00:00There is certainly a lot to dig into, but sort of when you add it all together and look at
00:04holistically, it seems like today, especially Richard, that there have been a lot of mixed messages about the duration of
00:11this war.
00:12And when it comes to Israel and the U.S., what exactly the end game is?
00:17Well, two things, Katie. One is Israel and the United States are not necessarily either not on the same page.
00:23Israel is prepared to fight a long duration war. It continues to see all sorts of positives.
00:30And further diminishing the capacity of Iran to rebuild its military to really do a lot.
00:36Israel wants, I won't say an open ended war, but a long duration war.
00:42I think the United States has increasingly come around to the point of view is we're not well positioned to
00:46withstand that.
00:48That economic pain of the war is going to grow for us. The military costs of the war are growing
00:53for us.
00:54And we would like to bring this to an end.
00:56And the problem with the U.S. position is it only took one to start the war, us, but it's
01:01going to take three to end it.
01:03And that's mean, first of all, the United States is going to have to, shall we say, lean on Israel,
01:07to be blunt, to bring the war to an end sooner than the prime minister wants.
01:11Even more difficult is the United States is going to have to persuade Iran to bring this war to an
01:18end.
01:18And that, I think, is going to be the biggest challenge for this president, who increasingly wants to wrap this
01:24up, declare victory, declare mission accomplished.
01:27But again, he doesn't have the power to do that. He's got to bring Iran around.
01:30Yeah, it's really interesting, too, when you think about how this war is being perceived in different parts of the
01:36world,
01:37because recent polling shows that certainly a minority of Americans support the action in Iran,
01:43whereas you compare what we're seeing in Israel, for example, the reception there, Richard.
01:49This has widespread support, maybe also due to the fact that Israel is just physically a lot closer to Iran
01:56than where we're sitting in the United States.
01:59Your assessment's spot on. It's far more popular in Israel than it is here.
02:03Indeed, in Israel, which is a country that's divided about just about any and every issue you can think of,
02:08this is one of the few issues where there's a pretty good consensus.
02:12But Israel is largely set apart from all sorts of global economic consequences.
02:17The Israeli public favors this war. The public here, what, over 60 percent is against it.
02:23They want the president to be focusing on affordability.
02:27The Europeans and our allies there and in Asia, look at their stock markets.
02:32Look at the cost of energy. They are increasingly uncomfortable.
02:35The Arab countries, a lot of them are unhappy. They weren't consulted about this.
02:40And they're bearing the brunt. It's their oil installations,
02:43potentially their water treatment centers that are going to be attacked by Iran.
02:49So there's a real disconnect here. And again, the pressure to end this war is going to grow.
02:54But that very desire gives the Iranian leadership leverage.
02:58And I am curious about that leverage. There's been a lot of speculation as to whether the U.S.
03:02would at least try to walk away from this, not so much in the sense of the traditional military sense,
03:07but the idea that the president, you know, might just have other priorities and decide, okay, enough's enough.
03:12If that were the case, not saying the U.S. would completely pull out, like, what would you actually need
03:17to create stability there?
03:19The presumption is that Israel can't do it on its own.
03:22Would the Arab states maybe step up in some sort of cohesive way?
03:26I know they don't necessarily all cooperate now, but is there some potential for cooperation
03:29in order to sort of try to bring some stability back to that area?
03:33It all depends upon what Iran's demands are. Iran will continue to have, for example, drones that they could use.
03:39It's going to be very hard to insure tankers going through the Straits of Hormuz.
03:44So the question is, what will Iran's demands be and who's going to pay them?
03:47What if Iran says we want to have economic sanctions reduced or relieved?
03:52What if they say this is not inconceivable they're going to say it?
03:56What about reparations and so forth?
03:59And then there's going to be debates about their military rebuilding, about their nuclear program.
04:04All this is going to suddenly reemerge on the agenda.
04:08Potentially, it's the cost of bringing this war to an end.
04:12And it's not clear to me that this administration, the Trump administration, much less others, have thought through
04:18what is it they're prepared to do to bring this war to an end.
04:22I am also curious about the nuclear issue, which seems to be not really being talked about at all.
04:28I don't know what their capabilities were heading into this war a week or so ago.
04:33But is there any sort of risk that there is any facilities or, more importantly, uranium or anything else
04:40that could potentially be, I guess, fall into the wrong hands?
04:45The answer is yes.
04:46You've got a significant amount of enriched uranium, not enriched to the level you need for a nuclear explosive device,
04:52but significantly enriched, reportedly a large amount in the area of the city of Isfahan.
04:57So that in and of itself could create a dirty bomb, a nuclear event if it got into the wrong
05:04hands.
05:05Also, if someone got a hold of it who actually knew how to further enrich uranium, it could be a
05:10nightmare.
05:10So I would think, just like that was part of the negotiations before this war began, two, three weeks ago,
05:17I expect it's going to become, yet again, part of the conversation between the United States and Iran.
05:22What will be the disposition or the fate of that uranium?
05:26There's talk about even, you know, in the out-there conversation of the United States sending in special forces
05:32to try to get physical control of that.
05:34I would just say that would be extraordinarily difficult and dangerous operation to undertake.
05:41But that is one of the many unresolved issues here.
05:45And Richard, at what point, over what timeline would you expect that diplomacy actually does start to play a role
05:52here?
05:52Because President Trump has said that he's open to talking to Iran.
05:56The administration officials have also said as much in the past day or so.
06:01Iran, though, does not seem to share that sentiment, to put it mildly.
06:06So at what point do you think that we actually do see some of those discussions happening between these two
06:10sides?
06:11Well, you've put your finger on a big problem.
06:14It's not going to happen fast enough or quick enough.
06:16The economic effects are going to mushroom in this country and around the world.
06:21And the idea that you could negotiate an entire new package between the United States and Iran quickly or soon
06:28enough to alleviate the economic problems, I think is far-fetched.
06:32So you may have to do this in phases.
06:34And again, we're at an extraordinarily difficult point.
06:38The single biggest variable right now is the duration of this war.
06:42And we've got a problem.
06:43We want to bring it to a close.
06:46Because Iran sees leverage in that.
06:48And I think that is the biggest area of friction going forward.
06:51And Iran is in a position where it can continue to make the United States and the world pay if
06:57this war continues.
06:58I am curious, though, Richard, and particularly about the U.S. strategy.
07:01And I know there's a lot of speculation that there wasn't a whole lot of planning leading up to this.
07:05But I think back to the Gulf War, primarily under George W. Bush with Iraq and Afghanistan and just how
07:13many military ships, U.S. naval ships that we saw in the Persian Gulf, not just necessarily to protect whatever
07:20cargo was coming out of the Persian Gulf, but also to protect some of the other Arab states and the
07:24folks there.
07:25There's no visibility, at least from what we know publicly right now, of that presence.
07:30And I am wondering if maybe that in and of itself could potentially help to just have more of that
07:36military presence rather than just flying over and dropping bombs and missiles.
07:41Look, you're right. The presence compared to what we had in the Gulf War in 1990-91, as well as
07:47in the Iraq War, it's small.
07:49But there's no amount of presence that can necessarily keep the straits open if you have periodic attacks.
07:56Tankers are vulnerable.
07:58The last time we escorted vessels was, what, close to 40, 50 years ago.
08:02Again, an awfully difficult kind of operation.
08:05No, what you put your finger on is, in some ways, the lack of planning here, or to the extent
08:11planning happened, it was predicated on all sorts of optimistic assumptions about how this war would go and the potential
08:18for regime change in Iran and so forth.
08:21And it's not working out that way.
08:23And we're now in the very awkward situation where, again, we've launched something and we want to bring it to
08:29a close.
08:30Iran senses that, and they're going to try to use that to get some economic or political gain from the
08:37United States.
08:38We're going to have to make some tough decisions.
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