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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. On this January 22nd, it's not just Hamas versus Israel and Israel versus Hamas. The United States is increasingly at war right now in the Middle East. A headline from yesterday's Washington Post, As Houthis Vow to Fight On, US Prepares for Sustained Campaign. Officials say they don't expect operations in Yemen to last years, but they acknowledge it's unclear when the group's military capability will be sufficiently eroded, Washington Post.

New York Times headline yesterday, Widening Mid-East Crisis: U.S. Troops in Iraq Injured in Attack Linked to Iran-Backed Militias. Headline from The Economist yesterday, America and Iran Step Closer to the Brink of War: Tit-for-Tat Strikes and Assassinations Turn the Ratchet. We're going to tap the knowledge and wisdom now of one of the most knowledgeable and experienced journalists and analysts there is about the Middle East.

It's New Yorker magazine columnist, Robin Wright, also a distinguished fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and author of books, including The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran, Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East, and Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World. Robin's new article in The New Yorker is called, How Ten Middle East Conflicts are Converging into One Big War. Robin, scary title, but also good to have you on the show to help explain the big picture right now. Welcome back to WNYC.

Robin Wright: It's always good to be with you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with the US and the Houthis from Yemen and spend a little time on this. Would you background us a little first on the Houthis? I think many listeners have been hearing that they're attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea, but they don't understand why and who the Houthis are.

Robin Wright: Well, the Houthis are a significant political party and militia in Yemen. They've been engaged in a civil war with the former government for a decade. They represent a Shiite sect in Yemen and the movement emerged in the 1990s as an attempt to revive the Houthi culture and the religious sect. There have been tensions brewing for a long time and erupted into a civil war. It was the largest humanitarian crisis anywhere in the world before Gaza.

Millions suffered from disease and poverty. Something like half the population depended on some form of humanitarian aid to exist. Cholera was rampant. The economy has totally collapsed. This is a country that was already in strife. Now, the creed of the Houthi is Houthi movement. The parties actually call Ansar Allah, but we know them as the Houthis. That's based on a tribal group.

The original creed was to defy the United States, defy Israel, and to bring Islam back into Yemen as a way of life and a way of governance. Once the Gaza war began, the Houthis accelerated their attacks on ships in the Red Sea and in the Gulf of Aden. They claimed that this was in sympathy with their brethren in Gaza. In fact, the majority of ships, according to the United States, have no connection to Israel. They're not owned by, operated by, or flagged by Israel or staffed by Israelis.

This is a bit of a canard, but many of the ships do have links to the United States. They're owned by or operated by Americans or Western countries. The Houthi challenge to international shipping is enormous in terms of its consequences because a good chunk of the world's shipping goes through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. This has had a disproportionate impact for a little group out of Yemen.

Brian Lehrer: I heard a speaker recently who was a supporter of the Houthis and what they're doing right now, saying they're acting in support of Hamas and the people of Gaza as they see it and saying, "If this suffering is going on in Gaza, we are not going to allow commercial trade to take place as normal in the Red Sea even if it doesn't directly involve Israel in order to put pressure." I want to go back to something that you said and something that's in your article about the Houthi's founding slogan, which, as you quote it, was, "God is the greatest. Death to America. Death to Israel. Curse the Jews. Victory to Islam."

That was from 2002. One part of that that jumps out at me is, "Curse the Jews." They added that in addition to death to Israel. That to my ear is raw anti-Semitism, not even trying to hide it behind a national veneer. Why was that part of the founding slogan of the Houthis, who you also write and as you were just describing, started in the '90s as a Shia tribal movement to revive culture and faith domestically in Yemen?

Robin Wright: Well, part of it is the ideological vacuum in the Middle East. There isn't an ideology or an ism that has attracted or galvanized or rallied people across the region or even within countries. Islam has filled that void as we've seen, whether it's in the Iranian revolution in 1979 or the emergence of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the late 1980s. The Muslim Brotherhood becoming the leaders in Egypt after the Arab Spring. The emergence of Shiite militias in Lebanon and in Iraq.

Across the region, there have been Islamic groups that have captured the imagination and the backing. Some of it is because they are believers and they feel that whether it's Israel or the United States or the West in general is trying to influence or dominate them. These issues have all intersected in a way and have been exploited frankly by leaders who want to dominate the political scene or the territory.

Brian Lehrer: You're right to bring the US side of it into this now that the US has increasingly been drawn into Yemen's crises under both Democratic and Republican administrations. What has the US military role been with respect to the Houthis before last October 7th and why?

Robin Wright: Well, the United States has engaged in what they call interdictions of weapon shipments that have been destined for Yemen from Iran, sometimes taking circuitous routes. The United States has tried to prevent the Iranian arms from boosting the Houthi cause or helping arm its militia so it can fight against a faction that is backed by Saudi Arabia.

Again, Yemen has always been-- Its politics, its tensions, its wars have always played out in a regional context. Because the United States is an ally of Saudi Arabia, we had armed and supported and provided intelligence to Saudi Arabia once it entered Yemen civil war nine years ago. Again, we're talking regional dimensions. The United States didn't want arms to get to the Houthis so that they could then fire on Saudi Arabia. The Middle East is always complicated.

Brian Lehrer: Right. The whole Yemen situation, as your comprehensive article reminds us and as you've been just suggesting, is also a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In fact, our first listener question comes via text message. Listener writes, "Can you please talk about the power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the related Shia-Sunni schism as it relates to the various conflicts throughout the Middle East?" Now, we've been on the Saudi side. I think it's accurate to say. Whatever we think of Iran and how malevolent it can be, I'm not sure the Saudis are like the good guys here either. Can you give a very brief description of each side's interest in Yemen when we're talking about Saudi Arabia and Iran?

Robin Wright: Well, Saudi Arabia borders Yemen and has always had an interest in having an ally in power in that country. Yemen's dictator was ousted as one of the consequences of the Arab Spring. There's been tension over who should lead and who should dominate the political scene in Yemen ever since. Iran actually was not all that close to the Houthis until the civil war broke out. As Saudi Arabia became more involved, Iran also became more involved.

Yemen became a proxy battlefield between the two. Needless to say, as you point out, Saudi Arabia and Iran are two rival power centers in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is the guardian of Islam's holy places in Mecca and Medina. It claims to be the guardian of the Islamic world because the faith was founded there. Iran is Shiite, a rival sect in Islam. It is the more developed country, larger population.

In many ways, more important strategically because it also borders South Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and what had been the Soviet Union now, Central Asia, plus, obviously, the Arab world and the Persian Gulf. Both Saudi Arabia and Iran are oil powers. They're players within OPEC in terms of energy markets. There are a lot of different aspects of the rivalry. Now, what's interesting is that, last year, they resumed diplomatic relations after a long break.

Started when Saudi Arabia executed a Shiite cleric and then Iranians attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran, and so they broke relations for several years. They were restored last year and they reopened embassies. For the first time, there has been a discussion between their leaders and talk of visits and so forth. Their underlying tensions will always be there. Rival Sunni, Shiite tensions, rivals for political power in the Persian Gulf and in the wider Islamic world frankly.

Brian Lehrer: Another listener writes, "Yemen was relentlessly bombed and attacked by US-provided weapons for years by Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, which wreaked havoc on the country's economy and caused the humanitarian crisis that Senator Bernie Sanders addressed on many occasions to no avail," writes that listener. As far as that goes, is that an accurate take?

Robin Wright: Yes, it is. The United States provided intelligence, weaponry, and strategic guidance to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates after it attacked Yemen. They don't want the Houthis in power. There is an effort. There has been since last March to try to negotiate a permanent ceasefire, an end of the conflict between Yemen and Saudi Arabia that had been making significant progress. Then, of course, Gaza erupted. Now, the peace effort is in question. It's not clear whether it's viable to move forward because it would involve the Houthis ending its challenges, whether it's inside the country or to shipping in the Red Sea.

Brian Lehrer: Bringing it back to this shooting war, which I think it's accurate to call it, between the United States and the Houthis now. Your article in The New Yorker says, "The US-led strikes on the Houthis appear unlikely to curtail confrontation in the Red Sea." Robin, that might surprise some people who might think, "The Houthis, aren't they a ragtag band of rebels from Yemen? They can withstand the force of the United States military?" What might the answer to a question like that be in the context of your line that the US-led strikes appear unlikely to curtail confrontation in the Red Sea?

Robin Wright: Well, just two words. Remember Afghanistan, America's longest war, and we couldn't defeat or contain a ragtag militia with no Air Force and not even uniforms for all of its troops. In asymmetric warfare, it's very hard to defeat as Israel is learning in Gaza as it did in its invasion of Lebanon where it occupied from 1982 till 2000, and yet had to end up withdrawing unilaterally without any peace agreement because it realized it couldn't contain Hezbollah in Lebanon.

I think that's a problem that major powers have discovered. We learned in Iraq how difficult it was. As a result, sometimes you go into a war as Israel did in 1982 to defeat another militia in the form of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO fled Lebanon. Most of its fighters fled Lebanon, but Israel's invasion then gave birth to Hezbollah. There are consequences.

I think the United States doesn't want to invade Yemen. The question is, how does it do enough to contain the Houthis, at the same time not engage in a full-scale war? I think Americans don't want another Afghanistan or another Iraq. America has very limited interests in Yemen, very limited. It's the poorest country in the Middle East. It is not a rich oil state. The politics, the cultural, and tribal aspects are very complicated.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with Robin Wright from The New Yorker. We focus so far on the Houthis and the US military strikes against them recently and the Houthis' attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. When we continue, we'll widen the conversation to the US role in the region more broadly. We'll follow up on what Robin just said about the US actually having very limited national interests in Yemen.

We'll talk about US national interest in the region generally. We'll talk about what's happening now in the Hamas and the Israel sides of that conflict and more from her new article in The New Yorker called, How Ten Middle East Conflicts are Converging into One Big War. I'm not sure we'll get to a list, but we'll get to mention a number more of them. Listeners, we can take your questions and analyses too.

I just want to say we're going to try to avoid what we often get, which is polarized calls on one side or the other of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, just arguing which side is worse, and try to stick with analysis of what's happening from various party standpoints and why and what can solve it in everyone's interest as much as possible. We're going to get to at least one blueprint that's on the table for that in the last week from, apparently, the US and the Saudis and perhaps others, so 212-433-WNYC. If you have a comment or a question along the lines of this conversation with Robin Wright from The New Yorker, 212-433-9692, call or text. We'll continue.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We continue with New Yorker columnist and Wilson Center fellow Robin Wright and her new New Yorker article, How Ten Middle East Conflicts are Converging into One Big War. Let me segue, Robin, from the Houthis this way. You quote the International Crisis Group saying that, like Hamas, the Houthis feel empowered to have their way at a bearable cost.

Let me actually take the Hamas premise of that and ask, do they see what's happening to them and to Gaza as a bearable cost? Tens of thousands of deaths of the people they claim to represent and their own military infrastructure being taken apart by Israel in the process. Does it appear to you or the people you report on that that actually is a bearable cost and not an existential blunder as far as Hamas leadership is concerned?

Robin Wright: It's an existential blunder for sure, but they also will look at the conflict as having shown that Israel is vulnerable, that it's not the perfectly-armed, perfectly-formed military power that it has been long perceived to be. The consequences of the attack on October 7th and the subsequent atrocities are horrific in every single way. Hamas, its leadership will say, if it can survive politically as a movement afterwards that it has succeeded. Remember the Israeli war on Hezbollah in 2006. It went on for 34 days, the longest war until this one.

Hezbollah suffered terrible losses and extreme destruction of Beirut and areas in the south. A huge loss of its arsenal, and yet it is better armed, better trained, more battle-hardened today by far than it was in 2006. It has 150,000 missiles and rockets pointed at Israel. I think Hamas hopes that if it survives in any form at all that it can count it as at least a partial victory. That's the dynamics. It's the same problem that we have faced in wars we took part in both--

Brian Lehrer: I think you might've said Israel. I think you might've meant Hamas believes that if it survives in any form at all, it's a victory.

Robin Wright: Exactly. Sorry. Yes, absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: Also, if Hamas' real goal is destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, are they any closer to that than they were on October 6th? I'm thinking about, for example, the pro-Palestinian protests in the US and elsewhere. They often include chants of, "River to the sea," which means no more Jewish state. Sometimes they even support October 7th as justified anti-colonial violence. We know, domestically, that's causing conflict on college campuses and things like that. Does Hamas actually think or is there any evidence to suggest there any closer to bringing about the end of Israel as a Jewish state as opposed to more pressure for a two-state solution?

Robin Wright: No, it's no closer to destroying the Israeli state at all. It now has faced incredible setbacks. Half of the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed. One estimate has 9,000 fighters have been killed. Its militias estimated to be about 20,000, so that would be almost half its forces. This, again, is playing a longer game in the same way Hezbollah has played a longer game. All of Iran's allies and the so-called Axis of Resistance are playing a longer game.

In some ways, Israel is now more focused on its security than it ever has been and will feel in many ways that even if it "wins," and I put that in quotation mark, against Hamas, it will feel that its security is not insured unless there is less of a threat on the Lebanese border or the Syrian border or against Iran in general. That's not even a border in country. The danger is that the kind of wars we're seeing now could extend far beyond what we're seeing and become a bigger war that absorbs all of them.

Brian Lehrer: A couple of questions and comments coming in regarding the Houthis in the United States via text. One listener writes, "Why not require all ships to go through the Cape of Good Hope?" It's really around the Cape of Good Hope instead of going through the Suez Canal to go down to the bottom of Africa de-escalate the situation. The text continues, "Is it money either way? With avoiding the area, there is some lesser chance of deadly outcomes." What do you say to that listener?

Robin Wright: Well, the shipping companies would argue that it adds something like 10 days and thousands of miles to the trip and a huge cost to circumnavigate Africa. All shipments from Asia would have to go all the way around Africa. Some of that is pretty turbulent waters to get to Europe or the West. That's the reason Suez Canal has been so important. I think it is something like a third of all shipments in the world go through the Suez Canal because it's less expensive, it's faster, good spoil. It would set back modern shipping and modern access in ways we probably haven't even thought about.

Brian Lehrer: Now, on the other side of the analysis of Hamas we were just doing, the Israeli response to October 7th. Other headlines in the past few days have been about a widening rift between Biden and Netanyahu on how to end the war and what comes next, and also the politics within Israel. A New York Times headline from Friday, Divisions Emerging in Israel Over Gaza War. Another New York Times headline from Saturday, In Strategic Bind, Israel Weighs Freeing Hostages Against Destroying Hamas. How much do you see serious divisions within Israel about the hostages and the course of the world generally that those New York Times headlines this weekend seem to suggest?

Robin Wright: Well, needless to say, the families of the hostages want them out now. I've had friends held hostage in some cases for many years. Every second, you feel the trauma that they're going through. Obviously, the families want to give priority to getting their loved ones back. They would like to see some kind of deal that provides, whether it's a permanent ceasefire or a temporary one in order to get the hostages out. Now, the problem is Hamas is willing to negotiate, but it wants a total end of cessation.

In other words, an end of Israel's offensive against Gaza in exchange for the release of the hostages. Remember, the hostages are the only asset that Hamas has at the moment. It has, in the past, dragged out return of hostages for as long as five years or extracted the release of many prisoners held in Israel in exchange. Thousands sometimes in exchange for one Israeli. Getting them back will be hard. I think there's also concern, I think, as there were divisions in the United States, whether it's over Vietnam or Afghanistan, about how far you go, how much you invest in a war, and what its costs are in terms of particularly human life.

Brian Lehrer: I want to play two clips of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on this show last week. I was asking her about reports that Saudi Arabia had offered recognition of Israel just last week to Secretary of State Blinken. Saudi Arabia offered participation in creation of a two-state solution if Israel would sign on to that. Netanyahu said no. The senator said that before October 7th, Netanyahu was interested in such a deal. Gillibrand had been on a diplomatic mission around that idea last year before the attacks of October 7th as she describes here.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: We talked to the countries that had already signed on with the ambition of adding Saudi Arabia. This was the goal of Prime Minister Netanyahu at the time, was to create a regional defense agreement where each of these Arab nations would align themselves against Hamas and against Iran and all its proxies. In exchange, the United States would not only provide economic ties but military investments and ties.

What the Arab world and Israel would do for the United States would be to build a Palestinian state, to build it, and each Arab country would take responsibility for one thing, whether it was education or water treatment or economic development or food supply chains or energy supply chains. All of the Arab countries that were part of the Abraham Accords were all in. UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, and Israel, all in, in January of last year. The hope was that we could get Saudi Arabia. When I was in Saudi Arabia meeting with MBS last week or week and a half ago, I revisited the same issue. He, of course, said he was very open to this.

Brian Lehrer: I asked her, does she want to send a message to Netanyahu now to sign on to what Biden and the Saudis seem willing to do, and that she said in that first clip that Netanyahu is willing to do last year. She said this.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: This was the vision of the Israeli government before October 7th. I think October 7th was so brutal and so deeply destructive to the psyche of the Israeli government and the Israeli people that they are not thinking straight. I'm hopeful that we can get Israel back on board because this is the path to peace and this is what should happen as soon as we can end the conflicts. I'm hoping this can happen in weeks and months because this is something that has to happen now before too many innocent lives are lost in both the Palestinians and in Israel.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on this program last week. Robin Wright, New Yorker columnist and longtime journalist and author on the Middle East, my guest. My question for you, Robin, coming out of those clips is, do you see Netanyahu or the non-Hamas Palestinian leadership signing onto this rather than go further into the abyss toward we don't know what?

Robin Wright: First of all, before October 7th, it is true that the United States was negotiating very seriously, an arrangement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Hamas attack may have been, at least in some part, because of the progress that the United States was making. After October 7th and Israel's attack on Gaza, that became much more difficult to achieve. As Saudi Arabia is demanding a two-state solution and an end to Israel's attack, Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly said, "That's not a deal that we are willing to accept."

The United States tries to get around it and say, "Well, down the road, we think he will," and so forth, and the United States has not been willing to call for a ceasefire. The conflict goes on without the prospect of a solution. Now, Secretary of State Blinken has made four trips to the Middle East. The package that he is talking about basically would call for a two-state solution that the Palestinian authority in the West Bank would play some role in governing Gaza.

The problem with peace right now, and it's a tragedy on so many levels, is that there is no party to the current conflict willing to seriously engage. Every past effort, '78 with the Camp David Accords with Egypt and the 1994 with Jordan, more recently with the Abraham Accords started by President Trump and continued by President Biden, there have been parties willing to engage.

Today, no one party is willing to engage or accept that package right now. It's a matter of, is it viable down the road? The problem is you see all these other conflicts that have had different flashpoints, different agenda, different militias involved. Suddenly, they're all intersecting and escalating on many levels. The question is, is the US package now viable? At the moment, it doesn't seem so, even though the US insists that is its policy and its plan.

Good luck because, right now, I don't know how the United States can push this if the Israelis don't accept it. Hamas doesn't want to be governed by the Palestinian Authority. They broke away in 2007 and there've been tensions between the Palestinians ever since. That's one of the reasons we haven't seen any progress because Israel didn't have one party to negotiate. They had to try to engage with two rival parties. One of which wanted to eliminate Israel altogether. As I said before, the Middle East is complicated.

Brian Lehrer: Emily in the Adirondacks wants to react to the Gillibrand clips. Emily, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Emily: Hi, Brian. I think I would start my comment by saying that I'm in my 30s. I experienced 9/11 as a child in Manhattan. Every day, I wish that the mainstream media had not reported that there were weapons of mass destruction being hidden in Iraq when that was not true. I think in terms of solutions, what would preserve human life, what would humanize Palestinians, and what would make people stop saying flagrantly anti-Semitic things would also-- a big responsibility is the mainstream media in the United States having even imbalanced and truthful transparent reporting.

I was really dismayed when the Senator came on last Thursday and you didn't poke holes in a lot of the big and small untruths that she continued to perpetuate. Anything from as big as the 40 babies, which we know has been stated as untrue as a way to validate the violence that we're seeing, but anything as small or a flip of the truth or a bending of the truth to say that people are getting what they deserve because they voted for Hamas in 2006, despite the fact that that was only a fraction of people then.

Half the population of Gaza today is below the age of 18 and they weren't even born. I respect this station so much and I respect you as a journalist so much. Whenever somebody comes on and says something untrue about COVID, for example, you're quick to say, "That's not true, and not only is it not true, but it hurts people. It's dangerous to perpetuate non-truths."

Brian Lehrer: With respect, I feel like I was pushing back on Senator Gillibrand a lot last week when she was supporting the war and saying things like, "Well, they started calling for a ceasefire of the Palestinian supporters on October 8th. They didn't even acknowledge what happened to Israel on October 7th." I said, "Yes, but now, it's January 17th, and so many thousands of people have died."

I pushed to get her on the record as we just heard in that second clip as somebody who has been so supportive of Israel's war effort to say out loud on the show that she urges Netanyahu to get on board with this two-state solution that the United States and the Saudis and others are trying to put together. I hear my own role differently than you do. You can't always follow up on every detail of every individual statement that a guest who's saying a lot of things makes. I get that. There's going to be imperfection always in that respect, but I'm just giving you my side of how I heard that interview and how I tried to push the senator.

Emily: Granted, and I've never had to talk to a US senator on New York City Public Radio before. I'm not as brave as you, but I think I would speak for a lot of your super fans to say that folks have been disappointed in comparing WNYC's reporting on this subject to poking holes and where there are non-truths when people call in, for example, for the past 16 weeks compared to, say, Ukraine or COVID. Years of COVID lies.

Brian Lehrer: I would also say that this is a more complicated situation than, say, Ukraine. There are holes to poke on both sides of it. I feel like we've been very tough on Israel but also appropriately tough on Hamas. You and anybody else can decide. You should see, Emily. I'm not saying poor me, but you should see the complaints that we get from the people who are Israel supporters who say, "Oh, you are taking the Palestinian side all the time." I'm just saying it's so polarized out there that if we're trying to walk a complicated path, we're going to get what you called with. I respect you and keep calling. We're getting a lot of the other side too.

Emily: Sure. I would also say, and I respect that point as well and I can't imagine how hard dealing with all of these comments are, I was also, after 9/11, an educator at New York City's local Holocaust history museum. It was so important to talk to students about the long road of what dehumanizes people and allows for the loss of life. The media and storytelling have so much to do with that. I just urge all reporters and all of your staff to take the greatest responsibility with everything you do because it is the loss of life. It's the loss of life on all sides and it's just so incredibly-

Brian Lehrer: Right, and it is staggering.

Emily: -devastating. Thank you for your work.

Brian Lehrer: Emily, thank you for your call and keep calling and keep holding me accountable when you think that's appropriate. To finish up with our guest, Robin Wright. Robin, to finish where we began on the United States' role in all of this, what ultimately is the United States' interest in the region in 2024? I think, in the past, it was about the Cold War before 1990 and the whole world dividing up between the US and Soviet Union. The US was also dependent on Middle East oil. Now, the Cold War is long over and the US is a fossil fuel giant itself, for better or worse, but the number one exporter of natural gas on Earth is this country. What are the actual US interests in the region as Biden or anyone else sees them?

Robin Wright: There are several issues, but one is the fact that many of our allies are not oil-independent. To continue to support the economy, the western economy, the world economy, the United States wants stability and oil to flow. While we're less dependent on the Middle East, our allies are not. Secondly is the issue of democracy. The United States would like to see more democratic governments in the Middle East.

Tragically, since the Arab Spring, there was an initial round of ousting of dictators, but the young, the protestors were not able to provide a viable alternative. Dictators have reemerged in all but one country. The third factor obviously is Israel. The United States was the first to recognize Israel in 1948 and it continues to be its main ally and also its main source of armaments.

When Israel comes under attack, the United States gets involved. We have been brought into this war. We've got warships deployed in the Red Sea as well as in the Mediterranean, not far from Israel's borders. We've deployed 2,000 more troops. The United States is not saying where. We're very involved as well still in Iraq and Syria with the US forces there trying to contain the remnants of ISIS, which still are carrying out assassinations, bombings, and kidnappings.

Two of the other conflicts that had been brought into this in what I call the 10 wars include the attacks on American forces in Iraq, where we have 2,500, and attacks on the 900 Americans in Syria. Since October 7th, there have been 140 attacks on American forces in those two countries. We have interest in Iraq and Syria still ongoing. This plays out in many ways. Again, it's just hard to see how the United States can contain the violence right now. That's what I'm worried about.

Brian Lehrer: One political question to tack onto that. Maybe this is beyond the scope of your reporting as somebody who covers the Middle East and US policy toward it, but have you looked yet at what Trump would be likely to change if elected or what, if anything, he would likely have done differently since October 7th?

Robin Wright: I do not get into American politics. Middle East wars are enough. I'm not going to get into the conflicts in the United States. I don't think he's made it clear what he might do on the Middle East.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to tack on one more just based on your other answer about limited US influence. Do you think anything can bring Netanyahu back to the position that Gillibrand says he had? I'm not sure that was public at any time before. Now, Gillibrand is saying he had a position in retrospect that would have been open to a Palestinian state. In exchange for Saudi recognition and Arab nation participation in helping to build that state, do you see Biden having any influence on that?

Robin Wright: I'm not sure it's whether Biden has influence as whether Prime Minister Netanyahu has any flexibility. I think he's determined to fight on. He's made that clear. He has said publicly in the last few days, he's not willing to accept a two-state solution, not willing to end the campaign against Hamas. He wants to eliminate Hamas altogether, which, from my perspective, is going to be very hard to do. I think the tragedy is that Hamas was declining in popularity in Gaza before this war. The danger is that even among people who don't like its tactics disapprove in every way of what it did on October 7th and still admire Hamas for having stood up to Israel and the United States.

The danger is that Hamas is a bigger player after this war, at least politically. Prime Minister Netanyahu also has his own political future to consider. As long as the war goes on, he can probably hold on to power. Israel doesn't like to have elections in the middle of a conflict, although I think there are real strains within his coalition government. His political future may depend on what happens with Hamas or in Gaza, so I think he's going to hang tough for a while at least.

Brian Lehrer: New Yorker magazine columnist Robin Wright, also a distinguished fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Her new article in The New Yorker is called, How Ten Middle East Conflicts are Converging into One Big War. Robin, thank you so much.

Robin Wright: Thank you, Brian.

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