As the war on Iran drags into its eighth month, politicians and voters in the U.S. are paying significant attention to how Americans are directly feeling the war’s impacts on gas prices and trade. Steven Cook, Middle East policy expert at of the Council on Foreign Relations, joins Jen to share how other U.S. relationships in the Middle East have shifted since the war began.
In addition to their discussion on Iran, Cook and Jen examine how small parties may play a deciding role in the upcoming Israeli elections. Addressing the U.S. response to Houthi attacks Saudi Arabia, they also underscore how Trump’s attitude towards the Middle East has sharply diverged from policy goals he outlined as recently as 2025.
Steven A. Cook is Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies and director of the Middle East program at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S.-Middle East policy.
The following transcript has been edited for formatting purposes.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of the Contrarian. I am delighted to have Steve Cook from the Council on Foreign Relations, who comes to us from Israel. Steve, welcome!
Steven Cook
Hey, thanks for having me, Jen.
Jen Rubin
Well, you are in the location that has the first major national election this month. The Israeli elections are on the 27th, the week before the US elections.
Steven Cook
Great.
Jen Rubin
What’s the state of play?
Steven Cook
Well, it’s super interesting. I mean, the polls really haven’t moved. They’ve been very stable. You have the opposition at 53 seats, Netanyahu at 52, or you have the opposition at 55 and Netanyahu, and they flip somewhat. There have been a couple of polls. The Israeli version of Fox News, Channel 14, had Netanyahu and his coalition at 63 seats. That’s so far outside the polling that you have to throw that one out. There’s been all kinds of talk of whether there could be a minority government in which Arab parties, the Joint List or this party called RAM, would support the opposition from outside the government. What it is, is each party needs to, each block needs to get to 61 seats. And it’s virtually impossible, the way the polls go right now, for them to get to 61 seats unless there’s a defection from one group or the other. The opposition bloc has ruled out sitting in coalition with them.
Jen Rubin
I’ll leave it there.
Steven Cook
They’ve also ruled out sitting in coalition.
Jen Rubin
Is there a religious right? For those who don’t know, that’s the far religious right.
Steven Cook
And Netanyahu’s bloc has a hard time getting to 61 seats as well. So there’s been all kinds of permutations. But today, late in the day, there was a dramatic development. Avigdor Lieberman, who, you know, remember way back in the day, he was the kind of big, scary right winger here who’s either Israel’s moved way to the right or he’s changed because he seems like a moderate center right person in comparison to people like.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Steven Cook
Itamar Ben-Gavir, and others. He is in coalition with Gadi Aizenkot, whose party is leading in the polls, Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister, who’s in coalition, a party in coalition with Yair Lapid. and the former Labor Party, which is called the Democrat Party, they were all an opposition coalition. But Lieberman began attacking Eisenkot today, accusing Eisenkot of wanting to join a national unity government with Likud and Netanyahu. Now… I have heard this scenario from my very right-wing friends here. They say. Gary Esenko can easily sit in coalition with Netanyahu. So now Lieberman has been attacking him. Lieberman has made no secret of the fact that he thinks he should be the Prime Minister. And he… His party used to be Russian immigrant-based. It’s actually become more broad-based now, and I’ve heard more people say that they’re interested in Lieberman. He’s for the draft of the ultra-Orthodox, the Haredim. He was in was when he was last defense minister in 2018. He warned something like October 7th might happen. So he has that security cred. And he hates Netanyahu and refuses to be in coalition. Even during the height of the war, he refused to join the security cabinet. Now, it’s not like Lieberman’s so great. He is the most investigated and most corrupt politician in Israel, which is saying something.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Steven Cook
It’s, it’s been a, I’m, I’ve been on the ground now for 3 days. It’s been fast so far. And like everything you hear that cliche about Israel, everybody has a scenario, an idea about it, but no one really knows because Israeli politics are super complicated. And it’s not just about the vote. It’s then about trying to cobble together a coalition.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. There are these small coalitions, and everybody will be trying to form a government who gets enough votes to even qualify and pass a threshold and make a deal with somebody else.
Steven Cook
And there’s a few small parties that are pulling at like four or five seats. They’re going to be really important in this coalition.
Jen Rubin
We’d be the kingmakers, absolutely. There were numerous news reports starting weeks ago. that Netanyahu had very specific warnings about October 7th, from the Egyptians, from the UAE, from Hamas directly. Why is that not? Being more decisive in the election.
Steven Cook
Yeah, I think… and let me just say on that. The I knew I, you know, these revelations about the Egyptians and the Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamal warning the Israelis. is something that I became aware of probably in December 2023, and because it was reported in the Israeli press. Yes. This may be new to readers of the Atlantic and the New York Times and others, but if you’re, you know, if you’re someone like me who kind of marinates himself in this kind of stuff, I was like, oh yeah, the Egyptians told them, and if anybody was going to know, it was going to be the Egyptians, because Egyptian general intelligence, basically their job is to keep an eye on Hamas.
Jen Rubin
It’s right next to Egypt, after all.
Steven Cook
Right, and you know, and they, the Egyptians themselves perceive a security threat from Gaza, so they would know, and The Emirati warning The Emirati officialdom says that MBZ, Mohammed bin Zayed, the president of the UAE himself didn’t warn Netanyahu, leaving open the door that someone else did. So it’s All of this is absolutely 100% believable that they had a warning. I mean, there’s historical precedent for this. King Hussein of Jordan flew to Israel before the October 1973 war and told Golda Meir, the Egyptians and the Syrians are gonna attack. And Goldmeier and the security establishment in Israel is like, not going to happen. Not gonna happen. They just had a concept of it. So history is repeating itself. Why I don’t think it’s become so decisive here is Israel’s polarized. So Netanyahu’s opponents will say, Well, of course, you know, he’s cynical, he screwed up, this is a political failure, we knew he was trash. And for people who are Netanyahu, They say, well… It was the security establishment’s responsibility, they didn’t listen to it either, and now, look, 3 years later, look at all the accomplishments. Hamas is a shadow of itself, Hezbollah is a shadow of itself, Iran has been taken down, Iran. Now, look, I… At the same time they say Hamas has been weakened, they say Hamas is about to attack again and has 50,000 fighters again. It’s deeply confused, and it’s all just wrapped around the politics around the person, Netanyahu himself. So it hasn’t had the decisive effect that you would think it would have, because it’s been… they’ve known about it. And it’s been baked in, and a Netanyahu voter’s gonna vote for Netanyahu no matter what, and a Netanyahu hater is gonna vote for… is gonna vote against him.
Jen Rubin
This sounds very familiar, folks, people who know American politics, this will sound very.
Steven Cook
No, there are… there are echoes and parallels that are hard to ignore, to be completely honest with you.
Jen Rubin
Let’s talk about the Iran war more generally, which is still going on. It has had a huge impact on the US elections. Fuel prices continue to soar. The economy, in people’s perceptions, is directly affected by the war. And of course. The Houthis are now waging a very effective war against the Saudis. Has Iran won? And what’s the next move for the U.S? For the Saudis, who seem to have perhaps come out the worst of it, of any power in the region.
Steven Cook
Right. Well, I mean, look, the Iran war — the administration two weeks ago was touting the fact that there was more unrefined oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz in late September than there was before the war. And this is somehow a big victory. But you need… the United States needed to use one-third of its entire naval power to make sure that that happened, whereas on February 27th, the oil was just blow it. And that doesn’t even… that’s just unrefined product. Diesel is down 60%, gasoline down 60%, things that go into, fertilizer, natural gas, all this stuff is down, down, down, down, down. So, the Iranians may be suffering as a result of the blockade that the United States has imposed upon them, but I don’t really see how you declare this a strategic victory if you have to use naval power Huge amounts of your naval power in, for forever, it seems. I mean, there doesn’t seem to be… there doesn’t seem to be a negotiation afoot. The Iranians don’t seem interested. In fact, the reporting here in Israel today was that the Iranians have now been able to reestablish the missile launchers that they lost in the opening rounds of the war, they have 400 missile launchers, and the United States is moving forces back into the region, and we could be looking at yet another escalation. So, it’s not a conflict that’s frozen, but it’s a neither war nor peace kind of outcome. Now, I think, if you talk to Israelis. you know, their view is, well, the United States should finish the job, but they are very much the junior partner here, and really have no influence at this point on what the United States is determining. Although, if there was an escalation, they would be in partnership. I landed at Ben Gurion Airport the other day. I spied at least five or six KC-135, American KC-135 refueling aircraft on the ground there. So… It’s, it doesn’t… despite what the administration says about gas prices and oil, and it is a strategic loss or setback for the United States. We obviously don’t know how it’s all gonna come out, but again, we’re using one-third of all of our naval power to make this happen. On the Saudi Yemeni front. this is a war that it’s connected to, but not intrinsically linked to the Iran war. Of course, the Iranians are benefiting from the fact that the Houthis have, also established some control over the Red Sea and the Baba Mendeb, but The Saudi-Houthi conflict predates Operation Epic Fury. Remember, the Saudis intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015 to support the internationally recognized government against the Houthis. And… it’s turned out to be a quagmire for them. There was a ceasefire in 2022, ongoing negotiations. And then… Inexplicably, this summer. The Saudis bombed the airport in Sana’a because there was a Mahan Air, an Iranian airline that is used by the IRGC, returning a Houthi delegation back to Yemen after the Ayatollah’s funeral. It was believed that aboard the plane was also a slew of IRGC military advisors and equipment, ok, and so, to prevent, and this is all a violation of UN resolutions, UN Security Council resolutions, but the Saudis have been looking past UN Security Council resolutions on Yemen constantly. And suddenly they decide to attack the airport, forcing the Mahana Air flight to land elsewhere. Did they think the Houthis weren’t going to fight back? So that’s what tripped this escalation, is that the… Saudis, thinking they had the situation well in hand, that they had trained up the Yemeni government forces, and that they can handle the Houthis, somehow thought. If they, that, that escalation was an answer here and now they’ve got a real fight on their hands and guess what? The president of the United States is like, not my problem. And hasn’t come to the rescue, which… The Saudis… I have always thought that the American cavalry would come. And it’s that this is.
Jen Rubin
Seeing Donald Trump was a big mistake.
Steven Cook
Exactly, and it’s the second time Trump has stiffed them. In 2019, the Iranians bombed two Saudi oil facilities, and Trump said, well, they didn’t bomb us. And the Saudis were outraged and didn’t know what to do with themselves, and now this, which is a much more significant security threat. And the Saudis have also burned their bridges with the UAE, competent military, so they’ve got a big fight on their hands and not an answer to it. I’ve spoken to some Saudis recently, and they are… Shocked and frightened.
Jen Rubin
The airport in Riyadh has been hit multiple times. We had to pull out bombers from the UK because we were concerned about drones. What has happened to American and our allied military deterrence? Have we lost asymmetric warfare to the Iranians and their allies?
Steven Cook
Well, it is shocking, to be honest with you. I think, you know, in all these years that we’ve been the sole superpower, there’s been this American way of war. We have, you know, these fancy airplanes and these exquisite weapons and so on and so forth. And now…
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Steven Cook
Carriers, you know, billions of dollars of stuff. And now what’s been clear is with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones. The Iranians have demonstrated, and the Ukrainians also actually in it have demonstrated that the American way of war is totally outmoded. Remember. the Ukrainians undertook some… a big offensive, like, a year or two into the war, which was, you know, done with, like, American advisors and so on and so forth, and it completely failed. And they’ve now moved on to their own doctrine. And so what seems clear, particularly from the experience with Iran. is that there is no rear area any longer that’s safe. You know, drone warfare has completely changed the way in which, where warfare is conducted, and the United States has been kind of slow on the uptake. Still on the uptake. There were stories recently about US forces exercising with the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainians kicked their butts because the Ukrainians know how to do drone warfare, and we really don’t. So we’re in major catch-up mode. I think the president, I think, you know, all respect to US military leaders believe that, you know, with the awesome amount of firepower the United States has, we could force the Iranians to capitulate. We were able to do a tremendous amount of damage, but they also demonstrated a will to fight, and actually, they were quite creative in their response, and we’re seeing that in the destruction of American bases in the region. Major damage to energy facilities in the region, and a mad scramble on the part of the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Iraqis, and others to sort of build their way around these new security threats because drone warfare and missiles have become, like I said, everywhere is a front line. Everywhere is a front line.
Jen Rubin
And counting up the stuff we have blown up does not mean we have won the war. Strategically, it’s very hard to argue that this has been anything but a disaster.
Steven Cook
100%.
Jen Rubin
Step back to a topic that you have spent years analyzing, and perhaps we’ll… End on this. Our success rate in the Middle East writ large has been very poor. We have not achieved stability. We’ve not achieved a resolution of the Palestinian problem. We’ve not defanged Iran. Do we get out? Do we redesign our relationship in the Middle East? What would a competent American administration do at this point?
Steven Cook
What a competent American administration would do would ask itself a number of questions. What’s important to the United States? What resources do we have available to achieve our goals in the region? How would our allies and partners respond to these things? And importantly, how would our adversaries respond? And based on those answers to those questions, we would align the resources to an appropriate policy. And I’m glad you’re sitting down, because I’m going to say something that, if you were stand… well, you may fall off your chair. If you remember President Trump’s speech in Riyadh in 2025, I heard that speech. It was a little crazy. I mean, he interrupted it in the middle of it by saying, Muhammad, referring to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “My problem, Muhammad, is that I love you too much, Muhammad.” It was… wild. But it wasn’t a bad speech, because it basically said. The era of the United States going big in the Middle East and telling you all how to live and trying to transform the region and using our military to change societies is over. Of course, it turns out those were just words on a page that he read.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Steven Cook
But it just… it just…”Muhammad, I love you.” And then he went ahead and did this operation in this war in Iran, which flies in the face of everything that he said, but if you go back and read that speech. And he talks about a more measured… we weren’t getting out of the Middle East, but we weren’t trying to transform the Middle East. And I think that successive administrations, both Democrats and Republicans, haven’t asked the hard questions about what it is that’s important to the United States in the Middle East. Is it… peace between Israelis and Palestinians? Is it democracy and human rights? Is it, overthrowing regimes we don’t like? No one actually has an answer to these things. We’ve just gone along and said, oh, this is in the national interest, without really systematically thinking about what we’re doing. In my own view. Is that we have to… I would like to stay in the region, but align, and that’s just because a job. We have interests in the Middle East, but we also have to understand the limits of American power. And if we resource ourselves in a way to achieve what’s achievable, we’d be in a much better position. And most of the things that are achievable are preventing bad things from happening, preventing the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, preventing, regional war. These are things that don’t require hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, or 50,000 American soldiers, whatever number we have there right now. Bitten off way more than we can chew for the last 30 years, and it has led to failure.
Jen Rubin
And it is not a zero-sum game. We have diverted huge resources from places like the Far East.
Steven Cook
Of course.
Jen Rubin
Our alliances elsewhere at a huge cost.
Steven Cook
Huge cost, I mean, just look at the, look at the question of munitions. There are contingencies in East Asia, there are contingencies even in Europe, where we would find it very, very hard to come to the support of our partners and allies, our actual treaty allies, because we have expended so much time and effort In the Middle East with very little to show for it and the president never has never to this day articulated what it is. what American interests he was protecting by going to war with Iran. I mean, his prior… his previous spokesperson said he went to war because he had a feeling. That’s… that is an extraordinary statement. I mean, he went… he said, regime change, he said this, he said that. But in typical Trumpian fashion, he didn’t want to commit himself to anything so that he could make a decision on the fly, which is what he does, which is not a way to make foreign policy. No strategy.
Jen Rubin
It is a fascinating time, a dangerous time, and you are right in the middle of it. So, we first of all wish you safe travels.
Steven Cook
Thank you, I appreciate that.
Jen Rubin
After the Israeli election, I’m sure we’ll have a chance to talk. But friends, keep an eye on those Israeli elections.
Steven Cook
Very important.
Jen Rubin
Americans have this idea that elections are decisive, that they change a whole bunch of stuff. This may be far less decisive than we would hope or we would think, so we will see.
Steven Cook
Absolutely. I think they’ll be important for Israeli domestic politics, but not the things like Iran, Lebanon, or Gaza that a lot of Americans are focused on with regard to Israel. Anyway, Jen, great to be with you. I look forward to it.
Jen Rubin
Good to be with you. Thanks so much. Take care. Bye-bye.
