John Mearsheimer: World Changed Forever as Iran Defeated the U.S.

Welcome back. Today is Friday the 10th of April and we are joined by none other than Professor John Merchimer. So, thank you for coming back on.

Ah, it's always my pleasure, Glenn. So, um these are yeah, crazy times indeed. We saw that Trump threatened to wipe out the entire Iranian civilization with its 90 plus million citizens. Uh then he embraced this sudden ceasefire uh which he then seemingly undermined immediately thereafter. Uh then he claims victory and uh yeah begins to distance himself from some of the key requirements of this ceasefire deal. It's uh it can be confusing. So I was hoping if anyone can shed some light on this it would be you.

Yeah, I think uh it is somewhat confusing for sure and uh I think because President Trump uh you know frequently contradicts himself uh and says outrageous things that it sometimes feels like it's hard to make sense of what's going on here. But I I actually think it's quite straightforward. And I think uh if you look at his two tweets on Monday um it it tells you a great deal. Now what exactly am I saying?

Uh I think at an over arch from an overarching perspective you want to understand that President Trump is desperate to end this war. He fully understands that we are close to going off a precipice that if this war is not shut down uh we could end up in a global depression that's worse than we saw uh in the late 1920s. Uh and he wants to do everything he can to avoid that. So, you get two tweets on Monday morning and on Monday evening, and they're very different tweets for sure, but they both show evidence of the desperation.

In the morning, he says that he's going to wipe Iran off the face of the earth. Uh he's going to destroy Iranian civilization forever. This is a genocidal threat of the First Order. This is the kind of language that you expect from Adolf Hitler, not from an American president. And what's going on here is he's desperate and he's threatening to annihilate the Iranians to get them to throw up their hands before he has to attack them that evening. He wants them to concede defeat.

By the end of the day, he does a 180 degree turn and he says there's going to be a ceasefire. But most importantly, he says that the ceasefire will be based on Iran's 10-point plan. Now, you want to understand that there are two plans on the table. One is the 15point American plan, which has all the maximalist demands of the United States and Israel. And then there's the Iranian 10-point plan which has all the maximalist demands of the Iranians. And he says that the negotiations will take place on the basis of the Iranians 10point plan. This is really quite remarkable. He says the 10-point plan provides a workable basis for an agreement. And again, these are the maximalist demands of the Iranian government. He says furthermore in the tweet that almost all of the points of contention between the two sides have been revol have been resolved. Again, remarkable what's going on here. He's basically found the off-ramp and the offramp is to concede defeat. It is the only off-ramp.

He's long had two options. One is he could go up the escalation ladder, which was he which is what he was threatening to do in the morning. But as I've argued for a long time, he can't go up the escalation ladder because he loses at every step. And the idea that he's going to obliterate uh Iran, this is not acceptable. This cannot be done. So, he can't escalate. So, he's got to find an off-ramp. But the only off-ramp is surrender, is to concede defeat. And what he does in the second tweet, again, he reverses gears, goes in the opposite direction, and he conceds defeat. He says, "We're going to negotiate on the basis of the 10-point plan." This means none of our demands are going to be achieved, right? None of the big four demands that we made before the war started and after the war started are going to be realized and we're going to negotiate on the basis of the maximalist demands that Iran has put on the table.

So what I'm saying to you Glenn is if you look at the morning tweet and you look at the evening tweet you see that Trump is desperate. He's desperate to end this war and he wants to get a ceasefire as quickly as possible and then he wants to start negotiations. But it seems like he wants to have it both ways because yes, he conceds defeat will accept, you know, that Iran will set up a toll on the street of Hermoose. Uh we'll put a ceasefire which includes Lebanon, all these things. And but then once the ceasefire is in place, he seems to be still wanting to claim victory. So now his tweets are about well, you know, you better not put any tolls on the street of Hermoose and uh you know, Lebanon's not included. It looks like he wants to have it both ways. He conceds defeat to get the ceasefire, but once he has the ceasefire, he wants to make this victory claim because I noticed that Pete Exathth, he also tried to do this victory lap. It was just reading out all the people who were dead, you know, all the people they killed as a way of uh suggesting that this was victory. But it's I did you see it in a similar way that he Well, did you see the the attempt to claim victory here? because uh you know what they have to agree to and what they're claiming it's there seems to be a massive gap there.

Well, first of all, Glenn, they don't have a ceasefire because to have a ceasefire, the Iranians have to open the straight of Hormuz. And the Iranians have refused to open the straight of Hormuz because the Israelis are bombing Lebanon and attacking Hezbollah inside of Lebanon. And the Iranians say there will be no ceasefire. Uh the straight of Hormuz will not be opened until the Israelis uh stop attacking Hezbollah. And that hasn't happened. So the Israelis are undermining the ceasefire. You want to understand here that first of all there's the ceasefire, but then there's the negotiations to end the war. But before you can get to the negotiations, you have to get a ceasefire. But we don't have a ceasefire. That's a key point to understand. And the question is whether or not President Trump is going to be willing to lean on Netanyahu in a really serious way to get him to stop attacking Hezbollah. Uh and then we'll get a ceasefire. Then the straight will be opened. Uh but in terms of Hexith and Trump declaring victory, this is putting lipstick on a pig. Come on. This is It's clear we've lost.

I I you just want to think about it. We went into this war with four demands. One was regime change. Two was Iran would get rid of its nuclear enrichment capability. Three is Iran would eliminate all its long range ballistic missiles. And four, Iran would stop supporting the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas. None of those four demands have been realized. None. Furthermore, Iran now controls the strait of Hormuz, which gives it enormous leverage. Furthermore, Iran still has a huge inventory of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones, which allows it to attack American bases in the region, American forces in the region. Uh the GCC states, they're allied with the United States and Israel itself. So Iran is in an excellent position today compared to the position it was in on February 27th. And furthermore, as I said, President Trump in his truth social post on Monday night, this is April 6th, said, "We're going to negotiate on the basis of the 10point plan that the Iranians have put on the table." Uh, this is a clear defeat. And by the way, it's an even bigger defeat for Israel. And uh in Israel, there is all sorts of talk uh to that effect. The Israelis fully understand that if you look at where this train is headed, this is a catastrophic defeat for them. And of course, it is for President Trump as well.

Well, in the future as well, uh if Israel or any of the western states would want to attack Yemen or um attack Lebanon or genocide the Palestinians again, then Iran could just yeah shut down or increase the toll. You know, they have some different steps up the escalation on the Hermus. They can, you know, block some ships. I don't know. There's this gives a massive instrument of power to the Iranians. I mean they seem like they will exit this conflict as uh uh maybe superpowers a bit too much but uh at least um yeah adjacent to a great power. This is uh this is quite a instrument of power they have and as you said they didn't have this before the war.

So well there's two points to be made. First of all, I think you don't want to uh overestimate uh how powerful a position uh Iran is in because of years of sanctions and because of the destruction we've wrought on Iran since February 28th. Iran in a very important way has been devastated. Uh this is a country that has been wrecked in a lot of ways. So, the idea that they're coming out of this war in great shape uh is wrong. Uh they're going to have to spend many billions of dollars over many years to recover uh or to come close to recovering from all the damage that we and the Israelis have inflicted on them. Uh there's no question however that given the fact that they control the straight of Hormuz uh they have a huge amount of leverage. And I take it a step further. Uh Glenn, you want to remember that the Houthis are their allies. They're one of the three groups that the Israel that the Iranians remain very close to. The Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas. And the Houthis can they can shut down uh the straight that leads out of the Red Sea as they have done in the past. So the Iranians working with the Houthis have the ability to shut down traffic coming out of the Red Sea uh out of the straight of Babel Mandab and they have the capability to shut down the traffic coming out of the Persian Gulf through the straight of Hormuz. Uh so they do have enormous leverage. There's just no question about that. And uh this is going to present huge problems for the Israelis moving forward and for the Americans moving forward. And by the way, Glint, just to take this a step further, if you look at the maximalist demands of the U of the Iranians, one of them is that all American military forces leave the region. Uh I find it hard to believe that that will happen. Uh, but I would note that we have 13 bases. Well, let me put it differently. We had 13 bases in the region on February 28th. And the New York Times reports that of those 13 bases, all of them have either been destroyed or badly damaged. You just want to think about that. Uh our presence in the Gulf has been seriously undermined by this war. Uh the 13 bases that we depended on are basically gone or almost gone. And then you have to ask yourself the question, are the Gulf States that hosted us on these bases going to want the United States to come back and rebuild those bases? And as I said, there's also the question of where whether we're going to want to do that, right? And then there is the point that the Iranians want us out of the region. So what our military presence in the region looks like uh when all the dust settles is hard to say but we are going to be no more we're not going to be more influ we're going to be less influential have less power in the Gulf uh less power projection capability in the Gulf uh when all said and done than we had before February 28th.

It's quite extraordinary that uh how horrible this war was and uh but again u it was a defeat but uh I'm I'm not sure what else Trump could have done than to accept defeat because there was obviously a growing desperation. I was just wondering how where you think most of the pressure came from. Was it that they were running out of missiles, intercepted missiles, in other words the the military? Was it the massive economic pressure especially yeah the growing oil oil prices or was it the you know the fueling the political havoc at home uh loss of voters? So what what do you think or is there other dimensions to this uh disaster that we're missing?

>> Well I think the secondary factor is that militarily we couldn't figure out how to win the war in any meaningful way. just the, you know, ground invasion didn't make sense. Uh we couldn't use the navy to do much of anything. Uh we we just we just didn't have many options. And I think that was becoming manifestally clear. And you want to remember that in this rescue operation uh where they got the second pilot out, we lost more aircraft that day than we have lost on any single day since the Vietnam War. And think about that. Since the Vietnam War, right, we have never lost as many aircraft in one day as we lost in this rescue mission. Just tells you that we were not doing well militarily. Uh so I think that was of secondary importance. I think what's of primary importance here is uh what's happening to the world economy. I think uh the Chinese and the Russians are very scared about what the long-term consequences of this war are going to be for the world economy. Uh and that includes the supply of food around the world as well as oil and gas. Uh, and I believe the Chinese put pressure on the Iranians and talked at great length to the Pakistanis about getting Iran to come to the negotiating table uh, and to work out a ceasefire and then get talking about settling this war. I think the Chinese understand full well that this will have disastrous consequences for everyone. And I want to underline that word everyone. If this war continues, this war has to be shut down. Uh if you look at what's happening in East Asia, and this includes countries like South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, uh and the potential for really grave damage in China, uh and countries like Russia over the long term. Everybody understands and I believe the Trump administration understands that we have to shut this one down. So I think you see Trump trying to do that. It's Trump who's actually been pushing hard for some sort of exit option, some way of settling this war. There's no question that Trump is deeply interested in doing that. Uh, but the Iranians, as I've long argued, have a vested interest in stringing this out. The the Iranians don't want to settle this war quickly because the longer the war goes on and the more damage that's done to the international economy and the deeper the panic that Trump is in, the more leverage the Iranians have. So it's no problem I think from the Iranian point of view if this ceasefire doesn't work out because as it goes on the conflict that is their leverage increases but nevertheless I believe what happened here is the Chinese working with the Pakistanis and directly with the Iranians put great pressure on Iran. They might have even brought the Russians in to put pressure on Iran to go to the negotiating table because this one has to be shut down. So, I think as you look at the situation today, you go back to those two tweets of uh President Trump on Monday, this is April 6th, and you ramp forward up to the present, and then you project out into the future. I I think it's the global economy that really is driving the train here.

>> Yeah, it's probably true. Uh I think even now that well even if the war comes to an end now uh the amount of damage that has already been done is quite tremendous especially for the Europeans and the Asians. Uh but you can maybe put Africa in that same category but um uh but we've seen some reports of more US troops heading to the region. I I don't know. I haven't seen the exact numbers but do you think this is I mean it seems unlikely that Trump wants to have another go at this because I'm not sure what he's going to do with the troops. as you said, boots on the ground never really made any sense at all. uh or is it just for pressure to hope that uh the US will have a little bit more leverage in the negotiations because you know this is just a twoe ceasefire supposed to produce an actual uh peace agreement and that that peace agreement is going to be very difficult for Trump to get because at the moment the ceasefire deal which is a bit ambiguous there doesn't seem to be a written paper which they can point to uh it's um you know it's it's easy for him to harmonize you know his claim for victory and also the need to I guess capitulate but uh in an actual peace agreement it's going to be very hard to square this uh I'm I'm just just wondering how how do you see the possible ways of this war actually ending because again we have to get from a ceasefire to an actual peace agreement or do you think Trump's just going to try to extend the the ceasefire indefinitely and you know, like a I don't know, just he tried not to get any pen on paper so he doesn't have to admit defeat essentially.

Glenn, he has to admit defeat. He admitted defeat Monday night. Again, we're on the precipice. We've got to shut this one down. He He has no choice here. You you talk about sending ground forces to the region and a a ground force option. That's really going to work well. That's going to get a quick agreement. Are you kidding? Right. That's just going to make a bad situation worse. Uh there's no ground force option here. There's no naval option. There's no air option. I guess, you know, he could use nuclear weapons and uh destroy uh Iran forever. I get he we could do that. We have that capability. Is he going to do that? No, he's not going to do that. So, he's got to shut this one down. And uh he's between a rock and a hard place because the Israelis won't cooperate with him. The Israelis won't even allow him to get a ceasefire. Again, the straight of Hormuz is still effectively closed. The only ships that get through are the ones that the Iranians let through. Uh so he can declare victory and talk about you know the fact that we've gotten everything we wanted and our goals have been achieved and so forth and so on. But nobody's going to believe that we lost. The Israelis lost. The the problem is that there just so many alternative media outlets where this is all made clear, your show being one of them, that they can't put lipstick on a pig and get away with it. Pete Hgsith can say we won. Donald Trump can say we won. But who believes that? Hardly anybody. Uh you see this in the Israeli case. you know, they'll be talking about all the wonderful things they've done because the government has a vested interest in saying that, but all sorts of people are going to point out that this is a ludicrous argument. They didn't win. They lost. Uh so what I would say to President Trump, and I don't think he needs me to tell him this because I'm sure his adviserss are telling him this, this thing has to be shut down immediately. I am sure that this is exactly what Vance is telling him. I'd bet a lot of money on that that this has to be shut down and they're sending Vance to head this team of negotiators because they know Vance, you know, is capable of reaching some sort of agreement. Uh, you know, you don't want to depend on uh Steve Wickoff and Jared Kushner. I mean, these are basically Israeli assets, not to mention the fact they're incompetent. They have a demonstrated record of incompetence now. So, you want someone like Vance in charge and hopefully he can shut this down. Uh, but uh it'll be tough.

You know, Glenn, just to go back to the Ukraine war and think about all the endless conversations we've had on ending the war in Ukraine. President Trump was determined to end the war in Ukraine, even before he came into office. But if he didn't settle that war before he came into office, he was going to settle it after he came into office. And he's been a colossal failure, right? He and his lieutenants have bumbled around and really uh made a hash of the negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Uh it's the gang that can't shoot straight, right? Well, here we are now trying to shut down another war, and it's the Trump administration again. And the question you have to ask yourself is, can they do it? Uh, if the cast of characters involve just President Trump, Steve Whit, and Jared Kushner, I'd say we're in deep trouble. But Vance is our great hope here. He's He's the new boy in town in terms of negotiating with an adversary and we're just all hoping that he can pull it off. I'm sure the Chinese and the Russians, not to mention the Indians, the South Koreans, the Japanese, the Indonesians, people all over Africa, people all over the world are pulling for Vance to work out a ceasefire than to sit down and negotiate some sort of settlement so that we can get the straight open and we can get the fertilizer. Well, we have to get that fertilizer flowing and we can get the oil and gas flowing as well. uh we're not going to immediately go back to the status quo ante in terms of how much of those goods come out of the Gulf, but it'll be a good start. But we have to do this immediately. And I believe that President Trump understands that. It's just it's just difficult to miss what's going on here. I'm sure that countries all around the world are calling the White House every day saying this is a colossal disaster. Something has to be done. And again, I think the Chinese and the Russians fully understand this. These are the responsible stakeholders in the system, the Chinese and the Russians, not the United States. But I think at a certain point even the United States, even the Trump administration gets the message. This is my reading of the situation. And again, Glenn, I would say just go back and look at the two true social posts that he wrote on Monday, what he said in the morning about annihilating uh Iranian culture. And then look at what he said in the evening did 180° turn and said, "We accept Iran's 10-point plan as a basis for negotiations." This is truly remarkable and it reflects the desperation. And by the way, uh just if he doesn't understand, if I'm wrong, if he and his lieutenants don't understand, just give him another week or two. They'll understand uh what's going on here in terms of the world economy.

I think we should all probably be happy that Vance will take over some negotiations, but something good could come from this though. If he is successful, at least he should be more successful than Witco and Kushner, then perhaps Trump will have the wisdom to also send him to Moscow because I it seems more well Van seems more genuine, not just in opposing the Iran war, but actually wanting to put an end to the Ukraine war as well. He doesn't seem to have any more appetite for throwing more lives and money into this uh big black hole. So again, something good could come from this perhaps, but uh it it is

Can I make one can I make just one quick point on what you said? You do want to remember though that if Vance negotiates a settlement in which we lose, and this is certainly true in the Gulf, and I believe it would be true in settling the Ukraine war, the right in the United States, the neoconservatives, which are a key element in the Republican party, will blame him and go after him hammer and tongue. So, you just want to understand that politically for Vance, he's in a very dangerous situation. There's no question that for the good of the United States, for the good of the Trump presidency, and for the good of the world, we need him to behave in smart and brave ways to end this disaster. We We just need him to do that. But if he's successful, and let's hope he is, he will pay a political price here in the United States. And the question you have to ask yourself is whether that will affect how he approaches these negotiations. Uh he is surely aware of the point that I just made. I mean, he's a very smart man. Whether you agree with his policy views or not, uh he's a smart man and he has surely figured this out. But uh let's just hope that you know he puts the good of the country and really the good of the world. It sounds funny saying that but really we are talking about the good of the world here um above uh his own narrow political interests and does work hard to get a settlement and is successful.

>> Yeah, that's a great point. Actually, I didn't consider the the domestic politics of the whole thing, but uh making the kind of humiliating piece which has to be made or maybe not humiliating, but uh well, yeah, perhaps humiliating. Uh it's definitely going to come at a price. Uh

>> yeah, >> but no, it's going to be a humiliating piece. I hadn't thought of the language you use, but I think you're right. Uh and and as I said to you before, I don't think you can put lipstick on a pig in this case. it it's just not going to work because people like us are going to point out what's going on and uh and even places like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal uh will in the end have to fess up and say that this is a real defeat. And by the way, you'll see this in Israel as well. I mean, you know, we talk about Donald Trump making a catastrophic mistake. I mean, BB Netanyahu, a huge mistake. And as I said before, you do not want to underestimate the trouble they're having in Lebanon, right? Um, they're not doing well. The Israelis are not doing well in Lebanon. So, Israel is in, you know, terrible shape as a result of what's happened since February 28th.

Well, that's a good point because I think the Israelis also bet everything on knocking out Iran here. I mean, that was supposed to be the head of the snake and uh because they were already overstretched. They're not successful in Gaza. They're not successful in Lebanon. And uh and uh now of course uh this none of the objectives were achieved in the war against Iran. And I saw today that the IDF it told Knesset in Israeli parliament that the new uh government in Iran was quote more extreme. Um, so again, this goes a little bit against what we're hearing from Washington that this is a better government, easier to work with. But I think that made never it never made any sense. You can't, you know, you can't bomb a country to bits and then assume that relations will be better, especially if the country bombed to bits comes out on on top in terms of um the war. So yeah, it I do wonder though how how the Israelis are going to deal with this because they they can't really afford to back down either because they again they bet everything on this. I mean if what you're seeing is correct that the US presence will be diminished uh severely in the Middle East. Uh Israel's position will be weakened. Iran, which was the main adversary, which was supposed to be destroyed in this war, if not regime changed and, you know, broken up or at least chaotic like Syria. Now, it's going to come up on top. I mean, this is a horror show for the Israelis. Uh, it's it's hard to imagine that they will accept this. I'm not sure what else they can do, of course, short of launching a nuclear weapons at the Iranian capital. But, >> uh, how do you think the Israel is going to deal? Are they going to, you know, will this fuel domestic divisions into a civil war or will they, you know, seek another victory on a different front? How how are they going to deal with this? Because it's just hard to see how they're going to recover.

Yeah. Before I try to answer that question, let me just also point out that this war has done significant damage uh to the USIsraeli relationship. The United States is now in a catastrophic war, right? This will be long seen as the most foolish foreign policy decision the United States has ever made. You know, the Council on Foreign Relations did a big study uh a few months ago where they surveyed American diplomatic historians and they asked them what was the most foolish foreign policy decision that any president in the history of the United States had ever made. And what was clearly ranked number one was George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Well, there is absolutely no question in my mind that the decision to attack Iran on February 28th will be seen as a much worse decision than the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. There's no question that the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 led to major league trouble. It was a catastrophic decision in its own right. There's no question about that. Did enormous damage in the region to America's reputation and so forth and so on. But it in my opinion pales in comparison to the decision that President Trump made on February 28th. Now, in terms of USIsraeli relations, it is becoming manifestally clear because there's an abundance of evidence that it's the Israelis who led President Trump into this war. This big New York Times story that recently came out that described the decision-making process made it clear that hardly anyone in the deep state, hardly any of Trump's close adviserss were enthusiastic about this enterprise. And in fact, many of them were serious doubters, including the head of the CIA, the vice president, and so forth and so on. But President Trump did it because Prime Minister Netanyahu and David Barnea, who was the head of MSAD, convinced him that this would lead to a quick and decisive victory. So, it is widely recognized that it is the Israelis who led us into this disastrous war. That's point number one. And point number two, as we are watching what's happening now, it's the Israelis who are preventing us from getting a ceasefire to put an end to this disastrous war. This point is not lost on most Americans. So, US views, the American public's views, the American elites views on Israel is undergoing a sea change. You could see it in the poll data. And in my opinion, this situation only gets worse with the passage of time because once the shooting stops, the dust settles, and people begin to reflect on the causes of this disaster. And you want to remember one thing, Glenn, I learned this during the Vietnam War. When a country loses a war, everybody goes back to the causes. They want to figure out how did this ever happen? When you win, you don't care that much about the causes, right? You won and you celebrate the victory. When you lose, especially when it's a disastrous loss like this, people are going to want to say that people are going to want to know h how did this happen? How could a country like the United States do this? How could President Trump, who had been such a great politician and had been so careful in the employment of military force, allowed himself to fall off the cliff like this? What happened? And what they'll discover very quickly, because again, the evidence is clear, is that it was Israelis who led him by the nose into this disaster. And that is going to damage USIsraeli relations. So you want to remember that on top of all the things that you and I have talked about up to now, USIsraeli relations are going to be badly damaged as well. So your question is where do we go from here? And in particular, where do the Israelis go from here? I think this is going to cause huge trouble inside Israel. Uh I think it's going to lead to all sorts of domestic unrest. Uh there going to be serious political fights uh between Netanyahu on one side and other political leaders on the other side as to who's responsible for this and what price should be paid and so forth and so on. But I think most importantly and most disturbingly is I think the Israelis will begin to think long and hard about using nuclear weapons against Iran. Uh I think for most Americans we understand uh and this is certainly true for Europeans as well that Iran is not a serious threat to us. I mean Iran is not a serious threat to the United States. They did not attack us. We attacked them. How is Iran a serious threat to the United States? You just can't make that argument. But that's not the way Israel thinks about Iran. Israel thinks that Iran is a mortal enemy. They think this is the second coming of the Third Reich. They've convinced themselves that Iran is determined to get a nuclear weapon and to use that nuclear weapon to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. Uh they don't believe that Iran can be deterred. And they now understand, the Israelis now understand that they can't prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon with conventional means. This is what the war demonstrates. They can't do it even with us conventionally. The only way they can do it is with a nuclear weapon. And given how ruthless the Israelis are uh a and how willing they are to engage in genocide uh and murderous behavior uh I would not put it past them to use a nuclear weapon against Iran. So, one could argue that yes, Israel is in deep trouble uh and that the Iranian threat is not less than ever, it's greater than ever. You can make that argument easily from their perspective. Uh, but the question you then have to ask yourself is where does that lead? uh and uh you're talking about a country that has no problem executing genocides uh and uh that is convinced itself that it will face a genocidal state armed with nuclear weapons in Iran down the road. In that situation, you can imagine them trying to use their or using their nuclear arsenal against uh Iran.

Yeah. Well, it also seems though that for Netanyahu, the the effort of portraying Iran as dead set on acquiring nuclear weapons and also being profoundly irrational, that this is was also instrumental in terms of making Israel's problems into the Americans problems because that would be the only way one could conceive Iran as a threat to the United States. if it would acquire weapon nuclear weapons and have no way of being deterred and you know being devoted to using this in an offensive manner. Uh but it is interesting that they seem to buy into their own rhetoric though about the irrationality of Iran and its determination to acquire a nuclear weapon.

>> But it also seemed that this is going to be devastating for the Trump administration. I'm thinking though because uh Trump's whole bit I think was uh you know what he was able to appeal to he was he is looking at the US relative decline that is its power in the world its military its economy the the work of well position of people in society and he essentially blamed this on weak and foolish leaders. So the weakness of Obama the weakness of Biden and also the foolishness of engaging in all these wars. So the solution was essentially strength. You needed a strong man. That was Trump. He was strong. That is, you know, if he was just tough, decisive and assertive, this is this is essentially the medicine that will bring America, you know, make it great again. And also his toughness would be matched with, you know, this intelligence, his high IQ as he always say, because he wouldn't do this hard this foolish forever wars. And uh but now you know he went in he the rhetoric was all about uh no no one else dared to do this. Trump did it but there's a reason why no one else did it. And now of course he is the war president and he did something foolish. I mean his whole persona his whole the core of making America great again seems to have been damaged. And even he lost his key supporters and you probably saw him scolding Tucker Carlson and um Alex Jones, Candon's own all of these people who had supported him when he was a peace president. So he essentially had a lot of problems already before this war and all these problems are now much much worse. So how do you think this is going to you know the international economy of course is a mess. The military defeat was an embarrassment. But what do you think this is going to do to the political situation within the United States?

>> Well, I think that this is all going to destroy the Trump presidency. I mean, he may uh remain in office all the way to the end of his term, but uh he's damaged goods in a truly serious way. But you want to think about sort of um where we stand on the world stage today. Before this war started on February 28th, the Trump administration had already done enormous damage to America's position in the world. in large part because the president who is the ultimate unilateralist was uh wrecking international institutions, paying no attention to the rules that underpin those institutions. Uh he was disregarding uh and disrespecting international law and he was treating allies with unmitigated contempt, especially the Europeans. He was talking about invading Greenland. Uh he was talking about making Canada the 51st state. Uh and if he went to East Asia, the Japanese and the South Koreans, this is before February 28th, uh had real doubts about relying on the United States for security. And of course in the course of 2025 he had seriously damaged what had been good relations with India. US India relations went south during 2025. So the United States before February 28th was in real trouble in terms of its foreign policy and what's happened since February 28th has just damaged us further. Uh if you look at US European relations, uh you think about all the damage that was done over the Ukraine war, then all the damage that was done over Greenland, and now we have this situation where President Trump is effectively trying to blame the Europeans for the fact that we can't defeat Iran. He's implying that if only the Europeans had sent their military forces, especially their navies to the Middle East, we would have been able to break through the straight of war moves and we would have ended uh Iran's strangle hold on the world economy. But that didn't happen. We failed. But why did we fail? Not because of the United States, but because of the Europeans. So if you think about US European relations today, uh they're terrible. Uh, and what about other countries around the world? The Japanese and the South Koreans, the Indonesians, the Indians. I mean, the United States is a rogue elephant. Do you want to get too close to the Trump administration? No. You want to keep your distance. So I think in terms of our foreign policy uh he has you know done even greater damage than he did before February 28th. And I I don't see how he digs himself out of this hole. In fact, I think if anything uh his behavior will become more erratic with the passage of time. This is a man who thinks he's a genius. He thinks he has the mightest touch. He thinks anything he does works out well and he always emerges victorious. He simply is not going to make be able to make that argument in this case. Th this is not like all the previous cases that he got away with. Um and uh he's therefore it seriously damaged goods uh as president of the United States even if he manages to shut this one down reasonably quickly. And that remains to be seen as we were talking about before. And in terms of his standing here in the United States, uh there's no way he's not going to take a huge hit politically. And you see him already, as you pointed out, uh going after people like Candace Owens, uh Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones. These are all people who have been big supporters of his in the past and he's now in a major league war with them and uh this is not going to help his standing. And furthermore, if you just look at what's happening inside the MAGA base, you look at what's happening with Christian evangelicals under the age of 50, uh I think he has uh he has truly profound political problems at home and on the foreign policy front as well.

Yeah, I was also expecting that after disaster such as this instead of going through this process you described before that is having some openness where did we go wrong out of trouble you know learning something from the mistakes I would assume that he would uh seek to blame others I guess the Europeans would NATO would be a good fall guy and uh also diverted the attention maybe go for a quick victory that is uh seize Cuba or Greenland something like is uh such a shift focus as quick as possible cuz you don't want to sit around thinking about all the things or having too many debates in the country about all the things you did wrong. Uh this can't do anything well for him. So I guess erratic behavior moving forward is a pretty reasonable prediction. Um, but if we take a step back in the wider picture, what do you think the world will look like after this? because uh uh you and I spoke in the past about uh uh the emergence of a multipolar world that is uh simply the international distribution of power suggest the concentration of power we had in the '90s is now dispersed. Now you have many centers of power. The the fact that well it it looks as if this would intensify this development.

Well, I think that uh the United States has obviously lost this war and that will become manifestally clear to more and more people. That's for sure. Uh I don't think it will diminish uh American power. Uh I think American power is based on material capabilities and I I think losing this war will not affect how much power the United States has. Uh, in making this point, I like to point to the Vietnam War. We lost the Vietnam War. It was a catastrophic defeat. Um, was a decisive defeat, but it didn't affect American power. We remained as powerful as ever. But this is not to deny for one second that losing a war in Iran will have a profound impact on our ability to project that power around the world and to influence other states in ways that are favorable to the United States. Uh so this really matters. So again, I just want to be clear. We will remain as powerful as ever. And we do live in a multipolar world. As you know, Glenn, my argument is we've lived in a multipolar world since 2017. And the other two great powers on the planet are China and Russia, and they're not going away. Uh and in fact, one could argue uh that they're better off as a result of this war visav the United States. But it's not that China and Russia have become more powerful relative to the United States because of the war. I don't think that's what's happened. I think that America's ability to project power and to influence other countries has been seriously damaged and that works to China's advantage and to Russia's advantage. In other words, just to take the Russian case, uh the Russian economy uh has benefited from the United States taking sanctions off of uh Russia in terms of selling oil. And furthermore, the Russians have benefited from the fact that there are less weapons available for us to give the Ukrainians to fight against Russia because we're using up weapons uh and munitions at such a rapid pace in Ukraine uh excuse me, in Iran. So, this all works to Russia's advantage. Uh and in terms of China, right, uh what's happening in East Asia is that we're pulling forces out of East Asia. We're pivoting away from East Asia because we have to move forces that are physically located in East Asia to the Middle East. This works to China's advantage. It doesn't change the balance of power, but it changes our ability to contain China in East Asia. It creates a situation where our allies in East Asia really don't trust us very much anymore. Uh, not only are we pivoting away from East Asia, moving military forces out of the region, but also can you trust American judgment, do you think that the United States is a responsible ally that will take care of you in the crunch? I think if you're Japanese, a Japanese leader or a South Korean leader, the answer to that question is no. uh you can't depend on the United States the way you once thought that you could or the way that you once could. Uh so again, you see the damage that we have done to ourselves. And again, to go back to our discussion

of the Gulf and where we end up, we may end up losing those 13 bases, never returning to them, and having much less ability to project power in the Gulf after February 28th than we had before February 28th. So you see our power position around the world in terms of our ability to project power influence other countries uh has been badly damaged and again I as we were saying as we you and I have said on numerous occasions we have done enormous damage to international institutions international law and our treatment of allies before uh uh before February 28th. So the United States is in just so much trouble.

You know, I think uh yeah, what I might say is a relative decline as you have the rise of uh other other powers because if Iran could have been knocked out, that would have been uh something that would have weakened the Russians, the Chinese and uh I guess strengthened the hand of the United States. So um but uh but measuring uh well the ability to project power in terms of the alliance system as well is probably also a good approach because as you said the Gulf States uh are in a very vulnerable position. Now I know the rhetoric now is a bit harsh towards the Iranians but at some point if the US presence is expected to diminish uh then they're going to have to try to make some peace with the neighbors. Uh, I would say eventually the Europeans would have to do the same. We can't fight against the Russians on our own. If the Americans will uh reduce their presence, we're going to have to learn how to get along with the Russians. And uh, you know, you can say this this is might be some of the calculations they're having in East Asia as well.

Um on on NATO though this is seems to be one of the not a casualty but one of the organizations which has also been hit hard by the Iran war simply by the mutual accusations. Uh the how do you think NATO will be affected by by the way this war ended? Well, I think this is all disastrous for NATO uh or or to put it in slightly different terms for transatlantic relations. And I think the main reason is that uh President Trump is going to need a scapegoat um for this disaster. And I think that uh the Europeans will probably be the number one scapegoat because he won't blame Benjamin Netanyahu who is the person he should blame. And he can't really blame his advisors because none of them were enthusiastic about this. Maybe Pete Hexith was. Maybe they'll get rid of Pete Hexith. But I think what he's going to do is he's going to blame the Europeans and he's going to make the argument um that uh if the Europeans had ampied up if they had come to our rescue uh we would have won the war. The reason we lost was because our allies failed us. Uh and given that situation uh what we should do is basically stop supporting them. Uh will he end the alliance? Uh just uh put an end to it. Uh I don't think so. He might. Uh but I think that he will so seriously damage the alliance uh that in the end it'll be largely meaningless. Uh the other thing is Glenn, he has what two years and three month uh two years and nine months left in his presidency almost three years left. You know how much damage he's done in the first uh let's say 15 months? Uh can you imagine how much damage he's going to do in the remaining two years and nine months? Uh it's going to be enormous.

Right. And in the meantime, in the meantime, the Europeans have to come up with some sort of defensive strategy for dealing with the Russians. Uh I mean, you and I think their assessment of the Russian threat is completely overblown. But the fact is the Russian elites, I mean, excuse me, the European elites do believe there's a serious Russian threat there. Let's take that as a given. And they also recognize that they can't rely on the United States anymore. The transatlantic partnership uh no longer exists. Call this a partnership. It's no longer there. So the Europeans over the next two years and n months have to figure out how to deal with this situation. And that's going to push them to put NATO in the background uh and not take NATO seriously. So, I find it hard to believe that NATO will be a meaningful alliance uh in January of 2029 when President Trump uh steps down. Now, one could argue he may step down before then. He could be impeached. He could have medical problems and JD Vance could become president. And who knows what Vance would do. Uh I tend to believe that Vance uh would have a more positive attitude towards NATO uh than Trump would. But how much more positive is hard to say. We all remember his Valentine's Day speech in Munich in uh February of 2025. I mean, Vance didn't look like he was friendly toward Europe then. Uh and if he became president, maybe he wouldn't be uh once he was in the White House. Who knows for sure? But uh the future of NATO looks grim to put it mildly. Yeah.

Oh, it seems to be heading towards an end. Uh but uh but but by extension, what what will all of this mean? That is um the the the loss in the Iran war as well as uh all the weapons and money that was spent, the economic further economic problems for the Europeans. Uh what does this mean for the Ukraine war? Uh because uh I see Sinski has been taking to Twitter and uh now that the Iran war is over encouraging everyone to shift focus back to Ukraine, but uh it's going to be hard to see the yeah the appetite for Trump to deepen involvement there. uh or how do you think well if yeah if take into account all of these different variables what would you expect how would you expect the Ukraine war to be affected by the loss of the Iran war but also the fragmentation now we see of NATO uh I think first of all I wish that Zilinski were correct and the Iran war was over and uh we could now focus on Ukraine uh I think we're going to be focusing on Iran uh for the foreseeable future future. Uh I mean this is a catastrophic situation.

Um and uh with regard to Ukraine, uh let's assume that I'm wrong and that two weeks from now the war is effectively over. Uh I don't think that's going to happen, but let's assume that happens. Okay? And let's assume that we focus on uh Ukraine. What does that mean? Are we going to give Ukraine a whole bevy of weapons uh that are going to allow Ukraine to uh prevail on the battlefield or do well on the battlefield? I think the answer is no. I don't think they're going to get those weapons. We have run down the inventory to the point where the last thing we want to do is give precious uh weapons and precious uh military assets to the Ukrainians. Just not going to happen. And with regard to the Russians, uh we need Russian oil and global oil markets, it we just need it, right, to head off economic catastrophe. And uh so the Russians are going to continue to do well economically uh at least in the short term. And I'm sure the Russians are getting ready to launch a major set of offensives against the Ukrainians. And the Ukrainians, as you and I have talked about many times, are in desperate straits. And we're not in any position to rescue the Ukrainians. And this is a perfect situation for President Trump to say the Europeans are responsible. Uh, as you know, he's been pushing in that direction for a long time. So, let the Europeans deal with the Ukraine situation because you want to understand that if people like you and I are right, Glenn, and it's only a matter of time before the Ukrainians collapse on the battlefield and the Russians push them out of Donbass and the Russians conquer even more territory on the Eastern Front, uh, President Trump is going to want to avoid being blamed for that and he's going want to blame the Europe the Europeans for Ukraine's defeat. So, I'm sure he in his head is positioning himself to create a situation where if the Ukrainians lose to the Russians and the Russians win a victory uh in that war that he can say it's the Europeans fault. We were in the fight for a long time and as long as we were in the fight, the Ukrainians did quite well. But we could not go on forever because we had other responsibilities around the world. And by the way, in those in terms of those other responsibilities in places like the Middle East, the Europeans would not help us. So we were in a position where we had to turn the responsibility for dealing with Ukraine over to the Europeans. And they failed. they are responsible for this defeat. So what he'll do moving forward uh is he'll blame the Europeans for what's happening in Ukraine while at the same time not giving the Europeans the necessary weaponry to give to the Ukrainians to hold their own on the battlefield. And furthermore, he'll blame the Europeans for the defeat in uh in Iran. I mean this is the way President Trump operates. He's not somebody who ever accepts responsibility.

Um, so I I think that is what the future looks like. I think in one tweet he was able to squeeze in both blaming the Europeans for Iran and also say bye-bye to Greenland or something. So he seems to be uh yeah preparing both the blame game as well as a distraction it seems. But uh no, there's um uh well, you can see what's going to happen. I think in in Ukraine, it's a bit strange the Europeans aren't uh preparing themselves that not sending more weapons, but preparing themsel in terms of picking up the phone. That would be a good first move u before this whole thing begins to uh begins to unravel.

Um, but I I um I spoke recently with uh Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson and he he was making the point that he feels uh not just the United States but Europe is growing increasingly irrational and I after that I thought about asking you actually because do we have a good theory in international relations about uh I guess rationality and declining hgeimmons uh or collective hedgeimmons both United States and Europe because it seems uh over the past years now that we're in well at least relative decline uh as there's problems in society uh the assumption we had we built up a society about you know ideological superiority uh how how will we expect society and our leaders to embrace you know reason fully with military defeats such as we suffered in Iran or yeah economic decline social havoc. I mean, how do you I know in political realism we put uh we assume that the state is rational but uh uh but you know at least for the neocclassical realist they would challenge this assumption. So how would you assess or how do you expect the reason or rationality of states to function in the years to come?

Well, as you know, I wrote this book with Sebastian Rosado called How States Think, which deals directly with the question of rationality. Uh, and in fact, the opening case that we talk about is Putin's invasion of Ukraine on February 22nd, uh, February 24th, 2022. Uh and our basic argument in the book is that states are rational if they pursue a policy that's based on a theory of international politics. Uh that makes good sense that it's it's a plausible theory. Uh and if you don't have a plausible theory underpinning your policy, uh then what you're are doing is acting irrationally. uh and we also said that the decision-making process matters as well. You have to have uh a decision-making process that allows all the key players in the room to voice their opinions uh in a rational legal way. Uh and uh so that was our our definition. Uh I think if you look at various cases uh like Putin's invasion of uh uh of Ukraine in 2022, I think that was clearly rational. Uh he thought that NATO expansion uh was a threat to Russia. He thought it was an existential threat and he launched a preventive war uh to make sure that uh Ukraine did not become part of NATO. So that was in our opinion a rational decision. One could argue that it was the wrong decision. One could argue it was an illegal decision. One could argue it was an immoral decision. But whether a decision is rational or not depends on whether or not uh you have uh an underlying theory uh that is a proven theory in uh and that that theory uh underpins the policy.

Now let's just talk a little bit about the Europeans. I believe that the Europeans behavior towards the United States, which often is labeled is irrational, is actually not irrational because it has a simple theory that underpins it, which you can argue is a legitimate theory. What am I saying here? The Europeans have a deep-seated interest in keeping the United States actively involved in Europe. The Europeans want the American pacifier to remain in place. Another way to put this is the Europeans want NATO to remain intact and therefore they want to do everything they can to accommodate the Americans so that the Americans don't get angry at them and the Americans remain in Europe because it's so important from a strategic point of view for uh the Europeans uh to have the American pacifier in place. Now, you can argue that that strategy is wrong. You can have a different theory that says that it would make much more sense for the Europeans to grow a backbone, understand that their close relationship with the United States is over, that they can't depend on the American pacifier anymore, uh, and therefore they should act differently. A good realist like me would say that's how they should behave. But that's not to say that the strategy they have employed is irrational because there are different strategies based on different theories out there. And the question is do you have a plausible theory? And I think that the Europeans behavior towards the Americans is based on a plausible theory. I think it's the wrong theory. But there are lots of different theories and those theories are all plausible. Uh I could go into this in greater detail. I won't now. But anyway, I think a lot of what the Europeans do is not irrational. I do think it's wrong, right? But just because something is wrong does not mean it's irrational. And let me just give you one example of that. It's NATO expansion. NATO expansion was opposed by almost all realists because all realists like me have a simple theory that says if you move NATO up to Russia's border, the Russians are going to react and you're going to have conflict. You're going to have really serious trouble. Therefore, you do not want to expand NATO. And if you do expand NATO, it's going to lead to big trouble. There was a whole set of liberal theories that underpinned our policy, not realist theories. The realist theories were rejected. The advice of realists like George Kennan and John Marshmer were ruled out of court. But the liberal theories said that what we want to do is we want to move NATO eastward. And what we want to do is we want to create a zone of peace in Eastern Europe. And that zone of peace will be based on a series of liberal theories. One is democratic peace theory. The idea was that if we could spread democracy eastward into Eastern Europe to include Russia at some point, we would create a giant zone of peace because democracies don't fight other democracies. They also relied on the theory of economic interdependence. The idea was you would move the EU eastward. You would create a situation where you had a great deal of economic intercourse in Eastern Europe and maybe eventually include the Russians in that and the end result is economic interdependence produces peace and we would all live happily ever after. So there were a set of liberal theories. These are prominent theories that are highly respected in academia that underpin the policy. If you read the sort of the commentary of Strobe Talbot and um Matteline Albbright at the time of NATO expansion, this is in the 1990s. Their policy prescription for NATO expansion was based on these liberal theories. I thought it was wrongheaded, but I did not think it was irrational. That may sound funny to certain viewers, but I think there's there's a difference between whether one thinks another theory is wrong or whether you think it's irrational. So I think a lot of what is done in international politics one can think is wrong, but it's not necessarily irrational. But I could go on, but there are lots of cases of American behavior in particular, but even European behavior in recent times that would fit under the rubric of irrational.

No, I think that's a good uh way of explaining it. And no, I I would agree. I don't think the European policy was irrational. As you said, it was powerful theory. And you know, you can link it a little bit both in political realism as well as liberalism. That is the hegemonic peace. As long as the US was all powerful, u you know, the Europeans could benefit. For one, the there would be no great power rivalry as the US all all power concentrated in the US would essentially mitigate the international anarchy. There would only be one center of power, no anarchy. Second, because it was the United States, we assumed that liberal democracy, um human rights would be elevated, so we would have this democratic peace as well. And also you can put a third leg on it which would be that the US would be the pacifier in Europe which would allow Europe to function as it had because we never been stood together since after World War II when the Americans came. So so yeah no I that you can argue that's given that they can explain what they were doing it is it is rational and I think that's also why they were willing to make an enemy out of Russia by expanding NATO because this made sure that America's presence was cemented. But my my view though is that it could have been a good strategy but it became the only strategy which meant there's no political imagination for anything else. So now that the actual political realities of it that is that the unipolar order that is it's not just a policy it's an actual distribution power is gone and we see that for this reason it's in America's interest to shift its policies that is focus less on Europe. Now it starts to feel irrational because now we're just, you know, returning to hope and expecting the US to stay in Europe out of a, you know, just some alliance of democracies even though it doesn't serve necessarily its interest. So it is very strange to see.

Um, let me just ask sir. Yeah. C can I just ma uh make two more points about this whole subject of irrationality because this is a very important subject. Uh people surely who are watching this show will want to know whether it was rational for President Trump uh to uh invade or to attack uh Iran on February 28th. And I believe it was irrational. And why do I think that? The basic theory that underpinned the decision to attack Iran on February 28th was that we could use air power alone to topple the regime and put in place a regime that would basically dance to America's tune, would throw up its hands, surrender to us, and do what we wanted. Okay, we know from the literature on international politics which is well understood by many people in the policy world that it is virtually impossible to create regime change with air power alone. There is no theory of victory that can be considered rational that is based on the idea that you can use air air power alone to produce regime change. In fact, the literature says that's impossible. So what President Trump not only what President Trump did in deciding to go to war on February 28th was not only a foolish policy, it was irrational because he had no plausible theory of victory. Just very important to understand that.

Let me give you another case. the decision that the United States made before the war started in Ukraine on February 24th, 2022. What's really remarkable in the runup to the war is despite the fact we thought we the West, the United States in particular thought the United that the the Russians were going to invade Ukraine, we did nothing, virtually nothing to stop it. Then the war started, negotiations started in Istanbul and both sides were making very good progress. and the United States told the uh Ukrainians to walk away from the negotiations. Then later, I think it was in November of that year, General Millie said that Ukraine had reached the high water mark. You remember the Ukrainian army had done quite well in two big offensives during 2022. General Millie, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, said, "Uh, Ukraine has reached the high water mark. let's cut a deal. Now, he was told to close his mouth and not raise the issue again. Now, the question you want to ask yourself is why was that the case? Why was the United States not attempting to prevent war? And then, why did it tell the Ukrainians to walk away and tell General Millie to keep his mouth closed? The answer is actually quite simple. We thought that we could bring the Russians to their knees with economic sanctions. We had a theory of victory that was based in part on the Ukrainians holding the Russians off on the battlefield. Number one, but number two, we believe that we could use crushing sanctions to the Russian economy and literally knock the Russians out of the ranks of the great powers. That was our theory of victory. I thought at the time that it was wrong. I thought that it wouldn't work, but I think it was a plausible theory of victory. I think at the time most people I know thought that it would work. They thought that we had so much economic leverage. They thought all of this globalization of the 1990s and the early 2000s had created the situation where the United States sat at the center of this economic web that allowed it to use its coercive leverage over countries all around the planet the way we've done with Iran, the way we've done with Venezuela, the way we tried to do with China. And that's what we thought would work with the Russians. And I think it was a plausible theory of victory. I did not think it was work would work. I had a different view, a different set of theories. But the point is it was not irrational. It was wrong but it was not irrational. But again to go back to Trump invading Iran that was irrational because there was no plausible theory of victory there.

My view on the Ukraine war though was initially I thought it made a lot of sense. that is if you spend all these years investing all this money and training to build a massive Ukrainian army of hundreds of thousands of men, why would the US and NATO accept it to go neutral when you can use that big army to fight and weaken Russia as a strategic rival? So again, I think it's uh you know, brutal and uh I wouldn't advise it, but it made sense, rational, but my my view is that after you mentioned November 2022 when General Millie said, well, it doesn't get better than this. This is when we strike a deal. It feels like at that point we were a bit swept away already by our own propaganda. That is that the Russians were inherently weak. they would they they could be defeated. Their economy, you know, their gas station masquerading as a country and and and at this point it looks like all the rhetoric we had to fuel the war suddenly we began to buy into it. And here I started to wonder how rational is this because if someone came along said well actually we have to assess what the Russians actually have. uh then immediately then oh no well that's pro Russian you come you know so so suddenly our ability to assess the information available to make reasonable predictions it it seemed like it was all gone and you see that today as well as well as everyone more or less understands that the war can't be won but they still want to fight it I mean for me now there's no reasonable strategy anymore there's no reasonable theory of victory anymore so it feels as if yes it began rational a bit brutal I mean using Ukrainians to fight their arrival. But now I feel like we drifted far away. But uh again just my view.

Well just leaving aside the issue of rationality where I think I've said enough.

Yeah.

Let me make another point. Uh I think Glenn when countries get into major wars uh it's very difficult for them to get out. Uh I've said over the years uh and I think it's because for me the Vietnam War was a formative experience. Uh but my rhetoric is it's easy to get in, it's incredibly difficult to get out. Uh I like to say it's like turning a giant super tanker around in the water. Uh you don't do it quickly. uh and uh I I think Iran may actually be something of an exception because of our whole discussion about the economic consequences. You know, if you take what I was saying before and I know you agree with me on this that the potential economic consequences here are catastrophic, right? The incentive structure may be such that we do shut this war down quite quickly, right? And it would be, I think, quite unusual in that regard. I mean, think about the Afghanistan war, uh, 20 years. Vietnam, oh, that went on for, you know, year after year. It was very hard to get out of that war. Uh, and this is what happens when a great power like the United States or major powers like the Europeans get involved in a war. It's it's just very difficult to walk away. It's the whole some costs argument.

Um and uh and I think that is what has really paralyzed the Europeans uh and uh made it very difficult for them uh to get out. The other thing is and you know you were talking about this in the context of Benjamin Netanyahu before that you know after a while you begin to believe your own arguments about Iran. You know, if you say Iran is the boogeyman for 40 years, at some point along the road, even if you didn't believe it in the beginning, you certainly believe it after 40 years. Uh, and I think in terms of the Europeans before the war in Ukraine started, I don't think the Europeans thought the Russians were a great threat. Uh you want to remember in 2008 at the famous Bucharest summit, NATO Bucharest summit in April of 2008, the Europeans in the person of Uncle Merkel and Nicholas Sarcoi argued against bringing Ukraine into NATO. Merkel was adamantly opposed as was Sarosi. It's not like the Europeans thought there was this great Russian threat out there that had to be deterred. In fact, they thought like you and I, Glenn, that if you expanded NATO to bring Ukraine into it, Putin would interpret it as a declaration of war. That's what Merkel has said, right? That's why she was opposed. We agree with her. But anyway, the United States foolishly pushed ahead uh and we ended up in this disastrous war. But I think what's happened over time is that the Europeans have convinced themselves now that the Russians are the second coming of Nazi Germany. uh if Putin is Adolf Hitler, that the Russian army is the Vermach, then oh my god, if they don't do something, uh they're going to have uh the Russian army on the beaches of Dunkirk. Uh I mean, I find it all hard to believe. I know you do as well, but they do believe that. But it's very interesting if you think about the change that has taken place over time uh in European thinking about the Russian threat. Uh and by the way, just to elevate uh up another 10,000 ft, uh if you go back to NATO expansion and the decision to bring Ukraine in in April 2008, it is very important to understand that we were not interested in bringing Ukraine into NATO because we thought there was a Russian threat to Ukraine or a Russian threat to Eastern Europe. That's the realist view. The United States, which was driving the train on NATO expansion, was not operating according to realist theories. Otherwise, they would not have expanded NATO into Ukraine. They were operating on liberal theories. You want to remember that Putin was at Bucharest. They invited Puk and Putin to Bucharest. Uh the Russians and the United States and the Russians and the Europeans actually had quite good relations at the time. We didn't see Ukraine as this great threat. Now, Ukraine is seen as a really powerful I mean, Russia is now seen as a really powerful threat. Sorry, not Ukraine. Russia is now seen as a very powerful threat. It's really quite remarkable the change that has taken place over time. But I bring all this up because it just shows you how difficult it is now, right, for the Europeans uh to change their view and and put an end to this war which is you and I Glenn agree would be in uh the interest of every European state.

Yeah. Now this is uh this was the warning of Walter Litman that when you go into war you have all this incentive to build up your adversary as the just the embodiment of evil and then when it's time to make a peace you can't make peace anymore because you just convinced everyone that you're fighting evil and uh that's essentially yeah I think where we are today anyways uh any final thoughts before we wrap up just one final point you want to remember that In the Iran war a few weeks ago, President Trump called for unconditional surrender, which is powerful reinforcement for your point. Yeah, he did not get that. So, no, it's very difficult to climb down after making such a thing. But I'm hoping that Trump's ability to shift focus and uh BS his way out of things uh could be something that helps deliver peace. But uh we'll see. Um anyways, thank you so much for being so generous with your time.

My pleasure, Glenn. Uh as always, I enjoyed our discussion immensely.