Assessing the failure of Trump's Iran policy

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ACast. com Extremely liberal is how Donald Trump has described Andy Burnham adding that he's not in any rush to meet Britain's next prrime Minister So not a fan, I think we conclude, though with Mr. Trump, you never quite know. Of course, in reality, he knows nothing about Mr. Bernam Our new Prime Minister has more pressing priorities than schmoozing the U.S. presresident anyway such as Well, who's going to be the next Chancellor And what should he say in next week's supposedly Kynote speech on the economy Rachel Reeves will be listening intently for signs that she might yet hold on to her job though truth to tell She's toast Meanwhile, World events aren't waiting for Mr. Burnham of Makerfield The fallout from Trump's war on Iran continues with a former U. S. National Security adviser John Bolton tellelling me the Trump deal with Iran Even worse for America's global reputation than the retreat from Afghanistan. All that and more from Home and Abroad on this The Andrew New report So welcome to the show. I'm Andrew Neil. A reminder the full podcast will be with you every Thursday, so make sure you listen and follow now in your podcast apps so you never miss an episode And I'll also bring you video clips from the show throughout the week on YouTube Just search for the Andw new report to subscribe There's a lot of people not just abroad, but even in Britain who wonder how Britain can change prime ministers so often without a general election go You have to explain to them that we are a parliamentary system, not a presidential system that I'm like say in America where you vote directly for someone who will be president of the country In Britain, we vote for individuals. who represent a party And whichever party gets the most people into the House of Commons tends to form the government either with an overall majority or in coalition with somebody else And Normally That is how what determines who the prrime Minister is Now, who the leader of the winning party is may often determine how we'll vote, but we're not actually voting for that Prime Minister That's not how the parliamentary system works And so provided Somebody who leads a park can get sustain a majority in the House of Commons, they can become Prime Minister And we've got into the habit in recent years of changing Our Prime Mister iss in the middle of parliaments. Indeed, it's become feature of our parliamentary democracy rather than a default. Now that's The constitutional explanation that people like me give And of course, it is the right one, but All this chopping and changing does make you wonder if it's the right one, the right way to do it. Of course If you're only changing Prime Minister every so often, then the system probably survives But if we're constantly changing Prime mininisters at the whim of the ruling party F David Cameron to Theresa May, from Theresa May to this trust from this trust to Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson to Richie Sunk I know from Kia Stara to Andy Berham. We're making these changes Someone's a magic as Prime Minister, someone that that hasn't been tested. as a leader in a general election And I think The more that happens, the more you begin to Wonder. If this system is the right system that Can we constantly can the parties constantly Be changing the Prime Minister without any reference to the people at all Except, of course, in the case of Andy Berham, the people of Makerfield onene consistency out of six hundred and fifty or in the case of Liz Truss. where a couple hundred thousand touries in the end got to choose her as prrime mininister. So I understand. The although of in a parliamentary system entirely constitutional But I understand why people are a bit unhappy with it. And of course That's particularly so in the Andy Burnham case because he wasn't even an MP the last general election, at least The previous ones had all fought the previous general election before they became a leader. And I think people are particularly questioning that because it does seem to be he's got into the habit of lumbering us in the end with terrible prime ministers and terrible prrime mininisters which we had no say in choosing L T to resa me like this truss, like to begin with Boris Johson, though he did win an election and now, of course Andy Bonham And there is the fear that once again, this system where by political parties. the governing party can switch its leader and there for switch prime ministers. Has it lumbered us again with a terrible Prime Minister And I think these question marks are All this are particularly relevant in the Andy Burnham case. I mean, they were relevant in the previous ones But the manner in which He's been elevated is particularly peculiar You know, a by election had to be created for him to get him into the House of Commons in the first place And having done that, that then became the stepping stone. It was created for this purpose for him to then become leader of the Labour Party and hence our next Pime Minister. We all of us oututside The Labour Party, outside the people of Makerfield We are mere spectators in this supposed democracy Watching events, we have no say in what is going on on this. And it does strike me And it was true under the Tories as well There our politics has ended up being not for our convenience, not for the convenience of the people or in the interests of the people, But for the convenience of whoever happens to be the governing political elite at the time. And I think this does help to under mind belief in democracy I'm not saying the cononstitutional position will change or it's gone But I think it does do that. and I think it also means that Andy Burnham has got some real problems as others who took over in roughly his position as well problems too. And I think that's compounded by the fact that so far, I see a little signs that Mr. Burnham, decent fellow that he is appreciates the scale of the urgencies of the tasks before him bit like his stoma didn't seem to understand that either. or he did win a general election This is Andy Burnham And I keep in mind the fact that there's already huge demands on the public purse. And every time he speaks he indicates that, well, he'd like to add to them And yet the bond markets where we go to borrow where governments go to borrow They're already pretty sniffy about Britain's fiscal position. We they impose a premium, a risk premium on us already. We when we as a government borrow We already have the highest borrowing costs of any G seven country And y he' being told by sub colonnists He's been told that you can borrow a lot more still, Hy. You can borrow a lot more as long as you claim it's for growth. Really? Can you really do that And what is for growth? O the tens of billions we're spending on HS two, that's all taxpayers' money Is that really improving our growth? Is that really improving our prospects for growth And when I listen to him to, he sometimes, although he's a relatively young man to be Prime Minister Future should belong to him He does sometimes seem keener to put the clock back. It go only about forty years of neoliberalism course includes thirteen years of labor government the chunk of which he was part Not really sure what it means, but it seems like almiously I wants to unwind the clock back to the pre thatchary years The glorious nineteen seventies Harold Wilson and Jim Galligan and so on rather than building the future And I also say that I think is whinging about London and the Westminster elite off which he was once part of which he has now returned to be the leader of that elite I think that's very quickly going to grate. People want to know what he's doing rather than his analysis of terrible people in London as will all this northern stick stick stuff that the The likely light from the north ain't going to play when he's in ten downing street Now he's about to become. Prime Minister of all of the United Kingdom So the norm other thing. is not entirely relevant Time is not on his side We're now in a political culture in the United Kingdom, although it's not just in the United Kingdom, it's other democracies too We tire quickly of incumbents these days. Just look at Kia Aarmmer Look at Boris Johnson as well. Look at this truss We talked more quickly of her than the letters had time to deteriorate And I think that's especially a risk, as I say for Mr. Burnham given the extraordinary manner of his elevation which all seemed to be for his convenience the convenience of his supporters, the convenience of a party of government that wanted to change his leadership for our convenience So to upend British politics with a coup and they thend be seen as not having much of a clue what to do next? I think if that's the case That will be quickly regarded by the people who have played no part in his elevation quickly be regarded as unforgivable We shall see Bush seem soon have time to tell Before I switched to Wealthfront, my API was probably zero point one. Once I switched to chitching. With the Wealthfront cash account, earn up to four point two percent API on your cash. I can trust Wealthfront is taking care of me. Make your money earn more. Get started at wealthfront. com cllients paid one thousand dollars for their testimonials creating a conflict of interest. How come. point percent, sa AfPy as of january thirtieth twenty six is repentative variable and earned funds swept to program bank. point six fivecent newient boost for three months up to one hundred fifty thousand dollars. Direct depit one thousand dollars ath fund invest account for a point fivecent increase Cash account offered by Wealthfront broerage LC member forer IC, not a Here's a tip for you. There's a podcast out there with fans waiting to be your next customer tune in every week, they trust the host, and that host wants to talk about brands like yours in their own words to their audience. The problem is, you just haven't been introduced yet. We're A cast where that introduction happens as the world's largest podcast marketplace. We let you brow shows, seeee who' listening post read sponsorships or run your own ads all from one platform. Transparent pricing, real time data, complete control. Start advertising on podcasts by visiting acast. com slash advertise Let's speak now to my old friend, Colly, Times colonist G get his take on these things Fraser Nelson Fer, welcome to the Andrew New Report I want to jump straight in here and ask you this important question that It seems Mr. Buron is being advised Can you borrow a lot more? Is it okay to borrow more given our current circumstances As long as you say, hey, but it's for investment in growth. Well, I think Lis Tuss and Kuasi Quartine both tested that theory to destruction. They were saying, lookook, we're going to borrow lots of money, we're going to cut a few taxes. We're bound to get growth. No the markets want to demonstrate it now, absolutely demonstrate it. And I actually think that Annie Burnham has learnnt his lesson Those words he was saying about how you should been in hocked to the bond markets have really haunted him so much so But he's had to appoint Jim O'Neil, Goldman Sachs, Richard Hughes, X OBR, Andy Holddane, former Bank of England, chief economist, as his advisers, stroke minders to sort of a sort of human proof that he has learned his lesson and he's not going to try to mess with the markets. I think he realizes very much what happened to Liz Trust when she did try that. He also realizes that the anticipation, the expectation of any funny business on his part will start to push up what they call, you know, the moron premium. They kind of how much Britain pays for its guilds versus the next highest country. That's what we saw shoot up under Vist trust a. But right now it hasn't shut up. It's actually come down a little bit because the markets, I think, do realize that he's probably going to spend more, but you'll probably raise taxes to pay for that spending, not go to the markets. So therefore he doesn't have to borrow from the debt markers if he does that. off course If he has a if he has a growth agenda, as Kz Amer once told us he had U But he thinks he can have a growth agenda with higher taxes. Uh whichich of course is what Kus Staro's government has done with Rachel Reith He may find out as KS Aarmmer has found out, that's not an easy double act to achieve to put taxes up and still hope for more growth. Well, of course, the beautiful moment of KS Aarmer's government was when Rachel reived her first budget, the OBR gave an instant verdict on it. and they were saying that no, this isn't going to give more growth. when you look at the perhaps it will suck growth from one year to another But when you look at year three year four, it's going to make no difference at all to what you inherited. From that moment on, Rachel Reeves's cover was blown and it emerged that she had no growth pl Now Andy Burnham and whoever he chooses to be his chancellor, perhaps Ed Milliban, perhaps War Streeting, who knows, will also have that moment of truth. They're going to publish their budget, then the OBR is going to deliver its verdict and we'll see is there going to be more growth or not. I very much doubt that there will because he's got so few options. And right now the sheer weight of a tax burden is crushing the growth out of the economy. And I think he's going to add to that tax burden. But I think he's going to do something look, one of the options he's got in front of him And I'm not saying you'll take it, but this is an option. is to say right It' now time to fund defence properly. If your suummer couldn't fund it properly, I'm now going to give it the seventeen extra billion pounds it needs to take it to three point five percent of GDP. and I'm going to do that by raising the basic rate of income tax If you did something like that This would give him cover to raise taxes he needs. It would make him slightly harder to attack from the right because almost everybody on the right now is just really quite terrified at the paltry state of our defenses and is urging the government to do whatever it can to pay for those defenses Now that wouldn't be borrowing any money, money off the markets. He get away with it, But it wouldn't be great for growth unless he decides to move Ed Miliband and go for North Sea and also perhaps get Angel Rinna back into housing and let her resume what actually was a rather successful house builduilding agenda she was doing under K Strarmer f course you raise the issue and I take the point that if you raise a lot of money if you raise income tax as one of the three taxes But of course Yeah There's a democratic deficit by doing th This government was elected with a specific promise not to raise income tax And he has No, so that's F one add in the burnham factor He has no mandate to raise income tax because And he wasn't even part of that manifesto in which they fought the twenty twenty four election. Economically, I can see how It rais a lot of money. It could undermine them politically little early on. in his premiership.f course, because labor came to power and a pledge not to raise those taxes. A unwise pledge, of course, because you never can tell what's going to happen over the course of a parliament. And if Van Dy Bernam wants to try his Jesuits ag go, Well, I didn't stand under that manifesto. These promises aren't mine I'm not quite sure he'd be forgiven But he'd have to completely rely on defense, saying, lookook, the world has changed us two wars on at the moment. We need to fundamentally defend this country. Of course, it would be misleading because the real reason that you need to tax is to fund all of the net zero stuff. You can easily find seventeen billion do needed for defense by pausing all of the extras that Ed Miliban plans between now and the next election. So he'd be framing it as tax for defense. That's the best dressing he could put in it. But it wouldn't really be tax and defense. It wouldd be tax for continuing with the Net Zero agenda and also not cutting welfare, which is the biggest cost saving opportunity for the government When I listen to yourfaser about the constraints he's under that The three biggest tax revenue raisers, the Libor manifesto counts out raising them He now seems to have learned from It is loose words about being hopwed to the bond markets that actually when you're this exposed to borrowing as Britain already is Your leewway is not nearly as much you are to some extent in hk to the bond markets. That's just a reality because you borrowed so much. you didn't want to been hwked to them, you shouldn't have borrowed so much That If he's limited on the tax side, he's limited on the borrowing side, he needs to spend more on defense. He doesn't seem to be to be much of a public spending cutster every time he opens his mouth. He adds to public spending he's really going to be cribbed and confined and therefore I would think quite soon proved to be a disappointment to the soft left of the Labour Party Well, I'll tell you Andrew what I do predict will happen I do predict you'll get a pool bounce and that's a predict be quite a significant one And we've seen obviously the triumph, hope of expectations. But usually when we get this deistration of prime ministers, the new person normally is quite inspiring. I mean, let's remember Theresa May did very well in the may local elections, I mean calamitously in the general election the next month But there was there was hope for, you know, even John Major. you know, there's lots of hope for him too. So you get this moment where there is a honeymoon. It won't be very long lived, but that is the moment where I think Andy Birurnham needs to come out with all of the promises he needs to break, needs to be broken then That's where he needs to come up with his mould breaking agenda. If he's going to escape constraints, which in the end left Kure Starmer with no options at all. He'll love to do it early and youll have to do it with a purpose. He'll love to present it as part of a grand vision. H Stummer gave a textbook example of what not to do to come in there saying, o dear is all worse than I thought. I have nothing to offer but blood toile and tears. And by the way, very good your winter fuel payments. you know that was long drawn out. there was no kind of ence for a purpose as Gordon Brown would put it. So Berham needs to do the opposite of that. He will right now be needing to think of what he's going to put together for his one shot agenda. That agenda will need to the upside as well as the pain. Now if the upside means that Britain is for the first time in a generation going to have a properly funded defense plan, if it means that he's going to be able to liberalize on North seea oil improve energy security He will have a story to tell Of course, the other story you mightt want to tell is, by the way, I've just put up your basic ro of income tax by three p. And when that happens, growth will slow The OBR will look at that and will think, okay, by all means, Prime Minister, you can put up the taxes if you want. That means you wouldn't have to borrow so much. But what it does mean is that economy, which wasn't really growing fast in the first place is going to grow even less now So that will be the kind of trade off. I really struggle to see how he can improve the prospects for living standards. And by the end of this decade, the OBR predicts average disposable income will be lower, lower than it was before the last financial crisis in two thousand seven Now that is a miserable exit for the Labour Party. but I don't think anything can spare them from that. The best they can hope for now is to have a better storyteller with a narrative able to convey what the government's for, and also, by the way, to point out to it things that the government is genuinely getting right on migration and other things like violent crime. What will his choice of Chancellor tell us about the Berham administration, Fraser Well, this is the big question. I mean, we heard first of all that Ed Miliband is being lined up. And the times have splashed on the news that Millib Burn hass been given a very big role in the behind the scenes and negotiations Now, a lot of people tell them, look, the words Ed Milliband are the two words most likely to install panic in those markets, which you don't want to upset So then what are his options? He's got two other ones. One is West Streeting, who gave a speech only about a week ago pretty much moking Andy Burnham's economic agenda, saying the bond markets are not the bond villains. Streeting has seemed to be on kind of the right of the of a Labour partarty former health secretary who is doing reform But the problem is treating, you know, being given that he wasn't entirely sold and burnham, there's also a little bit of a resignation risk. If you're Andy Burnham, you are mindful that you do not have a democratic mandate to control your cabinet. You're going have to make sure that whoever your point isn't going to resign and the first sign of trouble. And given that Wre Streeting's seat is he'll be clinging onto that by a knife edge, he might well resign. Now, then you've got the sort of The Alster Darling option. Dull, Scottish, reliable, also a great man, Pat McVagen, the the working pension Secretary He's been doing a pretty good job in welfare. But if he wanted to go for somebody who would be seen to be mature, grown up, cam, and most labor chancellors, by the way, have presented themselves in that kind of way. then Pat McFjon might be the third one But whoever is a Chancellor, I don't think they're going to try to play fast and loose with the bon Marcus because I think that they realize that was Liz Truss's cardinalson and one I don't think they will want to replicate in a hurry Will the honeymoon be over by Christmas? Yes, I think it will be. I think that we can expect a bump over the summer And then the budget, that will be the bad news. When the budget comes along, And of course, look, I could be wrong and there could be an inspiring story to tell about in a great energy future and secure defense, but that will be the place to put out all of the bn news and then we'll see how it goes. After a while, I think the realities will settle in those realities are that the economic growth isn't going to get any better. Livving standards aren't going to improve very much And welfare, which I believe needs urgent reform, even if everything goes right there. And by the way, it could do, because James Pernell, who Andy Bernam iss going to take in as his chief of staff, was a very good reforming welfare secretary under the less Labor goovernment. Even welfare reform will take three to five years to really come good. It won't show you good results Now that's the moment where I think you people will begin to sort of think, okay, Berham might be I have a cheerier countenance than Kosama, but he hasn't changed the overall prospects for me or my family. And also as you were saying earlier on, Andrew, this kind of northern stick that he's got might begin to grate Apart from anything else, Manchester's to the south of forty percent of the UK landmass. exactly It's the north of England, not the north of Britain. Yeah. and also and also if you're a southerner, you know, you won't want to rub it in your face that much. It' to talk about taking part of number ten. up to Manchester, etcer. You, it makes it a little bit different. I can understand why you want to differentiate that way But you know Gordon Brown, when he was Prime Minister didn't bang on about being Scottish the whole time, quQuite the reverse. he was talking about Britishness. He wanted to hammer home that he realized that he didn't want to be seen as a regional prime mininister. He wantsed to be seen as a national one So I think this kind of king of a North Pruna that Andy Burnham has managed to develop to disguise the fact that he's been absolutely marinated in the English elite from his teenage years, you know perf you can overcome a two one from Cambridge And that know he's takaking on this Northern thing as Mor of Bluna where he becomes prrime minister He might be advised to drop it and to focus more on the country because his party would be saying, lookook, we're facing the Greens in the south and the southwest. We're facing reform in Wales. know you cannot continually perpetuate this kind of cheeky monkey persona that he hiss adopted Frreser, we've all been naturally looking at the prospects of a burnham premiership and this amazing way in which has come about and the b election being created and so on and so on. and that is Oh when we change Prime mininiss, that is obviously the big political story of the time But I wonder if another political story that may be a little bit under the radar, but is gathering momentum is that pererhaps reform is now in some trouble Well, Andrew, I think you're completely right. I think reforms defeated Makerfield was a lot more significant than people are really saying. Of course, the Makerfield headline was Andy Burnham's win. But to see reform do only a little bit better than it did in the general election, when it's done something like Trebleous vote nationally, that was something But Ill tell you what really jumps out at me. It was the tactical voting against reform And I spoke to three Tories who were campaigning there, going on what doors they had registered as Tories, N not very many of those doors in Mgafield. But they kept being told time and time again, look We're not going to vote Torory now. We want to vote for Andy Burnham because we want to stop reform Now, this is a trend we've seen in by election after by election, Tactical voting against reform And this is the side effect of reform, just giving it this sort of Racial politics, if you like. I mean, the way that they're now talking about the whites being discriminated against by every government institution, the way that they responded to that horrible Henry Novak murder by misrepresenting much of it, the way that Zia Yusf has Reforms pololicy chief has conducted himself by saying he's going to track down and deport between one million and two million people in Britain And he's going to build camps and he's going to put them in the constituencies of people who didn't vote reform This is of course, go done very well on Twitter. But the very forces that give him lots of shock factors, lots of social media following make other voters think to themselves, hang on. this looks very much like more like Nick Griffin than it does the old Nijer Farage. This looks a bit like demagoguery us And a lot of voters who think that the most important thing of the next election is that reform is not elected in their constituency. So what we saw in both Makerfield and Aberdeen South was Tory supporters voting for labor and Aberdeen labour supporters voting Tory, not because of who they wanted to win, but who they wanted to stop And I think this is going to be a rising factor now and it's going to be directed against reform So already, you're seeing in the betting markets, people assuming they'ven't assumed until now that reform would have the biggest number of seats of an next election. Now that's starting to change. Right now, labor is judged of the biggest number of seats. But I'm also starting to hear something I've never heard before People saying that they think Kemy Bidk might lead the consonservatives to be the biggest single party at the next election. Now I'm not going this far to say that I believe that But certainly, people are entertaining it as a serious option because they can see reform now starting to wane. that is an interesting prospect because if the bloom is off reform U Andy Berham will get the credit for that even if it's u The bloom is off partly because of the incompetence of the people who run reform You know, they can't even pick a decent candidate in the most important by election of in modern history Uh But it doesn't matter. He was there when it happened. he'll get the credit And that will rebound in his favour. But it will also it also opens the door a bit more for Kemy Bednoch as well. So Oh you could actually see surprise, surprise. I'll have to rewrite about half a dozen articles now Frasers You could see the return of labor consonservative politics. That's exactly right, Andrew. think Because what we're seeing now is the same social media forces which incubate these radical parties. Zach Volansky's greens, by the way, are as polarizing as Naijah Farage's reform. I was doing a focus group of Times readers here in the Times builduilding a few weeks ago. And I was trying to say like who here supports or feel strongly by any party, Not many did But the two biggest constituencies were people who wanted to stop reform at all costs, but the biggest group was those who wanted to stop Polansky's greens at all costs. And they were looking to the main parties as a bulwark against the two the kind of radicals of left and of right who they wanted to stop in their tracks So we can actually absolutely see a system now where theories are stopped, mean Kimmy Baedenk, I interviewed her last week for the Times CEO summit. And she was saying that she is not going to enter a coalition in any circumstances with Nijer Farj. The first time she said that And she was saying that she's going to stand on get labor out and stop reform Now that second bit is really quite important because if you're standing on a stop reform ticket, obviously you can't go on to enable them in government So if Kemy Bidenk is genuinely ruling out and if she's believed when she rules out a coalition with them And all of a sudden people think, well, hang on Maybe reform iss not going to win a majority. If victories are serious about not supporting them, they're not going to win at all Now when the reform activists start to lose faith that they're going to take power But their mindset changes. They start to fight amongst themselves more. You might get some Deections that we've started to see now, peopleople who defected to reform now saying no, I don't want to do it. So in the next few weeks, it's really worth paying attention to the mood, to the vibe And also Nijah Faraj is being asked about that five million pound donation. every time he steps out of his Very uncomfortable interviews, forazer, very uncomfortable Exactly. And we had to, you know, we had a Times radio reporter chasing him outside and being pushed away by his heavy saying no, you can't come after it. He now looks like he's on the run Now, his demedia round this week was disastrous when he went into studio after studio And ye absolutely, could not didn't have answer. He got angry. He was saying to the presenters, Where do you spend your money? How dare you ask me? how I' spending my five million? He looks like he's not enjoying it anymore And we'll love to see how that plays out Well Frz are you clear we're about to move into uncharted territory again. for and uncharted not just because we've got a new and untarted prime minister, but because of other developments that are taking place In addition Minister Lave it there phraser Great to see you. Thanks for joining me. Andxreasza and Nelson While every other channel is fighting for your customers' attention, podcasts are where they've already given it No one accidentally listens to a podcast for forty five minutes. They choose to be here. They trust the voice in their ears, and when that voice talks about your brand, it doesn't sound like advertising. It sounds like a recommendation from a friend. ACast gives you that trust at scale. Digital precision, host read authenticity, and performance data that proves it worked Don't fight for attention. buuy it with ACast. Learn more by visiting Acast dot com slash advertise Talks between America and Iran continue in Switzerland There's much confusion about what's going on with both Sid saying different things. It does look as if Iran is getting a lot of what it wantce without conceding much so far to America. The U.S. has cleared the way for Iran to export oil to export it in dollars. That's the revenue it will get. includcing to U.S. buyers which is worth billions over the year to the Iranian regime. Vice President JD Vance, who' leading the U. S. negotiators, said Teran had agreed to allow nuclear inspectors to return as early as this week Iran has yet to acknowledge that And even Vans admits the terms of access still need to be negotiated Tks to reopen this stream removes address Iran's nuclear ambitions and its desire for further sanctions relief, again, worth many more billions to it Well, they continue. they proceed apace. Let's speak to former U. S. National seecurity addviser. John Bton. John Bon, let me just plug straight in These talks are no underwear, I said Major hostilities between in America and Iran would seem to be over, at least for now Who won I think in military terms, the U. S. Israeli strikes did a considerable amount of damage to Iran's military industrial complex, itss navy, its air Force, its's air defenses, it's missiles, missile launchers and drones and pererhaps not as much as originally anticipated, but still a substantial amount. So in military terms, I think that it's a plus, but the basic problem is to this day, Donald Trump can't define for us what his objectives were I thought at the outset perhaps it was regime change, but He denied that it was, except that he then said we had achieved regime change because we had different interlocutors from the regime itself, which doesn't cut it either. So his his his objectives, the most charitable thing you can say is they were unclear And therefore, it's hard to judge on the metric of what exactly he thought he was doing Now, when you come to the negotiation of the Memorandum of Understanding, I think you've taken a political success, not a victory, but a major military success and turned it into a political defeat the MOU doesn't solve the basic point I think Trump was after, which is opening the strait of Hormz to traffic by all oil producers on the Gulf Iran is exporting. That's a victory for Iran, but the Gulf Arabs are still very reticent. So when you add that together with all the major issues like the nuclear program being down the road I think Iran comes out from a political point of view in this negotiation, so far very much ahead when Donald Trump launched his war against Iran at the end of February, You supported it U Now you know President Trump, And all his weaknesses, his inconsistency, unpredictability, short attention spans sereriously believe that he'd stick with it Well with Trump, it's hard to believe he'll stick with anything longer than ten or fifteen minutes. I mean, you can getess that was my b to the same question on any given day I thought in this case because this was a joint U. S Israeli operation that the Israelis who have thought long and hard about everything that goes on in Iran would have a plan and the Trump would have would have accepted it. Unfortunately, there's no evidence that that turned out to be true. And the list of things that Trump didn't do even before the war started is very extensive and may have been fatal to whatever his objectives were. He didn't consult with the American people. He didn't build a base of political support in the U S He didn't build a base of support and Congress, he didn't And brief our allies, not on the details of the military plan, but on what the political picture was. And it wasn't just that he didn't brief the UK or NATO members generally, he didn't brief the Gulf Arab states for goodness ses. He didn't brief our Allies in the Pacific who rely so heavily on oil from the Gulf. And worst of all, he didn't brief the opposition inside Iran. if he was determined not to use booots on the ground You can argue about whether that makes sense or not. He clearly didn't want to. It was absolutely a prerequisite that he get the opponents of the regime in Iran and said, what do you need? You need money? you need communications, you need weapons. What do you need to be helpful to us and that just didn't happen either Well, you mentioned the opposition in Iran and you've long advocated regime change in Iran. You say it's The only sure fire way of eliminating the nuclear threat and adding support for Iran's terrorist proxies in the Middle East region and I there's a good deal of sense in that. That would do it. But what made you think that regime change could be achieved largely from the air with missiles and bombs Well, I didn't think it would be achieved largely from the air. I think you had to put these other steps into action. I think the particularly the Israelis were very effective at eliminating large numbers of very senior decision makers in the regime, the Revolutionary Guard and other elements of support for the regime. But that's where you needed the opposition to help inside pull the regime apart at the top, find defectors, talk to people in the regular army Not the revolutionary guard, but the regular army who might come over to the opposition side Find the people in the regime who look around and say, you know, this ship's sinking and I don't want to go down with it As far as I can tell, there was no effort to do that at all. The one story that we've heard and this is you can pick it up in different bits and pieces, is that Trump and perhaps the Israelis went to Kurdish authorities in Iraq and elsewhere and said, lookook, we'll arm the Iranian Kurds will'll provide additional weapons for them to give to other opponents of the regime inside Iran and let's get going and see what we can do. and that The Kurds were prepared to commit to do that. And that Erdogan of Turkey called Trump up and said, I don't want you arming the Kurds I don't want to I don't want this operation in Iran to go forward. and according to the story, Trump backed away That's a huge mistake on his part, if true. And You know, that's another that would be another piece of evidence when history is written that this thing was doomed from the start. If if regime change was the objective, It never had a chance to get off the ground Well you've described the regime no as and I call a wounded animal which will recover, you say unless it's Core instruments of power, especially the IRGC are destroyed to enable internal collapse and this opposition you talk about to come through, but Exactly would you achieve that level of destruction. the destruction of its core instruments of power Well, I think it was a mistake to create the ceasefire I think the Iranians were taking heavy damage. We don't know exactly what the casualties are, but we do know a lot of Very senior figures in the regime had been eliminated They had been building this deep state for forty seven years. We had attacked for six weeks. And And I think that if we had continued and if we had energized the opposition, I understand there are a lot of ifs to my proposition here. that's what you think about. what you're gonna to do before you start a war normally that there was a very good chance of success. I think people should remember just how unpopular the regime has been Sure all across the country. The economy was in terrible shape The young people are largely opposed to the regime. Women are opposed to the regime, the ethnic groups, not just the Kurds, but Bucis Aares and and other ethnic groups. So the mix was there against this unpopular regime if we if we had taken advantage of it, which I'm afraid the evidence is pretty clear. We didn't even try But the Israelis and the Americans between them, they rained down Everm bombs and missiles, forty thousand attacks. forty thousand And yet the regime is still there More hardline than ever People are being repressed more brutally than ever Iran's Gulf neighbourors are more scared of it than ever I mean, doesn't this show that you, but the Trump administration too, the Israeli administration as well You underestimated the regime's resilience and its in depth grip on power Well, I don't I don't I can't speak for the Trump administration, but I don't think the Israelis underestimated. and I think One of the things that it's hard for the West to understand is exactly how much the rogue states of the world have built their power structures underground. I mean, this is the The great proponents of this approach are the North Koreans that long ago realized that anything they built above ground was likely to be found out. and so they they have now created a a vast network under the mountains of North Korea where much of their nuclear and ballistic missile work takes place And there have been reports over the years of them working with the Iranians working with Hezbollah, working with Hamas Just as we saw this incredible tunnel network under that Hamas had built under Gaza. And we're seeing the same kind of network Hezbollah built under Lebanon, the Iranians had done it as well So I my conclusion is again, I can't, I'm not defending what Trump did because he obviously did it inadequately But remember what Winston Churchill said after the Suez Canal crisis in nineteen fifty six, he was asked by somebody u if he would have done what Anthony Eden did in attempting to overthrow the NAassA regime in in Egypt and Churchill said something like, I shouldn't have dared But if I had, I shouldn't have stopped And I think that that could come down to be the key lesson. if you don't go into this understanding that it may it may take some time. This is not an easy win. Trump It was reported here thought, well, maybe this will be like Venezuela. we went in, we snatched Maduro, everything went fine. If anybody in the room knew anything about Iran, they should have said it's not going to happen that way in Iran. and obviously it didn' But what you said about the underground capabilities, how entrenched a regime like that can be I mean, surely that Given that we knew all that before the war began Surely, that should have made you and others question. the efficacy of air power I mean, can you think of any examples where regimes crumbble purely from aerial bombardment Well, I could say Guatemala in the nineteen fifties, but that's a little reonite. I admit to that. look, I have said from the beginning and I do believe If the U. S and Israel were not able or prepared to put boots on the ground, this operation If regime change was the goal had to have the buy end of the opposition, which it did not if it was simply to do what the Israelis call mowing the lawn then they just could have stopped it then and said, okay, we we' we've achieved the requisite level of damage. Like they said in the summer of twenty twenty five after the attacks on the nuclear weapons program The fact was, as we could all see Trump couldn't define what his objectives were. He didn't know when to stop except When he began to see the price of gasoline at the pump in the United States rising and consumer dissatisfaction growing. Then he suddenly wakes up and says, maybe we've got a problem here You talk about the opposition, but Iranian opposition is quite opaque. Quite hard to get a handle on it, quuite hard to know who it is. how strong they are Who's organizing them, where they're organized I mean, the truth may be is that they are notot that well organized at all U and that you would think the Israelis because Mus said penetrated huge chunks of Iranian society. Israel will know this And that there isn't really a kind of O in ready opposition there Um ready to take over if you hit the regime hard enough The regime isn't that a frightened? Isn't that frightened of the opposition Well, I think the opposition is largely disorganized, not entirely, but certainly among ethnic Persians I think it's disorganized. That's why going to them in advance and working out what their capabilities were and what we might do to enhance their capabilities, how they would work against the regime was important. That takes time to prepare And in fact, maybe it would have taken longer than then six months would have carried this past the November election, which would have relieved that pressure I mean, when we were in the Trump's first term working with the Venezuelan opposition We knew that the because of the relatively small nature of society at the top in Venezuela that people in the regime knew plenty of people in the opposition, and vice versa. There were a lot of ways you could work inside. I believe something similar could have happened in Iran u it just was never, never tried As the attacks began, it wasn't too late to do it then But even then, it doesn't look like the administration or the Israelis for that matter made much of an effort I suppose the regime had followed uppose that the opposition is stronger than people like me think What would have stopped even if that had happened, massive civil strife Perhaps even the Civil War Insurgency on gangs roaming all over the place with the IRGC still veryery well armed, powerful are disciplined Nothing to lose because if it doesn't hold on to power, it's finished It would have been a repeat In other words, of what happened in Iraq after the fall of the Saddam regime, indeed it would have been Iraq Maybe times four or times five Well, I think two responses to that. Number one, I think the most likely outcome would have been a military government controlled by the regular army, not by the Revolutionary Gard. They would have the capability to restore order. U, and I think that u there's no question of a democratic opposition taking control immediately. That's a long way down road u I think there certainly was a risk of reprisal and hostilities But you know, one of the things that should have been done from the outset was done up until just uil the ceasefire. was that by blockading Iranian exports of oil, we were cutting off their money. And there were plenty of reports toward the end that the government didn't have the money to pay the besiege militia, didn't have the money to pay goodoods force personnel That's how a government really comes apart. and u if it came over to the opposition so much the better But I will say this, it's in order to keep the kind of regime that was in power from getting nuclear weapons, if you're not prepared to take risks, the regime will be there for another forty seven years. I think we had an opportunity here. I think Fom all but I can tell, unfortunately, it's been squandered Well, it may still be there for another forty seven years now. But from a lot of what you said If you stitch it together, it sure there was another way. And it didn't involve the attack beginning on February The twenty eighth, it involved tightening economic sanctions to cut off even more money to the regime to make sure oil exports were not getting out, not leaking out through the sanctions cover It meant spending time working with the opposition, building up the opposition, getting them in a position to be able to take on the regime. It may have meant surgical strikes on the regime's military insecurity and repressive assets and infrastructure. Oh that could have been done and it may have had a better a sense a chance of success. Then what President Trump launched on february twenty eighth because we know the regime was torttering at the beginning of the year, so much so that it indulged in the most appalling massacres of its own people. There was another way Absolutely I mean, when if if Trump really had accepted regime change, that's not the end of the discussion. That's the beginning of the discussion of how do you affect it? And I think the reality was that the economic sanctions had not proven to be sufficiently effective. They had had a negative effect on the government, negative effect on the economy There's no consumer confidence index that you get from Iran. The regime doesn't care about the Iranian people. They care about remaining in power And so I think force ultimately was going to be necessary you just needed to think through the potential contingencies that would face, I mean, take the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, which Trump has said he was surprised by That is impossible to believe We talked about it during the first term when I was trying to persuade him to adopt regime change Just coincidentally, a couple of weeks ago I was reading the diaries of Jimmy Carter. came out some years back. I had never gotten around to him. in nineteen seventy nine, the year the of the Islamic Revolution Carter writes in his diary. US Navy looking at contingencies if The new regime closes the strait of Hormuz. So just as the regime's been there for forty seven years, the Navy has been thinking about this for forty seven years, it's impossible that the Pentagon was surprised by this. If Donald Trump was surprised, he wasn't listening And yet here we are now President Trump's critics say that he started a war. I think you would fall into this category a war which he failed to see through. Isn't the larger truth is that he started a war He should never have started in the first place Well, don I don't measure it by should he have started a war or not started a war. I measured by what was his objective You know, he didn't start a war in the summer of twenty twenty five when they had the what they call the twelve day war against the Iranian nuclear weapons program Actually, it was a twelve day Israeli war. Our war was fourteen bombs. It was a There's a couple hours more It had a significant impact. Trump, as usual, overstated it, saying we had obliterated the Iranian nuclear weapons program. That's not the case, but we had done substantial damage You can contemplate doing that. That's what I say the Israelis call it mowing the lawn It doesn't solve the problem but it may mitigate it. The real question is since after forty seven years, there is zero evidence that the regime's really going to change its behavior Are you simply going to accept that forever or where you draw the logical conclusion if you don't want to live under a nuclear threat, you don't want to live under a terrorist threat and you can't change behavior, you'll change the regime Let me come back to the regime in a minute, but let me first of all start with a point about the United States I mean, many Americans, especially his mega base They voted for Donald Trump, precisely because They wanted to end the sort of forever wars That they think neoconservatives have champed And in a sense, by declaring warar I N, he did betray them And yet, as with Iraq and with Afghanistan before No with Iran. It looks like failure I mean, isn' it isn't it a harsh truth whether you like it or not is it's just over for these neoc Con military ventures now Well, I don't think so. I mean, what it says is Donald Trump has a six week attention span U and that's that's probably longer than than in fact he has. But I' it has to fail How many times does I have to fail? for you to stop trying It hadn't failed. It had barely gotten started. It failed in Iraq, it failed in Afghanistan it's much build in around didn didn't fail in Afghanistan, We overthrew the Taliban. What we failed in Afghanistan, where the failure came was when we withdrew But that was because you stayed on to do more than and get rid of the Taliban just as you were forced to stay on and try and do nation building. in Iraq. I mean, it just seems It never works out Well let's go back to Afghanistan. from two thousand one until the time we withdrew, there were there was never a terrorist attack organized out of Afghanistan against the United States or anywhere else And since we've withdrawn, there have been terrorist attacks, not yet in the United States. I think that N of America that the effort at nation building was unnecessary. and I think but I think we could have stayed for a long time and continued to accomplish the basic mission of preventing terrorist attacks in Iraq I think we did accomplish what we wanted, which was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. and our mistake was