April 8, 2026 • 26 mins
Donald Trump has backed down again on threats towards Iran.
In a social media post, the President said he has agreed “to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks” and that this “will be a double-sided ceasefire”.
It’s after Iranians formed human chains along bridges and around power plants after Trump vowed that “a whole civilisation will die tonight”.
On the other hand, Iran has claimed victory, saying it forced the US to accept its 10-point plan.
All the while, our Foreign Minister Winston Peters has met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, coming out of it saying he is “very hopeful for the future”.
Today on The Front Page, University of Otago Peace Studies professor Richard Jackson is with us to take us through the latest, and what could happen next.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Editor/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Jane Yee
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Kiyota.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Donald Trump
has backed down again on threats towards Iran. In a
social media post, the President said he has agreed to
(00:26):
suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period
of two weeks and that this will be a double
sided ceasefire. It's after Iranians formed human chains along bridges
and around power plants after Trump vowed that a whole
civilization will die tonight. On the other hand, Iran has
(00:46):
claimed victory, saying it forced the US to accept its.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Ten point plan.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
All the while, our Foreign Minister Winston Peters has met
with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, coming out of
it saying he.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Is very hopeful for the future.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Today on the front page at University of Otago, Peace Studies,
Professor Richard Jackson is with us to take us through
the latest and what could happen next. So Richard Trump
is announced he'll suspend strikes on Iran for two weeks
in exchange for Iran opening the straight of holl moves.
(01:24):
Iran's claiming victory saying it forced the US to accept
its ten point plan. Talks are apparently going to be
held on April tenth. What do you make of all this, Well, to.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Me, it really does look like Trump has stepped back
from the brink. I think he has been advised probably
that it wouldn't have worked. You know, there's no way
that Iran would have backed down. It wouldn't have forced
them to make any further concessions. They've had a plan
(01:55):
all the way along about how they would protect and
save their and I think one of the things about
their plan was that they have a kind of dispersed
leadership and a dispersed structure, so that even if some
of their leaders get killed, it means the regime continues.
(02:19):
They you know, threatened that if they got really hammered
by this massive attack, that they would extend their attacks
beyond the Gulf region, so they might, you know, even
attack bases and places much further afield, So that would
(02:42):
escalate the conflict. I don't think it would lead to
any opening of the strait. I think on top of that,
you know, it would have turned the tide of world
opinion even more because clearly these attacks on infrastructure war
crimes they're prohibited under international law. So I think, you know,
(03:05):
Trump got all this advice and they somehow managed to
convince him, you've got to step back. You can't you
can't actually follow through on this particular threat. And the
Iranians in a way are kind of correct in the
sense that they've had this ten point plan for quite
some time and they've stuck to it, and now America
(03:26):
has said that they'll they'll seriously negotiate on it. So
it looks like it's America that's blinked first and back down.
This is this is not surprising in the sense that
there was never really a strategic plan, and there was
never really a strong set of ideas about how this
(03:50):
would all unfold, and it certainly hasn't gone to plan
from the American On the Israeli.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Perspective, well, let's talk about that ten point plan for
a second. The Guardian reported that it actually includes the
lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions, payment of full
compensation to Iran, and the release of all frozen Iranian assets,
as well as controlled transit through the state, which I
think is a big one. So is this kind of
(04:17):
a strategic victory for Iran? Do you think because it's
basically been proven that it does in fact control the
Strait at the very least, it means on a geopolitical level,
it has control over the Strait.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
What do you think that means.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I think you're absolutely right in a sense. What it's
done is it's confirmed that Iran's one major strategic strength
is the fact that it can pretty much threatened global
shipping through the Strait at any time. And what it
also shows is that everything that Israel and the US
(05:00):
wanted to achieve has been completely not achieved and is
unachievable in a sense. You know, they have not changed
the regime, They have not taken control of the Strait.
They have not forced Iran to accept a humiliating piece
steel that would involve, you know, external monitoring of all
(05:22):
it's you know, nuclear facilities and so on and so forth.
Iran has just stuck to their demands and America has blinked,
and so is Israel apparently and said, all right, well,
you know, after bombing you for six weeks and not
achieving anything, we're going to stop. I mean, yeah, it's
(05:44):
hard to interpret that in any other way. I think
it does show that Iran was prepared for this conflict,
had a plan and has stuck to it and has
basically achieved. But more importantly, and I think this is
one of the key points. It reiterates and reinforces again
(06:04):
the limitations of Western military power. You know, we just
keep seeing this time and time again that the West
thinks that because they've got superior air power in particular,
they can just go in and attack countries and force
them into making concessions and changing their political systems and
(06:26):
you know, putting in friendly regimes and allowing their resources
to be exploited and so on. And you know, it
failed in Afghanistan, it failed in Iraq. Now, it's failed
in Iran. Israel failed in Gaza. They failed in South
Lebanon time and time again. They failed to stop you know,
(06:49):
the Huthis and Yemen. I mean, it just shows you
that you can't really translate military superiority into political gains.
You can bomb people and you can blow up their stuff,
but you can't really translate that into the kind of
political outcomes that you actually set out to achieve. I mean,
(07:11):
the only real achievements that have ever you know, really
been seen in the last few months have come through dialogue,
through diploma, diplomacy, through negotiations, and I think that is
kind of the missing point here, is that you know,
Israel and the US in particular refused to negotiate, and
(07:33):
you know that's why they're not getting anything achieved.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Well, in saying that, do you think the Pakistani Prime
Minister Shabaz Sharif's actually come out on top here as
a top negotiator between them all?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Well, I think certainly he's. Yeah, he's proved the value
of mediation, and particularly mediation by a party that obviously
is trusted by one side, in particular by Iran, I think,
and has a little bit of leverage in terms of
the other. Mostly as I said, I think this is
(08:09):
kind of like a face saving way for America to
back down from their from their threat, but it really
does show the weakness of their strategy. But yeah, I mean,
the sort of political capital of Pakistan will have risen
greatly in this, depending upon how the talks go in
(08:31):
the next couple of weeks and whether or not they
actually succeed and whether or not they aren't derailed. I mean,
one of the things you've got to remember is that
they were in talks when Israel and the US attacked before, so,
and you know, Israel in particular has attacked several times,
(08:53):
even trying to kill the people that they're negotiating with.
So when they were negotiating with Hima US, they tried
to assassinate those negotiators. So there's always this risk given
the history of of what Israel in the US has done,
that at a certain point, you know, they will just
(09:15):
decide we're sick of these talks, let's just try and
kill them all again, and that will derail the whole process.
And so I think, yeah, we're still a very long
way from having a resolution to this and getting the
global supply of oil moving again and the crisis over.
There's still an awful lot there, and I think, you know,
(09:36):
a lot of the ten point plan are going to
be quite humiliating for the US and Israel to accept,
and you know, I suspect that they may not want
to do those things. So whether or not that gives
them the excuse to go back to war, we don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah, So that Trump wrote on behalf of the United
States of America as president and also representing the countries
of the Middle East, it is an honor to have
this long term problem closed to resolution. I meanwhile, you've
got the Iranian state media saying US talks do not
mean the end of war. So what are the chances
(10:15):
that this actually ends the conflict? Or I suppose for
weeks there's been speculation, hey about Trump just you know,
coming out and announcing that he's won or that they've
reached some kind of resolution, as it were, and just
try and wipe his hands of failure.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Is that what's happening here?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
It is possible that Trump will try and put this
behind him and move on and perhaps go and attack
Cuba or something like that, or invade Greenland. I mean,
he's like that, He's very unpredictable. These things happen, you know,
think about what happened with Venezuela a while back, and
(10:54):
then he moves on to something else, and it's a
way of kind of ruling through unpredictable action and keeping
everyone on their toes and nobody knows what's going to
happen and so on. I mean, that is kind of
that is possible that, certainly from his side, he might
just say, look, I've ended this, We've got peace, and
(11:17):
I'm moving on. Whether anything changes or not. I think
the wild card here is Israel, because I think Israel
is the country that first of all convinced him to
join in this attack, and they're also the country that
will not be satisfied at all with leaving the Iranian
regime in control, in power, basically untouched, and you know,
(11:44):
having in a sense won this kind of propaganda victory
by saying we never gave in, We stuck to our
ten point plan and we got it. We held the
world to ransom and we achieved our survival. Israel, Yeah,
we'll not be happy with that. They'll find it difficult
to sell the argument that they've dealt, you know, a
(12:08):
death blow to Iran and that Israel is now safe
forever and it's kind of in Netanyahu's interest to keep
wars going. So yeah, and you know, I think that
they really do want to take land in South Lebanon
and expand Israel's territory, So that's probably likely to continue.
(12:29):
And then and whether or not that encourages Iran to
keep attacking as well, I mean, I just think, yeah,
there's a few things here that are not going to
be as simple as Trump would like them to be.
He's not going to be able to just say it's over. Now,
we're moving on to something else, and there are some
big issues there to resolve. So yeah, I don't think
(12:53):
we can really predict how it might play out yet.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
So I think there really are two pathways. And I'm
oversimplifying this a little bit, but I think pathway one
is where the Iranians decide they're going to be a
normal country. They're not going to fund terrorism anymore. They're
going to be part of the of the world system
of commerce and exchange, and that's going to mean much
better things for them economically, it's going to mean better
things for the peace and safety of the world. It's
(13:22):
going to mean a lot of good things for a
lot of people all over the planet. That's option A, Okay.
Option B is that the Iranians don't come to table
and they stay committed to terrorism, to terrorizing their neighbors,
not just Israel, but of course they're Arab neighbors too,
Then the economic situation Iran is going to continue to
be very, very bad, and frankly it will probably get worth.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Well.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
There seems to be just increasingly unhinged kind of.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Quality to his threats.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Do you think that this shows a desperation on his part,
Or do you think Trump actually thinks that these words
and the kind of levels that he's going to, you know,
destroying all civilization in Iran that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Do you think that he has some kind of power
to his words.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
So I think on the one hand, he's always had
this kind of rhetoric. He's always used hyperbole and exaggeration
and extreme forms of language, and he does that in
both a positive and a negative sense. You know, he'll
say this is the greatest thing that's ever been, but
(14:33):
he'll also say I'm going to rain down the worst
hell that anyone's ever seen. I mean, in a way,
it's partly his style. But on the other hand, the
United States is the world superpowers. It's experiencing actually declining
influence in the face of China and Russia and other states.
(14:57):
You know, it got badly beaten in a Aghanistan and
kind of beaten in Iraq as well. Nobody's really afraid
of its military force anymore. It's completely undermined international law
and international institutions, and it's kind of gone against the
way the world's going in relation to climate change and
(15:20):
trade and so on. It's made itself a bit of
a pariah. And when a state is in a period
of decline like that, it tends to lash out, and
it tends to rely on what it thinks is the
sort of mechanism or the mode by which you can
reassert its power. In some ways, the same is true
(15:44):
of Israel as well. It's the power of deterrence, right,
the idea that I am so powerful and I'm willing
to use this power that everyone will be deterred from
doing anything against my interests. Well, October seven destroyed Israel's
deterrence in a sense, and then the genocide after that
(16:07):
also destroyed her, and the attacks on Lebanon and Hezbola,
and so Israel is trying very hard to reassert its
deterrence in the region by saying we are so bad
and we are so tough and we are so ruthless
that everyone should be afraid and should just do what
(16:27):
we say. America, I think is the same. It's using
its military power as it's declining in it lashing out
in a way to try and reassert terrance and reassert
control and power. And I think, yeah, in a way,
this is a very dangerous moment for the for the
entire world because you have these very powerful military states
(16:52):
that feel like they're less in control, less able to
deter less able to get their interests her and accepted,
and so they're relying more and more on military force
to try and do it. But as I've said, you know,
it backfires, and you can't actually use military force to
achieve political ends. You can bomb people and cause a
(17:15):
lot of hurt, but it doesn't really translate to political ends.
In order to get political goals and political achievements, you
have to negotiate with people, and you have to convince
people to agree to your terms, and force won't actually
always do that. It very rarely does. So, Yeah, there's
(17:35):
this kind of dynamic here of increasing military force but
declining political influence, and it's a very dangerous dynamic because
it could lead to more reckless military behavior. And I
think Trump's rhetoric kind of reflects that as well.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yeah, I was trying to think of the saying, isn't
there something about you know, don't pedis a scared dog
or something, because it will lash out. It's like a
cowering dog in the corner, and you wouldn't want to
pat that.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Yeah, look, I mean more perhaps beyond that. You know,
in political science and international relations, which is what I study, Yeah,
there is a lot of work around how states that
feel declining influence and power will rely on military force
(18:27):
to lash out and try and re establish their reputation,
re establish their sense of power. And the problem is
that that almost never works.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Could that have worked at some point in history though.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
I mean it works for a time sometimes, you know,
the Roman Empire or the British Empire or whatever empire,
even the American Empire uses force in a way that yeah,
cows everyone and makes them submit. And we've certainly seen
a lot of countries, including New Zealand and you know,
(19:01):
express this kind of genuine fear of what the US
might do and so go crawling to Trump to say
give us better tariff deals, or don't attack us, or
don't you know. There is a lot of that. But
at the same time, the use of that kind of
power can also produce a lot of resistance. People say, well,
(19:21):
we're not going to put up with that, and even
if we lose, we're going to fight back. And actually,
if we look at history and we see the superpower
of the United States failing in Vietnam, failing in Afghanistan,
failing in Iraq. I mean, we're showing, you know, we
can see that even ordinary people with very few weapons
(19:44):
can over a long period defeat the United States because
they you know, they're relying on their high tech weaponry,
but they're not willing to sacrifice large numbers of their
soldiers in these kind of long term, hopeless wars. So really,
what can they do. We can fight back, And I
(20:05):
think that's what we're seeing is that there's there's kind
of global resistance, and Iran is part of this. You know,
they call it the Axis of Resistance. Iran's connection with
the with Hasbulla and Hamas to try and resist what
the Americans and the Israelis are doing in that part
(20:27):
of the world. And they're showing demonstrating that resistance is
possible and that military force has its limits. And I
think this is the key lesson. And I wish our government,
and I wish the United States and I wish the
UN would all take that lesson on board and say, look,
we've you know, we've got to actually have more dialogue,
(20:49):
we've got to have more negotiations, we've got to talk
this out. Military force is not achieving anything. The only
people who really suffer from that ordinary citizens, upon thousands
of which we've already seen die in these wars, to
know a good end to no good reason.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
I want to be clear, I am proud of that Trump.
The last ten years, so much good happened. Globalism was
absolutely discredited and dismantled. It's part of a larger wave worldwide.
But this new Trump really started with Elon Musk got
right out of there. The last eight months is a disaster,
(21:33):
and I wore the Democrats. I absolutely know their globalist
and are a major threat. But currently Trump, with this
Iran war and the energy crisis and the pr disaster.
I mean, the North Korean dictator doesn't talk like this.
He talks like a super villain from a Marvel comic.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
I suppose back in the US, a Republican support for
the president is waning.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
You've got Democrats.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
They're raising alarms over his mental stability and a calling
for his removal from office. More than twenty Democratic members
of Congress have actually called for Trump's cabinet to invoke
the twenty fifth Amendment to the Constitution to remove him.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
What is all that about?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I mean, can you explain, can you actually remove a
president from office?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah? So, look, the twenty fifth Amendment was brought in
to deal with situations such as when the president falls
really ill and can't do their work, or like, for example,
when John F. Kennedy was shot, I mean, and the
president has suddenly killed, who takes over? You know, what's
(22:49):
the succession? So there's a sort of set of circumstances
put into the twenty fifth Amendment which say, if the
president becomes incapacitated, either physically or mentally, then there's a
process by which they can be taken out of that
office and then someone takes their place. And I think
(23:13):
this argument has been mooted before that you know, a president,
if they show signs of mental incapacity or something like
that could be removed. But it's never been tested and
there's no sort of actual agreement on what level of
mental incapacity would warrant that. Personally, I think, yeah, there's
(23:37):
there's not there's less than a one percent chance that
could ever happen.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I mean, because where is the bar? I mean you
know that a bar. Yeah, it's like you're you're mentally incapacitated. Yeah,
But also he could be just being a dick and
you don't like what he's saying. That doesn't really cut.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah, So I think mostly it's a kind of performative
way of opposition, sending a signal to say, we think
you're acting badly here, and we think you should pull
yourself together and act more presidential. Otherwise we're going to
seriously pursue this possibility. Not that it will succeed, because
(24:20):
I think it would cause a huge constitutional crisis and
it could lead to serious internal conflict if that ever happened.
I mean, you think about what happens when they try
and impeach a president and then whether that even results
in anything. I mean, yeah, I think the power of
the president is so entrenched and so ingrained that it
(24:42):
would be almost impossible. But it is a very strong
signal about how Trump's war, this most recent war, has
really divided the Republicans, and it's even divided his mega supporters,
And with the midterm elections coming up in November, there
(25:03):
are serious, serious discussions and disquiet happening within the Republicans
to say, you know, we've got to try and rain
this in. We've got to try and get back to
some kind of stability, and we've got to be able
to try and put out some positive messages there. Otherwise
there's a chance that the Republicans get really, really hammered
(25:24):
and they lose control of the Senate and the House
in the midterms, which would be disaster, and then the
president would have to rely solely on, you know, ruling
by decree the presidential directives, but then they always get
challenged in the Supreme Court and so on, so it
would kind of really hamstrung Trump for the second two
(25:46):
years of his administration. So it's I think that crisis,
those domestic issues are playing a big role in this.
I think they're playing a role in him accepting the ceasefire.
They're also playing a role in this kind of performative
call to you know, try and remove him if he
(26:10):
doesn't buy.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Thanks for joining us, Richard, my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Always good to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enziherld dot co dot enz. The Front Page is
hosted and produced by me Chelsea Daniels. Caine Dickie is
our studio operator. Richard Martin, our producer, and editor and
our executive producer is Jane Ye. Follow the front page
(26:42):
on the iHeart app or wherever you get your.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Podcasts, and join us next time for another look beyond
the headlines.
Kiyota.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Donald Trump
has backed down again on threats towards Iran. In a
social media post, the President said he has agreed to
(00:26):
suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period
of two weeks and that this will be a double
sided ceasefire. It's after Iranians formed human chains along bridges
and around power plants after Trump vowed that a whole
civilization will die tonight. On the other hand, Iran has
(00:46):
claimed victory, saying it forced the US to accept its.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Ten point plan.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
All the while, our Foreign Minister Winston Peters has met
with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, coming out of
it saying he.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Is very hopeful for the future.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Today on the front page at University of Otago, Peace Studies,
Professor Richard Jackson is with us to take us through
the latest and what could happen next. So Richard Trump
is announced he'll suspend strikes on Iran for two weeks
in exchange for Iran opening the straight of holl moves.
(01:24):
Iran's claiming victory saying it forced the US to accept
its ten point plan. Talks are apparently going to be
held on April tenth. What do you make of all this, Well, to.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Me, it really does look like Trump has stepped back
from the brink. I think he has been advised probably
that it wouldn't have worked. You know, there's no way
that Iran would have backed down. It wouldn't have forced
them to make any further concessions. They've had a plan
(01:55):
all the way along about how they would protect and
save their and I think one of the things about
their plan was that they have a kind of dispersed
leadership and a dispersed structure, so that even if some
of their leaders get killed, it means the regime continues.
(02:19):
They you know, threatened that if they got really hammered
by this massive attack, that they would extend their attacks
beyond the Gulf region, so they might, you know, even
attack bases and places much further afield, So that would
(02:42):
escalate the conflict. I don't think it would lead to
any opening of the strait. I think on top of that,
you know, it would have turned the tide of world
opinion even more because clearly these attacks on infrastructure war
crimes they're prohibited under international law. So I think, you know,
(03:05):
Trump got all this advice and they somehow managed to
convince him, you've got to step back. You can't you
can't actually follow through on this particular threat. And the
Iranians in a way are kind of correct in the
sense that they've had this ten point plan for quite
some time and they've stuck to it, and now America
(03:26):
has said that they'll they'll seriously negotiate on it. So
it looks like it's America that's blinked first and back down.
This is this is not surprising in the sense that
there was never really a strategic plan, and there was
never really a strong set of ideas about how this
(03:50):
would all unfold, and it certainly hasn't gone to plan
from the American On the Israeli.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Perspective, well, let's talk about that ten point plan for
a second. The Guardian reported that it actually includes the
lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions, payment of full
compensation to Iran, and the release of all frozen Iranian assets,
as well as controlled transit through the state, which I
think is a big one. So is this kind of
(04:17):
a strategic victory for Iran? Do you think because it's
basically been proven that it does in fact control the
Strait at the very least, it means on a geopolitical level,
it has control over the Strait.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
What do you think that means.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I think you're absolutely right in a sense. What it's
done is it's confirmed that Iran's one major strategic strength
is the fact that it can pretty much threatened global
shipping through the Strait at any time. And what it
also shows is that everything that Israel and the US
(05:00):
wanted to achieve has been completely not achieved and is
unachievable in a sense. You know, they have not changed
the regime, They have not taken control of the Strait.
They have not forced Iran to accept a humiliating piece
steel that would involve, you know, external monitoring of all
(05:22):
it's you know, nuclear facilities and so on and so forth.
Iran has just stuck to their demands and America has blinked,
and so is Israel apparently and said, all right, well,
you know, after bombing you for six weeks and not
achieving anything, we're going to stop. I mean, yeah, it's
(05:44):
hard to interpret that in any other way. I think
it does show that Iran was prepared for this conflict,
had a plan and has stuck to it and has
basically achieved. But more importantly, and I think this is
one of the key points. It reiterates and reinforces again
(06:04):
the limitations of Western military power. You know, we just
keep seeing this time and time again that the West
thinks that because they've got superior air power in particular,
they can just go in and attack countries and force
them into making concessions and changing their political systems and
(06:26):
you know, putting in friendly regimes and allowing their resources
to be exploited and so on. And you know, it
failed in Afghanistan, it failed in Iraq. Now, it's failed
in Iran. Israel failed in Gaza. They failed in South
Lebanon time and time again. They failed to stop you know,
(06:49):
the Huthis and Yemen. I mean, it just shows you
that you can't really translate military superiority into political gains.
You can bomb people and you can blow up their stuff,
but you can't really translate that into the kind of
political outcomes that you actually set out to achieve. I mean,
(07:11):
the only real achievements that have ever you know, really
been seen in the last few months have come through dialogue,
through diploma, diplomacy, through negotiations, and I think that is
kind of the missing point here, is that you know,
Israel and the US in particular refused to negotiate, and
(07:33):
you know that's why they're not getting anything achieved.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Well, in saying that, do you think the Pakistani Prime
Minister Shabaz Sharif's actually come out on top here as
a top negotiator between them all?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Well, I think certainly he's. Yeah, he's proved the value
of mediation, and particularly mediation by a party that obviously
is trusted by one side, in particular by Iran, I think,
and has a little bit of leverage in terms of
the other. Mostly as I said, I think this is
(08:09):
kind of like a face saving way for America to
back down from their from their threat, but it really
does show the weakness of their strategy. But yeah, I mean,
the sort of political capital of Pakistan will have risen
greatly in this, depending upon how the talks go in
(08:31):
the next couple of weeks and whether or not they
actually succeed and whether or not they aren't derailed. I mean,
one of the things you've got to remember is that
they were in talks when Israel and the US attacked before, so,
and you know, Israel in particular has attacked several times,
(08:53):
even trying to kill the people that they're negotiating with.
So when they were negotiating with Hima US, they tried
to assassinate those negotiators. So there's always this risk given
the history of of what Israel in the US has done,
that at a certain point, you know, they will just
(09:15):
decide we're sick of these talks, let's just try and
kill them all again, and that will derail the whole process.
And so I think, yeah, we're still a very long
way from having a resolution to this and getting the
global supply of oil moving again and the crisis over.
There's still an awful lot there, and I think, you know,
(09:36):
a lot of the ten point plan are going to
be quite humiliating for the US and Israel to accept,
and you know, I suspect that they may not want
to do those things. So whether or not that gives
them the excuse to go back to war, we don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah, So that Trump wrote on behalf of the United
States of America as president and also representing the countries
of the Middle East, it is an honor to have
this long term problem closed to resolution. I meanwhile, you've
got the Iranian state media saying US talks do not
mean the end of war. So what are the chances
(10:15):
that this actually ends the conflict? Or I suppose for
weeks there's been speculation, hey about Trump just you know,
coming out and announcing that he's won or that they've
reached some kind of resolution, as it were, and just
try and wipe his hands of failure.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Is that what's happening here?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
It is possible that Trump will try and put this
behind him and move on and perhaps go and attack
Cuba or something like that, or invade Greenland. I mean,
he's like that, He's very unpredictable. These things happen, you know,
think about what happened with Venezuela a while back, and
(10:54):
then he moves on to something else, and it's a
way of kind of ruling through unpredictable action and keeping
everyone on their toes and nobody knows what's going to
happen and so on. I mean, that is kind of
that is possible that, certainly from his side, he might
just say, look, I've ended this, We've got peace, and
(11:17):
I'm moving on. Whether anything changes or not. I think
the wild card here is Israel, because I think Israel
is the country that first of all convinced him to
join in this attack, and they're also the country that
will not be satisfied at all with leaving the Iranian
regime in control, in power, basically untouched, and you know,
(11:44):
having in a sense won this kind of propaganda victory
by saying we never gave in, We stuck to our
ten point plan and we got it. We held the
world to ransom and we achieved our survival. Israel, Yeah,
we'll not be happy with that. They'll find it difficult
to sell the argument that they've dealt, you know, a
(12:08):
death blow to Iran and that Israel is now safe
forever and it's kind of in Netanyahu's interest to keep
wars going. So yeah, and you know, I think that
they really do want to take land in South Lebanon
and expand Israel's territory, So that's probably likely to continue.
(12:29):
And then and whether or not that encourages Iran to
keep attacking as well, I mean, I just think, yeah,
there's a few things here that are not going to
be as simple as Trump would like them to be.
He's not going to be able to just say it's over. Now,
we're moving on to something else, and there are some
big issues there to resolve. So yeah, I don't think
(12:53):
we can really predict how it might play out yet.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
So I think there really are two pathways. And I'm
oversimplifying this a little bit, but I think pathway one
is where the Iranians decide they're going to be a
normal country. They're not going to fund terrorism anymore. They're
going to be part of the of the world system
of commerce and exchange, and that's going to mean much
better things for them economically, it's going to mean better
things for the peace and safety of the world. It's
(13:22):
going to mean a lot of good things for a
lot of people all over the planet. That's option A, Okay.
Option B is that the Iranians don't come to table
and they stay committed to terrorism, to terrorizing their neighbors,
not just Israel, but of course they're Arab neighbors too,
Then the economic situation Iran is going to continue to
be very, very bad, and frankly it will probably get worth.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Well.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
There seems to be just increasingly unhinged kind of.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Quality to his threats.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Do you think that this shows a desperation on his part,
Or do you think Trump actually thinks that these words
and the kind of levels that he's going to, you know,
destroying all civilization in Iran that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Do you think that he has some kind of power
to his words.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
So I think on the one hand, he's always had
this kind of rhetoric. He's always used hyperbole and exaggeration
and extreme forms of language, and he does that in
both a positive and a negative sense. You know, he'll
say this is the greatest thing that's ever been, but
(14:33):
he'll also say I'm going to rain down the worst
hell that anyone's ever seen. I mean, in a way,
it's partly his style. But on the other hand, the
United States is the world superpowers. It's experiencing actually declining
influence in the face of China and Russia and other states.
(14:57):
You know, it got badly beaten in a Aghanistan and
kind of beaten in Iraq as well. Nobody's really afraid
of its military force anymore. It's completely undermined international law
and international institutions, and it's kind of gone against the
way the world's going in relation to climate change and
(15:20):
trade and so on. It's made itself a bit of
a pariah. And when a state is in a period
of decline like that, it tends to lash out, and
it tends to rely on what it thinks is the
sort of mechanism or the mode by which you can
reassert its power. In some ways, the same is true
(15:44):
of Israel as well. It's the power of deterrence, right,
the idea that I am so powerful and I'm willing
to use this power that everyone will be deterred from
doing anything against my interests. Well, October seven destroyed Israel's
deterrence in a sense, and then the genocide after that
(16:07):
also destroyed her, and the attacks on Lebanon and Hezbola,
and so Israel is trying very hard to reassert its
deterrence in the region by saying we are so bad
and we are so tough and we are so ruthless
that everyone should be afraid and should just do what
(16:27):
we say. America, I think is the same. It's using
its military power as it's declining in it lashing out
in a way to try and reassert terrance and reassert
control and power. And I think, yeah, in a way,
this is a very dangerous moment for the for the
entire world because you have these very powerful military states
(16:52):
that feel like they're less in control, less able to
deter less able to get their interests her and accepted,
and so they're relying more and more on military force
to try and do it. But as I've said, you know,
it backfires, and you can't actually use military force to
achieve political ends. You can bomb people and cause a
(17:15):
lot of hurt, but it doesn't really translate to political ends.
In order to get political goals and political achievements, you
have to negotiate with people, and you have to convince
people to agree to your terms, and force won't actually
always do that. It very rarely does. So, Yeah, there's
(17:35):
this kind of dynamic here of increasing military force but
declining political influence, and it's a very dangerous dynamic because
it could lead to more reckless military behavior. And I
think Trump's rhetoric kind of reflects that as well.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yeah, I was trying to think of the saying, isn't
there something about you know, don't pedis a scared dog
or something, because it will lash out. It's like a
cowering dog in the corner, and you wouldn't want to
pat that.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Yeah, look, I mean more perhaps beyond that. You know,
in political science and international relations, which is what I study, Yeah,
there is a lot of work around how states that
feel declining influence and power will rely on military force
(18:27):
to lash out and try and re establish their reputation,
re establish their sense of power. And the problem is
that that almost never works.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Could that have worked at some point in history though.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
I mean it works for a time sometimes, you know,
the Roman Empire or the British Empire or whatever empire,
even the American Empire uses force in a way that yeah,
cows everyone and makes them submit. And we've certainly seen
a lot of countries, including New Zealand and you know,
(19:01):
express this kind of genuine fear of what the US
might do and so go crawling to Trump to say
give us better tariff deals, or don't attack us, or
don't you know. There is a lot of that. But
at the same time, the use of that kind of
power can also produce a lot of resistance. People say, well,
(19:21):
we're not going to put up with that, and even
if we lose, we're going to fight back. And actually,
if we look at history and we see the superpower
of the United States failing in Vietnam, failing in Afghanistan,
failing in Iraq. I mean, we're showing, you know, we
can see that even ordinary people with very few weapons
(19:44):
can over a long period defeat the United States because
they you know, they're relying on their high tech weaponry,
but they're not willing to sacrifice large numbers of their
soldiers in these kind of long term, hopeless wars. So really,
what can they do. We can fight back, And I
(20:05):
think that's what we're seeing is that there's there's kind
of global resistance, and Iran is part of this. You know,
they call it the Axis of Resistance. Iran's connection with
the with Hasbulla and Hamas to try and resist what
the Americans and the Israelis are doing in that part
(20:27):
of the world. And they're showing demonstrating that resistance is
possible and that military force has its limits. And I
think this is the key lesson. And I wish our government,
and I wish the United States and I wish the
UN would all take that lesson on board and say, look,
we've you know, we've got to actually have more dialogue,
(20:49):
we've got to have more negotiations, we've got to talk
this out. Military force is not achieving anything. The only
people who really suffer from that ordinary citizens, upon thousands
of which we've already seen die in these wars, to
know a good end to no good reason.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
I want to be clear, I am proud of that Trump.
The last ten years, so much good happened. Globalism was
absolutely discredited and dismantled. It's part of a larger wave worldwide.
But this new Trump really started with Elon Musk got
right out of there. The last eight months is a disaster,
(21:33):
and I wore the Democrats. I absolutely know their globalist
and are a major threat. But currently Trump, with this
Iran war and the energy crisis and the pr disaster.
I mean, the North Korean dictator doesn't talk like this.
He talks like a super villain from a Marvel comic.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
I suppose back in the US, a Republican support for
the president is waning.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
You've got Democrats.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
They're raising alarms over his mental stability and a calling
for his removal from office. More than twenty Democratic members
of Congress have actually called for Trump's cabinet to invoke
the twenty fifth Amendment to the Constitution to remove him.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
What is all that about?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I mean, can you explain, can you actually remove a
president from office?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah? So, look, the twenty fifth Amendment was brought in
to deal with situations such as when the president falls
really ill and can't do their work, or like, for example,
when John F. Kennedy was shot, I mean, and the
president has suddenly killed, who takes over? You know, what's
(22:49):
the succession? So there's a sort of set of circumstances
put into the twenty fifth Amendment which say, if the
president becomes incapacitated, either physically or mentally, then there's a
process by which they can be taken out of that
office and then someone takes their place. And I think
(23:13):
this argument has been mooted before that you know, a president,
if they show signs of mental incapacity or something like
that could be removed. But it's never been tested and
there's no sort of actual agreement on what level of
mental incapacity would warrant that. Personally, I think, yeah, there's
(23:37):
there's not there's less than a one percent chance that
could ever happen.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I mean, because where is the bar? I mean you
know that a bar. Yeah, it's like you're you're mentally incapacitated. Yeah,
But also he could be just being a dick and
you don't like what he's saying. That doesn't really cut.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah, So I think mostly it's a kind of performative
way of opposition, sending a signal to say, we think
you're acting badly here, and we think you should pull
yourself together and act more presidential. Otherwise we're going to
seriously pursue this possibility. Not that it will succeed, because
(24:20):
I think it would cause a huge constitutional crisis and
it could lead to serious internal conflict if that ever happened.
I mean, you think about what happens when they try
and impeach a president and then whether that even results
in anything. I mean, yeah, I think the power of
the president is so entrenched and so ingrained that it
(24:42):
would be almost impossible. But it is a very strong
signal about how Trump's war, this most recent war, has
really divided the Republicans, and it's even divided his mega supporters,
And with the midterm elections coming up in November, there
(25:03):
are serious, serious discussions and disquiet happening within the Republicans
to say, you know, we've got to try and rain
this in. We've got to try and get back to
some kind of stability, and we've got to be able
to try and put out some positive messages there. Otherwise
there's a chance that the Republicans get really, really hammered
(25:24):
and they lose control of the Senate and the House
in the midterms, which would be disaster, and then the
president would have to rely solely on, you know, ruling
by decree the presidential directives, but then they always get
challenged in the Supreme Court and so on, so it
would kind of really hamstrung Trump for the second two
(25:46):
years of his administration. So it's I think that crisis,
those domestic issues are playing a big role in this.
I think they're playing a role in him accepting the ceasefire.
They're also playing a role in this kind of performative
call to you know, try and remove him if he
(26:10):
doesn't buy.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Thanks for joining us, Richard, my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Always good to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enziherld dot co dot enz. The Front Page is
hosted and produced by me Chelsea Daniels. Caine Dickie is
our studio operator. Richard Martin, our producer, and editor and
our executive producer is Jane Ye. Follow the front page
(26:42):
on the iHeart app or wherever you get your.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Podcasts, and join us next time for another look beyond
the headlines.
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com