Trump Threatened to End Iranian Civilization — What Comes Next?

No. Oh, no. I haven't. I mean, if you were to take it at face value, it's threatening genocide. And it's an unhinged post. It shows that Trump is increasingly really angry about how badly this war is going for him, about the fact that the Iranians have not capitulated despite his superior military capabilities, and he has no one to blame but himself. So he is in a sense painting himself in a corner. But I also, and again I'm saying this only a few hours before the deadline, and at this point the Iranians have given no reason to believe that they're engaging constructively whatsoever with Trump's ultimatum. And yet I firmly believe that Trump will not make good on his threat. And there are a couple of obvious reasons for that. One is that if he did, the United States would be seen as a rogue state by countries all over the world and it would devastate America's standing, influence and power, not least with core allies who would not sit back and tolerate that sort of behavior. It would have a very dramatic impact on the ability of the United States to continue to count on, rely on, coordinate with, share intelligence with allies. That's number one. Number two, it would have enormous impact on the global economy because the Iranians would hit back. They'd hit back in a big way. We've already seen that the Iranians continue to have capabilities to use both ballistic missiles and large numbers of drones which they can hit critical infrastructure targets across the Gulf States which can cause a lot of damage. The big thing they've hit so far that they've really made a difference with is the LNG capacity of Qatar, $20 billion of damage with their strikes. 3 to 5 years to repair it. But we could see a lot more of that. If the desalination plants were destroyed, for example, in Gulf countries, you would have mass exodus from those countries. You would not have the viability economically to continue to support the livelihood of the people that live there. So, this is a huge thing. And ultimately, as much as Trump is angry and narcissistic and short-term oriented and focusing on himself as opposed to the country, you can say all those things, but this is still way beyond what one could plausibly imagine that he would do. So that's the constraint side. That's why there may be, there are lots of ways he can find to get out of this. He can say that the Iranians are actually being more constructive and more tankers are going through, so he's going to give them more time. He can say, I'm hitting this one additional bridge or one power plant. I'm not actually going through with my full threat from 8 to 12:00, but I'm giving you one final offer, and now you've got until Friday or next week or two weeks or whatever it is, right? So, lots of ways he can do it, but the actual threats that have been articulated as they have, he's not going through with those. I mean, I would stake my reputation on that. Even though I have no knowledge of that, it is in my view utterly implausible. Now having said that,

Two things I would want to really caution you about and then wherever you want to go is fine. One thing to caution you about is that the Israelis have engaged in strikes up against at least 10 railroad targets in Iran today. Those are infrastructure targets. They can be used by the military. They are used for civilian purposes, too. The Israelis yesterday blew up a major petrochemical facility in Iran. Second time they've hit such a facility, causing billions of dollars of long-term damage to Iran's economy. So, I mean, if you're Iran, this is even before the deadline. I understand that Israel is the one doing the bombing, not the United States. But from Iran's perspective, those bombs kind of feel the same, right? So the reality is they're fighting against the United States and Israel and Israel is continuing to engage in this level of destruction irrespective of the timing and the deadlines that the Americans are putting forward to Iran. And then the final point I would raise, the final cautionary point which is even though I think it is ludicrous to imagine that the US would use a nuclear weapon in this environment tonight, the civilizational destruction. And I think it's ludicrous to imagine that. Even though I think it is absolutely the case that they will not follow through with bombing them into the stone age from 8 to 12:00 and that tomorrow we wake up and there's no Iran to speak of. It's been Gazified. I don't believe that for a second. But I also understand that we are seeing mission creep. I understand that every day this war goes on, it becomes a little easier to get a little deeper in, to do more damage, to have more people killed, to risk more American servicemen and women, to send more troops. I mean, Trump gave his big speech last week. He was saying two to three weeks, but privately he was saying four weeks. And then a few days later, he was saying, "But if we were just a little more patient than those four weeks, we could take the oil and then we've got all of these opportunities." Right? And this was after the first week of the war. He had a G7 meeting and he told the G7 heads of state that this war is going to be over within days, a matter of a few days. And it is just a question of how they surrender. They are preparing to surrender completely. So we are watching these continued expansion, incremental expansion of America's engagement in this war in a way that if it continues will not only cause unheard of economic damage, could make this war comparable to or worse than the damage that we saw and experienced all of us during the pandemic. But we also could see human damage consequences in Iran and across the region that could have enormous consequence. And those things, I don't think that Trump is thinking about that today. I don't think those are the decisions he is considering taking today. But I absolutely see the knock-on consequences of a few months of this getting you into an environment where you're well over your head. The tide is dragging you in and you can't swim anymore. So, I mean, we should not, despite the fact that I feel very confident about what we're going to see this evening, I don't feel confident at all about where I think we're heading in the medium to long term.

Well, it depends. I suppose it depends on the tenor of the person who is saying it to me because many of the people that are saying those things are folks that are already so far gone in the idea that this guy is Hitler reincarnate and the idea that there are no checks and balances on him, right? So that everything he wants to do he can just do as if he were an actual dictator.

Of course that's not true. Of course it's not true. There are people around him. They are kissing his ass constantly and they're telling him things are going better than they actually are. And that is part of the problem. But there are still constraints. There are still restraining mechanisms. There is Congress. There is a media that actually reports on him. There are polls. There are markets. There are all these things that don't exist in North Korea, right? There are all these things that do not constrain an actual dictator that do constrain Trump. Remember, you know, the United States, we saw through a significant investigation, very well done forensically, is responsible for targeting and blowing up a girls' school and well over a hundred Iranian civilians killed. This was not intentional. It was a mis-targeting. The data had not been updated. It wasn't an AI mistake, but it was a mistake. But Trump's response was to blame the Iranians. It wasn't him. Why? I mean, if he doesn't care and if they're just animals, they're not humans. And if it's all the responsibility of the Islamic Republic, well, then just own it because they don't have human rights at that point. Like if you're really going down that route, if you think that Trump no longer, he's unhinged, he doesn't care at all about human life, then many of the things that he would have done, he would have done differently already.

He's doing outrageous things. I'm just, again, I am pushing back against genocide. I'm pushing back against a nuclear weapon. I'm also pushing back against the intentional targeting of a girls' school, which he did not do. Again, the investigations from the New York Times and other sources were very clear. This was not an order of shock and awe. Let's blow up an Iranian girls' school. They did not intend to do that. They are not trying to maximize civilian casualties. They're just enormously angry that the Iranian regime is not capitulating despite all of their bravado and all of their superior military strength. And you know, it's kind of funny in the sense that what Trump has been saying to the Iranians, again, if you take him at face value, he's been saying this is not our problem and that other countries need to deal with this. This is their problem, right? Well, other countries have been dealing with it. They're worried that they can't get their oil through and so they are paying the Iranians $2 million a ship to get their oil through. Trump is dealing with it. You know, he's worried about oil and gas prices. So, he has suspended sanctions on Iranian oil. Iranian oil. That's money that's going to the Islamic Republic because Trump's revealed preference is I hate these guys. I want them to lose, but I don't hate them so much that I'm willing to take even higher costs for my own gas prices in the United States that I'm going to be punished for. So again, at every step, he is showing that he is constrained. He's not showing that he values human life. He's not showing that he cares about people other than himself. He's not showing that. But he's showing he's constrained. And that is the core, you know, rational conclusion from people that are watching what he is doing and not just focusing on his tweets as if they are somehow a reflection of actual reality. Now, I mean, look, it's hard because we've never had, usually presidents don't say very much in their real-time public statements. And Trump obviously says far too much and he's frequently incoherent. He's frequently self-contradictory and he allows his impulses, his id to act in a completely unrestrained way and the people around him facilitate that. So it makes it harder to analyze and assess this guy. And it also makes it harder because if you're on one side or the other politically in the US or globally and you don't get any benefits from having a nuanced perspective, you know, everybody wants you to say that this guy is either America first and no one has ever been a president like him, no one's ever accomplished much, or he is evil incarnate. He is literally Hitler. Which I mean, neither of those two things in my view are true or useful and so I don't take them as my starting off point. I take my starting off point is I'm going to do analysis. I've spent my entire career trying to understand international relations by the way, frequently not that much on the United States. So I look at the US in the context of how other countries act in similar scenarios and how might I apply that to my own country, the Americans, right? But and then I tell people what I think. Yes. I'm just, it's just honest analysis and if people push back, I'm like, well, okay, I could be wrong, but at least I'm not lying to you.

He might bomb them a bit. Again, the US continues to bomb, but he is not going to make good on the 8 to 12:00 end of civilization.

He will not do that. People watching this now know he has not done that. Right.