Glenn Diesen interviews Larry Johnson on US military and economic pressure on Iran
Glenn Diesen speaks with former CIA analyst Larry Johnson about the state of the US-Iran conflict.
Summary
Glenn Diesen interviews Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and writer at Sonar 21, about the ongoing US-Iran conflict. Johnson argues that the US blockade of Iran is largely theatrical — Iran can keep its oil tankers close to shore where US naval vessels cannot safely operate, and imports can enter Iran overland through Pakistan. Johnson contends that Iran's leadership, composed largely of veterans of the Iran-Iraq War, is more unified and battle-hardened than US officials acknowledge, while the US faces critical shortages of precision-guided munitions and cannot replenish them due to China's restriction of rare earth elements. He also argues that Russia is playing an increasingly decisive role, with Foreign Minister Arachi's visit to Moscow and Putin's subsequent call with Trump signalling that Russia is firmly backing Iran while potentially offering Trump a face-saving exit.
Johnson draws a historical parallel to the first Battle of Bull Run, where Washington elites arrived with picnic baskets expecting an easy Union victory, only to witness the opposite — much as the US expected a quick decapitation of the Iranian regime on February 28th and instead encountered a resilient, unified adversary. The conversation closes with both Diesen and Johnson reflecting on the value of historical memory, citing Ambassador Jack Matlock — Reagan's ambassador to Moscow who negotiated the end of the Cold War — as an example of the kind of hard-won experience entirely absent from current US decision-making.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and the limits of the US blockade
Larry Johnson: You've been staying busy.
Glenn Diesen: Yeah, I'm trying to finish a book at the same time. Long hours.
Larry Johnson: That's tough. Well, I guess what makes it much more difficult this time with these wars is that there's so much focus on narrative control. With all this sea of propaganda, even unpacking reality has become a formidable task, and then of course you need analysis on top of that. But when we look at something clear and undisputed — such as how the US has depleted its weapon stockpiles and its inability to ramp up production to significant levels — it means that Trump can't really continue this high-intensity war with Iran.
Glenn Diesen: I was wondering — he has to respond to this in some way, he can't pack up and go home. So is this why you think Trump pushed a ceasefire, why he started these negotiations, and also switched to economic warfare?
Larry Johnson: The economic warfare is particularly puzzling because it rests on some assumptions that are frankly false — that Iran is entirely, almost 100%, dependent upon oil being loaded at Kharg Island, and that the US blockade is 100% effective and can shut down anything. So let's first address that myth.
Iran loads up an oil tanker, sails it out through the Strait of Hormuz, keeps that tanker within 75 miles of the Iranian shore, and sells to the east. The United States Navy is not going to get closer than 200 miles from the Iranian coast because Iran has short-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones that can hit those ships. If they get any closer, they are vulnerable and Iran will attack them and possibly sink them. So that's why I say this is political theater — the United States is touting, "See, we've seized this ship, we've seized that ship."
There's first the distance problem with the blockade. Iran can basically stay 75 to 100 miles close to their shore and the US won't touch them. Now, once they get out of Iranian waters, you get the second problem for the United States. If Iran takes a convoy of 20 tankers sailing along the coast, then once they hit that spot in the Indian Ocean from the Arabian Sea, they scatter. The United States does not have enough ships to stop and seize every one of them. They might be able to seize one or two, but that's not going to be crippling to the Iranian economy. And remember that if a US naval vessel seizes a ship, at least one of the naval vessels involved in that operation has to stay with that ship to wherever it's taken to port. They don't just say, "All right, we captured you, tag — you're it," and then leave. So that's the second problem with this blockade.
The third problem with the blockade, with respect to imports — the same principles apply in terms of things being brought into Iran by keeping them close to the Iranian shore until they reach Chabahar or Bandar Abbas. And they've got this wide open border with Pakistan. Pakistan reportedly has identified six different road and railroad routes into Iran that are being used to ship thousands of 40-foot containers that normally would be on a ship. That may add some transportation cost, but the point is Iran is not cut off. The entire economic war model that Scott Bessant is touting — cutting off Iran from all sources of potential support — is just impossible. They can't do it.
Trump's narrative about Iranian leadership collapse
Larry Johnson: The statement Trump released yesterday on his Truth Social page said that Iran's leadership has collapsed, nobody's in charge, and we're going to have to help them. I'm thinking, that's curious. So if Trump turns around and says, "Okay, in order to help Iran, we're going to lift the blockade," he may be setting that up as an excuse.
The problem with continuing to declare that Iran's leadership is chaotic, broken, riven with strife — it's just not true. I started looking into it in earnest after a conversation with Professor Marandi, who described how when he enlisted in the Basij — he was a volunteer — he fought alongside the older brother of the Ayatollah. Mojtaba Khamenei, the younger brother, actually enlisted in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. So I said, let's look at all the other key players. Let's look at Pezeshkian, the president. Let's look at Arachi. Let's look at Ghalibaf. And then of course the head of the IRGC. It turns out Pezeshkian was a medic serving with the IRGC. Arachi was an enlisted man in the IRGC. Ghalibaf also IRGC. So basically all your top five leaders — the people that are out front — are all former IRGC. They've got ties together.
You remember what it was like in your time in the military. You form friendships that last a lifetime. This is the same thing that happened to these men. I'm not saying they all served at the same time, but they all had that same shared experience of fighting what was, for Iran at the time, an existential war against a US-funded entity. In a way, what happened with Israel last summer and what's happening now — they've experienced this before. If anything, I would argue the current Iranian leadership is better prepared and better equipped, by virtue of their shared experience in combat, to deal with the current threats issued by the United States. Whereas by contrast, all the United States has got is Pete Hegseth, and he's not exactly the brightest light bulb in the tanning bed.
Iran's hardened negotiating position and Arachi's diplomatic tour
Glenn Diesen: This new effort to shape the narrative — that the Iranian leadership is so divided that it's impossible to get a deal, and that Trump out of charity is extending the ceasefire — it's an interesting narrative they're trying to push. But the reality is quite the other way around. In the United States, the leadership seems extremely divided. I kept thinking, who can actually make a deal with the Iranians now? Witkov and Kushner don't seem to have much credibility anymore. They seem like cutouts for Mossad at this point. The Iranians don't seem to have much faith in them. I would have bet on Vance, but whatever horrible deal they can get now — nobody wants their fingerprints on it, because that's the end of their political careers if AIPAC and all of them smear whoever signs it. Do you see this being a problem on the American side?
Larry Johnson: Yeah, they're not paying attention to what the Iranians are doing. So let's look at the events that unfolded over the weekend with Arachi. He starts in Pakistan and delivers basically a paper — a new policy position of the Iranian government — and instead of one that says, "We're hurting so bad, we've got to get out from under this, we're begging the United States to come back to the table," they did the exact opposite. They said, "Okay, our original ten demands remain, but the first step is this blockade is eliminated, or there's nothing else to talk about. And once the blockade is eliminated, then we'll talk about the Strait of Hormuz. And as far as nuclear enrichment efforts — that's off the table. We're not talking about that anymore. We signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. We're still part of that treaty. We're like any other country in the world. We have a right to enrich uranium and we're going to abide by international law." So Iran took a tougher stance, not a weaker one.
Then Arachi flew to Muscat in Oman and talked with the head of state there, basically to coordinate — "Going forward, let's recognize that the Strait of Hormuz is in the territorial waters of Oman and Iran." Some have argued that it's an international waterway. It is not. Those are territorial waters of each country. So Iran is coordinating with Oman on how they're going to manage this together.
Then, originally he was supposed to fly up to Russia, but he turned around and flew back to Islamabad to get the message back — basically, "What did the Americans say to you?" — and to thank the Pakistanis for all they did. Pakistan basically lifted the security restrictions that had been in place because of the potential for attacks. It was a sign of no further talks with the United States.
Then Arachi flies to Moscow and has an extended meeting with Vladimir Putin, Sergey Lavrov, Yuri Ushakov, and the head of military intelligence. So it wasn't just diplomacy — it was the whole shoot and match: diplomacy, military intelligence, military support. And Putin — it wasn't a protocol issue; he doesn't normally meet with foreign ministers, he meets with presidents — he met with the foreign minister. The exchange was very warm, very friendly, and the message Putin put out publicly was, "We're 100% behind you. You've got our backing."
So the United States is in a bit of a bind now because Iran is certainly in no mood to surrender, and Iran frankly holds more cards. This is the week that the full impact of the oil cutoff from February 28th is now taking hold. We've seen just in the last 24 hours the price of Brent go up about $89. The same for West Texas Intermediate. Those two numbers had been below $100 last week. They're now well over a hundred and headed higher.
The Strait of Hormuz and international law
Glenn Diesen: Marco Rubio made several very specific claims that the Strait of Hormuz is international waters — something Iran can't accept at all. But this is again factually wrong, as you said. It's not international waters. He could have pointed to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which would allow for transit passage, but the problem is that Iran hasn't ratified it — and perhaps more importantly, the United States hasn't ratified it either. So it's not a very good argument for the US to make that Iran should ratify it and permit transit if the US won't do it either. They don't really have a leg to stand on, which is why they just create their own reality by saying it is international waters.
However — Iran, by allowing Trump to shift this into a low-intensity economic war where the US can then replenish its weapons, seems to be allowing Trump to fight this war on his own terms. One of the reasons Iran has been winning this war is because it rejected Trump's escalation dominance — it rejected allowing the US to dictate the terms. For example, striking the Gulf bases, shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, not allowing Trump to dictate what are legitimate targets, and not allowing the US to decide when the war ends. These were important moves that made it possible for Iran to put significant pressure on the US. But if the US now says, "Okay, we're going to take it off the high-intensity war because we can't do it anymore, and now we're going to do this blockade where we fire on your ships, hijack some of your ships, and do some operations in Lebanon, but you can't do anything in return" — it seems like Iran is now essentially accepting a battlefield shaped by the United States.
Larry Johnson: Here's the thing — the United States can't replenish its supply of precision missiles for one very important reason. I've looked it up for both the Patriot PAC-3 interceptor, the THAAD missile, and the Tomahawk missiles. According to open-source analysis and technical discussions, there are at least four to six specific rare earth elements required to produce a Tomahawk cruise missile — samarium, neodymium, dysprosium, and others. A lot of these go into magnets for precision guidance. Well, guess who controls all those rare earth elements? China. And China is withholding them. They're not trading those freely and sending them to the United States, because the Chinese recognize the United States is talking about attacking China. Why would they give the US the means to attack them by providing the essential elements needed to produce the magnets involved in the precision guidance systems of Tomahawks, Patriots, and THAAD? So it's not just a simple matter of the United States saying, "Oh, we're out of these — come on guys, let's work harder, let's run the factories 24 hours a day, let's put more money in." They don't have the materials they need to produce them. That changes the picture entirely.
Peace talks and Russia's role
Glenn Diesen: What about the peace talks now — is it only performative, or is there any substance left?
Larry Johnson: We'll see. Trump talked to Putin today, and I haven't seen a readout of that conversation — it apparently just took place within the last couple of hours. I suspect it's not a coincidence that on Monday Arachi is in Moscow talking to Putin, and now on Wednesday Putin is talking to Trump. I'm certain one of the issues is Iran, and Russia will be happy to see what it can do to broker an end to this conflict.
At the same time, Russia is taking a tougher stand with respect to Ukraine and NATO — just as you've commented on in your previous broadcasts. Lavrov's remarks last week that Russia is at war with NATO — not possibly going to war, but is at war, present tense. Putin will continue to talk to Trump, even though I think there is growing recognition on the part of the Russians that Trump is mentally not there. He indulges in a lot of fantasy and confabulation — thinks he's agreed to things he hasn't agreed to, or thinks he's accomplished things he has not accomplished.
Glenn Diesen: My impression is that the recent escalations we see from Europe — this massive drone program, the very open rhetoric about essentially fighting Russia, combined with what is now very clearly attacks from NATO territories and assistance from NATO countries to strike Russian oil refineries — all of this put together could be the straw that broke the camel's back. There's too much anger building up. And related to the Iran war — I don't see why, if Russia stays away from Iran so as not to anger Trump, that's essentially as subservient as the Europeans. You can't have the US assisting in attacks on Russia and have Russia not respond in some way. That weakness won't be rewarded — it would be seen as weakness. But how can Russia play a role in the negotiations? Are they simply providing support for Iran, which strengthens Iran's autonomous hand? How do you see Russia's role in this wider game?
Larry Johnson: A couple of ways. One, they can provide security guarantees to Iran — some concrete security guarantees, perhaps going as far as what they did with North Korea: basically, if you are attacked, we will consider that an attack on Russia. That could potentially go that far, which would put the United States on notice, as well as Israel. That could be one way they play a decisive role in getting a negotiated settlement, because that is one of Iran's critical essential demands.
The other element is what Russia has been doing at least since last June — providing intelligence, technical advice, and material assistance to improve both the armaments and the operation of equipment with the Iranian military. Russia recognizes Iran as a critical member of BRICS going forward and will play a vital role in the economic expansion of the BRICS nations once it's out from under all these Western sanctions. Already, actually, it is freed from that, because both Russia and China — who had been signatories willing to support sanctions back when they signed the JCPOA eleven years ago — have both now said no, we're not doing that anymore. We're not going to enforce sanctions against Iran. So they're free to deal with each other in their own currencies. The United States says, "Well, we're not going to let you use dollars," and they say, "Fine, we'll use our own currencies. We're going to stop buying treasuries. We're going to buy gold." This is actually where the United States' effort to control the situation ends up isolating itself.
China as a target of the economic war
Glenn Diesen: One of the key objectives of what Bessant refers to as "Project Economic Fury" — going after Iran's economy — appears to also be targeting China, since the overwhelming majority of Iranian oil goes to China. I'm assuming the people sitting in Beijing are aware that China is a key target in this war. How much oil is the US able to shut down in terms of overall energy exports to East Asia? I see reports that the US is trying to replace it with American energy — much like NATO's proxy war against Ukraine enabled the US to replace Russian energy supplies. Similarly, you see some developments in East Asia where the US is pushing its own LNG projects and trying to replace some energy from the Middle East. Is this making China nervous, or is it too low-level?
Larry Johnson: No, I don't think it's making them nervous at all. It's frankly irritating them and making them angry. I think they're getting tired of Scott Bessant's bullying and his belief that he can coerce China into doing what the United States demands.
If China can receive all the oil it needs out of the Persian Gulf, particularly if they sail in convoys, the United States doesn't have enough ships to stop a large convoy. It simply doesn't. And particularly if it's Chinese-flagged vessels, the United States is not going to risk going to war with China, because China holds the edge here completely. The United States has boxed itself in with threats it can't really deliver on, because they're counting on the Iranian economy becoming crippled in the next two to three weeks. But at the end of May, the Iranian economy is still going to be okay — in fact it may be a little bit better, assuming the ceasefire holds.
No viable military options remain
Larry Johnson: This is the problem Trump has in particular — there is no good military option going forward. You've got three basic options: air, ground, and maritime. There is no ground option. We know that because the way the current command structure is set up for this operation, you have the joint forces commander — the commander of CENTCOM, Admiral Brad Cooper. Then you have the combined forces aviation component commander, an Air Force general who commands all air operations in the region. And then you have the combined forces maritime component commander, an admiral. But what you don't have is a ground force commander, because there is no mission considered viable or plausible for ground forces.
The air commander has briefed his boss, Admiral Cooper, that they have expended a significant percentage of their precision-guided missiles during the first five weeks of this war against Iran. They've hit about every viable target there is to hit. Now they can go back in and start hitting some of those targets again, but this time they'll be up against a more formidable foe because Iran has taken advantage of the last three weeks to improve its air defense systems, thanks to the Chinese and the Russians. Last Thursday, there was a sudden flash on Telegram channels about explosions in the air over Tehran. People thought, "Here we go, they've breached the ceasefire." No — it was Iran conducting a live-fire exercise with its new air defense systems. So they're ready to go.
The advice coming from the Air Force general in charge of air operations is: apart from the fact that we don't really have many more viable military targets to go after, we've got two other things to consider. Number one, we're running real short on precision missiles, and if we get tasked to use them against China, we're not going to have them. Number two, Iran is positioned to retaliate and inflict more damage on the remaining US positions and bases throughout the Gulf region, as well as on Jordan's airfield Muwaffaq Salti and on Israel.
The maritime option faces the same constraints — the aircraft carriers and the marine amphibious units have to stay offshore about 220 miles. If they get inside that envelope, they're targeted and vulnerable. And they don't have the actual number of ships to blockade a thousand ships. They do not. So this is what I'll call blockade theater.
How long can the economic war last?
Glenn Diesen: If they're unlikely to go back to war, that means just continuing this drawn-out economic war — or "economic fury" as Bessant calls it. How long do you think this can go on? Because a lot of the economic pain being built up, such as the fertilizer shortages, will still take a while to really go through the system and produce food shortages and price spikes. What do you think is going to make one side blink first?
Larry Johnson: I think candidly it could be as soon as three weeks. I draw the three weeks from Bessant's claim that Iran's oil wells are going to collapse and they're going to be in desperate economic straits in three weeks. I think in three weeks the US is going to come to the realization that the predictions about the collapse of the Iranian economy turned out to be just as good as the predictions about the collapse of the Russian government if they just killed the top officials on February 28th. That turned out not to be true. And these claims about economic pressures on Iran are going to turn out not to be true either.
Then they've got a problem. They're going to have to come back and say, "What do we do?" Trump's only viable option is to figure out how to declare victory. "We've wiped out their air force, we've wiped out their army, we've wiped out their navy, we've wiped out their nuclear force. We've won. We're going to move right along." Trump's going to have to do a version of what he did last May in the Red Sea, where he declared victory and pulled out.
Glenn Diesen: The problem though is always the Strait of Hormuz. This is the main problem, because this is what can make Iran quite a powerful country — not just the economic benefits, but the ability to pressure the Gulf States to stop threatening Iran by hosting bases or trading in dollars, or simply having them pay reparations. You've also seen some reports that the Iranians are now putting extra tolls on countries that either backed sanctions or participated in the attack. So they're creating an economic incentive system to abandon this anti-Iranian alliance.
Larry Johnson: Exactly right. So this is either now or never, because if one wants to declare victory and go home, the region will look very different after a year's time. It's going to be very hard to sell in Washington, especially with the powerful Israeli lobby standing behind them.
I think this was one of the other reasons for Arachi's visit to Moscow — to enlist the help of Vladimir Putin in dealing with the Gulf Arabs, because Putin and the Russians still have decent relationships with the Saudis and the Emiratis. I think Putin's going to make a very compelling argument to them: "Hey guys, you hitched your wagons to the United States, who promised you security and promised to protect you. And as you can see, that didn't work out at all. The UAE in particular is facing economic collapse." I was amused yesterday — they said, "Oh, we're pulling out of OPEC." Well, great. You're not producing anything anyway, so you're not going to be missed.
It's only when the flow of oil gets going again that Iran's going to have a lot of leverage. Countries that want to align themselves with Iran, pay fees in yuan or in the Iranian rial — those countries will be able to start moving goods. The disrupted supply line will actually be able to come back online to a limited extent. Countries allied with Iran will be able to pass freely through the strait. The problem will be for ships destined for countries that are not supportive of Iran — in fact, that are condemning Iran. Iran will let them suffer, but they'll do it in a polite way. It won't be like a mafia hitman saying, "Pay us the protection money or your store might catch on fire tonight." Iran will make it clear that there is a benefit to being their friend — one of the benefits is safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
Glenn Diesen: That's usually why great powers have always sought to control key maritime corridors — not just for the military benefit, but also for the economic and political capital that comes with it.
The Putin-Trump phone call
Glenn Diesen: My last question is about the recent phone call between Putin and Trump. There's a lot of focus on Arachi's visit to Russia and his meeting with Putin, and everyone was wondering how this would be interpreted by Trump, since the Russians are now going fully in terms of offering their backing and friendship to the Iranians. And now Putin and Trump held this 90-minute phone call. As Ushakov stated, they mainly talked about Iran. On the Ukraine issue, I think Putin suggested a ceasefire on May 9th — Victory Day, when the Red Army defeated Nazi Germany — but most of it was on Iran. What is the significance of these talks?
Larry Johnson: Trump is desperate to get an exit out of this. It's blown up on him. His public support is down around 33%, with 64% of the public disapproving of the job Donald Trump is doing. The price of gas had an initial spike in the first five weeks, then the ceasefire was declared and the Trump administration started unloading oil from the strategic reserve to try to depress prices a little. That's over now. Gas and diesel are headed back up and they don't have any more strategic reserve to apply to it.
Trump has clearly been told by his military advisers that there is no military solution — they don't have a magic weapon or magic operation that will force Iran to surrender and open the Strait of Hormuz. Iran can effectively continue to keep that strait closed as long as it wants, by virtue of the fact that the United States does not have a means to counter Iran's ability to launch short-range ballistic missiles, coastal defense cruise missiles, and a variety of drones — both maritime surface drones, underwater drones, and conventional drones that fly through the air.
So he needs help, and he's looking to see if Vladimir Putin can help. Putin, I'm sure, will be willing to offer his good offices, but not at the expense of Iran — if anything, to help Trump find some face-saving way out. But Iran, despite Trump's claims to the contrary, holds the trump cards. Not Trump.
The contradiction in Trump's persona and the cost of war
Glenn Diesen: This persona of Trump — being both a strong man who is respected and also the peace president — I think the two come into tension, because he wanted to pressure all countries to essentially reorganize according to his will, and now of course it's pushed him into using military force. It shouldn't come as a surprise that a lot of Americans have turned on him. There's a hardcore MAGA base who accepts the argument that "before, America First meant no war, but now it means America First — we defeat all our enemies." But this effort by Trump to sell himself as a great war president seems self-destructive. They always have to go back and revisit his whole selling point that he wasn't going to do this. That's why I was so taken aback by JD Vance's speech a while ago when he made the point that, "Well, in the past when we had these forever wars, the difference is those presidents were stupid and Trump is very smart."
Larry Johnson: Oh yeah. This is not what you want to hear when you're explaining why they flipped to such an extent.
I don't think the West fully appreciates that this current group of Iranian leaders — whether from Pezeshkian, although he doesn't control the Islamic Council, to Mojtaba Khamenei, the new Ayatollah, to the head of the IRGC, to Arachi, and to Ghalibaf — those men, when they were the ages of 17 to 25 or 26 (Pezeshkian was the old man in the group, in his 30s), all fought in this war against Iraq. That shaped their lives. That was an existential threat. 200,000 Iranians died as soldiers, and maybe as many as 60,000 to 70,000 civilians. That war experience is part of them. At the time they were the foot soldiers, on the front lines. Now they are controlling the reins of power. They understand what war is. They understand the cost. They understand the sacrifice.
That's the problem for the United States. We don't have anybody — including Hegseth — who really understands what they're potentially facing. These guys know. They've been there. They've done that. They've got the t-shirts.
I liken it to what the United States experienced in the early 1960s until the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Here's Kennedy who, twenty years earlier, was driving a PT boat out in the Pacific and got his boat cut in half, and had to save his men from dying. He knew what the cost of combat was. So when they faced the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, he was reluctant to go to war because he knew what the cost of war is. He actually had to hold back some of the generals — generals who had been colonels or majors during that war and had got a taste for it.
Right now, Hegseth is the only guy with any military experience. The rest of them are civilians and they think this is like a video game. Trump's failing mental faculties, his critical thinking skills — he just believes the last thing he's told. And he's being told lots of crazy stuff by people like retired General Jack Keane, retired General Kellogg, and Lindsey Graham. Depending on who he listens to, he may be inclined to think, "Oh yeah, we can fight our way out of this," and then he's going to find out — no, you can't.
The failure to learn from history
Glenn Diesen: That's an old truth — every generation seems to have to learn to respect war by having a war themselves. As the former generation who actually fought wars like the Second World War dies out, we end up with people who sound like they're playing video games and don't appreciate the consequences and the cost of war. And when you couple this with the tendency to underestimate the adversary — be it the Iranians, the Russians, the Chinese — at every turn the assumption is that the adversary will just fall apart if one blows hard enough at them. It keeps happening over and over again, but I don't see any learning curve. It's very frustrating. The Chinese were going to fall apart with a little bit of sanctions on semiconductor exports. The Russian economy was going to fall apart within the weekend with these sanctions, and of course they were going to be defeated on the battlefield. The Iranians — the air campaign was going to kill the leader and then the Iranians would just take to the streets waving American flags. It's really crazy stuff.
This is also a curse of the unipolar moment, which we've left behind — in which there was no respect for any opposing centers of power, nothing to balance you, and war becomes something you do when you drop bombs on people far away on their lands, not on ours. But this could change fairly soon. Any final thoughts before we wrap up?
Larry Johnson: I know it's particularly frustrating for you as a historian, because you're trying to tell people about history and hoping they can learn some lessons from the past that might be applicable here. I don't know how much you've studied the American Civil War, but the outset of this war with Iran reminded me very much of the Washington attitude at the first Battle of Bull Run, which was fought out in the Virginia countryside past Dulles Airport. People went from downtown DC in their carriages — a good three-hour journey by horse and carriage — with picnic baskets. "Oh, this is going to be a lark. We're going to watch this great victory. They're going to overrun the Confederacy." And it turned out just the opposite. It turned into a grinding four-year war.
That's what happened to the United States here. They thought on February 28th, "We're going to decapitate the Iranian regime, the people of Iran are going to rise up and overthrow the mullahs, and we'll be on our way." And the exact opposite happened. So it's important to listen to people like yourself, Glenn, with all the research and scholarship you've accomplished. Let's learn some lessons from the past — it might keep us from making mistakes in the future.
Glenn Diesen: That's why I've loved having Ambassador Jack Matlock on a few times, because he's a walking, talking history book. He's 96 now, but still very sharp. He was stationed in Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and in the 1980s he was the ambassador under Reagan, negotiating an end to the Cold War. He explained to me how before they were able to negotiate peace with the Soviets, they first had to deal with the hawks in Washington, because everyone was convinced that the Russians don't really want peace. It's pretty much a copy-paste of exactly what's happening today.
Larry Johnson: Some of our leaders should — because they're so clueless, their understanding of the Russian experience seems to come from binge-watching James Bond movies — they should really pick up the phone, speak to Ambassador Matlock, and get some of his experiences. But they don't.