless and crazy, and there's a good result at the end of it. That doesn't justify. I don't want to sound like some pompous philosopher. It doesn't justify my act. Right. And if the consequences for the rest of the world are to destroy the international legal order, make everybody else get nuclear weapons, go into the shadow of China.
- [49:00]
Alistair Campbell
You know, you said, we were talking yesterday about what might follow. And I said, maybe they will go for the kind of Delsey Rodriguez take off the head, but then put somebody else in. There was an interview on the radio this morning with one of Trump's Iran advisers in his first term, I think a guy called Abrahams, I think his name was, and he actually said that if the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were able to show it had changed its behavior, did not want to attack its neighbors or attack its own people, then he thinks that Trump would be able to live with that. That which I think would, you know. And so that I think is if you go through the possible various outcomes that we might get, you've talked about the possible chaos, civil war outcome, we've talked yesterday about the outcome where basically the Iranian regime just stays as it is, but I guess is the best possible option, not really democracy, because that's going to be such a hard road to get down. Maybe eventually you get there, but in the short term, is it not got a military, a Revolutionary Guard Corps type government that is much more pragmatic and
- [50:09]
Rory Stewart
less ideological, 100% from Israel's point of view, I think the one thing they want is to feel that Iran is not a threat to Israel. That's fundamentally what they consider. And I've had Iranian officials say about Syria, and I imagine they'd say the same about Iran, that they don't care if Syria is a weak, failed, broken state with the Druze breaking off, the Alawites breaking off. In fact, they'll continue to bomb it and wipe out the military. All that they care about is it's not a threat to Israel. So if Iran is no longer a threat to Israel, I think Netanyahu will be happy. And Trump, I guess, has no interest, as far as I can see, in democracy or human rights or any of this kind of stuff. What actually matters to Trump? Well, what matters is being able to declare a victory, really. I don't think he's very concerned about what kind of constitution there is, what happens there. He'll want to be able to say he's got some oil deals, and then he'll want everyone to forget it and he'll move on to someone else. I doubt Trump can name three cities in Iran, Certainly never been there. I mean, the idea that the guy we heard this from, Anthony Scaramucci, trying to brief him on the Middle east, it turned out that Trump knew so little that. That Scaramucci was trying to show him clips from Lawrence of Arabia to try to give him the most kind of basic information. So the idea that Trump has somehow got a geostrategic analysis. So if you were to sit down with Trump and say, how strong is the Revolutionary Guard? Do you think the tradition of martyrdom and Shia Islam and the tradition of Karbala and the Shaheed is going to be important, he'd look at you as though he'd gone completely mad. He doesn't have any thought. If it turned out that he'd struck, I Don't know, some other country, he'd be perfectly happy provided he could say, you know, aren't our missiles wonderful? Now, incidentally, people are saying two things which I think are worth saying. One of them is people are pointing out that three US Servicemen have been killed. Now, this has come in during our call. They said CENTCOM said it. Al Jazeera is reporting it. I think CENTCOM we can trust.
- [52:14]
Alistair Campbell
Yep.
- [52:14]
Rory Stewart
So that, that seems to be the case.
- [52:17]
Alistair Campbell
Well, that ups the ante.
- [52:19]
Rory Stewart
And, and that will be interesting because as you say, this is not popular in the United States. And the second thing is somebody saying Cuba will be next. Absolutely.
- [52:26]
Alistair Campbell
Well, that seems very likely to me.
- [52:27]
Rory Stewart
Cuba will be next.
- [52:28]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. There's also in the comments. I've not been studying the comments quite as closely as you, Roy, because as you know, I don't really read comments on social media very much. But it's very interesting. Just that when you were talking there, two came in at the same time. One was from Mr. Mr. Ploby and it said of us, Trump derangement syndrome on full show. No solutions, just pathetic hand wringing. Trump has solved Gaza, solving Iran after Biden failed on both, but no credit given. And then Cavilli says we can thank Trump for the demise of adherence to international law. So I'm afraid with all of these things, he's such a divisive figure that we're going to get that. We have, as yesterday, done a few sort of polling questions for people who are watching and listening. Was the war inevitable? Yes, 37. No, 63. Here's a really interesting question. Has international law ever truly been respected and adhered to in practice? Yes, 33. No, 67. I get that that is a really significant question because of course, the global south, or much of it, what used to be called the Third World, has long believed that actually international law is a sort of construct for the powerful nations to, to, to keep staying powerful. So I thought that was a very, very question. Good question. Are Trump's Iran strikes primarily, primarily motivated by a desire to strap from Epstein? Yes. 69. No, 31. But Tommy Vita says that's wrong.
- [53:49]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, well, look, I, I, I, I, I am really interested in the way in which the whole political context feeds into all of this, you know, your populism, post truth polarization stuff and criminality and corruption and cruelty. Because it's the political background that makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Things which basically you could have said comfortably for the last hundred years about the importance of due process. The Constitution, the rule of law, why presidents don't just get out of bed and on a whim, go and assassinate the leaders of another country. You didn't need to explain for about 100 years.
- [54:38]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah.
- [54:39]
Rory Stewart
And the fact that we are now in a world where I reckon probably half the population of the United States, half the population of Britain basically thinks it's enough to say these are nasty people and if they're nasty people, it's fair enough. And what are we grumbling about? Right. And I think there's so much of this is about the sense in which social media is killing us, has put us into this mad, polarized world. It's not just trolls. It's a sense that our minds are getting kind of flattened out. We're losing the ability to think two or three stages ahead. Everything has become either you're with Trump or you're a fan of the Iranian regime regime. And, and if you add to that the technology point which you began with, which is that we've now entered a world where these new forms of intelligence gathering, technology targeting, basically means that things feel pretty cost free for Israel and the US when they launch these things, then, then you're in a very weird world because you're putting together polarized, very superficial, very instantaneous spectacle politics with an ability to pull out weapons with what feels like to these leaders, very little risk or consequence.
- [56:03]
Alistair Campbell
Well, Rory, at the risk of opening up an enormous new chapter, you as the rest is politics resident AI guru. What are we to make of this open AI anthropic Department of War fandango over the last few days, where what you but appears to be calling a traitor, somebody who didn't want to allow him to use the AI models in whatever way he wanted, whatever it might be.
- [56:33]
Rory Stewart
Completely amazing story. So maybe just something to finish on, because if you really want to understand the world we're in, don't just look at the way that Trump gets involved in Brazilian prosecutions or, or kills leaders in Iran or kidnaps people in Venezuela. Look what he's doing to American business. So Anthropic is one of the most extraordinary, successful AI companies in the world. Not necessarily everybody here is using Claude, but anyone who's involved in business will be very, very aware of the power of these products. And they're particularly powerful in coding, and they've been working very closely with the Department of Defense. But Dario Modi, who was the, the head of safety at OpenAI, has also been one of the leading voices, one of the few leading voices talking perpetually about the risks of AI, talking about different types of risks, creating bioweapons all the way through to autonomous stuff. And what he said in a very respectful letter to Pete Hexseth is, I'm a patriotic American. We're very proud to be working with the Pentagon. We'd love to continue to support you. There are just two things we won't do do. We're not prepared to use our AI models for general surveillance, the American population. And the point he's making there is that the American law hasn't caught up with the way that the kind of data that's already available, openly churned through an AI model, would let the Department of Defense know so much about every American citizen in real time. And the second thing he said is, and we won't allow our AI to be used for autonomous weapons. In other words, the idea with autonomous weapons is because of jamming, particularly on the frontline. Russian, Ukraine, you want to be able to. The dream of the generals is you just fly a drone or a plane out there with no human being in it, and it doesn't even have to connect back to the base. There's no human control. There's not a fiber optic cable. There's not a radio signal. It just makes its own decisions who the hell it wants to kill. Right? And Dario Mode has said AI models are not reliable enough. They're just not reliable enough yet and maybe in the future. But at the moment, they're not reliable enough for you to release an AI autonomous weapon and just let it fly and decide who it's going to kill with no human control.
- [58:46]
Alistair Campbell
But the violence of Hegseth's letter to him was just.
- [58:49]
Rory Stewart
And then Hexus response is fascinating. So what Hegseth has said is not just the Pentagon will no longer buy, he said, any American company that has any commercial dealings of any sort with Anthropic going forward. And Anthropic as a company valued in the hundreds of billions, will not be able to do any business with the Pentagon in the future. So the idea is that Amazon or Google or Nvidia, who provide chips to the Pentagon, email services to the Pentagon, software phones to the Pentagon, will not be able to have any commercial readings. They'll have to divest all their billions of dollars of investment and anybody dealing them. These are the laws designed basically to deal with suppliers from China. This is what you do against an enemy, not what you do against an American company. Now, I hope this could be the beginning of Europe having a very serious conversation.
- [59:48]
Alistair Campbell
Get him In. Yeah, and give him 27 passports. But listen, hold on a minute saying,
- [59:53]
Rory Stewart
look, we cannot in Europe, not have our own foundation AI model. We can't be completely dependent on Trump's US or China. So why don't we say, okay, this is horrible and it's completely illegal what Hegseth is trying to do to Anthropic. But ideally, Rory isn't the worst.
- [60:13]
Alistair Campbell
Isn't the worst part of the story that Anthropic having been booted out of the negotiating room? Sam Altman just waltzes in and.
- [60:20]
Rory Stewart
And pick a deal and apparently says, I've no problem with you continuing with the kind of surveillance you're currently intending to do because it's currently legal in US law. And there will be human accountability, not human control. So what Altman seems to be saying is if the drone flies out and starts killing a bunch of innocent people, a human will be held accountable after the event.
- [60:41]
Alistair Campbell
Oh, great.
- [60:42]
Rory Stewart
But they won't be in control during the event.
- [60:44]
Alistair Campbell
Fantastic. Absolutely brilliant. Well, that gives me the heebie jeebies, the idea of these tech bros now being in charge of our AR armies. But a lot of that is happening already and it's been a very bad weekend for Tech Rory, because you probably saw Burnley were completely robbed by VAR and deprived one of the greatest comebacks ever. Final polling question. This was inspired by something you said earlier. Could Trump name three cities in Iran? 7% think yes, 58% think no. 35% say he couldn't name one. I think he could name one. He could definitely name one. One. Rory, thanks for joining up yet again. I think it's the first weekend we've ever done. Two emergency podcasts. Should also say people seem to be liking our new regular updated newsletter. It's a roundup newsletter. I write in it. I think Rory might be in it. The rest is classified. People there doing stuff. The link is in the description, you see. Thank you, Callum. That's the long suffering Callum, who wrote a very good piece in the last newsletter because he was, was. He was essentially making sure that I brushed my teeth and stuff like that on the trip to Ukraine.
- [61:48]
Rory Stewart
You did an amazing job getting you safely in and out of Ukraine. So I got a huge credit to come. We're glad to have you back and glad your voice is back.
- [61:57]
Alistair Campbell
Well, it's almost back. Almost there. Almost there. Right. I still feel rough, but we'll get there. How's everything?
- [62:02]
Rory Stewart
And thank you. Listen, all the members and the people who are commenting, thank you for coming in. Whether you agreed or disagreed. It's a great conversation. We've got to keep having it it because this is difficult stuff. Look, it's not easy judging what kind of threat Iran posed. It's not easy judging what the consequences of the intervention will be. And it's not easy trying to explain why international law matters when there's so much nonsense around international law last 20 years. So thank you all for joining the
- [62:25]
Alistair Campbell
conversation and see you soon.
- [62:27]
Rory Stewart
See you soon. Bye. Bye.
- [62:28]
Alistair Campbell
Bye.
- [62:35]
Rory Stewart
Did Vladimir Putin interfere in the US 2016 presidential election?
- [62:41]
Alistair Campbell
I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist.
- [62:43]
Rory Stewart
And I'm David McCloskey, author and former CIA analyst. And we are the hosts of the Rest Is Classified. And in our latest series, we're going deep inside the 2016 election to reveal the true story of whether the Russians helped Donald Trump take the White House. This is the unbelievable story of how
- [63:00]
Alistair Campbell
Russian spies first hacked and then leaked emails belonging to Hillary Clinton campaign, how Julian Assange got involved with Putin spies, and how 2016 marked the point that the world changed forever.
- [63:15]
Rory Stewart
Get the full insider scoop by listening to the Rest Is Classified. Wherever you get your podcasts.