August 11, 2026 • 25 mins
The assumptions that shaped U.S. Middle East policy for decades are no longer the same. Steve Yates explains how American energy production, the Abraham Accords, the rise of Iran as the region’s primary threat, and China's growing influence have fundamentally changed the strategic landscape. He outlines why old foreign policy frameworks are losing relevance and what the new realities mean for American interests, military commitments, energy security, and regional stability. Listen as Steve connects these long-term shifts to the practical questions voters should be asking policymakers today. Follow Nation States with Yates for clear, common-sense insights where Steve Yates serves as your personal national security advisor, breaking down world events in ways that matter to Main Street, not just Washington. Connect with the show at NationStatesYates@Gmail.com and follow on X @NSWithYates.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Nation States. With Yates, the world comes at
you fast, whether you're in the White House or in
your house. We here aim to serve as your personal
national security advisor to understand and feel comfortable engaging in
consequential conversations about the fate and welfare of our nation state,
from the grassroots up from your family all the way
to the first family. Today, we're going to take a
(00:24):
look at a big topic, but one that is constantly
in the news and sort of a mishmash of people's
contending points of view, but a long arc of history
behind it that I think you would benefit from giving
a little extra thought to and maybe give you an
added boost of confidence in engaging these conversations. In the
(00:45):
region I'm talking about is the broader Middle East. Things
have fundamentally changed over the course of my lifetime in
some really important ways, and I think that understanding some
of those shifts can add a little bit of color
and substance to the conversations we have with each other
about what's happening there with regard to the conflict with Iran.
(01:08):
But really, for decades we've been told the Middle East
ran on three things. Oil, the Arab Israeli conflict and
keeping the Soviets or later the radicals out, that was
the received wisdom. It shaped every president's decision, every defense budget,
and every gas price spike that hit your wallet. That
(01:28):
map is outdated. Now oil still matters, America isn't as
chained to it as we used to be. The Palestinian
issue is no longer the center of the universe. Iran
has become the main organizing threat, and under President Trump twice,
we've shifted from nation building to hard nosed deal making
and when necessary, striking back. It's a very different playbook
(01:51):
and some very different assumptions. Today we're going to get
go through a walkthrough of what actually has changed, why
it matters for the White House, and why it should
matter at your kitchen table conversations too, with neighbors, with
people you send to Congress. Not an academic lecture here,
just some facts that maybe you can use. So after
(02:12):
the break we'll get into it. But thank you again
for joining us with Nation States, with Yates, please like,
subscribe and share. And after this brief break, we'll take
a deep dive into the big changes in the Middle
East and how we can better understand and engage in
meaningful conversations about it. Welcome back to Nation States with Yates. Well,
(02:33):
today we're going to take a deep dive into a
big topic, but hopefully do it in a way that
makes good sense and it's easy to digest. And that
big topic is the Middle East. Now, before you get
a little bit put off by it, since it's always
in the news, I really think it is an optimistic
thing to go back and look at where were we
(02:54):
what kind of patterns were we stuck in, And no
matter what we might feel about the frustrations in the
headlines today, we're in a really different place where the
risks and opportunities and sort of pieces of leverage the
United States has are very very different in twenty twenty
six than they were, say in nineteen seventy six. So
over that half century, shocking to admit it's a half century,
(03:18):
what's really changed? Well, first, to get a sense of
what's changed, you've got to take a look at what
that old playbook was, and it's one that really stuck
around for almost all of my career until say maybe
the last ten years, and for most of our lives.
It was simple. It was keep the oil flowing, through
the straits of Ramuz, keep Israel safe, manage the Palestinian
(03:42):
problems so it doesn't blow up the whole region, and
don't let any single hostile power own the Gulf. That
kind of was the playbook. Some of those building blocks
I don't think have changed, but a lot of the
underlying realities of them has. The Cold War overlay made
everything about containing the Soviets words we never say in
(04:03):
the nineteen ninety one and thereafter period, but after nineteen
seventy nine it shifted somewhat from the Soviets to all
about containing revolutionary Iran. That framework still shows up at
a lot of foreign policy talk in Washington and on
cable news. But the reality check is America produces more
(04:24):
oil and gas than anyone. Shale changed that game. We're
less vulnerable to the Middle East cut off than we
were in the seventies or even the two thousands. That
doesn't mean that Hormuz is irrelevant, as we know allies
and world markets still care, but it means the US
has more options and more leverage. That's good for America
(04:45):
and good for the world. The bottom line for all
of us is that when someone tells you we have
to do X because of oil. Ask them how much
American oil and gas production has grown. The answer usually
stops the conversation and cold because we're at a fundamentally
better place to engage this conversation regardless of what happens
(05:07):
with this current conflict with Iran. This is still true.
We're in that fundamentally better place because of that economic change.
But there's another big, big change, and that gets at
two words, Abraham Accords. You've probably heard about them. We've
done Nation States episode about the Abraham Accords. Historic a
big change. Well, it was twenty twenty, a year known
(05:30):
for a lot of things, COVID, wild election, surprising results.
But in the midst of all that, and especially down
close to when the election was happening, we had the
close out of a initial round of Abraham Accords. These
weren't just photo ops like a lot of diplomacy can be.
(05:51):
Several Arab states normalized their diplomatic and commercial relations with Israel.
That's a big break with the past. Well deliver putting
the Palestinian issue on the back burner again. For most
of the previous decades, everyone said, if you're going to
do anything in the Middle East, you had to first
address the status of the Palestinian state one state, two state,
(06:13):
some kind of a deal before you could do anything else. Well,
President Trump in his first term flipped that script, and
the Abraham Accords were the vehicle for it. That was
a strategic choice. It was not an accident. The old
assumption was that every Arab capital had to come up
with some kind of a solution for the Palestinians before
(06:33):
they could deal with Israel. And the Gulf States cared
more and now about what's happening with Iran, their own
economic modernization, the technology that is going to run the
world and make their dynasties in their countries more durable
beyond just fossil fuels. So their fundamentals changed, and so
(06:55):
some of the fundamentals of the broader region did, and
this Abraham Accords framework became real. It doesn't mean the
Palestinian issue disappeared entirely. It still percolates up, even in
the course of this conflict with Iran, but it still
produces violence and diplomatic headaches. But it's no longer the
organizing political fact of the entire region. That is a blessing,
(07:20):
and we are in a much better position from which
to engage this region now. Because of this change, White
House relevance is another angle in this. This gives American
presidents more room to build coalitions around shared threats, especially
the threats that can come out of revolutionary Iran, without
every initiative collapsing over the same unresolved set of issues.
(07:45):
So it gives a better tool set to this president
and any future president. And it's relevant to your kitchen
table too. Fewer American lives and fewer American dollars are
spent trying to force a solution that players themselves have
lowered as a priority. That's the opposite of endless war.
(08:06):
So again, wherever this Iran conflict goes, moving towards this
Abraham Accords framework that might actually be expanded as a
result of Iran's response to this current conflict a blessing
to the United States long term, even if we don't
feel it in the current news cycle. Another big development
Iran became the main event. Recent conflict has changed the
(08:30):
balance across the region. After nineteen seventy nine, Iran went
from a Shaw era pillar of golf security to a
revolutionary threat. Containment was the long standing US approach but
over the last decade, especially during President Trump's two terms,
that's shifted Iran's nuclear program and its proxy network became
(08:50):
an explicit organizing threat that pulled Israel, Golf States, and
the United States into much closer alignment, but also facing
a very very clear, real threat. The recent conflict has
degraded Iran's nuclear progress and also many of its proxies,
but the regime has survived so far and it's showing
(09:12):
it can still disrupt the Strait of Remouse. That's a
new reality. Hopefully in coming weeks and months those realities
can change further. But the new reality is Iran is
weaker on some fronts, still dangerous on others, and it's
still the primary adversary for the coalition that now exists,
that broader Abraham Accord coalition of allies of the United
(09:37):
States on defense but also on tech and economic development
increasingly too. Policy under the president under President Trump has
been transactional. For sure, There's been pressure, There's been strikes
when necessary, deals when the costs line up, and clear
preference for partners carrying more of the load. No more
open ended nation building again, much better place for the
(10:01):
United States to be in so for all of us.
This is why you hear less of fix the Middle
East rhetoric and more contain the malign influences of Iran
expand the accords have the region pay its own way,
play more of a role where they lead, we support,
we make ourselves as a meaningful, reliable partner. That's a
(10:26):
new balance point, and that's a deliberate change in strategy,
not just a change in personality and the president or
as coalition partners. Another big change that has been beneath
all of this is going from the Cold War bipolarity
to this multipolar reality. That's sort of international relations wonky talk.
(10:50):
For we had a contest that was dominated by the
US versus the Soviet Union, the free world versus the
communist world, and now we have a contest that is
predominantly China in the room. It is a Communist Party
led country, and it has some elements of what the
(11:12):
Soviet Union was in terms of making problems for us
in different parts of the world and building coalitions, but
it's not quite the same block versus block competition we
had in Cold War one point zero, shall we say,
And it's not just China, as we've talked about in
previous episode about the emergence of this axis of adversaries
(11:38):
of China, Russia, North Korea, Iran. It's more of a
block than we have previously wanted to admit, but it's
not the same as like the Soviet Block and Cold War.
So we're still grappling with what is this. But China
being in the room as a competitor and as an
(11:58):
agent that affects what's going on in our negotiations has
taken the place of what the Soviet Union did in
the bygone era. For looking at the Middle East, Beijing
has expanding economic and political influence across the Gulf. Its
technology has affected the military battle space, and its shipping
has been a core part of the narrative about whether
(12:21):
the Strait of Hormos is open or not, are they
moving sanctioned oil at a discount, or are they a
part of some potential solution. These are still to be
determined in big picture, since for the region, burden sharing
and transactional deals matter a lot more in this kind
of an environment. The United States can't and should not
(12:41):
police every corner of every region, especially alone, and needs
to balance that have forced multipliers with independently capable allies
and hey regions. We've talked about this, especially in Asia
with our very very important and reliable ally Japan, but
not just Japan, well, the Middle East we have a
similar kind of structure where we need more capable, independent allies.
(13:04):
That doesn't mean we are backing away from alliances. It
means that they're more flexible, more strong, and more of
a complication for our adversaries. At the White House level,
it means that decisions on arm sales, sanctions, energy cooperation,
military posture now has a bit of a China angle
when we're thinking about things. So when we're thinking about
(13:25):
the order of battle armaments, of what we're using to
contain the malign influences of Iran, maybe beating back the
Revolutionary Guard and leading to maybe fundamental change in Iran.
We'll see where that goes. But we have to be
mindful of a great game consideration of what happens in
one theater of the world doesn't stay in that theater
of the world, and it will influence the options and
(13:48):
choices that we have in other theaters, whether that's Asia
or even on our homeland. And at your household level,
we have to get to a point of stable energy markets,
We'll have fewer forever wars. We'll have stronger partners that
can help deter Iran and others without having to have
constant American ground troops involved. These are practical results that
(14:11):
are going to show up in gas prices, defense budgets,
and whether your kids get sent overseas. So we have
some unfinished business with the conflict with Iran, but things
are trending largely in the direction that I've outlined and
again on all of these pieces of what's changed. These
are all net benefit to sort of an America first
(14:34):
or pro America set of interests and looking at how
we engage the world, but especially this troubled regime. But
just take a step back and think about how huge
this change is for most of our lives. We were
told that we really number one, maybe can't win the
(14:56):
Cold War. Thankfully that was wrong. We are told you
can't really do anything in the Middle East unless you
maybe first recognize a Palestinian state. We had multiple presidents
go to the alleged leader of the Palestinians, a man
named Yaser Arafat that thankfully we don't have to talk
about it anymore because he's no longer with us, but
(15:17):
also because that guy got all kinds of things offered
to him. And former President Clinton has said many years
after leaving office that one of his greatest disappointments and
reality checks was seeing how far he and others went
to give so much to the Palestinian side of the
(15:39):
Israel versus Palestine conflict, only to be told no by
Yasser Arafat that somehow wasn't good enough and became clear
to him as far as former President Clinton has said,
not a guy I voted for. But in his own words,
he said, look, they were just determined to have an
(16:00):
issue and a conflict, and in reality they're admitting that
what their vision is is not two states. It's not
sovereignty for Palestine. Their vision is no Israel. They really
meant from the river to the sea. And that's why
that they wouldn't go to yes on the generous offering
(16:21):
of territory, economic assistance, diplomatic recognition, all of those things
that were put on the table. So we wasted several
decades after our hostages were held in Iran for four
hundred and forty four days with a revolutionary revisionist theocratic
(16:42):
regime coming to power in Iran. We allowed it to
sort of fester, calcify, grow, bleed us out with terrorist
attacks across the region, including our marines getting slaughtered in
an attack in Lebanon. Multiplemultiple American men and women losing
(17:03):
their lives to Iranian interference in the Iraq War, both
in terms of their direct military involvement but also their
assistance to the Iran leaning parts of the Iraq battle
space for a lot of that contest. There are many
many Americans whose bodies will never be the same or
(17:25):
whose families will never be the same because parts of
them or all of them were lost because of the
theocratic regime. We let fester because we gave in to
this indulgence about Palestine being the primary, almost solitary entry
point to doing anything in the broader region. We didn't
(17:47):
really get to a point of lessening our dependence on
the region by way of that Palestinian obsession either. It
really was President Trump coming into office in his first
term and one of the first things he did was
energy abundance. Drill baby drill, and we had huge developments before,
but especially expansion during the time that a President Trump
(18:10):
was in office on shale and other things completely changed
the nature of who has what stockpile of energy? Uh
and that made that made it so dependency relations changed.
And with those dependency relationships changing, you had the luxury
of being able to step back and think completely differently
(18:31):
and what do we do. We ended up at long
last recognizing Jerusalem as the official capital of the State
of Israel. We moved our embassy, We made this, made
this a real deal. People said it was going to
end the world. It didn't. We move on. We still
have other other challenges, but we broke kind of the
(18:52):
shackles of the old think establishment way of looking at
the broader Middle East. It's hard heart It's really hard
to put in perspective how big this shift has been.
And if you have the perspective of how big this
shift has been, then you can take stock and no
(19:12):
matter how frustrated you might be with the repeat rinse
cycle on do we have a deal with Iran or
back to major attacks with Iran? Our energy prices up?
Are they down? At least we're stepping back and we
have the reality of a large number of Arab states
that have normalized economic and cultural relations with Israel. We
(19:37):
have allies with real capabilities who have used those capabilities
to defend against or actually bring the fight to the
revolutionary Guard and meaningful targets in Iran. We have partners
that can balance risk and responsibility in managing straits of
hormoose longer term, once we finally get to a place
(19:58):
where we can transition and are we are not really
affected by the energy supply of the Middle East other
than energy. It affects energy markets, which does affect us,
but that's a fundamentally safer risk than the oil shocks
of the seventies that could literally bring everything to a
(20:22):
halt and almost shut down small town America as much
as anywhere else. So take stock. This is a call
to understand and feel comfortable engaging in these meaningful conversations,
to recognize that broad scope America is in a far
(20:44):
better place than it was. The Middle East is in
a far better situation, even though it's still a little
long way to go, and it's not a pretty site
in the in the through the lens of the current conflict,
but we'll get there. The arc of history is in
our favor and frankly theirs, when it comes to the
(21:04):
side that is less theocratic, more normal in pursuit of
modernity and getting along with its neighbors those powers in
the region. The future is bright under the current trajectory,
so take stock in that feel comfortable and confident. With that,
I want to thank you for engaging in a meaningful
(21:26):
conversation about a big and difficult subject, but also hopefully
it gives you a few things to ponder. As always
we here at Nation States, we're not here to tell
you what to think, but to give you some perspectives
and parameters for how to think and as you think
differently arrive at your own conclusions and engaging in your
(21:47):
own conversations with confidence, so you can pick up the
conversations with your elected leaders about energy markets, forever wars
or not forever wars, strategic partners that can help deal
with places like Iran without American ground troops having to
be involved, and look for practical results in gas prices,
defense budgets, and what our force posture is going forward
(22:10):
in the future. So with that, we're going to take
a deep brief break. Please continue to like, share, subscribe,
and give a favorable review on your podcast platforms if
you're so inclined. We're deeply grateful for the growth of
the audience, the number of downloads of the podcast. Please
keep it going. It helps us bring more of these
meaningful conversations to you, more of that nation state's way
(22:35):
of thinking. So after this brief break, we'll have some
final thoughts to wrap up this episode, So please come back.
Welcome back to Nation States with Yats. Today we took
a deep dive on the Middle East, that happy region
of the world where nothing complicated is ever happening, we
say disc of course, it's a big tough subject, but
(22:56):
I think some common sense fundamentals are changed for the better.
They get forgotten in everyday news commentary, and so hopefully
we brought some of those to the surface in a
way that's of some value to you. So here's some
simple takeaways that you can carry into any conversation. The
Middle East that shaped US policy for fifty years. Oil dependency,
(23:18):
the Palestinian centrality, Cold War containment, it's all been rewritten.
America is more energy secure. The Abraham Accords moved the
Palestinian issue off center stage. Iran is the main threat,
but it's being dealt with. It may be right sized.
Recent fighting changed the military balance, even if the regime
is still standing and China is now a permanent factor
(23:41):
in every calculation. That shift gives a White House more
leverage and fewer excuses for open ended commitments. It also
gives regular Americans a clearer standard for judging policy. Does
this protect American energy and economic interest? Does its strengthen
partners who share our view of Iran? Does it to
avoid sending American troops into another decade long project? Does
(24:04):
it keep China from filling every vacuum? Those are the
things that should shape how we're trying to right size
our approach to this broader Middle East. You don't need
a think tank to brief you to talk about it.
You just need the updated map. Use it at the
dinner table, at a town hall, or whenever you call
your representative. The old talking points are still floating around Washington,
(24:26):
and maybe some of the conversations you hear. Make sure
you bring that new reality and that they hear from you.
That's our hope for your joining us in this conversation
and journey with Nation States with Yates. Please continue to
come back for meaningful conversations on good topics. We're going
to keep at it here with you as you help
(24:48):
us work to grow the audience, will grow the topic set,
and we'll bring you more programming in different forms, some
up some announcements and updates coming in the not too
distant future, maybe even in the next couple weeks, So
stay tuned with that. I just give you my gratitude
and say stay strong, America and keep coming back to
Nation States with Yates, your humble national security advisor hoping
(25:11):
to make sense of this wild and holy world we
live in. Take good care
Welcome to Nation States. With Yates, the world comes at
you fast, whether you're in the White House or in
your house. We here aim to serve as your personal
national security advisor to understand and feel comfortable engaging in
consequential conversations about the fate and welfare of our nation state,
from the grassroots up from your family all the way
to the first family. Today, we're going to take a
(00:24):
look at a big topic, but one that is constantly
in the news and sort of a mishmash of people's
contending points of view, but a long arc of history
behind it that I think you would benefit from giving
a little extra thought to and maybe give you an
added boost of confidence in engaging these conversations. In the
(00:45):
region I'm talking about is the broader Middle East. Things
have fundamentally changed over the course of my lifetime in
some really important ways, and I think that understanding some
of those shifts can add a little bit of color
and substance to the conversations we have with each other
about what's happening there with regard to the conflict with Iran.
(01:08):
But really, for decades we've been told the Middle East
ran on three things. Oil, the Arab Israeli conflict and
keeping the Soviets or later the radicals out, that was
the received wisdom. It shaped every president's decision, every defense budget,
and every gas price spike that hit your wallet. That
(01:28):
map is outdated. Now oil still matters, America isn't as
chained to it as we used to be. The Palestinian
issue is no longer the center of the universe. Iran
has become the main organizing threat, and under President Trump twice,
we've shifted from nation building to hard nosed deal making
and when necessary, striking back. It's a very different playbook
(01:51):
and some very different assumptions. Today we're going to get
go through a walkthrough of what actually has changed, why
it matters for the White House, and why it should
matter at your kitchen table conversations too, with neighbors, with
people you send to Congress. Not an academic lecture here,
just some facts that maybe you can use. So after
(02:12):
the break we'll get into it. But thank you again
for joining us with Nation States, with Yates, please like,
subscribe and share. And after this brief break, we'll take
a deep dive into the big changes in the Middle
East and how we can better understand and engage in
meaningful conversations about it. Welcome back to Nation States with Yates. Well,
(02:33):
today we're going to take a deep dive into a
big topic, but hopefully do it in a way that
makes good sense and it's easy to digest. And that
big topic is the Middle East. Now, before you get
a little bit put off by it, since it's always
in the news, I really think it is an optimistic
thing to go back and look at where were we
(02:54):
what kind of patterns were we stuck in, And no
matter what we might feel about the frustrations in the
headlines today, we're in a really different place where the
risks and opportunities and sort of pieces of leverage the
United States has are very very different in twenty twenty
six than they were, say in nineteen seventy six. So
over that half century, shocking to admit it's a half century,
(03:18):
what's really changed? Well, first, to get a sense of
what's changed, you've got to take a look at what
that old playbook was, and it's one that really stuck
around for almost all of my career until say maybe
the last ten years, and for most of our lives.
It was simple. It was keep the oil flowing, through
the straits of Ramuz, keep Israel safe, manage the Palestinian
(03:42):
problems so it doesn't blow up the whole region, and
don't let any single hostile power own the Gulf. That
kind of was the playbook. Some of those building blocks
I don't think have changed, but a lot of the
underlying realities of them has. The Cold War overlay made
everything about containing the Soviets words we never say in
(04:03):
the nineteen ninety one and thereafter period, but after nineteen
seventy nine it shifted somewhat from the Soviets to all
about containing revolutionary Iran. That framework still shows up at
a lot of foreign policy talk in Washington and on
cable news. But the reality check is America produces more
(04:24):
oil and gas than anyone. Shale changed that game. We're
less vulnerable to the Middle East cut off than we
were in the seventies or even the two thousands. That
doesn't mean that Hormuz is irrelevant, as we know allies
and world markets still care, but it means the US
has more options and more leverage. That's good for America
(04:45):
and good for the world. The bottom line for all
of us is that when someone tells you we have
to do X because of oil. Ask them how much
American oil and gas production has grown. The answer usually
stops the conversation and cold because we're at a fundamentally
better place to engage this conversation regardless of what happens
(05:07):
with this current conflict with Iran. This is still true.
We're in that fundamentally better place because of that economic change.
But there's another big, big change, and that gets at
two words, Abraham Accords. You've probably heard about them. We've
done Nation States episode about the Abraham Accords. Historic a
big change. Well, it was twenty twenty, a year known
(05:30):
for a lot of things, COVID, wild election, surprising results.
But in the midst of all that, and especially down
close to when the election was happening, we had the
close out of a initial round of Abraham Accords. These
weren't just photo ops like a lot of diplomacy can be.
(05:51):
Several Arab states normalized their diplomatic and commercial relations with Israel.
That's a big break with the past. Well deliver putting
the Palestinian issue on the back burner again. For most
of the previous decades, everyone said, if you're going to
do anything in the Middle East, you had to first
address the status of the Palestinian state one state, two state,
(06:13):
some kind of a deal before you could do anything else. Well,
President Trump in his first term flipped that script, and
the Abraham Accords were the vehicle for it. That was
a strategic choice. It was not an accident. The old
assumption was that every Arab capital had to come up
with some kind of a solution for the Palestinians before
(06:33):
they could deal with Israel. And the Gulf States cared
more and now about what's happening with Iran, their own
economic modernization, the technology that is going to run the
world and make their dynasties in their countries more durable
beyond just fossil fuels. So their fundamentals changed, and so
(06:55):
some of the fundamentals of the broader region did, and
this Abraham Accords framework became real. It doesn't mean the
Palestinian issue disappeared entirely. It still percolates up, even in
the course of this conflict with Iran, but it still
produces violence and diplomatic headaches. But it's no longer the
organizing political fact of the entire region. That is a blessing,
(07:20):
and we are in a much better position from which
to engage this region now. Because of this change, White
House relevance is another angle in this. This gives American
presidents more room to build coalitions around shared threats, especially
the threats that can come out of revolutionary Iran, without
every initiative collapsing over the same unresolved set of issues.
(07:45):
So it gives a better tool set to this president
and any future president. And it's relevant to your kitchen
table too. Fewer American lives and fewer American dollars are
spent trying to force a solution that players themselves have
lowered as a priority. That's the opposite of endless war.
(08:06):
So again, wherever this Iran conflict goes, moving towards this
Abraham Accords framework that might actually be expanded as a
result of Iran's response to this current conflict a blessing
to the United States long term, even if we don't
feel it in the current news cycle. Another big development
Iran became the main event. Recent conflict has changed the
(08:30):
balance across the region. After nineteen seventy nine, Iran went
from a Shaw era pillar of golf security to a
revolutionary threat. Containment was the long standing US approach but
over the last decade, especially during President Trump's two terms,
that's shifted Iran's nuclear program and its proxy network became
(08:50):
an explicit organizing threat that pulled Israel, Golf States, and
the United States into much closer alignment, but also facing
a very very clear, real threat. The recent conflict has
degraded Iran's nuclear progress and also many of its proxies,
but the regime has survived so far and it's showing
(09:12):
it can still disrupt the Strait of Remouse. That's a
new reality. Hopefully in coming weeks and months those realities
can change further. But the new reality is Iran is
weaker on some fronts, still dangerous on others, and it's
still the primary adversary for the coalition that now exists,
that broader Abraham Accord coalition of allies of the United
(09:37):
States on defense but also on tech and economic development
increasingly too. Policy under the president under President Trump has
been transactional. For sure, There's been pressure, There's been strikes
when necessary, deals when the costs line up, and clear
preference for partners carrying more of the load. No more
open ended nation building again, much better place for the
(10:01):
United States to be in so for all of us.
This is why you hear less of fix the Middle
East rhetoric and more contain the malign influences of Iran
expand the accords have the region pay its own way,
play more of a role where they lead, we support,
we make ourselves as a meaningful, reliable partner. That's a
(10:26):
new balance point, and that's a deliberate change in strategy,
not just a change in personality and the president or
as coalition partners. Another big change that has been beneath
all of this is going from the Cold War bipolarity
to this multipolar reality. That's sort of international relations wonky talk.
(10:50):
For we had a contest that was dominated by the
US versus the Soviet Union, the free world versus the
communist world, and now we have a contest that is
predominantly China in the room. It is a Communist Party
led country, and it has some elements of what the
(11:12):
Soviet Union was in terms of making problems for us
in different parts of the world and building coalitions, but
it's not quite the same block versus block competition we
had in Cold War one point zero, shall we say,
And it's not just China, as we've talked about in
previous episode about the emergence of this axis of adversaries
(11:38):
of China, Russia, North Korea, Iran. It's more of a
block than we have previously wanted to admit, but it's
not the same as like the Soviet Block and Cold War.
So we're still grappling with what is this. But China
being in the room as a competitor and as an
(11:58):
agent that affects what's going on in our negotiations has
taken the place of what the Soviet Union did in
the bygone era. For looking at the Middle East, Beijing
has expanding economic and political influence across the Gulf. Its
technology has affected the military battle space, and its shipping
has been a core part of the narrative about whether
(12:21):
the Strait of Hormos is open or not, are they
moving sanctioned oil at a discount, or are they a
part of some potential solution. These are still to be
determined in big picture, since for the region, burden sharing
and transactional deals matter a lot more in this kind
of an environment. The United States can't and should not
(12:41):
police every corner of every region, especially alone, and needs
to balance that have forced multipliers with independently capable allies
and hey regions. We've talked about this, especially in Asia
with our very very important and reliable ally Japan, but
not just Japan, well, the Middle East we have a
similar kind of structure where we need more capable, independent allies.
(13:04):
That doesn't mean we are backing away from alliances. It
means that they're more flexible, more strong, and more of
a complication for our adversaries. At the White House level,
it means that decisions on arm sales, sanctions, energy cooperation,
military posture now has a bit of a China angle
when we're thinking about things. So when we're thinking about
(13:25):
the order of battle armaments, of what we're using to
contain the malign influences of Iran, maybe beating back the
Revolutionary Guard and leading to maybe fundamental change in Iran.
We'll see where that goes. But we have to be
mindful of a great game consideration of what happens in
one theater of the world doesn't stay in that theater
of the world, and it will influence the options and
(13:48):
choices that we have in other theaters, whether that's Asia
or even on our homeland. And at your household level,
we have to get to a point of stable energy markets,
We'll have fewer forever wars. We'll have stronger partners that
can help deter Iran and others without having to have
constant American ground troops involved. These are practical results that
(14:11):
are going to show up in gas prices, defense budgets,
and whether your kids get sent overseas. So we have
some unfinished business with the conflict with Iran, but things
are trending largely in the direction that I've outlined and
again on all of these pieces of what's changed. These
are all net benefit to sort of an America first
(14:34):
or pro America set of interests and looking at how
we engage the world, but especially this troubled regime. But
just take a step back and think about how huge
this change is for most of our lives. We were
told that we really number one, maybe can't win the
(14:56):
Cold War. Thankfully that was wrong. We are told you
can't really do anything in the Middle East unless you
maybe first recognize a Palestinian state. We had multiple presidents
go to the alleged leader of the Palestinians, a man
named Yaser Arafat that thankfully we don't have to talk
about it anymore because he's no longer with us, but
(15:17):
also because that guy got all kinds of things offered
to him. And former President Clinton has said many years
after leaving office that one of his greatest disappointments and
reality checks was seeing how far he and others went
to give so much to the Palestinian side of the
(15:39):
Israel versus Palestine conflict, only to be told no by
Yasser Arafat that somehow wasn't good enough and became clear
to him as far as former President Clinton has said,
not a guy I voted for. But in his own words,
he said, look, they were just determined to have an
(16:00):
issue and a conflict, and in reality they're admitting that
what their vision is is not two states. It's not
sovereignty for Palestine. Their vision is no Israel. They really
meant from the river to the sea. And that's why
that they wouldn't go to yes on the generous offering
(16:21):
of territory, economic assistance, diplomatic recognition, all of those things
that were put on the table. So we wasted several
decades after our hostages were held in Iran for four
hundred and forty four days with a revolutionary revisionist theocratic
(16:42):
regime coming to power in Iran. We allowed it to
sort of fester, calcify, grow, bleed us out with terrorist
attacks across the region, including our marines getting slaughtered in
an attack in Lebanon. Multiplemultiple American men and women losing
(17:03):
their lives to Iranian interference in the Iraq War, both
in terms of their direct military involvement but also their
assistance to the Iran leaning parts of the Iraq battle
space for a lot of that contest. There are many
many Americans whose bodies will never be the same or
(17:25):
whose families will never be the same because parts of
them or all of them were lost because of the
theocratic regime. We let fester because we gave in to
this indulgence about Palestine being the primary, almost solitary entry
point to doing anything in the broader region. We didn't
(17:47):
really get to a point of lessening our dependence on
the region by way of that Palestinian obsession either. It
really was President Trump coming into office in his first
term and one of the first things he did was
energy abundance. Drill baby drill, and we had huge developments before,
but especially expansion during the time that a President Trump
(18:10):
was in office on shale and other things completely changed
the nature of who has what stockpile of energy? Uh
and that made that made it so dependency relations changed.
And with those dependency relationships changing, you had the luxury
of being able to step back and think completely differently
(18:31):
and what do we do. We ended up at long
last recognizing Jerusalem as the official capital of the State
of Israel. We moved our embassy, We made this, made
this a real deal. People said it was going to
end the world. It didn't. We move on. We still
have other other challenges, but we broke kind of the
(18:52):
shackles of the old think establishment way of looking at
the broader Middle East. It's hard heart It's really hard
to put in perspective how big this shift has been.
And if you have the perspective of how big this
shift has been, then you can take stock and no
(19:12):
matter how frustrated you might be with the repeat rinse
cycle on do we have a deal with Iran or
back to major attacks with Iran? Our energy prices up?
Are they down? At least we're stepping back and we
have the reality of a large number of Arab states
that have normalized economic and cultural relations with Israel. We
(19:37):
have allies with real capabilities who have used those capabilities
to defend against or actually bring the fight to the
revolutionary Guard and meaningful targets in Iran. We have partners
that can balance risk and responsibility in managing straits of
hormoose longer term, once we finally get to a place
(19:58):
where we can transition and are we are not really
affected by the energy supply of the Middle East other
than energy. It affects energy markets, which does affect us,
but that's a fundamentally safer risk than the oil shocks
of the seventies that could literally bring everything to a
(20:22):
halt and almost shut down small town America as much
as anywhere else. So take stock. This is a call
to understand and feel comfortable engaging in these meaningful conversations,
to recognize that broad scope America is in a far
(20:44):
better place than it was. The Middle East is in
a far better situation, even though it's still a little
long way to go, and it's not a pretty site
in the in the through the lens of the current conflict,
but we'll get there. The arc of history is in
our favor and frankly theirs, when it comes to the
(21:04):
side that is less theocratic, more normal in pursuit of
modernity and getting along with its neighbors those powers in
the region. The future is bright under the current trajectory,
so take stock in that feel comfortable and confident. With that,
I want to thank you for engaging in a meaningful
(21:26):
conversation about a big and difficult subject, but also hopefully
it gives you a few things to ponder. As always
we here at Nation States, we're not here to tell
you what to think, but to give you some perspectives
and parameters for how to think and as you think
differently arrive at your own conclusions and engaging in your
(21:47):
own conversations with confidence, so you can pick up the
conversations with your elected leaders about energy markets, forever wars
or not forever wars, strategic partners that can help deal
with places like Iran without American ground troops having to
be involved, and look for practical results in gas prices,
defense budgets, and what our force posture is going forward
(22:10):
in the future. So with that, we're going to take
a deep brief break. Please continue to like, share, subscribe,
and give a favorable review on your podcast platforms if
you're so inclined. We're deeply grateful for the growth of
the audience, the number of downloads of the podcast. Please
keep it going. It helps us bring more of these
meaningful conversations to you, more of that nation state's way
(22:35):
of thinking. So after this brief break, we'll have some
final thoughts to wrap up this episode, So please come back.
Welcome back to Nation States with Yats. Today we took
a deep dive on the Middle East, that happy region
of the world where nothing complicated is ever happening, we
say disc of course, it's a big tough subject, but
(22:56):
I think some common sense fundamentals are changed for the better.
They get forgotten in everyday news commentary, and so hopefully
we brought some of those to the surface in a
way that's of some value to you. So here's some
simple takeaways that you can carry into any conversation. The
Middle East that shaped US policy for fifty years. Oil dependency,
(23:18):
the Palestinian centrality, Cold War containment, it's all been rewritten.
America is more energy secure. The Abraham Accords moved the
Palestinian issue off center stage. Iran is the main threat,
but it's being dealt with. It may be right sized.
Recent fighting changed the military balance, even if the regime
is still standing and China is now a permanent factor
(23:41):
in every calculation. That shift gives a White House more
leverage and fewer excuses for open ended commitments. It also
gives regular Americans a clearer standard for judging policy. Does
this protect American energy and economic interest? Does its strengthen
partners who share our view of Iran? Does it to
avoid sending American troops into another decade long project? Does
(24:04):
it keep China from filling every vacuum? Those are the
things that should shape how we're trying to right size
our approach to this broader Middle East. You don't need
a think tank to brief you to talk about it.
You just need the updated map. Use it at the
dinner table, at a town hall, or whenever you call
your representative. The old talking points are still floating around Washington,
(24:26):
and maybe some of the conversations you hear. Make sure
you bring that new reality and that they hear from you.
That's our hope for your joining us in this conversation
and journey with Nation States with Yates. Please continue to
come back for meaningful conversations on good topics. We're going
to keep at it here with you as you help
(24:48):
us work to grow the audience, will grow the topic set,
and we'll bring you more programming in different forms, some
up some announcements and updates coming in the not too
distant future, maybe even in the next couple weeks, So
stay tuned with that. I just give you my gratitude
and say stay strong, America and keep coming back to
Nation States with Yates, your humble national security advisor hoping
(25:11):
to make sense of this wild and holy world we
live in. Take good care
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
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