John Mearsheimer: “We’re not going to win this war with Iran” | UpFront

John M Sharma, thank you for joining us on Upfront.

>> My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

>> You recently argued that the Trump administration was quote dragged into this war by Israel and its lobby. What

makes you believe Israel is the primary driver of this conflict rather than Washington?

Well, it's quite clear that Israel has been trying to drive the United States into a war with Iran for a long time. Uh

they've made their interests perfectly clear. This is true of uh Prime Minister

clear. This is true of uh Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been a huge advocate of sucking the Americans into this war.

And he was unable to do that until President Trump came along. And it's

quite clear if you listen to President Trump and you listen to his advisors speak uh the Israeli influence and the influence of the lobby on President

Trump was enormous. Uh and uh in fact uh Secretary Rubio, Secretary of State Rubio effectively said uh as did Speaker of the House Mike Johnson uh that we

went to war because Israel dragged us into this war. But critics say that this framing overstates Israel's influence over the United States while

understating the United States influence which includes military dominance.

That's one of the strategic interests.

Military dominance in the region, access to gas reserves and energy routes. The

US was also active in the Middle East long before the Israeli lobby became influential in US politics. What do you say to that?

There's no question that the United States has been deeply interested in the Middle East for a long time, even before Israel was created as a state in 1948.

And the principal reason for that was oil. But we're not going to war against

oil. But we're not going to war against Iran because of oil. We're not

participating in the genocide against the Palestinians because of oil.

uh this is being largely done uh as a result of Israel's influence in the United States which is largely a function uh of the Israel lobby. Uh the

question you want to ask yourself is if we had a national interest in supporting Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, towards Iran, towards Iraq

and so forth and so on. Why would you need a lobby? Why would you need this lobby that by almost all accounts is by far the most powerful lobby in the

history of the United States? Why do you need it if Israel is basically doing our bidding? The fact is you have this

bidding? The fact is you have this incredibly powerful lobby because it is not in the American national interest.

So to support Israel in all sorts of its endeavors. There's no question that

endeavors. There's no question that sometimes we have similar interests.

Both the United States and Israel have a vested interest in preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons. There's no

question about that. But on all sorts of issues, uh, like the Palestinian issue and like the question of attacking Iran, America's national interest is at odds

with Israel's national interest. There's

no way that Iran is a threat to the United States. It isn't. Now, the

United States. It isn't. Now, the

question you have to ask yourself is what is the relationship between the United States and Israel going to look like uh moving forward, especially with

regard to ending this war? It's quite

clear that we're not going to win this war. Uh that we're not going to cause

war. Uh that we're not going to cause regime change. Uh and if anything, we're

regime change. Uh and if anything, we're going to push Iran down the road to acquiring a nuclear weapon. and we may even be worse off once this war is over

than we are now. And this is going to enrage the Israelis and the Israelis are going to want to go back at Iran and the United States is not going to want to do

this again. So, one can posit a scenario

this again. So, one can posit a scenario where USIsraeli relations are frayed in serious ways at the end of this

conflict. I can't say that will happen

conflict. I can't say that will happen for sure. Who knows for sure how this

for sure. Who knows for sure how this war will end, but the way things are going now, one can tell a story where the Israelis and the Americans end up at

loggerheads uh at the end of the conflict.

>> It sounds like you're saying the US is not going to achieve its goals in this uh war. What do you mean by that? And

uh war. What do you mean by that? And

let's remind ourselves, what are the real objectives here? They keep

changing. Is it nuclear roll back, regime change, regional dominance? Is it

a coherent story of what the goals are?

>> Well, the story that the administration does tells is not coherent because they bounce around from one rationale to

another. But the main the main goal here

another. But the main the main goal here for sure is regime change. Because if

you don't get regime change, if you don't put a regime in place that is subservient to the United States and the

Israelis, then you can't get Iran to give up its nuclear enrichment capability. You can't get Iran to give

capability. You can't get Iran to give up its ballistic missiles, and you can't get Iran to stop supporting the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah. To achieve those

particular goals, you need a new regime that will cooperate with the United States and Israel. The administration

thought that it could achieve that end, the end of regime change by decapitating the regime early in the conflict. Well,

it decapitated the regime and the regime remains intact. Now, it's punishing the

remains intact. Now, it's punishing the Iranian population. It's hitting all

Iranian population. It's hitting all sorts of targets across Iran. And you

have to ask yourself whether or not you think this punishment campaign that's now in place is going to produce regime change. And the historical record tells

change. And the historical record tells us very clearly. That a punishment campaign executed by air power alone has

never succeeded in producing regime change. This tells you there is no

change. This tells you there is no reason to think that we're going to get regime change in this case with air power alone. We're going to have to put

power alone. We're going to have to put boots on the ground as we did in Iraq if we want regime change. And we're not going to put boots on the ground. So, I

don't see how we end up winning this war. And I don't see anybody who can

war. And I don't see anybody who can tell a plausible story about how we get favorable regime change. So air strikes alone will not get the United States

there and you're saying that a massive ground invasion is not possible yet. The

White House press secretary uh Caroline Levit declined to rule out the possibility of a military draft if the war escalates. You don't see that?

war escalates. You don't see that?

>> No, not at all. I mean, we've we did Afghanistan, we did Iraq, they turned into forever wars. Uh the American populace has no interest in another

ground war. Uh you want to remember that

ground war. Uh you want to remember that when President Trump started this war on February 28th, only only 20% of Americans were in favor of the war. This

is the first example in our in our history of where a president took uh the country into a war where he didn't have public opinion behind him. And the idea

that after Iraq and Afghanistan, we're going to invade a country like Iran, which is as big as Western Europe and contains 93 million people, and occupy

that country and affect regime change and do social engineering is, in my opinion, not going to happen.

>> I just want to talk about how President Donald Trump campaigned. He campaigned

against forever wars, but recently claimed that the United States could fight wars, I quote, forever, because American weapons supplies are virtually

unlimited. Yet later, he suggested the

unlimited. Yet later, he suggested the Iran war was very complete, pretty much, another direct quote. What do you make of these mixed signals? Is a forever war

feasible?

Well, you want to remember that before the war started, General Kaine, who President Trump handpicked to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

told him that the United States did not have a viable military option in Iran.

This is the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and he told him that if we fought a long war in Iran, we would be in serious trouble because we did not

have the weapon stocks. We did not have enough sophisticated weapons of a defense of sort and of an offense of

sort to wage a long war. So the argument that we have an endless supply of weapons that will allow us to wage a

protracted war with Iran is in contradiction to what the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said.

Furthermore, if you look at the Ukraine war, one of the reasons that we were so upset about the fact that we were pouring huge numbers of weapons into the

Ukraine war is because we were running down our stocks to dangerous levels. To

take this a step further, go to the Pacific. Almost everybody who's looked

Pacific. Almost everybody who's looked at what a China US war over Taiwan would look like understands that after 30 or so days, we would in good part run out

of sophisticated munitions. So this idea that we have this inventory uh this endless inventory of sophisticated weapons that we can use against Iran is

simply wrong.

>> Final question to you. The war with Iran already has a global impact on the economy, the global economy, on diplomacy, on uh military. What does

this mean for countries like Russia and China, non-western powers? How do they respond to this political moment?

>> Well, I think if you take the Russians, this war is uh good news. I mean, as a result of the oil crisis, the Russians

are greatly improving uh their oil sales situation. They're

selling more oil than ever, and they're selling that oil at a higher price. So,

the idea that we, the United States, are going to the Russian economy with sanctions is an argument that basically goes out the window because of this war. If anything, the Russians have

this war. If anything, the Russians have a vested interest in seeing this war continue and seeing oil prices rise.

They benefit from that. And as far as the war in Ukraine is concerned, it's likely that this conflict will put significant limits on how much American

weaponry can be sent to Ukraine, which again favors the Russians. So the

Russians actually look like a winner in this conflict. And I think the same

this conflict. And I think the same thing is true with the Chinese. This

will increase Chinese influence in the Middle East. It will influence Chinese

Middle East. It will influence Chinese increase Chinese influence around the world. They will look like a stable and

world. They will look like a stable and reasonable regime compared to the Trump administration. So I think for those two

administration. So I think for those two countries uh the other two great powers in the system uh this is this war is a good thing.

>> John M Sharma, thank you for joining us on Upfront.

>> My pleasure. Thank you for having me.