Friday Focus: Trump is learning that Iran is not Venezuela

0:00And you can just hear the difference in the way the Iranians are speaking this week as opposed to last week. Right? There's confidence. They understand that the moment is with them now, not with the United States. Welcome to the Friday Focus Podcast for the 13th of March, 2026. I'm Roger Griffiths, Chair of the Monk Debates joined by my co-host, Janice Grossstein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Janice, so much to unpack this week. We're going to dedicate the whole show, obviously, to the war in Iran and unfolding events. Let's begin by having you summarize for the audience what surprised you since we last talked on Friday a week ago. I think there are two big stories of the week. Rudyard, one is the escalating attacks by Iran against Gulf States, but not restricted to

1:00American bases against energy infrastructure, against tourism, a much broader swath of attacks. And if this were simply designed to go after American bases in the Gulf, this is going after much broader targets. And the sense in the Gulf of outrage, the second big story, and it's surprising to me that the United States did not anticipate and prepare for this. The effective closure of the Straits of War Moose and the huge disruption, the International Energy Agency called this in terms of volume, not proportion, but volume, the largest disruption of oil supplies ever. And the Americans were caught, but put it, they're discussing escorts, but hope they're not ready. It will take some time.

2:05Yeah, Janice, so many directions to go. Let's focus a little bit on the Trump administration, because they've come under significant scrutiny this week. And let's pick up where you just left off on the Straits of War Moose. There seems to be reporting, Janice, that the Energy Secretary and advisors around the president had effectively discounted the very situation that we are in now, which is the Straits of War Moose, this vital global shipping artery, shuttered, closed under the threat of Iranian strikes on tankers and cargo ships. How is that possible, Janice? I mean, wouldn't every single war plan that the Pentagon have developed have indicated this as one of the kind of key risks of attacking Iran in the first place? And I guess, you know, you've got 40 odd years of observing international crises and decision-making

3:06inside governments and particularly inside the United States. I mean, how is it conceivable that we got here to this point with this kind of own goal, frankly, on the US strategy to win? And we can talk about how that might be defined or not by this administration in the coming days and weeks. Let me tell you about the Energy Secretary said, I know you know, but I read it with absolute astonishment. He said, well, in our discussions, I look back at the 12-day war, which happened last June. And it was just a blip in the market. That's all the markets, first of all, went up for one day. It dropped. The markets adjusted. There's nothing to worry about. Now, you're right that I have read and written about these kinds of comments, oh my, if because they are absolutely always astonishing when you read them after. But what's one of the things that decision

4:13makers like other human beings do, right? They go back. It's called the recency bias. You go back to the most recent like event and you say, oh, that's the same as this. And so what happened then? What happened then is a good predictor of what will happen now. Here's the big mess. That was a short, intense war that was focused largely around nuclear installations. In fact, that's all the United States did. It did one bombing run. This is an all-out assault on Iran, on its military capabilities, on its political infrastructure, on its literally across the board. It's an all-out assault. How could you think that that last event would be a good predictor

5:14of this one? But people do this over and over. And that's why we get some of the consequences that we get. Do you think, Janice, behind that one decision was another miscalculation, which was fundamentally misunderstanding Iran, the nature of the opponent that they are, and the extent to which a combination of size, ideology, preparation, deep experience with asymmetrical kind of conflict in warfare where Iran and its proxies know that they don't and will never have air superiority. So they fight wars differently. They strategize differently. Their doctrine is in some ways already adapted for the very type of assault, which they've now sustained for over 10 days. Where do you think that came from? Because again, the United States has a vast

6:21intelligence apparatus. It has a trillion dollars a year spending on the Pentagon. Surely, there would have been professional staff, advisors, area experts that could have helped this administration understand that Iran is not Venezuela. You know, there's so much on what you just said there. There are three gems buried in what you just said. So let me pull out these gems. Yes, the United States has very large and actually very good intelligence community. But Donald Trump decapitated a big chunk of that intelligence community at the beginning of Trump to administration, as well as disabled the National Security Council. So you take the top off your best analyst. And boy, you send a message. Don't mess with me,

7:23you tell me. Now, the intelligence assessments, we know because they're leaked. And you know, it's really interesting. People are leaking like crazy now because they want to position themselves as dissenting from what the press is doing, but not owning their descent. They leaked their assessment and the assessments were that this regime was not going to collapse or implode. I would bet you that that was said by somebody once in a room or more and the president just dismissed it. Let's go to the second thing, which is kind of strategy 101. Who cares more about Iran or the United States? Well, it's obvious. For the United States, this is one of several. If they lose, it's something like the world, although it could certainly damage this president in the term, for the Iranian, for the revolutionary, regardless of everything, everything is at stake here.

8:24And if there's this asymmetry of interests and asymmetry of states, you fight to the last drop because your back is against the wall. This is a desperate regime. It is existential for them. You know, Vladimir Putin made the same mistake about Ukraine. He made exactly the same mistake. But it's such an important question to ask right out of the gate. Who cares more? We are seeing the streets. And the third thing was, and here's astonishing to me too, because before this war started, there was a story. And I think it was in the New York Times. I don't have to go back and check, and I will send a note in. But there was a story in the New York Times about how Ali Hamani, the supreme leader, had put in place leadership for levels then. So, Roger, you're nominated to be a success. And if you're taken out, I'm next in line. And the

9:28people were designated. He prepared for this. He decentralized power. He established commands across the country, so there didn't have to be centralized decision making. That was in the press before the war started. So the real issue here, it's not that they lack the information. They had the information, but this president relies on his instinct and has got to make big important decision. Yeah. So, Janice, it seems like we're in a moment that you and I have been really worried about for the last year, which is President Trump instigating a crisis that he then loses control up. Because up to this point, whether it was China and having deback down in the face of rare earths or Greenland and ultimately maybe having to back down because Europeans were threatening not to buy American debt. All those things, even his threats against Canada were all in a sense,

10:36he could walk those back. He was controlling the escalation and de-escalation. It seems like this week, Janice, that it's gotten out of his hands. And that he, yes, could, as we discussed on last week's show, he could tackle tomorrow and say the wars over we've achieved our war aims, whatever those were, it could be a stretch to say that they've achieved them, however defined. But the problem now, Janice, is that Iran has a vote as to where and when and how this war is over. So what is your concern now? If we are finally in this scenario that we knew that was coming, that we talked about with our listenership for the better past the 12 months, the crisis that is greater than the president himself created by the president. What happens next is he doubled down, do the Americans accept that the Iranians have a vote

11:44and are forced to come forward ultimately with a series of concessions that allow the Iranian regime to say, okay, we've reestablished credible deterrence and we're satisfied that we're not going to get attacked again because we've shown exactly what we can do and the chaos and the economic damage that we can rot. So what is your sense of all this kind of merc that we're looking at now that we've crossed this threshold for the first time into a genuine global crisis that's outside of Donald Trump's control? So it's a really important point that you have made here, Richard, that Iran has a voice now. Donald Trump could say I'm stopping the war tomorrow. That's not good enough. The Iranians have to agree as they have to cease fire. So he has only one of the two critical voices. The former Mr. Iran has already said and you can just

12:49hear the difference in the way the Iranians are speaking this week as opposed to us. Great. There's confidence. They understand that frankly, the momentum is with them now, not with the United States. I think that's true. A surprising is that it's and I actually just said we will only cease fire if the United States guarantees that they will not attack us again. We're not getting into any stuff since the negotiations but our nuclear program that will come later. We need an iron cloud guarantee from the United States that they will not attack us again. Now I was even surprised to hear that because who would believe? What does that mean? An iron cloud guarantee? But effectively, this is about Donald Trump saying publicly this regime stays in place, renouncing regime change as a goal of this campaign.

13:51That's a big ask for this president because he would have to climb down from an objective that he established the first night. Now he's walked it back several times in those inculcure and press conferences but that's a big one, frankly. Second more worrying thing is the United States has squandered its coercive advantage. Let me just tell you what I mean here. The Iranians were at the table talking about their nuclear program and under tremendous pressure because the threat was most powerful before it was enacted. And yes, they said they would continue insist on some kind of arrangement but they could have been reached up 5%. They could have in fact disclosed where this enriched uranium is inside Iran and there could have been a consortium of Gulf states to save everybody's face. And the deal could have gone 25 years

14:51or forever if they stayed at the table. Why would they come back now and make any kind of a deal about their nuclear program? How credible the United States is what has renounced the the coercive advantage that it has. And let's remember, and when this is over and assuming that some version of this regime is in place, at least in the short term, they know where the enriched uranium is. And they're not going to hang around without it's going to be one of the first things that they move to secure. So this is a self-inflicted ongoing that comes from the incoherence, the lack of staffing and the absence of any kind of strategic taking. Yeah, I think the thing that I've sensed this week is that you're right, the

15:58momentum seems to be with the Iranians. And I think one thing, I don't know, I've come to appreciate is that, you know, there is an analogy to October 7th. So bear with me. When October 7th when Israel was attacked, it was not simply the horrific violence of the atrocities committed. It was a loss of deterrence that the state of Israel experienced to be its enemies and foes, particularly Iran, but also Hezbollah and Hamas itself. Israel subsequently went on a series of highly effective and highly destructive wars against Hezbollah and Hamas to reestablish credible deterrence. And it went further last spring and struck at Iran itself in a sense to press that point home. I think what's happened here is that the Americans have misunderstood that

16:59the combination of the Israeli attack last year and then the American bombing of Fodor and Tans was was barely tolerated by the regime, but they did tolerate it. We've talked about it before. It was kind of like watching to, you know, dueling partners meeting at dawn and firing their pistols into the air. There were obligatory rocket salvos, but in the end Iran kind of accepted that it was what it was and the regime was in power and there were lots of reasons for them to back down in both of those instances. This third attack though, Janice, I think, has like October 7th has shattered Iran's credible deterrence. It is an object lesson that it had no deterrence because both Israel and the United States felt that they had open license to attack Iran in the most broad and expansive way. I think over 6,000 munitions dropped on the country now

18:03in under two weeks. Do you think Janice that we should anticipate Iran as similar strategy as that pursued by Israel, which is reestablishing credible deterrence, doesn't happen overnight. This has to be proven out over a period of time so that it becomes real and the Iranian government feels from a security perspective that they've done enough damage to the United States through the global economy or to their golf neighbors to create in the minds of the United States, the golf states in Israel, awareness about attacking this regime again in the exact same way that Israel after October 7th was very effective and establishing a great degree of awareness about picking a fight with the Jewish state. Let me say it's going, Rudyard, it's not only the United States that lost its capacity to coerce by actually engaging in war, but Israel has given up

19:16some of the benefits that it got first in the attack against Hisbola. You notice what's happening on the northern front. That problem there, Hisbola was obliterate but it wasn't all right and Hisbola did not hesitate to go back. It's fired up to open five missiles, but the war is now escalating. This is a major confrontation and I think it's, again, Israel has lost some of its capacity to coerce and to destroy Iran as a result of where we are in this confrontation. And the bigger question is, what would it take when the United States and Israel do this again? It's really hard to imagine that they would do this again. The Donald Trump would go back and do this again in a year or 15 months and if the answer is no, he won't, then the deterrent credibility of both Israel and the United States has been damaged. On the other side,

20:27there's so many ways to think about this, but one way is still following. This war will end at some point. I don't think the intensity is so high and the pace is so high, really can't go on for very long. And the straights of formulas are still so important to the world. Pressure is going to build here very quickly to find some sort of solution. So what? Where's the wrong left? It's left with a radicalized, vengeful regime, all right? This is now a revolutionary guard regime where, most of all, the committee asked the figure ahead. He was put in place by the revolutionary guards, the old clerical regime, effectively over and this is revolutionary guards. So this has changed everything, but it's radicalized. It believes that Israel and the United States are outraged in change and it understands that it has the momentum now and it will seek revenge.

21:33This is not the same regime as was in place before. Secondly, the constraints that pace is, let's just talk about those for a moment, antagonize everybody in the Gulf. Their memories are long. No friends. Look at the resolution that went through the United Nations, astonishing, really, 85 countries signed that resolution urging Iran to stop its attack on the Gulf. It was already resource constrained in the sense that water was an acute problem in Iran because of the lack of investment in their water infrastructure. It will be a nightmare now and they will not be exporting oil for a while because as you know, it's going to take some time to reopen those straits and to repair the damage, not just because the damage to their infrastructure. This regime, whatever comes out of this war, it's also facing a hostile around the population.

22:36I don't think that their lifespan will be very long. And there are also now demanding reparations for the attack on Iran and it seems like the large scale damage that's been done to UNESCO World Heritage sites and other architectural kind of medieval Arab wonders of the Muslim world has increasingly turned the portions, a greater portions we don't know for sure of the Iranian population against at least the war. It's not that they're favor the regime, but it's hard to see these irreplaceable heritage and cultural sites being destroyed. Yes, we're going to say goodbye to our complimentary listeners and viewers. I'm going to join our monk donors on the other side of this short break. Monk donors get the first 72 hours of every premium audio and video content that the monk

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