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- [00:00]
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- [00:02]
Sohrab Ahmari
Did I talk too much? Can't I just let it go? I was thinking so much.
- [00:11]
BetterHelp/Philip Morris Ad Voice
Take a breath. You're not alone. Let's talk about what's going on. Counseling helps you sort through the noise with qualified professionals and online therapy makes it convenient. See if it's for you. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy and let life feel free better. At Philip Morris International we're delivering a smoke free future today. Our ambition is to replace cigarettes with better smoke free alternatives for legal age consumers. And we're making significant progress. Learn more@pmi.com progress.
- [00:54]
James Billo
Hello and welcome back to Unherd. We are in day three now of the new Iran war. Massive combat operations started on Saturday. We've had retaliatory strikes, we've had the UK getting involved every few hours. It feels like there are new developments here. But what we wanted to focus on today is what this means in the battle of ideas inside the Trump administration. Because it seems to us that this is quite a decisive moment in the different strains of populism, the different groups within the Trump broad tent, and which one has now come out on top and whose ideas seem to be winning? Perhaps the best person in the world I would suggest to unpick this for us and explain it, is our very own US Editor, Sohrab Ahmari. He has been on a journey himself. He is very familiar with the different strains of foreign policy thinking inside Trump world and he's written a fantastic essay for us which we published in yesterday. Saurabh, welcome to Unherd. So let's start by laying out for our audience what are these different factions or groups when it comes to foreign policy within the Trump administration and what do you think has just happened?
- [02:11]
Sohrab Ahmari
So you have several who are more or less anti war for different reasons. You have what are called straight up isolationists. There are definitely some of those in the Trump orbit because I know people who take a very narrow view of what the United States role on the world should be. Essentially they take their cues from Thomas Jefferson's vision of an agrarian republic that doesn't have any imperial ambitions or interests, very narrow interests. They're there, I think probably a small group. Then you have restrainers who are somewhat related. They just think that as much as possible, diplomacy should be the way forward, that again, the US should not have an expansive scope of its role in the world, not get involved, especially not go in search of monsters abroad to destroy or to slay. And then related again, but slightly different, are what are called the prioritizers. And those are people, most notably the now US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge Colby, who believe that the primary challenge and opportunity for the United states in the 21st century lies in East Asia in the Pacific region, and that the main rival or adversary is China. And therefore, in a world of limited or scarce resources, the United States should not focus on regions that are maybe not as strategically important by comparison, especially the Middle east and Europe. So we shouldn't waste our resources on these other places when China looms.
- [03:51]
James Billo
Yeah, we had Elbridge Colby on the show explaining that people can look up that that episode. And weirdly, John Mearsheimer even almost falls into that category because he's die hard against Israel basically, and very much a kind of realist, but on the other hand does favor pivoting towards China. So that's just to give people some context. What's the next faction we need to keep in our heads?
- [04:13]
Sohrab Ahmari
So those three, the isolationists, restrainers and prioritizers can easily be confused with each other, but they have important differences among themselves, are all under maybe one big bucket of people who are, who would be skeptical of the current intervention in Iran. And then you have people who are supportive of that intervention. Very few of them would call themselves now neoconservatives, although some of us would say that they effectively are pursuing the same old neocon agenda and are typically just, you might say, they're the hawks. And I argue in my piece that they've somewhat rebranded themselves to say that we are not for regime change per se, or we're not for a kind of freedom agenda. We're not for nation building. We're just there to like, you know, assert American dominance and break things and, you know, let the pieces fall where they may.
- [05:13]
James Billo
Okay, so I think it's worth just also adding a bit more historical context because the Republican Party for many decades has fallen into that second group, overwhelmingly right. It was very closely bound with the military establishment, very respectful of that, and pretty enthusiastic about overseas adventures in different fora, most famously in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's part of what is new about Trump. Part of the big surprise, the big shift in ideas, is that here you have someone who has taken over the Republican Party and been successfully elected twice, who at least in theory takes much more of an anti war position or at least speaks in anti war rhetoric. So just tell us about that big shift first.
- [06:04]
Sohrab Ahmari
Yes, I think the Republican Party becomes associated with an especially expansive Foreign policy, really beginning with the George W. Bush era, you could say with Reagan. But Reagan famously negotiated with the Soviets and he did not just launch regime change, wars everywhere, willy nilly. He was very careful about that, actually. But at any rate, it's really with the George W. Bush administration that you get this extra hawkish strand of, uber hawkish strand of Republican foreign policy. And yes, then Trump comes around in 2016, 2015. I remember this at the time I was working for the, at the comment pages of the Wall Street Journal, which are famously were then and are still very hawkish. And I remember gasping at that debate. You know, Trump's primary debate performance in South Carolina, you know, he just said the Iraq war was a disaster, quote, a disaster. Now today, that's obvious to a lot of us, and we look back and say, of course it was a disaster. We spent so much money and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, thousands of US Troops dead and many more wounded and all that. And what for? But at time, the dominance of the kind of hawkish neoconservative faction was such that it was really a shattering of a taboo to have said that the Iraq war was a disaster. But Trump did it and the Republican base rewarded him. In other words, people clearly felt the same thing, just couldn't be able to say it. And I myself, as a right wing commentator at the time, found a kind of permission structure because I was watching events unfold and I had to say that the regime change wars had been kind of a disaster. But I couldn't, he couldn't kind of say it until someone else says it, especially when you're a young commentator. So he gave lots of conservatives and Republicans permission to be honest about the fruits of those wars. And that was his whole kind of appeal.
- [08:07]
James Billo
And you might remark on just how incredibly successful that transformation seems to have been, at least in terms of commentators and positions in the administration. And the general tenor of the Republican Party now is unrecognizable from 10 years ago. It really feels like those kind of more neocon, hawkish voices have been sidelined. There are a few. One thinks John Bolton continues to surface. I remember Lindsey Graham standing very enthusiastically next to Trump when he was talking about the Venezuela action. But they are not the dominant voices, at least in the media.
- [08:45]
Sohrab Ahmari
Yeah, I would have agreed with you until not long ago, but I think Lindsey is one of them. Senator Graham is one of the major forces behind this unfolding Iran war. But for a long time, you're right, it was so successful that even the hawks had to couch their arguments no longer, certainly not in terms of freedom or liberating oppressed peoples or any of that sort of pap, but had to say that we're just there to break things. It's not about nation building. They always had to sort of clear their throats saying, I'm not for nation building, I'm not for regime change, I'm not for this and that. More recently though, I gotta say, the rhetoric that the President initially offered, the main justification, that news conference you're talking about, or that statement where he's standing with the white baseball cap and that was based on a freedom agenda, he used the word freedom. He said, this is primarily about freeing the Iranian people so they can take control of their destiny or whatever the exact wording was. So yeah, it was a successful shift away from such rhetoric, but it's kind of back.
- [09:54]
James Billo
So let's get into that. I mean, the events of the last three days are so opposite to that agenda. Whether you fall into the isolationists, the restrainers, or the prioritizer group as you describe them, it appears to be almost the dictionary definition of the neocon strand. I mean, just you quoted Donald Trump's statement there. Let's just read out some of the words. The United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this wicked radical dictatorship from threatening America. I mean that, I don't know whether it's word for word, but it could be George W. Bush in 2003. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime. Again, that notion that there's an imminent danger that was very reminiscent of Iraq in 2003. A vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endangered the United States, our troops, our bases overseas and our allies throughout the world. So sort of justification one, there is, it's self defense, essentially because there's an ongoing long term threat. But then he pivots within the same sentence and he talks about regime change. To the great proud people of Iran. I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations. So he is directly encouraging a revolution and seeming to be saying that he's setting the environment, the conditions for regime change. So tell us about your reaction to that. I mean, how surprising was that statement?
- [11:46]
Sohrab Ahmari
It's extremely jarring. It was such a pivot away from what President Trump promised to Republican primary voters and the general electorate in the 2024 election. Election we repeatedly heard from figures close to him and the President himself that this is going to be a vote for the peace campaign, that we are not going to do any more stupid wars. I have this. I've saved it. Just so I don't lose my own mind when I insist that the Republican Party did not run on liberating Iran or whatever. After he was elected, the GOP's official Facebook page put out an image of President Trump and Vice President Vance. And under it was the huge, in huge block letters it said the Peace Admin or the Pro Peace Admin. So this is, I can't overstate how jarring this is. And specifically to go back to this language of 2003, really, it's like taking a time capsule to the lead up to the Iraq war with talk of, you know, Iraqi freedom, and the Iraqi people will now have the opportunity to take their destiny into their own hands. And all of that, as well as
- [13:08]
James Billo
the imminent threat rhetoric, also very reminiscent,
- [13:12]
Sohrab Ahmari
which I should say, as we're recording, this is Monday, Monday morning at 8:23am things are moving fast. But CNN is reporting that the Pentagon told, in briefing Congress over the past few hours, told them that they have no evidence that the Iranians were about to preemptively attack US Bases or that they had the capability even to try to attack the US Homeland within the next decade at least. So if you believe that reporting the Pentagon is undercutting the President's own messaging about how really imminent the Iranian threat
- [13:54]
James Billo
was, what is your best account of how that ideological battle was won inside the President's head? Because ultimately, that's what we're talking about here. One individual wields huge power to make his own decisions. Who are the characters inside the administration who have been pushing him in this direction and who have they defeated?
- [14:15]
Sohrab Ahmari
So my initial instinct was to assume that this must be the doing of Secretary of State and Acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, and maybe to a secondary extent, the White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, both of them Floridians, both of them come from that hawkish milieu and orbit. But actually, subsequent reporting I've done of talking to insiders and people close to insiders, congressional staffers and others, my understanding is that Marco Rubio certainly was not the driver of this. That, you know, he's obviously, he's a hawk and, you know, I can't see him being super opposed either. But he is not the primary driver. What I've heard, the consensus seems to be from the insiders I've Spoken with that. This is really just led by President Trump himself. And insofar as anyone influenced him, it was outside figures, not people within the cabinet or within the administration. Again, not Marco Rubio.
- [15:21]
James Billo
So outside figures such as who?
- [15:23]
Sohrab Ahmari
So it would be in the Senate, Senator Lindsey Graham. In the broader media, the Fox News host, Mark Levin, who's a very kind of old school, has a very boomer audience, very, very pro war everywhere sort of figure.
- [15:41]
James Billo
But Lindsey Graham, let's just dwell on him for a moment because he's a real figure from history almost. I mean he's been a senior senator. I don't know when he was elected, but it feels like many decades. And he was a Bush supporting Republican. He's known as very conservative, but also very keen on these kind of adventures. How has he managed to re ingratiate himself in the kind of Trump fold?
- [16:06]
Sohrab Ahmari
As far as I can tell through flattery. He initially was not a Trump supporter. I'm talking about 2015, 16. Of course back then very few people were. But over time he worked himself to proximity to the president just by praising him as a world historic figure and that sort of thing, to the point where he clearly, he clearly has influence, which is again to a lot of the young right that's dissatisfied with the pro Israel status quo or dissatisfied with the hawkish kind of elite consensus in the party and sees it as a remnant of old men who don't understand what America needs. Again, you don't have to agree with that view, but there's a subset of the younger right, including people in the, in the current administration who feel that way. If you're from that point of view, this return of Lindsay is surreal. It's like this kind of has a zombie quality to it in the sense that they think that they put that ideology down, they think that they defeated this and now they're the ones who are going to inherit the party and totally pivoted it away from the Middle east to other concerns. Whether they think the concern should be to lock down the US border or whether it's to confront China or focus on our own industrial development. That's what they thought they had done. So then to see the return of Lindsay is pretty, pretty shocking.
- [17:34]
James Billo
Meanwhile, the other figure that must be talked about, of course, is the vice president, J.D. vance. He is a friend of yours. You speak to him. He has been quite notably silent since this event. There's a lot of commentary. Where is J.D. why is J.D. not saying anything? And one kind of imagines that he's maybe not so happy about it. What should we think about his role in this? Do you think he attempted to stop this happening and was defeated, or what should we think?
- [18:04]
Sohrab Ahmari
Certainly in the public reporting, there is no indication that he opposed it. I have a very hard time imagining him driving it. As I said, if Marco Rubio wasn't a primary driver, Rubio, who's much more of a conventionally hawkish figure, then it's hard to imagine the vice president, J.D. vance, being that way.
- [18:23]
James Billo
Yeah, because we should say that J.D. vance is considered almost the kind of team captain of the restrainer faction. Right. I mean, he came in on that. His whole politics is steeped in the idea that that kind of expansionist action was just a waste of resources, and he was worried about very different things. So it's just impossible to imagine that he's over the moon about this.
- [18:49]
Sohrab Ahmari
There's a quote from him in 2024, an interview he gave at a podcast in which he said, I think it would be a mistake to go after Iran. I think it would be a major distraction for the United States. In 2023, he wrote an op ed in the Wall Street Journal in which he said, the best thing about Trump is that he. He doesn't and won't start new wars with all of that. I think it's fair to say that people who are in the defense apparatus and the security and intelligence apparatus in this administration, that if Vance was the person who championed them as staffers, chances are they come from that kind of restraint or prioritizing camp, and they're not. Not conventional hawks. So with all that in mind, like I said, I think it's hard to imagine him driving it. I can't say, because there's no public information about that, that he's unhappy with it, certainly. But I think his silence is pretty telling.
- [19:45]
James Billo
Silence is eloquent enough, you might say.
- [19:49]
Sohrab Ahmari
Well, he. He did retweet the President's prepared remarks. The President gave not an interview, but a kind of prepared interview from Mar a Lago. And since the war has started, the only communication, the public communication from Vance that I've seen, unless I'm wrong, correct me if I'm wrong, but the only thing that I've seen is him simply retweeting that video of the President's prepared remarks.
- [20:11]
James Billo
Do you think this will now go wrong for the President? You've talked about how so much both of the young kind of online supporter group and big chunks of his actual administration, at least in theory, should be against this kind of action.
- [20:26]
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- [20:45]
Sohrab Ahmari
Did I talk too much? Can't I just let it go?
- [20:54]
BetterHelp/Philip Morris Ad Voice
Take a breath. You're not alone. Let's talk about what's going on. Counseling helps you sort through the noise with qualified professionals and online therapy makes it convenient. See if it's for you. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy and let life feel better.
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Sohrab Ahmari
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- [21:50]
Hayden
Howdy, howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fanfellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.
- [21:58]
Stephen (Smash Daddy)
And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball. But you can call me the Smash Daddy.
- [22:02]
Hayden
And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Steven here has not read Mistborn before.
- [22:11]
Stephen (Smash Daddy)
That's right.
- [22:11]
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- [22:12]
Sohrab Ahmari
Hey.
- [22:12]
Stephen (Smash Daddy)
So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter.
- [22:16]
Hayden
And along the way we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.
- [22:23]
Stephen (Smash Daddy)
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- [22:33]
James Billo
I mean, on the other hand, he did it in Venezuela, got away with it. He did it in Iran the previous time. And there were lots of people predicting secondary and tertiary bad effects of that first 12 day war with Iran. They didn't really happen. It seemed to be relatively successful in and out incursion. I mean, are we now, are we in danger of repeating the same predictions of disaster for the President? He has an amazing ability to do things like this and get away with them.
- [23:03]
Sohrab Ahmari
Yeah. Are we in danger of being panicans? That's the Trumpian term of art for people who panic, supposedly at the President's actions and then everything turns out fine. So the opposite of a pannikin is a plan truster. Like, trust the plan. He knows what he's doing. Look, I would say, first of all, yes, no hugely horrific ramifications came out of the 12 Day War. However, by the fact that the US is going back in also suggests that it wasn't all that successful either. So he took this risk and the administration blared. You can find White House statements saying that the Iranian nuclear program had been obliterated and now there's a war going on in which part of the premise is going in to destroy the nuclear program. Although, again, as I said, the main motivation seems to be the liberation of the Iranian people. So, yeah, nothing happened after the 12 Day War, or nothing kind of horrific happened. Apocalyptic. But was it successful? That's a different question.
- [24:06]
James Billo
So what's your fear here? What's your fear both of how it could go wrong on the ground or in the. In the region, but also for him, for Trump, politically.
- [24:15]
Sohrab Ahmari
At the risk of exposing myself as a potential pannikin a second time around, I would say that things are already going fairly badly militarily and the Iranians have not done what they were expected to do, and I don't think they will, which is to collapse. The expectation was that just like in other cases, presumably, and I'm struggling to think maybe in the Libyan case, Libya.
- [24:40]
James Billo
Yeah, well, we saw how that turned out. That wasn't very successful either.
- [24:45]
Sohrab Ahmari
But I guess the expectation was that the regime would collapse just from the initial bombing and then the Iranian people would rise up. Trump had created the conditions for them. At one point he said, as your president, I urge you to do that. And the regime is holding up. They're firing on all cylinders, literally. They've set the Gulf region on fire. Many US Allies that hosted US Bases have come under attack. There is an attempt to close down the Straits of Hormuz, which is having already an effect on oil markets. You know, depending on when you look, crude is up 20 or 15%. The Qataris have stopped. A major Qatari natural gas producer has announced that it's stopping production because of an Iranian effect. And of course, commodities being the way they are, if you remove a chunk of supply price, prices will go up for everyone. So eventually you'll have the gas pump ramifications. For Americans, the attacks on Israel are ongoing. The Iranians claim to have been able to target the Israeli prime minister's office, whether successfully or not. It's a different question. There is talk of interceptors that the US uses to stop Iranian missiles running short. The US is short on munitions. So all of this, I mean, like, what's the bad outcome? It's not some apocalyptic thing of like, I don't know, God forbid, some sort of like nuke going off in the Middle east or anything. I'm not suggesting that, but it's all a hit to US prestige. If you set out to say we're going to liberate Iran and do this and that, all the Iranians have to do Iranian regime has to do is just stay in place and keep firing. It just makes us look like schmucks. You see the headlines every day, but
- [26:38]
James Billo
do they actually tell you what's going on?
- [26:39]
Sohrab Ahmari
We don't just look at the front pages.
- [26:41]
James Billo
We look at what's moving beneath the surface. That's Undercurrents, the new daily newsletter from Unherd.
- [26:47]
Sohrab Ahmari
It lands in your inbox every morning at 8am EST or 1pm GMT.
- [26:52]
James Billo
Get the perspective that really matters. Get Undercurrents by me, James Billo in the U.S. newsroom. Sign up today@unherd.com undercurrents newsletter. I've got to say I'm listening and I'm somewhat shaking my head there, Saurabh, because the United States has literally just killed the head of state of a country of 90 million people. Head of state who has been there for 36 years. Most people currently alive in Iran will remember nothing different than Ayatollah Khamenei being the supreme leader of that country. It is impossible to imagine a graver strike at a country. It would be equivalent, but almost worse than, let's say the Americans assassinating Queen Elizabeth ii, if she actually had any governmental power. This is a huge figure in the nation's psyche. And all they have managed to do in the two days since by way of retaliation is a very kind of scattergun approach. They've managed to land a few missiles in some of the Gulf states. A hotel was hit, which will upset some influencers, but it doesn't have any very big geostrategic implications. I would think a few bombs may have penetrated the Golden Dome in Israel. There's been a failed attempt on a British base in Cyprus. I mean, these are pretty pathetic responses from a regime that we were once taught to fear. I mean, from where I'm sitting, it feels extraordinarily successful and it feels like Iran has been just humiliated and exposed as very powerless.
- [28:36]
Sohrab Ahmari
Again, I guess it depends on first of all, what the goal was. If the goal was to collapse the regime. It hasn't happened, and yet it doesn't look yet. And again, that's a premise we can revisit. But if that's the goal, then people haven't come out into the streets in any numbers. The idea that the initial decapitation strikes would inspire a mass movement, if anything, you see enormous, enormous numbers of people coming out to mourn Ayatollah Khamenei, for whom I had no love, by the way. I mean, that's just to make it clear. I'm Iranian born, and part of the reason I live in the west is because I can't stand the Iranian regime. But the reality is that this regime has a large and organized core of support. Some people put it at 15, 20% of the country, but it happens to be the 15, 20% of the country that enjoys a kind of social regency. They're the ones that are in charge and have a lot to lose if the regime collapses. You have probably the same number of people who are vehemently opposed to the regime, and then you have lots of people in the middle who kind of hate living under the ayatollahs, but they're indifferent and they're pulled between the two other poles. But the ones that really matter is the ones who support the regime, who can come out in huge numbers, even amid a attack on the country by two nuclear powers, including the global hegemon, it seems to me. I mean, looking at Iranian channels, listening to the Islamic Republic broadcasters, looking at their influencers and so on, there's a lot of propaganda and bs, but the bottom line is they're holding on. And there are indications of the, of the Trumpians trying to reach out to Iran to find an exit by saying the Iranians want to negotiate and the Iranians will come out most recently in the form of the top security official right now, Mr. Larijani Alijani, saying, no, there's no negotiations, we're just going to keep firing. That's all not very successful. To me, after a while, it might be successful, but so far I don't see any signs of it.
- [30:42]
James Billo
It's definitely new and it's definitely something we need to kind of rapidly get our heads around as a foreign policy approach, because both what we saw in the 12 Day War, but particularly in Venezuela when a, okay, very probably corrupt, illegal, criminal in all sorts of ways, but the sitting head of government of Venezuela was abducted by the Americans and taken in an airplane and taken over to America. We haven't seen that ever happen in world history, I don't think. And now you have the head of state targeted, taken out, and then a kind of pulling back to see what happens next. I don't know how best to characterize this new form of deployment of American power, but it's very different to Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a sort of. I'm imagining one of those frogs with a long tongue that just sort of squats and sticks a long tongue out, takes the fly off the tree and
- [31:34]
Sohrab Ahmari
then that's a decent. I'm willing to live with that. But look, bottom line is I'm not an expert on the Venezuelan state, but I do know something about the Iranian state. And what I would just say is that it's a systemic state, meaning it doesn't, in fact, despite the fact that it's headed by a grand Ayatollah who is the supreme leader, and over time builds up this cult of personality around himself, that there are structures, there are layers and layers of officials for each role. And so, yes, the death of a supreme leader is a kind of humiliating blow, but there is a process for selecting the next supreme leader and a process for this kind of interim period. Right now, the kind of leadership council has been formed. It's a three person transitional council made up of the president, the head of the judiciary, and a member of what's called the Guardian Council. They're functioning like the supreme Leader. So maybe that model worked with Venezuela because you had an elite that was fractured. There's a lot of talk that many of the top layers of the Maduro regime were tired of him, so they were willing to kind of sacrifice Maduro. And the relationship that's been formed with Washington is they're basically pliant to what America wants. Even if they shout anti American slogans every once in a while and demand Maduro's release with a wink and a nod, okay, whatever. But in this case, the regime is holding up and it's not acting in the same manner, in part because these guys know that under the scenarios envisioned by the United States, Israel and the kind of exiled Iranian opposition, if they go, they all go, right? They're all in the same boat, so they're just staying fairly cohesive. So that's what I mean by a systemic state as opposed to a kind of personality state.
- [33:31]
James Billo
Even within a systemic state, there are human beings and individuals. And I'm now thinking through what the merits of this policy might be, and it feels like Trump's special genius is it's a kind of intimidating bully like Psychology where he very successfully, as we saw, over tariffs, manages to scatter his opponents into a kind of fear and a desire to get his approval and do a better deal than their competitors. If you are now one of the three or four candidates to be the new Supreme Leader of Iran and you've just seen that your predecessor and in fact, the other potential successes have all been taken out in a surgical strike by the Americans, you are going to be thinking, if I want this job, maybe I should not put myself in a position where I'm now going to be taken out and therefore maybe I should make a little bit nicer with. Donald Trump led us. Why is that wrong?
- [34:31]
Sohrab Ahmari
The scenario under which this could be wrong is, and I always kind of am surprised by this, there's a temptation to imagine that when these people say that our regime is dedicated to this Shiite cause, that we are acting to further God's cause on earth and so on, that they cannot be serious, that they don't mean what they say about their project. And I'm tempted to believe that sometimes, and I've said so, it's like I can't possibly be, but it's possible and, or maybe more than possible, that they really believe the stuff they say. And that's the kind of, that's my own, let's say, surprise epiphany in the course of this war in particular, in a way, maybe that wasn't during the 12 Day War, is like this sense that not just the elites of the regime, but lots and lots of Iranians inside Iran really believe in the project of the Islamic Republic. You know, as ridiculous as it in a way seems to me, if I put on my, my own kind of cynical secular glasses, they, like, really believe in it. And so if that's the case, and again, they have this sense that regardless of what we do, they're going to come at us. Right? That's the kind of maybe a lesson that they took from the 12 Day War, where they were in the midst of negotiations when the Israelis struck. This time around, again, they were in the midst of negotiations. They were supposed to come back to Vienna or whatever. And then the American, Americans and Israelis struck jointly. They're like, these people want to get rid of all of us. What's my incentive? Even to, even if I were doing that kind of rational cost benefit analysis that you suggested, what's the incentive? They're going to strike again, so might as well.
- [36:16]
James Billo
Maybe I'm more of a skeptic than you are, Sora, but I feel like what you've said is almost certainly true for a chunk of the population, but the kind of characters that maneuver themselves into a top position of power in those kind of highly relational, corrupt kind of regimes will tend to be pretty Machiavellian and will have a number of different considerations about how best to occupy the position. But we will see. Let me ask finally, in a way, the elephant in the room, which is Israel. We haven't really spoken about Israel. Israel was very much a driver and very much a part of this series of attacks. You said it came from the head of Donald Trump, but it also came from the head of Benjamin Netanyahu. Let's talk about that as a lens for the different factions within Trump world because it sounds to me like pretty simply Jewish members of the Trump administration or people who are much more supportive of Israel and there is obviously an overlap there will tend to take a more supportive line to this kind of attack. And then, you know, Iranian born, I'm gesturing towards you. Or non Jewish members of his wider circle might take this view. I mean, at the end of the day, is it all just about Israel?
- [37:37]
Sohrab Ahmari
I think the real question is, look, what is the future of the At
- [37:44]
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- [38:00]
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- [38:59]
Sohrab Ahmari
US Israel special relationship look like after this. And I suppose it depends on the outcome of all the other questions we've been discussing in this interview. If the Iranian regime collapses and the kind of transition that it was envisioned by President Trump comes about, or if a more pliant leadership emerges from within the current state and the costs don't rise much higher than they have so far, then that's one outcome in terms of where the US Israel relationship goes. If, however, this turns out to be a, let's say, a failure to a straight up calamity, that's a range of a mere failure or all the way to calamity, then I think the US Israel relationship will definitely be cast in a different light. Especially cast in a different light, not just among Democrats who are already majority hostile and independents who are majority now hostile or skeptical of Israel, but Republicans as well. You know, the largest kind of shift in terms of negative perceptions of Israel growing among the American electorate happening is among Republicans under age 50. In other words, the most Israel skeptical shift has happened among young GOP ers. So with that being the backdrop, if this thing goes in a different direction than the administration may want to, or if it goes in a very, very bad direction, we'll see, then I think the drive to really rethink the US Israel relationship will intensify and accelerate.
- [40:44]
James Billo
I put it to you maybe that Israel is the single best key to unlock this mystery and that ultimately Trump will side with Israel. And that's what we've learned in the last three days, that there is, as you say, this growing chorus inside the right, some of it really quite unpleasant, some of it overtly anti Semitic at the kind of Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes end of things. But a lot of it not so, and a lot of it fairly skeptical about the proximity of the Israel relationship. But all of it, when push comes to shove, is overpowered by the strength of that Israel relationship at the top. And Donald Trump ultimately is Team Israel. I mean, he has very close connections. He really enjoys his relationship with Netanyahu. He has many family members who are Jewish, and he's just not interested in making that relationship more nuanced. He sees them as the good guys. Do you think that's the wrong conclusion?
- [41:49]
Sohrab Ahmari
No, I think that's certainly, certainly part of it. There have been instances over the past year or so where Trump has actually been maybe more critical of Israel than any Republican president I can think of, maybe of any president I can think of. So you remember during the Gaza war, he insisted that there is starvation going on in Gaza. That's, that's Israeli induced mass hunger, at least. And he expressed disappointment and horror at that. He also, toward the end of the 12 Day War, was very angry with Bibi because Bibi was kind of continuing the operations after Trump had said that they should stop. And so he remember, famously used the F bomb. He was like, they've been at each other for so long they don't know what the fuck they're doing. So he has that brashness and willingness to break with anyone. I think that just kind of adds a little bit of nuance to the picture you painted. But generally speaking, I don't, I directionally speaking, I don't think you're wrong.
- [42:54]
James Billo
Final question for you. What do you think happens next in the next week, if you're going to put on your prediction lenses? What should we expect to see from people within the administration? Will J.D. vance break cover? Will there be any kind of public scrap or will everyone just be holding their tongue and waiting to see what happens?
- [43:13]
Sohrab Ahmari
Another factor we haven't spoken of, but which is very important for President Trump is the stock market. So I think perhaps the ultimate indicator for him of how he's doing is how The Dow, the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 are doing. If, for example, you see very dramatic declines in equity markets, I wonder if we'll see a kind of pulling up the stakes on the part of the president, even though he said this might be a weeks long affair potentially where he will sort of make another devastating series of strikes or whatever and then just say declare victory and pull up the stakes and then both sides will kind of muddle through. The Iranians will muddle through. The factor there though is if the US Disengages, will the Israelis continue? That's an open question. So that's my rough sense of a scenario. It's always very dangerous to try to pretend like you're Nostradamus. But again, if oil price goes way up and threatens to raise gas prices for his voters, in terms of the popularity of the war, it's in a very bad shape already. And usually there's a rally around the flag effect which is not reflected in the polls. In this case, a Reuters Ipsos poll yesterday found one in four Americans supports it. So you put all that together and it's hard to see President Trump continuing to sustain it certainly for the four weeks that he's promised. But we'll see.
- [44:47]
James Billo
What about you? I mean, you've been quite open about the fact that you consider yourself a restrainer. You're part of that group. How upset are you by this and do you feel you can continue to support President Trump after the last three days?
- [45:03]
Sohrab Ahmari
I don't know if upset quite captures it. I'm really dismayed and I'm dismayed again. Like today, again, we didn't talk about it, but three US F15 jets were shot down. CENTCOM claims it was over kind of friendly fire by the Kuwaiti air defense, although in its statement it said while engaged with Iranian aircraft and drones this friendly fire incident took place. And I look at that and I just think this is a region where appearances matter a lot. You might say, oh, these Iranian attacks, are they really that bad? It's sort of pathetic. I don't know if you have this kind of accumulated sense that can you
- [45:43]
James Billo
continue to give overall support to the Trump project having witnessed this Iran war?
- [45:52]
Stephen (Smash Daddy)
No.
- [45:52]
James Billo
Well, it's a very clear answer. Saurabh, thanks for talking to us today.
- [45:56]
Sohrab Ahmari
Thank you.
- [45:58]
James Billo
That was Sourabh Amari, US editor of UnHerd, someone who as well as being an expert observer and commenter on all of the different groups within the populist right, is himself a member of the restrainer faction, known to be very close to J.D. vance, the group for whom direct war on Iran by the United States was the very thing to be avoided. That was the mark of failure. And in the last three days that has happened. So as I asked him at the end there, these are very grave times for that corner of Trump world. We will be talking to other factions and people of different persuasions in the coming days and weeks. So stay tuned for now. This was unheard of.
- [46:47]
BetterHelp/Philip Morris Ad Voice
At Philip Morris International. We're delivering a smoke free future today. Our ambition is to replace cigarettes with better smoke free alternatives for legal age consumers. And we're making significant progress. Learn more@pmi.com progress
- [47:04]
Hayden
howdy, howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fan. Fellas, I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.
- [47:12]
Stephen (Smash Daddy)
And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball, but you call me the Smash Daddy.
- [47:16]
Hayden
And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Steven here has not read Mistborn before.
- [47:25]
Stephen (Smash Daddy)
That's right.
- [47:25]
BetterHelp/Philip Morris Ad Voice
Hey.
- [47:25]
Sohrab Ahmari
Hey.
- [47:26]
Stephen (Smash Daddy)
So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter.
- [47:30]
Hayden
And along the way, we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.
- [47:37]
Stephen (Smash Daddy)
News flash, I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday and you can find Fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts.
- [47:46]
Nikayla Matthews Akome
Acast powers, the world's best podcasts.
- [47:50]
James Billo
Here's the show that we recommend.
- [47:54]
Nikayla Matthews Akome
If you've ever dreamed of quitting your job to take your side Hustle full time. Listen up. This is Nikayla Matthews Akome, host of Side Hustle Pro, a podcast that helps you build and grow from passion project to profitable business. Every week you'll hear from guests just like you who wanted to start a business on the side. And if you can't run a side Hustle, you can't run a business. They share real tips and so I started connecting with all these people on LinkedIn and I saw target supplier diversity was having office hours. Real advice Procrastination is the easiest form of resistance and the actual strategies they use to turn their side hustle into their main hustle. Getting back in touch with your tangible cash and sitting down and learning to give your money a job like it changes something. Check outside Hustle Pro every week on your favorite podcast app and YouTube.
- [48:43]
James Billo
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.