The 1600: Carlo vs. Carlo Returns
The Insider's Track
Good morning,
Developments continue to move fast in the Mideast, with a Trump-brokered (and extremely fragile) ceasefire between Israel and Iran currently in effect. The perfect time to annoy everyone by dusting off my alter egos, Bleeding Heart Carlo and Based Carlo, to debate where things stand.
BC: Pretty bad couple weeks to be an enemy of the United States. Iran's nuclear program has been, if not completely destroyed, severely damaged. The regime is teetering on the brink, and its terrorist proxies are too weak to help it. The Chinese and Russians seem perfectly happy to leave the mullahs out to dry. Tehran's retaliation has, so far, been pathetic: a few missiles lobbed at an empty US base, complete with a heads-up. They know they're backed into a corner. Tell me why this isn't a huge win for Trump's foreign policy doctrine of "peace through strength."
BHC: Needless to say, I am much more cautious about declaring any sort of victory in the Middle East. I find it difficult to believe that the Iranians are just going to fold like this. This is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. You really think we've heard the last from them, after being utterly humiliated by both Trump and Netanyahu over the last two weeks? I would also like to get some confirmation from someone other than Donald Trump about the true severity of Saturday's bombings. How much damage did they really do, especially if Iran had previously smuggled out its stockpile of enriched uranium out of Fordow as believed?
I exist to worry about second-order effects and unintended consequences, it's my cross to bear as a lib. If you're the Ayatollah, aren't you rushing for a bomb now, as fast and as crudely as you can possibly make one? Isn't that the real lesson here: if you're a country not explicitly allied with the US, the only thing that stands between your sovereignty and the Americans eventually coming for you is a nuclear weapon. See: Lil Kim in North Korea. Pakistan literally harbored bin Laden and we didn't retaliate... because they have nukes. Ask Gaddafi whether he regrets giving up his nuclear program...oh right, you can't because he was sodomized to death with a bayonet by US-backed rebels.
BC: I hear you, and I think it's fair to be worried about nuclear proliferation. But the other side of the coin is that we just showed that there are certain red lines that cannot be crossed. If you try to build a bomb, we won't let you... at least not with Trump in charge.
BHC: Except we don't even know how close Iran was to a bomb! You know when they weren't building a bomb? For those three years after Obama negotiated the nuclear deal and before Trump ripped it up. So we don't know how close they really were, and we don't know where the nuclear program still stands even after our bombing. I simply fail to see any upshot to the US getting involved, either by air or by boots on the ground, in the affairs of this region. I get that keeping Iran at bay is in Israel's vital national security interest. No one has yet explained to me why it's in ours.
BC: I grant you that Iraq and Afghanistan were both fiascos, and that we were lied into the former. I understand why so many Americans are wary of being drawn into these ancient blood feuds in a land far away, especially since we don't even really need their oil anymore. But everything about these conflicts is different. Iran isn't Iraq, and Israel is a crucial ally that represents the only foothold of democracy in the region. It's possible to overlearn lessons in geopolitics, just ask Neville Chamberlain.
BHC: Not sure what Nazi appeasement has to do with any of this, but OK. Look, if Trump really does pull off some kind of master peace plan over there, and this is part of it, I will personally nominate him for the Nobel. He will deserve it. But bombing nuclear facilities without destroying the uranium, calling for regime change, then diplomacy, then ceasefire announcements by tweet... is this really the way we want American foreign policy to work?
BC: You guys repeatedly fail to understand something very important about Trump. He's not an ideologue, but he is an opportunist. He saw we had a unique opportunity to do real damage to the biggest pain-in-the-ass country in the region, because Israel had done the hard work over the last couple years of degrading its proxies and military capabilities. Trump's unpredictability in foreign affairs should be seen by Americans as an asset rather than a liability. You can't out-crazy crazy!
BHC: I dunno, I'd like to go back to a foreign policy less schizophrenic than this conversation we're having. My experience with opportunists is that they're just that: they see the opportunities in front of their faces, but fail to see the second-order effects. And America's involvement in the Middle East is littered with second-order effects that don't become apparent right away.
BC: Can we at least agree that the decision by Hamas/Tehran to launch the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel will go down as among the worst strategic plays in modern military history?
BHC: No question. Right up there with Pearl Harbor.
The Rundown
President Donald Trump scolded Israel and Iran after the ceasefire he said he brokered between the two countries appeared to falter. "They don't know what the f*** they're doing," Trump told reporters at the White House Tuesday before departing for a NATO Summit in The Hague. Read more.
Also happening:
NYC mayoral race: As New York City prepares for a consequential mayoral primary Tuesday, a generational and ideological rift inside the Democratic Party has exploded into public view. Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic Socialist and state assemblyman, has surged in the polls to become a serious threat to former governor Andrew Cuomo, a symbol of the party's old guard. Read more .
As New York City prepares for a consequential mayoral primary Tuesday, a generational and ideological rift inside the Democratic Party has exploded into public view. Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic Socialist and state assemblyman, has surged in the polls to become a serious threat to former governor Andrew Cuomo, a symbol of the party's old guard. . Immigration ruling: The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a critical victory in its deportation efforts on Monday in a 6-3 ruling in which it sided with the Department of Homeland Security—for the moment—in allowing migrants to be sent to third countries to which they have no connection. Read more.
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If any political commentators or Democratic politicians are tempted to see the political battle over President Trump's bombing of Iran through the prism of the run-up to the Iraq War two decades ago, here's a tip: Don't. For politicians and pundits of a certain age, it's normally assumed that military action will unleash a 'rally around the flag' effect, leading the public to reflexively approve of the decisions by the 'commander in chief'—particularly if he's a Republican—and automatically see criticism of him as unpatriotic. But it's unlikely that we'll see a similar dynamic this time around. A surprising new CNN poll shows why. It finds that 56 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump's bombing of Iran, while only 44 percent approve. Strikingly, 60 percent of independents disapprove, suggesting the middle of the country is not with Trump on any of this. On Tuesday, while leaving for the NATO Summit, Trump erupted at Israel and Iran for violating a ceasefire he'd announced on Truth Social, fuming that they 'don't know what the fuck they're doing.' Iran launched a strike after the ceasefire. But Israel's response appeared deliberately limited, suggesting both countries want a lasting truce, which Trump highlighted to claim victory. Trump's anger—combined with the new CNN poll—illustrates a complicated tension about this moment. On the one hand, if the truce holds, it's very possible that the CNN polling (which was conducted before the ceasefire) could flip and the public may end up approving of his handling of the situation. Yet the poll also constitutes a clear warning to Trump. Majorities have zero appetite for any kind of drawn-out conflict, and it's likely that this partly is rooted in perceptions that on complicated national security matters, well, Trump has no bleeping idea what the bleep he's doing. Note the CNN poll's remarkable finding that 55 percent of Americans don't trust Trump to make the right decisions on the use of force in Iran. This includes 62 percent of independents. That's a stunning verdict on public perceptions of Trump's competence, or lack thereof. (Meanwhile a Reuters poll finds only 36 percent back the bombing.) It's no accident that the CNN poll also finds that 58 percent of Americans say Trump's bombing will make Iran more of a threat to the U.S. Those two things may be connected: Voters appear unwilling to reflexively grant deference to the commander in chief's declaration that military force is essential to preserving the security of the homeland. Especially if that commander in chief is Donald J. Trump. This will surprise those who were snakebit by George W. Bush's popularity in the run-up to the Iraq War and Karl Rove's political warfare at the time. The grounds for that war were visibly thin. Yet it's hard to convey to people who didn't live through it how unshakable Bush's grip on public opinion seemed after September 11, 2001; how rampant war fever and rank Islamophobia were in this country; and how deeply it all penetrated into every crevice of American life. It's not hard to see why things are different now. Obviously, we've lived through two 'forever wars' since then, and this time, there was no September 11 to rally the public. But there are other reasons too. Bush was more popular (due to September 11) than Trump is now. And public skepticism of Trump's fitness to make decisions like these—again, 55 percent seem skeptical, per the CNN poll—runs so deep that he is ascribed little credibility on these matters, leaving no room to maneuver on them. That latter dynamic probably won't change much even if the truce holds. 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