President Donald Trump is not launching a new “forever war” with Iran; instead, he aims to conclude one.
With the recent missile strikes carried out by the U.S. and Israeli forces, many analysts suggest that Trump’s actions could entangle America further in Middle Eastern conflicts. On a recent episode of The Drill Down, host Peter Schweizer and co-host Eric Eggers delve into this issue, examining the potential outcomes and identifying the key players who stand to gain or lose.
“These events are remarkable, particularly because Trump executed a strategy that previous presidents have only contemplated for decades,” Schweizer notes. Eggers adds, “It’s refreshing to discuss the Ayatollah in the past tense rather than the present.”
But how does military action in Iran signify the end of anything? The response lies in the fact that Iranian threats have persistently been a costly and troublesome issue for the U.S., posing significant dangers over the years.
In a recent column, Mark Thiessen of The Washington Post articulated that “the Iranian threat is a key reason why the U.S. invests billions in maintaining a large military presence in the Middle East. Should this threat be neutralized and a new government emerge in Tehran, one that no longer chants ‘Death to America,’ the U.S. could finally reduce its forces, make the long-awaited shift to the Indo-Pacific, and concentrate on safeguarding American interests closer to home.”
The Trump administration engaged in negotiations with Iran, seeking an agreement that would see Iran relinquish its nuclear ambitions. However, Schweizer argues that Iranian negotiators made a critical miscalculation. “Iran believed Trump would handle the situation like his predecessors—by talking tough but taking little action.” This assumption was starkly contradicted when an Iranian general, who had dismissed the U.S. as a “paper tiger,” was proven wrong as the missiles began to strike.
“We used to have what [former Secretary of State] Colin Powell called the ‘Pottery Barn Rule.’ If you break it, you own it. If you go in and invade a country, you need to rebuild it,” Schweizer says. “Well, guess what? Donald Trump walked into Pottery Barn, knocked a bunch of things over and said, ‘I’m not paying for anything.’”
The “Trump Doctrine” is to say, “we do not have an obligation to try to rebuild that country. We are eliminating the threat. We’re going to encourage the right people in Iran to win, but whether they step up and do that or not is their own internal business,” Schweizer says.
One big loser in all this? Iranian negotiating tactics.
A big winner, Schweizer believes, is Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states. It was largely because of Iranian threats against Saudi Arabia that kept the Saudis from signing onto the Abraham Accords, Schweizer says, and the elimination of the Ayatollah and decapitation of his leadership of Iran’s proxies in Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis in Yemen neutralizes that threat.
“The way we traditionally think about the Middle East is Arab and Israeli conflict. It’s not so simple anymore,” Schweizer says. “You had the Saudis that were apparently supportive of attacking Iran. You had the United Arab Emirates that was supportive. You had Israel that was supportive. When was the last time you got those three powers on the same side for aggressive action? So, this is further evidence that the Middle East is reconstituting itself.”
Eggers raises a growing conflict-of-interest in the region, however. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son in law, reportedly has a private equity fund called Affinity Partners whose largest investor is the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, to the tune of $2 billion. Kushner will make $100 million plus from that relationship. Donald Trump Jr. also has massive financial interests in cryptocurrency in the Middle East.
“It’s a huge problem. This is not good,” Schweizer agrees. “What they are going to say is ‘we are different from Hunter Biden because we actually have a business,’ right?… But the problem is you’re still intermingling political power and influence with your business interests. It doesn’t matter if you had a legitimate business before.”
Another loser, the hosts add, is Iran’s failed assassination attempts against Trump and others, including Mike Pompeo, who was Trump’s Secretary of State during his first term. “Yeah. It’s one of the reasons why we ended up in this spot. The Iranian regime has attempted a number of terrorist attacks and assassination efforts on U.S. soil,” Schweizer notes. They tried to go after Mike Pompeo, and they allegedly were involved with plots that go after Donald Trump.”
Those failed but became part of the administration’s rationale for going after the Iranian regime.
Eggers quips, “The old saying was, ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick.’ Iran’s position has been ‘yell loudly and carry a twig.’”
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