Ezra Klein: Over the weekend, the United States and Israel launched a massive military assault on Iran, eliminating eminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. With an hour's Ali Khamenei was dead along with much of his senior command. As I record this on Monday, March 2nd, the Iranian Red Crescent says over 550 people have been killed in the bombings. We know of at least six American service members killed. There will likely be more as time goes on. There appears to have been a girl school that was bombed. The pictures from that. The grief of the parents is it's almost unbearable to look at.

Ezra Klein: That's all. This is I just think it's so important to say it's not all geopolitics. These are people, civilians, their lives or homes, their children. The attack on Iran came less than two months after the United States military captured Nicholas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, in an overnight raid on his compound in Caracus. America has deposed two sitting heads of state 8 weeks apart. I have seen a lot of commentary accusing Donald Trump of hypocrisy.

Ezra Klein: We believe that the job of the United States military is not to wage endless regime change wars around the globe, senseless wars. And now he is changing regimes left and right. But I think this is not quite a policy of regime change. There's not American invading Iraq or Afghanistan and restructuring the government ourselves. Maduro's regime was left intact aside from him. In an interview with the Times, Trump said that quote, "What we did in Venezuela, I think, is the perfect the perfect scenario." He said, "Everybody's kept their job except for two people." Trump has called for the Iranian people to rise up against their government, but he's also said he intends to resume talks with the existing Iranian regime. He said he had a few choices for who might lead Iran next, but they appear to have been killed in the initial bombings. The Iranian regime was monstrous, but Trump is not insisting that it be changed. Nor is his administration.

Ezra Klein: This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change. I don't think what we're seeing here is a policy of regime change. I would call this head on a pike foreign policy. America is proving that we can easily reach into weaker countries and kill or capture their heads of state. We will not be dissuaded from doing that by international law or fear of unforeseen consequences or the difficulty of persuading the American people or the United States Congress of the need for war. On that, we won't even try. We don't particularly care who replaces the people we killed. We will not insist that they come from outside the regime, nor they are elected democratically. We care merely that whoever comes next fears us enough to be compliant when we make a demand. That they know that they might be the next head on a pike.

Ezra Klein: Trump's belief appears to be that he can decapitate these regimes and control their successors and do so without events spinning out of his control. He appears to believe that it was idiocy or cowardice or a laurly respect for international rules that prevented his predecessors from replacing foreign leaders they loathed with more pliable subordinates. Trump is a man who has not read much history, but who certainly intends to make it. But what if Iran is not Venezuela? What if the Iranian people rise up as Trump has asked him to do and are slaughtered by the Iranian military? What if it descends into civil war as happened in Iraq where America had troops on the ground and yet hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed? What if it goes the way of Libya or Yemen or Syria? Who will pay the cost if he's wrong?

Ezra Klein: Ben Rhodes is a political analyst, a New York Times opinion contributing writer, and the co-host of the podcast Pod Save the World. He served as a senior adviser to President Barack Obama. He joins me now. As always, my email is Kleinshowny Times.com. Ben Rhodes, welcome to the show.

Ben Rhodes: Good to see you, Ezra.

Ezra Klein: So, you served in the Obama administration. It was the policy of that administration that Iran could not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. BB Netanyahu was the prime minister of Israel at that time. Been around a long time. He was pushing very hard for America to attack Iran, destroy its nuclear capabilities, maybe change its regime. Why didn't you do that then?

Ben Rhodes: Uh because we were worried about what the potential costs and consequences of a military action could be, what it could unleash across the region. Uh kind of a version of what we're seeing. Um just a lot of unpredictability. Um and frankly, we thought that the principal US security interest in Iran um was the nuclear program. Uh we we that doesn't mean we didn't take seriously its support for proxies and its ballistic missile program but the existential issue to us was the nuclear program. So if you could resolve that diplomatically and avoid a war um that was preferable to the alternative and you know a lot of people actually complained that we made that argument you may remember Ezra that it's either a war or a diplomatic agreement um and tragically you know here we are.

Ezra Klein: What were you worried about would happen? you said a version of what we're seeing play out now, but you know, if you're in the US, you're seeing reports of missiles being fired in all directions, but it doesn't seem completely out of control, at least at this moment. So, tell me, talk me through the scenarios you all considered then.

Ben Rhodes: Well, it's interesting. Um, we did, uh, you know, war games, um, essentially scenario planning, right? where you anticipate what might happen in the event of a military conflict. And um you know part of what I just say at a macro level is having been through Iraq uh and Afghanistan and Libya and the Obama administration uh we had just seen the uncertainties that are unleashed in any kind of military conflict in the region. Um, and even in the case where you bombed Iran's nuclear facilities, um, first and foremost, what we determined is you kind of couldn't destroy the Iranian nuclear program from the air. Um, they know how to do this. They know the nuclear fuel cycle. They could rebuild. And so, at best, if you're trying to deal with the nuclear program, at best, you could set it back in a very successful strike, maybe a year, right? And what are the risks that you're taking? They're taking the risk that Iran will strike, as we are seeing now, uh try to strike out and lash out at US military facilities across the region, try to uh strike out at energy infrastructure, which could be very uh difficult for the global economy, strike Gulf allies, uh strike civilian populations uh in Israel. Um and and so you could have a situation where you essentially have a regional war um instead of just, you know, you bomb the nuclear program and get out. I think inside of Iran there was just also the question of um if the regime were to implode in some fashion, what happens next? Uh that that the the likelihood was that you could have protracted civil conflict and we've seen all of the unpredictability that can unleash in terms of refugee flows or kind of conflict migrating across borders. Um and and we didn't see some pathway to, you know, a quick transition to, I don't know, a democratic Iran or or a different kind of stable government there. Um so when you weighed the risks of a military action against the benefits of you know what, setting back the Iranian nuclear program a year, um it it just didn't seem worth it.

Ben Rhodes: I think Donald Trump believes he has figured something out that has eluded his predecessors, which is that you can change these regimes without changing the regime. You can capture Maduro. You can use air power to killi. And what you're going to do next is not insist on democracy, is not insist on rebuilding something you like. You are going to simply insist on somebody who is afraid enough of you that they are more pliable when it matters that there is that what you've created is not exactly a puppet but someone who is inclined to follow your orders when you give them and that maintains a a limit on how involved you need to be. Is he right? Has he figured something out?

Ben Rhodes: I don't think he's right. I think you're right that he believes that he's figured this out. Um but I think there's a number of flaws uh with this thinking. I mean the first thing in the case of Iran is this for all the focus on Kam who you know was a reprehensible leader by the way I'm not sure how many years he had left uh if we're just decapitating him I mean time was about to do that uh but this is a deep deep regime you know w with in ideological institutions that go far beyond even you know the shaveista regime in Venezuela right because what you're talking about is he's sitting on top of this edifice that has been built since the 1979 revolution that includes millions of people under arms, right? The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Basij uh that are usually responsible for the crackdowns that we see when they're peaceful protests. Um the Iranian military and police um there there's a lot of depth to this regime. So taking out even the supreme leader doesn't in any way change the regime. Um and in fact if you talk about people that might be afraid um you know the IRGC's sometimes been kind of more hardline even certainly than the political leadership that uh Americans usually see uh in things like negotiations. Um and then it's also the case you know Trump thinks I I truly believe you know he kind of thinks in in news cycle increments. Um so you know I'll kill someone to look like we changed the regime. We got rid of the bad guy. We kind of slayed the dragon here. Um and and there's no you know what happens in one year and three years and 5 years. Uh I mean I was I'll be self-critical here Ezra like uh you remember the Libya intervention. We did the same thing essentially. Um Gaddafi was killed uh through a mix well there was an air strike and then he was killed by people on the ground. Um terrible guy, reprehensible leader. Um when that regime was removed uh nothing was able to fill the vacuum except for the most heavily armed people in Libya which were a series of different militias. Um and that that civil war you know spread across borders and you know suddenly that part of North Africa becomes you know every an arms bazaar uh you know conflict is spreading to neighboring states. Um, so if the regime itself stays in Iran, I don't think it's fundamentally different just because Kame is not there. And if the regime implodes completely, uh, I worry about, you know, a Libya type situation at scale because this is a much bigger country, right, with over 90 million people. Um, so, you know, Trump, the Venezuean, I think I I saw that and it made me worried about this.

Ben Rhodes: One of the things you have heard repeatedly from Donald Trump is an exhortation to the Iranian people that now is your chance. We have degraded this regime. You are being supported by air power. Rise up and take back your country. I think Trump said this is will be your only chance for generations. What do you hear when you hear that? I hear something that is incredibly reckless and

Ben Rhodes: Um you know we already saw when he was you know truth posting help is on the way uh a few weeks ago um and Resa Palavi the son of the uh deposed sha was similarly saying go to the streets um thousands if not tens of thousands of Iranians were killed when they did go to the streets um

Ezra Klein: by the regime.

Ben Rhodes: By the regime and you you cannot protect those people from the air, right? I mean, let's say there's an uprising and let's say all the remaining instruments of the Iranian regime start to massacre those people. Well, we can bomb more regime targets. Um, but at a certain point you kind of run out of that and you're just talking about people on the ground with small arms, right? And it just I'm tremendously sympathetic to the Iranian people and what they've been through. Um, I would love for them to have a different government. Um, but you know, I'll say this is the Obama guy. Like hope is not a strategy. Just going out there and saying, uh, I'm bombing your country. I mean, this is part of what's so disturbing to me about this, Ezra, is that they they don't have any capacity to articulate an endgame. And so, I think people have to recognize and and I had to, you know, uh learn this, you know, uh the hard way, uh through the Arab Spring. Um just because we want a different government doesn't mean that that's easy to execute. Um and frankly, I think Iran was changing, albeit not at the pace that we want. Uh the Women, Life, Freedom movement succeeded in some ways. It didn't change the regime but uh you talk to people in that region and the society was changing. Women were starting to go around uncovered. Some of the veneer of the regime had been punctured. Kam was old. He was going to die. Like the capacity for the Iranian people themselves to change that regime over time um even though that's not on the timeline that people want uh I think would have been a better bet um than just saying we're going to drop a bunch of bombs and rise up uh because there's just not a formula I mean as I was thinking about this everybody's focused on the American regime changeled operations as they should Iraq Afghanistan Libya in that part of the world it's Not just those regimes that have had trouble. Sudan had a popular uprising. Look at Sudan today, you know, or Egypt had a popular uprising um in the Obama years and you know, Mubarak ended up getting replaced by a more repressive leader. And so we keep seeing in these scenarios that the toppling of an authoritarian government can lead either to chaos or to further repression. And that's my concern.

Ben Rhodes: There's a profound, I think, confusion in what Trump has been saying because at the same time that he is saying rise up Iranian people, this is your moment. He's also saying that he had three people in mind to lead the regime after this, but now they're all dead, it turns out. So maybe it's not going to be them.

Ezra Klein: Yeah.

Ben Rhodes: He's also said that he is willing to be in talks with the existing regime. They were playing it too cute before, but he's happy to talk now. And so there is this way in which he is simultaneously signaling an openness and eagerness to see a bottom-up revolt and also a willingness to cut a deal with what remains so long as they, you know, get the deal they wanted, which is no nuclear program, no enrichment, um probably no more ballistic missiles program, a couple other things. But but those two signals going out at the same time seems worrisome to me. It seems very worrisome because it it projects an incoherence um to your policy and to your head on the pike strategy. When I hear Trump say that, I hear someone who would like this to be over as soon as possible. But the reality is the Iranians get a vote on whether it's over. Uh and what they know, for instance, is US munitions, particularly our air defense systems are going to run lower and lower and lower. And in a way, you know, they may be able to hit more targets the longer this goes. I mean, I the best case scenarios, you know, because I was trying to, as someone who's been critical, I want to inhabit the best case scenarios, right? It feels like the best case scenario may be a chasened regime that just wants to hunker down and will agree at least for the time being to you know not have any nuclear program that is active and uh and kind of you know lick its wounds. Um and maybe that provides some opportunity for that regime to be less repressive. I mean I guess that's the the the landing zone here that Trump is trying to to to meet. But at the same time, like we've bombed them twice now in the middle of nuclear negotiations and uh so if you have hardliners in the IRGC or in uh Iranian circles, you know, and and they're being told, well, let's stop and negotiate with the Americans, like they're they're not going to believe that that that they can negotiate in any kind of good faith with with Donald Trump. Um and and so I I I I think that there's this kind of strategic incoherence about what the objective of this whole thing is. And that that's seen not just by the Iranians, it's seen by the Gulf Arabs who are now, you know, they're they're furious at everybody. I think they're furious at the United States and Israel for launching this war. And we can talk about that. And I think they're, you know, obviously furious at Iran for targeting them indiscriminately. They don't know what the what's what's going on here? What's the goal here? Are we trying to remove this regime? they they're they're wary of removing the regime because they don't want refugees and chaos, you know, in their region. You know, what you'd want, I guess, is everybody in the world is, you know, the relevant countries in the Gulf and the region and in Europe being able to put some diplomatic framework around this. So, it's not just this kind of Steve Woodoff and Jared Kushner trying to talk to some Iranian in a room um via v the Omanis. Um, but Trump's shifting goalposts of what he's for um make it much harder to to put any kind of framework around this. This gets to something I think pretty deep in the Trump administration's thinking or lack of thinking which is

Ezra Klein: it has often seemed to me if there's any global problem they are worried about it is refugee flows and migrations

Ezra Klein: and

Ezra Klein: they go to Europe and talk about how Europe is ceasing to exist as a civilization in part because of you know Muslim Muslim integration and immigration. There have been huge refugee flows to Europe from Syria as part of the Syrian civil war. If you imagine a scenario here where you end up a little bit between Trump's imagined options, which is simultaneously you do have opposition to the existing regime, and you also have a regime that has become more compliant to Trump himself on things like the nuclear issue, but is trying to hold power and repressing those who are trying to attack it. You could very quickly end up in a significant refugee flow scenario. Iran's a very very very big country. You're talking about 90 million people.

Ezra Klein: And how do the states around Iran handle that? How what does the Trump administration think about huge outflows of Iranians coming after the US and Israel destabilize the the country? Have they planned for that? Will they should Europe and America take these people?

Ben Rhodes: Yeah.

Ezra Klein: Should other What?

Ben Rhodes: I honestly I it doesn't seem that they planned for it. I will tell you that in the run-up to this, I did talk to some people I know in the region, right, um, in the in the Middle East, in in the Gulf, who um, uh, who were discussing what they were warning the Trump administration about, you know, and um, one of the scenarios, the kind of worst case scenario, so I I'm not suggesting this is definitely going to happen, but I think we have to inhabit this precisely because there was no discussion of the potential consequences. If you have a a civil conflict inside of Iran, the economy is already in really deep trouble because of, you know, US sanctions, a collapsing currency. So, there's extreme poverty there. There are ethnic separatist movements inside of Iran, uh, in the Kurdish regions, and the Bluke regions. And so what you could have is an implosion, you know, if the there's a some kind of uprising and then there's a kind of chaotic civil war, which is not hard to imagine because we've seen that in Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the other places um where the US has been involved militarily and millions. I mean, somebody said to me, this is a country that is four times bigger than Syria, and remember that refugee crisis and essentially the the only places to go or in one direction it's Afghanistan and Pakistan. Um that's not a particularly stabilizing thing to imagine. You know, huge refugee outflows in Afghanistan. Pakistan, we already have a war by the way. Pakistan bombed Afghanistan the day before this started. Pakistan could get drawn in to this conflict. Uh they don't in part to get refugees away and in part to prevent the emergence of a separatist Balucan on their borders. It crosses their borders. And then the other direction is Turkey into Europe. Um and you saw Turkey very aggressively being a part of the mediation efforts. This is one of the reasons why they have a lot of fatigue with hosting millions of Syrian refugees and in Europe trying to keep those refugees in Turkey instead of getting Europe. They will find their way to Europe from through Turkey. And so I don't think there's been any real planning for this. Um and that is to me like the worst case scenario of a civil war and even fracturing of the Iranian uh sovereign territory. Um you'd have huge refugee outflows. We have not been planning for this. Israel has been planning for some version of this for a very long time. They're a full partner in this operation which is distinctive about it. What do they want?

Ben Rhodes: I think first and foremost uh they want to smash um you know anybody who poses a perceived threat to them and and they obviously been principally focused on this axis of resistance right so um Hamas uh other Iranian proxy groups and then ultimately the Iranian uh regime itself um weakening that regime is is in their view kind of obviously good for their security posture they're worried about ballistic missiles worried about nuclear program. If I was going to be cynical, um, and I know this is a view of some increasingly in the region, it's that Israel's okay with chaos. That if, um, if there's an implosion in Iran and, you know, humanitarian uh, disaster there and and kind of chaos um, that that that actually advantages their security situation in a way because that kind of uh, Iran can't pose a threat to them. Um and that if you look at um Lebanon and Syria where Israel's also been, you know, very active militarily, um they're just kind of pushing out um not just kind of the the perimeter, you know, they're they're literally occupying parts of uh southern Syria now. Um they want this kind of buffer zone in southern Lebanon. Um and I think that the fears in the region is that that they are just kind of methodically yes eliminating threats but also creating a lot of chaos and instability. Um as almost a strategy of giving themselves freedom of action um whether that involves taking the West Bank, whether that involves you know uh again extending out kind of buffer zones into Syria and Lebanon. Um and and you know that seems plausible that seems more plausible to me than they have some plan to you know support the installation of Resa Pabi as the transitional leader of Iran.

Ezra Klein: I mean what they seem to me to have had a plan for and I think you have to give some credit to Netanyahu for one of the most remarkable coups of his career was involving Donald Trump in this.

Ben Rhodes: Yeah. Yeah. And that was very very effectively pulled Trump in by degrees such that we were supposed to have a very limited bombing campaign on Iran. We were told after that that their nuclear program was obliterated in Trump's video announcing uh the this operation. He both said Iran was posing an imminent threat and that their nuclear program had been obliterated which I found a little bit strange. But Netanyahu's ability to get Trump to do what no other US president has been willing to do is striking. And I think that was on some level like the real plan here. Israel had weakened Iran. It had shown Iran to be weaker than people thought it was. And I think the push was made to Trump that you have this narrow window of opportunity to do what no other president has done. and at least in the way it was presented to him, permanently solve the problem and permanently avenge uh you know previous injuries and insults to America.

Ben Rhodes: I think you are exactly right. Uh I think it's worth pointing out. I mean this we were both in Washington at the time. I mean this started coming up at the end of the Bush administration in 2007208 when there was a push uh for Bush to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities. Netanyahu has wanted to do this since I have been in politics, you know, very clearly. Um, wanted the US, not Israel alone, the US, uh, to take out the Iranian regime. And, and every president has resisted this except Trump, you know, we should say like obviously there's people in the United States, the Lindsey Grahams of the world who want to do this as well. So, it's not just Israel. Um, but it's a pretty small set of constituencies. You know, the public is broadly against this. And you're right, they brought him in by degrees. Uh, and we can even go back to the first Trump term, right, where uh, they he left the Iranian nuclear deal. That was not something that his advisers were telling him to do. Jim Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, was against it at the time, you know, not even a huge fan of the Iran nuclear deal, but because he saw if you remove if you remove yourself from that deal, you're kind of on a slow motion movement towards this. Um, in a way, it's funny. We we you know Trump likes to say 12-day war and it's been one war you know since he pulled out of that nuclear agreement. It's been like a slow motion series of events that led in this direction.

Ezra Klein: Begins with economic war begins with sanctions.

Ben Rhodes: Maximum Yeah, exactly. So you pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. You go to maximum pressure sanctions. You assassinate the Kam Solommani. Those are all things that happened in Trump's first term. Uh couldn't get him all the way to to bombing Iran itself. Biden clearly and I've been very critical as you know of Biden's Middle East policy on Gaza. He was clearly not keen to go allin with Iran on a regional war. Um maybe you know he was supportive of going after the Iranian proxy groups. Not this. Then Trump comes back and you know they they they they do the nuclear strike. But I think you're right. I think the Israeli saw the Venezuela operation. Oh, he's getting more comfortable with this and he's getting comfortable taking it to regime change. Um and they see and this is where that you know people the the continued use of military force without any congressional authorization is connected to this because it's like okay there's a president and Donald Trump who is willing to just bomb countries and and take huge risks absent any congressional debate or discussion. Um I mean we we dealt with this in Obama years. You must inhabit the scenario of a war. If Donald Trump had tried to prepare the American people for this, they would have said no. You know, if he had gone out and given a series of speeches, now is the time we must remove the Iranian regime, it wouldn't have worked. And so I I think you're right. This this kind of vain glorious, I'm Donald Trump. I will slay all the dragons. You know, we've had these grievances with Maduro, with Kam, with the Cuban regime. I'm going to remove all of them. You know, I think that there's a vanity to that that Israel and some of the hawks in this country saw. and they went to him knowing that he was reticent, you know, to kind of break from his base this much and do this, but they appealed to something bigger than his short-term political instincts, which is this will make you an historic figure. Um, and and I think BB Netanyahu has wanted to get an American president to do this since, you know, at least when I was in government, and he has.

Ben Rhodes: So, one thing that I think is important in that story you just laid out is also there's been a learning about Iran that has been successive. So, America pulled out of the nuclear deal, added the maximum pressure sanctions. Iran wasn't able to do very much about that. There was the assassination of Solammani. There was no significant reprisal for that. You saw Israel decapitate Hezbollah. You saw the uh then bombing of the Iranian nuclear sites. And I do think something that has been significant here is a growing sense that Iran was not as fearsome as was believed and did not have the capacity to strike back as had been believed, but that you could do this at low cost, which was not what people thought before.

Ben Rhodes: This drives me a little crazy because I think it's true, but you know, let's just take Netanyahu. Um, the argument was always that they're 10 feet tall, that, you know, they're absolute maniacs who are on the precipice of a nuclear weapon and they've built this massive axis that is coming for us. And and I never believed that. I I never believed that Iran was as as all powerful and I I certainly never believed that they had offensive you know that they were going to launch some preemptive war against Israel you know um they they were interested in regime survival. Um that was always my assessment and that even you know some of the proxy groups were meant you know the Iranian doctrine was keep this out of Iran you know keep the conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon. Um, so part of what used to drive me crazy about the hawkish uh prescriptions on Iran from inside Washington and Israel is that either argument led to war. If Iran is really powerful, we must take them out because, you know, they must be stopped because they're on the precipice of doing something or they're weak so we can take them out. And and look, I I do think it's bear saying first of all that uh we should have a mindset that war is bad and should be avoided. Um that that should be a a legal and values proposition that that that there are preferable outcomes uh to to to war itself. The other problem I have with this, Ezra, is there's an incredible short-term thinking about this because you're also sending the message that, okay, Iran was in a nuclear deal with the United States. They were complying with that nuclear deal and they then got bombed. Um, whatever Iranian regime emerges from this, I think, is very likely to want nuclear weapons. So, this doesn't happen. If you're sitting in Riad or even Dubai and Abu Dhabi right now, you're thinking, well, the Americans are my security guaranter and look at what we just got out of that security guarantee. Like, we got a war that they launched uh pretty much I don't buy that the Saudis were pushing for this. By the way, I I I I saw them deny that report and um I think they were very reticent about this. Um why wouldn't they get nuclear weapons now? It's like, well, we we can't uh, you know, at the end of the day, the Americans are are kind of willing to play with our security, you know, or deprioritize it as against Israel's security. Um, other would be proliferators uh, are going to think, you know, look at North Korea versus Iran. And so there's these second order effects, right? And one of them is nuclear proliferation. Um where the the consequences might not be manifest next year, but I don't know, five years from now, I I I don't think that this kind of action will have made us safer. I'd much rather, you know, if you actually believe in not nuclear non-proliferation, it's much better to to have that be something you fortify diplomatically than than you just remove a regime because it's weak.

Ezra Klein: I want to pick up on what you just said about the Saudis. So there was a Washington Post report that

Ezra Klein: cited at least four sources that had knowledge of the conversations and negotiations. What it basically said was that in public Saudi Arabia has been against this has denied it use of their bases. In private uh Muhammad bin Salman and top people in the Saudi government have been privately pushing Trump to act. This is something that you know if you've been around these issues for a while, you've heard a lot about. the Israelis talk all the time about how nobody wants the Iranian government gone like Saudi Arabia. So you don't buy that that is what was happening?

Ben Rhodes: I'm skeptical of it because I was hearing different things. Um you know I certainly uh you saw Qatar, Turkey and Egypt um along with Oman obviously uh trying to avert this outcome. The Egypt thing was interesting to me because the idea that Egypt would take that position without Saudi Arabia, you know, as a chief chief sponsor um supporting them in that um makes me uh question it. You also see in Saudi foreign policy, you saw Rapro with Iran uh in the last few years. I think Muhammad bin Salman, who I've been hugely critical of. So this is um anybody who's listened to me over the years, I have no, you know, love for that government. Um but I think, you know, he's principally interested in stability. Now here what I think is quite possible is they were reticent of this. Um they don't like instability of this scale in their region. Um they don't like the potential disruptions obviously to uh energy infrastructure. But when they see an inevitability to it, they may have kind of come around and been like okay like we'll talk to you guys about this. You know they I think they're the most likely scenario is that they're a bit ambivalent. Um because again like their uh their security paradigm is is is stability, stability, stability and this is you know doesn't feel a lot like stability.

Ezra Klein: I'm not saying this is the biggest issue in in this moment but the

Ezra Klein: centrality of Israel in the operation has raised some concerns for me about what this is going to mean for anti-semitism. you see the amount of talk on the MAGA right but but elsewhere as well that you know Israel's leverage over Donald Trump or that you know this is all just some kind of uh Israeli plot. I I wonder a bit about the there are many ways which Netanyahu looks to me to be gambling. Yes.

Ezra Klein: For short-term position

Ezra Klein: over the long-term sustainability of both Israel's political position of Israel's political position in America,

Ezra Klein: but but also just the generalized view of the world at a time of very very sharply rising anti-semitism about what is going on here. Uh, I don't know how it nets out or what it ends up meaning, but

Ezra Klein: it certainly has me nervous.

Ben Rhodes: It it it has it has me nervous, too. And and there's two aspects to that. I mean, the the the one is in the region and and one is here. I'd just say briefly in the region, like I was critical of the Abraham Accords at the time, and I was a bit of outlier to say the least about that. Um because I you know Donald Trump framed this as a big peace deal you know uh when in fact it didn't resolve any of the conflicts in the region and look at what's happened since I you know it it's been much more violent and if you talk to people in the region they see that oh wait a second this has all been about Israeli hijgemony in this region um and that is making the Arab states who were prepared certainly to live with Israel I didn't think Saudi Arabia like you know had any threat to pose to Israel um but they're increasingly concerned about a dynamic where there's this degree of freedom of action for Israel. So um over what does that look like? How does that evolve into in the long term in the region? I think here you're right it I I really worry about this because look, this is not me saying Israel pushed Donald Trump to do this. BB Nao went out I think yesterday and said I wanted this to happen for 40 years and finally Trump did it you know and he's doing it with us too but the US used to be very careful not to do joint military operations with Israel in part for this reason

Ben Rhodes: this is a huge I mean people need to think about this like it was some it was you know just to do joint exercises you know was something people calibrated carefully because we didn't want to make it look like you know if if that there's that Israel and the United States are one and the same um for for reasons that go in both directions. But here's the thing is Americans are looking at this and they're seeing um uh that we are in a war that seems like it's something Israel wanted us to do. Seems like the the benefits acrew mostly to Israel. Um you know the ballistic missile program does not pose a threat to the United States. There is no ICBM from Iran that can reach the United States. So, so a lot of what we're doing is removing threats uh to Israel. If it goes poorly, who's going to get blamed? You know, um I I think that that some of that anger will go in the direction of Israel. And I think it's important for us to talk about this because when when there's not debate and discussion about about it, it migrates to the darker corners, right? Um and you're seeing that certainly in MAGA. Well, I think one reason this has fed conspiracies is it has felt to many people like such a almost inexplicable break from how Trump sold himself.

Ezra Klein: Yeah.

Ezra Klein: So, I mean, you have, you know, back in 2023, Trump saying, "These globalists want to squander all of America's strength, blood, and treasure, chasing monsters, and fandoms overseas while keeping us distracted from the havoc they're creating here at home." Very on point. Uh JD Vance writes a Wall Street Journal oped that year titled Trump's best foreign policy not starting any wars. Tulsi Gabbard of course sells no war with Iran t-shirts.

Ezra Klein: Um

Ezra Klein: now you have Trump kind of start more as certainly conflicts engagements like left and right. Accordius Trump has now authorized more military strikes in 2025 alone than Biden did in all four years. So I I think for a lot of people there has been this how do you reconcile both Trump and the movement that was around him, right? All the people advising him with what we're seeing now. I got asked over the weekend by somebody, you know, what was a faction inside the White House that wanted this.

Ezra Klein: Yeah.

Ezra Klein: And I found it actually hard to answer that question. We have not seen a lot of reporting saying Marco Rubio wanted this to happen.

Ezra Klein: You know, JD Vance appears to have not. Uh yeah,

Ezra Klein: instead we're talking about Israel and Lindsey Graham who's not that influential anymore. Muhammad bin Salman. Maybe it I think a lot of people have been very confused with how to like how to explain Trump himself taking this risk.

Ben Rhodes: I had the same mental exercise, Ezra. And let's just go through it. If you look at all these polls, this is wildly politically unpopular. And by the way, that continues to hold even though the Supreme Leader got killed. and the supreme leader being killed will be the high watermark of this operation. You know, um there's not another person that you can kill that Trump can say is a head on a pike, right? Then if you look at the people that want to inherit MAGA, right, who who are looking ahead at the Republican party, um JD Vance seems to want to have very little to do with this. Tucker Carlson is railing against this. Um you know, the C Bannons of the world are not enthusiastic about this. Um, the Republican party is not going in this direction. Um, so this is not something that Trump is doing because it's going to be wildly popular.

Ezra Klein: Military didn't want it. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the

Ben Rhodes: Joint Chiefs of Staff was clearly putting out, leaking out, you know, that they didn't want to do this. Um, Marco Rubio is much more focused on this hemisphere, you know, Venezuela and Cuba, which they're trying to, you know, strangle through with maximum pressure. Um, the Democratic Party is, you know, not for this and particularly the people anticipating the future of the Democratic Party. who is for this and it it's a very small set of constituents. it is basically Israel and then it is kind of hardline you know uh longstanding hawks uh in Congress or in kind of the national security establishment by the way the people that Trump said he didn't like for this you

Ezra Klein: John John Balden so he's exactly you know trying to to persecute is out there defending it

Ezra Klein: so so it is hard to look at this and not

Ezra Klein: so wasn't part of the reason he talked about getting rid of John Bolton that he's like John Bolton always wanted me to attack Iran

Ben Rhodes: Iran Iran right and It is hard to not conclude that that that BB Netanyahu and Israel's kind of push for this was determinative in some way because again like the the only appeal to Trump that made any sense is is kind of the one you made earlier where you become a historic figure. You know, you finally I mean I do think there's a part of him that's just like these governments have been a pain in the ass for decades, right? Cuba since the 59 revolution, Iran since the 79 revolution, you know, Venezuela since the Shaveista revolution, I'm going to be the one who finally settles all these scores. Like there's some of that that is separate from Israel. Um, but it is hard to not conclude that um if Israel wasn't, put it this way, Ezra, take the counterfactual, the Israeli government was not pushing for this, would it have happened?

Ezra Klein: I want to talk about the ways in which this might not remain limited in the way Donald Trump has either promised a country or I think promised himself. So I see this as following from the 12-day bombing some months ago, it turned out that didn't do enough. And when it was clear that Iran was racing forward with ballistic missiles, reconstituting a nuclear program that probably was not obliterated in the way Donald Trump had initially said it was. And so we were now involved and Iran was defying him. He It wasn't just that it was obliterated. That obliteration was a kind of command from him to them that that was gone. They weren't giving up enough at the negotiating table. And and also, and I think this was meaningful to to to Trump on some level, uh was now slaughtering um its own people. You know, he didn't like that either. I want to give him credit for some humanitarian impulse potentially here.

Ezra Klein: So now we're involved even more so. Now we have kinetically destroyed

Ezra Klein: much of the regime and and its power.

Ezra Klein: But a lot could spin out of control here.

Ezra Klein: So I am very skeptical that the limit Trump seems to think he has put on this is stable. And I'm curious as somebody with more experience here than than I have what you think of it.

Ben Rhodes: I think you're right. And um the Israelis have uh this it's not a doctrine, but essentially this terminology. It's called mowing the lawn. Have you heard this? Um

Ezra Klein: which is and again I I hate even using phrases like this when it comes to war and human beings, but essentially the mowing the lawn strategy is that if there's a place that poses a threat, uh you occasionally just kind of go in and and b cut the grass. you you bomb the threat periodically and and obviously like Lebanon would be a perfect case of where the Israelis pursued that.

Ezra Klein: Well, they always said this about Hamas. How did that ultimately work out

Ben Rhodes: exactly? And there is a risk like this why I say we we have been at war with like the idea that there was something called the 12-day war and now there's a different war. No, no. Like that's not how these things work. Like once you bomb a country um you know, you're bringing this forever war paradigm uh to it. And so I think it is quite possible that, you know, in the same way that the 12-day war was the end of the story, if Trump, you know, stops bombing Iran in a week, two weeks, three weeks, um, that we're back doing that in a few months, um, because something happened that we don't like, and then you start to get massacres in the streets of Iran, or you start to get refugee outflows or you start to continue to see kind of ways of random attacks at the Gulf. Are we really going to do nothing? But then if we're going getting back and back in, you know, then we're, you know, getting pulled into quicksand. We are implicated. You know, we are involved. I mean, the the common thread to this conversation, Ezra, is like we need to just get this short-term thinking that that there such a thing as 12-day wars or that you solve a problem when you kill the leader. Like that that's not how any of this goes. I think it is genuinely striking and a break with certainly the recent past how little public deliberation there is over quite major American foreign policy actions. And

Ben Rhodes: you know the Bush administration did lie its way into war with Iraq, but it did also spend a long time trying to persuade the country that war with Iraq was worth doing. and we debated how many, you know, how much of the American military it would take. What does it mean to be entering into these kinds of commitments, these kinds of projects, these kinds of risks

Ben Rhodes: without really any public debate, any significant public or congressional deliberation of what might happen? You don't have a bunch of members of the military repeatedly going to Congress and and and going through scenarios.

Ezra Klein: I don't want to place everything here on process being poor, but it's but there's a reason that the public and Congress are consulted because if it ends up requiring more

Ezra Klein: engagement, then you actually need that support.

Ben Rhodes: No, I I think process is is related to outcome. And if you can't make a case to the American people to sway public opinion in the direction of a war or make a case to Congress, I mean, the single most important thing you could do to keep America out of more wars is actually require Congress to take a vote because they're not going to vote for it. Um given the where public opinion has done on this. And so I think it's incredibly corrosive to democracy to have this kind of loop of of conflict that is increasingly sidelining Congress and public opinion entirely. Um I I also think there's something even more dangerous, Ezra, which is uh we keep you know I know a lot of people are thinking when are the you know when are we going to know how bad it's going to get with Trump? Like what if the things that you fear are already happening? Like we already have a president who clearly came back into office wanting the military to be more directly responsive to him him than it was in the first term when the military leadership and even some of the Pentagon leadership stood up to him more and more. We have seen him, you know, purge the top of the military general officers. We have seen him address the general officers and say uh hey the American cities might be military training grounds. Now we've seen him

Ben Rhodes: um within a matter of weeks and undertake multiple military I'll just give you a few. We bombed Nigeria on Christmas Day. Uh we were blowing up boats in the Caribbean on totally false pretenses that it had something to do with like drug trafficking in the United States uh and potentially committed war crimes. We abducted the leader of Venezuela. We now just killed the supreme leader of Iran and are trying to topple that regime. Or maybe we're not. Um these are all things that have happened within 3 months, right? And at the same time, we see uh the Department of War telling Anthropic, an AI company, that you will be banned from any business of the government if the Pentagon can't ignore your terms of service against mass surveillance of Americans. And where I'm going with this is the ultimate guardrail in democracy is supposed to be the separation between the president and kind of the military as an institution. And if the military of an institution can just can directly serve the interest of Donald Trump with no public debate about what it's doing, no congressional votes on what it's doing, how many more countries are going to bomb and what is that military going to end up doing in the United States, you know, if he invokes the Insurrection Act? And that's not to impug the military, that's to impugn Trump is taking this. So I think the darker scenarios, it's not just process nerds like we need to have authorizations for use of military force and you know we need briefings to Congress. It's no. Is the military an institution that just completely serves the whims of the president or is it an institution that is apolitical that is equally responsive to Congress and the president? Uh because those questions are going to matter a lot how the next two and 3/4 years of the Trump administration.

Ezra Klein: Although I think it's important to say it's not that Congress is being defied. Congress has abdicated.

Ben Rhodes: Yes. That's Yes. Yes.

Ezra Klein: Mike Johnson is not out there complaining. he is supporting this. I mean there are many ways in which Trump is a disruptive break with the past but the escalation of not going to Congress for quite dangerous operations. I mean that was president in the Obama era. I mean this is this has been growing for a very long time.

Ben Rhodes: Well the thing that that that that Obama probably you know gets the most grief for in his foreign policy was the Syria redline incident. But what was interesting about that Ezra is you have this chemical you describe what that is.

Ezra Klein: Yes. So, we have this uh Obama has said it'd be a red line if uh the Assad regime uses chemical weapons. Then there's a massive chemical weapons use. And we were preparing to bomb Syria. We were I mean I was in meetings. I thought we were going to bomb Syria. Um and you know going through strike packages, that kind of stuff. And then um you know Obama makes this decision essentially to say I'm I'm going to put this to a vote in Congress. I'm not going to go to war with Syria unless Congress votes to authorize it. And almost immediately the support for that begins to evaporate in Congress. Even people like Marco Rubio who are hawks would not vote uh to authorize use of military force in Syria. And Obama's point was if Congress, the representatives of the people as envisioned under our constitutional system, don't want to get us into another war with Syria and be responsible for the consequences of whatever happens, then we shouldn't do it. That's how our system's designed. Now, a lot of people have, you know, pointed out that, you know, that was we should have done more to stop Assad and and that's, you know, I I agree. I'm sympathetic to all those arguments, but I'm also sympathetic to Obama's argument, which is if people don't want the war, we don't have to fight it. And part of what Trump was tapping into in his campaigns was that the gap between elites, in particularly national security elites, and public opinion. And it is a crazy gap, Ezra. I've lived at the precipice of it. like the conversations and the strategies in both parties of national security elites versus what the American people want their government to be focused on is a deeply unhealthy gap. And all Trump has done is okay, that establishment is no longer there. It's just him. It's like all of American exceptionalism, all of the apparatus of American power, this this, you know, I called it the blob, whatever you want to call it, uh that this edifice is now just in one man's head, in one man's hands. And that's instead of solving the problem he said he was running to fix, he's made it worse cuz it's just up to Donald Trump. Now,

Ezra Klein: this gets to the question of whether international law still exists in any meaningful no way. It does not. What does that mean?

Ben Rhodes: It means it it implies in no way to the United States of America at least. Uh we we are completely ignoring it. There was no like they don't even I mean here's how it doesn't exist. In the past when the United States would do things that let's just say stretch the boundaries of international law, you would still show up and make a case. You know, here's why this was an imminent threat or here, you know, they don't even bother. And if you look at even

Ben Rhodes: because the the act of going to war, you know, violates international law. If you cannot demonstrate that there was an imminent threat, that you're acting in some form of of self-defense or that you have to get UN Security Council approval. Um, absent those things, uh, you're violating international law. But even in the conduct of war, you know, um if if the United States is currently sanctioning the International Criminal Court, which is the kind of preeminent body that is enforcing the laws of war, what message does that send, you know, about the conduct of war? Um cuz we're doing that because they, you know, uh tried tried to indict uh BB Netanyahu for for war crimes. But if you're basically saying that that none of the laws apply to us,

Ben Rhodes: um at a certain point, Russia and China say, "Well, then they don't apply to us either." And if international law on the most important matters of war and peace and the conduct of war, whether to go to war and how you fight a war, if those laws don't apply to the any of the big powers, how do they apply to anybody?

Ezra Klein: I've wondered how much the reaction from some of our allies who you might have thought of as more committed to international law has actually reflected a collective recognition that it is gone. So Mark Carney in Canada was very very supportive of Trump strikes. You had you know real support from from Australia. Germany was pretty square behind us. And I think this all reflects some of their feelings about the Iranian regime. But I have been struck

Ezra Klein: by the complete absence of outcry from countries that I think you know part of their power has come from commitment to these institutions that maintain uh a kind of collective or multilateral approach to to these questions. What have you made of that?

Ben Rhodes: I've been struck by it too. Um I think part of what Trump counts on if is if the people I'm taking out are, you know, not don't have a lot of friends. Um I have more room, right? if it's Maduro, if it's Iranian regime. I'd say I'm very disappointed in it though. Um Mark Carney um I was one of many people that thought his speech at Davos was important and interesting and kind of reflective of what's happening um and also kind of pointed a path to some emergence of something on the other end of this that essentially if the middle powers the kind of more responsible um countries in the world that still follow at least some international laws and want some norms uh around conflict and and other things um if they began to kind of stitch together maybe that could be a place that the United States could kind of rejoin on the back end of Trump. If Mark Carney is going to carve this out, though, if he's essentially going to say, "We need rules on trade, but if you, you know, bomb Iran, go for it." I think it hugely undermines Mark Carney's own argument, like he has to be willing, you know, it just makes it seem cynical. It makes it seem like all he's really concerned about is trade, you know, or or all I'm concerned about is Greenland because it's European territory, right? I and I've taken a you can attest that I've taken a lot of grief for this over the years. But I just believe that if we think that international law and norms are important, they really have to apply universally. Like we can't just say that like well they don't apply to Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela because we don't like them. You know, the United States built this system after World War II because we recognize that if you don't constrain everybody, you are going to have a repeat of what happened in World War I and World War II. You start to create carveouts. People start to move into those carveouts and there's cycles of conflict that lead ultimately to a world war. I think people need to inhabit the reality that we're moving into more than they are. There are no constraints from international law anymore. There is a rampant trend of nationalism in the world. There are leaders like Donald Trump in the United States, Xi Jinping in China, Vladimir Putin in Russia, BB Netanyao in Israel, Narendra Modi in India, Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey. These are nationalists. Nationalism absent international law always leads to more war and those wars beget more wars.

Ezra Klein: Let me strongman the the other side of the case here which is international law. The international law that allowed Iran to slaughter his own people to repress them to fund terrorist proxies you know all throughout the region. You're you're saying that international law was should have restrained Israel and America against a country that had for decades now made one of its rallying slogans death to Israel and death to America and in fact was funding players who wanted to do just that. that that one of the critiques you'll hear from, you know, the critics here of of international law is that international law has been used as a shield by, you know, rogue regimes, regimes that do not uh follow its dictates in all manner of ways, but then hide behind it when they face the consequences that they are bringing down upon themselves.

Ben Rhodes: I I guess I'd say first and foremost, Iran has paid consequences. We worked on the Iran nuclear deal for seven years. And the reason I say seven years is that for several years at the beginning of the Obama administration, we built a multilateral sanctions framework around Iran based on the fact that they were violating the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, international law. Like so we didn't say, "Oh, it's fine. You can violate the international law." We said no, we going to we got UN Security Council resolutions that became the basis of a maximum pressure campaign in the Obama administration, but it was meant to leverage a change of behavior from the Iranians. You have to kind of come into compliance with international law via nuclear deal in which you are committing to never build a nuclear weapon. You are submitting to intense monitoring and verification of a nuclear program. By the way, like we still had other sanctions on them over their support for proxies. I don't like what goes on inside a lot of countries in the world. There's something peculiar that we are normalizing the idea that that is sufficient basis to go to war in those countries. We don't like it when Vladimir Putin does it. when Vladimir Putin says, "Hey, the elected president of Ukraine was ousted um in a protest movement in 2014."

Ben Rhodes: Uh in part by people that were funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, I don't agree with that narrative. Um but how can we say that Vladimir Putin does not have the right to invade that country? But if we see things that we don't like inside of other countries, we have the right to do that. Um I I I I I and I think what people see is that if if you truly believe in, you know, human rights, then you have to apply that normative framework across the board, you know, and and a lot of the very same people that are suddenly human rights advocates when it comes to what's happening inside of Iran have nothing to say about what's happening in the West Bank right now. had nothing to say when Jamal Khashoggi was chopped up in uh the Saudi consulate inside of Turkey. Have nothing to say about the fact that uh LCI, the president of Egypt, has 60,000 people uh who are political prisoners suffering horrific treatment. So, you either have to be universal and consistent or I have a really hard time listening to your argument.

Ben Rhodes: I have seen a lot of Democrats and to some degree I think the international response too then somewhat paralyzed between their legitimate loathing of the Iranian government and

Ben Rhodes: their dislike distaste for the process of violation of international law the absence of public deliberation or congressional approval but I think it has created a kind of muddle in their response right are they saying this should have done. It's a good thing that it happened, but they don't like that it happened. Are they saying that uh the only problem with it was poor process? If Trump had gone to Congress, maybe they would have given him the authority to do it. How do you think Democrats should respond to this? Because right now, I've seen many of the leadership really focusing not on was this a right or wrong thing to do, but was the process that led to it the right or wrong process.

Ezra Klein: Yeah. They're saying all the things that you said and I have a huge problem with this. Uh because ultimately people are not that interested in the process. If someone who doesn't follow this super closely hears a Democratic leader like Chuck Schumer saying coming out of a briefing about the potential war in Iran that feels imminent and he says they have to make their case more or something that what does that sound like? It sounds like a dodge. What do you actually believe as a political party? You know, I I was talking to a friend of mine from the OB we do this thing on our Obama group text Ezra which wouldn't surprise you which is said imagine if right so imagine if President Obama announced a war on Iran from uh a vacation property in the middle of the night uh on a social media post made casual remarks about the fact that Americans are going to die. It is what it is. And then within like two days you're already seeing American casualties, American planes falling out of the sky, huge global economic disruptions. The Republican party would have been absolutely unified. And you know, part of the reason Obama had so little room for maneuver is that that they as a political party were able to make an argument against whatever the thing that Obama was doing. The Democratic party doesn't understand that it's not enough to just say we want a process vote or a procedural vote. We're going to you support the Ro Khanna Thomas Massie resolution that most Americans have no idea what that is, right? I mean, I support it, but it's not going to do anything. And and and I think most Americans don't know that that it's it's a vote on whether or not Congress has to authorize something that has already happened. It just makes you look, you know, and again, this I'm totally supportive of that effort. This is not a criticism of Roan Thomas Massie, but the point is is that like are you for this or against it? And if you're against it, why are you not all out saying that this is reckless, that this is a betrayal of what Donald Trump said when he ran for president, that we don't need more wars, that, you know, why are we spending money? Uh the price tag of this is going to be in the tens of billions. That's money that could pay for the ACA subsidies, you know. Yeah. At least that that that there's your healthcare subsidies right now. Our healthcare subsidies are being spent on a war in in Iran. Like Donald Trump is not, you know, looking after your interest. He's looking after some kind of grandiose ambitions in the Middle East. This is a very easy political case to make, Ezra. Like this is the easiest thing in the world that we should be nation building at home, not abroad. You know, I

Ezra Klein: I saw this after Maduro. I think it reflected what happened both in the run-up and immediate aftermath of the war in in in Iraq, which is that I think that there is a difficulty people have. Maybe they would not themselves go to war for this. Maybe they would not have supported a war for something like this. But when it is against

Ezra Klein: a brutal dictator,

Ezra Klein: on what grounds are you opposing it, right? Is opposing it supporting the continuation of the regime. And I think that's where a lot of the Democrats you're talking about are getting caught or some of the world leaders are talking about are getting caught. So, you know, aside from, you know, we can spend money in one place versus another. I I I think it's this quite deep question of what is

Ezra Klein: how do people negotiate and how do they argue against these wars that are partially

Ezra Klein: demanded or justified on humanitarian grounds. I mean the Iranian regime as you mentioned just killed thousands or maybe tens of thousands of their own people. There were you know Iranians marching in the streets and it was not safe for them to to to do so.

Ezra Klein: I I sort of have my answer to this, but I'm curious for yours.

Ben Rhodes: I think my answer to this is that war itself

Ben Rhodes: um is something to be avoided and and and that may seem like a you know, you know, obvious point, but it's not like we I mean to to be a little you know, provocative on this too. Um I I I think that post 911

Ben Rhodes: I think my answer to this is that war itself um is something to be avoided and and and that may seem like a you know, you know, obvious point, but it's not like we I mean to to be a little you know, provocative on this too. Um I I I think that post 911 because we've we've normalized so much use of military action. Um because I could argue Ezra, it is completely insane that we're sitting here and having a conversation about like um that if we don't bomb a regime that we're therefore keeping it in power. But does it report to us, you know? Um, and I think what Americans kind of intuitively get better than their political elites, their national security elites, and and even some of the kind of media conversation in this is they get this. They get that war is terrible. War has risks. That um I even if it's well-intentioned on paper, uh it leads to bad outcomes for both the Americans who have to fight it, the American taxpayers to pay for it, and pretty much the people on the other end of the war that you saying you're trying to help. We're trying to help the Iraqis. We're trying to help the Afghans. We're trying to help help the Libyans. Now we're trying to help the Iranians. And I guess the provocative thing I want to say too is that this seems to happen when the countries in question are not are brown. Like I I think there's a a a a dehumanization since 9/11 where it's like oh look at this Middle East the next Middle Eastern country up that the regime does something we don't like. We're going to go and just bomb them. I mean, we killed, if reports are accurate, some either the US or Israel, over a hundred girls at a school like, and it's not really a big story in the United States. And I I actually think to to, you know, to tie this back home, like I don't think that that mentality, that othering of of people who are on the other side of the world after 9/11, I think that othering has come home. I I I think that the capacity to have the mass deportation campaign that is generally targeting brown and black people is kind of tied to this, you know, dehumanization and desensitization of violence. Uh that that we see in our foreign policy like post 911, we othered a lot of populations. Um and if you if you watch I mean I know we're going a little far field, but I I think this is really relevant. I noticed in the Obama administration like the othering on Fox, you know, that was once just about Middle Eastern terrorists and but then it's about the people crossing the southern border and then and and it comes one big other, you know, and so I think we h I think it's a it's a pretty it should be seen as a pretty extremist proposition that if the United States doesn't go to war with some government in the Middle East, we're somehow condoning everything. I was really mad about the Jamal Khashoggi thing. At no point did I think we should bomb you know Muhammad bin Salman for that.

Ezra Klein: I agree with a lot of that and I want to offer maybe one other thing that I think has been threaded through our conversation and and it's sort of my answer to to this question which is war is inherently uncontrollable.

Ben Rhodes: Yeah.

Ezra Klein: That the the

Ezra Klein: fantasy that we are always offered at the beginning is that we can choose what it is we are going to do. that we can control the situation we are going to create.

Ezra Klein: And as we have developed even more precision weapons and more air power and more drones and more ability to wage war at a distance, the seduction of that control for leaders and and for others has become all the more potent. But that the history of this is we do not control it. And as you mentioned with Libya, with Afghanistan, with with Iraq,

Ezra Klein: We might think we are helping the people, but if we set off a civil war, you could easily have 70,000, 100,000, 200,000, 300,000 people die in that war.

Ezra Klein: And we have shown no interest in number one, saying we will occupy the country to make sure that doesn't happen. And nor, as we learned in Iraq, even if we do decide to occupy the country, can we keep that from happening? We I mean, Donald Trump was one of the people who started trying to withdraw us from Afghanistan, which then completed in the Biden administration. again, the inability over a very long time to control the outcome of something like this, even when we were willing to put much more of our blood and treasure into controlling it. And so to to me, one of the like the great lie of war is that you will get what you want out of it.

Ben Rhodes: Yeah.

Ezra Klein: Among the many things that scares me so much about Trump is how bllythe he is with that.

Ben Rhodes: Yeah. You don't feel like this has c cost him any sleep at all. And if it goes badly, I think he will walk away and say, "Well, I gave you Iranians your chance. You didn't take it or you didn't succeed in taking it."

Ezra Klein: Yeah.

Ben Rhodes: Well, yes, I think you're exactly right. I mean, one thing I, you know, became very aware of over 8 years in the White House, but also in this whole post 911 period, is that the US military can destroy anything, right? It can take out any target set that it has. Um, but it cannot engineer the politics of other countries or build what comes after the thing that is destroyed. We had 150,000 troops in Iraq and we couldn't stop violence. And look, you know who knows that? Um, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps colonel who's a total hardliner right now, knows that Americans are going to lose interest in this. You know, knows that if we weather this, you know, on the back end, we can potentially do what we want. Um and and and there's a callousness in the way that Trump has done this and precisely because I think war is so uncertain and the cost of war is paid so overwhelmingly by ordinary people. Um one of the reasons I I would like to see Democrats or anybody frankly who's concerned about Trump be more outspoken now is I think sometimes they are are reticent to speak out because what if it goes well? It's not just that the Iranian regime is bad. said if it goes well then they'll say you know you were against this thing. I'm sorry. I'm against this even if it has the better case scenario because we need to if you can't take a position on something as fundamental as whether going to war when you don't have to is is a good thing then then what's the point of all this right we could have achieved our objectives on the nuclear issue through negotiations um we we chose to bomb this country instead um so I think that precisely because war can lead to such terrible outcomes you have to be willing to take a stance against war itself unless it is absolutely necessary. Uh and this certainly didn't meet that test.

Ezra Klein: I think that is a place to end. What was our final question? What are a few books you'd recommend to the audience?

Ben Rhodes: Yeah, I uh so a few things. Um I mean on this last question uh From the Ruins of Empire by Pankaj Mishra um is a really excellent kind of intellectual history of um for lack of a better way of putting it you know people global south or people in the decolonized spaces um in the 20th century uh coming up with alternatives to uh western hegemony um then uh I personally as someone who's been trying to make sense of what it's like to live in a collapsing liberal order. Um, The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig. Uh, I found myself reading twice since Trump's election, but it's this just haunting and beautiful um, contemporaneous uh, you know, Stefan Zweig was a great Austrian writer writing this uh, writing in the midst of World War II, his kind of life story, but it's really about the collapse of the liberal uh, order in Europe. And then lastly, a book I read uh very recently, this last few days, uh it's called um Travelers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd. And what she did is she found

Ben Rhodes: letters uh journals uh other contemporaneous accounts of of basically British and Americans visiting Nazi Germany and and so what were their impressions?

Ben Rhodes: um are did they see and you know spoiler alert way too many of them did not see how bad this was going to be or were sympathetic and all those things I think of course are are unfortunately relevant to today.

Ezra Klein: Ben Rhodes thank you very much.

Ben Rhodes: Thanks Ezra.