Lawfare Daily: How Escalations in Lebanon May Prolong the Iran War, with Joel Braunold

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The political incentives for the Israelis is to prevent a deal, at least until the election. And you know, whether they're in the room or not, the Israelis and the Iranians are extremely skilled at making sure that each of them are the worst versions of themselves when it comes to trying to sign a deal. So I have no doubt that using the Lebanese as an excuse or as a way to be able to continue to do that. It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson with Joel Bronnell, the Managing Director of the Center Project and a Lawfare contributing editor. I think the Israelis does no incentive for them to move forward on the Gaza phase two approach with Hamas at this point. And I think that would move forward with legitimate Hamas because you'd have to disarm them and put them in a Palestinian polity. And so I think that the Israelis are slow playing at giving as many obstacles as possible to get Hamas to say yes. Today, we are talking about recent escalations in Lebanon and what they mean for the broader war with Iran. So Joel, we have seen a real cycle of escalation, a kind of familiar cycle of escalation happen in the Middle East, in particular around between Israel and Lebanon in the past two weeks or so. A cycle of violence that in particular has a direct bearing on a number of broader regional questions among them, including the US-Israel-Iran War, which is in some sort of negotiations process where the White House keeps saying we are close to an agreement to reopening the Strait and reaching some sort of resolution, but one has not manifested despite several weeks of the White House saying that. And that makes this Lebanon conflict really a major consideration, even more so than it might be on its own merits because it's so tied into this broader regional conflict. So talk to us about what this most recent cycle of escalation is, what kicked it off, how we saw the different parties respond and where it leaves this very important kind of keystone element of the broader regional conflict. Scott, it's great to be with you and Laughar again. What's the lebanon of it all, this sort of a big question and an important one. So I think let's start the story, you could start this story decades ago, years ago, weeks ago, days ago, but I think just for the listeners to understand, Khazbullah has been seen mainly as the most important Iranian proxy in the region. It has been the strongest proxy. It has been the one that the majority of Israeli military planners had been worried about far more than Hamas. That's why there were so many technical strategic, technical brilliant operations like the Pedro operation and others that had managed to decapitate Hamas. There had been a lot of planning and execution for sort of trying to deal with what they thought the Israelis felt could have been an existential threat from the north given the strength of Khazbullah, its missile array and everything else. On the latest part of the Iran war that sort of kicked off in February, as Israel and the US were bombing Iran, there was a sense in Israel, would Khazbullah take part? Khazbullah had been pretty decimated from the previous round between Israel and Khazbullah that had started off with the pages and everything else. And so there was a question whether Khazbullah had reconstituted enough to really participate in this and that the original Israeli planners of having tens of thousands of missiles taking out skyscrapers and Tel Aviv would happen. And the hope was that they had degraded Khazbullah enough that that would prevent. Early on in I think in day three of the war, there was sort of one or two rockets that were shot from Khazbullah and in many ways as I saw that as the opportunity to once again now go in and sort of take Khazbullah out. And so look, we now have a pretext, they shot at us. We said if you shoot at us, we're going to go in with overwhelming force, whether it was Khazbullah, whether it was an air and IRGC commander, it's unclear. Either way, that was the context the Israelis needed. And so alongside the Israeli Iran front, there was an Israel Southern Lebanon front, where Israel started to attack pretty viciously in the north and Khazbullah responded in kind and rockets were falling on northern communities. So as the US Wandaan started to go to a ceasefire, the big question in Israel's mind was like, look, we're against any deal like that would leave, you know, the three points of the war as we've gone through, nuclear materials, proxies, ballistic missiles. But for Israel, one of the most important things strategically was to ensure that there was no linkages of the fronts. That what happened in Lebanon between Lebanon and Israel was about Beirut. And what happened with Tehran and DC and Tehran and Jerusalem was about that. But that Tehran could not dictate what was happening in Lebanon, because if they could, it was a unity of fronts and strengthened the proxy network, which was one of the objectives that Israel wanted to make sure that didn't happen, that it didn't want this ring of fire around them. And so as DC was negotiating through the Pakistanis at one point and now the Qatari is sort of what a ceasefire would look like, the Israelis equities were like, you cannot restrain our action when it come to Lebanese. And if you remember, you know, we've been in this never ending is a ceasefire, is it not a ceasefire with Iran? But sort of, I think it was like 90 to get days ago when we started off this ceasefire, it was unclear that was Lebanon included or was it not? It seemed like the grand field marshal of Pakistan said it was included. But very quickly, the Israelis kept firing and it sort of seemed like you could continue firing backwards and forwards, but Beirut was ring fence. Because if you remember, very quickly after the ceasefire on April 8th, Israel had what in Beirut was called Black Monday, where they hit so many targets in Beirut very quickly, flattened a lot of office blocks, which people are this was straight after the ceasefire. And there was a sense that this whole thing could spiral out of control. And so the Trump administration did, I think I mentioned this on law for at the time, something that I thought was very smart, which was that they created a direct Beirut to Jerusalem track, which is kind of historic to try and say, look, if we're empowering the government of Lebanon, and we're empowering the LAF, you can work out a ceasefire there. And then, you know, that's what you're dealing with. And if that's a ceasefire, it's not the IRGC and it's not Tehran dealing with your ceasefire, it's Beirut. And so there's this there's been rounds of ceasefire talks that have been happening between Lebanon and Israel hosted in Washington, trying to work out could this ceasefire be stable. And while it's been going on, you know, President Trump says a ceasefire in the region is just firing more moderately. It seemed like as long as Beirut was ring fenced off, there could be sort of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, but it would be going backwards and forwards. Now at different times, there was a question of who was party to the ceasefire and was Hezbollah party for it. So every time this ceasefire really shook to its core, they got back into Washington and the aim was to re strengthen the ceasefire. And, you know, President Trump said we're talking to Hezbollah and Hezbollah has agreed they were using the Speaker of the Parliament, a Speaker Berry to sort of do that. But it was very unclear if Hezbollah was agreeing and is that Tehran telling Hezbollah to agree. But what basically happened is that Hezbollah has been starting to attack different Israeli positions both in the north and Israeli soldiers who have taken over the southern of Lebanon. The Israeli position on southern Lebanon is that they are actually just decimating in the first 10 kilometers, the villages and the towns in south Lebanon, south of the Latini, trying to give themselves a buffer zone to prevent Hezbollah coming back there. The Lebanese like this is crazy. But in many ways, that was the majority of their restraint that they were going up to there. But there's been a push from the Israeli military to say, listen, we can't just push Hezbollah further north and they can still fire rockets that would hit our towns and our positions. We can't be restrained. Like if we see a Hezbollah target in Tehran, we see them in Dakhreya, you know, Dakhreya, which is like a village in a section in south Beirut, we should be able to go after them. And we can't be restrained by these diplomatic niceties. So there's been a big domestic push on the Israelis to push forward. The Trump administration has been clear, though, that Beirut solved limits because that would affect the Iranian discourse. So I know this is a lot, but this is sort of like the complexities of what's going on. So what happened that seems last week was that Hezbollah, after another ceasefire, where like there was like, we're all ceasefiring and everyone's doing it, Hezbollah says we're not linked to this ceasefire. They shot some drones that hit into Israel. And the Israelis are like, okay, we'll hit an empty target in Dakhreya in Beirut, basically a Hezbollah sort of headquarters that doesn't have a lot of people there. But we'll hit them there to show that we can. And so they did that. And the Iranians like, great, if you did that, now we're going to bomb Israel. And they shot rockets and missiles over to Israel, so direct Iran to Israel. And that's when you had President Trump said, Israel, don't you dare respond? You know, like you've all shot your rockets, you hit Beirut and they hit you. And as I said, we can't do that, we have to hit back. They then shot back. And President Trump looked kind of silly after saying no. And he got back on the phone with Prime Minister Netanyahu. And apparently the the pilots were on the tarmac, they were ready to do massive infrastructure damage to Iran. And President Trump talked them off and said, you cannot do that and sort of restrained them from that. And so again, we're back in this weird dynamic where the Israelis are having operations sort of across Lebanon, but not in Beirut. That seems to have satisfied the Iranians with Beirut's off limits. That's okay. And it's it's very uncomfortable as we go into the domestic politics of Israel about why that's the case. But fundamentally, Scott, from all of that, just to try and understand it, the Israelis want to make sure that if they negotiate a compromise with the Lebanese, so right now the compromise is that the Lebanese armed forces will have bubble areas where they take out Hezbollah and that they're in charge, right? If we want to do that, that is negotiated between us and the Lebanese. And if they can't restrain Hezbollah from attacking us, we will attack Hezbollah wherever it is. The Iranians are saying to the Americans and to the other mediators on that, if the Israelis attack Beirut, we will attack them. We're not willing to. And that is the fundamental strategic disagreement between Jerusalem and D.C. Jerusalem cannot afford for there to be a linkage of the fronts. D.C. doesn't really care. And that they've got this diplomatic process between Beirut and Jerusalem. And that should be enough. But you know, if we need to keep the Iranians from stopping Hezbollah from shooting, that's okay if we need to keep that calm down. And for the Israelis, that linkage is unforgivable. D.C. So in the last week, we've seen this exchange of fire between the Israelis, the Iranians, Iranians hitting Israel, Israel hitting the Iranians, Israelis hitting the Lebanese, Hezbollah. In the midst of this, the part of this that has gotten the most attention here in the United States isn't actually the violence that's been involved. It's been a notable phone call between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. One, by an account that appears to be leaked by the White House itself, I would guess, I don't know who else would be in a position to confirm this. And I don't think the Israelis are going to be leaking it. And which President Trump basically told Netanyahu, you're crazy. What are you doing? I saved you from going to jail. We need you to stop this. And then Trump later in public remarks into the media said, essentially, look, I call all the shots. BB doesn't call any of the shots on this. This all took place before the last round of Israeli strikes on Iran, as I recall. So almost a direct kind of response, arguably, or at least the timing did not look great after in response to Trump's claims of calling the shots. And having directed Netanyahu not to reciprocate, not to follow up on additional cycle of violence, what do we make of this conversation and the apparent decision of the Trump administration or someone in the Trump administration to leak it to make a public case about it? And what does it tell us about that strategic tension between the United States and Israel, who are, of course, the two that were working hand-in-hand when they started the conflict with Iran on February 28th? It's confusing because there's multiple different conversations, some that were leaked and some that were public. So it appears that last week there was a conversation between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump where there were expletives and all of these different things, that Barack Ravid reports on people saying, no, it's not true. And then basically Trump confirms it to the New York Post and everyone else in terms of like, you know, you're crazy, you're doing this stuff. And then separately, after Netanyahu orders the IDF to strike, as I said, Beirut, and then the Iranians attack Tel Aviv, and the North, there's another phone call. But these phone calls are very interesting. These weren't secret phone calls. President Trump calls Barack Ravid and also calls channel 11, a different channel than Israel, and basically says, I'm about to call Prime Minister Netanyahu and tell him not to respond. So all these people who say, oh, he's playing 5D chess and this and that, I don't think there's any way that President Trump wants to look weak domestically. And if he's publicly saying to the Israeli press, I am going to tell your Prime Minister not to strike, he, as in President Trump, will look weak if Prime Minister Netanyahu defies him. So you once he's made these calls, and this was at the earlier this week, so today is the 10th of June. So I think this was on Monday. There was a or over the weekend, like time has no meaning anymore. There's a question about whether Prime Minister Netanyahu has to respond. The entire political system is saying he has to respond. Right? The opposition is killing him, his coalition is killing him. You can't, you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu is famously said, the most important thing that a Prime Minister of Israel needs to do is to be able to say no to an American president when it's our interests. And he basically goes forward and issues strikes against Iran. They were against a petrochemical plant that they claim was utilized for ballistic missile production. But these aren't sort of attacks on the oil fields or on the power plants or anything else. explicitly avoided those targets with what some people read as a nod towards Trump's. Maybe that's a face-saving maneuver. But it's still a direct repudiation of President Trump who publicly went on Israeli television and basically said he's not allowed to do it. And then also went to the FT and says I call the shots. And then Netanyahu does it. So in many ways that shows you the limits of even President Trump ability to restrain the Israelis. Like when it comes to like we have been fired upon by Iran, we will respond. There's nothing that anyone can do to prevent that response. You could limit it. You could do other things, but they were going to respond. But it seems that President Trump had a second phone call with Prime Minister Netanyahu the next day and basically said look, and apparently according to reports, it was a lot calmer and said you do you. But if you go by yourself now, you're on your own. We are close to a deal and you will wreck it. And that was enough for Prime Minister Netanyahu to call back the planes that were going to go apparently and hit major infrastructure sites in Iran. But later, you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu sometimes briefs the media by saying a senior Israeli official, you know, it was briefed to the Israelis in the cabinet. Basically, Netanyahu said we might reach a situation where we're going to have to deal with the Iranians completely alone without the Americans. And that will come with a lot of international isolation and potentially weapons restrictions. But if that's what we need to do, that's what we need to do. And so what I take from the calls this week is that the Israelis don't want to see a bad deal. And they're very worried that this could be a bad deal, that they will not allow Tehran to dictate the escalation ladder towards them. And yet the Lebanese problem remains, right, that you can't live in a situation where you're completely restrained from attacking Qazbullah. But it does appear at least right now that the ring fencing around Beirut still exists, that they're not going to strike Beirut and then Iran won't strike Israel. And in many ways, that's a strategic failure for the Israelis, because that is a relinkage of the fronts in a way that they feel uncomfortable. However, it is a victory in the sense that the Iranians did say in their statements when they were willing to stop firing on Israel, that Israel must also stop their operations in south Lebanon, Israel has not stopped their operations in south Lebanon, and Iran has not responded, which demonstrates that the sort of when you when you toss out all of the rhetoric and the face saving stuff, it seems like the status quo is the Israelis and the Lebanese can continue to try and figure out how they can deal with the problem of Hezbollah. Israel can't attack Beirut without there being an Iranian response, but everything else won't threaten at least the deal as such, though given US Iranian currently responding on strikes to each other, I don't know if we're going to get to a deal, if we're not going to get to a deal, who knows. But for the Israelis, no deal is better than a bad deal. And the longer that it moves away from a deal, the better strategically is for them. And I'd argue politically, it is for Netanyahu as well. So let's dig into what a bad deal would look like to the Israelis. The main issue you've hit on is this front linkage. They are concerned about Lebanon because it's approximate, it's a real threat. Hezbollah was traditionally, I think before October 7th seen as the greatest, most direct threat to Israel, still a very real threat to spiping substantially diminished by Israeli military operations the last few years. But there's obviously nexus of other issues implicated by the Iran conflict, and particularly the nuclear file. This is the focus of the Trump administration. It's the focus of the American political scene for a variety of reasons, at least in part because of Trump's personal involvement in breaking down the JCPOA deal that a decade ago was supposed to forestall an Iranian nuclear program. Traditionally, that is an issue set that has been framed in substantial part, not just in terms of US interests, but in terms of Israeli security interests. Israel was always seen as the most proximate realistic target of an Iranian nuclear attack, if there was one. And that's something we've heard, I think, even Prime Minister Netanyahu invoke as a possibility just this past week in justifying some of his actions. So how does that fit into this picture in terms of Israeli concerns? What do they want to see out of this deal? Or is the nuclear file a little bit of a red herring in terms of where they see their most proximate real security interests? Are they more concerned about proxy networks breaking down Hezbollah and Lebanon, perhaps limiting Iran's ability to back other proxies that are a regional problem for Israel and Gaza and elsewhere? And then also part of this is the economic pressure. Obviously, that's the big driver on the United States and frankly, most of the global economy is this rate of hormones being shut down. How real are those economic pressures for Israelis? How insulated are from them relatively compared to the Americans, Europeans, others that have kind of a vote in this picture? And what does that tell us about the timelines that they have in the increasing war of attrition that's happening between Iran and the United States and now, frankly, Israel and Hezbollah to some extent as well? So a big question. Firstly, the Israeli strategic and I'd even argue political readers align that the number one thing that a deal has to deal with is the nuclear file. There's no differentiation there. I think the worry is that the Iranians will play the Americans. The reason that they were very upset, the Israelis with the JCPOA, was they felt the sunset provisions, everything else that the Iranians would cheat on the deal. And even if they didn't, they'd be in such a strong position post the sunset of the deal, they could raise towards a nuclear bomb. One of the Trump insays says, no dust, no cash, great, get rid of the nuclear dust that's under the sites, get rid of all of the enrichment, enriched uranium, get it all out, and then fine, like we can talk about a deal, but the Iranians don't want to go there. For the Israelis, the threat of the straits of the move being closed is not that relevant for them. Their economy is not as dependent on their oil comes from Azerbaijan, and others, they've got their own natural gas fields in the eastern Med. They're not massively exporting through the straits of Hamuz. That's not their problem. That's a golf problem. That's not their problem. So if the Iranians choose to threaten the region through the straits of Hamuz and give up their nuclear program, from the Israelis perspective, great, you can work around that through a different regional integrative model of pipelines and other things. And you'd have to worry about nukes. So the nuke file is definitely the big issue. And I think there's a big worry, as there has always been with the Trump administration, that Trump's desire to get a deal will be a bad deal. We're already going to timelines, 10 years, 20 years, what does that look like? What is given to the Iranians in return? There's this sort of like sell that this isn't going to be the JCPOA, because I think Vance went on Fox News over the weekend and said, we will have a real inspections regime, and the JCPOA didn't have a real inspections regime. I mean, I think that the authors of the JCPOA would push back pretty hard on that, but whatever. There's an attempt to sell that this is going to be a different, better deal. And even the very big skeptics of the deal, when you look at sort of the FDD types and others who are speaking online, they're still selling, look, we have deteriorated and we've sort of disassembled a lot of the Iranian military might. But yeah, if that's true, how is it that America's hitting still radar array and anti-aircraft? I thought we got rid of all of that anti-aircraft and radars before. Like every time that we think that we've been told all of this stuff has been destroyed, suddenly it's back again and we're destroying it again. So it seems very confusing about what really has been deteriorated in terms of Iranian assets and what hasn't been. So the Israelis are primarily concerned about that. But what they're also concerned about, for them, it's a three-part thing. It's nukes, it's proxies and it's ballistic missiles, because the proxies is the way that Iran threatens the region. And the ballistic missiles is how they directly gain strength in order to threaten people. And so the Israelis would want to see a weakened Iran that will eventually lead to regime change. The ultimate desire of the Israeli policy is to force regime change and have a different regime. And if that forces Iran to splinter into separate factors, they don't care. It's not their part of the region. It takes out a regional actor. If you're Saudi or you're the Gulf GCC cases, having a failed state of Iran is terrible for you, like in terms of what that would mean in terms of your own domestic security and others. So I think that the GCC are trying, even the UAE, trying to work out how they can have a counterbalance. Like if Iran's going to stay, how can we have an equilibrium with them so that they don't threaten our core domestic interests? And then at the same time, how do we have an equilibrium with the Israelis so that they threaten our core domestic interests? So like, you know, there's going to be a regional rebalancing. For the Israelis, anything that leaves the Iranian regime standing is bad. But if you have to rank the badness, nuclear filers definitely A, B, and C, and then the other things go under that. And so I think there's a big worry about what's being developed on the nuclear filer. And again, when you listen to JD Vanter's statements over the weekend, where he says we could have a deal that's in the best interest for America, even if it's not the same interest for Israel, that that perks up Israeli is in terms of what that's worrying about. You've got the DIA report about Israeli spying on America going up and all this sort of, you know, the general atmospherics in America that, you know, are Israeli and US interests aligned when it comes to this and what does that mean? So I think there's a lot of there's a lot of worry in Jerusalem, because in many ways, 16 years of policy since 2006, or longer than that, so 20 years of policy from Netanyahu about putting a target on a nuclear Iran, and then it needs a military solution. Okay, so it's been tried. So right now, the question is, do we double down on that strategy? And do we try even harder? Or has it run its course? And if it's run its course, what's the next strategy? And these are the debates that are happening. But I'd say, Scott, there's some more worrying stuff that's going on outside of just the proxies. You know, you heard President Trump last week throw in the Abraham Accords, basically saying to the Saudis, you know, join the Abraham Accords and everyone else Qatar and Pakistan and Turkey who already has diplomatic relations with us. You know, like join the Abraham Accords, you know, if I'm going to do all this work for you. And in many ways, that's a very worrying thing. It's not because you can be pro against the Abraham Accords. It's because if you assume that the military strategy has run its course, and let's assume that Saudi doesn't join the Abraham Accords because Trump just told them to. And let's assume that the war restarts, right? And let's assume that Iran hits something in Saudi that's valuable to them. You can imagine the headlines the next day in Jerusalem and DC saying, well, if you had just agreed to the Abraham Accords, then this wouldn't have happened to you. What's your average Saudi going to think like you're going to not only are you trying to force us to be humiliated, but we've now had our core assets being destroyed. And you're saying it's our fault. I think you could bury regional integration for the next generation. So you're taking one potential optimistic thing in the region and throwing it onto the all-impile of like military strategy on Iran. And that's a very risky proposition. So for the Israelis, you know, the Abraham Accords needs to be more strategic than just a political win, right? To sort of get out of the current quagmire. And I think that's one of the reasons they've been pushing it. So that's a lot of like unpacking. But I think for the Israelis, the nuclear file is the most important file, but it needs to be solved in a way that Iran does not control and get to have its enriched uranium and it can't enrich on its stuff. And again, we're getting back to all the traditional arguments that we had throughout the Obama years. You know, can you get a deal that the Iranians will agree to that is that harsh? I don't know, the Iranians want reparations from the war damages, straights of Homoes, all this stuff. And so the Israelis equities on the economic pressure is not the same as the Americans and America's allies, because they don't that doesn't hurt their economy in the same way. And in terms of timelines, the most important timeline in as well as the election. So Israel will go to the polls sometime between September 15 and the 27th. Prime Minister Netanyahu has promised total victory. There has not been total victory on any front. Hezbollah is still standing, Hamas is still in Gaza, the regime in Tehran still exists. So how does he sell what he's doing? I think that what's important is that you can't get to a perspective where there's a deal with the Iranian regime that strengthens it during this time. So the political incentives for the Israelis is to prevent a deal, at least until the election. And whether they're in the room or not, the Israelis and the Iranians are extremely skilled at making sure that each of them are the worst versions of themselves when it comes to trying to sign a deal. So I have no doubt that using the Lebanese as an excuse or as a way to be able to continue to do that. Hey, it's Jake Humphrey here from High Performance. 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That is a kind of genre no one had attempted before and no one's attempted since. Pompey, the perfect gift for Father's Day. You're making decisions that matter to a lot of people. What about your ideas? Ideas for what you want your money to do. Ideas that need the time and advice they've never been given. At RBC wealth management, with over a hundred years of expertise, our advisors build plans around your ideas, not just your assets. Ideas happen here. Talk to us at RBC wealth management. Capital and any income from it is at risk. I want to circle back to the Israeli domestic politics, which clearly has been a part of this picture. Before I do, though, I want to spend a little bit more time with this US-Israeli relationship because these dynamics are odd. You hit, I think, the nail on the head with a couple of data points that are worth noting, the JD Vance comments, the decision to leak this call with Netanyahu. We know this is occurring against a backdrop where you have a substantial voices in the Republican Party, and particularly in the kind of mega-wing, or at least the restraint-oriented corners that often affiliate with the mega-wing of the Republican Party that have been openly skeptical and critical of the US relationship with Israel, up to and including participation in this conflict. Different stripes, different people have different limits, but that's kind of a definitely a tenor associated with Tucker Carlson and an increasing element of that corridor of the Republican Party. At the same time, we're also seeing strong shifts on the Democratic side about views towards the United States relationship with Israel, particularly driven by the concerns over the Gaza conflict, the handling of the Gaza conflict with the Biden administration, which is a huge internal schism in the party leading up to the last presidential election. All around, you're just seeing that the US-Israeli relationship is in a state of flux and political contestation in a way that I don't think I've seen in my adult lifetime. I don't think many people at this point that are still with us at this point, except for some of our oldest relatives and friends. What does this tell us about the type of leverage Trump has over Netanyahu and vice versa? The Trump administration and Netanyahu have historically worked hand and glove in a lot of different contexts, particularly during the first Trump administration. Netanyahu got to announce the recognition of Israeli claims over the Golan Heights. That's the degree to which we saw a lot of coordination. Early in this administration, it seems like leaning in that same direction. In part, you saw the Trump administration cracking down on speech in support of Palestinians, a major pillar, early pillar of its immigration policies in a very controversial, constitutionally questionable way. We've seen a lot of engagement, yet you saw tension and push back against the Israelis around Gaza in an effort to get into Gaza deal, as you and I have discussed. What does this all tell us about what the dynamic of this relationship is likely to be? Because if it comes down to the Israelis and the Americans just have fundamentally different interests, one is either going to have to dictate to the other, or the other is going to be able to be a spoiler for what they want to accomplish. Israel is going to stop the Trump administration from getting the deal at once, or the Trump administration is going to get the deal at once and either cut the Israelis out, ignore them, or somehow force them to concede and play along with some version, at least of what they're trying to get out of it. How much leverage does one side have over the other to accomplish either of those outcomes effectively? Is that tell us something about the trajectory of this relationship given that we have security assistance agreements coming to expiration soon? We see an ongoing debate about how to handle security assistance Israel going on around the NEAA that's currently being kind of debated in the House and soon in the Senate. Is this a really representative experience that tells us something about where this whole relationship is headed? I mean, we could do three hours on this. Maybe that's a second podcast. Yeah. Second podcast because there's a lot to unpack. Look, I will remind avid listeners of our conversations. If you go back to the podcast we recorded just before, after President Trump was elected, but before he was inaugurated, we spoke about this and we said, he'll do everything for the pro-Israel camp domestically and he will undercut Israel's strategic interests in the region because he's a deal maker. In many ways, that wasn't prophetic. It was one of the options and it seems to be the one that's come out. Ultimately, he gives you everything you want domestically and strategically in the region. He's friends with a lot of the people that the Israelis find very frustrating from the Qataris to the Turks to now saying, we're going to be rebuilding half of Iran if we get half the oil. What does that mean? Then you can't bomb anyone because you could be bombing US contractors. All of these different things and I think from the Israelis, as we said at the time, with the Trump administration, it's like going to the casino. You could win everything or you could lose your house. In many ways, that's a very uncomfortable way to be. I think that when you look at the broader context of the USSR relationship, you're seeing a paradigmatic shift in both parties for different reasons. I think on the Democratic side, you sort of seeing the death of the values-based relationship. I think that Democrats don't understand what Israel wants. The Democrats are very clear about what they're against. They're against settlements, home demolitions, they're against the conduct in Gaza. They want peace, but they don't know what Israel wants. Israel hasn't defined post-October, even pre-October 7th, there was something on normalization and some bone to the Palestinians. But post-October 7th, Israel hasn't defined what it wants. Until it says what it is for, Democrats don't know what to do with Israel. I think we're seeing that in primary after primary. We're seeing that as the debates in the party because the party wants to have a values-based foreign policy in some regards. Yes, of course, there's interest, but if we can't speak to our values and if Israel doesn't tell us what it's for, how can we be for it? I don't know what it is. If Israel turns into Iran, I don't think it's going to, but if it does, why should we be for it? There's no reason. When you look at some of the trends and what's going on in the West Bank and what's going on in Gaza and the voices that are heard and the impunity of action and the horror show of lots of different things, I'm not for that. Tell me what I should be for. That's on the Democratic side. On the Republican side, I think it's always been an interest-based conversation. I think there has been a religious element amongst some of the evangelical community. I think that's a generational shift. I think that it's very difficult, I think, in the Republican world that if you are not for Netanyahu, do you have a place in the party of people who have traditionally dealt with this issue? In Democratic politics, you've got everything from like APAC to JVP, Jewish voice for peace, and everything in between. In the Republican side, it doesn't really exist. The moderate position is like, BB is okay. The extreme position is like, Bang V is great. What in between and who do you go to? I think it has been a very interesting growth in Palestinian Christian advocacy. I think that when you listen to JD Vance, the patriarch of Jerusalem was just in the White House last week, meeting with Trump and speaking about the plight of basically probably Palestinian Christians directly to him. There's a different angle to that. We have an evangelical ambassador who, of course, is very pro-Israel, but we've got a Catholic vice president. There's a lot of Christendom in this stuff. I think that changes the relationship. I don't think that the Israelis, and I've said this before, I think that the right in Israel misunderstands the right in America. I think they think that they hate Palestinians, and I don't think that's correct. I think that the right in America is very skeptical about the Palestinian authority, but actually doesn't hate Palestinians at all. When they perceive that the Israelis are behaving in a supremacist way towards specifically Palestinian Christians or Christians in the region, and we've seen images of that, sadly, quite a few times over the past few months, that really offends them, and then that makes them question the relationship. Then when it comes to interests, the Iran War in many ways got is pushing that to the edge. The Iran War is not popular in America. The Trump base will do what Trump wants, but it doesn't mean that the Iran War is popular with them. It's just because Trump said it. I think that's really challenging as this goes on and on and on, and to the extent that this can be blamed on someone else. I think President Trump has always been very happy if there's been a bad situation to blame someone else for that situation. In many ways, the phone calls of this past week can be laying the groundwork if he wants to. Though I wouldn't say that there's a massive schism between Trump and Netanyahu. They've always found a way to work together, but if Netanyahu doesn't look like he's going to be a winner when it comes to the election, does Trump start hedging and looking at other candidates? Does he strongly back Netanyahu? What does that look like? Because Trump likes backing winners, and I don't think that's there. I think that when we look at both the next two and a half years of the Trump administration, the region sees Israel as America's responsibility. Trump is going to need to restrain Israeli action if he doesn't want them to play spoiler, and he's going to have to find a way to do that. We've seen some limits and some non-limits, but for him, it's not about threatening aid relationships or MOUs. He just basically dictates and screams at them because people don't want to get on the wrong side of Trump. Because what could he possibly do if you do get on the wrong side of Trump? There's so many different factors of what that could do if you do. There was a CBS report that he said that he was going to turn off missiles to defense to Israel against Iranian missiles should they go by themselves. I could see him doing that. If he's like, go by yourself, fine, I'm telling Senkant to stand down. What does that do? What does it do if he stops allowing them to tap on the weapons stores, the cash deposits that exist in Israel that they're allowed to tap on? There are things that can be done that can really challenge that. And also, just politically, he doesn't really care about the UN, but it's a signal to the region if he starts really investing in Turkish modalities rather than in Israeli ones. And so I think that there are things. So I think we're entering into opening up what are US Israel interests. And when you open up that Pandora's box, Scott, there's a lot of things that are sacred cows that are put on the table. So we've seen Castro talk about Israel's nuclear deterrence, publicly representative Castro and ask Marco Rubio about that. We've seen Tim Kaine and others ask, is Senkom obeying and working with Israeli evacuation orders in Lebanon? There's a lot of interoperability questions around Section 224 of the NDA. Does that really create a dependency and procurement? Does it not? I think that Quincy was a little bit overblown in their analysis, but this is stuff that has been going on quite quietly and now it's becoming a political issue for people. And as we move from the MIU to like join from aid to sort of co-investment, what does that look like and how can there be restraints on that? So that is a long way of saying, I think the Iran War has been an accelerant in the Republican party to really question things from an interest level in the same ways that Democrats have got there because of a lack of what they see as shared values at this point. And both of the parties are coming to the same conclusion that we need to examine this. I don't think they're going to land in the same spot, but if you're an Israeli strategist, it is an urgent blinking red light that you need to repair your relationships, not just in the Democratic Party, but I'd argue in the non-Marco Rubio parts of the Republican Party as well. So we got a tense of the domestic position here in the United States. Let's go back to the Israeli domestic conversation. We know we have an election forth coming. Talk to us about how this issue, the Lebanon conflict that brought Iran conflict, fits into the electoral dynamics, how the opposition is handling it, and how it integrates with the other two outstanding issues, which we should touch on while we're here, which are Gaza, of course, where we're still in theory, have a peace process ongoing, although it's hit lots of rocks recently. And then the West Bank, the area that has traditionally been a huge flashpoint, I think that a lot of people thought was going to be the big flashpoint that Biden administration did when it came into office, and yet has somehow of the different fronts Israel is facing kind of fallen in a little more quiet, at least in terms of Western media attention, but has huge implications, it has huge changes in policy implemented by this administration, and has been a huge source of tensions there as well. So talk to us about those issues as well, how this Lebanon issue fits with all of those. So let's start with Lebanon. It was interesting over the past two, three months, and it's become ever more apparent, there has been a feeling amongst the Israeli population that we're reaching the limits of just military power, which is interesting, right? And in some ways, Trump forced that by forcing a ceasefire between the Lebanese and the Israelis, and Netanyahu therefore needing to own it. And so then you've got sort of different veins in the Israeli polity saying, well, maybe we also need a diplomatic horizon with the Lebanese that can deal with Hezbollah because there's only so far we can bomb them. And in many ways, sort of a few weeks ago, the Israelis moved the positions up and took over the castle of Buffant. And that has a very emotive place in Israel's heart. They've literally, literally have seen this movie before. There was a movie called Buffant that Joseph Cedar made at Wollin Oscar that was about the pointlessness of the occupation of southern Lebanon between 1982 and when Eid Barak evacuated in 2000, just soldiers dying for no reason, Hezbollah growing famously, it looks like heaven, but it feels like hell, all this stuff. And so Israeli grandparents who saw their children die, or very threatened they were now watching their grandchildren basically make the same mistake. And even, you know, there's a lobby in the north of Israel called 1701 named after the UN resolution, the represents 100,000 people in the north, and they had been very hawkish. But after the last ceasefire talks, they even tweeted in English, it seems that President Trump saying we support sort of a ceasefire in some ways, because they understand that there has to be a diplomatic horizon, they can't just live by the sword forever, the communities won't recover, and that there has to be something. So I think that on the Lebanese father is this desire for this to work. And yet, for this to work, Hezbollah needs to not upset the apple cart, because you're going to need enough time for the LAF to get strong enough to do its work. And to give that time, you're going to need Tehran to also agree to that, which strengthens the very thing you're trying to weaken. So the Israelis are stuck in a Gordian knot, where if you want the diplomacy to work with, you know, the Lebanese state, it needs to be strong enough that it can take on Hezbollah. And you need to not be humiliating it. Like when Israel last week had a strike that killed some members of the LAF, that just humiliates the LAF and makes people feel like, well, Hezbollah, the only defenders of Lebanon. So how do you do this without, you know, creating a civil war in Lebanon is a very complicated situation. You know, you need to show you're not at war with the Shiites, you're just at war with Hezbollah. And it's a very delicate dance that a military hammer alone doesn't do. So I think it's a complicated diplomatic thing to do during an election, where the North has felt completely abandoned. And the incentive structure for the opposition is to say, let's go stronger and harder and not be restrained by the Americans. It's a perverse incentive structure that doesn't, you know, you can keep on hammering away in northern, in southern Lebanon and not keep trying it. It's not going to deal with Hezbollah. And so what do you do? I think that's a real difficult policy question. And political question and domestic. As I said earlier, you know, premised in Etinio, promised total victory in all these fronts, and there's no total victory in any of these fronts. You know, he's now talking about taking 70% of Gaza, going down to Gaza, you know, up from 51%, and, you know, Marco Rubio was asked about that in the Senate. He's like, well, that's not our plan. And the senators were like, well, how are you restraining it? And the answer was, like, how did I say, not very positive. I think the Israelis does no incentive for them to move forward on the Gaza phase two approach with Hamas at this point. And I think that would move forward with legitimate Hamas, because you'd have to disarm them and put them in the Palestinian polity. And so I think that the Israelis are slow playing at giving as many obstacles as possible to get Hamas to say yes. And just saying, you need to disarm, you need to disarm, you need to disarm. And Hamas is like, well, you have obligations as well. And the Israelis are like, you need to disarm before we even talk about those obligations. You know, Nikolai Maladanov, who's the high representative is caught between these. And I personally don't see any productive momentum moving forward between now and an election day. I think the Americans are, it's ironic the Trump administration is in the same position as the Biden administration was, which is just forcing Israel to keep the lines of humanitarian aid open to go through. And that's sort of the limits of what they seem to be able to do or willing to do. You know, everyone's talking part, you know, there were additional conversations today in Cairo around disarmament until the Israelis also want to put some of their commitments on the table. I just don't see how it moves forward. And that also then looks links to the West Bank. You know, you've got small, rich and Benghvei who represent, I don't know, maybe like seven or eight percent of the country running 70% of the policy in the West Bank, where there's a clear push to try and collapse the Palestinian Authority and use this opportunity to do it. So it's not pressure to reform it, it's pressure to collapse it. And as long as the pressure is to collapse, there's nothing really to talk about, there's nothing that PA can do. So, you know, they'll try and reform prison and payments, and they'll be told nothing you do is good enough. They'll try and work on different things. And it's like, you know, no. And at the same time, you've got marauding gangs of settler violence that continues going. You've got a far more lax open fire policy from the IDF itself. It doesn't seem that there are that many consequences when there are tragic, horrendous incidents that happened. Just yesterday, a seven month old baby was killed in Chevron, and the videos of it are horrific. And it's like, what will be the consequences? And no one's sure, right? And, you know, despite there have been pushes and Marca Rubio said this again on Capitol Hill, you know, the Israelis have made some steps to try and have new policing units and others to try and police, you know, some of the settler violence that's coming out and that some of it's from the settlement, some of its gangs coming from Tel Aviv, whatever it is, the Israeli state is either unwilling or unable to deal with this. And, you know, when you have a police minister who's very okay with it, when you've got a minister within the defense in Smolkowicz, who sees this as a nationalistic fight to the death, it's very hard when the state's at war with itself about how do you deal with this. And there's a lot of pressure. And in many ways, when Israel can't demonstrate to the region or even to itself that it can be rational towards the Palestinians, that instead it has to just liquidate the Palestinian national aspirations, the region listens, right? And the region understands. So what does that actually mean, Scott? So everyone's waiting for, you know, will there be regional integration with the Saudis? And, you know, what would that look like? Well, fundamentally, that's about IMEK, right? This Indian Middle East corridor that goes from India through the UAE, through Saudi, all the way through Israel to sort of ship things out. Well, yesterday, the Turks and the Saudis signed a rail agreement that basically creates their version of IMEK, but doesn't include Israel and goes through Jordan and Syria, right? And directly that way and doesn't include the UAE. And so the region is basically, I think, saying like, if you can't get, if you can't demonstrate that you're rational to the Palestinians, if you can't even get a credible pathway, not a Palestinian state tomorrow, a credible pathway to a Palestinian state, which by the way is point 19 of the Trump agreement that Israel is a signatory of, right? If you can't even get there, then there's nothing to talk about and we will find a way to move on without you. I think that the next government of Israel in four months is going to be, is going to have a very tough decision on its hand that it's going to have to be able to demonstrate both in the West Bank and in Gaza, a policy that demonstrates to the region that it can be rational towards the Palestinians and that this pressure that is being applied is to reform the PA, not to collapse it. Because without that, the region will not integrate with it. It just won't. And to claim, well, you know, what then happens? Well, that's when the Turks can steal a march on them. And Scott, I go back to what we're seeing right now between anchor and Jerusalem is a disaster. We're speaking today on Wednesday the 10th. Today you've had potshots again between Erdogan and Netanyahu, but it's very extreme. The both rhetorical attacks on each other, the Turks basically saying Israeli strikes on Syria and Lebanon are hurting Turkish interests and then accusing Netanyahu of being Hitler and everything under the sun. And then Netanyahu responding saying, you know, the Turks think that, you know, the Interior Minister the day before said, you're going to try and take over Jerusalem, screw you Turkish Ottomans, you who committed a genocide against the Kurds and against the Armenians. And like, you know, we will make sure that your empire, you know, you've got a NATO member and a key US ally basically rhetorically ever increasing with no seemingly ability to deescalate this relationship. And you've got the administration sort of balkanized in their approach in terms of how they look at Turkey and how they look at Israel. And that's very problematic long term as well. So it's a mess, right? But the Israeli population just to finish this off is in even a more difficult situation than what I've already put out. Because the popular sentiment when you poll it basically says 80% of Israelis thought that the US-Israel war with Iran went very well for US-Israel relations, like 80%. 60% think they improved their relationships in the region. And only 20% thought that they have to do something with the Palestinians to improve their relationships. And yet when you step outside of Israel, every one of those polling is reversed, right? And so how does a leader hear all of that, and then has to confront their population that is completely on the opposite side of each one of those dynamics? It's very complicated. And Netanyahu is setting up a dynamic, as I said earlier on, where he's like, if we have to go by ourselves on our own and face international isolation, we'll do it. And so that's part of the problem set on the Israeli domestic space of how can you make an argument that Netanyahu has mishandled the US relationship, that the regional pitch is bad, that we need to have a different policy, when the opposition in many ways just they criticize Netanyahu often from his right when it comes from the regional policies. And yet Netanyahu is probably at the most right edge flank that you could do without truly creating regional conflagration when it comes to Israel. And so there isn't that sort of lane in Israeli domestic thinking, maybe with the exception of Lebanon, as I mentioned before, about a different pathway forward. And it's going to be essential they create one, otherwise I don't see how when Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff and the press of the president come to the next Israeli prime minister and say, hey, guys, we want to move on with the Gaza process and regional integration. Here's a deal of a century, part two on the Palestinians. What's your response? What are you for? I don't know what they're going to respond, and they're going to have to respond something. So before we go, I think we have to talk about the one other big actor that's a key element all this, and that is the Lebanese government. We of course had a ceasefire on June 3rd, negotiated on June 3rd, or they're about to think it was June 3rd, between Israel and the Lebanese government that kind of precipitated or predated this latest cycle of escalation. We've seen it between the two sides. Hezbollah didn't buy into that agreement, but in theory had this idea that Lebanese forces were going to start taking some responsibility for pockets of South Lutani of Southern Lebanon, never implemented. We don't really know where it's going now. And meanwhile, the Lebanese government is stuck in this very difficult position where it is trying to negotiate with the Israelis but doesn't have control over Hezbollah. And in some ways, this is a really, I mean, it is fundamentally a three-party, if not more, negotiation at a minimum between Jerusalem Beirut and Hezbollah. What does this all mean for Lebanon's stability, security politically from a humanitarian perspective? We know Lebanon's economy has tanked over the last 10 years, less than 10 years, particularly since the huge port explosion just a few years ago, it was in bad straits before hostilities with Israel kicked back off in earnest a few years ago. Now you see this massive occupation in the South, potentially long-term, depending on where the Israelis ultimately feel about it. What does this all leave the Lebanese state and its prospects for the future? And where does it fit in this political? Where can it look for support? Is regional support enough that it'd be able to stay afloat? Is there US engagement enough? Or is Lebanon in a more dire strait? Is it the endangered actor and all this that we may not be paying enough attention to? It's a really interesting question. I want to be cautious. I'm not a Lebanese expert, so I can only tell you from what I'm reading and from other parts of the region. So if there are Lebanese experts listening, and I say something wrong, I apologize in advance. Right, me and we'll do a podcast with you. We'll make up for it. So the first thing to say is, I think it's very interesting that President Anand basically found himself in the same position, I'd argue, as President Abbas, where you just need to be useful to the Americans if you want to have any semblance of help from the Americans when it comes to the Israelis. Abbas hasn't managed to get the Israelis off his neck, but President Anand, and it was said, he's chosen the path of diplomacy. Ambassador Michael Issa, our American ambassador there, has said, because you've chosen the path of diplomacy with the Israelis, and that you do want to try and create a piece of course, the Trump administration is with you, and that they'll be there to try and push a ceasefire on the Israelis. And you've heard Marco Rubio say directly, the Israelis have no territorial ambitions on Lebanon, they don't want to occupy things permanently, they don't want to annex the land. And that's very important, because there are definitely voices in Israel that do want to have permanent occupation, and potentially do want to annex fun parts of the land, as like sort of not from a biblical perspective, but from a security perspective. So having the US be very clear that the borders of Lebanon are Lebanese is a big diplomatic win even to start with. But yet, I think going into the Trump casino and sitting at the table also has a risk. And we saw big pushes to try and push the Lebanese president to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu and DC. And there was a huge pushback, not just domestically, but regionally to prevent him from doing that. Because if he does that, one, you basically enable normalization to move forward with no progress on the Palestinian issue. And B, the Saudis want to lead whatever regional integration process happens, they don't want another country to jump first. So I think you have also been seeing Saudi really start getting involved in Lebanon and trying to push. You've seen meetings with both the Speaker of the Parliament and with the Lebanese president and others having meetings in Saudi Arabia, trying to reinforce the, you know, the Tira agreement that was negotiated in Saudi Arabia that ended the civil war and saying, look, part of that agreement is, you know, one one army, one gun. And, you know, we need to find a way to get there. And the latest ceasefire between the Lebanese and the Israelis spoke about the LAF having, you know, these bubble zones where they disarm, because Bolo and the LAF is there. So not using UN peacekeepers that the Israelis are just fed up of and everything else, but that we're going to reinforce the LAF. By the way, at the same time, the Trump administration is cutting aid to the LAF. So I don't understand like the various cross cutting currents of how any of this works. But I think the problem about Lebanon is like, how far do you push like the Trump, the Trump approach is pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, and the Lebanese state is fragile, right? It's fragile because of how it's built in terms of the different ethnic minorities. If the Israelis look like they're at war with a part of the ethnic minority in Lebanon, we're at war with the Shiites, you could topple over the the the careful balance that exists there. And we've seen that with Christian, you know, there's been reports of Christians and Sunnis throwing Shiite refugees from the south out of their homes because they want the Israelis are going to bomb them. What does that do to the careful sort of mosaic of Lebanese, the Lebanese state? How does any of that work? I think if Lebanon is going to be for Lebanon, it needs to make sure that it kicks out Iranian influence. But do you do that by instantaneously like you need to normalize relations with Israel, you need to get rid of your anti normalization laws, you do everything now, now, now, now, now to show it. And what does that do to a fragile state? Like, look, I don't think that the anti normalizations and laws in Lebanon are good, right? I don't think anyone who's involved in peace building think they're good. But you need to disappoint your community at a rate they can accept. You need to get that carefully. And one of my biggest critiques of Israeli strategic thinking often is that they don't understand that other people have politics to. Like if the Lebanese turned around to the Israelis and said, you need to evacuate the settlements, you need to start dealing with settler violence in a significant way before we do this. And you need to do that right now. You know, even if an Israeli government was willing to say, look, it could cause a civil war in our country. If we did that right now, evacuating 500,000 people, what that would do? And they'd say like we have politics. And in many ways, the Lebanese are saying that to them. They're like, you're asking us to do things that are touching some of our core parts of our compact and we could fall into civil war. Like we can't just jump. And I think that that's a real tension about like, yes, there are barriers to like normalizing relations with Israel. But when you separate it from any semblance of a Palestinian cause, you take what is a one in a thousand shot, it's like a one in a million. And like the risks of failure are so tremendous on the Lebanese state. And yet they can't be dominated by Tehran. It's not it's not viable. So they need other regional actors, golf actors to come in and support them and strengthen them, both to protect them from Iran and to strengthen their state capacity, and also to help them be like somewhat of a blocker from the Trump administration from pushing them too quickly, from pushing them so fast that the fragility of their state collapses, given the the places politically that the Trump administration want them to move, even if they want to go there, they just can't move at warp speed. It has to be like slowly but surely get there. I think that the tensions of that are exacerbated when the Israelis are tactically brilliant, but strategically predictable. And Hezbollah knows exactly how to get Israel to bomb parts of the country that will strengthen Hezbollah in the long term and weaken the Lebanese state. And it seems like Israel takes the cheese every time, right? And for their own for Israel's end domestic. So Hezbollah in many ways is controlling the escalation ladder, which is exactly what you don't want them to do. I think that Lebanon is stuck. That's why the Lebanese president did this huge public plea on CNN to the Israeli population saying we want to have peace with you eventually. This can't be through a military solution. It has to be through diplomacy. And today you had President Herzl, Kavis, who I'll respond. Basically, I want to be able to drive to Beirut. I want to have peace with you, but you need to throw the Iranians and Hezbollah out of your midst. So everyone agrees what the problem is. But how you get there when you've got an armed actor also there who's still taking dictates from Tehran is very complicated. And just saying, Lebanon do a better job clearly isn't sure. Great. But how? And so it needs that regional support and some strategic patience. At the same time, the Israeli domestic environment doesn't allow a government that's going to elections to give that strategic patience. So the Lebanese politics is becoming subservient to the Israeli dictates and demands, which is very dangerous. I think that that's part of the again complexity. And I think that Israeli strategic decision makers understand this. They don't want to collapse the Lebanese state. So I think that like in everything, there's a push and pull between policy and politics. And how do you find that careful balance to do that? I do think that the Israelis are trying to invest in the diplomatic process. I don't think it's a shell game for them. But they are also captured by their own domestic challenges as are the Lebanese. And I think that the Trump administration is trying to work out and I will admirably give credit to the Trump administration trying to find a diplomatic solution here with Marco Rubio and with like very senior level engagement about how they can do that with regional allies to get that. But it's not obsession, but this desire to quickly run to the end and to get to normalization with Israel is something that is very threatening to a very fragile process that's hard enough as it is. There's a lot to digest and to think about in this and this little big conversation. A lot of things to watch for the moment. We are out of time. Joel Bronel, thank you for joining us here today on the Lawfare Podcast. Thanks so much, Scott. The Lawfare Podcast is produced by the Lawfare Institute. If you want to support the show and listen ad-free, you can become a Lawfare material supporter at lawfareemunia.org slash support. 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