Why are we still "kicking the hornet's nest"? The last time Mark Labberton interviewed Daniel Zoughbie (UC Berkeley/UCSF) for his expertise on international diplomacy in the Middle East, there was not yet an Iran war. Regardless of your geographical distance, this war is imminently important as it escalates and impacts not just Iran but the entire Middle East and the entire world economy.

"War is really supposed to be a last resort."

Taking seriously both the significance and validity of Israel as a nation and the need for appropriate and just treatment of all Jews, Christians, and Muslims during a time of rising anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, this conversation comes at a volatile moment, pregnant with violence and chaos in American foreign policy.

Starting the timeline at the 2018 US exit from the "Iran nuclear deal" (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) Zoughbie discusses a variety of interconnected issues, including the role of Middle Eastern geography such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandab ("Gate of Tears"), the proliferation cascade a Saudi Arabian nuclear program could set off, and the difference between tactical brilliance and strategic vision.

Together, they also consider hopes for improvement, looking at Gerald Ford's unpopular but effective ultimatum that forced Egypt and Israel to talk; the Olmert-Abbas negotiations that almost reached a two-state solution; the role of Christianity in politics; the danger of national pride; wisdom from antiquity in Herodotus, Croesus, and Cyrus the Great; and a definition of greatness that has nothing to do with force.

Episode Highlights

  • Regarding the term "an unnecessary war": "I think the word 'unnecessary' is absolutely the appropriate term, and I might just add another term: unjust. War is really supposed to be a last resort."
  • "Iran has discovered not only that they have this nuclear program, which is incredibly powerful, but they've discovered that they have this power to shut off world's economy [through The Strait of Hormuz]."
  • "Exiting [the JCPOA—Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] was a really, really big blunder because we did not have anything else to fall back on. The Iranians pointed to this and said, 'Look, we can't trust your word.'"
  • "I feel like the current atmosphere in Washington is really about 'me, mine, and more.' And for us to really have a change in our foreign policy ... we really need to think beyond ourselves as a country."
  • "We'll always try to turn every problem into a nail, right? And we'll use our hammer to deal with that problem. And that's exactly why we're in this mess in the first place."
  • "Greatness is not about testosterone shots. It's about being able to show mercy. It's about being able to see the humanity in others, even your enemy, and ultimately what I would call Herodotus's paradox, which is that the mightiest of the mighty turns an enemy into a friend."

About Daniel Zoughbie

Daniel E. Zoughbie is a complex-systems scientist, diplomatic historian, and expert on presidential decision-making. He is associate project scientist at the UCSF/UCB Center for Global Health Delivery, Diplomacy, and Economics; principal investigator of Berkeley's Middle East and North Africa Diplomacy, Development, and Defense Initiative; and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's MENA Futures Lab. He wrote Kicking the Hornet's Nest: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East from Truman to Trump and Indecision Points. He founded Microclinic International, whose model has reached refugee and low-income communities across four continents, and studied at Oxford as a Marshall and Weidenfeld Scholar.

Helpful Links and Resources

  • Kicking the Hornet's Nest, Zoughbie's 2025 book on twelve presidents and the Middle East https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Kicking-the-Hornets-Nest/Daniel-E-Zoughbie/9781668085226
  • "Toxic Foreign Policy and Citizen Diplomacy," Zoughbie's first Conversing conversation: https://comment.org/podcasts/toxic-foreign-policy-and-citizen-diplomacy/
  • "The Lesson Trump Can Take From Herodotus' Paradox" https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-lesson-trump-can-take-from-herodotus-paradox/
  • UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the JCPOA https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/2231/background
  • "World Oil Transit Chokepoints," the US Energy Information Administration on Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandab https://www.eia.gov/international/content/analysis/special_topics/World_Oil_Transit_Chokepoints/
  • Gerald R. Ford's 1977 Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary commencement address, quoted at length in this episode https://www.christianitytoday.com/2006/12/gerald-r-ford-lessons-from-presidency/
  • Herodotus, The Histories, Book 1, where Croesus consults the Oracle and Cyrus spares him https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126:book%3D1
  • American University of Beirut, Zoughbie's standing example of citizen diplomacy https://aub.edu.lb/

Show Notes

  • The 2018 exit from the Iran Nuclear Deal (the JCPOA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) as the origin point of the current war
  • P5+1: US, UK, Russia, China, France, plus Germany
  • What the deal never covered: missiles, proxies, regional behavior
  • Nuclear non-proliferation
  • In the wake of the US bombing of Iran: enrichment stockpiles, IAEA detections, inspectors no longer on the ground
  • An unnecessary and unjust war
  • How to work backward from the real goals of American national security
  • Proliferation cascade risk: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt
  • Leverage the US still holds through China, Russia, India, and Pakistan
  • The Saudi nuclear offer, walked back a day later over Israeli recognition
  • Strait of Hormuz geography: 21 miles wide, shipping lanes two miles each
  • The Red Sea, the Houthis, and the Bab el-Mandab ("The Gate of Tears")
  • Israel's tactical brilliance and strategic blindness
  • Mossad's mottos, drawn from Proverbs, and the danger of self-deception
  • 1967 revisited: not a short war but a nuclear near-miss
  • Gerald Ford as counterexample: the ultimatum that opened Egypt-Israel talks
  • Gerald Ford's 1977 Gordon-Conwell address and his oath on the book of Proverbs
  • Hubris: ancient and current
  • Testosterone shots, lethality, and the inverse of humility
  • Pastors and power in the Oval Office
  • Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth, and Christian nationalism
  • Herodotus, Croesus, and Cyrus: mercy as the measure of greatness
  • The path to Tehran runs through Jerusalem
  • The Olmert-Abbas negotiations as a known formula
  • Citizen diplomacy and the American University of Beirut
  • What listeners can do, including welcoming Middle Eastern neighbors

#Conversing #MarkLabberton #DanielZoughbie #IranWar #ForeignPolicy #StraitOfHormuz #NuclearProliferation #MiddleEast #Diplomacy #FaithAndPolitics

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

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