Is the U.S. Winning the Iran War? With Suzanne Maloney and Mark Dubowitz

Dan Senor (0:00)

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SPEAKER_2 (0:29)

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Suzanne Maloney (0:34)

We find ourselves in a situation where the Iranians have been able to erode our regional presence, tie us up in a stalemate that distracts us and hurts our strategic leverage with other conflicts and other interests around the world, whether it's Ukraine or China. And that has passed on significant costs to the American people in terms of our economic position. And it's very clear that the war has not served our interests and that we find ourselves unable to actually get to a diplomatic outcome, which is probably the only solution here.

Mark Dubowitz (1:06)

The Iranians are digging in their heels because they see in two years' time that President Trump is leaving office. They think the Democrats are going to take the White House and the Democrats are going to reflect the sort of conventional wisdom that you're hearing. And that is that we are not going to use military force. We're not going to continue to impose maximum pressure. We're going to seek diplomacy and we're going to seek some kind of deal. And if we do, we'll probably give you domestic enrichment. And we'll kick the can down the road, hoping that this can doesn't explode into an atomic weapon.

Dan Senor (1:47)

It's 9 a.m. on Sunday, October 11th in New York City. It's 4 p.m. on Sunday, October 11th in Israel, where I am visiting these past few days, currently in Jerusalem. Before we get started, three housekeeping notes. First, on Thursday, October 22nd, just five days before the Israeli elections, Call Me Back will hold a live taping at the Stryker Center in New York City. I'll sit down with Dan Shapiro, Dahlia Shinelin and Brett Stevens to discuss what's at stake in the election and what the results will mean for the US-Israel relationship. Tickets are still available. To join us in person or to watch online, follow the link in the show notes. Second, a reminder about our new release schedule. Our second episode of the week now goes out to Ark Plus members on Wednesday and to everyone else on Friday. So if you're not an Ark Plus member, you won't get our next episode until Friday. And third, if you've signed up for our newsletter, last Friday you got a taste of our Ark Weekly, which is our new weekly newsletter for Ark Plus members. Each issue leads with a column from Ark Media contributor Nadav Eyal. Last week, three years after October 7th, Nadav laid out the five questions an Israeli commission of inquiry would have to pursue. Each issue also includes the good argument where we take one hard question and bring you three serious competing perspectives on it. To get Ark Weekly and Wednesday's episode become an Ark Plus member at arkmedia.org. Now on to today's episode.

Is the United States winning the war against Iran? Seven months after the US and Israel launched the most recent war against Iran, that was the war that commenced on February 28th, there are two substantially different ways to assess the outcome. The strongest case for American victory is military and economic. Iran's conventional forces have been devastated. Its economy is under extraordinary pressure, and American naval operations helped restore, it seems like more than 80% of the region's oil exports, neutralizing Iran's most potent weapon, the Strait of Hormuz. The strongest case against victory is strategic. Iran's regime, despite all this pressure, remains in power. Its nuclear threat is unresolved, and its ability to threaten its neighbors through regional proxies remains dangerously intact, as yesterday's devastating attack on Riyadh's airport, which killed 12 people and wounded at current count over 300, illustrates. Meanwhile, negotiations have stalled. Despite the enormous economic pressure on Iran, Iran is showing no willingness to accept Washington's central demands. And with the American midterm elections just weeks away, President Trump is facing growing public opposition to the war, rising economic costs and mounting pressure to find a way out. So who actually has the upper hand? What would an American victory look like at this stage? And perhaps most importantly, will the United States emerge from this war in a stronger strategic position than it was before the first shot was fired? To help us make sense of where the war stands, we're joined by two of the leading American experts on Iran and on US foreign policy in Iran. Mark Dubowitz is the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a longtime advocate and strategist for the Maximum Pressure Campaign on the Iranian regime. He hosts his own podcast on Iran, which we'll link to in the show notes. And Suzanne Maloney is the Vice President and Director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. She's one of Washington's leading scholars on Iran and has advised administrations of both parties on US foreign policy in the Middle East. Mark and Suzanne bring different perspectives to this question, and we're going to put those perspectives to the test. My conversation with Suzanne Maloney and Mark Dubowitz right after this short message.