Hey everybody, Tom Woods here. It's episode 2748 of The Tom Woods Show. I've got Andrew Day with
me. He is senior editor at The American Conservative Magazine, which has played an important role in
the intellectual discourse, let's say, such as it is these days on the right. And I have never
talked to him or met him before, but he's sharp on Twitter, which is the first quality I look
for in a person. I always tell my children, you are not getting the best of your dad on Twitter.
It brings out the worst in everyone, so you are not permitted to judge me there. They don't have
Twitter accounts, so generally only one of them really looks. But sometimes I'll go downstairs
and she'll be like, I don't know if you should have put it quite that way. But anyway,
Andrew, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Well, let's go back into the institutional history of your magazine because it came
along, as I recall, right around the time of the war in Iraq in 2003. And this was an opportunity for
not just Papua Canaan, but for other people who post Cold War thought the United States might
consider going back to being a normal country like all the other countries in the world,
and were increasingly disappointed as the 1990s went along and then into 2003.
So in effect with this war in Iran, you are part of that ongoing history, I suppose.
Yeah, it certainly seems like it. The magazine was founded in 2002 in advance of the Iraq War
because everyone could kind of feel it coming, right? And Papua Canaan was one of the co-founders,
the others were Scott McConnell and Taki, I won't attempt the last name. And you know,
Papua Canaan was kind of the face of the magazine and really wanted a conservative
publication that was associated with non-interventionism because actually, as you know,
I'm sure non-interventionism, anti-interventionism has a long history in America. It got a
scramble during the Cold War when the neocons kind of attached themselves to the Republican party.
But after the Cold War, people like Papua Canaan were saying, okay, it's time to stop with this,
you know, militarism abroad. We need to rethink NATO. We should come back home,
shore up our Republican institutions. And the neocons clearly were going another way.
They reached the ascendancy of their power during the Bush administration
and lobbied for the Iraq War. And so the American conservative was
founded to oppose that. And yeah, it does seem like history is repeating itself a bit.
But this Iran war only, one thing that I will say, I think it was less comfortable actually back then
to be an anti-war conservative. Much less. You know, Papua Canaan and the American conservative,
they were, you know, lambasted. They were called unpatriotic conservatives, whereas this time around,
the Iran war is less popular even among traditional Republicans. And I feel like a lot
of people on the right, on the online right, if we want to call it that,
are appropriately skeptical of this military misadventure.
I really, really dislike accusing people of operating from base motives. You know,
I like to argue the merits of the case and this is a really bad argument. I have a better argument.
But sometimes, especially now, I find it very difficult to escape the conclusion
that some people, I mean, no doubt some people sincerely support this war,
I suppose, but when I look at people who made exactly the opposite argument not 18 months ago,
and I mean exactly the opposite, now suddenly acting as if you'd have to be out of your mind to make
the exact arguments they themselves made. Now, I suppose you could have a complete 180 on something
in such a short period of time, but since nothing has changed in the Middle East during
that time, I look at some of these personalities, I hate the word influencers on Twitter, whose
varying opinions you can set side by side and you can hardly believe it. And it's like,
you know, I don't want to accuse people of just chasing clicks or chasing influence,
but they feel like, well, a lot of the mega base seems pretty happy about this.
So, and I, you know, I guess the living that I'm making depends on my appealing to
those people. So, I'm just going to change on a dime and with no real explanation.
And it's impossible to respect that on any level is impossible to respect that.
Yeah, I don't know who exactly you have in mind, but I agree that I can also think of some people
who fit that description. I think audience capture, as you alluded to, is a part of it.
You know, maybe a lot of their followers still trust the plan, trust Trump to do
the right thing in Iran and make this into a victory somehow. I also think a lot of
these people want to retain their influence with the Trump administration so they kind of
modulate their criticism or maybe even just omit criticism. And, you know,
Trump clearly after the Venezuela raid was in a very hubristic mood. You know, he felt
very confident in his role as commander in chief. He felt like he could achieve a lot
militarily with these quick decisive strikes without getting embroiled in a forever conflict.
And I think a lot of his supporters kind of bought into that they bought into this mystique
and they felt like if Trump is doing this, then surely they have a plan. And I'm sorry to report,
it is very clear that this war is not very well thought out. It was not very well planned.
You know, the Trump administration was telling Turkey and the Gulf states that it was going
to last about four days. Then in the opening days when it was clear that was not going to
be the case, they were stretching to, you know, a couple weeks, maybe four to five weeks.
Okay, now we're in the fifth week. And it seems like this thing is not coming to an end.
So people need to stop being plan trusters. They need to use their brain. They need to
exercise their critical faculties because we are in a mess and it's going to be kind of difficult to
extricate ourselves from this mess. So we all need to be thinking independently and critically and
not just listening to Trump's, you know, bombast about how we're winning the war.
I want to go back to something you said toward the beginning there.
I think it was Laura Loomer who said to somebody, you know, good luck getting invited back to
Mar-a-Lago if you take that position. And I thought, imagine living your life that way.
I couldn't care less if I go to Mar-a-Lago or not. You know, we're all going to be dead,
you know, before too long, right? Geologically speaking, it's not too long. And after that,
no one's going to think about or care where you went. The only thing that somebody might still
think about once you're gone is whether you had any integrity or not, you know,
whether your life had been worth living or whether you were willing to throw it away
for some fleeting notoriety. I mean, what kind of, because would you really raise your
children to aspire to such trivialities? Anyway, these are all rhetorical questions.
These are terrible interview questions, Andrew. They're rhetorical. I got to knock that off
and ask you some real ones. So let me ask you a real one. Is it true that you grew up on
U.S. military bases around the world? It is, yeah. My dad was in the army. He was 82nd
Airborne. For some reason, we also lived a lot on Air Force bases. Maybe that was
related to him being an Airborne Infantry in California. I lived in Fort Knox, Kentucky,
for a little bit. Sometimes we were located off base, depending on where my dad was stationed.
But for the most part, I was growing up on military bases and attending
Department of Defense schools. Did those experiences in any way shape your
current opinions or are they completely separate? I don't know. It's a little hard
to say. I mean, my political consciousness was formed in the context of the Iraq War,
and I gravitated toward an anti-war position, and I was reading some left-wing thinkers,
and then I was made aware of Pat Buchanan, and realized that there's also people on the
right who are saying this kind of thing. Living on military bases, it's interesting
because there is more patriotism, but also people are more directly affected. So I knew
people whose sons were going off to war or who themselves were going off to war,
family, friends, and such. So it feels a little closer to you, and maybe that
changed the way that I think about this subject, but I can't detect personally
any direct causal connection between the two. Okay. I mean, I couldn't help asking.
You've said that much of U.S.-Israel-related foreign policy ultimately boils down to,
well, this was a bad idea, but now we have to dig in. And I see a lot of that sentiment
on social media now that there will be some people who say,
well, look, whether or not you like the... There's some people who say,
you have to think this was a great idea. But other people say, well, regardless of how you
feel about it, once we're there, then we have to, quote, finish the job.
What do you... Talk to me about that way of thinking. Sure. I mean, it was exactly that
kind of statement that I was responding to with that tweet that you just quoted,
the idea that we have to finish the job. And you're right. This is rhetorically different and
kind of logically different than those who say, oh, this is all going according to plan. It's good
that we did this. Now we're hearing more people and not just Contanetti, who you were just quoting,
who is like the son-in-law of Bill Crystal, I believe, and could be expected to say this kind
of thing. Even Steve Bannon is saying stuff like this right now. And I don't think it's
necessarily like inherently insane to make this point that we shouldn't have gone to war,
but now that we're in there, this is a mess and the only way out is through. But I really do
disagree with this argument because, one, what is the plan that we're supposed to be trusting?
What is the job that we're supposed to be finishing? The administration has done
a truly abominable job of telling us what the strategy is, what the strategic goals are.
Whenever Hexeth, he hasn't given one in a while. I think maybe he did yesterday,
there was a little bit of gap in his press conferences. But he previously,
during these press conferences, during these Department of Defense press releases and things
they post on Twitter, they tell us how many things they've bombed, how many bombs they've
dropped on Iran, how many munitions they're expending, as if that is itself the goal of the war.
That's not the goal of war. The military is a means to an end. War is a means to an end.
It should be something that is used as a last resort or out of necessity. And they haven't told
us what is the end that they're using this means toward. I mean, Rubio will come out,
try to say things that make sense. But clearly the goalposts are always shifting.
On the first day, Trump told us that we wanted to spread freedom to Iran. He told that during the
eight minute video that he released where he was wearing the baseball cap on the opening day of
strikes in a Washington Post interview. He said the same thing. They reported based on their
interview that spreading freedom to Iran was top of mind for them. JD Vance was saying,
no, this is all about their nuclear program. Making sure they can't reconstitute their
nuclear program that supposedly we obliterated during the Operation Midnight Hammer at toward
the end of the 12 day war. Rubio came out and said, no, this was to stop an imminent threat.
And then when he elaborated, he said, well, Israel was going to attack regardless that
we had to join the attack, because that way we somehow prevent this imminent threat against
our own troops. It didn't really make sense, but it was very telling that he said that it was
all a jumble. It's been incredibly muddled the entire process. And that's really what
worries me about this. Because as far as I can tell, this war was totally optional.
It's a war of aggression. It doesn't secure our interests at all. Our military presence in the
Middle East, if it's for any good reason is to do things like prevent the closure of the
Strait of Hormuz. And our war has caused predictably the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. I mean,
you can go read my stuff when I was warning against this war. This was one of the things
I warned about. It was very clear to anyone who just looks at a map. I feel like a small
child could look at a map of Iran and point at the Strait of Hormuz and say,
what if they do something bad here? It's ridiculous that they seem not to have actually
planned for this. And so this is why I don't trust the plan trusters or the people saying
finish the job. I don't think that we should dig in. One possibility, and I hear this a lot,
especially from like foreign diplomats and foreign politicians and stuff that I talk to
here in D.C. or that I reach out to. A lot of people are saying, well, if the bombing
caused this big mess, maybe try stopping the bombing. You know, that might seem a little
naive. I do agree it's going to be difficult because as everyone says, Iran gets a vote
as to when this war ends. And so if we stop bombing, they want to make sure the bombing
doesn't resume again in the future. And they don't trust our diplomacy anymore because they think we
used it as a ruse in this case to kill their leaders, right? So we're in a bit of a mess,
but I do think pulling back might be the right option here. And people should understand the
costs that we're inflicting on the global economy and that we're inflicting on our
own force posture in the Middle East. There was a good article today in Responsible
Statecraft by a friend of mine, a military analyst named Jennifer Kavanaugh of Defense
Priorities, in which she was asking, how come over the past 10 days,
Iran has been pretty successful in doing these missile strikes in Israel?
A lot of people are assuming it's because of the depletion of missile interceptors
in Israel stockpiles, but she speculates that that's one part of the reason probably.
But another issue is that Iran has been systematically taking out our sensors and our radars
in the Persian Gulf states. And there's an integrated air defense system that the U.S.
and our Gulf partners use that requires these ground-based radars and sensors,
and Iran seems to be taking them out. That's going to have strategic implications for us going
forward. They've destroyed or severely damaged about 13 of our bases in these Gulf states.
It's not clear that we're going to be able to rebuild those. It's not clear that the Gulf
Arab states are going to want us to rebuild those, because obviously it's not protecting them
in this case. So I do see this, even if it stopped now, I think it would be a strategic
disaster. But I think that might be the only thing we can do is to credibly signal that we're
stopping now. And I've talked a bit. Maybe we could talk. I had an article last week in which
I suggested that Trump to stop this war. Maybe he needs to come out and credibly say,
we're divorcing Israel. That's going to signal to Iran that we're not going to attack again.
It's going to signal to Israel that to the extent that you dragged us into this war,
and I do think that Israel was central to the determination to go to war,
we're not going to let that happen anymore because this is clearly bad for our interests.
Okay. I mean, look, that would be great. But I just, I have wished for far,
far less from this administration. And I haven't even got that.
I'm not optimistic he'll do that. I think it might be the only way out at this point.
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I'm thinking about the relationship between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger during the
Vietnam War. Now, Kissinger recalls that, or maybe it was Nixon who put it this way,
now that I think about it, that Nixon would tell Kissinger to go and negotiate
by telling the other side, Nixon is a crazed lunatic and I'm barely able to control him
and threaten all kinds of crazy things I might do.
And that way, even though I have no intention of doing any of them,
but they don't know that and you portray me as this reckless lunatic,
maybe that will get more concessions. Well, Trump has a more direct approach to this.
He doesn't go through a Kissinger. He just comes right out and says, I'm a crazy lunatic
and I'm seriously considering if you don't do the following that I might do.
And then he lists these terrible things that even the Iranian diaspora,
which is all half of them are cheering for this, even they would have to sit up and say,
finally, oh, maybe this isn't exactly what we wanted. But the problem is Iran keeps calling
his bluff over and over and over. So either he just keeps conceding and conceding and conceding,
which is not really Trump's style. Trump's a winner. He negotiates, but he wins.
It's a little disturbing to think about where this could ultimately go.
Now, if it turned out that none of these bad outcomes occurred,
you and I would once again be lectured to that we were quote, panikins, which by the way,
if you use the word panikin, you get seven retardation points added to your score, first of all.
But you get accused of that that you, oh, you know, why didn't you just trust in Trump?
Look, I'm taking on a crazed roller coaster every 24 hours with this guy.
I think I'm allowed to be concerned. I mean, is that the role of a conservative
is not to be reckless and crazy, but to consider what the possible outcomes could be and prepare for
them. I mean, it's completely reckless to say, oh, you don't have to worry about a single thing the
guy says. What are you talking about? What's conservative about that? Absolutely. And also,
this isn't the most important thing. You know, the thing that I prioritize when I'm thinking
about the war is in Trump's political positioning. But actually, people like us,
if Trump listened to us, it would be much better for him politically, because this
is turning out to be a political disaster with mounting political costs. I feel like the longer
this goes on, the more likely we're going to have a global recession. We're going to have
extreme inflation, or maybe like 5% and 6% inflation or something on just general consumer
goods and groceries and stuff here in the United States. That's going to be bad for Republicans
in the midterms. It's going to be bad for Trump politically. He's going to become a lame
duck. So they should have been listening to us actually instead of the plan trusters,
even though Trump has a kind of basic agreeableness about him,
which maybe makes him more susceptible to this kind of fawning attention that he gets from these
kinds of people who have their own aims, right? And I totally agree. It's a little difficult to
say whether Trump is delusional or lying or executing a kind of madman strategy,
as you suggested. And I don't know the answer to that question. I suspect that he doesn't
really have a kind of inner life. And he just says what he thinks is necessary for his
like immediate political interests. And that often involves him bragging about what he's achieved.
His book, The Art of the Deal was influenced by the power of positive thinking, the self-help
classic. And that's why he's always kind of exaggerating his achievements and saying,
everything's great. Everything is ahead of schedule under budget. So that's not
surprised that he's saying that, but then he has to meet the basic reality that
the straight-up form is closed. Iran is still firing ballistic missiles. They just
had a base in Saudi Arabia and wounded supposedly 12 to 15 soldiers. I have questions about whether
the casualty figures we're getting are accurate, but you supposedly at least 12 to 15 and some
of those are severely wounded. Okay, that's not something that Trump can just wish cast or
be us his way out of. This is an actual political problem, geopolitical problem. Iran has 92
million people. They have a serious military. They are in middle power. We are at war with
them. Trump can't just be golfing and then talking about how everything is going
swimmingly. We need actual strategic thinking. One thing that makes me somewhat hopeful,
there's a little ray of hope. I do think he's getting basically good advice from the
chairman of the Joint Jesus Staff, Dan Cain, top military officer. So that's good. It seems
like- Yeah, who tried to tell him in the beginning.
Yeah. Yeah. He was warning and you know, it sounds like he was actually quite
pressioned. You know, they can close the Strait of Formuse and then Trump said,
well, they probably won't. They haven't done that before and if they do, our military will
take care of it. He was saying they could ignite a regional war, which they had
threatened to do. You can go read the American conservative before the war.
We were saying Iran's strategic calculus has changed. They're not going to do this
choreographed tit for tat exchange that Trump likes to do. They're going to try to hit
back hard, impose costs, make sure this never happens again because they don't want
to get bombed every six months. I think Dan Cain was telling Trump that kind of thing.
So hopefully now Trump sees Dan Cain as having been vindicated and will listen to
him more, but who knows? We don't know what's going on behind the scenes and it seems
like it's a pretty small circle of decision makers.
Yeah. And of course, what we'd like to say to him is,
so how do you like your brand new friends now? Remember the people who
repeatedly said they would never ever vote for you, whom you're now flattering,
you know, in an over-the-top manner because they in turn are flattering you?
I wonder if you would pause to say, well, these people have gotten me into a
quagmire. Maybe they're not thinking about my best interests. I wonder if he can hear that
in his brain through the, this is the greatest president we've ever had. I would give him an A
plus as Ben Shapiro said. You know, which one of those voices is going to override the other?
I don't know. I don't know.
So far, it seems like the Mark Levin's and the Ben Shapiro's of the world are the ones
who Trump is going to listen to. I mean, just on TruthSocial over the week,
and he told people to listen to Mark Levin's segment with what's the guy's name,
Mark Thiessen, former George W. Bush speechwriter, Mark Levin sounds like a total nut. Okay? Like,
that is not the guy that Trump should be listening to. This idea that Levin was promoting in the
segment that Trump told people to listen to is that we need to send in our troops to secure
the uranium, but we don't know where the uranium is. Iran does know where it is. They might have
booby-trapped this. They could have, we're going to be within their artillery range. They
could send a ballistic missile and kill a bunch of troops all in one go. It sounds to me
like a suicide mission, right? And I really hope Trump isn't listening to these kinds of people,
but I suspect because they say things nice, because they tell all their Fox News viewers,
oh, Trump is the best president ever. This is the bravest thing. This is the most amazing
war since the Revolutionary War. I think Trump likes to hear that, and he probably will
continue to listen to them for a while, and things will continue to get worse, I think.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you've heard it said multiple times that you can't just say
they get angry at you if you say that Israel had something to do with this because
Trump is his own man. You're denying him, quote, agency. Couldn't he have made the decision? And
of course, on some level, they're right. Of course, the buck has to stop with him,
but on another level, they're just, I think they're just being deliberately dense because
I think we know about Trump's personality that despite the flattery we just heard from RFK
Jr., I do not believe that he is a big book reader. I do not believe that he could
recreate a map of the Middle East on the back of a napkin from memory. I don't believe that.
I think that's just made up to appease him. I think to the contrary, he is very impressed by,
well, there are a number of things that impress him, but if you're the last person
to talk to him about something and you're really, really passionate about it,
that does have an impact. I mean, I've given the example of Vivek telling him,
you don't want, these people are very unhappy about the prospect of central bank digital currencies.
Trump had never heard of this before. The next day, he comes out at a rally and says,
we're never going to have a central bank digital currency. Everybody cheers and he's
shocked at this and he says, wow, you guys are all really smart because he basically just
heard about this. But one person talking to him for five minutes was all he needed.
So I think it's a bit much for us to reject the idea that Israel might have influenced him
because after all, he is his own man. Yeah, on some things he might be.
On that ballroom, he's going to do what he wants. But on something like this,
there are a lot of ways you can probably pressure him, I would think.
Yeah. I mean, I think it's undeniable that Israel is part of the story. If you're talking
about the Trump administration's decision to go to war, you have to talk about Israel.
I mean, for one, we're waging this war in concert with Israel, right?
Two, the New York Times, other newspapers, basically all of the major newspapers have
reported that Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister and other Israeli officials were
going to the White House, talking to White House officials, talking to Trump constantly,
pushing for this war. I was reporting last year on the negotiations. I think the negotiations
that led up to the 12-day war were for the most part sincere and the White House and Trump
really wanted to make a deal with Iran to get some kind of nuclear deal.
But every time they made an actual diplomatic gesture that was concessive,
and it was necessary to have some concession to get Iran to agree to the deal,
the Israel lobby freaked out. The foundation for defensive democracies freaked out.
Mark Levin freaked out. They were relentless. Bibi was relentless behind the scenes and
pushing for war. That's definitely part of the story. And the way that I put it is,
you know, Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing for a war with Iran for decades,
a U.S. war. He admits as much. He couldn't get a president to go along with this idea
until Trump. So both sides of the story are there. Israel is necessary. If you remove the Israeli
component, I don't think we do have this war. But also Trump is there because other presidents
didn't do this. George W. Bush didn't. Maybe he would have if the Iraq war had gone better.
But actually, Israel at the time wanted him to hit Iran instead of Iraq. At least the
Prime Minister Sharon did. And they went with Iraq instead. Obama didn't do this.
Biden didn't do it. Trump didn't do it on his first term. But in his second term,
he gave Netanyahu what he wished for. A lot of that has to do with Israeli pressure.
But some of it does have to do with Trump's militarist mood that he's in in his second term.
Well, it wasn't just Obama and Biden who didn't do it. Of course, George W. Bush didn't
either, even though there was a lot of talk then about possibly hitting Iran.
And what convinced him, it seems, was the, I guess the conflation of two things. There was
intelligence reports saying we don't really have any evidence that they're doing this in
terms of nuclear weapons. And then the other thing was it's always been the military side of things,
not the ideological geopolitical side, but the military side of things that has said
it's not obvious that there's a clear path to victory here. And that seems to have been
enough to hold him off, but not quite enough for Trump. And again, we can sit here fruitlessly
speculating as to what exactly went on behind closed doors. But I think what I want to do is
ask you something that I asked John Hoffman last week, which is we hear a lot from critics that
some policymakers, let's say in the United States, sometimes conflate Israeli interests with
the United States interests and say that virtually all the time our interests are aligned.
Is that the case? Now, that's way too easy of a question. And if it's not the case,
how would you describe Israeli interests vis-a-vis American interests? And where do they diverge?
Well, first I'll say I do think that American and Israeli interests vis-a-vis Iran significantly
diverge. That's what Trina Parse had the Quincy Institute told me last week,
which I quoted in a column that I wrote that I referred to earlier. And that's my
impression as well. And the way that I would express the divergence is this. The U.S., I do think,
has an interest in making sure Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. I don't want nuclear proliferation
in the Middle East. But in my view, it's quite clear that we could have at least,
I don't know if we still can, but we could have achieved that interest diplomatically, right?
I supported the Obama-Iran nuclear deal. I know a lot of conservatives feel uncomfortable
with expressing support for that agreement, but Pat Buchanan, the co-founder of our magazine,
he was very supportive of it. He was going on these conservative news channels,
including Sean Hannity's show on Fox News, and calling it the singular achievement of the Obama
presidency and foreign policy. He loved that deal. He advised Trump, through his columns,
I mean, not to exit that deal, which Trump did withdraw from in 2018. But it seemed like Iran
was willing to talk to Trump in this term. The negotiations I thought were going pretty
well until we decided no enrichment. That's a new demand that, what's his name? Mike Walts,
the then National Security Advisor, announced almost exactly a year ago on Face the Nation.
He said we were going to have full dismantlement of Iran's nuclear program.
Now that shows you that it was Israeli interest that we're predominating,
because Israel knows that Iran is not going to accept such a deal, because Iran feels that
they have a right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes under the non-proliferation
treaty to which they are a signatory. So that was a signal that Israel was starting to get what it
wanted when we made that new demand that all the experts were saying Iran would simply not accept.
Israel was also pushing for us to want ballistic missiles to be part of an agreement.
Why? Because Israel knows that Iran is not going to give up their ballistic missiles
or any other other conventional weaponry that they need to deter Israel from attacking.
So Israel wanted to put range restrictions on their missiles so that Iran can't hit Israel,
but that's the non-starter. Why would Iran agree to that? We'd totally nuts to expect a state to
do that, especially given the belligerence that Israel and America have showed toward Iran for
decades. So Israel's interest is to get regional hegemony in the Middle East, and Iran is basically
the last big final boss. I mean, they're starting to talk about Turkey now, so I guess
it's not the final boss. There's going to be a sequel to this quest for regional hegemony,
but they're a main obstacle to Israel's desire to have freedom of action in the Middle East.
That's what they want. They would probably in some ideal world prefer regime change,
like install the deposed crown prince or whatever the Shah's son, but they know that's not going to
happen. He's not going to have the legitimacy or credibility to actually govern that country,
especially if the US and Israel install him. So I think they just want regime collapse,
state collapse. They want chaos in Iran. They would be fine with that.
That's what their goal is, and that's not in our interest. We don't want to do that
because that's going to be bad for our Gulf partners, which honestly, if this war continues,
those Gulf states might end up being depopulated in a worst case scenario. If we're seeing
targeting of desalination plans that they rely on for their water, we might see a very different
Persian Gulf going forward because those states really rely on a sense of security so that business
people can go there, a kind of haven safe haven in the Middle East. I don't think that
that's going to exist anymore predictably because of this war. We also don't want to
generate refugee crises that are going to affect Europe. And just generally,
we don't want as crazy chaos in this extremely important region in the world for the global economy.
So those are the differences of interest. And I do agree that some people
in the US foreign policy blob, is it somehow sometimes called,
they don't really recognize a distinction between US and Israeli interests. I just
tweeted the other day, Mark Dubowitz, he's the head of the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies. I think he's the head. He's associated with that very
hawkish think tank. He's a longtime Iran hawk. He went on Ross Doubt That's New York Times podcast
and there was an interesting moment kind of midway through, I believe, where he said
something about how our Gulf Arab neighbors, and I thought those aren't our neighbors. I mean,
Dubowitz is an American citizen, I believe. I think he was in Canada for a while. I'm pretty
sure he's a US citizen now. In any case, he's not an Israeli citizen. They're not our neighbors.
We are not the same country as Israel. And these people seem to have difficulty
remembering this, which is deeply disturbing. After Trump bombed Iran, he told the day they
call her that he did so for Israel. I mean, one of the interesting things about Trump is his
candor, but he just straight upset it. Right. And I think he thought, oh, they'll be happy
because I did this for them. And it didn't even occur to him that he's not supposed to say
that out loud. This was just as much to save Los Angeles and Boston as it was. Okay.
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Yeah, totally. I mean, oh, and incidentally, on your point, I've said this a couple of times,
but I think it bears repeating over and over again. The Tucker Carlson interview with Mike
Huckabee, Huckabee is sitting there listing all the problems in the world that would go away
if this Iranian regime were replaced. And one of them was we wouldn't have this problem
on the border with Lebanon. And Tucker wouldn't let him go any further. And he said,
what problem on the border with Lebanon? I'm not having a problem on the border with Lebanon.
I live in Maine. So again, what does he mean by the problem we're having on the border
with Lebanon? Who's we in this? I mean, we know the answer, but there it is.
Yeah, I mean, Mike Huckabee is one of the worst defenders. And by the way,
he's not Jewish. He's a Christian Zionist. A lot of people feel it's inappropriate or
something to talk about the subject. I reject that totally. A lot of people that I know who
are Jewish in the left-right restraint coalition here in D.C. that I'm part of,
they're very critical of Israel right now. They're very critical of this Iran war. I can mention
Stephen Wertheim, Matt Duss, right? You said you talked to John Hoffman last week. I believe
he's Jewish. I could be mistaken about that. If he is, I didn't know that. Okay.
I mean, that's, I think he's blind to all these things.
Right. And it just doesn't make sense to shy away from this, of course.
The Israel lobby and Israeli officials are going to accuse people of being anti-Semitic, right?
They do that. That's a tool that they use to shut down debate. It doesn't make sense,
because Christian Zionists are a big part of the Israel lobby, right? They're not Jewish.
And a lot of Jewish people are opposed to US militarism in the Middle East that ostensibly
benefits Israel or is supposed to benefit Israel. I think we should also know as
kind of an aside. I'm not sure this is even good for Israel's long-term interests,
although that's not what I prioritize. I prioritize American interests.
No, but I could certainly see making a good case that it's not.
Yeah, totally. I mean, especially when you consider that, you know,
it's Israel is basically experiencing a crisis and global public opinion and even America
and other Western nations are turning against it. Young people especially are turning against
Israel. We're likely heading for a situation where Israel loses the support of its erstwhile
superpower patron in a moment when they have pissed off all of their neighbors.
They haven't actually solved the strategic issues that have been concerning to them.
Iran, I assume, will still be there. It's a country of 92 million people.
They're going to be at pariah on the global stage. I actually think we're heading
towards some situation where Israel realizes, oh, regional hegemony is basically impossible
for us without the support of the US. And I don't think that support is going to last
for the rest of my lifetime, maybe not even for the next decade or so.
Yeah. I think you're actually going to start seeing the Israel question come up in politics,
because it had been one of these things that was so bipartisan that didn't even raise it.
So it was like the Federal Reserve before Ron Paul, who would even bring that up.
But now it's not so clear that you can really get away with that.
Now, Gavin Newsom obviously tried testing the waters. Oh, it's an apartheid regime
or something. And then immediately it was, oh, I should never have said that.
It's a wonderful place. He reveres Israel now.
That didn't take long. But the Democrats have been able to keep that wing of their party quiet
by basically telling them, where else are you going to go?
I mean, it's what the Republicans do. Where else are you going to go?
But I don't know. I think you're going to see on the debate stage for both parties
alternative views on this. Because really, any patriot, no matter what your opinion of Israel is,
has to be insulted by the way this small country treats our country and the
impossibility of having rational discussions about it because the word anti-Semite is thrown
around the way Jesse Jackson threw around racist. And they don't even see that.
How embarrassing it is that they're reduced to that. Make an argument.
Okay, I got it. You've called me a name and I'm the worst person in the world. Got it.
Now that we've established that, can we please have an argument?
Yeah, I think in the next elections, we're going to be learning how severe our democratic deficit
actually is in the United States. Most Americans sympathize more with the Palestinians
than with Israelis. Even the Republican Party, 50% of Republicans under the age of 50,
have an unfavorable view of Israel. And the Democratic Party, Democrats have totally
turned against Israel. So it's amazing that this geriatric political establishment, and I guess
including even non-geriatric figures like Gavin Newsom, still can't make the switch and be critical
of Israel and say, this is not in our interest because that would certainly reflect the voters'
wishes in the Democratic Party. And so far, we haven't really had an option.
Like, we haven't had anyone we could vote for to put an end to this so-called special
relationship. But clearly, public opinion has changed so much. During the Iraq war,
you never really heard from mainstream sources that Israel was involved in pushing for that war.
Papua Cannon was arguing it, but he was marginalized for arguing that point. But if you look back at
the way that that war unfolded, it's clear that it was basically the same story as what we're
seeing now, maybe a little less overt. Everyone says Ariel Sharon was opposed to the Iraq war.
That's deeply misleading. He expressed some uncertainty about whether it was a good
idea. He said we should hit Iran instead of Iraq, but he changed his tune pretty quickly.
And Israel was definitely pushing this narrative that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons.
They were the main thread. We needed to go war with them. The U.S. should take them out and then
hit Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu, he's called a private citizen. People say, oh, he was a private
citizen when he testified before Congress in favor of the Iraq war. That's very misleading.
He had just been the prime minister. He was actually, I believe, the finance minister at
the time that the Iraq war began in late 2002 and early 2003. He was the foreign minister.
And even during this break when he wasn't technically in a position in government,
he was Sharon's main rival in the Likud Party, and he was ubiquitous on American television
promoting the war in Iraq. And Neocons here in America had deep ties to Benjamin Netanyahu.
They had served as his political advisors, and they agreed with him that we should go
after Iraq. So it was the same story then. The difference is now you hear people talking
about it. Now Americans have woken up to this reality, and we'll see if our politicians have
also woken up. I mean, in some level they already have always known this, but we'll see if they
start reflecting the will of the voters. One more thing. What do you mean when you say that
you've expressed concern about an erosion of the so-called nuclear taboo? Where are you seeing
that? I'm seeing that in Trump. I'm deeply concerned about nuclear weapons use.
During the Cold War, we were kind of saved by mutually assured destruction where both the Soviet
Union and the United States figured out, oh, we can't really nuke the other state because then
we'll be nuked in turn. And then a lot of game theory and political science developed out of that.
And all of the strategic planners in both the USSR and the United States had that as a
precept, like as an axiom of this Cold War environment that actually nuclear weapons use,
no one's going to win that war so we can't do it. This Iran situation is different because Iran
doesn't have nuclear weapons. No one thinks that if we nuke Iran that Russia or China are going
to nuke us in turn. So mad, mutually assured destruction doesn't apply. So we're kind of
reliant on the nuclear taboo, which is a political science concept, which says that one
reason we haven't seen nuclear weapons used since in Japan and World War II is that it's
just taboo. When state planners think of the option of using nuclear weapons, it feels a little
gross to them. They don't want to do it. It seems like something you're not supposed to do. It's
not part of the script of international politics. It's something kind of forbidden
for kind of deep moral reasons in the conduct of military operations.
Trump in the past has asked reportedly, oh, we have all these nuclear weapons.
Why can't we use them exactly? So I think he might be willing to use them.
And if you look at the rhetoric from him and Hexeth, the only thing they can say that's consistent
seemingly is that they're obliterating Iran. That's the word that we keep on hearing, obliterate.
Hexeth says he's going to reign death from the skies. He seems to think that ideas just
to kill as many Iranians as possible. So I think that there's a fair chance. I'm not going
to say it's probable. I just think the chances are higher than at any point during the Russia
Ukraine war, for example. And a lot of people were worried about nuclear weapons used there.
I think there's a chance that Trump feels stuck. He doesn't know what to do. Sheldon Adelson, who was
a mega donor for Trump. He's passed away a few years ago. He once suggested, proposed, that the
United States drop a nuclear weapon as a kind of demonstration in the desert in Iran to show
the Iranian government that we mean business. His widow, Miriam Adelson, is a top Trump donor
and Trump whisperer. Is she saying the same things to Trump? I think there's a fair
chance she might be. Another possibility is that Israel resorts to nuclear weapons just out of
desperation. It's a small country. As I mentioned earlier, there's clearly problems in the air
defense. If Iran continues to retain the ability to hit Israel with its ballistic missiles,
including hitting Demona, which is the city where the nuclear research facility of Israel is
located, I think Israel, if ballistic missiles are raining down on it, might resort to
nuclear weapons as well. I don't know about the status of the nuclear taboo within
Israeli strategic circles, but I am concerned that Trump himself has not internalized it.
We keep hearing Trump saying that he expects this to wind down soon, and then, of course,
what we hear is, well, the Iranians might have a thing or two to say about that.
It's to the point now where you've, like everybody has to some degree mocked the
the Monday morning settling the market's comments, but this Monday morning,
selling the market's comments was not very settling to the markets. But on the other hand,
it's like the markets have already more or less priced in a general uncertainty.
The tariff stuff would get spikes up and down in the markets, because that would have an
immediate economic effect. But these statements about how the war is going and what's likely
to happen at this point, it's like the market realizes, all right, well, this guy's talking
out of his, you know where. And so we just have to kind of make our way based on
what we can piece together. But it's we're not going to make crazy
jumps up and down based on these statements. Yeah, totally. I mean, a lot of people have
been saying it seems like political commentators understand the dynamics of this war a bit
better than traders and oil buyers and people who affect the oil price directly,
because the markets didn't seem to be reflecting what the price should be based on the pessimism of
geopolitical analysts that the war could be wrapped up soon. I think we're starting to see
now exactly what you say. I mean, the price I think went up to 116 early this morning. I
haven't checked it since previously Trump statements had been able to calm the markets.
And we should also note the oil market's kind of difficult to predict the price action on
a day-to-day basis because it's based on a futures contract, I believe, like what will the price be
in a week? And so there's a lot of speculation that's going on and a lot of people are responding to
not what they think will be the case for the war, but what they imagine other people
involved in the market think will be. But now I think it's clear that this is a bona fide
serious energy crisis. Other countries are already pursuing or thinking of pursuing like
rationing measures and stuff like that to make sure they don't have to use energy.
And this is going to hit us. And we are a very oil intensive economy. So if you hear people say,
oh, we've attained energy independence. So this actually doesn't matter. That's not how it works.
The oil price is set based on these global benchmarks in America compared to China, for example,
is much more oil intensive. We don't have as many electric vehicles. China has been electrifying
their economy and their transportation system much more than we have. So actually,
when the price goes up, the expectation among people, economists who actually know what
they're talking about is that this is going to affect America's economy more than China's economy.
And so people like Mark Dubowitz are saying, oh, the price of one only went up 50 cents a
gallon back when that was the case. I think it's higher now. And if your car gets 28 miles
per gallon or whatever, that's not a big deal. He's not considering 18 wheelers run on diesel.
Diesel is extremely expensive now relative to what it was just a month ago. That's
what's delivering your groceries and your consumer products. So the price of
everything is going to go up as a result of this energy crisis. And there's a fair chance that
America has impacted worse than China. So I'd like to end with a note of hope.
You gave us a note of hope earlier, but nobody knows me by the time this comes out in however
many hours or whatever. Who knows where we'll even be? The only note of hope I can think
of is that at least a lot of good it's done us, but there are skeptical voices on the right. Not
skeptical. Not just skeptical is lame. At this point, being a skeptic is not really enough. You
have to be an outright opponent. And I do see a lot of people with big audiences saying,
this is a bad idea. And unfortunately, there are still a huge number of minds that are made
up on the basis of watching Fox News. And my friend Bob Murphy said the other day,
he said, I've been I've been listening to and he listened. He listed some non-interventionists.
And he says, and as a result, nothing in the news surprises me. He says, whereas if all I listened
to were Ben Shapiro and Fox News, the world would be incomprehensible to me. Nothing would
make sense. And so I don't know. I don't know how to wrap this up. I really don't. I mean,
I want something, I want this to come to an end, but I can completely understand why Iran's position
would have to be, you don't get to come in here and bomb us every six months because you think
we have too many missiles of a certain kind. And I'm not even talking nuclear. That's got
to stop. I don't know. I don't know what happens. Yeah. I mean, I'm not optimistic about the geopolitical
situation. I think the second order effects of this war are going to be disastrous for America's
military power relative to China, for example. I do think there is some room for optimism as far
as domestic politics because I'm quite sure. I mean, I hesitate to make strong predictions.
I was predicting very strongly that Trump would go to war, you know, on Israel's
behalf, basically against Iran. I'm a little bit more hesitant to make predictions about how the war
will go because there's just too many factors and we don't know exactly, you know, what Iran's
capabilities are, what their strategic thinking is or what Trump's strategic thinking is. So
the fog of war element and the way things are moving so fast makes things hard to predict.
But I feel quite sure that six months from now, a year from now, people like you and me and
Joe Kent who resigned from his top counterterrorism position and Tucker Carlson and other people
who are opposing the Iran war will be vindicated, right? People will see pretty clearly, okay,
those are the guys who actually made sense, whereas Ben Shapiro, there are just too many
clips that you can pull up and show people he was totally wrong, right? He was saying that
there's no way that Israel is going to drag America into war. I can 100% assure you Trump's
not going to bomb Iran. And then he was saying before this war, oh, America should go bomb
Iran and don't worry about the Strait of Hormuz. We could take out their military in three
minutes flat. These are direct quotes from Ben Shapiro that have clearly proven that he
either doesn't know what he's talking about or he doesn't actually care about how this
affects America because he just wants to take out Iran.
Well, on that note, what's a website for people to follow you?
So you mentioned my my ex-account. So that's at AK Day 89. I also write a weekly column.
Sometimes I write two columns a week at the American Conservative. I write for
print issue as well. So you can just go to the American Conservative webpage. You'll see my name
on the masthead if you want to read my writings there.
And it's theamericanconservative.com. And as people know, since I have a print newsletter
at supportinglisteners.com, I very much believe in print in this age of a God forsaken
screen every time you turn around. I like the idea of sitting in my recliner holding
something physical and reading it. So while you're over there, of course,
read Andrew's columns. But what is it? One dinner out, not even that, to subscribe,
to get the print edition? Get the print edition. Be retro. Those were better days.
And one of the reasons was that we held reading material in our hands, Doug, on it.
Well, Andrew Day, thanks so much for your time. And I hope people do check out
the American Conservative. Thanks so much for having me.
And thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
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