The Future of the US-Israel Alliance

Hi everyone. Welcome to a new episode of Ak Khiv anythingthing. Today we're going to be talking about the Iran deal. We are recording on june sixteenth, Tuesday. I'll repeat that a couple of times as we talk to make sure the people know that we don't know much. The administration has not yet released the details. But I have here Matthew Contenetti, one of the people I have learned the most from about the American administration, American politics, He comes very much from the consonservative side, the American Enterprise Institute also knows a great deal about American foreign policy toward the Middle East. And we're going to try and suss out the political dimension within the United States. We're also going to try to talk about and figure something out maybe about the content of the deal, the US Israel relationship, at large, what this war means for American domestic policy and preparation for future wars And you know, America standing in the globe and building out the American led world order, restoring it, which is something that the Trump administration has been talking about over the past two years. A lot to discuss, far more than we're going to get to. Vy glad that he's here can so we can talk about it. Before we get into it, I want to tell you that this week's episode is sponsored by Cyril Hazan from Woodmeere, New York who asked to dedicate the episode To the memory of my dad raaised in the dark shadow of Bbing Yada Amid post Second World War, rampant anti Semitism He still taught me open mindedness, inclusivity, and pride of being Jewish Warts and all Thank you for upholding these values on your podcast Thank you so much to Cyril for that dedication. I'd love to also invite everyone here to join our Patreon, subscribe to our sububstack. If you want to ask the questions that guide the topics we talk about, that's where we do that. You also get to enjoy monthly live streams where I answer your questions live. That's at patreon. com slash As Haviv anythingthing or Javivgur. sububstack . com Matthew Conontenineti is here with me. Matthew is the director of Domestic Policy Studies and the inaugural Patrick and Charliee Neal Chair in American Prosperity at the American Enterprise Institute. He's also a columnist for the Wall Street Journal's free exppression newsletter, he's been published Atlantic, the New Yor Times, Waston Post, the Free press, National Review Aong many other outlets, and Matthew is the author of three books, including most recently The Wight, The hundredundred Year War for American Conservatism Mat, how are you m doing well, Hy. Thankks for having me Thank you so much for coming on. We' recording on Tuesday, june sixteenth And I want to dive right into the Iran deal, no deal, the deal to produce a deal. Trump hasn't just gone all in on this ceasefire. He's now openly mocking Netanyahu he's talking about how look, the Israelis don't seem to be able to break Hezbllah. Maybe we just bring in T seconds after saying after deciding he's not going to be able to break the Iranian siege on Hormuz. He then says he mocks the Israelis for not being able to break husband, Maybe we should bring in a Sa of Sya Um it's a dramatic pivot in not in tone in the people leading policy in the White House to a completely different direction, and he's already so invested in it, it seems that there's no coming back from this What do you make of this ceasefire? D I D I capture that sense of abruptness and the sense of depth of the pivot As you see it I first say that when we're talking about Trump, it's very wise to avoid categorical judgments. So the idea that we're not going back from the current tensions between the United States and Israel and spepecifically Trump and Netanyyahu, I think is overstated. We can always go back because this is Donald Trump and Unpredictability is his calling card I know lararger question of this deal or memorandum of understanding I have to say I'm more non plused than I think a lot of are and about it for a couple of reasons, of one of which you kind of hinted at, which is It's not clear it is a deal for anything We haven't seen it as you and I speak today We're in the midst of a narrative war We know that one thing that has survived Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion is the Iranian propaganda machine and echo chamber because it's going full blast trying to been whatever has been agreed to as Iranian triumph, which I just am very skeptical of What it seems to me that has been agreed to is an arrangement by which America ends. it' Naval blockade of Iranian ports. in exchange for Iran opening up the Strait of Hormuz And then The sixty days period to negotiate a larger settleent But of course been negotiating a larger settlement over nuclear matters For years with Iran, nothing happens. So what I think was Bottom line. in the best case is that we see the strait of hormes open. Whil fall It already is markets respond positively And then we continue with the phony ceasefire that has basically been in place since april eighth This is not a resolution to the crisis. It's not a clear outcome. for either party But I think it characterizes the Trump policy in the Middle East It stries me as very similar to the arrangement that secured the release of the hostages. and you had a ceasefire in Gaza The hostages were released And then you had this promise for further negotiations and Hamas's demilitarization Of course, Hamas is not demilitarized It still governs what about forty percent I think of the strip you know, better than I and we live in this kind of limbic state but where the West and the forces of civilization have made some gains , but then the adversaries of everything good are still in power And just two more comments. The first is, I think a hostage negotiation is the way to think about what's happening the Persian Gulf The Iranians took the strait of Hormuzs hostage and it created economic damage, which then kind of transmuted into political consequences. further political consequences for this president And Trump needed to figure out how to open up the strait I would have preferred that he used a military solution clearly did not have the will to do it. And even though we had this shadow project Freedom going on for about two months where some ships were getting out, it wasn't enough. So Trump's short term goal and he tends to act in the short term, not the long term. his short term goiral was to open up the straight to release the hostage, so to speak And in order to do that, he did what many American presidents have done He paid the Islamic Republic money. for hostages. In this case, the economic benefits of allowing the free passage of Iranian oil through the Strait of Hormuz the end of the blockade The Eer and most disturbing aspect of the deal. is the linkage between Israel's campaign against Hezboah And the fate of the Strait of Hormes. And this is the part of the deal or the memorandum or whatever you want to call it that bothers me the most. Ian Trump has the Iranian narrative that somehow the fight Over the straight is connected to Israel's fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon when in fact, As you know, Hz Bla is a non state actor O course it's an Iranian proxy America iss not party to the fight betweenween Israel and Hezbollah, it's Israel is doing what it does, which is defend its right to exist and I'm most disturbed by Trump's internalization of the Iranian narrative on this topic that's that's what I think bothers me the most. And finally Why might kind of non plus, whereas so many of my friends are very alarmed I think what's happening is because of these Iranian narratives are coming out, the Iranian propaganda machine is saying that they have achieved everything that is promised to them in the deal Y The Iranians agreed to the nuclear program they're doing is claiming upfront the benefits that are promised the end of the sixty day period if there's an actual final nuclear deal But we all know be a final nuclear deal because the Islamic Republic will never give up its nuclear program. The only way to get rid of the nuclear program is through force, which is what happened in the Knight Hammer and epic theurory And so that's why I think that at the end of this period will be somewhere where we were before in terms of this ongoing clash with the Islamic Republic of Iran Um I think that's the key point. We know so little. I it's not so much that I'm I share with you the less you know, doom and gloom kind of understanding of what's happening but it's a little bit schizophrenic in me. In other words, sometimes When I think about the deal and I read what's going on and what's being said, especially by the vice president I'm horrified that this is about as bad a buckling of America as possible. If you can't force the Houthis to stop shuttering the Babamand the straits and you can't force Iran to stop blockading oil shibs out of Hormuz The Px Americana is dead. If you don't have the willingness and the ability to enforce open shipping in these places Right? And by the way, it's not just the United States, our Gulf allies, you know, Americas and Israels. they were not willing to engage Iran in serious combat operations even under the umbrella of Israeli and American military operations. And so there's a kind of quiet and an inability to act and an unwillingness to initiate And that means that whoever's willing to suffer more, whoever's willing to inflict more damage, is going to win this and then you know, I have this tension for the last couple of months of thinking about China. I wrote a piece that went a little bit viral on China. and I got a lot, a lot of mockery. What do you really think this is about China? Come on, what are you an idiot? And the simple answer is where is the willingness to be to take that kind of initiative against Iran? I think that comes from the broader American sense of rebuilding an American led world order, which yes, is about China. But no, actually, the war was also about Iran emphatically for the United States. It's all the things all at once because clever people are running big institutions And and when you look at it from the Chinese perspective, you realize that Iran's Mukawama or Iran's know martyrdom ethos, resistance ethos will withstand even the American Israeli bombardment simply because they're willing to suffer. They never have to build anything in Iran. They're not a building kind of regime, kind of of government All they have to do is suffer, burn everything around them to the ground until the other side, which is responsive to its democratic constituencies, etc. until the other side buckles Look at it for the perspective of a Chinese led counter American world order And you begin to understand you begin to sort of suss out a Chinese relationship with Islam China props up theseese resistance actors that push back against America While internally in China, with the treatment of the Uyghurs, China will engage in mass social engineering to make sure that any kind of Islamic politics within China never ever has a chance to coalesce. And so you begin to you know, so I walk down these pathways in my head and and I think this is a disaster. This is This is an American disaster in American terms. This is everything Trump accomplished in Venezuela you know the pressure on Cuba and all this concept of building out American power after decades of American administrations not really believing anymore in American power. And now there's going to be competition for rare earth metals. There's going to be competition in energy markets. And America' surrendering this easily, right automatically. an enemy that should not be able to fight America to a draw in the Strait of Hermmz, Trump didn't even give Operation Project Freedom a chance, did he Am I overstating it? That's that's the scenario that I think that's where leak scenario I don't know whether that's the scenario that's going to take place There's a lot to unpack here the first thing to be said is Donald Trump is the first American president since the Islamic Revolution to unleash the full force of the United States military against the revolutionary regime. and We cannot Ignore the military gains that were made win cooperation with Israel part of Operation Moaring Lion and Operation Epic Fury on the demolition of the Iranian leadership the end of the Iranian Navy the destruction of the missile production facilities the destruction of the missile launchers H it the destruction of the defense industrial base the setbacks to the Iranian nuclear program over the past two years I want to highlight this. I started with just because I want you to speak to this schizophrenia. I started by saying schizophrenia. Th then I look at I have a list here. I just made a list of the things that we know with fairly good certainty were destroyed and they are the Isfan uranium conversion facility. I mean, just piece after piece after piece of really fundamental things, some of the steel foundriies that are required to make more centrifuges Appointment by Richard Goldberg, even if Trump gives Iran exactly what the JCPOA gave Iran can't actually do most of the things anymore. you know, centrifuge production at that scale So sometimes I so I really do swing between this is incredibly bleak American power has been undermined tremendously because they actually went for it and still couldn't topple the Iranians And this is actually incredibly positive. I think We pocket these wins and we move forward. I think where you stand? I think we pocket the wins and we move forward and in the Middle East, they're is never any clear resolution J just a historic example A the Marine barracks bombings by Hezbollah The Reagan administration was disturbed Of course that was also a Down point in point in Israel American relations What happened Well, Reagan invaded Grenada not long after Shortly after Barr's Bombing and the withdrawal of troops American troops from Lebanon And the whole narrative changed in American power which seem to be on the we was maximized againgain, maximized again So I think There's a lot. that's indetermined here and we have to just go in with the sense that there's not going to be an easy answer the Rom We talked about the gains of operation Epicury and Operation Rowing Lion thoseose gains were made after the Iranian economy was already in a tailpin I don't see how the Iranian economy even with the benefit of new oil revenue if the blockade is lifted and traffic resumes to the pre war Flow going to recover overnight they were they were talking as you know about evacuating Tehran due to water shortages last year. This is a regime in deep Couble So Well, I would have preferred that we completed the military task The estimate was that there were two weeks left of targeting before Trump opposed the ceasefire on april eighth. And while I would have preferred that we executed a project freedom that would have Prived Iran. of the strait of hormes that would have rescued the hostage, so to speak. rather than engaged in a financial transaction as Trump put it for its freedom I think we do have to look at the political context and the strategic context in which Trump decided that he had to go down this route of diplomacy America's course different than Israel, we have a different political context here The war was unpopular from the start and the increase in gas prices About fifty percent increase was a huge shock. to the system and empowered all of the opponents of the war, which from the media Hardy. independent voters. U Operation Epic Fury came to them as a shock. And they didn't like it in addition to the gas price, issue and the economic problems facing the president problems that we're compounding his base problem, which is that despite promising that prices would fall if you were elected, inflation has continued and indeed because of the energy shock. I prices were eating up all the wage gangs. that voters had been making presresident, you never be in that position in terms of approval was Falling But it wasn't just politics. It was also the case that the Gulf Allies, as you mentioned and were petrified They did not believe that they could defend themselves against Iranian retaliation. And one reason I believe they felt that way is the munition shortage not necessarily an overall munition shortage. specifically constraints on our supply of interceptors as well as some of the high tech ens platforms. So for these reasons I felt I can understand why Trump down this path, even though it's the path that is and then disappointing I would also say What I can explain is the turn against Israel And there I think that Trump has been Listening. U to the deal makers on his team. to the figures like Steve Wit Coff and Jared Kushner and to vice President Vents who have been at the head of these negotiations who have probably been telling the president, look If you want this stay to open, we need to restrain Isra realel and the way to restrain Israel is to stop the attacks on Beirut Envoy to the region, Tom Barrack has also been pushing this line and Trump's adoption of that line, I think is is more unsettling to me than the possible repercussions of this, you know, open the strait for some economic benefit simply because we know that when there is daylight between the United States and Israel adversaries pay attention and anti Semites pay attention and they exploit that daylight. And that I think must be opposed at a return. So okay, so that's why you placed at the very beginning linkage between the Lebanon arena and the Hormuz deal as central because that's actually about the alliance with Israel. Netanyahu was certainly suffering in the polls from this moment The the I'm going to dig a little deeper into these domestic politics. We hear from JD. Vance that World War II ended in negotiations for some reason. And we heard from him that there's a three hundred billion dollars fund of some kind for reconstruction. It's not at all clear what he was talking about Some of it has been just errors or Vague, strange, you know, we got to talk to actually Iranians, he says in in the in an interview with I think Jake Tapper. The cool thing is, you know, stuff like that where'res just He doesn't project a seriousness and an understanding of what's happening. And then when you there was a call with the administration to many reporters who then put out what they heard on the call on X. and going through it, you realize these people don't really know that much about the history of US Iran relations, about direct negotiations between the US and Iran, For example, over the JCPOA, they claim there hasn't been direct negotiations between the U.S. and Iran is the first time we're meeting each other, you know, and it simply these things are not correct. And so you see that and you start to worry. But then you also when you listen to Vance's arguments, not nitpick these technical things, which I don't think are unimportant, but nevertheless, they weren't his point. His point was um, that Iran will have everything it wants and will have normal happy relations. we don't care about the crazy resistance of theologies. We don't care generally about the ideologies of regimes. But it has to give up the nuclear program. That front loading of the nuclear program question, that was in Vance's comments. And you mentioned it here. and that was you know emphatically publicly part of the deal I don't believe it I don't believe that when they come to negotiate This American administration, the part of it, the pieces of the Vanceced camp if they really want some deal, it's not going to be the whole deal. It's going to be some thing leading up to some kind of a slightly deeper deal than what is basically a sixty day ceasefire, which is what the MOU is I don't believe that they will literally stand their ground, be willing to walk away They have projected to the Iranians they can't walk away And so can this administration, can that camp sereriously negotiate with Iranians, anything of value, any deal which isn't just unlocking everything for the Iranians, and the Iranians, of course, won't give up their nuclear program. That's not That's not a thing, as the kids say Trump is Harry Houdini No one thought he would be elected president in twenty sixteen He was. spent four years as president. getting out of one jam after another while trying to pursue certain objectives such as seealing the southern border. imposing a trade policy with China Donald Trump gets out of these fixes Gs himself into a box, then he finds the way out of it This is what Americans have been living with for over a decade now He got himself into the box of the Strait of Haruz This agreement is the way out of it en they'll find himself in another box. get try to get out of that someomehow we always escapes. point is Donald Trump has walked away from these negotiations before onald Trp the way once engaged in Operation Midnight Hammer Then there are more negotiations. who walked away from those, we have Operation Epic Fury Now we're going to have another round of negotiations. Now, do I think that Trump is going to use military force? Anytime soon? No However What I do expect is that the at the end of the day sixty day period There will be an extension of the sixty day period And we will continue to live in this twilight just as Israel and it has been living in this twilight with Hamas U and it will be indefinite wants to keep the balls rolling People talk about him as the four dimensional chessl play. I don't think that's way to put it. I think he's a juggler But he's juggling grenades And it is true that every so often he drops one and a lot of damage is caused But he has a remarkable remarkable ability K keep them up in the air I think the fundamental problem here is that Trump went to war And Trump sty in what he calls modern presidential style notot the style to which Americans are accustomed O what do I mean Yeah, look at our previous interventions. in the Glf. particular, but also in the Balkans Presidents operate by step They begin making the public case for war not just social media posts Peace speeches. talking points on interviews months in advance whileile they're doing that They are persuading the Congress members of their own party, maybe even some on the in the other party for the action And as they're taking that second step, they're also building an international coalition Trump doesn't like persuasion He likes demonstration He doesn't ask for he doesn't ask for permission You know, hell he'll just go ahead and do something and then see what the consequences are And so instead of following that three step process which is what both bushes used the Iraq War, O of course, Trump in the Iraq Wars, Trump doesn't want to be like the Bushes. What does he do? Well, midnight hammer He just sent in our B two bombers bunker busters. And that was that in Absolute resesolve, which is the operation to capture Maduro, Americans woke up one morning And Maduro was in a prison cell in Brooklyn Bick Fury There was moon more advanced notice People paying attention were people like you and me Not most Americans In fact, I was struck pretty early on in the war in conversations with people as I traveled around the country who said that It was kind of a surprise to them that this was happening prerecisely because they weren't paying attention to Donald Trump's truth social posts They weren't paying attention to the slow build upp of our forces in the Gulf. as those carrier groups began entering the region. I was paying attention. I was expecting something to happen. You don't put two aircraft carrier groups outside a country and think that They're just there for tourirst Reasons see the sites Americans I don't think we're prepared. what you have seen in the aftermath even as Epic Fury was preceding the consequences of these choices Trump made at the outset. political support wasn't there mainly because Trump hadn't made the case When American presidents make the case for force More often than not, the public supports them didn't really make the case. he just acted. The Allies weren't there. That of course We saw headlines and headlines I think the Allies acted in different ways rather than just kind of apathy or non involvement or resentment over earlier fights this year about Greenland, say and NATO then there would the more kind of You might even say axis of resistant oriented states like Spain, which was you know, actively trying to disisrupt America's efforts In any case, the Allies weren't there either and slowly then to the Congress, the elected officials They began moving decisively against the conflict. And so We're living in I think the aftermath of these poor choices by Trump As a result the figures within The Trump coalition and inside the administration who are against intertervention for any reason they became Divated and they were able to begin making their case to the president And I believe they persuaded him. the way out of this current box is through and negotiation and through this hit for Tat arrangement on the Strait of Hormz where I'm looking at now is Do they remain in the President's favor We're already seeing reports Again, these are the news junkies that are paying attention to this, but we're already seeing reports that there was a divide in the administration pitting Vice President Vance Kushner and Steve Wikoff against figures like to Secretary of War Pete Hagseth, Secretary of State and National Security Avisor Marc Rubio and CI Director Uh John Raccliffe. can alternate between these two camps Right now, he's with the Vance camp But I think he's facing a lot of blowback now from Hawkish members of the Republican Party. And that could mean that In a few months He drifts back toward skeptics of negotiations with Iran inside his administration. Again, I don't think that will mean that we're going to be moving to kinetic action. before the midterm elections in the United States It also means that Trump is a backstop I believe against any really, really bad nuclear deal So u point about those camps. I want to drill into that a little bit We have heard repeatedly and often that there's the Rubio camp, the Hawkish camp, and that there is the JD Vance camp. This is stuff that JD Vance's people love to tell us is how the administration is has sorted itself out. But then you suddenly find that Jared Kushner you know, Jared Kushner is on in the Vance camp, when you would think Jared Kushner is very pro Israel, very invested in Israel, would be in another camp. And the very fact that Donald Trump can go downown the the Allied with Israel in bombing Iran, as you say in a way we haven't seen In forty seven years this Iranian regime, forty eight years, we've never seen this willingness to go kinetic to attack this regime to find its weaknesses to take out the suupreme leader just bluntly in the light of day there is a closeness to Israel with Trump that that is unrivaled in the past and a willingness to fight with Israel in deep integration of the two militaries that we haven't seen in the past And on a dime, he pivots over to the Vance camp on a dime, on a dime and then mocking Netanyah and then, you know, talking about Israel having to pull back in Lebanon. U possible that that Stark division into camps is a dichotomy we should be questioning that it's a more complex and sophisticated conversation. There are now rumors that Radcliffe might be out. There are rumors that Hageth might be out. Again, mayaybe these are rumors being put out by the JD Vance camp. and it's literally just everybody maneuvering. There was that old saying by Churchill about the Soviet Union that trying to understand the politics of the Soviet Union is like watching dogs fight under a carpet. The only way you know who's winning is by which bodies are thrown out, right? We don't know who's winning. We don't even know if these are camps talk about that Am I the only one confused by Trump's ability to pivot that way? how people switch camps so quickly and easily? I don't think anyone should be confused by Turning from one set of advisors to another Um He doesn't operate by ideology He doesn't have many fixed principles he's trying to figure out how to maximize the short term advantage while moving in the direction of what he defines as success And I think something we were talking about earlier, he defines success builduilding American leverage back up against China. and to the degree that the American W machinine in combination with our Israeli partners humummed the Iranian war machine That actually is not something that China, I think is very happy about. All of that is a digression First, the rumors you have to reject immediately I mean, that who knows, who knows? I think that Churchill quote is just right You can't make any judgments until somethinghing actually happens what I would say is Fance has a moment many vice presidents He is angling Like every vice president, he is angling to succeed his boss Vvance believes in a different half for the Republican Party than even the path that Donald Trump has traveled hisis Republican party is more Government It's more isolationist then Donald Trum He also has I think he also understands that he needs to win bothoth followers of his vision There're not a significant number of actual Republicans They are they're overrepresented in conservative media And they do have, I think, a following among younger Republicans, even though young people are not very part of the Republican coalition Can you name names just so we know who you're talking about Well, I'm thinking the media folks Oh famous Tucker Carls is Tucker Carlson. Yes, exactly. That's I mean Sie Vance is Tucker Carls's friend Jie Vance has never disowned Tucker Carlson We learned from the New York Times recently that in the midst of the controversy over the Epstein files In the summer of twenty twenty five, JD Vance suggested to the White House They have an interview with Tucker Carlson Who was at that point saying Donald Trump was demonic and opposing every Right fore policy he had, right I So that's that's the most famous is Tucker Carlson, but there are also figures such as Steve Bannon uh, you know, the the kind of I don't I want to say u uent to groper people because Vance explicitly rejects them. So he's not trying to reach out to them There's a group of podcasters who are kind of one click over toward respectability than the full antesses of the world and Vvance wants their support M and Kelly I mean, Megan Kelly is with she's closer to Tucker Carlson The Glen Greenwalls, all those folks That's kind of what and Vance is trying to keep together. the Sor ofa Mari The editor of Unheard the Digital magazine. he remains close to the Vance camp. So he wants to keep those people together with and the Trump Republicans. Now, Trump was able to do that That's what Trump accomplished There has been A frraying of the coalition. No one will deny that. U overver foreign policy? yes, for sure but also because of the economic anxieties that are still present in the United States. kind of the inability of the Trump economic policy to get Americans out of the ho they've been living in thanks to inflation att least to this point Fance is trying to negotiate these two parties. He wants to keep this coalition together And that means he'll make comments like he has recently saying that, you know while we're the United States is allies with Israel We have to be aware that sometimes our interests diverge And then he brings up the nuclear issue, which of course is the place where American don't go inside. Yeah. R. They don't diverge at all. We both have both have an interest in denying Iran a nuclear bomb So Prom with vice president though is that even as they're auditioning from the job for the job They are frequently saddled with Unwinnable portfolios And This is a real moment for JD Vans Is he going to be able to not only sign this memorandum of understanding later this week and open up the Strait of Hormuz Will these negotiations end in the Iranians giving up their nuclear program might seem like a very ascendant vance. turn out to be someomeone who is saddled with a diplomatic process That looks like a failure or has gone nowhere. So this is again what come of the The difficulty of analyzing the Trump administration is that everything is Always in motion and objects in the sky rarely land at a place where you can make definitive conclusions Just on the three hundred billion point I have a theory about where that comes from. That's the same thing that They the Trump folks were presenting to Kim Jong un In the first term, sayaying, lookook, Kim, if you give up your nuclear program We're going to have this huge billion dollar multibillion dollar investment in North Korea. Remember Trump had a presentation he showed? him that was showed all the Beautiful resorts they were going to build on The North Korean coastline It's the same thing the Palestinian deal in the first term, right? That was the whole vision was Oh who among us wouldn't say yes to a resort Yeah I'd love a resort U That's that's that's kind of the bargaining. So yes on Kushner Yeah of course, Kushner, A is a supporter of of Israel But he's a dealmaker and a peace and sees himself as a peacemaker. So they go into these situations and they And they kind of deal with the interlocutor as though there another real estate portfolio manager, And that of course is the mistake Do they do they grasp? this regime believes and how much it has already invested in that belief how much it has sacrificed how much it exists in this space of what's it called sunk costs fallacy, which is you've spent so much going in the wrong direction or in the damaging direction that by sheer by sheer dint of having invested that much, lost that much. You struggled, you will not be able to turn around. You will not be able to admit the scale of the loss that is required in admitting that's the wrong direction. and so people who go too far and put too much into one direction tend to have a very hard time changing. In other words, because it's more damaging and more That's roughly where the Iranian regime is at now. Now we heard from Trump sentences like or maybe this was Vance, I'm not sure. it's O one of them said in an interview. I think it was Trump, where he said in an interview You know, I don't believe in regime change. I mean, we kind of got regime change already. These are reasonable people that we're talking to. That's not as crazy as it sounds because It appears that we now have a real IRGC takeover that Muttaba Kaban is not actually in control in any way and actually it's not Narjuti working for a supreme leader. There isn't functionally a supreme leader. It really is just a military dictatorship Mbe, maybe it's not unimaginable. The IRGC is both this radical ideological military and also utterly foundationally corrupt and owns fifty percent of the GDP of Iran, massive industries and survives and grows its strength domestically through this massive crony capitalism kind of exploitation of the entire economy. So they're so corrupt that maybe they're reasonable. Maybe there's somewhere where you can have that negotiation. I'm not you could make that case. I haven't heard anyone in the American administration who knows enough to make that case. I don't know that that's what they're arguing. And I don't think they understand that they're capable these people of being both utterly corrupt and also genuinely believing the mass martyrdom ethos of the Mukawama. I keep trying to use the word in English so people start to learn it. But this is that foundational ethos that means they will sacrifice for all time. They will not just die themselves. they actually are willing to die D deeply corrupt people are still willing to die on the altar of the great Rdemption of Islam, they will kill their own people en masse. On the altar of this. do they grasp that they're still dealing with this kind of ideological world Or are they genuinely convinced they're just a bunch of deal makers and we're all going to make a deal and we'll all be okay I think there are figures within the Trump administration who understand the ideological nature of the Islamic Republic the fanaticism that motivates What about around Vance? as I was about to say. Round vance I think the Advanced attitude. I don't want to put words in his mouth if I had to describe it, it would be Sure they're crazy. That's why we shouldn't have anything to do with the region Right. Kushner Wickkoff attitude. And most specifically Trump here, is Idology is bunk No one really believes anything ell me what your interest are And I'll see if I can get a deal. And I'm going to push for the best deal I can and I'll bluster and bully I walk away I Dangle these carrots before you and we'll see what we can get And if we don't get anything fine I'll try again That's how Donald Trump operates So he he has his inability to Um understand that people are motivated by ideology is in my view onene of his greatest vulnerabilities as a leader because notot only does it mean that he marches into these meetings with Putin and with Xi Jinping thinking, yeah, we're both Both of us are tough guys, strong men Let's sit down. let's hash it out. We can figure this out. We're the two CEOs when in fact Putin as we know is motivated by this Slavo Felic Japan, Russian ideology. And Xi Jinping is a Marxist Leninist. Maoist uh who is bent on preserving the party and revising the rules of the world in a way that favors the people's Republic in the same way that Bahiti, the head of the IRJC is He's at He's a jihadist. That's what he is And that's what he will be So Trump doesn't And it often and it was the same thing with Kim John. He goes in there promising hotels Kim Jong un is this Stalinist you know, Nppo baby who leads this bizarre hermit kingdom care about hotels, right So that's kind of where the Trump approach hits roadlocks. Other side of it is was happy to walk away if he doesn't think he's getting what he wants And He is not averse to the use of force. as we've learned throughout this term and the term prior what Trump thought would happen I surmise is that by agreeing to the decapitation strike at the outset of Operation Epic Fury There wouldn't be regime collapse There would be A new leader Wh would then submit to what Trump prefers which is regime coercion regime change. That didn't happen Venezuela Venezuela. Venezuela. Sure is is the key It would have been his ideal. That would have and of course epic fury happened, right? on the heels of Venezuela And Trump even said at some point, he says so much, it's hard to keep track But at some point, he said, well, We actually took out the person that we thought we you could count on. I shouldn't laugh. Was that Lai Jjanni? I think he said that. I he may have actually even said Yeah I'm for Yeah. So now you end up with new memory sensor. Yeah. So now you end up with this you know, o, okay. Now what are we going to do and pressed on with the strikes But when it got to the point that the economic was rising and the Gulf states were panicking turnurns to his friend The Field Marshal of Pakistan and says, maybe you're right Let's have this ceasefire because he wasn't going to escalate up any further he wasn't going to hit the electrical generation and the desalinization because Iran had telegraphed that they would then hit the Gulfies. electrical power and desalinization and that that would cause huge ripple effects for the global economy. And then to a point you made earlier, haveiv, He wasn't going to deploy ground forces in significant numbers. We had that incredible rescue effort to rescue the down pilots, where ground troops were in Iran And it was amazing I don't well, I know He was not could not commit to using ground forces to destroy the missile and drone teams on the coast and to take Cark Iland And because of that We are where we are I have two questions to finish up. The first one is we learned a tremendous lesson about the future of war. The future of war. Yes. the Ukrainians already know who, you know, others already know. Israel iss now experiencing it in South Lebanon with Hezbllah The future of Wars missiles and drones. The Gulf states went through two years of American interceptor production capacity in about two weeks And Israel used up a very large amount of the west. And Israel has its own large stockpiles, which it burn through fairly quickly We need much, much cheaper interceptors. We also need to have a missile force and a drone force that can take on that capability that all of our enemies have. The Ukrainians know a lot about stopping these drones. The Israelis are starting to learn In some ways, nobody on earth makes as many or as as high quality interceptors as the United States. It is technologically far We learned this. We learned that there's nothing that Iran can buy from China that can match American air power, American cyber, American electronic warfare and the battlefield and also missile defense. We also know that we're not producing enough interceptors, not the Israelis, not the Americans. and America really is the world's producer of interceptors Um by two orders of magnitude There needs to be one hundred times the scale. And which means it needs to be you know fifteen times cheaper at least, if not one hundred and fifty times cheaper U Do you think this administration and Just to explain, the reason I'm going into this weird like you technical question is because this is fundamental. This is like discovering air war in World War two. I mean, this is what's going to decide D day would not have been possible if the Luftwabe was still in existence by nineteen forty four This is what's going to decide the next war Do you think that's something that the Americans see and understand? Israel's already given the order to build out indigenous production capacities, etcetera. but the Israeli industrial base is is a fly next to the elephant of the American industrial base. So do you think the Americans understand that they're going to need vast massive production and investment in offensive and defensive missiles and interceptors and drones and that whole system of I know there are programs My question is, do the Americans grasp that what they need is not to move from I think the latest Patriots, they were making ninety and now the Pentagon gave in order a year. and now the Pentagon gave in order to make four hundred Do they understand that they need five thousand a year capability in the United States? I mean, I think Pete Hexetf does I think there are figures in this administration who do Trump Prob understands grasps the needs If there was a bottomless swellve of interceptors, Hormuz would have gone differently, arguably. Yes. I mean, I want to talk a little about being kind of interceptor. Yeah. Yeahah, The question here in America as always is Qion always, not just in America is will and capacity So Tip start with capacity Our defense industrial base is not configured to produce the amount of interceptors and drones that America needs to fight these new wars The Trump defense budgets. move in that direction not as rapidly as we need, but they do move in that direction However, then we get to will. And I again, if you ask what disturbed me, we talked about linkage between Lebanon and the Strait The other thing that disturbs me right now is the lack of will on Capitol Hill to pass Donald Trump's point five trillion dollars defense request And Capitol Hill Congress in the United States is always resistant to changes in military procurement and to revolutions in military affairs That includes some Republican appropriators, by the way because it's too much money. Well, because you just mentioned sunk costs becausecause these programs have political constituencies. And if you have a factory that's building that very expensive patriot in your district You don't want to give it up so that some other congressmen can represent a district that is you know, featuring these building the We just saw it with the unmanned surface vehicle that rescued the Apache pilots recently, right? So that's the type of nuts and bolts u log rolling and Barrel politics we have in the United States Congress. But your question is, I think the fundamental question arising from this conflict because Epic Fury showed didn it wasn't rather a revelation. It was that underscoring of what we have seen since twenty twenty two and the Russo Ukraine Yeah. And that is Wars in the twenty first century are going to be transformed Humans matter less platforms matter less and the advantage goes to the defender because the new military technologies are based on the slope that formulation, anti excess access area denial and what you are going to have situations like we see in Ukraine where the kill zone stretches for kilometers in either direction of the line of control. humans or tanks. because the drones will find them, the robots will find them We saw it in the Red Sea the Houthis, where the Houthis were firing very expensive drones sorry, very inexpensive drones at very expensive American surface vessels I will say However as a digression The Houthis did not become involved in this conflict. And I think the one reason for that is preperation rough rider which was the America's operation against the Houthis last year in conjunction with Israeli operations against the Houthis causing quite a bit of damage It was more successful than andpl. And you know and that's and I think that will We have to think about that when we look at what has happened in Iran too becausecause again, the echo chamber is so powerful I think quite a bit of damage has been done to Iran just as quite a bit of damage was done to the Houthis. Nonetheless We saw with the hoies We see it now where the drone and missile teams deny the Americans access to the strait of hormones and can bottle up about a fifth of the global energy supply And now we're seeing it in Lebanon as well with the adoption of the fiberptic drones and Israel's efforts. to This arm has vlw to push north as far as they can to create a buffer zone This is the this is the face of war now and every state Nation states. and needs to adjust and adapt. And here Yes, America has fantastic resources and is leading on the interceptors Israel has technology, and of course, on the drone side, Ukraine is the arsenal of freedom And so here again The Trump administration, I believe, is missing an opportunity to work with the Ukrainians in order to figure out how we might See what they've done. and adapt it to I says at an order of magnitude, lower cost, which is yeah maybe makes it politically easier. Yeah. Final question. The anti Israel Twitter ecosystem is a Twitter over the last two days in delight at what appears to be and what many Israelis, you know, every Israeli Netanyo Stan who's, you know Bitterly angry that Trump prevented Netanyahu from that final launch of the Air Force a couple of days ago because that would assaved everything and I happened to think Israel should have carried out that particular strike. But I don't I'm like you. I don't come to this with some kind of apocalyptic sense that everything has been lost and destroyed. But There are Israelis who do, and translating their tweets and then sharing them has been a favorite pastime of the anti Israel crowd But it does raise a very serious question. Do you think this is a momentary Trump Pot Israel needs to stop the Lebanon thing. We're done. We'll come back to it in the future. know whyy do the Israelis need everything to finish all at once? by the way, have argued, this is a twenty year war. This is our war with Nasser. We had four major wars with Nasser before pan Arabism and Nassarism collapsed, and we didn't have to fight any more conventional wars against our Arab neighbors. And now we face a war against a particular ideology somebody on a panel, some anti Israel person at the university said to me, You're fighting wars in seven countries. You have seven different enemies. You're bombing everybody. Im like actually we're only fighting one enemy That enemy happens to have infiltrated and built proxies that are not part of those countries or they might represent populations those countries, but they don't certainly belong to the national life and politics of the country We're fighting one enemy that's positioned itself in seven countries, and we will continue to fight that one enemy. And when that one enemy is defeated and it could be a decade or two then we will not have to fight any of them. The U.S. Israel relationship Is it it's we know among the Democrats, it's in the toilet. We know among young Republicans, it's a I don't want to say freefall, but it's it's a slow but steady decline measurable in the polls And Trump suddenly pivoting suggests that this last bastion of the U. S. Israel Alliance might be no longer for the next two years of the Trump administration, no longer a kind of operative thread that holds everything together is not Are you optimistic or pessimistic on this question? Both the larger question of American politics and also specifically Trump in the next couple of years? Well, as I've been saying Trump's Change in tone toward Israel, Netanyahu specifically. is the most concerning aspect. of the recent negotiations between the United States and Iran I don't know how long lasting it will be I'm trying to think why does Trump view Israel's defense in the North different than he viewed Israel's defense in the South One reason is N not only is Lebanon being forced into a conversation where it doesn't belong conversation over the Strait of Hormuz Trump thus has to. feels like he must deal with it separately the situation in Lebanon is not communicated to the American public or the American President. in the same way that october seventh The hostages was And in fact, I think among Americans, there's some confusion becausecause to Americans who even pay the slightest attention to what's happening in the Middle East and in Israel and around Israel in particular I think many of them are like,', hold it Israel blow up Hezbollah with those pagers couple years ago Wh why is why is Hezbollah fighting now? and why is Hezbollah seem to have this teechnological edge Now. What's going on there And so there's I think there's an ignorance about what's happening in the North that u allows Americans to draw distinctions where they shouldn't between warg on Hezbollah and the war against Islamism end eliminationism on those other fronts you describe What could change the scenario Well, the strait could be opened Trump could get out of this box We say that Prime Minister Netanyahu's clay could also change the equation If there's a different Israeli leadeer that might I think kind of Gramble some people's responses to what's happening. And then of course could be and I don't wish this the world, but there could be a terrorist attack or a successful Hezbollah strike that reminds Trump why he is pro Israel And why and shows that Hezbollah and Lebanon cannot be separated from the larger battle for not only Jewish sovereignty Western civilization Those I think right now are the elements that could change the equation that I can identify. But it's something I'm watching very carefully on the American domestic front. Yeah. You think the US. Israel relationship is a healthy one in twenty years Oh twenty years is far too long to speculate Um I think for deep reasons America and Israel will still be allies in twenty years can only focus on the immediate the left has institutionalized anti Israeli sentiment in profoundly disturbing ways An upshot of that is the right. has taken on the defense of Israel in a way that is really remarkable and and novel And while that defense coming from the right is under attack by figures through You say they're aligned with Trump say they're conservatives or say that they're populists or What have you I still think that some very basic reasons that having to do with the nature of conservatism he. the nature of religious belief uh, the the They kind of built in Hwkishness or if not hawkishness in the way we talk about it, just the reflectsive willing willingness to defend what's right. that you find on the conservative side of the aisle in the United States I think that bull Continue Remember We don't know how these political bets are going to go right now JD Vance is making a political bet not just about the path to the Republican nomination in twenty twenty eight but about passed the White House in twenty twenty eight And there is no guarantee that his bett will pay off been very lucky so far in his political life and The rule in politics is you'd rather be lucky than good Knowing what we know about the Republican Party as an institution the the The direction that Vance is going is one that will not be smooth. put it that way. So All we can do as Americans is fight anti Semitism and make the case for Israel as best we can and and try to Um tryry to adapt to this new media environment. which is just so hostile Just the Jews Not just Israel to really everything that Um the United States stands for. Matthew Contui, thank you so much for joining me. It was fascinating. Thank you, Heveivven