Amna Nawaz:
Well, it’s been nearly one week since the U.S. and Israel launched those attacks on Iran. Meantime, the newest jobs numbers are adding to economic uncertainty.
To discuss all this, we turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That is “The Atlantic”‘s David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW.
It’s great to see you both.
Jonathan Capehart:
Hey, Amna.
Amna Nawaz:
So before we get into how Americans are viewing this war, which we need to talk about, I just want to kind of circle back. It’s the first time we have spoken since the war was launched.
And we have seen evolving justifications from the administration about why now and what they hope to accomplish.
So, David, let’s just start there. What is your understanding of why this war was launched now and whether or not it was justified?
David Brooks:
Well, I hate the way the decision was made, which seems to have been extremely haphazard.
I have shared everybody’s reservations and fears that there’s no exit strategy, that there’s no plausible way to change the regime, let alone the deaths that are happening. And so I share everybody’s fears.
It’s also true the 1979 Iranian Revolution was one of the worst events of the 20th century. And it began 47 years of terrorism, extremism, theocratic fascism. It started with one to two million people dead in the Iran-Iraq War in 1980. There were 241 Americans killed by Iranian supervision in Beirut.
And you go on. And Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, they have destabilized the Middle East. They have killed people in Syria. A couple weeks ago, they killed somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 people in Iran who were protesting. And so this is a destructive and savage regime that has destabilized the Middle East.
It’s also a regime that is in an unprecedentedly vulnerable situation. It’s lost the faith of its people. Its economy is in tatters. Its military is destroyed. Its regime is decapitated. So I’m ambivalent. I hope the Iranian regime falls. And that could happen.
What bugs me, frankly, is the people who are sure, the people who are sure this is a terrible thing and the people who are sure this is a good thing. We just don’t know. But the people who are ignoring the horrors that Iran has perpetrated on the world for the last 47 years should be hoping this works. And we just don’t know.
Amna Nawaz:
Jonathan.
Jonathan Capehart:
If — given what we went through with the second Gulf War, given what we went through in Afghanistan, why on earth are we now at war with Iran?
That’s what I’m trying to understand. I would feel better if the United — if the president and his administration would give us, the American people, a consistent rationale. Instead, we have gotten multiple rationales within the first 24, 48 hours.
And I still don’t really understand why we’re doing what we’re doing. And, really, what is the endgame? If you are going to go in there and break it, Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn rule, well, then what’s the plan? Don’t know what the plan is.
And the thing that’s been bugging me about all of this is the level of disrespect. The president has shown Congress, has shown the American people, has shown the military by doing what he’s doing with no clear plan, talking rather blithely about the potential of loss of life of service members.
But then today, in an interview with “TIME” magazine, when he was asked about it, he said — about potential reprisals on American Americans at home, he said, “I guess,” and said this is war, there will be loss of life.
No, Mr. President, you owe the American people more than just glib talking points about something so consequential. Yes, the Iranian regime was terrible, and great if it falls, but only great if there’s an actual plan for what comes next if/when it does.
Amna Nawaz:
It feels like the American public has a lot of questions about it as well. This is a look at how the war is resonating back home, according to a few questions from our latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll.
Just 44 percent of Americans support U.S. military action in Iran; 56 oppose it. That includes 66 percent of independents. And just 36 percent of Americans approve of how President Trump is dealing with Iran overall. That is down from 42 percent in January of 2020, when the U.S. assassinated the Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani.
So, David, the man who ran on no new foreign wars is up against the public that doesn’t want to see this happen. How does this end?
David Brooks:
Yes, first, I would say the reason we’re at war is because Iran declared war on us 47 years ago. And we have been in a forever war with Iran that has gone up until last week, when they were trying to reconstitute their nuclear weapons.
As for the American public, America has learned the lessons that Jonathan mentioned. Even I have learned the lessons of the lessons of the Iraq War and the lessons of imperial overreach. And so it’s good for us that we have learned that lesson. The second thing that causes the low poll ratings for the war is, A, low poll ratings for Donald Trump and distrust in the way the war seems to be run by the civilians, but definitely not the military.
But, third, Donald Trump didn’t sell the war. We had a — whether you liked the outcome in the Iraq War debate, we had a yearlong debate before George W. Bush went to war in Iraq. We had nothing. We had a few minutes in the State of the Union that was throwaway.
And so, if a president is going to make — spend American treasure and blood he really owes it to the American people to sell them on it. And he did nothing. I’m — it’d be nice to go to Congress, but it’s been decades since Congress declared war on anybody. And that’s for both parties.
But he should sell it and explain what the heck he’s doing. And they have not done that, which is why people are so anxious and nervous about it.
Amna Nawaz:
Jonathan?
Jonathan Capehart:
Those poll numbers sort of highlight an AP/NORC poll that came that was conducted a week before we went to war with Iran that asked people whether they — what they thought about the president’s handling, well, not just foreign affairs, but his military actions, the way he was thinking.
And a majority of them said that they disapproved. That was before he took action against Iran. So, I can only imagine what the American people now think just broadly of the way he is conducting military actions and foreign affairs.
But, again, I go back to, if the president wants those numbers to get better, if he wants the American people to see and support what he’s doing, then he has to do more than put out videos on his social media platform and blithely talk about something so incredibly serious.
Amna Nawaz:
David, can I ask you briefly, how do you see this ending? Do you see the goal as regime change and what does that mean? Because the ayatollah is now dead? They could vote into place a successor who’s equally hard-line. How do you see this ending?
David Brooks:
Well, I mean, the short answer is, nobody knows. We could have a successor who’s even more hard-line, which seems to be in the offering right now. But we could have a successor who’s not democratic by any means, but is less hard-line and is less wedded to the nuclear program, that is less wedded to spending money on terror armies, as opposed to the Iranian people.
On the other hand, the regime collapse. I have seen regimes collapse. I was there when the Soviet Union collapsed. It seems impossible to imagine it collapsing until the regime collapses. And it collapses from a loss of faith, a loss of confidence.
And the Iranian experts that I have been reading from Iran say that maybe 10 to 20 percent of the people in Iran actually support the regime. So that’s a lot of enemies. And now you have Israel fighting alongside the Gulf states and the Saudis. So there’s a coalition against this regime. And so those three things seem to be all possible.
Amna Nawaz:
I do want to turn to the jobs numbers, because it is the number one issue for American voters.
And, Jonathan, I will start with you, because all of the uncertainty overseas is resonating back here. Now, it’s been a really choppy week for the markets. We just reported a net loss of 92,000 jobs in February and downward revisions for previous months.
The president says this is all part of the plan, the agenda is working, the turmoil is going to be short-lived. What do you see here?
Jonathan Capehart:
He’s been saying that since he was running for president and then got inaugurated.
This is bad. And when we were talking about this in an earlier call, because I’d been flying, I asked, was there a revision of the January jobs numbers? Because that — those numbers…
Amna Nawaz:
Were unexpectedly high.
Jonathan Capehart:
Unexpectedly high. And because of Heather Long, my former colleague at The Washington Post, now Navy Federal Credit Union, I have been paying attention to that, because she long ago wrote about the fact that if you took out health care and potentially hospitality, there’s been no job creation in the United States since April of last year.
She’s calling it a hiring recession. And so the fact that the January numbers have been revised downward, the February numbers are already down, it’s just more validity to the argument that she’s been making, and also more evidence to the American people that, whatever the president is doing, he thinks he’s doing to improve the economy, it’s not working.
Amna Nawaz:
David, the argument that this is the process, it’ll just take time, do you buy that?
David Brooks:
Well, it’s been a year. And there’s been no job growth. And there’s been everything done to maximize the uncertainty of the American people, whether it’s tariffs or Iraq or anything else Donald Trump wakes up and does that day.
And so people have lost faith in the future. And that’s why they’re not quitting. That’s not why they’re not hiring. That’s not why they’re investing. And it’s this rabid uncertainty that’s out there that — the economy is not terrible. Wages were up 3.8 percent year over year, which is pretty good.
But nobody’s doing anything. Nobody’s moving. It’s not yet A.I. A.I. is not the thing here. That could be the thing next month. But it’s just the rabid uncertainty.
Amna Nawaz:
Could be the thing next month or next week. We will see.
David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, thank you both so much.
Jonathan Capehart:
Thanks, Amna.
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