- 15 hours ago
In an exclusive interview with India Today TV, geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer said Iran is clearly losing militarily, with its Navy destroyed, air defences non-existent, and leadership decapitated by Israeli strikes. However, he argued the United States is not achieving its objectives the way President Donald Trump expected.
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00:00And with that news break, I'm handing it over to my colleague, Maria Shakil, for an India Today exclusive.
00:11And at a moment when the conflict risks redrawing the geopolitical map of West Asia,
00:18we have with us world's foremost political scientist to decode the power shifts,
00:25the military calculus and the possible end games.
00:28Ian Bremmer is one of the world's most influential geopolitical analysts,
00:34the president and founder of Eurasia Group, known for coining a concept called GZERO World.
00:42Mr. Bremmer has long argued that global leadership is fragmenting,
00:47and nowhere is that more visible today than in the escalating war between Iran, Israel and the United States.
00:55Dr. Bremmer, really appreciate your time here on India Today.
00:57Let me start with the simplest but also perhaps the toughest question.
01:03We are seven days into this war.
01:05Who is actually winning right now, Iran or the U.S.-Israel alliance?
01:11Well, I mean, the Iranians are obviously losing in the sense that their navy's been destroyed.
01:17Their air defenses are non-existent, so sorties can be run over Iran now with impunity.
01:26Their leadership has the supreme leader and the military leadership has been decapitated, assassinated by the Israelis.
01:35I mean, this is not—and this is on the back of a country that already over the last two years
01:42had watched their proxy network anywhere from Hamas to Hezbollah to the overthrow of Assad in Syria to attacks on
01:53the Houthis in Yemen.
01:54Watch the axis of resistance get systematically dismantled.
01:59So, I mean, the Iranians are by no measure, in anyone's eyes, actually winning here.
02:05Okay.
02:05But the United States is not doing this the way that Trump thought they would.
02:12Trump thought that there would not be significant military blowback in the region.
02:17He was wrong.
02:18He thought that there would be a very clear way to get from pre-war to a regime that he
02:26was more comfortable with that would want to work with him.
02:28So far, he's been wrong.
02:30He didn't think there would be significant economic consequences, certainly not back in the United States.
02:36He's been wrong.
02:37And so, unlike in Venezuela, where he had 20 different reasons for the war, it was democracy and it was
02:44this guy is a thug and a criminal and he stole the elections.
02:47And there's all of this illegal migration and there's all of this illicit drug trade and we want to get
02:53the oil.
02:54But a day later, it didn't matter that he had, you know, all these different reasons for the war because
03:00he succeeded and everything worked out fine.
03:03But a week later, after declaring war that isn't officially a war, but it's a war, against the Iranians, suddenly
03:12everyone's poking holes in what Trump is trying to do because he's not being so successful.
03:17So, I mean, that's not a very concise answer to your question, but I don't think it's easy to just
03:26say, okay, the Iranians are losing.
03:28It's true, but it needs a broader explanation.
03:31Okay, so before I come into the goalpost question, because what is evident is the U.S. is constantly shifting
03:38its goalposts, I want to understand from you, Dr. Bremer, this is already a regional war involving the entire West
03:45Asia.
03:46So, is this now the beginning of the World War III?
03:52It's not involving all of West Asia in the sense that the Gulf states are not directly at war with
04:01Iran.
04:01Iran has definitely fired off a bunch of drones and missiles at anything they can reach, particularly non-hardened targets.
04:09So, even Oman, which was leading the mediation process of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, even Oman was
04:17hit.
04:17And we saw, you know, missiles at Turkey that were struck down and Azerbaijan got hit with launches from northwest
04:26Iran.
04:26So, I mean, definitely lots of countries are experiencing direct strikes from Iran, but that's different from saying it's a
04:36regional war.
04:38We don't see the UAE, the Saudis, the Qataris, others that have their militaries directly involved in fighting with Iran.
04:47Not at all.
04:48Not at all.
04:49And so, you're not going to be surprised when I say this isn't remotely close to World War III.
04:56I mean, the Chinese, who have been very engaged with Iran, they buy 80% of Iranian exported crude.
05:05They've been providing a lot of technology, including the technology that has powered a lot of Iran's drone capabilities.
05:11But China's basically told the Iranians, hey, you know, we don't like this war, but you're kind of on your
05:18own.
05:19The Russians are pretty busy in their own front with the Ukrainians.
05:24They benefit from energy prices being higher, but there's nothing they can do here, just like there was nothing they
05:30could do when Bashar Assad got overtaken.
05:33And that was, of course, strategically very important for Russia because they had, you know, a warm water port there
05:39and they had a lot of military capabilities and some leadership that was stationed on the ground, projecting force more
05:47broadly.
05:48So, no, I think this is what's interesting about this war is how few actors are directly involved.
05:56The United States and Israel went to war without even giving a heads up to their allies in advance.
06:03They had no idea.
06:04The Brits, who were told, we need your bases, but they weren't asked by the United States a day before,
06:12a week before, here's what we're planning.
06:14We'd like to work with you.
06:16Nor were the French, nor were the Germans, nor were the Spaniards.
06:19Right.
06:19And this is NATO we're talking about.
06:21So, I think what's remarkable is how few countries are actually, actually involved in the fighting.
06:28Okay.
06:29So, you know, that's an important question that you've answered that we are not really close to World War III.
06:35So, Dr. Bremer, let me ask you the third big question that is on everybody's mind.
06:39Why is Donald Trump constantly, almost in real time, shifting the goalpost?
06:44What started earlier was the stated objective that it was to cripple Iran's nuclear and missile capability, but now the
06:53conversation seems to be about regime change.
06:57So, I think there are a few reasons for that.
07:00The first is that Venezuela was so successful, and it's not regime change.
07:06It's the same regime, but Maduro's gone, and some of the worst, most aggressive and brutal of Maduro's inner circle,
07:20like the former Minister of Interior, have been forced out.
07:23That it does not imply a transition to a democratically elected government.
07:29Trump is now referring to Delsi as the president, as opposed to the acting president.
07:36He's also just reestablished diplomatic relations with Venezuela.
07:40So, the extraordinary success, popular in the U.S., popular across Latin America, more support from Latin American governments to
07:50go after the drug lords in Mexico, joint activities with the U.S. and Ecuador just in the last 24
07:57hours, that all made Trump feel like I could do the same thing in Iran.
08:02I can have the Delsi moment with the mullahs, and that will be extraordinary for me.
08:09That's one reason he did it.
08:11Second reason he did it is because he's already had experience using his military force against Iran, and Iran has
08:21done nothing against the U.S. in return.
08:23He saw that when he ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, at the end
08:28of his first term.
08:29The Iranians talked a big game and did nothing.
08:32Then he had the 12-day war.
08:34The Israelis started it, but he got involved late, but he got involved.
08:39The Israelis took hits.
08:40Almost 100 Israeli civilians were killed, but nothing happened to the Americans.
08:45They launched some strikes against the U.S. air base in Qatar, but they gave a heads-up to the
08:50Americans through Turkey and through Iraq.
08:54So Trump had reason to believe, in his mind, that Iran had no fist in their glove and they wouldn't
09:01be able to attack the Americans in response.
09:05And then finally, Trump has been frustrated that the focus of his foreign policy in his first term, which was
09:15economic, which was the tariff, has been constrained.
09:19He's got affordability issues domestically with midterms coming up, so the people aren't happy about it.
09:25You had the Supreme Court ruling down his ability to use tariffs whenever he wants with the IEPA clause.
09:32You saw the Chinese hit the Americans back, and so the United States had to back down.
09:38And then he needs critical minerals, so the Brazilians were able to hit him.
09:42India was able to get the deal they wanted by taking a longer time and negotiating harder against the U
09:47.S.
09:47So suddenly, the economic route seemed more challenging, but militarily, Trump can do whatever he wants.
09:54Congress doesn't want to have any responsibility for that.
09:58There are no other countries that can hit the Americans back militarily the way they can economically.
10:03So I think for those three reasons combined, Trump felt particularly confident and capable and was particularly interested in a
10:14bigger military operation against Iran.
10:18And I think it was a huge mistake.
10:20I think that if Trump had just said, we're going to do the 12-day war again, open the aperture
10:27because they're rebuilding their nuclear capabilities, and we told them not to, and they're expanding dramatically their ballistic missiles, and
10:35that's unacceptable.
10:36So we're going to take them out, and done that over the course of another two weeks.
10:41But no strikes against the top leadership, no thousands and thousands of sorties that leads to school kids getting blown
10:53up at what looks to be the hands of the Americans inadvertently.
10:58But nonetheless, all of that is really bad for the United States and makes Trump look like he bit off
11:05way more than he could chew here.
11:06Yes, and you know, Donald Trump has been talking about him being someone who was a peacemaker, and he won
11:16a Nobel Peace Prize as well.
11:18But here he is seen as an aggressor, someone who has perhaps fundamentally underestimated Iran's ability to retaliate and also
11:31sustain a war.
11:33I think that's right.
11:34I mean, the fact that he did not have a plan ready to evacuate Americans from all of these countries
11:42shows that he really did not think that Iran would have this capability.
11:46The fact that he had to, on the fly, say, well, we'll provide insurance and maybe provide military escorts for
11:54tankers that are getting threatened, and the insurance companies privately aren't going to provide that insurance, that was a response
12:02on the fly.
12:02It showed a lack of preparation, a lack of belief that the Iranians would be capable of causing this kind
12:09of disruption.
12:10And obviously, that makes President Trump look weaker here and makes fewer people even in the United States believe in
12:18him.
12:18This war is not popular.
12:20Most Americans oppose it.
12:22Only a small percentage of Republicans support it.
12:25But if there is, God forbid, a mass casualty event against Americans, you're going to see the United States oppose
12:33this significantly.
12:34This is the guy that just put together the Board of Peace.
12:37I mean, you would have thought, you know, if you've got a new Board of Peace and you're the chairman,
12:42there would have been some meeting of that group that would have at least rubber stamped the attacks against Iran.
12:47It's not the case at all.
12:50So, I mean, clearly, Trump is all over the map.
12:53He's had some successes, as we've seen in Gaza with the peace plan and with the hostages being returned, being
13:01released.
13:02He had success in Venezuela.
13:04But Iran is not a success for Trump.
13:07And the longer this war goes on, the worse it's going to be for him in the United States and
13:13more broadly.
13:13You know, in the last 24 hours, Dr. Bremer, a new peacemaker has arrived on the horizon.
13:22And this is China.
13:24Can China then play the peacemaker because they have sent a special envoy to negotiate and navigate?
13:30What leverage do you think they will have?
13:33And will U.S. really agree to this Suomoto mediation?
13:38I think the fact that they're sending in an envoy is nice.
13:43It shows that China's not taking sides, even though they've been a principal economic supporter of Iran, keeping the Islamic
13:55Republic afloat.
13:57Again, a deeply brutal regime, capable and willing to kill tens and tens of thousands of their own population.
14:05So, you know, China has blood on their hands with that support.
14:09But they also work with the Saudis.
14:13They work with the Emiratis.
14:14They buy oil from them, too.
14:16They also provide technology.
14:18There's a lot of trade.
14:19There's a lot of tourism.
14:21And ultimately, China wants a stable region.
14:24And they're very pragmatic.
14:26In many ways, they're more pragmatic than Trump, whose ego matters a lot here in a way that Xi Jinping's
14:34does not.
14:35Who's looking to make personal money for himself and his family with leaders in the region and more broadly, like
14:41in Pakistan, Xi Jinping doesn't care as much about that.
14:45So while it's comparatively easy for the Gulf leaders to make individual deals with Trump, Trump's approach to the Middle
14:55East is in many ways more worrying to them than the approach of China.
14:59And that's particularly true because Trump is gone in 2029 and Xi Jinping is not.
15:06And so in that regard, the Chinese leadership has a lot more in common with Mohammed bin Salman, with Mohammed
15:11bin Zayed than Trump does.
15:16So, Dr. Bremer, then what really happens from here onwards, because the Israeli strikes have been militarily precise, but Iran
15:26continues to fire back.
15:28Does that also expose the limits of even the most sophisticated air defense systems?
15:33And Iran's network of proxies from Hezbollah to regional militias hasn't really fully entered the battlefield yet.
15:41Is there a sense that Tehran's biggest card is still on the table?
15:47No, but they still have cards.
15:49Their biggest cards are gone.
15:51Hezbollah a year ago was the most powerful non-state military in the world.
15:58And they're now getting pounded yet again by Israel after under Iranian order striking Israel with six missiles.
16:09Now, before the decapitation of Hezbollah a year ago, a typical sortie would be 40, 50, 100 missiles.
16:17This was six because they don't have it because they're not as capable as they were before.
16:21The Houthis have not entered this fight.
16:23And the reason is because the Houthis are talking to Gulf states, seeing if they could be bought off.
16:29What kind of economic support, military support guarantees might they provide if they choose to stay out of this fight?
16:38They've been getting a lot of funding from the Iranians, but they're much more independent than Hamas or than Hezbollah
16:45have been.
16:46So I don't think Iran necessarily has the ability to activate their proxies the way they did two years ago,
16:54three years ago, before the October 7th terror attacks by Hamas against Israel.
17:03Now, domestically, Iran still does itself have a lot of drones and they have decentralized decision-making authority to local
17:13commanders, which gives them the ability to engage in strikes.
17:16Those strikes are hitting the Gulf states, but they're not hitting hardened targets for the most part because they can't
17:22get through.
17:23So they're basically striking whatever they can.
17:26In my eyes, that's desperation.
17:29That doesn't show that the Iranians are marshalling some great and grievous capability that they haven't used yet.
17:36Again, they've just seen the assassination of their supreme leader and of their top military leaderships.
17:43And Ali Larajani, who's kind of the toughest man left standing, is saying that there's going to be strikes against
17:50America that they've never seen anything like before.
17:53That's pure propaganda and bluster, primarily aimed at Iran's own domestic audience.
18:00But I will say that, I mean, Iran has been the leading exporter of terror of many countries around the
18:08world.
18:09And long term, the likelihood that we will see either directed or inspired terrorist attacks against American civilians, the likelihood
18:23we will see a spike in anti-Semitism, which was already rising greatly around the world because of what we've
18:31seen in Iran in the last week.
18:32I think those things we can count on.
18:34You know, there are reports, Dr. Bremer, that Washington perhaps is exploring the idea of using Kurdish groups, opening a
18:41front against Tehran from Iraqi Kurdistan.
18:44How effective will that be?
18:46I've seen credible reports already that the Americans, the CIA, have provided some arms directly to some Kurds in Iran.
19:02I've also seen that Trump spoke with some of the Kurdish leaders in Iraq.
19:09And there is kind of a patchwork of different ethnic minorities that have their own interests in different parts of
19:19Iran.
19:20There's, of course, the Azeris in the northwest.
19:23There's Arab Kuzestan, there's the Baluks in the southeast, and there's the Kurds in the west.
19:31And each of them have different aspirations, have different external sponsors.
19:36And so, I mean, in the worst case scenario, if the Iranian regime starts to crumble, you could imagine a
19:45civil war breaking out,
19:47where Iran itself fragments with, you know, huge numbers of refugees as a consequence, with arms spilling across the country
19:57and out into the region.
19:59That would be a very dangerous environment to be in.
20:02But it's possible.
20:03It's possible.
20:04At this point, I don't think that in the White House, there's not yet a lot of confidence that that's
20:12a winning strategy,
20:13especially because it could bring a lot of the Iranian people themselves to rally around their own repressive government,
20:21because they would prefer that to their country falling apart.
20:25Energy markets, shipping lanes, Gulf security, do you think it's all going to change fundamentally now?
20:32And could this trigger a global energy crisis, given how the Strait of Hormuz was choked?
20:42Um, you know, we've got higher prices right now.
20:45Gas prices in the U.S. are the highest they've been at any point in the Trump administration, one or
20:50two.
20:51So that really matters.
20:52And Trump's had to say, I don't care.
20:54They'll go up now, which, you know, he started his State of the Union speech with how low oil prices,
20:59gas prices were.
21:00Said they were under two bucks at one station in Iowa.
21:03I'm sure that's not true today.
21:04So, you know, that that's that's a problem for him.
21:08And and this could keep going for a while.
21:11Again, I think that the Iranians are going to have a hard time continuing this level of drone strikes for
21:19weeks and months.
21:20So I think that the markets are still saying that that they think this is going to be relatively short
21:28lived.
21:29The long term oil futures, they're not as liquid, but they're they're lower and they're lower with an expectation that
21:38this is not going to be a global energy crisis.
21:40I think the biggest problem is natural gas, which is not a global market.
21:46It's a regional market.
21:48And their American prices are pretty flat.
21:51But the European prices have nearly doubled in the last week after a tough winter where storage levels are barely
21:58over 20 percent.
21:59So this is going to hit the Europeans at a time that they really can't afford it.
22:03Asian markets, as the Indians are seeing, also being hit hard on the natural gas front.
22:08So you don't see this spiraling out of control or perhaps becoming a situation where the countries will start stacking
22:16up on oil.
22:19The Chinese already have major strategic reserves.
22:22The Americans are talking about insurance as well as escorts to help mitigate that challenge.
22:30I get I don't I think that this is a major disruption in the short term.
22:35But I don't think we yet have evidence to believe that this is going to be a global oil shock.
22:41OK, last couple of two questions now, Dr.
22:45Bremmer, what is the timeline that you're looking at?
22:49How long will this war go on?
22:55It looks like we are likely to see boots on the ground from the Americans at some point in the
23:00coming week or two with with targeted intent, but with more Americans that could get killed.
23:08The Iranian air capabilities have been destroyed, but there are a lot of additional targets.
23:14If you're focusing on regime change, you want to go after the interior ministries capabilities.
23:19You want to go after the besieged, the paramilitaries that are involved directly in repression of demonstrations.
23:28And, you know, that that's going to take a while.
23:31You know, you've heard now from the White House and from the secretary of defense that this could be four
23:37weeks, maybe eight weeks of strikes.
23:40Now, Trump could change his mind tomorrow and say, OK, the Iranians are reaching out to me and I'm willing
23:46to stop for now and talk to them.
23:48He's capable of doing that. But so far, I've seen no intention that that is imminent.
23:55So it feels to me like we're going to be in this for a while now to come.
23:59The Americans have the capacity to end this war at any moment.
24:03It's up to Trump. And that is, as they say, a curse and a blessing.
24:09So when does this war end, actually?
24:12Yeah, I mean, it ends when Trump says it ends.
24:16And the Americans are going to run short on interceptors.
24:20So, I mean, military capabilities in part will will help to tell that message.
24:26I don't think this is a war that's going to go on for a year.
24:29This isn't like the Iraq war in that regard.
24:31It's probably a matter of four weeks to several months.
24:35And but when it's over, you could still see terrorist acts when it's over.
24:40You could still see drone strikes when it's over.
24:43You could still see the Americans responding in a very aggressive way as those things occur.
24:50So, I mean, the baseline expectation would be a much more unstable environment in how the Americans are engaging in
24:58and around Iran.
24:59All right, Dr. Ian Bremmer, really appreciate your time.
25:03Thank you for speaking to me.
25:04Good to talk to you. Thank you.
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