John Mearsheimer: TRUMP'S ONLY OPTION IS SURRENDER

We are very fortunate to be joined this morning by Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago. Great to see you again, sir.

Glad to be here.

So just off the top, you know, what is your expectations for what might come out of these diplomatic meetings in Islamabad this weekend?

Well, I mean, it's important to realize that all we're trying to do at this point is get the ceasefire in place. And once that happens, then we'll have the serious negotiations. And the mere fact that we're having so much trouble getting the ceasefire in place makes one wonder where the negotiations are going to lead, even if they're going to get started. It seems clear to me that the Iranians will not engage in serious negotiations regarding the ceasefire. They may talk, but they're not going

to engage in serious negotiations regarding the ceasefire until Iran, excuse me, until Israel stops striking at Hezbollah. It's just that simple. And Israel has, or at least it thinks it has, a vested interest in continuing to target Hezbollah, all for the purposes of undermining the ceasefire and in turn undermining negotiations. So I think the 64000 dollar question is whether the United States, which is

desperate to end this war, will be so desperate that it will be willing to lean on Netanyahu in a really big way and get him to stop attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon. But until that happens, this is going nowhere.

Now, if the opposite happens, and Netanyahu insists on continuing to attack Hezbollah, and it brings the United States back into war, what are the consequences of that for the US-Israel relationship? And as somebody who's studied the Israel lobby longer than probably most of us have even been alive,

like, what would a breakup between the American people, the American public, and the idea of supporting Israel do to the U.S.-Israel relationship?

What is their... Does that matter at all? Sure. I mean, huge damage has already been done because it's very clear. In fact, it becomes clearer by the day that the Israelis bamboozled us into this war, that they led Trump to decide to attack on February 28th. And it's clearly a failed war. I mean, this was a catastrophic blunder on our part. And the Israelis are responsible for that. So what Trump is now trying to do is shut the war down.

And what are the Israelis doing? The Israelis are doing everything they can to prevent us from shutting the war down and to make it go on. This is going to do further damage to Israel's reputation in the United States. And the problem that the Israelis face is that we have this alternative media sphere now, and of course your show is a perfect example of that, where people talk about what Israel

is up to and what the U.S.-Israeli relationship has resulted in, and so forth and so on, in ways that do enormous damage to Israel and the U.S.-Israeli relationship, because people get to see the basic facts. That didn't used to be the case before we had this alternative media sphere. So this is doing enormous damage to Israel's reputation in the United States. It's making the lobby's job in the United States much more difficult than it ever was. As I like to say, when Steve and I wrote the original article on the lobby in 2006,

and then we wrote the book in 2007, I don't think either one of us ever imagined that we would be at the point we are now at today. The lobby has been so badly wounded, the U.S.-Israeli relationship is really in tatters, at least in the public mind. And I think moving forward, the situation only gets worse because Israel will behave in crazier and crazier ways.

And more and more Americans will realize that. And they'll be well aware of what this escapade in Iran has led to.

I'm curious. sorry, Emily. I'm curious what you make of the landscape of leverage going into these talks that the US administration has, Trump obviously claiming that Iran has been completely decimated, defeated, they have no military, et cetera.

You know, Iran in the meantime still retains the capacity to strike at Israel, US assets in the region, controlling the Strait of Hormuz. Who do you think has more leverage going into this? Where

do you see these talks potentially going in terms of any sort of framework for a possible

deal?

Yeah, that is an enormously important question that you just asked. And my view has long been that Iran has a vested interest in prolonging the war. Or to put it in different terms, prolonging the closing of the strait. The fact is that what is happening here is that the situation in the international economy is getting worse and worse by the day. And as almost everybody knows, if you project out two or three months where the strait remains

closed, the damage to the world economy will be enormous. This means that the longer the strait is closed, the more leverage the Iranians have over Donald Trump. Trump, on the other hand, has a profound interest in ending this war as quickly as possible, to make sure that the damage is limited. And just to go back to what happened on Monday with Trump's two tweets, the one in the morning where he threatened to wipe Iran off the face of the earth and make it so that Iran could

never come back from the dead. I mean, this is a genocidal threat of the first order. As almost everybody knows, the idea that an American president was making a threat of that sort would have been unthinkable before the morning of April 6th. But anyway, that shows his desperation. Then what happens is at the end of the day, at the end of the working day, he issues another tweet, and he says that we're going to not attack and we're going to start negotiations and there's going to be a ceasefire.

And what's truly remarkable about the second tweet that night is he says that we accept the Iranians' 10-point plan. You remember, there are two plans on the table. One is the American plan, which is the 15-point plan, and that has all the maximalist demands of the United States and Israel. And then there's the 10-point plan, which is the Iranian plan, which has their demands, which are maximalist Iranian demands.

And he says that it is the 10-point plan. He says in the tweet that evening is a workable basis for negotiation, not the 15-point plan, the 10-point plan. This is remarkable. And then he says furthermore in the tweet that almost all of the points of contention between the two sides have been worked out.

If you think about what he said that morning, that's desperation. And then if you think about what he said that evening, the concessions that he's willing to make are really quite remarkable. And what's going on here is that behind closed doors, they're in deep panic mode. They understand full well that the international economy might go off a cliff if they don't shut this one down immediately and then begin to repair the damage and do everything possible to return to something approximating the status quo ante. They understand this. So we're desperate. But of course, if you flip back to the other side, the Iranians, this all tells you the Iranians are in the driver's seat and they have a vested

interest in prolonging this. So if I were playing Iran's hand, I might sit down today in Islamabad, but I would say, listen, folks, we're not getting a ceasefire until Israel stops pounding Hezbollah. And it's up to you, the United States, to decide whether or not you want to take the international economy off a cliff or whether you want to appease Prime Minister Netanyahu. It's your choice.

That's where we are.

Or whether you want to do ground troops, because that's really the only other option. That's what I was going to ask, Professor. Is Donald Trump now talking about the nuclear dust, as he calls it, the hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium? And the Iranians have, as we were just discussing, leverage in the form of the Strait of Hormuz. So for Israel, as they pressure Trump over the negotiations, Iranians are

reportedly considering whether to even show up as the Lebanon bombing continues. But let's say that happens. They do show up. What on earth would an off-ramp for Trump look like that also would involve getting Netanyahu on board with it that doesn't involve either going back to war with ground troops or Iran operating a toll system in the Strait of Hormuz and dealing with the enriched uranium, quote, nuclear dust that he's talking about. I mean, it just, I can't conceive of what that might look like.

And I think this is what you're speaking to. But if they try to push on the hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium, what leverage exists possibly for them to barter?

Well, first of all, they have no leverage. We have no leverage.

You raise the possibility of ground troops. First of all, they have no leverage. We have no leverage.

You raise the possibility of ground troops. We have 7,000 combat troops in the region. There's all this talk about 50,000 troops in the region. Almost all those troops are not combat troops, and you can't go to war on the ground against Iran with anything but combat troops. You've got 7,000 combat troops, 5,000 of them are on giant ships that can't get

close to the coast of Iran. How are you going to offload those troops? And the 2,000 paratroopers and the 82nd Airborne up against a million man army. This is not a serious option. There is no ground option. I mean, you want to think about where we are militarily in this situation.

First of all, we have 13 bases, 13 major bases in the region. According to the New York Times, all 13 of those bases are either destroyed or badly damaged. We have a huge naval armada in the region. That naval armada cannot get close to the coast of Iran, much less the Strait of Hormuz. So it's parked way out in the ocean, far away from Iran.

Then there's the Air Force. In this rescue mission that just took place, where they got the second pilot, we lost more aircraft that day than we have lost in any single day since the Vietnam War. This was just a rescue, one downed pilot.

We lost more aircraft that one day than we have lost any day since the Vietnam War. Then there's the whole business of our missile inventory. We're running out of defensive missiles, we're running out of high-end munitions. We have interests all around the world,

especially in East Asia. And we're using up this rather small inventory of boutique weapons that we have. Where does that leave us? And then there's the question of our allies. We can't protect our allies. In fact, we've turned our allies, these are the GCC states, the Gulf states, into giant magnets for Iranian drones and Iranian ballistic missiles. Our military performance here has been abysmal.

The idea that we have a military option. So this gets to your question, what's the off-ramp here? There's only one off-ramp here and that's surrender. And what the actual terms of the surrender are have to be worked out. But this is what President Trump said in his tweet on Monday night. He said we accept the 10-point plan as a workable basis. Go read the 10-point plan.

It's all the maximalist demands. Furthermore, with regard to Netanyahu, Netanyahu doesn't wanna let the ceasefire come into place, and he certainly doesn't wanna see an end to the war, because this will be a catastrophic defeat for Israel. As big a defeat as it will be for Donald Trump,

it will be a far worse defeat for Israel, and especially for Prime Minister Netanyahu. So he's working overtime to undermine the ceasefire and prevent negotiations. And the $64,000 question is whether or not Trump is willing to lean on Netanyahu to get a ceasefire.

And then he's going to have to lean on Netanyahu and he's going to have to work against the lobby to negotiate a settlement. You want to remember, look at all the trouble we're having getting a ceasefire. You can imagine how much difficulty Trump is going to have trying to negotiate a settlement that reflects the fact that we lost this war. But that's where we are.

I wanted to add one point real quickly to your observation about the dwindling missile, ballistic missile interceptors. I had a piece yesterday with my colleague Murtaza Hussain over at DropSite yesterday. Oh, there it is. Griffin or whoever pulled that up, can you scroll down a little bit? Because there's a really interesting line in here that I thought is relevant to the U.S.-Israeli relationship. So right there, right there. So the White House referred questions.

So what we reported is that they are, according to a Trump administration official, the Israelis are down to double-digit ballistic missile interceptors and are now relying almost exclusively on the Navy, U.S. Navy, to prevent ballistic missile attacks and are letting a lot more strikes go through just because they have to. But the White House referred questions about the dwindling stockpile to the Israeli military, quote, refer you to the IDF, said a White House spokesperson.

Now, so I went to the IDF and they said, we're looking into it. And they kept for hours, we're looking into, we're looking at like, like they were going to go count them and come back to me and give me a number. They eventually didn't have a fulsome comment. If they provide one, we'll add it to the article. But I thought that was such an interesting dynamic to go to the White House and say, you know, we're told by an official at the White House that the Israelis are almost out of ballistic missile interceptors.

And they say, go ask the IDF about that.

I don't know what to say. It is just kind of hard to believe. But, you know, just a couple of points, Ryan, and you know this issue better than I do. But the Israelis say in their press that 80 percent of the ballistic missiles coming from Iran are getting through. This is truly remarkable. Eighty percent of the missiles are getting through and they are running out of defensive missiles. And this is hardly surprising if we go back to last year, you remember the 12-day war.

That war ended in good part because Netanyahu asked Trump to stop it because the Israelis there were running out of defensive missiles. And this war has gone on, you know, well beyond 12 days. And it's hardly surprising that they're running out of defensive missiles.

And by the way, we are as well. And to make matters worse, we have pulled THAAD missiles and Patriot missiles, as you well know, out of East Asia. In fact, that Marine Expeditionary Unit, the first one to arrive in the Gulf, came out of Japan. What this means is that the United States, which has been trying to pivot to Asia to contain China, as a result of this war, is pivoting away from Asia. Think about that.

We are pivoting away from Asia. Think about what that means for our allies. Furthermore, just think about Trump's behavior. Since this war started on February 28, I guess one could argue his behavior even before the war started.

But what does this signal to our allies in East Asia? If you're Taiwan, if you're South Korea, if you're Japan, can you depend on the United States anymore? I mean, it's not only the fact that they're pivoting away. It's just the basic judgment of the Trump administration. This looks like the gang that can't shoot straight.

And that's not overstating the case. In fact, if anything, it's understating the case. It's just truly remarkable how incompetent these people are. And just to go back to Monday, here we are Monday morning, you know, threatening genocide against Iran. And then at the end of the day, do an 180 degree turn and basically saying we'll

accept most of Iran's demands. Just it's remarkable where we are.

Well, let's talk about the Asian allies for a second. I wanted to throw up from our other host who couldn't be here, Sagar, who had some thoughts on this. He says, meanwhile, actually important U.S. allies, Japan and Australia, warned of a security vacuum in the Indo-Pacific after the Iran war.

And then more, South Korea is dispatching a special envoy to Iran. and Australia warned of a security vacuum in the Indo-Pacific after the Iran war. And then more, South Korea is dispatching a special envoy to Iran immediately to negotiate passage through Hormuz. Direct bilateral negotiations outside of U.S. channels equals more breakdown in the U.S. as guarantor of the Allied order. What is your reaction to that?

And then more specifically to the Taiwan question. Does this sort of put the Taiwan question to bed? And are we going to see movement from China and Taiwan into some sort of reunification process as an outcome of this war?

Well, just start with South Korea. I was on South Korean public television the other day and I spent a lot of time sort of preparing myself for that conversation. And if you look at the South Korean situation in a very important way, the fact that we're pivoting away from East Asia matters less than the economic damage that is being done and might be done to South Korea

if this war is not shut down. It's very clear that South Korea is being hurt badly by this war. A huge amount of its imported oil, which it's heavily dependent on, doesn't have oil of its own, comes through the Gulf. And they're in desperate straits. And the agricultural

consequences of this, just not to be underestimated. So countries like South Korea and other countries in East Asia, India is another example, Indonesia is another example. The Philippines is another example. These are countries that feel like they're close to the precipice, not militarily, economically. And something has to be done to end this war. And again, this in part, maybe in good part,

explains why President Trump is in deep panic mode, because he understands this as well, because he's certainly hearing from these countries. So let's just put aside the whole business of pivoting away from East Asia. The economic consequences of this

are being felt in East Asia in a really profound way. And that's what explains the South Koreans talking to the Iranians about getting permission to send ships headed for South Korea through the strait. Then there's the military dimension, and this brings in places like Taiwan, as well as South Korea and Japan.

First of all, if you're South Korea and Japan, how do you think about getting nuclear weapons at this point in time? Isn't the main lesson of this whole war that you better have a nuclear deterrent of your own, whether you're Iran, South Korea, or Japan? It certainly seems that way.

Or at least a straight-up Hormuz deterrent.

Yeah.

A waterway deterrent. Well, and I wanted to ask you, so you said earlier that effectively the only off-ramp for Trump is surrender. And I agree with that. I don't see any other option. And so whether it's now or a month from now or two months from now or a year from now, we are very likely to end up with something like the Iranian 10 points becoming a new reality, including a new status quo with regard to the Strait of Hormuz. How does that change the world? How does that change the U.S.'s standing in the world? How does that change the Israeli standing in the world? China? Like, what does the world look like

if we end up with Iran as this now emerging fourth power, tremendously, frankly, wealthy from the tolls they'll be able to charge, and having demonstrated this incredible deterrent ability through their control of the Strait of Hormuz.

And I'd toss in Russia as well, Professor.

Well, the Russians have obviously benefited enormously from this, at least in terms of the war in Ukraine. I mean, the amount of weaponry that we can give to Ukraine is going to be much less as a result of this war. And furthermore, Putin has benefited in the short term economically. I would say that I think from China's point of view and from Russia's point of view,

the short term effects of this war are all positive for sure. But neither one of those countries has any interest whatsoever in seeing the international economy go off a cliff. And I believe that this is the principal reason the Chinese have been putting pressure on the Iranians to go to Islamabad and try to negotiate a settlement to this war. The Chinese do not want this war to go on and on, nor do the Russians, because it could

crash the international economy. We could have a worldwide depression that looks worse than what happened in the 1920s. That's what we're talking about here. So I think in the short term, this is good for the Russians, good for the Chinese.

But they understand in the long term that's not the case. Now, what was your question, Crystal?

I was asking about if we have a final settlement along the lines of the Iranian ten points, including a new status quo in the Strait of Hormuz, how does that change the world?

Well, let me just say one thing. You do not want to talk about Iran as if it's going to emerge as a new great power from this conflict. We did enormous damage to the Iranian economy before February 28th, and we have done enormous damage to Iran, to its infrastructure, since February 28th. And it's going to take them many, many years and many billions of dollars to begin to recover. So this is a country that is in many ways in terrible shape. They have two great levers, though, that give them huge influence in the region and in the world. One is they control the Strait of Hormuz.

And number two, they have a huge inventory of ballistic missiles, both short range and long range. They have a huge inventory of cruise missiles and an even bigger inventory of drones. And they can use those weapons very effectively. So there's no question that the Iranians are going to come out

of this war having more leverage over politics in the region and around the world once the conflict ends. But it's very difficult to say at this point in time how the war will finally end. In other words, if you look at the 10-point plan and you look at the 10 demands that the Iranians have made, how many of those are the Americans going to accept? For example, the Iranians demand that the United States leave the region, that we get out of the region with our military

forces. Are we going to do that? If we don't do that, how do we think about those 13 bases? Do we go back to those 13 bases and rebuild them? Will the Gulf states that hosted those bases allow us to do that? These are all open questions, and they have huge consequences for what the architecture, the security architecture in the region looks like. So I think one thing that is clear is that Iran will be more powerful for sure after

February 28th than it was before. I think it's also clear that relations between the GCC countries and the United States will never be the same, and we will not have a close alliance with them in the future the way we have had in the past. And I think as far as Israel is concerned, this is just another major defeat for Israel. One of the most interesting aspects of how the mainstream media reports Israel's actions in these various wars is that they're always portrayed as great victories. Israel is always seen as doing very well. Their situation is seen to be constantly improving and so forth and so on. They're remaking the Middle

East. I think this is fundamentally wrong. First of all, with regard to Hezbollah, they have not defeated Hezbollah. Hezbollah has beaten them up badly in southern Lebanon. They were talking about going all the way up to the Litani River and controlling all of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. This is the Israelis. But the IDF has had a devil of a time fighting with Hezbollah,

and Hezbollah has actually been winning. And the Israelis have retreated to a narrow buffer zone on the northern border of Israel. And in terms of the bombing, they can bomb Beirut. They can bomb Tehran. But it doesn't ever lead to anything positive.

And I believe the principal reason that the Israelis are interested in negotiations now with the Lebanese government is they want the Lebanese government is they want the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah because they can't, the Israelis can't disarm Hezbollah. So in terms of the war against Hezbollah,

they have not won. Against Iran, this is a colossal defeat for Israel. With regard to Gaza, they have not defeated Hamas. Hamas still is there. It is still fighting. With regard to the Houthis, they're still there, and they'll grow more powerful over time. With regard to Iranian nuclear weapons or Iranian nuclear enrichment capability, that's all still on the table. So the Israelis are in deep trouble.

And furthermore, they've poisoned their relationship with the United States. Where this all ends up, as we were talking about at the beginning of the show, is hard to say. But there's no question that there has been a significant deterioration in U.S.-Israeli relations. So I think that the idea that Israel is going to come out of this as the dominant force in the region is simply wrong. Israel has been badly damaged, and it has no real strategy available for fixing the situation. So I don't know the specifics of how this plays itself out,

because I don't know what the end of the negotiation process will look like. But I think there's no question that our influence in the region is going to go down, Israel's influence is going to go down, and Iran's is going to go up.

But again, I don't think you want to overestimate the position that Iran is in simply because of the huge amount of damage that we've done to that country.

Well, Professor, this has been illuminating. And I did just want to flag on your way out that the president in a recent truth seems to agree with you. Recent truth posted this morning, world's most powerful reset, President DJT. So it seems like he agrees with you, Professor.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know whether I should be happy about that or not.

Ha ha ha.

Sign of the times, I guess.

Yeah, sign of the times.

Well, thank you so much, Professor, for joining us. Any final words before you leave?

No, I just hope we get a ceasefire, and then I hope they reach a quick conclusion to the negotiations so we can put this war behind us. I mean, when I think about all the damage that's being done around the world, also, it would be really wonderful if somehow we could lean on the Israelis to stop running around the Middle East murdering people. It's truly amazing the number of people that the Israelis, often in cahoots with us,

end up destroying huge chunks of countries like Lebanon and Iran and killing huge numbers of people. It would be really wonderful if we could put an end to all this and create some sort of peace in the Middle East for the foreseeable future.

All right, well on that note, thank you so much, Professor. I'm sure that we will be asking for more from you very soon. And until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Thank you.

You too as well. And thank you very much for having me on the show.

It's always our pleasure.

Thanks professor.

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