Aaron David Miller, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, joins Jen to offer his analysis of Trump’s choice to join hands with Israel and attack Iran. As Miller states, “Bibi offered him a piece of history” that was simply too sweet to pass up. Regardless of the mass civilian harm and clear lack of plan, Trump wants to be known as the President who killed the Supreme Leader of Iran.
As the administration has yet to provide a clear justification for the war, The Contrarian’s sister organization, Democracy Defenders Fund, just filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requesting details from the Department of Justice, “related to the administration’s legal authority for the use of military force in Iran.” Read the FOIA for yourself here.
Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on U.S. foreign 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 welcome Aaron David Miller, who really needs no introduction. He is one of the big minds in foreign policy. He has been in the State Department and other positions for decades. No one has more knowledge and background on the Middle East. Welcome, Erin, it’s so nice to see you.
Aaron David Miller
Jen, it’s great to be here, and the listeners of the Contrarian are fortunate to have you.
Jen Rubin
Oh, thank you. You said something just before we got on about foreign policy being a reflection of something bigger and even more dangerous going on in the United States. Tell us what you meant.
Aaron David Miller
I mean, look, admittedly, I’m old, and my kids don’t like hearing this, but the system that I worked in, actually the system that was responsible for American domestic and foreign policy, roughly from the end of the Second World War to the early 80s. Everything I was taught, everything I came to believe. has more or less been turned upside down. Politicalization of intelligence, the notion that there is no national interest today, it’s now been conflated and completely subordinated to Donald Trump’s personal whims, fancies, his financial interests, the amount of self-dealing. He’s deployed his son-in-law and his best friend. I wrote about this in Foreign Policy last week. to mediate three of the most extraordinarily complicated conflicts raging today. Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and now, of course, Iran. Two of those conflicts offer Well, put it this way. There are implications for the business interests of both Jared Kushner and the affinity partners in Saudi, and, Steve Witkoff with World Liberty Financial, and the President with the Emiratis. So it is all… it’s all sort of lumped together, with the White House being a sort of… ATM machine.
You know, I quoted a couple weeks ago from a wonderful line out of Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald writes about the Buchanan’s Tom and Daisy. He says, they were careless people, Tom and Daisy. They destroyed things. They wrecked creatures, and then they retreated into what Fitzgerald writes as their, quote, vast carelessness, or their money, and whatever else held them together. I really get the sense, in watching Trump world, that there’s a lot of that.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely.
Aaron David Miller
And it’s, not that we had all the answers, to be sure. The president talked to Benjamin, talked to an Israeli prime minister in ways no president I ever worked for, did enforce Netanyahu to comply with his 20-point plan. And the Abraham Accords in his first administration were a signal achievement, there’s no doubt about it. But by and large, it is not foreign policy that we’re… It’s the state and fate of the Republic.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Bibi Netanyahu has been trying for decades to get American presidents to go to war with Iran, and they’ve said no. Why did they say no?
Aaron David Miller
Why did they say no? Because I think Democratic and Republican presidents—and remember, we’re talking also about a president, George W. Bush, that launched the most idiosyncratic and, in my judgment, disastrous foreign policy initiative in the modern period by invading Iraq, including Afghanistan, the two longest wars in American history, where the standard for victory was never could we win, but what would we leave When would it leave, and what would we leave behind? And the costs of that campaign are still reverberating.
Again, I think including Bush 43, I think American presidents who are largely risk-averse when it comes to the projection of American military power. Without cause, without purpose, without a set of… achievable objectives. I compared… I was around for Bush 41, the first Iraq War, and for two years of Bush 43, and I watched Bush 41 and my boss, James Baker, operate, and, you know, Baker, on, I don’t know, one… page 200-something of his memoir, Politics of Diplomacy, lays out the reasons that Bush 41 issued and was not interested in following Saddam to Baghdad. And I think that war demonstrated what the positive impact of when an American president identifies an achievable objective, and then tries to convert it into political capital, as Bush and Baker did in moving the parties to the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991.
So I think the idea of invading a country, or even launching the most powerful deployment of American missile and naval assets since the Iraq War, a country of 91 million people with an entrenched security elite, designated prospects for succession. In the middle. of a region, flush with hydrocarbons, and oil, on which the world… there is no such thing as energy independence. Yeah, we have 80 million barrels of additional Venezuelan oil, but oil trades in a single market, Jen, as you know. So you impact country A, it translates B, C, D, and E, and you now, to quote the president of Rapid Dan Oil Company, this is the largest Dislocation of oil, 20% he claimed in history.
Now, is that permanent? Is it a headline? Is it a trend line? So, the problem with this war, and why others didn’t, and it’s sort of a paradox. I defied American interests into the must-haves And the… it would be nice-to-haves. The must-haves in the Middle East that I consider to be vital to American security and prosperity are counterterrorism. Access to oil and hydrocarbons. And making sure that a, no-power, hostile adversary of the United States has a deliverable nuclear device. You could argue, on paper, that Iran embodies and constitutes a significant threat to all of these interests. My problem here is that unless You fundamentally alter and rearrange the political furniture on the ground. What you are doing and what you are… what you’ve done at considerable cost to American interests, not to mention Gulf states, is you’ve mowed the grass, to use an Israeli expression.
But on a scale that, you know, boggles the mind. And if you can’t produce the regime change, it seems to me what you’ve done, yeah, what, you’ve bought another 3 to 5 years? That, I think, is the problem. And, you know, as old as I am. I now understand that the world’s most compelling ideology is not communism, not nationalism, it’s not even capitalism. It’s success. Because success generates power and constituents, and failure generates the opposite. And right now. I think this is a highly fraud enterprise. If I were Donald Trump, I could write his talking points. to extricate himself. Yes. In this war, maybe not with what I would call a slam-dunk win, but with some achievements. But the longer it goes on, the more the regime proves resilient and holds, the greater the prospects of failure.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. We now know that, as badly as our intelligence community has been run by Telsey Gabbard, even entity has come to the conclusion that regime change was impossible. And it’s doubtful, really, that Bibi Netanyahu really thinks that he’s going to remake Iran. So, I guess I’m puzzled, even from their perspective, what was this meant to achieve? Mowing the lawn was the 12-day war. This is digging up the field, pouring, you know… salt in the ground, you know, lighting it on fire, and sacrificing Americans. So even from their perspective. since we’re not going to get the machine changed. We were never going to get the machine changed. They’ve been there 47 years, the entire society down, is the regime. What could they reasonably hope to do? What was Bibi thinking in trying to go Trump into this?
Aaron David Miller
Well, first of all, you know, Israel’s Mars, we’re Venus. I mean, let’s be clear. Israel, under any government, under Sharon and a new party, under Rabin in the Labour Party, under Menachem Begin or Netanyahu and Likud, Iran does constitute to them, for them, an existential threat. They’re much less concerned with finding the Iranian Deli Rodriguez to negotiate with. They want fracture, they want chaos, they want dysfunction. And Bibi Netanyahu has, a set of objectives. 2026 for him is going to be an extremely important year. If the elections go to term in October, or even if they don’t, and I suspect they will be advanced to capitalize on what can only be described so far as a major victory for the Israelis.
Netanyahu’s narrative here is, I killed Yahi Singhwar. I killed Hassan Nasrella. I killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. I’ve demonstrated IDF’s military prowess and capacity at a cost which another Israeli was killed, and that brings the number to 12 or 13, at a manageable cost. So I have my election narrative. If you ask me, I think Trump… I think Netanyahu And the notion that this is Israel’s war forced on the United States, frankly, I just think that that’s wrong. Donald Trump has been a partner in this enterprise since June. Yeah. He helped the Israelis manufacture a ruse that the war was not going to begin. He let it… let it stand that the fifth or sixth round of negotiations would take place. He knew war was coming.
Bibi offered him a piece of history. The first American president to attack Iran’s nuclear site successfully without cost and consequence, with no reasonable, no war, no real cost, only a telegraphed Iranian missile strike against Qatar. February 23rd, the Prime Minister calls the president and says. Mr. President, we have really good, actionable intelligence that the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and other senior clerics and security officials will be at this place at Dayton. I think that was just too… great an opportunity, another piece of history for Donald Trump, who conflates the world as… and his participation, and he deems himself… an agent of change, a historic figure, a leader who has hit Maduro. He’s now killed the supreme leader, which is a transformative event, regardless of what happens, getting rid of Ali Khamenei is going to change the Iranian system, for good, for ill, unclear. And I think… and Cuba. So, in my judgment, since all life with Donald Trump begins with a personal, he is constitutionally incapable of turning the M in me upside down, so it becomes a W in we, this, to him. was a real opportunity. And driven by Pete Hegseth, who I think every time I see him speak, I’m like he’s enjoying this! And he’s relishing it. I said, you can’t hide his pleasure that he’s taking out of this. So, I think the sun and the moon and the stars sort of aligned. To produce this thing.
Jen Rubin
That is the best explanation I’ve heard of their motivations and how we got to where we are. So, we are where we are. Oil is north of 100 bucks. The damage to the Gulf states will build up over time. Is there a natural jumping-off point where Trump could be convinced to hold it? Does that pressure come primarily from the markets and the oil prices? Does it come from the Gulf states themselves, which aren’t thrilled about taking incoming fire? What do you think is the biggest lever and the biggest opportunity to pull this to an end?
Aaron David Miller
Yeah, and I come back to Donald Trump. He said in the wake of Venezuela, the only… during the New York Times interview, the only constraint that exists on me. Is the constraint of my own mind. What he described as the morality. His morality, whatever that means. Look, I… in my view, there is no constituency in this country Or, frankly, abroad, with the possible exception of Israel. That would be disappointed or angry if tomorrow Donald Trump announced the end of, Operation Epic Fury. He can do that. The D’s, the R’s are headed for significant defeats in November, assuming the election isn’t contaminated and or stolen somehow. Only 3 times in the last hundred years has an incumbent president managed to significantly gain seats in Congress. One was 1934, FDR in the middle of the Depression, the second time was Bill Clinton, amazingly, in 1998, and the third time was W in 02, in large part because of 9-11. So I don’t think… will this hurt him politically? Yeah, I mean, it will, but he’s… they… he’s not on the ballot. So the question is, in Donald Trump’s mind. Needers need explanations, not just to convince others, but to convince themselves.
This is a time to stop. I think he’d need—unless pressure has become too great, economically and politically, I think he’d need some evidence on the ground That the… what passes now for the regime Somehow fractures that there is serious discontent an open dissension within the IRGC, or the military, that the million-man security establishment, that’s 600,000 basilisks, 300,000 career military, and 250,000 IRGC. Somehow, there’s cracks, and it appears as if what he claims he doesn’t want—which is regime change. allows him some sort of exit ramp. And frankly, every year… I’m not an expert on it internally, everyone I talk to almost without exception, basically says, you know, you’re dreaming.
Jen Rubin
Exactly, and hence, you know, we’re in this standoff with himself, and in fact, there will always be expressions of support for the regime, because they can drum that out. There were a few hundred thousand people that were out you know, celebrating the new, you know, comedian, because it was the old comedian, and here’s the new comedian. So, it’s gonna have to be something that is either constructed for his consumption, or that he cooks up in his own mind, because as you said, this regime, which is a million people of suppression, a million people of military-armed, folks, are really not gonna crack. At some point, the war is gonna end. And does anything change materially that wasn’t there after the June strikes? In other words, Iran has already been diminished. It’s already, limited in its ability to help, its, surrogates, whether it’s Hamas or whether it’s Hezbollah, it’s already had a setback on its nuclear program. Does anything really change between then and now?
Aaron David Miller
I mean, I’d like to offer a conclusive answer to that, but I don’t think it’s possible. Donald Trump, in partnership with Benjamin Netanyahu, dropped a giant stone in a pond. And in this region, when you do something like that, 12-Day War, the exchanges between Iran and Israel in April and October… October 7, right? October 7 was a giant stone dropped into a pond. the implications, the consequences are still reverberating. I think it’s… I think it’s really too early to tell. The degree of destruction to Iran’s military-industrial base the destruction of ballistic missile production facilities, the planetary mixers that’s required to mix solid fuel, all of that stuff can be replaced. Right. What would be a lasting change? It’s hard to really know and understand that right now. I think the relations with Iran and the Gulf states… Gulf states, I think, were clearly traumatized and stunned and shocked by this.
What the implications of that are going to be, and where they sit, in other words, could this be the first phase of a prolonged sort of Cold War, in which using all kinds of levers of power and sanctions and periodic deployments of American military strikes, that this more or less Epic Fury evolves and morphs into a prolonged campaign? I think the Israelis, I think, are more ready for that. since they have established escalation dominance, and so have we. To the degree that Iran cannot escalate in a significant way, we can block that, and we can escalate at a time of our choosing. So, I’m hesitant to say what, 10 days into this war, if it stopped tomorrow, what would be the implications and consequences?
Clearly, Iran’s partners. China. Russia, North Korea, I mean, and, you know, we struck during Ramadan, and you would think, you know, a decade ago, 15, 20 years ago, I would have said to you, and there’s no lost love for Iran, but I watched October 7, I watched the Israelis in an effort to prosecute the war against Hamas, literally, and now they agree with the casualty estimate. 70… over 70,000 Palestinians, and even if you conducted 20 to 25,000 as Hamas fighters, you’re left with a staggering death toll. And yet the region imposed no costs or consequences. on either Israel or the United States, for this.
So, I just don’t know, with respect to Iran internal, in terms of their capacity. What I’ve gathered, though, in terms of America and Trump. I look at American power today, if it’s measured in the fear, worry, and anxiety that Donald Trump has created around the globe for American frenemies and American allies and partners, and there’s a difference between being an American partner and an ally. The word is used interchangeably, I think it’s wrong. You have countries stumbling over one another to get here, either because they’re afraid of Donald Trump, or they want something from him. I mean, I can’t figure this out, and this is one of the things that I have to literally, you know, you run the Contrarian, and you’ve tested your own views over time, that have taken years to evolve.
I’m testing mine as well in terms of whether or not We’ve been too hesitant and resident to use American power, you know, in a way not like this, but in a way that could work to our advantage. Trump has used it with no strategy. with no arguably achievable objectives. But everywhere I go, I mean, it just seems there’s worry and anxiety about America, and there are foreign policy specialists who argue that This has now fundamentally changed the old American paradigm. Trump has altered that. I’m not… I don’t want to give up on it, but I really do have to test my own conclusion.
Jen Rubin: Yes.
aaron.miller: It’s about our risk readiness as opposed to our risk aversion. When it comes to principled, carefully thought out, campaigns abroad
Jen Rubin
And I think we also are being tested whether, you know, Benign self-interest has really been a policy that can continue. We used to think, you and I, that that was the key to maintaining alliances and maintaining a world order that was stable. I don’t know what follows now, and once, the world doesn’t believe we’re acting in anyone’s interest other than ourselves, how do we maintain the same kind of influence and moral suasion?
Aaron David Miller
I think it’s really important. You know, if John McCain were here, I really wish he still were, he argued that our values, our interests, our interests are our values, and I had a couple conversations with him. You know, the administrations I served really never made human rights and democracy promotion the centerpiece of their foreign policy.
I guess I would take away from all of this the limited nature, not the expansive nature, the limited nature of American power. We still, in my judgment, are the most consequential nation on Earth, in part because we don’t just follow our own self-interest. There is a values proposition, even though we’ve been hypocritical, it’s been anomalous.
We’ve made so many mistakes. I think that’s really important. It’s limitations. of American power, I think, that need to be thought through carefully. My friend Bill Burns described us as the pivotal power And I think that’s probably right. I remember Madeline Albright borrowed borrowed a phrase from Bill Clinton, who… described America’s indispensable power, and I think about de Gaulle’s quip that the cemeteries of France are filled with indispensable people.
But we can on key issues at key moments, play a leadership role, a driving role, and in other moments, play a complementary. We don’t have to be in everybody’s face. All day long.
Jen Rubin
Well put. Well put. It has been an absolute pleasure, Erin, and we’re going to have you back, and we’re going to discuss whatever happened when we have you back to Congress, and how we reinvigorate Congress in the foreign policy space, since that seems to be sorely lacking and part of our problem these days, but that’s a whole…
Aaron David Miller
Great, and Jen, thanks for having me. I would only say that people aren’t aware of this, but interviewers have an enormous amount of of influence in bringing out the best in their interviewees. And, you should know that you’re… you’re… this is… we’ve done this once before, I think. You’re… you’re really at the top of my list. But thanks again.
Jen Rubin
I’m so touched. Thank you, Aaron. We’ll look forward to having you back.
Aaron David Miller
Take care, Jen. Bye-bye.
