Was Trump's War Worth It?

Tehran reiterates it will not produce a nuclear weapon, something it's said before. While there are no details on how its tons of highly enriched uranium will be disposed of, The agreement is meant to be formally signed on Friday, but President Trump said the final language could change before then and to further muddy the waters. He added this today. If they don't behave, I'll start bombing their heads again.

Here with more detail is the New York Times David Sanger, who Trump called over the weekend after the agreement was made. David Sanger, welcome to the program. Trump and you spoke he called you. and you made uh your report about it. Now he's spoken publicly, having briefed the Allies, uh and you are I think you're there following them or you've been watching it anyway, and you just heard his press conference, no doubt. Just in a word Can you tell me what you think this means for the US?

But he's not correct when he says that they've achieved all of their nuclear objectives. The only one they've achieved so far is a declaration from the Iranians that they have no intention of building a nuclear weapon. They first made that statement in 1970 when they signed the nuclear or ratified the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. They said it again during the Obama era deal, known as the JCPOA, the the agreement to limit their nuclear uh program. It's on the first page of that agreement.

So everything now hinges on what happens in negotiating the second, much more difficult agreement. And for that the president's given up some of his leverage. Because oil revenue will be flowing back into Iran as soon as those ships begin delivering.

and that in fact it could be an MOU of capitulation by the United States. These are strong words. Others are calling it a major strategic defeat for the United States because it gives at least in the league document and the fourteen points that we've been able to see, a lot of upfront weight to Iran's demands, including respecting their sovereignty.

Uh they said they want a guarantee of no more war against them by the US or in fact uh Israel, uh including this issue that we've just been talking about about sanctions and oil um a and the like and respecting each other's territorial integrity. How does how do you read all that?

And it seems likely that they will begin to benefit, as I mentioned before, in the biggest way, which is to say resumed access to the oil market. almost right away before they have done that sixty day negotiation. And that leaves the president in a very risky spot because it's very possible, it's probable

that the Iranians will drag out this negotiation. It's an extraordinarily complex one. We learned that when we covered the uh Obama era negotiation. Uh that took you'll remember uh a year and a half. We spent a lot of time together during that time waiting in hotel roo uh lobbies, you know, for people to come out from the negotiations.

And it took a year and a half because of the complexity of dealing with inspection, whether you close all the nuclear facilities, whether Iran can be allowed to continue to enrich even at low level. whether or not the stockpile gets shipped out of the country, which the president didn't sound very urgent about yesterday. And that's all the hard stuff that will determine whether this is in fact Better or worse than what Obama negotiated.

uh an Israeli Prime Minister. I haven't heard other US Presidents say it either, but not very complimentary um to what is their specialist relationship, either their most special relationship, that with Israel. So where do you think that part of it is going to stand?

There was a whole plan about how the Kurds would come in and and begin to r uh attack the government, how they might replace uh the current government with uh a previous uh Iranian hardline president, but one they thought that they could uh control President Ahmadinejad. Um none of that came to pass. And so you have to wonder if at this point the President's view is that Netanyahu led him down the wrong path.

Despite encouraging the Iranian people right from the get-go to rise up at the start of the year, President Trump has lost interest apparently in toppling the Iranian regime. Listen to what he told reporters yesterday about the Iranian negotiators.

They're third set of leaders, a little bit gone, but for the most part and frankly I think that's regime change. I think they're gonna behave much differently. I think they see a different way of life.

Following the stories of six Iranians who've seen hopes raised and dashed in that time. And they're both joining me now. Welcome to the program.

uh in Iran, um we what we can say is that as you as you mentioned, the people who are in charge now, I mean, we've seen a long sort of decades long um trend towards the military gaining more and more power uh inside the country and that has been accelerated over the last few months.

Uh and certainly um you know we we'll we'll kind of see how these negotiations go, but I expect that it will be quite difficult um for the group of people who are in power now to kind of um make some of some of the most serious compromises on the nuclear uh program or on other issues.

and made their views very, very clear. And frankly, there have been organized protests inside Iran against this deal with the United States by the hardliners. So what do you think given the title of your book is Stolen Revolution, we'll get more into that. What do you think immediately will be the political manifestation of a post war Iran vis a vis the people of Iran?

I see that the way they are trying to sell the deal is that this is going to give the Islamic Republic a breathing space to rebuild its. Offensive and defensive capabilities. to get ready for a full on confrontation in the future. So that that's the uh from the Islamic Republic perspective it seems that they think that this is a good deal because they can regroup

and rethink their strategies and plan ahead for for for future. But I think for the Iranian people it the the outcome is quite disappointing because in the eyes of many Iranians the war didn't start on february twenty eighth. It started from January when thousands, maybe millions of Iranians came to the streets and President Trump uh told them to remain on the streets because the

help was on its way. So for in the eyes of many Iranians, they were expecting this this military campaign to be a way that they will overthrow the Islamic Republic with the help of Americans. So in the question of on the question of the regime change In the eyes of many Iranians, the regime hasn't changed, only it has changed to a worse version of itself.

through decades and it's not just um this regime but but from many, many years before, uh th they have basically had their resistance crushed. So Yeagonet, tell me How you decided to to use this um you know format to tell the story since 1979. And I'm particularly interested first. in your uh examination of Mehdi Karubi who is really very compelling in your storytelling. Tell us who he is and why you picked him as a key as a key point person in this story.

And as a result, when the revolution does succeed in 1979, he rises to positions of great power. He eventually becomes Parliament Speaker at the end of the 1980s, early 90s. And also throughout the eighties he takes on a role of sort of um spreading wealth uh to the poor in society and and that often meant confiscating properties from the rich and from the people who are associated with the past regime.

Um after Khomeini dies he uh is sort of cast out of power by Khomeini's successor, um Ali Khomenei uh and his allies. And he then and and many of his allies on the left sort of begin to rethink some of their principles. um and pushed along by this baby boom generation of young people in that era who wanted something new and something different um from their governments.

um that kind of results in the reform movement of the mid to late nineteen nineties. And Mehti Khadri plays a key role in that and it kind of rises back to power doing his second stint as parliament speaker in that era. And so sort of we kind of follow his story. He eventually runs for president in 2009. He becomes one of the imprisoned under house arrest leaders of the Green Movement in 2009.

His story kind of shows the narrowing of Iran's political system. It also, through him, you know, we we don't sort of turn away from the mistakes that he also made in the 1980s and the ways in which some of the steps that he took. um the the institutions that he helped to create then were the same institutions that oppressed him and his allies. uh later on. And so we just felt like he was a really interesting, complex character to really show the entire arc of the Islamic Republic.

that actually that that election had been stolen from them. So um Bozormer, the the Green Revolution How close was that to actually bringing Iranian people their ability to overthrow whether or not it's get rid of the regime but but change the regime's, you know, very, very hard line attitude, certainly, you know, for a long time before that and most particularly in the uh in the Ahmadinejad era before the 2009 uprising.

uh the leaders, Iranian leaders, in this case Mousavi and Karubi, they were not ready. And we see that pattern a lot in in Iran's history that The Iranian leaders are always one step behind the people. So in the Green Movement, many people came to the streets and they they were ready to create a fundamental change, but it seems that Kalubi and Musavi were not ready to utilize that street presence the way for example Egyptian leaders managed to make the most of Tyriel Square uh demonstrations.

We see, I think I believe we see the same pattern in the reform movement itself. After 1997, when Khatami was elected as the president, the energy was there. He was elected with 20 millions of votes. But he was more cautious than the voters, so that's why that opportunity was also lost.

on why, not just from nineteen seventy nine, but even before under the Shah, even going all the way back to the you know, to the constitutional uh revolution back at the beginning of the twentieth century, Iranian regimes and leaders, whether they're monarchist or not, or secular like Mossadegh, or whatever it is. have apparently never been accountable to their people. They just have not had that kind of popular legitimacy. And every time there is a uh you know, an uprising

They get crushed, and obviously in in the last n nearly fifty years as well. Do you see it that way and do you have an answer for why?

there were elements and large parts of that revolutionary movement that wanted greater freedoms and believed that getting rid of the Shah would would bring them those freedoms um politically. And instead what they what they got was

um greatly curtailed social freedoms and eventually um very, very, very uh restrictive political um space as well. Um and so I think You know, uh what we what we sort of try to trace in the book is the fact that the Iranian people keep trying in different ways and they turn to different methods, whether it's

first voting. Um, you know, in nineteen ninety seven, voting in this very unexpected way, really for the first time for a candidate that was not openly favored by the Supreme Leader. We took the system by surprise. Then when that was stymied, you know, they turn to peaceful street protests and they they vote again in the Green Movement. Uh and then over and over in the last ten or fifteen years or so we see round after round of protests.

Um and and you know, that I I don't expect that um impulse to to go away.

Uh it's a small act of resistance, obviously, from her, but also from him. So tell me about that and where you think. The people of Iran are going to find themselves now in post-war Iran. Do you think this regime will understand that they need to respond to the people's needs or else get kicked out?

In deeper layers of the society are fighting for freedom. In in the book, we didn't want to limit ourselves to the political level because The full Iranian experience. It also includes the cultural and social and also economic layers of the Iranian society, which we explained in the book. Gila represents that social and cultural parts, that how she tries to. She tries really hard to find some freedom in the cultural space. She goes through negotiations with many government officials.

to create some safe space for for for creating culture. Of course she is disappointed over and over, but as we see and as as we see in her personal life She comes back and only fights stronger. And I think that that shows the the the spirit of the nation that whatever is the result of their their attempts, if it's failure, they will come they will go and reinvent themselves and come back again.

On the pitch, it's been full of thrills though, including a hat trick from Lionel Messi for Argentina, which made him the World Cup's joint top all-time scorer. and a thrilling performance from Cape Verde, where their forty year old goalie kept the Spanish team at bay For the entire match. Let us bring in Financial Times columnist Simon Cooper, himself a football super fan and author of World Cup Fever. Simon Cooper, welcome back to our programme.

and the terrible ticket prices and the rejections, as you say, of some officials and fans who wanted to come in. Now I think the people are starting to forget about that and really enjoy the football, which is probably as it should be.

And it was it's the first real Cinderella moment we've had so far. I think the whole world loved it. And the US State Department is now even trying to bring the goalkeeper's mother into the US so she can follow the tournament there.

Do you compare all the pre-sort of uh discomfort around this World Cup to other World Cups?

And I think that that was a kind of cheapening of football in the World Cup. But it was the same four years ago before the World Cup in Qatar. This is the third geopolitically turbulent World Cup we've had. In twenty eighteen the host was Vladimir Putin in Russia. So it's becoming a sort of norm of modern World Cups that they happen in places with enormous political problems and darkness, and then the football lights it's all up.

But Qatar, w what do you think the US might look like after this? Because soccer, football has not been a huge thing in the US, has it, like much of the rest of the world?

uh burnish their aura. But in fact the World Cup is often used against leaders and so in Qatar NGOs used it to highlight Qatar's abuses of migrants, of uh building workers, for example. Vladimir Putin had to let hundreds of journalists into Russia and also there were a lot of scenes of ordinary Russians hugely enjoying hanging out and dancing and singing with foreign fans, which is not a very Putinesque scene.

And similarly in the US, uh, it's not just given a tr platform to Trump, much more so far it's given a platform to Zoran Mamdani, mayor of New York, who's very fluent in the language of football, who's led the charge against high ticket prices. You've seen a lot of you've seen even American police officers, their videos all the time of them dancing with foreign fans, uh a guy in Boston juggling a ball for Scottish fans who applaud and hug him.

So we're seeing a different US, a US that doesn't have the kind of Trumpian message of we hate the world. We're seeing much more joyous interaction between Americans and foreigners than is part of the Trump resurrect.

And you've attended every World Cup tournament since 1990. So how has the actual game evolved? What have you noticed in all your years of World Cup attendance?

And there's something lovely about that. Of course the World Cup should belong to everyone and it's watched. enormously all over Africa and parts of Asia. And so it's great that it's now really the world's party. The U Western Europeans plus Argentina are still the best. But the internationalism of the World Cup, the kind of openness to all is new.

data analysts, they have the best fit physical trainers, they plan their corner kicks to minutiae. So it's become a very kind of professional, scientific and European setup in the England team, which some might say would be a nice model for the UK as a whole.

But also there's a spotlight because they're highlighting the more than 130,000 people who've gone missing in the drug war there. Uh Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum says the World Cup will show the world who Mexico is. What what does the world see and what should the world see about Mexico?

Um some believe with some government complicity. So it's an example of how governments try to use the World Cup, but often ordinary people use it against them. So we're seeing a lot of Mexican argument be conducted around the tournament.

So I think, you know, from the perspective of this meeting, the G seven meeting, having President Trump arrive, be able to announce that a deal has been reached is all a positive. And the Europeans I think are interested in figuring out how they can support the deal moving forward. Uh beginning with, I think working to clear minds from the straight of four moves. So I think it's a good beginning for the G7 meeting to start off with this.

uh deal and certainly for the region, which has been battered uh by this war over the past four months or so, uh, this is very welcome news. You know, of course there are skeptics um, you know, uh about the durability of this deal. We've had ceasefires before. But I think there's a fairly strong commitment, at least on the part of the United States, to try to make this stick. So, you know, we'll hold on to some optimism perhaps until proved otherwise.

So, you know, for example, when Australia called for investigation into the origins of COVID and China started to boycott uh a lot of Australian goods coming into the into the into China. So these countries have developed sort of an anti-coercion platform. Which they will work together to support countries that are facing economic coercion from China. Certainly we've seen over the past just two or three years efforts on critical minerals and rare earth elements and efforts to develop.

uh alignment on exploring new sources of uh mining and refining uh of these rare earths because there's too much dependence on China uh in this space. So that issue of supply chain dependency is I think another area where there's uh alignment within the G7 and we've seen sort of new new arrangements emerge. And then I think in terms of trade defense measures, so China's export of its overcapacity.

uh is a you know s a source of very serious concern uh for all the G7 members, right? We've seen it in the cleantech space on solar panels and batteries and EVs. uh and we're gonna see it across, you know, a whole array of of other uh technologies and products. Um so alignment again around tariffs, around export controls.

um on investment screening. So there's a lot of work to be done in aligning um our policies around these areas and sort of cooperating uh together. So not just even aligning, but cooperating. And then I think the second area where the G seven has sort of focused on China has been in terms of China's role on the global security front. And here, of course, China has been, you know, sort of an economic lifeline for Russia.

uh in Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. Uh and you know that's been very problematic. Um and and also China's sort of uh destabilizing behavior in the Indo Pacific. Uh that's another area where the G7 uh has taken note and has sort of called out uh that you know sort of negative action uh by Beijing. And you know, frankly speaking, the whole sort of emerging um axis of China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran uh is something that I think greatly concerns uh the G7.

China has been de-risking uh, you know, its own economy for a decade or more, right? Diversifying, you know, we've seen it diversify, for example, its sources of energy extremely successfully. Right, in terms of both, you know, from clean energy to, you know, oil and gas from many different sources.

uh to nuclear power. Uh China's been doing this very aggressively. It's been de-risking its supply chain across a again, a whole array of critical technologies. Xi Jinping is essentially, you know, the Chinese leader's essentially trying to create Fortress China. Uh, you know, he talks all the time about the need for China to have, you know, independence in, you know, its food security, in its energy security, and in its technology security. So that's been China's

approach uh for its own economy for a very long uh period of time. So really it's the United States and and you know other advanced democracies just playing catch-up uh in many respects to what China has already been doing uh and recognizing the risks that come from this overdependence. And, you know, frankly speaking, we didn't even realize this, I think, until COVID.

Uh, when we became acutely aware of our dependence on China for the personal protective equipment, right? The masks and the gloves and the ventilators. That we needed, and they were in such short supply. And we saw to some extent China weaponize those things, right? China can use.

sub C cables and the digital infrastructure, 4G, 5G, data centers, right? E-payment systems, satellite systems. There's the Health Silk Road, which sort of came to fruition during COVID, export of Chinese, you know, medical technology, uh, and then the Green Silk Road, which is about the clean tech space. Um, you know, does the Belton Road enable China to get countries to align with it?

I think there is not evidence really, for example, in UN votes, that for example, countries that receive the most investment from China necessarily align with China on issues that are important to China in the United Nations. We haven't seen that kind of alignment emerging. And frankly speaking, in in many countries, there have been a lot of popular protests around belt and road projects.

So even as though many of those uh projects are welcomed, uh certainly by leaders, uh there's a lot of consternation at the local level. Why? Because China often has exported its own labor uh to do the projects, which means Communities don't benefit. Often the governance around these projects is not very strong. So no social impact assessments or environmental impact assessments. Deals are struck in a non-transparent way, right? So

You know, a lot of local people may believe that their leaders are pocketing some side money. And then sometimes the quality of the projects is not particularly high. So so even though the the you know infrastructure support is much needed and again welcomed because oftentimes Western companies are not willing to go in uh to do this kind of work.

Um it you know, the projects have not been uniformly successful. About a third of them have either been canceled or stalled, run into very significant significant difficulty.

And I would say none of them uh has succeeded. Um and you know, we've tried working with partners and and allies uh to do this, but it's very difficult. Um again, you know, if you're looking at the Chinese priority areas of mining of digital infrastructure and of clean tech, they really dominate. And you know, you're looking at, you know, going into mining in places where Western companies just haven't wanted to go. There's just too difficult to do that. But Chinese companies heavily subsidize.

you know, are in it for the long term, right? And they don't mind the conditions and they don't mind working, you know, in very challenging conditions. And so they've they have a long-term strategy that is paying off and we're facing the consequences.

That being said, I I think it's important to recognize that despite all of the attention that Belton Road gets, if you look across the world, China is the largest source of investment in none of these regions. So, you know, Europe is the largest investor in Africa, Japan is the largest investor in Southeast Asia, and the United States is the largest investor in Latin America. So it's just our kinds of investment are different. Uh we don't tend to do the high profile infrastructure projects.

Uh, we have taken our political model off the table as a sort of source of competition. We have a non-ideological foreign policy, so we're no longer interested in promoting ourselves as you know a democracy that no longer matters to this particular uh administration. That's not a we don't consider that a selling point. uh anymore. So we and as you say, we've um, you know, basically shuttered USAID, uh, which has, you know, meant that we've taken ourselves out of this space of

uh providing aid to some of the world's you know poorest and and you know most impoverished countries. It was really important source of of of assistance for these countries and frankly an important source of US soft power. So we've def definitely taken a step back. I think our reputation globally has clearly suffered. That's evident from, you know, uh an array of global public opinion polls. Uh, you know, our our reputation has is sinking, is almost sunk.

Um whereas you know China's is you know rising a little bit. But the truth is China has not been able to capitalize uh I think very effectively. And the reason behind that is, you know, it promotes itself as a stabilizing force in the global economy and in the global system. But again, countries look at what China's doing in terms of the export of its overcapacity. That's not stabilizing for other economies. When China weaponizes its control of rare earth elements.

It's not stabilizing for other countries. You know, when China undertakes sort of its military uh assertive actions in the Indo-Pacific, not stabilizing, supporting Russia and Iran, not stabilizing. So it hasn't a a sort of Undertaken uh what it has promised, which is to be a stabilizing uh force in the in the global economy and the sort of global security arena.

And frankly, it hasn't stepped up to fill the vacuum that's been left by the United States in terms of the provision of global aid. So, you know, initially China you know, went to a few countries and said, Oh, we will replace the United States for this, you know, million or two million dollar program, but it has made very clear that it is not planning to replace, you know, what the United States used to do with USAID.

China's overseas development assistance is a fraction, a tiny fraction of what the United States traditionally has provided globally.

That is it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after on our podcast. And remember, you can always catch us online, on our website, and all over social media. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.