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| Joining us now to discuss the 2025 G7 Summit is Michael O'Hanlon. | ||
| He is with the Brookings Institution, where he's the Research and Foreign Policy Program Director. | ||
| Michael, welcome back to the program. | ||
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unidentified
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Thanks, Tammy. | |
| Nice to be here. | ||
| Remind our audience about the Brookings Institution, your mission, how you're funded. | ||
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unidentified
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Well, we work on public policy issues, public policy research organization, more popularly known as a think tank. | |
| We are independent. | ||
| Some people think we lean slightly left, but we got a good mix of Democrats and Republicans, and we're all way too ornery to be told what to think or write, no matter what our politics may be. | ||
| And we have a wide array of funding sources, sometimes philanthropies, organizations that support public policy research, corporations, individuals, not much government money, so we haven't really been affected in the Doge phenomenon yet, at least not much. | ||
| And some foreign support, but almost primarily American support. | ||
| So it's a wide range of funding sources. | ||
| Again, trying to preserve the independence in reality and in appearance. | ||
| And I think we do pretty well with that. | ||
| And I mentioned your title is Research and Foreign Policy Program. | ||
| Director, explain your role at Brookings. | ||
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unidentified
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Well, I'm not really directing people's research too much, but I read their books in manuscript form, my colleagues in the Foreign Policy Program. | |
| We have a person who runs the program, Suzanne Maloney. | ||
| She's my boss. | ||
| And then a person who runs Brookings, Cece Rouse, who's the president of Brookings for now about a year and a half. | ||
| So I'm a scholar fundamentally. | ||
| I do my own research, but I also do have this privilege of providing advice to people based on their drafts and reactions I have. | ||
| We also organize an anonymous review process whereby scholars from outside of Brookings read the manuscript. | ||
| Their identity is not known to the authors, so they can say whatever they want, whatever they think needs to be said about the book to make it better without worrying about feelings being hurt or relationships being bothered. | ||
| So anyway, it's the supervisory process on the book writing. | ||
| That's this director of research, but my main job really is to be a scholar myself. | ||
| And our topic for this segment is looking at a preview of the G7 summit, which starts today. | ||
| But do want to start first with the latest on the Israel and Iran missile strikes and what we're seeing over there. | ||
| Can you bring us up to speed exactly what's happening? | ||
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unidentified
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Well, it's interesting. | |
| You know, after that big news day a couple of days ago when we all learned of the initial strikes, it sort of feels like we're settling into a slug. | ||
| And I don't know that there's been dramatic news in the last 24 hours, at least not that we're seeing. | ||
| Who knows what's actually going on and what kinds of things are still being prepared. | ||
| One of the nuclear sites, Fordo, F-O-R-D-O-W, is built into a mountain. | ||
| And it was not apparently struck the first day, even though it's the place where Iran has been perhaps making most of its highly enriched uranium recently. | ||
| And that's the fuel for a nuclear weapon. | ||
| As far as we know, Iran doesn't have any nuclear weapons, but of course Israel thought it was getting perilously close, which is why it decided to launch these strikes when President Trump's attempts at negotiations did not bear fruit. | ||
| And so what's happening with Fordo? | ||
| Is that going to be left untouched? | ||
| Some people have said maybe there have been a few bombs dropped there by now, but there's no reported damage. | ||
| And again, it would be very hard to do any damage with the kinds of weapons that Israel has. | ||
| We have weapons that are more powerful that might be able to get further into the ROC, but I don't know even how well our bombs would work there. | ||
| Raises the possibility of trying to do a limited ground invasion, but that's on Iranian territory on Iranian soil, so pretty dangerous. | ||
| And you would be surprised if that was done on day three, four, five, six, seven, as opposed to day one. | ||
| So I think that Israel is going to make incremental progress day by day, but perhaps not really solve this problem definitively. | ||
| And we'll have to see how it all shakes out. | ||
| This is a headline from Axios. | ||
| It says, Israel urges the U.S. to join war with Iran to eliminate nuclear program. | ||
| What do they want or need from the U.S.? | ||
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unidentified
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Well, that has for a long time been the suspicion that if Israel ever started this kind of a conflict on its own, it would be in an effort and a hope to bring the United States in, that no matter what we had said in advance, no matter what our protests had been, our preference for negotiations, that if and when the conflict began, that we would sort of see no purpose in sitting it out, because at that point, you might as well try to eliminate the entire Iranian nuclear weapons program. | |
| But that was always a bit of a conjecture that we could be lured into taking part in a war that we ourselves didn't want to be part of. | ||
| On the other hand, in Israel's defense, the idea of the United States taking action has been on the table for 20 years under every president since he discovered these nuclear programs because Iran had a secret program that was discovered during the George W. Bush presidency. | ||
| And ever since then, American presidents have said if Israel, or excuse me, if Iran got close to a bomb, we wouldn't let that happen one way or another. | ||
| So you could see why Israel would have this hope. | ||
| But I don't know that we're going to do it because then all of a sudden now we're belligerents. | ||
| So far, Iran's not attacking us in retaliation, at least as far as I've seen. | ||
| And we'd like to keep it that way. | ||
| And I'm not sure we really believe that our weapons could destroy all of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure anyway. | ||
| And whatever happened during the air campaign, Iran's going to try to rebuild afterwards in all likelihood. | ||
| So I think, you know, it's always hard to predict, but you can see why Israel would hope to lure us in to participation. | ||
| I think that's going to be tough. | ||
| I think it's unlikely. | ||
| And even if we got involved, I'm not sure we could completely destroy the Iranian nuclear program from the air. | ||
| This is likely a topic that will dominate the G7 summit that is starting today. | ||
| Remind us who's going to be at the summit, who isn't going to be there. | ||
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unidentified
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So G7, it's the big countries of Western Europe. | |
| So France, Germany, UK, Italy, United States, Canada, obviously, and Japan. | ||
| And historically, there have been times where other countries have been part of it or at least been invited to participate and observe. | ||
| You know, Russia in the day before relations fell apart. | ||
| South Korea, not as a G7 member, but as an important industrial and allied partner of the United States and some of the other countries. | ||
| But the core is Japan, Canada, U.S., France, Germany, Italy, U.K. | ||
| And therefore, it's similar to NATO, but it has Japan. | ||
| It no longer has any countries that are not allied with the United States. | ||
| So it is the world's seven most powerful countries in a sense that are allies with each other. | ||
| We no longer have a participant that is a different kind of strategic country because Russia is no longer invited. | ||
| And so the talks have often centered on security, as you mentioned, but also on economics. | ||
| I don't know, with the NATO summit coming up a week after, I don't know that this is going to be the big place where we talk a lot of Ukraine, although I think President Zelensky is coming from Ukraine. | ||
| So there may be some discussion of that. | ||
| And there may be a lot of discussion about trade, given how much everything's up in the air over where the United States is going on, its role in the international economic order. | ||
| But I'm not really sure anybody can see a way to a deal on any specific issue. | ||
| So I think they're going to have to look hard to find individual issues where they can agree and maybe do limited communiques on those issues, which apparently is the plan, rather than to do one big kumbaya moment, because I'm not sure kumbaya is going to be sung too much at this summit. | ||
| Our guest for the next 30 minutes or so is Michael O'Hanlon. | ||
| He is the Research and Foreign Policy Program Director at the Berkings Institution. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now the lines. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And Michael wanted to ask you, it was a headline on the Associated Press. | ||
| It says, as Trump goes to the G7 summit, other world leaders aim to show they're not intimidated. | ||
| The leaders of the other six countries have all visited with President Trump in the Oval Office since he's retaken office. | ||
| What is his relationship like with those other leaders? | ||
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unidentified
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Well, it's fascinating to see how things are going right now because nobody out of this group is openly fighting with President Trump and or seeking that as a strategy. | |
| And I don't see President Trump attacking any of them particularly. | ||
| There are obviously times where relations have been poor. | ||
| And the previous Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, wound up in an acrimonious relationship with President Trump at about the time Trump was talking, just after inauguration, of having Canada become the 51st state, which, my experience, I don't know any Canadians who would seek that outcome. | ||
| And it's not as if we're in a position to make it happen or to force it to happen. | ||
| And so I think that talk has sort of subsided a little bit, although there's the Golden Dome, you know, air and missile defense concept that's been proposed in recent weeks. | ||
| And President Trump has said to Canada, we can include you in that. | ||
| Either you can become the 51st state and we'll do it for free, although presumably at that point they're paying taxes, so it's not really for free, or we'll charge you for it. | ||
| So there's still a little bit of that kind of banter going on, but for the most part, people are trying to find modus vivendi with each other, at least as best I can tell. | ||
| And the really provocative, really acrimonious, really bitter kinds of back and forths have not been happening that much lately. | ||
| Does that mean that they're done for good? | ||
| I'm not going to say that. | ||
| Does that mean that President Trump's had some success with his tactics and people are trying to meet him halfway? | ||
| Maybe, a little bit of that. | ||
| But as you point out, they're also standing up firmly where they think they have to, but they're generally trying to do it in a way that seems to work. | ||
| There's been enough data collected now on how to get along with President Trump, or at least how not to have the relationship fall apart completely, that I think people are sort of feeling their way towards interactions that at least don't result in complete breakdown. | ||
| But, you know, there's no binding deals on long-term strategy for Ukraine, on trade, on investment. | ||
| And so things could still get worse before they get better yet again. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We will start with Kathleen in Dayton, Ohio, Leinder Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Kathleen. | ||
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unidentified
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Hi, so appreciate Washington Journal. | |
| I'd like to ask Michael O'Hanlon, well, first I'd like to ask Washington Journal to have more Palestinian guests on, like Zogby and Barghuti and Nora Aricot, and catch the public up with the situation in Gaza right now. | ||
| But my question for Michael O'Hanlon is this. | ||
| How does the fact that Iran has, I'm sorry, Israel has refused to sign the non-proliferation treaty for decades and will not allow international inspections of their nuclear weapons sites. | ||
| And then Iran, the breaking of the deal of the P5 plus 1, why they don't have any faith in negotiations with the U.S., and again, how Israel being unwilling to sign the nonproliferation treaty, which Iran has done. | ||
| I went to the UN site and read letters from other nations who feel a threat from Israel's capability with nuclear weapons. | ||
| So could you talk about that issue and Iran's willingness for years to allow inspectors into their sites? | ||
| And I'd also like to ask Washington Journal to have Scott Ritter on and Hillary and Mann Leverett to talk specifically about Iran. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, thank you, Kathleen. | ||
| I have a little bit more common view with you on the Palestinian issue where I'm concerned about their plight. | ||
| I'm not so critical of Israel in regard to Iran. | ||
| Iran is a country that has threatened Israel's very existence for decades. | ||
| And the nuclear weapons pursuit that Iran has been undertaking therefore has to be taken seriously by Israel as a potential existential threat to the country. | ||
| And of course, Israel is threatened or historically has been threatened by its Arab neighbors as well. | ||
| So when a country is being threatened with its very survival on the line, I have a hard time being overly critical of a nuclear weapons program. | ||
| And I don't think, therefore, that Iran and Israel's pursuits of nuclear capability are symmetrical. | ||
| Iran has had an aggressive attitude towards Israel for decades, ever since 1979, and again has officially repudiated Israel's right even to exist. | ||
| So I think that's the distinction that needs to be kept clearly in mind. | ||
| But I'm all with you on discussing the importance of getting back to greater international focus on the Palestinian cause and ultimately on a discussion about a two-state solution for Israel and Palestinians living together with their own countries. | ||
| I think that's the only place that this can wind up happily and in a stable place for all. | ||
| Brian in Albuquerque, Line 4, Independence. | ||
| Hi, Brian. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Pleasure to speak with you, sir. | ||
| I'd like to say in that same vein, but I just wanted to hear your comments on how the Israelis basically ignore us. | ||
| You know, multiple presidents have told them to make peace with the Palestinians, work towards a two-state solution, and they just ignore us, basically. | ||
| And then we turn around and give them money. | ||
| You know, six months later, we're giving them $10 billion or whatever. | ||
| I imagine they're going to want an aid package for this war with Iran. | ||
| They're probably just calling them a move in Congress for $50 billion or something. | ||
| And I just find it disgusting how, you know, we don't treat them like adults. | ||
| They're like a petulant child, and we're the adults, and they don't behave the way we would like them to. | ||
| They ignore us, and then they turn around and ask for money, and we give it to them. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| Well, Brian, I think I share some of your frustration. | ||
| I think that the George H.W. Bush administration back 30-some years ago was really the only American administration in the last 40 years to be willing to put direct pressure on Israel when it felt that Israel was not pursuing either a two-state solution or some other issue where we had a very fundamental and powerful interest that Israel was in fact ignoring. | ||
| And the George H.W. Bush administration didn't push things so far as to threaten any and all American friendship or support for Israel, but it did withhold loan guarantees for housing that Israel wanted to build, I believe, in the disputed West Bank. | ||
| But it was, in any case, a specific form of assistance that the Bush administration, the first Bush administration, was prepared to put on the table. | ||
| And since that time, whether because of our own politics or our deep-rooted support for Israel as a nation, we've been unwilling even to use targeted, limited pressure in an economic way to try to get them back to the negotiating table with the Palestinians, for example. | ||
| So I share a good deal of your frustration. | ||
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| And then New York Times White House correspondent Luke Broadwater on White House News of the Day and the Week Ahead. | ||
| And Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute discusses the future of Iran's nuclear program amid Israeli military strikes and pressure by the U.S. to reach a deal. | ||
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