Wisdom of Crowds Sohrab Ahmari on the Israel-Iran War and its Aftermath
The Israel-Iran war is about to enter its sixth day. As of this recording — Wednesday evening, June 18 — President Trump has not announced whether the United States will join the Israeli war effort.
During this unpleasant lull, Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic invited Sohrab Ahmari to discuss what we can expect from the war and its aftermath. In recent days, Sohrab has emerged as an essential commentator on the Iran Israel war. His article, “The Regime Change Maniacs are Back” is one of the most informative and talked-about pieces to come out in the early days of this crisis. Sohrab was born in Iran, and so direct personal experience of the country informs his analysis.
“Collapsing regimes willy nilly does not create good outcomes,” Sohrab tells Damir and Shadi, and he should know. Sohrab was once a neoconservative hawk, a supporter of US interventionism abroad. But time has been a teacher and he has become, in his own words, “penitent.” He discusses the ways that Iranian society in particular could fracture in catastrophic ways should a state collapse follow regime change. Iran has a “perennially unsettled relationship between state and society,” Sohrab says. They have a word for it: estebdad, or arbitrary rule.
Shadi and Damir pressure test Sohrab’s alarming prognostications, but in the end they find little to disagree with. The discussion shifts toward American perceptions of Iran and Israel, and how these are shifting both within the MAGA coalition and among Americans as a whole. They compare Tucker Carlson's recent interviews with Steve Bannon and Ted Cruz and what these say about the political dilemma faced by Trump as he decides whether or not to join the war.
In our bonus section for paid subscribers, the three men discuss the role that evangelical Christianity plays in pro-Israel American sentiments. Shadi asks Sohrab whether Catholics are different from evangelicals in this regard. Sohrab teases out the differences between “Deep MAGA” and the GOP establishment that has learned how to “speak MAGA”; Damir and Sohrab both have heard that younger GOP staffers on the Hill are in despair over this war; and much more.
Required Reading:
* Sohrab Ahmari, “The Regime Change Maniacs are Back” (UnHerd).
* Sohrab Ahmari, “Iran’s Devastating Hubris” (UnHerd).
* Sohrab Ahmari, “America’s dime-store Nietzscheans” (New Statesman).
* Sohrab Ahmari, From Fire, by Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith (Amazon).
* Brent Scowcroft on the Iraq War (PBS).
* “How Trump Shifted on Iran Under Pressure From Israel” (New York Times).
* Tucker Carlson interviews Ted Cruz (YouTube).
* Tucker Carlson interviews Steve Bannon (YouTube).
* “Azerbaijan: Israel’s Quiet Friend” (Middle East Eye).
* “American Sympathy for Israel Reaches 'All-Time Low' in New Poll” (Newsweek).
* “Less Than Half in U.S. Now Sympathetic Toward Israelis” (Gallup).
* Jason Willick, “Why Israel would benefit from defeating Iran on its own” (Washington Post).
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