Sorry, I'm late.
I had to stop by the Wax Museum again and give the finger to FDR.
We know Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri, is supporting the opposition in Syria.
Are we supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria?
It's a proud day for America.
And by God, we've kicked Vietnam syndrome once and for all.
Thank you very, very much.
I say it, I say it again.
You've been hacked.
You've been took.
You've been hoodwinked.
These witnesses are trying to simply deny things that just about everybody else accepts as a fact.
He came, he saw us, he died.
We ain't killing they army, but we killing them.
We be on CNN like Say Our Name been saying, say it three times.
The meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world.
Then there's going to be an invasion.
All right, you guys, introducing John Glaser from the Cato Institute.
Am I right?
You're the head of the Foreign Policy Department there now, John.
Welcome.
Thank you very much.
It's been a long time since we've chatted.
What's your title there again now?
Director of Foreign Policy Studies.
Director of Foreign Policy Studies.
That's a pretty good job to have, dude.
Formerly with Antiwar.com and doing great work.
Here's one in the national interest.
Failure forecast.
Sanctions won't work on Iran.
So first the news, the sanctions kicked in just the other day.
What sort of sanctions, John, and just how far did they kick in and then what happened?
Sure.
So the first of all, there's oil sanctions.
So since the withdrawal from the JCPOA back in May, Iran oil exports have been about halved.
It was about $2.7 million per day before the withdrawal from the JCPOA, and now it's about $1.5 million.
And that hurts, but it's not as bad as it otherwise might have been because the price of oil has risen over that same period.
So the regime's revenue losses are sort of manageable at this point.
Trump also issued waivers for oil sanctions to, I think, eight countries, Iraq, China, India, South Korea, Japan, Turkey, etc.
And so the regime is still getting some income from those sanctions.
They're allegedly supposed to be temporary waivers, but they're still in place at this moment.
And it's not just oil, of course.
The sanctions are targeting more than 700 banks, companies, individuals, vessels even, for Iranian shipping.
So they're pretty comprehensive.
The attempt is to sort of mimic and even harden what the Obama administration had placed on Iran and leave up to the JCPOA.
They can't quite do that because of all the waivers.
And Iran is simply just more integrated into the international system, both economically and disproportionately now.
So they're not going to be as harsh, but they're still pretty harsh.
There was supposed to be some guidelines released by the Treasury Department to allow for humanitarian supplies to get into Iran.
So those are officially exempted from sanctions, but the administration did not give any explicit guidelines or go the extra mile to ensure that those imports would be safe from punishment.
So they're effectively cut off as well.
The alleged sort of purpose of all this economic pressure, really it's just economic warfare, is to either make the Iranian regime reverse all of its policies that the United States objects to, which is of course not going to happen, or the more sort of unstated, I think, strategy is that Trump wants to redo his experience with North Korea.
So in Trump's mind, his economic warfare and threats of nuclear holocaust across social media scared Pyongyang into saying, yes to face-to-face meetings and summitry.
That's actually not what happened.
North Korea had other reasons to be willing to meet face-to-face and negotiate.
They developed a viable nuclear deterrent, so that satisfied them.
They can sit more equally across the table from the United States.
South Korea's President Moon Jae-in engaged in gargantuan diplomatic efforts to bring this about.
But Trump thinks that the pressure is really what worked, and so I think he's trying to do that again towards Iran.
But it's a failed strategy, because it just won't work.
Continuing along those lines, he has said, there was one of these press conferences the other day, where I think someone even asked about the possibility of war or something, and he was dismissing it, and was saying, it's a deal, we're going to get a new deal, there's going to be a deal, or hey, maybe not, but I think we are, that's what we're trying to do, we're trying to get a deal, this is the thing.
So, in other words, like what you're saying here, replicating the Korea thing, and so, you know, also as you refer to though, there's this long list of demands, but I've always been a, hey, go ahead and go to Tehran, make friends first, right?
Like Nixon and Mao, go ahead and break the ice, and then we'll have our people, I'll have my people call your people, we'll work out all this lower level stuff later.
Seems to be a pretty good framework, especially, well, like that's what the Leverets said, right?
That the nuclear deal itself won't be good enough.
Unless Obama goes to Tehran and solves the overall dilemma of our Cold War with them, even the nuclear deal won't last, and that prediction came true, turned out.
No, I think that's right.
I mean, if you think about the difference between Obama's approach to sort of a non-proliferation agreement with Iran, and Trump's approach to a non-proliferation agreement with North Korea, they differ in a lot of ways, and they have some costs and some benefits to them, but the fact that Obama was so sort of constrained politically against going to Tehran in the way that Trump went to North Korea, or really Singapore, but face-to-face meetings, and then Trump, of course, said there's no longer any threat, right?
Which was sort of silly, because he said there was a threat right before the summit meeting, but at least he changed the dynamic of the debate in Washington, D.C.'s foreign policy circles away from, you know, we're near the decision to engage in military action against North Korea, to, okay, they're no longer a threat, don't be worrying about that.
And if Obama had been more open to doing that, I think he was scared about the politics of doing it, but then the JCPOA would have had more staying power.
So I think that's exactly right.
If Trump, you know, somehow gets the opportunity to meet face-to-face with Iran, go to Tehran, you know, open up diplomatic negotiations, that would be a good thing, but given the international dynamics at play, I really don't think it's going to happen.
So Iran, for example, straight up doesn't trust Trump in the least.
His national security advisor is John Bolton, who the Iranians have known for a very long time is a threat to them.
And, you know, there's a lot of rhetoric that is very absolutist.
So they're saying, look, you have to stop your foreign policy, don't support any regional proxies, don't pursue your interests in the region, you know, overhaul your entire domestic system to become democratic, stop doing this, that, and the other thing.
And, you know, that's not going to happen.
Furthermore, the Trump administration has said they want any new nuclear deal to be even more expansive than the JCPOA.
And the Iranians already gave up quite a bit during the JCPOA.
And I don't think they're going to be willing to tolerate that level of sort of forfeiting of their sovereignty.
Right, I mean, so, yeah, this is really the important point, right, is that the North Korea thing makes for a great example.
As you're saying, there's been some real progress there.
And if that's what Trump is thinking, well, at least kind of that's nice.
But his tactic in doing this, destroying the old deal, which was perfectly good, as I know you know, double extra safeguarding a program that was already safeguarded anyway, you know, really unnecessary for what that's worth.
But, so that was all backed up at the time by what, I'm not sure exactly what all you think about this, but in my opinion was basically this mythology that Obama's crippling sanctions brought them to the table.
Right.
And part of that was he was able to persuade the Europeans and everybody to go along because they trusted him that this is really a means to an end.
I'm going to send John Kerry over there and we're going to do this thing.
But first I got to break their will with these economic sanctions, these crippling sanctions first.
And that that's supposed what drove the Iranians to the table to deal.
When I prefer Trita Parsi's explanation that their nuclear program was just getting bigger and bigger and their centrifuges were getting later and later generation, more and more, and that they brought the Americans to the table by building up a civilian nuclear program such that their breakout capability, quote unquote, which that's a pretty cynical term if you ask me, but their breakout capability was reduced to a year.
And that was what brought America to the table.
They could have had a deal with Iran long before that, but they all believe their story that they sanctioned Iran into compliance.
And now Trump is really, you know, it's, it's a pretty obvious blunder getting out of the deal just to get a new deal to say the same thing again.
But, but, you know, he apparently is going on that same narrative that, yeah, if you only just strangle them enough, they'll give in.
But then, so explain to me why exactly you think that that won't work?
Because, I mean, I guess I already threw cold water on that's what happened last time, but maybe I'm wrong about that.
And it seems like there is severe economic pain going on inside the country and it does destabilize the country.
Maybe it helps solidify support for the regime since they know it's external, but it also helps destabilize the regime as well, probably some.
And so maybe this will help the Ayatollah to begin to see it Trump's way, that they're going to have to give in more, like say, I don't know, give up the comm facility altogether or something.
Right.
So first of all, I think Trita and you are correct.
The, the, there is a bit of a dogma in DC that the sanctions worked on Iran and brought them to the table.
But, I mean, for the reasons that Trita points out, that's not right.
But also, you know, there's evidence of Iranian, of the Iranians being willing to come to the table long before those sanctions hit.
So back in the aughts, they sent a letter through the Swiss, who liaised between us and Iran, offering a sort of grand bargain with the United States and we ignored it.
In 2010, the Obama administration was in some nascent negotiations with Iran, who was still under Ahmadinejad at that time.
And there was some back and forth.
And Obama offered them a deal in which they would, you know, take their enriched uranium out of the country and refine it so that it couldn't be used for weapons and then bring it back.
And, you know, at first the Iranians didn't want that.
And then they, after Turkey and Brazil started to get involved, they said, okay, we'll do that.
And they essentially agreed to Obama's offer.
And then Obama, you know, backed away again and decided, no, I'm going to do this longer term thing.
And so the notion that sanctions and harsh economic warfare were needed in order to get Iran to the table is just belied by the record.
Now, how do sanctions do overall?
Pretty poorly.
Academic studies that look at the effectiveness of sanctions, that is to say, how often do sanctions actually change the policies of the target country in the direction desired by the sanctioning country?
It's very rare.
Overall, the best estimates are about it works about 30% of the time.
But if you look at cases in which the sanctions are about a security issue as opposed to like a trade or an economic issue, they work only about 5% of the time.
And, of course, if certain things are not in place along with sanctions, if certain things don't happen, then sanctions are going to fail 100% of the time.
So, for example, if the Obama administration hadn't said to the Iranians, hey, you can keep civilian enrichment, which previously had not been the U.S. posture, they never would have agreed to any deal.
So it was this back and forth, and there's all these other sort of realities and other pressure that got the Iranians to agree to a deal.
So sanctions tend not to work in general.
This approach is going to impoverish Iranians, harm them.
That's going to create more populist rage towards the United States and potentially a rally around the flag effect for the regime.
It's going to unsettle global oil markets and possibly even raise prices at the pump for Americans.
It's going to increase the risk of some kind of conflict arising out of maritime problems because Iranian tankers are still trying to export their oil, despite the fact that the United States wants to stop them.
That's a huge risk, that we get into some kind of clash on the seas.
And furthermore, it isolates the United States diplomatically from the entire rest of the world.
All of our European allies are against this policy.
China's against this policy.
Russia's against this policy.
And so it's hard to frame this as being a wise policy and strategically minded because it's just set up for failure.
Well, and so guess who's the national security advisor?
John Bolton.
And so I won't waste your time playing the clip, but I have the clip from him from 2007 saying that all the sanctions, the focus of them back in the Bush Jr. years was to try to get the Iranians to throw up their hands and quit the nonproliferation treaty, which he said would put us in a more advantageous position in terms of justifying attacking them.
And so I wonder whether you think, in other words, this is not outside the realm of possibility.
This is exactly John Bolton's MO, specifically his MO.
And so maybe that is the point, is to try to provoke a conflict so that the United States will be, quote unquote, justified in launching an attack against Tehran.
What do you think?
It's a real possibility.
I mean, I heard a story that when John Bolton finally came into the administration, Trump kind of jokingly elbowed him and said, I'm not going to let you start any of these wars.
So I think Trump is very attuned to cost, and he doesn't want to end up like George W. Bush did in Iraq.
He doesn't want that kind of thing to be his legacy.
He thinks wars are costly, and I don't think he wants a direct conflict with Iran.
Nobody should want that because it would be an order of magnitude worse than what we saw in Iraq.
I agree with you about that.
I don't think he wants to attack Iran at all either.
But I think you might be right that some of his advisors are hawkish enough to want that situation, or at least to be harsh enough where we get into some kind of situation where it's an inadvertent escalation.
The Iranians do something, then we do something in return, and then things just get out of control.
In that situation, I don't actually trust Trump to hold the line and exercise restraint because he's very – he's got a thin skin, and he wants to always seem strong.
And if the Iranians do something and it's on us to respond, I think he's going to take that opportunity despite the fact that he doesn't actually want to go to war.
So this is a really risky policy.
We're doing everything but military action against Iran right now, and that's just – it's astounding that we still have this posture towards Iran despite the fact that every accusation against the Iranian regime can just as equally be applied to all of our allies in the region.
They're a nasty dictatorial religious cult that violates the rights of their own citizens, also true of many of our allies in the region.
They support nasty proxy groups, also true of our allies in the region.
And they've complied fully with the terms of the nuclear agreement for three years straight, despite the fact that we have violated it.
So it's just – it's astounding to me what the justification for this kind of aggressive, antagonistic policy is in the region.
Hey, guys.
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Well, OK, so I guess we know enough about John Bolton to know that when he's not lying, he's really honest, and he believes what he says he believes, at least to himself, kind of thing, and is very confident in all of that.
So it makes sense that he wants total de-nuking, that this concession that you mentioned, that Obama said, OK, you can keep enrichment, just keep it at 3.6% and keep your stockpile low, pal, that to John Bolton, that this is absolutely an unforgivable concession, that they should never be allowed to have a single spinning centrifuge there.
So that makes perfect sense that that's what he wants.
That's his list of demands is a complete denuclearization of Iran's electricity system there and all of that.
And yet, he must know that no amount of sanctions could really force them to agree to that, especially when Obama already blew it, quote unquote, from their point of view, and set the precedent that at the end of the day, the USA will give in and let you have your centrifuges, if not under Trump, under the next guy or something.
And so, right, like even from Bolton's point of view, they've got to see that they're never going to be able to reduce the program back that far.
Do they even put a thing in the weekly standard or anything about what a new, better deal would look like to them?
The amount of what their demands are over and above the JCPOA?
Yeah, so what has been mentioned is basically two versions.
One is the version that you're ascribing to Bolton, which is that they should not even have civilian enrichment capabilities.
Even that is unacceptable because we can't trust them to not dash for the bomb.
The other people are saying, well, it can be based on the JCPOA, but it just has to be harder.
So, for example, the sunset clauses should be permanent.
By sunset clauses, your listeners probably know what I'm talking about.
But after 10, 15, 20, 25 years, various aspects of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, start to expire.
And so Iran can have more centrifuges at some point.
Iran can have more in the stockpile of enriched uranium.
They can expand that.
And it slowly sort of gradually expires some of these restrictions.
But the most important ones are indefinite, which is that they're part of the additional protocol of the Nonproliferation Treaty, which allows for expanded inspections indefinitely and all this kind of stuff.
But the hawks, I think, want to expand, extend those sunset clauses indefinitely.
They want immediate access upon request to any Iranian facility, including military and intelligence sites that are off limits for anyone but the Iranian regime.
And that's just not going to happen.
But also, these are very disingenuous arguments about what should happen because not only do they know they're not going to happen, but the JCPOA is easily the most robust nonproliferation agreement we've ever negotiated.
It rolled back Iran's program significantly.
They gave up two-thirds of their operating centrifuges, 98 percent of their enriched stockpile of uranium.
In the first year of the agreement after implementation day, they had more than 420 individual inspections of their various facilities.
That's, of course, more than one per day.
So they're always on the ground.
Inspectors are always in there.
The head of the IAEA said that this is the most intrusive inspections regime in the world.
And they looked at that, and they said, no, screw it.
We want an even harsher and more intrusive deal, which is elusive, not going to happen, all this kind of stuff.
So that's what they allege they want.
But actually what I think has happened here is that we've seen proof that the nuclear issue is kind of a foil.
It's kind of a false sort of – they're using this premise, this nuclear issue, as a reason to batter Iran, even though their reasons are elsewhere, because the JCPOA took the nuclear issue off the table.
That's what they hated about it, right.
That's what they hated about it, exactly.
And so that's why you hear them talking about Iranian democracy now.
That's why you hear them talk about Iranian destabilization across the Middle East.
All these are – I mean it hardly merits refutation to claim that Pompeo, Trump, Bolton, and anyone else cares about democracy in Iran.
They don't.
We know that because they don't care about it in Saudi Arabia.
They don't care about it in Yemen.
I saw that word Pompeo was saying.
Yeah, we're trying to restore democracy there.
And I was going to say, did nobody heckle him and say, what, back to 1953 before the USA canceled democracy in Iran once and for all?
It's almost this bizarre situation where U.S. officials will say a thing and everybody in the room knows that it's nonsense.
Nobody really thinks Pompeo, Bolton, and Trump care about securing democracy in Iran.
What we're going to do, Sia, is we're going to install Myron Rajavi in there.
Right.
So these are all fanciful.
And then the question becomes why are they doing this?
If all these justifications don't have any basis in fact, why are they having such an antagonistic policy?
And that's a harder question to answer if I'm frank with you.
I think they have an ideological opposition to Iran and they are committed.
The Trump administration has doubled down to our traditional allies in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Iran is the primary geopolitical competitor to both of those allies.
And therefore, we're just subordinating our own interests in favor of their interests, which is not good for U.S. interests.
Yeah, I would say so.
So what's the path out of here?
I mean, other than just electing a damn Democrat next time to try to restore Obama's legacy or some horrible thing?
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say.
I don't suspect too much will happen in the next two years.
I think we'll see just more of what we've already seen, which is really harsh, antagonistic rhetoric from the Trump administration, a worsening Iranian economy, but continuing isolation diplomatically for the United States.
And again, given the president's sort of reluctance to get involved in a war, I don't expect things to escalate unless we encounter some unforeseen situations.
Although, like you're saying, some of them are pretty easy to foresee, like trouble in the Persian Gulf and things like that getting out of control.
Sorry to interrupt.
The risk is there.
But I think we're probably just going to muddle along for the next two years, and then another administration will come into power.
And frankly, even if it's another Republican, which I don't think it will be, it's likely to be a Democrat.
I won't put money on it.
I learned in 2016 not to make predictions.
And then if a Democrat comes into office in 2020, they'll probably reenter the JCPOA, and we'll try to go back to the status quo.
Because after all, the deal is still on between Iran and all the rest of the Security Council powers, plus Germany and all that, right?
That's right.
Yeah.
Everyone is still a party to the agreement.
Iran is still complying with it.
It's just that Iran is not getting its side of the bargain.
They're not getting the economic benefits because we've decided to violate the agreements.
But we're alone.
The agreement still exists, and Iran is still complying.
Well, and you know what?
I don't know.
I mean, assuming that at some point Bolton gets another job somewhere or something, there are a little bit less worse people in charge of the Trump cabinet.
I guess as long as the deal is still there, it remains within the possibility of him rejoining it if maybe the Iranians would let him save face by agreeing to a little old something, you know, lifting one sunset or another kind of thing.
Just enough and make it look like a success on his part, you know, is a big enough thing that maybe that could be done in Trump's second term.
Yeah, I'm a little skeptical that that would happen.
You know, the other thing we have to consider is for the next two years, Trump is going to be increasingly distracted by domestic issues.
And that could be a good thing or it could be a bad thing.
So now that the Democrats have control of the House, they're going to exercise their subpoena power.
They're probably going to try to get his tax returns.
They're going to take actions to protect the Mueller investigation.
The Mueller investigation will continue to make progress.
And this all is really destabilizing and frustrating to Trump.
And so he might be distracted from Iran policy.
Now that could mean on the one hand, well, that means we won't be as harsh and aggressive.
Or it could mean that, you know, Iran policy is kind of taken over by Trump's subordinates like Bolton and becomes even more hawkish.
So I don't know.
It's going to be a kind of rowdy next two years.
Yeah, it sure is, man.
And maybe six more.
I don't know.
I'm looking at the Democratic field and I'm thinking we're looking at President Trump for a while longer here.
You very well might be right.
But I still it's still hard for me to believe that come 2020, the American people are going to vote to reelect Trump.
He's unpopular.
Who's going to stop him?
Cory Booker or Elizabeth Warren or Hillary Clinton?
I hope she runs again.
Well, if she runs again, it'll be a recipe for, you know, more Republican rule in the White House.
I mean, their bench is deep in all the wrong ways.
I mean, somebody was saying their three front runners age adds up to 230 something or something, you know.
Yeah, the options are not good as far as I can tell.
But nevertheless, I think on balance, a Democratic administration is going to be less likely to get into a conflict with Iran.
They're going to be more likely to rejoin the JCPOA.
This would be the one thing that you could probably bet they'll really be better on.
Yeah, but actually, I think they probably even formalized the diplomatic process with North Korea that Trump has started.
I don't think they would go back to a harsh policy where, you know, we're not talking to them.
I think that now that that has happened, it's going to continue to happen.
So, I mean, overall, Republicans are a bit more dangerous for U.S. foreign policy than Democrats, but not by much.
Yeah, no, not very much at all.
Ask the Libyans.
Ask the, you know, sub-Saharan African slaves in the Libyan markets.
Yeah.
Have their own view.
I mean, a lot of it is just rhetoric.
It's just, you know, Democrats have a flavor, which is less dangerous than the policies that kind of track together.
Well, and I think, you know, we talked about this at the time.
I always said Obama was Obama the Great for one day when he and Kerry finalized this deal and got this deal through to, as you said, take the nuclear issue off the table.
By really, the safeguards agreement already should have long ago.
But the propaganda campaign against their nuclear program withstood all those facts, but they couldn't withstand the facts of the expanded inspections and the vastly reduced production and all of that after the JCPOA.
And so, you know, that was absolutely heroic.
It's too bad he had to go ahead and help the Saudis start more of genocide in Yemen to make up for, you would think, doing them a favor, right?
Protecting them from Iran's nuclear program, the Saudis.
But no, instead, the Saudis apparently feared that this meant America was tilting back toward Iran.
And so you better prove that you're not by helping us kill everyone in Yemen.
And so Obama said, OK.
And they even said it again to the New York Times.
So like, well, we're trying to placate the Saudis after the Iran deal.
So that's a hell of a price that the Yemenis had to pay for this deal.
But, you know, anyway.
Yeah, it sure is.
You know, I think Obama, there's a few moments in Obama's presidency that I sort of give him credit for.
Diplomacy with Iran is one, even though it's a kind of a mixed bag, as we talked about.
The other mixed bag is Syria.
He actually did resist a lot of internal pressure, not just in his cabinet, but, you know, deep into the civil service, bureaucracy, and national security apparatus to get deeply involved in Syria in a military way.
Overthrowing the Assad regime, you know, and setting up some kind of internal arrangement.
That would have been hellish.
And he resisted that pressure.
Unfortunately, he didn't resist it enough to not help facilitate support for rebel groups, which exacerbated the length and severity of the civil war and all this kind of stuff.
And, of course, his rather unwise statements about red lines and Assad's got to go and all this stuff.
So Obama is quite a mixed bag, but there's a few points where I think he – rationality overcame hysteria for the better.
Yeah.
All right, well, it's certainly the case that on the issue of Iran and, you know, Palestine for that matter, but all things Israel, that Trump is a couple clicks worse.
He's seemingly less worse on a couple of things, like Syria, for example.
He called off CIA support for al-Qaeda there, so that was nice.
Obama has surged, you know, 60,000 troops in Afghanistan.
Trump only surged 5,000 more.
You know, I don't know.
I'm not making excuses for the guy, but I'm just saying it is, as you're saying, it is a mixed bag on that, you know.
But, you know what?
Iran is the bigger one.
No offense to the innocent dead people of Afghanistan or anything, but we get in a war with Iran, and you're talking about a lot more dead Afghans and all kinds of other people as that war spreads through the region.
That's right.
The other thing is that, you know, it is a mixed bag with Trump.
You know, he has pushed against his own advisers on the surge in Afghanistan.
He's called off support for rebels in Syria, but he still has 2,000 or 3,000 troops in Syria, which I think policy now is they won't leave until Iran exits the country, which is a new mission that nobody has ever voted on or given authority to the executive branch to pursue that mission.
Troops are there illegally.
So, Trump, I think more than Obama, has this authoritarian mind in which he thinks there is no such thing as real constraints on his power as president.
He can do whatever he wants.
Well, there's no real new AUMF for Iraq War III either, though.
Those Marines are all illegally in Syria anyway.
Totally agree.
The AUMF is – both of them are old and they're being used to justify military action in somewhere in between eight or 14 countries.
You're right, though, I guess, that if Iraq War III against ISIS was a stretch under the AUMF, then turning around and saying, no, it's all about Iran who is here to fight ISIS after we helped support their rise to power here.
That is definitely just completely disregarding the AUMF.
That's beyond a stretch.
That's a break.
Yeah, I know.
I think you're completely right.
AUMF stuff and Yemen and a lot of these other issues, I think we should be able to see some action, even if it's only kind of perfunctory from Congress.
Now that the Democrats have control of the House, they're going to be incentivized to push against Trump's policies.
There's already bills pending from Representative Ro Khanna and some others to stop U.S. military intervention on behalf of the Saudis in Yemen.
There's already calls for some kind of new AUMF.
If we can manage to have a new AUMF that doesn't just grant all the current powers plus more, then that's good.
Myself and my colleague Gene Healy have advocated in The New York Times and elsewhere that we should just repeal and not replace the AUMF.
And if something is dangerous enough, we should declare war, and if not, we should stay the hell out.
But anyways, I think we'll see some more action, some more pressure against some of these illegal wars and interventions in the next two years, hopefully.
Yeah, well, and I think in the next few months, we're going to be seeing a new push on, certainly on Yemen.
And I guess I'm hearing that we're about to start hearing a lot more ruckus in the Senate about Afghanistan, too.
And so I don't know what difference it'll make, but it seems like the time is far more than ripe for, you know, this kind of pressure to wind these things down.
I mean, I think Trump himself is actually the perfect thermometer for this, right?
Where here's a guy who doesn't read a thing or not, unless there's a gun to his head or something, you know, he doesn't want to read anything.
He knows what he knows from watching Sean Hannity, for Christ's sake.
And, you know, he's kind of this rich old golfer Fox News guy, right?
Like, just like in the stereotype.
And he thinks exactly like them.
And he thinks, how does it take 17 years to kill 400 men?
Like, what the hell is going on with this war on terrorism anyway?
I want to do other things.
This isn't—America isn't supposed to just fight Muslims with rifles wherever we find them, anywhere in the world from now on.
I mean, this is crazy.
And even Donald Trump could tell you it just doesn't feel right.
It doesn't make sense that this is what we do from, what, from now on?
This is the thing?
You know, so that was, you know, the quotes of him arguing with Mattis about Somalia.
You can tell he doesn't know where Somalia is, and he's kind of proud of that.
And he's just like, look, man, why are we even in Somalia at all?
Like, I don't care who kills who in Somalia.
Why do we have to be there?
And then Mattis hands him this crap about we're preventing somebody from bombing Times Square.
Really?
The guy that tried to bomb Times Square was there directly in revenge for the American drone war in Pakistan.
Yeah.
You know?
Mattis actually went further.
Give me a break.
Mattis said it's to stop an atomic bomb from going off in Times Square.
Oh, good.
Yeah, al-Shabaab.
I was really worried about, you know, they actually have H-bombs now.
The level of threat inflation in D.C. foreign policy circles is so out of this planet in terms of proportionality that it's hard to even talk about these issues.
But you're right.
In a sense, that is part of the essence of Trump's kind of populist appeal.
I think a lot of Americans don't understand why we're in all these countries fighting all these wars that don't benefit the United States.
I think a lot of Americans want to do that less.
And I think a lot of Americans sometimes are surprised to hear that we're still in Afghanistan.
There's only a slim majority of Americans recently polled that actually know we're still fighting a war in Afghanistan.
And so, yeah, I think Trump, like the American people, doesn't necessarily know how to point to Somalia on a map.
But they have a sense that whatever we're doing there, we don't really belong, and it's not quite worth it.
It's only in the bizarre ideologies of reigning strategic premises in Washington, D.C., that we need to be everywhere doing everything all the time.
Right.
Yeah, absolutely right.
Well, listen, John, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your time on the show and this great bit of work.
And for that matter, your whole department over there, the heroic Ted Galen Carpenter and the great Doug Bandow and Christopher Preble, and, of course, Trevor Thrall and Emma Ashford, right?
Yeah.
So, I mean, you guys are just doing killer work, man, and we're all relying on you to keep doing it.
So, good.
And thank you.
Well, that means a lot coming from you.
You know, I recently, as we exchange emails, I saw your recent speech in D.C.
You are the kind of moral father of U.S. foreign policy for the libertarian movement, and you really inspire a lot of people.
That's a new one.
Okay.
Well, your memory recall is unbelievable.
The amount that you have in your brain ready to unleash against the war party is pretty impressive.
So, keep at it.
All right.
Well, thanks, John.
Good to see you, bud.
Bye-bye.
All right.
Take care.
John Glazer, everybody.
Cato.org.
All right, y'all.
Thanks.
All right, y'all.
Thanks.
Find me at libertarianinstitute.org, at scotthorton.org, antiwar.com, and reddit.com slash scotthortonshow.
Oh, yeah, and read my book, Fool's Errand, Timed and the War in Afghanistan at foolserrand.us.
