Who’s Actually Running Iran? with Abbas Milani

- We've had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That's the good news. The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that's bad news for Iran, much more than it's bad news for the United States of America. It's Thursday, April 16th, 2026, and woke back to Good Fellows, a Hoover Institution broadcast, examining history, economics, and geopolitics. I'm Bill Whalen. I'm a distinguished policy fellow here at the Hoover Institution, and I will be your moderator today. But before we get to the show, I'd like to say on behalf of my colleagues that we look forward to seeing you here at the Hoover Institution on Wednesday, April 22nd for our live show and the reception after we're done filming, where you'll get to meet the Goodfellows. The only bad news a report is that the show is now sold up, but we take that as a positive because we are thrilled at the response. And again, we're looking forward to seeing you here at Hoover on the campus of Stanford University on the 22nd. Now on the show in our first order business, which is meeting the four mentioned Goodfellows, in case you're watching this show for the first time, our three good fellows, as we jokingly refer to them, are the historian, sir Neil Ferguson, the economist, John Cochrane, and former Presidential National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General HR McMaster. Guys, good to see you on this Thursday. We're going to go back to some familiar turf and talk about Iran, but from a different perspective. Today we want to talk to a Hoover colleague who actually knows the country very well. That is Abbas Malani Abbas. Malani is a Hoover Institution Research Fellow and co-director of Iran's Democracy Project. He's also the Hamid and Christina Mogadon, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University. Abbas, Malini's exp expertise is US Iranian relations and Iranian cultural, political and security issues. And we're gonna tap into that knowledge to figure what this conflict looks like from the Iranian perspective. Abbas, welcome to Goodfellows.

- It's a pleasure to join you and the Goodfellows.

- Let me start the conversation, then I'll turn it over to the fellows with two questions folded into one. I look at the government and Iran right now, and I'm somewhat confused. There is a supreme leader who we haven't seen or heard from since he was given that title. He reportedly was seriously wounded in the same air attack that killed his father. The first Ayatollah common, it seems, the IRG, the Revolutionary Guard Corps is deciding when and where to fire missiles. Meanwhile, you have peace talks in Islamabad, where the Iranian delegation was led by the nation's foreign minister and parliamentarian speaker. So two questions. Abbas, who is running the country? Secondly, as you look at the current list of players, is there any individual you see who could take over and run the country in a direction that would be to the United States suiting? In other words, could the outcome here be regime, alterationist, or Neil would call it? Or is the end outcome gonna be regime change?

- I think the group that is running the country or the institution that is running the country is the IRGC. I think one is the now in every sense of the word, the military dictatorship, their occasional references to how many junior is so far merely perfunctory. No one knows whether in what capacity he's alive, if he's alive. So I, I think it's the IRGC that is in charge. And there are a few of them that we know are in command, including vahidi, which is one of the most notorious of these commanders. Another one of these very notorious commanders, who by all accounts is a PhD in economics. I apologized to all the economists of the world, but he's a true imbecile and was an ILE when he was a commander of the ROGC, almost almost put him on trial for crimes because he sent thousands of young Iranians to assure death because of his IDs. He is one of them. SBI is another one. So it's a very small tight coy of Islamists. Almost all of them were involved in terrorist activities before the revolution. They were part of a small group of terrorists. So I think they are in charge increasingly, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they do. What Neil suggests that, that they will have a, a regime alteration, that they will change their tune because to me, their sole goal is survival.

- Ba can I ask you a, a question? A senior US official said to me recently, we think there are three kinds of people in the leadership. There are the fanatics, there are the politicians, and there are the corrupt. And I told this to my wife, Aion Sy Ali, and her response was, tell him they're all fanatics. What is your view?

- My view is that all are in some parts one of these three characteristics. The person that is now deemed to be the favorite candidate to negotiate with equality above is arguably one of the most corrupt. He's clearly one of the most opportunistic, and he's clearly survival survivor, the rest of them too. So I think that kind of a differentiation doesn't make sense to me. What makes sense to me is that this regime, in my view, has been beaten militarily badly. They know how badly they have beaten. They know how their infrastructure has been damaged. They know how their economy is collapsing, and they're trying to make every effort possible to make a deal with the United States to get out of this impasse. But because they're bullies, because they have ruled as bullies for 47 years, they can't be appearing to be making concessions. So they want to make concessions, but declare it as forcing it down the throat of the US and Israel

- Boss. On, on, on the kind of fragmentation of the regime. There have been these reports, I don't know you, you would know much better than I than I do that, that the RGC leadership told the delegation of Pakistan, Hey, come home. And, and they were angry for a number of reasons, including achi and Gali b saying, well, maybe they would be willing to stop support for terrorist organizations and, and militias, you know, acro across the Middle East and including Hezbollah. And, and, and so this fragmentation, does it create an opportunity? Is is kind of the first question. What opportunity does it create? The second is, I, I think we, we agree, we've talked about this. There, there can be no enduring peace with Iran. There can be no enduring security for the Iranian people until there is a change, a fundamental change in the nature of the regime. How could that happen through fragmentation and a portion of the regime turning against, you know, the, the others, the, the, these combinations of these three groups or, or can the people, do you think because the regime is in this weakened state, can you see a path toward forcing that a change in in the regime?

- Well, I think signs of fragmentation are there already and in several different ways. In one sense, when talk of discussions between the US and reached the media, the RGC issued a very harshly worded statement, threatening statement. Very little attention was paid to it in the western media. To my surprise, the RGC basically said that there is a B partisan. And the concept they used is Bono partisan, the, the concept that comes from the Marxist tradition, primarily from gram's writings. And that's when a system goes in crisis. And some Bonaparte like character, Napoleon like character comes and shuts everybody down and rules. They said there is a bism coming, but it's not an individual. It is us, us and the people of Iran. So clearly they were worried that POV might be trying to make a deal side deal with the US and they shut him down even before they went to the meeting. I think there is other elements within the regime, Lak Rouhani, the ex president who has been even before all of this, essentially offering himself as someone who's willing to make a deal with the US and change the course of direction. My sense is that he was so open about it and Zif the foreign minister were so open about it, that communist order to absolutely brutally murder anyone who came to the streets, according to them in three days, 3,077, everybody says there's multiple. That was to make sure that kind of a deal doesn't happen. In other words, no one from within the regime can make peace with the Iranian people who then can make a peace with the us. So I think that fragmentation has happened, but the IRGC so far is in command. And to me, again, to go back to what Neil was saying and coding Hery, who knows this region, well, who knows Islamists extremely well. This is a corrupt ideological regime. They're now more corrupt than their ideological. They want to keep property rights. They own the IRGC literally controls at least half of the Iranian economy. Whoever it fits in Harmony's place, whether it's the IRGC defacto or deju gets their hands on a hundred at least billion dollars of assets. We are not talking about small change. So, and this is a mafia like regime that is going to try to stay in power, but like all mafias, once there is that much money involved, there is insight.

- So you've turned to economics, which i, I like, but it looks like there's two roads that we're talking about here. One is the regime, some form of the regime stays in power and we find a way to let them make a deal that involves a little bit less annoying their neighbors to put it politely, but they get to stay in power. And, and to that end, corruption is good as opposed to fanaticism because corrupt people can be bought and, and we have a lot of money to offer. You've made a very good comment that of course they need a face saving way out. And part of making a deal is to let you know, any used car dealer knows you, you make that. You say, oh boy, you got a great deal out of this. While you're fleeing them. Unfortunately, I'm not sure, our administration is very good at letting other sides feel, feel like they won self confidently. So that's too bad. The other direction, of course, what we're all praying for, is it real regime change? The IRGC goes, anything better comes in. It might be for a while the regular military, it might be SHA and so forth. So my first half of my question, I am, I am getting to a question, Neil, is, you know, what, what hope is there for toppling the regime or allowing the Iranians to top it? You, you understand the internal mechanisms of rat far better than we do. You need somewhere to run to. You need some event that makes the internal security services stop shooting their own people. But that that would, I think we would all love to see that. And we're all kind of making good with the other one. And the second part of that question is, so our current strategy is not military. We're blockading the straight of Horus and hoping that economic pressure does it. Which you know, it seems like a step we should have taken a while ago. But on the other hand, that stops their oil exports. But Venezuela, North Korea, Cuba have gone on for a very long time with absolutely rotten economies. So I wonder whether economic pressure alone will do the trick.

- I think you are pointing to a very important issue. I think maybe the critical issue, what I think will topple this regime is the economy. It is the economy that is their Achilles. He, because the economy is under the verge of collapse, the financial system is on the verge of collapse. The banking system, the second biggest bank went the belly up a few months ago. And amongst themselves in their inner fighting, we learned how rapacious everybody is and was including harmony son, who was one of the apparently powers behind the throne of this corrupt con conglomerate. Mr. Anri who owns a $440 million euros worth of assets buildings in London, who was one of the most rapacious of these. So I think it's the economy right now. You can't take more than $7 from your own account in a bank in Iran in eight tm. You can't make more than maybe about a hundred dollars from your account. Even that is impossible to get. Unemployment is under rise, inflation is at least fif above 50%. So there is a, this remarkable level of incompetence, corruption and find economic challenges and anger in the people. And the regime knows this. While it is making constantly these conciliatory gestures toward the west, towards Europeans, towards the allies, allies in the region that they had bombarded, they bomb. They hit United Arab Emirate, which is one of their most important places for money laundering, for circumventing the sanctions. They hit United Arab Emirate more than they hit Israel with drones and missiles. In spite of all these gestures, let's be nice again. Every day, virtually every day they run original mis threatening the people of Iran. They will kill you if you come out. Is

- There a Strat, sorry? Is there a strategy that targets the assets of the IRGC as opposed to just trying to impoverish ordinary people?

- I have said that this is the way to go ultimately all the time. I never thought that attacking is going to solve this problem. I thought hitting them were economically freezing the assets of GC freezing harmonies assets, freezing the assets of the oligarchs like an sorry, closing some of their network in remarkable soft power network that they have created through Europe, through the us, through Canada. The number of schools, the number of seminaries that they have set up, where they teach to promote all of this ideas. That to me was the way to go. But they need to make concessions to get the economy running. They need hundreds of billions of dollars of investment and that is what is going to get done. And that's why they keep threatening the people of around. They just announced 400, a name of 400 list of 400 names of people who live in diaspora. Mostly journalists, some athletes, some artists who have said anything against the regime and they're con confiscating their properties. They're now sending, I know directly they're sending texts from Iran to people in Canada, in the United States and Europe that don't participate in these demonstrations against the regime will go after your family in Iran. That's a regime that is frightened of its people and knows, and thus some of the headlines I read in papers that Iran is the new superpower of the region. That the Iran is at. The height of his power to me is flabbergasted.

- But Abbas, there's one thing that is true and that is that they were able by retaliating against their Gulf neighbors and by closing the Strait of Horus to exercise some leverage despite the economic collapse, which I completely agree with you about. And despite the utter military defeat that was inflicted on them. And I think the worrying thing now must be that in order to get the straight reopened, we might end up relaxing the economic pressure, in fact unfreezing the assets and appealing to their corrupt side. That might mean that the net results of all of this is that the IRGC remains in power. The economic spigot is reopened and the Iranian people lose out. Once again, how should the US government proceed now? Because I think we're an absolutely critical juncture. If you think the stock market knows anything, you'd, you'd think that the crisis was over, but it isn't over. 'cause the straits still closed and all we've done is close it further by stopping Iran from shipping to China. What's the right move next? I find it quite hard to answer that question myself. So I'm eager to hear from you.

- Well, I think it, it is a very hard question on the straight of hormones. There is a very interesting interview with Mr. Shahani who was ho's top military advisor. He was in charge of this national security committee that they have and they asked him, this is after the shorter war between before this war. They said, how come we didn't close the straight of hormones? He kept bluffing the journalist, Iranian journalist, he said, we weren't bluffing, but we will close the state of hormones when it is the last thing we do. This is when we are existentially threatened. So they knew from the moment that the, how many at all we're taken out that they were now in that existential mode. So they went to the end game from the beginning and then they realized maybe they can make money out of this, maybe they can begin charging money. And to cave to that idea, to me is absolutely counterproductive. I don't think they will go for it. I don't think China will go for it. I don't think United Arab Emirate would go for it. Saudi Arabia will certainly not go for it. And Iran has a claim that has no basian law. Iran has one of the countries that has access to the strai of foreign. Oman has as much access as Iran had. So to me that is a non-starter. One of the things that, again, I'm surprised it wasn't in any of the demands that the Trump administration made about to Iran, and we haven't seen the documents, we have seen what has leaked about the documents. There isn't a single mention of defending the people of Iran against this regime. Any deal that is made with this regime in my view, has to include language from the Trump administration that we promise these people that will come to their help. Now we have their back. You can't continue killing these people. You can't continue threatening them. You can't continue doing the things that they're doing. They have shut down the internet for a thousand hours. People live on that. The regime itself says they have lost $2 billion in companies, many of them led by women. So any policy of the US of the Trump administration that excludes defending the rights of the people against this regime because I have no doubt that Iranian people will take care of this regime because the regime can't solve the problems that Iran has. And the problems are fundamentally economic. And the prob economic problems contrary to what regime apologists say, were not created by the sanctions. They were exacerbated by the sanctions.

- Yeah. Hey boss, you're making such an important point here. I think, and this has been, I think an element of our approach that has been most disappointing to me is that, is that some of the language was insensitive to the, you know, to the tremendous opportunity and maybe the moral responsibility to come down on, on the side of the Iranian people. This is an impossible question because Iran is not monolithic or homogeneous, but how have you seen the sentiment of the people evolving since the beginning of, of this war? And if the, if the Iranian people are to be able to kind of muster the courage again to to face, you know, the machine guns and everything else they had to face in January, what are some of the signs that kind of an uprising is beginning, you know, in terms of strikes or ba siege and RGC members just not going to work, you know, or portions of the country or more portion, certain portions of the country more susceptible to, to really having the people take control away from the state and its tools of repression. Could you kind of maybe give us an idea of how that the sentiment has evolved and then what the prospects are, you know, for the people you know, seizing an opportunity?

- Well, one of the consequences of the closure of the internet is that it's very difficult to get firsthand information. And, and I think that's one of the reasons they've shut it down. So while before I had much more access in terms of talking to different people and getting a sense of what is on the ground. I, i, I am, everybody else is more limited. But if you look at what the regime has been doing, you get a sense of what's going on. Within the last two weeks, the regime has brought in thousands of hash shabi ka za and in the streets had them talk into to television and saying, we are here to help support the regime. They have talked about opening the border and bringing Shiite from Afghanistan to essentially fill in where the Iranian people are distribute, are disappointed them. Virtual bread famously said, the people, the central committee of the East German communist bodies dissatisfied with the people of Germany. They have elected the new people. This regime is ing the new people. They literally ha have this remarkable plan. Those to me indicate that they see signs of, of potential explosion. That's why every night, virtually in neighborhoods in cities that people had gone to the street from around 11 o'clock, they send their goons into streets on bicycles, motorcycles, cars, shouting, Hey, that hey, that will kill anyone, you know, threatening in a sort of Nazi like brown shirt, like going into Jewish neighborhoods before they were attacked. So to me, that's the most empirical evidence I have seen that they very much anticipate and fear that uprising.

- And just, just quickly for our viewers, I I was struck by the reports of USA tenant attack aircraft attacking hostage shabi. These are, these are Iranian created, supported militias in Iraq, inside of Iraq as they were marshaling to come into Iran. So they are drawing on external proxies, right? For, for additional majority.

- And not just has shabi, literally as I say, QBO from Iraq, as from Iraq, fought from Afghanistan, Zainab, the Iranian Shiites that were sent in Syria to fight on behalf of asat. They are bringing them all back. If a regime is consolidated and sure of its own re oppressive apparatus, it doesn't need to constantly bring in people from outside and say, we got these two come after you.

- So here's where I think there's the real fork in the road. You mentioned that we'll, we'll try to negotiate with them to promise to treat their own people well. And, and I can imagine how long those promises would be kept. But, but America faces a choice. Is our goal to unseat this regime completely and bring in something new? Or is our goal to lower our own costs, short run costs in a small amount, negotiate with them, which means some promises mostly about not lobbying missiles on your neighbors and opening the straits for a while, but that means supporting them. That means giving them money. That means not helping all the people who want to unseat them. That is a very dirty deal. That looks like where the US is going because of the short run costs. My own fear is not, not so much for the effects on Iran, but the long run effects of, you know, of, of keeping them in power and, and becoming in essence helping them stay in power because it's too expensive to do the others. I I think HR would tell us we could take the Straits of Horus in about 48 hours if we only gave him a tank and some friends to do it. So the, the overwhelming military and economic ability for us to do it seems there just the, the will seems. Sure. So would you counsel, go for it, do what it takes to get rid of this regime or would you counsel the direction we're taking now? Ah, that's too much of a pain in the ass. You know, like the Venezuelans, we'll just negotiate by them off, let them keep their properties in London so long as they don't cause us too much trouble and, and try to keep the cameras off as they murder their own people.

- I I think again, you have put your finger on the most important in my view question that the West needs to, the US needs to decide. They need to have a strategic decision on Iran. They haven't had that, no administration in my view, after the revolution, Democrat or Republican has had a strategic thinking, what do we want to do with Iran? Is Iran a possible ally of the United States or the West? Can this regime be cured into becoming a law abiding and state rather than a cause? Or is it as dangerous as someone like me says and we need to help the Iranian people get rid of these things. The US had a policy on Soviet Union from 1946.

- Yep.

- No administration, none that I know of. The last administration that in my view had a strategic vision on Iran was Nixon. The Nixon doctrine basically said, we need Iran. Iran is our key ally. Iran is the ally of Israel. Israel our is our key ally and we need to keep this regime regardless of the tensions we have with them. They fought Iran tooth and nail on oil, Nixon administration. They fought 'em at the nuclear issue, but they kept their alliance.

- So let me ask Mike, if fellow, you know, the, am the American specialists here, would it not be much better politically in America? I mean, imagine we go into the midterm elections and we have a messy deal with Iran, the Democrats, the economists, and everybody says, what a terrible thing this was for Trump to do it. Although we've, you know, moaned the grass very successfully versus, you know, a an actual victory. One of our great enemies for decades is now gone. I I would think that you know, America and you know, those in charge of America right now would be much better off seeing this to conclusion rather than a, a, a, a face saving negotiation and kick the can down the road a little more.

- Don the problem is that we know from history, if you want to collapse a regime like this, you can't do it purely with air power or indeed with naval power. The, the regime has a lot in common with the Nazi regime, the combination of fanaticism and corruption, which ABAs talked about earlier. But how did you decapitate the third Reich? You needed the red Army to be in Berlin. And only then did the fanatics begin to commit suicide and the rest hand themselves over to justice. There's no administration that's going to commit the ground forces that would be necessary to achieve certain regime change. I think that's a, a problem. HR will have thoughts on this. Part two, collapsing the economy feels doable. E except that as we discovered with Russia, it's quite hard to collapse a really large economy. Even one that's in this case teetering on the brink of hyperinflation. Why? Because it has borders. We can't control, there's goods already coming in from Pakistan, for example, and the Chinese are not gonna let these people go down because the, the Iranians are a critical part of the Chinese acts as of authoritarians. The Chinese are selling them weapons, sending weapons, maybe giving weapons, which they never did to Russia. They did dual use but not weapons to Russia. The Chinese support for the regime is more revert than we have seen. And so it's not clear to me that we can, with the means at our disposal, collapse the economy enough to cause the kind of revolution that I think would happen if there were no food at all. I mean, there comes a point when regardless of the price level, there just is no food. And when you get to that point, then it's very hard for a tyranny to remain in business. But I don't think we can get them to that point. I think they can still keep the basic show on the road. And so that's the dilemma for policymakers. Nobody wants to commit large scale ground forces because that would be forever War 3.0. Nobody can bring the economy tumbling down just by American levers. And, and therefore you are left with the, the following problem every day. The straight off moves remains closed, creates a bigger headache for the economy that starts to really hurt ordinary Americans. Not right now, but in a couple of weeks and certainly in a couple of months. So you can't leave it like that for too long or it's gonna be utter carnage in the midterms. The electorates already mad enough about affordability, wait till they see 4% inflation, which is perfectly conceivable under these conditions. That's the dilemma.

- Aas, we have just a couple minutes left. Let me ask you this question. The treasury secretary Scott Bessett was at the White House yesterday talking about various things including taxes. He got asked the obligatory question about when the price of acid lie is coming down, it did something clever. He said it could be days, weeks, months. In other words, I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm not a cleric, I can't see the future. But as we look at the future of this regime, what is your advice Abbas and to, to the United States, to Israel in terms of how it should be couching this conflict in terms of expectations? Should they be saying the regime is going down in a matter of days, weeks, months, or should they say years?

- I don't think it's going down in a matter of days or month, but I think they should say this regime can't, this is my belief, this regime in this current form cannot survive. That's, I think the difference between this regime and for example, the Nazis. Iran does have a very vast reservoir of people who want to change. They, they don't wanna make a radical revolutionary change necessarily. They want a society, they want in Iran where they can live normal lives and the Iranians culture, the Iranian economy, can reach its full potential. There might be at some stage, some within the regime who realize, like people did in South Africa, like Pinoche did in Chile, that the status quo is untenable. That they will make a deal to give up much of their power or some of their power and keep their property and live to, so to enjoy the fruits of their corruption. I I see that as possible. That requires a wiser opposition that we've had. The opposition hasn't really being willing to follow this path and see whether it is possible to go through this regime through an intermediary stage.

- Finally, Abbas, we, our good fellow audience is very information hungry. Could you recommend a few places they should go to follow what is going on in Iran? Keeping in mind these are probably people who don't speak ese

- Well, I, my suggestion is that look at multiple sources. It, it has become, I truly have never seen the western media so polarized, both epistemologically politically and journalistically. I I some of the headlines that I read in some of the most important papers in England and France and here are so discordant with what I know about the reality in Iran. So my, my sense, my suggestion is please read as much as you can multiple sources and believe that Iman is a pivot. You can't have Middle East peace without democratic Iran. I absolutely believe that and I think the people of Iran want to make that and wise policy is to help Iranians reach that point. And Iranians, I mean Iranians in diaspora Iranians, 10% of Iranians now live in diaspora

- A Milani. Thanks for joining us today. Hope to have you back on good fellows in the future with hopefully good news to report from Iran.

- I hope so.

- Thanks boss.

- Thank you. Excellent,

- Thank

- You.

- Alright, on the second portion of our show, gentlemen, a few odds and ends for let's begin in of all places hungry, which I don't think we've talked much about in our six years doing Goodfellows over the weekend, the good people of Hungary went to the polls and they now have turned out they're prime minister of Victor Orban. He's out of a job after 16 years as Prime Minister Sneel. I turn to you. Is this a referendum on Orban being a little longer in the tooth and out of touch with a disgruntled electorate or is a, a bigger story here about maga losing its touch in Europe?

- Well, there's a huge story here. This is a tremendously important development because many people thought that it wouldn't and couldn't happen that Victor Orban had an effect become a fascist dictator and wouldn't let go of of power. This kind of thesis has been quite often aired. But now we know that he's not a fascist, he's a populist and therefore can be defeated in an election that was pretty free, very high turnout, I think close to 80% not voting for a candidate of the left mind you, because the winner is not ideologically very different from Victor Orban. That's important. The reason that Orban was thrown out I think was principally something we've been talking about already on the show corruption and the perception that there was a kind of deep hypocrisy to ban's, populism. There's another interesting thing here, and it's about all ban's own future. I I think he's going to, and his cronies too are going to face some serious legal action in the coming weeks and months. So this show ain't over and we'll be hearing about Orban again. But it reminds me of a conversation I had with him quite a few years ago now I, I should check, but it was pre pandemic. So at least six years ago I was in Budapest and I, I met him and I said to him, you know, no one is ever going to really believe in, in what you say you are achieving in Hungary, where he portrayed himself as pursuing a very distinctive course until you lose an election. But if you can lose an election and show that you are, you are willing to bow to the will of the people, your claims will be so much more credible. And I remember saying it and thinking to myself, we will find out if he's just gonna be one of these Ian types like the Turkish president who'll never let go of power until they carry him out feet first. Now it turns out that Auburn wasn't Ian and and actually did bow to the will of the people. I think that that is a good thing. And there's the bonus benefit that there's no longer a veto exercise by Hungary on the loan that the European Union has wanted for some time to make to Ukraine. And so this makes a meaningful difference to the situation in Eastern Europe as well. So I think it's great news and I wish his successor the very best of luck. He's gonna need it 'cause he is inherited quite a mess.

- And even, hey, I'd just say even beyond that, Neil, I mean to get two thirds of, of the votes and that was, that was the mark for the people of Hungary. 'cause they wanted to reverse elements of kind of the state capture, you know, that that that Orban and his party had had organized over many, many years. And, and so it's important for that reason that, you know, the people are still sovereign, you know, in, in, in Hungary. And they expressed that through the results of this election. And the second thing though is it's sort of a, it's, it's a compelling counterargument against the catastrophize, you know, that democracy's over, you know, and, and this idea that, that you have to try to engineer outcomes in elections that cut against the popular will. And and I think you saw that in, in the Netherlands also in the outcome of that election. So, hey, I I think, I think this is, is tremendously important in an, in a number of ways. And then also I would say the guy was a pander, a panderer to Putin and Xi Jinping, you know, how did that play out in the country that revolted against the Soviets in 1956? Hey, it didn't, it didn't float with them. You know, so I I think it's, it's also a good, it's a, it's a good shot back at Putin who I think in, in lately has been encouraged by the tensions between, between Europe and the United States over the war in, in Iran. And, and, and, and his hopes for breaking a apart NATO for trending the transatlantic relationship, I think have been significantly diminished by the outcome of the hungry election.

- I I would add this has lessons for Europe more generally. The, the exclusion of anything from the right is, is something we can't talk about is, is shown to be, well, one of those many habits of center left in Europe that didn't make much sense. The, this rightward shift in the European voters and electorate is not towards an authoritarianism. They're not looking for the strong man. They're looking for some fair, sensible policies in the place of fairly insensible policies, but they want democracy, freedom, rule of law, all of those things that, that we all cherish. And that's kind of what's exposed here. Now, Europe's having trouble digesting it, they're trying to portray it as a great victory of the left. And as Neil pointed out, Mag's policies are one iota to the left of, of Orban. In fact, had he won against anyone else, it would be decried as the end of democracy in the right wing shift. And here come the Nazis again. But, but there is this sort of sensible middle of European politics, which is ascended. And I, and I think the, the, the standard elites should are perhaps starting to wake up and pay attention to that fact.

- Second, Adam hr, this one's for you, war Secretary Pete Hesset, has asked Army chief of Staff General Randy George to step down and take immediate retirement and anonymous source telling reporters quote, it was time for a leadership change in the Army. Question for you hr, big deal, little deal, no deal at all. And I could historically point you to HR to all sorts of examples of Lincoln and Truman and other president's firing generals in the middle of conflicts.

- Yeah, I I think it's a big deal for one reason. And that is, I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding about the chain of command. The chain of command comes from civilian leadership to senior military officers who do what their civilian bosses instruct them to do. You know, and, and, and I think what's happened is that Secretary hexes with, with the, the vast number of these personnel changes is fighting a rear guard against phantoms. Hey, you won the election, you've got military leadership there that is professional, that is committed to support, defend the constitution that recognizes, hey, the military should never be a check on executive power. That was what our, our founders were most concerned about. So, you know, I I think that this idea that there's a loyalty test, as you mentioned go, it's not, it's not unprecedented, right? I mean, you know, when when, when John F. Kennedy came in, he thought the old guard over there in the Pentagon from under Eisenhower that, you know, that they, that they were not gonna support his policies. So he, he brought maximal Taylor out of retirement and put him in his senior military advisor in the White House to largely kind of supplant the advisory responsibilities of the joint chiefs. Then he installed Taylor as the chairman again outta retirement. So it's not unprecedented that there's this kind of idea that I need my people there. Lyndon Johnson said to the JCS, Hey, I'm like a coach, I used to know and you're my team, you're all Johnson men. Well actually they're all constitution men. And I think if, if politicians need to understand that, you know, and, and, and then finally with this, I, I don't know what the reality is about these promotional list and, and, and removing, you know, women and minority officers from the promotional list. But there was, there was a problem under, under the Obama administration, there was a problem under the Biden administration of pursuing equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. And that was, that was, I don't think that was beneficial to minority officers, to women officers either. You know, because then if somebody is promoted, you're like, oh yeah, I know where that person got promoted, which is not true. These are extraordinary officers. And so now they're like everything in the Trump administration, there's an unequal and opposite reaction. And the problem is that both the advocacy for kind of a radical social ideas or political agendas under Biden and, and, and the Obama administrations drug drug, the military to, you know, was trying to drag the military in a partisanship. We don't want the Trump administration to do the same thing. Hey, hands off, you know, hands off the military. So, so I, I I just think that i's a big deal for that reason. But as you mentioned, it's not unprecedented, right? And I think it ought to be framed under, hey, you know, the military's not partisan. I mean, I don't know any partisan generals or admirals. I don't know any woke generals or admirals. I don't know any extremist generals or now there's this kind of crazy narrative out there where the military is being used like other institutions do to score partisan points. And the danger is that will diminish maybe Americans trust or some Americans trust in that institution.

- Alright gentlemen, our good fellows, producer slash game master Scott Immigrant has come up with yet another game for us to play. We're gonna call this one Winners Losers, or too soon to tell the Iran War Edition. I'm gonna give you the name of an individual and you're gonna tell me if they are a winner, a loser, or too soon to tell Vis-a-vis Iran. Let's start with us President Donald Trump, Neil,

- Too soon to tell. And by the way, that will be my answer to all these questions. We do not know as we are having this conversation, how this turns out, there's a ceasefire, the missiles have stopped flying, drones have stopped flying, but the straight up form moves is still to all intents and purposes closed. And so it's not yet clear how this turns out. And rarely is it clear at this stage in a war, where are we six weeks in, how it's gonna turn out. So my answer is the same to all these questions. It is too soon to tell

- Gentlemen. Anybody else wanna Yeah, go in a different direction, Neil?

- Well, you wanna go next?

- Oh, I, I agree too soon to tell.

- I, and, and I'll add, but according to the, depends on Trump said early in the war, I want America to win wars again. If we win this war, if by the midterm elections the Iranian regime is gone, yet Trump gets a solid win. Anything else? And I think the forces of this is all a mistake. Gas prices are high, mean, mean, it's a loss for Trump.

- Alright, our second individual, US Vice President, JD Vance. Neil, you're gonna say too soon, but it maybe explain what Vance is juggling here, Neil, in terms of his political interests.

- Well, I think it's, it's rare that a vice president gets sent to a meeting like the one that just happened in Islamabad, right? That would typically be a, an assignment for a Secretary of State or perhaps a national security advisor. Since we have the same guy doing both jobs right now. It's unusual that it was not Marco Rubio, but it was JD Vance. The risk for Vance is very, very clear. If this all turns out badly, then it'll be his name and his face that people associate with it. The Machiavellian School thinks that Secretary Rubia has pushed Vance into this position with malice of forethought. But that seems unlikely to me since it could equally well turn out fine for Vance. That's why I say it's too soon to tell. If we look back on the Iran war as a tremendous act of strategic courage that led to regime change in Iran, I wholly agree with John. All concern will look like geniuses. If unfortunately the regime is able to clinging on and the economic costs start to really impact voters, then everybody's going to look like they screwed up. So Vance is in the same situation as President Trump. He stands on a kind of knife edge of history. I think he has done a good job. I think the Islam van negotiation was a difficult, it was right for it to be the US that broke off the talks when it was clear the Iranians weren't making sufficient concessions. But that is just the first inning. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if Vice President Vance were back in Islam, Abba, in a relatively short time to resume these negotiations.

- I'm, I'm gonna disagree with that 'cause I, I think no one's gonna remember that Vance went to Pakistan, but they will remember that Vance was the no forever wars. I don't think this is a good idea, guy. So actually, if it turns into quagmire, I think his stock within the 2028 Republican debate about do we retreat isolationism versus engaging,

- Well that's possible, John, but remember, although he had his doubts, we know that he said in the critical meetings, you gotta go hard and fast. So I don't think he's in a position to say, I I was against it until I was for it. 'cause that's a line that's never worked terribly well in American politics.

- Hr, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

- Yeah. Too soon to tell again, you know, the default. But, but hey again, it, it depends on the outcome of, of the Iran war, but it really depends on the outcome of what's happening in Lebanon right now with Hezbollah. I think we have to really highlight how very, very significant this is. That there are now direct talks initially brokered by the us between, between Lebanon and Israel. It is against the law in Lebanon to talk to Israelis. You know, and so this, this is the beginning of maybe what could be a road to the diminishment of, of, of Hezbollah's influence even further and maybe the ultimate disarmament of Hezbollah and this what might be what gets, you know, finally Lebanon to start to arrest its downward spiral and rebuild what should be a beautiful and thriving country. So couple

- Of,

- Yeah,

- Yeah.

- You know, so I think, I think if Netanyahu pulls that off, it would be quite significant.

- Couple of quick points. I think he's, of all the people on the list Bill, the one most likely to be a winner at this point because of the extraordinary damage that's been inflicted on Iran and because the Iranians have been forced to concede a separate process over Lebanon. That is a big concession that the Iranians have made. Although they have talked all along about this axis of resistance, the fact that the Lebanon issue has been separated from the main questions of the Iran US talks, that's a concession by the Iranians. So I think Bibi is on track to be the, the, the person who, who is most likely to win, though it's too soon to tell.

- I I, I'll just for the sake, for the sake of fun, I'll disagree. 'cause otherwise the show gets boring. I remember. Thank you. October 8th, 2023. We just discussed DB's future and none of us thought it was very bright and it's remarkable how well, how well he's done since then. But I do remember that democracies are not very grateful to people who win wars. What did the UK do to Winston Churchill for having won World War ii? They turned against him immediately. And and even if, you know, what Israel has achieved is just amazing on under it. Yeah. But nonetheless, when things conclude, even with a pretty darn many, many advances for Israel, never distrust the Israeli's ability to tear each other to shreds, things fall apart. So I I I think converting this into a solid political gain after the war is over will be very difficult. And, and I forecast it probably won't happen.

- And Bibb has to face elect, he's face elections. He has, he has elections to come before October. So that'll be the, the moment of truth in terms of Israeli domestic politics.

- Oh, just a quick point since John brought up Churchill, you know what he, and, and, and Neil you want me to comment on this? What, what Churchill said about the Suez crisis, right? I I would not have dared, I think he said something like that. But if I had dared, I would not have dared stop. And I think that's kind of the situation that Netanyahu and President Trump are, are in together.

- And Neil ne we got a, Neil has this brilliant essay on how this is America's Suez crisis, which is what's pushing me towards the hawkish attitude. I have evidence throughout this show that if you, if you back up now, then you are as as important geopolitically as the UK was after Suez.

- Alright, I have two more and we'll mercifully end this game after that, Neil, the European trio of Kiir Starr, Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sanchez,

- I think they're highly likely to come out of this worse off whatever happens because although they have struck all kinds of poses that are popular domestically, given the unpopularity of the war and the unpopularity of President Trump, as I keep trying to remind my European and British friends, when the smoke clears, you are still entirely reliant on the United States for your security. Without the United States, you don't have deterrence and your dependence on the US is even greater than it to be because of your reliance on what people call the US tech stack. And especially of course the artificial intelligence part of it. So I think they're gonna end up looking extremely weakened when President Trump is able to vent his full spleen. He is furious about their behavior and I think they're underestimating how much that's gonna cost them.

- Just to pile onto Starr, you know, this was an anniversary of the Falklands War and comparing Thatcher to Falklands and, and Starr in this case eventually. Oh yeah, I guess we'll send you an aircraft carrier. It turns out we only have one that faintly works and it makes it halfway there. Before

- You know, Margaret Thatcher had some disagreements.

- Virginia rules the waves.

- Well, Margaret Thatcher had occasional disagreements with Ronald Reagan, I think for the think of the case of Grenada, but she kept them private 'cause she understood how extraordinarily important the relationship with the United States was. And this is something that I'm afraid Kier has forgotten and he'll pay a price for it.

- Hr do you wanna add the European love fest?

- Well, you know, I just, I just did an interview with Anders full Rasmussen if I unplug the Today's battleground series and we, we agreed that, you know, we both have to step back toward each one another, you know, and, and, and I think that we could see some concrete steps in that connection, especially if it does get to more of an enduring cease fire and, and a sustained effort to patrol and keep open the Persian Gulf and the straits of for Mo that will be done with a multinational task force that will include European nations as part of it.

- But, but hr, so Trump wants the Europeans to take over the strait of for Mo and, and even China. But do the Europeans have any capacity to do anything about the Strait of for Mo?

- Yeah, they do. They do. They've got, they have, they have, they have got, they have got a missile fon and they have some, some of their, some of their ships are better configured to do this. You know, the Poles and the French, the UK have pretty significant mind sweeper capability. So yeah, I mean they, they provide and, and you know, we do exercise, I mentioned before, like every year we do like an exercise, you know, sometimes up to 30 nations on keeping the straight of hor moves open. This was not a, you know, a problem that was unanticipated.

- Alright, and finally, Xi Jinping Neil.

- Well this again is a difficult one to judge right now because Xi Jinping has options and these options include making a move with respect to Taiwan. Most experts, and we have plenty at Hoover with whom I've discussed this, think that he won't do that. That he'll wait and watch the United States get embroiled in another Middle Eastern war and, and look to the elections in Taiwan in January of 2028, hoping the g dgu, he's cultivating their leader. She was just in Beijing. So that's the base case, but there is a tail risk, and I'd love to hear hrs thoughts on this. And the tail risk is that they're be keeping a careful count of the number of tomahawks that have been fired, the Patriots that have been used up the depletion of the arsenal of precision weaponry that the Iran war has caused. And there must be some people in Beijing saying, if, if we don't take advantage of this moment, we may never get a better moment. Again, not I think for invasion or even a blockade, but for some move that that pushes the envelope on Taiwan's autonomy, particularly its commercial autonomy. So this, this seems to me the key question. We won't know if Xi Jinping is a winner or loser until we know whether he's willing to take risk. My gut feeling is that if he does nothing, if he waits, he's gonna discover two years down the line that time really wasn't on his side. 'cause two years from now, I think inpact com is gonna be in a much stronger position than it is right now to deter Chinese action. So again, it's too soon to tell, but he has some agency here and he's gotta make one of the biggest, perhaps the biggest decision of his whole career.

- Hr. Yeah, I, I agree with Neil. It's pivotal moment you saw, you know, the news just, you know, today about, about new steps to mobilize the industrial base and to, to, you know, to increase the production rate for munitions and, and weapons systems. You saw, I mean there, there's, there's a great essay in, in the journal today about what Steve Feinberg is doing with the Department of Defense, which is really significant. We mentioned it, you heard it first year on Goodfellows as we were talking about, you know, how finally, finally the Pentagon is, is really reforming in a fundamental way. And, and so I does, I do think this creates this idea of, of a, a closing window of opportunity, an idea. I think that that Shi Jinping may have already had, it always had in his mind, but I do think it, it still is valid to say, hey, that decision point for him is coming in 2028 associated with the Taiwanese election. I think that's probably the most consequential pivot in connection with either A DPP victory, in which case I think he ratches up coercion in a significant way or a KMT victory, which he will then try to use to get annexation by invitation.

- That I would just add. So the war in Iran has, I think really broken through everybody that I don't talk to the military as much as you do hr, but certainly the idea that drones are important and we need to do something about it, especially when we have concentrated high value ships as our main thing, that that boy oh boy is everybody on, on board with that one. And also disruptions to international trade, I think now are suddenly a little more salient, which of course an invasion of Taiwan would stop Pacific trade and, and all of you who wanted China to stop its exports, well, China wanted to stop its exports and China would realize it would stop its exports. So if anything, I think this would push them towards less military but more blockade economic, they, they need to do something that does not stop global trade and good luck to them on figuring that one out.

- Okay gentlemen onto the lightning round. Alright, John, we are starting with you. It is Aug, it is April the 16th, which means that you all were up late last night working on your taxes. Yes or no, John? I was looking at analysis by a, a company called postal, they're a virtual mailbox and compliance service. They claim that individual tax returns cost American taxpayers $146 billion in time and out-of-pocket expenses. They also claim Americans are spending 2.1 billion hours filing out their form 10 forties. That's 12 hours per filer. John, is there a way to build a better mousetrap?

- Oh my god, yes. And most other countries of the world do that. You know, the insane complexity of our tax code, especially as you gain a little bit of wealth, is just a national crisis. But we're focusing on the wrong question. It's, it's like people who measure the effects of regulation by the number of pages in the federal register. It's the damage that the tax code does economically, the amount of effort that's put into avoiding taxes, arranging taxes, and so forth, as opposed to building better mousetraps, building better companies and so forth, that tremendously high marginal rates combined with Swiss cheese of deductions. That, that it just, that hurts the economy. That is orders of magnitude bigger than the pain in the ass of filling out the forms.

- Neil? Oh, I completely agree with John. If we could get back to the principles of taxation enshrined in Adam Smith's wealth of nations. Simplify, simplify, simplify what a blessing it would be and economically hugely beneficial. It's one of the things I talked about in the book, the Great Degeneration, that one of the symptoms of degeneration is excessive complexity of legislation and regulation. So, amen to everything John said. I'll

- Just put a quick, you wanted taxes, a flat 20% VAT and throw everything else out. That's one example of what we could do and the economy would boom and the government would get more money.

- Okay, one final item, gentlemen, since the last time we did our show, Artemis two went deeper into space with man than ever before. But my question to the three of you, where's the excitement? Where's the parade? Where's the hoopla?

- I would just say, hey, I, I, I think that the, one of the people who gets a lot of credit for this should be Vice President Pence, Mike Pence, who put together a space council and Trump won and I think fundamentally resurrected, you know, the space program and modified it significantly by, by expanding, you know, the, the private and public in connection with space and, and, and of course emphasizing security in space, recognizing it as a contested domain, but also kind of reinvigorating our ethos of exploration in space. So credit to Mike Pence for really getting the resources behind a, a solid strategy for space.

- So I'll disagree just 'cause that's my job today. An unbelievably expensive boondoggle that does what we got done in 1967. A huge disposable rocket that sends a one-time use capsule up so that four people can have a fantastic tourist ex experience at, at a cost rivaling that of the California high speed drain. And similar benefit, SpaceX is on its way to sending people to the moon for actual reasons, not national prestige project. The last thing we need is National Prestige Project. How about actually build a freeway for something less than hundreds of billions of dollars per mile? That would be a great national prestige.

- Okay, California high speed rail. John is gonna spend at least $126 billion and nobody has been on that train yet. The train hasn't gotten an inch. So let's give NASA a credit. Neil, I'll give you the last word here, is I think you wanna push back against my characterization.

- Well, I've been saying for a while that we're sort of subconsciously reenacting the Nixon presidency and this just clinches it for me 'cause we kind of got it all going on. We got an energy price shock as big as the 1970s coming down the pike at the speed of an oil tanker. Then we've got a scandal that just won't go away. I, I still don't really know what the first lady was talking about last week, but Epstein seemed to figure and he's the Watergate in the drama and then we go to the moon again. So it's all kind of perfectly nixonian. I I'm grateful to nasa, but as you say, John, we kind of did this then. So

- We need to bring back some old school funk.

- We'd be back. All we're missing is the soundtrack and HR on casual news. That's

- Part of the 1970s

- Tank tank for everybody. Gentlemen. Alright, we gotta bounce your book. Before we go, I want to point out one thing, another year, another honor for our colleague, sir Neil Ferguson. Earlier this week, the Liberty Fund announced that our jolly Good fellow is the 2026 honorary of the George F will award for the advancement of liberty in a free society. Sirer Neil receiving his honor for his efforts in deepening our understanding of the free society, individual liberty, and the human condition. Neil, want to take us out by just telling us how wonderful this award is and what it's gonna be like to be on the stage with George will.

- Well, I'm immensely grateful to the Liberty Fund for the award because it gave me the chance to have a conversation with George f Will, one of the, the institutions of American journalism who, who consistently writes brilliant essays, never afraid to take the contrarian line. So it was just a, it was just a treat. It was one of those events that you, you live sort of in dread of. I'm always slightly filled with dread at the prospect of an award because I'm afraid of, of its being embarrassing and you know, that British people fear embarrassment above death. But this was in no way embarrassing. It was, it was just a lovely occasion. Fantastic people, one of my kids was able to be there and I'm immensely grateful to Mitch Daniels and everybody at Liberty Fund for giving me an absolutely unforgettable night. And George Will was his usual acerbic and brilliant self. I hope somebody taped the conversation. It was a lot of fun.

- Gentlemen, that's it for our show. Great conversation as always. Look forward to the live show on the 22nd, seeing you then in person and all our viewers. We look forward to meeting you then. So take care. Until next time, look forward to seeing you. Thanks again for watching us.