Iran, Epstein and the Abuse of Power: Two Stories, One Pattern
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What are the implications of Trump's foreign policy towards Iran?
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This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.
I'm Michelle Cottle. I cover national politics for New York Times Opinion. And today we are switching things up a little bit. I am joined by my fantastic colleagues, David French and Nick Kristof. Welcome to the Roundtable, Nick. You are our first player from the Pacific Northwest.
Great to be with you. Greetings from the wilds of Oregon.
The wilds of Oregon, where I hope the weather is better than it has been here. But we got a lot of ground to cover today, guys. I want to talk about the Epstein files from the perspective of Nick's decades-long reporting on sex trafficking. But first, we want to dig into Trump's foreign policy moves, which is also perfect for Nick, given his years of reporting from around the globe. So let's get into it. First, Iran. And the usual caveat, we are recording this Thursday morning, so who knows where this will have gone by the time you hear us. But as of now, Trump has called for Iranian officials to agree to a nuclear deal or to face a U.S. attack very soon. This comes hot on the heels of the president's assertion that regime change would be the best option for Iran after massive protests erupted across the country, resulting in the deaths of thousands of protesters.
Nick, as someone who has spent time on the ground there and covered this dictatorship, what do people need to understand about what's going on there and what a U.S. attack would mean?
So I've rarely traveled in a country where there is so much antipathy toward the regime. You go around Iran, not just in North Tehran where there are secular liberals, but you go in rural areas and people are just so pissed off at the government. And that's about not just the repression, which is a little bit less evident in rural areas, but it's about the corruption. It's about the hypocrisy. It's about just the incompetence of the government economically. So on the one hand, I think that there are actually plenty of Iranians these days who are just so upset at the way things have gone that they wouldn't mind a certain amount of foreign intervention to try to topple the regime despite deep nationalism in that country.
On the other hand, though, I think a lot of people, including me, are a little bit skeptical that a military intervention would make things better. as opposed to making things worse. And I think we should have a lot of humility about our capacity to bring about the changes we'd like to see in Iran and understand that things could go a lot less well than the Trump administration might anticipate.
Now, before we switch and I get your thoughts on this, David, Nick, do you want to just float some bad possibilities so that I can have actual nightmares about what could happen?
Yeah. Iran has rebuilt its missile program. And so it can attack not only Israel, but also U.S. bases in the area, in Iraq and Qatar, elsewhere. It may not be able to fully close the Strait of Hormuz through which 20 percent of world's oil passes, but it could certainly, you know, make efforts in that direction and disrupt the transit of oil. And And I guess beyond that, it might be possible to decapitate the regime and kill the paramount leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But actually changing the regime itself, I think, is a lot less likely. And it may well be that the IRGC, the military command, is actually what takes over. And it's not obvious to me that that would be an improvement.
Okay, that's plenty for me to be concerned about this week. David, on Tuesday, American and Iranian officials met in Geneva to start working toward maybe possibly a nuclear deal.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What are the implications of Trump's foreign policy towards Iran?
0:00–7:19
2
How does the buildup of U.S. forces in the Middle East affect Iran?
7:19–12:06
3
What insights does Nick Kristof provide about the Iranian regime?
12:06–17:48
4
What are the potential consequences of military intervention in Iran?
17:48–24:59
5
What is the connection between the Epstein files and systemic child trafficking?
24:59–29:49
6
How does society's indifference impact child trafficking victims?
29:49–33:10