Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - What’s at Stake in Trump’s Upcoming Gulf Summit – with Mike Singh & Nadav Eyal

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Ark Media is looking for two college summer interns – one who can support operations and another who can support product design. To apply, please follow the links below:Product: https://app.testgorilla.com/s/b1e1of2hOperations: https://app.testgorilla.com/s/7hy7zlpuWatch Call me Back on YouTube: youtube.com/@CallMeBackPodcastSubscribe to Ark Media’s new podcast ‘What’s Your Number?’: lnk.to/HJI2mXArk Media on Instagram: instagram.com/arkmediaorgTo contact us, sign up for updates, and access transcripts, visit: arkmedia.orgDan on X: x.com/dansenorDan on Instagram: instagram.com/dansenor Today’s episode:Latest reporting from Times of Israel on wildfires: https://www.timesofisrael.com/fire-authority-needs-double-the-budget-to-cope-during-mega-fires-era-official/Next week, President Trump is heading to Saudi Arabia to convene a summit with leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman. The agenda? Arms deals, AI partnerships, and a substantial Saudi investment pledge. Israel isn't on his itinerary, although Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has just announced that he will be traveling to Israel in advance of President Trump’s Middle East trip, and that Secretary Hegseth will be meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Katz and Israel’s military leadership. He will then travel to Saudi Arabia to accompany President Trump on his travels. The Middle East visit will also take place against the backdrop of an important personnel change on Trump’s national security team – namely, the national security advisor Mike Waltz stepping down and moving to the UN. To unpack what's at stake for Israel and the US, we're joined by Mike Singh, former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council and now managing director at the Washington Institute, and Call me Back regular, Nadav Eyal, columnist for Yediot Ahronot.CREDITS:ILAN BENATAR - Producer & EditorMARTIN HUERGO - Sound EditorGABE SILVERSTEIN - ResearchYUVAL SEMO - Music Composer

You are listening to an Art Media Podcast. We talk about moral hazard with a seatbelt. If you have a seatbelt, you might drive more recklessly. With Israel as our sort of seatbelt in the Middle East, we might carry out a more reckless policy, be more inclined to get out of there because we know that they have our back. It's a little bit of an inversion of the way that we've thought of the US-Israel relationship, but it's true. It's 11 a.m. on Sunday, May 4th here in New York City.

It's 6 p.m. on Sunday, May 4th here in New York City. It's 6 p.m. on Sunday, May 4th in Israel. Before we start, one housekeeping note. As the summer quickly approaches, we are looking for two college summer interns. One who can support operations and another who can support projects related to product design. These are remote positions and, we believe, wonderful opportunities. To apply, please see the links in our show notes. Now onto today's episode.

Earlier this morning, Israel time, a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis penetrated Israel's air defense systems and hit Ben Gurion Airport, injuring six people and resulting in a number of airlines to cancel flights into Israel. Ben Gurion Airport reopened after temporarily halting takeoffs and landings, but several airlines said they will not resume their flights to Israel, at least for the foreseeable future. After days of intense effort, the fires that scorched the Jerusalem hills have finally been subdued, leaving behind a landscape marked by smoldering silence.

Initial suspicions pointed toward arson, a possibility we explored in depth during our episode that aired Friday. Many Israelis we had spoken to had fears Israel might be a target of a version of earlier arson attacks from previous years. However, current assessments indicate that negligence, not arson, was the likely cause. We just wanted to clear that up. If you want more detailed reporting on what we now know, we'll link to reporting from the Times of Israel on this in our show notes. That said, our conversation with Yossi Klein Halevi, I think, reflects that for all of Israel's success

against its enemies since October 7th, Israel can sometimes still feel so fragile. Next week, President Trump is heading to Saudi Arabia to convene a summit with leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. The agenda? Arms deals, AI partnerships and a possible $600 billion Saudi investment pledge. Israel isn't on the itinerary for the president's travels, although Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has just announced that he will be traveling to Israel in advance of President Trump's Middle East trip.

And that Secretary Hegseth will be meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Katz and Israel's military leadership. He will then travel to Saudi Arabia to accompany President Trump on his travels in the region. This visit comes amid ongoing efforts to revive negotiations on a potential nuclear agreement with Iran. A fourth round of discussions had been scheduled to take place in Rome just this past Saturday but were postponed due to quote logistical reasons according to the Omani foreign minister. The foreign minister went on to say new dates will be announced when mutually agreed. He did not elaborate on the logistical reasons for the delay. The president's Middle East visit will also take place against the backdrop of an important

personnel change on President Trump's national security team, namely, the National Security Advisor Mike Walz stepping down and being nominated to be ambassador to the UN. To unpack what's at stake for Israel and the US, we are joined by Mike Singh, former senior director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council and now a managing director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and call me back regular Nadav Ayal, columnist for Yediut Ahrenot. Mike and Nadav, thanks for being here. Thanks for having us. Morning Dan. Mike, I want to get into the president's trip that he will be taking next week.

What is the significance of President Trump's choice to make this his first official foreign trip, obviously, other than the visit to Rome, which was not planned, obviously, for the Pope's funeral. But this is his first formal, so-called policy-oriented trip since taking office. And what are the various parties who could be affected by it expect to get out of it? Well, obviously, Dan, we saw in the first term a similar dynamic where President Trump

traveled early on to Saudi Arabia and he had a very good relationship with all the Gulf States, the Saudis, the Qataris, the Emiratis. And we're seeing that now sort of pick up and continue. And I think that for President Trump, you know, look, there's obviously a lot going on in the Middle East between the Iran nuclear talks, between the Gaza war, what's happening in Syria and Turkey and so forth.

I don't think he really wants to discuss any of that. And I'm not sure the Gulf States do either. I think his theme will be trade and investment. And we've seen that that has been his priority really from day one of his presidency. These are countries which have obviously a lot of capital, which play an outsized role in global markets, especially obviously the oil market.

And where I think President Trump will be looking to convey a positive message back home. He's gonna look to sort of sign a lot of deals on things like cutting edge technology, AI and so forth. He's going to look for Saudi, Qatari, Emirati announcements that they're investing hundreds of billions, if not a trillion dollars in the US economy, a signal of confidence in the US economy at a time of great turbulence due to Trump's tariffs. And I think you're going to hear talk about US-Saudi or US-Katari or even US-Amirati partnership

on global issues, whether that's Russia-Ukraine talks or many other things. And I think this suits both sides' interests very well. I think what they don't want to do, though, is be derailed by some news out of Gaza or some news out of some other part of the region. And that really will be sort of the question, how do you sort of keep a lid on those things? How do you address those things and keep the message focused on I think the positive economic news that President Trump wants? Okay, Nadav, Israel is not on the itinerary. From what you know and you're reporting, what's the backstory here? The president has been very clear that he wishes to have a deal, the type of deal, the

type of normalization across the region that will change the face of the Middle East. And right now it's not materializing. And not only it is not materializing, what both Israeli, American, and Arab sources are saying is that Saudi Arabia is drifting away from the possibility of a near future normalization with Israel. Now everything in the Middle East is extremely volatile and I'm not going to prophesize about this. I do know that the White House is working very hard to get any type of deal as to the

Gaza Strip, either what you can call an interim hostage deal and ceasefire or a bigger deal that we laid the pathway to normalisation with Saudi Arabia. But this continues to be the vision of the president and this White House. The president has been extremely successful with the Abraham Accords. This idea of getting the Nobel Peace Prize is still very much alive at the circles of the administration. Now looking at what's happening now in the region, to your question Dan, we're not close to that.

And the president is going to go to the region and he wants to come back, as Mike just said, with a success story. One type of a success, I've heard the number 600 billion, I'm now hearing the number a trillion dollars. And I suspect somehow the word trillion is going to be there, right? And if he goes to Israel, the question is for what? Not 600 trillion, to be clear. No, no, no. We can see from the president's remarks in the last two weeks,

he's very much focused on economy, he's going to have this win in Saudi Arabia, and for him to visit Israel, it needs to be associated with a win. He's in close contact with the hostage families. He has already managed, together with that deal of the Biden administration that was pushed over the finish line by the Trump administration to bring that success. I don't think this story is over yet as to this specific trip. The White House is working very hard, specifically Steve Whitcomb is working very hard to deliver something.

The Saudis want it, the region needs it. You mean another interim ceasefire and more hostages released? I mean, if this is gonna be an interim ceasefire, it's gonna be definitely something that needs to lay the pathway at least to the end of the war as far as the Arab countries maintain. This is their position right now and they're still working on it. I would also bring to the discussion

the fact that the Israelis are now issuing orders to recruit the reserve soldiers towards a possible expansion of the operation in the Gaza Strip. I would suspect that this is in order to pressure Hamas to get something before the president's trip. But if it doesn't materialize, then the president will go and get the wins that he thinks he deserves in the region from these Arab parties and in that summit. As someone across the administration explained to me, they believe it's still tricky for

the president to show up in Israel while there's an American citizen being held in Gaza. It's just optically- Edan Alexander. Yeah, Edan Alexander. I don't want to take sides on that analysis because I'm not sure I agree with it, but the way they laid it out, this person laid it out is it's not a show of strength for the president to be in Israel. It would have been one thing for the president

to show up in Israel after the first deal from January, because that would have been a moment of strength. Right now, there things seem to be a little stuck, potentially. And so to show up while things are stuck, and there's an American being held hostage, is not necessarily a demonstration of strength. That said, there was some concern

that by him not going at all project some kind of daylight between Israel and the US because while he's in the region he's not going to Israel and the administration wants to project total collaboration cooperation no daylight between Israel and the US as it relates to the regional threats the Houthis Iran and so that was then the idea for sending Hagsath ahead of the president's trip just to send a message don don't worry, the most senior official in our government as it relates to America's military might is going to be in Israel just before the President's trip and will

join the President. I don't want to read too much into any of this because this is just one advisor, although not an unimportant person in their orbit conveying this to me. Mike, what's your reaction to all of this? I think that's right, Dan. I mean, presidents don't go to Israel as often as, I think we sometimes tend to think. And then I think it's largely because anytime you have a presidential trip, especially to a high profile country like Israel, the president, the White House is gonna want deliverables.

What is this visit going to accomplish? And right now there just really aren't deliverables to be had, whether that's on Gaza, where I think we may see this effort to have a ceasefire, even frankly, if it's a little bit of a unilateral backing off by Israel, while President Trump is in the region, just so it doesn't dominate headlines while he's there. But there is no, I think, long-term Gaza deal to be made right now.

There's no Saudi Israel normalization deal to be made. The US is engaged in a campaign in Yemen Yemen and yet Houthi missiles are landing at Bangorian. And so I think probably the White House feels as though, you know, there isn't really something that the president can take away from a trip to Israel right now. And so better to sort of keep your powder dry on that. That's frankly, not so different from calculations that past White Houses have made. And so it's not surprising to see Secretary of Defense Egg Seth going. It wouldn't be surprising to see Secretary Rubio going. I think it would be actually a little bit of a surprise

for President Trump to go there now, especially given that he's seen Netanyahu already a couple of times, Prime Minister Netanyahu a couple of times in Washington. So it's not as though there's some kind of estrangement between the two. Nadeem, Israel's not at this summit, obviously, this GCC summit that's

going to take place in Saudi Arabia. Israel is not a participant in some way in this trip, but it is a stakeholder. From Israel's perspective, what are its priorities in a perfect world? What could it possibly achieve or to put a negative spin on it? What does it hope to avoid happening during President Trump's trip? What would it like to head off? Well, first of all, Dan, the most important thing as far as the Israelis are concerned right now is the negotiations with Iran and that agreement.

And what they do not want to see is the kind of developments that might lead to negative precedents as to the agreement. Let me give you a specific example. If the U.S. Let me give you a specific example. If the U.S. will say to the Iranians, you can enrich on your own soil, even symbolically, if they recognize that, what does it mean as to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that also wants to have a civilian nuclear program in terms of president there? They can absolutely then not say to the Saudis, if the Saudis want

to enrich on their soul, and they're going to allow that to the Iranians, they cannot say to their ally, you don't do that. If the Saudis indeed want to do that, and we're talking about whether it's 600 billion or a trillion, and there are a lot of cards there. So that's just one element. But right now, Israelis are very much focused and we're also hearing about these kind of mysterious explosions in Iran. Can you talk about that for a minute? Just to remind our listeners what these explosions are and why they may or may not be mysterious. So we saw an explosion in Bandar Abbas in that port.

The most important port in Iran, to be clear. Yeah. This had a trademark of the possibility of an explosion that had something to do with liquid rocket fuel, or at least this is an argument made by some experts. The Israelis have been clear, by the way, and this is not typical, that they had nothing to do with it. Now we have seen another explosion in Mashhad in the last 24 hours. Again, I'm not sure we can connect those. And I am definitely sure, by the way, that if Israel is doing something, it's not doing something without the U.S. at least tacitly knowing about it

at this point of the negotiation. Because if there's one thing that the Israelis do not want is to look as far as the administration is concerned as they are trying to blow up negotiations that are a priority for the Trump administration. Or at least as an Israeli, I hope that this is not what the Israeli government is trying to do, or the Mossad is trying to do. These explosions, if they are indeed related, they're not related to the nuclear program as they are related to the ballistic program of the Iranians. And this is something that Israel hit during the strikes that we have seen several months ago, key components of right now. Now, to your question as to what the Israelis don't want to happen, mainly in so far as Saudi Arabia, they do not want this package that was supposed to be guaranteed by the Biden administration

or the Trump administration to the Saudis as an incentive to go for normalization with Israel to actually start disintegrating and be given by the Trump administration without quote unquote paying the price of normalization with Israelis. This is something that worries Jerusalem, but this is not the first priority right now. The first priority is definitely Iran. Mike, do you think there's a world in which the Saudis, to Nadav's point, could get from the U.S. what it was thought to could only get via normalization with Israel?

Do you think there's a world in which the Saudis can get that without normalization? Meaning that normalization was the vehicle through which the Saudis would get a bunch of things, we can define what those things are, and now there's a world in which the Saudis can get those things from the US without having to take the political risk, to the extent there is any in the region, for normalization with Israel. I think there is a world in which at least some of that happens, Dan, and sort of depends on what you define as the sort of central trade-off in that sort of mega deal that we were talking about a few months ago, I think the idea that the Saudis will get a defense treaty from the United States is unrealistic without Saudi Israel normalization. It may now be unrealistic even with Saudi Israel normalization, because the whole idea under President Biden was that Democrats would go along because it was Biden and they didn't

want to say no to him, and Republicans would go along because it was Biden and they didn't want to say no to him. And Republicans would go along because it was this historic Saudi Israel normalization. Just for our listeners, the reason why Democrats and Republicans were needed to go along with it is because any kind of defense treaty would have to be ratified by the US Senate, which requires a two thirds vote, which means you need a bipartisan vote.

And the theory was if it happened under Biden, to your point, the Democrats would want to be supportive of a crowning foreign policy achievement from the president Biden and Republicans would be for it, even though they probably wouldn't have may not have wanted to give Biden a foreign policy win. It was something that was important to Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu presumably would have been making the case to it for to Republican senators. But you're saying that moment is past.

No, that's right. And normally, Dan, as you know, you can't get two-thirds of the Senate to agree that the sky is blue and we haven't had a treaty approved for decades. And so the idea that it's going to happen now under President Trump, that Democrats would go along, it seems unrealistic even if you had normalization. But we have seen US-Saudi discussions under the Trump administration of a civil nuclear energy deal. The Secretary of Energy, Wright, was talking to the Saudis about that. It's very much kind of in the Trump administration's wheelhouse, as it were.

They're sort of in favor of developing nuclear energy around the world as an alternative maybe to renewables and things like that. We could also see a sort of stepwise sort of enhancement of the US Saudi defense relationship, which makes sense in a world where you're trying to sort of refocus partners on say countering China or on taking on more burdens in their own regions, both of which are true in the Middle East. And so I think we could see an erosion, as it were, of the deal that we were talking about before.

I don't think, by the way, that necessarily takes Saudi Israel normalization off the table. I think in the long run, Saudi Israel normalization is by itself in the best interests of Saudi Arabia. I just think that right now, with the war in Gaza happening, with Prime Minister Netanyahu sort of taking the approach he has overall, I think for Mohammed bin Salman that would really put him sort of in opposition

to his own public opinion and public opinion in the Arab world in a way which probably he's not sort of ready to face. That's why I don't really think that even with a sort of Gaza temporary ceasefire, we're gonna see much forward movement on that front. But to your point why its ultimate normalization, Mike, is ultimately in Saudi Arabia's interest

in the long run. Can you just spend a moment, and we take for granted, I think, on this podcast that all of us and our listeners know these things, but I do think it's important to spend a moment on this. Where do Israel's interests with the U.S. align right now? And as the president's about to take this trip, and to be intellectually honest here, if there are categories or cases, where do they diverge? US and Israel's interests. Yes.

So look, I think that if you listen to the confirmation hearing of Bridge Cold, who is now under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the number three policy official at the Pentagon, and really seen as sort of a torchbearer of the Asia first crowd, not a person who is in favor of heavy US engagement in the Middle East. And to be clear, if the Asia first crowd means, let's focus on Asia, the coming national security challenge to the United States will be China, let's not get bogged down with any obligations

in the Middle East to anybody, including Israel. That is just the two lines on that. Exactly right, and that's obviously a prevalent, I would say, view in the Trump administration. And it's probably the more hawkish view in the Trump administration, because then you have others who really seem to favor almost a fortress America type of view. But what Bridge said in his confirmation hearing was, you know, Israel is the model ally. Why? Because Israel is that rare ally in the world who will do things in our stead. So, you know, the U.S. has an interest in keeping ISIS down and preventing terrorism from emerging in a really virulent form in the Middle East.

Well, Israel's acting to stop that from happening. The U.S. has an interest in countering Iranian proxies like Hezbollah and like the Houthis were seeing that, right? I mean, the U.S. is engaged in combat in Yemen and Israel helps very significantly on that front as well. And so Israel is one of those rare allies where you actually give it something, like an F-35 or a missile, and they actually use it to advance mutual interests. They don't just keep it in a hanger or keep it on a runway,

as frankly most of our other partners do in the region. And so we have this confluence of interests. We can see American aid being put to good use. And if anything, Dan, I think the risk is that it creates a moral hazard, right? And we can get into this more, but you know, now the US may look at the Middle East or may look at negotiations with Iran and say,

look, why do we need to address things like Iranian support for proxies? Cause we've got Israel. Israel will just take care of that for us. And so Israel's like the kind of, we talk about moral hazard with a seatbelt. Like, if you have a seatbelt, you might drive more recklessly.

Well, with Israel as our sort of seatbelt in the Middle East, we might carry out a more kind of reckless policy, be more inclined to get out of there because we know that they have our back. It's a little bit of an inversion of the way that we've thought of the US-Israel relationship, but it's true. So I think that's where the US and Israel come together.

And frankly, it's a little bit where Israel and the Saudis come together as well, because the Saudis share a lot of those interests as well, countering Iranian proxies, countering jihadist terrorist groups. And they look at the global landscape and they say, look, the US is a little bit crazy and unreliable right now. China is not going to intervene in this region to help us. You know, Russia, well, Russia is completely preoccupied with its own thing in Ukraine. So who do we turn to? Who's going to help us to sort of secure our security interests?

Well, increasingly, it looks like the answer is Israel. And that's something which is almost astonishing if you know, you're paying attention to the Middle East for the last few decades. Yeah, I would say one, I won't mention the person's name, but a senior official of this administration who tends to be in that camp you're describing the kind of China first or the more restrained, restrainous camp made the point to me and to Nadav actually, that there are four allies in the world that the US can get or could potentially get much more than it gives,

if you will, from. It was India, Korea, Poland, and Israel. And Israel was the one that the US is already getting a lot from. You didn't articulate it exactly the way you did, but that was the basic point. So that's why even for those who don't want to get bogged down in the region, the deepening of the relationship with Israel is actually all the more important. Nadav, I don't know if you have anything to add to that. I remember in the same conversation that you're talking about me making the Israeli pitch,

not because I'm representing the Israeli pitch, because it would make a better conversation, that the US has now several adversaries around the world with nuclear weapons. It's not going to take away China's nuclear weapon. It's not going to take away China's nuclear weapons. It's not going to take probably North Korea nuclear weapons, although everybody knows that this problem was solved back at the Singapore summit a few years ago, I'm talking. And it's not going to take care of the Russians either. And there is one spot in the world in which that's what the Israelis are saying to this administration that together we can make sure that they really don't have nuclear weapons and they're not going to play with

it, even five years from now. And this is if we do it now. This is the Israeli chiefs of staff pitch. Now it's always easy to say, and sometimes people are saying, including Israelis, by the way, including security experts in Israel, strategists, generals, non-commissioned generals are saying, we must act, but not now. But what the chiefs of staff are saying, and to an extent, I think what this government

is saying, and it's rather a consensus in Israel. We just published a poll by the INSS saying that the Israeli public is saying that too, although it's been in a very long war, you need to act now. It's too early than too late. That's the argument to the same conversation you mentioned, Dan, that I was just presenting and to that argument, I don't think that the other sides were too convinced. The focus of many parts of this administration right now is on other issues. And there are a lot of balls in the air in that sense. And unless the Iranians will completely misunderstand the administration,

something that is highly likely considering their history and will somehow manage to derail this. We just had, while we're speaking, President Trump spoke at Meet the Press in NBC, and he was talking about Iran's civilian nuclear program as a positive. He just said we need to make sure that they don't have a nuclear weapon. So this administration has already gone to the length of approaching this and allowing this to reach an agreement. And now it's to an extent up to the supreme leader in Iran to make sure it really happens. And if he misses that opportunity, we can see an escalation, of course. Question to both of you. I'll start with Mike. Is the idea of an attack on Iran, either by Israel or together with the US, still on the

table? I think it is on the table, and I think it has to be on the table. Look, I think that what we have seen from Israel, especially since October 7th, is that Israel is not content, despite the many years we've been talking about this problem. As Nadav said, to simply allow this problem to build and metastasize to the point where it can't be addressed, to the point where Iran has a nuclear weapon

and then they're working to sort of contain and manage that problem as we are with North Korea and so forth. And it looks right now like Iran is at its most vulnerable point since arguably the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And so now really with the sort of Iranian nuclear program at the brink of nuclear weapons, with Iran so vulnerable, now really is the time to consider an attack. And I think Israel is

strongly considering it. However, I agree with what Nadav has said that Prime Minister Netanyahu needs Trump onside for many different reasons. And I don't think he's going to act to thwart American diplomacy with Iran or to interrupt American diplomacy with Iran. But that said, look, for the United States, this threat of Israeli military action, just like the threat that President Trump issued to halt Iranian oil exports, or just like the diplomatic threat of the return of UN sanctions in the fall, which is something the Europeans have been talking about, these threats are all things that should actually bolster President Trump's hand, strengthen his hand at

the negotiating table and help him to get the kind of frankly very tough, very difficult deal that Secretary Rubio has been talking about, that zero enrichment deal where Iran would have to not make its own nuclear fuel but dismantle its nuclear program, import nuclear fuel if it wants to have say a nuclear reactor. Getting that kind of deal, the Iranians aren't just gonna roll over and say okay fine, they're gonna take it to the brink and if you want to take it to the brink, you need a threat. You need pressure. And that's what the prospect of an Israeli military strike provides.

I'd love for the prospect of an American military strike to be just as credible. But I'm not sure that's going to happen under President Trump, who's been very clear that he doesn't want any more U.S. military action in the Middle East. I'm just pulling up here what President Trump said on Meet the Press. He said the goal of negotiations with Iran is, is quote total dismantlement of Iran's nuclear program. That's the right goal. Yeah but then they was asked about listening to arguments for allowing Iran to pursue its civilian nuclear energy program while ending its

nuclear weapons program and he said I think that I would be open to hearing it. He says civilian energy it's called, but you know, civilian energy often leads to military wars, and we don't want to have them have a nuclear weapon. It's a very simple deal. I'll tell you, I mean, it drives me nuts, Dan, because look, at the end of the day, if Iran wants to have a civilian nuclear energy program, many countries have them and very few of them enrich their own uranium. They're importing their fuel.

This was even true of the, remember, until just a year or so ago, the US was buying nuclear fuel from Russia. We weren't making our own fuel, the United States. And so the idea that Iran's program is in any way for a civilian purpose just absolutely has no credibility. No country has ever had a nuclear program that's the extent or scope of Iran's without making nuclear weapons. There's no civilian explanation.

The fundamental central flaw of the JCPOA, the deal that President Trump withdrew from in 2018, the 2015 nuclear agreement, was that it allowed, you know, we talk about sunsets, we talk about enrichment levels, but the fundamental flaw was it allowed Iran to escape a strategic choice. And that strategic choice was, do you have the option to make nuclear weapons? Do you have the infrastructure you need to make nuclear weapons? Or do you have sanctions relief and relations with the world, with the United States and Europe? That's the choice you have to present Iran with. And if it makes the choice for relations with the US and Europe and decides to the choice you have to present Iran with. And if it makes the choice

for relations with the US and Europe and decides to give up its nuclear program, a choice remember that many countries have made in the past. That's not a radical ask. That's the choice that Ukraine made, maybe to a chagrin, frankly. If it makes that choice, then I'm all for sanctions relief. But if they don't make that choice, if they say, look, we want both, we want to kind of keep a little bit, we want to keep that optionality, but also have sanctions relief, and you say, yes, well, then you're just letting them have their cake and eat it too. Any response to that? The Israelis have been preparing and are preparing for a strike against the Iranian nuclear installations. They need coordination with the United States to do so effectively.

They also need some specific tools. There are a lot of ideas flying in the air. Some of them are completely off the table. For instance, for Israel to loan strategic bombers. This is something that's not going to happen, most probably. Other ideas are still up there. There is a streak within the administration that says that these ideas too are off the table as far as they are concerned and not because they are anti-Israel. I want to be very specific about this, but because they are saying that the US needs some of these abilities to counter its own strategic threats, mainly in China. Now what Israel needs is not only the support of the U.S.

towards a possible strike and intelligence, but also and mostly coordination with the U.S. as to the moment after, because the Iranians are going to respond. And this is the major problem the Israelis have here. If they're going to strike Iran in the way that you want to strike Iran to be effective, Iran might respond against targets across the Gulf. That might lead to, for instance, oil going up. This might lead to a cascade of developments that will jeopardize, for instance,

American life across the region and American interests and the American economy. And because of that, they really very much specifically with this administration, specifically considering how isolated Israel is, unfortunately, after October 7, internationally speaking, this needs to be very tightly coordinated with the president. So to a large extent, as Mike said, and I'm going to go a step further, this is a decision to be made by the president of the United States, not actually by the Israeli prime minister. Israel is going to fly US jets all the way there.

It's going to use US ammunition. It will need US backing afterwards. So it's the decision of President Trump. Only he can make that call as to the possible strike, but the Israelis have been preparing. And we've talked about this on your show, Dan, for the first time in Israel's history, the last 30 years, the IDF is saying we can do it effectively alone by ourselves. But we do need this coordination. By the way, what they're also saying, it's really interesting, we don't only need the coordination in order to defend Israel when the Iranians are going to strike back,

we need the coordination to offer the Iranians are going to strike back, we need the coordination to offer the Iranians, and I heard this from Israeli generals, to offer them not only sticks but also carrots for the day after. What they're saying is very much like in Hezbollah with Lebanon. Yes, we want to have an agreement with Iran. An agreement with Iran is the only reasonable trajectory. But strike first, then get a better agreement later. Don't strike now.

The Iranians are just going to dilute it and dilute it as they know how to do, and the day after, and they're going to cheat. First, you need to take some of the resources and some of their abilities. Now, whether or not this argument is going to convince the Trump administration, I'm not sure. And by the way, I'm sure convince the Trump administration, I'm not sure. And by the way, I'm sure that the Trump administration, what I'm hearing is dead set on getting some sort of results, which will allow us then to say this is better than the JCPOA. Because if it's going to be worse than the JCPOA, which they withdrew from, there'll

be a lot of explaining to do, right? Before we wrap, I do want to spend a moment on Mike Walt stepping down as national security advisor. He will be nominated to be ambassador to the UN by President Trump. And there was a lot of speculation about why this happened. In my experience, Mike, you've worked in administrations. I've worked in administrations. There's a tendency whenever there's a major personnel move, everyone wants

to put their ideological slant on the significance of it retroactively. And there was this Washington Post article over the weekend that was just a bunch of blind quotes, no one with any kind of authority speaking in the article, trying to put a slant on it. And then of course, this lit up a ton of press coverage in Israel. And Nadav and I were talking about this last night where everyone was getting spun up in the

Israeli press based on this thinly reported Washington Post piece that the reason for Walz's departure must be because he was too close to the Israelis. What I find often with these reporters, Nadav, no disrespect to you, of course, you're an exception, but to many reporters, of course, what many reporters tend to miss is when there are personnel changes in the administration, it usually is because of concerns about whether or not the person is equipped to do the job. I'm not saying that is merited or not with Waltz. I'm just saying that, or some kind of interpersonal chemistry issues with other senior officials in the administration.

There's speculation that Waltz and Suzy Wiles didn't get along. The reason for departures is usually that, not like that there's some grand direction in US foreign policy to be interpreted as a result of this. So what was your reaction to the news of Walt's leaving, but more importantly, all the hysteria that this Washington Post article caused? First of all, Mike is a good guy, and we shouldn't be surprised though that he didn't last all that long. I mean, if you look at President Trump's first term, he chewed through national security advisors.

And I think that I'm largely with you, Dan. It's easy to replace national security advisors. They're not Senate confirmed. And if things aren't going the way you like, if you're President Trump and you're just dissatisfied, maybe you suffered some setback, whether that's on Russia, Ukraine or something else, and you're looking for someone to blame

Unfortunately, the National Security Advisor is a really easy target or the signal or the signal chat, right? Because if you take out secretary Hegseth if you take out secretary Rubio you're handing leverage to the Senate because you've got to get the next person through Senate confirmation and You know who knows what the Senate will ask for to confirm your next person. But the national security advisor, you can have a new one the next day. Just the count, by the way, four, Trump had four national security advisors in his first term Flynn, McMaster, Bolton, and O'Brien. I think Waltz may have lasted longer than Flynn, but anyways.

Much longer, five times as long as Flynn. And so good for Mike that he's landing in an important position at the UN if he gets confirmed. Obviously there's lots of other good folks who have been released from the NSC and we're not sure what will happen to the Deputy National Security Advisor Alex Wong who's very capable. And who's still there. Who's still there obviously others have been moved on from the NSC who are very good. My guess is that we should just expect actually a lot more of this churn. I don't think that personnel My guess is that we should just expect actually a lot more of this churn. I don't think that personnel drama is something

that we should be surprised to see from a Trump administration. But I agree with you, Dan. I think, look, when it comes to, for example, Iran policy, what will be the impact of Mike Waltz's departure? Probably minimal, because this is an administration in which it seems policy really is top-down, and President Trump will have the policy he wants, whether it's Marco Rubio or Mike Waltz Because this is an administration in which it seems policy really is top down.

And President Trump will have the policy he wants, whether it's Marco Rubio or Mike Waltz or someone else as national security advisor. And I think the concern that a lot of our partners have in the region is, you know, when you hear Marco Rubio say, we're going to totally dismantle Iran's nuclear program, it's hard to know whether you can trust it. Not because it's Marco Rubio or Pete Hegseth or somebody else, but because until President Trump says it, and it sounds like maybe he said it this morning

and that'll encourage people, until President Trump says it, it's not clear that it's actually policy. Two points to that. One is, I agree with you that removing Walz is easier than removing Hegseth, for the reason you said, because you don't have to fill the National Security Advisor

position with the Senate confirmed position. That said, it is interesting though, that he nominated Waltz to the UN, which is a Senate confirmed position. So Waltz now is still gonna have to go through a confirmation hearing, which I suspect will be complicated, although I do hope he's confirmed. The second point I'd make is,

whenever there's these speculative discussions about, what's the, you know, there's the what what's going on and like what's really going on and what how should we interpret this move and what can we kind of extrapolate out of it whenever I see that kind of reporting I just try to remind people it's interesting to play that parlor game but look at the policy what is the policy of the administration and I just want to rattle it off one the administration is doubling down right now This may change but I'm saying right now

It's doubling down on maximum pressure of Iran a be two hours After waltz was out president Trump put out a post on True social saying that any country that takes an ounce of oil from Iran will be hit with secondary sanctions It was clearly was talking about China That was a couple of hours after the news about Waltz was, I guess, official or the news was out. And this was, my understanding is this is focused on these, what they call these teapot independent refineries in China,

which are purchasing oil from Iran and Trump is threatening to hit them with secondary sanctions. Two, this president is in a war with Yemen. It's waging a war against Houthis. And for crying out loud, it looks like we lost an F-18. We've lost some drones in recent days. So we are in serious combat with the Houthis, and this president does not seem fazed by it.

On Wednesday night, Secretary Hegseth issued an ominous threat against Iran, where he wrote, message to Iran, colon, we see your lethal support to the Houthis. We know exactly what you are doing. You know very well what the U S military is capable of. And you were warned. You will pay the consequence at the time and place of our choosing.

So again, you look at these statements, which are pretty hot directed to Iran and you look at the overall policy right now, I think I don't want to completely discard and ignore that there are these tensions within the administration where these debates are happening, but I also don't want to overinterpret why personnel changes happen. And when there is uncertainty and ambiguity,

it's just important to look at the policy of the administration, which is in place and is plain to see. And I would add one thing to your great list, Dan, which is that the supposed offense that Mike Waltz committed, you know, talking to the Israelis about military options against Iran is actually something that CENTCOM is doing every day. General Carrillo, who's our CENTCOM commander, they're in constant conversation, not just with Israel, but with the Emiratis, with the Saudis, about just

that kind of planning. So this is not unusual for the US government. And I'm very skeptical that it's something that somebody will be fired over. Right. And you mentioned earlier what Secretary Rubio said, who's going to now be the I forgot to mention that. So the interim national security adviser is someone who's not known for having a an accommodationist approach to Iran. And the night that Walt stepped down, Rubio was on Hannity on Fox News where he talked about US objectives in Iran, which I'll just play that quote. If Iran wants a peaceful, civil nuclear program, meaning they want nuclear power plants like other countries in the world have, there's a way to do it.

And that is you build the reactors and you import enriched uranium to fuel those reactors. That's how dozens of countries around the world do it. The only countries in the world that enrich uranium are the ones that have nuclear weapons. Iran is at, they're claiming they don't want a weapon, but they would be, what they're basically asking is to be the only non-weapon country in the world that's enriching uranium. And the level at which they enrich it is really not relevant per se, because really if you have the ability to enrich at 3.67%, it only takes a few weeks to get to 20% and then 60% and then the 80% and 90% that you need for a weapon.

And so that really is the path forward here. Iran simply needs to say, we've agreed to no longer enrich, we're going to have reactors because we want nuclear energy and we're going to import enriched uranium. This is an opportunity for them if they take it. This is the best opportunity they're going to have. President Trump is a president of peace. He doesn't want a war. He doesn't want conflict. None of us do. And there's a path forward here. Gentlemen, I think we will leave it there. Thank you for this quick update and helping us set things up and frame events as President

Trump takes his trip to the Middle East. Mike, Nadav, hope to see you back soon. Thank you so much. Thanks very much. That's our show for today. If you or your organization are interested in sponsoring Call Me Back, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach us at callmebackatarkmedia.org.

That's callmebackatarkmedia.org. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with others who you think may appreciate it. Time and again, we've seen that our listeners are the ones driving the growth of the Call Me Back community, so thank you. To offer comments, suggestions, sign up for updates, or explore past episodes, visit our website arcmedia.org, that's A-R-K media dot org, where you can also find transcripts with hyperlinked resources, which will hopefully help you deepen your own understanding of the topics we cover. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Alain Benatar. Additional editing by Martin Huérgaux.

Research by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semmo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Sinor.