Prof John Mearsheimer The Horrible Naval Blockade In Hormuz Strait

President Trump has threatened to destroy any attack ships that the Iranian Navy may try and roll out in in defense of his blockade, which went into effect at 10:00 a.m. this morning. Uh, and we’re going to see where this takes us here because the intent for for the White House is certainly to block off everything that’s coming in or out of the Persian Gulf with the intent of harming the Iranian side, thinking that that’s going to compel them to do what they couldn’t get through negotiations over the weekend, which itself was to try compel what we couldn’t get through six weeks of war before that. And I don’t know that it’s going to be any effective on the other side. Well, actually, I do. It’s not. Uh, but that’s that’s not going to stop President Trump from trying something anyway. And to try and help us figure out where all this is going and what are the ramifications of trying to do something that is very unlikely to work, we have back with us today John Mirsh, international relations theorist, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and big-time friend of our show. Uh, John, welcome back and glad to have you here today.

And I’m glad to be here, Danny.

Well, listen, let’s just jump right into it. Let’s let’s actually start. We’re at the kind of the hottest news right now which is the uh the aftermath of this Istanbul I’m sorry Islamabad negotiations that just happened. Uh sorry get that juxtaposed with this the other failed negotiations from 2022 that also started with how they should have worked. Uh but nevertheless here we are. So President JD Vance uh went down there the highest ranking delegation we’ve had since I think 1972 negotiations. Um, one would have I don’t know why anybody would have thought this, but normally if you’re going to enter into negotiations, you’re starting a process that you’re trying to end a war. No one normally expects it to be over in 21 hours, but they kind of seem to did kind of set the stage here. Here’s kind of where he laid out where things are are now. We just could not get to a situation where the Iranians were willing to accept our terms. I I think that we were quite flexible. We were quite accommodating. The president told us you need to come here in good faith and make your best effort to get a deal. We did that and unfortunately we weren’t able to make any headway.

Mr. Vice President, how often did you communicate with President Trump throughout the negotiations? There were reports that there were multiple rounds uh where there were breaks in between negotiations. How often did you communicate with the president throughout those rounds and what was he saying as you were going through these negotiations that you said fell short?

Yeah, obviously we were we were talking to the president consistently. Um I don’t know how many times we talked to him, a half dozen times, a dozen times over the past 21 hours. We obviously also talked to Admiral Cooper, to Pete, to Marco, to the entire national security team. We talked to Scott Basson a number of times. So look, we we were constantly in communication with the team because we were negotiating in good faith and uh we leave here and we leave here with a very simple proposal, a method of understanding that is our final and best offer. We’ll see if the Iranians accept it.

So he says it’s very simple. Do what we tell you and everything will be fine. And if not, we’re going to have a naval blockade and probably going to come back with more bombs. What do you say?

Yeah, I mean this is what happened. Uh it looked uh before the negotiations like the Americans would be much more flexible. Uh it looked given the fact that the United States is actually losing this war uh that we would make some significant concessions uh to the Iranians to to to shut it down. Uh but if you look at what happened uh we made maximalist demands. You want to remember that there were two plans on the table. One was the 15-point plan, which was the American plan that had all the maximalist demands in it. And then there was the 10-point plan, which was the Iranian plan, which had their maximalist demands in it. And when President Trump said that he was not going to obliterate Iran uh and that there was going to be a ceasefire, he said that we were going to negotiate on the basis of the 10point plan. That’s the Iranian plan. That’s what he said earlier in the week. And uh it appeared that that meant that President Trump was willing to make some concessions, some major concessions to the Iranians uh and the negotiations would take place on that basis. But if you look at what actually happened, uh what JD Vance did was he presented the Iranians with our maximalist demands, basically the 15-point plan. Uh and he said, “You have no choice but to take it. we’re in the driver’s seat and uh you have to surrender. But there was a fundamental mistake in his thinking about this. We’re not in the driver’s seat. They’re in the driver’s seat. And the reason we had uh these meetings uh in Islamabad was because the Americans wanted them, not because the Iranians wanted them. And why did the Americans want them? Because we are in deep trouble. We recognize we’re losing the war. and we recognize that the consequences for the international economy are potentially disastrous. So, we wanted to find an off-ramp and President Trump appeared to be wise uh in the beginning when he said, “Let’s negotiate on the basis of the 10-point plan.” He said it would be a sound basis for moving forward. However, over the course of the week before the negotiation started, we apparently uh shifted gears and went to the 15point plan. And this, of course, was driven in large part by the Israelis. Uh it’s interesting, but JD Vance mentioned that he talked to the national security team, including President Trump during the negotiations. He failed to tell uh the public that he also talked to Benjamin Netanyahu. You want to think about this? Benjamin Netanyahu is talking to JD Vance uh while he’s negotiating. Vance that is on uh on part for the United States. Uh it’s hardly surprising what happened here.

And and in fact we we have a a clip there of not Vance but but Netanyahu himself saying about this. But notice at the first part of this clip, it’s not just JD Vance he’s talking to. I spoke yesterday with Vice President JD Vance. He called me from his plane on the way back from Washington. He reported to me in detail as the people of this administration do every day on the development of the negotiations. In this case, the explosion in the negotiations. The explosion came from the American side which was not willing to tolerate the blatant violation of the agreement to enter negotiations by Iran. Essentially, the agreement was that there would be a ceasefire and Iran would immediately open the crossings. They didn’t do that. the Americans were not willing to accept it.

He he said in there, not just JD Vance, but he said President Trump’s national security team on a daily basis. I mean, that that seems really concerning to me. What do you think?

Of course, it’s concerning. It’s also concerning that standing behind JD Vance were two Israeli assets, Jared Kushner, uh, and Steve Whit. These are passionate Zionists and they’re there in part to monitor JD Vance. And JD Vance because he wants to run for president in 2028 understands full well that he better dance to the lobby’s tune. Uh which is another way of saying he better dance to Israel’s tune or he’ll never be a viable candidate. And of course the same logic applies to Marco Rubio. So, it’s hardly surprising that when Vance went into the room to negotiate with the Iranians, he basically laid out the maximalist demands uh that Israel is in favor of. But I just want to say a word about the ceasefire. uh when the deal was worked out, when Pakistan negotiated the deal for a ceasefire uh between the United States uh on one side and the Iranians on the other side, it was agreed that as part of that ceasefire uh the Israelis would stop firing at Hezbollah and more generally at Lebanon where of course Hezbollah is located. When the Israelis were told that that was part of the ceasefire arrangement, they refused to accept it and they fully understood that by slamming uh Hezbollah while the ceasefire uh was supposed to be in place, they would go to great lengths to undermine it and undermine the future negotiations. The Iranians of course were irate uh by the fact that President Trump went back on the agreement uh and they said that they would not open the straight as they had agreed to until Israel uh stopped bombing Hezbollah. But of course, Israel not only had no interest in bombing stopping the bombing of Hezbollah, but it went to even greater lengths to bomb civilian areas uh in Beirut and kill more civilians than ever. Uh therefore, you know, working to undermine uh any meaningful ceasefire. And then of course you had the meetings uh Vance presented the maximalist demands with the Israeli support uh completely and uh here we are.

So let me ask you something here. Let’s just take a little bit of a of a detour off here and let’s look at this Israeli situation because on the one hand you can say okay well that’s kind of their interest. They want to keep going. So they want to sabotage any attempts to peace so that they can I don’t know so that they can what? Because I mean anyone, even someone who’s an ardent supporter of the Israeli side can see that after 6 weeks of non-stop bombing that we did not destroy Iran. We did not destroy their ability to survive, to sustain, to continue to fire weapons into Israel and to our allies in the region as well as the United States. And we’re running low of everything to include JASMs, to include the uh the Tomahawk cruise missiles, and of course multiple categories of interceptor missiles. both us and Israel, we cannot get into a sustained war here because we can’t manufacture enough to replace or defend against what the Israelis do. So, it’s not in anyone’s interest, even the Israelis, to keep going this. And yet, by all accounts, they’re doing everything they can in Lebanon, to make sure that the war continues to go on and everything they can to undermine President Trump to bring this one to an end. What is the Israeli objective here? What are they trying to get done?

I’m not sure they fully understand what the objective is at this point. Uh I’m I mean first of all we want to understand that for uh for Prime Minister Netanyahu uh Iran is his Moby Dick. He he’s obsessed with defeating Iran and making sure it has no nuclear enrichment capability. And in fact what he’d like to do is he’d like to wreck Iran. he’d like to do to Iran what’s been done to Syria. There’s no question about that. But the problem is he’s failed. Uh you know there was a comment by Ya Laid who is the principal opposition leader uh in Israel who said there has never been such a political disaster in all of our history. Just think about that. He is saying there has never been such a political disaster in all of our history. Uh, and Netanyahu surely understands that this is where he’s at. And what he’s doing, much like President Trump, is he’s flailing. He’s he’s trying to figure out how he can rescue the situation. And I think that in the Israeli mind, uh, certainly in Minister Netanyahu’s mind, the only way you can do that is you can destroy Iran as a functioning society. Uh and you want to remember that President Trump was threatening that uh a week ago today uh last Monday morning. He was threatening to destroy uh Iran uh Iranian civilization uh drive it back to the stone age. I I think this is what the Israelis at this point in time would like to see happen. This is why a lot of people are very nervous about the possibility that the Israelis will turn to nuclear weapons. Uh because that’s really the only way they can uh destroy Iranian civilization. I don’t think President Trump is going to turn to nuclear weapons, but the Israelis might try to do that. But you want to understand what a dangerous situation we’re in because the Israelis view Iran uh as an existential threat and they understand that we have been unable to defeat Iran and given even this blockade we’re not going to defeat Iran. They surely understand that the Iranians are not going to throw up their hands because of this blockade. So the question is what are the Israelis going to do? especially because they I’m sure recognize that Iran has been incentivized to acquire nuclear weapons and that of course is the ultimate nightmare for the Israelis. So the Israelis have really gotten themselves into a giant mess. And when those sorts of things happen, states pursue remarkably risky strategies uh in almost all cases. And again, this is what brings us back to the danger that when all said and done, the Israelis may think about using nuclear weapons.

So let me just just ask you just categorically, has the United States already strategically lost or are we just losing?

Well, the war is still in progress. So, we are losing. The question you have to ask yourself is, can we reverse the tide and win? And that means achieving our political goals, and we had four political goals going into the war, none of which we’ve achieved. One was regime change. Two was putting an end to their long range ballistic missiles that threaten Israel. Three was ending once and for all their nuclear enrichment capability. And number four was getting Iran to stop supporting Houthi, the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah. We failed on all four counts. Furthermore, the Iranians now control the straight of Hormuz, which they didn’t control before the war started. So actually, they’re better off now than they were on February 27th, the day before the war started. So, it’s obvious who is winning this war. Now, you say, “Can we turn it around?” I would simply say to you, Danny, I want you to tell me the story about how we turn it around. I’ve asked lots of smart people how they think we might be able to turn around, turn this war around, and rescue the situation. And I have yet to meet one person who can come up with a plausible scenario for how we ultimately win this war. So that leads me to conclude that we will in the end fail.

Well, you you say this if you find one you’ve yet to find one person who can plausibly lay out a path to win. Uh that doesn’t mean that there are those who can implausibly lay this out. And the first one is going to be his golfing buddy Lindsey Graham. He said, “Let it be said that President Trump and his team went the extra mile to find a peaceful solution regarding Iran’s uh the largest sponsor of state terrorism, nuclear ambitions and beyond.” He has to throw that pajorative in there. There is no such thing as a moderate layer to their regime. Uh they are intent on acquiring a nuclear weapon over time and I believe they will use one if they have it. President Trump’s decision to blockade the strait and regain control of international waterways is the right move. It is time to finish the job when it comes to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Now the only way that you can quote finish the job is military means. You’re not going to negotiate that away.

Well, I make two points, Danny. First of all, he says that the Iranians are intent on inquiring nuclear weapons. This is simply not true. There’s no evidence of that. They signed the JCPOA. They did not work walk away from the JCPOA. And all the evidence is that that in the negotiations before the war started in February 28th, they were willing to put a significant cap on their nuclear enrichment capability and there was zero evidence that they were interested in pursuing nuclear weapons. Uh so that’s simply not true. Uh and when he talks about finishing the job, you know, this is empty rhetoric. You and I have, you know, been in the national security business. We’ve been in the military. We know that empty phrases like that don’t mean anything. If you’re going to finish the job, please explain to us how you’re going to finish the job. Tell us exactly what the objectives are and tell us what the tactics and the strategy especially are for achieving those goals. And nobody ever does that. They just make these, you know, statements about let’s go in there and finish the job. What does that mean? Uh, and the reason they make statements and they don’t tell you how to finish the job is because there’s no way to finish the job. I guess you could finish the job by taking, you know, 15 nuclear weapons and blowing Iran to smithereens, but that’s not a viable option. And I believe, by the way, the American military would not execute that order if it was given. Uh, the Israelis might do it. That’s a different matter. But that that’s the only way you can finish the job. Uh and short of that uh we lose.

Yeah. And uh as as we’ve shown on some recent video released uh by uh the Iranian side as well as an analysis done by a third party, even nuclear weapons would not be able to take out some of these missile cities that are under the ground. So you can certainly kill a lot of people on the surface. No question about that. But in terms of militarily defeating Iran, even that I don’t think would actually work. Now, it’s one thing if you have a Senator Lindsey Graham who uh I think he used to be a colonel in the uh the US Army uh reserve, I think it was as a as a lawyer, so he didn’t exactly have a lot of military experience. So maybe you can say, well, his his enthusiasm is is understandable because he doesn’t really understand all the things that you just did. But you can’t say that about a retired four-star general, Jack Keane, who said this. They are hardcore theoretic, tyrannical, brutal regimeists. And this guy, you know whose best friend in life was growing up? Kasam Solommani. And they join the IRGC together. and they’ve been helping each other throughout their careers until such time as Kasam Solommani was taken down by the Trump administration. We shouldn’t be that surprised they’re not taking a deal because they’re hardliners and they expect us to fold our hand and we’re not folding. And the good news is, I respect all the negotiators there, but our backs stop, who I’m confident they were talking to, is President Trump, and he’s not going to take a bad deal here from these guys.

I don’t know what General Keane can recommend to President Trump that will rescue the situation. I would imagine he was enthusiastic about the blockade. But as you and I both know, the blockade is not going to work. The blockade option that President Trump is now implementing has been floating around for a long time. It’s not like all of a sudden this magic formula appeared. President Trump saw it. he took advantage of it and now we’re going to bring the Iranians to their knees. This option has been around for a long time. And the question is, why haven’t we employed it earlier? And the answer is quite simple. It’s a terrible option. Not only is it not going to get the Iranians to throw up their hands, furthermore, we’re effectively shooting ourselves in the foot. Because you want to understand that the reason that we have allowed all of this Iranian oil to come through the straight and flow into the world oil market is we need to have all the oil we can possibly get put in the global market. We need Iranian oil. That’s why we lifted sanctions that allowed Iranian oil to come through the straight. We need Russian oil. That’s why we lifted sanctions on Russian oil and are allowing Russian oil to flow into the global market. So if we cut off Iranian oil, uh there’s no question that the Iranians will pay a certain price, but we will pay a huge price as well. we’re effectively shooting ourselves in the foot because we need that Iranian oil in the global market. And again, to go back to my initial point, uh the Iranians are not going to throw up their hands and quit. These are really tough people, very nationalistic, and they face an existential threat. You take a country like Iran facing an existential threat and take into account the fact that it’s a highly nationalistic country. Do you really think pain inflicted on them is going to cause them to quit? I would not bet anything on that.

He is in a world of hurt. I I mean he he has no viable option other than to basically concede defeat. Uh again, he has not achieved we have not achieved we and the Israelis have not achieved any of the four principal goals that were set out before the operation started on February 28th. Furthermore, we’ve lost control of the straits to the Iranians. Those five factors are all a done deal. Uh and now the question is how do you negotiate an end to this? How do you come up with an armistice or some sort of uh peace agreement? That that’s the question. But you’re not going to achieve your goals if you’re President Trump. And if he continues to prolong the conflict, the damage that will be done to the international economy will be greater and greater. Uh, I mean, as I’ve said before, we’re like the Titanic heading for the iceberg. And really, what President Trump is now doing with this new policy of blockade is he’s speeding up the Titanic so that it’ll hit the iceberg faster than it otherwise would have.

But, uh, you know, I mean, if you just think about it, we we don’t have we lost. We we President Trump committed a profound blunder in allowing the Israelis to convince him that we could win a quick and decisive victory. And once he was into a long war, it’s the Iranians, not the Americans, who hold almost all the cards. And you know, General Keane, Lindsey Graham, and people of that sort can whisper in the president’s ears from Natal Kingdom Come that, you know, uh, he’s got to hang in there and that we can win this. But the problem is they can’t provide him with a viable strategy for achieving that end. Uh unless they’re telling him something in secret that uh we don’t uh understand that we can’t comprehend. I think that’s highly unlikely.

Well, the Iranians look like the adults at the table. Uh and it’s not only the Iranians, you know what about the Chinese and the Russians? We have three great powers in the system. The United States, uh China and Russia. And China and Russia look like responsible stakeholders. Does the United States look like a responsible stakeholder? It certainly does not. Now people or I should say leaders around the world are very careful about criticizing the United States too much because the United States is so powerful uh and President Trump uh you know acts with a vengeance when he’s crossed. So people go to great length, leaders go to great lengths not to provoke him. Uh but you can rest assured that in private those leaders think that uh he is positively dangerous. Uh I mean we’re in a situation where our allies probably fear him more than our adversaries do. Uh and this is a disastrous situation. As I say, it’s going to have disastrous consequences for our ability to project power all over the world. If you’re a global power, to put it in slightly different terms, if you’re a superpower interested in projecting military might into East Asia, into the Middle East, and into Europe, and it’s essential that you have allies, that you have good relations with those allies, that you have international institutions, formidable international institutions, and you pay heed to those institutions and the rules that attend them, and that you pay attention to international law. This is the way we have behaved almost forever, right? We wrote the institutions we wrote the international law. We wrote the rules that underpin the institutions. Uh and we wrote them in ways that favored us and we by and large obeyed those rules and obeyed those laws because it was in our national interest. Uh and we had allies and we treated those allies well because it was in our national interest. Along comes President Trump, the ultimate unilateralist uh on the planet, and he’s interested in trashing international law, trashing international institutions, and treating allies as bad, if not worse, than adversaries. And the end result of this is we’re in a well of a lot of trouble.

I think it it’s a logic that the logic that you just described is a logic that applies not just to Taiwan, but to Japan, South Korea, Australia, uh the Philippines. Um, as I said before, it’s not simply a question of whether the United States will be there for you. Uh, and here you want to remember we are pivoting away from Asia. So there is reason to doubt whether the United States will be there for you. But there’s also the question of whether you can trust American judgment. Do you think this is a country that operates in sophisticated ways when it comes to formulating and executing military strategy? Uh and I think almost all the evidence at this point in time is that it does not uh it’s not a very responsible ally. Uh and the question then is what do you do? What do you do if you’re Taiwan and you’re highly vulnerable? Um, and you know, we haven’t talked about this, but what about nuclear weapons? If you’re Japan and you’re South Korea, how do you think about depending on the American nuclear umbrella? I mean, if you’re a South Korean, not only do you have to worry about nuclear weapons in the context of China, but you have to worry about nuclear weapons in the context of North Korea, and you depend on the United States for nuclear deterrence. The American nuclear shield is over your head. Well, when you see what’s happening in the Middle East and that we’re pivoting away from Asia, if you’re South Korea, I think what happens is that you begin to think seriously about getting your own nuclear deterrent. And I’m sure that same logic applies to uh Japan. So, uh it’s not only Taiwan that’s beginning to hedge here. Uh, and given where we’re at and given the fact that given where we’re at in the Middle East and given that we have no solution on the horizon to the Iran war, uh, you really wonder where things are going to go in East Asia.

Well, the thing is, Danny, that the United States under President Trump is pivoting away from Europe. The Europeans want to be joined at the hip with us. They love us. They want to keep the American security umbrella over their head. uh they want to keep NATO intact. Uh they have no animus against the United States. But President Trump has a deep-seated animus against the Europeans. He loathes NATO and as you know, he’s been in power for about 15 months now and he’s done enormous damage to the alliance. Uh, and the question you have to ask yourself is what’s going to happen in the remaining two years and 9 months of his presidency. Uh, and it seems pretty clear to me that he’s going to do a lot more damage and that what’s left of NATO uh, assuming he lasts for all four years uh, is going to be enormous. The damage he’s going to do to NATO over those total four years will be enormous. I I don’t see how it will be otherwise. And in the process, the Europeans are slowly but steadily figuring out that they have to come up with an alternative security architecture in Europe. They cannot depend on the United States anymore. They cannot depend on the American pacifier uh because President Trump is so hostile to Europe. So things are changing in fundamental ways. See, the difference between East Asia and Europe is we need the South Koreans and the Japanese to help contain China. We need those allies very much, but in Europe, there’s no Soviet Union. There’s no real Russian threat. I mean, people can talk about the Russian threat, but there’s no great Russian threat. So, it’s easy for President Trump to slap around the Europeans and to talk about ending NATO and pulling American forces out of Europe or at least greatly reducing the American military footprint in Europe. He can do that because there’s no Soviet Union. Uh there’s no equivalent of the Chinese threat. There’s Russia and Russia’s having a devil of a time conquering the eastern 15th of Ukraine. The idea that it’s a threat to reach the beaches at Dunkirk is a laughable argument. So Trump can treat the Europeans with contempt, which he’s been doing. uh and that’s going to fundamentally alter the relationship uh across the Atlantic Ocean in ways that are hard to imagine for people like uh you and me who grew up uh during the Cold War and in the unipolar moment when transatlantic relations were actually excellent.

Well I think there are two sets of forces that are pushing Trump in opposite directions. One of the Israelis and here we’re talking about the lobby as well as Israel itself. And the Israelis and the lobby do not want any kind of agreement uh with Iran unless Iran throws up its hands and basically surrenders. That’s one side. On the other side, there’s the international economy. And the international economy is in terrible shape. And we are, as I say, on the Titanic heading for the iceberg. And you can rest assured that President Trump is under tremendous pressure from leaders all over the world to put an end to this. uh and President Trump himself, I’m sure, is surrounded by advisors who fully understand that we are on the Titanic. So, the question is, will President Trump at some point before the Titanic hits the iceberg pull back and tell the Israelis that they’re out of luck and that we don’t care what they want us to do? We’re cutting a deal because it’s not only in our own interest, it’s in the interest of every country around the world. And in that story, Israel loses and the rest of us win. Or is he so beholden to the lobby and to Israel? And all the evidence up to now is that he is incredibly beholden to Israel and the lobby. So, but the question is, will that continue? and will we because of Israel hit the iceberg? Uh, and that’s how I see this playing out.

And how do you define in this context hitting the iceberg? What does that what does that look like? How does it manifest?

I think that the economic damage is so great that we have a global depression that’s as bad, if not worse, than what happened in the late 1920s.

Thank you for having me, Danny. I enjoyed the conversation even though I must say and you recognize this, it was thoroughly depressing.