Checks and Balance: Strike accord

This is a free episode of Checks and Balance. To listen every week, you'll need to be a subscriber for a special half price offer. Just Search Economist Podcasts now on with the show. The Economist as you approach the museum grounds, you're greeted by a mural of the Statue of Liberty. Except in this ghoul like version, her face is replaced by a skull. There's another Lady Liberty by the main entrance, this time a plaster statue with prison bars for ribs and two white doves trapped inside. Down With America is scrolled on the welcome mat as visitors cross the threshold, just in case the museum's sympathies weren't already clear. Inside are rooms filled with what was apparently American spying equipment, and the old ambassador's office is frozen in time, the photo of Jimmy Carter still on the wall. Welcome to the US Den of Espionage in Iran's capital, where for around $7 tourists can learn all about the ills of America. Until 1979, the building had another purpose. It was the US embassy in Tehran. That November, when Iranian students stormed the Embassy and took 52Americans hostage, was the low point for US Iranian relations. Now, as US forces and Iran's proxies attack each other, the two sides are in a shadow war with 270 days to go until the 2024 election. I'm John Prudhoe and this is Checks and Balance from the Economist. Each week we take one big theme, shaping American politics, and explore it in depth. Today. How close is America to being at war with Iran? A US Drone strike hit Baghdad earlier this week, killing a leader of an Iranian backed militia group. It was the latest stage of America's response to an attack on a base in Jordan where three US Troops died. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is shuttling across the Middle east striving for a diplomatic end to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. What do the hostilities with Iran mean for America's efforts to broker peace across the Middle East? With me this week to discuss America's shadow war with Iran and how it relates to the broader crisis in the Middle east are Charlotte Howard in New York and Idris Kaloon in Washington, D.C. charlotte, how are you doing? What's going on your end?

I am well. I found a box of peanut M and Ms. In my bag this morning, which felt like a win amid the broader environment of global despair. So I'll take such victories as they come. How are you Idris?

I'm good.

Placed by you or a little one?

This was placed by me and I had forgotten that they were there and then when I discovered them, it was very exciting. Though I will say that what ends up in my bag is largely out of my control. So, yes, often its contents are a mystery until I look inside.

I'm doing well. It's been a busy week, but my parents and my little brother are coming to town this weekend, so I'm preparing a feast for them as well. So I'm very excited for that.

Idris, what are you going to cook?

It's tough. My mom is a fantastic cook. She does a lot of kind of Pakistani Punjabi food, but also likes, she likes, you know, eating interesting things from different parts of the world. So I thought I would try to make some South Indian food that she hasn't had before, which I can't guarantee will be authentic, but I think she'll enjoy.

That sounds absolutely delicious. Idris. We're recording this podcast on Thursday, so there's a possibility there's news between our conversation ending and you, our listeners, hearing it. But I don't think that will affect the analysis and the reporting in this too much as one of the big things we're going to be talking about today is America's long and adversarial relationship with Iran. And to begin, we're going to listen to General Frank McKenzie. General Frank McKenzie was commander of the United States General Command from 2019 to 2022. He's now executive director of the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida. United States Central Command is better known as centcom, and the people who run it or have run it recently include many of the generals who have heard of, if you're a civilian, Norman Schwarzkopf, Tommy Franks, Lloyd Austin, David Petraeus, Jim Mattis. General McKenzie told me how his successors would have been planning and executing the strikes over the past week or so.

U.S. central Command maintains a large target deck of potential targets in Iraq and Syria and Iran and in other locations across the region for Shia militant groups that operate against us, as well as their Republican Guard Quds for force facilitators. We update these all the time and they're always at hand should we need to accept the tasking from the present to strike at them. So it's pretty easy for Central Command to refine these targets. And the key point I'd make is we look at them very hard to minimize civilian collateral damage. All kinds of things go into development of these targets. And also, as you'll understand when you're talking about potential personality targets, these people move around. So you have to constantly update them. And it is a continual process at US CENTCOM to keep these targets ready and available, should the president elect, to.

Conduct strikes and deciding which of those targets to strike, how big the American retaliation should be. When something like the killing of American soldiers happens, as it did in the base in Jordan recently, that is presumably a process that requires a lot of discussion and deliberation and calibration to get that retaliation big enough to deter future Iranian action, but not so big that you end up in a spiral of escalation. So could you talk a little bit about how that balance is struck?

No, that's a great point. And here's the key thing. The ultimate decision is typically a political decision. It's going to be made by national US Leadership on what we're going to do and what we're not going to do. And so depending on, in this case, American service members have died. So we would recommend a pretty robust series of strikes in response. That advice will be given by the commander, through the Secretary of Defense, ultimately to the national security staff over in the White House. There'll be a process of looking at these targets, talking about the aims we want, but the considerations that go into it, which is what I think you're talking about, is this. First of all, you want to send a signal that these attacks must stop. So you want something that's going to be painful to the opposition. At the same time, I, as the CENTCOM commander, was always keenly aware of the risks we take at striking targets in Iraq because it further pressurizes the already tenuous political environment in that country, puts the Prime Minister under great pressure, greater pressure than he is already, as we see now. So I was always very considered when I gave advice to consider striking targets in Iraq, and I'm sure they were in this case as well. The next thing you want to do is you want to send a strong signal. So you want your strikes to be effective. You want to go after people that are actually complicit in what happened, while at the same time, you don't want to needlessly escalate. I think in this case, we have tended to talk too much about our concern about escalation. Look, if concern about escalation is your highest priority, then you should withdraw. You should leave the region. Clearly, preventing escalation is not our highest priority, but it is certainly a consideration. And then when you look at the range of targets, you certainly consider that. Now, we have been explicit in this last round of strikes about saying we're not going to strike targets in Iran. I would disagree with that. I think it's probably appropriate for the Iranians to consider that we might strike them. I am not advocating striking targets in Iran. I simply say that if we believe, and I certainly believe, that the moral author of these attacks is Iran through the irgc, down to their proxy forces in Iraq and Syria, then it would be wrong to depressurize them by saying, hey, we're not going to strike you. We're going to strike all these other targets, but you're off the table. Again, I'm not saying we should strike Iran. I'm simply saying that Iran should be in the universe of potential targets so that it raises a little pressure on them.

I think that's in line with what Jake Sullivan, the National Security Adviser, has said. He's declined to rule out strikes on, on Iran, to leave that as an option. Could you talk a little bit more about that axis of resistance that Iran has built in the region and what sort of adversary it presents and how that differs from other kinds of adversaries that CENTCOM had to consider while you were running it?

Certainly. And I think we begin by considering what are the three primary goals of Iranian foreign policy. Number one is protection of the theocratic regiment. It's a revolutionary regime. They want to export their revolution. But we all know from the history of these revolutions the first task is to keep the revolution alive and at home. So that's their number one priority, and that's above all else. The number two and number three priorities are interchangeable. One is the destruction of the State of Israel. They've been pretty constant about that. And the third, and I think most of the reason we're talking this morning, is the ejection of the United States from the region. They've been very consistent on these three goals for years. It predates the Gaza war. During the Gaza war and after the Gaza war, they're still going to be pursuing these objectives. Now, they have chosen typically to pursue ejecting the United States and the region through attacking our force posture in Iraq and Syria, where it is available to them, near to them and is to some degree vulnerable. And they've done that through their proxy groups, Shia groups that came into life in their current form, really during the fight against ISIS 2014 and following, but since then have maintained their fealty to Iran and have been manipulated by Iran to strike us to affect government events and decisions in Iraq and also to directly affect events in Syria. So these are powerful forces. Now, they are, I would argue, pretty much at the direct Beck and Call of Iran. I know there's debate over that. And they're not as effective controlling them as they were before the death of Qasem Soleimani because he was a very effective leader. Ismail Ghani, the leader now of the IRGC Quds Force is not as effective. But nonetheless, I think these groups are largely answerable to Iran and they're the primary weapon Iran uses to pursue their goal of ejecting the United States from the region. Now, briefly, a note on two other entities that I think are important and different. The first is Lebanese Hezbollah is a patron of Iran, does not answer to Iran completely, and will make independent strategic decisions. This is important because Lebanese Hezbollah is the largest non state military entity in the world. If they chose to attack Israel or us, they would bring tens of thousands of rockets and missiles to that fight. And a powerful military capability, aided, equipped, financed by Iran, but not beholden to Iran. And the other group are the Houthis down in Yemen. They have actually chosen to come into the fight against Israel radicalized, very radicalized sect. And we know fundamental to their philosophy are two credos. Destruction of the State of Israel, destruction of the United States. We should believe them that they mean it when they say it. What they can do is close the strait of Bab El Medeb, which they have done. And that still an ongoing crisis that we probably let get too far advanced before we directed it. Like Lebanese Hezbollah, they are not completely beholden to Iran and will sort of make their own decisions in a lot of ways. Again, the Houthis and Lebanese Hezbollah are a little different from the proxy groups that operate in Iraq and Syria.

And how does confronting those groups differ? I mean, as you say, the Houthis are mounting attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. So that almost seems like more of an anti piracy operation compared with the proxy forces in Iraq. And. And then the importance of deterring Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Well, the Bab El Medeb is a national security priority for the United States. We are a maritime nation, as is the United Kingdom. We need free passage on the high seas. It's in our national security strategy. So the operation there is not related to what's going on in Gaza or anything else. Actually, it is related to keeping the Bab El Mandeb open. Because if you close the Bab El Mandeb, as you know, you close the Suez Canal. So that's a vital national security interest for the United States. I would argue that goes above and beyond any considerations involving Iran, Israel, Hamas or the Axis of Resistance. So That's a unique sort of operation. Look, we've managed to achieve some kind of deterrence against Lebanese Hezbollah. Some combination of what Israel's done or what we have done have kept them out of the main fight against Israel, which is very important because that would be a large, messy, bloody, theater level war if it occurred. The groups in Iraq and Syria, you know, we let them conduct over 150, 160 attacks before the successful attack up at Tower 22. I would argue we had not been successful in preventing them. Current operations that we've got ongoing time will tell if we're going to be successful on that. Again, I come back to points I made earlier. You shouldn't focus too much on preventing escalation because it shows weakness. And second, I think we do need to ensure that Iran and targets in Iran remain in the operational universe, if you will, as we pursue this.

And last question at centcom, what are the range of possibilities that people would be planning for now? Because it seems that we could end up in a situation where we have Iranian responses to the latest American attacks and then further American responses, or perhaps there's some more optimistic scenario. But could you give us a sense of the full range of the possibilities that CENTCOM has to plan for?

Sure. Well, I will tell you that U.S. central Command plans for everything. We plan for general war with Iran if necessary. We plan for optimistic scenarios and we plan for pessimistic scenarios. You will appreciate that planning for pessimistic scenarios is sort of where you're of planning lies because the optimistic scenarios tend to be a little easier to accommodate. But the idea of a combatant commander, and particularly at centcom, is you want to be able to give the President a range of options, recognizing that the way it works is civilian leadership is going to make the final call. You just want to make sure he has the broadest possible menu of choices to choose from as he takes a look at what he wants to do.

Charlotte, I thought it was very interesting there, listening to General McKenzie talk about how America can't prioritize avoiding escalation, that if you do that, you signal weakness and then your retaliation isn't effective, doesn't provide the necessary deterrence. But of course the flip side of that is then Iran retaliates and you end up in an escalatory spiral. Can you catch us up on what's been happening over the past couple of weeks?

Right, so we are recording this on Thursday, February 8th. It's been a very, very busy start to the year. More recently, you've had this drone attack on January 28th which killed three US service members near the border of Jordan and Syria. That follows more than 160 attacks by militias that are backed by Iran against American bases in the Middle East. And there are a few things that, in your discussion, I think are really noteworthy. One is a reminder of the extent of American troops in different pockets throughout the Middle east, from Qatar and Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, where I think many people are familiar with American troops being present, but also in Iraq, Syria. And I think the range of outcomes that the military has to plan for, that's nothing new. The military specializes in scenario planning. What I'm most struck by is how likely it is that some of the more extreme outcomes could come to pass. And I think that's what's really different about what's happened in the past few weeks. And what's become obvious in the past few weeks, where you have President Biden, when he announced the strike at facilities in Iraq and Syria, very much emphasizing that this is the beginning, not the end. The same was said by leaders within his administration, like the national Security advisor. So you have this big question of what further American action will be taken. And so, on the one hand, you have the real prospect for escalation, which, as you say, they don't want to rule out, but it does seem like it's more possible than I think, at least I would like. And then on the other hand, you have a possibility that there is some kind of deal that emerges in the Middle East. We have Anthony Blinken, the Secretary of State, who's been traveling around the Middle east with a team of journalists, including our colleague Antonio LaGuardia, who is trying to broker some kind of deal that would have Saudi Arabia recognize Israel, Israel recognized Palestine, Israeli hostages returned. And the Middle east is always prone to extremes, but the potential outcomes right now are so extreme between escalation on the one hand and a peace deal that could emerge on the other hand. I mean, it's really, really broad how extreme some of these scenarios might be.

Yeah, we'll hear from Anton on his travels with the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, in a little bit. Idris, just sticking with Iran for a bit. What is the difference between what's happening now, these multiple attacks, as Charlotte has outlined, what's the difference between that and a war? How far are America and Iran currently from being at war with each other?

I think they're still far apart. So if you look at what is happening after October 7th, a lot of Iran's proxies wanted to get in on this conflict because a lot of them have kind of the eradication of Israel and the defense of Palestine as part of their mission statement. Almost the Houthis have a slogan and it says, God is greatest. Death to America, death to Israel, Curse on the Jews and victory for Islam. That's literally their slogan. So they feel compelled to do something. But Iran is not directly entering the conflict. They are content to fight Israel to the last Palestinian, but they don't want to enter the war themselves. Even Hassan Nasrallah, who is the leader of Hezbollah in Leban, he gave this kind of teaser to a big speech in which he basically said that he wasn't going to do very much. Iran is cautious about avoiding war and I think you still see that now. But it's doing these through its proxies, these escalatory attacks that I think have the purpose of saving face. And America also is telegraphing, maybe too aggressively for some that they don't want a war with Iran. You have Republicans like Lindsey Graham, who I think has been saying for the last six months, maybe longer, that America really just needs to start bombing Iran. I think that that would be the place where you could locate the start of the war. But at the mom, I don't think that there is a kind of big Middle east conflict.

And that view within the Republican Party that America should confront Iran more directly, that for the moment is a fairly marginal view. Right. The Lindsey Graham wing of the party isn't very large.

No, it's not very large, but it's a powerful and very vocal contingent. And obviously calls to attack Iran from within America are gonna be amplified within Iran. They're gonna give credibility to the IRGC who says that we're in an all out war with America and with Israel. So they have some consequence there. But the other point is that Donald Trump, who you might think would be more prone to listen to this advice in office, he didn't really engage in confrontation with Iran. He did pull America out of the jcpoa, which was the nuclear deal, which was probably a setback to the region. But he didn't do strikes in Iran. He did kill Qasem Soleimani in Iraq. That was, could have been seen as escalatory, but even there you saw Iran back away. So I don't think that even an event like that, that could have been the crux of an open conflict, wasn't one. So I don't imagine that this war will be a conflict as well. Okay.

I'm feeling mildly reassured by that.

I'll be the doomsayer here as I eat my peanut M and Ms. And anxiety. But I think it's just not predictable that you have militias spread across the Middle east and you don't really know how this will all pan out. And the axis of resistance, which is the term used generally to refer to these Iranian backed militias, from Hamas to the Houthis to Hezbollah. They're not a new collection, Right? But a few things have changed in recent years. They have better weapons and they have better comms. They're using their social media platforms to their own end to make their case. You have the commander of Hezbollah who's on social media explaining that the war on Gaza is an American war. They can splice together different pieces of content in a way that's very effective for them. So I think you have better comms, better weapons, and you have the war on Gaza, which is a huge PR win for this group, even as it is, of course, enormously devastating for the people involved.

Okay, we'll go back to the last time America attacked Iranian territory in a moment, but first, this episode of Checks and Balance is free to listen to, but normally to join us, you'll need a subscription. We currently have a sale on for the month of February. You can join Economist Podcasts plus for half price, which is less than $2.50 or £2.50amonth. Charlotte, please will you explain all the wonderful things that people can listen to as part of a Podcasts plus subscription?

Oh, where to begin? I was not expecting to have the opportunity to talk about all the fantastic podcasts, but I am very happy to talk about our fellow podcasters because I think they do such good work. We have limited series from the Prince on Xi Jinping to Next Year in Moscow on Russian exiles and the future of Vladimir Putin's Russia. We have Boss Class, which is our brilliant colleague Andrew Palmer talking about management with CEOs who actually know how to do it. We have Drum Tower, which is really the podcast that you need to listen to on a weekly basis to understand China in a way that I don't think you can get anywhere else. I could go on and on. There's just a lot of really, really fantastic stuff that our colleagues who are reporters around the world are talking about each week. So I think you should subscribe.

Well, if that's not an endorsement, I don't know what is. If you want to listen to all of that, then go to economists, economist.com podcasts/ or just search Economist Podcasts. The ship's lookout spotted danger up ahead. Three mines, likely planted by the Iranians, blocked the path of the USS Samuel B. Roberts. As it sailed through the Gulf, the frigate changed course, but it was only a temporary reprieve. Soon after, an almighty explosion blew a hole in the USS Roberts hull and a fireball engulfed the lower decks. In trying to avoid the mines, it had hit another. Only the quick thinking of the crew, 10 of whom were injured, stopped the ship from sinking. 1988 was a hairy time in the Persian Gulf. Four years earlier the Iran Iraq war had spilled out to sea and oil tankers became targets. America had provided some support to the Iraqis and was no friend to Iran, a country which not long before had held its citizens hostage for over a year. The US Navy upped its presence in the Gulf when in 1986 Kuwait asked America to protect its tanker fleet. It was while returning from one of these missions that the USS Roberts had struck the Iranian mine. America soon hit back.

President Reagan ordered defensive action in response to the mining of USS Samuel B. Roberts. On the morning of April 18, two Iranian oil platforms, Sassan and Syri, were destroyed by naval gunfire and demolitions.

The platforms were suspected of being used as bases for Iran's attacks.

Evacuate the platform immediately. I repeat, evacuate immediately.

The US Navy had given warning and the personnel on board had evacuated. That America thought was retribution enough. But then Iran unwisely returned fire.

During the nine hour clash between US and Iranian forces, Navy ships and aircraft made successful strikes against Iranian frigates and speedboats. Navy officials say all but one missile fired was on target. Meanwhile, when the Iranians were launching missiles at US ships, sailors fired metal shaft into the air to confuse those missiles guidance system the result? All of the Iranian missiles fired missed.

The Navy sank one Iranian frigate, badly damaged another and took out a handful of other boats. Over 50 Iranians died. One American helicopter and its two man crew were lost. Still, Operation Praying Mantis, America's largest naval operation since World War II was a comprehensive victory. The U.S. navy had simply outclassed Iran's.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.

Back in Washington D.C. ronald Reagan was scheduled to address a construction union.

Before I get into my remarks, however, I have something in the nature of a bulletin that I would like to impose on you. Earlier today our Navy made a measured response to Iran's latest use of military force against US ships in international waters.

The intention, Reagan suggested, was to teach Iran a lesson.

We've taken this action to make certain the Iranians have no illusions about the cost of irresponsible behavior. We aim to deter further Iranian aggression, not provoke it. They must know that we will protect our ships, and if they threaten us, they'll pay a price. A more normal relationship with Iran is desirable, and we're prepared for it. But such a relationship is not possible so long as Iran attacks neutral ships, threatens its neighbors, supports terrorism, and refuses to end the bloody war with Iraq.

America soon stepped up its role in the Gulf, offering to escort all neutral ships. Iran reduced its attacks on oil tankers and was deterred from targeting American boats altogether. A few months later, it entered into peace talks with Iraq. It was already weary from eight years on the battlefield, and the embarrassment of its one day defeat in the Gulf didn't help. In 1988, it was not a fair fight. America's relative strength was obvious enough that it could target Iranian territory, albeit only oil platforms and warships, without much fear of retribution. It has to be more careful this time around. Iran, with its complex network of proxies and some degree of support from Russia and China, is now a trickier adversary. Idris, this tangle with Iran has been going on my entire lifetime. Is what's going on now just more of the same, or is it different in some meaningful or interesting way, do you think?

Well, I think it's different in the sense that Iran has actually scored quite a few victories in the region in the conflicts that have happened the last few years. Bashar Al Assad is still in power. He was obviously a big client of theirs as he's quashed the resistance. You see, obviously in Yemen, the Houthis are quite powerful. Hezbollah in Lebanon is doing very well, rivals the state in terms of its influence and ability. So in that sense, I think that it is different. They're in a stronger position. They have the alliance with Russia. Iran sends drones to assist in Russia's war against Ukraine. So I think in that sense it's different, but in a wider aperture. This is kind of a continuation of hostilities that has been decades in the making. So in the 1950s, Iran had a democratically elected prime minister who nationalized the oil companies there. The Americans and the British were quite upset about that. So they facilitated a coup. They deposed him. The Shah was put into place. The Shah was not a very good man. He did quite a lot of torturing and suppression of political dissent. I think that set the preconditions for the Ayatollah Khomeini, who had been in exile in Paris, to return lead the Islamic revolution, turn Iran into a theocratic state in 1979. And actually it was the fact that the Shah received cancer treatment in America that prompted the students to go and take over the embassy and trigger the hostage crisis, which was obviously the setting stone for the poor relations between America and Iran that have continued for as long as they have. So these routes go back very far. Iran's intense opposition to the establishment of the State of Israel continues and is obviously a motivator for its proxies in the region as well. So this conflict is many decades old and so that's one reason why it feel particularly intractable.

So I think all that history is hugely helpful and it's worth remembering how past attempts to reset relations have gone. There was a very brief moment after 911 where there were some interests that were aligned between Iran and the United States and dealing with the Taliban. But that was very short lived. You had George W. Bush referring to Iran as part of the axis of evil. And then you had, of course the, the biggest attempt was under Barack Obama with the JCPOA in 2015, which was an American led effort to have steps to limit Iran's nuclear program in exchange for some easing of sanctions. Trump in 2018 withdrew, he tightened sanctions on Iran. Of course, we had the description earlier of the killing of Iranian Commander Soleimani in 2020. And I think that that points to a challenge now, which is that Antony Blinken is traveling around the Middle east, as we've heard and we'll hear more about. You have the Biden administration trying to take a forceful but limited response and then you have a general election looming. And so the question is what the administration will do between now and then and how both its enemies and partners see American action potentially changing in 2025 if Biden is to be replaced by President Trump. So you saw that SW with the JCPOA between Democratic led and Republican led administration and just how dramatic the change can be in dealing with Iran. And so right now there are these very acute questions which face the region and not too far in the future. You have the big question of how America's strategy may change should Donald Trump.

Be elected and addressed. There's also this dynamic in the region whereby the worse relations get between the US and Iran, the closer the US gets to Saudi Arabia. And we can see that happening again, it seems. Yeah.

And it's also interesting because if you ponder the distinction between the two countries in terms of their attitudes towards democracy or their attitudes towards human rights, they don't look remarkably different. So why is one kind of an ally and why is one the enemy And I remember when I was an undergrad, Joe Biden, when he was vice president, came to Harvard to give a speech about foreign policy. And he got into a lot of trouble because he was a bit too candid on some point. So I remember a student got up and asked him why America was allies with countries that abused human rights. And he said, well, there's this thing called self interest. And he was remarkably candid. And then he gave an extended justification for America's alliance with Saudi Arabia, which clearly at the time, he had some issues with. He said, basically, we say things that we don't like, but ultimately we have to accept the world the way that it is. And in this case, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, a lot of the Gulf countries don't really treat their people with tremendous amounts of respect for their human rights or right to political dissent. But they're important in the region, and they're important to the presence of America, which is kind of half in and half out at the moment.

Well, how to deter Iran while simultaneously attempting to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians is one of the things on Antony Blinken's plate at the moment. We'll be back in a moment for an insight into his Middle east tour with Anton. Our colleagues who's been on the plane with him, Our diplomatic editor, Anton LaGuardia, has been traveling with America's Secretary of State this week across the Middle east as Antony Blinken tries to broke a peace between Israel and Hamas. Anton told me what these hectic diplomatic tours are like.

So traveling with him, particularly in the Middle east, is hectic because he's got to hit a lot of countries and a lot of palaces in a short amount of time. And he has a number of planes made available to him by the American Air Force. Unfortunately, these planes break down. So the first one broke down in Washington just before we left. They had to bring a backup. And the backup plane then broke down in Riyadh. And then we're flying care of the C17, sent forth from Qatar at short notice as a big American base in Qatar, that we're basically in the back of this very large metal shell, which was much more barren and spartan, but, you know, had the feel of being in the field. Interestingly, I went up to see the pilots in the cockpit and found Antony Blinken sitting in a dark corner behind the cockpit where prying eyes wouldn't be reading over his papers and people wouldn't be bothering him.

And a big aim of the trip is to try and see if there's a path or create A path towards ending the conflict in Gaza. Talking to people around Antony Blinken, what currently do people in the administration see as the best means of getting there and what's your read of how they think it's going?

So they have a view of how to get from the horror of this war in Gaza to a regional peace to ending the more than century long conflict between Arab and Jew in the Middle East. And it begins with a hostage deal as in November, to secure a pause and then the release of hostages and the release of Palestinian captives that then lead to perhaps further phases. There are different categories of prisoners that will come out under this plan. You know, women, children, the elderly, the sick. And then increasingly difficult categories, you know, men, female soldiers, male soldiers, and last, probably the remains of the dead in exchange for ever more difficult categories of Palestinian prisoners. Then that leads hope this is where it gets more speculative, is that it leads to permanent ceasefire and that in that changed environment, people can then turn their minds to the day after, as Antony Blinken calls it. And the day after for the Americans involves a four sided deal in which Israel recognizes a Palestinian state, a path to a Palestinian state. The Palestinians reform. Saudi Arabia recognizes Israel and establishes diplomatic relations. So this is the great prize for Israel and the Americans bind it all together with a set of commitments, certainly to Saudi Arabia, it looks like a defense treaty with Saudi Arabia, civilian nuclear technology for Saudi Arabia. Perhaps further, American security guarantees to Israel. And last we learned yesterday that the Arab states are thinking themselves of what security guarantees they might be able to offer Israel.

So getting to the ceasefire is extremely difficult. But let's imagine that were possible. And let's talk about the day after scenario. It's not just the Americans who are pushing this. Right. I remember that before you set off for your trip, you went to see some Saudi government officials in Washington. They're engaged in diplomacy towards a similar end as well. This idea of mutual recognition and peace treaties resulting in the creation of a Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel. You've covered this region for a really long time and written the book about it. How optimistic are you that that is within reach, even possible? That sort of deal that we're talking about in the day after scenario, all.

These deals look great on paper and they are much harder to implement. So I think one should say that the prospects of Joe Biden and Antony Blinken achieving their grand aim is not likely in the short term and may be impossible even in the long term. People have put it to me that what you really need is a change of Israeli government, a change of Palestinian government, and a second Biden term before any of this really becomes possible. However, the one thing that is giving everybody heart is the fact that the Saudis seem to be incredibly interested in doing this deal. The assumption had been that after all that's happened in the past four months, the Arabs would shy away from trying to deal with Israel. But instead it seems to have redoubled their desire to end this age old conflict which keeps causing instability, which holds back the region and which allows Iran and its proxies to exploit popular anger against Israel, to cast themselves as the real champions of the Muslim and Arab cause. And that is undermining the legitimacy of Arab rulers. So they seem to be ready to put a lot on the table, which is quite striking.

And Anton, this problem is hard enough, maybe one of the hardest problems in American foreign policy. But it's not like Antony Blinken can just concentrate on even this issue. In the Middle east, you have America's shadow war with Iran going on. There are also the Houthi rebel attacks on shipping. How linked are all of those things? And it would be nice to think that if you solved the big one, I. E. If you got to peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the other things would fall into. But is that the case? How linked are they really?

They're all connected in that the escalation around the region begins with October 7th and Israel's response to that atrocity. Iran has this notion of forward defense. It has a network of allies and proxies who do the fighting and harassing of Western forces. And I think in their view, this is a long war of attrition. We will eventually gently push Americans out. They left Afghanistan, they drew down in Iraq. We can probably push them out of Syria and Iraq eventually. And we can also demonstrate the ability to disrupt world trade not just on the Bab Al Mandab, which is off the coast of Yemen, but we're using the same techniques. They can disrupt trade across the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world's oil and gas passes. But there's a bigger problem, of course, that the Middle east crisis is only one of several global crises that the American national security establishment must deal with. They've got the war in Ukraine now about to enter its third year, and they've got an incipient and potential crisis with China over Taiwan. There are people in Washington who say you must really focus on the Pacific, not be distracted by these other things. But that's difficult because America, I think this administration has come to the conclusion that challenge to American power anywhere is a challenge everywhere.

Charlotte, what did you make of what Anton had to say about his trip with Anthony Blinken?

Well, one thing that strikes me, listening to Anton, and he explained it very well so clearly, how these problems are interconnected that you do have, of course, the situation in Gaza, the strikes that the Houthis are waging in the Red Sea, you have now increasing back and forth between Iranian backed militias and the US directly. And all of these things are connected, but all of them are distinct, to state the obvious. And you do need to have individual victories in order to make any progress. And the most important one that is very much at the heart of this is what happens in Gaza. That depends on a lot of things. But a hugely important actor is Netanyahu, and he this week rejected the potential ceasefire deal with Hamas. And it's just hard when you have so many interconnected problems. Each one is a possible point of failure. And that one of the most important decision makers and one of the most important issues is someone whose own political career is dependent on what I would view as self defeating decision making in Gaza. I mean, his supposed victory that he's trying to pursue for Israel and Gaza is hugely self defeating for Israel itself. And all of these interconnected problems will continue to be increasingly problematic unless that one individual issue can be resolved. And I find it very hard to see how it can be if Netanyahu continues on his current course.

Idris, there are so many pieces that have to fall into place at the right time in order to get to the day after peace deal that Anton was talking about there. And one of the factors here is how much the US can influence Benjamin Netanyahu. Do you think Joe Biden's done a good job of exercising what influence the American government has? Do you think the Biden administration actually hasn't made much of a difference in practice to Israel's conduct of the war and what's likely to follow.

So Biden's approach was to embrace Netanyahu in a bear hug after the horrendous attack and to say that America was behind them completely. And he's done things like use emergency authority to give artillery shells and other weapons to the Israelis and Iron Dome defense systems and all of that. But there has been increasing tension between the two. America is incre increasingly upset about the civilian death toll you've seen. If you parse the comments of Anthony Blinken carefully, you can detect that he is also quite concerned with that. But this is not yet kind of Spilling out into public hostility between the two. Like Charlotte mentioned, Netanyahu is throwing cold water on this peace deal. He has not been in favor of recognizing Palestinian statehood for a long time. That's been kind of the core of his, his recent political appeal. And so it's hard to get him to move. He suggested this week that he's preparing for the Israelis to go into Rafah, which is the city in southern Gaza where a lot of Palestinians are now congregated. And he says that he wants to achieve total victory, which I think a lot of analysts now think is kind of hard to imagine, given just the scale of the problem that he's dealing with. So it's a very tricky situation. The Saudi deal that has been put together that the Qataris and Blinken have been working on, I think would do a lot. It would exchange Saudi recognition, which is huge. As much as Iran tries to be the self appointed ambassador for the Muslim world, the fact that Saudi Arabia contains Mecca and Medina means that by virtue of that, it has always had this kind of role. And the fact that it's Sunni means that its recognition would matter quite a lot. So that would be quite a huge achievement of the Biden administration. And it would be, to give credit to the Donald Trump administration, a continuation of a process that began with the Abraham Accords as well. That would be very big. But it doesn't align with Netanyahu's immediate interest and also doesn't align necessarily with Hamas's interest, where their leaders are dug in. And they don't want to admit recognition of the state of Israel, and they don't want to admit that they're going to lose the war if they continue it. So it's very tricky and intractable.

The other thing I would say is that America's ability to guide this conflict towards some resolution is hugely important for the region itself, and then also just for America's broader standing, as Anton concluded in the interview with John, that America sees that it needs to assert its strength in this region, as in others. And the perception of China in the region, I think is kind of interesting. As a way to understand the importance of this. I was looking at a poll that was highlighted in Foreign affairs recently, but it was a poll of Tunisians, which do not represent, of course, the whole Middle east, but their opinions are broadly in line with those of others in the region and so can be seen as a bit of a bellwether. And in the polling that was done in the three weeks prior to the October 7th attacks versus the three weeks after you saw this big shift where the share of people who preferred Chinese policy, their ability to maintain regional security rose from 31% to 50% over the period after the October 7 attacks. And the share of Tunisians who preferred American policy fell precipitously over that period, too. So I think you see the ways in which these conflicts, of course, matter for those involved, for the broader control and prospects for peace within the region. But then also, I think the perception on a global scale of which superpowers are able to bring some kind of security in a given volatile situation, that's very much being put to the test. And Blinken, you see pounding the pavement this week in an attempt to show that America can do this, that America can be a leader that is able to navigate a way through extremely stormy situation. But the conclusion of whether they'll be able to succeed is still very much unclear.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. And if you take a longer view, one of the things that's so striking is that so many of the foreign policy people around Joe Biden now were also around Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton when Barack Obama was president. And their big idea in foreign policy was that the US should spend less time on the Middle east, should withdraw from the Middle east as much as it could and focus on Asia instead. And this is yet another reminder of how hard that is to do in practice. America keeps getting drawn back in to this region, which I think is just what happens when you're the superpower. You may want the Middle east to leave you alone, but it doesn't always comply. Okay, let's leave that here for now. We're going to do a hard turn for the quiz. Total change of subject. This is a quiz that's timed for the super bowl on Sunday. You can probably guess who it's about. Question one. The Economist and YouGov conduct opinion polls every week. And as part of that, we ask people about their views of a set of public figures. What percentage of American adults polled this week has a favorable view of Taylor Swift?

Mm, 89%.

No, I think it's.

I think it's lower because Trump people don't like her.

Yeah, I think it's gonna be like 50.

Oh, she's that polarizing.

It's 59%. 60%. So get you to a super majority in the Senate. Just about. I think for anything to get 60% in America is pretty remarkable. Okay, question two. What percentage of Biden? 20. 20 voters. So people who voted for Joe Biden last time around have a favorable opinion of her.

That would be much higher.

I would say. I would say 90.

I'll stick with 89. I'm just going to answer 89% for all questions, no matter what they are.

You're closer than Idris at 78%.

There's so much Taylor Swift in my household. I like her, but it's becoming unbearable. It's too much.

Do people like the same albums or do they like different eras?

It's really any Taylor Swift song.

I like the later stuff where she's more emo and has ditched her country twang.

Yeah, folklore is my favorite. In case you're interested, 46% of Trump 2020 voters have a favorable opinion of Taylor. So to me, that's surprisingly low. Anyway, question three. Two of the other public figures we asked about were Donald Trump and Taylor Swift's boyfriend, Travis Kelce, who, if you're not a Swiftie or into American football, you should know, plays for the Kansas City Chiefs. But who, according to our polling, is more popular? Is it Donald Trump or Travis Kelce?

Oh, Kelce.

It has to be Kelce.

No, it's a tie. They're both on 46%.

Huh? I will say the main cultural event in America this week is not the super bowl in my mind, but the fact that Idris is going to his first ever Broadway show.

I learned today, later this week.

Yeah, and it's a Sondheim musical, so I approve.

Idris has a very strongly anti musical Persona, so this is a real about turn that he's going to his first Broadway musical and I can't wait to hear how it goes. There's Don Taylor Swift, who of course has been all over the American media with the conspiracy theories. James Bennett's Lexington column this week is absolutely fantastic. Do, do go and read that. Well, that's it for this week. Thank you, Charlotte. Thank you, Idris.

Thank you, thank you.

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