WEBVTT
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They had all the leverage, and we were the ones looking for a way out.
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And so we took a way out.
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Again, I'm glad we took a way out, but we took a way out that was really quite weak.
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Today is Wednesday, July 8th.
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This is Boundless Insights, and I'm Aviva Klumpus.
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The past 24 hours have seen dramatic developments between the United States and Iran.
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It began when Iran attacked three commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
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The United States responded last night with strikes on Iranian targets.
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Tehran then retaliated by attacking Bahrain and Kuwait.
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Speaking to reporters earlier today, President Trump suggested the MOU with Iran may be dead, calling the regime, quote, scum and sick people.
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Not long after, however, he appeared to leave the door open, saying negotiators could keep talking if they want.
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So if you've been trying to follow the developments with Iran, you've probably found them confusing, from the status of Iran's nuclear program to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, to whether we're headed toward another round of fighting.
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To help us separate what's happening from all the chatter, I'm joined today by Ambassador Dan Shapiro.
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Dan is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council.
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He previously served as U.S.
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Ambassador to Israel and held senior national security positions at both the Pentagon and State Department.
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Let's get into it.
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Dan Shapiro, welcome back to Boundless Insights.
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Thanks, Aviva.
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Good to be with you.
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I appreciate you coming back.
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I so enjoyed having you on last time.
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There's a lot going on between the United States and Iran.
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There are reports that talks between the two countries may or may not be over.
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There may or may not be another round of fighting.
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There may or may not be inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities.
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There may or may not be commercial ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz.
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So can we start with just level setting?
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What do we know and what is unclear?
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What we know is that by the end of the war that was uh sort of reached when this 14-point memorandum of understanding was announced, the most pressing priority was for the United States to ensure the Strait of Hormuz was open, to get oil markets stabilized, to deal with the global economic crisis that had resulted from that, cutoff of oil, gas, other supplies that flowed through the Strait of Hormouths.
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And so there's a 14-point MOU, but for the first condition that it's intended to establish is that there's a ceasefire that's extended out for 60 more days and uh normal straight uh of Hormuz traffic uh resumes.
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That was what was essentially agreed, and everything else in the 14 points is essentially still to be negotiated.
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Even though straight of Hormuz traffic is supposed to resume as before the war, Iran wants to establish an essential degree of control over that strait traffic so it can derive revenue from it.
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So that is still sort of a work in progress.
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So what's been happening in the last uh week or so is that struggle for whether ships go through the Iranian waters and therefore Iran has some control and uh can try to uh impose some fees on them, whether they go through Omani waters, uh escorted by the U.S.
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Navy and are able to do so freely.
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And uh when Iran doesn't feel it's getting sufficient satisfaction out of that, it shoots at some of the commercial vessels.
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Correct.
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It shot drones at some of these commercial vessels and caused damage.
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The United States has responded, Central Command uh announced yesterday that they had struck in response Iranian targets, and this is sort of within the context of a ceasefire, that there's still some shooting.
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But until that is sort of settled, uh, what's the exact regularity of uh straight traffic?
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In light of that shooting, the United States withdrew the license or the waiver on the oil sanctions.
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None of the frozen assets have been transferred.
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Until those things are settled, Iran's position is we're not even talking about uh the nuclear issues.
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Unclear.
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You spoke at the beginning of your answer calling it an end of the war.
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And I want to ask you about that because from my perspective, I think that President Trump was like, listen, I need to hit pause until after the midterms.
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I'm celebrating a big birthday in America.
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We're turning 250 years old, there was the World Cup, which is still underway.
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So he just wanted a quiet period and of course stabilize the markets ahead of the midterms.
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And so my expectation was he says, all right, well, I'll sign this piece of paper and I'll take it as seriously as the Iranians when they sign a piece of paper, which is to say, not seriously at all.
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And we can extend that ceasefire another 60 days and another 60 days, and we're just really, as we say in Canada, ragging the puck until after the midterms.
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Is that your sense of what's happening?
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Well, I never try to put myself inside President Trump's head because I don't think anybody really knows.
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It's a little scary in there.
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I don't think anybody really knows what his motivations are.
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I suspect he doesn't really know if that's his plan or not.
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A lot of this uh decision to go to war and decisions within the war and decision to end the war have been done very improvisationally, have been done without any serious consultation uh with many in his own government, with the Congress, with the American people, with allies.
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He's made many, many uh decisions that I think uh were not the product of thoughtful and and deliberate uh discussion, debate, and and really weighing all the factors.
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So this is one theory that uh people have uh posited that yes, he saw the pressure of uh the oil prices uh on the Republican Party ahead of the midterms.
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He's very worried about losing one or both houses.
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Uh you mentioned some of the other factors, events happening this summer that you know could have been drowned out by uh the noise of a continued fighting.
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And uh he wanted to buy some time and that therefore once we get to the other side of the midterms, uh he'll feel free to uh resume fighting.
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Well, I suppose that's possible, uh, but you know, uh there's no reason to think that uh resuming fighting after uh the midterms is necessarily going to produce an appreciably different result uh than the very frustrating sort of stalemate uh that we had arrived at uh in March and April of this year during the war.
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Aaron Powell And I want to remind people something that you said on the last podcast, which I thought was so insightful, because you told us that when this war was being planned, that the administration should have recognized that the first and biggest move that Iran would make would be to take the Strait of Hormuz, and that should never have been permissible.
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That is something that uh has been considered, war games studied uh for decades, uh, and so it was fairly obvious that Iran uh would seek to do that, but also that it has new tools to do that than the way this has often been thought about over many decades.
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Uh, you know, the main threat to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz for a long time was mines, uh, these uh explosives in the water or even attached to ships themselves by small boats that could threaten the ships.
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That's hard enough to clear and to escort ships to avoid those kinds of things.
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But the advancement of Iran's drone technology, particularly Shahid drones, that it has, of course, used uh in its own wars, but also used uh provided to Russia to use uh in Ukraine.
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This is uh gives them a very cheap and uh easily replenishable uh resource that it can use from various points along the shore and even quite uh significant uh distance inland.
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And so to really keep the strait uh free and safe for shipping uh militarily, the United States would have to not just escort ships and clear mines, it would have to put troops on the ground, on islands in the Gulf or on the shoreline or even further inland in order to prevent these drone attacks.
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And that's a very high cost and very high risk proposition.
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Quite understandably, the president didn't want to go through that midterms or no midterms.
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I do know that this administration is different from other administrations, particularly the one that you worked in.
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But it's easy to assume that nobody knows what's happening.
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But sometimes ambiguity is a diplomatic tool.
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It creates the opportunity for leverage or saving face in the case of what's important to the Iranians, creating room for diplomacy.
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And we do look back and see that this administration has had some major coups.
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The Abraham Accords.
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They brought home every single hostage, living and dead.
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President Trump was able to capture the dictator of Venezuela.
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Sometimes it seems that there is a method to the madness.
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What's your assessment?
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Well, I've given credit where credit is due for achievements that the administration has had.
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This and the first Trump administration, obviously the Abraham Accords is won.
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As I think I probably said on the previous podcast, I supported the strikes against Iran in June of 2025, the midnight hammer strikes, a part of the 12-day war.
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I thought that was an ultimately inevitable and necessary uh set of strikes in order to really set back an Iranian nuclear program, advanced too close for comfort to the ability to produce a weapon.
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But it was done in a very careful, contained, precise way, and it didn't draw us into something uh with sort of an open-ended set of objectives.
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And it achieved a very meaningful objective.
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It really did set back that program.
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By the way, nothing really had changed in the Iranian nuclear program from June of 2025 to February of 2026 that would justify uh going to a full-scale military conflict as we did at the end of February.
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So uh, yes, there are things that that have been done, and you know, again, credit where due.
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But this was an example of a very significant failure of planning, of preparation, of considering diverse contingencies, of building support, both in the United States and uh internationally, for a military conflict that was inevitably going to get very messy and very complicated.
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And then we were stuck.
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We were literally stuck, stuck in a way that also had put all the leverage in the hands of the Iranians.
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Because the Iranians were willing to endure a significant amount of pain.
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Yes, there were very significant military achievements by the Israeli and the U.S.
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strikes against various Iranian capabilities.
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But uh, once Iran had established essential control of the strait, they had all the leverage, and we were the ones looking for a way out.
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And so we took a way out.
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Again, I'm glad we took a way out, but we took a way out that was uh really quite weak.
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It provided a significant amount of upfront sanctions relief benefits to Iran.
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It's not that we've delivered on all of that, so the Iranians are now feeling a little bit screwed.
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That was sort of the weak deal that was required to get out of the bad war.
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And it was maybe weaker than I think it should have been, but uh that's the situation that we found ourselves.
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So I don't think this could possibly be measured as a success against uh some of the other uh legitimate successes President Trump has had.
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So let me ask it the opposite way.
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How did Iran manage to outmaneuver the United States diplomatically?
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Because we're talking about a superpower against a paper tiger.
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Iran suffered these major military losses.
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It has the head of its regime decapitated.
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The goals that the United States set out at the outset about no nuclear program, no support for proxies, no ballistic missile program, we're not even talking about that anymore.
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It's become almost exclusively about the Strait of Hormuz.
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So, how did Iran manage this?
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Well, this is a good description of the mismanagement of a misguided war.
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But it's not just true of this administration.
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I'd say that all previous administrations have been big talk on Iran without delivery.
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You know, where we have been over many years, of course, has been a form of containment, right?
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All sorts of different kinds of sanctions, agreements that required limitations on the nuclear program inspections to verify those, then of course the withdrawal from that agreement, an attempt to find new agreements, all happening while there were various sanctions, and then occasional military encounters, uh most prominently uh last June's.
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It should have been clear from the beginning that the very expansive goals that were described inconsistently at the beginning of the war in February and March, rendering the nuclear program completely dismantling the ballistic missile program, ending the support for terrorist proxies, helping free the Iranian people.
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What was being envisioned as the outcome of this war essentially required regime change.
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And that we didn't learn the lesson of some of our past uh misadventures in the Middle East, that we are not really capable of, at any acceptable cost, to achieve regime change through military means.
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That was the fundamental mistake.
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And so you create these very broad and ambitious uh targets and goals.
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You do achieve some meaningful military objectives within those.
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That's the successful strikes on all sorts of different facilities.
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But for the reasons you kind of stated, you have a regime, paper tiger or not, that is able to withstand and absorb a very significant amount of pain and then impose a significant amount of pain in return.
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And over time, we were running out of sort of significant targets to hit.
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To actually go on to achieve the rest of those objectives would have required some kind of ground operation, whether it's special operations to seize the nuclear materials, whether it's uh to prevent uh shooting at ships in the strait, all of those would have required a kind of military investment way, way beyond what we could afford and still sustain all our other requirements globally, the amount of casualties we would have been willing to endure the time and everything else.
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And Iran had the leverage because every day that the strait remained closed, uh the price to the global economy, and of course, even in our politics with gas prices, just went up and up and up.
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Right.
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So really it comes down to a battle of wills, an understanding that the United States would have to go all in, and not just the cost militarily, but there would be human cost to it.
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And that seems, even now, it seems intolerable to many Americans.
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And Iran knows that and can play us.
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And that's not going to change after the midterms.
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The exact same dynamics that led to that very frustrating point would be very likely to return after the midterms.
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And so unless we are prepared to commit to something like an invasion of Iran to bring down the regime or an invasion of parts of Iran to remove nuclear materials or to secure the strait, I don't see any change.
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And if we are prepared to do those things, we're going to be stuck in that war at high cost for a very, very long time.
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I really don't think President Trump wants that either, even after the midterms.
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Let me switch directions a bit.
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I want to ask you about the coordination that we have seen, which has been quite extraordinary between Washington and Jerusalem in terms of the military action against Iran, but also there have been these very public and sometimes angry disagreements.
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What's your take on the relationship, both between Washington and Jerusalem, but also personally between Trump and Netanyahu?
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They've obviously shown an ability to work together in various points in their presidency and prime ministership.
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Where I think they lost the thread was in December, January, and February last year and this year, when the prime minister came and explained, I think, legitimately in a meeting in Mar-a-Lago in December, that left unaddressed by last summer's war was the Iran's ballistic missile program.
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They were trying to build out a very significant ballistic missile capability to try to overwhelm Israel's uh air defenses.
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And that was something that was going to have to be dealt with at some point, and maybe some point in 2026.
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Not necessarily with a full-scale war, but that was a problem still requiring addressing.
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And then the protest started, and then the president made forward-leaning statements about how we would come to the aid of the Iranian people if they were attacked by the regime.
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They were attacked by the regime, and then we were sort of stuck in this middle, having made various commitments, having looked at a problem, and then the two leaders in February sort of came together and said, Yeah, let's go for the whole line yards.
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You can certainly understand how going into a war like that with a seeming overlap of objectives and a lot of very close and frankly effective military cooperation between the two militaries looked good at the beginning, but fairly quickly our interests diverged.
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And to reach that point where the president is really looking for an off-ramp and looking for a way out.
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Israel wants to be able to continue to press the damage that can be done to the regime, maybe even to try to fight until the regime falls.
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That created a lot of tension between them.
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And so when it came time to ultimately negotiate this 14-point MOU, it was very clear that Israel was being completely left out of those discussions.
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Not really even consulted, not even really informed about the different points of the MOU.
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Of course, the very first point of the MOU says that the ceasefire extends also to Lebanon, speaking basically on Israel's behalf, because Israel is the one fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, and giving Iran an essential role and even a veto over what happens uh inside Lebanon.
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The Israelis were very unhappy about that.
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There was obviously some discussion between the leaders, but it didn't reach to their satisfaction.
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Then, of course, separately, Secretary Rubio led a, I think, actually fairly positive and sophisticated diplomatic effort between Israel and Lebanon to try to reach a separate agreement that would call for Hezbollah's disarmament, call for Lebanese armed forces to take over for uh locations currently under Hezbollah's control, and that doesn't actually require Israel to complete its withdrawal from southern Lebanon until that process sort of completes itself.
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Those two MOUs are now uh really inconsistent with each other and in competition with each other during the implementation phase.
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And you can see that the president and the prime minister are occasionally exchanging kind of messages through public means.
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The president uh has said he might meet with the prime minister, but the prime minister knows who the boss is and they're the junior partner and we're the senior partner.
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And, you know, uh it doesn't mean they can't work together, but it does betray a significant amount of tension and disagreement and really divergence of interest, both national and security interests, but also the political interests of each of the two leaders as the president heads toward the midterms, the prime minister heads towards his election.
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And of course, it's also in the backdrop against a very serious decline in Israel's overall standing uh in the United States.
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I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about the status of Israel in American public opinion, particularly in the Democratic Party.
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You spent your career as a Democrat.
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You seem to be optimistic about the party's future, and we are seeing that the topic of Israel has become the litmus test for belonging in the Democratic Party.
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What do you say to American Jews who are feeling politically homeless and feeling like the party has turned on them?
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Look, I think that it's quite clear in all polling that Israel's standing has declined very broadly in the United States.
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Yes, among Democrats.
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And also it's very clear that that same thing is happening in the Republican Party.
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It's not uh maybe at the same numbers, but the trend and the direction is very similar, and it's especially true among younger Republicans.
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Israel's standing has declined.
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And, you know, that's, I think, in a way quite unsurprising if you look at what has been happening over almost three years of war.
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Of course, a lot of sympathy for Israel after the terrible Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7th.
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For a few days.
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Well, okay.
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But for, you know, within weeks and months and now years beyond a war and all the suffering that is associated with war, obviously many civilian casualties as well.
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And you know, Hamas bears all the responsibility they bear for how they fight from within, take shelter behind civilians.
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But, you know, that's not surprising that over time that's going to produce a blow to Israel's reputation.
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And then, of course, compounded by this war, uh, very unpopular from the very beginning in the United States, and of course, the prime minister had advocated uh for a war.
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It doesn't mean he pulled the United States into it, but he certainly associated with a war that most Americans did not want to fight, felt stuck in, felt that it was imposing a burden on them as oil prices rose.
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Now, how is that playing out politically?
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Well, of course, we've seen in a few Democratic primaries in very specific locations, very progressive districts, that this has been a high-focus issue.
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Aaron Powell I wouldn't categorize it as, first of all, that the war is is unpopular, doesn't exactly align with what we have seen coming out of potential candidates.
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You have somebody like Gavin Newsom or other people stepping forward and saying, I have never and would never take APAC money.
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It's taken on a much more nefarious and darker tone.
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Aaron Powell Well, there's a, as I said, there's several years now worth of built-up concern and upset.
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And again, there are people, definitely, there are people within the party who and people really, it's true on both sides of the aisle, who are seeking to adopt a real distancing uh of the United States from Israel, in some cases, even almost an adversarial uh tone towards Israel.
00:20:13.359 --> 00:20:16.000
I think we're headed for very big change in this relationship.
00:20:16.160 --> 00:20:19.759
Even the prime minister has now talked about uh phasing out uh U.S.
00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:23.359
assistance as they negotiate a new military assistance MOU.
00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:28.720
So I think that's likely to become a consensus position, probably on both sides of the aisle, that that aid is going to end.
00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:36.799
That doesn't mean we can't still be partners, it doesn't mean we can't still uh be allies or that Israel can't purchase things, but it does mean that uh the relationship will shift.
00:20:36.880 --> 00:20:50.480
And it does mean that the truth is, even though as you pull, you find, you know, a significant percentage of Democrats uh who say they hold some sort of negative association with Israel, that doesn't mean that's the driving issue for the majority of Democrats.
00:20:50.559 --> 00:20:57.519
I think most people, as in most elections, are focused on the economy, jobs, healthcare, uh, their own domestic circumstances.
00:20:57.759 --> 00:21:01.680
There is maybe a hardcore that wants to make this a litmus test issue.
00:21:01.759 --> 00:21:04.960
I don't really think that is true of the vast majority of Democrats.
00:21:05.279 --> 00:21:07.039
Dan, thank you so much for coming back on the show.
00:21:07.119 --> 00:21:07.759
I love hearing from you.
00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:08.640
Thanks, Aviva.
00:21:08.799 --> 00:21:10.000
Loot any time.
00:21:13.279 --> 00:21:16.240
That's a wrap on today's episode of Boundless Insights.
00:21:16.400 --> 00:21:20.960
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00:21:21.200 --> 00:21:27.519
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00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:30.559
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00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:34.079
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00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:06.880
Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and keep the conversation going.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:03.919
They had all the leverage, and we were the ones looking for a way out.
00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:05.280
And so we took a way out.
00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:10.640
Again, I'm glad we took a way out, but we took a way out that was really quite weak.
00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:14.640
Today is Wednesday, July 8th.
00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:17.839
This is Boundless Insights, and I'm Aviva Klumpus.
00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:22.719
The past 24 hours have seen dramatic developments between the United States and Iran.
00:00:22.879 --> 00:00:27.199
It began when Iran attacked three commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
00:00:27.359 --> 00:00:30.719
The United States responded last night with strikes on Iranian targets.
00:00:31.039 --> 00:00:34.719
Tehran then retaliated by attacking Bahrain and Kuwait.
00:00:34.960 --> 00:00:43.280
Speaking to reporters earlier today, President Trump suggested the MOU with Iran may be dead, calling the regime, quote, scum and sick people.
00:00:43.439 --> 00:00:49.280
Not long after, however, he appeared to leave the door open, saying negotiators could keep talking if they want.
00:00:49.520 --> 00:01:01.200
So if you've been trying to follow the developments with Iran, you've probably found them confusing, from the status of Iran's nuclear program to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, to whether we're headed toward another round of fighting.
00:01:01.439 --> 00:01:06.560
To help us separate what's happening from all the chatter, I'm joined today by Ambassador Dan Shapiro.
00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:09.519
Dan is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council.
00:01:09.680 --> 00:01:11.040
He previously served as U.S.
00:01:11.120 --> 00:01:17.200
Ambassador to Israel and held senior national security positions at both the Pentagon and State Department.
00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:20.719
Let's get into it.
00:01:22.879 --> 00:01:25.280
Dan Shapiro, welcome back to Boundless Insights.
00:01:25.599 --> 00:01:26.319
Thanks, Aviva.
00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:26.959
Good to be with you.
00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:28.400
I appreciate you coming back.
00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:30.400
I so enjoyed having you on last time.
00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:33.200
There's a lot going on between the United States and Iran.
00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:37.359
There are reports that talks between the two countries may or may not be over.
00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:39.599
There may or may not be another round of fighting.
00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:42.719
There may or may not be inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities.
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There may or may not be commercial ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz.
00:01:46.319 --> 00:01:48.319
So can we start with just level setting?
00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:50.719
What do we know and what is unclear?
00:01:51.280 --> 00:02:18.639
What we know is that by the end of the war that was uh sort of reached when this 14-point memorandum of understanding was announced, the most pressing priority was for the United States to ensure the Strait of Hormuz was open, to get oil markets stabilized, to deal with the global economic crisis that had resulted from that, cutoff of oil, gas, other supplies that flowed through the Strait of Hormouths.
00:02:18.960 --> 00:02:34.080
And so there's a 14-point MOU, but for the first condition that it's intended to establish is that there's a ceasefire that's extended out for 60 more days and uh normal straight uh of Hormuz traffic uh resumes.
00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:40.800
That was what was essentially agreed, and everything else in the 14 points is essentially still to be negotiated.
00:02:41.039 --> 00:02:52.639
Even though straight of Hormuz traffic is supposed to resume as before the war, Iran wants to establish an essential degree of control over that strait traffic so it can derive revenue from it.
00:02:52.800 --> 00:02:54.719
So that is still sort of a work in progress.
00:02:54.879 --> 00:03:09.680
So what's been happening in the last uh week or so is that struggle for whether ships go through the Iranian waters and therefore Iran has some control and uh can try to uh impose some fees on them, whether they go through Omani waters, uh escorted by the U.S.
00:03:09.759 --> 00:03:11.840
Navy and are able to do so freely.
00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:17.520
And uh when Iran doesn't feel it's getting sufficient satisfaction out of that, it shoots at some of the commercial vessels.
00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:18.080
Correct.
00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:21.280
It shot drones at some of these commercial vessels and caused damage.
00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:32.240
The United States has responded, Central Command uh announced yesterday that they had struck in response Iranian targets, and this is sort of within the context of a ceasefire, that there's still some shooting.
00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:38.639
But until that is sort of settled, uh, what's the exact regularity of uh straight traffic?
00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:43.599
In light of that shooting, the United States withdrew the license or the waiver on the oil sanctions.
00:03:43.759 --> 00:03:45.439
None of the frozen assets have been transferred.
00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:50.879
Until those things are settled, Iran's position is we're not even talking about uh the nuclear issues.
00:03:51.360 --> 00:03:51.840
Unclear.
00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:55.039
You spoke at the beginning of your answer calling it an end of the war.
00:03:55.120 --> 00:04:02.719
And I want to ask you about that because from my perspective, I think that President Trump was like, listen, I need to hit pause until after the midterms.
00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:04.719
I'm celebrating a big birthday in America.
00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:08.479
We're turning 250 years old, there was the World Cup, which is still underway.
00:04:08.639 --> 00:04:13.759
So he just wanted a quiet period and of course stabilize the markets ahead of the midterms.
00:04:13.919 --> 00:04:23.920
And so my expectation was he says, all right, well, I'll sign this piece of paper and I'll take it as seriously as the Iranians when they sign a piece of paper, which is to say, not seriously at all.
00:04:24.079 --> 00:04:32.160
And we can extend that ceasefire another 60 days and another 60 days, and we're just really, as we say in Canada, ragging the puck until after the midterms.
00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:33.920
Is that your sense of what's happening?
00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:39.600
Well, I never try to put myself inside President Trump's head because I don't think anybody really knows.
00:04:39.839 --> 00:04:40.879
It's a little scary in there.
00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:43.279
I don't think anybody really knows what his motivations are.
00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:46.720
I suspect he doesn't really know if that's his plan or not.
00:04:46.959 --> 00:05:01.439
A lot of this uh decision to go to war and decisions within the war and decision to end the war have been done very improvisationally, have been done without any serious consultation uh with many in his own government, with the Congress, with the American people, with allies.
00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:11.759
He's made many, many uh decisions that I think uh were not the product of thoughtful and and deliberate uh discussion, debate, and and really weighing all the factors.
00:05:11.920 --> 00:05:21.759
So this is one theory that uh people have uh posited that yes, he saw the pressure of uh the oil prices uh on the Republican Party ahead of the midterms.
00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:24.160
He's very worried about losing one or both houses.
00:05:24.240 --> 00:05:32.480
Uh you mentioned some of the other factors, events happening this summer that you know could have been drowned out by uh the noise of a continued fighting.
00:05:32.720 --> 00:05:40.319
And uh he wanted to buy some time and that therefore once we get to the other side of the midterms, uh he'll feel free to uh resume fighting.
00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:58.560
Well, I suppose that's possible, uh, but you know, uh there's no reason to think that uh resuming fighting after uh the midterms is necessarily going to produce an appreciably different result uh than the very frustrating sort of stalemate uh that we had arrived at uh in March and April of this year during the war.
00:05:58.639 --> 00:06:15.120
Aaron Powell And I want to remind people something that you said on the last podcast, which I thought was so insightful, because you told us that when this war was being planned, that the administration should have recognized that the first and biggest move that Iran would make would be to take the Strait of Hormuz, and that should never have been permissible.
00:06:15.759 --> 00:06:30.720
That is something that uh has been considered, war games studied uh for decades, uh, and so it was fairly obvious that Iran uh would seek to do that, but also that it has new tools to do that than the way this has often been thought about over many decades.
00:06:30.800 --> 00:06:42.560
Uh, you know, the main threat to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz for a long time was mines, uh, these uh explosives in the water or even attached to ships themselves by small boats that could threaten the ships.
00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:47.120
That's hard enough to clear and to escort ships to avoid those kinds of things.
00:06:47.279 --> 00:06:59.680
But the advancement of Iran's drone technology, particularly Shahid drones, that it has, of course, used uh in its own wars, but also used uh provided to Russia to use uh in Ukraine.
00:06:59.839 --> 00:07:11.519
This is uh gives them a very cheap and uh easily replenishable uh resource that it can use from various points along the shore and even quite uh significant uh distance inland.
00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:28.560
And so to really keep the strait uh free and safe for shipping uh militarily, the United States would have to not just escort ships and clear mines, it would have to put troops on the ground, on islands in the Gulf or on the shoreline or even further inland in order to prevent these drone attacks.
00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:32.720
And that's a very high cost and very high risk proposition.
00:07:32.959 --> 00:07:36.720
Quite understandably, the president didn't want to go through that midterms or no midterms.
00:07:37.120 --> 00:07:41.759
I do know that this administration is different from other administrations, particularly the one that you worked in.
00:07:41.920 --> 00:07:44.639
But it's easy to assume that nobody knows what's happening.
00:07:44.879 --> 00:07:47.839
But sometimes ambiguity is a diplomatic tool.
00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:55.600
It creates the opportunity for leverage or saving face in the case of what's important to the Iranians, creating room for diplomacy.
00:07:55.839 --> 00:08:00.000
And we do look back and see that this administration has had some major coups.
00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:01.439
The Abraham Accords.
00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:04.959
They brought home every single hostage, living and dead.
00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:08.879
President Trump was able to capture the dictator of Venezuela.
00:08:09.040 --> 00:08:11.920
Sometimes it seems that there is a method to the madness.
00:08:12.079 --> 00:08:13.120
What's your assessment?
00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:18.639
Well, I've given credit where credit is due for achievements that the administration has had.
00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:22.000
This and the first Trump administration, obviously the Abraham Accords is won.
00:08:22.240 --> 00:08:33.679
As I think I probably said on the previous podcast, I supported the strikes against Iran in June of 2025, the midnight hammer strikes, a part of the 12-day war.
00:08:33.919 --> 00:08:43.120
I thought that was an ultimately inevitable and necessary uh set of strikes in order to really set back an Iranian nuclear program, advanced too close for comfort to the ability to produce a weapon.
00:08:43.279 --> 00:08:52.000
But it was done in a very careful, contained, precise way, and it didn't draw us into something uh with sort of an open-ended set of objectives.
00:08:52.080 --> 00:08:53.759
And it achieved a very meaningful objective.
00:08:53.840 --> 00:08:55.200
It really did set back that program.
00:08:55.360 --> 00:09:06.799
By the way, nothing really had changed in the Iranian nuclear program from June of 2025 to February of 2026 that would justify uh going to a full-scale military conflict as we did at the end of February.
00:09:07.039 --> 00:09:11.679
So uh, yes, there are things that that have been done, and you know, again, credit where due.
00:09:12.159 --> 00:09:34.080
But this was an example of a very significant failure of planning, of preparation, of considering diverse contingencies, of building support, both in the United States and uh internationally, for a military conflict that was inevitably going to get very messy and very complicated.
00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:35.519
And then we were stuck.
00:09:35.679 --> 00:09:41.519
We were literally stuck, stuck in a way that also had put all the leverage in the hands of the Iranians.
00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:44.960
Because the Iranians were willing to endure a significant amount of pain.
00:09:45.039 --> 00:09:49.759
Yes, there were very significant military achievements by the Israeli and the U.S.
00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:52.960
strikes against various Iranian capabilities.
00:09:53.200 --> 00:10:00.799
But uh, once Iran had established essential control of the strait, they had all the leverage, and we were the ones looking for a way out.
00:10:00.960 --> 00:10:02.240
And so we took a way out.
00:10:02.399 --> 00:10:07.440
Again, I'm glad we took a way out, but we took a way out that was uh really quite weak.
00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:11.120
It provided a significant amount of upfront sanctions relief benefits to Iran.
00:10:11.200 --> 00:10:14.639
It's not that we've delivered on all of that, so the Iranians are now feeling a little bit screwed.
00:10:14.879 --> 00:10:18.639
That was sort of the weak deal that was required to get out of the bad war.
00:10:18.799 --> 00:10:23.120
And it was maybe weaker than I think it should have been, but uh that's the situation that we found ourselves.
00:10:23.279 --> 00:10:29.919
So I don't think this could possibly be measured as a success against uh some of the other uh legitimate successes President Trump has had.
00:10:30.240 --> 00:10:31.919
So let me ask it the opposite way.
00:10:32.080 --> 00:10:35.360
How did Iran manage to outmaneuver the United States diplomatically?
00:10:35.519 --> 00:10:38.559
Because we're talking about a superpower against a paper tiger.
00:10:38.799 --> 00:10:41.120
Iran suffered these major military losses.
00:10:41.200 --> 00:10:43.840
It has the head of its regime decapitated.
00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:53.919
The goals that the United States set out at the outset about no nuclear program, no support for proxies, no ballistic missile program, we're not even talking about that anymore.
00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:57.120
It's become almost exclusively about the Strait of Hormuz.
00:10:57.360 --> 00:10:58.639
So, how did Iran manage this?
00:10:59.039 --> 00:11:04.399
Well, this is a good description of the mismanagement of a misguided war.
00:11:04.720 --> 00:11:06.399
But it's not just true of this administration.
00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:10.320
I'd say that all previous administrations have been big talk on Iran without delivery.
00:11:10.799 --> 00:11:15.759
You know, where we have been over many years, of course, has been a form of containment, right?
00:11:15.919 --> 00:11:33.600
All sorts of different kinds of sanctions, agreements that required limitations on the nuclear program inspections to verify those, then of course the withdrawal from that agreement, an attempt to find new agreements, all happening while there were various sanctions, and then occasional military encounters, uh most prominently uh last June's.
00:11:33.759 --> 00:11:50.480
It should have been clear from the beginning that the very expansive goals that were described inconsistently at the beginning of the war in February and March, rendering the nuclear program completely dismantling the ballistic missile program, ending the support for terrorist proxies, helping free the Iranian people.
00:11:50.639 --> 00:11:56.720
What was being envisioned as the outcome of this war essentially required regime change.
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And that we didn't learn the lesson of some of our past uh misadventures in the Middle East, that we are not really capable of, at any acceptable cost, to achieve regime change through military means.
00:12:10.399 --> 00:12:12.320
That was the fundamental mistake.
00:12:12.399 --> 00:12:17.759
And so you create these very broad and ambitious uh targets and goals.
00:12:17.919 --> 00:12:22.080
You do achieve some meaningful military objectives within those.
00:12:22.320 --> 00:12:25.519
That's the successful strikes on all sorts of different facilities.
00:12:25.679 --> 00:12:38.240
But for the reasons you kind of stated, you have a regime, paper tiger or not, that is able to withstand and absorb a very significant amount of pain and then impose a significant amount of pain in return.
00:12:38.399 --> 00:12:42.240
And over time, we were running out of sort of significant targets to hit.
00:12:42.399 --> 00:13:07.600
To actually go on to achieve the rest of those objectives would have required some kind of ground operation, whether it's special operations to seize the nuclear materials, whether it's uh to prevent uh shooting at ships in the strait, all of those would have required a kind of military investment way, way beyond what we could afford and still sustain all our other requirements globally, the amount of casualties we would have been willing to endure the time and everything else.
00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:18.080
And Iran had the leverage because every day that the strait remained closed, uh the price to the global economy, and of course, even in our politics with gas prices, just went up and up and up.
00:13:18.480 --> 00:13:18.639
Right.
00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:27.840
So really it comes down to a battle of wills, an understanding that the United States would have to go all in, and not just the cost militarily, but there would be human cost to it.
00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:31.840
And that seems, even now, it seems intolerable to many Americans.
00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:33.840
And Iran knows that and can play us.
00:13:34.320 --> 00:13:36.720
And that's not going to change after the midterms.
00:13:36.879 --> 00:13:43.759
The exact same dynamics that led to that very frustrating point would be very likely to return after the midterms.
00:13:43.919 --> 00:13:56.080
And so unless we are prepared to commit to something like an invasion of Iran to bring down the regime or an invasion of parts of Iran to remove nuclear materials or to secure the strait, I don't see any change.
00:13:56.240 --> 00:14:01.200
And if we are prepared to do those things, we're going to be stuck in that war at high cost for a very, very long time.
00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:04.480
I really don't think President Trump wants that either, even after the midterms.
00:14:04.879 --> 00:14:06.240
Let me switch directions a bit.
00:14:06.399 --> 00:14:18.559
I want to ask you about the coordination that we have seen, which has been quite extraordinary between Washington and Jerusalem in terms of the military action against Iran, but also there have been these very public and sometimes angry disagreements.
00:14:18.799 --> 00:14:25.679
What's your take on the relationship, both between Washington and Jerusalem, but also personally between Trump and Netanyahu?
00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:33.200
They've obviously shown an ability to work together in various points in their presidency and prime ministership.
00:14:33.440 --> 00:14:48.720
Where I think they lost the thread was in December, January, and February last year and this year, when the prime minister came and explained, I think, legitimately in a meeting in Mar-a-Lago in December, that left unaddressed by last summer's war was the Iran's ballistic missile program.
00:14:48.879 --> 00:14:54.639
They were trying to build out a very significant ballistic missile capability to try to overwhelm Israel's uh air defenses.
00:14:54.799 --> 00:14:59.039
And that was something that was going to have to be dealt with at some point, and maybe some point in 2026.
00:14:59.200 --> 00:15:04.159
Not necessarily with a full-scale war, but that was a problem still requiring addressing.
00:15:04.320 --> 00:15:12.879
And then the protest started, and then the president made forward-leaning statements about how we would come to the aid of the Iranian people if they were attacked by the regime.
00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:25.440
They were attacked by the regime, and then we were sort of stuck in this middle, having made various commitments, having looked at a problem, and then the two leaders in February sort of came together and said, Yeah, let's go for the whole line yards.
00:15:25.679 --> 00:15:41.759
You can certainly understand how going into a war like that with a seeming overlap of objectives and a lot of very close and frankly effective military cooperation between the two militaries looked good at the beginning, but fairly quickly our interests diverged.
00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:47.120
And to reach that point where the president is really looking for an off-ramp and looking for a way out.
00:15:47.279 --> 00:15:54.000
Israel wants to be able to continue to press the damage that can be done to the regime, maybe even to try to fight until the regime falls.
00:15:54.159 --> 00:15:56.159
That created a lot of tension between them.
00:15:56.320 --> 00:16:05.440
And so when it came time to ultimately negotiate this 14-point MOU, it was very clear that Israel was being completely left out of those discussions.
00:16:05.600 --> 00:16:10.559
Not really even consulted, not even really informed about the different points of the MOU.
00:16:10.720 --> 00:16:26.720
Of course, the very first point of the MOU says that the ceasefire extends also to Lebanon, speaking basically on Israel's behalf, because Israel is the one fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, and giving Iran an essential role and even a veto over what happens uh inside Lebanon.
00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:28.879
The Israelis were very unhappy about that.
00:16:29.039 --> 00:16:33.440
There was obviously some discussion between the leaders, but it didn't reach to their satisfaction.
00:16:33.519 --> 00:16:59.039
Then, of course, separately, Secretary Rubio led a, I think, actually fairly positive and sophisticated diplomatic effort between Israel and Lebanon to try to reach a separate agreement that would call for Hezbollah's disarmament, call for Lebanese armed forces to take over for uh locations currently under Hezbollah's control, and that doesn't actually require Israel to complete its withdrawal from southern Lebanon until that process sort of completes itself.
00:16:59.279 --> 00:17:06.319
Those two MOUs are now uh really inconsistent with each other and in competition with each other during the implementation phase.
00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:13.759
And you can see that the president and the prime minister are occasionally exchanging kind of messages through public means.
00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:20.960
The president uh has said he might meet with the prime minister, but the prime minister knows who the boss is and they're the junior partner and we're the senior partner.
00:17:21.039 --> 00:17:37.359
And, you know, uh it doesn't mean they can't work together, but it does betray a significant amount of tension and disagreement and really divergence of interest, both national and security interests, but also the political interests of each of the two leaders as the president heads toward the midterms, the prime minister heads towards his election.
00:17:37.440 --> 00:17:44.720
And of course, it's also in the backdrop against a very serious decline in Israel's overall standing uh in the United States.
00:17:45.119 --> 00:17:52.880
I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about the status of Israel in American public opinion, particularly in the Democratic Party.
00:17:53.039 --> 00:17:54.720
You spent your career as a Democrat.
00:17:54.880 --> 00:18:03.920
You seem to be optimistic about the party's future, and we are seeing that the topic of Israel has become the litmus test for belonging in the Democratic Party.
00:18:04.079 --> 00:18:09.680
What do you say to American Jews who are feeling politically homeless and feeling like the party has turned on them?
00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:17.599
Look, I think that it's quite clear in all polling that Israel's standing has declined very broadly in the United States.
00:18:17.759 --> 00:18:19.200
Yes, among Democrats.
00:18:19.359 --> 00:18:22.559
And also it's very clear that that same thing is happening in the Republican Party.
00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:28.880
It's not uh maybe at the same numbers, but the trend and the direction is very similar, and it's especially true among younger Republicans.
00:18:29.119 --> 00:18:30.559
Israel's standing has declined.
00:18:30.720 --> 00:18:38.000
And, you know, that's, I think, in a way quite unsurprising if you look at what has been happening over almost three years of war.
00:18:38.160 --> 00:18:43.839
Of course, a lot of sympathy for Israel after the terrible Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7th.
00:18:44.160 --> 00:18:44.960
For a few days.
00:18:45.359 --> 00:18:46.079
Well, okay.
00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:55.599
But for, you know, within weeks and months and now years beyond a war and all the suffering that is associated with war, obviously many civilian casualties as well.
00:18:55.759 --> 00:19:02.079
And you know, Hamas bears all the responsibility they bear for how they fight from within, take shelter behind civilians.
00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:07.920
But, you know, that's not surprising that over time that's going to produce a blow to Israel's reputation.
00:19:08.079 --> 00:19:16.880
And then, of course, compounded by this war, uh, very unpopular from the very beginning in the United States, and of course, the prime minister had advocated uh for a war.
00:19:16.960 --> 00:19:26.640
It doesn't mean he pulled the United States into it, but he certainly associated with a war that most Americans did not want to fight, felt stuck in, felt that it was imposing a burden on them as oil prices rose.
00:19:26.960 --> 00:19:28.559
Now, how is that playing out politically?
00:19:28.720 --> 00:19:37.680
Well, of course, we've seen in a few Democratic primaries in very specific locations, very progressive districts, that this has been a high-focus issue.
00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:45.839
Aaron Powell I wouldn't categorize it as, first of all, that the war is is unpopular, doesn't exactly align with what we have seen coming out of potential candidates.
00:19:45.920 --> 00:19:51.119
You have somebody like Gavin Newsom or other people stepping forward and saying, I have never and would never take APAC money.
00:19:51.279 --> 00:19:53.759
It's taken on a much more nefarious and darker tone.
00:19:53.839 --> 00:19:59.680
Aaron Powell Well, there's a, as I said, there's several years now worth of built-up concern and upset.
00:19:59.759 --> 00:20:13.119
And again, there are people, definitely, there are people within the party who and people really, it's true on both sides of the aisle, who are seeking to adopt a real distancing uh of the United States from Israel, in some cases, even almost an adversarial uh tone towards Israel.
00:20:13.359 --> 00:20:16.000
I think we're headed for very big change in this relationship.
00:20:16.160 --> 00:20:19.759
Even the prime minister has now talked about uh phasing out uh U.S.
00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:23.359
assistance as they negotiate a new military assistance MOU.
00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:28.720
So I think that's likely to become a consensus position, probably on both sides of the aisle, that that aid is going to end.
00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:36.799
That doesn't mean we can't still be partners, it doesn't mean we can't still uh be allies or that Israel can't purchase things, but it does mean that uh the relationship will shift.
00:20:36.880 --> 00:20:50.480
And it does mean that the truth is, even though as you pull, you find, you know, a significant percentage of Democrats uh who say they hold some sort of negative association with Israel, that doesn't mean that's the driving issue for the majority of Democrats.
00:20:50.559 --> 00:20:57.519
I think most people, as in most elections, are focused on the economy, jobs, healthcare, uh, their own domestic circumstances.
00:20:57.759 --> 00:21:01.680
There is maybe a hardcore that wants to make this a litmus test issue.
00:21:01.759 --> 00:21:04.960
I don't really think that is true of the vast majority of Democrats.
00:21:05.279 --> 00:21:07.039
Dan, thank you so much for coming back on the show.
00:21:07.119 --> 00:21:07.759
I love hearing from you.
00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:08.640
Thanks, Aviva.
00:21:08.799 --> 00:21:10.000
Loot any time.
00:21:13.279 --> 00:21:16.240
That's a wrap on today's episode of Boundless Insights.
00:21:16.400 --> 00:21:20.960
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