The New Yorker Radio Hour - Dexter Filkins on the Dangerous Escalations between the U.S. and Iran

Episode Date: June 21, 2019

After a U.S. drone was allegedly shot down by Iran last week, relations between Tehran and Washington are again approaching a low point; on Thursday, President Trump ordered and then called off an air strike. The situation has been deteriorating since the beginning of the Trump era, with the Administration actively supporting Saudi Arabia as a regional competitor to Iran, and the President withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins says that Iran’s initial strategy was to wait the Trump Presidency out. That calculus has changed as more hawkish advisors, like Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, who are intent on imposing harsh sanctions on Iran, have joined the Administration. The result has been a series of tit-for-tat exchanges between the two countries, which could ultimately lead to a larger conflict. “If things got out of control in that region, that would be, Iraq, to Iran, to Afghanistan,” Filkins said. “I can't imagine where that would end, or how it would end." Kelefa Sanneh shares three music picks with David Remnick: artists who deliver all the emotional joys of pop music, but aren’t extremely popular. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Tensions between the United States and Iran have escalated to a point where war has begun to seem like a real possible outcome. There have been attacks on oil tankers, a U.S. drone was shot down, and President Trump signed off on airstrikes against targets in Iran before changing course after being told that there would be 150 casualties, and who knows what's next in this seemingly heedless confrontation. New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins has been reporting from the Middle East for years, and I spoke with him late last week. Now, Dexter, events are accelerating between the United States in Iran in a way that is completely unpredictable. Try to give us some background

and context here. You know, I think it's pretty difficult to divine Iranian motives here, but Having said that, you know, the Iranians took credit for the attack, and they said, we don't want a war with the United States, but we're ready for one if it comes to that. I think what's happened here is the Iranians feel like they've been pushed into a corner by the campaign, the White House campaign of what the White House calls maximum pressure. And that's, you know, maximum economic pressure and the withdrawal from the nuclear agreement. I think they feel like, you know, the White House wants us to come to them on their knees, and we're not going to do that. So what are our choices? And so I think that's what we're seeing here, that they're kind of striking out in anger and frustration.

Now, without underestimating Iran's malign behavior in the region, isn't it really the Trump administration that's initiated this kind of confrontation by canceling our end of the nuclear deal, by putting on it? enormous economic sanctions that have squeezed oil exports from Iran almost to nothing. Is this something that Mike Pompeo and company wanted to happen? I think that's a pretty fair assessment. I mean, I think that the difference between the Obama White House and the Trump White House on how they saw Iran couldn't be greater. I think the Obama White House believed that they could make a deal with the Iranian regime and that, you know, maybe further down the road, Iran could be kind of integrated as a normal

country into the international system. And the Trump White House does not believe those things at all, particularly John Bolton, the National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Pompeo. They don't trust the Iranians. They don't believe that they will adhere to any agreement that the United States makes with them. And so they embarked on this campaign of extreme pressure. And I think that the public name for that is they say, we're not trying to break the regime. We're not trying for regime change. But many of the people who devise that strategy do. Haven't we seen this movie before?

I mean, this is a little eerily and sickeningly reminiscent of 2002, isn't it? Your administration official said to me, we are trying to collapse the economy of Iran. And we think that's pretty easy. We think we can do it. And they may actually be right because Iranian oil exports, you know, not even a year ago, were two and a half million barrels a day, already down to like 400,000 now. And, you know, they're going for zero. But collapse the economy to what end?

I think they believe they can push the Iranians to basically, and this is the public version. We can push them until they come to us on their knees and say, okay, you know, We give up. What do you want? And so they stop supporting Hezbollah. They stop meddling in Iraq. They stop meddling in Yemen. All those things. I think the likelihood of those things happening are pretty close to zero. I mean, anybody that spent any time in Iran and with Iranian officials knows how much pride, how much national pride they have. And it's hard for me to imagine that that's what's going to happen. And I think it's brought us to this moment. Now, isn't it pretty easy to imagine this leading to almost an accidental disaster or accidental on purpose? Just incident by incident getting ratcheted up and a trigger-happy, you know, mid-level officer for the Revolutionary Guard or some military initiates a conflict that gets out of hand? Yeah, I mean, this is a war start. Everybody's playing chicken now and take the downing of the drone. The Iranians claim that that drone flew over Iranian airspace, and that's why they shot it down.

The American said it never went in there. It was over the straits of Hormuz. And I think that's how countries miscalculate, because they misread each other's intentions in the fog of all these events. Bad things start to happen. Did Trump's constant fluctuations have more strategic value to the U.S. or to the Iranians? I personally think the Iranians have, for at least a time, I think that they were afraid of Trump. I mean, I think they felt like he was unpredictable and potentially dangerous. But I think that they finally reached the point where now they feel like we don't have any other choice.

We accept the strikeout. And that's what I think is unfolding now in the region. It seems to me there's a very, very basic strategic difference between the Obama administration and the Trump administration. strip away all the differences in character and lying and politics and all the rest. The Obama administration seemed interested in acknowledging that there were ugly aspects of both the Saudi and the Saudi Axis in the Middle East and the Iranian Axis in the Middle East. The United States was interested in the Obama's time in creating a kind of balance of power. Here, under Trump, all the favorables, all the ways that we can help one side or the other

on the Saudi side. The relationship with MBS is complete and affectionate. We overlook the fact that he murdered journalists, and we fund him and we sell him arms and all the rest. Iran is just the complete opposite. Isn't that the real strategic episode that we're going through now? I think so. I mean, I think you said it right. I think that the Obama White House essentially saw two regional powers, both of whom had ugly aspects that were coming. of struggling for supremacy, and we were going to try to manage that relationship. Whereas when Trump came in, they very pointedly and decidedly took sides. And, you know, they had a meeting in the White House a couple days after,

this is Jared Kushner and the National Security Council. They had a meeting. They sat down and said, who are our friends in the Middle East? And they said, Saudi Arabia and MBS, and we are going to support them and we're going to back them. And we're essentially going to build a wall around Iran. And I think that's what's happening. Why did they make that determination?

There has been kind of a view, which is long, it's been in development for many years, which is that the Iranian regime can't be trusted. It's essentially a supporter of terrorism. It's not really a modern state. It's a revolutionary movement. And so it has to be dealt with. And the Trump White House feels like, we're going to deal with Iran in a way that no one else has dealt with them before.

Is there any legal authority under which President Trump could launch a war against Iran? How could the authorization of military force bill passed after 9-11 and aimed at al-Qaeda at the time possibly be applied to this situation? Well, I think it would be pretty easy if the United States, if the U.S. forces came under attack or we could plausibly claim that they came under attack. And then I think as under his authority as commander chief, I think it would be pretty easy to respond. And then it would just be a question of, yeah, how quickly do things get out of control? How big a factor is the American election campaign in all of this? Well, you know, the analysis about the Iranians up until very recently was that, you know, they're going to try to wait Trump out. They're just going to, you know, this is a really bad period and they're squeezing this really hard.

but, you know, maybe he'll be gone soon. And so let's just ride it out. And that's changed. I mean, I think that's what we're seeing here. And so it's hard to know for sure, but it may be, I mean, I think it may be that they gave up on that. They gave up on that analysis, which is maybe he's going to get reelected, in which case we've got to deal with this now. How does the North Korean situation reflect on what's going on in Iran? We started out with the rhetoric of fire and fury and settled into Trump appreciating the beautiful and loving letters from the Supreme Leader of North Korea.

Is that pattern likely to follow here? It seems to me that it was. It was possible, again, until just recently. I felt like, you know, Trump has made all kinds of noises about making a deal with the Iranians. You know, he sent them letters during the General Assembly last year about, you know, about having dinner and getting together with Rahani, the president of Iran. And he's talked about making a deal. And so I think in his heart that's what Trump wants to do.

But I think now I think that's all falling apart. You know, part of the appeal of Trump to his base and to others when he ran was a real antipathy. I don't know if it was real or not, but an antipathy pronounced toward foreign wars. He declared that he was against the war in Iraq, even though it seemed that he certainly was not against it in the beginning. And he was once all troops out of Afghanistan, that he was not going to be a repeat of the neo-conservative adventurism, particularly in the Middle East. What happened? Well, I think that's the mystery here, because until very recently I felt like, I mean, it's pretty clear that there was a split even inside the White House. certainly across the administration, that Trump himself didn't want war with Iran, but everybody

around him wanted to squeeze around very, very hard. But forgive me, why would you, if you don't want that, why appoint John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to the two most crucial jobs of all when it comes to national security? It's another mystery. John Bolton said to me in the White House, you know, the president knows where I stand on all the issues because he watched me on Fox News. my own sense was that people like Bolton and people like Pompeo, they're kind of emotionally satisfying to the president. It's satisfying to hear them talk tough. But Trump doesn't want to go

down that road. He never has. And so here we are. And so the Iranians are pushing him now and pushing him. And that's where I think the whole calculation might change. Because if if Trump is pushed too hard or he feels humiliated, you know, God knows what could happen. What would a war with Iran look like? I can't, it's, I can't even imagine that. I, it would be, I, I just hope that anything, if it were to happen, you know, any kind of, any kind of exchange of, of violence between two countries would be, would be short. And, you know, if, if things got out of control in that region, that would be, you know, Iraq to Iran, to Afghanistan. I mean, I can't.

Syria. Yeah. I mean, I can't. I can't imagine where that would end or how it would end. Dexter, thank you so much. Thanks, David. That's Dexter Filkins, who writes about foreign affairs and much else for The New Yorker magazine. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour with more to come. Now, I love music, and one of the people I learn the most from is Kelifasane, a staff writer at the magazine.

Kay has covered a lot of things in his time, politics, sports. But music is never far from his mind. mind. He's enlightened me on everything, on EDM, Christian rock, every variety of metal. But today he's brought in some music that has a slightly larger audience base. We're talking about some pop concerts I went to, and I might have missed it. I didn't see you there, David. I missed it in Thailand. Was your name not on the list? Did you not make a big enough scene? I should do that. These are some shows I was at recently, some pop music shows. The verse one I saw, which was totally great, was Rosalia.

who's a pop star from Spain, you might have heard of. This is a song of hers. Her new song, it's from her forthcoming album. It's called Outte Couture, which means, of course, Ode Couture. We're watching the video, and the video is all about fingernails, of course. There's a lot of fingernails going on. Yeah, it's set in a futuristic avant-garde nail salon.

One of the things that's interesting to me is, you know, there was a time not too long ago when if you had a pop star who sung these songs in Spanish and they'd be talking about her crossing over maybe, the idea would be, oh, crossing over to English. Right. And we'll have her sing in English, and we'll make her an English language pop star.

You know, because Latin music is so big and so varied, she's kind of doing this interesting Spain to Latin America crossover and getting a lot of American fans, too, without this old-fashioned idea that, oh, you have to sing in English, make English-language pop music. When did that end? I mean, this is something that's changing just now. I think it has something to do with the rise of streaming

and the fact that people are hearing stuff, through Spotify rather than through radio stations. And it has to do with the huge popularity of Latin trap music and reggaeton. But what you're saying is that more and more monolingual people, people that only speak English in this case, are listening to Spanish language music without any hesitation in a way that they weren't before. Yeah, I think it's probably easier if you're not a Spanish speaker

to sample something like Rosalia and get into it through a streaming service, whereas maybe in an earlier era you would have had to hope that a radio station was playing it or you would have had to maybe gamble on buying the album. Yeah. So who else did you say? So this is Kim Petrus. She's a German singer now based in America. Her image is very glamorous and slightly goth.

This is her song Personal Hell, which, you know, owes a debt to tainted love by Soft Cell. The name even kind of, and the beat kind of evokes personal Jesus by Depeche Mode. And so she's kind of working in the kind of goths. margins of pop music. You know, there's this irony about pop music, right? Which is that this sound, which is a very kind of like what we would call a mainstream pop

sound, isn't necessarily what mainstream pop sounds like right now. How do you mean? Well, in other words, the most popular acts in America are more likely to be sort of hip-hop influenced, maybe it's Travis Scott or something. You know, the big song would, you know, maybe it would be a little Naz-X.

You know, there's a sense in which pop isn't quite so pop as it used to be. And so you find these kind of marginal pop performers who are still working in this idiom but aren't necessarily at the top of the chart. What would she like as a performer on stage? She was great. She kind of like spoke softly between songs. The crowd was just screaming the entire time. And, you know, she has, I think there were three different outfits.

So there was outfit changes. I always love seeing those big pop production shows on a small club stage. There's something great about that. So Kay, Kay, what is your third song, your third song? your third performer. My third performer is Julia Michaels, who I also saw earlier this month. She's from Iowa, and she's been a singer and a songwriter since she was a teenager. And she has a kind of a double career. She first got established as a songwriter, writing songs for Selena Gomez and other people, very popular people. And then a couple years ago, she decided she wanted to be a singer

songwriter, too. And so she started releasing her own songs. This is one of them. It's called I Miss You, which is a duet with Clean Bandit, an English production. group. Now you're out in Kabul hanging with your brother wishing that night was your bridle so I could be close to your lives again. I know you didn't call your parents and tell

them that we ended because you know that they'd be offended. Did you not want to tell you. What is she coming out of? Well, you know, she cited all sorts of influences right, Fiona Apple, mainstream pop. You know, the thing I hear in her is also

emo. Her music is incredibly emotional. And that's kind of her calling card. At her show, at one point she declared the concert, the Bowery Ballroom where the concert was, she said the whole room was a safe space and got huge applause. I saw there was one guy at the concert wearing a t-shirt that said, treat people with kindness. And so it's a kind of super emotional, super earnest.

And she sings these breakup songs that sound a little bit political, a little bit heartbroken. One of her newer songs is about the fear that she has that she breaks up with people just so she can write songs like that. this. Now, as a guy of no, well, you're no longer 25, let's put it that way. That's correct. How deeply do these songs... You've Googled me. Yeah, exactly. We've known each other that long. How long can these things have the same appeal to you that the way songs would penetrate when you were 20, 25 years old? Oh, I'm just as, I get just as obsessed as I ever did. You get just as choked up. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know, when I'm listening to a song like that, that's part of the

fun of it. There's a certain kind of energy that you get from someone who is or who is claiming to be sort of laying themselves bare, you know, that you don't necessarily get from different forms of expression. And obviously there's lots of ways to make music. But this is one that's traditional in a sense. And there's a reason why this tradition sticks around and keeps getting kind of reinvented by every generation is because it's a way to tap into the energy of that kind of emotional exchange. Kate, you have really little kids. Are they started listening to pop music? They're not that interested as of yet. They just give you the side eye.

I'm sure they'll find something to be into that I just don't understand. Yeah. That's my hope anyway. That's the whole game. Okay, thanks so much. Thank you. Kelle Fasana, music obsessive, and staff writer at the New Yorker since 2008. If you want more information on what we listen to, you can find it at new yorkeradio.org.

And that's it for today. Thanks for joining us. And I hope you have a great week. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYNYer, studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tuneiards with additional music by Lexus Quadrata.

This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Cureo, Rianne Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen Frillman, Kalalia, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, Sarah Nix, Andres O'Hara, and Stephen Valentino with help from Mung Faye Chen and Emily Mann. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Churina Endowment Fund.