Larry Johnson on the Iran war ceasefire, US military constraints, and the declining dollar
Glenn Diesen interviews former CIA analyst Larry Johnson on the state of the Iran conflict, US military limitations, and the broader implications for American global power.
Summary
Glenn Diesen speaks with Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department counterterrorism official, about the ongoing ceasefire between the US and Iran and the prospects for renewed conflict. Johnson argues that the United States is militarily constrained from reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a position now confirmed by senior US military commanders testifying before Congress. He contends that Saudi Arabia's refusal to allow US air operations from its territory has fundamentally limited American options, and that Iran has actually enhanced its military capabilities since the ceasefire was declared. Johnson also argues that the economic consequences of the conflict — including the suppression of oil prices through strategic reserve drawdowns, the erosion of the petrodollar, and declining demand for US Treasury bills — represent a slow-motion financial crisis that will ultimately force a reckoning. He sees a Chinese- and Russian-backed inclusive regional security architecture as the most viable path to a durable settlement, one that would effectively end US hegemony in the Middle East. Johnson also engages at length with the neocon worldview as illustrated by a Munk debate between John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt on one side and Victoria Nuland and Mike Pompeo on the other, arguing that the US has systematically misrepresented the scale of threats from Iran, Hezbollah, and others while ignoring its own role in creating them.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening: US and Iran military readiness after the ceasefire
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back. We are joined again by Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who also worked at the US State Department's Office of Counterterrorism, and who is also an author at Sonar 21. It's great to see you again, Larry.
Larry Johnson: Hey, thanks, my friend. I keep watching you too. You're everywhere.
Glenn Diesen: I wanted to ask about where things stand, because I keep hearing that Iran and the US will likely go back to war, and that during this ceasefire — which the US really wanted in order to rearm and make itself ready for a potential another round of warfare — we also learned from US intelligence services that Iran has rearmed much quicker than they had expected. How are you assessing this? How ready are each side now for war?
Larry Johnson: Well, the United States has been prepared to launch strikes since the declaration of the ceasefire. Good lord, was that back on April 15th? So now we're towards the end of May. The problem the United States now has is basically Saudi Arabia, and to that extent Qatar and Kuwait. I leave Bahrain out of it because, A, they're so small, and B, they've been basically decimated by Iranian air strikes and they're not much of a player in terms of oil or gas or anything there.
We saw the Saudis flex their muscles about three weeks ago, when after Trump had announced Project Freedom to open the Strait of Hormuz, the Saudis basically said, "You're not going to conduct any air operations from our territory. Shut them down." And that was real. Trump got on the phone with Mohammed bin Salman trying to talk him out of it, trying to cajole him. And MBS said no — he was firm. So that shut down that military operation.
So here's Trump all ready to go again, and yet it appears the Saudis have not backed away from that prohibition. Now with the Hajj starting on Sunday, you've got an influx of two to three million Muslims from around the world. The last thing the Saudis want to do is put themselves in a position where they're going to be attacked by Iran. And the only way they'd be attacked by Iran is if they allowed Saudi territory to be used to launch strikes against Iranian infrastructure and Iranian civilian targets. Because Iran has been very clear: if that happens, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE — if any of you are involved with facilitating these attacks on us, you're going to get hit.
I think Iran and the Saudis have reached a point where they don't want to go down that path. So with the Hajj on Sunday and Eid around next Wednesday or Thursday, you have this entire journey to Mecca — an obligation of every Muslim to do once in their lifetime — with a variety of rituals and activities to commemorate and reenact the lives of the Prophet Ibrahim and the Prophet Muhammad. This is very important, and the last thing the Saudis want is to get in the middle of a shooting match with Iran during this period.
Whatever Trump wants to do, he's now constrained. I have heard that US air refueling operations are largely confined to Iraqi airspace, which creates some additional risk. Without the ability to transit Saudi Arabia, it really hampers US military capability as well as Israel's. They basically have to go up through Iraq, and once you force them into a more narrow channel, it makes it easier for air defense operations. They don't have to be focusing over a 2,000-mile front — they get to focus over a 200-mile front. Big difference.
There are reported negotiations taking place in Tehran and in Islamabad. The Pakistanis have stepped up. They have the full backing of China and Russia to play a lead role in trying to bring about a peace agreement. If nothing else, it may not necessarily involve the United States. If they get agreement with the Gulf Arabs and Iran, and then Turkey is also involved and possibly Egypt, then all of a sudden the United States is irrelevant. If the Gulf states shut down US military operations in their countries, the United States doesn't have a lot of good options. It certainly doesn't have the air power from aircraft carriers to sustain any kind of campaign to speak of.
This is all in flux. I could make a case that despite the threats — oh, we're going to restart, we're going to attack — I don't see anything happening until, you know, the one window would maybe be the first two weeks of June, before the start of the World Cup. Because I think once the World Cup is underway, there's going to be tremendous international pressure against the United States to stop attacking Iran.
Negotiations: sanctions, enrichment, and the Strait of Hormuz
Glenn Diesen: I can imagine a lot of the Gulf states being a bit cautious now about joining in on the war against Iran. Because if, as it appears now, Iran is coming out victorious — coming out on top, controlling the Strait of Hormuz — and the US might be pushed out of the region, it's not a great idea to be on the losing side. I can imagine a lot of countries would want to begin to strike a different balance between the US and Iran, essentially adjusting to the new realities. But if negotiations still have a chance of succeeding, where do they stand at the moment? Because it's hard to get good information. Trump referred to one of Iran's last proposals as garbage. Is the sticking point mainly Iran's right to enrich uranium and what should happen to the Strait of Hormuz? Because on these issues it doesn't seem like the US has a lot of negotiating power. Even if Iran comes out victorious, it still has an interest in the US removing sanctions — that's the great card the US holds. But any deal with gradual removal of sanctions is probably nonsense. So how do you see this? What can actually be achieved in these talks?
Larry Johnson: Well, the Iranians have not consulted with me about negotiating strategies, but I put myself in their shoes. It's no longer acceptable to say — as you pointed out — gradual relief on sanctions. No. We tried that before with the JCPOA. It didn't happen. We've had repeated broken promises by the West. So going forward, the sanctions come off now, upfront. That's number one. The frozen assets are returned to Iran. That's number two. And the other non-negotiable point is that Iran is going to continue to charge the ships that want to enter or leave the Persian Gulf. They're going to have to abide by the new rules that the Persian Gulf Strait Authority — the PGSA — is now implementing.
In fact, yesterday 36 ships went through, despite Trump's claim that we've got a blockade, it's ironclad, nobody's coming through. The fact of the matter is otherwise — the ships are starting to move. This will provide some relief on the international economic front, though not much. Still two-thirds of the ships that normally went through are not going through. So you've got only one-third of normal activity.
The whole nuclear issue — I maintain it's a red herring. The United States has now tried to make that its central claim: oh, that's really our concern, that's what we've got to get rid of. But if Iran didn't have a nuclear program and had never enriched one ounce of uranium, the United States would still be trying to destroy Iran. That's the point. It has nothing to do with whether Iran is in quote "a quest for a nuclear weapon."
I watched a debate hosted by the Munk Society in Canada — they hosted a debate on Wednesday that pitted John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt against Victoria Nuland and Mike Pompeo. What caught my attention was the neocon narrative that's built up — like Saddam Hussein was a monster because he had chemical weapons, without any acknowledgment whatsoever from Pompeo and Nuland that the United States was the one who provided the precursors for those chemical weapons. And not only that, we provided biological agents as well. So from Iran's perspective, as the United States approaches these negotiations, there is no historical memory. It's like they're negotiating with an Alzheimer's patient. The United States can't remember what the hell it did two years ago.
This claim that it's a deal-stopper unless Iran gives up its enriched material — reportedly yesterday, the new Ayatollah Khamenei said no, the nuclear material is not even on the table. And frankly, from Iran's standpoint, as a sovereign nation, why should they give it up? They've signed the NPT. They've allowed IAEA inspections. But they have been the victim of persistent, constant attacks — terrorist attacks, the murdering of nuclear scientists, not only what took place last June but what took place before. I can see Iran just asserting its sovereignty and saying, "No, the West is not going to dictate to us what we do. We are a sovereign country and have every right to do this."
US military capability: the Strait of Hormuz cannot be opened
Glenn Diesen: I also hear that US intelligence is not just making the point that the Iranians are rearming, but apparently telling Trump now that the Strait of Hormuz can't be opened — it just can't be done. I'm not sure who else has been whispering in his ears, probably Netanyahu, that he should have another go nonetheless. But if he can't open up the Strait of Hormuz, if he can't defeat the Iranians, what is the point of going back to war? How likely do you think it is that the United States will attack Iran again?
Larry Johnson: Just to reinforce the point — it's not just the US intelligence community. Admiral Daryl Caudle, testifying before Congress yesterday, said, "We don't have the military capability to open the Strait of Hormuz." That was his message. It would be too costly, too risky to try to send ships in there to attack Iranian positions, because Iran has such a multi-layered arsenal that can be brought to bear on any ship entering the strait that the United States isn't capable of destroying those positions.
An honest assessment of US military capability has been pushed forward by some in the military. But it appears that Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of Centcom — the boy lacks a spine. And I'm calling him a boy because he's about 20 years younger than me. What a cowardly bureaucrat. He was being questioned before Congress by Congressman Seth Moulton. Seth was a Marine — left Harvard to go serve in the Marine Corps, so not your typical Marine. And Seth was asking simply to define the difference between "degraded" and "obliterated." Cooper played word games. He said, "Oh, I can't talk about the nuclear program." And Moulton said, "I'm not asking about the nuclear program. I'm simply asking about your word usage. What's the difference between degraded and obliterated?" And he wouldn't answer the question.
When you've got a military commander playing those kinds of games and being more of a politician than a military leader, what you need is a military officer who doesn't give a damn about the politics and frankly couldn't care less whether he gets promoted or fired. Someone who will come in and tell it exactly as he sees it. And the reality, as Congressman Moulton was pressing for, is that we have not degraded Iran's military capabilities. The CIA — and I was pleased to see this — has been briefing Congress something much closer to the truth than anything the Trump administration is saying, noting that not only have we not destroyed the majority of Iran's ballistic missile capability, air defense systems, and their ability to construct and launch new ballistic missiles, but they appear to have enhanced their capabilities since the ceasefire was declared eight weeks ago.
So the United States is caught between Trump's rhetoric and what the United States can actually do. The only thing we can do going forward would be to launch some new set of air strikes. And if we're prevented from using Saudi Arabian airspace, then we have to go through Iraq, which creates new security vulnerabilities for the attacking force. Iran, with the support of Russia and China, is going to know exactly where to focus all their intelligence assets. They'll know what's coming, where it's coming from, and will be able to mount defenses accordingly. Plus, they can deploy groups with shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles into theater. They don't have to take out an F-35 — all they have to do is take out the tankers, like they did before, three or four weeks into the start of the war.
Regional security architecture: a new framework for the Persian Gulf
Glenn Diesen: It seems that Russia and China have been pushing for a different format for a peace agreement — instead of just having a ceasefire and waiting for war to break out again, they seem to favor the development of a new inclusive security architecture in the Persian Gulf, in which the countries in the region seek security with each other instead of an alliance system where they seek security against each other. How likely do you think such a system — which would include not just Iran but also Turkey, the Saudis, and other regional actors — could succeed? Because on one hand it would be inclusive and would mitigate security competition, but on the other hand it would also put an end to US influence in the region. It wouldn't necessarily be anti-American, but it would definitely dismantle the US empire.
Larry Johnson: I think it's a viable solution. It's one that's actually being seriously entertained by all the relevant actors in the region. Russia and China are pushing hard for it. And Iran — even though the rhetoric in the West tries to portray Iran as this fanatical Muslim state of ultimate hardline radicals with no ability to compromise — couldn't be further from the truth. The Iranians are very pragmatic, and they're operating now with more confidence from a position of strength. They've demonstrated that they can take every blow the United States and Israel want to throw at them and stand up to it. None of the other Gulf states can say that.
The rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia started two years ago as a result of Chinese intercession, and the Chinese are still working that angle, using Pakistan. I had forgotten this — Colonel Wilkerson mentioned it during a conversation with Nima a little bit ago — that when they had one of the uprisings in Mecca several years back, Pakistani troops were actually used to help quell that uprising. So there is a good relationship between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and that's why the Pakistanis are playing the leading role in this.
I could very much see Iran willing to make some concessions with the Saudis, Qataris, and Kuwaitis on passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz in order to secure their cooperation in a new security arrangement. I don't see them being so hardlined as to say, "I don't care how sorry you are, you're going to pay the fee regardless." I think they've got some flexibility on that.
I'm hoping the most likely outcome is that these negotiations behind the scenes are going to bear some fruit, and the continued refusal of the Saudis to allow unfettered US air operations against Iran will prevent the United States from acting. The general in charge of aviation forces is going to say, "Look, if we can't use Saudi territory, our ability to sustain these attacks is very limited and it's going to create greater risk." So this thing could actually sort of sputter out like a dying fire. It's not going to come to a halt because, hey, we got an agreement and both sides sat down with peace at hand. Instead, it's just going to sputter out.
Glenn Diesen: Good point. Iran is often criticized in the West for taking a hardline position, but the reason they're not compromising on the Strait of Hormuz is because this is the source of their security. If they put tolls on countries that sanction them or host American bases that threaten them, it's a way of making sure they're not going back to the old status quo of economic coercion and military threats. But again, if a proposal such as the one put forth by the Chinese and the Russians — an inclusive security architecture that could actually provide security — were on the table, that would be the ultimate goal of the Iranians. Then they might soften their stance on needing to control the Strait of Hormuz entirely on their own, because I don't think that would be the ultimate objective in itself.
But this kind of arrangement goes against the hegemonic security model, the divide-and-rule approach. As long as you have the Gulf States in conflict with the Iranians, the US has the ability to weaken Iran and also make sure the Gulf States remain dependent and thus obedient. It's a bit like the system we have in Europe — after the Cold War we actually had agreements for an inclusive pan-European security architecture, and they recognized that's not the same architecture that would have brought the US into Europe. So instead we went with NATO expansion, revived the Cold War logic, Russia was marginalized, and Europeans remained obedient. But at some point, if the hegemon is declining, it's in the interest of the frontline states to seek an alternative.
I think it could be a good solution, but it will be very difficult to hammer through right after a war. However, if they don't come to peace, how long can this continue? There's no war but no peace either, and the markets surely can't sustain this.
Economic consequences: oil suppression, Treasury sell-offs, and the petrodollar
Larry Johnson: That is the other very curious and disturbing aspect of this — the markets are not acting normally. As an undergrad you probably took introduction to economics, and you learn this simple concept of supply and demand: if you've got a supply of something that people need — an inelastic good, where no matter what the price is you still need it — if the supply goes down, the price is going to go up because the demand is there for the same amount and there's less of it to go around.
Well, here we are on day 84 since the war started — that's almost three months — and there has been a complete cutoff not only of 20% of the world's oil, but 10% of the world's access to liquid natural gas, 20 to 35% of the world's uranium, 30% of the world's sulfur, and 44% of the world's helium. Those are not just nice things to have — those are essential commodities for industrial production and a whole variety of applications. So you would think the markets would be going, "Oh heavens, God almighty" — particularly with oil. Assuming demand has not fallen off the charts, you've got a decreased supply and inevitably the price has got to go up. But what we've seen is both a suppression of oil prices, and as oil is suppressed, the stock market in the United States keeps going up like, "Hey, things are great." Things are not great, but the markets are pretending that they are.
We saw during COVID when the price of oil went up to $150 a barrel — we didn't have any actual shortage. There was not a situation where they stopped pumping oil and stopped running tankers, like has happened now. And yet the price of oil went up to $150 for what? Now when we have an actual shortage, they're pretending, "Oh, no big deal, we've got this under control." One of the ways they've been mitigating the rise in oil is that the United States has been emptying its strategic reserve and reportedly selling it overseas. So it's all a charade. At some point that parade is going to come to a halt. The actual economic impact will arrive. The shortages will become readily apparent. The price rise will no longer be managed. And this will translate into not just economic recession but probably an economic depression. It's at that point that the United States will finally have to be honest with itself about negotiating an end to this.
Iran is in a position to continue to limit the flow of goods out of the Persian Gulf and continue to disrupt the global economy. And the irony of this is that if you start asking who are the alternatives to the Persian Gulf, the two countries most commonly that come up are Russia and China. So Russia and China actually benefit from this. The United States benefits to a lesser extent because it is a major supplier of liquid natural gas, but beyond that it's not a major supplier of oil, certainly not of helium, sulfur, or uranium. And the entire shortage of fertilizer — the global impact on that — we're six months from seeing the full impact start to be apparent, translating into fewer crops produced, shortage of food, and so on.
I don't see the Iranians ready to just say, "Okay, let's open everything up and never mind that we were attacked." Iran's objective is to get a firm security guarantee that this is never going to happen again. I think China and Russia are willing to provide that, and a key to that is enlisting Turkey, the Saudis, and Egypt to get on board with a broad agreement — the equivalent of a West Asian NATO without Western involvement.
Glenn Diesen: It seems that the war against Iran and the war in Ukraine appear to be the same war, and they would also have the same solution. This is a hegemonic system which has broken down and requires some multipolar solution. It can't be one side dictating the terms — "peace through strength" as NATO loves to say. We also have to accommodate the security concerns of the opponent. That's not something we've done over the past 30 years — discussing what the security concerns of the Iranians, the Russians, and the Chinese are, and how they can be respected in a security arrangement. It's very different from the bloc politics we've been pushing.
Which kind of raises the question: if the US can't defeat the Iranians in war and has to find a settlement, what will the world look like after such a defeat?
The decline of US hegemony and the neocon worldview
Larry Johnson: Well, it would be better off. Here's the problem. The Western approach — not only to Iran but to China and Russia — was on display with this Munk debate that took place Wednesday, with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt on one hand, and Victoria Nuland and Mike Pompeo on the other. The underlying question of the debate goes back to John Adams saying that the United States should not be going out looking for monsters to destroy overseas. And the entire premise of the neocon side was, well, we've got to deal with these monsters. But let's start with the definition of a monster. A monster is an imaginary creation — it's not a real thing. Frankenstein's monster, Mary Shelley's creation — it was fictional. So we've got these fictional creations, and they describe Iran as a monster, Russia as a monster, China as a monster, and we've got to stop the monsters.
That mentality, unfortunately, still dominates in the United States. And let me just give you one data point. Here's Mike Pompeo, the former head of the CIA and former Secretary of State, talking about the thousands of Israelis that have been killed by Hezbollah. Really? Go use Grok or Claude, type in how many Israelis have been killed by Hezbollah since 1982. The number that came back was 872. Over 44 years. 872. Well, how many Palestinians have the Israelis killed? That number would be in excess of 100,000. Claude came back with something like 92,000 — and that's being very generous, assuming all the bodies buried beneath the rubble in Gaza have been counted.
My point is: the country that's been killing the most of another is the Israelis, not the Palestinians, not Hezbollah, not Hamas. And the country that's been killing the most foreigners in the world over the last 66 years is the United States — not China, not Russia. And yet we want to see the monster's exterior. We're the monster. And we fail to accept it.
Glenn Diesen: I often make the point that whenever we look at these international security issues, the accusation often thrown against me is, "Well, why are you taking the side of the Chinese or the Russians or the Iranians?" But this is not about taking one side or the other. It's about recognizing that the hegemonic system we set up is not working — and it's not great for us either. We've been in perpetual war now for decades. It's weakened our security, our economy, our political culture. It's draining the soul out of our nations.
And there's no going back to the '90s — especially that's what the European politicians keep dreaming of. In the '90s, the political West was all-powerful. It had political stability, economic and social stability. The main foreign policy of countries like Russia and China was to get along with the West as much as possible. Russia in the '90s even ignored all their traditional partners in the East because they had this dream of integrating into a common Europe. Same with Iran after the September 11 attacks — they were open to using that as an opportunity to get closer with the United States, to solve some of the historical problems. All of this was a perfect condition, and we couldn't pull it off. We instead went into perpetual war.
How is this still going to work? We've exhausted ourselves. Look at the debt, the political climate. Rising powers are balancing us. This is why America had an offshore balancer strategy — don't remain in Europe after the war is over, because then the powers will balance the US. Pull back and they will instead balance each other. People confuse the continuation of empire and global dominance with taking the side of their own, as if the only future of the West is to dominate others. This was frustrating with Marco Rubio when he came to the Munich Security Conference back in February and said, "Listen, Europe, you used to be great until World War II. You lost your empires, but we can still dominate the world." Is this really all there is to the political West?
Anyway, I'm getting a bit off the point. Where I was going is: how do you see this kind of settlement you're describing — with the US pulling back a bit from the Middle East — impacting the broader world order?
The path forward: economic collapse as the final constraint
Larry Johnson: Well, I think it's going to be accompanied by war. No hegemonic system surrenders its control without a fight. But the challenge that the United States confronts and refuses to recognize is that we do not control our destiny anymore. What used to be an economically powerful country — because we had this robust industrial base, we were largely resource-independent, we didn't need to go out and conquer other countries to get control of resources like rare earth minerals — we do now. We could be self-sufficient with energy, but we're certainly not self-sufficient with fertilizer, a critical component for our agricultural industry. And increasingly, the very technology that's driving modern society is being produced in China, not here in the United States.
It will be the economic collapse that's going to be the final wake-up call for the folks in Washington DC. They can't continue with this fraud. In Donald Trump's time in office — we had 12 months in 2025, we're now into the fifth month, so let's call it 16 months — the national debt has grown $2 trillion. He's added more to the national debt in 16 months than was added by Joe Biden in say three years. This debt accumulation is increasing, not decreasing, because US spending obligations are going off the charts because of the war against Iran and all these forward-deployed assets.
At the same time, step back and ask: are more countries lining up to buy US Treasury bills, or are more countries getting rid of them? The answer is the latter. Just this week, we've seen Turkey do a sell-off, Japan sold off a number, China continued selling off — like $41 billion. The nations, particularly in the Global South, are not saying, "Man, how can we buy more US Treasuries? How can we lend the United States more money so it can continue its hegemonic activities around the world?" That's not happening.
Well, at least the petrodollar is still intact — sort of. Except again, more countries are making purchases in oil, and these shipments coming out of the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz — the Iranians are saying, "You're going to pay in rials, or you're going to pay in Chinese yuan. Dollars, forget about it." Russia itself made a statement about three weeks ago that it was going to start accepting payments in yuan as opposed to the dollar. So you've got a shift away from the dollar.
Those two pillars that have been critical for the United States — its capital flows to maintain economic dominance — are crumbling. The petrodollar is crumbling. The US Treasury bill is crumbling. It's not going to come to a crashing end in the next few weeks. This may perpetuate for some time to come. But it's certainly not the United States building strength — it's just the opposite. It's bleeding out, maybe a little bit at a time, but nonetheless, you keep bleeding out and eventually at some point you run out of blood.
Glenn Diesen: Something has to give though, because from what I'm being told, the Gulf states have now explained to the United States that they believe time is on Iran's side. And I get it — there's a lot at stake. It's not just how to end the Iran war. As you said, the entire world order is more or less at stake. I can understand on the one hand the pressure to have another go at attacking Iran. On the other hand, if you can't win militarily, what's the point? And from what I understand, the Iranians have plenty of other ways to escalate if the US decides to restart the war.
Trump, Netanyahu, and the pressure to restart the war
My last question: we've heard about a spat between Trump and Netanyahu. Apparently Trump was considering putting an end to the war and accepting something of a defeat — which would not be good for Israel, which made Netanyahu quite angry. I'm not sure how much we should believe the news these days, but if it is true, do you think Israel would be in a position to essentially deny Trump or influence him to reject that peace? Because I always thought if core US security interests are at stake, at some point he would have to distance himself a bit from the pressure coming out of Tel Aviv.
Larry Johnson: Well, the simple fact that you have to frame it that way tells you everything you need to know — that you always have to look at the news as it's being presented with a point of view. I call it intelligence with a purpose. It's designed to elicit a particular reaction or to manipulate.
Glenn Diesen: No, I meant — if I read the Guardian, it's to know what the Guardian wants me to think, not because you believe you're getting reality there. Especially over the past few years, with the focus on elevating war narratives always prioritized above reality. One should be a bit cautious. But if it is true, do you think Israel would be in a position to essentially deny Trump or influence him to reject that peace?
Larry Johnson: Yes, they can influence Trump to try to make decisions that will be inimical to US interests. But even though they may get Trump convinced that he needs to do this, the reality is the United States may face constraints on what it can do. Okay, yeah, we're going to relaunch the attacks on Iran, but we're going to have to go through Iraq. We can no longer go through Saudi Arabia. And what the Saudis, Kuwaitis, and Qataris are particularly concerned about — the UAE less so, but they would end up taking the biggest blow — is that if they get back into facilitating these attacks, they are going to suffer some devastation beyond what they have already experienced. The Iranians have taken the position that they recognize they can handle a first strike, but their retaliatory follow-up is going to be devastating.
So I don't discount that Trump can still be talked into renewing the attacks, but he's also going to come up against the practical realities of what the US Air Force can now do with these constraints. If Saudi Arabia continues to say no, you're not going to use our airspace, that limits US options considerably.
Glenn Diesen: Given this reality — and also if the US attacks again, how much worse it can get, with the Red Sea shut down, internet cables potentially cut, Gulf states' desalination plants or energy infrastructure blown up — with all these different considerations also weighing against the interests of Israel, how likely do you think it is that the US will attack again? Because when I look at the force build-up, I keep feeling that if you're going to build up that many forces, you can't bring them home again. They're built up for war. But again, I'm not a military man.
Larry Johnson: Well, you're just plagued with logic and rational thought. You're absolutely right that we have not seen the order come down to start withdrawing or drawing down. For that simple reason alone, I would say yes, the United States is going to renew the attacks on Iran. But the ability of the United States to sustain that will be extremely limited, and the damage that will be inflicted on US forces in the area — as well as on Israel — will be significant. Israel is the one that I think is grossly miscalculating the kind of damage that Iran can inflict on it.
I'm hopeful that this non-combat portion of the conflict continues to drag out. Because of the Hajj, well, okay, no attack now. And then the Hajj ends, and okay, now we're at the World Cup — so let's get through the World Cup. That takes another month. So that can give a couple of months of negotiation, which would be a better outcome. But I think Trump is going to come under enormous pressure to attack. I'm not going to sit and predict it's going to happen next week — I don't have access to that information. All I know is Trump's under pressure to do it, but he also faces some real-world obstacles that prevent it. How those two get bridged, I don't know.
Glenn Diesen: As the months come and go, if there's no war and no peace, the markets will nonetheless suffocate. The clock is ticking. I don't see a good outcome out of this — well, for the United States. For Iran, they can come out very strong if they finally shake off 47 years of crippling sanctions and perpetual military threats. If they can get something new, it can be great. But for the US, there's no going back really.
Larry Johnson: The way you phrased it — and you bring excellent insight to this — is that the economic situation will ultimately determine if the United States will go forward with military strikes. I cannot conceive of a scenario in which US military strikes against Iran are going to strengthen the world economy, strengthen the US financial position in the world, increase desire to purchase dollars, or make the petrodollar more universal. In fact, I would argue that any further military escalation by the United States will have the exact opposite effect. And once there is that realization, I think that argues against it — we shouldn't do this because the economies are too fragile. We're starting to see the full effect happening in Asia, but it's going to be hitting Europe with greater intensity, and ultimately, probably by the end of June, the United States is really going to be suffering the economic consequences.
Glenn Diesen: Well, Larry, as always, I appreciate your insights. Thank you very much for your time.
Larry Johnson: Hey, Glenn, always a pleasure, my friend. Keep up the good work.