Poised and confused: the will-he-won’t-he of Iran strikes

The economist. Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Here's what I would call a 50 cent word semiquincentennial. It means 250th anniversary, and the American experiment is about to have one today, our second chapter of a deep dive into the Economist's archive on the country. And my goodness, there is an insurmountable pile of entertainment out there vying for your free time. However, to choose, we are here to help. Today we've got a recommendation on one thing to watch and one thing not to bother with. First up, though, For weeks, America has been moving military hardware into the Middle East. By now, it's the biggest buildup in more than 20 years. Donald Trump campaigned on a promise not to get entangled in foreign conflicts. But with one country in particular, he he's got history.

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For decades, it had been the policy of the United States never to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. Many decades since they seized control of that proud nation 47 years ago, the regime and its murderous proxies have spread nothing but terrorism and death and hate.

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In his State of the Union address this week, Mr. Trump claimed he preferred diplomacy when dealing with Iran. But in what might just be tactical ambiguity, he didn't rule out an attack.

1:49

We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal. But we haven't heard those secret words. We will never have a nuclear weapon.

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Actually, Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, has said those words many times before. They were in the preamble to the nuclear deal signed in 2015. The one Mr. Trump took tore up three years later. Maybe he just wants to hear them again. Actually, it's not clear what would satisfy him at this point, perhaps not even to him.

2:11

Donald Trump has essentially backed himself into a corner here.

2:33

Greg Karlstrom is our Middle east correspondent.

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He finds himself in a situation where either he has to go ahead with a strike that he doesn't seem particularly keen on doing, or he has to find a way to beat a retreat, to back down from months in which he's promised to take action against Iran.

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And quick recap on how we got here from the idle threats of the past.

2:59

If you cast your mind back to December, which feels like years ago, at this point, we had demonstrations led by shopkeepers in Tehran that quickly turned into a nationwide protest movement. And Trump began posting warnings on social media aimed at the Iranian regime, telling it that do not kill peaceful protesters. If you do that, the United States is ready to come to their rescue. Iran, unsurprisingly, ignored those warnings. It went on to kill at least 7,000 protesters that we know of. The real death toll may be much higher. And so Trump found himself under pressure to make good on those threats. Now, initially, America wasn't in a position really to take action. It didn't have aircraft carriers in the Middle East. It didn't have a sizable military presence in the region. Trump began to order this buildup. First aircraft carrier arrived in late January. A second one just reached the region in the past few days. And so now, after weeks of preparation, America is in a position where, if Trump wants to follow through on his warnings to the regime, the Pentagon is able to do so.

3:05

But in Mr. Trump's state of the Union address, he sort of glossed the topic, but the one thing he mentioned was, again, the nuclear question. How did things turn to that and away from the protests?

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I think what's become clearer over the past two months is that Trump would rather not strike Iran. He would rather use the threat of military force to make some sort of a deal with the Iranians, something that he could sell as a win, and then use as an off ramp from this saber rattling. The problem is, if you want to make the sort of comprehensive deal that the Israelis want, that some of Trump's Republican allies want, a deal that would restrain Iran's ballistic missile arsenal, that would. And its support for regional proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza, that's simply not possible. The Iranians are not willing to discuss those issues. They've flat out refused to negotiate there. And so that leaves the easiest path to a deal as a nuclear only agreement. And a nuclear deal, of course, has been a focus of American diplomacy for two decades, going back all the way to the George W. Bush administration. And so Trump has had two rounds already of talks with Iran's foreign minister. A third meeting is scheduled in Geneva today. But it still seems unlikely that they're going to find a way to a nuclear agreement, I think for two reasons. One is the difference in what the two sides want. The Trump administration, at least in the past, has demanded that Iran give up on uranium enrichment entirely. Iran is not willing to do that. And then I think the other issue is a nuclear deal just doesn't feel as urgent as it did in years past, because the airstrikes that Donald Trump ordered last summer on Iran's nuclear facilities did real damage to those facilities. And so where a year ago, it seemed as if Iran was really, you know, close to the threshold of being able to build a nuclear bomb or at least accumulate a bomb's worth of enriched uranium. They are very far from that point now.

4:26

But the messaging around that from the administration within the administration has been really murky on exactly that point.

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It has on exactly what does Donald Trump want out of this deal? And then is that deal urgent? I mean, we heard a few days ago from Steve Witkoff, his diplomatic envoy, who told Fox News that he thought the Iranians were just a week away, one week away from being able to accumulate a bomb's worth of enriched uranium. There's simply no evidence that's true. And in fact, he was contradicted a few days later by Trump himself, who posted on social media that Iran's nuclear program had been blown to smithereens. He said both of those things can't be true. But I think on the nuclear question, it's important to stress it's not just the assessment of various people in this administration who don't always play straight with the facts. You listen to Rafael Grossi, for example, the head of the UN's nuclear agency. He has not been able to. His agency has not been able to physically visit the sites that were damaged last summer. And so this isn't a perfect assessment, but his view is that Iran is not currently enriching uranium and that most of the highly enriched uranium that it had before the war last summer is currently entombed underground at these sites that were bombed.

6:21

For the sake of argument, let's game this out. If an American strike or strikes come, what do you think that might look like?

7:28

The American military buildup in the region is the biggest air and naval buildup in the Middle east since 2003, since before the invasion of Iraq. It's not just these two aircraft carriers. It's dozens of fighter jets and bombers that have been deployed to bases around the region. So it has the capabilities in place to carry out a sustained days or perhaps even weeks long aerial campaign against Iran. And it also has air defenses in place in Gulf States and Jordan and elsewhere to protect against possible Iranian retaliation. So we're looking at something bigger than what happened last summer. These one and done strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. But what America plans to strike and what it wants to achieve with those strikes, we just don't know at this point. Is it planning to bomb what remains of Iran's nuclear facilities? Is it planning to target Iran's ballistic missile capabilities, which it's used to target Israel numerous times in the past? Or will this be something even bigger? Will this be an effort to decapitate the regime, to assassinate key leaders, perhaps even Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader? We just don't know how ambitious the administration's plan is going to be. And that makes it very hard to assess how successful it might be and what the consequences might be.

7:35

And in the gaming it out, what are Iran's options? What do you think the regime may be thinking?

8:58

In years past, Iran's options would have begun with its allied militias across the region, with groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. Obviously, they have been badly weakened by years of war against Israel. So Iran is going to have to, by and large, retaliate by its it can certainly strike at US Bases in Gulf countries. It did that in a symbolic way. Last summer, in the aftermath of America's strikes on Iran, it carried out a missile attack on the US Airbase in Qatar. It will probably do that again if there is a conflict. And it's also threatened to widen its targets in the Gulf. So not just attacking Qatar, but perhaps the US Naval base in Bahrain or other US Military facilities in neighboring countries, which is a source of a lot of concern for leaders in the Gulf, could also target Israel. I think whether or not it does that will depend on whether Israel is involved in this war. But again, they certainly have capabilities. They have cruise missiles, they have drones, they have a large arsenal, and it certainly will plan to use them.

9:04

Now, along the way there, you've used the phrase saber rattling. And America, Mr. Trump has assembled like quite a lot of sabers. Is there a sense that with that much of a buildup, that something must happen, he must do something?

10:07

For a normal American president, that's probably the case. You could not deploy this many troops to the region and not use them without really risking your credibility. And I think Trump on some level, is probably keen to avoid repeating the mistakes of Barack Obama, who threatened to attack Syria if it used chemical weapons back in 2013 and then ignored his own red line when the Assad regime went ahead and did that. But I think it's Trump and anything is possible. I mean, he could decide to make a deal, even if it's not a very good deal right now, and then turn around and sell that to at least the 35% of the American public that still supports him. So I think he has an opportunity here to do an about face. And if he does that, I don't think most Americans are going to be bothered by it. Polls over the past few days suggest first that majorities of Americans are either opposed to attacking Iran or just not sure about what the US should do. And they're bewildered about what Trump is doing, what he's doing. There was a CBS News poll recently that found almost three in four Americans think Trump hasn't explained his Iran policy. They don't understand his Iran policy. He didn't really offer any clarity during his State of the Union address. And so even as America seems to be on the brink of this imminent conflict with Iran, I would say the vast majority of the American public doesn't know why isn't pushing for it and probably wouldn't mind if Trump found some sort of diplomatic off ramp here to prevent the conflict.

10:20

Greg, thanks as ever, very much for your time.

11:51

Thank you. Jason,

11:53

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12:10

America is turning 250 this year and at least until recently, she was looking just great for her age. The Economist is charting the big moments in the country's history, taking extracts from our own archive to tell the story of the American experiment. We started last month with the birth of American liberalism, the legacy left by the Founding fathers and the greatest stain left by that origin story, slavery. Today we'll look at how that led to a reckoning and a civil war.

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In the 1830s. President Andrew Jackson fought against entrenched elites.

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Annie Crabill is a senior digital editor

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at the Economist and made some small progress towards helping the United States live up to one of its founding principles, all men are created equal. He was the self styled champion of the common man and he made some changes that helped poor white men. But he also doubled down on the subjugation of other groups. 60,000 Native Americans were banished from their ancestral lands by Jackson's Indian removal act, and thousands died as they were forced to march west. Black people and women also saw little improvement. In the late 1840s, the US acquired new land after winning the Mexican American war. This transformed the question of slavery from a regional dispute to a national crisis. Should slavery be allowed in the new territory too? The Economist at the time what a

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slur it is upon this self styled model republic for its most eminent citizens to be contending as to whether slavery shall be extended or not when other civilized nations are abolishing it unequivocally and promptly.

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But America's rulers did not agree. In 1857, Dred Scott, an enslaved black man, sued to obtain his freedom after the death of his owner. The supreme court ruled that black people, whether free or slave, were not and could not be American citizens and that in fact they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect. The court also ruled that Congress had no right to ban slavery in the territories because slaves were property and the property rights of slave owners could not be infringed upon. It remains the worst ruling in the history of the court. Some weeks after the ruling, the economist

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wrote, this verdict is one of the most serious occurrences of the last 20 years and is likely to entail consequences that will shake the Union to its center.

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It certainly did. Northern rage at the decision fueled the rise of a new political party, the republicans. One of its members was a young Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. In 1858, Lincoln campaigned for a democrat's seat in congress on the idea that slavery was wrong. Although he did not win the seat, Lincoln emerged as the leading moral and intellectual opponent of slavery's expansion. Eventually, in 1860, he was voted in as president, to the great consternation of the southern states. After that, southern states began to secede from the union. Believing that Lincoln would abolish slavery, in 1861, Confederate forces fired on fort Sumter, igniting a civil war that would last four years. It remains the bloodiest conflict in American history, killing as many as 700,000 people. The Economist, a classically liberal paper, wrote,

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the southern leaders have unquestionably the whole responsibility of this fatal step. The blood which has at length begun to flow must be upon them and on their children. They originated the quarrel by their passionate desire to extend the shameful institution of which they are so proud. At every fresh turn of the dispute, they have been the aggressors.

17:36

The confederacy lost both the war and the right to own slaves. A new, less imperfect union was born. This chapter ends tragically in a theater in 1865, when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by a Confederate sympathizer. His death came at the dawn of what would become known as Reconstruction, a brief radical remaking of the republic. The states ratified amendments to the Constitution abolishing slavery, guaranteeing birthright citizenship, and protecting the right of black men to vote. Southern legislatures rewrote their constitutions. For a moment, it seemed that multiracial democracy might take root in the former Confederacy. But Reconstruction was short lived. Southern whites began a campaign of racist terror across the South. Federal commitment faltered. By the end of the 1870s, a century of white supremacist rule across the south had begun. See you next time when we'll be looking at the next chapter. Industrial liberalism and its critics.

17:58

As the Economist's culture editor, Alexandra Sewich Bass reads and watches a lot so that you don't have to. She's joining us again this week with recommendations of what should be grabbing our attention and maybe some things that we should avoid. This week. It's a film. Alexandra, what have you got for us?

19:43

On February 27, Dreams, a film by Michel Franco, is coming out in cinemas in Britain. It's already recently out in America.

19:58

I'm glad you're here. I want to take care of you.

20:07

Do you need money?

20:10

Some cash? I got deported from New York. What happened after you got deported?

20:12

It's a social commentary on immigration, class, wealth. It's an intergenerational romance. And it's a film I'd like to recommend this week.

20:20

It sounds like there's a lot going on in this film. Why is it, to your mind, recommendable?

20:28

So the story is about a female philanthropist who's based in San Francisco who has a erotic, obsessive romance with a young Mexican ballet dancer. He comes to San Francisco illegally to be with her and they fall in love. Or so it seems.

20:32

Oh, or so it seems. Is that a spoiler?

20:52

No spoiler alerts for me, I promise. But there are things in the movie that make you question the extent of how much she cares for him.

20:55

And you said it covers quite a few themes, among them, the intergenerational romance, which Hollywood does seem to have a thing about these days.

21:04

That's absolutely true. Hollywood has really enjoyed inverting the traditional age gap. So we've seen a lot of older women with younger men recently on screen. And that was true with Baby Girl, which got a lot of attention when Nicole Kidman starred in it. A Couple years ago, the idea of you. And so this is a woman in her 40s with a younger man. But it also deals with other social themes, like the private versus public face of someone. This is a woman who spends her life doing good. She does a lot of philanthropy in Mexico and charity work, and yet she's not willing to acknowledge this relationship to her family for fear of judgment. And right now, with all the leaks that have come out about Epstein and his associates, that feels very timely about this disconnect between the elite's true behavior and public perception.

21:11

And among the themes you also mentioned was one of immigration. It sounds like a story which hinges on that somewhat.

22:01

Yes. I think that there's always a bit of a randomness to when films are released, because, of course, they've been made years before. But this one comes out at a very interesting moment. Illegal immigration is in the news in America. And one of the themes that this deals with is immigration policy, how it might be weaponized by those in power. And so it feels extremely timely in a way that the filmmaker could not have imagined when he was working on it.

22:07

With all of what you're saying is going on, I wonder if, at its core, is this, to your mind, actually a love story with bells on?

22:35

That is the key question. It is a very erotic story. It's a story of a relationship. And I think in that way, it's very relevant to people. I think sometimes many people will have had a relationship that feels different in public than it does in private. This is taking it to an extreme. I don't want to give anything away. I've pledged not to. But the film does probe whether what was driving this was about control and passion versus love. And I think people emerge with that question.

22:42

Would you call that a flaw of the film or a strength?

23:14

I find the ending of the film one of the strengths. I do feel like there are flaws in the film. There is a plot twist that relies on one of the characters acknowledging their behavior, which feels very unrealistic. So you have to suspend disbelief on that point. So it's a flawed film. But again, my metric for film is whether it doesn't just move you in the moment, but has you thinking about it days later. And for me, it reached that bar and more.

23:17

Nice. And having put that behind us, then tell me about something I should not waste my time with.

23:47

So if you were like millions of people during COVID you watched season one of Bridgerton, a period romance. Did you enjoy it?

23:52

I did not watch it.

24:03

I'm sorry.

24:04

You were too busy watching Tom Hiddleston and the Night Manager again. Yes, Weren't you?

24:05

Over and over again.

24:09

I don't know why.

24:11

My wife just kept suggesting it.

24:12

So I was one of the people who watched Bridgerton and highly enjoyed it. There was something very subversive about the interracial relationship and a period drama. It was an extremely sexy romance. And then they've, of course, been stringing it out. So we're now on season four, which is newly out. New episodes are dropping, and it's lost me. It's one of these television shows that really would have been better off ending after one or two seasons. The Handmaid's Tale was another one. And so I've found it to be a bit disappointing. Interestingly, the new season is not one of Netflix's top shows globally, but the release of the new season has drawn people back to season three and season two, which are among the top shows. So it shows you the value of continuing a show, I think, because it drives people to the back catalog. But in terms of a fulfilling viewing experience, this is not going to be it.

24:16

Alexandra, thanks as always for joining us.

25:11

Thank you, Jason.

25:13

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.

25:33