00:00We've talked about American trustworthiness in future negotiations. We've talked about how this
00:04could impact other conflicts as other world leaders watch this. You know, we saw what happened
00:08in Afghanistan and it had a knock-on effect in other places, other leaders possibly with Putin
00:12making the decision to go into Ukraine. What does this conflict do for other conflicts around the
00:17world? Oh, I think, you know, watching this, I was reminded of the winter of 2021-2022 when the U
00:30.S.
00:31was trying to engage with Russia diplomatically for months, going back and forth in diplomatic
00:38negotiations over Ukraine. I was there in Geneva with Blinken and Lavrov when he still had his job.
00:43There you go, right? And the Russians were saying, people were saying the Russians are
00:49negotiating in good faith. They're going to invade anyway. And the Russians said, no,
00:53we have no plans. We have no plans to invade Ukraine. We really are trying to, you know,
00:59and Ukraine cannot be in NATO. They can just not be in NATO. We're negotiating in good faith.
01:04And it turned out, no, they were not. This was just a way to, like a box ticking exercise.
01:10They were going to invade anyway. And I can't help but be reminded of that this morning,
01:15that these negotiations, it seemed like, were, you know, they were asking the impossible of Iran
01:21while building up these forces in the region, kind of like Chekhov's gun, you know, like if you,
01:28if you put that stuff there, it has to go off, right? You have to, you have to use it.
01:33And yes,
01:33buying time because of course our resources were stretched thin. The, uh, the air carrier,
01:39uh, the aircraft carrier, Gerald Ford was in Venezuela. We've been a little busy in Venezuela.
01:43Yeah. And it needed time to get to the Middle East. So, um, because the president wants to be
01:49seen as a man of action, wants to think of himself as a man of action. We've been, uh, two
01:53months without
01:54military intervention. You know, it's a long time. It's funny you mentioned that I taught, I was talking
01:59to, uh, a Republican who was on the national security council in the first, uh, Trump administration.
02:03And he said to me, this is why you don't move your firepower to Venezuela because you can't take your
02:08eye off the Middle East because you always need that firepower in the Middle East.
02:11I look at the statement that we're getting right now from Emmanuel Macron of France,
02:15Chancellor Friedrich Mertz and Prime Minister Keir Starmer in reaction to all of this condemning,
02:20um, the military action that Iran has taken in the past, but noting we did not participate in
02:23these strikes, but are in close contact with our international partners. And Julia, on that point,
02:28I, I'm curious how you see what's happened here reverberating around European capitals. And
02:33again, we, we had hoped to bring you on here to talk about Ukraine on the fourth anniversary of,
02:37of the, the invasion there. Um, still very much Europe's focus now having to navigate this world
02:42in which the U S not unilaterally, but with Israel has gone about and made this, this attack.
02:46Well, I think to me, that was one of the hints that Trump was going to do this anyway,
02:50because a lot of our European partners and allies do still have contacts with the Iranian regime,
02:56do have diplomatic, a diplomatic presence in Iran. And we could have as our proxies and have for
03:02years. Exactly. And we could have used their help in this if we had been actually negotiating. Um,
03:09and I think this is yet another sidelining of Europe. Um, another kind of trying to relegate them to
03:15irrelevance. I think this administration sees them as weak and feckless and probably effeminate,
03:20uh, given how this administration tends to view things. Um, and as for our allies,
03:26I think it's interesting that the Saudis came out and said they support this, the Canadians,
03:30Canadians as well. Mark Carney has been very critical of the president. I have a statement
03:33in front of me saying he supports the U S acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and
03:38preventing its regime from further threatening international peace and security. So I think,
03:41uh, what I think is interesting here, Carney, you remember, spoke at Davos and said,
03:46we're basically out of this. You guys have been using our alliance as a tool against us. We're
03:52out of Pax Americana, essentially peace guys. Um, but now they're on board. The Australians are on
03:58board. And I think what this is, the signal this is likely sending to Trump is, uh, yeah,
04:03these guys talk a big game, but they're still going to support us anyway. And I think this is just,
04:09just like Venezuela reinforced this, just like his airstrikes in Iran in June, uh,
04:14reinforced this idea is that he can get away with things. If he just pushes hard enough,
04:19people will go along with it no matter what.
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