The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: the death of Yahya Sinwar and Trump's worrying economic plans

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. The following is a sample of the Munk Debates’ weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus. Rudyard and Janice open the show with the big news of the week: the death of Yahya Sinwar. How significant is his death to the current conflict? How will Israel's allies and adversaries take advantage of this moment to get a framework in place for Gaza's future? Can Israel convert their string of tactical victories to a strategic success? Meanwhile, with Iran suffering loss after loss and desperate to save face, it would be foolhardy to assume that because Sinwar is dead the danger is over. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn their attention to the US election. With only twenty days to go, their focus is on Donald Trump's fixation with tariffs that would likely become a key part of American fiscal policy should he win in November. Rudyard and Janice worry that his skewed understanding of tariffs will increase inflation and have devastating consequences on the American economy and particularly the working class he so famously champions. To access full-length editions of the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The following is a complimentary excerpt of this week's edition of the Friday Focus podcast by the Monk Debates. To access full-length editions of each and every episode, along with all kinds of great additional benefits and perks, become a donor to the Monk debates. You can do that for as little as $25 a year, and you'll receive each and every year 50 Friday Focus episodes at full length. It's all available right now on our website. in just a few simple clicks. Triple W. The Monk Debates.com. Look for the Friday Focus option in our navigation bar, the top right of the website.

Make your donation, and we will send you each and every Friday a link to listen to the full-length edition of this program. Thanks in advance for your generous contribution. Rudier-Gryphus here, the executive director of the Monk Debates. Welcome to this, the Friday Focus podcast for the 18th of October. This is our weekend show, bringing you up to date on all the latest international news and developments. We're joined, of course, by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Well, Janice, beautiful fall weather for this weekend, last weekend, pretty good for Thanksgiving.

It can always be touch and go here in Central Canada. What are you up to over, I don't know, 22 degrees on Sunday, Monday? day. This is a special gift. I have to make it a point to get out, but I think you will understand, Roger, that the new cycle has been such this September and October that it is hard someday to get even an hour to go for a walk. I'm looking at our calendars right now, Janice, we are less than 20 days to the U.S. election. We're going to talk about that in the back.

half of the program some developments on that front that I think are worth thinking about as we close into this final stretch in one of the most consequential campaigns in recent American history. But I've got to start the show, Janice, with the big news of the week, which is the death of Sinwar, seemingly, well, not seemingly, DNA verified casualty, fatality of the war in Gaza. Janice, I think the question we're all wondering is, well, what does this mean? How significant is Sinwar's death to this conflict and what could come next? There's no question. It's significant. It is not the same as any other leader being killed, Roger. Can I take just a minute to talk to you about somebody that really fascinated me yesterday and then answer your question. I was really struck by the fact that he, Sinmar, was above ground. There's no real explanation for that, other than that they are running out of food and water in the tunnels.

Who imagined when they stalk those tunnels that this would be going on for a year, he was found with two other fighters. That's it. And sitting in a chair, this is not the picture that you have a highly organized Hamas. It's in fact a picture of a disorganized, decentralized Hamas. Absolutely, yeah. And that's going to matter for the future. So what does this mean?

The Saudis, the Americas, the Qataris, the U.S. The Emirates are all in high gear now, trying to take advantage of the opportunity. I think I'm going to push really hard now in the remaining months of Biden's presidency to get a framework agreement in place. Two big questions, Richard. Will the new Hamas leader, and there will be a temporary leader, the rumors are that it is Khaled Meshall, very different leader from Yom. Seymour. You know, Seymour had one great expression where he made such a terrific visual

picture. He called the leadership in Hamas that lives in Qatar, the political guys. He called them the hotel guys. Doesn't it tell you all, right? He's in a tunnel somewhere in Gaza fighting, and these guys are in their villas and Qatar. Well, Khaled Meshall is a hotel guy. But he's, He brings something to the table the others. Don't. He has a very difficult relationship with Iran. And we'll likely try to pull Hamas back from that very close relationship. His allies are in Egypt.

They're in Qatar. And there is no love lost for around among that group. That's an opportunity. And the second, of course, is what is the time? Yahoo going to do. Can he rise to the occasion Richard? Can he take the win? Can he claim victory and

push to the top of his priorities now, getting the few remaining hostages out who are still alive? And signing on to some vague framework which is what's going to be put in front of him, break away from the far right wing that's powered this government and create a national unity government. You have to be a real leader to make those moves, Rudyard.

And you hear my voice how skeptical I am. Yeah, I think it's worth just summarizing the last 30 days how successful the IDF and Israeli intelligence services have been. They've taken out first, ismaili, Hainia, the political head of Hamas, and that spectacular assassination in downtown Tehran. Then they took out the entire leadership of the Rodwan group, which was the kind of elite special forces who seemingly had been planning, or at least certainly had the infrastructure to consider an attack across Israel's northern border into its towns and communities, as revealed by footage and other information that's been shared

as a result of this Israeli offensive into southern Lebanon. Then Nessarala, gone. Then two of Nisrella's successors, one after another, removed. And now, you know, the entire top leadership of Hamas, deaf, the other kind of key commanders, eliminated before Sinai, and now Sinwar. this is an incredible sweep in the space of, you know, 30, 40-odd days of basically all the major protagonists aligned against Israel at the start of this war on October 7. So, Janice, my question is, what does this, if anything, do or color the potential coming

Israeli strike against Iran? and how Iran will now react to that strike. Does the death of Sinai, on top of all of these other assassinations of the key proxy leaders of Iran that they had used to ring fence Israel and to attack Israel through these proxies and through these leaders, many of whom like Nasrallah, they invested decades in and billions of dollars, and now. Now, Janice, it's all gone. There's no question that Iran has suffered. I think what I would call strategic defeats here. If you look at the ring of fire, as you said, Richard, that was in place on October 7th.

There have been a series of tactical successes that has changed the battlefield that surrounds Israel, the level of threat that Israel faces. now in comparison to what it faced, even three months ago, is of a radically different order. There's no question. But the challenges, can you convert tactical victories? And that's what Israel has had, the string of tactical victories that you just outlined. Can you convert those victories to a strategic success?

It will not be a strategic success if fighting continues in Gaza for another six. month, if fighting continues in Lebanon for another six months, it will in fact be wasted opportunities. There's no end to wars other than through politics. That's the history of all warfare, that it ends through politics. Unconditional surrenders are so rare, few and far between, and not on the table. Either the north in Lebanon or in Gaza. So the challenge really now is and Netanyahu, can he take the winds, as I said before, and convert that into currency, which allows even a fig leaf in the fight. So what do you think this does, though, with regard to, you know, the next shoe that will drop,

which is an Israeli strike on Iran, which by all indications, will not be cosmetic, like the counterstrike in April after the first large-scale Iranian ballistic. missile attack. No. You know, that's a difficult one to stop, frankly, Richard, because there's such a culture between the two countries. And there's such a deeply embedded fear of looking weak to the other. You've talked about this quite often when you have talked about the imperative to restore deterrence. And there's a cycle that goes there. You know, I strike at you. And if don't respond, you worry that you're going to look weak to me so you have to do something.

So you go off the ladder just a little bit. And then I respond because I'm so afraid of looking week. We're in that cycle now with Iran. The anniversary, the Hebrew anniversary of October the 7th on the Hebrew calendar is the 26th of October. And so I imagine that nothing much will happen before then. I think it's almost impossible to stop that strike. But again, Roger, it's the messaging around it, right? It's the messaging. And we were forced to do this. We could have done much worse.

This is what we're doing. If we stop now, give it everything else. And if there's any kind of serious engagement by Netanyahu with Tony Blinken, who will be going back yet again in the next few days, if there's any serious engagement. And let me just add, because sometimes these things are invisible. The whole of the senior command of the IDF wants to ceasefire in Gaza. They know that that is the only route to getting the hostages who are alive.

And I'm, frankly, I think the estimates of the numbers who are alive are very optimistic. But they want a ceasefire. They understand that now that Cinewar is dead, there is no more gains to be had from the continued fighting. So Nizanajo stands against Blinken, all his other strategic suppliers internationally and his own senior command. I'm not confident about what he'll do, Richard.

I'm not. You know, the IDF and intelligence services seem to be, more what's the right word hawkish on on Iran they seem to want maybe more than what is referred to as the political echelon to respond to Iran with a a significant counter strike so yeah how do you square the circle between the political echelon and the IDF that seem out of sync on on gas on one hand the politicians want the more hawkish strategy, whereas as you're right, the military establishment wants to wrap it up, yet the military establishment seems to be, in fact, egging on an expansion of the war in the north and seems to be keen for a bigger, bolder counterstrike on Iran.

And then between all this, Janus, what I just continue to wonder is the Israeli public and population. I mean, if you've been following news out of Israel this week, there have been a series of just horrible terrorist attacks, you know, random shootings. You know, this is a population under a lot of psychological stress and how long is that, you know, sustainable to? We've recently seen real questions, I think, about, you know, the extent to which the Israeli economy can continue to bear what seems to be a war with no conclusion. in fact, a war that you could argue, has expanded on the northern front and now considers a potentially big known unknown, which is the attack on Iran and what could happen next. Yeah, I think that summarizes the complexity of the picture beautifully. The military tends to focus on the strategic threat, not on the tactical one.

And so you're right that they are more hawkish on Iran because they see. Iran's role as the orchestrator, the supplier, both Hamas and certainly of Hezbollah, I don't really see much of a prolonged period of quiet as long as Iran feels free to continue to resupply and rebuilt, which is entirely possible coming out of this. The other big problem that you just talked about, right, is the economy and the fact that you were mobilizing reserves for the fourth time now, young people are being recalled to serve in the fighting units. These are the same young people that power the high-tech economy in Israel. You look at the FDI and the drop in FDI that's happened.

There are huge economic, psychological, and social costs to continuing the fighting at this level of intensity. And that's the job of a prime minister to navigate all that, right? And to find that moment when you reframe, you claim victory and you pause. At the very least, you pause and you allow the army to recover and the civilian population to recover. And the economy is stabilized itself. Final question. We saw towards the end of the week that Hezbollah has now indicated that it will be using, quote, precision guided missiles, close quote, whatever that means.

Yeah. To attack into Israel, attacking, as it says, troop formations inside Israel. Janice, that seems escalatory to me, and it seems counter to earlier messaging a week or so ago that Hezbollah might, in fact, want a truce on the northern front with no conditionality about the war in Gaza. that that script has now been flipped seven days later after the death of Cynwar. And one has to assume, Janice, that whatever Hezbollah is saying is, if not on the instruction of Iran, is closely choreographed with the Iranian government and the IRGC, their revolutionary guard. So what do we make of this? Is this, again, trying to set up, um, uh,

assert Iran's deterrent capabilities prior to an Israeli strike? Is it that the death of Sinwar represents a loss of face for Iran? And I guess my concern would be that while the death of Sinwar might make the Israelis feel possibly from their own maintenance of their own deterrence, less required to perpetrate a major attack on Iran, I'm not so sure that's true of Iran. Iran may now feel that a counter strike against Israel's coming counter strike is increasingly a necessity. And I wonder if these early signals out of Hezbollah about precision guided missiles and their use, I presume, at a larger scale, in an organized fashion, if they're capable of doing that, could signal that there's a real risk here of a tit for tat, which is the biggest euphemism ever to discuss, you know, ballistic missile attacks in the hundreds.

between two large powers. There certainly is a risk of escalation, tip for that escalation. There's no question about it. And that's what's giving some urgency to the desire to get those two ceasefires in place, Rudid. Again, inside Hezbollah, the leadership,

who's the leadership? Who's calling the shots? How are the leaders communicating with one another? Individual units in Hezbollah certainly have operational capacity. been firing missiles over the border, and they have not used their most powerful missiles, those precision-guided missiles, which are frankly some form, most likely a ballistic missile capability. The other side of this, which is important to recognize, is that Israel's stock

of missiles that are used to intercept and defend, of course they're running low after a period like this. And that's why the United States just supplied what's called a fat battery in order to replenish that defense, because the United States made very clear they will supply defensive weapons. There are risks on both sides here that this could get worse. And for Iran, as it absorbs loss after loss, after loss, the pressure is, not to do left, but to do more

because it's worried about its reputation in the broader Middle East. That's for sure. And that's what's so dangerous about this. I think it would be, I think it would be

full-hearted to assume that because Sinouar is that the danger is over-rudger. That's just not the case. You need leadership. So final question, Jazz.

When it comes to to this is Israeli counter strike, which could be, I think many people assume in the next week, it seems as if the negotiations with the Biden administration have assumed or internalized that the strike will happen before November 5th with a vote in the United States. They probably don't want it too close to the election. So it probably is in the next, you know, five to seven days. Obviously, caveats abound here. But what are the odds that Iran, again, because,

this has happened in the past, like kind of 19th century dueling aristocrats, you know, Israel considers that honor has been served and Iran considers that, you know, the strike has been commensurate with its attack, which was similarly on military targets. What do you put the odds at that it's a kind of one and done here with this Israeli counterattack? So difficult to calculate, frankly. So let me phrase my answer this way with you. If there's some traction in negotiations, Iran has used that before to back off.

If there's some, I'd to give time for that. And that's what you really need here. If the Qataris can say to the Iranians and the United States can say to the Iranians, look, we're making some progress. Hold off. Give this time. This is your last best shot. Because it is the Biden administration's last best shot.

We're in that song right now. There's a possibility we can break this escalatory cycle, which is part of why I feel a sense of urgency about opening a political diplomatic channel at this moment. That's the only thing that can break this tit for a tad cycle. Nothing else. Excellent analysis. As always, Janice, let's say goodbye to our complimentary listeners

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