Who’s Winning the War in Iran?

**Julia Ioffe** (0:03)
This is what happens with bullies. Like, nobody actually likes bullies. People are afraid of bullies, but people don't want to help bullies. People don't want to put themselves in harm's way for a bully. People don't want to sacrifice their own self-interest for a bully.

**Peter Hamby** (0:20)
Welcome to The Powers That Be Daily, Puck's podcast focused on the intersection of Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood and the players who run it all. I'm Peter Hamby. It's Tuesday, March 24th. Today, I'm joined by Julia Ioffe to talk about the war in Iran and answer an intriguing question. Is the United States winning or losing the conflict? Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth would obviously say we're winning. But what does that outcome even look like? Julia gives us her analysis as Iran digs in. We'll discuss all that and much more on today's episode of The Powers That Be.
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**Peter Hamby** (1:43)
Happy Tuesday, everybody, and welcome to The Powers That Be. I'm joined today by my colleague, Julia Ioffe. We're going to discuss the war in Iran, which is going great. Everything is going according to plan. There's a clear rationale for why we're there. Trump is building support among our allies in Europe. There's a clear off-ramp here. Everything's going great. Did I sum it up properly, Julia?

**Julia Ioffe** (2:07)
I think you missed the part where the president isn't manipulating the stock market.

**Peter Hamby** (2:13)
Oh, yes. I forgot about that. We'll talk about that more, by the way, tomorrow with Bill Cohan and how the war is impacting the markets, energy and Donald Trump's taco tendencies when it comes to the market with his brain.

**Julia Ioffe** (2:27)
Yeah. Make sure to ask him about how Trump on Monday morning said, we're going to refrain from hitting Iran's energy infrastructure for five days, i.e. until after the markets close on Friday.

**Peter Hamby** (2:44)
I mean. Specific days at 3 p.m. Eastern. No, Julie, there's so many angles to discuss here. I was just doing my snap show on Friday and thinking of you because I was going through YouTube clips of Emmanuel Macron, who Trump likes and has been a go-between between Europe and Trump before in foreign conflicts and foreign disputes. I was looking at vertical video clips of Keir Starmer. His team has clearly gotten a memo about trying to be cool on YouTube. Keir Starmer is on YouTube talking about energy prices, et cetera. But all of these European allies that Trump has dumped on, not just European, I mean, he made fun of Japan and Pearl Harbor the other day. He threatened to take over Canada. But you've got Greenland, you've got tariffs, you've got Trump's whole go-it-alone shtick, and suddenly he's complaining that allies are not sending minesweepers and allies are not pitching in. Maybe we can start there with Europe. I mean, there was a letter that Seven Nations, Seven Nation Army, signed on Friday, saying they would promise to help Trump at some point. It seemed pretty vague, but they were just trying, I think, to like ameliorate his temper. Is there going to be a coalition of the willing here showing up at a certain point to help in Iran?

**Julia Ioffe** (4:03)
Well, setting aside your deep-cut millennial musical reference, no, I don't think so. I think, look, this is what happens with bullies. Like, nobody actually likes bullies. People are afraid of bullies, but people don't want to help bullies. People don't want to put themselves in harm's way for a bully. People don't want to sacrifice their own self-interest for a bully. So, when you decide that you'd rather be feared than loved, because that worked for you in the world of New York real estate or domestic politics, it has a different way of shaking out in geopolitics, because it turns out that some of the restrainers in your camp, the people who are against, you know, the US being the world's policeman, had a point, which is that it's really not only expensive to be the world's policeman, but we can't do it alone. We just don't have the resources. And even, you know, the administration is said to ask for a $1.5 trillion budget for the Pentagon. That's a 50% increase of its current budget, right? Like, even if with that infusion of cash in such a short amount of time, we will not be able to do it. And so for that, it turns out being feared more than loved doesn't get you very far, because, again, fear is not a great motivator.