Will the war with Iran further degrade America’s already strained relationships with its allies? This week, Mona Charen, the policy editor at The Bulwark, joins the contributing Opinion writer E.J. Dionne Jr. and the former “All Things Considered” host Robert Siegel to unpack what the war portends for NATO, for Israel’s image in the United States and for American politics going forward.
Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYTimes app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.
This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Robert Siegel: Hi, I’m Robert Siegel, in conversation about politics with two very insightful political writers. Joining me at the New York Times Washington bureau is political writer and author E.J. Dionne Jr.
E.J. Dionne Jr.: Great to be with you.
Siegel: And joining us today is Mona Charen, policy editor at The Bulwark and host of “The Mona Charen Show.”
Mona Charen: Thanks so much.
Siegel: Thanks for joining us. We are recording this on Wednesday, so it’s possible that some of our discussion may be overtaken by events, but I think that our focus today will likely be unrevised for the near future. We’re focusing on relations under stress from the war in Iran.
Quite apart from what this war has done to Iran, it has also wrought changes in U.S. relations abroad, and even changes with our politics, too.
To start, how do you think Donald Trump is doing in handling this war, E.J.?
Dionne: I think we are going to deeply regret this war precisely because of how he handled it. I mean, I think the idea wasn’t good in the first place, but he made it so much worse. This war will raise questions about our lack of staying power in the world.
He goes back and forth to the point where even the Iranians sound like political commentators when they say, oh, he’s saying this stuff about negotiations, because he is worried about the markets and oil prices.
He’s creating all this division and alienation among our allies — that we’re going to talk about — he’s strengthening Russia by lifting those sanctions, he’s taking everybody’s eyes off Ukraine, which is what I think we should be in the middle of, and these inconsistencies and contradictions about our purposes. The world will look at us and say: What kind of leadership does this country have on one of the most serious questions a country faces, which is whether to go to war?
Siegel: Yeah. Mona?
Charen: It’s a profoundly serious challenge that Iran represents to the world. It is a vicious, expansionist, revolutionary regime bent on getting nuclear weapons, bent on the destruction of one of our allies, and the undermining of others — an enemy of ours for all of these years. But to approach a problem of that seriousness with such an unserious leader, who seems to act on whim, on impulse, on feelings in his bones. we have reached this critical mass of Trumpism where it is laid bare. Even the Trumpiest explainers out there cannot say that he’s playing some sort of three-dimensional chess here. It is obvious that he is winging it, and he is making gross errors.
Siegel: Well, now onto some relationships, starting with our relationship to NATO and our NATO allies. Back in his first term, President Trump was often criticized for talking to the NATO allies in very transactional terms, not drawing upon some deep fraternal democratic spirit that we had in common. Compared with the past couple of weeks, those were the good old days of the alliance. E.J., is the NATO alliance on the rocks?
Dionne: It’s in deep trouble. And I think you can tell how much trouble it is in when NATO secretary general Mark Rutte is getting criticized for saying he supports the president’s action in Iran, because so many countries in Europe are longtime allies and are, at best, extremely skeptical about what the president is doing.
And there are many reasons we’re going to regret that the president took us into this war. One of the top reasons is that if there was any hope of putting the Western alliance — if I can call it that — back on some sort of track, this set it back even further. Here was President Trump. First, he puts big tariffs on all these allies and says they’re supposed to take it. And then he says NATO isn’t really important. And then, at times, he seems to side with Vladimir Putin in the Ukraine struggle. And he does all this to our allies, and then, when he says they need to help me in the Strait of Hormuz, and they’re a little reluctant, he says, oh my God, why aren’t they helping me? Aren’t they terrible for not helping me? And so, “How to Lose Influence With Friends” is the title of the president’s memoir about this period.
Charen: Yeah.
Siegel: Mona?
Charen: So, E.J., there’s a long list of Trump’s insults and threats toward Europe, toward NATO. You forgot to mention Greenland, where the president basically did something that was inconceivable. When we were contemplating a second Trump term, none of us, I think, anticipated that he would actually threaten a fellow NATO member with an American invasion. And yet, that is where we were a few short months ago. And then, regarding this war, there was no consultation. He did not inform our allies. He simply acted in a way that affects them far more than it affects us, because they are more dependent on oil, fertilizer and other things that go through that part of the world.
But, in addition, he then insulted the Prime Minister of Great Britain, who at one point in early March was saying he might send two British aircraft carriers. And Trump, proving that he is the greatest boor to serve in the White House, said, oh, no, we don’t need any help from people who are just trying to get in on the war after it’s already been won.
A few days later, Trump was reduced to begging the Europeans for help opening the Strait of Hormuz. So yes, the strain is immense, but I think the Europeans have no choice but to attempt, however they can, with string and glue, whatever it takes to keep this alliance together, because of the huge role that the United States plays.
Siegel: I was forced to, thinking about the state of the alliance, to think back on pretty big crises that NATO has weathered. And it may be a more durable alliance than we’d think. In the 1950s, Dwight D. Eisenhower, over the Suez Canal crisis, told the Brits and the French that they couldn’t have the Suez Canal back. It was a big crisis. NATO got over it. In the 1960s, Charles de Gaulle threw NATO out of France — NATO was in France until 1966. He withdrew French troops from the integrated NATO command. It was a crisis. NATO somehow survived and got over it. So, perhaps this was, at least in the past, a pretty durable institution.
Charen: Well, it depended for its durability on the strength of its premier member, and that was the United States. And, in this, Trump had a part of a point. The U.S. spends 10 times more on defense than the next closest EU member. Plus, the U.S. provides the nuclear umbrella. And so, the Europeans are now having to think about possibly looking for friendlier climes, looking for people who do agree with them about democracy, about the rule of law, about international law, and all of those things where Trump seems far less like a traditional American and more Putin-esque. And yet, still the challenge, the actual just physical challenge of Europe, the idea that they’re going to be able to replace the American contribution defense-wise, is very tough.
Siegel: Let’s look at one other international relationship, the one between the United States and Israel. Twice, last June and this year, the U.S. and Israel have conducted coordinated airstrikes against Iran. It’s hard for me to remember any time when the U.S. and Israel were militarily this close. On the other hand, when it comes to public opinion in the United States, the Gallup poll has been asking Americans for decades about their sympathies for Israel and for the Palestinians. They’d been converging for several years, but this year was the first time that more people said they felt sympathy for the Palestinian cause than for the Israelis.
Mona, as Trump continues to coordinate an air war with Benjamin Netanyahu, and as American support for Israel seems to wane, what do you think about the relationship going forward?
Charen: So, it is worrisome on many levels. First of all, there’s sort of a pincer movement where you have people on the progressive left, who despise Israel because they consider it a settler colonialist imposition on the Middle East, that it’s the cat’s paw for imperialism in the West. And then you have the hatred of Israel and frankly, of Jews, coming from the hard right in the United States — the Tucker Carlsons and so forth — who are influencing the younger generation of Republicans. And so, the hatred for Israel is coming from both sides.
And Netanyahu seems to have made a calculation that he’s aware of this declining support for Israel in the United States, and he seems to be saying: Yep, in the future, we’re not going to have the U.S. And so, we’re going to go for everything right now while we’ve got Trump — we’re going to try to get everything done. Eliminate Iran as a threat, eliminate Hezbollah, Hamas, and then we will be secure and we won’t have to worry about American good opinion.
Siegel: So, you’re saying the loss of some American support has the perverse effect of creating a greater complaint against Israel in the United States.
Charen: It’s very possible.
Siegel: E.J.?
Dionne: I think that you can go all the way back to when Netanyahu appeared before Congress — and he was notably invited by the Republicans, not the Democrats — and gave a speech attacking President Barack Obama’s deal with Iran. And to have a foreign leader come before Congress, at the invitation of only one party, began to drive a wedge through our politics. And I think, historically, liberals and progressives were broadly sympathetic to Israel. Most liberals and progressives also very staunchly supported Palestinian autonomy, a two-state solution. But that was the consensus, I think.
After Gaza, that began to break up. Many of us are old enough to remember Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, are old enough to remember Israel’s Labor Party. For many young people, they have only known this Israel, under Bibi Netanyahu. The war is, I think, very awkward. And the administration itself has made it more awkward. When Marco Rubio came out and said, to try to explain this war, well, we knew Israel was going to do it ——
Charen: Yeah.
Dionne: And so, then we had to go out because we had to defend our base.
First, it was nonsense, in terms of whether we went into the war. But it was a remarkable thing to say. And so, the administration, in its many inconsistencies about this war, has opened that door. And I also think it’s simply the fact that the interests of Israel and the interests of the United States do not totally coincide in this war. And The Times had a really interesting story where there’s also a difference, it appears, between Israel and the Saudis, where the Saudis really want the war to go on until there is regime change. Israel could probably live easier with a much weakened Iran. And so, I think you’re going to see another fight in that area.
Charen: Although, I don’t know, it could be that the Israelis are happy to see the Saudis being the ones to push Trump to continue the war, so that it doesn’t fall on them. But I think they would be happy to continue the war as well.
Dionne: And let’s assume that. And that creates a real problem for Israel, because there are a lot of people in the United States, in the majority opinion, against this war. Our friend Bill Galston, the other day, cited the polling average: 39 percent support for this war.
Charen: Yeah.
Dionne: That’s unheard of at this point.
Charen: Yeah.
Dionne: So, most Americans want this to end. And so, to the extent that the Saudis or the Israelis are pressuring the United States, that’s a real problem for both countries in the long run.
Charen: I agree with pretty much everything you said with one exception. You talked about the progressives being broadly pro-Israel until Gaza — I don’t think that’s quite right. Right after Oct. 7, you had celebrations of the Hamas attack. And you saw campuses around the country, leftist groups on campuses, celebrating that attack. So ——
Dionne: I think that was a very small piece of the left and that the people allied with that grew as the war continued, as the destruction in Gaza continued, and Israel didn’t end the war much earlier than they did.
Siegel: I’m thinking about this in our own domestic politics. We’ve gone from very strong bipartisan support for Israel to each party having a pretty considerable faction within it that is extremely anti-Israel. Looking ahead to the next presidential year, the conventions, do you expect fireworks over Middle East policy? Is it that big an issue?
Charen: So, it very much depends on whether this war is perceived as successful. If the war is unsuccessful, then what Trump will have succeeded in doing, and Netanyahu as well, is they will have given a huge gift to Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, Joe Kent — that whole wing of the Republican Party.
Siegel: This is the conspiracist wing.
Charen: The conspiracists, the antisemites, who are more than happy — first of all, they already think that Israel killed Charlie Kirk, and that Israel was responsible for the Iraq war, for which there is absolutely no evidence. And now they can, with Rubio’s stupid comment, they can even claim that Israel dragged us into this war. And so, they will be empowered tremendously if the war goes badly.
Dionne: I’m not sure how this goes well, sitting here on this day, by the end. So, I’m very curious how and if Americans will look back and say that this was a good idea. But I think you’re already seeing even splits within the pro-Israel camp. There is a real rebellion against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee within the Democratic Party, among very mainstream Democrats, particularly after their intervention against Tom Malinowski.who was historically very pro-Israel, but said, no, I will not give a blank check to Israel.
Charen: That was ham-handed. Yeah.
Dionne: They intervened, their candidate failed, and they ended up nominating someone who was far more anti-Israel. And so, I think you will see, within the Democratic Party certainly, a real distancing from AIPAC, from that wing of the pro-Israel movement. And I think you’re going to see a real fight because of this generational split. I think you cannot underestimate how radical the split is: younger people in their attitudes versus older people, when it comes to Israel. And that’s a real problem for Israel in the long run.
Charen: It sure is. And it’s in both parties.
Siegel: Yes. This brings us, more broadly, to Democrats, Republicans and the election coming up this year in November. Republican loss of the House of Representatives is talked about quite a bit, and is very possible. There’s even some talk about the possibility of Democrats winning the Senate. Obviously, in states where the Democratic Party has a pulse, Donald Trump is not a big help to Republican candidates.
And, E.J., I wonder what you make of what seems to be very strong loyalty to Trump among Republicans, even as he makes very public and unpopular moves, whether they’re in the war or with the economy, or in his remarks about the passing of former F.B.I. director Robert Mueller.
Dionne: Well, let it be recorded that in the State Legislature in Florida, thanks to a special election in Florida, the people in the district that Mar-a-Lago is in elected a Democrat to the State Legislature. And there was another State Senate race that also swung to the Democrats. Every election we’ve had since Trump’s election, essentially, has shown an average — I think the last time I looked, the average was about a 13-point swing, and some of them were even bigger. So, this is a real problem.
In a normal world, some Republicans at least would start backing away from Trump, but we don’t live in a normal world. We live in the world of Republican politics that President Trump has created. And Republicans are not only so afraid of losing primaries to the Trump faction, which is now the dominant faction in the party, but they’re also worried about those folks turning out in the general election.
And I think when you look at the problems Republicans face — where I do agree that the Senate is now at the point where it could come into play — I think that the most consistent numbers in the polls are when you ask people, not only do they approve or disapprove of Trump, but do you strongly approve of Trump or strongly disapprove of Trump? The strong disapproves outnumber the strong approvers by 3-to-2 or 2-to-1. That’s a real problem for turnout. And you are seeing that in these races.
So, it’s a combination of the country swinging against Trump and the enthusiasm swinging against Trump. That’s real trouble for the Republicans. Maybe they will discover, later this year after their primaries are done, that they have an interest in distancing themselves. But I still think many of them are very afraid.
Siegel: Hmm.
Charen: Speaking of if we lived in a normal world, part of what makes our world abnormal now is that we live in an era of this personalized politics, and it has been vastly exacerbated by our system of partisan primaries. And it is the case now that our elections are determined by a tiny slice of voters who turn out in primaries. And so, the primary’s the only race that ——
Siegel: You mean the general election is a given, which party will win?
Charen: Is a given. Exactly. And so, because of gerrymandering, because of self-selection and sorting, because of the kinds of media that we all consume. And as long as the Republican Party officials, or Republican politicians, fear their primary electorate, which is the only thing that they have to fear in most cases, they’re not going to depart from Trump no matter what. And we will see how that turns out for them in the generals this time, because the cratering of his support among independents does not bode well for the general election this time.
Dionne: And part of the problem is not just the existence of the primary system. It’s also that, over time, since Trump appeared on the scene 11 years ago, a lot of people who are more moderate — or even moderate conservatives — aren’t Republican anymore.
Charen: That’s exactly right.
Dionne: This goes back even longer, actually. There’s been a long drift of moderate Republicans out of the party going back to the ’90s, and the collar counties around Philadelphia are a good example of that — places that were very loyal to people like George H.W. Bush or Senator John Heinz. And now, a lot of those folks just don’t think of themselves as Republican anymore. So, you are reducing this party to a party of Trump.
Charen: Yes. And, by the way, just the other day, Trump was touting — somebody had done a poll, where they said that 100 percent of those who identified as MAGA Republicans approved of his actions in Iran. Well, of course, if you are willing to identify yourself as a MAGA Republican, then you’re going to be in favor.
Siegel: This is circular reasoning, that is.
Charen: Exactly.
Siegel: This is the definition of a MAGA Republican.
Charen: It’s a tautology. Exactly. And there are fewer people who do identify as MAGA now than before the Iran war started.
Dionne: A hundred percent of Celtics fans root for the Celtics. I think one of the interesting questions — and that we don’t know the answer to yet — is can the MAGA base begin to break up? I was really struck by a Reuters Ipsos poll, I think it was, that came out last week or this week, where only 29 percent of Americans approve of Trump on the economy, and only 25 percent approve of his handling of the cost of living.
And I think one of his biggest problems, and I also think this is a real problem for the country, is that this kind of MAGA politics means that real problems we face now and in the future — housing, health care, child care, elder care, how to give young people entering a really difficult economy a leg up, particularly people who didn’t go to college — all these big questions. And if we were talking about these, Mona and I could have real arguments about real problems that matter to people. And the MAGA/Trump obsessions drive substance out of politics. And boy, that’s bad for every party.
Charen: Especially for people like us.
Siegel: Just one more point about politics here. In addition to telling us what the next Congress is going to be like, the November election — that’s typically when we really start thinking about the next presidential race — isn’t somebody going to have to express an interest in the Republican Party pretty soon? And is it down to two people who are both part of this administration, that is JD Vance and Marco Rubio? What should we expect in that regard?
Charen: Well, I think the Vance-Rubio rivalry has already been engaged. We’ve seen lots of evidence of that. But again, I will come back to whether this administration is perceived to have been successful. If so, then it’s clear that one of those two will be the nominee, but if not, then there could be an outsider. There could be an insurgent, but that would probably take something catastrophic to do that. So, it’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.
Dionne: Thank you, Yogi Berra. Whit Ayres is a great Republican pollster, and he was talking about the Rubio-Vance thing, and he said, “But there is a possibility of someone we never heard of.” And I asked him, what candidate are you for? And he said, “I think I’m for somebody we never heard of.”
And I think it partly depends — well, first of all, Trump has to decide not to run again, and I still haven’t put aside the possibility that Trump, given everything else he’s done, would claim some weird right to be in it again. But I do think there may be, even in the Republican Party, sheer exhaustion with this, that may lead someone else to say, “We need a new track for this party if we’re going to survive in the long run.” But it’s not obvious to me who that is.
Charen: Yeah. Maybe. I have one little quibble, not with you or about the way you phrased it, but lots of people in the press talk about, “if Trump decides not to run,” they say things like, “if he’s not going to run.” That is not a thing.
Siegel: Yes, exactly.
Charen: He cannot run again. It’s in the Constitution.
Siegel: Yes, yes.
Dionne: Amen to that. And I think it’s very important that we say that over and over again.
Charen: Yes.
Dionne: But the Constitution doesn’t seem to bother Trump very much on anything else. So, I don’t see why it would bother him with its very explicit language about this.
Charen: No, I know it doesn’t bother him, but I think everybody who comments on it should constantly reiterate that the Constitution forbids this and that it cannot happen.
Siegel: Hear, hear! I’m with you. Well, Mona, we’ve developed a tradition in this conversation. We’ve been a short-lived conversation, but we already have a tradition, and that is that we should end every conversation that we have on an upbeat note by asking what each of us has experienced in the way of joy recently. Something that’s not political or military, or whatever. Joy, something joyful you can describe in life?
Charen: I think I can. So, this weekend, there is going to be another No Kings rally. Now, I am not a protesting sort. I spent my life being a conservative. If I were to chant something, it would be along the lines of “What do we want? Incremental change! When do we want it? In the fullness of time!”
But I found the last No Kings rally to be very inspiring. I was struck by the cleverness of some of the signs, by the spirit, by the patriotism. And I am encouraged that there are millions of other Americans who feel the danger to democracy and our republic, and it gives me hope. So, I’m looking forward to participating again.
Siegel: Well, and thank you. E.J.?
Dionne: Amen to that, too. Last week, I went to the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the White House Office of Faith Based & Community Initiatives, sponsored by the Center for Public Justice. Now, there are all kinds of arguments that I’ve been involved with over the years, too, about the proper role of government vis-à-vis religion — and if anybody wants to see my views on that there’s a report I did for Brookings some years ago with my friend Melissa Rogers.
What hit me that day, what gave me joy was how many people came in from churches, synagogues, mosques, and also lots of secular people who are deeply involved in helping homeless people, in helping immigrants, in helping the left-out, in helping battered women, in helping poor people overseas — all these people in the country who, in the midst of all this political chaos, are out there working to help other people that are less well-off than they are. They exist. If I may, God bless them all. And we shouldn’t forget that they are very much part of our national conversation too, and we ought to think about those good folks and say thank you.
Charen: Amen.
Siegel: Amen. And for me, the return of baseball simply brings joy to my life. And I got hooked by the World Baseball Classic.
Dionne: Oh, yes.
Siegel: The Italian team in particular, which only had three guys from Italy on it, I think. But it reminded me of these names from my childhood, Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto and Yogi Berra, and the Venezuelans. I would have liked to see the Americans win the final game, but so be it. They had their victory, and I just found the whole thing wonderful. And I’m even looking forward to Major League Baseball with a machine that overrides umpires when they call balls and strikes wrong.
Dionne: Do you realize how many arguments in living rooms that will set aside?
Charen: I know!
Dionne: But also how much cheer. Screaming at umpires is really fun. But we’re going to lose some of that.
Siegel: We have to learn to scream at a computer. Mona and E.J., E.J. and Mona, thanks to both of you. It’s great.
Dionne: Thank you.
Charen: Thank you.
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected].
This episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Jillian Weinberger. It was edited by Kaari Pitkin. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Video editing by Jan Kobal and Arpita Aneja. The postproduction manager is Mike Puretz. Original music by Sonia Herrero and Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. The director of Opinion Video is Jonah M. Kessel. The deputy director of Opinion Shows is Alison Bruzek. The director of Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
The post ‘We Are Going to Deeply Regret This War’ appeared first on New York Times.
