314: Middle East Redux with Professor Vali Nasr

Hello and welcome to Politics War Room with James Carville, and I'm Al Hunt. This week our guest is Vali Nasr, former dean of Johns Hopkins SAIS School of Foreign Relations, author of Iran's Grand Strategy, an expert on Iran, former special advisor to the late Richard Holbrook. Now remember, we love taking your questions, so write to politicswarroom@gmail.com or send a tweet to @Politicon for next week's show. Now we'll get to as many as we can, but don't forget to tell us where you're from. Now you also can get text updates about what's next for Politicon and Politics War Room by signing up at politicon.com. So tell your friends about us, remind them to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please check out the links to our sponsors, Royal Trust and Will, Quince, and Naked Wines in our show notes. We thank you for supporting these sponsors. It helps make this podcast happen. James, uh, this was supposed to be last weekend, a big weekend for Donald Trump, military parade celebrating his birthday and underscoring that the Democrats, as so many columnists and commentators write, are down, dispirited, and in disarray. I think it turned out the other way. I don't think that the parade was a bomb, but it wasn't the kind of lift that he was looking for. The soldiers didn't seem particularly excited. It was good to celebrate the Army, nothing wrong with it. But on the other hand, the counter-demonstrations, protests, were just remarkable. There was anywhere, depending on estimates, from 2 million to 5 million And they were in states all over the country, red and blue. They were in small towns, they were in urban communities. They were almost all peaceful, and they were demonstrating against Donald Trump. I had people tell me they were living in a town of 4,000 people and 2,000 turned out. They didn't even expect it. And I would just say a couple of things. Number one, I think the easy narrative is The Democrats, the pitiful Democrats, they've lost a terrible election they shouldn't have lost. They're dispirited, they're in disarray. There's no energy.

Well, guess what?

There is energy. Not only was that shown last weekend, they're winning elections, James. Wherever they hold elections, they're winning. You know, Wisconsin, Omaha, and our friend Jim Gerstein says if you look at every special election that's been held this year, Democrats are running double, by more than double digits ahead of where they were last time. So I don't think Democrats are in as bad a shape as the conventional wisdom.

Okay, I wanna point to some, I think, recent and really compelling evidence, but I wanna address the parade for a second. I've seen a lot of people say that the troops didn't look enthusiastic, they were not marching with precision. Generally, something of that length The CO will issue a command to what they call, I think, route step, which is somewhat of a formation, but it's not like you're really marching in formation. If you're going on a long maneuver, you don't stay, you know, hut, two, hut, two, three, four. You just try to keep the ranks somewhat tight. I suspect that was what was going on. And what I don't know if they snapped to as they passed a review and said, I guess they would've, but I wouldn't make too much out of what appeared to be relatively undisciplined troops. I'm almost sure they were under a different command or something different.

Yeah, I agree.

We want to talk about Democratic, and I saw in The Atlantic, who's usually a bright guy, I think his name is David Graham, This has become the coin. This is how you show that you're smart is you'd say there's no way out for Democrats. They have no enthusiasm, they have no leadership. Last night in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a Democratic primary was held and it was a Democratic primary that did not include a governor's primary. So you're asked to vote in a party primary for lieutenant governor, attorney general, whatever. In 2021, the turnout in that primary was 200,000, early vote was 200,000. In this one, it was 400,000. There were 470,000 people that voted, which is extraordinarily high in a Democratic primary in Virginia, and particularly in a Democratic primary in Virginia where there was no headline race. It was all the undercard. So I wish, and they don't ever listen, so I'm not worried. I understand that I'm just talking to air, but I wish this whole woe-be, the Democrats, there's no enthusiasm, there's no leadership, no one cares, they don't give a crap. Why don't you look at the election returns? And that's the last thing that 90% of political journalism doesn't want to do because an election is a definitive thing. It doesn't allow you to pontificate on your opinion. It's a number. You can compare it to other numbers and you can see where it is. And I have a giant plea to every journalist or commentator or columnist that's covering politics. Read the fucking election returns for once in your life. That's it.

Amen. Now, you know something? Election returns are a hell of a lot more important than polls. I mean, honest to God, I'd rather lose in polls and win in elections. You cited that Virginia turnout. We talked about Omaha, we talked about Wisconsin, Jim Gerstein on the other. There've only been two state Senate seats this year that have— because they're, you know, they're not— these have to be specials that switch parties, and they switched from from R to D. And you mentioned Virginia. I talked to a bunch of Virginia Democrats yesterday, realist politicians. They are positively buoyant about November. Now, if that doesn't mean something, I don't know what it means. But you're right, it's an easier story. Democrats in disarray, Democrats dispirited.

And look, there's no one, you know, I'd say this program, no one could ever accuse this program of being just homers for the Democratic Party. We have been bitterly critical, I would say, maybe as much as any semi-left-of-center podcast or broadcast that there is. But what we don't do on this show and what we'll never do is think that there is something in politics more important than people voting, because frankly, there's not.

Yeah, yeah.

It's the most important thing in politics is people, how people vote. Well, how they vote and how they vote. And I think, and we'll get into this a little bit with our just stunning guest, I don't know if we've ever had a better guest for a better time than Vali Nasr today. I think Trump, unlike the political press, Trump knows what's coming in Virginia and New Jersey. And I think this is playing into this a ramship that we see it. I mean, he hears hoofprints, I guarantee you. And he's not—

What was the movie? Wag the Tail or Wag the Dog?

Yeah, something like that. I do think that this is playing into what he's thinking. But again, another really good showing in Virginia last night in terms of— And look, maybe the enthusiasm is not for the Democratic Party. I would be very, or, you know, James, they just turn out not because they love Democrats, because they hate Trump. Well, I don't give a fuck why you turn out and vote, just so you turn out and vote.

You know, exactly. Look, we would both agree the Democrats are not without problems. The DNC is in shambles. You and Stan Greenberg are going to write a piece about some of the false perceptions of Democrats. So it's not that they're not problems, but those who say there is no energy, there's no enthusiasm, Every bit of evidence suggests to the contrary.

Asking a Democrat, are there problems in your party, are like asking an NFL player, where does it hurt? It hurts somewhere. I guarantee you that.

And it always hurts.

It always hurts. Okay?

There's no time you're not hurting. But I just think this is being, in terms of the crowds, a lot of that, that there was a lot of people that showed up. And most of these people were pretty far left, but that's great, but they're part of the coalition and it shows that there's real fricking enthusiasm out there. Real enthusiasm. Yeah.

And some of the communities that I was talking to people about, they weren't left or right or center. They were just average citizens from really pretty small towns who came out spontaneously. And it is anti-Trump.

That no king's marketing of it. Was pretty smart.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Because that's something that we can all agree on. And it's part of what he's doing. I thought it was a good route. And I thought it was good for the Supreme Court to see that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was beneficial. And I don't know who came up with that. But hats off. It was a good idea.

And someone, I think your point earlier about the marchers and not read too much into that is absolutely right. But there was a couple stories that Trump went absolutely ballistic at the Defense Secretary Hegseth because he said they weren't enthusiastic enough about me, right? It was, it was, it was my birthday, so screw the Army. I mean, we know they're suckers and losers.

You're, you're, you're a soldier, okay? You know, you have to accept a lot, lot of them have Weekends, you know, liberty or what did we call liberty? I forget what they called it. They don't want me to be able to, you know, you get a shore pass is what they would call it. And so it's Saturday. So you gotta get wherever you are. They gotta move you from what used to be Fort Bragg, which named after buffoon Confederate general. I don't know what they're trying to go back to naming it. You gotta load up on buses, you gotta go, then you gotta sit out. Then you gotta get, you know, the parade starts at 11, starts at 5 in the afternoon. You gotta get there at 1 o'clock. You gotta sit and mill around. It's fucking hot and it's June. All right, you wanna be with your girlfriend or your boyfriend or whatever friend you got, and you're having to sit there and march 3 miles for this asshole. And you don't look enthusiastic. Gee, I wonder why. I wonder what soldier has ever been enthusiastic about marching in the late June heat in Washington, D.C. What a fucking disaster.

Yeah.

James, I'm going to give you another looming disaster for Trump and the Republicans, and that's the big, beautiful bill. Now they are going to pass something because for them, failure is not an option. But whatever they pass, and it's not going to be done by July 4th, I don't think, it's going to be a travesty policy-wise and political-wise. Balloon the deficit, enrich the rich, stiff the working class. That's supposed to be the Trump— every reputable study, not just CBO, the Penn Wharton School, Yale Labs, says that there's a net loss here for the working poor. And the Senate, in trying to take a dreadful House bill, may have made it worse. They would cut more people off of Medicaid. I don't know why these people don't understand how popular Medicaid is. They would threaten the closure of rural hospitals. They would— they're trying to put out this absolute nonsense crap, if you will, that it's all about waste, fraud, and abuse. It's not. It's about taking working-class people off of Medicaid. And on taxes, these— they try to say it's just, you know, in order to keep the economy humming. The tax cuts go overwhelmingly to the very rich And that is totally, totally, I think, counterproductive, certainly politically. Great issue for Democrats next year.

Okay. So I'm not sure they're going to get it through. So I listened yesterday, which I do on the radio, to, I guess it was Fox Business Channel, and it was Larry Kudlow and United States Senator Mike Crapo. I think I'm pronouncing his name right from Idaho. I think he's the chairman of the Finance Committee. He is. You could not imagine the depth of bullshit that we were talking about. Now, we don't listen to that. Did you know that this big beautiful bill was going to have 6% growth for 10 years? It was that level of sheer stupidity, and they were all agreeing with it. And if you didn't know any better, And let me tell you, everybody's going to get a tax cut. We're not cutting anything. Everything's going to be expanded. We're going to have 6% growth. We're going to have to figure out what to do with the extra money because we're going to pile up so much money on these taxes and we have dynamic scoring. You know, what kills me is literally they have been wrong about everything Every time. And it's the same shit. You gotta listen if you can, if it's some kind of audio left of it. You have to listen to this and you go, I'm not just hitting, beating my head on the steering wheel of my Bronco saying, they can't be saying this shit again. Yeah, they're saying this shit again.

James, I'll tell you why. They don't have any option. That's all they have. Because the bill is a piece of crap. And all they can do is actually lie.

So Sidney and Sean Blumenthal and Sean Williams, two former guests on this show, have a podcast and they had Norm Ornstein, who's a— I think it's safe to say that Norm is a kind of congressional expert over the years. He didn't think they can get reconciliation. And what's going to come out the Senate is going to be worse than what came out of the House.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's going to be worse.

Deeper Medicaid cuts.

And so you're a House member. So they come to you and they say, so Johnson comes in and says, look, there's no way we can redo this and go back. We got to take the whole thing. And from 30 House members, this is significantly worse than what they already voted for. Said, wait a minute, I already walked the plank for you, Speaker. I walked the plank for the president. Now they're going to make the plank 4 feet shorter. All right? And I'm not just jumping in the ocean, I'm jumping in the shark-infested ocean. They have screwed these guys so hard that I think sometimes you see a politician and you actually at some level feel sorry for them. And that guy from Omaha, Don Bacon, he don't know whether he's coming or going. And they got him out there stuck every which kind of way you can be stuck. And you know what they're going to do? They've already raped him and they're going to rape him some more. That's just what they're going to do to you, bro.

James, Norm knows a great deal about Congress. The only reason I think something is going to pass, because I think they feel failure for them is not an option. It would be devastating.

He didn't say it wouldn't pass. He said they couldn't do it through reconciliation.

Well, they don't have any other choice because that's the only way they can avoid a filibuster in the Senate. They're dead if they have to do it some other way.

But, and, but anyway, that's pretty simple.

I know, but in any event, you know, it's gonna be, let me give you one example. There are a bunch of ads they're running here, and I suspect maybe only here to try to affect members. And, uh, they, this is Republicans and Trump, and they have on veterans and retirees and small business people saying if Congress doesn't extend these tax cuts, it's going to be devastating for us. Well, basically the option is not between extending all the tax cuts or none of the tax cuts. The Democratic position has been quite clear. They want to extend the tax cuts for those making less than $400,000 a year and not for the billionaires and the super wealthy, uh, not for the hedge fund and private equity executives. Now, you know, that would— if you take the Republican approach, it's going to increase the deficit by $4.2 trillion. Yeah, $4.2 trillion. The Democrat, they have $400,000 or less, would cut that in half. And you know what? You can argue whether that's good or bad policy. Not a single one of those retirees, veterans, or small business people would lose a cent if they went that way. It's a really duplicitous ad.

So This guy on CNN, Harry Eaton, I think I'm pronouncing his name right.

Yeah, Eaton. He's very good.

He's a pro-Adler. He's good. Yeah, he gets a little animated on TV, but I don't mind that. He was going through the numbers for the big beautiful bill, and the guy was literally gasping for air. It was, in one poll, it was 26% underwater. Another poll, it was 29% underwater. I think 23% of Republicans have an unfavorable view of it. You have to look at the segment. And I thought the guy was gonna melt down right on TV, but I've never seen anything like this. This is where this is starting. This is so, when we keep hearing this, he continues to get away with it. I don't think he's getting away with it right now. I don't think the public likes this at all. At all. But I would watch this guy's segment, you know, and he has his board and I think he's pretty good.

No, he's pretty good. And, you know, people don't know as much. When they know more about this bill, it's going to get more unpopular. First of all, there are extraneous things in there that the parliamentarian may throw out. They prohibit the states from regulating artificial intelligence. I thought this was a states' rights party, whatever you think of AI. They go and they loosen gun restrictions, which has nothing to do with reconciliation and budget. And once people know what exactly they're doing on both taxes and on Medicaid and other things, if it's 57% unpopular now, it'll be 67% then.

True.

Yeah. I mean, there's nothing but bad news coming. And they know that. And we'll get into it with the conversation with Val, but Trump knows that. To me, that's 80% of what's going on in the world right now is the walls are closing. He's in the pit and the pendulum is swinging back and forth and it don't look good.

Yeah.

His parade, lashing out at everybody. We talk about how many buffoons in this administration. Tulsi Gabbard said in March that Iran wasn't close to nuclear bombing, went nuts. Then Pete Hedgsmith has got, he's screaming at Hedgsmith because the parade was wasn't what he wanted. The guy in the Pentagon that heads Fifth listening to him talk, his nickname is the Gorilla. Boy, that ought to make you feel good.

His name is Gorilla.

Really?

Yeah. No, it's, hey, James, you know, I think you gotta cut him a little bit of slack because let me tell you something that you're forgetting. He is an old man, an old, old man. He had a birthday. You and I can talk about that. He is older than Joe Biden was in his first year. And boy, you know something? It shows more and more every week.

It's crazy. I listened to his press conference he had today and he just is so far out there. One thing about his age has not diminished his ability to lie. I'll say that in his defense. He can lie at 78 as well as he lied at 74.

Oh, that's deeply ingrained. You're never going to change that, James. All right. That's part of the DNA. Of Donald Trump. Vali Nasr, the perfect guest this week. You've written a much acclaimed book on Iran. We're talking, by the way, on Wednesday, and this is going to air Thursday morning. How do you assess the possibility that the United States, with its bunker-busting bombs, will take out— and can they take out— the entire Iranian nuclear facility buried deep in the mountain? And what would be the significance if they could?

Well, it's increasingly looking like it, because not only is the president moving more war material, aircraft carriers, ships, aircraft to the region, indicating that he's preparing for it. But he has also used a kind of an over-the-top rhetoric, which might be difficult for him to easily back down. Like, I'm demanding unconditional surrender, which actually the Iran Supreme Leader rejected today. So he hasn't left himself much room to maneuver. If you demand unconditional surrender and the Iranians say, well, we're not going to give you unconditional surrender, we're not even going to give you surrender, let alone unconditional, then you basically have to find a way to go through with it. Although it being Donald Trump, he may find a way to wiggle out of it. Now, if he were to hit the nuclear site in Fardow, I think it provides, if it goes well out, because there are different scenarios here. If it goes well, it does provide him with a political window or an argument to go to Bibi Netanyahu and say, you can now declare victory. Right? Whether true or not, you could say your goal of Fardo Natan's enrichment is gone. So you now have no reason not to accept an end to the conflict. And then try to go to the Iranians. And say, okay, you've lost Fordo. This is no longer on the table. Here's what I'm offering, a ceasefire, et cetera, et cetera. And I hope that, you know, there's a deal that he can take, he can make. It's very, very unlikely because the more likely scenario is that the Iranians will feel compelled to actually answer. And if they answer, then depending on what their answer is and what happens, then that might put Trump in a position that he has to go to the next level. And so, like, let's say if they shoot missiles at American ships, at American bases, not only the symbolism, but there's damage done to either ships or to American aircraft, or God forbid Americans are killed, then the president would have to react again, and then you might end up in an escalatory cycle. There might still be off-ramps, but it will become less and less attractive. Then at that point, the best-case scenario is that he will end up being busy with Iran for 6 months, a year, a more prolonged period of time, which is arrested for China. It impacts his domestic agenda. The worst-case scenario is that we go down a path where the US ultimately will have to put boots on the ground. I mean, not necessarily, but—

I want to get into all that in a minute. You've raised some fascinating and scary possibilities. Netanyahu talks about regime change. That's not going to happen, correct?

No.

I mean, this is again political marketing. It is unbelievable how similar this is to the Iraq scenario. Right? Yes, we did change the regime in Iraq, but we only were able to change the regime in Iraq because we actually had troops sitting in Baghdad. If you don't have troops over there, if you're not dictating the terms in the capital city, if you don't have ways in which to protect the person you put in place, you can't do that. You cannot do that from the outside. So one of two things happens. There might be a take— there might be a transition towards something better inside Iran. A different group takes over, decides that they're going to make peace with the US, negotiate on a nuclear program, stabilize this situation. That's the better scenario. The other is that, you know, they dig in, more nationalistic, hardline military people take over, and they're going to resist and fight it out. And this idea that the Iranian population are going to rise up is neither here nor there because they're not going to rise up right now, or maybe even in a month's time, because there's nothing to rise up for. There's no actual leader. There's no actual movement. Iranians are terrified right now. In fact, when Trump said, you know, they need to evacuate a city of 12 million, it basically shattered their lives. They're being bombed. They're scared. They've seen pictures of Gaza. They're afraid that regardless of what Israel says, that's what he wants to do. Escalation to them means escalation against them, not against some remote site in the desert. That's the way they see it. So they're not in a mood to be jubilant, energized, let's go out, change the government. And then on top of it, they're patriotic. I mean, the opposition to the Islamic Republic is now deeply divided. There's a lot of people who may still want, you know, it be taken out. But the way that it's being taken out is that they're being collateral damage on it. So they want the war to stop. And also they're patriotic in the sense that they're not going to welcome being invaded, being, you know, a country destroyed. So this isn't playing out in the way that Bibi's saying, just like 2003 didn't play out in the way Bibi was saying.

Well, picking up on what you said earlier, they're clearly weak and no one questions that, but they can respond. They may not have Hezbollah, but there are things they can do. You mentioned attacking American bases? I don't know, could they cut off shipping? Could they use chemical weapons? Talk about some of the asymmetrical and really dangerous responses they could take.

No, no, yes. I mean, they could impact, first of all, they could hit American targets directly. So we're not covered by an Iron Dome in Qatar or Abu Dhabi, et cetera. So, and the likelihood of one missile killing a bunch of Americans is quite high, and that's the bar. That bar is low enough or high enough, whatever you want to call it, to trigger an American response. Secondly, yes, they can go after global energy, hit oil facilities, mine the Straits of Hormuz, attack tankers, raise oil prices, fully well knowing that Trump is sensitive to that. Yes, they can do that. All of these then would solicit response from the United States, that then they have to do something afterwards. But their ultimate leverage is if the United States and if President Trump is really averse to war, is really averse to a long, costly repetition of Iraq, maybe at a larger scale, then the best leverage Iran has is to threaten Trump with that. That if you start this, you gotta go all the way and we're gonna make sure you go all the way.

And, and Vali, I remember talking to you and others who said, look, if Iran was difficult, and it was, and it was awful, which it was, Iran will be much tougher. Uh, so that's not an idle threat. I mean, they may not have the capacities they once had, but I, I'm, I'm scared to death that that Trump could get us into a lethal quagmire that'll make Iraq look like—

I agree with you because I think just because they're not a force in— they're not capable of fighting or not a force in Syria, in a foreign land far away, doesn't mean that they cannot fight on their own territory, which is a whole different ballgame. So, um, uh, they, uh, After all, you know, Iran is a much larger place with a much larger population. The capital city is two mountain ranges away from the nearest port facility. You know, all of this is there. And on top of it, the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian military, is far stronger than Saddam's army was when the US invaded it. Iraq is a flat country. The tanks could roll from Kuwait to Baghdad in record time. That's not the case in Iran. The logistics is difficult. And Iran's Revolutionary Guard is pretty adept at guerrilla warfare. That's what they've been doing for 20, 30 years, training all these militias around Iran. And then finally, you know, you can destroy this bunker in the middle of the mountain, but there is a lot of other things in Iran, like all of this stockpile of enriched uranium they already have. What's going to happen to that? Where is it actually? What will happen to the control of that if you hit this enrichment facility? The US may even feel that it needs to go in because of all these nuclear unknowns to make sure that Iran is not retaining uranium and is not capable of rebuilding its program and secretly building a bomb without anybody knowing about it.

So, so, Val, first of all, thank you. Perfect guess. Let's get a few things straight for a start. You are an Iranian national. Your ancestors are from Iran, right?

Yes, by ancestry I am, but I'm not an Iranian national.

I'm saying you're a US citizen just like I am. We all—

My family left at the time of the revolution.

But you know, you have a PhD, right? So let's have a conversation that even Ted Cruz can understand. So let's dumb this goddamn thing down as quickly as we can.

Okay?

All right. To clip him on Tucker Carlson was one of the most amazing things. And I listen to Fox a lot, and they're saying, they're making it like Iran is Iraq. As I understand it, they're two very, very, very different countries in very, very different ways. Take us through the population of Iran, the number of books that are published, college, the whole kind of thing. Tell people exactly who we fool and what over.

Right. I mean, first of all, in terms of just the basics, the geography, the size. So Iran is 2, 3 times, 4 times larger than Iraq in terms of just the mass size of the country. The capital city is 2 mountain ranges and, you know, 2,000 miles from the closest port facility. The population is about 92 million as compared to Iraq, which was 45 million when we— was much less than that actually, now it's about 40 million— when we invaded it. And then it's a much more sophisticated country. I mean, the rate of literacy is 90% in Iran. It has a very— I mean, after all, you know, these missiles we're looking at, unlike other countries, they're not buying these. They're actually making it. This nuclear program they have, which really worries us, they build it from scratch on their own. They have great engineers, they have great capability. Even their military, yes, it's lost its control in Lebanon and Syria, but for over 2 decades, It was able to manage a kind of warfare in the Arab world that bedeviled Israel, the United States, other Arab countries. So there is a lot of depth there. This is not— and then also they're very proud people. They've built their entire sort of revolution, revolutionary government around this idea that they need to be independent, stand their own feet. They're not going to be bullied by anybody. They are pragmatic. I don't want to say that they don't cut deals. They did cut the deal with President Obama. They saw the opportunities. There was economic pressure on them. They came to the table. They signed the deal. They did their part. But if Trump gives them absolutely no options, if it's, as I said, it's unconditional surrender and they're being bombed, their population is being bombed, and they're being humiliated, Then they may decide to fight. And, you know, if Iraq took us 500,000 people that long a time to pacify, to sit in there, this is going to demand orders of magnitude larger than Iraq in terms of geography, logistics, population to be able to occupy a country and dictate the next phase for it.

So I did some basic math, Prof. Iran's 92 million people. Iraq is 42 million. But when you take the Kurds away, because that's a little bit of a different breed, 35 million compared to 92 million and are much more sophisticated and populated. This is something that I do know something about, and that's evacuating places. And Fox is taking Trump's, you know, saying they need to evacuate Tehran. Okay, that's 14 million people. You know how you evacuate a city of 14 million people? You don't. You can't. You can't come close to it. But just so you know, Prof, that's the kind of shit that's being circulated around right now.

Yeah, no, it is. And at the same time as they're saying that, they're also hitting various parts of the city. They're hacking the banking system. All of it is actually to sort of create terror among the population. To make Iran ungovernable so that these guys would succumb to pressure and give in. But at the same time, James, yes, you're right. They can't get out of the city. They're already like lines yesterday were about 10 hours for traffic to get out. Cities run out of fuel because also refineries have been hit. And ultimately it's putting the population in a fighting mood. In other words, this is not ingratiating Israel or the United States to the population to expect them to go out in the street and now demand the toppling of the government.

So, Prof, I'm going to turn it right back to Al. I hear people say, well, we'll have regime change. This will weaken the regime. And I know guys that call me all the time and, yeah, man, I might think about breaking up or getting a divorce. I said, are you sure you're going to get anything better? You better be sure what's on the other side of the fence. Is there any assurances that if we get a different regime, that it's going to be anything better than the regime we got now?

No, because you see, the times that we got better regimes or our own regime, we had troops in the capital. So when we got, we installed, MacArthur installed a better government in Tokyo, or we did it in Germany or in Baghdad or in Kabul. You had to have that kind of a presence. So how are we going to even influence who takes over? Right? The people who are right now have the power, we are hoping that they would basically decide to become more moderate. But there has to be a pathway for them to do that. They have to be able to sort of see a deal with the United States that would get them there. That no government that actually surrenders, signs a surrender treaty with the US under these conditions without any clarity of what comes next is going to survive. And so the likelihood of you getting people who will want to fight it out, people who want to rebuild the nuclear program, for Iran becoming more unmanageable is actually much more.

Al, go ahead. Thank you, Professor.

Hey, Vali, we're all speculative, and I still have doubts Trump's going to pull the trigger, but we'll see. But the Ayatollah is 86 years old. What's the likely succession right now, assuming that Iran comes out of this weakened but still viable?

Well, yes, you're right. And actually, in Iran, everything is about the succession. Even the nuclear deal before the attack was about the succession because it would decide the direction that the country is likely to go. So, I mean, it's not about only who, what individual replaces it, but what orientation or what faction of the system replaces it. People who are hardline, don't want to change, or you end up with a Gorbachev-Deng Xiaoping thing. I mean, I was recently reading on China when Mao died, there was a faction that were Maoist led by his wife. And then there was Deng Xiaoping. And for 3, 4 years, they battled it out until Deng Xiaoping won. That's likely the scenario that will happen in Iran. So I think Iranian society before this war was really primed for Iran going in a new direction. It's too educated, it's too modern, it demands freedoms. And the system was clearly antiquated for what Iranian society is. And the Iranian economy needed it. And I think the nuclear deal was the first step in the direction of starting some kind of a normalization. So now things have been telescoped because if Americans or Israelis kill him, or if he steps aside at this moment, you're going to have a much faster transition to what comes next. And then the bombing of Fordow, you know, these issues will become the deciders in a meeting of the elders or the main politicians of the Islamic Republic about who will replace them, who would be the new dispensation taking over.

Well, going to your Deng Xiaoping, Madam Mao analogy, I mean, is it sort of the Revolutionary Guards against the more pro-secular forces?

No, within the Revolutionary Guard, there are factions who believe that they need to be a more normal state, that, or within the system itself, there are people who begin that we need to begin to become more open to the world, more stable. We need to end this kind of resistance, hostility with the US. We need to move towards normalization. I think those voices are supported by the trends within Iranian society itself. And this contradiction between a regime that doesn't want to update its view of the world from the 1980s with a society that's moved past the revolution has reached the breakpoint. That's why we had the protests 2 years ago. Now the war ironically is actually silencing this because this is not the time to be fighting over, you know, these sorts of issues. But I think Iran is ready to change. Whatever happens, I hope that this war does not derail everything in a wrong direction in Iran. But I think Iran is at a moment of change that those who think that revolution is over, you have to go the path of Deng Xiaoping. Doesn't mean democracy, it means normalization of relations with the outside. It means being a normal state in that sense. I think they had momentum, definitely had momentum before the attack. I'm hoping that that would be the trend that will emerge afterwards as well.

I'm going to let James close this out, but just finally, how do you think Israel is going to come out of all this?

Well, right now it looks really good, but I mean, wars, the longer they go, who is winning at the beginning may not be who's winning at the end. I mean, when that went back to the first week of the Russia-Ukraine war, it looked like Kiev was about to fall and Russia was going to install its own government in Kiev in no time. And then look where we are now. Or Israel in the first few weeks after October 7th looked to be on its back heel. And then look at Israel today. I have a feeling that Israel is overreaching. It's fighting multiple wars. And is not bought into a way of solving its security where it has a military solution for managing problems within, with a region of 500 million people. And that is not a good recipe for it. It doesn't want to compromise on the Palestinian issue. It doesn't want to compromise on a nuclear deal. It basically believes that there's a military solution to everything. And we're obviously facilitating this kind of thinking, but this is not good for Israel. Because it's gonna reach that limit at some point and maybe very close.

So Val, I'll conclude and just first of all, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to do this. I know you're very busy, particularly at this time.

No, no, thank you.

I know I express Alan and I's deep appreciation for it. I'm kind of reminded of something Warren Buffett said. He said, the only thing people ever learn from history is people don't learn from history. And when I'm listening to The banging of the war drums, I think I'm back in 2002. Okay, this is going to be easy, greeted as liberators. All right, blah, blah, blah. And you've talked about it, but let's close on how dangerous a US-Iranian war would be in the long term. I mean, I don't think it could end very well.

No, it's very dangerous. And, you know, obviously politicians think that we're fools and they keep repeating the same sets of arguments. But I'm hoping that, you know, the media would call them on it and not just keep repeating the talking points as if we're back in 2002. I think it's going to be very dangerous because there's a lot of unknowns. We already failed in Iraq. We failed in Afghanistan. After 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan, we handed the government back to the Taliban. In Iraq, the military we built collapsed before ISIS. The country is struggling. We've spent maybe upwards of $3 trillion. That war changed American politics. It gave rise to a very different attitude which impacted us socially in many different ways. And this war will be bigger. This is a much bigger bite for us to chew and digest. As powerful as we are, We can destroy everything in front of us, but dealing with the destruction that we cause afterwards, we're not good at it, and it will consume us. And then, you know, it's going— the big winner of a big war with Iran is going to be China, just like it was the big winner of 9/11. We will have to, you know, remove our gaze from other urgent issues to deal with a war that was not necessary and the aftermath of it, which we will own.

Well, everybody listening to the show, I hope that you record this and tell your friends to listen to what Val said, because we're heading into another fucking disaster here.

Well, James, I would concur. And also I would advise them, go get Vali Nasr's book, Iran's Grand Strategy. A Political History. No one knows the subject in this country better than Vali.

Nobody.

Thank you so much. Thanks for inviting me. It was great to be with you.

Well, we're profoundly honored to have you on the show. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, and now for the outrage, James. Uh, former New Jersey, uh, Senator Robert Menendez, who was a powerful Democrat, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, started an 11-year prison sentence this week, convicted of bribery, conspiracy, and acting as a foreign government. Who brought these charges? It was Merrick Garland's Justice Department. Who prosecuted? The Democratic Justice The, excuse me, the Democratic mayor of New York City. Merrick Garland's Justice Department. Who was the Attorney General when indictments were brought against President Biden's son Hunter? The Biden Justice Department. Look, I have criticism of the former Attorney General, but he was honest, he was a straight shooter, he was too cautious. But despite the phony lawfare claims of the MAGA forces, there was an attempt at equal justice in that administration. If you wanna look for a partisan integrity-challenged Justice Department, look at what we have now with Pam Bondi, her deputy Todd Blanch, who was Trump's personal lawyer, and right-wing hitman Kash Patel. And I would just add that the two cases that were brought by the federal government against Donald Trump, the three cases, I guess, the Russian effort to help his 2016 campaign, Marco Rubio, who was on the Intelligence Committee, signed off the report saying the Russians did try to help Trump. Uh, Mueller was appointed by Trump's attorney general. And on taking classified documents to Mar-a-Lago and lying about it, his attorney general, Bill Barr, said it was a slam dunk case. And anyone who watched January 6th insurrection incited by Trump certainly thought that was an indictable offense. So let's get rid of this bullshit about lawfare.

So from outrage, I've always thought that kind of Utah Republicans were a little bit of a different breed. I mean, they were Republicans, they're very, very conservative, but just sort of knew Senator Hatch, not well, but a cordial relationship with him. I'd say the same thing for Senator Bennett.

Yeah.

Not well, but I would see him. He just seemed like a nice guy. The governor I've actually met. And they're deeply conservative, I understand that. But at some level, they always struck me as being pretty decent people, people you agree with, but people that on the one hand had culture and traditions. And as I understand it, inside the LDS Church, it's kind of like a, I don't know, a social order. And they're kind of— Mitt Romney's family was very big in the, you know, Steve Young, the quarterback, he was actually the ancestor of Brigham Young. All right? I mean, Senator Lee's father, and I think it was you that told me, was a very serious conservative, almost was pointing to swing Reagan. And no one thought he was a dishonest man. Okay? People disagree with it. And Lee was kind of thought to be, well, he didn't come out for Trump in 2016. And this guy just went and posted that there was the Marxist that did some bullshit about this slaughter, this assassination in Minnesota. And then when he knew about it, he just dug down. And now if the guy would've said, I'm rushed to judgment, I didn't have my facts. I will endeavor to be— in a sense, Tina Smith is a very capable person. The harm and the pain that this man caused is unbelievable, and the level of ongoing, continuing dishonesty is staggering, man. It's just staggering. And I'm gonna defend Utah, Utah Republicans, Utah LDS Republicans. And for the few of you that I know, I've always found you to be, if not people I agree with, people that I can admire. I have nothing, nothing but contempt for this guy. And the contempt is treble, because he knows better. He comes from a better family. He was taught better. He was educated better. He grew up with better values than this. And you know, man, whoever you are, you can make a mistake. You can jump out ahead of something. And when that happens to you, if you say, look, I just got ahead of myself, I tweeted something before I was fully informed, Okay, I could live with that shit too. What a fraud and a sorry excuse for a human being.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I would add Mitt Romney to your list too.

I didn't say Romney. I'm not sure what I meant to say. Mitt Romney was not a dishonest man.

No, no.

All right?

At all.

And if Mitt Romney would— He just wouldn't. If he told a falsehood, he would say, "Well, you know what? I made a mistake." Okay, then we can live with that too. This guy is in about something that's in Alex Jones territory.

You know, when he— I didn't vote for Trump in 2016 as a matter of principle. And then when Trump was elected, he went and he sold his soul.

And A lot of them did that. Yeah. We can list 10 that did that.

Yeah, but he's smarter than most of them.

Yes. And that's what makes his sin so much deeper and so much more profound.

Yep.

I mean, Lindsey Graham is just, he's a pliable guy, gives a shit. You know, he's gonna do what he can. And I mean, look at what Ted Cruz said about Trump. But that's Ted Cruz. You don't expect anything outta Ted Cruz. All right? You have the most minimal expectations. I actually had something that Mike Lee was something more than Lindsey Graham or Ted Cruz, but he's not. If anything, he's worse.

Yeah, yeah. I totally agree. Boy, these questions, tougher, better, sharper every week, James. Uh, Daniel in San Juan Capistrano, uh, California, pretty, pretty special place. Is there anything that Trump might do that would finally cross the line for what's left of his party's moderates?

Well, I, I Thank you. That's a good question. The entire Republican Party has so humiliated themselves and any sense of pride or dignity they had. However, I have to say that this Iran stuff has got them really split. And the kind of Bannon's and Tucker Carlson's world, They're not going along with this. And they represent, I don't say the majority of MAGA or anything else. And if you haven't watched the Tucker Carlson, Ted Cruz interview, you're just not a good citizen. You got to watch this.

And it was just amazing. It really is stunning.

I mean, stunning on so many levels. And remember, Ted Cruz is one of the smart ones. He's the one that went to Harvard or Princeton or wherever the fuck he went.

Both Princeton and Harvard.

So he's bi-ignorant in the level of ignorance that he possessed. It wasn't gotcha journalism. It's not unfair to ask a United States senator who supports a war with a country, how many people live in the country?

He had no idea.

He had no idea. That's just not, he was not sandbagged. And you got to watch his face because he knows he's going down. And just before we move on, I want to make a point. Trump knows that that bill is in deep fucking trouble. He knows the economy's in deep trouble. He knows he's fucked up with his tariffs. The reason that he left Calgary, the G7 summit, is no one wanted to make a deal with him. Didn't give a shit. And the danger is, I'm gonna say it right now, the country, the world always thought it needed the United States. It needed our strong dollar. It needed order that we brought to the trading system. It needed our products. It needed our market. There was so much about us that was attractive to the rest of the world. I think these guys are starting to figure out, you know what? We just can live our lives without these people. They're not as indispensable as they thought. And that is going to have a real adverse effect on the future of the United States. It really will. And you can see this happening in real time.

Yep. Yep. Dave, uh, from Cape Cod, Massachusetts says, what will it take for Trump to be impeached? And is that even worth the effort? Or should we just watch him flounder around for the next 3 years? Dave, I wanna make 2 points. Number 1, he has committed more unconstitutional impeachable acts in 5 months than he did in 4 years before, and those were legitimate. But you know what? It's not worth it. It's not worth it. Take him on, impeachment's not going to succeed. He will just rally his base on that. So I think this is a— I hate to say this, I think he is eminently deserving of impeachment, and I think it would be a mistake.

So Read Thomas Sowell. And so let's go 2 years from now. It's highly likely the Democrats are going to win the House. I just don't see any evidence that that's not going to happen. And the amount of crime, we're not 1/8 of the way into this. He has committed more crimes in 1/8 of his first term than anybody has committed times a factor of 50 in two terms. And if this continues, maybe people just got to make a statement. And maybe it, you know, his numbers are starting to go down. He's not going to be, I don't think he's going to be the same guy two years from today, other than he's still president. As he is today. And he cannot, he doesn't have the competence, he doesn't have the people around him, he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. He doesn't know what he's doing on trade, he doesn't know what he's doing on immigration. He certainly doesn't know what he's doing in Iran or Russia or anywhere else. It's an option we should explore. We can't do it right now because we don't have the votes, but you just can't let this level of criminality go without acknowledging that is happening to the country.

Yeah, I agree. I just, I worry about that path, but Lord knows it's deserving. Tom, and across the pond in Newcastle, UK, James says he hears that military veteran suicides are really high in this country.

Why?

Could universal healthcare help?

So it's 17.6 a day. It was. And there was a thing that was set up called a veteran suicide hotline. And it basically was, they would train people, and this is, I understand it, all right? And it would take the calls from home because you don't want to be in a crucible in the VA taking these calls. And of course, somebody could do some research on this, how many lives it saved. If you think about the life, of a veteran that they usually experience more in 3 years than most human beings experience in 3 lifetimes. You know, a lot of them come out. I mean, some come out, they're electronic technicians, they have some skills that are transferable in the real world. A lot of them don't. I mean, there's not a great demand for door-to-door machine gun salesmen out there. All right? It's just not. And part of the thing is we had VA, we have this enhanced job training. They're more likely to suffer life-debilitating injuries, spinal injuries, anything like that. And the fact that we are cutting this, and by the way, to this question, Many of them on food assistance, SNAP. Many, many of them on Medicaid. It's just one thing to say you can go to a VA hospital. Well, not everybody can do that. I mean, some of them are really great hospitals, but they're not accessible to people. So they have to depend on local healthcare to get this through that. It is staggering what's happened. It's staggering that we lose 17.6 people a day. And it's staggering that these criminal people, there's some mix of criminality, massive stupidity, and staggering nonchalance that we see. And you're right to bring this up. The number is 17.6 and take.

Boy, awful. Fred in New York City asks, who will the Ed Luce of 2075 be writing about? I also want to say thank you, Barbara in Aiken, South Carolina, who loved the Luce, the Ed Luce interview. Essentially, Fred is asking, Who are the current foreign policy advisors who will think strategically like Zbigniew Brzezinski did 40 years from now? Fred adds, "Don't tell me Stephen Miller." No chance. I guarantee you that, Fred. But that's a great laugh line. That's very hard to say. Impossible, actually. My dear friend Frank Wisner thought the only one who had the potential someday might be Jake Sullivan, who he thought did think strategically. The one thing I can assure you, Fred, There is no one in this administration who would make the top 100, maybe the top 200. So history will tell, I guess, is my cop-out answer.

Well, unfortunately, it's not a cop-out answer. It's kind of hard to predict who's going to be the next anything or another. But the question is also very timely because if you watch The role of the United States in the world gets increasingly complex, and it's going to require an increasing amount of clever strategy to somewhat maintain the position that we were in when Brzezinski was running American foreign policy. And it might be somebody that's even more capable than Brzezinski that we're going to need. And I'm not asking a lot of people, but maybe somebody's out there. I hope maybe Jake is. I hope someone is.

Yeah, I do too. You know, James, we went across the pond. We're going to now— we have kind of a New York contingent this week. Lupe in Pelham, New York says, why aren't Democrats—

It's a great book.

Yes. Why aren't Democrats taking a stronger stand against the political violence after Minnesota?

Okay. I don't know that they're not. And what is a strong— I understand, respect your question. I'm not trying to make light of it. What would you have them do that they're not doing? I mean, I agree. I don't know how. I think the strong stance is ongoing ridicule, massive ridicule of Mike Lee. Massive. And but I just, I'm at a loss because it's an incredible problem. And you see it going on and on. But you got to listen to everybody. Listen to Fox, listen to Fox Business, listen to Newsmax, listen to Mark Levin, listen to Alex Jones. You have no idea of the information, not just bubble, but the massive false information that these people believe. That is gospel. And I'm gonna tell you what happened with Mike Lee. They were told at the left, if somebody went and looked at all of the political shootings that we've had, I don't know, since 2016, "Oh, it's both parties." Yeah, you know, the guy that shot Congressman Scalise was pretty clearly a deranged guy whose politics were clearly left of center. But man, that's not, That's the exception. And of course, we have this unbelievable quest for equivalence. And so I'm sure we're going to listen to this shit that it's caused by both parties. I don't buy that at all.

James, we're going to go back to New York City. Jay notes that I, Al Hunt, referred to the Reichstag fire with my biggest fear being that Trump might declare a state of emergency in order to sideline the midterm elections. Then Al said he didn't want to appear to be a conspiracy nut, but a lot of people are obviously thinking about this scenario defensively. So I want to ask Al, what does this have to do with being a conspiracy nut? James, good question. If I had raised that in any of the 50-plus years I've been covering American politics, I would say I was a conspiracy nut. Total, way out, wacky, you know, whatever you want. Unfortunately, it's not that crazy this time. I think it's unlikely, but I think if we hit September and it looks like the Democrats are going to win big in the House and maybe take back the Senate, and that's going to pose all kinds of investigative problems and other things for Trump, I don't think you can rule out the fact that this guy who has no belief in the rule of law would try to declare some kind of a state of emergency and invoke the Insurrection Act and sideline the elections. I really, I can't believe I'm saying that, but I believe it.

Well, first of all, I think our friend asked a question in good faith, and I agree with you and I double it. If we think that we're living under anything normal, that the normal kind of rules sort of, you know, that this isn't Mitt Romney or John McCain, you know, people that think a little bit different here, First of all, it's a pack of criminals. That's pretty clear. It's really clear. The other thing is they're hideously or grossly untalented and stupid. I mean, look at how many people Bobby Kennedy, these people are killing people. You know how many people that deaths that Bobby Kennedy's gonna be responsible for? I mean, please. So I know what your question is saying. I know we long for a different time, But I'm not sure it's possible to be too extreme in what you think this administration is capable of, because I don't think you're evil enough to think of the evil shit they can think of. So I defend you to the nth degree.

Thank you, James. Mick in Los Angeles says, "Some advise that we do not blame or be condescending to MAGA supporters." but instead recognize and address their grievances to win them back. Instead, Mick is of the view that they deserve to be beaten badly at the voting booth and then told just to suck it up. What do you say, James?

Oh God, who doesn't have that instinct? All right, but a lot of people that we need to elect, a lot of people we need to reelect, have to have two things happen. Number one is they need diminished enthusiasm. On the MAGA side. And number 2, other people know MAGA people and say, "Yeah, I know that guy. He comes by. He helps me mow my lawn. If I call him, he'll bring something over." And I think the best way to deal with it, it's not the most satisfying way, but what in the end are we trying to do? We're trying to do one thing. Win elections. And a temptation that says, "I can't believe how goddamn stupid you are." Now, the people that I have no sympathy for are these corporate ass wipes that thought that Trump got in and they would have "regulatory reform," you know what that means, none. And they would get their tax cut, their expense and their inventory deductions and all this shit that their lobbyists told them to get. And yeah, if he had to say a couple bad things about immigrants, you know, we just gotta live with that. Of course, it's turned on him. And those are the ones that I don't have an iota of sympathy for. I have an iota of sympathy for somebody whose life hadn't turned out right. And the brilliant thing about MAGA is it gives you an explanation other than yourself of why your life didn't turn out the way you wanted it. And we should say to these people, We kind of understand what you were trying to say, but you were betrayed. And let's also face it, Democrats acted like these people didn't exist. They just did. And don't come back and say we acted like working class, particularly working class, non-college whites were not part of our too cool for school group. There was some real, And some real high-end people that kind of bought into that shit. And, you know, I can see it, but the best thing to do is not punch them in the mouth, but to say, you know, man, I could hear where you're coming from. You just got betrayed. And we betrayed you somewhat. And we now have learned our lesson. I think that's the best way.

Yeah, I agree. And if you want exhibit number one on the betrayal, Just take a look at that big, beautiful bill. And, you know, it is— it is right there.

Okay.

Please keep those— those questions coming in. We love them. The listener questions are a highlight. We didn't get to yours this week. We'll try to get to it next week. Thanks for listening to Politics War Room with James Carville, and I'm Al Hunt. As always, send your questions for us by email to politicswarroom@gmail.com or tweet them for next week's show @Politicon. Following this episode, we'd appreciate it if you check out the links to our sponsors, ROYO, Trust and Will, Quince, and Naked Wines in our episode show notes. We thank you for supporting them because when you do, it helps make this podcast happen. Now to keep up with us, subscribe to Politics War Room on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and check out our Substack at politicswarroom.com. James and I are constantly adding new content, so go take a look. You also can find other shows you might enjoy on the Politicon YouTube channel or when you search Politicon on your favorite sites. And remember, please rate the show with a 5-star review. We'll be back next week with another show as we continue our War Room planning.