What's Happening at the UNGA

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. While the world was watching heads of states speak at the United Nations General Assembly yesterday, people were taking to the streets to protest in two countries where you might not think that's very possible, Russia and Iran. Watch the leaders this week, yes, but also watch the people.

On the leaders, maybe knowing that the annual UN General Assembly session here would be focused on denouncing him and calling his war in Ukraine a failure, Vladimir Putin took to intimidation, you've probably heard this, by calling up 300,000 reservists and saying, he's not bluffing about using all weapons at his disposal. We all know he's implying grotesquely that he's threatening to use nuclear weapons. President Biden addressed that yesterday in his UN speech.

President Biden: Just today, President Putin has made overt nuclear threats against Europe and a reckless disregard for the responsibilities of a nonproliferation regime. Now Russia's calling up more soldiers to join the fight, and the Kremlin is organizing a sham referendum to try to annex parts of Ukraine, an extremely significant violation of the UN Charter.

Brian Lehrer: There's President Biden yesterday. Ukraine's President Zelensky also played more than just defense in his prerecorded speech from Ukraine, besides being the only world leader to give his address in a t-shirt. Zelensky called on the UN Security Council, that's the body that makes the real decisions at the UN, not the General Assembly, to strip Russia of its veto power, which only a few major powers in the world, including Russia, have.

President Zelensky: A crime has been committed against Ukraine, and we demand just punishment. The crime was committed against our state borders. The crime was committed against the lives of our people. The crime was committed against the dignity of our women and men. The crime was committed against their values that make you and me a community of the United Nations. Ukraine demands punishment for trying to steal our territory. Punishment for the murders of thousands of people.

Brian Lehrer: Zelensky isn't just talking about defending his country, he's talking about the world punishing Russia. That's a bit of the power plays from the world leaders involved. Meanwhile, on the streets of Russia, from stats I've seen reported, anti-war protests broke out in 28 cities, with at least 1,300 protestors arrested. Now, Iran's current hard-line leader also spoke at the UN yesterday, but the hard line was not the headline, as there were protests across his country over the death in police custody in Tehran of a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini. If you haven't heard that name yet, you should know that name, Mahsa Amini, after she was arrested for not wearing a hijab in public.

Women across Iran protested by burning hijabs and cutting their hair short. If it sounds to you like they were protesting a misogynist theocracy, President Sayyid Ebrahim Raisi in his UN speech described his country this way.

President Ebrahim Raisi: The nation of Iran has learned the policy of resistance and progress, which has been focused on pursuing because of an advanced and logical social order.

Brian Lehrer: An advanced and logical social order. Iran's President Raisi, obviously through a translator there, as you could hear at the UN General Assembly yesterday. Traffic wasn't the only kind of gridlock on the east side of Manhattan. With us now, Nahal Toosi, senior correspondent for foreign affairs and national security for Politico, and before that at the Associated Press. She has reported from practically all over the world. In 2019, she was the finalist for the National Magazine Award in reporting for her story on the plight of Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh and Myanmar. Her latest article is five takeaways from Biden's UN speech.

Also, Gideon Rose, distinguished fellow in US foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he was editor of their magazine, Foreign Affairs, from 2010 until last year, and has served as associate director for Near East and South Asian Affairs on the staff of the National Security Council. He is the author of the really interesting book, How Wars End, published in 2010. Of course, that was when the US was trying to figure out how to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We'll ask how he thinks the war in Ukraine will end. Nahal and Gideon, thanks very much for coming on even as things continue this morning at the UN. Welcome back to WNYC.

Nahal Toosi: Thanks for having us.

Gideon Rose: It's good to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Gideon, since everyone is talking about Russia and Ukraine, can I start with Iran? Do you have a take on why so many people are taking to the streets there right now in large numbers?

Gideon Rose: Well, when you have an authoritarian regime that oppresses its people, there's always a latent discontent. The question is, when does it get mobilized and does anything come of it? Cases like the most recent one are trigger points which can produce a massive response. I don't think, unfortunately, the Iranian regime is in trouble, but this does represent an upswelling of dissatisfaction and a legitimate and appropriate response to a tyrannical regime that's suppressing its people.

Brian Lehrer: You said you don't think the Iranian regime is in trouble. Iran has seen protests before. Maybe like in the US, there's less interest in theocracy in cities, more in rural areas. How much of Iran's population do you think supports Raisi's description of his country as having an advanced social order?

Gideon Rose: I think it's really hard to know what's going on inside the broad Iranian public's mind. They don't necessarily see things the way we do from the outside, but at the same time, they aren't entirely quiescent. Unfortunately, the Iranian system, like the Russian system, is not one with easy mechanisms for mass feelings to be translated into actual policy. Even if there is a lot of discontent, that doesn't presage an immediate or even imminent collapse of the regime.

Brian Lehrer: Nahal, any take on this, or how much popular support there might be for democratic and religious liberalization short of collapse of the regime?

Nahal Toosi: I think a lot of this is generational, especially because Iran has such a large population that is very young. Something around 60% is under 30 years old. There's just a real frustration about having to stick with the rules and regulations of a revolution that happened before most of the people were even born. The more oppressive the government becomes, the more a sense of frustration there is among the youth, who are aware of what's going on elsewhere in the world and the freedoms they have elsewhere in the world.

When you have a very large Iranian diaspora, as you do, those stories about the freedoms elsewhere do reach the youth of Iran, who also are suffering from sanctions and other sorts of frustrations with this government that isn't just about cultural freedom. All of this stuff comes together. Again, I also agree that the regime is pretty deeply rooted and it's the type of regime that's hard to overthrow.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, any Iranian Americans listening right now and want to say anything about the arrest and death in police custody of Mahsa Amini or the protests taking place around the country right now, or what you would like to see come of them in the country that the President from there described at the UN as having an advanced social order? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Iranian Americans or anyone with contact with Iran, we're inviting you. You can also tweet @BrianLehrer.

We also welcome any Ukrainian Americans or Russian Americans listening right now on any aspect of the war in Ukraine, or for those of you with ties to Russia in particular, the anti-war protests breaking out in many cities there. Really, anti-war protests under Putin. Can they have any impact? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer for our guests Nahal Toosi from Politico and Gideon Rose from the Council on Foreign Relations. Gideon, how unusual are the protests in Russia, and how much do you think they represent popular opinion about Putin and the war right now?

Gideon Rose: Well, I think the protests in Russia are even more unusual than the ones in Iran because this is not something we've seen very much of in Putin's Russia, particularly during wartime. Unfortunately, again, it doesn't represent any imminent threat to the regime. What it does signal is that there are multiple forces that Putin's confronting at home that are at odds. His nationalist base is eager to prosecute the war further.

There are a few liberals who are truly against it represented in the protests. The apathetic majority, the silent majority that really is usually silent, and has accepted a deal in which it doesn't get involved in politics, in return for letting Putin handle things, is nervous about the possibility of a full-scale mobilization. Putin is trying to figure out how to raise more forces in order to fight the war, while not antagonizing the broad population that has no interest in going to a full-time war footing.

Brian Lehrer: Nahal, do you think this call-up of 300,000 reservists, not quite a civilian draft, but leaning in that direction, more coerced military service when so many Russians are dying in battle in Ukraine, could be a political turning point there? We know from our own history in Vietnam that the draft-- I, again, say this isn't a civilian call-up, it's just reservists. It's massive 300,000 people. A lot of them thought they were done with active military service. We know from our history that something like a draft can be such a flashpoint.

Reportedly, Russia has already suffered more troop deaths, an estimated 80,000. In one mainstream media report I saw yesterday, that's more than the Americans lost in Vietnam, the whole war, which is approximately 58,000 overall those many years. Those losses affect that many families. Nahal, any take on what the protests are or could lead to?

Nahal Toosi: Yes. In the past, the mothers and wives of Russians who have died in past wars, in the Soviet era, for instance, during Afghanistan and other things, they have been major drivers of change in policy in Russia, but this time around, it's a bit tougher because there's so much control over the media that the Kremlin has. There's a very heavy-handed approach to the demonstrations. If you demonstrate, I believe you can get 15 years in prison. We're seeing reports that a lot of anti-war protesters over the last couple of days, are being taken to stations and immediately drafted into the fight.

It's one of these very strange things where it's all about how much of a balance Putin can strike. Can he get enough people from areas that aren't particularly strong, like the rural areas, the poor towns, as opposed to places like Moscow, which are his strongholds and where a lot of the elite leaders live. If they don't feel the pain, they're not necessarily going to turn against the regime, and how much of this he can control on the media and what gets out there. The fact that we're actually seeing some videos emerge about people saying goodbye to the men in their little villages as they go off to fight again, that suggests to me he might not have as much control as he thinks he does, and that this could fracture his support.

One of the key questions, too, is how much support he retains within Russia's armed forces and the groups of men who surround him, who have certain levers of power beyond just the business leaders and oligarchs. We're talking about the military men and other folks, and whether that's going to affect his hold at all. It's one of those things where I feel like he's a lot weaker than he even realizes.

People have to come to that realization in a certain critical mass in Russia before there's a turning point, and he can be removed from power. Even if he is, that doesn't mean that the war in Ukraine is necessarily going to end because there are a lot of people in the top circles in Russia who are even more to the right than Putin is.

Brian Lehrer: Gideon, you want to continue on that? Agree, disagree, add something?

Gideon Rose: I agree completely. All I'd add is I think the 80,000 figure is for total Russian casualties rather than Russian [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Oh, casualties. Okay, thank you.

Gideon Rose: It's probably around somewhere in the 20,000 to 25,000 killed, which is still astonishingly high. That's an interesting point because the question, at what point do the disastrous losses, which are indeed horrific, start to percolate and threaten the regime, is a real question. That's precisely why Putin is in the bind that he is in now, because the Ukrainians are fighting back and beating his forces and he doesn't want to mobilize Russia's full latent war potential. That's why he's squirming and trying to play for time and figure out some way to muddle through into winter.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Here's Tara, Iranian American, she identifies herself as, in Pennington, New Jersey. Tara, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Tara: Hi there. How are you doing, Brian?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What you got for us?

Tara: I just wanted to say that I'm disappointed with the comment that Nahal made that this regime cannot be thrown easily. That's true, but it doesn't mean that the regime has deep roots among people and there are so many supporters for this regime. As many of Iranians would agree with me, that there's just a small group of the people in government supported, maybe 10%, or max 20% of the society. Most of the Iranian people, especially young generation, there is no support. There is nothing that they support this regime or the ideology. Just so disappointed to hear that. We can easily throw this government if-- I don't need nations to support Iranian people. Just be their voices. That's all.

Brian Lehrer: Tara, what would support look like? Because, certainly, we heard Biden at the UN and so many Americans in so many contexts denounce Iran in a way it's too easy for Americans to denounce Iran. What would support look like as you see it?

Tara: First, we are just so disappointed with the Biden administration even issuing visa for Ebrahim Raisi to come here after going to all of these protests that we had during the last three, four years they had in Iran. The second, provide internet when the internet is blocked and everything is blocked now in this crucial moment and in the history of Iran. Just be their voice.

Nobody talks in TV or programs or news about Iran that much. If people hear that and be sensitive about what's going on in Iran, if other leaders condemned what they are doing to the people of Iran, with the young generation, these are just going to be a part of history. This regime will go sooner or later. There is no other route for this regime. I hope other people and leaders stand with Iranian people, and they voice and provide the ways that they could convey the message out.

Brian Lehrer: Tara, thank you so much. Call us again. Nahal, what are you thinking?

Nahal Toosi: I didn't catch the very first thing she said, but I do want to talk about the word deeply rooted. When I speak of that, I'm talking about the idea that it's a system, it's not just a person. When it comes to Iran, it's not like Vladimir Putin or even Kim Jong-un in North Korea, we're still relying on one person. It's a system in Iran. It's a system that has military support through group like the IRGC and the Basij that are all over the country and heavily indoctrinated, and they have a lot of weapons. The people with the guns, even if they're a small number, they can terrorize a much larger population.

I'm not saying it's impossible to overthrow the regime, but it's not easy. There's a lot of questions about what would come after as well. Do the majority of Iranians want this regime? I doubt it. Very much doubt it. The younger people, they absolutely despise the control that this regime has over their lives. It's not the type of thing that's simple to do. The question of support from the outside also is a really important one, that you can give all sorts of vocal support. If you have a regime that also has, not only guns and its own military and its own special military, but also proxy forces, including Hezbollah and other types of military units outside the country, it's not going to be a simple fight.

Brian Lehrer: Let's keep going on this. Maryam in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello, Maryam.

Maryam: Well, yes. Hi, Brian. I was yesterday at the demonstration in front of the UN. A lot of the chants were the disappointment in the Biden regime for even allowing, I don't know what the regulation is, to allow the state leaders to come into this country for the General Assembly, but giving him a platform to speak. When last week on 60 Minutes, even Lesley Stahl, in her interview, said that he personally was sanctioned over the killing of 1,500 political people in political opposition.

The Iranians right now are under-- I have family in Iran who say that they were just waiting for Raisi to return back to Tehran for the butchery to begin. They've turned off the internet, and what? The trigger here is the women demonstrating against the hijab, the headscarf, but it is based on the discontent of the people of 40 years of this oppressive regime. Iranians are very educated. They're educated people. They're not willing to lose lives.

Brian Lehrer: Maryam, let me ask you a question about what the Biden administration is doing and where the coverage of the media in this country usually focuses, and that is on the Iran nuclear deal and how there's a lot of denunciation of Trump for getting out of the Iran nuclear deal and reimposing the sanctions on Iran. Now Biden is in the process of trying to renegotiate it. That's proving difficult for various reasons. Do you think that either is the wrong focus for the media, or do you disapprove of the Biden administration trying to get Iran back into that deal because it's too soft on Iran, anything like that?

Maryam: No. The sanctions are crippling the Iranians, the average Iranian. People don't have-- It's 10,000 rials just to buy a piece of bread nowadays. They cannot even feed their families. We are definitely for some negotiations for the sanctions to be lifted. The press coverage, yes, there's not enough press coverage on the injustices of Iran, the human rights issues. Everybody knows it's a rogue regime, it's an oppressive regime, but there needs to be more light shed on, more attention paid to what's going on there while they're renegotiating with this administration in the nuclear deal.

Brian Lehrer: Maryam, thank you so much for your call. Very interesting, Gideon, from an Iranian American democracy protestor, who was outside the UN yesterday, for some version of an Iran nuclear deal, and saying, as supporters of some kind of deal do, that the sanctions are crippling to the Iranian people. Maybe not so much to the regime, and yet you hear her feelings about that regime.

Gideon Rose: I think although there are similarities between the Iranian and Russian cases in terms of the oppressive natures of the regimes and the discontent of the people, the immediate situations are quite different. The big reason we're having the discussion about Russia now is, first, because of the invasion of Ukraine. A massive act of aggression that has threatened not just the European security architecture, but the general world order, and just as important, the extraordinary ability of the Ukrainians to fight back and push the Russians back.

You have a situation now in which the United States, Europe, the West more generally, is able to inflict an extraordinary blow and defeat on Putin by helping motivated enemies fight for their own country. That has put him in a bind because of his own overreach, in a way that there isn't the immediate occasion, in the Iranian case, for some change in the situation or trigger for a broader rebel.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute. Next, Gideon, I'm going to ask you to come back to the Ukraine and Russia situation in the context of your book, How Wars End. I'm sure a lot of our listeners in this country, even as we look on with dismay and judgment of Russia, can't visualize how this war will end. We'll go there and elsewhere. Listeners, stay with us. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue to talk about developments at the UN General Assembly this week, particularly related to Iran and Russia and Ukraine. We'll go a little broader than that before the end of the segment with Nahal Toosi from Politico and Gideon Rose from the Council on Foreign Relations. Gideon, you wrote the book, How Wars End. I can't find one called "how wars escalate," but what do you make of Putin saying he will use any weapons at his disposal and he's not bluffing. Is he bluffing?

Gideon Rose: The first thing I'd say is, if you have to say I'm not bluffing, that's a bad sign, and it usually means you're bluffing. The second thing is that this is not unprecedented. It is humiliating and frustrating for a great power to lose a war, particularly against an enemy it considers inferior. When you get in that situation, you go through something resembling Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Putin is doing, in other words, what we had to do, the United States had to do in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan. Acknowledged that an invasion that he launched with high hopes of easy victory is actually going to be a disaster and that he has to extricate himself. When the Nixon administration found itself in that situation in Vietnam, it too issued nuclear threats and it too did things like bombing civilian areas to cover up its retreat, if you think of the Christmas bombing 50 years ago this winter.

I think that Putin, the nuclear threats are stage 2.5 of the stages of grief. They're between anger and bargaining. The next stage is if the West can hold tight and essentially keep the pressure on without doing stupid things to escalate further or provoke the Russians. Just keep the pressure on. As Nahal said earlier, this will force the Russians and Putin himself to ultimately accept the consequences of the situation on the ground, which is that the Ukrainians are pushing them back and the Russians don't have any particularly good answers for how to counter.

Brian Lehrer: Nahal, on Putin implication that he would use nuclear weapons and that he is not bluffing? Is he bluffing?

Nahal Toosi: I would never want to take a threat like that without seriousness from anyone, especially a man desperate to cling the power. We've seen crazy men do crazy things before, and it's definitely possible. I think it's one of those things where if I had all of the world's intelligence resources at my disposal, I would be doing everything I could to make sure that if he tries to carry out that threat, that he is somehow unable. I am confident that there's probably things happening behind the scenes to try to defang that threat as much as possible. If it's not happening, it probably really should be and someone is not doing their job.

Brian Lehrer: Nahal, the other thing Russia plans to do now is hold annexation referendums in parts of Ukraine maybe more sympathetic to Russia about maybe joining Russia. Can you explain the strategy there and if the votes will have any legitimacy?

Nahal Toosi: Yes. It's one of those things that, basically, if these referenda, which are going to be totally, basically not real, are held and then it's like 99% approve or whatever, this territory that is Ukrainian, Russia will argue, well, it's now Russian. Therefore, if the Ukrainians try to stage any attacks on Russian forces in those territories, Russia can claim that Ukraine has attacked Russia proper, and maybe even make the argument that this is somehow a NATO, or indirectly, a NATO attack on Russia.

It just blurs the lines a lot more when it comes to this overall fight. It tries to give Putin some more legitimacy that he can point to his own people saying, "Look, these people want to be with us and now they're under attack. We have to defend them even more." He could make it another argument to bring in even more people into his military so that they could pursue this fight further. It's very tricky, but ultimately, the world is going to see it for what it is. I do think it could erode Putin's support, especially among countries that are somehow staying neutral at this point right now because they really don't want to take a side. This could damage his standing with them.

Already we're seeing over the past week, he's getting criticism from some of his friends. From the Chinese, from the Indians, from the Turks, who have tried to maintain some type of a decent relationship with him. He's being even stood up at meetings, or at least being made to wait at certain meetings with central Asian leaders, and that's not how you usually treat Vladimir Putin. It suggests that people around him are seeing that he's increasingly weak and vulnerable and they're trying to take advantage of that.

Brian Lehrer: Jack in Ocean Township, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jack.

Jack: Hi. Are there any people in the wings ready to pounce on Putin as soon as they feel that he's vulnerable?

Brian Lehrer: Gideon, you want to take that?

Gideon Rose: I would say highly doubtful because if there were, Putin would've eliminated them. He is one of these rulers who has been very concerned to protect his power and has engineered a state that relies on him, and nobody knows what exactly would follow a Putin regime. It would be some kind of, probably likely a security regime continuing rather than a democratic liberal revival. That doesn't seem to be in the cards for Russia right now.

I think that it's highly unlikely that Putin leaves power immediately as possible, but we don't really know. In fact, what we want to see in an ideal world is not so much regime change immediately in Russia because that would be a terribly destabilizing event, but rather Putin's withdrawal. We would like to see a status quo ante end this terrible war. The question is, how do you get there?

I think the answer is, because the Ukrainians have proved so successful on the battlefield in transforming outside help into battlefield success, the easiest best course now is simply to keep doing exactly what we've been doing, trying to deter further escalation while supplying the Ukrainians with the material they need to keep pushing forward. If Russia continues to fall back, Putin may recognize that whatever his threats and whatever the problems of selling a defeat at home and turning it into a victory, it would be better than the alternatives. That's what we actually ironically seem to be on track for doing, as long as the West can avoid defeatism and despair and just keep holding the pressure on.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Before we run out of time, can I get a big picture take from you each on the relevance or effectiveness of the UN today? It's a post-World War II institution in a very different world these days. Younger generations may not think of it much or think much of it today. It didn't stop President Bush from his relatively unilateral war, though almost the whole world was opposed. Now, what is its power against Putin? Here is the UN Secretary-General himself, António Guterres, in his opening remarks this week, seeming to cast out on the future of the institution. We played this clip yesterday. It's still haunting me. Here it is again today.

António Guterres: Today, I'm calling on all developed economies to tax the windfall profits of fossil fuel companies. Those funds should be redirected in two ways: to countries suffering loss and damage caused by the climate crisis, and to people struggling with rising food and energy prices.

Brian Lehrer: That was Guterres on the climate crisis. Let's see, do we have that other Guterres clip? Yes, here it is.

António Guterres: The United Nation Charter and the ideals it represents are in jeopardy. We have a duty to act, and yet we are gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction. The international community is not ready or willing to tackle the big dramatic challenges of our age. These crises threaten the very future of humanity and the fate of our planet. Crises like the war in Ukraine and the multiplication of conflicts around the globe. Crises like the climate emergency and biodiversity loss. Crises like the dire financial situation of developing countries and the fate of the Sustainable Development Goals. Crises like the lack of guardrails around promising new technologies to heal disease, connect people and expand opportunity.

Brian Lehrer: Nahal, I know you have to jump. If you have time for a response, was he really implying the end of the United Nations there?

Nahal Toosi: I think he just wants it to become a more relevant institution that isn't so often gridlocked. Look, there is that old saying that, when you blame the United Nations for the problems of the world, it's like blaming Madison Square Garden for the problems of the Knicks. It's a venue, it's a forum, and the member states are the ones who have the responsibility to act properly.

I think, in particular, right now is a very strange time because you have a permanent member of the Security Council, one that has a veto, Russia, which is the cause of so many problems right now. That is an unusual situation. It is one of those things where if you do want to reform the UN, as many have for a very, very long time with little luck, now is the point at which you can do it to perhaps make a situation where you don't have that again. Where you don't have someone with so much power within the UN system being the cause of a crisis. Again, remember, this is a venue, and the individuals, the member states, the leaders are the ones who really ultimately hold responsibility.

Brian Lehrer: The Knicks were the last thing I thought were going to come up in this segment. Of course, Mayor Adams yesterday talked about possibly moving Madison Square Garden to help improve Penn Station. Maybe that actually would change the course of history for the next. Nahal, I know you have to go. I'll get a last answer on this from Gideon. Nahal Toosi, senior correspondent for foreign affairs and national security at Politico. Thank you very much.

Nahal Toosi: Thank you.

Gideon Rose: I think Nahal just said the Dolans are like Putin, which is even further than I would go, although I'm not a big fan. I would say that this shows yet again that the UN is not an organization that can corral or coerce its members. It is not something above its members and it can't do things that they don't want to do, and it can't push them to do that. What it is useful for is if there is a willingness and a desire to cooperate, or a potential willingness and desire to cooperate among the international community, the UN can be a wonderful forum for that. It can be an occasion for bringing people together in a vehicle for that, but it can't create the conditions for cooperation if they don't exist.

Now we're back into the kind of situation we were during much of the Cold War, in which the United States and Russia and the divisions between them, in this case, the Soviet Union before them, were enough to cripple the Security Council from being a significant vehicle for forcing change. If you ever had a situation in which the major partners were ready to cooperate on something like global warming or on other kinds of issues like non-proliferation, the UN would be a useful vehicle for coordinating that mechanism.

Brian Lehrer: Gideon Rose, distinguished fellow in US foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Again, we thank Nahal Toosi, senior correspondent for foreign affairs and national security at Politico. Gideon, thanks so much.

Gideon Rose: Thank you.

 

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