Even Experts Can't Explain WTF Trump Is Doing In Iran

From Washington, DC, which thanks to everybody who watched that and Luke in my hands if you watched it. Still hurt there. Oh, you're still hurt mine. Oh, yeah

“So I mean, I guess maybe there's a there's a little bit of a benefit. What did you guys do with your hands that led them to hurt together?”

I know every time someone Subscribed including rich himself to our YouTube channel. Yeah, no, no, you got to keep it We did high fives and after the 50th we had 50 our hands were getting a little rough, but But now we're back to our show and we're joined by a very special guest today. Obviously the only topic that I want to talk about is the new Iran war which the United States started this weekend and we are joined by Greg Carlstrom who is a Middle East correspondent with the economist

So Greg, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having me happy to be here So Greg is actually at a re-odd so he is right in the thick of everything, but I want to go to the beginning like Do you have a sense What is the United States plan and goal with this with this military intervention which I think most of us in the United States are kind of looking at each other

“Trying to wonder what the urgency is and we're wondering if you could shed some light on that for us or not”

I don't I don't have a sense. I mean the short answer is no, I can't shed any light on that We have heard just about every explanation that you can think of from Donald Trump Over the past three days if you go back to Saturday morning our time here when the war started Trump put out this video message this eight-minute statement on social media and He talked about wanting to he said raise Iran's ballistic missile program

A annihilate its navy and then he called on the Iranian security forces to lay down their arms He said they should stop fighting and that the Iranian people should rise up and take over your government He said so it was a call for regime change. It was a call for for popular on rest in Iran and regime change Since then he's also said maybe this can all be over in two or three days and I'll make a deal with the regime We've got some guys in mind who might be able to take over now that the Supreme Leader has been killed

Actually, no, it turns out those guys were also killed in those air strikes on Saturday So we can't rely on them. I mean The the objective of this and the timeline of this is constantly changing. He said maybe it's two or three days Maybe it's four or five weeks. There's no clear answer There's a striking poll at snap text poll that the Washington Post did this morning that reflects exactly what you just described and how it's showing up in the public

Where they ask people what do you think the Trump administration's main goal of the US military action in Iran is the top answer was 14% of Respondent so only 14%

Nobody knows show power and take control which is that's that's nothing second answer unsure of goals

13% of people were just like and everything else changed the regime help Iranian Iranians stopping the nuclear program money and oil the abstain files and protecting the US and other allies These are all like seven to nine percent each people have no fucking clue what's happening While jets are getting shot down by our buyer allies and like who's in charge of this and while we're actually losing American lives now and Lord knows how

expense of this whole thing has already become and how expensive it will be if it drags on for four to five weeks I feel or or longer I feel like maybe Pete Hickseth was wrong when he said that we didn't have We weren't entitled to any of this information in his press conference this morning Who who who were you to ask us what we're gonna do in Iran is he said that he said that in his press conference who who were you to ask

What we're gonna do like as if we're gonna tell you and the enemies What we're going to do absolutely no accountability and and not even attempting to make an explanation for why we're doing this No, I was gonna say I think if there is an explanation for this

“I think Trump wants to be able to say Iran has been a problem for going on fifty years, right?”

It's been the headache for yeah, right every president since Jimmy Carter has had to deal with this regime That chants death to America that took hostages at the embassy in 1979 that his sponsored militias across the region I mean he laid out this litany of grievances in his initial statement and I think he just wants to be able to say Nobody else fix this I fix that which is very Trumpy right I alone can solve this problem that that no other politician can solve But what does fixing it mean?

I mean there's a whole range of possible scenarios there not all of which are are good in the long run for Iran or for the Middle East or for the world

Then we just don't know which one of those he has in mind and everybody we also have a second guest here because this this show or this this war is so complex and so big

Who is a senior fellow at Center for American Progress and had the very very easy job at the State Department as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli Palestinian Affairs

clearly a job so Andrew. Thank you for joining us My pleasure. So Andrew we just asked Greg about Donald Trump's Why he's doing so why America is doing this you obviously were in the State Department in the previous administration

“So you're you're privy to a lot of Intel on this you obviously worked on Middle Eastern Affairs quite a bit. Do you have any sense of why on earth we are doing this now?”

No, no, no They're from a national security from a foreign policy perspective. There is no rationale for why it's being done now The situation on Friday before Saturday's attack was virtually indistinguishable from the day after the 12 day war last year ended so it was a constant you can't explain Change in in posture a change in action by what is a constant and

While I don't have you know access to the same material

I used to have nothing that has been coming from Members of Congress who do have access to that Information suggests that there is anything you know credible and the claims that Iran is Close to developing an ICBM is laughable. I'm not for those of us who were who were tracking this who who knew where they were really it's it's preposterous and

Even the I mean even the just the comments the language that's used to describe the nature of the problem it just is I was Steve Steve what cops saying you know, they're you know They're one week away from having industrial industrial grade

“Missile making material something like what are you even talking about? I mean, it's there is it are there?”

What is industrial bread? Is there an artisanal nuclear weapon?

It doesn't even it doesn't even make sense, but it's You know, he he's probably referring to the highly enriched uranium and what we did know is you know Iran has probably still has about 900 pounds of Highly enriched uranium at the 60% level and based on the

Center of huge capacity Iran had before the 12th they wore they theoretically could have Turned that into 90% Uranium which would be weapons grade in one to two weeks now. That's just then fuel that is not all the way to a bomb You still have to develop a design and some of the estimates that you know one public or You know very very short know they could do it in this little is three or four months that would be more or less like

You know, that would be even more primitive than And I hate to call primitive because of the best destruction they did a more primitive than Hiroshima and Nagasaki You're talking about something that would be Miniaturized to put on a Missile well over you know a year or way so this idea of it's entirely fabricated

They're the the the echoes of of Iraq are so strong here You feel bad it almost The play or some type of You know some type of satire. It's like the worst sequel ever, right? Yeah Well anyone's gonna come up with it. It would be these guys. I have a theory and I'm

I do only reason I don't subscribe to this because it's too coherent and I just can't I'm just the Trump administration actually do this, but I want to get both your takes on the theory Which is I looking at the heels of this revolution is going on that obviously is not going well for the Existing regime it would make sense for the United States military at this point to put additional pressure on it to It minimum destabilize the country to the point where the regime as even even greater chance of toppling

For the downstream effect of negatively impacting some of our adversaries like China and Russian North Korean things like that That to me is the only coherent thing I could come up with but does that ring true as a possibility or is that just not

“Reflected of what you guys are saying. I think this was a moment of opportunity for Trump”

He saw a moment of weakness You're right that the regime in the wake of those protests earlier this year Was really politically it lost a lot of Remaining popular legitimacy inside of Iran because it massacred Thousands and thousands and thousands of peaceful protesters

It's also Modeling through years of economic crisis Currency lost half of its value last year inflation is in the double digits people are unhappy about that And it's militarily weakened in the wake of the the war with Israel last summer Its air defenses haven't been rebuilt its capabilities are not what they once were so I think the Trump administration looked at this

Situation and and just saw an opportunity you know the boot is on the neck and this is an opportunity to press America's advantage

I would just add two things one

I would expect to see Trump poll a

“Venezuela at some point and throw the opposition under the bus”

So the idea that he's genuinely concerned about the freedom of the Iranian people who's Virtually deserve their freedom after decades of tyranny and and depression I think unfortunately is is just you know is allusory And you know if there is an opportunity to cut with someone in the regime he will do it and he'll find a way to enrich himself and and his family and friends You know the second point is

While it is is absolutely true that the regime is out as weakest and the probability of toppling it now is higher than ever before That doesn't mean that what's going to come next is going to be any better And that's one of the lessons that we've learned and I subscribed to the theory of my former boss full Gordon that you know

We've we've basically tried regime changed through every conceivable formula and it always turns out badly and I think we need to recognize that

Germany and Japan are the anomalies. It's not the Middle East that's the anomaly. It's very very difficult to Use military force to put into place a democratic government that is going to be sustained It's extremely difficult and it's more likely that you'll either see complete state failure or that you'll see an Avacariol even more Avacariol regime a develop so it's

“Very plausible that's what's motivating them and it's certainly for some members of the administration”

They do see this as the moment to go after the the understandably hated Islamic Republic but Ultimately it strategically Strategically ill-conceived Well, Andrew, it's funny that you point out

Germany and Japan I spent a good amount of time Looking at these parallels yesterday and over the weekend Specifically for that reasons like what is what is effective nation building even look like and

You know you look at the Marshall plan where we spent a equivalent to 150 billion dollars

over a seven-year period with massive international support We grew Germany and Japan from scratch using local people local institutions rebuilding everything with with the local populations And that was after we completely eviscerated all local opposition The exact I and we we also had good leaders to shepherd that process none of those conditions are true today And so best case scenario you take a country like Iran and I mean we we know how how

I don't know if you call it factionalized but we know how how divisive The groups are in the Middle East and how long they've been fighting each other That alone makes it incredibly difficult To to solve for you can't just take out one because there's 12 others and they're all they're all looking for that That that power vacuum and Greg you tweeted this morning Trump should have seen this coming

He said the biggest surprise of this so far Was that Iran retaliated against other Arab countries in the region Bahrain Jordan Kuwait and Qatar in the United Arab Emirates Trump actually said we were surprised that that Iran attacked these these countries despite Iran warning this is exactly how we will respond and it will destabilize the whole region if you If you do something like this and they just went forward anyway, so unfortunately the pipe dream of

Rebuilding you know a thriving Middle East that's going to be an ally for us 50 years in the future is Probably not something that's going to happen under Trump Dr. Yeah, I mean and he he shouldn't have been surprised It didn't eat intelligence briefing to know that Iran was going to do this you could have picked up a newspaper You could have looked at Twitter. I mean they have spent months since that war in June

Threatening to do exactly what they're doing now to to rain missiles and drones Down on the Gulf countries. This is their Strategy they're very clearly telegraphed strategy of if you attack us We are going to expand the conflict We are going to draw in other countries in the region and we are going to hope that

They take so much damage that they come and essentially beg the Trump administration We can't take it anymore. We can't endure this anymore

“You need to stop the war you're on made it very clear that's what they were going to do and low and behold they're doing it”

Hey Greg, what are you hearing from our allies there because obviously they've they've hit Saudi Arabia like all the countries that they're rich mentioned Are they standing firm are they already getting uneasy like what's the what's the sort of feeling over there with our allies at the at the moment So I think there's been an interesting shift over the past few days where the the Gulf countries before the war

They tried to push for a nuclear deal for a diplomatic solution because they were worried about exactly the sort of Retaliation and they were worried about

Possible state collapse about they're on falling apart and then you know having a mess in a country of 90 million people

Basically on their doorstep. So that was their position until Saturday until the war started It started and Iran immediately began attacking not just the American bases of the American troops in Gulf countries But attacking all sorts of civilian infrastructure in these countries airports hotels residential towers On Monday there were strikes on an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia and the natural gas facility in Qatar

Which both suspended operations temporarily which has sent energy prices surging over the past couple of days All of this is is happening and all of this is it's infuriating to the Gulf states there their view of it is We tried to help Iran prevent a war. We tried to lobby for a diplomatic solution here and Iran is thanking us for that by bombing us by by shutting our airports by

“Raining missiles on our our hotels and residential neighborhoods and so there's a level of anger now and there is this debate taking place in the Gulf about what do we do next?”

There are some people advocating for we still need to push for diplomacy. We need to end this for things get out of control and

The cost amounts. There are other officials in this region who are now arguing We've been dragged into the war anyway against our will, but we are now part of it and so we need to take sides We can't stay on the sidelines and just push for diplomacy We need to get involved whether that's by letting the United States use bases in our countries to attack Iran or by Directly getting involved that resolves. I don't think there's any consensus on what to do yet and the Gulf likes to act when it can

As a block not just individual countries, but but to act as six countries Working together, but there is this this really interesting debate now that you wouldn't have expected a few days ago And I heard from reports of what are you if you can confirm or deny this that these the Saudis were actually Included in the grandparents MBS We're pushing Trump to actually intervene. Do you have any information on whether that that was a conversation that took place in

Is that somebody because obviously the Iranians and the Saudis are have been enemies for a long time One is shea, which are the

“Iranians and and I believe the Saudis are sooning”

This is where I start to get a little weak on this stuff, but I'm getting a head dog from Andrew. So I got it right So yeah, sorry Greg. So have you heard anything confirming or denying that that MBS was pushing Trump to intervene Right, so the the backdrop your exactly right the Saudis have hated the Iranians for many many years They see them as the the wellspring of instability in this region, but over the past few years before the war the Saudis have also really invested in Repros small with Iran

They've tried to get on better terms with the regime because they wanted to avoid exactly the situation that we're in now now My understanding of of what happened in the run up to the war. It's a little bit different than what was reported The Saudis initially were were staunchly opposed to it and they told Trump as much By about the beginning of February. I think it became clear to the Saudis and everyone else that the war Was starting to look inevitable. Trump wasn't sending this volume of troops to the region

Aircraft carriers the destroyers warplanes all of this. He wasn't sending it if he wasn't going to use it and so The Saudis started tempering their their criticism and their opposition because they wanted to have input into If you're going to do this we want to have a voice. We want to have a say and just saying no don't do it. It's not a good way to have input So it's a bit more nuanced. I don't think they were aggressively lobbying for Trump to do it But at some point they also stopped opposing it in the way that they initially had

And I'm going to ask Andrew actually both of these questions. I want to start to Andrew first

What is the likelihood that the other Arab nations that are theoretically on our side get involved? I mean, obviously like letting people use Letting us use their bases is probably the baseline of support of which they could do The British have already agreed to let us do that for defensive measures whatever that means Which is probably just some cover for him at home, but like is there a is there a possibility of Saudi or

“Jordanian troops on the ground along with American forces in Iran?”

I do not think that Trump wants to deploy American forces to Iran and There are no Arab forces That have an expeditionary military capacity at the scale that would be required to make a difference in Iran You know one of the few countries that probably could do anything would be the UAE, but it would be so small It would be like putting an insect up against a giant. I mean, they're very good pound for pound, but

It's a a small country compared to a country of almost the

And it's certainly not going to make a difference and I do think that Trump is

“Enamored of Arab power at this point and he believes that Arab power and special forces are this”

Magic elixir and he can use it to solve any problem. I know I kind of joked myself I feel like I'm in a Tom Clancy novel where you know the any problem the world you just Take a few CIA officers and a few special forces and some planes and they're incredibly good in What they can do they do better than anyone else, but there's just a limit to what can be done From the air there's a limit to what can be done with such a small force on the ground so

Could some Arab countries be be helpful? Yes on the margins, but as we saw with the unfortunate friendly fire incident With the three F-15's

There is a capacity there is a capacity issue with our with many of our Arab partners some of them have improved

Over the years, but there still is a major gap and you know the United States Historically when contemplating military action in the Middle East the type of support they want from our Middle Eastern allies Is symbolic financial and and logistical in the primarily access the airspace and that does make a difference I mean the ability to sustain this particularly if for instance the Ford The carrier strike group in the Mediterranean they're over there, you know, they're over their service limit for this tour

They're gonna have to leave the next couple of weeks so that is no longer gonna be an option If the Saudis if the Saudis if the Emirates if the Qataris are saying go ahead You know feel free to use our bait in your bases in our countries or wherever you seek that that could help to Substitute for what we're probably going to lose as assets rope back and we're about rotate back to the United States So I want to ask about the the shooting of the five of the three f-15s in

“Kuwait which I think the Kuwaiti government is admitted that that was some stake. It was friendly fire”

Now friendly fire happens in war zones. I mean I think there's the most famous cases I think it was Pat Lynch the former NFL player and Afghanistan originally thought he was killed by the Taliban And it turned out it was a friendly fire incident, but you know we've launched Sorties over Kuwait for almost 40 years down how how does the how does the connection get so screwed up? That they didn't thought they didn't shoot down one f-15. They shot down three now luckily all the pilots survived. They were able to eject but you know

We obviously do not have a lot of confidence at the Trump administration to get the details right on these things

And then when you see with these three jets which cost 90 million dollars a piece by the way get shot down

It potentially put these men's lives and women at lives at risk. How does how does this lack of coordination happen in something that this scale? And Ron asks you first It's truly mind-boggling because

“The the legitimate target obviously in this case would have been Iranian aircraft”

But we have complete aristopremacy in Iran. There's no Iranian plane that's getting anywhere As soon as it takes off it's probably going to be taken down by some type of US munition or Israeli Jet in the area, but you're absolutely right this is this is standard operating procedure. United States has been flying missions in large volumes for the better part of of two decades you know more than two decades and

There still needs to be Coordination taking place there they need to exchange codes. They they need to to provide a heads up There needs to be a recognition the things have to be programmed properly and the failure to do that necessary communication It's I mean, it's an incompetence that I really Friendly fire incidents do happen and they are unfortunately inevitable

but Normally it's a friendly fire incident on the ground in forest and mountain terrain where it's difficult to Flying in the air it it really it's hard to understand how this could it happen only that There was a huge breakdown in the normal coordination process that takes place as a matter of course in

Daily operations. I mean using coiety aerospace Many of the the US aircraft that are taking off from al-U.D. flight across Quidiers, but this is not a rare occurrence it just it truly is it is alarming and you know for people who have family members or friends in the US arm services who were deployed over there

You know there and most likely you know the actual officers in the military They're doing what they need to do but there was some breakdown in the communication and there may have been some coordination It's it's just it's emblematic of a malfunctioning institution of a malfunctioning system

Yeah, I just it I would Greg I want to get your thoughts on this in a second but like I have friends that were stationed to Kuwait during

the second Gulf War we had you know part of the Gulf War one was to liberate the Kuwaitis. I mean It's just mind blowing that three f-15s the most advanced technical some of the most advanced technology that we've got is being shot down probably by our own anti-aircraft Batteries in in Kuwait. So Greg are you here what are you hearing about this situation from your sources on the ground there does this sound like this was just

“a chop administration lack of coordination or or something else I think it also just speaks to how unfamiliar”

This region is with conflict. I mean the Gulf for a long time Has been a place where nothing happens we're compared to the rest of the Middle East things are quiet There's chaos somewhere else but the Gulf is relatively stable and so America for a long time has been pushing the Gulf countries to Improved their air defenses to integrate their air defenses with one another in anticipation that someday There would be a conflict with Iran and there would be missiles and drones zooming overhead and they would need to be prepared and a lot of

American officials not not political figures even but you know nonpartisan career civil servants or People like that they've been frustrated over the years with the the refusal they're the lack of interest in the Gulf In taking this seriously this feeling that you know nothing is ever going to happen so we don't have to work too hard on this We don't have to take it seriously and now all of a sudden you have a situation where in the last three days The whole region has been plunged into a war you have hundreds of missiles and drones being fired every day now

At Gulf countries that are not used to this they're not Israel they haven't lived with this for decades Where they have a well-known system for air defense. They're suddenly fighting over for the first time in in decades and They're not prepared for it. I mean It's not just with this. I mean 15 years ago when when the U.S. was involved in the the air campaign in Libya to try and overthrow the Podafi regime, you know, there were stories of Gulf countries that joined the American coalition there

That were flying to Libya to conduct sorties and ran out of fuel on the way there because they didn't calculate properly

“How much fuel they would need to get to Libya and so this is just not a region where you have to the most part battle hardened”

Experience militaries that know how to do this stuff. Yeah, I mean it is it's very obvious And I want to go back to another point because a lot of Americans I think are concerned about this about the this this option of ground troops And because Trump did say I think this morning or yesterday he's not afraid He didn't say he was going to do it. He said or he said I don't have a I don't have a trick There was some phrase he used the basis that he wasn't afraid of ground troops and if you look back over history

Regime change by air is almost impossible. So how is how do they plan to overthrow a government of 90 million people?

I mean at least I know that I'm a Ted Cruz. I know doesn't know how many people are there. But you know a lot of the Republicans don't know what we're bombing, but you know how How does regime change regime change happen if we don't put troops on the ground? We just continue to bomb from above. Is that a strategy that could work in Iran? Greg, I'll go to you first and I'll go to Andrew

“I mean it's not a strategy. I think it's it's a hope maybe on the part of the Trump administration”

It's not a strategy. I think the idea is if you destabilize this regime enough it will eventually Buckle and you will eventually end up in a situation where it loses control of parts of the country where Iranians feel involved in to come out and and demonstrate because the security forces can't repress them as they they usually do and somehow magically that will lead to a Wonderful New Government taking power in Iran and it's that that middle piece that that magical thing that's supposed to happen that they can't quite work out.

I mean you can from the air destabilize regime. That is very much possible. You can assassinate the leaders and then the replacements for those leaders and then their replacements and you can keep working your way down that chain

You can blow up headquarters of the besiege and the revolutionary guard and the security forces. You can make it harder for them to exercise control over the

Country. All of those things can be done without a single boot on the ground. You can do it from the air. But then what is your theory of change after that? Who is going to actually take power in Iran? You have a very disorganized fragmented opposition. It's a country where there's a history of

That back in 1979 the last time there was a regime change in Iran fought

Insurgency's against the state. So you know you have the possibility of of the state fracturing And then you're still going to have a chunk of the population that is loyal to the old regime. So

“How do you change it? What do you replace it with? These are the questions that that nobody has been able to answer and I think even if you put boots on the ground”

You're not answering those questions No, I think that's that's exactly right and There is it's certainly not a strategy, but it is consistent across both Trump administration. So I would put this in the category of Let's let's break stuff and see what happens and Unfortunately that has often been there approach the foreign policy not just in the Middle East, but

But globally and while that may occasionally produce profit in the private sector in Silicon Valley and in other places

That is not a way to you know run To run a foreign policy. It's actually unfortunately it aligns with President Obama saying don't do stupid shit, right? Well, it turns out breaking stuff without a strategy for work up that class that constitutes doing stupid shit Because you don't you do as in the award awards of of Columpel despite the role he played in the rock war

You know once you break it you you own it and there is a trick we are going to own this even if he walks away This is going to follow us around it's going to follow around our partners or allies It's going to follow us around internationally and they are not prepared for any of those scenarios They're not even prepared for the most imminent and the most obvious

Initial decision point which is okay if it does come down what's next let alone how is this regime going to be How is this new government going to be

“able to function who's going to support it? How is it going to be integrated into the region?”

How you know there are so many other more complicated even more complicated but even more Time intensive questions that need to be addressed and they can't even just answer this Initial this initial precondition of you need someone who's going to to govern and it's There is a parallel here with I think with Gaza where you you have a govern where you technically have a government now but you don't you don't have a bureaucracy around it so unless you know

Whatever you think of the individuals who are on the national National committee for the administration of Gaza and many of them are capable and and do have clean records They can't run Gaza themselves they need they need bureaucrats and need police officers and need all of these people there's just As I think I Greg put it extremely well, there's just a part missing in this logic this causal process and

Unfortunately those two now the the impetus and the outcome

“Don't magically align most the time and and that's what makes this such a gamble”

There it's would be a gamble even if you had a coherent theory for how this was going to work They don't even start with that Yeah, it's I mean I I heard today he said Trump said that oh well, maybe this will last two or three days or maybe this will last four to five weeks like two to three days Like I mean we yes the Iatola is dead which When you consider all things equal is a good thing

We've also lost four American lives and we've also lost three if if it means let's which is less important but still matters So if we're only doing two to three days which essentially means we killed the Iatola We killed a couple people in the line of succession the Iatola by the way was 86 years old So they've clearly been thinking about this succession for a long time So if we were to just pack up and leave tomorrow

After a few thousand strikes in the Iatola dead does anything change Greg going to ask you first

Obviously someone new will will take power in Iran We don't know who that's going to be yet and I think there's a lot of Infiting right now. I mean there's a there's a process spelled out in the constitution of Iran where if the supreme leader dies There's an interim three man council that takes power for for a period and then after that There's what's called the assembly of experts which is a larger body that votes on

The new supreme leader. So this triumvirate has taken power already It's not clear if they're able to meet in person because there are ongoing American and Israeli strikes meant to assassinate Iranian leaders so you know that they probably should be meeting on zoom rather than doing it face to face right now

Masu Pazeskiyon who has spent the better part of the past the year telling anybody who will listen

Hey, I don't have much power here actually the supreme leader and the revolutionary guard and a whole bunch of other guys

They're the ones who run the country. You know, I just work here essentially He's not one of the guys on this ruling council. I don't think he has much more power today I think there are other figures within the regime people like Al-Illarajani who's a long time regime aparat chic Muhammad Khalifa who's the speaker of parliament

I think these are the guys who are actually wielding power behind the scenes and vying to perhaps if not fill Communities shoes because they're not clerics, but perhaps find the figure head to be the next supreme leader and then be the guys

“wielding power behind the scenes. I mean that's what they have in mind, but who is going to win that competition?”

We don't know and will that person be any more amenable to American interests then

Al-Illarajani was we also don't know the answer to that and if the answer is no

Then from an American perspective this whole thing was kind of pointless I mean if we've taken one lesson from the last 20 to 30 years that should be humility in these cases that we don't actually have the understanding of the of the of the politics and in the social cultural environments and and these are at least the vast majority of people who are making the decisions and the United States on these issues

do not and even when they do There is a large part of what's taking place that is not transparent that is not that is not visible and you shouldn't be too certain and how things are going to play out It's you know, it's easier with that said it's easier to foresee a scenario where the person who replaces

I mean he is either

basically cut from the same cloth and more or less a continuation of his of his of his

term of power or someone who arguably is even more disruptive I mean it should be remembered that Amani is the one who really put the brakes on developing a nuclear weapon now he often opposed cutting deals but he was pretty consistent over the past nearly you know 25 years that Iran should not develop a nuclear weapon that we shouldn't

thought what and he largely enforced that and it's not only possible because there are diversity of views on that issue but if you're looking at it from Iran's perspective in this regime's perspective what faith do you have that in the absence of some new form of protection you're going to stop the United States you're going to stop Israel from doing this every several months

“you know you're either going to you need to try something new it's either you”

you've cut a deal and you hope that in cutting a deal that maybe you can force all it and that is possible or you try to improve your defenses and there is this this fear that exists and is constantly discussing foreign policy circles that one of the unintended consequences of U.S. policy over the last several decades is that we have created and we've created an incentive for countries to develop

nuclear weapons because we don't attack countries with nuclear weapons while those who give up their nuclear weapons not only are they insecure or they're leaders and to meet a very very bad end and you know that is going to be factored into their calculus and while it may have been rational and any given instance to take action you have to think about the long term and this is part of the problem where

“I think for many Americans they may in the short term look at this and say oh this is great”

we know we finally got the iotola you know and certainly no tears shed for him and you know it's it's deeply regrettable that for American service members made the ultimate sacrifice but if it ends there maybe that's a price worth paying even if that is a case though you're gonna have this long tail and what you may discover is that what appears as a snapshot and time now to have been a relatively clean operation could plant the seeds

of a much bigger problem later and I think right you could say that about the strikes last summer where many people including you know including some democrats including some people did identify as left the center what have said well we didn't support and trump joining the 12th they were but look they did such a great job now we don't have this problem and yet we're you know here we are eight months later and we're in war again so kind means everything and

in place to keep around from enriching uranium to ninety seven if only we had that guys only had

that it would be a great thing which which was somebody like ripped that up and you know tossed it out the window yeah and look where we are now look how successful that was like a one question that we got a wrap for both of you and Greg and to start with you what's the most likely outcome that you see right now from this war escalation conflict whatever we want to call I wish I had the answer to that I'd be placing a large bet on polymarker or something right

“if we run immediately yeah it's really hard to it's hard to say I mean I think trump has set”

the bar so high for himself here but it's difficult for him to settle for you know we're going to do two or three days of war and then make a nuclear deal and go home I mean if anyone could do it if anyone could do that about face and turn around and say the war was a success and you know I got the best deals it's the the treaty of Westphalia it would be Donald Trump but I just think he has set expectations so high I think Israel has very high expectations and I think increasingly

the Gulf states at this point feel like we didn't want this to happen in the first place but

exactly what Andrew said sort of you broke it you buy it at this point I mean the United States has caused this problem and the Gulf doesn't want to now live with this extremely cornered hostile Iranian regime just a couple hundred kilometers away and so they might not want America to wrap this up in two days if it comes to a very inconclusive unsatisfying and so my instinct is that this is going to drag on for a while this is going to be closer to the four or five weeks than the

two three days of Trump's timelines but how it ends I mean who takes power in Iran what Iran

“looks like I don't even want to hazard a gas honestly yeah and I think one of the challenges is”

the preferences of these rallies and the Gulf are diametrically opposed where contrary to contrary to you know the prevailing opinion you know I don't think that's you know who actually has fantasies about about the Shah's son returning to power I think what he really wants is an Iran that is so badly weakened that it ceases to exist as a state and that is a worse possible outcome in many respects for the Gulf because that will be it's equivalent of having a Somalia or you know

across the Persian Gulf while they're trying to maintain an environment of financial stability and political stability to conduct business and how the Trump administration tries to to manage that and it's it's it's very possible that Trump's desire to get out will be the soonest and then for their own different reasons Israel and the Gulf will be pushing for a longer campaign but what they want to get out of it is going to look completely different and then there's a question of

the Gulf is not in a position to do anything unilaterally these rallies could and is Trump willing to reign them in you know it will depend I suppose on what he is able to achieve as he walks

“out of this but you know I think Greg's absolutely right trying to predict what is going to come out of this”

I mean it's you could see the continuation of the regime that's certainly very possible you could see a modified version where the IRGC assumes a more public and and and and a more a legally official role in governance where they're not just you know that the actual the the fact of they're the digital right power you could see a scenario where you do have some faction that is willing to to moderate their behavior somewhat you know with Trump

but it's it's it's so contingent and so variable this is precisely what makes this entire war so foolish because you would only agree to enter into this situation where you have such varying outcomes and such a high risk if you had no choice but they have blunder their way into this war and have selected decided to initiate a war that is not a clear winner I mean very few wars or clear winners but you can't even make the arguments I think logically in an intellectually

honest way that it would be a clear winner so it's quite quite tragic and well we have 10 seconds for a follow-up yes go for it related to that I know that one of the big reasons why we didn't

want to get into this in the first place I think even this was from Dan Kane was that there was no

viable opposition leader or opposition group who could fill in that power void who we could

who could potentially help lead Iran out of this to that better place that you sort of alluded to

“I don't I'm not I think the Iranian opposition is highly fragmented the Islamic Republic has been”

very effective at keeping their the the opposition divided against each other which is part of the reason it's lasted as long as it has that doesn't preclude the possibility that they could find away to establish bridges and form some type of nucleus of a of a governing movement but one that takes time and to we need to acknowledge that our intervention skews the incentives for local

actors and it doesn't necessarily skew them in a favorable direction when the United States

becomes involved opposition you know the opposition actors often play to us and we become the center of attention rather than the people that they're supposed to serve being the center of attention so it becomes you know the equivalent of you know the equivalent of of a poison pill where the United States is going to play a role and bring its resources but in so doing the United States disfigures what needs to be an organic environment where authentically domestic actors

are working together and building these relationships that can exist that can function and that can

persist past heavy American involvement there's a reason that you know oppositions or or previously opposition movements have held together for a short period of time while the U.S. was there to kind of force them together and as soon as the U.S. pulls out they be because they're made out of sand and and that is that that is part of the challenge in this that we may have made it arguably harder for the opposition to reach that type of consensus or a motive of end day even if we made it

more likely that the regime would fall and Greg do you are you seeing the same things or do you have is there any more hope on your side or I wish I could offer you some hope covering the region for like 15 years and that sort of beats the hope out of you unfortunately now I yeah I don't think

“there's anyone from the internal opposition in Iran I think the idea of the Shah's son coming back”

half a century later is a fantasy not even sure he wants to do it sometimes I mean he has a comfortable life and patomic Maryland I'm not sure he wants to right give that up and and go back to be the leader of a devastated economically ruined Iran at this point so I think if there's anyone who's going to take power the most likely candidate is going to be someone from within the regime who might be a bit more pragmatic on certain things but this is not the the sweeping

change that most Iranians want and Iranians deserve well we've certainly stepped in it that's for sure so with that obviously there's going to be a lot of news coming out in the next few days but I want to thank Greg Carlson from the economist and Angela from Center for America progress for joining us I really appreciate this I've learned a lot in this and I hope our listeners do too obviously it's a very complex situation so we appreciate you guys we have to have you

maybe back going in a few weeks when this is still going on and see what the hell if we've gotten any clearer which I'm died out but I want to thank you guys like obviously Americans are quite confused

“about why we were doing this and I think you helped to shed some light on all of this so thank you”

very much for all of this guys we really appreciate it and for our listeners thanks for watching be sure to follow us on YouTube be sure to get a subscription get some merch I'm not going to hawk it too much because it feels weird to do that during show about a war so with that thank you Greg thank you Andrew we'll be back on Thursday everybody have a great week and we'll talk soon