The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: What is the U.S. trying to accomplish in Iran?

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

Rudyard and Janice start today's show with the big surprise from this week: Iran striking its Gulf neighbours in an effort to get them to persuade Donald Trump to end this war, which was a serious miscalculation on their part. In fact, the lasting consequences from this conflict will be a rupture between Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran that will be hard to repair. Meanwhile America's military success in Iran has been overshadowed by inconsistent messaging from its political leadership. What is the U.S. trying to accomplish? How will they know if they have succeeded, and when it is time to stop? And will rising gas prices and inflation affect Donald Trump's commitment to seeing this through? In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to Mark Carney's messaging on this conflict. How should international law play into Canada's position? Carney indicated at Davos that Canada aims to be “both principled and pragmatic". But when it comes to the war with Iran, can we be both? Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up.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.

It is astonishing when you juxtapose that professional military operation, the United States has a superb military, almost unprecedented, on the one hand, and the utter incompetence of the political leadership. Welcome to the Friday Focus podcast for the 6th of March, 26th. I'm Rudyard Griffiths, Chair. The Monk Debates, joined by Janice Gross Stein, the co-founder of the Monk School and my co-host for this and every edition of Friday Focus. Well, Janice, we take no pleasure, no pride in, I think, predicting for our audience last week on the show that a strike was imminent. and sure enough, Friday night into Saturday, the Iran-Israel, United States war kicked off. Some top-line observations from you on the week. Let's begin with what's maybe surprised you in this expanding conflict. I think the surprise of the week, Rudyard, was,

the decision probably by Ayatollah Ali Khomeini that in the event of war Iran would strike its Gulf neighbors and it has struck virtually every one of them. I can go down the whole list in an effort to get these countries to put pressure on Donald Trump to stop the war. I think this will be one of the big, lasting consequences of this war. The rupture now between Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates is going to be really, really difficult to repair. It's palpable the fury in the Gulf. Yeah. Let's move over to the Trump administration's execution of the war, the first hundred hours plus.

I think we're all still struggling, Janice, to understand the war's objectives. There were lots of comments by the president early on about regime change, urging Iranians out into the streets to claim their future a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Then as the week went on, that message was rolled back by Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, And then yet again, the president stepping in yesterday saying, in effect, I'm going to choose, I want to have a role to play in choosing Iran's next leader. So it seems like we're once again back to a regime change scenario as an explicit U.S. objective for this war. You know, Roger, it is astonishing. Oh, I could say.

It is astonishing when you juxtapose that professional military operation, the United States has a superb military, almost unprecedented, on the one hand, and the utter incompetence of the political leadership who have contradicted themselves almost daily. It is incoherent. It's impossible. to determine what the political objectives are and load into that Donald Trump's ego in which he personally says he will have a say in choosing the next supreme leader. Why? Who appointed him and who asked him? Yeah. And it doesn't look like we're anywhere close to assuming that this war is going

to resolve in that direction. We're again, 100 hours plus so let's not relitigate in too much detail the origins of this war. But the trigger, Janice, the administration seemed to also struggle over the course of the week to make a case that it was under imminent threat, that the United States and Americans were under imminent threat, hence leading and extending to the war some kind of, I guess, international impure of legitimacy. They seem to have fallen flat on that. Does that matter? Well, there was no imminent threat.

Let's just be clear. There was no imminent threat. This war is not consistent with almost any version of international law. There's no formal declaration of war. That has not happened, by the way, in 30 years. We've seen a 30-year trend not to do this. And there are arguments about its constitutionality as well. But we had a Congress that gave Donald Trump room, frankly, to continue to prosecute this war.

So I think it's almost at this point irrelevant to argue that this is illegal. Yeah, but it doesn't really constrain any of the parties. It's not legal for Iran to fire missiles at Gulf states. Either we could go down the list. So really, we have to talk about Roger Dan. You're absolutely right. What are the political purposes here? What are they trying to accomplish?

How will they know if and when they succeeded? And how will they know when it's time to stop? Those are the big question. Yeah. I mean, the legality issues seem, though, to have had an impact on some of America's traditional allies, the British, you know, I think intimating as explicitly as they could, while risking already some ire from the president, that, you know, they would not be using British bases to allow American planes to stage forward attacks because that would make them,

in a sense, complicit with an offensive that doesn't have a grounding in international law. Spain has taken an even harder line. So, Janice, it seems that the United States is, yes, you know, using overwhelming force, has destroyed Iran's air capacity. But when it comes to its traditional allies, maybe a little bit of a struggle in terms of getting people onto the same hymn sheet this time around, understandably,

the skepticism vis-a-vis the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan certainly don't help that history. But it seems like something more this time, Janice. It seems like a combination of the world stepping back and looking and saying, you know, this isn't George W. Bush. This isn't Donald Rumsfeld. This isn't Dick Cheney.

This is Pete Higgseth. Yeah. This is Donald J. Trump. This is, you know, an administration that has had a hard time tying its shoelaces on a whole bunch of files that are a lot less complicated than, you know, a full-blown regional war. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. I think Alex have been. very little confidence in this president, in the team that surrounds him. By the way, that does not apply to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Dan King, who has given credible briefings.

But again, those briefings are about operations. They're not about the political goals. And he says repeatedly, I don't make policy. The president makes policy. and given as I mean, I can't find the right words it's unbelievably erratic and inconsistent performance.

You never know what you're going to get from hour to hour. Why wouldn't allies lose confidence in that kind of leadership, frankly? I think more important than what Britain does and what Spain does are what American allies in the Gulf

do and what do they take away from this inconsistent performance? How do you have confidence over time? These are big, big security bets that countries make. For those, you know, for the Gulf states, these are foundational times. And if you don't have confidence in that wisdom of leadership, Well, there's no wisdom around in the strategic capacity. If you can't even articulate a consistent set of goals, that is really a lot. What do you make, Janice, the fact that Israel seems to be using the attack on Iran to expand its war in southern Lebanon?

Tens of thousands of Lebanese asked to evacuate or told to evacuate the southern suburbs of Beirut as Israel gives. years up for yet another offensive against Hezbollah. How do you square that, Janice, with the U.S.'s administration and its kind of understandable focus on Iran? I mean, that's for them where the domestic political risk is and not getting this right, where the international consequences are. Yet here's Israel seemingly kind of off the leash in Lebanon with an increasingly scaled and forward-leaning an aggressive military campaign against Hezbollah simultaneously to Israel's attacks on Tehran and on the Islamic Republic. Look, this is really about the agreement that was reached

that Hezbollah never agreed, that Hezbollah would disarm, right? And we finally, finally got the prime minister of Lebanon, who anticipated this what happened, calling on Hezbollah not to open fire and to disarm. You know, there's an incredibly brave statement from the Lebanese Prime Minister because the Lebanese army has nothing like the firepower of Hezbollah. Well, Hezbollah fired five vaults at the beginning of this, and that's what led to the latest escalation. I think it's one thing to shut down Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

It's an entirely different, I believe, strategic mistake to attack Hezbollah's headquarters in southern Beirut. And why is it a mistake? Because, again, it ignores the political objectives. The people in Lebanon have turned against Hezbollah, and they've turned against Hezbollah because they do not want to be pulled. into these wars. So to actually displace, and there are thousands and thousands

of Lebanese who are now displaced. Once again, they're homeless in Beirut. Once again, there is bombing in Beirut. If, you know, that will have the impact of turning people in Lebanon who are not Shia, who are

not supporters of Hisbalah, back to support, support them as they experience the pain and the suffering of yet another bombing campaign. I just think this is a really serious strategic mistake by Nathaniel and the government. Do you think he's doing this with the Americans' permission? Because, again, it does seem like a strategic mistake. And if he's not doing with the Americans' position, what does that say about the extent to

which the United States has kind of a line of sight into Israel as this war, folds. I mean, we know from Israel's last attack on Iran that they wanted to go longer and harder and the strikes were called off by Trump. They're going longer and harder now. But who's to say, Janice, that they're not going to have their own objectives, regardless of what this president wants to do. And maybe his proclivity of rising oil prices, a falling stock market, he has in the past tackled on moments of kind of domestic economic stress, particularly related to to his beloved indicator of all things, the U.S. you know, total market indices, like the Dow Jones, like the S&P 500, like the NASDAQ,

who's to say that Israel isn't showing here that it has its own objectives, and they may not be entirely aligned with those of the U.S. administration? Yeah, I don't think they are entirely aligned, whether. I think let's separate the two theaters. Iran and, and, um, Hezbollah and Lebanon. I think Donald Trump will shut down any Israeli action in Iran the moment he wants to do it. He's done it in the past.

He'll do it again. And once he makes a decision that he wants to stop this, it will stop. But the markets are not being well by what's happening in Lebanon. None of the things that Donald Trump cares about are being influenced by what happens in Lebanon. So I think it's not that he doesn't have one site. He just doesn't care, frankly, because it doesn't affect anything that's really important to him. Yeah. Just as we wrap up this first complimentary portion of Friday Focus, what are you going to look for in the coming days?

We are seeing energy prices ramp up. Yeah. We're seeing the Straits of Hermuz backed up. Hundreds of hundreds of tanks of tanks. tankers waiting. There are reports that the U.S. military is offering to, you know, ferry and, you know, co-transit the straits with oil and other container shippers. That sounds like a bit of a risky proposition. I don't know what their insurance company would think about that. And China seems to have struck a deal with Iran to allow Chinese oil out of Iran to transit the Straits. And it seemed

yesterday as if an Iranian tanker successfully transited the straits. So Janice, is that really the pinch point of this conflict literally and figuratively that we should be paying close attention to over the next few days? The Straits of Ramuz, who's getting through there? What are the volumes and what are the potential knock-on effects to the global economy? I think that's absolutely crucial. And it's critical because that's what Donald Trump does care about. I'm not even sure he cares about the global economy, but he sure cares about gas prices in the United States.

He cares about inflation in the United States. He said repeatedly this weekend his daily press conferences, because that's what he's been doing, that he's prepared to ride out a rise in oil prices because they will come down. You know, my hunch is there's another week, there's another 10 days, but Donald Trump has no strategic patience, zero.

We've seen that over and over. So I would certainly be focused. That's one of them, two big things to watch for. The second one, Pesewski, in the present of Iran. Now, he does not speak for Iran. He's been neutered, frankly, over these last three weeks. But he did say this morning in Tehran that there are talks going on, that there are mediators stepping forward in the Gulf.

So I think we will see a big uptick in an attempt to find a solution. And whether those succeed or not will depend on whether Donald Trump will accept that morning and decides that it's time to stop this. The final thing to look for, are there, is there so far no sign whatsoever? Is there, are there signs of division inside this regime? There are some at the political level. There are some.

I think the most powerful person right now is Larry Annie. He was designated by Ayatollah Khomemi to take over and run. this war in the event that he died. So if we hear from him that there are, that they're open to some kind of discussions, that would be much more significant. But that's how this will eventually stop. It's going to stop to a back jam.

Janice, just in our remaining moments this first half, can it stop, though, short of regime change? Because if Iran is allowed to remain in place, and, And if they continue to hold, in a sense, a threat over these Gulf nations that they have attacked. And they've attacked the two pillars of their economies, tourism and energy. The strikes have been specific in that regard. Airports and energy infrastructure. I don't know, Janice.

This leaves a huge shadow hanging over the Gulf for potentially months and years to come, a kind of permanent risk premia that is then built into the region that affects all kinds of perceptions about investments, about return on capital, about the inherent

risk. I don't know, Janice, I worry a little bit that this war has almost gone too far, too fast, and there will be others in the Gulf, maybe MBS, in the president's ear saying, you know what, we can't stop. The

Genie is out of the bottle. If our region wants to have a future, we have to end the regime in Iran, and we are going to have to take this well beyond the president's kind of normal taco thresholds for domestic and other pain because to not do what, again, seems increasingly in the president's mind to be the goal of this whole operation. regime change in Iran is to create a zone of uncertainty in one of the most, you know, sensitive economic, you know, geopolitical locations in the world, which is the Gulf of Arabia. You know, look, Rudyard, Mohammed bin Salman, the ruler of Saudi Arabia, was pushing President Trump to go to war for at least two months before the attack. that hasn't gotten the amount of attention that it deserves. It wasn't only Netanyahu. It was Bin Salman.

And Donald Trump is likely to pay a lot more attention to what bin Salman says than to what Netanyahu says. I think Saudi Arabia comes out of this with very alarmed by what Iran was willing to do. I think there will be a much. tighter defensive alliance in the Gulf. I think the pressure on the United States

to stand up to supply state-of-the-art equipment across the board is going to be much greater. And I think you're absolutely right here. Not Dubai. Which, you know, is

the epitome of a port, of a blitzie port, that attracts international investment. That's one kind of a state in the Gulf. Saudi Arabia, which sits opposite Iran, is a heavyweight. And I think, first of all, the pressure will be on Donald Trump to continue. But after the war, no matter what happens,

we are going to see a Gulf Cooperation Council that becomes much more concerned about security and it's got arm itself to the teeth, frankly. And it has the money to do it. Yeah, I just think the damages are. already been done. I mean, you're far less likely to want to buy a house and to buy today than you were two weeks ago. Yeah. I think there's a cloud now that hangs over this region going forward if the Iranian regime remains in place. Well, let's say goodbye to our complimentary listeners and

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