What’s really behind Trump’s latest tantrums over Iran?

0:00This is The Guardian. Here at Blue Apron, we've been thinking a lot about the whole cooking thing. And we've decided, you shouldn't have to cook. Introducing dish by Blue Apron, pre-made meals that are ready in five minutes or less, at least 20 grams of protein, a good source of fiber, and no artificial flavors or colors. Shop dish by Blue Apron at Blue Apron.com. Get 50% off your first two orders with code apron50. Terms in condition supply. Visit Blue Apron.com slash terms for more. If you haven't noticed, Donald Trump is rather unhappy with NATO. They don't want to help us, which is amazing. I mean, amazing. And I didn't do a full-court press because I think if I did, they probably would be,

1:01but we don't need help. But as the war with Iran drags on into another week, is Donald Trump starting to regret insulting his allies? I'm Jonathan Friedland, colonist at The Guardian, and this is Politics Weekly America. It's perilous to try to really figure out what he is thinking, but I would have to imagine he understands that he is maybe bitten off more than he intended to chew. Philip Gordon is a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Before that, he was an assistant to Joe Biden and a national security advisor to Kamala Harris. Three weeks in, with the Strait of Hormuz closed and our allies in the Gulf being hit on a daily basis, energy escalation, oil prices rising, US military casualties, and the thing you referred to in your introduction about NATO allies, not willing to come along, he has got to understand that

2:04he has unleashed something that's going to be hard for him to contain. Let's just focus on one aspect of something that has been unleashed. Obviously, there's been a huge cost already in the loss of American life, but there is a very direct dollars cost in the sense of billions that this is racking up already. We know that the American people are already talking about the economic squeeze in their own lives, manifested when they go to buy gasoline, the pumps, and how expensive that's becoming. Given all that, why is it that overnight into Thursday on his true social media platform Donald Trump threatened to massively blow up what is the world's largest gas field? I think he actually realizes he made a mistake. A major blow to the largest natural gas field in the world. That is the explosion you're seeing playing out on your screen. The name of the field is called South Pars, and it's known as Iran's energy lifeline, and the missile responsible for that

3:06cape fired came out of Israel. I mean, he put out another truth social post that said we had nothing to do. It was Israel that struck the South Parse field, you know, Iran's field in the the Gulf. We had nothing to do with it, but we've made clear that if Iran doesn't respond, then that won't happen again. I think because he realized that that and the Iranian response to it against the cutlery liquefied natural gas production facility really spooked energy markets. And I think he now realizes that if we get into a tit for tat on energy sites that we participate in, that's going to make costs go up even further to his political detriment. Just on that point of being saying, I didn't know we didn't know this was coming. President Trump posted on truth social that the US was not involved in the original hit on the South Parse field in Iran saying, quote, the United States knew nothing about this particular attack. Fact number one, Israel acted alone against the Slaviyah gas compound. Fact number two,

4:07President Trump asked us to hold off on future attacks, and we're holding out. In Israel, the reporting coming out of the military security establishment is that they were absolutely in lockstep with the Americans on this strike. On Thursday afternoon, London time, Donald Trump was asked about this and explained that he had spoken to Benjamin Netanyahu. He didn't say exactly when, importantly, but he did say, we're independent. We get along great. It's coordinated, but on occasion, he'll do something. And if I don't like it, so we're not doing that anymore. The question arises, Phil, do you believe there is any way that an American president wouldn't have known in advance or even signed off on such an act, such a strike during a war that after all, he has co-authored with Israel. No, it's not really plausible. And as you say, it's sort of been backed by reporting sources on both sides, saying the US was indeed consulted.

5:12It's not plausible, you know, with Israel being part of Centcom, the US Central Command, that it would and could undertake a very significant military mission with implications for Iranian retaliation, both the political and strategic ones that retaliation against gas fields and energy infrastructure that would have huge implications for the United States. It's kind of politically implausible that they would do that without consulting the United States and militarily that they even could undertake the strike mission. They're flying together with the United States. There was airspace and intelligence. It's not really plausible. So I think, you know, I would believe the sources that say that we knew. And I would read Trump's tweet as just a way of absolving blame, nothing new there, but also a little bit of a panic about the consequences and trying to talk markets back down by saying, all right, like this happened, but no more. He's in deep. There are conflicting signals, including on the gas field that we just talked about. So I'm going to put to you a question we've been asking our guests week after weeks

6:15since this started. What is Donald Trump's plan? He doesn't seem to plan like most presidents, or dare I say, people plan when they undertake something, especially something risky and complex, where they really have in mind, as clear as you can, a set of objectives, how they're going to get there and what they're going to do at points A, B and C. Everything we know about him and have known for years or decades is that he sometimes just jumps in and says, I'll figure it out and make it up as I go along. And I think there's a large degree of that in this. He wants options, but he doesn't know which way it's going to go whether he's going to escalate, if he's going to call it off, you know, even refers to that. He'll know it'll be a feeling and he'll play it that way. I'll know it in my bones, he said. I'll know it in my bones. And that's how he's done other things, whether it's real estate deals or political campaigns. It gives him the unique ability to pivot back, one advantage of shifting objectives is you can just redefine them and say that the ones

7:18you've accomplished are the ones you really set out for anyway. I think he's going to see how it's going. And if escalation comes to costly, he'll pivot and say, this is what I set out to do and I accomplished it. But at the same time, if you're on unduly pisses him off or really make some angry, he could escalate and see where that goes. So I don't think even he knows the answer to your question. I mean, given that, it's therefore then quite hard to speak about the difference between the objectives of the two countries who started this war here at the United States and Israel, given the lack of clarity about his objectives. But just on that, the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was on the hill this week. She wouldn't confirm Donald Trump's assertion that Iran had posed an imminent threat to the United States. And that's the reason why they had to act. The intelligence community has provided the inputs that make up this annual threat assessment. You want to answer the question? The nature of the imminent threat that the president has to make

8:19that determination based on a collection and volume. You're here to meet time leaders. Intelligence that he is. But she also made it very clear that the United States and Israel now have different objectives. She said, we can see that the Israeli government are focused on disabling the Iranian leadership, meaning regime change. The president has stated his objectives are to destroy Iran's ballistic missiles, their launching capability, their production capability, and their navy. That is a very different set of aims from regime change. They're much more sort of operational and achievable. Do you see this increasingly that there is a divergence between the US and Israel and that that could get more and more sticky between the two countries? First, just briefly on the imminence that you said she avoided addressing. I'm not surprised she avoided addressing it because she probably, if she addressed it, she would have a different answer than he has given. In his statement announcing the operation on February 28, he began by saying, we launched this operation to deal with imminent threats to the United States and has never really

9:25been able to articulate what those imminent threats were. The administration subsequently came up with a very interesting explanation of imminence. As Secretary Marco Rubio said that it was that they knew that Iran was about to be attacked by Israel and that it would respond and the response would include attacking Americans and therefore that was an imminent threat. But other than that, there were some leaks about we had intelligence about an imminent attack, but they couldn't sustain that. She claimed it wasn't the intelligence community's job to determine that. It kind of is. We ask them for assessments like that all the time. Anyway, that's on imminence, on the divergence with Israel. I think if what Donald Trump has done for Israel over the past three weeks and beyond, if he decides the war is over, I think Israel goes along. If Israel kept bombing even after Trump stopped, it would be the worst of all worlds, but the straight would still be closed. There would still be risks or would still be going on and we would just be out of it. And we know from the June war last year, the 12-day war that this minute, he called a halt, it stopped.

10:29And so he's in charge. Let me pick up your point before about conspiracy theories because this weeks all the resignation as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent. The former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, formally stepping down from this role on Tuesday, stating he cannot, quote, in good conscience, support the Iran war. He then went straight to his friend, Allied Tucker Carlson, to explain his decision further. The Israelis drove the decision to take this action, which we knew would set off a series of events, meaning the Iranians would retaliate. This man is from the MAGA movement, he's from really the far right, he's known to be somebody who trades in conspiracy theory. Here he is suggesting that the sort of hand behind the war was Israel that they had done this before in the past and so on, which is a staple on the far right among conspiracy theorists. How significant do you think first is his resignation?

11:36But second is his reasoning and what it tells us about that wing of the MAGA movement? Yeah, I mean, as you say, that wing certainly exists and he is a prime spokesperson for it, as at least was the director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard that you referred to in Tucker Carlson. You know, the Rubio comments about Israel's role in the war is father for them and they're taking full advantage of it. But as I think you also suggested, I mean, Joe Kent, to me at least, is not a reliable witness for this sort of thing. He has a history of anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories. I think it's important for everyone to keep separate two things. What role did Israel play in working with the United States to decide to use military action against Iran? That's a legitimate topic. Obviously, Israel was a key player that launched a joint operation with the United States, but keep that separate from these nutty, anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists who have just a different

12:36agenda and will take advantage and cherry pick facts for their purposes. Yeah, and there's reporting out now that suggesting he's under investigation by the FBI over an alleged leak of classified information. Nevertheless, I wonder if it's so sorry to interrupt, but that's important because the reporting also suggests that that investigation started before the resignation. In other words, he may have jumped before he was pushed. But nevertheless, he's not the only one to have criticized Donald Trump's decision to join this war. Do you think, and we take the point absolutely that he's got quite fringe politics, but do you think he is just a one-off? Or do you think that Joe Kent is the beginning of a show of dissent, even among Donald Trump's own Republicans, officials, others about this war? He's definitely not a one-off. I mean, there are other voices that have been speaking out from that camp that originally joined Trump's coalition. I mean,

13:36I think you see this both anecdotally and to a degree in polling. There are people from that camp who regret, they were sold a bill of goods, non-intervention, focus on America first, focus in the economy, and they see their gas prices going up, asking for $200 billion for defense and wars in the Middle East. I would caution against jumping too quickly to the notion that this blows up Trump's coalition and his support collapses. Analysts have said that for years every time. He does something that should, you know, the Epstein files. That's the last straw. It's going to finally, you know, this goes back to when he made disparaging comments about John McCain a decade ago. You can never survive that. He has survived virtually everything. He's just got almost cult-like support, and if I think you even look at the polling, you know, a very 80% of mega supporters are supporting him through this war because it's him, but it sure won't help. And if, you know, you continue to get rising prices, rising mortgage rates in the US, there will be more and more people

14:37who wonder what the hell they voted for. Donald Trump has obviously got some troubles at home, but he also has them with his allies abroad. After the break, Philip Gordon and I will discuss, what was behind Donald Trump's hissyfit with NATO this week? And what it signals for the president's America first policy? We'll be right back. We're back with Phil Gordon. Donald Trump has now come to realize very directly in the last few days that he does not have support abroad that he might have once or his predecessors might once have been able to count on. And that's in the realm of NATO. This week Donald Trump told America's long-time allies, we don't need you. I think NATO is making a very foolish mistake, and I've long said that, you know, I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us. So this is a this was a great test. So what prompted that, Phil, is sort of outburst by Donald

15:42Trump directed at his NATO partners? You know, if you were ever looking for a sort of case to demonstrate the value of allies, this issue of helping us sort out and open the straight of Hormuz would be a classic one. Tonight, President Trump renewed calls for countries that rely on oil flowing through the straight of Hormuz to send warships to secure the shipping route. The strategic waterway now largely blocked for oil exports. But the context is one in which Donald Trump spent the previous year putting unilateral tariffs on Europe, demanding an unbalanced trade deal, pulling the plug on Ukraine and cutting off USAid assistance to Ukraine, berating Europeans for a whole range of things, putting out a national security strategy that basically almost identified the European Union as an adversary and said we're going to work with civilization allies to undermine its current trajectory, made threats against Greenland actually like use military force against the NATO ally.

16:43And in the process disparaged European troops. Remember the comments about, you know, sort of standing back in Afghanistan when in fact a number of them had had taken, you know, serious casualties standing alongside America. And then he comes around and turns to the Europeans to ask for their help, ask them to take risks of their service members' lives to participate in what they saw to be a reckless war about which they were not consulted, that their publics don't support. And so, you know, I think it's unsurprising that they were not prepared to do that. He then got very upset about that. Now he's been all over the place because he said, you know, we don't need it and we can do this ourselves. And then we said we need allies and we demand our allies. And then he said, well, we don't need this anyway. But the bottom line is the costs of aiding allies are now becoming clear even to Trump. Yeah. I mean, it's an object lesson, as you say, in the value of diplomacy because by being undiplomatic, you suddenly find when you need your friends,

17:45they're not there for you. It's worth pointing out lots of Europeans said, note that NATO is a defensive alliance. It's very different if a member is under attack. Then of course, you leap to their aid under the key principle article five of NATO, very different if it's a war of choice. If a member launches a war of choice, they're kind of on their own. But I just wondered about the fact that even putting those sort of, you know, as Donald Trump would see it kind of legal, nice to one side, the point is he asked for something and they haven't given it to him. Are we now beginning to see the limits of, look, on one level, Donald Trump's style, the blustering demanding style? But in a way, even the limits of US power, when it's all disallysed, say, no. Yeah, I think something may well be changing. I think Trump's learned experience from the first year of engagement with Europeans is, was that he could pretty much get away with anything. They kind of pivoted over the Greenland issue, where it was just a bridge too far for all of them,

18:46not just Denmark, but all of them was like, no, we can't have the United States threatening to use military force against a NATO member. And lo and behold, then only stood up in terms of strong language. They threatened counter tariffs when he threatened new tariffs on Europe over Greenland. They threatened to use this anti-coversion instrument that would punish the United States, was designed for China, but it would be used against the United States. They put some troops in Greenland. There was even talk of, you know, divesting Danish pension funds, Norwegian pension funds, selling US securities, that had an effect on US markets and Trump back down. And so I think that context is also relevant of Europeans kind of realizing that when they need to or when they find the spine to do so, they can stand up to Trump and he has to be the one to back down. Now, they were reluctant to do that over the Strait of Hormuz, and that's why some of them at least initially said we're looking at it, we'll work with the United States, you know, because one they also have an interest in opening the Strait, but they didn't want to unduly aggravate Trump. But it does feel like Europeans are finding that in certain circumstances, they have to say no,

19:51and in fact, they can say no. And Donald Trump warned that if they did, it would be very, very bad for NATO as if to say, I'll walk away from NATO. Were the United States to do that? Were NATO to break up? There's always tons of discussion here in Europe about what that would mean for Europe and for Europeans. What would it mean for the United States and its place in the world if it was no longer part of NATO? He used the same, virtually the same expression over Greenland when he said, like, I need Greenland. And if you don't give it to me, we will remember that. Now, so far that threat has been largely empty, or may remember it, but like he's moved away from that issue for now. So this too could be bluster where he's just trying to scare the Europeans, but they have to take seriously the notion that he could walk away. For the United States, I would argue that it wouldn't be in the US interest either. I mean, Trump can say it's your problem. But again, for 80 years, we have felt like a free and open Europe, our most important

20:54trade and investment partner, common values and all that, was really in our interest. And if we were going to let Europe be vulnerable to outside threats, I don't think that would be in the US interest as well, but Trump may have a different view. So on that, the world order that's obtained for really 80 years, including free trade, global interdependence, I do something for you, you do something back for me, international alliances, that whole architecture, he has more or less disparaged and disdained, preferring instead to do it his way as a kind of deal maker transactional, you know, if you want to put it in harder language, kind of bully who gets his way that way. As you said, in the first year, that brought him some dividends. He got him results. Now that it isn't, can you see him changing his mind, shifting on the way that the global system works and begin to think, maybe I do need to pivot back to the way my predecessors did things, which is alliances and interdependence, multilateralism, because that way at least America can get its way

21:56in the world. No, because he's thought about the world this way for 40 years for his whole life. It's zero sum. Alliances are like a bad deal for us. We pay and they take advantage. You know, he was writing that stuff about Japan in the 1980s in about NATO. The way he thinks about trade is exactly the same way. If we have a trade deficit with the country, we're losing that much money to them, like overlooking the fact that they're sending us what we want for that money. You'll never persuade him that, you know, the alliance is great and burden sharing is equitable and the world is not zero sum. We all benefit. That's just not his view. But by standing up to him, I think you can prevent him taking just abusing American power. He'll always try to get more. You know, deal-making, squeeze, use leverage. So that's why there are times in Europeans to say, you know what, guess what, nope, can't have that. You know, President Xi showed him that last summer when he thought he could, you know, he's going to push him and get as much as he could.

22:57And she said, you know, we've got this thing called rare earths. I think you need them. Let's talk. So I think that's the lesson from this. Without holding out hope that someday Donald Trump becomes, you know, Mr. Multilateral. Yeah, if you're dealing with a transactional guy, deal with him transactionally and he may respond to that rather than hoping he converts overnight and gets religion. And Philip, we always do like to ask a what else question. Something a bit different. It's still related to foreign policy because Taiwan raised the alarm this week about what they saw as Chinese shipping movements in the East China Sea. US intelligence agencies then said that as much as they believe that Beijing is still planning to take control of Taiwan, eventually, they won't do it either this year or even next year. But just because we have seen American military capacity stretched in Iran, your point early about running out of interceptors and so on and the cost could just as a matter of theory at this point could the United States

23:59fight two wars at the same time right now if it needed to. You know, there is a finite amount of US military power, a finite number of interceptors, a finite number of destroyers and aircraft carriers. So there's no question that the more you deploy to the Middle East, the less you have available for other conflicts whether it's in Europe or Asia and you know, defensive Taiwan is a classic one that comes up and it's no surprise that the people in Taiwan are a bit more nervous than they were before because we have fewer assets in the Indo-Pacific than we did six months ago and some very specific ones have been moved to the Middle East and same on interceptors and all the rest. That said, I think some of the talk or concerns about immediate Chinese action or Taiwan on Taiwan are overblown. It would still be a massive military undertaking. Taiwan would fight back. We would still have huge military power to bring to the mix if we chose to get involved and you know, there's always you can always, you know, abandon another mission. Call off say we

25:01want in Iran and we're moving back to Asia. So I don't think there's like a immediate greater risk of a Chinese moving on Taiwan. In the longer run, it's an issue for Taiwan. All of the talk historically and recently about pivoting to Asia to make that the priority is kind of being blown up with this massive deployment to the Middle East. So over time, I think it fuels China's hope that they can persuade the people of Taiwan that in the long run, you can't count on America and you need to cut a deal with us, but I think talk of a near-term invasion is probably overblown. Philip Gordon, thank you for that and for joining me on Politics Weekly America. Great to be with you, thanks. And that is all from me for this week. Before I go, I do want to tell you about a new Guardian Investigates series of duty over seven episodes. Host Melissa Segura tells us the incredible story of a Chicago police officer who was murdered in 2011 and one man's

26:0112-year battle to prove his innocence. Search for off-duty on the Guardian Investigates feed wherever you listen to your podcasts. But for now, it's goodbye. The producer is Daniel Stevens, the executive producer, Mars Ebtaharge. I'm Jonathan Friedland. Thanks, as always, for listening. This is The Guardian.