The Dispatch Podcast - The Iran War Is Spiraling Out of Trump’s Control

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

Steve Hayes is joined by Jonah Goldberg, David French, and Mike Nelson to discuss the possible entrance of Russia and China into the Iran war and the possibility of unintentional escalation. The Agenda: —The War That Could Swallow the World —Water system cyberattacks —Putin and Xi’s calculations —The Taiwan implication —U.S. munitions stockpiles —Trump’s madman theory —NWYT: Trump’s golf titleThe Dispatch Podcast is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including audio versions of all our articles and newsletters—⁠click here⁠. If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listeners, I want to tell you about the competitive enterprise institutes How the World Works podcast featuring the dispatch's own Kevin Williamson. Each episode, Kevin sits down with a notable guest to discuss the jobs they've had, why work matters, and the role of work in our social lives. After all, work involves a lot more than the paychecks cash. So listen to How the World Works, wherever you listen to podcasts, or visit c.i.org slash podcasts. Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Steve Hayes on today's roundtable new concerns about the war with Iran.

We'll discuss the risk of the war's expansion with Russia and China stepping up support for Iran and America's regional allies taking more independent offensive action. What is the possibility of unintentional escalation and a broadening war spinning out of control? And then not worth your time, Donald Trump's 43rd golf championship and other people, peak athletic performance from places you might least expect to see it. I'm joined today by the dispatch's editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg and dispatch contributors, retired Army Special Forces Officer Mike Nelson, and the New York Times, David French. Let's dive right in. Russia is providing electronic intelligence to Iran that is likely helping it pinpoint American forces in aerial attacks or jam American-made weapons. According to a U.S. and a European-made weapons, according to a U.S. and a European

official with knowledge of the matter. NBC News July 31st. Iran is expected to receive within weeks a first shipment of up to 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air defense missile launchers. Three sources familiar with the deal told Reuters as it rebuilds its defenses amid war with the United States. Reuters July 28th. Bahrain and Kuwait secretly sent jets to attack sites inside Iran, their first such direct retaliation against Tehran, and an indication of the difficult position and Arab states find themselves in as the war grinds on. People familiar with the matter said, Wall Street Journal July 24th. While Saudi Arabia pushed U.S. President Donald Trump not to carry out a major attack on Iran over the weekend, the United Arab Emirates lobbied him to take, quote,

more decisive action, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing senior Gulf officials familiar with a discussion. The UAE has carried out its own strikes against Iran and hosted Israeli air defense troops on its soil to help counter Iranian attacks. Times of Israel, August 2nd, and finally, the stops start fighting between the United States and Iran appears to have entered a new phase as Saudi Arabia has publicly joined military escalations against Tehran-backed proxies. At the same time, an already untenable diplomatic effort to end the war has faltered once again as mistrust deepens between the longtime adversaries. David, I want to start with you because it appears that you and I were thinking along the same lines over the past week. As I mentioned in the

introduction, I think the conversation about the conflict in Iran now in its six months has usually included basically two binary possibilities. One, that the United States would choose to escalate to win. And two, that this kind of stalemate, unsatisfying ending. could bog down with the United States and its allies in the Gulf. The option that I think has been under-discussed, but which you wrote about this weekend in a terrific column for the New York Times, is the possibility that the war could expand. Yeah.

And when you consider those headlines just from the past week of both increasing support from Iran's traditional allies, increasing offensive action taken by U.S. allies in the region, it seems to me there really is a possibility that this could grow, certainly well beyond something that we could control. Can you walk us through the case that you made in The Times this weekend? Yeah, I began with a statement that the only thing worse than Trump starting an unconstitutional war is him losing control of that war. And I think it's pretty clear he's lost control. When we went in, it's very obvious.

I mean, he's said this 50 times. We've said it 50 times in our discussions. He expected something clean, quick, Venezuela-like. It was ridiculous, ridiculous to take on a more powerful country with less force than the U.S. took on Saddam Hussein in 2003 and with less public support. So he's taking on a country that was more powerful than we took on in 03 with less public support and much less force, thought he could win in a week. we've been through all of this.

But I think one thing that Americans sort of thought for a long time is that one thing about being the world's hyperpower is we get to start conflicts when we want to start conflicts and we get to end conflicts when we want to end conflicts. So even Afghanistan is a disastrous withdrawal

that Joe Biden had that, you know, his approval rating rightly went underwater after that and never came back up. We still ended it. It was over. I mean, now, Al-Qaeda might be plotting and planning in the background and it might not fully be over.

But as far as major combat operations with the Taliban, that's all over. But here, we just saw something, and I keep going back to something that Mike said in our last discussion, when I was sort of saying, is Iran overreaching when it restarted the conflict, when it has been completely unwilling to allow the straight to open, it's been completely unwilling to cease its own missile and drone attacks. What if we're facing an enemy that is right now in its own process on its way and its timing of escalating to win? So they're in a process of expanding the war, the Houthis and the Red Sea, the surprise missile attack on our airbase in Jordan. These are things that Donald Trump did not want. Donald Trump obviously did not plan for.

And then you have the Russia-China angle here. And there's one part of that, Steve, or it's a of things that I put in my column that weren't in your little summary. One is Ukraine struck an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea. This is a big deal. This is a big deal. Iran threatened retaliation, which could have included missile strikes against Ukraine, which could lead to merging of these conflicts, at least to some degree. At the same time, even as Russia is facing catastrophic losses in the battlefield, confronting what appears to be a truly effective deep strike and medium strike campaign from Ukraine. I had a fantastic conversation with Corey Shockey about this recently, where this medium strike campaign, we're all really focused on the

deep strike, the blowing up of the Amazon.com style warehouses, this honeyberry thing. Wildberries. Wildberries. Sorry. Honeyberry is in breath this spot like a block for me. Can't get the two mixed up. Wildberries. I hope Ukraine doesn't strike it. That would be bad. Seriously. And so you have, you know, had this very tense moment, then you have Russia, there's rumbling that it might mobilize. And this is something a lot of people don't realize that Russia hasn't fully mobilized. It's still relying on, it had a wave of conscription earlier in the war, but it's still relying on these increasingly coercive recruitment efforts to fill the ranks. It hasn't, and there's just a vast chunk of Russian humanity that in the Moscow-St.

Petersburg area, this really not been brought into the fight. So is Vladimir Putin considering instead of de-escalating in response to battlefield reversals, escalating. A Russian missile struck in Poland. Thankfully, didn't hurt anybody, but we've had drone incursions. This was a missile incursion. And so, who here is in command of events? Who here is in command of events? That's the question that I have. And look, the way I put it is, I don't want to be the kind of person that's running around going, world war is coming. World war is coming. If you're just running around saying that, you become like a chicken little.

Nobody pays attention to you. But if you can see a series of events unfolding, and there's not a real sense that anyone was in control of the events and that many of the major actors are either escalating in response to those events or constantly threatening to escalate in response to those events. We've seen movies like this before. So how late is too late to raise the alarm? When do you raise the alarm?

And the way I put it is, I don't think, World War is certain. Maybe I don't even think it's probable. I don't think it's probable. But I think it's more possible right now than any time since the Cold War. And then what makes this much more fraught and difficult is how obviously we are led by the most chaotic, corrupt, and incompetent and a crucially erratic administration that we've seen, certainly in my lifetime, I would argue, in American history, so that every alternative plan that you propose, so let's say, okay, well, one way out of this is let's not escalate with massive attacks, but maintain the blockade and just slowly grind them down. Valid strategy, valid strategy.

Now let's add dot, dot, dot. and whatever plan you propose is going to be run and executed by deranged, incompetent, erratic people. And that's what makes me extraordinarily nervous. Now, we're looking at a situation where it's very difficult to imagine an actual victory here. It's much easier to imagine a strategic defeat under the conditions that have been set. And it's even possible to imagine a widening war. And, well, we've already had a widening war. but substantially widening war.

And so I just wanted as much as I could from whoever will listen to say, I'm nervous and here's why. Mike, do you buy that analysis? Is it just as likely that we will see an expansion of this war, that it will slip further out of our control, out of the U.S. control, out of Donald Trump's control?

Or is the most likely outcome or next several months still just sort of bumping along and pushing through without real resolution? Well, I think we've already seen an expansion of the war from what it originally was, this cross-straight conflict between two primary combatants with Israel participating, as David's laid out. And as you laid out in the beginning intro,

we've had the expansion across the region. I think we've seen a diversification of the kinds of targets that Iran is striking primarily, like I said, I think there were some real indicators about the type of targets that they hit in Jordan, specifically they're trying to weaken our ballistic missile defense in theater in preparation for striking other targets. We've also seen the expansion beyond, and I think several of us have warned about this since the beginning of the war, they have started to bring the war here. We saw these cyber attacks against water facilities in Minnesota, largely attributed or believed to be based on Iranian hacking or cyber attacks.

The president, as he was wont to do in al-halsinki, not only denied that it might be adversarialized, serial action, but blamed it on Tim Walts or the Minnesota government somehow. What he likes to attribute to their incompetence in state administration was somehow responsible for this cyber attack, as opposed to saying there was this attack on the American homeland, a non-standard one, but there was still an attack. And I think that's the first step. It was a demonstration, a warning shot of what they can do. But, you know, I think there's an escalatory ladder that we can see.

The next step might be targeting the same kind of infrastructure through cyber means to change physical dynamics, opening up dikes and waterways to cause damage and flooding. And then, you know, as I pointed out a couple times, we saw, you know, back in the 2010s, Iran developed a plot to blow up a restaurant here in Georgetown. They were willing to do that just to kill a Saudi ambassador at a time that tensions were not that high. Their risk threshold is much higher than we believe. And I think that eventually they would potentially escalate to kinetic attacks in the United States. Now, again, to like the rationalness of their thinking or relative rationalness compared to our lack, we're caught in this uncomfortable middle, as you said, where we're bumping along.

The president believed it was going to be easy. It has not been as easy as he believed. There are, you know, generally two ways out of this. Escalate, which incurs greater risk and economic pain or concede, you know, and we saw the most recent attempt at that with the MOU. the Iranians are, I think, rightfully, like I said, playing the man across the table from them and seeing that the president, regardless of his bluster and rhetoric, does not want to escalate, does not want to incur that additional risk, does not want to conduct the types of strikes and attacks that will incur additional American casualties, does not want to do things that are going to cause further economic disruption. And he is most likely very aware of the drumbeat that's leading towards the midterm elections and how things are going to turn against him as this war grows ever more unpopular. And they're therefore, by extension, his administration. So the Iranians, you know, rightfully might say, how do we try to exact the most amount the other way in the concession route, going to those strikes to try to make sure that all routes through the Strait of Hormuz, you know, the strikes that scrapped the MOU, but they did not want any routes through the Strait of Hormuz that did not

result in their tolling or some kind of fines paid to them. They are now, you know, this escalatory pressure to try to make it even worse as we lead up to the midterm elections in order to try to try to exact the next round of diplomatic concessions. And we're seeing the president again. Despite his bluster, he has said, once again, I got a phone call from our allies. They've asked me, I'm so magnanimous, and we have great progress, you know, including he's promised that they have agreed to open up the straight and completely do away with their nuclear program, either of which we have any indications they're going to do. But I think this is a problem that the president, number one, went into it without knowing what he was going to accomplish. And number two,

beholden to the interests and support of certain allies that he never built a coalition with. The Saudis are, you know, pressuring him not to conduct these strikes. And it's partially because he never went to the Saudis, the Bahrainis, the Emirates, the Kuwaitis, and said, okay, this is the next round of the campaign. And we are all a coalition doing this in concert. He never built a coalition. He's not conducting it as a coalition warfare, but he is still beholden to the basing and the interests of those members of what would be a coalition if he had built one. And you can see in the examples that we've provided so far, each of those actors doing something on their own. I mean, making decisions on their own, sometimes in consultation with the United States and other than the region, often not in ways that I think create more chaos than end the chaos.

Jonah, the other thing, sort of the flip side of what Mike is saying there is if you look at the way that President Trump has reacted when he's been asked about these states. by our adversaries to intervene in the conflict there in the region or when he was asked about these Iranian cyber attacks, his answer in public is to basically deny or downplay that anything is wrong. When he was asked about she, he said, no, I don't, he's told me that he's not going to be involved, that he's not going to be supplying or selling military equipment to Iran. When he was asked about Vladimir Putin, he said that this intelligence, if Russia is providing this intelligence to help targeting of U.S. intelligence facilities in the region was, quote, very unimpactful and insignificant on this question of the cyber attacks here in the United States,

there was this, President Trump held a press briefing or an impromptu press conversation when he was at Camp David over the weekend late last week. And there was a sort of, you have to see it moment. When he was asked about the negotiations and he took great umbrage, was seemed to be deeply personally offended that the Iranians were going out and saying in public that there had been no discussions of talks about constraints on their nuclear program or that they'd even talked about nuclear issues. And Trump said, exasperated, we definitely talked about nuclear issues. How can they go out and say something that's so untrue. And then moments later in the same press conference, he's asked about these Iranian cyber attacks and he says, in effect, yeah, Tim Walts did it. This was Minnesota attacking

Minnesota. When you look at those things, does it lend support to David's argument that we could well be seeing an expansion because the president continues in public to show that he has no real grasp on reality of the situation? Of course, yes. I think Trump's motivation for saying all those kinds of things is to forestall the spreading realization that things have gotten out of hand and that he does not have control of the situation. That's why he's constantly saying the Iranians are begging for a deal.

That's why he's constantly saying we won already. He's trying to minimize this metastasizing problem. And, you know, I had Ken Pollock, my return. turning Iran war expert or Iran expert on last week. And one of the points he made, which I had not seen people make really forcefully elsewhere, is that from a certain perspective, the negotiations with America are not necessarily the most important negotiations around as conducting, because they are conducting all sorts of bilateral deals with other Gulf states about under the table understanding.

about what can go through and what can't, and maybe we and, you know, Oman will split the Hormuz toll booth, you know, revenue, and we won't touch Saudi ships if they agree to that, and all this kind of stuff. And that doesn't get a lot of Western coverage. It doesn't get a lot of attention. It's sort of like the missing piece that explains why, you know, the compass isn't pointing north because there's this magnet of this other pressing issue going on sub-Rosa going on.

So, I mean, I agree with David's thesis that this thing could spire out of control in all sorts of different ways. But, you know, I think a different theme to worry about, you know, I feel like I'm Abe Greenwald on the commentary podcast. It's worse than that, is that it's not so much that things could escalate.

It's that things could converge. And I feel like every now and then you have one of these ideas that you think is original to you, sort of like what you were thinking about, about this stuff, and all of a sudden you just start seeing other people sort of coming at it from different directions to the same conclusion. It feels to me like, and again, it's not a prediction. It's just simply that it's a possible path that the Ukraine War and the Israel war are converging into different facets of the same conflict.

Explain that for us. Yeah, in complicated ways, and I don't necessarily mean Axis versus Allies kind of way, although there's a logic that fed into the Axis versus Allies stuff in similar ways, too. On the technological front, Russia is using Iranian drones to fight Ukrainians. Ukrainians are teaching Gulf states how to combat Iranian drones, right? I mean, there's all of this cross-pollinization stuff going on in terms of a lot of this technology about the interceptors, whether or not Ukraine gets our Patriot plans or not, the tactics that are improved or adopted in Ukraine, find themselves in Israel or Gaza very quickly, vice versa.

So there's all sorts of that kind of stuff going on. The fact that Russia is a supporter of Iran and has these deals means that Ukrainians were right to take out Iranian assets in the Kaspian Sea, because for them, anything that helps Russia in the fight against Ukraine is also the other side of that coin is how they're helping Iran and vice versa. You know, one option that seems more likely right now than Putin launching a mass mobilization is North Korea sending 30,000 more fresh troops into the feeder. And you then get all of the, you know, like we talked last week or the week before about how

weird it was that Laura Lumer is now pro-Ukraine and some of these other influencers are pro-Ukraine. And one of the theories that I floated, which is not unique to me, is that at least part of it could be explained by the fact that at an ideological level, if you are supportive of Israel, scrappy underdog country, democracy, fighting for its national sovereignty and its independence against a bully, you know, bullies outside its borders, then you're going to be kind of sympathetic to the Ukrainian narrative as well. And that convergence is, I think you're starting to see it gel in all sorts of other places. I mean, you can go down a long list of areas where the interests of the U.S., Israel, and other democracies in Europe, and the interests of the non-democracies from North Korea, Iran, you know, where they're calling it now access of adversaries or something like that, right?

There are these natural forces that, that the galvanic forces that cause like interests to line up. And so China and Russia have a lot of similar overlapping interests. I don't think China wanted this war, the Ukraine war, but they really don't want Russia to lose, right? And now they see it in their interest, both Russia and China, of providing intelligence to Iran in the same way that we're providing intelligence to Ukraine. And so, again, I don't say we're going to see Israeli troops fighting in Ukraine. I don't think we're going to see Ukrainian troops fighting in Israel or in Iran. but you can see who's taking whose phone calls and why. And I think the logic of it is going to accelerate.

You know, note one thing really quickly. So, Steve, you went through a list of expansionary events. I added onto it. Mike then added on to my list. And Jonah added on to Mike. So Mike adds on the cyber attacks in Minnesota. Jonah adds on already thousands of North Korean troops have deployed and fought.

Now there's potentially 30,000 more coming. Zelensky has been warning about this. So think of all of those things we just went through. And then we didn't even catalog the weirdness of our own national government's response to all of this, where in the one hand, we're furious that Russia is using its lessons learned, fighting American, you know, taking on Ukraine armed with American patriot missiles. It's learned how to adapt to that. It's using that to help Iran.

And then what are we turning around and doing? We're now reneging on the deal potentially to allow Ukraine to manufacture Patriot missiles. So we're in this weird situation where it's quite obvious that in access, think about this. Ukraine has been in direct armed confrontation with two nuclear arm powers, Russia and North Korea, okay, direct arm confrontation with two nuclear powers. The axis of adversaries is becoming very, very clear. and yet we have no coherent Ukraine strategy and keep pulling the rug out from under Ukraine and we're on again off again in Iran

and where it looks like maybe one of the more probable outcomes and one of the reasons why I say it's not likely that we have anything that looks like a world war, although I'm alarmed at the direction we're heading is I think the most likely alternative is some version of MOU 2. Yes. Which would just be a flat-out strategic defeat.

And I think that's the more likely alternative. And I think Putin right now is thinking that Trump has given him an incredible opportunity for Putin to inflict upon America at least some version of, a smaller version of, definitely, smaller version, but some version of the quagmire and defeat that Zelensky has inflicted, and Ukraine is inflicting on Russia. Just one quick point on this, because I had a, I'm thinking about writing a column and I started writing a list of things. One of the important ones that left out in terms of the convergence, it is in Russia's interest to keep the price of oil at above $100 a barrel. For sure.

It is in Iran's interest to keep the price of oil at $100 a barrel. It is not in Ukraine's interest to have that happen because that's what fuels Russia's war machine. It is not in Trump's interest. And so you can see, you know, the access of low oil prices versus the access of high oil. I mean, like, they're just all of these contributing factors going on. Right. All right. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back soon with more from the dispatch podcast.

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where this is headed and the possibility of a second MOU or something, because I agree with you that that's, at least in my view, that's the most likely short and medium term outcome. But before we get there, you mentioned the United States reneging on the president's offer to allow Ukraine to build Patriot missile interceptors. The president also has apparently reneged on this deal that the United States signed to allow Saudi Arabia to move forward. with its civilian nuclear programmer to help supply. It's fuzzy. We don't know exactly where that is.

We don't know exactly what the deal was. So we don't know exactly the ways in which we've reneged on the deal. But it's been widely reported that that's been sort of pulled back too. And I don't want to, you know, part of me doesn't want to focus on President Trump's rhetoric. It seems you hear him say the things that he said about Putin, she and Tim Walz. You watch him renege on these things. You see him say, I mean, you know, late last week he said that we were. We were going to go back at around as hard as anything since World War II.

We were going to pound the effing S out of them. And then the next day, he's deferring once again to the Pakistanis and the Saudis and others and pulling it back. And I'm very interested in all of this. I spent a bit of time late last week doing some additional reporting, making some calls, talking to Republican senators on the hill, talking to some of the people involved in these negotiations. and you know what is so striking to me is how you know unreliable he is and it used to be the case that his supporters his staunchest supporters would say the president acts like he's crazy and that unpredictability is really a strategic advantage for us because people don't know what to do and they're afraid of him

have we gotten to the point and this is a leading question i apologize in the banks i know where this is leading just as my question to jonah Jonah was a leading question. Have we gotten to the point where he is now so totally predictable on this stuff? I'm skeptical that the unpredictability was the strategic advantage that his supporters said it was, even back when he was more unpredictable. But we've now gotten to the point where when he says this thing on, I think it was Friday, we're going to pound the Fing S out of them, you know, world destruction or Iran's going to be destroyed.

My very first thought upon hearing that was he'll pull back. this weekend. Yeah, that was my first thought as well, especially when you hear about a weekend bombing, you think, oh, it's either going to pull back. I had, this was my binary. He's either going to pull back or shock and awe is going to last for about 36 hours, and then he's going to stop right before the market's open. Right, right. Because he's engaging this ongoing weird market manipulation at the same time where he's obviously trying to jaw on the stock market higher and higher and higher because he sort of views that as his report card on the economy. And so, you know, if he's got Dow, like the legendary Pam Bondi rant, you know, if he's got Dow above

50,000, what are you doing talking to me about the economy? So, you know, the madman theory, which I've heard for 10 years now, we've all heard this madman theory for 10 years, depends on the guy not being a madman. Because the madman theory really depends on him presenting a facade, right? Right. But now what we're at is it's like, It's a madman, but the worst kind now, because he's not just a madman. He's predictable. He's manipulatable. And so you can create the conditions where it feels like, in many ways, our adversaries are just leading him down a path.

That there is a pattern to these things. And this pattern is what we have seen, wild threats, occasionally lashing out, but no real staying power. so that if you can hunker down, or if you can inflict losses, or if you can turn some of the levers of the stock market or the oil market or the bond market, you can have him sort of react in real time. And so we're looking at a situation where he's both erratic. Can you call it erratic anymore where it's so predictably erratic? You know, that's the weird thing about it is it's, yeah, it's erratic, but we can call the shot.

Right. right and and and that's what is leading me you know to think because we can call the shot so clearly is one of the reasons sort of mitigating against this idea that it will spiral out of control but if we look at other actors in the region i mean we came close to an exchange of fire direct exchange of fire between iran and ukraine okay what about more what about more cruise missiles crossing into polish airspace you know these are we have other actors here who are going to feel as if they have to act because there is no meaningful leadership in Washington. You know, think about the difference between Gulf War I, right? Let's go back all the

way back to Gulf War I. Because we had really strong leadership in the White House, and I'm glad to finally see George H.W. Bush start to get some of his due for all of this. He was able to go to Israel and actually persuade Israel to do the previously unthinkable, which is to stand down. Sit it out. And sit out in expanded war and say, we got this. We can handle this. Do any of our allies think we got this now? No. And they all have their own national self-interest. They all have their own interest in play here. And so this is why the kind of mockery that you got from the new, you know, the new right about American global leadership and the mockery. And the mockery, about America having a leading position in the world

is that somehow too much of a burden for us is too much of a burden for us when we don't lead. That's when it's a burden for us. Mike, I want to jump in there because I think that because what the president sometimes does, what we see from him rhetorically and what we've seen from him rhetorically,

not only over the past five plus months, but I would argue over the past 10 plus years in this context, in the context of war and peace, because it's so unsurious, I think there's an inclination to not take it seriously. And, you know, it provokes eye rolls and people, oh, I can't believe he's saying this again. But a president's rhetoric has real effect on our ability to deter our enemies. And it's both, you know, as David points out, it has an effect on our ability to coordinate with allies. But also, if you're she and you are supplying 400 shoulder fired.

missile launchers. And the President of the United States says, man, no big deal. He said he wouldn't. Or if you're Putin and you're providing apparently very precise, detailed targeting information on our classified and heretofore unreported intelligence facilities in the region. And the President of the United States says no big deal. There's no incentive whatsoever. Not to continue to do that. In fact, the incentive, if you think that the United States should be preoccupied in the region, would be to increase those behaviors. What about the sort of broadly, what the effect of the president's rhetoric

on sort of deterrence generally, and this, correct me if I'm wrong, but I mean, it seems to me, talk to Republican elected officials, and there's sort of, I don't want to say, a shrug of the shoulders. I think they, you know, many of them take it seriously. But there's not this, holy cow,

we need to talk to the president and get him to stop doing this. it's more sort of like, yeah, this is Trump being Trump. Nothing we can do. Yeah. If you look at the president's rhetoric, not just the fact that he is now nine times followed the same pattern, I'm going to, you know, in order this incredibly destructive attack, never mind, diplomacy is totally getting a foothold this time. He's also escalated to the extremes in terms of how much he has described the diplomatic progress and how much he has described the pending doom if Iran does not cooperate with whatever he. he's specifically asking for at that time.

You know, to quote the philosopher poet Axel Rose, I used to do a little, but a little wouldn't do, and so the little got more and more. So he's escalated, like, it's, I'm not just going to order an attack, I'm going to destroy their civilization. I'm not just going to order attack. It's going to be the largest attack since World War II,

and I'm going to pound the Fing S out of them, right? You know, so, and the more he does that, the more hyperbolic it gets, the less seriously, not just through repetition, not just through following this pattern, but the specifics of what he's threatening become so hyperbolic that they're not serious, that nobody believes he's going to destroy their civilization

or that this is going to be the largest attack since World War II. It does, number one, the Iranians are looking at this and saying, well, I know that's not going to happen, so I can just wait it out until the next Saudi phone call or if that even happened, or just, you know, the claim of a Saudi phone call and get, you know, relief from this pending threat. I do think it's having an effect in a negative way

about establishing American deterrence. Many of the president's defenders have claimed that this war and the president's action and willingness to take action against Iran has reestablished deterrence. I would argue that existed back in 2025 after Midnight Hammer.

That was an effective and a very wise use of force and it did establish deterrence. But now, by demonstrating a lack of resolve, a lack of planning, a lack of commitment and a confusion about what America was willing to do, added to this rhetoric of way over the top threat,

it's had the opposite effect. It is, in a way of thinking about it, the negative effect of what we used to use strategic ambiguity about the defending Taiwan. By saying little, we opened up the range of options to a lot, and China had to plan against the worst of those rate of options. Right now, we are saying a lot that no one takes seriously,

and so people are assessing a little, somewhere below that rhetorical threshold. And it's not just going to have effects in this war, as we just talked about the possible escalation by Iran, by other actors who are willing to do this, but it also is going to have effect in American deterrence globally about other conflicts. China is probably looking at this as they make their plans and say, we are less likely to believe that America would do anything to lift a finger to defend Taiwan, and more likely to seek some kind of diplomatic brokered settlement where we will give them

semi-conductor access, but we control domain over Taiwan. So it is hindering our deterrent effect. Regarding the Chinese missiles, it's not the supply of the missiles themselves, or not these missiles. Man pads, shoulder-fired missiles are largely not going to have much of an effect based on some of the range limitations and integration with theater radars. They are probably not going to change the balance of the conflict. I think what matters is the demonstration of doing it. As you said, the fact that China is willing to do this at the same time the president has said, China has promised me they're not doing it. They feel no threat.

They feel no problem embarrassing the president. And that is going to escalate as well. And Jonah, that's a change. I remember in the early conversations that we had after the launch of this conflict, it was notable, at least to me, that the Chinese were not, even rhetorically, getting Iran's back. They would put out a statement and call on everybody to come to their senses, you know, in diplo speak, but really not leaning forward.

as much as I think many of us thought that they would, and as much as Iran, I think, thought that they would. What we're seeing, it seems to me, marks a change. And if you're she, you don't necessarily, you know, need to march into Taiwan. I think there are people who have the sort of worst case scenario in mind with the possibilities that are opened up to China, given our preoccupation, is your goal just to keep us preoccupied. Yeah. And I mean, on a bunch of different fronts, right, run down our munitions, right? The magazine depth thing, everyone reads the same articles. You don't need access to, like, intelligence reports.

Just the conversation in public about how we're running down our munitions. You know, everyone wants to talk about how China reads that. Well, Taiwan reads it too. And if they think that, like, we literally don't have the resources, even if we wanted to, to come to their aid, then that's going to be part of their strategic calculation about how much they capitulate to China and all the rest, and it gives China confidence.

I think the reason why China didn't have that kind of forthright response immediately is much like Donald Trump, they thought there was a non-trivial chance that this thing would be super successful. You know, so they said, well, let's wait and see. You know, we don't want to get on the wrong side of this. If, in fact, they do replay of Venezuela in Iran, they were watching to see how we did. And, you know, it's funny, I've been thinking about writing,

about this, there was this, you know, it's sort of the convergence of odyssey discourse and foreign policy discourse. The ancient Greek said this concept of hubris, which was this idea of thinking you're so great that the gods are like, yeah, we're going to take you down a peg. And Trump in that Atlantic, I think it was the Atlantic profile, was asked if there was anything in the world that could constrain his sphere of action. Was it a New York Times interview? Was it in the New York Times interview? Yeah. Anything in the world that could hinder his ability to impose his will. This was during one of the single dumbest moments

of American political analysis on record, and that's saying something, when people were taking seriously the idea that Donald Trump had read Hegel, but we could put that aside. And he thought it meant Chuck Hegel. Yeah, and he still hadn't read it. He hadn't read that either.

But he'd said, you know, the only thing that can stop me is my own sense of right and wrong. I can literally do anything. This is, you know, he's giving Maggie He, Haberman and Jonathan Swan, a memo written by a golf pro saying he's the most powerful man in human history. And so Trump, that's his mindset going into this thing.

And now it turns out that like a couple dudes with drones launched from a pickup truck can actually constrain the most powerful man on the world's action. And I think that that's the thing that, like you talk about how Trump is lost his ability to have a credible threat. I worry about that because the last thing, you know, to paraphrase Lou Waltz and the godfather, the last thing Donald Trump thinks he can afford is to appear to be made to look ridiculous. And the Iranians are trolling him. Everybody in American politics, who doesn't love him, is trolling him about how his threats mean nothing, all a taco talk. You know, like he's declared that we've won 17 times.

or something like that, finally fulfilling the prophecy that one day we'll get tired of all the winning. And the thing is, I don't put it past him to say, well, screw that. I need people to respect me. And doing something wildly either escalatory or a war crime, you know, one of those, you know, Moab bombs on a desalinization.

I don't know, but like something, not so much to prove deterrence, or to win the escalatory ladder, but to prove he's strong like bull, right? Because he cannot, his brain cannot comprehend the idea that people don't think he's the toughest guy on the block. And that is not the kind of composure that you want in a President of United States. I mean, it helps that someone can always say to him,

that'll drive oil prices up through the roof and crash the stock market, which he also cares about. But at some point, relying on the idea that he cares more about the price of oil on the stock market than he does about being seen as a strongman is not a place that I find all that comforting. One thing that I think the president, this might come as a surprise, the president is not the most astute student of history. But if you look at some of the names that were on that list that Gary Players, Caddy put together, you know, they included Napoleon and Hitler. And yes, they were probably very powerful, especially domestically within the scope of their reign. But he misses something that

happened, which was because they went it alone, the combined powers of the rest of the world were able to defeat them or at least block them in their goals. So inherent power by itself is not enough, especially when you are lined up against the rest of the world, or at least the rest of the world is not supporting you. Reminds me of the nor MacDonald comedy routine where he goes, Germany took on the world. And then a few years later, Germany decides, let's fight the world again. Germany was unquestionably very, very, very, very powerful in both World War I and World War II. It was not powerful enough. And, you know, one thing that I worry about is just math, just math.

Let's look at what's happened. The skies of both Russia and Ukraine right now are just pretty much wide open to deep strikes. Ukraine lacks interceptors. Ukraine doesn't have the ability to withstand the Russian aerial barrage. And as much as we like to say, oh, that only is the warrens. stiffens the resolve of civilians when they're it's horrific what is happening in ukraine right now it is horrific it is putting a strain on the country when i talked to corey that it was the number one thing that she said was the problem that ukraine faces was it's open to air attack russia's open to air

attack and if i'm china i'm counting i'm looking at every ballistic missile at every drone at every cruise missile that i have and i'm asking how many more of these do i have that America has Thad missiles, Patriot missiles, et cetera. Because as soon as those patriots are exhausted, as soon as those Thads are exhausted, all the standard missiles on the, you know, the Burke class destroyers and the Arley-Berk destroyers, once those are out, you are exposed. F-15s and F-22s don't really shoot down ballistic missiles. You are exposed. And that is one thing that I really worry about from the escalatory standpoint. And we keep saying the response about the interceptors

is we have all that we need and it's Joe Biden's fault that we'll low. Well, pick a lane, guys. Right. Pick a lane, guys. Because if I'm our adversaries, I'm looking right now and I'm wondering, do I have a window here?

Because it takes a while for a lot of brand new equipment to come online. You don't just wave a magic wine, sign a check, and get a thousand new Patriot interceptors. It's just, it's not like going to Costco and getting them off the shelf. These have to be manufactured. Facilities have to be expanded if we're going to really ramp up manufacturing. And so I'm, I'm just worried about math at this point. Also, just to be clear, whether or not, I mean, I agree with Steve that people catastrophize a little bit about what the

worst case scenarios are with Taiwan. But one variable that Chinese do not factor into their thinking is, well, you know, the American low supply of munitions was Joe Biden's fault. So we really shouldn't take advantage of that fact and do what we want to do now. I mean, like, the way the partisan explanations for stuff masquerades as an excuse, I mean, it's like, who cares? I mean, I'm perfectly fine with the idea that Biden was profligate with weapon systems that he didn't want to replace. I mean, I think helping Ukraine was worthwhile and justified and all of that.

But, like, we are where we are. The president's the commander in chief. Like, you can pass the buck on blame. It doesn't change the security calculation, the national security calculation in any way. Right. I think the better argument was that Biden should have been more generous at an earlier stage in the war, actually. I'm just saying he was profligate in the sense that he didn't make more stuff to replace the stuff that he was sending over. That's all.

Right. And if what are the flaws was he expended? too many munitions by sending them to Ukraine, why are you starting a large-scale military conflict in that circumstance? Right, right, right, right. Well, because you thought it was going to be a 72-hour war, like Putin thought that Ukraine would be a 72-hour war. Right. Before we take an ad break, I hope you'll please consider becoming a member of the dispatch. You'll unlock access to bonus podcast episodes and all of our exclusive newsletters and articles. You can sign up at the dispatch.com slash join, and if you use the promo code roundtable, you'll get a month for free.

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Welcome back. Let's return to our discussion. So I want to end this part of our discussion by sort of looking at the, we're recording this midday Monday, negotiations are supposed to be starting. Donald Trump once again said that we're on the verge of. of a great big deal, just got negotiators there. And I want to just get it, again, in some of the conversations I've had over the past week, I think it's sort of new clarity about why they're not, these aren't working beyond the sort of broader geostrategic reasons that we've identified,

both in this conversation and in previous conversations. There are also big divides in both of the parties that are engaged in these conversations. And on the U.S. side, you have a White House or administration that I think is divided between the people who want to end this, get it done. You know, whatever the ramifications are now with the Strait of Ormoos, this needs to end. If there's a little inflation, that's bad. If there's a lot of inflation, that's worse. But this needs to end because all eyes on the midterm. I think that's very short-sighted, but there are probably worse arguments to be made.

Then, on the other hand, you have people in the administration who are saying and have been saying, no, it's really important. We undertook this. We didn't, maybe we didn't communicate. communicate this well, the reasons for the war well to the country and to the world, but there were good reasons. And because there were good reasons, we should finish the war and we should win the war. And I think those divides when you have a president, a commander in chief, who is so obviously driven by the last conversation he had. I mean, I think we saw that in real time over the past week

where he sat down with Benjamin Netanyahu, Netanyahu said, time to escalate, time to go hard. And the president came out and said, we're going to go hard. And then he talked. talks to MBS and the Saudis say, we really shouldn't do this. And he goes public and he says, we're not going to do this. I mean, this is the sort of real-time demonstration of this. And I think that's also how he's making decisions inside his own administration. He talks to one person who makes one argument about the elections, another person who makes a longer argument about the long-term consequences. And that's the president that we see. There are also a devise, and I think this doesn't get as much attention on the Iranian side, where you have the people in the room,

largely represented by sort of the civilians in the Iranian regime. But the power balance has shifted inside the Iranian regime since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, where the IRGC has taken much, much firmer grip on power in the regime and in the decision-making there. And the civilians are negotiating, but incapable of making good on what they're negotiating. So they'll negotiate something and come. to some agreement in the MOU or temporary agreements between MOUs. And the IRGC will sort of shrug its shoulders and say, eh, interesting that you would say that.

I understand why you would say we're not going to do this. And then attack a ship. And I think there's this just general miscommunication internally that is leading to some of the problems in these negotiations. And I say that beyond sort of the fact that the U.S. is represented in many of these cases by some combination. of Steve Whitkoff real estate magnate, Jared Kushner, and J.D. Vance. Mike, I think you said earlier that what we're likely going to see now is some revised or updated MOU. They probably won't

call it MOU, too, because that would be an admission that MOU one has been a disaster. What does that look like? So, you know, you are right to point out that there are these fractures within the Iranian command structure or at least perceived ones. And that, I mean, things that we thought were, or at least that the president thought were going to generate incredible effects within 72 hours of killing off the initial leadership, and then, you know, maiming the next Supreme Leader to the point that he may not be functioning in any real way, we don't necessarily know whether we have anybody who is a central authority that can compel all parts of the Iranian infrastructure or Iranian governance, that there is one voice that

speaks to both the diplomats who go forward and talk and to the IRC who are conducting the war. So there might be, like you said, like you described, this disconnect where until the IRGC can be compelled to comply, there is no actual agreement. I also think it's probably likely that the IRGC has control over the diplomats and maybe encouraging them to be dishonest or disingenuous. And then, you know, with their own initial plans or like I said, you know, I think what they did after the MOU, they may have intended to let the MOU play out. but when they saw that they could take additional advantage, they returned to kinetic strikes. I just don't think that the president is as concerned with an actual outcome that is beneficial to the region

or the United States' interest in the region as much as a narrative of an outcome. And that's why I think that the most likely is, as you said, MOU 2.0 or whatever they're going to call it, or they may even claim it's the same MOU as before, but we've compelled them to abide by the terms that we negotiated and it was always a good deal all along. whatever it is that they spin.

And we've seen that the president's diehardcore will adopt those talking points and sell it as though that is authentic. But the president wants a public relations departure from this war, I think, without regards to what the actual long-term effects are. I think what we're going to see is something like that MOU

that's going to leave the region more chaotic and unstable. We are going to see an escalation among some of our Gulf Arab allies in their individual interests or pursuing those individual interests. Some of them may try to make a separate peace with Iran like the Omanis are likely to do. Some of them may start re-arming

and preparing for the next conflict against Iran. And I think we're going to see that Israel is going to realize they are more on their own and prepare for the next conflict with Iran. So we are going to probably lead this conflict potentially with some kind of nominal stability, but with the seed sown

for the next iteration of this conflict. This is not going to be the last chapter and it's so disingenuous that the administration said, this is a 47-year war, and this president finally has the guts and the wherewithal to deal with it. We're not going to. We're going to actually just make sure that we're going to create a guarantee that it's going to continue.

But I do agree that I think the rhetorical or demonstrative end to this conflict is going to be some kind of Neville Chamberlain, hand in the air with a paper, we have peace in our time, and the glorious president brought it about. Could go back to Versailles. I want to end today by talking about something that we don't spend nearly as much enough time talking about on this podcast in particular, and that is sports. What with the collection of sci-fi fantasy geeks that we usually have on here. We don't spend enough time talking about sports that I want to get the panel to weigh in on what are sort of objectively some pretty remarkable athletic accomplishments.

I'm going to read to you three sets of headlines, one of them which took place. just over this weekend, and I'm going to ask you to weigh in and give a no wishy-washy answers here. I want to know which is the greatest athletic accomplishment of the three that I'm sharing with you. This is the write-up in the Times of London from this weekend. President Trump has bragged about winning another golf tournament at his New Jersey golf course and ridiculed his opponents for being less talented than him. The U.S. President famously a keen golfer posted a video on social media of what he said was his winning shot at the Bedminster Club Championship on Sunday. Trump, 80, said he triumphed in

this year's super senior and senior categories after shooting a two under par round of 70. Writing on truth social, Trump said, quote, thank you very much to all those who participated. I won with a score of 70, and I'm so honored in that, unlike the rest of the field, I'm given very little time to practice because I've focused on many other things. He added, it's called talent. I have it and they don't. The victory marked what Trump, who owns 14 golf courses, claimed to be his 43rd Club Championship win, although there have long-bed question marks over the true number of tournaments in which he has come out on top.

Now I want to read to you the second entry. This is from the obituary at ESPN of Kim Jong-il. The greatest golfer in history is gone. North Korean dictator superstar golfer Kim Jong-il has died at 69, a fitting age, because 69 is under par on every regulation golf course. Kim Jong-il shot 38 under, including 11 holes in one at the 7,700-yard championship course at Pyongyang in the very first golf round of his life, according to North Korean State Media. Stunning. This was in 1994 when Kim was 52 years old. Even more impressive, Kim stood just five foot three.

Yet he was able to overpower a course as long as any ever played in major championship history. And the final one comes from Vladimir Putin. Russian President Vladimir Putin scored at least eight goals in an exhibition game, exhibition ice hockey game with former NHL league players. Yoshi's Bolshoi Ice Dome. While observers counted eight goals, the official Kremlin release indicates he scored 10 times in a 14-7 victory. This is an annual game, and Putin usually scores somewhere between five and 10 goals per game

playing against high-profile amateurs and NHL All-Stars. Joan, I'll start with you. Who's the greatest athlete of these three world leaders? Well, this is tough. I mean, it's a legitimately difficult question. And on the one hand, I've talked to people who've golfed with Trump, and they will say he's a good golfer. Yeah. He is not as good as he claims.

People let him win. He cheats like none other. And look, to be honest, of the three people you mentioned, if I were playing golf with them, and I were a good golfer, which I am not, he would be third on the list of people I would be most inclined. to take a dive for because he would he would not kill me Putin or Kim Jong-il would. But I have to say, because I've, I did a deep dive on these claims about Kim Jong-il. And if we are going to credit the statements attributed to these people, then it's definitely Kim. Because not only did he pick up the golf club only once, got 11 holes in one and got bored, and so therefore decided never to play again.

he also wrote of the world's 30 greatest symphonies he wrote like 15 of them and he also had a body so efficient that he no longer needed to defecate yep so like when you put all these things together it's like the golf thing is just a minor part of the total package of because when i think of a perfectly efficient machine of a body. I think of that olive onesy wearing paunchy dictator. And so that's where I come down on this. I did not know this was going to be the subject,

but... With the Bufant. David, I have to say, I find Jonah's logic sort of unimpeachable. No, see, you guys are making a mistake here. And look, I mean, I know I've got sci-fi and fantasy takes, but I care about sports, too.

And we need to be rigorous here. This is the same. This is like having the Jordan versus LeBron debate. And what really makes LeBron win that debate is longevity. Boom. So think about this. Trump is doing this at 80. At 80, he's doing this.

Talk to me when Vladimir Putin is scoring that many goals when he's 80. Talk to me. You know, Kim Jong-il never, he couldn't even make it to 80, man. So, you know, look, did Kim Jong-il have a higher high? Yes. Did Vladimir Putin have a higher high? Yes. But who has had the legacy, the career? I mean, look, Trump's winning streak at Bedminster is almost as long as the Iran War. Like it's, you know, almost 50 years, right? So just the longevity alone, I think. And listen, take that, people who say I have

Trump Drainseman syndrome. I can call balls and strikes. So it's clearly Donald Trump. I mean, first Jonah compliments Trump by saying he's the least likely of the three to kill Jonah. And now David compliments. I mean, this is pretty amazing. Balls and strikes, man. You just got to call it as it is. Fact-driven reporting and analysis of the dispatch, dude. That's what we do. This podcast is going to dispel the myth that the dispatch has TDS because we're going to get complete consensus here, or at least complete complimenting. So Jonah made a compelling case for why Kim Jong-il was a Renaissance man. But he strayed from the topic at hand, which was who was the greatest sportsman.

His symphonic genius is irrelevant while impressive. Well said. And while Kim Jong-il was obviously a one-of-a-kind golfer, a once-in-a-generation talent, if not forever, and Putin is obviously a gifted hockey player, classing a country that has produced some of the best hockey players in the world, Trump is a multi-sport world-class athlete. And we have to remember that. not just a great golfer with this incredible win streak at Bedminster, and hitting for par at the age of 80.

Hitting for par, what would not be a master's category in the master's category. But he is also, we have to remember, a all-star football player in high school, and famously by his telling was recruited by the Yankees, but did not want to participate in major league baseball. So I think by those criteria alone, the president is the greatest sportsman of the three. But I will point out, despite those who want to give the president his obvious laurels for this incredible golf achievement, we did have presidents who played football at the University of Michigan and who were the captain for the national champion baseball team.

So we have had presidents who've outclassed this. Wait, way, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought you're going to say we have had presidents who are athletes just second tier compared to Trump. Yeah. Okay. I mean, all right. I mean, Ford was unfairly mocked because he had taken some, he had fallen down the stairs of Air Force One and just became a bit on Saturday Night Live and sort of a recurring thing. He was probably our most athletic president, certainly, or one of them.

The other argument against Vladimir Putin, which I didn't, I didn't want to buy, I didn't want to ask another leading question. I asked several leading questions that I didn't want to ask another leading question. But after Vladimir Putin scored one of, or performed so well in one of these games, it was an eight goal game he was taking a post game victory lap waving to the crowd you know sort of bathing in the adulation he was getting from his fellow players and the crowd and he face planted because he didn't see the red carpet that had been laid out on the ice in front of him and so he took a bad spill which i think certainly diminishes his overall athleticism or at least the way Well, also, if we're going to just...

We judge it. If we're just going to stipulate that one can draw from fantasy and reality on equal terms, we forget the fact that, you know, Ronald Reagan was the Gipper, who was a great football player. True. True. True. You know. Yes. Most inspirational.

Most inspirational. And I have to point out, based on where I came from, met his first wife on the set of the movie Brother Rat, where he was a baseball player for the Virginia Military Institute. Fair. And also, only David will, I think, understand the reference. Not only was Abraham Lincoln a great wrestler, he was a vampire slayer. That's right. Yeah. Well, that, yeah, absolutely. But that's, again, makes him more of a renaissance man. Fair. Than athletes. Although there's a lot of athleticism involved in fighting vampires with axes. Very fair. Very fair. Jonah finding a way to take the sports topic and return it to pop culture.

Yes, because you were so unbelievably, you know, loyal and your fidelity. to the reality of sports was so complete in this topic. I was really worried you were setting me up for a... Jonah doesn't know what Jack about sports think, but fortunately. No, I'll save that for another time. Well, we've solved a lot of things. Thank you all for joining us today, and we will talk to you next time. Finally, if you want to support what we're doing here,

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at Roundtable at thedispatch.com. We read everything, even emails from people who believe Kim Jong-il's golf excellence. That's going to do it for today's show. Thanks so much for tuning in and thank you to the folks behind the scenes who made this episode possible. Noah Hickey and Peter Bonaventure. Thanks again for listening. Please join us next time.