Title: Trump Threatens War With Iran

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Kousha Navidar: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Kousha Navidar filling in for Brian today. President Donald Trump met with his newly formed Board of Peace at the same time as he weighed military action in Iran. CNN first broke the news that the US military is prepared to strike Iran as early as this weekend, though President Trump is still weighing that timeline. Here he is speaking at his Board of Peace inaugural meeting yesterday.

President Donald Trump: Now, we may have to take it a step further or we may not. Maybe we're going to make a deal. You're going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days.

Kousha Navidar: The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier group and its flotilla of warships is already in the region with a second carrier group, the USS Gerald Ford, on the way. On Tuesday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei posted an AI generated photo of the Ford at the bottom of the ocean. New satellite images show rapid fortification at several key nuclear sites in Iran. Joining us now to break down the latest is Fred Kaplan, Slate's War Stories columnist and the author of many nonfiction books and his latest, a novel, A Capital Calamity. Fred, welcome back to WNYC.

Fred Kaplan: Thanks. Good to be here.

Kousha Navidar: We can take a few of your comments, listeners, or questions on the Trump administration's escalation with Iran, which the president is threatening will play out in the next several days. If you're listening, is there anyone with ties to Iran or the broader region listening? What are friends, family members or local media reporting? Give us a call or send us a text. We're at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Okay, so, Fred, you write, "The armed buildup around Iran is the largest assembly of US warplanes and warships in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq." Walk us through some of the mobilization happening now on the ground and what you think the scale suggests.

Fred Kaplan: Well, it's not really in the ground. It's nearby waters and air bases. Unlike the 2003 invasion or the '91 Gulf War, there's no plans or even capability to send in ground troops. There are two aircraft carriers in the region, each of which can hold about 90 airplanes. There's dozens of fighter jets and bombers assembled at bases within range of Iran, submarines which carry cruise missiles. Look, the thing is, is there going to be a war? I don't know. I don't even know if Trump knows. He's talked about different possibilities.

The military has arrayed enough forces to hit targets associated with any one of the missions that he might want to declare. He might go after their, potentially, nuclear targets, destroying their ballistic missiles and missile manufacturing, bring the downfall of the regime, although it's hard to say what those targets would be. There is a massive force assembled that could do considerable damage. The question that he has not even begun to ask or answer is, to what end? For what purpose? Then what happens?

Kousha Navidar: As you say, the purpose does remain unclear. You mentioned Iran's nuclear program, which has angered Trump for a while. Trump said that he wants to make a deal. Do you have a sense of a deal to do what?

Fred Kaplan: Well, that's the thing. One could say, okay, you bring all this pressure to bear, you're making the Iranian leaders quake in their boots, and, yes, they'll make a deal to avoid getting smashed. The deal that he has on the table, and again, he might change it, but the deal he has on the table is completely unacceptable, not just to the Mullahs in Iran, but it would be to any leader. Basically, he's calling for, okay, you have to have no enrichment of uranium at all. You have to get rid of all of your ballistic missiles and you have to completely end the support for Islamist groups in the region. Let's take those apart just a little bit.

The thing about zero enrichment-- You enrich uranium, that's what one of the ways that you can make a nuclear weapon. When Barack Obama and six other leaders negotiated the Iran nuclear deal in 2014, the initial goal was let's just ban enrichment of all types. If you look at it, you see the following. There was something signed in 1968 called the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. About 190 nations have signed this, including Iran. It doesn't just allow, it enshrines as a right the ability to enrich uranium up to 3% purity. Now, weapons grade uranium is 90%. What's called highly enriched uranium, which is only a couple steps to weapons grade, is 20%.

There are also protocols within the treaty that allow inspection. If you get it down to 3%, you're not allowing even the basis for moving to a bomb. No country is going to say, wait, you're allowing every country in the world to have 3% as a right but I can't have any? It's like surrendering before the first shot. It's a non-starter. Obama realized this as well, and in fact, until Donald Trump tore up the treaty in 2018, international inspectors were on the scene all the time and they attested on many occasions that Iran was abiding by the rule and dismantling much of the structure that they had pieced together that they have now since rebuilt after Trump tore up the treaty.

In other words, Trump is saying, you're violating the treaty that I tore up, which, hey, think through what you did before or we'll all have to think through what you might be about to do.

Kousha Navidar: He's saying, or he's suggesting he wants to make a deal, but what is the deal that he wants? It's still unclear.

Fred Kaplan: That's the deal that he says he wants. Here's another problem.

Kousha Navidar: Well, hang on, let me bring down the caller.

Fred Kaplan: You go ahead.

Kousha Navidar: No, no. You have so much to offer and it's such a joy to talk to you. We're talking to Fred Kaplan, Slate's War Stories columnist and the author of many nonfiction books and his latest is a novel, A Capital Calamity. We're talking about the rising escalations in Iran. We have some callers, Fred, that I'd love to bring down. First, let's hear from Bezad on the Upper West Side. Bezad, hi, welcome to the show.

Bezad: Good morning. Thank you for letting me speak about this. I'm extremely concerned about what's going to happen. Extremely concerned. I don't think the goal is to get rid of the nuclear program or bring democracy to Iran. I suffered from that. I fled Iran. My life was turned upside down by this regime. I know, but this is not about that. This is not about democracy. They want to destroy Iran. Iran is the last country standing in the Middle East.

They want to destroy it, break it up into multi states that balkanize it. Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, Loristan. They don't want Iran to exist and they haven't been shy about it. You can look up the white paper put out by Ken Pollack, P-O-L-L A-C-K, about 20 years ago. They've been planning for this for 20 years. They haven't been hiding it. They want to break up Iran. It's the last country standing. Then the entire Middle East, there will be no countries left. Every country is basically--

Kousha Navidar: Bezad, thank you so much for that call. It's an important perspective, I think, to address. Fred, you hear Bezad's talking about balkanizing Iran, that the final goal is to make it separate country. What do you think about that?

Fred Kaplan: I haven't heard that. I wouldn't say that anybody in this administration is as strategically minded as Ken Pollack, whatever you think of his views. I don't think they know what they want. I do think Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, certainly wants regime change in Iran. He's made no secret of that. He wants Iran to remain isolated from the international community. Here's the thing. Let's say that some kind of bombing campaign does topple the regime. That would be kind of unprecedented but let's say it happened. Who is standing by to take their place?

It, unfortunately, is not the young, urban, Western leaning, democratically minded young people that we've seen mowed down on the streets. There are no leaders of that, partly because the Iranian regime has killed leaders as they emerge. They've even been robbed of the technical tools that would allow them to organize. No, the force that's standing in the wings would be the Republican Guard. The elite military forces about 150,000 strong, very loyal to the regime, not at all interested in good relations with the West, not at all interested in abandoning their nuclear ambitions. Be careful what you wish for. It could be a much more hostile force and even harder to negotiate with than the regime that's there now.

Kousha Navidar: Bezad, who just called in, we want to thank you for sharing that perspective and igniting this part of the conversation. Listeners, if you have thoughts on this, if anyone with ties to Iran or the broader region is listening, what are friends, family members or local media reporting? Give us a call or send us a text. It's 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Fred, we have some texts coming in, a lot of them around congressional power. Let me just choose one. It reads, "Since war powers belong to Congress, how is Trump legally enabled to strike Iran and what can be done to stop Trump?"

Fred Kaplan: Well, it's a good question. I would put two perspectives on this. In some cases where, for example, military action is taken as a defensive measure or even a preemptive measure, the president has a certain amount of powers. However, in this case, there's no urgency here. Remember last summer when Trump ordered the destruction of Iran's uranium enrichment sites, he said that he had obliterated their nuclear capability. Now, that turns out to be an exaggeration but he did set it back maybe even two or three years. It's not like they're right on the brink of building a nuclear weapon. They're not on the brink of doing anything. It's really unclear.

Trump has not even attempted to, not even fabricated any rationale for why this needs to be done now. If it's just going to war, yes, Congress has the rights. Now in defense here, let me just say, the War Powers Act was passed in the mid-'70s in the wake of the Vietnam War, and for a couple of years, Congress treated it seriously, but Congress has skirted any responsibility for war powers. They don't want any responsibility for it whether things go well or badly. You might recall when Obama was about to- when Syria crossed the red line, as he put it, of using chemical weapons on their own people, and he was going to use military force to do something about it.

Then he had a speech where he said, look, you know what, I shouldn't be doing this on my own. I'm going to ask Congress to authorize this. Then Congress refused to authorize it and then criticized Obama for doing nothing. Congress has its own problems on this issue, and they're quite severe. Not just this current Congress, which has abdicated almost all of its powers, but Congress for many decades now. It does not take this part of their constitutional duties very seriously. It's an evasive branch in that sense.

Kousha Navidar: Trump is just betting that because Congress does not take this part seriously, that he can go his own way, I suppose. Is that reductive or is that a fair general stand?

Fred Kaplan: He's done that in just about every other thing that he's been doing, so, yes, why not?

Kousha Navidar: You had mentioned, tragically, a lot of young people in Iran being mowed down in the streets, and I want to go back to that. Back in January, the show covered the protests in Iran, where mass protests against the country's regime turned deadly. Trump threatened strong military action against Iran if its leaders continued the killings of protesters. Has that threat changed the regime's response?

Fred Kaplan: No, not at all. They were about to execute a protest leader, and after Trump's threat, they called off the execution. Trump said, okay, everything's fine now. They proceeded just to kill thousands, by some estimates, even tens of thousands of people, and Trump didn't do anything. Look, the fact is he doesn't care about that issue. In Venezuela, the first rhetoric of opposition to Maduro had to do with his oppression of the people and over the coup that he threw, not giving up power. He lost the election and he didn't give up power.

That was the initial rhetoric but then Maduro gets kidnapped and overthrown and the leader of the democratic opposition, who even offered Trump the plaque that she won for the Nobel Peace Prize, knowing that he thinks he should have won, just pushed her under the bus. Doesn't care about democracy, is letting Maduro's deputies run the place because they've at least for now been cooperative in turning over rights to their oil to him, which is really all he cared about.

It is odd. Previous administrations, whether they take the spread of democracy seriously or not, at least offer that up as a rhetorical rationale. Except for the very first stages of this, Trump doesn't even pretend to do that. It's all just about the assertion of authority. Even in strict real politic geostrategic terms, this particular operation in Iran is bafflingly short on rationales. It really doesn't make much sense.

Kousha Navidar: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. We're talking to Fred Kaplan, Slate's War Stories columnist, and we're talking about Trump's escalating rhetoric on Iran. A lot of news outlet outlets are reporting that US strikes appear imminent, though President Trump has said that he's weighing other options. We're getting your calls, your reactions, your comments, your questions. We're at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Fred, let's go to another caller. We have Kayvon in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Kayvon, hi, welcome to the show.

Kayvon: Hi, thank you, thank you for having me.

Kousha Navidar: Give us your perspective.

Kayvon: Sure. I was listening to NPR while I was driving, and I heard Fred said that Trump threw the agreement out and move out agreement. Actually, I want to say this regime cannot be trusted in any agreement. They said they're going to dismantle their nuclear facility but actually they did not. They had some spare equipment. They dismantled those but actually behind the UN observation, they developed the nuclear facility without their knowledge. I'm saying this regime cannot be trusted.

They even shouldn't have any even non-nuclear weapon because they just brutally killed more than 50,000 people, their own people. Imagine if they have any nuclear weapon, what they would do with their neighbor. Your other guest, Bezad, said they're going to divided the country to different pieces. I don't know where they get this information. Clearly, Iranian people inside the country, they need some support. R2P or whatever, the war can help the Iranian people. They're still executing the detainees.

Kousha Navidar: Kayvan, thank you so much. We're going to pause right there because you pointed out something important that I think we should get your perspective on, Fred. I heard Kayvon talk about how the regime can't be trusted. Can you put that into perspective? What did you think when you were hearing Kayvan say that?

Fred Kaplan: Well, I certainly agree that they can't be trusted with a nuclear weapon. However, you can go back and check this out. During the period when the Iran nuclear deal was in effect, and there were six powers that had negotiated that, and it was sanctified in a UN Security Council resolution, and it had the backing of Russia and China, as well as a bunch of other countries, all the EU, they were abiding by the terms. There were a few scuffles here and there about details but, generally, they had dismantled 90% of their heavy uranium. They had turned over a lot of materials to Russia. They'd done everything they were supposed to do.

There were inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency that were in there. There were cameras everywhere. They were abiding by that deal. Trump's first Secretary of Defense in his first term, Jim Mattis, testified at the time that he had read the treaty, which was 140 pages, and had looked at all the intelligence data and said that this verification provisions were as airtight as he had seen in any treaty, and they were abiding by it. They were being confined and contained by that deal. You can't tear up the deal and then criticize them for going beyond its limits, because there are no more limits.

Trump said back in 2018, when he tore up the deal, I'm going to negotiate a better nuclear deal. Well, he didn't even try. He didn't even try. That's not what he was interested in. He and Netanyahu talked about maximum pressure, sanctions, secondary sanctions. They thought that this would bring down the regime. While it made the regime weak and economically, not security weak, but weak economically and horrible on the people of Iran, it did not weaken the regime. I don't think that anything going on now is going to as well.

Kousha Navidar: We got a text from a listener that reads, "If the US were to strike Iran, what would stop Iran from retaliation, not against just US bases but by ordering its proxies to eliminate our only Middle Eastern ally Israel?" Here there's questions about the impacts on Israel. Can you talk to that a little bit, please?

Fred Kaplan: Well, yes, this is a big concern. There were some Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, who have asked Trump not to attack Iran because they fear retaliation. It is true that the last time there was a big missile and drone exchange between Israel and Iran, about 90% of Iran's missiles were shot down. They fired off 550 missiles. 55 got through and it did considerable damage.

They have more missiles than that now. It's unclear how many but probably a couple thousand. Unlike the last missile exchange when the US and Israel got considerable help from regional powers, and this time the regional powers, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and otherwise, have told them that, look, if there is an attack, we don't want you flying over our airspace and they're not going to help with the air defense.

If Iran fires off 1,000 missiles and let's say even 900 of them get shot down, those 100 missiles can do a lot of damage against US bases, against Israel, against the Sunni powers which have tensions with Iran. They could close off the channel where a lot of the world's oil traffic goes through. It's naive to think that they are just going to take this sitting down, especially if they suspect that the ultimate goal of such an operation would be to bring down the regime. They might decide, well, we're going to bring down everybody else along with us.

Kousha Navidar: We've got a caller that speaks to this or at least wants to hear some more about this. Let's go to Lisa in Manhattan. Hi, Lisa. Welcome to the show.

Lisa: Hi, yes, thanks for taking my call. It's pretty much aligned with the previous text but just wondering what the impact could be on Israel if Iran decides to strike back. You said 100 missiles could do a lot of damage. Having a relative there makes me very nervous.

Kousha Navidar: Thank you so much, Lisa. It's important to remember that there are people in these countries who are just trying to live. What would be the impact? Can you give any more information on that, Fred?

Fred Kaplan: It depends where these Iranian missiles are aimed. Are they aimed at Israeli military and intelligence bases? Are they aimed at neighborhoods in Tel Aviv? It all depends. Some of them aren't very accurate really. They could go anywhere. Here's the big thing. If one could make an argument that, hey, if war were necessary because Iran was about to do X, Y or Z, and, hey, we'll take the sacrifices because the alternative is grimmer still, that would be something to have a serious debate about. As I say, there is no indication of any urgent threat, of any imminent threat, of any urgent need to do any of this.

Is it all theater is? Is it show? If it is theater, if it is just to pressure them into making a deal, and if they don't make a deal, then you're on the hook. By you, I mean Trump. He's on the hook. Is he going to back off and therefore look "weak" or is he going to go ahead maybe with a limited attack? Limited attacks can get out of hand. Both sides have a voice and have a vote in how war goes. Most wars that countries get into, the leader, the guy who starts it thinks that it's going to be short. Remember the Iraq War of 2003.

General Tommy Franks, the commander in charge, he pushed the schedule up to start in March because he didn't want his soldiers suffering the summer heat in Iraq. Well, they were there for another nine summers. He thought it was going to be "a cakewalk". Again, Trump is not interested in sending troops to Iraq or Iran, and I really don't think he's going to, no matter what happens. Everybody in the region has ballistic missiles. Maybe you can destroy the ballistic missile factories. You can't destroy all the-- These are small things. It's not like ICBMs. They're small.

Kousha Navidar: You had mentioned Venezuela earlier, and I want to bring in a text that I think you can speak to pretty well. It reads, "Iran is a major oil producing state. Could Trump's interest in Iran be about that, oil again?"

Fred Kaplan: Well, I don't think he's going to be able to confiscate Iranian oil. Certainly, Iran is always an interesting party because of its oil. The fact is their main customer of the oil is China. Certainly, there are those considerations that make any kind of conflict in the Middle East important, strategically important. Again, these kinds of arguments I don't quite understand. It's one thing in the 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago when the United States had to make deals with Saudi Arabia and overthrew Mosaddeq in Iran and installed the Shah and so forth because we were so dependent on oil.

We're now and have been since Biden, an oil exporting state, a net exporter. We don't really need the oil from these countries. Some of our allies do, but we don't. It's not as if these considerations rise to the level of an existential threat. There's a lot of abstraction going on. There's a lot of theater and, unfortunately, the theater comes attached with warheads and drones and bombs that can do a lot of damage, not just to Iranians but to people around Iran [crosstalk].

Kousha Navidar: As somebody who had to leave Iran because of a war in the late '80s, I can say that these geopolitical machinations do have so much difficulty in parsing out the motivations behind them. Like you said, the logic of what happened decades ago is hard to shake off. Like you're saying, Fred, you need to look at it with a holistic view right now. I'm looking at the clock for you right now. In the days, weeks ahead, what are you going to be looking out for, to wrap us up?

Fred Kaplan: Me?

Kousha Navidar: Yes.

Fred Kaplan: Well, it's about all I can do these days to keep up with all the stuff going on. Clearly the mobilization that was scheduled, it pretty much seems in place. There isn't a lot more to be done. There's the ships and the aircraft carriers and the bomber bases and also, they moved in in the past couple months a lot more air defense gear into the region to shoot down to intercept any retaliation.

They're about as ready as they're going to be to do whatever it is that the President wants to order. At this time unlike all previous times, we go in there with no allies except for Israel. It's important to have allies even if they don't do much. At least they don't block you. They don't obstruct. They provide political cover so it doesn't look like what some would call an American Zionist imperialist operation.

Kousha Navidar: Well, let's pause. We have to leave it there for today. Fred, thank you so much for joining us and for talking through this. Fred Kaplan is Slate's War Stories columnist and the author of many nonfiction books and his latest, a novel, A Capital Calamity. His latest for Slate asks, is Trump about to go to war with Iran? Fred, thank you so much, sir.

Fred Kaplan: Thank you.

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