We live in a confusing and dangerous moment.
Right now, Israel and Iran are clinging to a fragile cease-fire, war rages in Gaza and the Trump administration is aggressively disputing reports that America’s attack on Iran’s nuclear sites was less effective than President Trump boasted and that the strikes only set back Iran’s nuclear program months — a far cry from Trump’s claim that the sites were “obliterated” and “completely destroyed.”
To help me make sense of the American attacks on Iran — as well as the overall state of Israel’s war against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran — I reached out to my friend Kori Schake, a senior fellow and the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Schake has worked at the State Department, the Department of Defense and the National Security Council, and she has a sharp, independent approach. Recently she wrote a fascinating article arguing that the Trump administration’s decision to abandon cooperation in favor of coercion in foreign affairs will render America less consequential, a “dispensable nation” whose international influence will fade with time.
I found hearing her thoughts very helpful, though not always reassuring, and I think you will too. Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
David French: Let’s begin with a big-picture question. On Oct. 6, 2023, the Middle East was in a state of relative peace, but Israel faced a series of daunting threats: Hamas was intact and ruled Gaza, Hezbollah had been gathering strength for years and had thousands of rockets and missiles in Lebanon, Houthi rebels controlled large parts of Yemen and were building their own missile arsenal, the Assad regime had survived the worst of the Syrian civil war (with Russian and Iranian help) and was Iran’s close ally, and Iran itself was building both large-scale missile and drone capabilities and reportedly working toward a nuclear bomb.
But now Hamas and Hezbollah are decimated, the Assad regime is gone and Iran has suffered a series of military setbacks. Israel has inflicted serious damage on Iran’s air defenses, killed many of its senior military leaders and nuclear scientists and damaged Iran’s nuclear facilities. The United States has also attacked and damaged Iran’s nuclear program.
How significant are these military developments? Was this war simply another round in a seemingly endless series of conflicts in the Middle East, or was this something more? Has it altered the balance of power in the region?
Kori Schake: They represent a fundamental reordering of the Middle East. Previous conflicts in the Middle East were about neighboring states banding together to threaten Israel.
One thing not mentioned in your description, which understandably focused on military developments, was the Abraham Accords, but I think they’re really important as an indicator of what has been changing, which is Arab states in the Middle East abandoning their antipathy toward Israel because they wanted cooperation on the common threat of Iran.
That turn of the kaleidoscope reduced risk to Israel. The Hamas attack forced Israel to run the risk of testing Iran’s defense in depth through proxies, and the success of Israel’s campaign revealed the extent to which most of us overestimated Iran’s power. The collapse of Iran’s power is what’s fundamentally different now.
French: Let’s take a closer look at each of the three main zones of conflict: Iran, Lebanon and Gaza. Starting with Iran, do we have any reliable data about the effectiveness of the Israeli and American strikes on the Iranian nuclear program? For example, how serious is the damage to the facilities themselves? Do we know the status of Iran’s stocks of enriched uranium?
Schake: I’ve seen no reliable battle damage assessments yet. I’ve seen reporting that Iran moved the stocks before the attacks, but even if that hadn’t been the case, there are good reasons not to target the radioactive material.
At a minimum, the attacks will have done considerable damage to sensitive machinery that will set the nuclear weapons program back. Coupled with the assassinations of so much of their military and scientific leadership, I think it’s fair to say that we’re unlikely to have completely eradicated the nuclear weapons programs, but have set them back.
And in addition to buying time, we have sent the important signal to Iran’s leadership that we’re willing to use force to prevent their acquisition of nuclear weapons. The last five U.S. presidential administrations have had that as our policy, but none of them were willing to pull the trigger, despite substantial Iranian progress toward a weapon.
French: I’ve been supportive of Israeli and American strikes in Iran in large part because the risks of an Iranian bomb are simply too great to permit its program to succeed, but critics of the strikes argue that the attacks may incentivize Iran to speed up its program. Iran knows that only a nuclear arsenal can truly deter America or Israel. Does this conflict simply guarantee that Iran will repair its facilities and double down on its commitment to building an atomic bomb?
Schake: You’re right to worry about it. Proliferation is a serious concern. But the U.S. and Israeli actions have shown we’re willing to attack facilities if we suspect Iran is making that move, and have also threatened to target the leadership if they do. That could well deter Iran’s leaders seeking to reconstitute the weapons programs.
French: I’ve also seen critics refer back to President Barack Obama’s deal with Iran, which Trump ended in his first term, and argue that Trump’s military intervention will be both more dangerous and less effective at preventing proliferation than Obama’s diplomacy. Critics of the Obama agreement argue that it had the effect of strengthening Iran’s conventional capabilities and in that way further destabilizing the Middle East. Where do you land on this debate?
Schake: We can’t really know whether the Obama deal — which bought time and allowed some inspections but allowed Iran enrichment and in no way constrained Iran’s acts of terrorism, destabilization of other regional governments, risks to shipping in the Straits and human rights abuses — would have prevented nuclear weapons proliferation.
It certainly wouldn’t have prevented the Hamas atrocities that set in motion Iran’s collapsed strategy. Israel’s operations have given the United States an opportunity that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, so it’s hard to compare, but I think diplomacy proved inadequate to prevent Iran’s efforts toward nuclear weapons. I was shocked at the Trump administration proposal to Iran — it was more generous than even the previous agreement! — and the Iranians wouldn’t take the deal.
French: Now let’s turn to Lebanon and Hezbollah. We know that Hezbollah has suffered serious losses. Israel has killed or incapacitated much of its senior leadership and inflicted significant damage on its conventional forces. How would you describe the current state of Hezbollah? What is its capacity to reconstitute its forces after this conflict finally ends?
Schake: The current state of Hezbollah is decimated. And the prospect of better governance in Lebanon is likely to make reconstituting it less successful. As well as Israeli assassinations. Perhaps Israeli choices about Gaza will give some momentum to Hezbollah recruiting, but those are much more likely to benefit Hamas.
French: It seems to me that Gaza remains the thorniest problem of all. Is it accurate to say that Hamas is severely weakened but still controls Gaza’s civilian population — at least in the places where the Israel Defense Forces isn’t operating?
We learned a difficult lesson in Iraq. It was virtually impossible to defeat an entrenched terrorist army without at least some form of temporary occupation. In our terminology, we had to clear out the enemy, hold the territory and protect against re-infiltration, and then we had to build up a security infrastructure that could hold up when we left.
Israel hasn’t fully pursued that strategy after Oct. 7, and I’m concerned that the desire not to pursue a true counterinsurgency campaign is prolonging the conflict and costing innocent lives.
How do you see the state of Israel’s fight with Hamas?
Schake: It’s genuinely shocking to see the depth and breadth of Hamas infrastructure in Gaza revealed. I think the situation in Gaza is very bad, and it’s likely to remain very bad for a considerable amount of time.
The Hamas terrorist attack on Israel looks to me to have collapsed confidence not just among political extremists in Israel but broadly in the public, which no longer believes that Israel can be secure if Palestinians live in Gaza. At the same time, not only do Palestinians not want to leave, but surrounding states do not want to accept them.
It’s an impasse that’s only likely to be surmounted by relaxing one of those incompatible political demands. Which leads me to conclude that Israel is in for an extended occupation of Gaza, and as you say, their choices within that occupation are unlikely to produce security, for either Palestinians or Israelis.
French: Is there any realistic possibility that a third-party peacekeeping force could be a part of any lasting peace? I’m skeptical that any other nation wants to step into that morass.
Schake: I agree with your judgment, David. Not only is there not a peace to keep, but I don’t see a groundswell of countries willing to offer forces that would be acceptable to either Israel or to Palestinians. And Hamas would have strong incentives to target them.
French: Are we then left with perhaps a bleak resolution to the Gaza conflict that’s no resolution at all? With Hamas ultimately releasing the remaining hostages in return for a cease-fire that leaves it still in charge of a ruined Gaza that’s a humanitarian disaster with no real prospects for either a lasting peace or real prosperity?
Schake: Sadly, yes. I think we’re unlikely to see any resolution anytime soon, even the grim one you outlined here.
French: Earlier you mentioned the Abraham Accords and the potential normalization of Israeli-Arab relations. One of the purposes of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 appears to have been to derail any hope of an Abraham Accords-style agreement with the Saudis. On one hand, the Gaza war continues, and it’s inflicting horrific casualties on Gazan civilians. At the same time, Israel has inflicted serious damage on Iran, Saudi Arabia’s chief regional enemy. What is the status of Israeli-Saudi diplomacy? Is there still potential for an agreement?
Schake: Every government in the region opposes Iran getting a nuclear weapon, so Israel’s attacks on Iran have support even if governments decry them. There’s also widespread antagonism among Arab governments to the proxy forces Iran created to destabilize their governments.
So the basis for continued cooperation exists, and I think you saw evidence of it by the participation of several governments in protecting Israel during Iranian attacks this year and last. But Israel’s decisions in Gaza likely make formal Saudi accession to the Abraham Accords very unlikely, absent an agreed way forward for Palestinians.
French: This dual reality, that many nations support efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program but also understandably recoil at the suffering of civilians in Gaza, is complicating Israel’s global relationships. While the Israeli-American relationship remains strong, how do you see Israel’s diplomatic status with its traditional European allies? Is Israel going to end this war militarily stronger but diplomatically weaker?
Schake: Israel’s choices in Gaza are making it very hard for many European governments that condemned Hamas’s atrocities to support Israeli policy in Gaza. There’s widespread concern for Palestinians that the Israeli government isn’t addressing, so I think you may be right.
French: I could ask you questions forever, but let’s end with a big one: What are the reasonable best-case and worst-case scenarios going forward? Perhaps a better way to put it is: What in this moment is giving you hope? What is keeping you up at night?
Schake: What keeps me up at night is the prospect of effective Iranian retaliation against our country and Israel. We’re operating as though Iran is out of options, which I very much hope it is. But every strategist is fundamentally a desperate paranoiac, so I have lots of worries about how the operations that so far look beneficial could yet have terrible consequences.
What gives me hope is that the Iranian people are so much better than this Iranian government, and this collapse of Iran’s position of strength may produce less oppression by the Iranian government of its people.
Some other things I did
On Saturday we published a video conversation I had with my colleagues Michelle Cottle and Jamelle Bouie about the current state of the immigration debate and why one of Trump’s greatest electoral strengths is becoming a political weakness:
David French: I would say there’s a couple of factors here in play. Americans — now, this is going to come across a little bit weird after Trump has been elected twice — but as a general matter, Americans don’t like bullies. They don’t like the people who are seen to be as heavy-handed and disproportionate. They also don’t like chaos, they like order. So, to Jamelle’s point from 2020, there was an awful lot of chaos on Trump’s watch that at times he responded to with an awful lot of bullying. It hurt him on both fronts that he wasn’t seen as somebody who could bring order. He was seen as somebody who was fomenting additional chaos. Chaos was his enemy in the 2020 election.
I think a lot of this depends on what actually happens in the streets. And I think MAGA has a very dangerous assessment of this situation. Their theory of the case is that the far left wants to burn America’s cities and that any sort of sensible immigration policy is going to result in the far left wanting to burn America’s cities. Then the only person who can stand in the gap there is Donald Trump. So when the first brick that is thrown, the first Waymo car that gets set on fire, that starts to lock in that part of the MAGA mind-set that says, “OK, the fires are about to start, the cities are about to burn.” And the one big regret that they have, and Trump has expressed this, the big regret that they have is not bringing in the troops under federal control sooner in 2020.
And so that’s why right after this initial military deployment, I wrote that the Trump administration is spoiling for a fight. I think elements of the MAGA coalition are spoiling literally for a fight in the streets. They think that exertion of dominance and control will be (a) politically beneficial to them and (b) also, again, in their worldview, the only way to really stop the far left from torching American cities.
I think the problem that we face is that there are an awful lot of people who are eager to see some sort of confrontation. And I agree with Jamelle that the political effect of a confrontation isn’t necessarily going to redound to Trump’s benefit. It contributes to this sense that America is in a state of chaos and that it’s out of control. But in the short term, I think it is very dangerous for America that we have an administration that in many ways seems to be spoiling for that fight.
I’m incredibly grateful that the millions of people who came out for the No Kings protest did so incredibly peacefully. I think that kind of protest really drains the power from the MAGA argument, and it drains the power from the MAGA case that essentially they’re the last bulwarks against our cities aflame.
David French is an Opinion columnist, writing about law, culture, religion and armed conflict. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a former constitutional litigator. His most recent book is “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.” You can follow him on Threads (@davidfrenchjag).
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