U.S. Foreign Policy Challenges in a Dangerous World Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is an edited version version of a transcript created using AI technology and may not reflect 100% accuracy.

The video can be found here. 

Interviewer: Welcome to today’s webinar. We will be discussing US foreign policy challenges and featuring Danielle Pletka. Thank you all for joining us. As you know, we could not perform our important work here at EMET without your continued support, which we greatly appreciate. Please plan on joining us at our annual Rays of Light in the Darkness gala in Washington, DC on November 19. It is going to be a very special event and it would be great to have you join us. As always, our webinar will be recorded and available for future viewing. We will send out the link, and I hope that you share it far and wide. Today’s discussion focuses on critically important issues impacting current events. If you have any questions for our speaker, please enter them in the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. I will try to get to as many as possible later in the program.

Danielle Pletka is a distinguished senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). There she focuses on the US foreign policy generally and on the Middle East specifically. Until January 2020, Miss Pletka was the senior vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. Concurrently, she teaches foreign policy at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and serves as a political analyst for NBC News. Before joining AEI, Miss Pletka was a senior professional staff member specializing in the Middle East and South Asia for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Miss Pletka has authored, co-authored and co-edited a variety of studies, monographs, and book chapters. She’s been published in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Hill, and Politico. Together with AEI’s Mark Tieson, Miss Pletka co-hosts the podcast, What the Hell is Going On? (Making Sense of the World). I urge you all to follow Danny’s very important work. She’s brilliant, as you will see in just a few minutes. So welcome, Danny, and thanks so much for joining us today.

As I mentioned, today’s discussion will focus on US foreign policy. Obviously, our foreign policy will depend on the outcome of the upcoming election. That said, I would like to concentrate on the impact of the Biden-Harris foreign policies on the Middle East. In recent interviews, Kamala Harris stated that Iran is the country posing the biggest threat to US national security. Some would disagree with her. They would place China at the top of that list. Irrespective, I would like to spend some time talking about the Islamic Republic of Iran.

We cannot discuss Iran without acknowledging the Obama-Biden-Harris policy of realignment in the Middle East. We should recognize that they destroyed the Pax Americana, the relative peace and stability in the region that had been maintained for decades. They empowered and enriched the Islamic Republic of Iran and allowed it to become a regional hegemon. Their policies led to Israel being surrounded by a ring of fire and having to fight on seven battlefronts simultaneously.

I want to begin by asking if you think October 7^th was an historic turning point in the region and in the larger Iranian war against Israel. Irrespective of who sits in the Oval Office, shouldn’t the US be assisting Israel in defeating the Islamic Regime and its proxies?

Danielle: First of all, thank you for all the work that you do. Without you, this debate would be all the more difficult. The question of Iran has plagued every single president since before the Islamic revolution and since the days of Jimmy Carter’s administration. We really have not yet developed a successful strategy to deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

If we want to lay the proper groundwork here, we need to admit that October 7^th has been great for the Iranian regime. The Islamic regime of Iran has succeeded in getting the world to re-engage on the question of Israel and the Palestinians. Tens of thousands of people have marched in the United States in support of Iran and its proxies. Far more people have done the same in Europe. The Iranian regime has accomplished this without losing a single Iranian. Through their proxies, they have managed to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the front page. They have managed to evade almost all responsibility for the actions of their proxies. They have done this while the European Union, the United States and the United Nations have done nothing at all about their nuclear weapons proliferation.

Regime leaders may be concerned when they view that famous video of Ayatollah Khamenei looking worried at Ismail Haniyeh’s funeral. However, they are also likely congratulating themselves for their great work. To a large extent, that is on us. We have allowed this to happen. I always try to be fair. I look at what Barack Obama offered the United States when he ran for president. Obama offered a different approach. It was not like he duped us. He did not suddenly embrace Iran after promising to hit them hard. He said he was going to try and reach out an open hand to the regime and he did exactly that. Many of us think that the JCPOA Iran deal was a bad deal but he told us he was going to do it. The problem for us is that we have had no endgame since then. The Trump administration had an excellent maximum pressure campaign that really strangled the Iranian regime. However, it did not strangle them with a planned final objective or goal. The Iranian regime subsequently reopened their nuclear weapons work and actually doubled down on it. The Biden and Harris administration has done absolutely nothing. Ditto for the Europeans. All of them were part of the JCPOA. They have not initiated snapback. They have not gone to the UN. The IAEA is fully aware that the Iranian program is no longer compliant with any of the terms of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, yet it has not done anything about it. This is malpractice of the first order. The next US president is going to have to deal with Iran with nuclear weapons.

Interviewer: I would argue that the Biden-Harris administration has done something. They have prevented a complete victory of Israel over Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and ultimately Iran. The word “don’t” appears to be their instruction to Israel whenever it comes to taking any offensive measures against the regime and its proxies. After October 7^th, they blocked any possibility of preemptive strikes against Iran. In April and October, they limited the extent of Israel’s retaliation to direct Iranian strikes. They tried to stop Israel from entering Rafah. Kamala Harris threatened consequences after she studied the maps. Now Team Biden-Harris is threatening to join the EU countries which have imposed an arms embargo on Israel. They are attempting to force Israel to provide more humanitarian aid to the Gazans. We know it is just insane because they are essentially requiring Israel to provide sustenance to the enemies who seek its annihilation. The Biden-Harris administration has parroted the term ceasefire since October 7^th even though there was a ceasefire in place on October 6^th. They are continuing to push their ceasefire peace plan even after Sinwar’s death. Have Iran, Hamas, and the other proxies been emboldened by a US policy that pressures and demonizes Israel, rather than the terrorists that started this war?

Danielle: Of course. I hate to say this, but all of that is true to the point of being obvious. I do not mean that as an insult to you. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan is the moment that defines this administration. General Frank McKenzie, was the commander of CENTCOM, the Central Command, at that time. His area of responsibility includes the Middle East, including Israel. The Biden administration did not embolden the bad actors by their lack of support for Israel. They emboldened China, North Korea, Iran and Russia when they withdrew from Afghanistan. That was the moment when all of these actors decided that the United States is not a power that would reckon with them.

I think the president was actually very supportive of Israel on October 7^th. A lot of us were relieved because we were concerned about the potential influence of prominent next-gen, much further left people inside his administration. Kamila Harris was one of them. Our initial relief changed to concern very quickly. Of course, the natural instinct of any administration is to lean on its friends and not on its enemies. This is because it is so much easier to lean on friends rather than enemies. They listen to us. The Iranians do not listen to us. Joe Biden said “don’t” to them and they paid no attention to what they knew was an obviously ridiculous approach.

I think the Biden administration has a pathological fear of a wider war. That fear is the reason they have restricted the actions of both the Israelis and the Ukrainians. I am not sure it is fair to suggest that the Israelis have not been able to get the hostages out because of the Biden administration. I think the reality is that Hamas never wanted to give up the hostages. They never had any plan to give up the hostages. I think they were done returning hostages after the first hostage exchange. I also think both the Netanyahu government and the Biden administration have engaged in bona fide efforts to try to get a ceasefire done, albeit for different reasons. I think the Biden administration was always looking for a permanent ceasefire and the Israelis were looking for a pause in order to continue to finish off Hamas.

I think the Biden administration has stood in the way of a complete victory for Israel because it does not want to deal with Iran. Dealing with Iran is essential to solving the problem of Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah and the Hashd al-Sha’bi in Iraq. It is not sufficient to kill Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Nasrallah. We have to deal with the Iranian regime.

I think the Israelis are now more prepared than they have ever been before to finally deal a serious blow to the Iranian regime. However, the United States and the Biden administration are doing everything they can to stop them. That is where I fault them the most. This is a systemic problem which is not just about one thing. This is not about Hamas or Rafah, even though what you said about the vice president is totally true. This is about the unwillingness of the United States of America to do anything about the regime in Tehran. Until we deal with the Iranian regime, we are not going to see the demise of its proxies.

Interviewer: I am going to discuss Iran in more detail in a minute. Before that, I want to discuss the situation in Israel’s north. The Biden Harris administration, the UN, and many EU countries seem to want to let Hezbollah off the hook. We are hearing talk of a ceasefire up north. The US is not joining Israel’s call for UNIFIL to leave southern Lebanon. This is an obvious call since it would allow Israel to clear out Hezbollah with the least amount of collateral damage possible. Please discuss the mistakes the administration is making in Lebanon. UNIFIL has failed to enforce UN resolution 1701. They have failed to keep the land between Israel’s northern border and the Litani River in Lebanon clear of Hezbollah terrorists. Is there anyone beside the Israelis who could successfully enforce UN resolution 1701 and keep Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon?

Danielle: Resolution 1701 failed the moment it was passed. Like many other UN Security Council resolutions, it was a complete joke. It was a fig leaf covering the fact that the United States and others cannot force the government of Lebanon and the Lebanese Armed Forces to be serious about sovereignty over their own territory. At some point, we need to stop telling the lie that the government of Lebanon is separate from the government of Hezbollah. The Iranian foreign ministry said that it would negotiate with the United States on behalf of Lebanon in order to move towards the ceasefire in the northeast. That tells you everything you need to know. I shudder to think that we might actually accept that suggestion.

UNIFIL, like most peacekeeping operations, is no better than the will of the people who comprise it. There is no peace to keep in the region. Hezbollah and others have been bribing UNIFIL soldiers so that they can operate with impunity. Of course, UNIFIL should go. The American taxpayer should stand up and demand our money back. We are the primary funders of UNWRA, UNIFIL and every other misbegotten UN human rights arm and agency. So, yes, UNIFIL is a huge problem and it has got to go.

The Biden administration renewed UNIFIL’s mandate without making any serious effort to change it. The Israelis need to do what they need to do. They have, for the most part, been ignoring the strictures of the Macron government in France, and of the Biden Harris administration. I have been happy to see that they have ignored all those who are wringing their hands about the fate of southern Lebanese. For 30 years, these same people have not given a damn about the population in southern Lebanon as they were crushed under the boots of Hezbollah’s leaders.

For me, Lebanon does not exist as an independent country. It was an adjunct of Syria and now it is an adjunct of Iran. Amos Hochstein, the administration’s envoy, insists that all we need to do is strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces and Lebanese institutions. He does not know what the hell he is talking about. The Lebanese armed forces do not exist separately from the Hezbollah government and Lebanese institutions are subordinate to Iran. Period. End of story.

Interviewer: It appears no one in this administration understands geopolitics or the mentality of many in the Middle East. I am not sure if their policy is based on ignorance or ideology but it has resulted in some horrific decisions. You mentioned the administration’s aversion to conflict with Iran. Do you think that stems from Obama’s view that Iran could be a reasonable power broker in the region?

Danielle: That is a deeper conversation. I am not going to say that Barack Obama or his advisors were dumb because they are people who went to the best schools and received the best education. They are sophisticated people. I think you mentioned the critical word and that word is ideology. It is funny that people like you and me are labeled ideologues. Perhaps we are but the foreign policy people on the left, and now the far left, are driven by ideology. The foreign policy apparatus is largely made up of Obama administration retreads. Biden and Harris’s people are actually quite separate and different and there is no love lost between them. I only wish it was a right-left fight and not a left-far-left fight.

Their fundamental belief is that we are all the same but with differing interests. According to them, the Iranian regime is driven by a fear of being overthrown by the United States and by Israel. This fear motivates them to arm their proxies and develop their nuclear weapons program. According to this worldview, it makes sense to reassure the Iranian regime. This reassurance will cause the regime to change its behavior. The problem is they do not understand that the Iranian regime is very different from us. Those who have learned the history of World War II know that we need to listen to our enemies and we need to believe them. Hitler said he wanted to annihilate the Jewish people and that is what he tried to do. The Iranians say they hope to destroy the state of Israel and that is what they are trying to do. Hamas and the Houthis have said they want to kill all Jews and I believe them.

Interviewer: What should Israel’s retaliation on Iran look like? The US has been pressuring Israel not to attack Iran’s oil infrastructure. They do not want to see an increase in gas prices rise ahead of the election. They also gave a hard no to an attack on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear installations. At the same time, we have seen a serious leak of US classified intelligence. This provided Iran and others with critical information about Israel’s planned retaliatory strike. It explains why Israel can no longer view the US as a trusted ally. As part of your answer, please address the impact of the US withholding critical munitions from Israel, including the 2000-pound bombs. How much does this affect Israel’s ability to successfully deter Iran, or Hezbollah, for that matter?

Danielle: To a certain extent, I think Israel is dependent upon the US for a reliable and continued supply of munitions. I hope that reliance will not continue. We have observed the slow rolling of US military support to Ukraine over the past two and a half years. As a result, the Ukrainians are investing heavily in the manufacture of munitions at home, and they are going to be pretty close to independence within a couple of years. That may not be soon enough. The Israelis already have a very advanced military industry, but they are fighting a big-time war. Most of Israel’s wars have lasted days or weeks. As such, there is an incredible amount of pressure on their supplies. That being said, I think they have what they need to move on Iran.

I have a sub stack that together with our podcast What the Hell is Going On? I wrote in my sub stack that Israel needs to hit Iran’s nuclear sites and they need to do it now. I have said the same to everyone who will listen to me. It is laughable to believe that hitting Iranian nuclear sites will spark a wider war. It is a little bit like the warning President Biden issued at a fundraising event. There, he said that Russia was prepared to leash Armageddon on us. Poor man. I do feel for him. I understand he is not quite as well as he used to be, but that is ridiculous. Russia cannot even defeat Ukraine. They are not going to take on NATO.

Iran has attacked Israel twice. They have used their most advanced weapons and done almost no damage to Israel. They only succeeded in injuring a poor little Bedouin girl and in murdering a Palestinian man who was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Absent nuclear weapons, this tells us a lot about Iran’s offensive capabilities. Iran’s foreign policy has probably never been in a better place. On the other hand, Iran has never been weaker militarily and so now is the time. The Israelis have successfully picked off the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah. I wish someone would do something more about the Houthis. That said, now is the time to hit strategic Iranian nuclear sites. They need to do it. I wish they had done it many years ago.

Historically, we have done nothing but watch the Israelis allow Iran to cross red line after red line. The Israelis are almost as bad as we are in that regard and they have not done what is necessary. They have completed a number of covert activities but have not undertaken the necessary overt actions. They need to hit Iran as hard as they can right now. I do not know what the Iranians would do in retaliation, but I do know that they will not succeed. This is because of their weak military capabilities.

We had a terrific event at AEI for October 7^th. The event included Elliot Abrams, Eyal Hulata, the former Israeli national security advisor, and Dave Deptula. Dave designed the US air campaign over Afghanistan and was the principal attack planner for Desert Storm. I asked him what he thought about the Iranian air defenses. He looked at me and said, “Put me in, coach”. He is someone who is certainly well-positioned to assess the regime’s capabilities and he does not think they are going to be able to respond in a significant manner. It is only the people in the National Security Council who think that an Iranian response will be intolerable. These people are driven by their ideological views.

Interviewer: That was a great answer, thank you. We met at the National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI) conference. Many Iranians were in attendance there. Regime change was a big topic of discussion at that conference. A lot of us are wondering if there is still a strong movement for regime change in Iran. Can the US do anything to help that along? Please share your thoughts on regime change. Please expand on this and let us know your thoughts on what a complete victory for Israel would look like.

Danielle: I was a big supporter of the Iraq war. I remain a big supporter of the Iraq war. I think we did the right thing. I think that liberating 25 million people from a terrible tyranny, is doing the right thing, generally speaking. That said, the outcome has not been perfect. There have been moments when the outcome seemed worse than the original dictatorship and we should learn from our own mistakes in that regard. That does not mean I regret it, but it does mean that I ask much harder questions about the implications of regime change.  I understand that managing the initial operation is often easier than managing the aftermath. We are not good at handling the aftermath. I love America and I am grateful to everybody who serves in our government and our military, but we are not great at managing the aftermath.

So, when we discuss regime change in Iran, I believe we have to do a lot more thinking. This is because there is a possibility that an Iran version two that could look worse than version one. An IRGC military Islamist dictatorship in Iran could look worse than that of the mullahs in power right now. The mullahs are less sophisticated and they get out less. That does not mean we should shy away from regime change. Sometimes we do have to defeat our enemies and then do our best to optimize the outcome. My fear is we do not think enough about how to optimize the ultimate outcome of our actions.

The United States currently engages in almost zero activity to help the good guys in Iran. It does not matter how much Congress or the Republicans have demanded that they do it. It does not matter how many American voters, like the NUFDI people, demand the administration does more to help Iran’s people. Irrespective of how much they plead for the US to save the indigenous, freedom loving Iranian people from the regime, we do not do anything to help them. The Europeans do nothing as well. The Arabs help a little but their objective is to support ankle biting terrorism surrounding the regime, rather than freedom.

If we want to be serious about regime change, we need to pick the winners carefully. This is a disappointing answer for a lot of people who believe we must dismantle the current regime as soon as possible. I think our efforts with the Palestinians provide a good example of our failures in this regard. We spent 30 years providing the Palestinians with assistance and helping them to build their government. We failed to make them the democracy loving secularists we had hoped for. So, while we should be doing more to empower the Iranian people, we should also be doing more to consider what we want next. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have not done that with any seriousness.

Interviewer: Before we go on to the next question, I want to push back on your answer a little bit. I think the Iranian people are different from the Palestinians. Before the revolution, Iranian society was more like that of the West. They have not experienced the same levels of indoctrination and hate over the same length of time as have the Palestinians. So, are we comparing apples and oranges when we talk about regime change? I do understand the threat that the IRGC represents and it is frightening. That said, isn’t there a difference between the Iranian and Palestinian cultures?

Danielle: I want to say yes. However, before the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan looked a lot like Iran under the Shah. Afghani women attended medical school, they listened to western music and wore short shorts. That said, one would like to think that the Afghans and the Persians are different. Persians are not Arabs. The problem for me is that the views of most of us who deal with this topic were forged in the crucible of the Iranian revolution. That is when I started my career, and that is true for many in our business. We all want to believe that Iran is still the country that existed after 30 years under the Pahlavi family. However, we are wrong to minimize the impact of 45 years of rule by the mullahs. They have control over the education system, news, information, military, and propaganda. This has affected Iranian society.

We made the mistake of underestimating this type of malign influence in Iraq. All of my Iraqi friends are incredibly smart, sophisticated and tolerant. They include people who are Jews, Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. However, these types of people are not the only ones voting and many who are voting do not get it. You mentioned the impact on Palestinians of 70 years of propagandizing about the Nakba. We cannot expect people to be better than the system that brings them up. The same is true for Iran. I worry a lot about this, even though I know there are tons of great people in Iran.

Let me tell you a little story from the time of the Green Revolution in 2009. A group of us helped an important, charismatic and passionate young man to get out of Iran and come to the United States. We were able to smuggle him out with great difficulty. After he arrived here, we offered him a platform to discuss his experience. We asked him to talk about what had happened to him and about his dreams for the future. We hoped he would become the voice of Iran for the American people. He agreed to do it but only after meeting with Noam Chomsky. If I could have taken him and sent him back, I might have. The point of this story is that we are romanticizing the views of those in Iranian society a little bit. This is especially true for the Iranian American community who desperately want their country back and love their country and the soul of their people.

Interviewer: Yeah. I love your anecdotes because they add both interest and insight to the topics we are discussing. I want to touch on Ukraine, China and Saudi Arabia before I turn to some of the questions from the audience. At the end of Trump’s administration, we were at the two-yard line with respect to a normalization agreement between the Israelis and the Saudis. During the first couple of years of his administration, Biden turned the Saudis into pariahs. Then, he realized that he needed them. Now he is pushing for a defense agreement that would have to go to Congress for a two-thirds majority in the Senate. While this is happening, we are witnessing a rapprochement between Iran and the Saudis. Are we losing the Saudis and some of the other Gulf states to Tehran? Tehran is reaching out to Arab countries. Could we even lose Egypt to Tehran?

Danielle: You describe what happened with the Saudis perfectly. Bear in mind that the Saudis have some agency in this. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi was not exactly the smartest thing for Mohammed bin Salman to do while advancing his modernization agenda. The Saudis are afraid of the Iranians. They are not stupid. They spend more time with the Iranians and they know them better than we do. The Saudis are fully aware of the cost of the Houthi takeover of Yemen. Unfortunately, they now view us as an unreliable ally.

During the Obama administration, I think they realized the extent to which the US was unreliable as an ally. The Gulf states have always considered the US-Israel relationship to be the absolute gold standard. Obama betrayed the Israelis. He lied about the implications of the Iran nuclear deal. He obfuscated, misled and made false promises about the deal. The Gulf states realized that if the US could betray Israel, it would betray them too.

Under Trump, they went all in for the United States and signed the Abraham Accords. They took many risks in this regard. These risks were of their own making, but they were still risks. The Saudis were at the goal line. I know nothing about sports, but I think that is an apt analogy. Biden, upon taking office, immediately changed the policies of the Trump administration. Biden also betrayed Ukraine and Afghanistan. Biden cannot stand Netanyahu and his policies are less than supportive of Israel. He is still sucking up to the Iranians and he is desperately trying to figure out some sort of return to a JCPOA-like deal.

So, the Gulf states do not trust us. They are not going to become part of Iran’s Islamic revolution, because they are Sunnis and they know what the Iranian regime represents. However, they are going to make a bunch of stupid, bad and dangerous decisions because they believe they cannot trust us. They are collaborating with the Chinese and the Russians. I am amazed at some of the bad choices that they have made. They are playing both sides. They are not willing to help us or take risks for us. They are acting in a completely transactional way as regards petroleum exports and they play footsie, when necessary, with the Iranians. This is not just a problem for the US, it is a huge problem for every country in NATO. It is an issue for all those countries just beyond Ukraine, and it is an urgent issue for the Taiwanese.

Interviewer: Okay. In a recent National Review column, Noah Rothman wrote, “Russia’s war in Ukraine is fast becoming a proxy battlefield in a global conflict between the forces arrayed in support of the US led global order and the authoritarian despotisms that seek to overturn it.”  My first reaction after reading Noah’s column was to question which US-led global order he was referencing. I do not believe we have seen a US-led global order since Biden took office.

Now we are learning that North Korea is sending troops into Ukraine to help the Russian army. These troops may number in the tens of thousands. This makes North Korea a co-combatant in the largest land war in Europe since World War II. It is doing this in exchange for Russia providing them with high tech weapons technology associated with nuclear and missile programs. If we couple this with aid that China and Iran are providing to Russia, it looks like we are on the cusp of World War III. Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea have aligned to threaten the West. How concerned should we be about Russia helping the North Koreans? It seems to me that a feckless foreign policy over the past three and a half years has brought us to a very dangerous place.

Danielle: I think you pretty much summarized the overall picture of what is going on. George W. Bush called this an axis of evil for a reason. Since the Russians invaded Ukraine, we have watched supine as the axis has expanded and strengthened. The war in Ukraine could have been won if we had supported Ukraine from the beginning as we are doing now. The Russians had not yet pulled up their mass reserves and were weak militarily. The Chinese had not yet gone all in on Putin. The North Koreans were not involved and the Iranians were not yet sending drones to Russia.

All of the countries we discussed are interested in the Ukraine battlefield. They are interested in the performance of their weapons against US and NATO materials there. The countries in question are looking to learn, to measure effectiveness and to conduct counter operations in the Ukraine. They are looking to learn from this battlefield in the same way that we are. Unfortunately, we are doing it to a lesser extent because we are being governed by feckless idiots. I think there has been some good reporting on this, even in the New York Times and especially in the Wall Street Journal.

We could beat the Russians if we needed to. NATO could beat the Russians. However, we do not have sufficient materials to go up against the Chinese for more than a week. China is a better resourced, deeper enemy than the Russians and we are not in a good place with respect to them at all. This should be a wakeup call for the American people. Our data nerds at AEI are observing that our defense investments have flatlined. We are spending more and more of our defense budget on entitlements, on health care, on pensions and on education. I commend all of my colleague Martiessen’s work on this. Conversely, we are spending less of it on innovation, research and on weaponry. Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump should be pledging to put more money into the military.

If it were not for the Ukraine war, we would not be modernizing and upgrading our military equipment. We would not have recognized we have an ammunition shortage and we would not be replacing it. It is only because we are giving Ukraine some of our materials, that we are buying newer and better materials for our military. However, we are shortchanging the American people. We are out of our minds. I do not know whether World War III has already begun but I want us to be able to deter it if we still can. Right now, we are doing nothing.

Interviewer: Frightening seems to be the word that I always come back to when I have discussions on this topic. What are your thoughts on Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s latest declaration that Ukraine will seek nuclear weapons unless it’s given NATO membership.

Danielle: Lord love that man. He is amazing. I think this war would have been over a long time ago if not for him. I think it sucks to be Volodymyr Zelenskyy. His allies, including the Biden administration, are constantly telling him what not to do and what not to hit. Donald Trump is proclaiming he would conclude a peace agreement within 24 hours. God only knows what the hell that would look like. Let us be completely honest about this. Donald Trump is not the only one losing patience with this war. The patience for this war in the Democratic Party has waned completely. Even though they are not fighting this war themselves, they are war weary.

So, Zelenskyy is in a terrible position. I think the Ukrainians have been lied to by the international community on repeated occasions. They gave up the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union because they were told they would not need it. They were told we would be there for them. The truth is that we are there for them to a point and until we get bored. This is disastrous for Zelenskyy. For this reason, I think he is seeking more and more extreme ways to galvanize support from the international community. Antonio Guterres, the man I love to hate the most, was invited by the Ukrainians to a conference. He declined. He was then invited by Putin to this ridiculous BRICS conference in Kazan. He accepted Putin’s invitation and attended. This is not a great time to be a good guy in this world.

Interviewer: No, it is not. Guterres is just awful. I am very concerned about China spying on the U.S critical national security infrastructure. Last year, a Chinese balloon traversed the entire country before we shot it down. This week we learned that mystery drones swarmed above Langley Air Force Base for 17 days last December. There were similar incursions over locations like the Edwards Air Force Base in California and the Energy Department’s Nevada nuclear security site. We are presuming that these infiltrations were conducted by the Chinese but perhaps you have different insights on this. How concerned should we be about Chinese spying on our sensitive military institutions?

Danielle: Are you kidding? Our hair should be on fire. A couple of weeks ago at AEI, Mark hosted the Chairman and Ranking member of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, or whatever they call themselves. We put it on the podcast as well. They were terrific and gave me hope for bipartisanship. However, every word they uttered made me more and more concerned. We know countries spy on each other. We spy on the Chinese and they spy on us. It is bad and dangerous and the administration is not doing enough about it. That said, it is the reality of the world we live in.

On the other hand, we should be hysterical about TikTok. 30% of people get their news from TikTok. The virulent anti Semitism, communist party and political propaganda, and other viral garbage on TikTok is insane. The Chinese communists run TikTok and they have a huge amount of influence over the American people. We are aware of this but we have not acted to shut it down yet. I hope it will happen in the next couple of months.

The members of Congress also discussed other information relating to threats from China. I will share one factoid from the discussion. 80% of the cranes at US ports were made in China. All of those cranes contain a backdoor cellular device able to control their operation. Imagine what would happen if we were in a war with China. Think about Huawei. We have spent billions ripping Huawei out of our systems. Our military is still using Chinese drones that are transmitting information back to the Chinese. We could go on and on about this and we should be hysterical about it. Either the Chairman or the Ranking member said that we should not be concerning ourselves with smoking guns. He noted that by the time you have a smoking gun, it has already been shot. He said, “We are concerning ourselves with the loaded guns the Chinese have in our heartland.” And I think that is 100% correct. It is one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement that we’ve seen, and thank God.

Interviewer: Can you comment on Taiwan? Recently, the Chinese flew more planes very close to Taiwan. One of our audience members also asked you to comment about South Korea.

Danielle: If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said we would not betray Taiwan but now I think we will. I am very nervous about this. Dick Cheney is one of my favorite people and I will quote what he said on one of the Sunday shows after 9/11. He was asked why the Europeans were not stepping up to the challenge from a military perspective. He answered that it was because they could not. That answer is incredibly important. The Europeans have aligned their foreign policy to match with their military capabilities. If you cannot do it, you do not do it. If you do not do it, you have to find a reason not to. This is my fear about China. I have seen a change among some on the right who insisted that we should not focus on Ukraine because we should focus all our attention on Taiwan and China. They are now saying that Taiwan just cannot be a priority for us. This is the way the wind is blowing and it is very dangerous.

Interviewer: Is Qatar as dangerous as Iran? An audience member is asking you to comment on Khaled Mashal being given safe haven in Qatar. What are your thoughts about it?

Danielle: My venom for Qatar knows no bounds. Their ability to buy and sell Americans is staggering. We just renewed our air base in Qatar. From a strategic perspective, we should not maintain this air base there at all. Qatar owns and runs Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera is not simply an enemy of Israel. It is a friend of al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas and Hezbollah, and it is an enemy of the United States. The Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, the Houthis and others are supported by Doha. They live there and have their money there. Qatar itself is not going to invade a different country. However, they are enemies, facilitators and sponsors of everything that is anathema to our interests and the interests of our allies.

There has been a turnaround on this in Washington but it is not complete. There are still think tanks and individuals taking a ton of money and direction from the Qataris. If you want to understand the source of antisemitism on campus, you should look at Qatar. Qatar is not the only cause of antisemitism on campus but it is a major factor. We should also be concerned about Qatari influence over news agencies. I was invited to a party two nights ago. There, a well-known new media concern was being celebrated by the Qataris. Qatari influence is a nightmare and we are idiots not to put too fine a point on it.

Interviewer: Amen to that.

Danielle: We are doing great work on exposing this by the way. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies with Cliff May, Mark Dubowitz and others are doing great work in that arena. I recommend them to you for that.

Interviewer: Thank you, Danny. They are all regulars on our webinars. I would love for you to become a regular here as well.

An audience member asked whether our liberating Iraq from Saddam resulted in Iraq being handed to Iran. They asked if this can be compared to the way in which we handed Afghanistan back to the Taliban. I would like to take that question a step further and ask you to touch on Biden’s announcement that US forces will withdraw completely from Iraq by 2026. I understand he is somehow making it very difficult for the next administration to reverse that. What are your thoughts on that?

Danielle: Biden has been trying to get out of both Iraq and Syria for his entire presidency. As Bob Gates said, Biden has been wrong about everything relating to foreign policy his entire life. I do not have enough information to know exactly what the withdrawal would look like. I know that the initial discussion was just a renaming exercise but I do not know the final outcome of that discussion.

There is a question as to whether eliminating Saddam Hussein removed a counterbalance to Iran in the Middle East. In response I would say that we cannot rely on a very straight-line view of history. We cannot assume that everything would have continued as it was. We cannot assume that relations between Iran and Iraq would have continued as they were and that the position of all other players in the region would not have changed. The second that sanctions were removed, Saddam would have returned to his nuclear weapons program. He would definitely have developed nuclear weapons. Then we would be looking at the Iranians developing nuclear weapons with no holds barred. Right now, we have Iran on the cusp of obtaining a nuclear weapon. The rest of the region has, for the most part, normalized with the state of Israel. Had Saddam Hussein not been removed, we would have had two countries with nuclear weapons. Both of those countries would have opposed their neighbors, Israel and the US. To reiterate, I think we should not look at history as if it was frozen in time and assume the situation at that time would have continued. John McCain said that to me. He was absolutely right and I miss him a lot.

Interviewer: I think that’s a good stopping point. It is 01:00 pm and I appreciate your time. I know how busy you are. Danny, thank you a million, you were brilliant. I learned a tremendous amount from you and I am sure others would as well. Thank you everybody for joining and I hope you share this recording far and wide.

Danielle: Thanks to you for everything that you do. Thank you to your audience. Definitely invite me back. Take care.

Interviewer: Bye-bye.

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