Middle East Roundtable: JD Vance's No Good, Terrible, Very Bad Week

Welcome back to the Middle East Roundtable. This is Evan Maloney for Fronts.com, here with Kyle Moran and Wilford Maena. How are we doing today, boys? Glad to be here. We're doing really good. I have my usual can of Red Bull Zero Sugar. Really happy to be here.

I am myself recovering from COVID here, so I apologize if I sound a little off, but we will make do. War weeks for no man. And speaking of which, war does not wait this week for U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, who has had, if we could put it delicately, a no-good, terrible, very bad week.

In a lot of ways, not necessarily just Iran-related, but let's start with and mostly stay on the Iran stuff, because that's what we're all here for. So, early this week, J.D. Vance was to be leading negotiations between Iran and the United States. After a marathon, 21-hour session, those talks fell apart. So, why don't we start with a bit of background.

Let's go to Kyle first this week, and then we'll give it to you. So, Kyle, what can you tell us about what happened at the start of this week? Yeah, it was—both sides had such dramatically different interpretations of what would be, quote-unquote, an acceptable deal.

Now, the Iranian foreign minister, rather remarkably, said that the two sides were within inches of reaching a deal. I don't know what type of inch system they use in Iran. I don't think that it's quite the same, though, if they were within inches. These two were so far apart.

So, whether you're talking miles, kilometers, light years, I think it's more towards the end of that spectrum. None of what they were looking for was mutually compatible. And I think Donald Trump knew this going into it, which is why he sent J.D.

Vance, who had been more of an Iran war skeptic, potentially with the intention of showing that negotiations with this country are genuinely difficult. They are pro-negotiators and are not going to simply just cave in, which is how I sort of read. Because he had been sidelined for quite a while.

He was at the kids' table, as we were calling it, over with Tulsi Gabbard and Joe Kent back in the early days of the war. So, I think this is really just to show him this is more complicated than he may think. And I think that he did get a firsthand dose of realism on this having to negotiate with the Iranians.

That's interesting that it was possibly a demonstration. to Vance himself, rather than just a genuine show of good-faith negotiations with Iran. Wilfred, could you tell us maybe a little bit more about where things stand coming out of those negotiations?

At the moment, where things stand from my understanding of the events, and obviously we do like to stress that we have very limited understanding because we're obviously not in those conversations, and we're not privy to any secret signal group chats as of yet. But right now, both sides are very far apart on a deal.

As Kyle has mentioned, both sides continue to pursue their own strategic interests, and to that end, America has instituted a blockade on Iranian ports. I want to emphasize that it's on Iranian ports because a lot of the initial reporting of this was that this will be a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a blockade of a blockade, so to say.

But American officials have clarified that this is a blockade of Iranian ports. They will try as much as possible to prevent anything going into or out of Iranian ports as a form of economic pressure to try and bring Iran to its knees and bring the Iranian government back to the negotiation table. So that's where things stand at the moment.

America is trying to leverage its economic pressure and bring Iran to its knees.

And it's interesting because you mentioned here the kind of double blockade effect that we're forming now, where it's not so much that the U.S. has instituted a unilateral blockade over the entire Strait, but Iran now has kept its blockade essentially on ships that are not paying tolls, right?

Toll passage through Iran-governed portions of the Strait is still in force on the Iranian side, whereas the U.S. has sort of set up an interdiction ring in the Arabian Sea, trying to stop ships that are coming through. To limited effect from what I've seen thus far, there are some indications that Iran-linked tankers are still passing through the Strait.

So, Wilfred, I'm going to keep it with you for a second. Could you tell us a little bit now about what traffic, if any, seems to be making it through? And is this status quo better than what existed prior to the U.S. institution of this, now second layer of blockade? Or are we now just stacking blockades on blockades on blockades? Sure.

One of the key issues we need to talk about when answering your question is the mines that Iran had placed within the Strait of Hormuz and the mines that, you know, according to some reports, Iran had conveniently misplaced and forgotten. and where they had been located.

And that is just a function of how placing a mine in a body of water as large as the Strait of Hormuz works. Currents will come, they'll be swept away. So navigating the Strait of Hormuz has become a really, really big challenge. But that doesn't mean, you know, some ships aren't passing through.

There was a report, I believe this was yesterday, early hours of yesterday, saying that a ship laden with Iranian oil had made it all the way to India. And the Indian authorities had said they wouldn't take the oil because of the fear of sanctions and secondary effects from angering Trump and Washington.

So to a degree, there are reports that some ships are passing through other than, you know, the Indian, the Iranian oil turning up in India. There have been reports of Chinese ships just passing by, bypassing the blockade. So to a degree, yes, some ships are passing through.

But again, because of how much uncertainty exists around the blockade, very few ship owners are going to allow their shipping, their ships which cost billions of dollars to build, are laden with goods worth billions of dollars and require millions of dollars worth of insurance to pass through the Strait.

So it's a little bit better than, you know, just when the Iranians were blockading it, but not by much. It's like a difference of 0.1 and 0.01. It's not that big a difference. Kyle, what do you think? Yeah, so some of the information that I've been seeing, there is back and forth on this. The Chinese vessel was of particular interest.

It basically made it through, through lucky timing yesterday, before the blockade had fully gone into effect, I think. But nevertheless, had to turn around as it was essentially exiting the Strait. So it was like right there, and then you had to go back.

And then we also had information coming out that, to Evan's point, there are essentially two routes through the Strait at this point. You can choose the Iranian route, which includes the Iranian toll, as well as the Omani route, both of which are just absolutely trickling through.

From what CENTCOM has put out, since the blockade fully went into effect yesterday, April 13th, or, sorry, two days ago, on April 13th, there are no vessels that have gone through the Iranian route. There have been a few reports that maybe one or two have gone through, and there have been, I believe, four that have gone through via the Oman route.

But again, And these are tiny fractions of what used to be going through regardless. So the strait is essentially shut down. So let's pivot a bit into the economics of this, right?

Because at this point, we still have hundreds upon hundreds of ships in the Persian Gulf waiting to exit, as well as hundreds now either in the Arabian Sea or otherwise running around. So they typically wouldn't be because the Persian Gulf is now off limits, right?

And there's been a lot of concern over the last couple of months about the building long-term energy costs and repercussions of this war and the economic fallout from it.

So at this point, do you anticipate that there is any off-ramp here from those long-term economic pains as a result of the war, or is that just something we're going to have to cope with for the next few months? Is this worked out? And Kyle, I'll go to you first. I'm curious to see how the U.S. side of the blockade continues to impact things.

So earlier this morning, Iran has threatened to close down the Red Sea by way of Houthis if the U.S. blockade remains. And we'll see as to where that goes. But in general, this is either going to end up being very big in terms of actually breaking something important or potentially being a breakthrough.

The Iranians have played their ace up their sleeve, which is the geographic blessing they have along the Strait of Hormuz. It makes, as we discussed in last week's podcast, it makes the ability to close this thing down extremely easy. Being able to dump a few mines and launch a few drones is not a complicated military procedure.

Keeping track of the mines is apparently a slightly more challenging operation, but a subject for another day, perhaps.

But in general, if the Iranians have played this, which they now have, and then the U.S. is able to, even to a moderate, it has to be more than slight, but at least to a moderate degree, is able to find a way of getting through or around this situation.

That is a huge strategic setback for the regime, because they will have lost, they will have played their trump card, if you will, and then lost it. So I'm not going to be predicting whether that's going to happen or not, but it's something I'm going to be keeping a very close eye on.

Omi, I want to start by mentioning something that Vali Nasra, Professor John Hopkins, wrote on Twitter, slash X, whatever you want to call it. I believe this was on the 14th. which was yesterday. Because we can't talk about the economic impact of closing and locating the street without thinking about the regional dynamics.

So Professor Nastra wrote that, and this was in response to a Wall Street Journal article saying that Saudi Arabia is pressing the U.S. to drop its blockade of Hormuz, fearing that President Trump's move to close it off could lead Iran to escalate and disrupt other important shipping routes, as Kyle has used. Just mention the Staffa Kahootis.

So Professor Nastra wrote, quoting in here, Saudi Arabia is voicing a broader international concern that U.S. blockade is a dangerous escalation. It further closes all trade in the Persian Gulf, could lead to more violent conflict there, but also lead to disruption of trade in the Red Sea.

It could bring the global economy to its knees before it does Iran, especially since Trump is still asking for a surrender rather than a deal. So to my understanding, and while I do have my undergrad is in economics, I haven't really practiced it. The economic impacts will be great.

They will be significant, especially if President Trump doesn't make a decisive move against Iran in the near term, because if this blockade is allowed to continue, the ripple effects will spread far, far beyond the Middle East. Evan, back to you. Kyle, I'm seeing you want to jump in. Why don't you go ahead? Sure.

So just to follow up on that, I mean, the reason that the U.S. has imposed a blockade on Hormuz is because of Iran's blockade. There is no world in which the U.S. just wants to block the Strait of Hormuz. If Iran stopped its blockade of other vessels going through, the U.S. would not still be doing that.

The only reason that it went into effect and the only reason it remains is because all of the things that Vali Nasser, who I have a complicated relationship with some of his takes, to be honest, he wasn't that critical of the regime when they did precisely this in Hormuz for over a month.

So again, if the point here being that blockading Hormuz is in and of itself a bad decision, that's fair to say. But again, the reason it's being blockaded is because Iran set it up. I will concede that I, as you do, Kyle, have had an issue with Professor Nasser's claims in the past. But...

I do want to point out that this is, at the end of the day, a war between the U.S. and Iran, with Israel as a junior partner to the U.S., and such moves, blockading the street, will happen. I don't think at any point Iran will be willing to give out their blockade on the street unless they get some really, really big concessions.

So, I don't know, I think it's such an interlinked point that any idea of Iran giving up its blockade so that America can give up its blockade is, it requires so much to go right. And, you know, we've already seen that everything is going wrong. So, I don't think that is going to happen, at least not in the near term. Oh, yeah, I agree.

I'm skeptical as to any diplomatic outcome happening over the next short-term period we're talking. My only point there being that people who are specifically criticizing the U.S. for blockading Hormuz, while who are not criticizing Iran for doing this seems transparently either ideological or like they're playing for a team here.

Saudi Arabia's concern is genuinely they just want ships to be able to get through. So, in Saudi Arabia, they criticized Iran, now they're criticizing the U.S. Point taken, fair. Okay, that's fine. When we get into, and there have been quite a few people who are more just, the U.S. is doing this evil thing now.

Again, like the only reason this went into effect is because Iran played the straight. I do want to transition, if we could, to the regional dynamics because I am fascinated by this. There has been, obviously, a divergence in the Gulf over this move where Saudi Arabia has been openly critical.

The Emiratis and the Bahrainis, who are pretty much like the most hawkish, have been more quiet, which is sort of telling to me. But I do want to read a post from Amin Dean, who was a MI6 undercover operative in Al-Qaeda. It's a long post, so I'll just summarize or read parts of it. But he's talking about Europe's response to this.

And there has been a pretty sharp divergence between Europe and the Gulf that has not been covered very much. Because the drift between the U.S. and Europe has been covered a lot. But... That's less so with the Gulf, which is now more towing like the U.S. line. So just to look at this real quick.

So he's comparing Europe's response to Russia and Ukraine with the Gulf's response to Iran. And there are a fair amount of similarities here.

So when it comes to energy being under attack and all of these things and operating through proxy forces that are openly willing to commit acts of terrorism, that is the basis on which Iran has built much of its foreign policy. So he's a defender of Ukraine. He's pro-Ukraine. All of these things. And he says, OK, fine. I respect the consistency of that.

But then you turn around and lecture us, the Gulf monarchies, Jordan and Israel, about showing restraint with Iran, about dialogue, about coexistence. Are you serious? For 40 years, the regime has been waging a shadow war across the region.

Militias, proxies, sleeper cells, terror networks destabilizing entire countries, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and threatening the Gulf monarchies nonstop. And yet here comes Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer, and the rest of the European choir gently advising us to calm down, de-escalate, and what was it again? Give diplomacy a chance.

That is a very harshly worded note, but I nevertheless think it does sort of touch on this, where the idea of diplomacy as a good in and of itself is being applied as like the necessary outcome here that's causing a pretty significant brist between Europe and the Gulf. And I'm sort of curious as to what your guys' thoughts are on all of this. Sure.

So in looking at the discrepancies first between the Gulf situation and the Europe situation, because it is a very similar, the parallels are clear, and I think they're well stated, in that you do have two different aggressor regimes, if we want to call them that, right, in Moscow and Tehran that carried out large-scale attacks against energy infrastructure

That have used energy as a point of leverage, right?

And I think the difference that we find here, right, is that as Israel and the U.S. have started on this campaign of bombardment against Iran, right, Tehran's response in its attacks to energy infrastructure were prompted, right? These did not happen in a vacuum.

These happened as an immediate, direct, seemingly unforeseen result of the U.S. and Israel's bombing campaign, which is a separate discussion. But it is interesting to note the parallels here in that, yes, Russia did preemptively. choose to invade Ukraine Iran did not preemptively choose to attack Gulf energy infrastructure.

It did not choose to close down the Strait of Columbus. And in fact, I think the core discrepancy here is that Iran's attacks on energy, energy infrastructure were not something that occurred in a vacuum, right? This was a reaction to U S and Israeli bombardment which I think this may be a separate discussion as well.

I think the core difference here is that Iran's attack on Gulf energy infrastructure was a response to outside attack, right? The U S Israel air campaign was what kicked this exchange off.

Iran had spent the last several decades essentially operating on the presumption that if the U S and Israel were engaged in long-term diplomatic efforts through either the JCPOA or any of the engagement that came after it, right? That these kinds of, of all the military exchanges could be avoided. That clearly is not the case. Right.

And now we see the U S and Israel, I think more so the U S in this position of maybe there were some regrettable decisions about trying to go about this in the way that they did, right? With the seeming failure to anticipate a closure of the Strait of Hormuz of lateral strikes against Gulf energy infrastructure. Right.

And it's a separate conversation as to whether or not any of this should have happened or how we got here. Right. But there is a separate issue that now we are here and at this point is scaling back and is pulling to diplomacy, a workable solution. I don't know if it is.

I think there is a certain level of commitment to this military campaign that now can't be undone. The U S and Israel have fundamentally recalibrated the way that diplomacy and engagement with Iran works. And now that's been done, I don't know that going in and preaching restraint and diplomacy is necessarily a workable solution in this case.

I worry that bridge has been burned. I understand Europe's point of view and Evan, I'll circle back to your point in a minute, but I just wanted to address something Kyle said. I understand Europe's point of view when they emphasize diplomacy, rationality, and just calm when speaking to Iran.

And the Gulf states might disagree with this assessment, but Iran is not fundamentally the same as Russia because what drives Russia's aggression and territorial goals is not the same thing that drives Iran.

Because from my understanding, Putin, Moscow, Russia, the Kremlin, that entire ecosystem fundamentally believes. is that all the territory lost during the collapse of the Soviet Union should be returned, starting with Ukraine. They don't even consider the Ukrainian people a distinct nationality.

They consider them a breakaway province of Russia, sort of the same way China considers Taiwan. And I do want to bring China into this. And a little later on, so someone please note that down, is necessarily motivated by the same things Iran is motivated by. Russia wants a very aggressive plan to expand its territorial control.

Iran, on the other hand, yes, it does have its proxies within the Middle East. And yes, these proxies can be really, really aggressive, especially against Israel. I'm thinking specifically about the October 7th attack. But Iran has been extremely careful before now, before this entire war, to avoid really antagonizing its neighbors.

And I think Europe recognizes that. Europe recognizes that before the 28th of February, when the situation really escalated into a full-blown crisis, Iran was willing to coexist and use this in the loosest possible way to coexist with its neighbors. And the 28th of February changed all that.

I don't think the U.S. and Israel failed to account for the closure of homos or the lateral expansion of the war. I think what they did was they overestimated how quickly this war would be over. They believed that if they could take out the leadership, it will be a quick enough war that the cost on Gulf countries could be manageable.

So the fact that didn't really materialize is what is causing this friction between Europe and the Gulf states. Kyle, you have a counterpoint? Yes. So basically, just to jump in here, I think the sort of overarching lens through which we view this can be indicative of how we come down on this specific issue.

The more macro question being, was the situation in the region penable by way of being able to be solved by diplomatic means prior to the U.S.-Israeli campaign? I don't think, personally, I don't see a world in which the situations would be realistically resolved by a diplomacy prior to this war.

Now, whether or not this war has achieved... anything in terms of making that diplomatic outcome more likely is a separate question. And I think we're all on the same page that, as of right now, that's not looking likely at all.

But when you look at prior to this war, the situation that Iran had put countries throughout their region in, explicitly in the name of its own defense, was that it just had to suck up the fact that, or these countries would have to just suck up the fact that these proxy forces are there whether they want them or not.

This is particularly true in Lebanon, who has been trying to expel Hezbollah's military operations for years at this point.

And there is growing, increasing resolve with every passing year that the situation there just simply is not tenable because you cannot have two effective governments, one where the effective government or the official government is simply gridlocked by way of this proxy force that has complete veto authority over so much of domestic affairs.

Hezbollah ran the Beirut port, essentially. So when the port blast happened that destroyed such a huge part of the capital, because Hezbollah's officials were the ones who were supposed to be like on top of this, they completely blockaded, to borrow a phrase, the investigations into that explosion, because they knew who it would come down on.

A state like that, it cannot function indefinitely. And I think the myth of a Lebanon that can coexist with an active paramilitary Hezbollah organization operating inside of it, taking orders from Tehran, not Beirut, is coming to an end if it had not already come to an end before this.

And I think that's why prior to Israel even beginning its operations in the south of Lebanon earlier this or earlier last month, you saw Lebanon take the extraordinary step of banning the group's military activities. Even their longtime buddy, the Speaker of Parliament, Nabiya Beri, did not block the measure.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, huge respect for the ban, really carried this through in a way that would have been unthinkable under previous Lebanese governments, which really just shows like they recognize the country just simply cannot keep getting pulled into this.

Now, stepping back a bit from just Lebanon, the fact that Iran was willing to say to Lebanon repeatedly, yes, you must suffer these wars with Israel explicitly on our behalf, that shows a certain dedication that Russia wants very like objective things.

So they see this land, they want this land, they go in and they take it, or they try to take it. they are a huge issue iran operates on a different way i do agree with that but i see it as equally malicious these these proxy forces that have just hijacked countries throughout the region have had enormously detrimental impacts so i don't think that the

Israeli american campaign on this has really fundamentally changed that i know i've gone on here for a while so evan i know you wanted to follow up yeah i do want to push back because point well taken on the malicious intent that we can find behind iran's exploitation of its proxy forces abroad it's it's manipulation of the broader middle eastern affairs of

The last several decades right and that can all be true when we can hold that reality in one hand while also then looking at the response to that in what has essentially been a comprehensive military campaign air campaign against iran and i don't necessarily believe that we have to identify a quote-unquote right choice to be able to recognize that there were

Some fundamental issues with this approach right the idea that diplomacy was going to magically work out tomorrow when the u.s has spent the past decade in the wake of the jcpoa really neglecting to put forward any other comprehensive alternative right i don't buy the argument that we can look at the status quo prior to the start of this conflict and then

Look at the initiation of the conflict as a true dichotomy i don't think that those were the only two options by any means i don't believe that there was no room for a more comprehensive diplomatic strategy to approach iran and to begin to walk back from the brink here rather than to go and kind of grab onto iran and grab onto israel grab onto the entire

Gulf and throw ourselves collectively over the brink that seems as if there were some there was some room between those two options going back to europe i don't know that room exists now if this war has done nothing else it has changed iran's understanding of its own position it has really gotten rid of the idea that by engaging the u.s and engaging israel

In continued diplomacy over its nuclear program over its ballistic missile program etc right whether it was official front-end diplomacy or whether it was backdoor diplomacy either way right the idea that continual process could stave off an operation like this has now been done away with right iran has now been shown quite decisively that no matter what

Happens no matter where negotiations are right no matter where negotiations are twice now you never know if washington's gonna start dropping bombs on your head you know you never know if jerusalem is going to start dropping bombs on your head that was not this status quo prior to 2025, and especially not after 2026, right?

You look at Iran's strategic incentives, and we're going to be discussing this more on war front, so I don't want to spoil anything, but Iran's incentives to consider a nuclear weapon, quite frankly, are not stronger or are stronger today than they have ever been, right?

You look at Iran's immense ability to utilize conventional military power as a deterrent in its attack on the Gulf states, right?

And now you look at the situation of a country like North Korea, for example, where once that nuclear weapon was in hand, that was essentially the end of any discussions about military action to constrain North Korea's status as a rogue state, right?

You look at Iran, where the prior assumptions about ways to kind of thread the needle with the West have been done away with. I don't see how you put that all back together. I don't see how any of this goes back to the status quo.

And it seems as if, as we've seen with Ukraine, as we've seen with many other things, Europe is pushing for a return to the status quo with minimal, if any, acknowledgement of the depth to which the situation has changed since that. Sure. Just want to follow that up real quick.

So I completely agree the leaving a wounded hardline regime in place would be one of the worst possible options. Because specifically, to your point, they have more of a reason to have a nuclear weapon than ever before.

Now, if you're going to do something like this, you really have to think about the long term implications, which is why the point I'm making is not that the air campaign alone is either inherently a smart approach or a, like as a deterministically arrived at necessity.

My point being is the status quo that we're referring to, in which, yes, you could get the Iranians to the table on some things. I did. I'm not on board with the idea that this status quo was either a good situation for the Middle East.

I think it was a long term stagnant period for the region in which Iran was free to just simply build up its proxy forces as well as its missile supplies, which we're now seeing across the board being deployed.

This campaign has confirmed the worst fears of people on both sides, the hardliners in the regime in Iran, as well as the hardline anti-Iran hawks in the US and Israel, who explicitly made the point that if you allow the Islamic Republic to build up such a large ballistic and drone program, well, they're going to be able to unleash hell on the region.

And now we're seeing where that, where that goes.

So i'm not saying that the current approach is either flawless or perfectly thought thought through i'm not but the idea that we can simply look back to the early days of 2026 or 2025 or something like that where the status quo that europe seems to be longing for was either something we should be wanting or even just like a good in and of itself just seems

To me to be like more of an abstract concept that doesn't fully recognize what's going on the ground and once again i just bring it back to that tweet that i read out earlier i think like the approach the divergence in approach to russia with iran in terms of europe as is so surprising to me in terms of just like how willing they're they are to be

Churchillian as the street puts it on one and then just complete well diplomacy you can work it out on the other i think that the divergence there on one of them is more telling so i believe no we're all making a really good point here in the sense that the status quo between iran and its neighbors hasn't been functional for a very long time iran's

Sponsoring of proxies within you know neighboring countries is by definition one of the most destabilizing actions it can take but i want to talk about something that i've just seen in the news this is from wam news it's an arabic outlet so mansoor bin zayed who is the current vice president and deputy prime minister of the united arab emirates had a call

With the with a leader from iran's shura council their constitutional council 12 member body that is one of the most powerful institutions within iran and during that call they talked about ways to reduce escalation in the region so i saw this because danny citrinowicz one of the analysts whose work i quote extensively because his line of thinking is often

In line with mine and i'm saying this just you know to highlight any biases that might exist so danny says that this call reveals that despite the ongoing conflicts the leadership in tehran appears interested in returning to more stable relations with the gulf states and that this approach is strongly supported by both pragmatic elements and key power

Centers within iran and at the same time gulf states clearly understand that as u.s forces gradually draw down in the region they will need to manage their relationships with the current leadership in tehran so you Yes.

The Gulf states at the moment might look at what Europe is seeing as, you know, insanity. But as long as the leadership in Tehran remains, that's what the Gulf states will have to deal with. They'll have to negotiate with them, find a way to coexist with them.

So unless we're seeing a situation where the U.S. and Israel go full force to try and eliminate the regime in Tehran, the Gulf states will have to, at some level, do what Europe is recommending and find a way to coexist with Tehran. So let's talk a bit more about coexistence and let's pivot to Israel. Right.

Because this week we have seen as this peace deal has been or the peace conversations have been ongoing in Islamabad, we've seen Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu come out and essentially say that J.D. Vance had been contacting him repeatedly and kind of seeking approval, giving updates on the course of the talks. Right.

As Israel is also carrying out this campaign in Lebanon, where that is not stopped, that is very much ongoing. And as we look at this idea of Iran making peace with the Gulf states, finding some kind of new status quo moving forward, even the prospect of a ceasefire with the United States extending. Right.

How do we see Israel's interests in managing this conflict or lack thereof in the future? And what can we expect from Israel as and kind of as it stands right now, a third force shaping affairs in the Middle East? Right.

So one thing I've been saying since this conflict started is that Israel's motives, Israel's goals in this war have been fundamentally different from America's objectives.

Not to say that there aren't areas where the two are very closely aligned, but for Israel, Iran is a bigger, was a bigger and more existential threat than it ever will be for the U.S. So part of that is because of the distance, obviously.

Iran and Israel might not share a border, but Israel is close enough to Tehran that it worries about the situation that could emerge should Iran develop capabilities greater than it already does. Should it be able to fund proxies at a level greater than it? It already has.

We've already seen, again, October the 7th and several other attacks against Israel by Iranian-backed proxies. So because of that, Israel's fundamental objectives are always going to be different, and the extent it will be willing to push for these objectives, that's also going to be different.

One thing we've seen, and this happened, before the war, was the extent to which Israel lobbied for this war. And going as far as including Lindsey Graham, who's one of the president's key allies in the Senate, and one of the greatest Iran war hawks I have seen personally, it's just a whole different set of incentives.

And I don't want to speak too much about Lebanon. Kyle, I'll tag out and give this to you so that you can talk about Israel's incentives in Lebanon. Sure, thank you. I agree with a lot of that. Lindsey Graham has never met a war that he's never been in favor of.

I mean, I'm not going to name who said this, but somebody around here said, this was a guy who was hawkish on Greenland, okay? I mean, it's just at this point, like, who he is. So working with him on that is sort of just implied. If you want somebody who is going to really go to bat for all of that, Lindsey Graham is pretty much just, like, your guy.

Yeah, so there's been a lot of developments coming out of Lebanon recently. We're still waiting on actual, like, definitive results on where these negotiations will wind up.

But just to give viewers a backstory, there have been ongoing concerns that Israel is looking at establishing essentially an up-to-an-eight-kilometer buffer zone into the south of Lebanon, and then that would be permanently displaced, as well as the rest of the area going up to the Lakhani River, being a semi-long-term occupied area in which the IDF would

Oversee Hezbollah disarmament.

That is sort of Israel's maximalist opening position of the negotiations. To be honest, I would be shocked if that actually goes through in its full extent. And they are exploring a land operation that would last well beyond these negotiations. But what that ultimately looks like, we'll have to see where the cards fall on that.

The biggest thing to me, and honestly, it looks like the Israelis took some time to come around to what we on war fronts have been saying for some time, that this is the most... This is the most... the best chance that Israel will get to have a Lebanese government willing to work with it.

You cannot do better than, realistically speaking, for what the politics in Lebanon are like, than the duo of Nawaf Salam and Joseph Aoun. The two of them, Aoun in particular, has been willing to negotiate directly with Israel, which is a first in decades.

And given the current moment in Lebanon, where the attention is so resolutely anti-Hezbollah in many communities, this is going to be a once in a generation lifetime. And my concern is that Israel might blow that by going too maximalist on us.

Yesterday, we saw a joint memorandum come out of their meeting in which they were saying, today we found out we're on the same side. And again, I'm like, this is what we on war fronts have been saying for a month here. So somebody needs to get these guys to subscribe over here, okay? Listen, we'll give you what's actually going on.

But the Israelis do seem to be at least realizing at this point that this is a huge opportunity. And if you don't, if you end up blowing this, then there is not going to be a second chance at this. The big issue here is that Israel has spent decades at this point trying to figure out what the hell they do with Hezbollah. They've done various approaches.

They've invaded multiple kinds. They've worked with international bodies. The UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which called for the disarmament south of the Latani, it was a total failure.

It set up the UN body, UNIFIL, that was supposed to go around and disarm and keep, not even just disarm, they were supposed to keep the area south of the Latani, which had been previously cleared free of Hezbollah. And that's one of their biggest base of operations. UNIFIL, I mean, it was one of the most expensive failures in UN history.

I don't even understand what these guys did with their day. And that's not to diss the actual people, the peacekeepers there who worked with UNIFIL. In part, some of the hang-up was that they had to work in tandem with the LAF, which again, under previous Lebanese governments, was just simply a non-starter.

They had zero political ambition to actually go after Hezbollah, which is why this moment is so telling. Back in 2024, again, Israel went into Lebanon on the ground in a small way. It was mostly much more air campaign, a very, very big air campaign. But where did that ultimately lead?

It led to a ceasefire in which the Lebanese government agreed to disarm Hezbollah south of the Latani. And once again, I mean, they certified that they did, but it turns out, well, they missed a whole hell of a lot of bases in the area. So what do we all... What does Israel ultimately do with this?

The problem is that almost everything that they've attempted has failed in terms of working either internationally or with the previous Lebanese governments. I'm thinking that a possible outcome here would be a normalization of relations between Beirut and Israel in tandem for as little possible land grabs, ideally zero.

The government there has taken the hard line of there will be zero land grabs, which makes sense, obviously. But a lot of this will just ultimately come down to what these two are able to agree on. And right now it does seem as though they have more in common than some may suggest.

Let's zoom out a little bit here as well and talk about the international law of it all, right? Where we have this situation now in Lebanon where the conversation is not, oh, well, respect for Lebanese sovereignty, stand by international rules or norms or whatever it is.

It's realistically, it's whatever the alternative is that's going to eliminate this Hezbollah situation is what it's going to be, so too in Iran, right? We're seeing a rewriting of the order in the Persian Gulf basically around Iran's and the U.S.'s respective ability to assert maritime authority kinetically and violently if need be, right?

So as we kind of have this specter of Europe kind of waiting around, wringing its hands over this whole thing, right?

What do or how do either of you see this conflict bringing longer-term impact on the way that the world thinks about both conflict and peace and the use of force in the mid-2020s as we're seeing in Ukraine, in the Congo, in Sudan, in the Sahel, in Myanmar, in so many different places, right?

This lack of fidelity to this quote-unquote rules-based international order, etc., etc., that we could debate the existence of for a very long time, but at the very least a practical concept that had existed up until the last couple of years.

I think there's a risk of over-attributing the failures of the international rules-based order to a single conflict when, as you've clearly implied, it hasn't really existed for a while now. Conflicts have been happening, and they have been exceptionally bloody. Today is Wednesday, the 15th of April, I believe.

Today, on the Warfronts channel, we shall be having a video on the anniversary of the Sudan War. And I bring this up because if the international rules-based order did exist, if countries did pay anything more than lip service to the rules-based order, the war in Sudan shouldn't have gone on as long as it has.

It shouldn't have claimed as many lives as it has because countries have been fueling that war. They've been supplying both sides with weapons, with financing just to keep them fighting. And a lot of this is in contravention of UN regulations that says you don't even supply arms to these guys. But the rules-based order hasn't existed for a long, long time.

And everyone knows this. The biggest surprise for me is why China isn't taking more of an advantage of this rules-based order not existing as much as we would expect to see. So, yes, the war in Iran has dented public perception of the international rules-based order.

But this is like having a car that has been in 100 accidents and then you for it to be in the 101st and that 101st is to another minor dent that everyone can see. So, yes, the war has impacted the rules-based order, but not to a degree that it hasn't been impacted by everything else that has been happening. Yeah, I agree.

I mean, I have never seen the international rules-based order as something that is necessarily as present as some, shall we say. I think it's been largely backed up by military force, but we'll save that for another day. That could be a whole podcast in and of itself. I do just want to add two things here.

Some of this, I think, comes down to, in Lebanon, the Israeli logic post-October 7th, where the lesson that they took away was, like, you cannot have, for Israeli security, a large buildup along their borders of hostile forces.

So, their perspective here, especially the hardline Israeli security people, is that a group like Hezbollah existing along the border has been something that they've put up with for too long, and therefore they just want to go in and wipe them out.

That is, in and of itself, there is logic to the fact that you can't have these hostile forces just perpetually existing along the border.

Again, my concern being that if, like, the super hardline, like the Smoltrich-Bengeveers of the Netanyahu premiership get their way, they ultimately may end up on... sabotaging what could be a very fruitful peace negotiation. Again, Israel is no stranger to not exactly accomplishing its goals in Lebanon.

They've done this multiple times, oftentimes as a result of pursuing more maximalist positions. So it would be tragic to sort of see that through the day. In terms of sovereignty, I do just want to add, like, the Lebanese government's approach here has been unfortunately sidelined in many capitals.

So when we talk about the ceasefire, everybody wants a ceasefire, whether you're in Lebanon or whether you're in Europe or whatever, that ultimately delivers on meaningful reform.

But the problem being is that multiple countries were calling for Lebanon to be included in the Iranian-negotiated ceasefire, which explicitly hands control over Lebanese foreign policy to Iran. Yvette Cooper in the United Kingdom was calling for this. She said she strongly favored it. France was also calling for this. Lebanon was furious.

They have been saying consistently that they're talking with, that Lebanon speaks with one voice, their own, and that nobody negotiates on their behalf. They did not authorize themselves to be negotiated by the Islamic Republic, and they don't take kindly to it.

And so when we talk about divergence in the region, especially on matters of sovereignty, I think that's just a crystal clear moment of, like, why is Europe siding against the Lebanese government? You can advocate for a peace deal or a ceasefire without explicitly saying, yes, Iran has the authority to negotiate on Lebanon's behalf.

Yeah, I could not agree more. It has been really incredible to see, one, as you mentioned, the way that Lebanon has been completely just pushed aside, as even a legitimate internationally recognized government in this set of negotiations.

You would think that Lebanon is something of a rump state or a breakaway region in the way that they've been treated and handled by the rest of the world. And going back to the point about whether or not really any of us have put much credence into the rules-based international order, et cetera, et cetera, right?

I think there is always been a conversation about the utility of that as a perceptive tool versus its legitimacy as a guide to foreign or international affairs. But I do want to pivot to one final issue, which is China. This week, the leader of Spain was in Beijing and meeting with Xi Jinping and giving a couple of talks.

And during those talks, he raised an interesting point, especially coming from a NATO lab. ally, right? Essentially to state, where is China in all of this, right? Calling on China to take on more of an active role in global affairs, both economically, but also on security on defense, right?

Really explicitly calling for a change of Chinese policy, which we've seen over the last couple of decades has been very reserved, right? Economically a bit more active, but China does not engage in foreign military expeditions. It does not engage in interventions. It's not China's MO. It never really has been.

And now we have, again, the leader of a major European NATO nation going out and saying, right, China, step up. You have this power. You have this military capability. You claim to have the interest in being a leader on global affairs for the next several decades at a minimum. Where are you?

So as a final question to each of you today, and Kyle, I'll go to you first this time. Is there a role for China to step in and do more here?

And if so, if you, I suppose, if you had kind of the sandbox at your disposal and Chinese capabilities, Chinese leverage on the global stage, right, what would you see kind of a stepped up, more active role for China looking like?

I think what we're going to continue to see is that China is going to be continuing to pursue a approach here of appealing to rhetoric aspects of the rules-based liberal international order, which they have been attempting to do with some success. They have a long and complicated relationship with it themselves.

By no means am I saying that they're going to become a vocal defender of it, but I do think that they have an opportunity here to at least pretend that they are. I would caution anyone from falling for this rhetoric.

For people who strongly believe in the liberal rules-based international order, it could be sort of like alluring, shall we say, to fall victim to that in terms of, okay, now you have this power. Have they really changed? Are they suddenly in favor? I don't think that they necessarily are. I think they're just pursuing their own interests.

And I think that they see this as an opportunity to say, oh, okay, well, Washington's abandoned this. So if we put out some statements on this, and again, they're not even really doing anything. They're just, they can, they have the freedom to just put out these statements and it'll get some attention, you know?

I mean, they're supporting what, what others used to. So I think that is an opportunity for them. Whether or not it actually pays off, we'll have to see. There's a meme I really like that talks about how U.S. policy failures in the past. few years and has China just sitting there doing nothing and profiting.

I think that's what China will continue to do for the foreseeable future. Except in the South China and East China Sea, those are two wholly different beasts because what are China's main incentives at the moment?

That's what I always go back to, other than sparring their own economic growth and possibly retaking Taiwan, which has appeared to be a key policy position for Xi Jinping, who is supposed to have a meeting with President Trump fairly soon where you're going to try and convince him that Taiwan is a breakaway province and America shouldn't interfere if China

Ever decides to take it back.

But China's goals fundamentally are just its own economic prosperity. I view China as a very mercantile country in the sense that once its economic goals are fulfilled, it doesn't really view anything else as nearly as valuable as that.

So to see China more actively engaged in global affairs would require a fundamental realigning of its strategic positions and its strategic incentives. So unless that changes, China will continue to do what it's currently doing right now.

Just doing nothing, putting out statements that, as Kyle has pointed out, he doesn't really believe in, but it's good to appear to be the superpower that's supporting the international liberal rules-based order. So yeah, that's what he will continue to do, just put out the statements and appear the more rational superpower.

So a bit of an overreach from Spain this week, it seems. I believe we are at time, so I wanted to thank you both for coming on. Just a little look ahead for our listeners this week. We're looking at a second round of Iran talks in the next couple of days. Looks like J.D. Vance is going to be out on, I believe, Air Force Two.

Is that correct, for the Vice President of Air Force Two? Yeah, all right. So he'll be over in Islamabad again, doing his best. And we will see where things are this time next week. And depending on what has transpired, we'll be back to talk about it. Thank you both for coming on. Thank you very much. Thank you.

And before we sign off, I just want to talk about one last thing that is breaking from the Washington Post. The Pentagon is sending We'll see you next week. an additional about 6,000 troops aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush. So, yeah, we'll see more American troops in the Middle East in the near future.

Yeah, as we have learned during this conflict, this is not going to be boring, no matter what happens next. We have not slept, I believe, since February 28th, and we will not sleep for some time more. Thank you very much for being with us. This has been the Middle East Roundtable at Fronts.co. Signing off, and we'll see you next time.