June 27, 2025 • 32 mins
US forces launched bomb and missile strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, followed soon by an Iran-Israel ceasefire and the beginning of what could be a diplomatic realignment across the Middle East. The GoodFellows regulars and Hoover Senior Fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and former White House National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster discuss the collateral impact of the Trump administration’s move against the Iranian regime. The fallout includes: a possible expansion of Abraham Accords participants (as the Gulf States help Iran pursue a more peaceful nuclear program); NATO members willing to invest more in military readiness; the media’s second-guessing the effectiveness and wisdom of the B2 sorties; plus what message Trump’s use of military might—as opposed to revolving-door diplomacy—sends to the world’s various mischief-making capitals (Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang).
Recorded on June 27, 2025.
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>> President Donald J. Trump (00:00):
They're not going to be fighting each other.
They've had it.
They've had a big fight,like two kids in a schoolyard, you know,
they fight like hell.
You can't stop them.
Let them fight for about two, threeminutes, then it's easier to stop them.
>> John H. Cochrane (00:11):
Then daddy has to sometimes use strong language.
>> President Donald J. Trump (00:13):
You have to use strong language.
Every once in a while youhave to use a certain word.
[MUSIC]
>> Bill Whalen (00:21):
It's Friday, June 27, 2025.
And welcome back to Goodfellows, a HooverInstitution broadcast examining social,
economic, political, andin this case, geopolitical concerns.
I'm Bill Whalen,I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow.
I'll be your moderator today.
And we begin, one Goodfellow,
shy Sir Niall Ferguson is goingto join us at some point.
Meanwhile, we're going to startour show with the knowledge of Lt.
(00:42):
Gen. H.R. M cMaster andeconomist John Cochrane.
Both John and H.R.are Hoover Senior Fellows.
Our time is short, gentlemen.
Let's get right to it.
H.R. I turn to you,
I'm curious about what has happenedhere in the Middle East in this regard.
The United States did somethingwhich militarily is phenomenal.
The idea of flying a plane37 hours round trip,
dropping bombs with precision on a nuclearfacility, nobody dying on that mission.
(01:06):
And yet those planes come back tothe United States and what happens?
Two things.
Number one, questioning the idea ofbombing to begin with, but secondly,
then questioningthe efficiency of the attack.
My question to H.R.
Is this simply a function of the fact thatDonald Trump's fingerprints run it thus?
It must be bad, or is there somethinglarger afoot here about the media's
attitude toward military in general?
>> H.R. McMaster (01:28):
You know, I think they're both dynamics at play here,
you know, I mean, it's funny, I guess, ifyou, if you dislike Donald Trump enough,
you begin to cheer for Ayatollah Khamenei,you know, and, and, and
it was just ridiculous,the whole, you know,
the whole discussion about the initialreports of limited effects.
Of course, we're not going toknow that for a little while, but
it's clear to me that nuclearprogram is set way back,
(01:51):
I would say definitely much more than,than months.
I mean, certainly multiple years,you know, and you have to look
at the way that the Israelis wentafter the whole supply chain and
the accurate target emplacement ofthese mops, the 30,000-pound bombs.
I think it's extraordinary because of theprecision, because of the intelligence,
(02:14):
where they knew exactly where to strike,right down the ventilation shafts, for
example.
And you gotta remember centrifuges,they're pretty delicate things.
Mean, I mean, people try not to bumpinto them if they're walking through
the facility, let alone when there'sa 30,000 pound bomb hitting.
So, you know, it's, it seemed to me like,you know, that, that whoever leaked this
(02:36):
certainly, and maybe even who wrote thatintelligence assessment, you know, was
kind of, you know, upset that we had takenmilitary action against, against Iran.
I just have to tell you, like, foryears I thought our intelligence was
tainted by policy preference ofthe intelligence community on Iran.
I mean, these assessments would get.
We don't think that they'reweaponizing really.
(02:58):
And then we entered the JCPOA,this Iran nuclear deal in 2015.
And the day of the agreement, beforethe ink was dry, the Iranian leaders said,
hey, here are all the placesyou can't look at.
What do you think they were doing there?
Why did they bury the Natanz sitethat wasn't discovered until 2002,
why did they bury the Fordo site,you know, 300ft underground?
(03:20):
I mean, probably because they'redoing something there they don't
want you to see.
So even the IAEA had caught them,caught them enriching to much higher than
they were supposed to be because you haveto put in new pipes when you do that.
And they came back.
We were just kind of paintingthe facility really, you know,
what are these new pipes for?
So I just think, you know,it's ridiculous.
It, it reflects the leak itself, which wascriminal and kind of the tone of it and
(03:45):
the tone of the press reflects,I think, their policy preference for
continuing to supplicate to the Iranianregime under this, you know what?
We have now disproven the theory thatif we're conciliatory with them,
Ayatollah Khamenei's heart is going togrow two sizes bigger like the Grinch
on Christmas Eve, you know, andthey're all going to change and
(04:05):
everything's going to be fine.
>> Bill Whalen (04:06):
John.
>> John H. Cochrane (04:07):
So, yeah, I want to wind my way around to a question here.
So let us celebrate the precision.
It's just amazing feature of modern war.
Not only are precision of dropping a35,000 pound bomb down a ventilator shaft,
the amazing amount of intelligence,but the on the Israelis too.
The Israelis have been doing amazinglyprecise stikes to the point that I've seen
(04:30):
videos people in Tehran are out therewatching on the rooftops because they know
the Israelis are,are hitting very precise.
They've seen just pictures of the topfloor of an apartment building gone.
The bottom floor is still in there.
The Iranians are sort of scatteringmissiles all over, but not there.
The intelligence, our own seemedturned out to be pretty good.
And the Israelis are just amazing at whatthey know about what's going on in Iran.
(04:52):
And likewise the,the opposite, the competence.
It is lovely to see a branch ofthe federal government really know
what it's doing.
Hr, that, that's,that's your guys this day and age.
It's just lovely to see it.
But the question,
I think this, this kerfuffle you'retalking about profoundly misses the point.
It is not about did this onestrike completely eliminate
(05:14):
the nuclear capacity of Iran?
It's, we demonstrated that we are willingto do what it takes to stop it.
And Israel demonstrated that they'rewilling to do what it takes to stop it.
And if that means more strikes,
we're probably going to havemore strikes eventually.
I'm sure they're not going to letIran rebuild its air defenses and,
and go back to tit fortat, pretend and so forth.
So I really think that's, and this is fromwhere we're sort of winding around to
(05:38):
a question for hr is not the significanceof it, that America has finally stood up
for something, and that is thatwe're going to do what it takes.
And if this doesn't take it,the other ones,
the other ones will do no matter what.
And that of course leads to is, is Irangoing to finally say, well, we had enough,
or are they going to try to goback to the old, you know, tit for
(05:58):
tat kind of, I'll, I'll throw one at you,you throw one at me.
But not serious,
we're going to degrade your capacitystuff that Israel is doing now.
>> H.R. McMaster (06:06):
Yeah. Hey, John, I think that is the,
that is really maybe the most importantpoint is that there's only been one
administration in the last sevenadministrations who has acted directly
against Iran, andthat's been Donald Trump twice.
And, you know, I think aboutthe quotation from Ayatollah Khomeini and
(06:27):
his successor, Ayatollah Khamenei,they said the same phrase,
both of them, America can do nothing.
And Ayatollah Khamenei said that three orso
days before Donald Trump decidedto kill Qasem Soleimani and
Abu Mahdi al muhandas on,on January 3, 2020.
(06:49):
And, and so I think what he's doneis he showed that he will act.
And this is what's really important.
Hey, if Iran wants torebuild this program.
They've got a lot of work to do.
I mean they're set back plus it'sgoing to cost a lot of money.
And are they going to decide to do it whenthey know hey there's a US President and
there's an Israeli prime minister whoonce we restart this they're probably
(07:09):
just going to come rightback out after us.
So I think,I think that what he has done, you know,
is change the incentive structure, man.
You know,to put it in economist terms, John and
I think that might be that that might or
his cost benefit analysis maybe Ishould say has shifted significantly.
>> John H. Cochrane (07:29):
There's the hardware which we bombed and we will do again,
there's the software.
It's amazing that the Israelis hadthe address of practically the ent upper
branches of the Iranian government and wasable to kill them near instantaneously.
That this has got to be the intelligencestory has got to be the most
important one here andthat remains completely rotten.
(07:52):
And then the Iranians incapacityto do anything about it.
>> H.R. McMaster (07:55):
And what I'd like to ask Niall about this too is another element of
the oppress report.
Reporting has been,they really wanted regime change.
I think it's pretty clear to me what theywanted to do was block Iran's path to
a nuclear weapon,
severely degrade the nuclear capabilityas well as the missile capabilities.
And do as much as much damage to theregime's effort to continuous proxy wars
(08:17):
in the region and maybe set upa situation where the Iranian people.
Or certain people inthe Iranian government,
like their conventional military leaderscould say, hey, maybe we're in charge now.
Maybe we can get rid of the late Al Faqi.
Maybe we can stop our permanent hostilityto the United States, Israel and
the Arab world anddo something decent for our people.
(08:38):
So I think that was the strikes, someof the strikes were aimed to set those
conditions, but I don't think itwas ever something that Israel or
the United States expectedto achieve regime change.
>> John H. Cochrane (08:49):
Another one of the shibboleths here is that you can't win
a war of their part.
No, the objectives here were tostop the nuclear program and
stop its development,not to take over Iran.
>> H.R. McMaster (08:59):
Yeah. >> John H. Cochrane
>> Bill Whalen (09:00):
Let's get Neil in the conversation.
Here's a question for you.
If you were sitting downwith the Iranian officials,
what would be your list of demands?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (09:08):
Well, that's a pretty unlikely eventuality.
They already have the list of demands.
Unconditional surrender.
>> John H. Cochrane (09:18):
Yes.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (09:19):
Those are the demands and.
>> John H. Cochrane (09:21):
It's not the real demands, right, Niall, I mean, we are not
saying, Germany in 1945, we want you tosurrender power, we invade and take over.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (09:29):
What President Trump was conveying when he used that
phrase was that Iran was not goingto be able to have a nuclear
weapons program full stop.
And as the Iranians were unwillingto agree to that at the negotiating
table when they had multiple opportunitiesto do so, it was very important
(09:51):
indeed that President Trump then makeit clear what that meant, namely,
that the United States and Israelwould destroy Iran's nuclear program.
I think the Iraniansmade a terrible blunder,
and I would enjoy pointing thatout to them if I had the chance.
I would say, what were you thinking?
(10:13):
Because you clearly didn't learnthe lesson of North Korea.
And the lesson of North Korea is youcan't take the kind of risk you took
until you have some deterrence.
Think back eight years, 2017,when President Trump, and
I don't need to remind HR about this,spoke of fire and fury.
>> President Donald J. Trump (10:36):
North Korea best not make any more
threats to the United States.
They will be met with fire andfury like the world has never seen.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (10:49):
And if you look back on those days, the rhetoric that
the United States used towards North Koreawas actually more aggressive and
inflammatory than the rhetoricthat was used towards Iran.
But military action couldn't betaken against North Korea by then
because it was too late.
The North Koreans had gotten sofar down the road to possessing weapons
(11:10):
of mass destruction that the South Koreansweren't willing to take the risk, and
the Japanese weren't willing to take therisk, and a significant number of people
in the Trump administrationweren't willing to take the risk.
The Iranians, by contrast, in 2025,
had no air defenses because they'dbeen taken out in October by Israel.
And they'd been unable to restoretheir air defenses because their main
(11:32):
supplier of air defense systems, theRussians, had said, air, we need them to.
And in any case, they're not gonna beeffective against the kind of planes that
Israel and the United States now have.
And yet the Iranians decidedthat they would hang tough in
the negotiations while they hadabsolutely no right to do that.
(11:53):
They should have folded.
I thought for a time that they wouldsimply say, yes whatever you say, and then
resume their lying and cheating, but theywere so crazy as to call Trump's bluff.
I was confident thatthe military action would be
taken this time last weekbecause it was so easy.
(12:16):
They had nothing to stop it, nothing.
And indeed, I think my conversations withthe former Israeli Defense Minister,
Yoav Gallant convinced me that itmust already have been decided, and
it was only a question of timing.
So you'd have to point out tothe Iranians that if you don't learn
from this lesson, as HR just said,it can happen again and again.
>> John H. Cochrane (12:40):
They thought they had deterrence because they thought they had
Hamas and Hezbollah andSyria and God knows.
And then, I mean, this is the thing we'veseen since October 7th was just one
by one by one, Israel kind of kept goingto the final point, which is this one.
>> H.R. McMaster (13:00):
Well, I think this goes back to
the point we were talking about earlier.
Don't underestimate the degree to whichthe ideology of the revolution really does
drive and constrain that regime.
And I think, what I've heard, Neil, and
I don't know if this way you'veheard from our friends in Israel,
is that the idea was that the US woulddecide whether or not to strike after
(13:20):
the sixth round of talks in Oman,that was supposed to be the 15th.
By the 12th, it was pretty clear that theIranians weren't even going to show up.
The Iranian foreign ministerwas kind of recalcitrant,
intransigent in the meetings in Europe or
with the old with the Germans andthe French.
And so I think President Trump said,okay, enough of it then.
(13:42):
And I think this is what is sosignificant about this,
is that now we have finally rejectedthe mantra of de-escalation,
that de-escalation isan intrinsically good thing.
When in fact what dede-escalation has done for
really four and a half decadesis given the Islamic Republic of
(14:04):
Iran the ability to escalate onits own terms with impunity.
>> John H. Cochrane (14:10):
That's what's so interesting about this, I think, Neil,
actually, they placed a perfectlyreasonable bet that the US wouldn't do
anything and the US would stopIsrael from doing things.
And we might blow up close the Straitsof Hormuz or lob a missile at a US
military base or run some terrorist actionsomewhere would be enough to deter us.
And this is the same administration whowants to give Ukraine to the Russians.
(14:31):
I'm being a little exaggerating there,but that the US would stand up firm and
actually do something and
let Israel actually do somethingthey might have placed.
There's a fairly reasonable bet on theirpart, which they lost, thank goodness.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (14:46):
But I think that was a bet that they'd have won if
President Harris had beenin the Situation Room.
But one of the great delusions ofthe year so far has been the taco trade.
From the moment that the Financial Timesran that joke that Trump always
chickens out taco over tariffs, a delusionrapidly spread through media land and
(15:12):
presumably beyond that,President Trump chickened out generally.
But that was to misreadthe first Trump term,
because although Trump was unable to takemilitary action against North Korea,
he did take military action against Syria,if you'll remember.
I hardly need to remind HR but
I was reminding myselfbecause it's eight years ago.
(15:36):
And then, of course, in 2020,
there was the action that HR hasalready referenced against Suleimani.
President Trump dropped the mother of allbombs on the Taliban in his first term.
So the idea that Trump is not capableof using American military power,
that was a grave mistake ifthe Iranians really thought that.
(15:56):
But it would have worked if PresidentHarris had been in the situation.
I'm sure of that, and HR is right,de escalation turned out, we talked about
this in previous episodes, to bethe functional opposite of deterrence.
The most important thing about what justhappened, not only the bombing of Fordo,
but also, I think the extraordinarysuccess of the Israeli Operation Rising
(16:20):
lion, is that deterrence has been reestablished, or at least a first important
step has been taken to re establish it,not only with respect to Iran, but
crucially, in my mind, with respect tothe axis of authoritarians more generally.
Because this is a messagedirected not only at Tehran,
it's a message directed at Moscow,it's a message directed at Beijing,
(16:42):
it's a message directed at Pyongyang.
And John, you mentioned Ukraine, butI've noticed that simultaneously with
this toughening of the administration'streatment of Iran,
there has been a toughening ofthe tone towards Vladimir Putin and
a distinctly more sympathetic attitudetowards both NATO and Ukraine.
(17:02):
So these are signals that are intended tobe picked up by the leaders of the four
authoritarian regimes, and I am very surethat they are being read loud and clear.
>> H.R. McMaster (17:13):
The one thing I would say about President Trump's leadership
that's relevant to this is what Isaw with him when he took decisions
like he did in April of 2017, to strikeagainst the Syrian regime's capabilities
that have been employed to commitmass murder with chemical weapons,
was that he considers the cost andrisks of action, but unlike many leaders,
he considers the costs andrisks of inaction.
(17:35):
Also with President Trump,what does he love more than anything else?
Big, beautiful deals,[LAUGH] he loves, right?
So he's gonna try forthe big, beautiful deal.
But then once he's disabused of the ideahe can get one, you know, with,
with one of these leaders of the axisof aggressors, then he will act.
And I think what you're seeing isthe Trump administration is backing into
(17:56):
policies that I think maybe the threeof us, you know, four of us would have.
Would have liked to see maybe earlier.
But in doing so, he's actually buildingmore, I think, international support for
his actions because he's given the chance,you know, hey, you got 60 days.
Iran.
Okay, 60 days are up, all right?
Hey, Vladimir, I'm doing everything I can,you know, to give you a shot to,
(18:18):
to realize that there needs to bean unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine.
Well, he's bombing, schools and hospitalsin Ukraine, and Trump doesn't like that.
And that was the topic of this economistessay that I put out this week, you know,
is that, is that connection, Neil,between you know, what he did on Iran and
(18:39):
what the message should be really forthe Europeans as they talk to
President Trump about what to do next on,on, on Ukraine.
So you know, I really think that this wasa fantastic operation from a strategic
perspective, you know, ending you know,sort of the folly of, of, of,
of accommodation or conciliation, youknow, with, with Iran having a practical,
(19:03):
really practical effect on blockingIran's path to, to a nuclear weapon.
But I do think the second and third ordereffects are going to be very positive
in kind of the way that the disastrous anddeadly self defeat in Afghanistan,
withdrawal from Afghanistan was profoundlynegative in terms of what these rivals,
(19:26):
adversaries, potential enemiestook from that experience.
>> Bill Whalen (19:31):
We have two items for you guys to kick around one, Steve Witkoff,
Trump's Middle east envoy saidthe other day there are quote,
pretty big announcements coming ahead.
The thought is maybe thisregards the Abraham Accords,
possibility of Syria,Lebanon getting involved.
I want your guys thoughtson that expansion.
But also Neil, back in Europe,Donald Trump meets with NATO leaders.
He gets a promise of a 5%tithe by the year 2035.
(19:51):
And NATO Secretary General refers tothe President United States as NATO's and
I quote, daddy.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (19:57):
Yeah, two really important points here.
One of the things that we're seeingis that the Trump administration
understands that diplomacy,the use of military force and
the use of economic sanctionsare not alternatives to one another.
They are complementary tools inyour toolbox as a policymaker.
(20:20):
And so it's quite right that havinginflicted this devastating military blow
on Iran, there should now be an attempt totalk once again to them about the terms of
the unconditional surrender, theabandonment of their nuclear arms program.
And that is how it should be.
One of the things that was so frustratingabout the Biden administration was the way
(20:41):
in which sanctions were seen as analternative to the use of military force.
They're not.
They never are.
This is one of the key lessons of history.
They are necessary in some cases,but never sufficient.
Daddy's home so one of the mostinteresting things about the NATO
summit is the way in whichthe assertion of American power is
(21:02):
in the Middle east underlinethe importance of the increase in defense
spending to which the Europeanshave committed themselves and
I cannot overstate the fact andthe importance of the fact that they just
committed to increase theirdefense spending to 5% of GDP.
And just a few years ago,before President Trump began to apply
(21:25):
the pressure that has been so Successful,many of them were spending less than 2%.
So something has changedin a very profound way.
It's going to have second andthird order effects,
not least presumably to improvethe performance of the German economy.
But this is because of the pressurethat Donald Trump has applied.
(21:45):
Without Trump,the Europeans wouldn't be doing this.
And that's the thing that Europeansfind it very hard to accept.
In fact, I was speaking with a group ofGermans and others just last night and
I reminded them, however much you maydislike President Trump and certainly your
media give the impression that you can'tstand him and the polling supports that,
(22:07):
you need to thank him because the revivalof European defense capability is
almost entirely due to the pressurethat President Trump has applied.
So he, he got a well earned andvery Trumpian triumph,
the way he was flattered by Mark Rutte andthe other NATO Europeans.
(22:28):
But he earned it, didn't he?
>> John H. Cochrane (22:31):
Some of it, though,
was from the pressure applied by VladimirPutin and the Europeans waking up to it.
I want to ask you guys a question.
Did the ceasefire come too soon?
I mean, Trump actually told the Israelisto turn the bombers around.
I gather the Israelis were goingafter the Revolutionary Guards and
some of the other parts ofthe support of the regime.
Was that a mistake?
And second, the Wall Street Journalhad an article today speculating that
(22:54):
the Abraham Accords may actually be, mayactually suffer here because, for example,
the Saudis don't need to team up withIsrael against Iran because Iran seems to
be a paper tiger anymore.
HR especially.
What do you think ofboth of those questions?
>> H.R. McMaster (23:09):
Yeah, well, I don't know about what targets remained.
It seemed that,that Israel had had plenty of time to work
down their top priority targets,you know, associated with the leadership.
We didn't talk about the scientists,right?
This is really important.
These 14, these were the top 14scientists that set the program back.
Infrastructure associated with notonly the nuclear program itself, but
(23:31):
the missile program andthe drone factories and
the entire supply chain associatedwith these and some of the leadership
targets within the rgc, such that nowthe leaders of the Iranian armed forces
come from the conventional military,as we're mentioning.
And I think that might be kind ofa setup for a hope and an evolution of
(23:52):
the nature of the government suchthat it ceases its hostility.
And then also I think they canturn it back on if necessary.
I think now might be the righttime to offer these incentives.
I think I hear from some of myfriends in the Gulf that the UAE and
Saudis are putting togethera $30 billion nuclear program,
(24:12):
civilian nuclear program deal for Iran,
that they would sign with Iranin exchange for zero enrichment.
And I'm sure a very intrusiveinspection and verification regime to
ensure the dismantlement of any existingelements of a nuclear program and
probably the missile program.
I'm sure the missile program's onthe table, too, that's got to go.
(24:34):
So we'll see if the regime takes it,the other thing that at this time.
So by shutting the bombing off now,you can say, I think,
I know we think about this, Neil.
I would say, hey, I'm ready to talkto your transitional government.
I don't want to talk to the same people,I want to talk to your transitional
government, solet me know when you got that together.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (24:58):
I think the interesting
thing here is preciselythe role of the Gulf states.
The reason that President Trump reinedin Prime Minister Netanyahu is clear.
While the Israelis have everyincentive to wreck the regime,
they don't care if Iran plunges intochaos as long as they don't have to
(25:19):
deal with Khamenei andhis nuclear scientists.
But it's not the first time in the historyof the Middle East that the United States
has restrained Israel at the moment whenIsrael seemed on the brink of outright
victory.
That's what happened in 1973, too, becauseif they'd been left to their own devices,
the Israelis would have entirelydestroyed the Egyptian army.
It was Kissinger who said, stop,we want this war over now so
(25:43):
that we can negotiatebefore you've done that.
And I think in the same way PresidentTrump has said, hold it right there,
because we have a negotiation, andthere are other interested parties.
However you may feelabout the future of Iran,
the Gulf Arabs do not want to benext door to a total scene of chaos.
You must remember that the most extremeIslamists want chaos because they believe
(26:05):
that out of chaos, the Islamic State,the caliphate, can arise.
So that's what makes the Saudis andthe Emirati is very nervous.
And I think it's highly interestingto me that they clearly want there to
be some kind of movetowards diplomacy now,
rather than an escalation in whichIsrael achieves a total victory and
(26:26):
Iran plunges into chaos withwho knows what consequences.
>> John H. Cochrane (26:30):
But we're all keeping the ayatollahs alive in doing that,
it's an interesting paradox.
>> H.R. McMaster (26:36):
What's unclear, some of the targets that Israel struck were
the tools of repression, the besiegedcapability, some of the police stations.
So I don't know how that's goingto play out, but I just want
to highlight Neil's point is so important,I think they have two ideas in mind.
Remember when Zarqawi, who was leading AlQaeda in Iraq and initiated the sectarian
(26:58):
Civil War in 2004, he said thathe was pursuing the Afghan model.
And what he meant by that is hewanted to jumpstart a civil war,
like the civil war in Afghanistan from 92to 96, after which the Taliban emerged.
And then also they're looking at Libya,a country of 6 million people,
that is still in chaos.
(27:19):
And, and now you've got Iran'sa country of 90 million people.
So I think,this is a really important point,
there is a great deal of concernabout fragmentation in Iran.
This also analogous tothe Syrian civil war,
Syria shattered like a light bulb,what comes next is always important.
(27:41):
And trying to shape that is we havelimited agency here to do that,
I think we ought to try our best.
>> Bill Whalen (27:47):
I had to play the role of the heel here, but we're up against a hard
out, HR's got to run,John's got planes to fly and so forth.
So let's leave with one quick question foreach of you, just tell us one thing
you're looking at in the days andweeks ahead, HR, you go first.
>> H.R. McMaster (28:00):
The one thing I would like to see is more messaging directly to
the Iranian people to say to them, hey,listen, we had to do these strikes,
we had to do these strikes becauseof the nature of your regime.
A regime that has somuch blood on its hands across the region,
but blood on its handsinside of Iran as well.
And I think we ought to be very direct andas effective as we can in bolstering
(28:20):
opposition to the regime andclarifying what our intentions were and
clarifying that we careabout the Iranian people.
>> John H. Cochrane (28:28):
Yeah, is this one and done, we've made our point back to
the usual, or is this, no, we're reallynot gonna let them have a nuclear weapon?
And if the Iranian people rise andwish to have a new and serious government,
will we support them this time around?,let's hope so.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (28:46):
Well, I won't be looking at the Middle East,
I'll be looking first at Moscow andthen at Beijing.
It seems to me pretty clear thatthings are going very badly for
Vladimir Putin,badly in the sense that he no longer
really has much sympathyfrom President Trump.
(29:08):
I understand from sources close tothe president that he really chewed
Putin out when Putin had the rashnessto offer his diplomatic services and
he was told, I don't need help with Iran,I need you to help with you.
So I think if you want->> H.R. McMaster: You said,
(29:28):
why don't you mediate Russia,Vladimir [LAUGH]?
Yeah, so
watching what happens next with respectto Ukraine is important because
Putin is now in a much worse positionthan he was in just six months ago.
Moreover, think about this,Germany is rearming,
in what century has thatbeen good news for Russia?
(29:51):
None.
So there's something going very wrongindeed when the consequence of your
foreign policy is that NATOcommits itself to 5% of GDP and
the leading player in the rearmamentof Europe is Germany.
So I think watch carefully to seewhat happens next, Putin made a very
unreasonable maximalist demand in responseto a peace deal that he should have taken.
(30:12):
Now he's in quite a spot of difficulty,I think, and
he's reduced to attackingcivilian targets.
I was talking to Dmitry Koleba,the former Ukrainian Foreign minister,
just a couple of days ago.
He made the point that while wewere focused in the Middle east,
the Russians switched tooutright war on civilians.
That may be a sign, in fact, of militarydesperation because things are not,
in fact working out at all well forPutin's war.
(30:34):
Secondly, Beijing.
Ultimately, this is a strategicgame against the four axis powers,
as we've often discussed.
The biggest risk to President Trump'sgrand strategy is that a Taiwan crisis
develops, which would be,of course, a far,
far more difficult proposition froma military standpoint than taking on Iran.
(30:55):
Because China is a formidable economicrival, technological rival, and
has nuclear weapons, so
we've got to watch carefully tosee what plays out in Beijing.
I think they are looking at this and
the probability of a move on Taiwanhas gone down significantly this year.
Indeed, they continue to strugglewith their military leadership and
its obvious shortcomings and corruption,but this is not just a one year game.
(31:19):
This game is going to be played out overthe rest of the Trump administration.
And at some point,as we've often discussed on this show,
it'll be the Taiwan crisisthat we are talking about.
And a lot depends on how far Americandeterrence is being re established,
not just in the Middle East,not just Eastern Europe, but globally.
If it's reestablished globally,this Taiwan crisis may never happen, and
(31:41):
then we'll look back onthat piece I wrote back in
January about the Reaganiteaspects of the second Trump term.
Peace through strength is back, and
I have to say that's the bestnews I've heard this year.
>> Bill Whalen (31:54):
And gentlemen, we'll leave it there, we'll have a full episode of
GoodFellows in the near future,so looking forward to it.
On behalf of the Goodfellows, Sir NiallFerguson, Lieutenant-General H.R.
McMaster, and John Cochrane,thanks for joining us today.
We'll see you soon.
Until next time, take care,thanks again for watching.
>> H.R. McMaster (32:07):
Fly well, John, fly well.
>> John H. Cochrane (32:09):
Thank you.
[MUSIC]
>> Speaker 6 (32:15):
If you enjoyed this show and
are interested in watchingmore content featuring H.R.
McMaster, watch Battlegrounds,also available at hoover.org
They're not going to be fighting each other.
They've had it.
They've had a big fight,like two kids in a schoolyard, you know,
they fight like hell.
You can't stop them.
Let them fight for about two, threeminutes, then it's easier to stop them.
>> John H. Cochrane (00:11):
Then daddy has to sometimes use strong language.
>> President Donald J. Trump (00:13):
You have to use strong language.
Every once in a while youhave to use a certain word.
[MUSIC]
>> Bill Whalen (00:21):
It's Friday, June 27, 2025.
And welcome back to Goodfellows, a HooverInstitution broadcast examining social,
economic, political, andin this case, geopolitical concerns.
I'm Bill Whalen,I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow.
I'll be your moderator today.
And we begin, one Goodfellow,
shy Sir Niall Ferguson is goingto join us at some point.
Meanwhile, we're going to startour show with the knowledge of Lt.
(00:42):
Gen. H.R. M cMaster andeconomist John Cochrane.
Both John and H.R.are Hoover Senior Fellows.
Our time is short, gentlemen.
Let's get right to it.
H.R. I turn to you,
I'm curious about what has happenedhere in the Middle East in this regard.
The United States did somethingwhich militarily is phenomenal.
The idea of flying a plane37 hours round trip,
dropping bombs with precision on a nuclearfacility, nobody dying on that mission.
(01:06):
And yet those planes come back tothe United States and what happens?
Two things.
Number one, questioning the idea ofbombing to begin with, but secondly,
then questioningthe efficiency of the attack.
My question to H.R.
Is this simply a function of the fact thatDonald Trump's fingerprints run it thus?
It must be bad, or is there somethinglarger afoot here about the media's
attitude toward military in general?
>> H.R. McMaster (01:28):
You know, I think they're both dynamics at play here,
you know, I mean, it's funny, I guess, ifyou, if you dislike Donald Trump enough,
you begin to cheer for Ayatollah Khamenei,you know, and, and, and
it was just ridiculous,the whole, you know,
the whole discussion about the initialreports of limited effects.
Of course, we're not going toknow that for a little while, but
it's clear to me that nuclearprogram is set way back,
(01:51):
I would say definitely much more than,than months.
I mean, certainly multiple years,you know, and you have to look
at the way that the Israelis wentafter the whole supply chain and
the accurate target emplacement ofthese mops, the 30,000-pound bombs.
I think it's extraordinary because of theprecision, because of the intelligence,
(02:14):
where they knew exactly where to strike,right down the ventilation shafts, for
example.
And you gotta remember centrifuges,they're pretty delicate things.
Mean, I mean, people try not to bumpinto them if they're walking through
the facility, let alone when there'sa 30,000 pound bomb hitting.
So, you know, it's, it seemed to me like,you know, that, that whoever leaked this
(02:36):
certainly, and maybe even who wrote thatintelligence assessment, you know, was
kind of, you know, upset that we had takenmilitary action against, against Iran.
I just have to tell you, like, foryears I thought our intelligence was
tainted by policy preference ofthe intelligence community on Iran.
I mean, these assessments would get.
We don't think that they'reweaponizing really.
(02:58):
And then we entered the JCPOA,this Iran nuclear deal in 2015.
And the day of the agreement, beforethe ink was dry, the Iranian leaders said,
hey, here are all the placesyou can't look at.
What do you think they were doing there?
Why did they bury the Natanz sitethat wasn't discovered until 2002,
why did they bury the Fordo site,you know, 300ft underground?
(03:20):
I mean, probably because they'redoing something there they don't
want you to see.
So even the IAEA had caught them,caught them enriching to much higher than
they were supposed to be because you haveto put in new pipes when you do that.
And they came back.
We were just kind of paintingthe facility really, you know,
what are these new pipes for?
So I just think, you know,it's ridiculous.
It, it reflects the leak itself, which wascriminal and kind of the tone of it and
(03:45):
the tone of the press reflects,I think, their policy preference for
continuing to supplicate to the Iranianregime under this, you know what?
We have now disproven the theory thatif we're conciliatory with them,
Ayatollah Khamenei's heart is going togrow two sizes bigger like the Grinch
on Christmas Eve, you know, andthey're all going to change and
(04:05):
everything's going to be fine.
>> Bill Whalen (04:06):
John.
>> John H. Cochrane (04:07):
So, yeah, I want to wind my way around to a question here.
So let us celebrate the precision.
It's just amazing feature of modern war.
Not only are precision of dropping a35,000 pound bomb down a ventilator shaft,
the amazing amount of intelligence,but the on the Israelis too.
The Israelis have been doing amazinglyprecise stikes to the point that I've seen
(04:30):
videos people in Tehran are out therewatching on the rooftops because they know
the Israelis are,are hitting very precise.
They've seen just pictures of the topfloor of an apartment building gone.
The bottom floor is still in there.
The Iranians are sort of scatteringmissiles all over, but not there.
The intelligence, our own seemedturned out to be pretty good.
And the Israelis are just amazing at whatthey know about what's going on in Iran.
(04:52):
And likewise the,the opposite, the competence.
It is lovely to see a branch ofthe federal government really know
what it's doing.
Hr, that, that's,that's your guys this day and age.
It's just lovely to see it.
But the question,
I think this, this kerfuffle you'retalking about profoundly misses the point.
It is not about did this onestrike completely eliminate
(05:14):
the nuclear capacity of Iran?
It's, we demonstrated that we are willingto do what it takes to stop it.
And Israel demonstrated that they'rewilling to do what it takes to stop it.
And if that means more strikes,
we're probably going to havemore strikes eventually.
I'm sure they're not going to letIran rebuild its air defenses and,
and go back to tit fortat, pretend and so forth.
So I really think that's, and this is fromwhere we're sort of winding around to
(05:38):
a question for hr is not the significanceof it, that America has finally stood up
for something, and that is thatwe're going to do what it takes.
And if this doesn't take it,the other ones,
the other ones will do no matter what.
And that of course leads to is, is Irangoing to finally say, well, we had enough,
or are they going to try to goback to the old, you know, tit for
(05:58):
tat kind of, I'll, I'll throw one at you,you throw one at me.
But not serious,
we're going to degrade your capacitystuff that Israel is doing now.
>> H.R. McMaster (06:06):
Yeah. Hey, John, I think that is the,
that is really maybe the most importantpoint is that there's only been one
administration in the last sevenadministrations who has acted directly
against Iran, andthat's been Donald Trump twice.
And, you know, I think aboutthe quotation from Ayatollah Khomeini and
(06:27):
his successor, Ayatollah Khamenei,they said the same phrase,
both of them, America can do nothing.
And Ayatollah Khamenei said that three orso
days before Donald Trump decidedto kill Qasem Soleimani and
Abu Mahdi al muhandas on,on January 3, 2020.
(06:49):
And, and so I think what he's doneis he showed that he will act.
And this is what's really important.
Hey, if Iran wants torebuild this program.
They've got a lot of work to do.
I mean they're set back plus it'sgoing to cost a lot of money.
And are they going to decide to do it whenthey know hey there's a US President and
there's an Israeli prime minister whoonce we restart this they're probably
(07:09):
just going to come rightback out after us.
So I think,I think that what he has done, you know,
is change the incentive structure, man.
You know,to put it in economist terms, John and
I think that might be that that might or
his cost benefit analysis maybe Ishould say has shifted significantly.
>> John H. Cochrane (07:29):
There's the hardware which we bombed and we will do again,
there's the software.
It's amazing that the Israelis hadthe address of practically the ent upper
branches of the Iranian government and wasable to kill them near instantaneously.
That this has got to be the intelligencestory has got to be the most
important one here andthat remains completely rotten.
(07:52):
And then the Iranians incapacityto do anything about it.
>> H.R. McMaster (07:55):
And what I'd like to ask Niall about this too is another element of
the oppress report.
Reporting has been,they really wanted regime change.
I think it's pretty clear to me what theywanted to do was block Iran's path to
a nuclear weapon,
severely degrade the nuclear capabilityas well as the missile capabilities.
And do as much as much damage to theregime's effort to continuous proxy wars
(08:17):
in the region and maybe set upa situation where the Iranian people.
Or certain people inthe Iranian government,
like their conventional military leaderscould say, hey, maybe we're in charge now.
Maybe we can get rid of the late Al Faqi.
Maybe we can stop our permanent hostilityto the United States, Israel and
the Arab world anddo something decent for our people.
(08:38):
So I think that was the strikes, someof the strikes were aimed to set those
conditions, but I don't think itwas ever something that Israel or
the United States expectedto achieve regime change.
>> John H. Cochrane (08:49):
Another one of the shibboleths here is that you can't win
a war of their part.
No, the objectives here were tostop the nuclear program and
stop its development,not to take over Iran.
>> H.R. McMaster (08:59):
Yeah. >> John H. Cochrane
>> Bill Whalen (09:00):
Let's get Neil in the conversation.
Here's a question for you.
If you were sitting downwith the Iranian officials,
what would be your list of demands?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (09:08):
Well, that's a pretty unlikely eventuality.
They already have the list of demands.
Unconditional surrender.
>> John H. Cochrane (09:18):
Yes.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (09:19):
Those are the demands and.
>> John H. Cochrane (09:21):
It's not the real demands, right, Niall, I mean, we are not
saying, Germany in 1945, we want you tosurrender power, we invade and take over.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (09:29):
What President Trump was conveying when he used that
phrase was that Iran was not goingto be able to have a nuclear
weapons program full stop.
And as the Iranians were unwillingto agree to that at the negotiating
table when they had multiple opportunitiesto do so, it was very important
(09:51):
indeed that President Trump then makeit clear what that meant, namely,
that the United States and Israelwould destroy Iran's nuclear program.
I think the Iraniansmade a terrible blunder,
and I would enjoy pointing thatout to them if I had the chance.
I would say, what were you thinking?
(10:13):
Because you clearly didn't learnthe lesson of North Korea.
And the lesson of North Korea is youcan't take the kind of risk you took
until you have some deterrence.
Think back eight years, 2017,when President Trump, and
I don't need to remind HR about this,spoke of fire and fury.
>> President Donald J. Trump (10:36):
North Korea best not make any more
threats to the United States.
They will be met with fire andfury like the world has never seen.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (10:49):
And if you look back on those days, the rhetoric that
the United States used towards North Koreawas actually more aggressive and
inflammatory than the rhetoricthat was used towards Iran.
But military action couldn't betaken against North Korea by then
because it was too late.
The North Koreans had gotten sofar down the road to possessing weapons
(11:10):
of mass destruction that the South Koreansweren't willing to take the risk, and
the Japanese weren't willing to take therisk, and a significant number of people
in the Trump administrationweren't willing to take the risk.
The Iranians, by contrast, in 2025,
had no air defenses because they'dbeen taken out in October by Israel.
And they'd been unable to restoretheir air defenses because their main
(11:32):
supplier of air defense systems, theRussians, had said, air, we need them to.
And in any case, they're not gonna beeffective against the kind of planes that
Israel and the United States now have.
And yet the Iranians decidedthat they would hang tough in
the negotiations while they hadabsolutely no right to do that.
(11:53):
They should have folded.
I thought for a time that they wouldsimply say, yes whatever you say, and then
resume their lying and cheating, but theywere so crazy as to call Trump's bluff.
I was confident thatthe military action would be
taken this time last weekbecause it was so easy.
(12:16):
They had nothing to stop it, nothing.
And indeed, I think my conversations withthe former Israeli Defense Minister,
Yoav Gallant convinced me that itmust already have been decided, and
it was only a question of timing.
So you'd have to point out tothe Iranians that if you don't learn
from this lesson, as HR just said,it can happen again and again.
>> John H. Cochrane (12:40):
They thought they had deterrence because they thought they had
Hamas and Hezbollah andSyria and God knows.
And then, I mean, this is the thing we'veseen since October 7th was just one
by one by one, Israel kind of kept goingto the final point, which is this one.
>> H.R. McMaster (13:00):
Well, I think this goes back to
the point we were talking about earlier.
Don't underestimate the degree to whichthe ideology of the revolution really does
drive and constrain that regime.
And I think, what I've heard, Neil, and
I don't know if this way you'veheard from our friends in Israel,
is that the idea was that the US woulddecide whether or not to strike after
(13:20):
the sixth round of talks in Oman,that was supposed to be the 15th.
By the 12th, it was pretty clear that theIranians weren't even going to show up.
The Iranian foreign ministerwas kind of recalcitrant,
intransigent in the meetings in Europe or
with the old with the Germans andthe French.
And so I think President Trump said,okay, enough of it then.
(13:42):
And I think this is what is sosignificant about this,
is that now we have finally rejectedthe mantra of de-escalation,
that de-escalation isan intrinsically good thing.
When in fact what dede-escalation has done for
really four and a half decadesis given the Islamic Republic of
(14:04):
Iran the ability to escalate onits own terms with impunity.
>> John H. Cochrane (14:10):
That's what's so interesting about this, I think, Neil,
actually, they placed a perfectlyreasonable bet that the US wouldn't do
anything and the US would stopIsrael from doing things.
And we might blow up close the Straitsof Hormuz or lob a missile at a US
military base or run some terrorist actionsomewhere would be enough to deter us.
And this is the same administration whowants to give Ukraine to the Russians.
(14:31):
I'm being a little exaggerating there,but that the US would stand up firm and
actually do something and
let Israel actually do somethingthey might have placed.
There's a fairly reasonable bet on theirpart, which they lost, thank goodness.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (14:46):
But I think that was a bet that they'd have won if
President Harris had beenin the Situation Room.
But one of the great delusions ofthe year so far has been the taco trade.
From the moment that the Financial Timesran that joke that Trump always
chickens out taco over tariffs, a delusionrapidly spread through media land and
(15:12):
presumably beyond that,President Trump chickened out generally.
But that was to misreadthe first Trump term,
because although Trump was unable to takemilitary action against North Korea,
he did take military action against Syria,if you'll remember.
I hardly need to remind HR but
I was reminding myselfbecause it's eight years ago.
(15:36):
And then, of course, in 2020,
there was the action that HR hasalready referenced against Suleimani.
President Trump dropped the mother of allbombs on the Taliban in his first term.
So the idea that Trump is not capableof using American military power,
that was a grave mistake ifthe Iranians really thought that.
(15:56):
But it would have worked if PresidentHarris had been in the situation.
I'm sure of that, and HR is right,de escalation turned out, we talked about
this in previous episodes, to bethe functional opposite of deterrence.
The most important thing about what justhappened, not only the bombing of Fordo,
but also, I think the extraordinarysuccess of the Israeli Operation Rising
(16:20):
lion, is that deterrence has been reestablished, or at least a first important
step has been taken to re establish it,not only with respect to Iran, but
crucially, in my mind, with respect tothe axis of authoritarians more generally.
Because this is a messagedirected not only at Tehran,
it's a message directed at Moscow,it's a message directed at Beijing,
(16:42):
it's a message directed at Pyongyang.
And John, you mentioned Ukraine, butI've noticed that simultaneously with
this toughening of the administration'streatment of Iran,
there has been a toughening ofthe tone towards Vladimir Putin and
a distinctly more sympathetic attitudetowards both NATO and Ukraine.
(17:02):
So these are signals that are intended tobe picked up by the leaders of the four
authoritarian regimes, and I am very surethat they are being read loud and clear.
>> H.R. McMaster (17:13):
The one thing I would say about President Trump's leadership
that's relevant to this is what Isaw with him when he took decisions
like he did in April of 2017, to strikeagainst the Syrian regime's capabilities
that have been employed to commitmass murder with chemical weapons,
was that he considers the cost andrisks of action, but unlike many leaders,
he considers the costs andrisks of inaction.
(17:35):
Also with President Trump,what does he love more than anything else?
Big, beautiful deals,[LAUGH] he loves, right?
So he's gonna try forthe big, beautiful deal.
But then once he's disabused of the ideahe can get one, you know, with,
with one of these leaders of the axisof aggressors, then he will act.
And I think what you're seeing isthe Trump administration is backing into
(17:56):
policies that I think maybe the threeof us, you know, four of us would have.
Would have liked to see maybe earlier.
But in doing so, he's actually buildingmore, I think, international support for
his actions because he's given the chance,you know, hey, you got 60 days.
Iran.
Okay, 60 days are up, all right?
Hey, Vladimir, I'm doing everything I can,you know, to give you a shot to,
(18:18):
to realize that there needs to bean unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine.
Well, he's bombing, schools and hospitalsin Ukraine, and Trump doesn't like that.
And that was the topic of this economistessay that I put out this week, you know,
is that, is that connection, Neil,between you know, what he did on Iran and
(18:39):
what the message should be really forthe Europeans as they talk to
President Trump about what to do next on,on, on Ukraine.
So you know, I really think that this wasa fantastic operation from a strategic
perspective, you know, ending you know,sort of the folly of, of, of,
of accommodation or conciliation, youknow, with, with Iran having a practical,
(19:03):
really practical effect on blockingIran's path to, to a nuclear weapon.
But I do think the second and third ordereffects are going to be very positive
in kind of the way that the disastrous anddeadly self defeat in Afghanistan,
withdrawal from Afghanistan was profoundlynegative in terms of what these rivals,
(19:26):
adversaries, potential enemiestook from that experience.
>> Bill Whalen (19:31):
We have two items for you guys to kick around one, Steve Witkoff,
Trump's Middle east envoy saidthe other day there are quote,
pretty big announcements coming ahead.
The thought is maybe thisregards the Abraham Accords,
possibility of Syria,Lebanon getting involved.
I want your guys thoughtson that expansion.
But also Neil, back in Europe,Donald Trump meets with NATO leaders.
He gets a promise of a 5%tithe by the year 2035.
(19:51):
And NATO Secretary General refers tothe President United States as NATO's and
I quote, daddy.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (19:57):
Yeah, two really important points here.
One of the things that we're seeingis that the Trump administration
understands that diplomacy,the use of military force and
the use of economic sanctionsare not alternatives to one another.
They are complementary tools inyour toolbox as a policymaker.
(20:20):
And so it's quite right that havinginflicted this devastating military blow
on Iran, there should now be an attempt totalk once again to them about the terms of
the unconditional surrender, theabandonment of their nuclear arms program.
And that is how it should be.
One of the things that was so frustratingabout the Biden administration was the way
(20:41):
in which sanctions were seen as analternative to the use of military force.
They're not.
They never are.
This is one of the key lessons of history.
They are necessary in some cases,but never sufficient.
Daddy's home so one of the mostinteresting things about the NATO
summit is the way in whichthe assertion of American power is
(21:02):
in the Middle east underlinethe importance of the increase in defense
spending to which the Europeanshave committed themselves and
I cannot overstate the fact andthe importance of the fact that they just
committed to increase theirdefense spending to 5% of GDP.
And just a few years ago,before President Trump began to apply
(21:25):
the pressure that has been so Successful,many of them were spending less than 2%.
So something has changedin a very profound way.
It's going to have second andthird order effects,
not least presumably to improvethe performance of the German economy.
But this is because of the pressurethat Donald Trump has applied.
(21:45):
Without Trump,the Europeans wouldn't be doing this.
And that's the thing that Europeansfind it very hard to accept.
In fact, I was speaking with a group ofGermans and others just last night and
I reminded them, however much you maydislike President Trump and certainly your
media give the impression that you can'tstand him and the polling supports that,
(22:07):
you need to thank him because the revivalof European defense capability is
almost entirely due to the pressurethat President Trump has applied.
So he, he got a well earned andvery Trumpian triumph,
the way he was flattered by Mark Rutte andthe other NATO Europeans.
(22:28):
But he earned it, didn't he?
>> John H. Cochrane (22:31):
Some of it, though,
was from the pressure applied by VladimirPutin and the Europeans waking up to it.
I want to ask you guys a question.
Did the ceasefire come too soon?
I mean, Trump actually told the Israelisto turn the bombers around.
I gather the Israelis were goingafter the Revolutionary Guards and
some of the other parts ofthe support of the regime.
Was that a mistake?
And second, the Wall Street Journalhad an article today speculating that
(22:54):
the Abraham Accords may actually be, mayactually suffer here because, for example,
the Saudis don't need to team up withIsrael against Iran because Iran seems to
be a paper tiger anymore.
HR especially.
What do you think ofboth of those questions?
>> H.R. McMaster (23:09):
Yeah, well, I don't know about what targets remained.
It seemed that,that Israel had had plenty of time to work
down their top priority targets,you know, associated with the leadership.
We didn't talk about the scientists,right?
This is really important.
These 14, these were the top 14scientists that set the program back.
Infrastructure associated with notonly the nuclear program itself, but
(23:31):
the missile program andthe drone factories and
the entire supply chain associatedwith these and some of the leadership
targets within the rgc, such that nowthe leaders of the Iranian armed forces
come from the conventional military,as we're mentioning.
And I think that might be kind ofa setup for a hope and an evolution of
(23:52):
the nature of the government suchthat it ceases its hostility.
And then also I think they canturn it back on if necessary.
I think now might be the righttime to offer these incentives.
I think I hear from some of myfriends in the Gulf that the UAE and
Saudis are putting togethera $30 billion nuclear program,
(24:12):
civilian nuclear program deal for Iran,
that they would sign with Iranin exchange for zero enrichment.
And I'm sure a very intrusiveinspection and verification regime to
ensure the dismantlement of any existingelements of a nuclear program and
probably the missile program.
I'm sure the missile program's onthe table, too, that's got to go.
(24:34):
So we'll see if the regime takes it,the other thing that at this time.
So by shutting the bombing off now,you can say, I think,
I know we think about this, Neil.
I would say, hey, I'm ready to talkto your transitional government.
I don't want to talk to the same people,I want to talk to your transitional
government, solet me know when you got that together.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (24:58):
I think the interesting
thing here is preciselythe role of the Gulf states.
The reason that President Trump reinedin Prime Minister Netanyahu is clear.
While the Israelis have everyincentive to wreck the regime,
they don't care if Iran plunges intochaos as long as they don't have to
(25:19):
deal with Khamenei andhis nuclear scientists.
But it's not the first time in the historyof the Middle East that the United States
has restrained Israel at the moment whenIsrael seemed on the brink of outright
victory.
That's what happened in 1973, too, becauseif they'd been left to their own devices,
the Israelis would have entirelydestroyed the Egyptian army.
It was Kissinger who said, stop,we want this war over now so
(25:43):
that we can negotiatebefore you've done that.
And I think in the same way PresidentTrump has said, hold it right there,
because we have a negotiation, andthere are other interested parties.
However you may feelabout the future of Iran,
the Gulf Arabs do not want to benext door to a total scene of chaos.
You must remember that the most extremeIslamists want chaos because they believe
(26:05):
that out of chaos, the Islamic State,the caliphate, can arise.
So that's what makes the Saudis andthe Emirati is very nervous.
And I think it's highly interestingto me that they clearly want there to
be some kind of movetowards diplomacy now,
rather than an escalation in whichIsrael achieves a total victory and
(26:26):
Iran plunges into chaos withwho knows what consequences.
>> John H. Cochrane (26:30):
But we're all keeping the ayatollahs alive in doing that,
it's an interesting paradox.
>> H.R. McMaster (26:36):
What's unclear, some of the targets that Israel struck were
the tools of repression, the besiegedcapability, some of the police stations.
So I don't know how that's goingto play out, but I just want
to highlight Neil's point is so important,I think they have two ideas in mind.
Remember when Zarqawi, who was leading AlQaeda in Iraq and initiated the sectarian
(26:58):
Civil War in 2004, he said thathe was pursuing the Afghan model.
And what he meant by that is hewanted to jumpstart a civil war,
like the civil war in Afghanistan from 92to 96, after which the Taliban emerged.
And then also they're looking at Libya,a country of 6 million people,
that is still in chaos.
(27:19):
And, and now you've got Iran'sa country of 90 million people.
So I think,this is a really important point,
there is a great deal of concernabout fragmentation in Iran.
This also analogous tothe Syrian civil war,
Syria shattered like a light bulb,what comes next is always important.
(27:41):
And trying to shape that is we havelimited agency here to do that,
I think we ought to try our best.
>> Bill Whalen (27:47):
I had to play the role of the heel here, but we're up against a hard
out, HR's got to run,John's got planes to fly and so forth.
So let's leave with one quick question foreach of you, just tell us one thing
you're looking at in the days andweeks ahead, HR, you go first.
>> H.R. McMaster (28:00):
The one thing I would like to see is more messaging directly to
the Iranian people to say to them, hey,listen, we had to do these strikes,
we had to do these strikes becauseof the nature of your regime.
A regime that has somuch blood on its hands across the region,
but blood on its handsinside of Iran as well.
And I think we ought to be very direct andas effective as we can in bolstering
(28:20):
opposition to the regime andclarifying what our intentions were and
clarifying that we careabout the Iranian people.
>> John H. Cochrane (28:28):
Yeah, is this one and done, we've made our point back to
the usual, or is this, no, we're reallynot gonna let them have a nuclear weapon?
And if the Iranian people rise andwish to have a new and serious government,
will we support them this time around?,let's hope so.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (28:46):
Well, I won't be looking at the Middle East,
I'll be looking first at Moscow andthen at Beijing.
It seems to me pretty clear thatthings are going very badly for
Vladimir Putin,badly in the sense that he no longer
really has much sympathyfrom President Trump.
(29:08):
I understand from sources close tothe president that he really chewed
Putin out when Putin had the rashnessto offer his diplomatic services and
he was told, I don't need help with Iran,I need you to help with you.
So I think if you want->> H.R. McMaster: You said,
(29:28):
why don't you mediate Russia,Vladimir [LAUGH]?
Yeah, so
watching what happens next with respectto Ukraine is important because
Putin is now in a much worse positionthan he was in just six months ago.
Moreover, think about this,Germany is rearming,
in what century has thatbeen good news for Russia?
(29:51):
None.
So there's something going very wrongindeed when the consequence of your
foreign policy is that NATOcommits itself to 5% of GDP and
the leading player in the rearmamentof Europe is Germany.
So I think watch carefully to seewhat happens next, Putin made a very
unreasonable maximalist demand in responseto a peace deal that he should have taken.
(30:12):
Now he's in quite a spot of difficulty,I think, and
he's reduced to attackingcivilian targets.
I was talking to Dmitry Koleba,the former Ukrainian Foreign minister,
just a couple of days ago.
He made the point that while wewere focused in the Middle east,
the Russians switched tooutright war on civilians.
That may be a sign, in fact, of militarydesperation because things are not,
in fact working out at all well forPutin's war.
(30:34):
Secondly, Beijing.
Ultimately, this is a strategicgame against the four axis powers,
as we've often discussed.
The biggest risk to President Trump'sgrand strategy is that a Taiwan crisis
develops, which would be,of course, a far,
far more difficult proposition froma military standpoint than taking on Iran.
(30:55):
Because China is a formidable economicrival, technological rival, and
has nuclear weapons, so
we've got to watch carefully tosee what plays out in Beijing.
I think they are looking at this and
the probability of a move on Taiwanhas gone down significantly this year.
Indeed, they continue to strugglewith their military leadership and
its obvious shortcomings and corruption,but this is not just a one year game.
(31:19):
This game is going to be played out overthe rest of the Trump administration.
And at some point,as we've often discussed on this show,
it'll be the Taiwan crisisthat we are talking about.
And a lot depends on how far Americandeterrence is being re established,
not just in the Middle East,not just Eastern Europe, but globally.
If it's reestablished globally,this Taiwan crisis may never happen, and
(31:41):
then we'll look back onthat piece I wrote back in
January about the Reaganiteaspects of the second Trump term.
Peace through strength is back, and
I have to say that's the bestnews I've heard this year.
>> Bill Whalen (31:54):
And gentlemen, we'll leave it there, we'll have a full episode of
GoodFellows in the near future,so looking forward to it.
On behalf of the Goodfellows, Sir NiallFerguson, Lieutenant-General H.R.
McMaster, and John Cochrane,thanks for joining us today.
We'll see you soon.
Until next time, take care,thanks again for watching.
>> H.R. McMaster (32:07):
Fly well, John, fly well.
>> John H. Cochrane (32:09):
Thank you.
[MUSIC]
>> Speaker 6 (32:15):
If you enjoyed this show and
are interested in watchingmore content featuring H.R.
McMaster, watch Battlegrounds,also available at hoover.org
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