Transcription
We are joined by professor John Mshimemer, one of the world's leading geostrategists. Thank you very much sir for speaking to us. I want to begin by asking you the most basic of all questions. Will this pause or ceasefire, call it what you want, actually hold or is this just a pause before the next phase of conflict or hostility?
Sir, >> it's impossible to say. uh with any degree of certainty. Uh all this is at this point is a ceasefire. Uh President Trump said in his initial truth social post that the 10point plan that the Iranians had put forward for settling this conflict was a really good basis for negotiating a final solution or settlement uh to the conflict. If that's really true, uh, and the two sides can work out an arrangement based on that 10-point plan, uh, then you would have a meaningful agreement. But there are two big problems here. One is if you look at that 10-point plan, the Iranians win almost across the board. uh President Trump is in a sense saying that he's willing uh to negotiate on Iran's demands, not America's demands. And then the second point is that the Israelis who are profoundly unhappy uh with the ceasefire uh and what's happening will go to great lengths to undermine it. So those two factors tell us that we can't be certain uh where this is headed.
After 39 days of war or 40 days of war, who has really gained anything? Both sides, sir, are claiming victory? I've read Trump's statement and I've interviewed um a very high official from the Iranian regime. Can both be right?
>> No, I think this is clearly uh a victory for Iran. Uh, President Trump approached the Pakistanis and he pushed the Pakistanis to work hard uh to get this ceasefire. It's the Americans who wanted the ceasefire. Uh, and the Americans wanted the ceasefire because they understanding they understand uh that they're losing the war and they have no winning strategy. I mean what's very important to understand here is that if we escalate the war Iran will counter escalate and as you go up the escalation ladder it is not clear that the United States can prevail. In fact it's clear to me that Iran prevails as you go up the escalation ladder. So what President Trump was looking for was an off-ramp. And the only off-ramp that he can find is one where he essentially conceds defeat and says that we will negotiate on Iran's terms. And it has to be the case that Iran will get a lot of what it wants and Iran will end up better off after this war than Iran was before the war.
>> Let's break this down. John M shimmer because I'm going to read out Donald Trump's post on truth social. He says United States will work closely with Iran which we have determined has gone through what will be a very productive regime change. So the first thing he's claiming is that the actions of the last 40 days have resulted in a regime change. There will be no enrichment of uranium and the United States will work working with Iran dig up and remove all of the deeply buried B2 bombers nuclear dust. It is now and has been under very exacting satellite surveillance. Nothing has been touched from the date of attack. We are and will be taking tariff and sanctions relief with Iran. Many of the 15 points have already been agreed to. So he's suggesting that some of the big military objectives have been met. Regime change. Uh enrichment is off the table and therefore the United States has won this.
Well, let me make three points. Um first of all, there has not been regime change. the regime is in place and the regime is more hardline than ever because the revolutionary guards have greater influence on what's going on. Uh and uh the chances of toppling the regime are smaller than they ever have been. So his claim about regime change is false. Second, the point about nuclear enrichment. uh the Iranians have made it absolutely clear from the very beginning that nuclear enrichment is not off the table and if you look at their 10point plan nuclear enrichment will continue. So President Trump is not going to get Iran to give up nuclear enrichment. And then third you want to note that he talks about the 15point plan here last night in his truth social post. He talked about the 10-point plan. The 10-point plan is the Iranian plan. The 15-point plan, which he's referring to in this latest post that you read, is the US plan. There is no way that negotiations are going to go anywhere based on the 15point plan. The only hope here is to negotiate on the 10-point plan. And this is a slight of hand on his part to convince people in the United States and in Israel that the 15-point plan still matters. But the fact is the 15point plan is unacceptable to the Iranians and the Iranians are in the driver's seat here. The Iranians were winning this war and it was President Trump who wanted to end this war because he understands full well that it will have catastrophic consequences if it goes on not only for the United States and his presidency but for the wider world to include India.
>> So let me ask you, let's get this straight. There's been no regime change and Iran's nuclear program remains more or less intact. So then what exactly did Donald Trump achieve these last 40 days?
>> He lost the war. That's his great achievement. And the Israelis lost the war. Uh we went to war uh with a set objectives. We were going to do away with Iran's nuclear enrichment capability. We were going to do away with their missiles. We were going to make it impossible for Iran to support Hezbollah, Hamas, uh, and the Houthis. Uh, and we were going to produce regime change. Those were the big four goals that we had. We failed on every one of those goals. Furthermore, we now have a situation that didn't exist before February 28th, where the Iranians control the straight of Hormuz and have tremendous leverage over the international economy. Again, that didn't exist before the war. First of all, it's clear both in President Trump's initial social post and in this one that you read that Iran is going to get sanctions relief. There were serious sanctions on Iran before February 28th. Now we're talking about taking them off. Furthermore, the Iranians are demanding US military bases be moved out of the region. They don't want US military forces near their borders. And if you look at what's happened during the war, we have 13 bases in the region. And those 13 bases have either been seriously damaged or destroyed. We have naval forces in the region that can't even come close to the Iranian coastline for fear those naval forces will be shrunk. Uh what's happened here is that in effect Iran has established deterrence visa v the United States. The United States is not going to want to pick another fight with Iran given what's happened uh over the past 40 days.
>> But Professor Mayor Shimmer, let me play devil's advocate. The Iranian regime is very badly off. It's lost a huge number of its leaders uh both political and military. So there's a lot of attenuation of uh basically uh very important experience there. Number one. Number two, their weapon facilities have been hit. their nuclear facilities, if you were to believe Trump and some of the material that we're reading, buried under the ground with no access. Iran, Iran doesn't have any access. And also, of course, there has been a huge pulverizing effect on infrastructure. So, Iran is really railing against the ropes, isn't it?
>> No, I think that's much too strong a statement. There's no question that Iran has suffered damage. Nobody would deny that. But the Iranians continue to fire missiles at Israel and the Gulf States and American military uh bases in the region. Uh they still have their enriched nuclear material and they clearly still have the ability to enrich uranium. Um they continue to support Hezbollah, the Houthis and Hamas and the regime is firmly intact. Yes. the regime is wounded. Uh but that is not the same as regime change or a decisive defeat for the regime. And if you think about how well Iran can recover in the years ahead, first of all, you're going to get sanctions relief of some sort. Uh and then uh the Iranians control the straight of Hormuz and they're going to treat it as a toll booth as everybody says and they're going to charge container ships coming through the straight $2 million each which will produce a huge amount of revenue which will allow them to rebuild. So they have survived the war and in all likelihood they will be in much better shape moving forward than they were before February 28th. So what you see is that it was a colossal blunder on President Trump's part to allow the Israelis to lead him into this war. Uh and what he's now doing is searching for an offramp uh an exit strategy. He wants to get out of this war because he understands it would be disastrous to continue it.
>> Okay. So let me ask you um has Trump therefore exposed for the first time limits of American power?
Well, I don't think it's for the first time. As you well know, we lost the war in Afghanistan. We were there for 20 years. Uh and furthermore, if you look at our experience uh in Vietnam a long time ago, uh we lost that war decisively as well. Uh furthermore, if you look at our performance in Iraq, which we invaded in 2003, that was a disastrous war. The fact is that there are real limits to what you can do with military power. There's no question that the United States is by far the most powerful military country in the world. But there are limits to what you can do with that military. And we have just seen evidence of that in Iran. President Trump took us to war on February 28th, thinking he could use this powerful military to win a quick and decisive victory. He thought it was going to be easy to defeat Iran. He was dead wrong. And what he came to conclude was that he had to figure out how to get out of this war because it was a losing war and it had the potential to cause catastrophe around the world not only in terms of oil but in terms of food and uh he was therefore looking for an off-ramp and this is the offramp. Hopefully hopefully a deal can be worked out a final deal uh so that we can put an end to this war once and for all. So American the the limits of American power stand exposed yet again and therefore the question follows has this conflict accelerated the shift perhaps to a multipolar world with US influence declining.
>> I think that we moved into a multi-olar world around 2017. I think we've been in a multipolar world for a good eight years. uh and uh I don't think the war will change the balance of power. I think the United States will remain uh the most powerful state in the system. China will be a close second, but this will not have much of an effect on our position in the global distribution of power. Where this war will hurt us is that it will greatly reduce our influence around the world. countries around the world and this is certainly true of a country like India for example will wonder whether you can trust the United States. Uh it is also shown that our ability to project military power all this power that we have our ability to project that power is limited. What you want to do is you want countries to think that you have this tremendous ability to project power and therefore they should not cause you any trouble. But once you use your power and you show that it has significant limits, that weakens your ability to project power and influence events around the world. So I think we're going to be hurt uh in that regard. And as I said, we're going to be hurt in the sense that countries all across the planet, including the Gulf States, our allies in Europe, our allies in Asia, countries like uh Indonesia, countries like India, are all going to say to themselves, "Do you really want to get too close to the United States? Do you really want to trust the Americans?" Because they act in wild and crazy ways and they get people into all sorts of trouble.
John May, thank you very much for speaking with me as always a pleasure and it's always enlightening. Thank you.
You're welcome. Thank you for having me on the