The Bulwark Podcast - Robert Kagan: A Total and Complete Shutdown of Trump

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

The United States lost the Iran war back in March when Trump chickened out and didn’t retaliate against Tehran once it proved it could inflict economic pain on the Gulf states. While much of the mainstream media keeps hyping the negotiations and the ceasefire, Iran is not making concessions and is focused on shaking Trump down for money. But the biggest loser in this debacle may be Israel, which turned itself from a dominant power in the region to a losing power. And Israel, which the administration is likely to turn against, has been irreparably damaged in the U.S. as well. Plus, the post WWII American-led world order is collapsing, Trump is the worst negotiator, and conquering Cuba will require a major nation-building effort.Bob Kagan joins Tim Miller.show notes Bob on Trump's surrender Bob on the end of the post WWII-order The Next Level LIVE after the Texas primary Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to www.joindeleteme.com/BULWARK and use promo code BULWARK at checkout.

and welcome to the Bullword podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show contributing writer at the Atlantic and senior fellow at Brookings. His most recent book is Rebellion, how anti-liberalism is tearing America apart again. It's Bob Kagan. How you doing, Bob? I'm great. Thank you. Yeah. Well, how does it feel to just be on your one-man victory tour while America is on a one-country surrender tour? It creates some internal tension. No? Yeah. I mean, I'm not thrilled that we're losing. We've lost. We've lost. We've lost this war. So no, I mean, maybe something for the therapist. No, I know. It's a problem. I mean, I do, I do want the world in America is to see what Donald Trump has done to us. And I think that

is useful to point out. But I take no pleasure, obviously, and are suffering a major defeat in a major strategic region of the world. I want to get deep with you on Iran and some related issues. Real quick, we were live last night on the next level during the Texas Senate results where John Cornyn just gets absolutely annihilated and humiliated in his primary with Ken Paxton. So if you want the long sermon on that, go check out T&L. I have a couple additional thoughts. I mean, John Cornyn would in a different world be a Bob Kagan senator. No thoughts on his demise or how that relates to our broader issues. I have no strong feelings about John Cornyn one way or the other. I feel like he's been a block of wood in the Senate for decades.

I'm sure he may have voted at times in ways that I would agree with, but I'm unaware of it. I really have no strong feelings about John Cornyn, and I think it's wonderful where we're going to have a chance to get pure MAGA on the ballot. I mean, you know. Yeah, have it tested. And I think this is interesting. It's kind of what I wanted to bring up. So we were doing this live last night. A lot of conversation about Tala Rico.

And I think we assessed that, you know, he's the underdog still with Paxton. It's a better option. But worth noting, I beto only lost by basically two and a half to three points. Never let a poll in 2018. That was a really bad political environment for the Republicans, but there's a chance this one ends up being worse. A big issue is Hispanics. One thing that jumped out of me last night, there's this county star county, which is near McCallon. There were 6,000 Democratic votes in the primary, only 100 Republican votes.

This was a Trump-Flip County. Just a really bad sign for Republicans right now among Hispanic voters in this key. group that they gained. And Paxton, I liked this from from Teller Rico. They posted this an image of his mug shot. Have you ever had a mug shot? So far, no. Sorry. Okay. I've never seen mine. I'm hoping it just disappeared. I did get one from a minor in possession of alcohol in Boulder, Colorado once, but I've never seen it. Hopefully I looked better than Ken Paxton did in his, because he looks rough. One eye is closed. Tala Rico puts it up, was indicted on three felony counts for investment fraud, reported to the FBI by his own staff.

for bribery, different case, was impeached by 60 Republicans in the House for corruption. His personal life makes Trump look like a good Christian. I don't know. You know, if there's going to be a chance in Texas, this feels like it's going to be it. So an interesting race last night, more on that over on the next level. I was trying to think of a good transition from Cornyn's humiliation to Trump's surrender. I guess that's going to be it. You wrote for the Atlantic five days ago that Trump's end game in Iran is surrender. This is what we have this morning that I think tells the story pretty well. This is what the Iranian news media is saying is part of the memorandum of understanding. So take this with a grain of salt, just like you would, anything that

Trump bleats. But the Iranian media is saying this. One, U.S. military forces would draw from the vicinity of Iran. Two, the U.S. Navy will lift its blockade. Three, Iran is committed to restoring the number of commercial transit ships through the Strait of Hormuz to pre-war levels within one months, they say military vessels are not included in this agreement. The management and routing of ship traffic through the street will be handled by Iran and Oman, and if the deal is reached within 60 days, that will be approved in form of a binding UN Security Council resolution. So, woof, that's what's coming out of Iran. What's your sense of the state of life? It's fair to say that there is unreliable as Trump about what the likely terms of a deal are going

be, except that I actually think they have a better chance of actually getting the terms that they're laying out than Trump since Trump has no ability to affect them at all. I mean, two things are true, and I just think somehow the news media has managed to miss these two things. One is that we effectively lost the war after March 18th. Trump has done nothing since March 18th, basically, since Iran retaliated to an attack in the Pars oil field by hitting the guttery gas industrial plant. and fear of what Iran can do to the region has stymied Trump, and that's been the end of it. So we basically lost the war back in March, and Trump has been spending all these months trying to delay that reality. And therefore, as a result, Iran has not made a single concession on any point.

The Trump administration keeps saying that they're making concessions. They keep saying that there's a deal. They keep saying that they've agreed to do something with their uranium, et cetera. The only people who've never said that are the Iranians. And since they're the ones who are completely in the driver's seat right now, I think their deal is the one that is going to emerge. And mostly right now, what's happening is Iran is just shaking Trump down for money. And by the way, money for nothing. I mean, basically they were demanding unfreezing of billions of dollars' worth of assets.

The reporting on this has just been terrible. This is where they will open the straight. And so the New York Times keeps blaring the headlines, deal to reopen the straight. And I really just think it's very important to focus very, very, specifically on what the Iranians mean by opening the strait. It'll be open under new management, under Iranian control, which whether they choose to charge tolls or not in the first 60 days, they're going to wind up charging for it. And in any case, more importantly, they're going to use their control of the strait as leverage against every single nation in the world,

which is a disaster for Israel in the United States. A couple of media shots there. Do you have any other media criticism. Some of our commenters were concerned. We, you know, I think have been quite appropriately skeptical and hostile to all information coming out of the Trump administration, but I will acknowledge, like on Saturday, I was a minor victim of the media reporting because, you know, essentially the reporting was that Trump had all of the Arab nations in Pakistan and everybody on board and this deal was almost done. And I, you know, Times and everybody, Axiess, obviously, was reporting this as a done deal. And it seems like we're no closer today than we were then. This is a real problem for the media, and I just think in the Trump era, and they just have never been able to solve it.

You know, Trump has been absolutely brilliant. I have to just take my hat off to him in one respect. He has controlled the markets throughout this entire process and kept the futures price of oil low by repeatedly saying that we're about to have a deal, and then the markets respond and are very happy about that. Now, this wouldn't be possible were people pointing out what a fraud the whole situation has been. And that's where I think the media have fallen down. Now, partly it's because the Republican National Security establishment would normally be the ones who would all along have been jumping up and down about how badly this is going. But because they can't say anything bad about Donald Trump, they've been quiet. the media, I don't know whether it's just, if Trump reports, says it says something is happening, they have to report that that's what he said, and they have to sort of, I guess, take it seriously,

even though, as people have been pointing out, he's said it like seven times in a row. You know, I think he said there's been a deal seven times. He's also said he was going to wipe out their civilization six times. I mean, and every day the media reports it sort of dutifully. You know, even the New York Times, I just don't think they understand the essence of what has happened in this crisis. We still treat this like it's an open-ended, anything could happen. This thing has been settled for months. My question has always been when does reality just become unmistakable? And I think we're getting pretty close to it right now. Just kind of expanding on that.

So your more recent article is talking about kind of the surrender in these terms of negotiation and then previously to that kind of the broader strategic defeat. Just focusing on the negotiation for now, you know this five days ago when they were discussing, basically like a 30-day continuation to kind of iron out the deal. In 30 days, the new Iranian Strait regime will already firmly be in place. As the Institute for the Study of War reports, Iran has been using the ceasefire period to normalize as control over the strait by compelling oil-importing countries to establish transit agreements with Tehran and charging fees on vessels from nations without such deals. And this is kind of the detail of what you're talking about, about how this

thing has already been done for a while now. You mentioned South Korea, a couple of other countries, that are already working with them on how to do this. Right. Because the whole world could see where this is going, even if the New York Times can. The fact that Trump even is talking about a 30 or now 60-day truce, people don't see that for what it is. He wants to walk away and hope that nobody notices that he just gave away a fundamental strategic position to one of the most dangerous powers in the world.

That is the reality. And again, I don't know what it's going to take for people to full. realize that. One of the limits on his ability to do that, I'm sure your take on this. Like, you mentioned that, you know, in any other time, if it wasn't Trump, I'd certainly if it was a Democratic president, but even if it was a Republican president, they weren't scared of domestically, the Republican hawks would be the loudest people talking about this, right? Like talking about how big of a disaster this is, how it's empowering Iran. I was interested over the weekend, like when he signaled that, that what you just described was basically coming, like this.

kind of, you know, surrender massed as negotiation. There was some pushback in MAGA world and in Republican world, Lindsey Graham's tweeting, Levin is tweeting, criticizing this. And on Sunday, they had a call with all of these kind of MAGA influencer types, you know, our old friend Scott Jennings. Then they're all tweeting the same thing, right? Which is basically, no, this deal isn't as bad as it seems. You know, one talking point they all had is that like there's going to be no dollars for Iran without dust, no dollars, you know, without dust was their line. Like the dust being the nuclear material. And to me, that signaled that like, unlike some of the other crazy Trump gambits,

like maybe there are some limitations on his right flank for what the specifics of this could be. I don't know. It definitely felt like he was susceptible to pushback on this, at least in the public positioning of it. I don't know what you made of that. Well, that's the thing. I mean, I don't know how to interpret. the fact that he backed away, you know, when he was saying we have a deal and then he said maybe we're going to take our time. And people took that as a response to the, to the hawks complaining.

I took it as a response to the fact that the Iranians were not giving him any, even the fig leaf that he wanted. And that the problem was he hadn't actually nailed down the Iranians. So I guess I feel like mostly he's not going to pay attention. He's going to start to run against the hawks, I believe. You know, we're at the very beginning. by the way, of a real shift in policy by the administration. I think, you know, that's sort of the next step. And that shift is going to turn against Israel, for instance. And that'll be interesting to see how people who've been so pro-Israel throughout this process and have been so pro the war because of Israel, what will their response be when it becomes clear that Trump is really

turning against Israel? And obviously, I think MAGA will follow him. What makes you think that that shift is happening. Because the interesting thing for me is it's kind of unclear why he hasn't thrown Israel under the bus earlier. And it's not as if Trump is not willing to throw allies, reputative allies, under the bus. He does it all the time. Everybody who's worked for him, he's thrown under the bus at one time or the other, various Republicans he has. And, you know, like you said, it's been two months that he's been mired in this quagmire. It's not doing him any good. politically speaking, the fact that he hasn't yet makes me a little skeptical that he is going to. But I don't know. What makes you think that he is? Whether he's denouncing Israel is one thing.

I don't know. I don't expect him to denounce Israel. The defense of Israel is too much in the blood of this sort of administration right now. I don't think you can just do that. But if you just look at the way he's treating Netanyahu and Israel, I think that's the biggest picture. They've been excluded from these negotiations, even though they are the most vitally concerned with with how this agreement comes out. I mean, look, we fought this war. The United States fought this war for Israel. Everybody can see that.

Unfortunately for Trump, the Gulf states and the Arab states can also see that, which is why the Abraham Accords far from expanding are now dead. But, you know, it was clear that we were doing this for Israel. And now that he wants to get out, Israel is the victim. Israel is going to pay the biggest price by far. You know, the United States is a big, strong, wealthy country, we can take a major strategic blow even and still survive, but Israel is Israel's right under the, right under the thumb of an Iran that is now going to be very powerful. By the way,

I think Israel's going to do everything it can to make sure this deal never happens. And, you know, some of that is what they're already doing in Lebanon right now. You know, the Iranians insist that Lebanon is part of the deal and Netanyahu is announcing that he's intensifying strikes in Lebanon. I think that Netanyahu is every desire to kill this deal. So, By the way, and also Trump's saying Netanyahu will do what I tell him to do. I mean, that was pretty disrespectful for a partner to say about a partner leader. And again, this is one of those situations where if Netanyahu weren't deathly afraid of admitting that he's having a breach with Trump, which would be a disaster.

I mean, I think he's in trouble anyway, but it would be a disaster to say that this guy who, you know, Bibi put everything on his relationship with Trump, to say that Trump is now dissing him publicly would not be in Bibi's interest. but that therefore we're downplaying, I think, the degree to which Trump is moving away from Israel right now. Interesting. Yeah, I don't know. His bragging about being at 99% in Israel. Yeah.

At some level, maybe there's a psychological desire to feel like maybe this is the place where I'm loved still. That was a direct dig at Beebe, because he's right before saying that, he said, they really, they're really mean to him. The Israeli people are really mean to Beebe, which is another way of saying he's really unpopular in Israel, whereas I, on the other hand, I seem to have like immense popularity in Israel. So maybe BB is like, doesn't know what he's doing.

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That's www. that join delete me.com slash bulwark code bowler. Let's just stay in the region then for a second because you had a couple of interesting points. One was on the Gulf states. And I feel like this was an area where maybe there was some bad information out in the public sphere that I bought into about the degree to which the Gulf states were for this action. I was talking to somebody over the weekend last. weekend who had been a direct conversation with the cutteries. And it seems that MBZ was for it initially

for a variety of reasons and that MBS and the Qudries were skeptical from the start. And that some of the information going out there that MBS was for it was kind of an attempt to manipulate the media to try to pressure him to be on the side of action. So what's like your sense for for the Gulf State positioning and all this. Well, first of all, I'm pretty sure that the action, the initial action, was taken without consultation with the Gulf States. It was something that Israel and the United States did. They didn't consult with Congress or with anybody. Or NATO, needless to say, but I think they also didn't consult with the Gulf States.

So the Gulf States, I don't know how much they supported it. They obviously fear Iran. They would like to see Iran wiped out. I think when it looked like it was possible that this regime in Iran was going to be completely, wiped out. I'm sure they thought that was a great idea. Unfortunately, they learned two important things in the course of this war. One was that the United States undertaking a war, fundamentally on behalf of Israel, was unable to protect them. They've suffered enormous damage throughout all this, and not just the immediate physical damage, but their entire economies,

especially the UAE, is now based on attracting Western investors and come to Dubai. It's really great. and you can set up your business here, you can set up your data centers here, et cetera, et cetera. Well, if the place is dangerous, they're going to lose all that. They're going to lose all that business. And that's why, by the way, they were imprisoning people for taking pictures of the damage that Iranian strikes were having on the UAE because they didn't want that to get out there. So the Gulf states have suffered. They saw that the United States was not as concerned about them as it was about Israel.

By the way, another fact came out. The Washington Post reported on Thursday, something I thought, it was really astonishing, which is the United States used up more of its interceptor THAAd missiles and other interceptor missiles defending Israel than Israel used of its own missiles to defend itself. Among the point being that, A, we have now depleted our stocks to the point where we're extremely low, which raises all other questions about why Trump doesn't want to get into another round of conflict. But also, we did not give the interceptors to the Gulf states, even when they asked for them because we didn't have enough. And now the Gulf States are turning to everybody else in the

world, Turkey and others, to find interceptors because the United States doesn't have anything for them. So the bottom line is the Gulf States must feel that they have picked a very wrong horse in the United States and Israel and it has led to their being subjected to Iran. And now they're staring down the barrel of Iran really being a much more powerful player in the region and controlling their fate through its control of the Strait of Hormuz. Guess what they're going to do? They're going to have to cut deals with Iran. And those deals with Iran are not going to be favorable to the United States and they're not going to be favorable to Israel.

So that's what's been accomplished. And for Trump to come out now, Lindsay Graham said it first, didn't he? I don't know. They come to come out now and say everybody needs to sign up with the Abraham Accords. It must be one of the most ludicrous statements, even in this administration. I do think it was grand that said it first. And then Trump puts this out in a bleat that like at the end of this negotiation, one thing is that even Pakistan is going to get on board.

with the Abraham Accords, all these countries. That was the other thing that piqued my interest in your response. So I was just talking about the Abraham Accords a little bit more. I do think there was a feeling during Trump 1.0. Abraham Accords was like the thing where if you asked, you know, a anti-Trump internationalist, like what was something that went well in the Trump term? It's like that was a thing that they would say. Like, well, Trump was horrible and he attacked democracy and he's an idiot and he's corrupt.

But like the Abraham Accords seemed to work out pretty good. And then the narrative on that, I think, really started to shift after October 7th. And, you know, now we're sitting here today. And it's still something Trump's trying to hang his hat on and the Kushner is. And like you said, they're trying to claim that they're going to expand it. Give me a little bit more on why you think the opposite is true. Well, first of all, I never understood what the brouhaha about the Abraham Accords was. I mean, it was initially between, you know, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

I mean, okay, congratulations. I remember, but what you say is 100% true. I remember sitting at a table at the at the Aspen strategy group with all the big foreign policy and it's perfectly true complete bipartisan unanimity. Well, at least the Abraham Accords were. And I'm like, why? You know, what? You know, we have a deal with some tin pot dictator, you know, sitting on a lot of oil and that's big,

that's anyway, but that that was the case. Why is because Israel is now a complete pariah. You know, does anybody think that Israel can bomb these countries, can attack them, can assassinate leaders, clearly, purely selfish. Israel doesn't care a wit about the straight. They don't get anything through the strait, and that's never been their concern. So they're completely unconcerned with these alleged allies of theirs. Arab states are not going to be signing up with Israel. In fact, Iran is the one now saying, we need Muslim, we need Islamic solidarity here, you know, and I think that's going to be a more appealing look right now. When you consider

the fact that the United States has discredited itself in their eyes, when you consider, the fact that Israel is now a losing power in the region, not the dominant power that it was, that it was before this war, by the way. I mean, Israel was completely in a dominant position before this war, and now they are, and now they are very weak. Who's going to be lining up to sign up with them, setting aside the hostility that most Arab and Muslim people feel toward Israel? Yeah, I agree with you on the manner in which, you know, they have just pushed away, potential allies and become a pariah for a lot of the countries in the region. The case for the Abraham Accords in the first term would have been that Israel was in a precarious and dangerous

position was surrounded by a lot of threats. And the more countries they had diplomatic relationships with the safer they would be. I guess it wasn't maybe an unreasonable thought, though it doesn't seem to have panned out. Look, Israel was secure because Israel is the most powerful country in the region backed by the most powerful country in the world. That's why Israel was secure. You didn't need a peace agreement between two people who were never conceivably going to go to war. The UAE wasn't going to attack Israel. The other problem, of course, and this is what we've said all along, is, are we sure these dictators are going to be in charge forever and that maybe someday there might be, I don't know, a revolution where they get overthrown and then the true

feelings of the people will be expressed. And I'm confident those true feelings are not pro-Israel. I mean, you know, this has been an Israeli strategy. Israeli is basically regard Muslims as sort of subhuman, and they don't think they should be led by democracy. They don't want to, they want dictators throughout the region. Why the United States signed up for this deal? And not just Trump, by the way, you know, every administration, the Clinton administration, the Obama administration,

they were perfectly happy to work with these dictators. But I've always thought over the long run and maybe even over the median run, maybe even the short run, I think it's a losing, it's a losing strategy. Yeah, and to your point, the other kind of subtext of what you just said there was the thing that kept Israel secure was that they were most powerful in the region backed by the most powerful in the world. And in the way that, you know, what has happened over the last two years has, you know, created more enmity in the region. It has in America, too. And if you're right, that the Trump administration moves away from Israel, there's not a lot of domestic options for, you know, political allies at this point. I think that the domestic pro-Israel, you know, political coalition is basically doing everything

possible to turn people off, it seems like, right now. I don't know what it would take for Israel to resurrect its position in the United States. I think it's been irreparably damaged, and we're only at the beginning of the damage, precisely because I do think the bulk of MAGA is going to turn, is going to at least become indifferent to Israel. By the way, I was going to say before, and we can get into this or not, but I was going to say before that this is the beginning of a of a general turn to real America first foreign policy, I think. I think that the Iran expedition is probably the last thing that Trump does outside

the hemisphere. And they seem to be accelerating their withdrawal of troops from Europe. The Asian alliances are in complete disarray. Trump has already said that he's basically given away for all intents and purposes, the aid package to Taiwan. He basically gave that to Xi as a gift for nothing in this last trip. And now I think we'll be focused on what are we going to do in Cuba. I think he's going to go back to trying to take Greenland. It is really going to be purely hemispheric aggression, purely hemispheric activity, and basically telling the rest of the world to have a nice day and jump off a bridge, except continue to pay us the exorbitant tariffs that we've slapped on everybody. I agree with that. And maybe that was the case that Bibi was making,

was that that's the best strategic argument you could make for the decision is that they saw that this was the last gasp and it's like hey this is the you know this is our last ride out of town let's get as much as we can get out of it but anyway let's talk about that broader strategic positioning that we're in you know the piece you wrote a few weeks ago that was referenced many times in the bulwark so i hope your ears were burning checkmate in iran talked about the the broader strategic stepback and and one of the points you made in that piece you write the roles of China and Russia as Iran's allies are strengthened, the role of the U.S. is diminished. There's going to be a chain reaction as foes respond to our failure. Subsequent to that piece, we had the China summit.

And I'm just kind of wondering what you saw in the China summit and how it informed your thoughts on the strategic positioning. Well, the summit, I think, reflected reality for anybody who could see, which was that she was in a very comfortable position. I think that Chinese had a very easy role to play here. They just need to look like the stable power. They can get a long. with the United States. Pucci made it clear that now they regard the United States and China as equal partners in shaping the world, although I think he probably thinks China is now in a superior position. Otherwise, you know, the summit was a nothing burger. It didn't produce anything. It didn't even produce, you know, some of the benefits for the United States that people were anticipating. I mean,

the Boeing plane sales, if they ever materialized, were much lower than expected, et cetera. Okay, fine. That was all fine. It was what Trump did on the way on the way back, that that really was the big sellout. And also just the worst negotiating strategy in the world. The fact that this guy has a reputation for being a deal maker is really quite extraordinary to me. And this is a case and in point. So Trump heard she say, Taiwan is really important to us, by the way. And we really want you to like tell the Taiwanese what to do and not to mess with us and not to declare independence. And also you should really stop supporting them so much. And Trump said in his in his brain, he said, aha, it's something that she cares about.

So now I've got that as leverage. Instead of using it as leverage, he announced that he regarded it as leverage. And therefore, he immediately raised a question mark as to whether he would go forward with the $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan. And so China, therefore, predictably, has now made that the key factor in the relationship. So they recently denied a visit by the great Elbridge Colby, under Secretary of Defense on the grounds that they're not permitting him to come because as long as we're selling the going ahead with the Taiwanese sale. So now because Trump indicated that it was on

the table, now the Chinese are going to use it as leverage on every issue they want to use it on. Whereas if he had just gone forward and used his leverage instead of announcing that he was going to use his leverage, he might have been able to use it as leverage. It's just, it's really remarkable. But it's a bigger indication of how uncommitted he is to Taiwan. And, you know, when you mention it, I mentioned Elbridge Colby, I think it's funny because Elbridge Coe's big line before he got into the administration was all the neocons kept getting us into wars in the Middle East and weakening us in our very important and vital and only really important task, which is containing China and defending Taiwan.

So here we are. The neocons have gotten us into another war in the Middle East and we are weakening our position vis-à-vis China. Only now, Elbridge Kobe is under Secretary of Defense. Yeah, the only unfortunate thing about all that is I wish that China would accept it Elbridge Colby and just kept him. You know, how it would have been so preferable to denying him, denying him entry for me. We need him. So talk about the other elements of the chain reaction, but kind of other implications of this failure vis-a-vis our former quasi-allies in Asia and Europe.

For, you know, 80 years, the United States was the protector of the waterways of the world, and that included the Strait of Hormuz, and that included the energy supply. So the countries like Japan, which are 95% dependent on energy coming out of the Persian Gulf, and countries like Korea, which are like 90% dependent, could count on the United States to keep that flow going. That's over now. The United States has proven that it cannot, will not, does not care to, which leads to. them in an impossible dilemma. Their economies are absolutely dependent on this source of supply. Their politics are dependent on it, therefore. And so it's an imperative for countries like Japan

to make sure that they can secure access. So there's only two ways of doing that. One is by force, which they don't have. And the other is by cutting a deal with Iran, which they will do. But those deals with Iran will not just be about getting the oil. They will also be about certain international behavior. So the notion, by the way, I keep hearing people talk about how there's going to be a sanctions regime on Iran still. No, there isn't because the Iranians are not going to let anybody with a vessel who's putting sanctions on them get their vessels through the straight. It's as simple as that. So the sanctions are all going to fall. Anyway, the point is Japan and other countries are going to now, they can no longer rely on the United States for this. They're going to have to find

other ways of dealing with it. And this is true in Europe, and it's true in other places too. So that's one thing. The other thing that's happening is we are simultaneously, this is unrelated to Iran, but Iran is certainly exacerbated. We are simultaneously pulling out of Europe. And the Europeans now are worried, and I think this is a correct worry, that Putin, who is sort of stalemated in Ukraine, is now going to take aggressive steps to stop the supply of weapons in Ukraine. I have been wondering for really a few years now why Russia hasn't tried. to stop the supply of weaponry that's coming first from the United States and then from Europe. I think that is his goal now. And I think he will use threats. They've really stepped up what is, you know, what people call the hybrid warfare against European states, especially in the Baltic states, especially against Lithuania, for instance, lately. There's a whole Kaliningrad scenario, which I don't, we can get into if you feel like it. But I'm intrigued. You can just tell me. You know, the corridor that runs, Russia has this fluke where they control Kaliningrad, which is not

co-terminates of their border. So the idea that they would open a corridor, which just happens to go through other states, to be able to reach Kalinandgrad, et cetera, has always been one of the possibilities. Other possibilities have to do with protecting the Russian population in some of these countries. He's made a fuss about that in the past. There's all kinds of pretexts of things that Russia could do with the goal, not of necessarily invading Europe, but with the goal of getting the Europeans to cut off to Ukraine. And that's why when people say Putin's in big trouble now, the war's going badly, that's all true.

But that's also happening at a time when Putin must see that this is maybe a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really make a fundamental strategic gain in Europe because the United States is so evidently leaving. And by the way, Europeans are going to build up their military capacities as quickly, as they can. So there's a window before which, you know, Putin may feel that it's time to act. And Iran, the Iran war has aided this because now Putin also happens to be getting an infusion of cash from the higher oil prices. And by the way, the Russians have no interest in this Iran crisis ever being settled because they love the oil prices. So Russia's being strengthened. The United States is bogged down. The United States is withdrawing. I mean, it really is a

recipe for a complete breakdown. The sanctions regime is such a good point that I hadn't really kind of thought through, right? Because it's like even if the U.S. keeps some sort of sanctions regime on there as part of the deal, as part of some gradual effort to pull them back, like, why would other countries in the world participate in that, in the way that they have going, you know, up to now? If they need anything out of the Persian Gulf, they're not going to participate, because that is what Iran has gotten out of all this. Some people have said this is Iran's actual nuclear weapon. They don't really need the nuclear weapons, which is also amusing, given that that's all that Trump is focused on. The only way he measures himself is against Obama, which is about the

nuclear deal. But what Iran is accomplished here is much more important to them than a nuclear weapon right now. Yeah, I think that's a losing dick measuring contest for him. I want to ask you about some of the other people you sit with at these Aspen Security conferences, not personally. Not personally. I don't get invited. I don't know. I don't want you to personally tell it, but I am just curious, like,

thinking about, like, the Pompeo's and the Mark Tissence of the world. Like, not, not like the total Trump hacks, right? Not like the Lindsay Grahams,

but there's a group of, like, quasi anti-Trump or people that have gone with Trump and had of falling out with him in the case of Pompeo, Hawks, who, like, all seem to get on board from this war.

And that, and that from day one, you, you know, were hair on fire about the strategic, disaster it was, like even when it looks like it was militarily working for a few minutes. What was it? Why do you think they missed it so badly? Was it a misjudgment of Trump?

Was there a way that this could have worked out well? Like, how do you assess their bungling of this? You know, I've tried to think about it, and it's not easy to answer. I think it's a complex of things. I mean, first of all, why did I think this wasn't going to work? And one of the reasons was setting everything else aside. One thing we learned in the 1990s was that you could not bomb your way into success like this. You could not bomb your way into regime change. You could not bomb your way into solving problems. And but that's, you know, why do we think that George W. Bush sent troops to Iraq in order to get regime change? It wasn't because he was dying to send troops somewhere. It was because we'd already figured out that if you didn't, if you didn't do that, then you

weren't getting regime change, which is fine. Maybe we shouldn't have done it, whatever. But if you were going to do it, you had to do it. So we looked. learned that that was true. And these people knew that too. So I was, I was just surprised. And I think it was a combination of they want to be pro-Trump. They're, you know, they've obviously made that calculation in their heads, whether it's for career purposes or money purposes or because they truly like Donald Trump or they really hate the Democrats or whatever. So they were initially pro-Trump. And then Iran is a special issue for some people, clearly. And so the notion that the United States was finally blowing up Iranians and killing the regime. I just think was just a very, you know,

after decades, some of these people have committed themselves to containing, defeating, et cetera, Iran, that they've got the better of them. And maybe they even believed what they said they believed. And this is a thing that I think has been a big factor in all this is that Donald Trump is different from all the rest of these guys. He can do, he's willing to pay the price. He's not going to be bogged down by international law. The Wall Street Journal was bragging about how international law is bunk. He's not going to be bogged down by liberal sensibilities, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, so we're really, finally, we have someone who's willing to go all the way. That's my best explanation. Then, of course, when you paid $10 million for a phony painting, you don't want to

ever admit that you paid for a phony painting, so then now you're stuck. And that's why it's been hard, I think, for them to turn against the conflict. And now I think I'm going to be very interested to see for these people how much of it is about principle and how much of it is just needing to get along in the Donald Trump era. So machismo, self-delusion, somebody could write a book on it. I give Ben Rhodes shit when he's on the pod from time to time with love about his book after the fall, which is like quite good. And he goes around the world after Trump wins in 2016 and like meets with all these dissidents.

and like there are parts of the book where he kind of sounds like John McCain and I'm teasing him a little bit. I was like you have this McCannian Bill Crystal Bob Kagan's streak in you. Yeah, he doesn't enjoy it. And I tease him about this. And I'm like, you know, talking about the importance of, you know, supporting people who are struggling for freedom around the world because, you know, the world that comes after, you know,

the American world for all of our flaws seems like it could be a lot worse. And the book he also has plenty of criticisms for. American foreign policy, of course. There's another side of that coin, though, which is you and Bill are starting to sound like Ben in other ways. And I'm wondering how you're kind of processing that emotionally, you know, that you're kind of making a lot of the points, the critiques of the neocons that the Ben Roads of the world have made over the years.

You know, I don't really think that's true, honestly. I mean, I know that apparently being me means that I favor every war that could possibly be fought by anybody. at any time. I didn't say that. All I'm saying is that if you listen to you this podcast and you go listen to last week's episode of Pod Save the World, a lot of the points that you're making

are the same as a Barack Obama's national security advisor. That's all I'm saying. No, I know, but look, it's not, I can't help it that this was an obvious mistake. Setting aside all the amusing aspects of it, I'm interested to know where does this lead people from a doctrinal, since this is a doctrinal discussion, you know, where does this lead people in that regard? Now, you know, my view has always been and remains that the United States created a unique international system which has worked better than any other international system in history and was worth preserving

and that that system was based primarily on American power. And it was based primarily on what America accomplished in World War II. and it heavily relied on America's willingness to use force. Unfortunately, throughout the Cold War and certainly throughout the post-Cold War period, the Ben Rhodeses of this world didn't believe any of that, any of that. You know, I had lunch with Barack Obama, you know, in 2012, and we sat down and we talked about it, and his view was that every use of American force since World War II had been a mistake, every single one. and basically did not believe in the use of American power. So that's one version of what they have always been saying, and I've never been saying that. Now, does that mean that therefore we should be using force everywhere, no matter what, whether it's smart or not smart? So from my point of view, I'm not opposed to war as a concept when it, I'm not, I'm certainly not opposed to the United States using force, but this clearly wasn't going to work and has now led to the disaster that was clear. So I don't even think this is really an ideological question. I think it's mostly

a practical question. I feel like I've been pretty consistent, whereas I don't think that the liberal Democrats have been consistent. I was amused to see after the Obama administration spent really years saying Ukraine was not a vital interest of the United States and making it perfectly clear to the Russians and to Putin that the United States does not regard Ukraine as a vital interest of the United States. Obama said, I'm not going to have a nuclear war over Ukraine. As soon as the Russians invaded Ukraine, people like Ben Rhodes were up there saying, we have to stop them from doing this. This is terrible. We have to stop them. support democracy. And I was glad I'm, you know, yes, I agree 100%, but it's like, you know,

so what's the doctrine here? You know, the doctrine is let's never do Iraq. Agreed. You know, we'll never do Iraq again. Okay. I get that. But from a doctrinal point of view, we have to come out of this, not with the view that the United States should never use force. On the contrary, we have to come out of this with a view that the world depends on American power, but it has to be used intelligently. In retrospect, there are very few of the examples that fit the bill post-World War II. I guess that would be my defense of the Obama Rhodes take from lunch. And there's some examples, but there are more misses than hips, I guess, I would say. And I guess, I mean, this is a much longer argument. Even the misses I don't regard as entirely misses. I think this point is

important. The countries that rely on us for their protection, that have relied on us for their protection, counted on us being willing to use force. Okay. And so if we never used force, we would not have been a useful country to be allied to. And so, which is why, even during the Vietnam War, the European alliance held, you know, in one of my books, I'm quoting a German chancellor saying, look, we need the Americans to fulfill their commitments. This is one of those commitments that they made. And so we shouldn't be, you know, cheering for them to abandon their commitments because then they're someday going to abandon us. So it's more complicated than that. And the kinds of wars that we fought in during the Cold War were not wars of conquest. They were not

wars that you win because you plant your flag in the other guy's capital. They were wars of global order management, really. And in that respect, some of them were successful. Kosovo was a successful conflict. You know, it really did save thousands of lives. You know, even even Somalia, if you remember the Somalia conflict in the early 1990s, you know, that saved hundreds of thousands of people in Somalia. So I just think we've been, I don't know, shaped too much by sort of a Quincy Institute view of the world. You know, we're not going to use power unerringly, but we really do have to be willing to use power or we get the world that, unfortunately, we're now about to get. Is that ship sailed, I guess, at this point? Is that

another part of the doctrinal question, which is it too late to turn back the clock? It's too late to recreate the post-World War II world. It's too late to recreate that world. But it's not too late for the United States to come back and be a positive influence on world affairs and also look after its own security. And that's where we're going to have to go. I mean, my problem with the Democratic Party is that when people say, well, we get to get Trump out and then we'll get the Democrats in and we'll get back to normal again.

And I just want to remind people, this is. not the party of Dean Atchison, this Democratic Party. I mean, if you want to say, how did we get to where we are today, where Americans seem perfectly willing to elect a president who's going to withdraw from the world practically entirely, the Democrats, especially on the left, played a huge role in setting us up for that. They're the ones who said that American leadership was a bad thing, that American power was bad. They really undercut a lot of the moral justification for our behavior. And then the right swooped in and took the Citadel, you know? I really think the left and the liberal Democrats have a lot of responsibility for where we are today.

Yeah. I guess my additional, my yes answer to that would be. I know you've gone full left. I know you've gone full left. Well, here's why I've gone full left. It's fine. Okay. No, it is fine. We could, let's talk about it. This is a great podcast. This is what people want. At the beginning, I said we were going to have a heated agreement. And we did for like 42 minutes. And now, you know, people want a little bit of tension. That's good. Myristan said is kind of similar to what I would have said about BB at the beginning of this, right?

Which is like there was a series of choices that were made by the Israeli government that made it rational for people that are potential allies, you know, to say, I can't sign up for this anymore because of what has actually happened in the real world. Like we're not having this conversation like in a on a college campus with the Aspen security retreat where in a, you know, in a vacuum, you know, you would. prefer whatever, a strong Democratic Israel. Like, that's not what we have. Like, we have what we have in the world. And I guess I would say that the left side of the Democratic Party on foreign policy has been empowered quite a bit by the failures of the bipartisan establishment on the foreign

policy side. And, you know, the series of failures now has led to a moment where, like, I think that people on the left are going to have a lot more purchase with the electorate. because the electorate is going to look at what's happened in the world and say, I don't want part of any of this anymore because it hasn't done anything to help me. That's what I blame not just the left, but sort of the liberal left, and the realists are also about this, which is precisely that, you know, the bipartisan foreign policy establishment led us to failure. It wasn't a failure.

I mean, you know, in that is taking for granted the American order, which is now going to collapse, okay? And as people used to say, Walter Mead has said this like dozens of times. You know, the last 25 years, the last 30 years have been the biggest failure of American foreign policy and history. And I'm like, do you know any history at all? Because which 30 years do you like better? Do you like the first 30 years of the 20th century when we had World War I?

Did you like the second part where we had World War II? I mean, which 30 years have been better than this? Yes, we've gotten into some conflicts that have not worked out. 1989 to 1999 plus an imaginary 20. Yeah, really. Exactly. This has actually been a period of great American success because, again, the world order remained intact, even under presidents who I didn't think were fully committed to it, like Barack Obama. And nevertheless remained intact.

He didn't walk away from it. And the consequence of that order was no conflicts among great powers, which is, you know, for decades, which is not the norm. enormous increase in human prosperity and the spread of democracy in a way that's never been seen before. That is what the bipartisan foreign policy establishment after World War II gave us. The fact that Americans, what really happened in my view was that Americans came to take that for granted. They assumed that that is the steady state. And therefore, all we were ever doing was getting into trouble without realizing that the getting into trouble was part and parcel of the overall effort to sustain this world.

and that you could not sustain this world order if you were not willing to take those kinds of risk. Now, does that mean that they all work? No, but they did ultimately support the order. And now we're going to find out what it looks like when you don't have that. We're going to find out what real failure looks like. It's all been very ahistorical and really thinking that somehow the alternative to our bad policies is some kind of utopian world where we really never have to do any of these things. And that really is not realism, I would say. Well, as is my style.

I'm going to have to cut a middle ground between Bob Kagan and Walter Mead and assessing the last 30 years of foreign policy. But we can do that. We can do a retrospective in 2029 if we get through this. I was supposed to spend the last 10 minutes this podcast on Cuba, but we had this really wonderful diversion. But why don't you just give us a quick assessment of what you think the state of play is with Cuba? Well, I don't know what the state of play is. Obviously, Trump would like to change the state of play is. subject, and I think, again, as I say, move into purely hemispheric activities and hope that

that works. And I don't know. I didn't think that even Venezuela would be as stable as it is right now, so I don't want to go out on a limb, but, you know, I don't want to go too far with prediction, but Cuba is going to be a mess, you know? I mean, let's say they swoop in and they take out a Castro and bring them to trial and then put somebody else in. Cuba is a mess. Cuba is a mess. I mean, let's say they swoop in, and they swoop in, is bankrupt. They have no electricity. They are in a, the people are dying for want. Are we about to give them a multi-billion dollar aid package? Are we going to help them restore their, their economy? Are we going to, we're going to really get in there and help the, this is a nation-building situation. This is not a matter of turning the keys over to some other stooge like we did in

Venezuela. In addition to which, the Cuban American community is a very vocal, community and really cares how things turn out in Cuba. And I'm not sure, you know, that they will be satisfied if we simply decapitate the regime, hand it off to somebody else, and then let the chips fall where they may. So I think that this is yet another Donald Trump quagmire in the making. And I'm curious, you know better than I do, whether this actually will buy him anything politically. I mean, is the average voter going to say, oh, wow, thank goodness, we're not really paying attention Iran anymore. Now we're invading Cuba. We'll see if Nostrakegan is right again.

I'll what happens in Cuba. The political impact is basically nil. I mean, Florida could have some impact on it. Florida might be a swing state again this year, which is kind of interesting. But no, I think for Trump, this is about ego. This is not about politics. It's about ego. It's about legacy.

It's about having people compliment him. It's about the idea that people will say in the future. Maybe Trump was a disaster, but look at what has happened in Cuba and Venice. They have statue to him in Havana, whatever. I do think that's the notion, politics-wise, because I think it's all, if anything, it's a negative.

In the Venezuela situation, which I will see how that all shakes out, like maybe the best case scenario is you get some plot in the DC media that's, like, desperate to compliment him for something to feel unbiased, right? But, like, in the public, to your point, there's no demand for all this, right? And it puts Trump further away from what his unique selling proposition was politically. to people, which was that he cared about them, not about Padisi nonsense, right? Like, that was his selling point to a lot of people, and he's gotten really far away from that. So that's my take on the politics.

And, you know, I think as you've said also, all this is going to be taking place in the context of increasing economic difficulties. I mean, I don't see any way around that, as people have pointed out, even at the war literally ended tomorrow and everything, the straight open tomorrow, it'll be months before we see these effects. Also, I do wonder, by the way, can the military do all this, you know, without cracking? You know, these aircraft carrier battle groups now that are serving in the Gulf have been on station

for a very long time. People are not getting leave. The military is canceling training exercises because they're running out of money. And now we're going to have to devote another aircraft carrier battle group to Cuba in addition to the ones that we've got in the Gulf, which, again, are all detracting

from our defenses in Asia against China. So I'm not sure militarily, we're not straining the military to the point of cracking. We'll see. Bob Kagan, what a banger of a podcast. That was wonderful. I'm setting up at Kagan Road's Beer Summit, though. I think that both of you are resistant to the truth, which is that you're almost, you've almost met.

You've almost met. There's some differences. There's some, there's some wounds that need to be scabbed over. but I can see it. I can see the path, and I'm going to organize it, maybe down in New Orleans over a Sazirac or something, all right, man.

Sounds great. All right, we'll see you soon. That's Bob Kagan. We'll be back with another banger tomorrow. We'll see you all then. Peace. The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper,

Associate producer Anseli Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.