Transcript of DEBATE: John Mearsheimer & Yoram Hazony on Israel vs. Iran

if you look at what happened before this attack it's quite clear from all sorts of reports that Trump colluded with the Israelis to bamboozle the Iranians and leave them vulnerable to a surprise attack when somebody's developing nuclear weapons with the declared explicit aim of eradicating you and your children and your entire population then you don't worry about making them matter they're already at maximum we don't need any more wars in the Middle East in fact we don't need any more wars period for all those people who believe in the liberal international order and talk about Western civilization when you look at what's happening in Gaza and now what's happening in Iran we look like giant hypocrites do you think there'll be ground operations there already are ground operations the Israelis have nuclear weapons Freddy you don't see them trying to get rid of their nuclear weapons do you of course you don't and the reason is the Israelis understand full well they are the ultimate deterrent why doesn't it apply to Iran and it does when Israelis talk about toppling the regime of the Ayatollas they are not talking about occupying militarily the nation of Iran it just shows you how foolish the United States is when it comes to executing strategy we are on day five of the Israel Iran conflict and already there seems to be two completely different understandings of what is going on that seem unbridgegably divided in one camp this is understood as the brave and lonely Israeli government necessarily defending itself from a neighbor that is hellbent on its destruction and in fact doing the world's dirty work by taking out dangerous nuclear capabilities of a regime in Thran that is a threat to the whole world as usual being greeted with condemnation instead of applause that's one view the opposite view is that a reckless government in Israel hellbent on its own political survival is adding a new front to an already shameful destruction in Gaza causing havoc threatening world peace and in fact being given a free pass by a morally weak West that's the alternative extreme view so how should we try to make sense of it today instead of offering a fiery debate between two opposing sides flamethrowing and insulting each other we thought we'd find the very best most eloquent and interesting subtle spokespeople for each side and talk to them in sequence first we're going to talk to the world famous professor John Meshimer this is someone who describes himself as a realist someone who has been very vocal and influential in understanding the Ukraine Russia conflict and has been a searing critic of Israel he has written whole books about what he calls the Israel lobby he feels Israel's influence on the United States is much too strong and we felt that he would be an interesting person to put this conflict into context from that perspective then we're going to talk to Professor Yoram Hazani also highly influential both inside Israel where he is resident and has lived most of his life but also inside the United States and Europe because as the founder of the national conservatism movement that now holds conferences across the world he is really a big inspiration for people inside MAGA inside the Trump movement and inside nationalist conservative movements across Europe so it will be fascinating to hear from Professor Hzani how he believes this is in Israel's national interest and whether he thinks the United States has a national interest in getting involved hopefully at the end of hearing from both of them we will be if not completely clear at least better educated about the different arguments on both sides john Mshimemer welcome to unheard hello Freddy let me start with the biggest question which is what do you think Israel is trying to achieve well I think their ultimate goal is to eliminate Iran's nuclear capability and basically that means making sure Iran has no enrichment i think if they could get regime change they would be happy with that but I don't think that's the principal goal i think the principal goal is to eliminate Iran's nuclear capability or its ability to get a nuclear weapon and I think to do that they have to get the Americans in i think they went into this thinking that by themselves they could not uh eliminate uh Iran's nuclear enrichment capability they'd need the Americans to do that and I think they believe that once they got into it and the war developed the Americans would come in and the Americans would do their dirty work for them well let's just there's two components to that so on on the nuclear aspect do you think it's fair enough that they cannot tolerate a neighbor that is avowed to their destruction having nuclear weapons well I think they obviously don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons for what are good strategic reasons from their point of view and I would add to that the United States does not want Iran to have nuclear weapons either but the $64,000 question is whether or not we can prevent that meaning the United States and or Israel and the fact is that if they want to get nuclear weapons there's nothing we can do to stop them and all sorts of experts have said that uh I recently heard Ahood Barack making that point former prime minister of Israel you just can't prevent it if they decide they want to do it and I certainly think that this Israeli operation is not going to do much at all to eliminate their enrichment capability so you as a as a realist would say uh the the strategic objective is understandable but you don't think they will achieve it through this method so it's a kind of pointless attack yeah i I think the Israelis by themselves cannot do it almost everybody I know agreed with that basic point before the operation that the Israelis by themselves couldn't do it it looked like we might we meaning the Americans might be able to do it because we have these 30,000 lb uh massive bombs that may be able to go down far enough into the ground to eliminate their enrichment capability but the problem there Freddy is that even if you do eliminate the capability now they'll just rebuild it and I would note to you that they have announced that they have recently opened the third enrichment plant and this one is even buried more deeply into the ground than the one at Fort which is the one that we've been concentrating on recently so I I just don't think that over the long term you can eliminate their or Iran's nuclear capability with military force the second part of what you said is that you think key to their strategy is getting the Americans directly involved is that playing out do you think it's going to happen how do you see it playing out next well it hasn't happened yet the there's no question the United States has been giving the Israelis assistance both before the operation started and since the operation has started but uh Trump has gone to great lengths to make sure that we don't get sucked into this and if you listen to him talk uh over time it's not likely that we will get pulled in uh what's happening here is he is watching how little success the Israelis are having and then thinking uh what does this mean for us you want to remember we went to war against the Houthies we were going to destroy the Houthi military capability trump promised that after 30 days Trump quit he said the Houthies won we couldn't defeat the Houthis we couldn't eliminate their ability to launch missiles at ships in the Red Sea or to launch missiles at Israel well if we couldn't defeat the Houthis uh is it really plausible to think that we can go in with military force and do the job on Iran i don't think so i mean if you look at the history of air power it's quite clear that it has some utility but not great utility uh when it comes to defeating an adversary what you invariably have to do is go in on the ground and we're not going in on the ground in Iran nor are the Israelis so what are we going to do in terms of eliminating this nuclear capability that Iran has with air power or missiles alone and I think the answer is just not much i mean a lot of people reading Western newspapers and watching the coverage over the past 3 days will conclude the opposite I think which is that it seems to have been pretty effective chunks of the military leadership have been taken out one of the leading nuclear scientists has been taken out some of their military capacity has been degraded the response such as it has been has been somewhat ineffectual a very high percentage of rockets seem to have been intercepted by the Iron Dome right now three or four or 5 days in it's looking like Israel one Iran zero freddy what's the goal here the goal is to get rid of Iran's nuclear enrichment capability and they haven't come close to doing that and as I just said to you they can't do it so how does Israel win in your story and basically if you look at what's happening now both sides are lobbing missiles at each other and all sorts of destruction is taking place in Iran and Israel and it's hard to see where the arc ramp here is and how the Israelis ultimately win so I think the argument that Israel is in excellent shape after you know four days of back and forth just simply is wrong you describe yourself as a a realist in international policy terms do you think this administration the Trump administration is behaving in a realist way i mean you've written a lot about the Israel lobby your general view seems to be that Israel has an extraordinary grip on American administrations and generally is allowed to do whatever it likes do you feel like this administration is different and that those new voices within the MAGA coalition that are more restrainist are winning out no I think that the lobby basically gets what it wants from Trump there is no evidence that Trump uh has stood up to the lobby in any meaningful way that's true I think both with regard to the Gaza genocide and with regard to what's happening with Iran uh if you look at what happened before this attack it's quite clear from all sorts of reports uh in the mainstream media that Trump colluded with the Israelis to bamboozle the Iranians and leave them vulnerable to a surprise attack uh we've provided the Israelis with huge numbers of bombs and all sorts of other military equipment to wage war against Iran and to execute the genocide in Gaza there's no evidence that Trump is standing up to the lobby and I wouldn't expect him to well he's not so far directly involved i mean even that is something isn't it i mean it may not be true in a week or a month or a year from now but for now he may be allowing it but he is keeping the US out and if you believe the news reports he vetoed an Israeli idea to try and assassinate the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Kmeni do they not count as uh realist or restrainer credentials well first of all I don't know whether he really did uh tell the Israelis that they couldn't try to kill Hani who knows where the truth lies on this one truth is not something that uh Donald Trump is comfortable with and uh one never knows what is really going on behind the scenes but there may be some minor instances like this where uh Trump stands up to Israel i wouldn't be surprised but in terms of the basic relationship here the Israelis get pretty much whatever they want uh as they have for you know decades on end and you know Freddy I've argued for a long time and I believe it's more true than ever that uh what the lobby wants for Israel is not in Israel's interest i think if you look at where Israel is today it is in really deep trouble and that's because the lobby makes it possible for the United States to support Israel unconditionally israel can do anything it wants and we support them and the lobby and Israel itself think this is really all for the good uh I don't think it's all for the good and I think if you look at the situation that Israel is in today it is not a good one how would you like the West such as it is to respond to this respond to what to the to the Israeli attack on Iran and the return fire i mean if you were in charge either of the US or the some kind of Western coalition what would you like to see condemnation of the Israeli strikes some kind of intervention what should other Western countries be doing do you think well the only country that counts here is the United States and the United States should have put great pressure on Israel not to launch this attack uh what we should have done is worked out uh an agreement with the Iranians similar to the JCPOA agreement that the Obama administration worked out if that failed and the Israelis went to war anyway we should have gone to great lengths or we should be going to great lengths now to shut the war down uh it's just not in our interest to see this war go on because it may escalate and the greatest threat to us is if it turns into a war that leads to the Iranians shutting down the Persian Gulf uh and the Houthis helping them to shut down the Red Sea uh this will I think have disastrous consequences for the world economy that's certainly not in our interest so I think we have an interest in shutting down the war but again I want to emphasize uh we should have shut down any talk of a war or any threat of a war uh before it happened uh last week let's just try a couple of hypotheticals here if the Iranians do attempt to shut down the straight of Hummus or really in get involved in those shipping lanes what should America do well I think the United States will go to great lengths to try to open up the Gulf uh probably use its naval power uh I wouldn't be surprised if the Israelis would welcome this right i believe the Israelis will go to great lengths to uh bait us to get involved in the war and this would be one way of doing that you want to remember in 2024 they tried to drag the Biden administration into a war against Iran on two separate occasions one in April of 2024 and then one in October of 2024 and both times the Biden administration resisted and of course the Trump administration is resisting now because it's not in our interest to get involved in a war in the Middle East uh and that's again not just true for Donald Trump it was true for Joe Biden as well uh so we're trying not to get into this but if the war spins out of control and it involves interrupting the oil supply uh coming out of the uh Persian Gulf and out of the Red Sea in a major way I think it's likely the United States would move in militarily and that's something we don't want to happen if that does happen what does that do for the United States's position in the world i guess that's a whole new front it's already trying to deal with Ukraine and the the challenge from China this would be another hot front is the United States powerful enough to sustain efforts on three fronts no question about that Freddy i've been arguing for a long time that the principal threat the United States faces comes from China and what we should be doing is focusing laserlike on containing China but we're not able to do that because number one we're pinned down in Ukraine and number two we're pinned down in the Persian Gulf now if you hypothesize a situation where an actual war breaks out in the Gulf that involves us we will have to move even more assets from East Asia to the Gulf and this is certainly not in our interest we need those air and sea assets that we've been keeping in the Gulf in recent months in East Asia uh this is not a good situation the Nimmits the USS Nimmits a major league aircraft carrier is now leaving East Asia to come to the Gulf it should stay in East Asia you want to remember it in the war against the Houthies one of the principal reasons that Trump quit that war is that we were expending ammunition precious ammunition that we might need in East Asia uh against the Houthies and of course it was having very little effect anyway but uh it's just important to understand that we're robbing Peter to pay Paul here and that is not in our interest because uh China is the principal threat that the United States faces and we should be concentrating on pivoting fully to Asia and containing China could you not make the argument that Donald Trump is actually behaving in quite a John Meshimemerish kind of way over this conflict he's saying fine Israel has its own vital interests if they want to do stuff in Iran he's going to step back and let them do that and it might be useful to him in some ways to take out some of their capacity but he hasn't got America involved so far there is no US direct involvement he even appears to be kind of restraining some of the more dramatic ideas like taking out the Ayatollah if he gets away with it and the net result is a a weakened Iran with which has taken steps back in its nuclear program and he avoids it spilling out to a wider conflict is that a win for the US no not at all we have all sorts of assets pinned down in the Middle East that we don't want to have there they're better in East Asia it's not in our interest to have all those assets uh in the Middle East number one and number two as we were just talking about there's a serious chance we're going to get sucked into a war the last thing we need is another forever war in the Middle East trump was elected because he promised no more of these forever wars and you want to remember in his previous term as president he was the one who set in motion us getting out of Afghanistan uh we'd probably still be in Afghanistan if he hadn't set that train in motion uh so we don't need any more wars in the Middle East in fact we don't need any more wars period we don't need a war in East Asia either what we want to do is contain China not go to war with China but to contain China you need to concentrate on doing that job and that means keeping as many assets as possible in East Asia and what's happening in the Middle East is certainly not in their interest and then there's the fact that this is doing enormous damage to our reputation we support Israel which is seen as a rogue state by most other countries outside of the West and furthermore with regard to Gaza we're uh basically colluding with the Israelis uh in terms of the execution of their genocide against the Palestinians this is a disaster for us for all those people who believe in the liberal international order and talk about Western civilization when you look at what's happening in Gaza and now what's happening in Iran right we look like uh giant hypocrites this is not in our interest so we have all sorts of reasons for wanting uh to put an end to this war in Iran and for wanting to put an end to the uh to the uh genocide in Gaza whose interests do you think it is in because one name that has come into frame is Vladimir Putin it was notable that he seemed to be the only leader that spoke to all three presidents or prime ministers involved uh in the 24 hours after the conflict broke out and he's offered himself already as some kind of mediator to any peace solution do you think Russia benefits from this war i think Russia does benefit from this war i think there's no question about that uh I think that uh it uh gives Putin certain standing as you describe and it forces us to focus on the Middle East and take our eye off Ukraine uh so this is I think a good situation for Russia i think it's also a good situation for China the Chinese must be very happy about the present situation that we're in we're pinned down in Ukraine and now we're pinned down even more uh than ever in the Middle East from a Chinese point of view they should hope the Ukraine war goes on forever because the United States will be unable to fully pivot to Asia because it's pinned down in Ukraine and now with this war going on in the Middle East if we get sucked into it and we're fighting against the Iranians in the Persian Gulf this is mana from heaven for the Chinese right it just shows you how foolish the United States is when it comes to executing strategy right we're up against two first class strategists in Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin and they beat us at almost every turn it's really quite remarkable what do you think happens next Professor Mir Shimo if you if you put on your prediction lenses I mean what do you think we'll see in the next two weeks i don't know for sure Freddy i mean it looks like the Israelis are in a position where they simply can't quit and I think the Iranians are in a similar situation the Israelis started this war and they promised that they were going to lambbase the Iranians and achieve certain goals and to quit after a couple days because you haven't had success at achieving those goals I think is extremely unlikely uh so I think the Israelis uh will stay in the fight and it's hard for me to imagine the Iranians dropping out of the fight are they going to admit defeat i think that's unlikely so I think unless the United States comes in with a heavy hand the fighting will go on now to argue against myself one could say that's true if both sides don't run out of weapons but it is the case that maybe uh the Iranians will run out of missiles or the Israelis will reach the point where their public just can't tolerate any more punishment uh and furthermore their air force is being worn out on these long trips to and from Iran and they want to call it quits uh I don't see either one of those things happening my sense is that the Iranians have more than enough missiles to continue for at least a couple more weeks and I think the Israelis will continue as well i don't think public opinion will force Netanyahu to call it quits and I don't think the Israelis will reach the point where they don't have the ability to bomb uh Iran in a meaningful way so I I see this one going on i again I think the the one chance that it comes to an end is if Trump were to intervene uh and I think the scenario where that is most likely is one where uh you have an oil war as we were talking about before i think that's one of the two nightmare scenarios here uh an oil war which would have again disastrous effects for the world economy and then the possibility at some point that the Israelis think about using nuclear weapons if you're the Israelis and you do really believe that Iran is an existential threat and you can't uh eliminate that existential threat with conventional weapons you may very well begin to countenance uh using nuclear weapons to deal with the threat uh and I think if that were the case the Americans would move in with a heavy hand to prevent the Israelis from launching a nuclear attack on Iran final question for you uh professor we talked a little bit about the Iranian program and them enriching uranium what's your view on whether they are actually building nuclear weapons because we had Tulsi Gabbard just earlier in March she was saying that the United States intelligence community does not believe that Iran is currently building a nuclear weapon she said there's a stockpile of enriched uranium there's nuclear ambition she doesn't think they're building a nuclear weapon is your view that they are and there's nothing we can do about it or that this whole thing is not actually real well something in between Freddy there I don't think they're building a nuclear weapon at this point in time but what they are doing is they are enriching uranium up to 60% and if you enrich uranium up to 90% then you have weaponsgrade material and to get from 60% to 90% is very easy all of that is a way of saying that their enrichment capability is so sophisticated that they could easily produce weapons material for probably about 10 bombs in I'd say two weeks time but that's not a bomb they would then have to build a bomb and they would have to mount it on a ballistic missile that could deliver it and most people think that that would take about a year maybe 10 months maybe 14 months but roughly a year so it would take a good year to build a deliverable bomb but again it would only take about two weeks to have weaponsgrade material and you could understand why from Israel's point of view this is an absolutely terrible situation so so so the argument here is not that Iran is developing a bomb but it's getting close to the point where it would be easy to move to having a bomb and what the Israelis want to do of course is they want to eliminate that enrichment capability because once you get rid of uh Iran's ability to enrich uranium then they can't build the bomb and and by the way the JCPOA uh the nuclear agreement that the Obama administration worked out uh in 2015 uh with the Iranians and a handful of other countries was designed not to eliminate the enrichment capability but to make it virtually impossible for Iran to enrich uranium to the point where they had weapons material and of course the Israelis hated the JCPOA and the Israelis pushed the first Trump administration to walk away from the JCPOA simply because it left Iran with an enrichment capability so even though Iran couldn't enrich up to 90% under the JCPOA the mere fact that Iran had an enrichment capability was unacceptable to the Israelis and again I can understand why that is unacceptable to the Israelis but the question you have to ask yourself is what can they do about that can they eliminate that enrichment capability once and for all and the answer is that they can't and I don't think we can either and this is why the Obama administration argued that the best alternative was to have this agreement that greatly limited their ability to enrich up to weaponsgrade material but uh the long answer is that or the short answer is Freddy that uh uh they're not developing a bomb but so it sounds like you are almost fatalistic about it that you think if they really want it Iran will have weapons grade uranium and if they want to mount it onto a warhead they can let me make two points i think that we could have had another JCPOA like agreement and maybe even a better one and they would not have developed the bomb right so I I think that there's no way we could have gotten the Iranians to give up their ability to enrich which the Israelis find unacceptable but I think the second best alternative here uh or the least bad alternative I guess that's a better way of putting it is to have a situation where you have a JCPOA but the idea that you're going to go out and get the Iranian nuclear capability and eliminate it once and for all is just not in the cards you just can't do that and my second point that I would make to you is I think you want to ask yourself whether or not the Iranians are going to get a bomb after what's happened over the past couple days i've long argued that if I were the national security advisor in Iran they would have had a bomb a long time ago i think from Iran's point of view they were foolish not to get a bomb long ago uh look at Kim Jong-un and North Korea we're not going to attack North Korea the South Koreans are not going to attack North Korea because North Korea has nuclear weapons iran doesn't have nuclear weapons libya didn't have nuclear weapons iraq didn't have nuclear weapons if you don't have nuclear weapons the United States or the Israelis will attack you the lesson that comes out of this whole uh conflict so far is that Iran has more powerful incentives than ever to acquire nuclear weapons so hopefully that won't happen but you can make a very good case that if anything this operation makes it more likely not less likely that they'll get nuclear weapons my final point on this which I think illustrates um why Iran should have gotten nuclear weapons is that a number of years ago ahood Barack the former prime minister of Israel said that I believe Iran is trying to acquire nuclear weapons because it makes so much strategic sense just think about what Barack was saying he understood that from Iran's point of view it made strategic sense to get nuclear weapons i mean just look at the Israelis and the Americans the Israelis have nuclear weapons Freddy you don't see them trying to get rid of their nuclear weapons do you of course you don't and the reason is the Israelis understood understand full well they are the ultimate deterrent you don't see the United States that has the most powerful conventional forces on the planet getting rid of its nuclear weapons do you no why because they are the ultimate deterrent well what's good for the goose is good for the gander and if that logic applies to Israel and the United States and it does why doesn't it apply to Iran and it does and again if Iran had nuclear weapons I don't think this war that's now taking place would be taking place so I think if anything we're worse off with regard to preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons and again I want to emphasize that from an American point of view it's not in their interest to see Iran have nuclear weapons i'm not making the argument to hear that it would be good if Iran had nuclear weapons it would not we do not want them to have nuclear weapons because we understand what the proliferation consequences are of that happening and there are all sorts of other downsides as well but uh again I'm not sure this is a smart way to go about preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state john Mir Shima thank you for your time next up we are joined by Professor Yoram Hazani from Jerusalem where he is a professor and where he has been kept up most of the night by sirens and alarms as the rockets continue to fall uh Professor Hzani is also the author of the virtue of nationalism which is just about to be reissued a very influential book and in a sense part of the founding of the nationalism movement that has swept up so much of Europe and of course the United States administration he remains a very big source of inspiration for people across the Trump movement as well as those governments that are turning more nationalist in Europe so we've been really looking forward to hearing from you professor and uh welcome to unhar absolutely thank you Yuram let me start by asking what do you believe the purpose of this Israeli action actually is let's think back to October 7th 2023 with the horrific surprise invasion of Israel from Gaza by uh Iranian supplied Iranianbacked uh Iranianfunded uh kamas terrorist organization now if you remember those days uh a few within a few days after that attack Prime Minister Netanyahu his uh the chief of the general military staff and the defense minister appeared on Israeli television spoke before the uh the Israeli and Jewish people and before the world and described the war that was coming and uh Netanyahu's description was of a long war he said that it will be a war of months if not years and uh the the outline was already there it was clear that the uh the source of this um uh horrific uh atrocity was in Iran and uh that the the goal would have to be to peel back stage by stage uh the protective layers of Iranian proxies that had uh been built up over 25 years uh on Israel's borders and then eventually to take the war to Iran so what what we are seeing now uh over the last few days is the culmination of that Israeli campaign that was promised back in those days israel has in fact been at war with with Iran for decades but the the stage at which the Iranians thought that they would be able uh to move quickly uh to destroy Israel we finally reached there and the Israeli uh public left and right is uh uh completely united uh around the clear understanding that that this is a a genocidal regime which has promised to destroy Israel many many times on a daily basis chance death to Israel and Israel can't live with an Iranian nuclear weapon israel can't live with ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads and can reach the state of Israel and and by the way reach plenty of other countries as well but our interest at the moment is uh is absolutely clear it's been the same as it has been for the last two years uh which is to eliminate Iran's nuclear capacity do you think that is an achievable objective there's the specific question of nuclear capacity that can be eroded if not completely destroyed but the underlying question which you started with which is why does this regime continue to fund proxies that are intent on the destruction of Israel will that be helped or hindered by bombing Iran i mean even if it's successful in the short term won't Israel just increase the enmity that uh that regime feels towards Israel it it's a completely fair question but I I I hope you don't don't don't mind if mind a frank answer when somebody's developing uh nuclear weapons with the declared explicit aim of eradicating you and your children and your entire population then you don't worry about making them matter they're already at maximum and so the things can only improve from where they are right now from the perspective of the state of Israel with regard to your your particular question is it possible for us to uh achieve the elimination of Iran's nuclear program the answer is absolutely yes it's possible i'm not saying that it's uh simple because as you know uh some of these uh facilities are are are buried deep underground under mountains the options for Israel to uh attack those facilities alone they do exist uh there's a number of possible ways in which even under forda and and other sites buried deep underground there are ways that given time Israel should be able to uh to do this alone but of course these days there's also the question that the Americans are going to be deciding about whether they are going to join into the into the campaign this not something I would call for it's not something I would ever ask for the Americans have to make that decision themselves uh but one of the possibil possible ways that this is going to unfold uh is that President Trump decides that it's in the American national interest uh and that they they assist with the particularly difficult aspects of this campaign i mean this is now getting to the heart of it because there's a lot of paranoia and allegations around this that actually all of this is a precursor to involving the US directly i mean do you believe that it is Israel's objective to get the Americans directly involved because as you seem to imply they're kind of necessary to complete the job as regards to nuclear facilities no I I don't think that they're necessary that's certainly not Israel's official position and I believe Israel's official position is is in fact realistic my friend the foreign minister Gidonsar and the national security advisor Takahi both of them have uh clarified in the last couple of days that this campaign has been designed by Israel to end the uh Iranian nuclear program uh on the basis of Israel alone and uh the the the details of this I I I don't think it's responsible for me to go too far into this but uh suffice is to say that Israel in the last two years has uh practiced this is a matter of public knowledge anyone can check this different techniques for using the arsenal that that Israel has at this time uh for tunneling uh deep underground we've used that effectively against theah and also for ground operations against sensitive sites uh and and there and there are other options israel given enough time Israel can do this alone do you think there'll be ground operations Professor Hazania that's that's well there there already are ground operations the reason for the extraordinary successes of Israel in the first uh several days of this war is because Mossad is active all over Iran iran's been our number one enemy for 20 years and these uh these operations have been planned over the carefully over the course of 20 years you got to see the way it works and the way it comes to fruition uh already in in the war againstah and the same techniques many of the same techniques have already been used in the war against Iran yes Israel has the capacity to do it the difference between Israel's capacity and America's capacity is that the United States can send in B2 bombers and drop uh munitions that are much much larger than anything that that that Israel has but Israel will complete this operation uh with or without the United States that's not that's not a uh a slogan that's a plan that that is what is in fact planned are you surprised by the level of division on the political right in the United States about this i mean your thinking your way of your philosophy of national conservatism has been a big source of inspiration for many people within the MAGA movement and now we find that it's divided into itself with people like Tucker Carlson really very strongly advocating what he would call restraint you know others might call isolationism staying out of conflicts like this and others now apparently including the president himself saying that it is crucial to America's national interest that Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons are you surprised by the level of division and what do you make of it well look division division was was always there i mean you you you know as well as I do that part of what's been uh fascinating and gratifying about the uh the the arguments on on the right over the last decade is that the these are these are extremely diverse uh movements where there's been a a great deal of of openness on many different subjects the nationalist conservatives have always had internal internal disagreements on issues like appropriate foreign policy you know we're we're united in thinking that the global liberal empire if you can call it that uh the the the idea that uh America has to be the world's policeman and uh to to uh engage in conflict in every corner of the world in order to uh to spread liberalism that's obviously been extremely controversial and and everyone on the nationalist right uh is skeptical of of uh those uh those old uh in liberal internationalist policies but the question of whether the United States um should become you know kind of like a pacifist nation a country that uh that does not support wars and does not get involved with wars at all well that that question has come to a a head in the last few months and uh look there's there's always been different uh different schools on this one school um we could call it the uh the Trump doctrine school uh advocated by thinkers like Michael Anton and myself and others uh the the Trump doctrine uh as it was discussed in 20 in in 2018 2019 and and going forward was not a doctrine of pacifism it was a doctrine of building up regional allies in different places of the world and uh allowing them the freedom to uh to protect their own interests and in so doing to protect American and western interests so the this discussion has been uh not just with respect to Israel but with respect to the UK to Poland India Australia Japan maybe Greece the that there there are plenty of countries in the world that either have the ability or have potentially have the ability to play the role of taking care of security threats serious security threats within their own regions and uh so uh although Tucker Carlson and I uh would agree that the United States is overextended that it can't afford uh financially and morally in terms of the the public support within within the country the United States cannot protect every every uh country in the world every region in the world uh against predators against the Russians against Islamic radicalism against China the United States can't do that but uh where Tucker and I would uh it seems disagree is uh over the question of whether the United States has any kind of interest in supporting regional allies as they make their regions uh safer for Western and American interests so there there is a there is a a very serious disagreement about it the the issue is issue is important and it's substantive i'm sorry that it's um that it's reached the degree of acrimony and uh and you know mudslinging that it it has reached but obviously uh this is uh it's a very important issue for everybody i guess what people some of them are are worried about is that it all feels a little bit sort of 2003 i mean there is talk of regime change explicitly from some in the Israeli administration you know what would the result be of toppling the Iranian regime we've learned now to be careful what you wish for after the disasters of Iraq would it lead to breaking up of the country would it lead to civil war would it lead to mass amounts of immigration into Europe would would it lead to a vast oil conflict that would crash the global economy why are they wrong to fear that we're just looking like we're about to repeat the mistakes of that period first of all people the people who are worried about that are right i mean I I personally am not the kind of person who bangs the drum for American military involvement you you I I I've never I never called for or supported uh American military action in Iraq or in Afghanistan for regime change in Egypt uh or or or or even even in in in Serbia or much less places like Ukraine i'm very skeptical uh as is much of the nationalist right uh of most of this in fact the the the the entire theory of the United States uh ruling the world through regime change operations by force so I I I I I understand these worries and I agree to them um with with respect to there have been voices in the Israeli government speaking about regime change i think people are right to be worried about it but I don't I don't think that um that the Israeli uh internal debate is similar to the American or even the European internal debate when Israelis talk about uh topping toppling the regime of the Ayatollas they are not talking about uh occupying militarily with ground forces occupying the nation of Iran they're not talking about attempting to impose uh liberal democracy on the nation of Iran through an occupation of decades none of these things cross the minds of any of the Israeli decision makers well apparently they were talking about an assassination attempt on the Supreme Leader which would be about as provocative a central move against an administration as as you could make but these are two different things it's one thing to talk about uh look I you know I'm I'm not the decision maker and I'm not advocating for the for the assassination of Kame but it's very important if you want to understand what's uh what is being said and thought about in Israel then it's important to understand that the entire uh complex of ideas that are associated with the neoconservative regime change operations in Iraq Afghanistan Libya and Egypt and so on that entire complex of ideas is not endorsed by any party in the Israeli political system or or military that the Americans do have this problem that that they think some sections some factions of the American p public uh public uh discourse do in fact think in terms of uh will go in and will occupy Iran and will you by force of of of weapons and willpower and the incredible brilliance of our enlightenment liberal ideas we will turn Iran into a liberal democracy there's no one in the state of Israel who endorses this kind of policy no one not Natao not the general staff none of the political parties in Israel so although the the goal of the Israeli operation is uh elimination of the nuclear program not regime change and this is it's it's important to say this that when President Trump says that the goal is to for Iran not to have a bomb and Trump has said this many times if it can be done by diplomacy and negotiation we'll do it by diplomacy and negotiation if it can't then we'll do it another way all right so that that is in fact the correct policy and that's also Israel's policy uh if the Trump administration uh steps forward in the coming days with a uh in the coming hours possibly with a new Iranian proposal and the Iranians are willing to uh commit to the dismantling of their nuclear program and their ballistic missiles program if that is on the table then uh Israel would be happy israelis would be happy it it's unlikely because of the nature of our enemy that you know this this possibility uh was open not just you know in the last few months uh of Trump diplomacy for 20 years there have been attempts uh by western governments by the Americans the British the French and others to to attempt to bring Iran to this kind of a position and it it's it's it's failed and it's it's it's it's brought the Iranian regimem regime to to the brink of destruction but it doesn't change our values we're not we're not interested in having this war we're interested in Iran uh Iran not having a nuclear weapons program i I wonder if this moment is quite a decisive one also for your movement because it's become almost a global movement it began you are the figurehead of I would say the national conservatism movement and there are now national conservatism conferences in the United States in Europe here in London it has become a global movement but it's as I understand it correct me if I'm wrong it's predicated on the idea that national self-interest is a virtuous thing and we should not be ashamed of it that all makes sense until a moment like this where you're sitting in Jerusalem and you've been kept up all night by sirens and your national self-interest is much more clear in terms of at least what what the Israelis believe their national self-interest is as regards Iran but people sitting in Washington DC many of them don't feel like this is part of the United States self-interest so I'm I'm I'm wondering if this becomes a crisis for the global national conservatism movement where suddenly everyone's interests aren't aligned anymore i don't really see it as a crisis the beauty of the nationalist theory the beauty of it always was that unlike liberalism and unlike Marxism it doesn't claim to be able to dictate a one clear answer that fits everyone everyone at every time and place in history it's not a utopian political theory it's a much more realistic political theory which uh assumes that the reason that we need to have a world of independent nations the reason that we need uh the concept the principle of national independence is because it's impossible for the you know the the the count countless nations and peoples of the world to uh always have the same interests so that that's that's baked into the cake if you want there to be one uniform answer to political questions then you're attracted to you know the these theories of world liberal government or world Marxist revolution of course they they they also don't come to uh to to to one concrete answer that's the utopian part of the theory but th this is what's good about nationalism is that the Americans should not have identical views of their interests from 7,000 miles away to the the Jews living in the state of Israel uh we're not going to have the same interests which means that sometimes we'll disagree and sometimes we'll argue and uh there'll be give and take and we still don't know whether the Americans are going to decide to join in this war or not but either way the tremendous thing that I I I I really would like to to to give President Trump credit for the tremendous positive thing that's happening the state of Israel has been endangered by Iran's nuclear program for two decades uh beginning in 2010 uh under President Obama uh the state of Israel has repeatedly reached the point that a wall-to-wall left and right coalition in Israel agreed that is Iran's nuclear program has to be taken out in 2010 we have the first instance of many in which President Obama suppresses by threats the uh Israel's uh attempt to defend itself and and this is not this is not an a reasonable in my view a we reasonable way uh for for nations to govern the relations between them america cannot have the same interests as Israel at all times and that means that Israel like like the UK in Eastern Europe it may be that the the UK will decide that that you know I'm not recommending this but it's possible that the UK will decide uh that its interests require British military military deployments in Ukraine and and the Americans will say that's not that's not in our interests uh but having a president like President Trump who will say look different countries have different interests you need to look out for your interests first as you see them that I mean that's the nature of democracy is your people will see its interests in a certain way and your government will honor and and take seriously the interests of the English or the British people that that's that's the kind of world we we would like to see wearing your American at do you understand those who think that big picture America's most important interest is in containing China this is the view held by people like Elbridge Colby who is now in the Trump administration is even people who are from a very different political viewpoint like John Mesheimer who we spoke to earlier the view there is that there is too much entanglement in Europe with regard to Ukraine and there is too much entanglement in the Middle East and that if for America to protect its most important interest it needs to focus its energy on China and therefore big picture they may take the view that they do not want to get entangled in this Iran Israel conflict do you understand that kind of estimation of America's interests for sure my views of uh American policy are are almost identical to bridge col I I consider him to be a good friend but with respect to China I I I completely agree with him and I've I've I've written this many times that America is the only power in the world that is capable of facing uh the the threat that all of us face uh from an expansionist and and and brutal Chinese regime he's absolutely correct that the United States needs to focus on it um that's part of the Trump doctrine is that uh that the Brits and the Europeans can and should be focused on security in Europe uh and uh Israel and its allies uh in in in the Middle East can and should be focused on Iran and America's focus should not be on Iran on this i completely agree with people like like Tucker Carlson who say that an American regime change operation in Iran to to invade Iran and and take it over and try to reshape it for 10 or 20 years this would be catastrophic for the United States the United States has look it it has to have a foreign policy i I don't buy that America can you know can just be this sort of pacifist country behind its oceans but bridge is right that the United States has to focus its foreign policy on China and uh with respect to the Middle East the United States should support the emergence of powerful allies that can take care of business here in the Middle East without without pulling the United States into it so my understanding of what you've said as a way of kind of squaring nationalism with America possibly being involved in in a conflict so far away is that you would like to see us move to a kind of regional security structure where there would be a strong country or group of countries in each region that basically run it or or look after the security of it and what you're suggesting is that the United States will look after the the North American region or the region it's in europe should look after Europe and what Israel should look after the Middle East or how does that work is Israel strong enough on its own to kind of run that entire region first of all America is not is is not at this stage of history going to become a regional power america when I when I say that America's first priority has to be uh meeting the threat with China that that's that's not regional that that is a a much larger mission than uh than the UK or Israel or any of the other American allies can take responsibility for the the idea is that the UK and Israel uh and our allies should be able to take care of other regions in order to free up the Americans to deal with China that was respect to Israel's position in the region i actually think that the signs of a regional security structure are already well underway and in place uh the first Trump administration uh working with Netanyahu were able to with with the Abraham Accords to for the first time bring about the kind of uh the the beginning of the kind of architecture that would would bring uh uh Jews and Arabs together uh in uh defending the region against two major forces that threaten threaten this region i'm leaving uh China aside for a moment the the the major security concerns in our region are from uh radical Islam and there's two different versions of it there's the uh the Iranian version and there's the Muslim Brotherhood muslim Brotherhood is backed by by uh Turkey and Qatar uh Iran uh mostly backs uh uh Shiite organizations like the like the Houthis and the former Assad regime was aligned with that but uh but Iran also has its fingers in in in the Muslim Brotherhood as well those are the major threats to every regime uh in in this region to Israel to the Gulf States to Egypt Jordan uh all of us face that threat part of the goal part of uh Netanyahu's goal in uh defanging Iran in removing the threat of a nuclear Iran is to pave the way for peace between Israel and uh and countries like uh like Saudi Arabia that have not uh not yet joined the Abraham Accords syria is you know in theory a possible example although not clear that the regime there really is capable of that kind of thing but we will see so the beginnings of a regional architecture security architecture are there it's almost paradoxically you'd argue then that America to be involved in so far as it's facilitating this new architecture into being perhaps some alliance between Israel Saudi some other Gulf states that are friendly to Western regimes to to keep the long-term security of that area is actually a form of extrication from the region for sure look this is something that I I think should be obvious but unfortunately you know all those decades of liberal internationalist arguments from from uh from uh Americans and from from many in the EU have have clouded the n the the nature of international power politics um no nation has infinite resources it can't be everywhere it's ridiculous i mean I I know Bill Clinton used to talk like that you know where every where we're everywhere but in in reality resources are always limited even a vast country like the United States has limited resources and it's not just a matter of uh of uh limited financial resources or limited willpower to send your your sons and daughters to go die on the other side of the planet in wars that don't directly affect you it it's not just that political leaders also have and and by the way about this Tucker Carlson is correct that American government has limited attention that the president of the United States he he may have hundreds of staffers it doesn't matter it it is limited by nature by human nature limited cognitively in the number of issues that it can deal with the possibility that America should be able to take a you know an endless festering problem like uh uh like uh Red Sea piracy the the freedom of shipping in in in uh in the Red Sea and the Straits of Hormuz and and the Gulf of Aden all of these are are things that weigh on the American security mind and it's not necessary there there are powers in this region that you can imagine in in my in my new version of the expanded version of the virtue of nationalism there's a a discussion of this Red Sea problem the liberal internationalist theory that America America is responsible for the Red Sea well that that's utopian that's ridiculous the Americans they can't be everywhere um but also the the you know this sort of pacifist view that says "No America doesn't have to care at all what happens in the Red Sea because that's 7,000 miles away from us." That's also ridiculous what you mean that that if American interests are endangered in the Red Sea then the the only answer is that the United States needs to be able to to deploy to the Red Sea unilaterally and take care of it i mean that's just as ridiculous a view as the as the liberal internationalist one you end up in the same place that the United States is ultimately responsible for securing its shipping in the Red Sea the the the sane alternative the only common sense alternative is there are other powers in this region there's Israel and the Gulf States there's Ethiopia there's Greece there's India among these nations we we ought to be able to put together with with some effort an appropriate resolution of uh ensuring the safety of of American and other shipping in this this part of the world and of course America should be interested in that kind of uh of a coalition but not because America has to govern that coalition to run it itself that that that makes no sense the whole idea of the Trump doctrine is that America can focus its attention on domestic issues and on the the the security threat of of of arising China and allow these other conflicts to be resolved by regional players yoram Hzani thank you so much for your time my pleasure thanks there to Professor Yoram Hazani so the two professors we heard from in a sense are complete opposites one is a staunch critic of Israel and what he calls the Israel lobby and one is an Israeli was talking to us from Jerusalem both of them take very different views on the wisdom of this conflict and whether it's in Israel's interests or in the United States interest to get involved and yet what was interesting is there's almost an overlap in their worldview because John Mishimer as the ultimate realist is the school of foreign policy he belongs to really thinks that states do act in their own self-interest that is the way the world works and that liberal ideals of some kind of international kumbaya are for the birds so he is essentially a defender of states acting in their national self-interest and Yuram Hazani is the architect of the national conservatism movement it's been incredibly influential incredibly successful in the past few years and at its heart is in a way the same idea which is that it is virtuous and proper for countries to act in their own self-interest so they sort of agree about that fundamental principle but they come to completely different conclusions so John Mishimer believes that although he understands it's in Israel's self-interest to try to take out the Iranian nuclear program he thinks a it won't work and b it's more likely to trigger a wider conflict drag in the United States against their self-interest and create chaos and make the world a more dangerous place so he strongly criticizes the whole adventure meanwhile Yuram Hzani really made quite an interesting delicate argument which actually showed sympathy with those voices inside MAGA like Steve Van and like Tucker Carlson who are absolutely dead against the US getting involved in this at all he showed sympathy with their principles but he was trying to say that paradoxically for the US to help Israel become one of the regional players that can look after security in the Middle Eastern area perhaps alongside Saudi alongside Emirates Jordan various Gulf states it helps America first according to Yoram Hozani to try and help bring about that settlement so that in the long term America can focus on its own vital interests these are delicate judgments but I thought it was fascinating to hear both sides put forward in such eloquent and interesting ways as ever you can make your own mind up thanks to them for joining and thanks to you this was unheard