Understanding Israel, Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon (Half the Answer #79, with Y. L. Al-Sheikh)

Look at my Iran negotiator, dawg, we’re never getting through the Strait of Hormuz. Friend of the program Y. L. Al-Sheikh helps us understand the unfolding diplomatic and military nightmare that is the Middle East, and how the United States plays a role in each.

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Transcript

Caitlin M. Green [00:30]
Well, happy days, etc. And this is Half The Answer, where understanding your questions is half the answer. I am your co-host Caitlin Green. With me, of course, is Trent R. Nelson. We are writers, we are editors, we are academically inclined individuals. I love linguistics and language, and how you use language. Trent loves history and things that have happened, and what people thought about it. And we, of course, are here to find out more stuff about the stuff that we don't know stuff about. Trent, who have you brought me?

Trent R. Nelson [01:02]
Well, you know, we love our return guests when we are fortunate enough that they answer our messages and emails, to be sure. Well, this is another one who got caught in that trap. Just like we do, Layla Al-Sheikh. She's a writer, she's an analyst, she's a commentator, she's a guest on this program more frequently than not, and she does a whole host of other things as well. Layla, our wonderful friend, how are you today?

Layla Al-Sheikh [01:31]
I am doing good, all things considered.

Caitlin M. Green [01:35]
Yeah, there's always got to be an addendum, an asterisk. Listen, we know the world being what it is, and affecting our lives in the way that it does. Doing fine, I guess.

Trent R. Nelson [01:45]
Literally, literally, Layla. Well, we always bring you on to talk about Israel and Palestine, and that ongoing conflict that has been, of course, ongoing for decades and decades at this point. We've got to get an update on that, but there's been some conflict expansion, as I think we all know at this point. Israel is going after Lebanon, they have attacked — with the United States — Iran, and, well, Layla, we gotta know all the tea. What is cooking over in the Middle East, in the Levant? What's the word? It's certainly not a good word. What is the word, though?

Layla Al-Sheikh [02:40]
I think the best way to put it is that the pre-2023 equilibrium, such that it existed between the Israelis and the Gulf on one side and Iran on the other, roughly has been shattered, and for many reasons, but first and foremost because of the events of October 2023 and then the ensuing genocide in Gaza, and the shattering — but not so much of a shattering as we thought — of the Axis of Resistance, and with the emboldening of the Israelis in multiple theaters, both in Palestine, across Gaza, in the West Bank, and in Lebanon, and in their invasion of Syria, and likewise with the entrenched failure of the United States to return to a negotiated settlement with the Iranians. We have sort of been — I don't want to say inevitable, because I don't believe anything is per se inevitable — but sort of been hurtling towards this moment for quite a few years now, in which the only logical conclusion to not negotiating a settlement with Iran is a war with Iran, because the goals of the United States and the Israelis are irreconcilable with the goals of the Iranians, insofar as they've been defined. The Israelis and the United States do not want an Iran which has the capacity to deter the United States and Israel. And the Iranians don't believe that the Israelis and the United States have any credibility left when it comes to a negotiated settlement. We tore up the JCPOA. We have repeatedly gone to the negotiating table and then pulled out or added addendums at the very last minute which were intended to be rejected, and we have even killed negotiators — not just on the Iranian front, but the Israelis assassinated negotiators in Doha just over a year ago. And so we're now in this crisis, which has resulted in an extended hot war of roughly a month, which has now been put on pause, but it may very well return. It's not really quite clear at the moment. As of this morning, reports indicate that the Iranians and the Americans don't believe a long-term peace settlement can be reached, and instead they're going to try to reach a short-term memorandum that ensures we don't return to war, but in effect, that just means we'll return to war.

Caitlin M. Green [05:07]
Now that's so confusing, though, because I heard we sent our best guy over there to figure it out. JD Vance, did he not? Did he not work it out?

Trent R. Nelson [05:36]
Unfortunately, he's also arguing with all of Catholicism, so he's busy. He's got a whole bunch of balls he's juggling right now.

Caitlin M. Green [05:42]
They are sending their best, and it's this. That's really dismal. She's fighting a war on multiple fronts here.

Layla Al-Sheikh [05:50]
It's quite upsetting to say this, but he might very well be the best guy available in this administration. And so it's not good news that he has demonstrated a total incapability to move the needle. But look at my lawyer — yes, this is a great example of the "look at my lawyer, dog." We're going to jail. And that's more or less what's happening with the United States in this negotiating position.

Caitlin M. Green [06:01]
"This is my lawyer. JD Vance is my lawyer."

Trent R. Nelson [06:10]
I'm dead. And he's got a baggy-ass suit. You are not escaping this case, my friend. It's so true. So, there has been a lot of discussion about Iran, but less about Lebanon, of course. Recently, on Liberal Currents, Matthew Duong wrote a piece regarding that — we're talking a lot about Iran, but Lebanon is being attacked, is being blown to bits. What can you tell us about that, and what that means in the greater context?

Layla Al-Sheikh [07:00]
Yes, I'm glad you said that. It's the blindness — because that's quite literally, for those who are listening, what is happening. It is not an exaggeration, it's not rhetorical, it's not imaginary. Just last week, on "Black Wednesday," as Arabs are calling it, the Israelis decimated massive parts of Beirut with airstrikes and caused entire buildings to collapse for the most extreme of ostensible reasons — the nephew of a guy, of a guy, of a guy might have been in that building. That's sort of the logic that drives Israeli military action in Lebanon, and it drives it everywhere across the region. There's no proportionality. There's not even really a pretense nowadays.

And so what's actually happened in Lebanon, in the broader context, is that after October 7, the Israelis have abandoned the sort of conflict management that they had previously subscribed to. And when I say conflict management, it doesn't even really mean that they weren't aggressive — of course they were aggressive, especially in Gaza, especially in the West Bank — but what it meant was that they were comfortable enough with the presence of these militant groups, which they perceive as existential in some capacity. The qualitative military edge was strong. They believed they were on track, nonetheless, despite these problems in their immediate vicinity, to normalization with other countries in the region.

And now things have sort of flipped. The psychological wound that occurred in October of 2023 has led them to be a lot more intolerant of even the slightest problem, and in turn they've taken a sort of — I would say, of course — annihilationist view towards the Shia of Lebanon, towards the Palestinians as a whole, towards the Sunnis of Syria. And that's what you're seeing now, especially in South Lebanon, where Israel has ordered massive forced evacuations, which amount to ethnic cleansing. Not only because forcing all of these civilians out in of itself is ethnic cleansing, but also because, as we've discussed on previous episodes, there are two components to ethnic cleansing: the first is the removal, and the second is the rejection of return, and we're seeing that play out in real time.

The Israelis have demolished entire villages — wiped off the map in South Lebanon in particular. And I bring this up because of what happened yesterday in the Senate. They've been using D9 Caterpillar bulldozers to demolish entire villages. They've been using 1,000-pound, 1,500-pound, 2,000-pound bombs to demolish entire apartment blocks. So these Lebanese civilians — up to a million — have nowhere to return to if this war ever ends, and if the Israelis ever withdraw. And that in itself is a question which beggars belief. Will they withdraw? Do they ever intend to? As you see the finance minister and other ministers — Israel Katz, who's the defense minister — they talk about taking land permanently, and they talk about settlement. And so what you're seeing in Lebanon can't really be separated from the broader question in relation to Iran, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and even the Gulf.

Israel wants to upend the previous regional order, which nonetheless benefited them, but now they want a regional order in which they are the kingmaker, the hegemonic force.

Trent R. Nelson [10:13]
Right. Well, Layla, how is it possible that we can keep our mouths shut regarding whole blocks, whole neighborhoods being destroyed, annihilated — as you say, a campaign of annihilationism — while in Europe, we might look at Russia doing something similar, and the whole international community would be in an uproar? American media would be frustrated. Everyone — is it simply a matter that we are allied with Israel and not with Russia?

Caitlin M. Green [11:04]
What business as usual looks like in terms of the actual destruction on people's lives — you can scroll through social media right now, and you can see a teenage girl on a shopping trip with her dad suddenly have to take shelter in a store because there's bombs going off really close to her, and watch — really watch — a 15-year-old girl understand that she almost got blown up just now, and another one could be coming any second. I think that really helps hammer home that, actually, this can't really be allowed to continue.

Layla Al-Sheikh [11:30]
I think that's a significant part, of course. I mean, if you had the displeasure of watching the interview between Jon Stewart and — I believe it's Jake Sullivan, the previous national security advisor to Biden — Mr. Sullivan set out right in the interview something along the lines of, "Well, we tend to stick with our allies." And so there's a bit of sunk cost fallacy, a bit of "this is how we've always done it," a bit of racism, of course. There's a qualitative assumption at play, where, as Professor Mark Lynch put it in his interview with Ezra Klein a couple of days ago, a lot of Americans simply do not conceptualize Palestinians or the Lebanese or the Syrians or the Yemenis as fully human beings with families, with interests.

Yes, but I think there is another component, and in my view, it might even be a worse one than the racism or the indifference, and I think it's that the regional destruction we're seeing, in the eyes of American policymakers, is beneficial to America. I think that's the problem that we still nonetheless see.

And this is something that I highly recommend — if you ever get the opportunity, readers or viewers — to read Mark Lynch's book. It's about America's Middle East, I believe that's the name, and it's about the regional order the Americans have built. In this structure — I mean, it's not to say that the Americans are the only people who have shaped the region, that's impossible to say — but in the structure, over the long haul, the Americans have had the most say in terms of how the order is structured. It's with the Israelis and the Egyptians and the Jordanians and the Gulf at the top and everyone else on a varying degree at the bottom. To a lot of these policymakers who see this order as something to maintain, this is a function of the order, it's not a dysfunction of the order. And so what's happening to Palestinians and the Lebanese is not even incidental, at best, and that's a serious problem insofar as we're meant to challenge the structures. They don't see this problem.

Caitlin M. Green [13:50]
That's right, we've been conditioned over a long time to not even consider it.

Layla Al-Sheikh [14:00]
There's a kind of absurdity to it, I think, and I also want to note that it's not necessarily just the Israelis in this case. When I talk about the order that's been structured, it's also the Emiratis. Of course, my main purview is Palestine and the Levant, but look at what the Emiratis have done over the last decade or so. They've built an expansive agricultural and land appropriation empire in Africa. They've supported the most violent militias in Sudan, which have committed acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide. They support secessionist movements which undermine the very concept of territorial sovereignty, and they've never really faced any accountability for these things, because the Europeans and the Americans both perceive them to be a linchpin in the regional system, and so this shields them from accountability. So it's not necessarily just the Israelis, although these two are the major linchpins, I believe. But when you see stuff that happens in Sudan or Beirut, you're seeing things that are — I feel awful to say — incidental at best to American policymakers. They don't see it as a fault. A lot of them — not 100%.

And I think, going back to what you mentioned about the Matthew Duong piece, which I thought was excellent in Liberal Currents — something that I believe is very under-discussed in the Western conceptualization of the conflict is that these are all pieced together. They are actually one overarching regional crisis, and the separation of Lebanon from Palestine, or Palestine from Lebanon, or these two from Iran, or even Syria — this is actually, if your goal is to produce a stabilizing peace, counterproductive to separate them. Because what you have is a regional lack of balance. Obama sort of sought to primatize that balance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but then that was immediately overturned. And since then we've had this problem of who's going to be the top dog, and in that way all of these places have been not playing fields but battlegrounds for playing out the result. And so if you want to actually resolve these issues, you have to resolve the Palestinian question. You have to resolve: does Israel have unlimited impunity? Do the Emiratis have unlimited impunity? Does Iran have even inherent legitimacy in the international order? These are questions that Americans have to answer about how they approach the conflict.

Caitlin M. Green [15:28]
Yeah, we have a big problem with sort of impunity among certain administrations, certain governments, because of the relationship that they enjoy. I was curious about your interpretation of the recent vote in the Senate on — what was it, Wednesday, April 15 — about the bomb and bulldozer sales to Israel, where it does look like the Democrats are starting to turn around on this issue. They failed to block the sale, but the numbers are looking a lot more like Democrats generally want to vote against giving more weapons.

Layla Al-Sheikh [16:10]
Yes, I think so. I think an analogy that I keep coming back to — and I sort of view this as an overarching phase that goes back to Trump one, extended into Biden, and then is now reaching its most extreme form in Trump two — is sort of that Nixonian approach to South Africa, in which the belief was, well, we know that white majority rule and the conquest and settlement of Namibia and all of these other things are untenable, but holding South Africa's white regime accountable won't actually yield any results. We have to bear-hug them, we have to coddle them, we have to supply them, so that they'll feel more secure, and then they'll make concessions.

This is the logic that Nixon had towards it. It's the logic that Reagan had towards it. Evidently, that wasn't the case, and the case isn't true here either. In most cases, psychologically, if a human being has total impunity and does whatever they like, and they see that they have total impunity, what will they do? They will continue to do what they like. And that's the case with Israel. It's not some conspiratorial notion. It's not as if Israeli views, or Jews in general, control the US government or control the world. This is a straightforward ideological problem on the part of the United States, and the ideological problem has led to this moment where, in a sort of paradoxical way, like I alluded to earlier, the order that the United States had built up, which largely benefited Israel, is now being destroyed by Israel with American support. It's not quite rational, and it's in the same way it wasn't rational for Putin to invade Ukraine. Russia will have severe problems for years to come because of this irrationality that comes out of ideology. The US will have problems due to this for a long time.

Trent R. Nelson [17:18]
Well, Americans had answered it. I remember being there, where we at least answered part of it, such that Iran was going to have an opportunity to be brought back into the international community. As you noted, Layla, that was almost instantly overturned, and we look at it almost 10 years on, and as you just sort of said, each one being fragmented, a different issue, individualized — well, we have a long list to get through if that's the case, right? And getting rid of the JCPOA just added something back on to the list.

Having noted that our credibility sort of went out the window with our decision to leave that multinational agreement, there is no real ability to focus on these other circumstances — not that the government in charge actually wants to focus on those either. It seems as though it has been left in the hands of folks like Bibi and Smotrich, and many others. Are we going to look back on this and just say that this was America letting Israel sort of rule the roost and try to decide things for themselves, to some degree, with our help?

Layla Al-Sheikh [18:30]
It's sort of the logical conclusion of learning nothing from Iraq. I think we did something irrational, we're still bearing the consequences, and we'll be bearing the consequences with us for a long time. So I think you're right — it is a case of us letting Israel set the tone. We sort of just hop along.

Caitlin M. Green [19:00]
We just love not learning anything. It's our favorite activity. Learning is actually for girls. Okay, it's a little gay, so I don't know why you're asking me to do that.

Trent R. Nelson [19:15]
Which, by the way, was the logical conclusion of us not learning anything in the Gulf or in Vietnam. So learning is gay, absolutely.

Trent R. Nelson [21:08]
But Layla, I was under the impression that it was illegal to demolish buildings — settler buildings, settler settlements. I was under the impression that that was something that the international community frowned upon to a pretty large extent. No?

Layla Al-Sheikh [21:30]
Yes, it's very arguable. In fact, I think soon there'll be a couple of memos coming out after this vote. I think it's quite arguable that the sale or even just the transfer of these D9 Caterpillars violates international law, because they're predominantly used in the destruction of Palestinian property in the occupied Palestinian territories, which the Israeli presence in of itself, according to the ICJ, is illegal. And so there are companion issues there.

So, for those who don't know, the Joint Resolution of Disapproval is a type of resolution which can be submitted to the Senate, and it must be voted upon after a certain period of time. After it goes through committee, it has to be voted on. And this is a mechanism which Bernie and a few others — Van Hollen, Merkley, Welch, I think these are the main ones — this is the mechanism that forces senators to take a position.

Now, of course, Republicans have no qualms about this, despite — I would say — the burgeoning problem with young Republicans in relation to Israel. But they have no qualms. Democrats, on the other hand, have long supplied us with a kind of rhetoric which is nominally subscribed to liberal values, but in practice has not really been adhered to. When it comes to Israel and Palestine, there's always been a Palestine exception, or a Lebanon exception, or a Syria exception.

Caitlin M. Green [22:42]
Right. We're so good at being disappointed or frustrated with Israel without actually taking a hard-line stance, though.

Layla Al-Sheikh [23:00]
And so these votes — which also, I don't know if people know this — the first Joint Resolution of Disapproval ever on an Israeli weapons sale happened in 2024. That was the first one ever. There had never been a vote, a straight up-and-down vote, in the Senate or the House on specifically provisioning military weapons for Israel. And so this was the first time ever, and it only happened in the context of this generational upheaval and this paradigmatic shift among American voters, and especially among liberal American voters and young voters, on Israel.

In — I believe, I want to say — late November, December 2024, the first JRD, it was 19 Democrats. And then in July of 2025, there were 27 Democrats, which was the highest number, I believe. There were multiple resolutions in the Senate at that time, but the highest number was 27. This time, the highest number was 40, and this was on the sale — the military sale — of $300 million worth of armored bulldozers. And if you don't know what an armored bulldozer is, you can Google "D9 Caterpillar bulldozer." A D9 Caterpillar bulldozer is an extremely efficient way to demolish buildings.

$300 million worth of these D9s, which, by the way, not only destroy buildings but also can crush humans to death — which is what occurred to Rachel Corrie. She was murdered by an Israeli soldier in 2003, and there have been reports on and off of such things happening in Gaza since 2023.

That was a very successful vote, I think. And then also, mere minutes later, 36 senators — all Democratic — voted to block the transfer of $150 million worth of 1,000-pound bombs. And these votes did fail ultimately, because you need Republicans or you need a Senate majority of Democrats who are willing to pass them.

But to those who think, "Well, why does this matter?" — I had the honor of reading a very funny quote a couple of days ago, which I remember having read even a year ago. It's from 2024, and it was from a Washington Institute for Near East Policy director — I think her name's Dana Stroul. She's a pro-Israel analyst, and her view, and the pro-Israel bloc's view, is that these votes in of themselves are bad for pro-Israel political consensus, because it puts these senators on the record. The higher the salience of the issue — especially now that Israel is a politically toxic issue for liberals — the bigger the issue for them.

And so these votes put senators on the record, and I think it's important to note: not a single senator who was reportedly willing to run for president in 2028, who was reportedly looking at it, voted against these. Booker voted for both, Slotkin voted for both, Gallego voted for both. And so in 2028, these candidates will be on the record having voted against at least some weapons transfers. That is a significant advancement, I believe.

Caitlin M. Green [27:10]
Yeah, well, we here on Half The Answer love to talk about the wind socks, and which way the wind socks are blowing, and that's a really heartening direction for the wind socks, especially. I like — to me, Gallego is my number one wind sock. I don't think he believes anything, and so I'm so excited to see which way he's pointing.

Trent R. Nelson [27:22]
Absolutely.

Layla Al-Sheikh [27:30]
Yes, I think a good example of this — I don't think it was very much reported on until now, or until a couple weeks ago, I think the New York Times picked up on it — is that Hakeem Jeffries is very friendly with AIPAC. However, last year, for the first time, he actually declined to go on an AIPAC trip to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. I believe that's the first time he's ever done so, and around the same time he was also endorsed by J Street. No matter what one's opinion of J Street is — I have my own — it's undeniable that, as a result of the political changes that have been underlying this conflict and in response to the escalations that Israel has done, J Street has moved to the left.

And so these are dynamics that — they don't feel like much in of themselves, but as they go and go and they pile up, you're starting to see this shift. And I mentioned earlier a paradigmatic shift, and I think one of the reasons why you're not going to see popular conceptions of Israel just rebound overnight — and maybe ever, maybe it just won't rebound for as long as Israel does not change its own behavior — is because in the wake of what was done to Gaza, and then the wake of what's being done to Lebanon, and now the Iran war, you're seeing a whole new generation of people who don't conceptualize Israel as a small state made up entirely of Holocaust survivors who have a handful of guns and they're fighting against a billion hordes of Arabs.

You have a very ascendant garrison-like state which is openly proud of its segregationist policies against those that it controls, which is openly proud of the fact that it can corral the United States into going to war against Iran for little to no reason. This is a country that's very proud of what it's been able to do. And so younger people see this and say, well, in the context of BLM that I've grown up with, in the context of disability justice, in the context of not wanting to have my bills go up 400% for no reason — why, what is this alliance's utility to me? And so that's the sort of thing that we're now seeing, and politicians will ultimately respond to that, so long as the United States is still a somewhat democratic country.

Caitlin M. Green [30:07]
I think this is so deeply connected to the right's project of stopping American children from learning about our colonialist history, right? And stopping us from sympathizing and empathizing with the people that our ancestors subjugated, because — they'll say, "Oh, that's America-hating," whatever — but what it really does for a child is warn them about the signs of something that they would be against when they see it in the rest of the world, in the current day, and it helps us to have a little bit of foreknowledge to ready ourselves to oppose what looks exactly like another violent colonialist project that we are assisting and that we really don't want to be part of.

Trent R. Nelson [30:54]
And social media is also connected — the drive to sort of attempt to restrict what's being shown on social media. You can see Israeli soldiers going through Palestinian houses and laughing at the blown-up bits, and all sorts of horrifying things. That's pretty radicalizing.

Caitlin M. Green [31:10]
That's pretty radicalizing, or cooking pancakes to make fun of Rachel Corrie for getting flattened by a bulldozer, right? That kind of lack of empathy will really hit you in your sense of justice. Oh, I'm so sorry, all of you right-wingers, but Miss Rachel already has her hooks in every toddler. We all love her too much. Sorry, we'll go wherever she wants us to go.

Layla Al-Sheikh [31:40]
Or calling Rachel Corrie anti-Semitic for donating money to organizations that provide food to children. I think — to make a bit of a joke — I think for Israel, politicians and analysts in the US want to make it: "Are you for Israel, or are you for children?" I, unfortunately, think a lot of people will know what they're choosing. It's not a very good framing for Israeli politicians to do that.

I think what's especially hurting about the JRD vote, and what's especially hurting about the general move — because not only did the JRD vote happen, but also now we're seeing a real debate finally coalesce around not just should we provide a foreign military sale to Israel, like should Israel be allowed to buy Caterpillar bulldozers which are used exclusively to destroy homes — that's a debate that should have been easy to have 25 years ago, but we're finally having it. That's good.

But there's also the debate of should the US even be footing the bill for Iron Dome and for Arrow and all of these things. If you had asked those questions a few years ago, people would be like, "Well, you just want Israelis to die," or "You just want the conflict to escalate," or "You think that there needs to be a punch in the nose," so to speak. And that was an attempt to shut down the conversation.

But as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has mentioned, as Ro Khanna has mentioned, as yesterday Mark Pocan and a couple of other progressive incumbent members of Congress have mentioned — Dan Goldman, so on and so forth — Israel is not a poor country. Israel is a well-developed economy. It is, as it proudly boasts, a country with a qualitative military edge, an edge that we have largely subsidized into being. To be fair, they can foot the bill on these things. Why is the US footing the bill? Why are taxpayers specifically footing the bill on hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars as a subsidy to a country — and this is the important part — to a country that doesn't even listen to us?

That's really key. So if your whole thing as a liberal is, "Well, we have to provide this aid so that Israel listens to us," and then you look at the record and Israel doesn't listen to us — well, what is the aid for? Ultimately speaking, people claim that this aid is for leverage, but if you preemptively swear off ever using that leverage, then it's not leverage, it's just a convenient excuse.

And so now we're finally having tangible conversations. I think this is a very healthy development — legitimately a healthy development. In the short term, it might make a lot of people very fearful, those who approach Israel, or those who think that the average liberal voter shouldn't have much say, because they're "elite" or because they're "condescending" or so on and so forth. But these are healthy conversations now. These are things that we should be talking about, not just in terms of Israel, but should we be giving free weapons to Egypt? Or should we be giving the Jordanian police free training so that they can suppress their own citizens? Or go to Bahrain and suppress Bahrainis whenever they revolt? These are conversations we should be having every day.

Trent R. Nelson [35:07]
Well, Layla, I think that's a really wonderful point. I'd also like to point out that, as we talk about the senators who might be running for president in 2028, there have only been three senators to ever go directly from the Senate to the White House. One is Warren G. Harding, one is John F. Kennedy, and one is Barack Obama. They usually take another route — if they were a senator, they usually go to the presidency from another place.

But Layla, I enjoy foreign policy, and I enjoy thinking about this stuff. I have to ask you earnestly — although our listeners and viewers might not believe that — how is it that, if the alternative to going through a conflict militarily, through war, if the alternative is to come to a diplomatic agreement, right, but America is not in a good place to militarily exercise force or victory, and also we're not trusted from a diplomatic standpoint anymore — how is America supposed to not lose in some meaningful way? Whether it be diplomatically or some long slog, as we saw in Iraq, in Vietnam, where — to use a Korean War reference — we're battling over Pork Chop Hill for years and years, and people are dying and suffering, and ultimately we will be seen as having lost. What — is there another alternative that I'm missing, Layla?

Layla Al-Sheikh [35:53]
Well, we've already lost. I think that's pretty abundantly clear. One month in, the US has already conceded that it can't actually impose its will. Straight-up concession moves. So in that sense, we've already lost. The US has already conceded that we can't demand zero enrichment forever. The reports have indicated that we've asked for a 20-year moratorium, or even a five- or 10-year moratorium, which — as you obviously know, because you're steeped in the Iran portfolio — that's exactly what was in the JCPOA. There was a moratorium on enrichment, and so we're back to square one.

We've expended significant international goodwill. Multiple long-standing, generational, multi-generational allies — Britain, Spain, Italy — have refused to supply us with their bases. The Gulf is frustrated with us because we have fallen on our security guarantees. I think that's a clear case of "fuck around and find out" on our part, but that is the case. The strategic relationship to Israel is stronger than ever, but the political relationship is more delegitimized than ever. These are losses for the United States. It's already happened.

As for how do we get out of it — that's a serious problem, because we don't have the headspace for it. We don't have the administration for a diplomatic solution. In the immediate sense, I would hope that international players, if they ever felt like stepping up, could help impose a diplomatic solution by strong-arming the United States by saying, "This can't last forever." The war is effectively a war on Asian economies. We haven't felt even the biggest brunt of it yet in the United States, but Asian economies have. These are countries that rely on oil far more, far more immediately, can't replenish with a domestic stockpile. So you're seeing India, Singapore, Pakistan — all these countries who need oil — and look at what's happening to oil prices.

So hopefully other countries — China, Europe, Pakistan, Turkey — hopefully these countries are able to convince Washington that this is not sustainable. But thus far, I don't think anybody's been able to convince Trump of anything except for Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Zayed, which is a very bad problem, because these are two of the worst people to be speaking to.

Trent R. Nelson [39:52]
Absolutely a nightmare scenario where the only people that can strong-arm the president are some of the worst people on the planet.

Layla Al-Sheikh [40:00]
I wouldn't even say "strongly," though. It's simply that the president is probably demented. He's probably genuinely no longer of his mental capabilities. But also, the people he's surrounded himself with are ideologically just in line with MBZ and Netanyahu and MBS. And that's a serious problem. I think it was even a serious problem in the previous administration, but it's even worse now, because there's no one who's willing to look at the abyss and say maybe we shouldn't jump in. And we've done that.

Trent R. Nelson [40:45]
Well, everybody knows — if you want to get on Trump's good side, I mean, I think we can look at the Prime Minister of Japan. If you want to get on Trump's good side, the playbook is more obvious than for any other president. You just fawn over him, you just say bullshit, you just give him fake gold things. I mean, he is very easily swayed by a certain type of individual, a certain type of leadership.

Caitlin M. Green [41:21]
How has that worked out for Tim Apple? Didn't he give him a golden tablet? Did that work out well for him? So far, so good.

Trent R. Nelson [41:30]
Well, to some degree it did. In the last episode of Neon Liberalism, where Sam spoke with Joey Politano, they actually go into the fact that this was a bit of open bribery — tariffs on computing parts and computer things would not be as severe, and yet computer parts for things like gaming consoles, which are essentially also computers, they do get taxed more, right? Because Nintendo and PlayStation come from different places than Apple computers do.

Caitlin M. Green [41:46]
Right, he got those exemptions, because Tim Apple doesn't care about those. And Papa Zuck doesn't care about that stuff either. What's going on there? Because he did some bribing.

Trent R. Nelson [42:00]
He is in his MMA phase.

Caitlin M. Green [42:05]
Oh right, he's busy training. Excuse me, he's busy training, I say very seriously. Well, listen, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't just have another reality show president. It's going so well. I think maybe Nick Lachey is probably available. Let's see what we can do with him. Nick Lachey for president. He'll be like, "Hey, I'm here for America Is Blind, a social experiment where I decide whether or not I can run a country. It's going to be riveting television."

Trent R. Nelson [42:37]
98 Degrees. Absolutely, it will be 98 Degrees all the time, forever. You know, and I would choose Jesse Ventura even over Nick Lachey, but that is a discussion for another day.

Layla, you are supreme. We appreciate you so much, but as you sort of alluded to earlier on in our discussion — the conflict with Iran, the disintegrating of Lebanon — well, Palestinians are still suffering in Gaza, and in so many settlements across the area. What can you tell us about that? As the media — not us, we are the obviously reasonable media, right? We're the good ones. But what's going on with the suffering of Palestinians and the destruction of Palestine, Layla?

Layla Al-Sheikh [43:42]
Of course. I think we're at an interesting moment in which Palestine is — relative to the other issues on the international stage, despite its resilience in the domestic stage — Palestine remains a prevailing litmus test in democratic politics especially. But in the international context, and in the domestic context, with Palestinians, we are currently at an inflection point, pretty much where we were last time we talked, which is: the implementation of the so-called Trump peace plan has left Gaza in an ambiguous limbo, in which no reconstruction has taken place, no political pathway has been implemented, there's nothing really. The Israelis control approximately 53 to 55% of the territory directly. They control the rest indirectly via blockade, via strict controls on all crossings and humanitarian aid flow.

And in the occupied West Bank, we're seeing a disastrous escalation of what can only be called de facto annexation — although I would say it's been de facto annexed for decades. We're seeing settler outposts legalized at an extremely high rate — 31 were approved during the month-long Iran war. We're seeing Smotrich and Ben Gvir and Netanyahu openly, more than ever, declare that there will be no Palestinian state west of the Jordan River.

In terms of the last week, there have been disarmament talks in relation to Hamas and other militant groups and resistance groups in Gaza. These haven't borne any fruit, because the Palestinian resistance groups — like Hamas and PIJ — insist upon a political component in return for disarmament, which will almost certainly not be provided. And in reciprocity, the Israelis and the Americans insist on disarmament with no conditions.

And so there likely won't be any progress on that front. There likely won't be the deployment of the international stabilization force that has been floated for so long. Indonesia has pulled back from this effort, Kosovo has pulled back. Morocco doesn't feel comfortable, mostly because of the Iran war.

And so we're in a state of languishing, I would say. The crisis is now in a stabilized state of continued Israeli aggression on all fronts, and this is a very bad situation to be in. But if one were to look at the glimmers of hope that do exist, I would say it goes back to the paradigmatic shift: many people across the Western world no longer think of Palestine as a merely Israeli internal issue. And this is really the key to unlocking the logjam that has existed for Palestinians. By understanding Palestine as a regional issue, by understanding it as a liberation issue — an issue in which these are people who do not want to be subject to Israeli Jewish supremacist rule — we can work towards policy that actually unlocks that.

And that's why I also recommend — despite my dislike of the New York Times — listening to what Shibley Telhami and Mark Lynch have to say to Ezra Klein in this latest episode. They speak about this one-state reality, and that's what this is. This is a one-state apartheid reality, and what to do in response to that. And so I think we're finally having that conversation.

Trent R. Nelson [47:50]
You heard it here first, folks. Your empathy, your caring, your indignation — this is all part of the key to fixing this decades-long torment, this apartheid state, this torturous suffering of which we have for so long merely observed casually. It takes us all to stand up and say it's not good. Call your representative, email them, post on social media and tag people, go out into the streets. This is all part of it. This is democracy. You got to be in it to win it.

And certainly we appreciate you, Layla. Well, Layla, our discussions are always so fruitful, even if they are terribly sad and unfortunate. As you sort of alluded to, it does not look like America has any good way out of this conundrum that they have put themselves in, be it with Iran, but also, as you alluded to, with Lebanon, and also with Israel itself. There seems to be no leverage, even with the funding of an Iron Dome, the funding of a conflict, the tearing up of a multinational agreement, which the co-host of this program has argued in the past was pragmatic utopianism — a way to get us to maybe a place closer to where we want to be. But it takes time for diplomatic innovations to appear as though they are moving the needle, and it seems very quick to drop a bomb and watch it explode.

And unfortunately, the amateurs in the State Department across Trump one and Trump two, the amateurs in the executive office that Donald Trump has installed — they don't seem to know their head from their toes, and that'll be a tough one to reconcile as we look back on all of this in the years to come.

But we know that we've got to let you go. This breaks our heart. You know that we would love for you to remind all of our listeners, all of our viewers, all of our patrons, all of our loved ones where they can find all of your commentary, all of your work, all of your analysis, all of your rantings. We love them. Please give us the tea, my friend.

Layla Al-Sheikh [50:20]
Of course. I'll just say that I think, despite how insurmountable it all seems — and you've said it already — history continues to march forward, and we're going to hopefully upend this terrible dynamic very soon. As for where you can find my work: I write for magazines like The Nation. My work is in the Center for International Policy, Liberal Currents. God willing, soon Global Orders will be releasing its reconstruction papers, and I'll have the honor of being in those. And you can find me on Bluesky, Twitter unfortunately, Instagram, and so on, at Diplomat of Night or Emissary of Night. And I don't doubt — this won't be the last time. That's what I meant. My apologies. Yes, double negative, so on, so forth. But anyway — the final thing I will say is that the JRD vote proves that we can continue to pressure, and if you're disgusted by what's happening in the Middle East, then you should address that to your representatives.

Layla Al-Sheikh [52:00]
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Caitlin M. Green [52:10]
Here's the big glimmer of hope, right? It does feel like Republicans are having a bad time in the various elections that we've gotten to see recently, and they deserve it. And the Democrats are hearing how we feel about this issue, and you can see it in the wind socks, and you can see it in the ones who maybe do believe what we believe and are now feeling a little bit more like courage of their convictions. You can definitely — we're feeling that kind of tonal shift, that kind of directional shift in the Democratic Party, that feels awesome, that feels hopeful. So, thank you for bringing that to us.

Caitlin M. Green [52:28]
Well, this has been Half The Answer, where understanding a question is half the answer, as we all know, and have said so many times so flawlessly. It has been so wonderful to spend this time with you. We will see you later. Bye bye.