Bill Kristol: End the War
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday, so he's back. Editor-at-large of the Bulwark, Bill Kristol. Hey, Bill. Hey, Tim. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. You know, I'm disappointed on behalf of all the Timothee Chalamet stans out there. It's three straight snubs for him at the Oscars. He should have three already and yet zero. I think it's potentially discrimination against twinks. It's at play here. It could be something to that, but I don't know. We're hoping for more representation in the future. You should have him on the podcast tomorrow to discuss that. I've been trying. I've been trying. You want me to place a call? I could help with that, you know. Okay. Thank you.
Yeah, I'm sure you have some New Yorkans. He's a New Yorker. I'm sure you guys have some, you know. same temple or something. We want to talk about Iran to start. And you had Bob Kagan on yesterday, your Sunday conversations with Bill. And as we've come to expect from Bob, not exactly optimistic about the state of affairs, but super insightful, knows the region, understands. So why don't you just kind of summarize what he described as the fork in the road facing Trump and where we're at right now with this war? Yeah, sure.
You had him on about six weeks ago after his big piece in the Atlantic, which was sort of pre-war, obviously, on kind of what Trump was doing to our alliances and making the world much more dangerous. And I would say he views this war very much in that context. People should go back and look at your discussion with him and then look at mine if they want. And I captured the highlights in warning shots this morning. No, what he's so good at, I think, Bob, is he puts it in the bigger context of And it is striking. I mean, this war has damaged our relationship with all of our allies, basically. Europe, not consulted, can't believe we've got into this. Now we're calling on them for help after rejecting their help early on or mocking the idea that they could help.
They care about Ukraine. They care about Russia. And this war is helping Russia with the oil sales, the oil waiving of the sanctions. So from a European point of view... And prices going higher.
Right, right. Exactly. Yeah, which helps Putin a ton. So it's a double.
What it seems like is things were kind of rickety there. So... From their point of view, it's like he didn't consult us. He's gone to war without a plan. It's helping Russia, which is really the existential threat we are having to deal with without Trump's help because he's not helping Ukraine these days. And so now he wants us to help in this trade. And the German defense minister this morning, Pretorius, who... I know I've met ones, but I mean, I gather from people who know this stuff, is a very pro-American, hawkish, the kind of, we've been hoping for a German defense minister like this, building up Germany's defenses and working with the other European nations, helping Ukraine. Just basically said, forget it.
I mean, pretty stunning rebuke from a very close ally.
It's the German defense minister, not the French.
What are the implications of the Iran war on U.S. foreign policy?
Yeah, right. It's not like those pansy French start cutting and running, right? That's notable.
It deepens the rift that was already there that you and Mom discussed six weeks ago and just makes it even harder to fix it. I mean, it's, you know... Iraq, the Germans and the French, I remember well, did not agree with our decision. We tried very hard to get them on board. We had endless meetings, two UN Security Council votes. We got a lot of other European nations on board. And we respected, in a sense, the German and French decision. I mean, there were members of Congress who made fun of the French, you know, the French was... The Freedom Prize. But, you know, the Bush was polite. We continued to meet with them. They didn't go out of their way to cause trouble for the other European nations that were helping us.
So that preserved the alliance despite that pretty important rift, right? We're in the opposite situation now where we're really deepening the rift in the alliance, almost making it irreparable.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:13–2:58
2
What are the implications of the Iran war on U.S. foreign policy?
2:58–5:51
3
How has the Trump administration's approach affected international alliances?
5:51–7:28
4
What is the significance of the Marine Expeditionary Forces in the Iran conflict?
7:28–9:50
5
How are domestic politics influencing the funding for the Iran war?
9:50–15:22
6
How is the war impacting global oil markets?
15:22–17:02
7
What challenges do U.S. allies face with the current military strategy?
17:02–53:43
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Bulwark Daily
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