Transcription
I've seen some evidence that the Qataris and maybe the Pakistanis are putting forward an idea of a 10-day ceasefire. And when I see that, I say, "I wonder if this isn't the United States putting pressure on Qatar and Pakistan to get negotiations started again?" Because it's quite clear that this is not a result of pressure from the Iranians. And the Iranians have basically said that they're not interested in these proposals, but I think the Americans are interested in these proposals. I don't have hard evidence of that, but I think that it is the Americans who want to get negotiations started again. Why? Because the tit-for-tat campaign is not working out the way we appear to have thought that it was going to work out.
And by the way, one subject we haven't mentioned, which is of enormous importance, is that we have a limited stockpile of weapons that can be used to wage this tit-for-tat campaign. One of the reasons that we ended the 40-day air war, which started this conflict—that's the air war that ran from February 28th to April 8th—one of the reasons we stopped it on April 8th, uh, was in good part because we were running out of munitions, and we wanted to stop the air campaign, the strategic bombing campaign, uh, before we, uh, depleted the inventory. Uh, so if you're engaged in a tit-for-tat campaign that's looking like it's going to go on for months and months and months, uh, the question you have to ask yourself, if you're the United States, is where do you get the weaponry to wage this campaign?
I remember when the Trump administration was elected, they said Pete Hegseth said, "We're going to go to the Red Sea. We're going to teach these Yemenis, these Ansar Allah. We're going to, we're going to have a different sort of attitude. We're going to hit them hard." Not the way that the Biden administration did. It's this time around going to be different. And when they started that operation, and after two weeks or three weeks, they have decided to get out of the Red Sea because of the difficulties, growing difficulties with the drones being hit by Houthis, by Ansar Allah in the Red Sea. I thought that they're not going to open up a new front with Iran. I thought that that would be a huge lesson for the Trump administration. But it seems that they went with the war against Iran. And as you mentioned, the time is going on, and the war is happening. And what amazes me a lot is that the Trump administration is repeating the same mistakes. Not only with the war, with the operation Freedom in the Persian Gulf. They, they started that operation for 24 hours, less than 24 hours, they have decided because of the difficulties they had from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. They said, "You're not going to use our airspace." So, you're not going to continue that. That Donald Trump said, "Oh, we're going to, we're going to end the operation." And right now, with the MOU, they're repeating the same. And what is that? Is that that they're, they're feeling that every time it's going to, the situation is going to change, or the new factors are coming in, or it's somehow repeating themselves somehow? Because that looks so stupid looking at the attitude. It's so unbelievably, you know, nobody can understand what's going on with the administration. Well, how do you understand that this is repeating the same mistakes over and over and believing that something new may come out of this?
I have no answer to that question. I, I can't figure out what they're thinking myself. As I tried to make clear, uh, we have no war-winning strategy. Um, Trump obviously found it difficult to swallow the June 17th memorandum of understanding, and he decided that he could try to push the Iranians around, uh, by, you know, creating this US-dominated channel in the, uh, Strait of Hormuz. Why he thought he could do that, why he thought he could get away with it, I don't know. Why he thinks that he can win a tit-for-tat campaign against Iran when he couldn't win a strategic bombing campaign against Iran in the early, uh, weeks of this war, uh, escapes me. I, I just don't get it at all. Uh, I think it has to do mainly with the fact that there are a lot of people around Trump who are dissatisfied with the memorandum of understanding of June 17th, and they want him to go back on the offensive and see if he can get a better deal. But do any of those people have a military strategy in mind that will allow Trump to succeed? Uh, I think the answer is clearly no. Nobody's been able to put out or tell a story, uh, about how we can use military force.
Let me make a point or two about the issue you raised regarding the attack on the Houthis, uh, that happened in early 2025. Of course, President Trump, uh, comes into the White House in January of 2025, and then in March, he says, uh, as you made clear, that we're going to get tough with the Houthis, and we're going to defeat the Houthis. Uh, the Biden administration was filled with pussycats, and they were unwilling to really get hard-nosed or play hardball with the Houthis. Uh, and we're going to do that. Well, by May, uh, of 2025, we quit. Uh, and by the way, Nima, one of the reasons we quit is we were using up precious ammunition. There was the first big piece of evidence that we had limited amounts of precious ammunition, and we were using it up against the Houthis, number one, and number two, we were not defeating the Houthis. So that war ended, and it was a failure. It's very important to understand that we failed.
Then the second big event, which you didn't mention, was the 12-day war in June of 2025. This is June 13th to June 25th. The Israelis start the war, and they do most of the fighting. There's that one day, it's June 22nd, where we bomb a series of, uh, [snorts] uh, nuclear installations inside of Iran. And at the end of that one day, Trump declares victory. He said that he has obliterated Iran's nuclear capability. And then, of course, the war ends, uh, on June 25th. And the United States and Israel portray this as a victory. And I think that the sense that we were successful in the 12-day war helped lead Trump to conclude before the February 28th attacks on Iran that we could use military force again against Iran, and we would prevail. Uh, we would produce a decisive victory. The problem is that our goals were limited in the 12-day war. We went after nuclear installations. But the February 28th war, which of course is still going on today, had very ambitious goals. You remember we said we had four particular goals: Number one was regime change. Number two was to end Iran's nuclear enrichment capability. Number three was to end their long-range missile program. And number four was to end Iranian support for the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas. These are remarkably ambitious goals. And most importantly, you're talking about regime change. You weren't talking about regime change back in the June 2025 war. And once you go to regime change, you have to ask yourself, how are you going to get regime change? And almost everybody understands the only way you get regime change is with boots on the ground. This is what happened in Iraq. March 19th, 2023, we went to war against Iraq. We invaded Iraq. That's how we got rid of Saddam Hussein, with ground forces.
Well, President Trump was convinced by the Israelis, by Benjamin Netanyahu, and David Barnea, who's the head of Mossad, that they could use air power alone to cause regime change in Iran. This is a remarkably foolish idea. The evidence that this is not possible is overwhelming. And this is why many of Trump's principal supporters thought that accepting the Israeli idea that we should go to war on February 28th and with a shock and awe air campaign that included decapitation of the regime leadership, we would win a quick and decisive victory was delusional. It, it was delusional, and many of Trump's advisors thought that. But Trump himself was convinced by the Israelis, uh, that we had a war-winning strategy, and off we went to war on February 28th, and it failed. And it's hardly surprising that it failed. Again, the evidence is overwhelming, uh, that air power alone cannot cause regime change. Uh, and, uh, nevertheless, uh, Trump decided he would try to do it. So the key point here is that this, this operation that started on February 28th was much more ambitious. And Trump, who had long argued that he was going to avoid regime change, fell into the trap of pursuing a regime change operation against a country with 93 million people, uh, that was fully capable of absorbing huge amounts of punishment and not surrendering. And the end result is we're in the total mess that we're in today.
One of the major issues in West Asia is the case of Palestine, is the case of Lebanon, is the case of Syria because Syria was supposed to resolve the Israeli problems or the problems in the region. But it seems that it's getting more difficult because of the complexity of the issue of Syria right now. There is no powerful government there or someone who's capable to manage the country. We have the presence of Turkey, the United States, Israel in the south. Um, the thing is so complicated right now in Syria. The Lebanon case is the same way. Somehow you have the Israeli occupation of the southern part of Lebanon. They have defined a yellow line the way they did in Gaza. And going to the West Bank and Gaza, you, you know that how difficult is that? You know, the settlers in the West Bank, it's, I would say impossible to remove the settlers from the West Bank. And because you, you look at the West Bank today, some little points on the map when it comes to the PLO and the Palestinians in the West Bank. Here comes the question: is that in the eyes of the Iranians, in the eyes of the axis of resistance going from Yemen to Iran to Iraq to Lebanon, they all see the issue as one. It means that the occupation and the case of Palestine and the occupation in Lebanon as well. And but in the eyes of Washington, they want to isolate these conflicts. With Iran, it's going to be, it's all about Iran and the United States. With Lebanon, it's about Israel and Lebanon. With Gaza, it's going to be between Israel and Palestinians. How is that going to be, how is that going to be possible for Washington to understand? Do you think, do you think after all, you know, the war is changing somehow the region? But how is that going to help Washington to understand that these are all connected? You cannot separate one from another. And how is that going to happen in the near future, or maybe in a decade?
Well, they are all these conflicts are connected. You're, you're exactly right. And let's just talk about Hezbollah and Lebanon, especially the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. If you look at the memorandum of understanding, the first article, article number one, deals with Lebanon, unsurprisingly, and that means it deals with Hezbollah. And this tells you very clearly that, um, that, uh, the Iranians are deeply committed to maintaining close relations with Hezbollah, Hamas, and of course, the Houthis. Remember, the Houthis today have announced that they're closing down the Red Sea, uh, to the flow of Saudi oil. This shows you just how closely the Saudis, excuse me, the Iranians and the, uh, Houthis, uh, are to each other. And the same thing, of course, is true with regard to Hamas, but especially with regard to Hezbollah. Now, moving forward, I would be willing to bet, uh, that what will happen here is that the Iranians will insist, before they agree to another memorandum of understanding, that the Israelis have to get out of southern Lebanon. Uh, that was, uh, in effect, part of the June 17th memorandum, but the, uh, Iranians did not push hard on that issue. It looked like the memorandum of understanding was going to be operationalized without the Israelis getting out of southern Lebanon. I don't think that will be the case in the next memorandum of understanding. I mean, who knows for sure, but, uh, this issue is not going away for the reasons that you stated, that these conflicts are all interrelated.
Now, very importantly, the Israelis understand this, and the Israelis' great fear is that the United States will sign a memorandum of understanding that limits their freedom in places like southern Lebanon, in places like Gaza, and with regard to the Houthis. That's what scares the Israelis. It's the Israelis more than the Americans who want to separate what's going on in southern Lebanon from what's going on between Iran and the United States, or what's going on in the Persian Gulf. And it's the Iranians who say you can't do that. The Iranians want to maintain the axis of resistance. So, it's not clear how this is all going to play out moving forward, but the Americans are going to be in a very difficult situation, no matter what, because the Iranians are going to put huge pressure on us to get the Israelis out of southern Lebanon and to get us to limit what Israel can do in terms of attacking Hezbollah. On the other side, the Americans are going to be pushed hard by the Israelis and by the lobby in the United States not to curtail, uh, Israeli operations in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah. And how the United States reconciles this set of opposing forces is very hard to say.
Yeah. Do you see that the case of Israel believes that the next enemy is Turkey because of the situation in Syria? That would bring it's not just about the United States staying in the region fighting Iran. It's about what is the perception of Washington of West Asia. Is that going to be a new war? Is it a new conflict, or they're going to have some sort of understanding of the position of these two? Two important countries in West Asia, Iran and Turkey, and Israel wants to fight both of them at the same time. And what is that for Washington?
Just quickly, it's important to emphasize that Israel's grand strategy for dealing with the greater Middle East is to take any country that is potentially powerful or is actually powerful and to weaken it, weaken it, if not wreck it. Uh, this is what they'd like to do in Iran. And they fully understand, the Israelis, that Turkey and Iran are two countries that have a lot of people, uh, a lot of, uh, human capital, uh, that's capable of producing sophisticated weaponry and, uh, a sophisticated economy and so forth and so on. So the Israelis not only want to weaken Iran, they want to weaken Turkey. They see Turkey as an adversary that has to be dealt with. And if you listen to Naftali Bennett talk, who is a former Israeli prime minister and might be a future, uh, Israeli prime minister, uh, you quickly understand that the Israelis have their gun sights on Turkey, uh, as well as Iran. Iran is the number one problem at the moment, but were they to finish off Iran, they would clearly quickly pivot toward Turkey. Now, the problem here is that the United States has good relations with Turkey. Furthermore, Turkey is a member of NATO. Uh, what happens if Israel attacks Turkey? Uh, does Article 5 guarantee come into play, and the United States come to the defense of Turkey the way it's supposed to come to the defense of the Baltic states if Russia were to attack those countries? Uh, I think that, you know, if the Israelis attacked Turkey and we sided with the Israelis against Turkey, this would have enormous consequences, uh, for NATO. But putting that aside, the last thing the United States wants is for the, is for Israel and Turkey to get into a war. We will put enormous pressure on the Israelis not to pick a fight with Turkey. So, I think despite all of the rhetoric coming out of Israel about how Turkey is a potential enemy that has to be dealt with now rather than later, uh, that's not really going to add up to much.
When Donald Trump compares the war in with Iran to what has happened in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, it comes to everybody's mind that maybe he's thinking of an endless war, a new endless war against Iran. And how is that, is the, do you think that's happening in the mind of the establishment? I'm not talking about Donald Trump himself. I'm talking about the, the deep state, the establishment in the United States.
Well, I think more and more people are coming to realize that, uh, we have no way of ending this war quickly on favorable terms. And then the question is, do you get an endless war? Does this look like Afghanistan? Uh, or do we cut a deal here? And, uh, I think it's more likely that we'll cut a deal. I don't think you're going to get an endless war. I don't think we have the munitions, uh, to go on fighting for month after month. And I also think the potential economic damage of this war continuing is great enough, uh, that President Trump will try to shut it down again. And as I've emphasized, you want to remember, we did shut it down once. The memorandum of understanding on June 17th was designed to put an end to this war. President Trump signed that memorandum, and it was very clear, if you listen to J.D. Vance, who was his point man on this issue at the time, the United States was committed for a brief period of time to ending this conflict because it is not in our interest for this conflict to continue. Number one. And number two, if it continues, we're not going to win. We don't have a war-winning strategy. So, I don't think this is going to become a forever war. It's not going to end up looking like Afghanistan. Uh, I may be wrong, but it doesn't look like that to me. It looks like at some point in the not too distant future, we're going to have to go back to the negotiating table. And the big problem that we're going to face is that the hardliners in Iran will have much more influence this time around than they did in the run-up to the June 17th memorandum.
If they cut a deal finally, what would that bring to the American bases in GCC countries? And how do you see that somehow reshaping a new security architecture in the region? Many people are talking about maybe Turkey, there is a military alliance between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Kuwait was talking about maybe they want to join that. And there these sort of talks are happening, nothing official, but with the case of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, they really, they signed an agreement that they're going to defend, Pakistan is going to defend Saudi Arabia if something happens to Saudi Arabia. And how do you, how do you see the situation if that deal happens between Iran and the United States?
Well, I think if you get a memorandum of understanding that looks like the agreement, uh, that you had on June 17th, it's just a bit more favorable to, uh, the Iranians than the June 17th MOU was. I think if that were to happen, uh, I think the American military presence in the Gulf would be greatly reduced. I think it'd be hard to avoid that. And furthermore, I think, putting the memorandum of understanding aside, I think the Gulf States and the Americans do not have an interest in rebuilding those bases, uh, so that they're formidable platforms for projecting power against Iran. And you want to remember, the Iranians are going to be adamantly opposed to having this happen, uh, as they made clear in the June 17th MOU. Uh, so I think America's relationship with the Gulf States is going to change in fundamental ways. I think the Gulf States' relationship with Iran is going to change. There's going to be powerful pressure, pressure on all the Gulf States, uh, to have some sort of modus vivendi with Iran. Then there's the question of China and even Russia. I think China, especially, but maybe even Russia, will play more in, will have more of an influence in the region, uh, than was the case in the past. I personally don't see the Turks or the Pakistanis or the Egyptians or any of those countries having much influence on what the security architecture looks like, uh, in the Persian Gulf area moving forward. Uh, I think, uh, I think that's really up to the Gulf States. It's up to the United States. It's up to Iran. Uh, and I think China and Russia will matter here. This is not to say that Turkey will be irrelevant or Pakistan will be irrelevant, but I don't see those countries putting together an alliance structure that's going to have a meaningful effect on security in the Persian Gulf. Uh, so that's my best sense of sort of where we're headed. But the details of what it all looks like are just very hard to know at this point in time because everything is up in the air. We are very much in what I would call a plastic moment. Um, you know, this is a moment where, uh, there's all sorts of opportunities to go in different directions, and which directions different states go in, uh, you know, is not easy to know. This is especially true when you talk about a country like the UAE, which we were talking about before. You know, it looks some days like the UAE is going to join forces with the United States and Israel, and other days it's going to join forces with, uh, the other Gulf States, and that they're all going to work out some sort of modus vivendi with the Iranians. Uh, which way the UAE goes really does matter. You can imagine a situation where there's a split among the Gulf States themselves, where the UAE is on one side, the Saudis are on the other side. And we all know the UAE and the Saudis don't get along at all. Uh, and that presents a very different situation than one where the UAE and the Saudis are basically in bed together trying to figure out, you know, how to work out some sort of arrangement, some sort of security arrangement, uh, with Iran. So, all this is to say, we can see the broad outlines of where this is all headed, but in terms of the details, it's very hard to say.
The wars in Ukraine and in Iran, they're bringing Russia and Iran together as the way it worked with the war in Ukraine. How, just imagine how was the relationship between China and Russia before the war started in Ukraine. It's just unbelievable looking at the relationship and how close these two countries are together and how dangerous that is for the American hegemony in the region and in, not only in the South Caucasus, in West Asia, in Europe, all together. Because my understanding is that the war is the basic war is between the United States and China. These are all battlefields for Washington. And how is that working for those people who are masterminds of the US hegemony, Wolfowitz Doctrine, which was the main objective was no regional power, no superpower. But it seems these two battlefields are taking, are making the situation worse for the US. And Germany, and go ahead.
Two, two quick points. Um, one is that there is lots of evidence that the Chinese and the Russians are helping, uh, the Iranians wage their missile and drone campaign against, uh, uh, American targets and other targets in the Gulf region. Very important to emphasize that, right? Uh, a lot of people think that there's, uh, reason to believe that the Russians and the Chinese are providing intelligence that is helping, uh, the Iranians hit, uh, targets all across the Persian Gulf. And furthermore, they're providing weaponry as well, uh, to the Iranians. This would make perfect sense because the Iranians, the Russians, and the Chinese all view the United States as a mortal enemy, and anything they can do to help each other, uh, win against the United States is in their interest. You were just talking about how the Chinese and the Russians have been pushed closely together by American actions, which of course is true. Uh, but furthermore, you don't want to underestimate the extent to which Russia and China have been pushed together to help Iran.
Because if the United States suffers a humiliating defeat in, uh, its war against Iran, that's to the advantage of Russia and China, because again, the United States is a mortal enemy of Russia and China. Uh, the second point I would make to you is that there is no question that from an American point of view, the principal threat in the world, uh, is China. The United States since Trump's first term, since 2017, has been committed to containing China, and since 2017, we have been pivoting to Asia. And we have been pivoting to Asia because we believe China is the principal threat. Well, this war in the Middle East against Iran is a disaster for the pivot to Asia because, if anything, we've had to pivot away from Asia. We've had to move forces out of East Asia and send them to the Middle East to fight this war. Furthermore, as I was saying in the course of the program, we are expending precious munitions, uh, in, uh, the Gulf, that in the Gulf conflict that we need to help contain China in East Asia. So, if there's any country that is a big winner from this war involving Iran, it is China. Uh, and if there is a big loser, it is the United States. And of course, that's why China and Russia have a deep-seated interest in helping Iran to defeat the United States.
Yeah. Thank you so much, Professor Mir Shimemer, for being with us today. It was a great pleasure to be to to host you and to talk with you and learn from you.
Thank you, Nima. I thoroughly enjoyed our discussion. Although I have to say, the subject is categorically depressing, as you know very well. And hopefully, we'll be able to have a conversation one of these days where we can talk in an upbeat way about what's going on in the Iran war and maybe even in the Ukraine war as well. But I won't hold my breath until then.