Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
We efforted Richard Haas yesterday we are unable to get him. We have him today and we extend out here commercial free for you. In a conversation with the President Emeritus, the consult Foreign Relations and of course senior counselor was sent of you partners with Paul. Far more than that. The single best clarity before the attack I put out on Twitter and LinkedIn Ambassador Has's essay in the Financial
Times of It's forever ago. Richard, it was three or four days ago, go to Jewel of short clarity of what to do, what to hope for? If you wrote that essay now, how would you change it?
Well, good morning, Tom, and thank you. Look, the United States based difficult decisions the aftermath of the Israeli actions. We chose the path of acting in this case to do an intense but idealistically or optimally narrow military strike
against Iran. What's so interesting to me if I had to say one thing at this point, if you think about this crisis over the last ten or so days, the first week was dominated by israel It deciding in the aftermath of October seventh, the weakening of Iran's proxies. It was going to act against the Iranian nuclear program and more broadly against the Iranian political leadership. Then the United States decided this was the moment to set back
the Iranian nuclear program. But now initiative has passed to Iran for the first time in this crisis. It's the Iranian leaders who control as much as anybody. How this unfolds from this point on. And that's what's different. If I were writing today, indeed I will be writing later today. That's what's different. For the first time since this phase of the crisis began, decision making, if you will, is in the hands of Iran more than Israel, more than the United States.
Investador has And I want to make clear here that Richard Hass redefined the international relations debate with the invention of the Internet. At the Council Unfeigned Relations John Bellinger at CFR, Richard Hass writes a blistering essay with his legal expertise. Does President Trump have the authority to strike Iran? From where you sit with all your work back to Northern Ireland? Did the President have the ability to act
from the executive branch? Or did he need to use a different process with Congress.
Now, the president had the authority, like go all of his predecessors. If you look at the history of a modern American foreign policy initiative, and foreign policy has decidedly passed to the executive I mean, Tom what was it sixty years ago? Author Slessiger Junior wrote his essay and book about the impurial presidency. This is nothing new. Congress virtually never ever fulfills its constitutional obligation to declare war, and we have used military force hundreds of times in
the absence of anything so formal. So I just flat out disagree with that kind of a narrow legalist interpretation. That said, if I had been advising President Trump, I would have said, take a page out of the book of President Bush, the father Bush forty one. Do things with the internationally, with building on the International Atomic Energy Agency Skating report of Iran, Do things with the Congress,
do things with the American public. If you're going to use military force, people should come to conclude that you tried to do diplomacy and at the end of the day you reluctantly had to use it. But also, by the way, would have helped this president with his magabase. So I think he should have gone about this differently. But did he under American political tradition? Did he yes the authority to do what he did?
Absolutely, Richard. As the world awaits some type of response from Morn, do we have any good information as to their capabilities today from just their military capabilities and to their leadership, because Israel has dealt a blow to their leadership, what should we expect?
No, they're both good points. I actually think they're unlikely to retaliate. My reading of the Iranians is they're focused on regime survival. In some ways. This is the second great difficult period crisis for Iran's leadership since their nineteen seventy nine revolution, the first one being a decade later during the Iran Iraq War. So my guess is they're going to focus on regime consolidation. Down the road, they
may focus on reconstituting their nuclear program. We have no idea how much of their nuclear program is intact, but I think it is difficult for the Iranian leadership to act. They're trying to stay off the net because they don't want to give signols for Americans or Israelis to target them. They obviously have lost control over the airspace of their own country. Their proxies are much diminished, so I don't
think they have very good options. That said, they can still lob missiles at the forty thousand American soldiers in the region. They can play havoc with shipping. It doesn't take a lot to drive insurance raids up. They can do asymmetrical warfare using cyber or terrorism, so they actually have lots of capability. You don't have to compete with US be two stealth fighters in order to be militarily effective.
But I just think the Iranians right now their priority in the short run is not to retaliate against the United States.
Richard Hass With this, we continue with Ambassador House Paul Sweene, and I welcome all of you across the nation. Are continuing that coverage here a difference this morning. The markets are open. We will consider the markets across the arc of the show. We thank Golder mount a Vali from London for being with this. Jimani sent you from Dubai. And we continue here on YouTube and all of our commute our audio radio affiliates as well, and we say good morning.
Paul, Richard For many observers, the American strike on the nuclear facilities in Iran was a bold strike, a surprising strike. Does that have an impact in other parts of the world. I'm thinking about Ukraine and Russia, thinking about China. How do you think those actors are viewing this?
It was surprising more in the tactical rather than strategic sense. We've been talking for years that we weren't going to letter on gain nuclear weapons or even get close to them. What was surprising, perhaps tactically, was when the President talked about is two week last chance for diplomacy to work. That turned out to be a faint or a ruse.
I think it was surprising tactically, not strategically. I think the rest of the world took note both that the United States acted, as well as how effectively the US military looked. What was brought together was criite extraordinary. My guess is the Russians probably have liked this crisis. Anytime. They like when energy prices go up. They like when the United States expends munitions in other parts of the world. That means we don't have to give to Ukraine. People
aren't talking as much about Ukraine. I thought it was quite interesting at the G seven that Ukraine almost seemed to be something of an afterthought. So the Russians have to like that. My guess isn't. The Chinese are probably concerned about on the opposite side of the coin, as a massive energy importer, they don't much like instability in the Middle East, but all of them have to be happy. I would think that the United States is once again
involved in the Middle East. That means we have less bandwidth, less ability to focus on say East Asia or Taiwan, or on helping Ukraine.
Richard has with US and folks. I can't say enough about This is a book you can throw at your smart Alec kids, the college brats. They're home from Oberlin and you throw this book at I mean you won't because it's beautifully brief. Bill of obligations. I can't say enough about Richard Hass's cry for citizenship in America. Again, I can't say enough about it. I'll put that out on Twitter and LinkedIn as well. Part of our bill of obligations, Richard Haass is to have a coherent foreign policy.
We can go back to Clash of civilizations, staggered a Zakaria in a post American world Roberty cap and coming up in a bit maybe with a Kissingerian realist theory. What's the host theory you observe at the State Department Right now?
The State Department is very little to observe. It's actually a sad story over the last decade or two of the weakening of an institution, the hollowing out of the Foreign Service, more broadly, the hollowing out of our interest or capability in terms of diplomacy, in terms of the whole mission of the Agency for Internet Development, the whole promotion of democracy and American values around the world. We have dramatically weakened one of the principal instruments of American
national security. We've then compounded a top with the hollowing out of the National Security Council. This is an administration, I would argue that is in some ways it's put itself dangerously dependent on a top down approach to foreign policy, where the president does things and quite honestly, the rest
of the administration falls in behind. I don't see an awful lot of ground up analysis, but I do worry about what's been now more than what decade and a half of the weakening of the diplomatic dimension diplatic instrument of American foreign policy and national security, Richard.
Some folks who even discussing probably a small chance, but still discussing regime change in a rent How do you think about that topic?
A couple of ways. One is I find regime change in the category of wish, not a strategy. If bb Netsignahu, the Prime Minister of Israel or Donald Trump said to their generals, I want regime change, they wouldn't know how to implement it. Regime change is not something you can design an operation to bring about. Colin Powell used to say, the military military instruments do two things. They destroy and they kill. Regime change is not is not on the menu.
So that's one thing. Second of all, you never know if you can bring about you also never know what comes of it. You know what would follow this this regime? Is it necessarily something that you want? For all? You know, nuclear materials, which it clearly still exists in around could get into the hands of all sorts of groups that might be in the Be careful what you wish for. So I take I take regime changes unserrious foreign policy if it comes about it's going to come from within Iran.
It's not going to come, if you will, from Israeli or American bayonets.
Do we underestimate, ambassador, has the military violence of the theocracy in Iran? The news flow to me, Ambassador, with respect to my colleagues is so simplistic. Iatola theocracy, the people of Iran. What's in between them? And the answer is a harsh dictatorship.
Right, You've got that, You've got all sorts of citizen groups that are uh listened to them, the so called basis, you know, the the guys who used to come out with the sticks and beat beat up on the Green Movement protesters. And then you've got formal authorities, the military and and and so forth. So this is this is a regime that has tools, if you will, time of repression in addition to what it can do as a
more traditional military, in addition to its its proxies. But this is a this is a system, it's been in place now for more than half a century, that has instruments of repression and coercion.
Paul, I remember exactly where it was in the shock the hostages. Are you ready a country road in Pittsfield, Vermont, and a cold, cold November day walking down the road trying not to slip in my two tone Tony Lahma cowboy boots, and we were in shock. Is a nation over the failed hostage event?
Yep, absolutely, Richard. Give us the point of view of Israel here. A lot of folks are saying this might be a special time for Israel to kind of reset the Middle East as it takes care of, you know, many of what it perceives to be its enemies, including obviously a Ran most recently, can Israel change its position in the Middle East or the balance of power in the Middle East?
Well, I would argue Israel has much improved its strategic position, mainly through the weakening of Iran's proxies as Bola first and foremost Hamas secondarily, then through regime change what we saw in Syria. Israel has improved its position against Iran, but hasn't result. By that, I mean Iran remains hostile to Israel, has capabilities, and again we don't know how much of their nuclear components survived. For all we know
a lot of them were parked in undisclosed location. So Israel is not out of the woods there, and even more, Israel's not out of the woods dealing with Gaza or with the three million Palestinians in the West Bank. And I think that's still the biggest strategic question. So Israel has the Iranian dimension and still has the Palestinian dimension very much.
Richard has one final question Paul and I in our broadcast yesterday, Paul, please help me. I agree that we were thunderstruck by the acuity and concision of our Chairman of the Joint chief of Staff. I was blown away by his report. Richard Hass you're the grizzled veteran. What did you think of the press conference of our Chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff.
Tom He was impressive. General career of the head of Central Command is impressive. Let me just make a larger point. When I look at American society, I think there's two great pools of talent. One is in the American military. The professionalization there is awesome. And the other is something you guys you in boll deal with all the time, which is the best of American corporate leadership. These are people who know how to run big operations and do
it in a really responsible, accountable way. So I'm not surprised when I see great talent in the military rise to the top. It is a meritocracy. These people are tested and they are responsible for large numbers of lives. So I find the post Vietnam American military is quite an extraordinary institution.
Richards, thank you so much. Just send of your partners, and of course is definitive work the Council on Foreign Relations Ambassador huts Back decades to the diplomacy of a Northern Ireland solution