‘We Are Going to Deeply Regret This War’

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This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times' opinion.

You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.

Hi, I'm Robert Siegel in conversation about politics with two very insightful political writers.

Joining me at The New York Times, Washington Bureau,

our political writer and author, E.J. Dianne.

Great to be with you.

And joining us today is Mona Charen,

a policy editor at the Bullwork and host of The Mona Charen Show.

Thanks so much.

Thanks for joining us.

We're recording this on Wednesday, so it's possible that some of our discussion may be overtaken

by events, but I think that our focus today will likely be unrevised very much for the near future.

We're focusing on relations under stress, under stress from the war in Iran.

Quite apart from what this war has done to Iran,

it has also brought changes in U.S. relations abroad,

and even changes with our politics too to start.

How do you think Trump is doing in handling this war, E.J.?

I think we are going to deeply regret this war precisely because of how he handled it.

I mean, I think the idea wasn't good in the first place,

but he made it so much worse.

This war will raise questions about our lack of staying power in the world.

He goes back and forth to the point where even the Iranians sound like political commentators

when they say, oh, he's saying this stuff about negotiations because he's worried about the markets

and oil prices.

He's creating all this division and alienation among our allies that we're going to talk about.

Strengthening Russia by lifting those sanctions,

he's taking everybody's eyes off Ukraine, which is what I think we should be in the middle of.

And these inconsistencies and contradictions about our purposes,

sort of the world will look at us and say what kind of leadership does this country have

on one of the most serious questions country faces, which is whether to go to war.

Yeah, Mona.

It's a profoundly serious challenge that Iran represents to the world.

It is a vicious, expansionist, revolutionary regime bent on getting nuclear weapons,

bent on the destruction of one of our allies and the undermining of others and enemy of hours

for all of these years.

But to approach a problem of that seriousness with such an unserious leader

who seems to act on whim, on impulse, on feelings in his bones,

we have reached this critical mass of trumpism where it is laid bare.

You know, even the trumpiest explainers out there cannot say that he's playing some sort

of three-dimensional chess here.

It is obvious that he is winging it and he is making gross errors.

We're now onto some relationship starting with our relationship to NATO and our NATO allies.

Back in his first term, President Trump was often criticized for talking to the NATO allies

in very transactional terms, not drawing upon some deep, fraternal, democratic spirit that we

had in common.

Compared with the past couple of weeks, those were the good old days of the alliance.

EJ, is the NATO alliance on the rocks?

It's a deep trouble.

And I think you can tell how much trouble it is in when Mark Rutte, the general secretary of NATO,

is getting criticized for saying he supports the president's action in Iran,

because so many countries in Europe, our longtime allies, are at best extremely skeptical

about what the president is doing.

And I think there are many reasons we're going to regret that the president took a

cent of this war.

I think that one of the top reasons is that if there was any hope of sort of putting the

Western alliance, if I can call it that back on some sort of track,

this set it back even further.

Here was President Trump.

First, he puts big tariffs on all these allies.

It says they're supposed to take it.

And then he says NATO isn't really important.

And then at times he seems to side with Vladimir Putin in the Ukraine struggle.

And he does all this to our allies.

And then when he says they need to help me in the straight-of-war moves,

and they're a little reluctant, he says, oh my god, why aren't they helping me?

Aren't they terrible for not helping me?

And so how to lose influence with friends is the title of, I think, the president's memoir

about this period.

Yeah.

Mona?

Well, EJ, there's a long list of Trump's insults and threats toward Europe, toward NATO.

You forgot to mention Greenland, where the president basically did something that was inconceivable

when we were contemplating a second Trump term.

None of us, I think, anticipated that he would actually threaten a fellow NATO member

with an American invasion.

And yet that is where we were a few short months ago.

And then regarding this war, there was no consultation.

He did not inform our allies.

He simply acted in a way that affects them far more than it affects us,

because they are more dependent on oil, fertilizer, and other things that go through

that part of the world.

But in addition, he then insulted the premiere of Great Britain, who at one point, early March,

was saying he might send to British aircraft carriers.

And Trump proving that he is the greatest boor ever to serve in the White House said,

oh no, we don't need any help from people who are just trying to get in on the war

after it's already been won.

A few days later, Trump was reduced to begging the Europeans for help opening the

state of Hormuz. So yes, the strain is immense, but I think the Europeans have no choice,

but to attempt however they can with string and glue, whatever it takes to keep this alliance

together because of the huge role that the United States plays.

I was forced to think about the state of the alliance, to think back on pretty big crises

that NATO has weathered. And it may be a more durable alliance than we'd think.

In the 1950s, Eisenhower over Suez stole the Brits and the French.

They couldn't have the Suez Canal back. It was a big crisis. NATO got over it.

In the 1960s, Charles de Gaulle threw NATO out of France. NATO was in France until 1966.

He withdrew French troops from the integrated NATO command. It was a crisis.

NATO somehow survived and got over it. So perhaps this is, at least in the past, was a pretty durable

institution. Well, it depended for its durability on the strength of its premier member, and that

was the United States. And in this, Trump had a part of a point. The US spends 10 times more on

defense. And plus, the US provides the nuclear umbrella. And so, while the Europeans are now

having to think about possibly looking for friendlier climbs, looking for people who do agree

with them about democracy, about the rule of law, about international law, and all of those things

where Trump seems far less like a traditional American and more Putin-esque.

And yet, still, the challenge, the actual just physical challenge of Europe, the idea that

they are going to be able to replace the American contribution, defense-wise, is very tough.

Let's look at one other international relationship that is between the United States and Israel.

Twice last June and this year, the US and Israel have conducted coordinated airstrikes against Iran.

It's hard for me to remember any time when the US and Israel were militarily this close.

On the other hand, when it comes to public opinion in the United States,

a Gallup has been asking Americans for decades about their sympathies for Israel and for the Palestinians.

They've been converging for several years, but this year was the first time that more people said

they felt sympathy for the Palestinian cause than for the Israelis.

Mona, as Trump continues to coordinate an air war with Netanyahu, and as American

support for Israel seems to wane, what do you think about the relationship going forward?

So it is worrisome on many levels. First of all, there's sort of a pincer movement where you have

people on the progressive left who despise Israel because they consider it a settler colonialist

imposition on the Middle East, that is a sort of a cat's paw for imperialism in the West,

and then you have the hatred of Israel and frankly end up Jews coming from the hard right in the

United States, the Tucker Carlson's and so forth, who are influencing the younger generation of

Republicans. So the hatred for Israel is coming from both sides, and Netanyahu seems to have made a

calculation that he's aware of this declining support for Israel in the United States, and he seems

to be saying, yep, that's in the future, we're not going to have the U.S., and so we're going to

go for everything right now while we've got Trump, try to get everything done, eliminate Iran as a

threat, eliminate Hezbollah, Hamas, and then we will be secure, and we won't have to worry

about American good opinions. So you're saying the loss of some American support has the

perverse effect of creating a greater complaint against Israel in the United States?

It's very possible. I think that you can go all the way back to when Netanyahu appeared before

Congress, and he was invited by the Republicans, notably not the Democrats, and gave a speech

attacking President Obama's deal with Iran, and to have a foreign leader come before Congress at

the invitation of only one party, I think began to drive a wedge through our politics, and I think,

historically, liberals and progressives were broadly sympathetic to Israel. Most liberals and

progressives also very strongly supported Palestinian autonomy in two states, but that was the

consensus. I think after Gaza, that began to break up. Many of us are old enough to remember

Prime Minister Rabin or old enough to remember labor Israel. For many young people, they have only

known this Israel under BB Netanyahu. The war is, I think, very awkward, and the administration

itself has made it more awkward when Marco Rubio came out and said to try to explain this war and

said, well, we knew Israel was going to do it. And so then we had to go out because we had to defend

our bases. First, it was nonsense in terms of whether we went into the war, but it was a remarkable

thing to say. And so the administration in its many inconsistencies about this war has opened that

door. And I also think it's simply the fact that the interests of Israel and the interests of

the United States do not totally coincide in this war. And the times had a really interesting story

where there's also a difference. It appears between Israel and the Saudis, where the Saudis really

want the war to go on until there is regime change. Israel could probably live with easier with a

much weakened Iran. And so I think you're going to see another fight in that area. Although, I don't

know, it could be that the Israelis are happy to see the Saudis being the ones to push Trump to

continue the war so that it doesn't fall on them. But I think they are, would be happy to continue

the war as well. And let's assume that. And I think that creates a real problem for Israel because

I think there were a lot of people in the United States, you know, majority opinion is against this

war. Our friend Bill Goldstein the other day cited the polling average 39% support for this war.

That's on the heart of at this point. So most Americans want this to end. And so to the extent

that the Saudis or the Israelis are pressuring the United States, that's a real problem for both

countries, I think, in the long run. So could I just, I agree with pretty much everything you said

with one exception, where you talked about the progressives were broadly pro-Israel until Gaza.

I don't think that's quite right. Right after October 7th, you had celebrations of the Hamas attack.

And you saw campuses around the country, you know, leftist groups on campuses,

celebrating that attack. So it didn't start with a very small piece of the left. And that people

allied with that grew as the war continued, as the destruction in Gaza continued and Israel didn't

end the war much earlier than they did. I'm thinking about this in our own domestic politics.

We've gone from very strong bipartisan support for Israel to each party having a pretty

considerable faction within it that is extremely anti-Israel. Looking ahead to the next

presidential year, I mean, the conventions. Do you expect fireworks over Middle East policy?

Is it that big an issue? So it is, it very much depends on whether this war is perceived as

successful. If the war is unsuccessful, then what Trump will have succeeded in doing, and Netanyahu

as well, is they will have given a huge gift to Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson,

Joe Kent, that whole wing of the Republican Party, the conspiracists, the anti-Semites,

who are more than happy, first of all, they already think that Israel killed Charlie Kirk,

and that Israel was responsible for the Iraq War, for which there is absolutely no evidence.

And now they can, with Rubio's stupid comment, they can even claim that Israel dragged us into

this war, and so they will be empowered tremendously if the war goes badly.

I'm not sure how this goes well sitting here on this day by the end, so I'm very curious how,

if Americans will look back and say this was a good idea, but I think you're already seeing

even splits within the pro-Israel camp. There is a real rebellion against APEC within the

Democratic Party, among very mainstream Democrats, particularly after their intervention against

Tom Malinowski, who is historically very pro-Israel, but said, no, I will not give a blank check

to Israel, and they intervened, their candidate failed, and they are not able to see someone who is

far more anti-Israel, and so I think you will see within the Democratic Party certainly a real

distancing from the, you know, it's APEC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee,

from that wing of the pro-Israel movement, and I think you're going to see a real fight because

of this generational split. I think you cannot underestimate how radical this split is younger people

in their attitudes versus older people when it comes to Israel, and that's a real problem for

Israel in the long run. It sure is, and it's in both parties. Yes, this brings us more broadly to

Democrats, Republicans, and the election coming up this year in November. Republican loss of the

House of Representatives has talked about quite a bit. It's very possible. There's even some talk

about the possibility of Democrats winning the Senate. Obviously, in states where the Democratic

Party has a pulse, Donald Trump is not a big help to Republican candidates, and EJ, I wonder,

what do you make of what seems to be a very strong loyalty to Trump among Republicans,

even as he makes very public, unpopular moves, whether they're in the war or with the economy,

in his remarks about the passing of former FBI director Mueller.

Well, let it be recorded that in the state legislature in Florida, thanks to a special election

in Florida, the people in the district that Mar-a-Lago is in elected a Democrat to the state

legislature, and there was another state Senate race that also swung to the Democrats every

every election we've had since Trump's election essentially has shown an average. I think the

last time I looked at the average was about 13 points swing and some of them were even bigger.

So this is a real problem. In a normal world, some Republicans at least would start backing

away from Trump, but we don't live in a normal world. We live in the world of Republican politics

that President Trump has created, and Republicans are not only so afraid of losing primaries to

the Trump faction, which is now the dominant faction in the party, they're also worried about those

folks turning out in the general election. And I think when you look at the problems of Republicans

face where I do agree that the Senate is now at the point where it could come into play,

I think that the most consistent number are in the polls are when you ask people not only do they

approve or disapprove of Trump, but do you strongly approve of Trump or strongly disapprove of

Trump, the strong disapprovers outnumber the strong approvers by three to two or two to one. That's

a real problem for turnout. And I think you're seeing that in these races. So it's a combination

of the country swinging against Trump and the enthusiasm swinging against Trump. That's real

trouble for the Republicans. Maybe they will discover later this year after their primaries

are done that they have an interest in distancing themselves, but I still think many of them

are very afraid. Speaking of if we lived in a normal world, part of what makes our world abnormal now

is that we live in an era of this personalized politics, and it has been vastly exacerbated by

our system of partisan primaries. And it is the case now. Our elections are determined by a tiny

slice of voters who turn out in primaries. And so the primaries, the only race that matters.

The general election is a given, which party will win. It's a given, exactly. And so because of

gerrymandering, because of self-selection and sorting, because of the kinds of media that we

all consume. And as long as the Republican Party officials or Republican politicians fear their

primary electorate, which is the only thing that they have to fear in most cases, they are not

going to depart from Trump no matter what. And we will see how that turns out for them in the

generals this time, because the cratering of his support among independents does not bode well

for the general election this time. And I think part of the problem is not just the existence of

the primary system. It's also that over time since Trump appeared on the scene 11 years ago, a lot

of people who are more moderate or even moderate conservatives aren't Republican anymore. That's

exactly right. This goes back even longer. Actually, it has been a long drift of moderate Republicans

out of the party going back to the 90s and the collar counties around Philadelphia are a good

example of that. Places that were very loyal for people like George H. W. Bush or Senator John

Hines. And now a lot of those folks just don't think of themselves as Republican anymore. So

you're reducing this party to a party of Trump. Yes. And by the way, you know, Trump just the other

day was touting, you know, somebody had done a poll where they said, you know, 100% of those who

identified as MAGA Republicans approved of his actions in Iran. Well, of course, if you are

willing to identify yourself as a MAGA Republican, then you're going to be in favor of

the reason that is a definition of a MAGA Republican is not exactly. And there are fewer people who

do identify as MAGA now than before the Iran war started. A hundred percent of Celtics fans

root for the Celtics. I think one of the interesting questions and that we don't know the answer

this yet is, can the MAGA base begin to break up? I was really struck by, I think it's a Reuters

Ipsos poll that came out last week or this week where only 29% of Americans approve of Trump

on the economy and only 25% approve his handling of the cost of living. Then I think one of his

biggest problems, and I also think there's a real problem for the country, is this kind of MAGA

politics means that real problems we face now and in the future, housing, health care, child care,

elder care, how to give young people, entering a really difficult economy, a leg up, particularly

people who didn't go to college. All these big questions, if we were talking about these more

than I could have real arguments about real problems that matter to people and the MAGA

Trump obsessions drives substance out of politics and boy that's bad for every party, especially

for people like us. Just one more point about politics here. In addition to telling us what the

next Congress is going to be like, the November election, that's typically when we really start

thinking about the next presidential race. Isn't somebody going to have to express an interest in

the Republican Party pretty soon? And is it down to two people who are both part of this administration

that is Vance and Rubio? What should we expect in that regard? Well, I think the Vance Rubio

rivalry has already engaged. We've seen lots of evidence of that. But again, I will come back to

whether this administration is perceived to have been successful. If so, then it's clear that

one of those two will be the nominee. But if not, then there could be an outsider, there could

be an insurgent. But that would probably take something catastrophic to do that. So it's hard

to make predictions, especially about the future. Thank you, Yogi Berra. I think that

we'd eras a great Republican pollster sort of was talking about the Rubio Vance thing. And he said,

but there is a possibility of someone we never heard of. And I asked him, what candidate are you

for? And he said, I think I'm for somebody we never heard of. And I think it partly depends,

well, first of all, Trump has to decide not to run again. And I still haven't put aside the

possibility that Trump, you know, given everything else he's done would claim some weird right to be

in it again. But I do think there may be even in Republican Party sheer exhaustion with this

that may lead someone else to say, we need a new track for this party if we're going to

survive in the long run, but it's not obvious to me who that is. Yeah, maybe I have one little

quibble not with you about the way you phrased it, but lots of people in the press talk about,

you know, if Trump decides not to run, they say things like if he's not going to run,

that is not a thing. Yes, exactly. Cannot run again. It's in the goddamn constitution.

Amen to that. And I think it's very important that we say that over and over again.

But the constitution doesn't seem to bother Trump very much on anything else. So I don't see why

it would bother him with a very explicit language about this. No, I know it doesn't bother him,

but I think everybody who comments on it should constantly reiterate that the constitution

forbids this and it cannot happen here here. I'm with you. Well, Mona, we've developed a tradition

in this conversation. We've been a short-lived conversation, but we've already have a tradition.

And that is that we should end every conversation that we have on an upbeat note by asking what

what each of us has experienced in the way of joy recently. Something that's not political or

military would ever joy, something joyful you can describe in life. I think I can. So this weekend

is going to be another No Kings rally. Now, I am not a protesting sort. Spent my life being

a conservative. If I were to chant something, it would be along the lines of, what do we want?

Incremental change. When do we want it in the fullness of time? But I found the last No Kings

rally to be very inspiring. I was struck by the cleverness of some of the signs, by the spirit,

by the patriotism. And I am encouraged that there are millions of other Americans who feel the danger

to democracy and our republic. And it gives me hope. So I'm looking forward to participating again.

Thank you. EJ, amen to that too. I went last week to the celebration of the 25th anniversary of

the White House faith-based sponsored by the Center for Public Justice. Now, there are

kinds of arguments that I've been involved with over the years too about the proper role of government

vis-à-vis religion. And if anybody wants to see my views on that, there's a report I did for

working some years ago with my friend Melissa Rogers. What hit me that day that gave me joy

was how many people from churches, synagogues, mosques, and also lots of secular people who are deeply

involved in helping homeless people, in helping immigrants, in helping the left out, in helping

battered women, in helping toward people overseas. All these people in the country who in the midst of

all this political chaos are out there working to help other people who are less well off than they

are. They exist. God, if I may, God bless them all. And we shouldn't forget that they are very

much part of our national conversation too. And we ought to think about those good folks and say,

thank you. Amen. Amen. And for me, it was, I should have known it was coming. The return of baseball

simply brings joy to my life. And I got hooked by the world baseball classic. And the Italian team

in particular, which only had three guys from Italy on. And I think, but it reminded me of these

names from my childhood, D'Amagio, Rosudo, and Berra. And the Venezuelans would have liked to see

the Americans win the final game, but so be it. They had their victory. And I just found the whole

thing wonderful. And I'm even looking forward to Major League Baseball with a machine that overrides

umpires when they call Boston Strikes Wrong. Do you realize how many arguments and living rooms

that will set aside? No. But also how many cheer, how many screaming at umpires is really fun,

but we're going to lose some of that. To learn to scream at a computer. Mona and DJ EJ and Mona,

thanks to both of you. It's great. Thank you. Thank you.

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