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Iran Shoots Down US Helicopter - Iran War Update with Richard Miniter and Thomas Small
01:35:40
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- [00:00]
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- [00:31]
Host (Francis)
Hello everybody, and welcome to a very special edition of Trigonometry. We are here live with Francis, myself, obviously, but much more importantly, two of our favorite expert guests when it comes to the Middle east, the war in Iran, Israel, Lebanon. We'll talk about all of that. Richard Mineter, investigative journalist based in dc, author of numerous bestsellers. And of course, some of our episodes. Within one of our episodes, over a million views. The conversation we had with him and Eamon Dean about this conflict a couple of months back, Again, a million views. Thomas Small needs very little introduction. Co host of the Conflicted podcast with Eamon Dean again, has been on the show numerous times. All of them have absolutely crushed because he really does know what he's talking about. Welcome to you both, gentlemen.
- [01:20]
Thomas Small
Thank you very much. Nice to be here.
- [01:23]
Richard Miniter
Great to be here.
- [01:24]
Host (Francis)
It's great to have you. We wanted to do the thing that Francis and I always like to do, which is go big picture and talk about where we are, what's the situation, why isn't there peace yet, et cetera. But while we were getting ready to go on air, we just received news that a U.S. apache helicopter had been shot down, confirmed by President Trump. The pilots have been rescued. Richard, what can you tell us about that and perhaps the impact it's going to have on this conflict before we get into the big picture?
- [01:51]
Richard Miniter
So the shoot down happened last night. The rescue occurred late last night. Washington time. And the President and his people are scrambling to figure out what it means. So there are different factions trying to understand this event. It was apparently a Shahid drone. The question is, was it intentional or not intentional? This is the kind of very Washington question. If it's intentional, it means that this institution called the government of Iran is signaling that it's not no longer interested in peace and in fact wants to go back to war with the United States. But that's the question one faction is asking. Another faction is asking this question, is the Iranian government a unified entity? In other words, are there Iranian Revolutionary Guards units that were given orders before the late Ayatollah Khaimini was killed? That in the event of his departure from this earth that he would that they are to do the following. And are they then sort of blindly following the commands of a dead leader? And therefore, because it's a fractured government, they are not able to negotiate because some units are acting independently or independently of the current leadership. There's a third faction which is, hey, there's an election coming up in November and Republican voters who are desperately needed for the Trump people to avoid a two year cycle of investigations, impeachments and accusations are not likely to turn up if gas prices are high. And so let's wrap up this war however we do it, says the third faction, in order to have some hope of salvaging the midterm elections. So these are three different questions about three different things, none of which is really about the reality in Iran today. And it may well be what matters most in making peace. And I want to remind you of an Iranian proverb now the bowl is hotter than the soup. In other words, the interest of Iran in peace. The soup isn't very high and the Trump is trying to warm the bowl. Right? But it doesn't warm, it doesn't warm the soup. And it might be because the people in charge in Iran cannot figure out how they make peace and stay in power at the same time. They understand how they stay in power if they had working atomic weapons, because that's the North Korean strategy. They've looked at Ukraine, they've looked at Libya, and they've looked at North Korea and Pakistan and they've said, well, turned out better for the Pakistanis than the North Koreans, than for the Libyans and the Ukrainians, we think we'll choose atomic weapons, you know, from door number three, please. That option has been denied to them through the US and Israeli efforts and many other reasons. And I mean, one is the Russian scientists who are helping them were pointedly going slow because while it serves Putin's interest for Iran to be building a nuclear weapon, it does not serve Putin's interest for them to have a nuclear weapon. So there are, you have to realize that Iran is at the center of the world stage. China has an interest, Russia has an interest. It's not just the US versus Iran, but that to one side. And I've probably thrown enough things on the table, but if they can figure out how they can stay in power and have peace, they will take peace. And it seems, and this is incredible to me, but it seems that everyone I'm talking to in the administration has sort of given up on the idea of regime change. The people of Iran have not. The question Washington is answering, which is incredibly stupid question, is, well, why haven't the Iranian people risen up and demanded democracy? And two reasons. One, democracy may not be the desired outcome of the majority of people. They may want a different form of government. Secondly, they did try that and 40, 000 of them are killed in two days. The, the, the regime is willing to do its version of Tiananmen Square every single day until the people go home. And that's why they haven't risen up, but instead around Washington. It's inside the administration even. It's presented as a genuine head scratcher, like, why haven't these people risen up? Having things gotten bad enough for them and it's just not possible.
- [06:45]
Host (Francis)
Well, I mean, obviously you raised so many different issues there, Richard. One of the most immediate ones is you say that the regime will, will go for peace if it means they can stay in power. But it's. But then you also say that the regime has clearly looked at North Korea and Pakistan and worked out that having nuclear weapons is better than not. And it's becoming clear that if the Trump administration has given up on regime change because they clearly can't achieve it effectively, then does that mean that Iran effectively has all the cards? Because President Trump can't do this indefinitely for the political reasons you articulated, which is the looming midterms. I mean, when we interviewed Ted Cruz on our last America trip, he was very clear this would be a terrible thing. And I think his words were, we will have failed if this war is still going on around the midterms. I don't know that. That's not what's going to happen here.
- [07:45]
Richard Miniter
Everyone in the Senate that I've talked to, which is, you know, not all of them, but a number of them, thinks the same, thinks the same thing. The midterms will be a disaster for the Republican Party if gas prices are still high and the war is continuing. And frankly, it's also a matter of time. I mean, they managed to save the helicopter crew that was shot down Sunday night, but, or Monday night. But there will come a time when Iran successfully kills or even worse, captures American servicemen, and that will be a, an immense political crisis. So Trump needs to find a way, I don't know anyone who is an impatient with Trump to find a way to end this quickly and in something that resembles victory. There are cynics who think, well, Trump will just take a deal, any deal, just to get out of it. That is a misreading of the president that I Don't think the reality.
- [08:49]
Host (Francis)
Richard, may I jump in very briefly just to test what you're saying? If, if the Iranians seem to have all the leverage and President Trump needs to do a deal or is under pressure to do one, isn't it inevitable that the deal he will do will be a bad deal?
- [09:08]
Richard Miniter
That's exactly what the critics of the president say, what you just said.
- [09:11]
Host (Francis)
Right.
- [09:12]
Richard Miniter
I, I think that.
- [09:13]
Host (Francis)
Why are they wrong?
- [09:15]
Richard Miniter
Because the usual groups are exerting their usual pressure. But does Trump feel pressure? It doesn't appear that he does. A man under pressure would do things differently than he's doing at the moment. A man under pressure would either escalate in the hopes that that might somehow work or urgently take any deal. We don't see either one of those things happening. What amazes me about observers of President Trump is they never go and read his three books, especially the Art of the Deal. If he was under pressure, he would be acting in the ways that he would outline how to get out of bad deals in the Art of the Deal. Instead, he still thinks that he has all of the important cards. And he does. There are things that his critics don't seem to be able to imagine which are obvious next steps. Here's two of them. One, start sinking the shadow fleet. Instead of interdicting them and chasing them around the world, just torpedo them and let them sink in the middle of long cold dark oceans. Iran will immediately notice that because that they they can't turn accrued into cash. They can't keep paying off their internal constituencies and stay in power. The second thing he could do is to tell Qatar you will no longer pay the 500 million dollar rent for the South Pars gas field to Iran. Instead you will pay it into a fund the US will control and hold an escrow for the rebuilding of Iran. After this unpleasantness. If either one of those things or both of those things happen, which you know, there are other things Trump could do that are not kinetic military activity to increase the pressure on Iran. Also, I see that the public diplomacy of the State Department is finally moving forward. More Farsi language messaging, more messaging in Kurdish and Baha' I and more attempt to now talk to the Arabs in Awaz. That's the little bit of western Iran that borders the southwest of Iraq. So they're becoming a little more sophisticated in trying to connect with Iranian opinion. There are various points of leverage the Trump can escalate from here. He thinks he has until the end of the summer or certainly he's acting like he has till the end of the summer. I'm not a mind reader and he might.
- [11:33]
Eamon Dean
Right, I'm going to level with you. I'm not a gamer, even though I look like one. I'm not going to pretend I've been grinding through RPGs between recordings, although I have strong opinions about which Final Fantasy was the best one. I think it's Japanese and I think there's a sword. That's genuinely everything I know. But our social media guy showed me this app and I genuinely thought that's quite clever. It's called Snaxy. Basically, game publishers need new players and they're willing to pay to get them. Snaxy just passes that money onto you. You play games you are probably going to play anyway. You earn coins and you cash them
- [12:06]
Francis (Co-host)
out for real rewards.
- [12:07]
Eamon Dean
PayPal, Amazon, Netflix, gift cards. If you prefer gaming credit, you can redeem for PlayStation, Xbox, Steam and Nintendo or cash out your Enable wallet. I've got no idea what that means. Actual money, not just points that expire. It takes a few minutes to set up. You open the app, swipe through the game offers, pick something that looks decent, play it, earn, redeem. That's the whole thing. There's a sign up bonus worth up to $10 if you use our link, which is in the description of this episode. That's S N A K Z Y Snacksy. Click the link in the description to get started. And when you sign up, use the code triggerpod. That's T R I G G E R P O D to claim your $10 bonus. And the app is mobile only, so click the link from your phone, not your laptop.
- [13:02]
Francis (Co-host)
And Thomas, the one thing that we always keep coming back to in this conflict is the Strait of Hormuz. Is there any way that the Americans can actually gain control of this strait or will it always be Iran's to close if and when they want it to?
- [13:19]
Thomas Small
Oh, gosh, I wish I knew the answer to that question, Francis. I mean, I'm not a military expert, particularly I. At the beginning of the war I thought it would be, you know, more or less achievable to, to win the, you know, the Arabian Gulf. The Persian Gulf for America's side in this conflict to neutralize the possibility that the Iranian regime would close the strait as it did. I, I would have thought that's a very straightforwardly obvious thing to do. It did seem that that was on the cards. We saw the three aircraft carrier groups moving into the region. A lot of commando, you know, group groups were moving in American ones, including, it seems, based on things that have come out recently to Israel working together with the Israeli partners. The whole idea was going to be to take those very strategically key islands in the, in the Persian Gulf and, and control it. That might have required some troops to land on the shore, on the Iranian shore to project that power, you know, further into the, into the mainland. Obviously it wouldn't have been easy. You know, there's, it's extremely mountainous there, there are lots of valleys. The Iranians have prepared for a long time for that eventuality. So, you know, there would have been some casualties, of course, but it, it strikes me as that was absolutely an obvious thing that should have happened. The fact that it didn't happen that Iran was able to close the strait, it remains closed really is the thing that sort of stymies a lot of people truly to make sense of, unless, as some people say, the military apparatuses, you know, the military, the materiel was not in place, was not enough to take it sort of with confidence. Some people suggest that when those two American servicemen were rescued from Iran early ish on in the war, just before the ceasefire, that, that spooked the President a little bit. The idea that maybe an American Americans would have been captured by the regime who would have then been able to parade them in front of cameras, humiliating the Americans, humiliating. Humiliating the President in a way eerily reminiscent of the sort of scenes that were seen after the Iranian revolution, which brought, you know, some people say brought down Carter's chances of re election and certainly sort of overshadowed his, his presidency in, in President Trump's mind for sure. Because Even in the 80s, President Trump was very open about how humiliating all of that was for the Americans. So some people suggest that slightly spooked him. He realized just how bad it would be for him politically if American servicemen were brought in harm's way and possibly taking control of the Persian Gulf enough to, to ensure that the Iranian regime can't close the strait would definitely have put too many American servicemen in harm's way. And that was a bridge too far for the President. That's what I've heard. It's, you know, I don't really know right now there does not seem to be any appetite for anything like the sort of military campaign that would be required to win back the strait. But we'll see. This attack on the Apache helicopter has now, I think, just like within the last 90 minutes, President Trump has tweeted on Truth Social that the United States must of necessity respond to this attack. What that will Mean, I don't know. That may actually be a sign of what the attack was about. If, in fact, the Iranian regime did attack that helicopter with anything like intention, it may be because the Iranian regime is testing President Trump now to see how he will react. There's been a lot of back and forth in the last week between Israel and the regime, between Israel and Hezbollah. Trump, you know, on truth social, being quite anti Israeli, telling Benjamin Netanyahu to hold back. Benjamin Netanyahu, it seems, ignoring that, instead attacking. But then perhaps behind the scenes, there's less truth to that than it seems. This might be political theatrics. Maybe Trump and Netanyahu are conspiring together in a good cop, bad cop kind of routine. Maybe the Iranian regime is trying to get a sense. Where is President Trump really sort of standing? He makes a big sign about wanting a deal. He's been flattering the Supreme Leader now Muchtaba Khamenei, calling him a genius, calling him a man of courage, all of these things. Very strange language given that two months ago that's not the language he was using. I believe the language before was something like an animal who deserved to be utterly destroyed along with Iranian civilization. So the tune has changed. The desire for a deal is clearly at the forefront of the president's mind. Maybe the Iranian regime is trying to make sure that the president is, you know, is as irrelenic at the moment as he seems to be. That's just. That's just a guess.
- [18:21]
Francis (Co-host)
Because the thing is, Thomas, this crisis with the Strait of Hormuz, it doesn't only affect Iran, it doesn't only affect the Middle east, it affects the entire global economy. So this situation can't carry on indefinitely. And Trump must know that, and so must the Americans.
- [18:40]
Thomas Small
Trump must know that. I think Richard, you know, probably can speak better to what might be going on in President Trump's mind. I find it to be almost impossible to make sense of much of what Trump does or thinks. I'm a little bit, I'm sure, compared to Richard, a little bit less inclined to be generous to Trump. He doesn't seem to me to be anything like a strategic genius at all. I think it's all pretty ad hoc. I think it is just possible that President Trump may feel that the political consequences of liberating the Strait of Hormuz and, as it were, finishing the job which the hawks within the American security establishment still wish to happen, which his allies in the region wish to happen, certainly Israel, but also in the Gulf, he may feel that the political consequences are just too costly to bear and that the world will adjust. You know, it is obviously catastrophic to the global economy that the Strait of Hormuz has been closed for as long as it has been. It will not reopen probably all summer. You know, the President is desperate that the World cup in America and Canada and Mexico go without a hitch. Eamon, my co host, knows that the intelligence chatter is that the Iranian regime has, you know, under the surface definitely threatened to attack, you know, players, whatever, to have some kind of terrorist campaign during the World cup to humiliate America. I think Donald Trump is desperate for that not to happen, given the kind of guy he is. He comes from the world of entertainment. He does not want his show to be spoiled. I think he might be calculating that though it is catastrophic, the world does adjust already. The world is adjusting. It will take some time. There will be a global recession for sure. It won't be easy. But if the Strait of Hormuz remains for some time more or less within Iran's sphere of influence, devastating as that will be to the global economy in the short term, to the regional Gulf and Arabian, not just economy, you know, political economy in the long term, nonetheless, things might, you know, contingencies will, will play a role. You know, Saudi Arabia is already trying to, you know, maximize the, the, its Western, you know, its west coast along the Red Sea. Perhaps that will really change things. Syria is, is immediately gearing up to play a much more important regional hub role. As, you know, supply lanes and trade routes shift, as you know, in, in the face of this. Obviously the Fujaira port, which the UAE has on, you know, on the other side of the, of the Strait of Hormuz, will be invested in more. Who knows? That's a long winded answer to your question. I mean, it is, it is. We're in that place now where frankly, nobody knows. It's a sort of weird time to be paying attention to the Middle east because many scenarios which people like Richard and me for a long time regarded as worst case scenarios have happened. So it's now they've happened and you think, oh, okay, what's, what's, what next? It's hard to know.
- [22:09]
Francis (Co-host)
It's, it's a very good point about worst case scenarios because if we're looking at what's happening in the Middle east, there doesn't seem to be an exit point at this moment. And that's a real concern. I think this, with the moment when you really get worried about a situation is where you can see no clear way out. Is that me being overly pessimistic or do you share that analysis, Thomas?
- [22:37]
Thomas Small
I mean, I can't see a way out. Donald Trump says he wants a deal. Perhaps he will get that deal. Some people say that deal will be obviously worse than the JCPOA deal that Obama's administration signed and which Donald Trump left in his first term. Others. Other people say, no, no, Donald Trump would never allow that to happen. So obviously it will not be as bad a deal as the jcpoa, which some people say wasn't even a bad deal. So, you know, this is. There are so many differences of opinion on that question. So if Donald Trump gets a deal, if somehow that deal can include Iran relinquishing its control of the Strait of Hormuz without any further military action, that strikes me as unlikely. I don't really see a way out at the moment. No, not that. Not one that doesn't include a resumption of ferocious hostilities.
- [23:36]
Host (Francis)
Richard, I want to, first of all, give you the floor to address a bunch of points. I do. And also let me just tee up one other thing I'd love for you to address in addition to whatever it is that you want to bring up, which I'm sure there's lots of things. I mean, one of the things Thomas raises is this question of the idea that the global economy is adjusting from where I'm sitting here in the uk that is not what we are seeing at all. What we are seeing is prices adjusting in a very upward direction very rapidly. And in addition to that, it's quite clear that many, many of the downstream consequences of the closure of the Strait and this war more broadly are being stored up. It's not like, you know, if you've got five months worth of supplies of fertilizer or whatever. It's not like the minute you start running them down, everything goes to shit. It can take time to filter through. And we speak to a lot of people who are actually concerned that the majority of the impact that is now inevitable has yet to be felt, if that makes any sense. Can you talk about that?
- [24:44]
Thomas Small
I did say that global recession, global, even depression is inevitable. I am not. I did not say that the globe, global economy is adjusting in any upward way.
- [24:52]
Richard Miniter
No, no.
- [24:53]
Host (Francis)
Yeah, fair enough. Sorry, I certainly didn't mean to misrepresent anything you said. I just want to dive into this.
- [24:59]
Richard Miniter
Let's talk about the global economy for a second. So there are adjustments that would create downward pressure, but they would take more than a year to a year. And A half to arrive. So one of them is ExxonMobil in Nigeria is looking at getting into the fertilizer production business. As you know to make fertilizer you need natural gas which the Nigerians have large amounts of. It would be smart for ExxonMobil to do this because the markets that are most starved for fertilizer are in western West Africa, southern Africa and and nearby in South America. Right. The regulatory apparatus in the United States, if it was, if Trump people were able to get it out of the way, could also make large investments. And one scenario which the agriculture to people have been speculating about, Agriculture department in the United States is deregulating the production of fertilizer in the US which would mean that the US would become a net exporter of fertilizer and it would create a tremendous number of jobs in the lower midwestern United States along the Mississippi Delta mainly. And that would be because that's where the gas is and that's where the river travel is. Right. But these are multi hundred billion dollar capital investments and to do that there needs to be regulatory certainty and there's no way to do that this year because no one knows who's going to win the midterms. And it also takes a long time to deregulate because you have to publish notice in public comment period of at least 90 to 120 days and then you have to respond to the comments. And even if they started last month, they wouldn't be done before the end of the year, just the drawn out process. And Congress which could write a law tomorrow and, and pass it speedily through reconciliation which is there's enormous reconciliation package they could attach it to. It has no, no real desire to do anything dramatic right there. So food world, food prices will continue to remain high because fertilizer prices will rain high polarization plus energy prices will remain high. And any downward adjustment would take at best case scenario a year and a half. But look at what also is ha, what else is also happening. The Israelis are starting to think about how the Gaza port could be restored and how pipelines could come to Gaza crossing Israeli territory from you know, Iraq through Syria or up from the Gulf through Kuwait, Iraq, Syria and then down and then be exported to the world out of the port of Gaza. Again that's years away but that is a fundamental rerouting. I had lunch with a senior executive from Dubai Ports World which is the largest port operator in the world and they're based as the name implies, in the UAE and obviously they're suffering Greatly from not being able to move any real traffic through the Gulf, the port of the Strait of Hormuz, but they're ramping up their port activity elsewhere. So the world economy will adjust. Will it adjust this year? No, there's just no way that it can adjust that quickly. And people have to propose plans. Those plans have to be get investment behind them, they have to get the regulator's approval. Then you actually have to build the things necessary. Right. So if, if you want to solve the oil crisis this year, we have to start by admitting that a major cause of this beyond the Iranians, is the Europeans. Their net zero, their unwillingness to drill for gas and oil in the mainland of the Netherlands, which they've had some of the largest gas fields in the world, they're shutting those down. North Sea developments are coming down. The EU regulations that prevent fracking in Poland and in the Czech Republic, the unwillingness of the Brits to dig coal. I talked to two former Conservative members of Parliament a week ago and I'm like, why haven't you reopened the coal pits and start selling coal to Germany, which is paying way above the market price? And the answer is, oh, it's just not practical to do that. Meaning they haven't thought about it and they're as brain dead as Conservative. The Conservative Party has always been right. Instead of having imagination for the working man, they said to me, oh, well, some of those mines are flooded. I said, yeah, if only there was an invention especially designed for coal mines. Yeah. James Watt, 1750. That's why the steam engine was created, to take water out of coal mines. Specifically. You have the technology, right? You could use electric, you don't have to use steam, but you could remove the water from the mines. And of course, America, it's ideological.
- [30:08]
Host (Francis)
We know it's ideological. Theresa May, the former Conservative Prime Minister, has been on Twitter banging on about how net zero has been brilliant because we've created about three jobs. But you know, the question would not
- [30:21]
Richard Miniter
be so bad if net zero and the precautionary principle were not matters of EU law.
- [30:26]
Host (Francis)
Right, of course.
- [30:27]
Richard Miniter
And, and the brain dead Conservatives in the UK have no heart or imagination for the working class person for whom earning a hundred thousand a year working as a coal miner would be a very happy outcome in many parts of the north and the west of your country. And they have no ability to think about them. They think about people who have horses and estates and things like that.
- [30:53]
Host (Francis)
Those, we're running out of those people as well. Richard, I want to ask you about why we haven't got to a ceasefire of or in fact more progress beyond the short ceasefire that we have. Before I do that, we'll just have a quick word from our brilliant sponsors for this episode and we'll come back and we'll talk about why peace hasn't come yet.
- [31:14]
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- [32:28]
Eamon Dean
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- [33:48]
Host (Francis)
well, I don't know about you, there's nothing I love more than the sight of Francis peddling sheath underwear while wearing a suit. I think that's a great look, I'm afraid, Francis.
- [33:57]
Thomas Small
I just, I now just have your balls in my mind. Just like. Oh, my Lord.
- [34:02]
Host (Francis)
Well, there you go, Francis. You've made a friend tonight. Richard, coming back to the serious conversation we were having. Why is it that we haven't got peace already?
- [34:17]
Richard Miniter
Iran. Well, does Iran want, does the people who run Iran want peace?
- [34:24]
Host (Francis)
No, they want nuclear weapons. That's what they want. And Trump says they can't have them, so.
- [34:31]
Richard Miniter
Right. So did to to wear down Western resistance, in this case Trumpian resistance to their possession of nuclear weapons because they want, they want to turn out like North Korea. They want the security that North Korea has in, in the right. The only way to get there is to have nuclear weapons. The only way to get nuclear weapons is to get the US to relent. So they think they can cause enough short term pain because their experience of American leaders from Carter onward was that if you exert enough negative pressure in the short term, Americans just give up and go away. And they have do not understand Trump. Let me explain why Trump is not ad hoc, that he is strategic. It is very counterintuitive, right? And you may totally disagree with me. But it's worth considering this hypothesis if you don't have the time to read Art of the Deal, which actually he lays this out, right? So the normal way politics or change in academia or change in the NGO world or change in the business world happens is some leader comes down from the mountain and says, I have a vision. Here it is. Here's, you know, my beautiful PowerPoints, here's my white papers, here's my positions. Isn't it a glorious future? Let's all work together towards this glorious future. And he tries to get various constituencies to go along, makes a couple of compromises here and there and eventually builds something like a majority behind whatever that is. And they do it. And it's a long deliberative process. That is not how Trump operates. Trump thinks this is all a negotiation and a negotiation. No smart person starts the negotiation by saying what they want as the outcome, because they will not get that outcome. If a woman tells you on a first date that she would like to be married and have a baby in six months, most men would say, no. Second date, right? This. This is how real estate deals work. And that is a definitive crucible for understanding how Trump's thinking was shaped. You know, you. I may be interested in restoring that building that is in the or dilapidated downtown, but I would need a lot of tax breaks and I would need an extra you to build a new entrance to the subway. And I would need the sidewalk. Right? You throw all these things out and maybe you need one of them, but you lay out all the things and then you're so dismissive. Oh, well, you know, the sidewalk things, that wasn't really anything. And you eventually get to somewhere that only you have in mind all along. That's how Trump works. So the fact that he's changed his mind or he's calling someone an animal one month and calling them a patriot the next, none of that matters. He has a goal. He's not going to tell you the goal, because he wants to achieve the goal. And the big, big picture here is, and I suspect this, there's evidence for this, but not enough evidence to prove what I'm about to say. I suspect strongly, based on lots of inferences, that at some point early in the this administration, Rubio and Trump got together and looked at a map of the world and said, our main adversary is China. China has said publicly that it wants to go to war with the United States in 2027. How do we make sure they do not go to war with the United States in 2027? Well, let's weaken them around the world. They are dependent on Venezuelan oil. Let's take that away from them. They are dependent on Cuban intelligence networks. Let's take that away from them. They are dependent on loan payments from Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Colombia. Let's take that away from them. They are dependent on Iranian oil and Iranian intelligence. Let's take that away from them. Let's take away the markets for Chinese consumer goods in Russia. Let's not get involved in Ukraine, but let's make sure that China's main ally is. That is Russia is significantly weakened by letting the war in Ukraine drag on every day, not just causing Russia blood and treasure, but diminishing the fearsome reputation of Vladimir Putin. And so there is a grand global strategy here that is all directed at China. There's a reason why remote Pacific island bases that the US has not used in World War II have been resurfaced and navigation beacons have been reestablished. And why training missions are occurring in the second island chain. There's a reason why US naval forces are visiting Saipan and Guam for the first time in decades. I mean senior personnel. There's a reason why training exercises are being planned with the Philippines. Also look at the Straits of Malacca. So everyone talks about the straight of Hormuz, but Chinese oil also has to go through the Straits of Malacca between, you know, off the Malaysian coast. Well both Malaya, Malaya and Indonesia which have not been U. S allies in decades now have made agreements the past six months. So that and India has moved from being a non aligned nation unofficially aligned with Russia in the, in the Cold war to becoming effectively a US ally and using its navy to stop the shadow fleet and reducing its refining of Iranian oil. So if you take Iranian oil from Iran and you trace it, it now has to go past India which is now more or less in the US camp. It has to thread its way through the Straits of Mala past two new US allies and then into waters in longtime US allies, the Philippines and so on to get to where it's going. If you see it from that perspective, you understand why this was not a war of choice. This is why Iran was, why they're doing Iran now, why they did Venezuela, why they did, why the CIA and other US interests are active in the Colombian election, why what's going on in Peru and Nicaragua makes sense, why certain bases being re established, why there's so much diplomacy going on in the western Pacific. I mean connect all the dots because I guarantee you China has and Putin has.
- [41:30]
Francis (Co-host)
Well that's a fascinating point Richard and Thomas, it seems to me one of the things or one of the aspects of this conflict that we never talk about enough is Lebanon and Hezbollah. Can you explain to the viewers and the listeners why Lebanon is so crucial to this particular conflict?
- [41:51]
Thomas Small
Well, because Hezbollah is an extremely powerful, less powerful now than it was five years ago, but a very powerful Israel, Iranian backed, Iranian financed, Iranian organized Iranian inspired militia that has as its stated aim the, you know, the destruction of the state of Israel in a way. I mean it couches that in the same kind of resistance narrative that all of Israel's enemies couches their activities in but remains there, you know, a non state actor, totally destabilizing and having almost wrecked the salience of a Lebanese state for a long time. It is Iran's. Those are the pointed end of Iran's proxy network right at, at Israel. And so that's Why? I mean, there you go. And it's. If you, as long as Hezbollah exists and you know, lobs missiles into Israel, requiring Israel for now over two years to essentially evacuate much of its northern territory, then Israel will want to deal with that situation and that will play an integral part in any larger Israeli plan to neutralize the threat of Iran in general and a nuclear Iran specifically.
- [43:08]
Francis (Co-host)
Because the reality is, Thomas, and push back on this if you disagree with me. We cannot have peace in the Middle east, we cannot have a ceasefire deal with Iran if we don't sort out the issue of Lebanon, but more pertinently, Hezbollah.
- [43:24]
Thomas Small
Well, you say that. I think one of the things that Donald Trump is trying to achieve at the moment and may be working with Benjamin Netanyahu to achieve this, that's what I was referring to earlier about the good cop, bad cop routine, that it seems that Trump and Netanyahu are at daggers drawn now. But maybe that's more theatrics than we think. And what's actually happening is that having mistakenly at the time that the ceasefire deal was being negotiated, kind of connected Lebanon and Hezbollah to an Iranian deal, which the Israelis immediately said, look, we haven't agreed to this. Hezbollah is a separate issue and it's between us and them. This has nothing to do with Iran. There should not be an Iranian backed proxy in, in Lebanon on our border. We do not, you know, we do not need the permission of the government in Tehran to attack the people who are attacking us, et cetera. So when the, the ceasefire deal that came into effect in early April was being negotiated, it seems, from what I understand almost like accidentally, inadvertently, incompetently, the two issues were connected and Iran could say, look, no progress on the Hezbollah front or any break on any outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah is a de facto violation of any ceasefire on our part so we can start the war again on that side. So they're trying to disconnect those two files. So it's not that they have to be both solved at the time. Same, same time. That is the Iranian position. They have to be solved at the same time. That is not the Israeli position and it is really not the American position either. Not really. Everyone would love those two sort of situations to be disconnected. The question is, can Iran be compelled to agree to that disconnection? I think Israel's attack over the weekend on Iran, to which Iran waved the white flag, you know, it basically was like, okay, okay, okay, we, we won't fight back. You know, they pretended that that was a great Victory for themselves, of course, but. But it definitely was not. Israel made, made sure of that, only to be followed the next day by this attack on the Apache helicopter. That's what I meant earlier. About now, they might be. They sort of tested Netanyahu. They realized, okay, oh, he fought back. Will Trump fight back? Trump has said he's going to fight back. We wait to see if that's the case. But all of this is, to some extent involved in the making of a deal. So that. And that deal must be disconnected from
- [45:54]
Francis (Co-host)
Hezbollah, because as with all things Middle Eastern, the more you look into it, the more complicated it becomes.
- [46:04]
Thomas Small
Why do you think I have this long white beard? I've lost my mind.
- [46:09]
Richard Miniter
I thought it was your love of Gandalf.
- [46:12]
Thomas Small
I actually want to respond a little bit to what you said, Richard, earlier, about the China thing. You know, at the beginning of this conflict, Haviv Gur, the Israeli journalist, published that, that piece in which he, you know, which made a splash, in which he laid out his analysis, saying that, look, no one is noticing the truth, that this is all about China. It made a brief splash and then it went underground. And that kind of narrative seemed to go away in the, in the Middle East. They did not like that narrative. They did not want people to be thinking that this was all about China because it drew attention away from the fact that it should be about Iran. It should be about that actual genuine threat to all of those countries. And that if it actually is just a larger global geopolitical game where we're containing China or countering Chinese moves, then we're back into a Cold War world where everything is about the Soviet Union, and therefore whole regions of the world can be laid waste in pursuit of that larger goal. It doesn't really matter if we spend 12 years destroying Vietnam. It doesn't matter because we're countering the Soviet Union in some way. So the Gulf especially, but the Middle east more generally, would be very disturbed if it was the case that this situation had been allowed to play out in this rather shambolic way in their backyard to further larger global objectives by the American administration. I'm not saying you're wrong. It's actually, it seems very reasonable that what you're saying is true, but that would be very sort of nervous making for America's allies in the Middle East.
- [47:59]
Host (Francis)
And Thomas, speaking of America's allies in the Middle east, what is your assessment of where they are at the moment? For the. Forget the China issue, just this war, you know, there were different people saying different things. At the outset, but I think it's fair to say it's gone on a bit. Right. I just think. I think that's objectively a reasonable thing to say. I think at the time that it began, only Trump's critics were saying that it would take as long as it did. And all of his allies were saying, you know, I think the title of our Ted Cruz episode is we will win this and quickly. I just, I think we've gone beyond quickly at this point. And I remember at the time there being quite a lot of enthusiasm from places like the uae, from places like Saudi Arabia, because obviously Iran is a strategic adversary for them. Has that enthusiasm waned, or are they keen for President Trump to see it through? And do they believe he can?
- [48:55]
Thomas Small
Well, first, on the. On the question of how long the campaign was going to last, despite what some people were saying, Middle Eastern allies of the United States did not think that the campaign would be, like, quick. They're not stupid. They know what Iran is. They look across the Gulf and they see that wall of mountains protecting the Iranian plateau. I mean, Iran is not a pushover nation. So in, you know, the Arabian allies were not unaware of that. Now, sadly, the realities of Democratic, I mean, electoral politics in the west means you have to, I don't know if you notice, guys, you got to promise people all sorts of stuff that's not in any way realistic all the time. And so, you know, so on the one hand, people are saying, it'll be fast, it'll be fast, but the Middle Eastern allies knew it wouldn't be fast. I wondered at one point whether Donald Trump knew it wouldn't be fast. Now, that's, I think, not necessarily what I think now. I think he did think it could be quite, quite easy, you know, easily achieved. So that's, that's, that's one thing. Sorry, what was the other aspect of what you asked?
- [50:04]
Host (Francis)
I guess what I was asking is, in terms of the Arabian allies, are they. Are they happy with the situation and are they.
- [50:12]
Thomas Small
No. To see it through with the situation? No. And also that now I remember it's not correct to say that they were enthusiastic. Exactly. You know, the whole war that was launched on 28 February did sort of happen in a quite unexpected and chaotic way. The, the region was adjusting to decisions that the White House took when the protests were launched at the end of December, early January. And Donald Trump began to tweet those very heroic tweets that we all remember. We're coming to your rescue. Go out, protest now. My understanding is that that was not pre planned. That response to those protests was not actually in a coordinated way planned. And it moved forward some plans for resuming the aggression against Iran, which last June had had a first phase. It forced it to move forward a few months. That's my understanding. It makes sense of what actually happened. And the good Gulf allies were therefore wary of the drumbeat of war starting in January and then continuing into February. That's why at the time, you remember those reports saying things like, you know, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, mbs saying publicly, you know, we need to return to diplomacy. But then calls to Donald Trump being like, go for it, go for it. The truth is actually more in the middle. Those calls to Donald Trump were like, go for it. If you have a plan like, is this going to work? Are you doing this properly? Because if you're not, I have to certainly in public say I'm against it because I don't want Iran to be attacking me. By the way, what is your plan, Mr. President? No. No description of that plan forthcoming. The Arab allies have been kept very much in the dark throughout this process. They are very fed up. My co host Eamon the other day revealed that in a private meeting with a very high ranking Gulf minister, the Gulf minister actually confessed that it is becoming increasingly clear to him and to his colleagues that it would have been better if Kamala Harris had won the election. They are extremely disappointed in how Donald Trump has prosecuted this conflict. And the trust levels on the Gulf side are very low at the moment.
- [52:35]
Host (Francis)
Very interesting, Richard. I'm sure you have plenty to say, so go for it.
- [52:40]
Richard Miniter
I mean, the Gulf people are deeply unhappy for lots of objectively observable reasons. First of all, they have to make a lot of their water through desalinization, which is a very energy intensive process. Desalination plants not only cost billions of dollars, but they're gigantic, very easy for Shahid drones to hit. And it doesn't take much to put a relatively small damage to send a shutter through the UAE or through the Bahrain that they will be out of water. There's no readily nearby place where they can import water and not. And there are no existing pipelines to move it. So we tend to focus on the other fluid, which is oil. Oil, which is how they make their money. But without water they die. And their desalinization plants are on the coast, right, as you'd expect them to be. So they're very easy to hit. And even small strikes are red alert news across the Gulf. So they feel very vulnerable. However, we see that they're starting to realize that they're going to have to get into this fight. UAE has decided in the last few weeks not just to leave opec, which at another point in time would be a giant head, but also. And they're financing pipelines to go around the Strait of Hormuz into Oman to deliver their oil to, to tankers outside the strait. The Iranians can't shut off those. That'll take months, if not a year more to, to complete those pipelines. There's some temporary pipelines which have very small volumes. But there, there, if you notice, other than leaving opec, they're starting to crack down on the immense amounts of Iranian money being held in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and starting to cooperate with Swift, with the U. S. Treasury and others on seizing Iranian funds. So this means that they, while they tremble in fear for what Iran could do to their people, also have taken a side. And it's not for peace. They understand this war is going to be. If the Iranians want to fight a war, it's continue to fight a war which they, they seem to going to be long. It's going to be a long slog. I should say a word about geography here because people have trouble mentally picturing Iran. If you were to pick Iran up and drop it over the continental United States, it would take most of the territory from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. It's a nation of 93 million people, if you believe the latest census count, which is Maybe it's off 3 or 4 million one way or the other. But it's, it's, it's a very large population and very, as this map shows, very mountainous territory. So you have a, a co. Persian Gulf coast that is nearly waterless with no navigable rivers, letting seaborne traffic go significantly inland. Very little population on the coast and almost 100 miles before you get to anything green. And that only begins as the elevation steeply climbs. I mean, if you remember, if you read Marcos Polo's diary as a kid, the enormous angles and complexity of scaling those mountains, it's a, it's a fortress. It's a fortress, they think, given to them by almighty God. And if you tried to use ground forces, first of all, supplying them with water, food, ammunition and replacements would expose a hundred miles or more of logistical chains that would be perfect targets for artillery, missiles and drones. But once you got to the mountains, you would be fighting inch by inch by inch. And the Iranians are very good engineers at tunneling at bunkering that would be more of a slaughter than the US Taking the bunkered positions of the Japanese in the Pacific War. So it's just unthinkable. And they are surrounded to the north by their ally Russia, by Pakistan, which is sort of an ally of the United States, but sort of an ally of theirs. Bear in mind that the Iranian interest section, which is their version of an embassy under current diplomatic law, is inside the Pakistan embassy. So if you want a visa to go to Iran, if you have family there, you go to the Pakistan embassy to do it here in Washington. So the idea that Pakistan would be all that helpful to the US is,
- [57:46]
Thomas Small
I mean, that's a remarkable, Richard, that you say that because, you know, it's, you know, Pakistan has been mediating this deal. A really remarkable, rather stupid part of this entire, you know, well, charade. They are not trustworthy mediators whatsoever. They have lots of skin in the game on all, in all sorts of ways. There's tremendous corruption involved in this. And so, you know, I don't, I haven't read the Art of the Deal. I have to admit. I haven't read it. But I am not seeing, being played out in front of my eyes a great deal maker making a great and beautiful deal. It does not seem like that to me. It's like he's making it up as he goes along.
- [58:30]
Richard Miniter
Yes, but you have a professional class bias. You're expecting him to act like a professional. That announces a big deal.
- [58:36]
Thomas Small
I am part of the professional class. You don't know me. I do not have a professional class bias. I do have a human bias of rationality as the primary, primary driving force of decision making. Now, maybe I don't understand.
- [58:49]
Richard Miniter
Rationality is whether the means lead you to your stated goals and which we don't know.
- [58:55]
Thomas Small
So the trouble I have in general with people who remain who maintain faith in Donald Trump is they can always say, ah, but he hasn't told us what he wants. So we can't actually judge him by any standard of success because we don't know what he wants now. Okay, great. It's good. It's good for him. It's a good way of maintaining power to keep everyone unable from reaching a conclusion as to whether he's good or bad at his job because he's not giving you a standard of success.
- [59:24]
Host (Francis)
That's what it seems like. Well, no, hold on. This, I think on this is there's a very clear standard of success which is, do you get, I mean, the minimum, I would say, do you get a Better deal than the JCPOA for a start. But, but ultimately the measure of success is do you end up with Iran that doesn't get nukes or at least in the next 30 years. Right. That's the standard. And I think you're kind of both right. I am very much torn between the two arguments you're making because the one thing that we do not know objectively is how this is going to end. It could end with a big beautiful deal, in which case Richard will come out of this looking gray. Or it could end up in a deal that is, is attempted to be sold as a great beautiful deal that is as bad, if not worse, on the jcpoa. And Richard, I will put this to you right clear, basically everything.
- [60:17]
Richard Miniter
I am definitely not predicting a deal. What I described earlier is how Trump's negotiation strategy works.
- [60:24]
Host (Francis)
Understood.
- [60:24]
Richard Miniter
I think Trump is ultimately going to be forced into a situation where he has to take a large amount of kinetic military action because ultimately the Iranians do not want a deal. And, you know, no matter how warm the bowl becomes, it can't make the soup warm. Right. That's why that Iranian proverb is so important.
- [60:49]
Thomas Small
It's true. You did say that at the beginning and I agreed with it. You know, I think when you said that this is how, you know, Donald Trump's way of operating is the way a real estate developer operates. You know, but maybe to like, to every, to a hammer, every problem is a nail. You know, maybe to a real estate developer, every problem is a real estate deal, but it is not a real estate deal in Iran. That is not what he is facing. So if he is operating under those, that assumption, then he is being led down the primrose path by an Iranian class of leadership. Leaders who I sometimes think we all forget are crazy in the way they see the world. They are crazy people in terms of their ideology. You know, I mean, I don't mean the Iranian people. They're not,
- [61:42]
Richard Miniter
they're not crazy, they're just not us.
- [61:46]
Thomas Small
Oh, okay. That's true. I mean, I, you can visit Broadmoor and say the same thing.
- [61:51]
Richard Miniter
If honor and Islamic ideology are the two most important things, things in your life, they're not irrational.
- [61:58]
Thomas Small
Oh, but I'm not talking about honor
- [62:00]
Richard Miniter
and Islamic arguing from a set of premises that we don't share. They are highly intelligent, they are capable of long term planning. They should not be underestimated. And they have spent decades digging these tunnels and digging these bunkers, not just for their atomic weapons, but for their conventional weapons and the After Action Review is showing to the Pentagon's horror, that the Iranians have repaired and rebuilt a lot of the things that the Americans bombed and that some of the bombing that the US Carried out was incomplete and that many military targets remain. So they do not feel militarily defeated and they do not thought they've lost their grip on the country. So from. They are very determined foes. And I can't.
- [62:50]
Thomas Small
I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that they're stupid. I'm not saying that they're lazy. I'm not saying that they're not talented. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that they're not real estate developers. They don't see the world in those terms. You know, if they. If the Iranian regime was led by people who wanted, you know, wealth to make mutually beneficial deals with people to grow their economy and all that stuff, then everything in the whole freaking world would be different. But they're not like that. They actually want to conquer the Middle east and not only want to believe it is a preordained fact that they will do it because God is on their side. Yes, it's a very different mentality. But Donald Trump is not treating them like that's what they are. It's. It beggars belief. It's almost like he can't imagine that there could be people out there who, when it comes to it, aren't property developers.
- [63:47]
Richard Miniter
Right. War is about real estate, but it's not truly about real estate. It involves real estate. Right, right. It's like the old one about the, you know, ham and eggs. Right. The chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. Right. It's an old Democratic Party saying. But anyway, look, the Iranians face incredible downsides for making a deal and no real upside. Why should they? Right. The longer they make. In their minds, they're making Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump suffer. They believe, Israeli and Western media, that both of those leaders are hanging on by their fingernails. They see a number of events on the calendar where. World cup, just one of them, where they will exert outsized pressure. They know elections are coming in both countries, so they think time is on their side. And they have the powerful position. Why should they compromise and yield now? And the welfare of the people is simply not a concern at all. I mean, 70% of Iran suffers electricity and water shortages. The inflation rate is climbing towards 40% per month. Counterfeiting has become a real issue. Their global market for oil is disappearing, and their source of foreign capital is, you Know, by any picture, your favorite measure, they're losing in all of them. If they cared at all about maximizing the welfare of their people, they would be acting differently. But the fact of the matter is that those things, you know, are the temperature in Peru, as far as they're concerned. They're. They're numbers about distant, unimportant matters. So the question that Trump faces in Iran is ironically the same question he faces in fighting Harvard, in fighting the trade deals and so on. How do you remove an entrenched elite that benefits from the current, current situation and thinks it has a right to rule forever when it is neglecting the people that it claims to speak for who are clearly suffering? He has that problem in Iran. He has that problem in domestic politics. He has that problem in trade politics. He has that problem with China and so on. How to detach beat from the host. It lives on apart from the, you know, as the, you know, the parasite that is living off the body. Right. How do you do that?
- [66:28]
Francis (Co-host)
And also, there's another part of this puzzle, which is Netanyahu, because America wants their deal, but also Israel wants a different deal as well, don't they?
- [66:42]
Richard Miniter
What makes you think the deal is different?
- [66:44]
Francis (Co-host)
What makes me think that the deal is different? Because what I think that Israel want is they want to wipe Hezbollah off the map. I think,
- [66:57]
Richard Miniter
sorry, probably Trump does, too, I think.
- [67:01]
Francis (Co-host)
But I may be wrong on this, but I think Trump prizes expediency over everything else. I think that if he can get a deal done which will paper over the cracks and it will last three to five years, and that he can dress that up as a win and then head over to the midterms, wave the deal, say peace in our time, I think he would be very happy with that.
- [67:24]
Thomas Small
I think we do need to always disentangle, even in the case of someone like Donald Trump, who's a real political animal, the political dimension, from the sort of statesman dimension. I mean, I think despite everything I've said about Donald Trump and, but, you know, I'm very frustrated with the man. But I don't think Donald Trump is under any illusions that Hezbollah and Hamas and other parts of Iran's proxy network across the region are anything but horrible, malign actors that get in the way of America's strategic interest. I mean, unlike some of his predecessors in the White House who were happier to accommodate Iran's proxy network in the region, or to just kind of assume that they. Well, to assume that they had to be worked with, now, maybe as maybe time will Tell that that whole side of the American foreign policy, you know, personnel who argued in terms of containment of Iran, engagement with Iran, that that's what underlay the jcpoa, and which, you know, at some time sometimes pissed off our Arab allies in the region because they saw a Shia Crescent being being created and the Houthi takeover of Yemen and all that. So there was a period of time when the American policy apparatus was like, no, we might hate Iran, but we're just, they're here, they're here to stay. We can't do anything about it. We just got to work with them. Maybe this recent adventure in the Middle east is proving them right. And maybe we just can't get rid of these people. So maybe we just have to live with them. I don't know. But I don't think Trump thinks that. And I don't think that Trump, you know, Trump has been very good at enabling the Israelis to do what they feel they need to do to destroy Hamas, to destroy Hezbollah. Now, you can disagree with that policy. But, but Trump I don't think has disagreed with that policy. And that's different from the politics of it. Yes, he needs a quick win in order to win the midterms. He needs. He, you know, cares about poll numbers. He also cares about the stock market, which is a massive problem in this whole thing because people in his family and certainly in his coterie have got very rich on and off over the course of this very wild time. So, you know, he cares about those things. But I also think he does know that Hezbollah needs to be destroyed if there is going to be anything like a well governed Middle East.
- [69:49]
Host (Francis)
Well, perhaps. Francis, let me jump in very quickly, Richard, hold on one sec. Perhaps a better challenge to, to separate the foreign policy and military policy of Israel and that of the United States is to say that what I understand Israel would really like to do is to bomb Iran back to the Middle Ages where they don't have any missiles, they don't have any drones, they don't have any serious military manufacturing, they pose no threat whatsoever to Israel. They don't have the money to fund Hamas, they don't have the money to fund and Hezbollah. Whereas for Trump, the priority is obviously the nuclear side of it. Isn't that a, a big difference between them?
- [70:28]
Thomas Small
Richard?
- [70:31]
Richard Miniter
I don't think at the strategic level there is a significant difference between how Trump and Netanyahu see the Israeli and US Interests.
- [70:41]
Thomas Small
Me neither.
- [70:42]
Richard Miniter
It's, it's useful theater, I think. Take your point of good cop, bad cop here's what Donald Trump knows. Right? You have to look at what happened in Donald Trump's formative years. What were the events occurring when Donald Trump was in the early prime of his life. Hezbollah in the 1980s killed more Americans than any other terrorist group in history, with the exception of Al Qaeda itself. So there is no, there is a tendency in the Biden and Obama years to view Hezbollah the kind of way management deals with the union. Right. Like we have to deal with them, but they're part of the landscape and they have a right to be here, kinda. And we have to make the best deal we can. It's not how Donald Trump sees it. He. I guarantee you, if you asked him what happened on the achille Lauro in 1985, he could tell you. Right. I guarantee you he could tell you about the various terrorist strikes and US Navy personnel who were murdered on a hijacked airplane, loudly saying the al father in English, by the way, as he was killed by his captors in front of the plane load of people. Right. This makes a deep impression on two important people, Donald Trump and Susie Wiles as chief of staff, who. This is a living adult memory for them. They lived through this. So the idea that they've decided that they're going to just separate the way the State Department would like to do Hezbollah from Iran and say, oh, we're gonna have to live with Hezbollah. That's not the case. I mean, that doesn't strike me as plausible. And if you look at the White House's reaction to the seizure of the Crusader castle just north of Latani river in Lebanon, you know what the reaction was? Nothing. No protest, no. Oh, you've colored outside the lines. Just nothing that took away a prime sniper and mortar position from Hezbollah because that was the high point on the far side of the river, right? This, the fact that there are air raid warning signs now in Christian neighborhoods in Beirut, they are prepared to go north. And I don't think Trump will meaningfully attempt to stop them. And for the Christian community of Lebanon, they seem to be saying, and I talked to a handful of Christian Lebanese leaders, not, not enough to really say definitively what the whole spectrum of opinion is.
- [73:31]
Thomas Small
But the ones they're not unified. Oh, no.
- [73:34]
Richard Miniter
And never have been, Right. Like Armenians and the Jews and the Kurds, like, there's no one central view. Right. So, but, but they've gone from, oh my gosh, we don't want an Israeli invasion, that'll be a lot of useless slaughter, to saying, well, if it gets rid of Hezbollah. That's the only way to save Lebanon. I mean, the Lebanese currency is functionally gone. People pay for things in supermarkets now with the US dollar. You know, the, if it weren't for the Hezbollah power in parliament, Lebanon probably would have dollarized a year ago. So there is a real debate about how does Lebanon have a future with Hezbollah inside its borders.
- [74:22]
Thomas Small
Yeah, public opinion in Lebanon is, is remarkable at the moment. It has shifted in a way that I think a lot of people 20 years ago would never have believed that now more and more Lebanese are, are openly feel bold enough to say that, that Hezbollah is the proximate problem that must be dealt with. And that actually if since that's the case and since their corrupt political leadership and weak political leadership and utterly implicated political leadership aren't able to do it, well, okay, Israel's going to do it. Now obviously they also at the same time don't like it. I mean, they can both understand that it's something, that it makes sense that it's happening and also not like it. They don't like being, you know, evac, having to evacuate from their homes. They don't like the fact that the IDF tells the Christians of Ty, you know, the city on the coast, you gotta go. They know what that means. Especially as an, as an increasingly aggressive Israel is prosecuting this buffer zone security doctrine where they're, they're perfectly happy to lay waste to huge tracts of territory on the other side of their borders, both north and south, in order to Prevent anything like the 7th of October ever happening again. So I don't, you know, by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not saying that the Lebanese are jingoistically supportive of, of Israel's moves there, but there is a kind of exhausted realism now that they're, that they just realize that the Hezbollah thing has been a problem, that Hezbollah has been a cancer in the body politic of Lebanon, and that the ideology of resistance that has been sort of propagated by Iran, aided and abetted globally by an increasingly deranged leftist kind of ally movement, you know, and, and ironically, which means in the west, never before have more people been anti Zionist or never before have people been so openly contemptuous of Israel and unwilling to see Israel's perspective just as actually in the region. Amazingly, more and more people are willing to see that perspective because they have actually lived the consequences of rather brainlessly holding on to a fever dream of ideologically pure resistance for decades now. So it's a great irony, and going back to the question of Trump and Hezbollah and Trump and Iran. I just want to be clear when I said that Netanyahu and Trump are working together to separate the two, as it were, files. That's only in the context of the Iranian deal that Trump is trying to get. He knows that, that if Iran can get the Americans to agree to link its interests with Hezbollah's interests, then that deal will forever be extremely shaky, given the fact that Hezbollah will always spark some kind of conflict with Israel, giving the Iranians the opportunity to say that the deal has been broken, the ceasefire or whatever has been broken, so we will go back to pursuing nuclear ambitions or supporting our proxies or whatever. That's, that's what I mean. But I don't think that Donald Trump doesn't want Hezbollah to be destroyed. I think he does want Hezbollah to be destroyed for all the reasons you, you said, Richard.
- [77:34]
Richard Miniter
And by the way, I think your phrase exhausted realism is exactly right. There has been such a tremendous change in Middle Eastern Christian thinking from a vaguely more, not vaguely directly pro Palestinian perspective 20, 25 years ago, to a studied neutrality five years ago, to, yeah, I guess we got to let the Israelis roll their tanks through here and get rid of these invaders. And, you know, it was. This is an old story, but I think it's important. One night I stayed at an Israeli farm on, literally on the Lebanese border. And I said, well, your farm workers come in the morning. Can I talk to them without you around? And I just want to hear what they have to say. Because all the farm workers came from the Lebanese side of the border. And the group, the workers that had sorted themselves into two groups, Christians and Muslims. And by the way, this farm is now evacuated because of the rocket attacks and the fields are overgrown and it'll take a long time to build it back. But anyway, so the Christian workers, they said, well, didn't you see our village at night? It's lit up. We, we have no problem with the Israelis. They are culturally like us. You know, we can do business with them. And then the Muslim group of workers whose villages were not lit up at night, there are very few generators there, and Hezbollah did not supply them any power, said, yes, we work for the Israelis because it's the only people who pay us. But someday soon, this land will be ours and we will be the masters of it, and we will prosper from it. And these are two groups of workers working for the same farmer on the same, same land, living in villages half a mile apart. And so, but none of these people were Sunni. These were All Shia. So my last question to them was where did your father and mother come from? And the answer was always Syria or Iraq. They weren't, they weren't in Lebanon for more than a generation or two. When people see the exit of Hezbollah Lebanon, what they're talking about is the exit of this entire immigration of people who share a different values and different outlook and are much more ideological than the people who are native there before.
- [80:25]
Thomas Small
Although I would just want to make sure that we're, that everyone understands that. Surely you're not saying that the Shia of southern Lebanon are new arrivals in Lebanon. That would not be true at all of the farmers operatives and such like.
- [80:40]
Richard Miniter
Yes, the farm workers that I talked to. Right. And this is years ago and this is, you know, a dozen maybe. Right.
- [80:47]
Thomas Small
Weirdly, when, when Iran, you know, back in the, whenever 16th century decided to be Shia, they had to import clerics from southern Lebanon in order to, you know, more or less forcibly convert the largely Sunni population of Iran to Shia Islam. So Lebanon and Iran have been linked together very closely and Iraq, you know, parts of Iraq where the Shia are a majority for many centuries, you know. So a reminder to everyone listening that this story is really old. This is just the latest chapter in a really old story. But I also want to make it clear that what I said about that
- [81:20]
Richard Miniter
exhausted realism flee Lebanon, he went and stayed at Makhtar Al Sadr's house in Karbala.
- [81:28]
Thomas Small
Exactly. And now I also want to make it clear that even though there is a kind of exhausted realism going on, you know, in the, in the, in the region which may be more inclined to see Israel's security actions as a rational response to certain things and no longer just demonize Israel, that can be true, while at the same time people are extremely angry with Israel on other fronts. The ongoing problem in the west bank, particularly Area C, but not only Area C, the quote unquote settler terrorism problem, which is a real problem which is supported by the right wing people who are in power in Israel because they are pursuing an, a policy which slowly but surely will annex Area C, that is the majority of the West Bank. That is true. You know, people know this is happening. They may be less inclined than they were before to see Jews and Israelis and whatever as monsters or as superhuman demons, they might be more on the ground than they used to be, but they can still be really annoyed that in Israel itself it's politics. As it becomes increasingly right wings largely, but not wholly in response to the 7 October attacks, which were obviously horrible, they can see that Israel itself is becoming more ideologically committed, often not very realistic, not pragmatic. What does Israel really think it's going to achieve? Does it really think it's going to wish away all of those millions and millions of Arab Palestinians who live in the west bank and even in Gaza? I don't think they're going to be able to achieve that. But at the moment, there seems to be no realist policy kind of development going on in Israel, like an actual idea of what policy are we working to achieve here? How are we going to create a political solution alongside this military, this military activity that we're ferociously prosecuting? You know, politics, I mean, war is politics by other means, as the man once said, you know, and if you have no political solution in mind, then you're just fighting like there's no end. You know, you, you have to think, I want to achieve something. Oh, I can only achieve it using force. Okay, I'll, I'll use force then. But what is it you're seeking to achieve? I don't think at the moment, perhaps apart from wanting to be reelected or staying out of jail or whatever, I don't think the Israeli government at the moment has an answer to that question. Arabs aren't stupid. They see that it annoys them, annoys the hell out of them, especially since it has resulted in many tens of thousands of, of Arabs dying.
- [84:16]
Richard Miniter
Yeah, I mean, the one way to guarantee a war with a democracy is to attack it and to kill a lot of civilians. So I think when historians write the story of this time in the Middle east, they will see October 7th as a profound miscalculation by Iran. And the debate will be, is this something that Hamas did without, something that it did specifically at the direction of Iran? Because it, to use a phrase from another war and another enemy, it woke a sleeping giant. Israel political will to go back into Gaza would not be there without October 7th. And if you look back at 17th century American history, it was these Indian massacres of whites that provoked tremendous military responses and pushing back of people of the, of the, of the Indian peoples, the Native Americans, what Brits used to call Red Americans or Red Indians further back west. It was, and it was a gradual coarsening of relations and a lack of sympathy for those because of those attacks. Right. So the Trail of Tears did not cause a political pushback in the 19th century America because of the decades of attacks, massacres, some exaggerated by propaganda that occurred. And October 7th had a similar effect on Israel. The idea that many people who would not have voted. Likud suddenly said, well, these are the crazy people who actually defend us. And so no other response was really possible. And the fact that Iran couldn't see that the one way to galvanize the Jewish democracy was to attack it. And this may turn out to be an enormous miscalculation.
- [86:26]
Host (Francis)
Guys, we've got five minutes left. Before we get into the last five minutes, I want to blow your trumpet and our own in the process, just to say, I do not think you will see this quality of conversation about this issue with this level of depth anywhere in the world, mainstream media, new media, is just incredible. Having you here to talk about all this stuff and, by the way, to have the principles and courage to disagree when you disagree and to agree when you agree, and to do that all with civility and the level of just, you know, beautiful conversation that we've had. So thank you for being here. People will be loving this, no doubt. Richard, the only thing I want to ask you is you say lots of things, as you always do, where I go, oh, my God, that's incredibly well stated, but when I try and put them all together, I don't quite get it. Because your belief is Trump is going to have to escalate, while also you've described how difficult militarily that would be, while also saying this will be seen as a huge miscalculation by Iran, while also saying Trump thinks he can get this done by August. And I'm just thinking, I don't think he is going to get it done by August. And if the Americans do go in, it's going to be. I don't know what the final result will be, but it will be a very bloody thing, as I think everybody would say, yourself included. How like, I don't see this going well from what you're describing for the United States and for Israel. Now, Iran may take a lot of damage in the process, but I come back to the point I've made at the very beginning. It seems to me that, as you said yourself, the peace isn't coming because they don't want it. And they can maintain the current situation long enough that electorally, this becomes an albatross around the neck of whoever is in charge when it's still going on.
- [88:16]
Richard Miniter
Well, that's right. There's two clocks ticking, one in Washington, one in Tehran. Iranians are betting that the alarm clock in Washington goes off first, that the World cup, the 250th celebrations, the declining poll numbers of the Republican Party, the declining poll numbers of the president. The fear of the midterms eventually cuts in their favor, and they survive on the terms in which they want to survive. The Trump loyalists are betting that the alarm clock goes off in Tehran first, that they're shutting in oil wells. They run out of storage capacity, they can't make any more money. The U.S. treasury is doing a fantastic job locking up their resources at banks around the world and cutting them off from customers. And the U.S. navy is cutting down their shadow fleet, as is the Indian Navy and a few other allies. And so which alarm clock goes off first? Who. Who loses? And I. I think predicting the outcome and saying someone, this person is this side is definitely going to win or this side is ever going to win. I don't think that's possible at this stage. I think what. What I was trying to say about the military difficulty is that a ground invasion would not just be politically impossible, but it'd be militarily unthinkable reason why the last successful invasion of Iran was Alexander the Great. Right? This is. These are a tenacious, intelligent people who've got for themselves very fortunate geography. And even the ethnic minorities in Iran do not necessarily want Iran to be broken up into pieces, so they may rally to the mullah side, and the mullahs know all this. On the other hand, the mullah's interpretation of Shia Islam is distasteful to many. You see stories in the Iranian language press that mosques are being closed because the prayers, the preaching at Juma prayers on Fridays are not friendly to the regime. And so, you know, both alarm clocks are ticking. And to say either one is a sure bet, I think would be bad analysis.
- [90:40]
Thomas Small
That's a really profound family. I know how it feels, Francis, doesn't it? You just feel like that's the Middle east for you.
- [90:47]
Francis (Co-host)
No.
- [90:49]
Richard Miniter
Am I wrong?
- [90:51]
Francis (Co-host)
No.
- [90:51]
Thomas Small
Well, I mean, no, you're not wrong, but I, you know, it's interesting. I don't know. I. I think at the moment, it's safer to be pessimistic and because, you know, I did actually feel, to my shame, a bit optimistic in February. And I thought that a very malign actor and my heart in this sort of fight is with the Middle East. And I just see Iran as having had, on balance, the worst record in terms of destabilizing the Middle east, killing people, polluting their brains by brainwashing them, making it more and more a sectarian hellhole. So there, for me, they have always been the proximate evil that needed to be dealt with until you could get progressively close to solving, solving the other problems. So I, I did allow myself to feel optimistic in February. And now I feel like, you know, a bit mugged by reality that the United States once again proves its incredible capacity militarily to not achieve political aims. Like, it's just a remarkable record of not being able to achieve political aims despite this incredible technologically superior force. Just unimaginable. America remains so powerful at that level, but it does not translate into political achievements on the ground again and again. And that's a great shame. It's a shame for our allies. It's a shame for the people of the Middle East. That's where I feel at the moment. But I would love to be proved wrong.
- [92:31]
Host (Francis)
Well, our guest on Fridays, Richard, I'm so sorry, we're out of time. I was just going to say before we wrap up that our guest on Friday's episode is going to be Robert Pape, who would argue this is all because there's an escalation trap that the United States has played itself into. We don't have time, unfortunately, to adjudicate that tonight, but tune in on Friday. We'll talk to Robert again to get his perspective. Gentlemen, I think we, Francis and I, thank you both for the incredible insights and contributions and we look forward to having you both on again, collectively, separately and in every other way. Thank you so much. Thank you for watching and listening and it's been a great pleasure having you here.
- [93:13]
Thomas Small
Thank you.
- [93:15]
Richard Miniter
Thanks, guys.
- [93:23]
Host (Francis)
Guys, let us take a minute to recommend another podcast.
- [93:26]
Eamon Dean
Did you know the average podcast listener has six shows in rotation, so you're most likely not just listening to trigonometry. Wait, so we know you're cheating on us? This is a description.
- [93:39]
Host (Francis)
Francis, it's okay. The Jordan Harbinger show is a perfect complement to trigonometry.
- [93:43]
Francis (Co-host)
Really?
- [93:44]
Host (Francis)
Absolutely. Just like trigonometry, Jordan hosts weekly mind broadening conversations with with some of the most fascinating people in the world. But a key difference that I'm a big fan of is that Jordan is focused on pulling actionable, growth orientated advice from his guest.
- [93:58]
Eamon Dean
I'm looking at his episode list now. There's an episode here where Jordan talks to a hostage negotiator from the FBI who lays out his techniques on how to get people to do what you want them to do by making them like and trust you. Sounds just like me, except, you know, I'm more smart.
- [94:15]
Host (Francis)
You can't go wrong with adding the Jordan Harbinger show to your podcast rotation. Search for the Jordan Harbinger show that's H a r b I n g e r on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.