Full Episode: Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, 6/7/24

Jeffrey Goldberg: Every president confronts a dilemma in the Middle East, best articulated by Al Pacino and Godfather III.

Al Pacino, Actor: Just what I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.

Jeffrey Goldberg: President Biden has had the same bad luck as so many of his predecessors tonight. A close look at the never-ending crisis with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, next.

Good evening and welcome to a special edition of Washington Week. President Biden is abroad this week, commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day, which marked the beginning of the end of Nazism. But today, democracy is on the back foot around the world, and President Biden faces particularly difficult challenges from China, Russia and Iran.

Tonight, I'll talk about the difficulties of the Middle East, and the state of play in the war between Israel and Iran, with the legendary Tom Friedman, who began covering the Middle East more than 40 years ago. Over his career, Tom has collected three Pulitzer Prizes for his work, and he joins me tonight for a one-on-one conversation.

Tom, thank you for joining us. This is a -- yes, I'm glad to, glad to have you here. By the way, I just want to promise our viewers, it's the last time I'll be quoting Godfather III on this show. Godfather I and II are open for further mining.

But, Tom, let's, let's talk about Joe Biden and his management of the world. Before we do, I want to watch a couple of seconds of Biden talking at the D-Day ceremonies.

Joe Biden, U.S. President: Democracy begins with each of us, begins when one person decides there's something more important than themselves.

That's what every soldier and every Marine who stormed this beach decided.

They stood against Hitler's aggression. Does anyone doubt that they would want America to stand up against Putin's aggression here in Europe today?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Tom, how do you grade Joe Biden so far in his management of the world?

Thomas Friedman, Columnist, The New York Times: I think Biden's done a good job at a extremely difficult time, Jeff, because the calendar says it's 2024. It's really 1989. What I mean by that is we are just as 1989 was when we defined the post-Cold War world as set the terms and projected American power to keep it stable and forward. We're now trying to define the post post-Cold War world and what will be our relations with Russia, China and the other great powers.

And if you -- to put the Hamas Ukraine war into this you know, the war in Gaza began on October 7th. And I always ask myself, you know, what was going on in the world on October 6th, the day before? And October 6th Ukraine was actually trying to join the west and Israel was trying to join the East through normalizing with Saudi Arabia.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Thomas Friedman: Now, had Ukraine been able to join the West in the form of NATO and the European Union, that would be the biggest expansion of a Europe-Poland-free, since East Germany joined West Germany.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Thomas Friedman: And Ukraine, biggest land arm in Europe, biggest bed basket in Europe, one of the biggest tech sectors in Europe. You would have had -- we've been very close to a Europe-Poland-free. Putin understood the threat of that because he would have been isolated, especially if a successful Slavic Ukrainian democracy was in the E.U. in contrast to his Slavic kleptocracy.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Thomas Friedman: So he moved to stop it. At the same time, Israel was negotiating with Saudi Arabia on normalization terms, terms that also would have included some kind of Israeli partnership with the Palestinian Authority. Had Israel been able to normalize with Saudi Arabia, it would be the biggest expansion of an inclusive Middle East since Camp David.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Thomas Friedman: And Iran understood that. Iran understood it so well that the supreme leader this week, Jeff, told us so he said we stopped the Israeli normalization.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Thomas Friedman: So, this is a big moment. It's a moment defining what will be the post post-Cold War world and who will be the sort of partners for a world of decency and who are going to keep the world, I think, fractured, divided and around less decent forces.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Let me ask you obviously a shared preoccupation over many years, but let me ask you about Joe Biden's relationship with the prime minister of Israel, which is one of his most intense and problematic relations with an ally at least, over the last several months. You've been writing about Netanyahu for years. How do you judge his management of the challenge posed by Iran and its proxy forces, including Hamas and Gaza?

Thomas Friedman: Netanyahu's management?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Netanyahu, yes.

Thomas Friedman: Well, I'd give him very low marks, basically, because, you know, Israel today, Jeff, is in existential danger. And it's not from Hamas. An Iranian, you know, entity has Israel surrounded on four fronts from a proxy, the Houthis in Yemen from the south, from the west with Hamas, from the north with Hezbollah, and from the east with the Shia militias and Iran itself. And they have managed actually to shrink Israel. Iran has shrunk Israel. There are about 80, 000 now refugees from Israel's northern border fleeing the fighting with Lebanon and another 60,000, 70, 000 from its western border. They've shrunk Israel.

And what's really scary, I'd say from an Israeli point of view, is that I don't see that anyone has the answer for it, Jeff. Because -- what is the answer?

And I wrote about this a while back. I called it the Biden doctrine, because Biden did have an answer. He said, look, Israel, you face three challenges now. One is how to get out of Gaza and leave behind a better situation, security-wise. You have a conflict with the Palestinians ongoing in the West bank as well. And you have a regional conflict with Iran.

The answer to all three questions is some kind of partnership with legitimate Palestinian Authority, a legitimate reformed Palestinian Authority. That gives you a partner to get out of Gaza. It gives you a partner for future negotiations. And it's the cement for a regional alliance against Iran. Because you can't -- Israel cannot expect that Jordan, Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia are going to just, you know, indefinitely defend Israel from the next Iranian missile or rocket attack if Israel is trying to annex the West Bank. Those governments will not do that. They won't be able to do that.

And Biden has been trying to say to Netanyahu, you know, that that Palestinian partnership is the keystone of everything. My criticism of Biden would be he tends to talk about Bibi as my old friend Bibi, love you pal, but don't agree with you. No, no, no. Netanyahu, this is not your grandfather's Netanyahu. This is a guy focused on his survival, his political survival, which is key to staying out of jail for him. And I believe he's put that ahead of the interest, not only of the United States, but actually of Israel itself.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But what would you expect Biden to do? I mean, one is the senior partner in a relationship, and one is the small partner. So, why you give Biden good grades overall, but he's been unable to move Netanyahu in what you would call a positive direction?

Thomas Friedman: Yes. I mean, Biden inherited such a bad hand. You can't abandon Israel right now in the middle of a war with Hamas.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Which is also a war with Iran.

Thomas Friedman: It was exactly a proxy war with Iran. That's what the Iranians want them to do. You know, I'm not sure what, what he could do. I take your point. But I think he could have been firmer at different points along the way.

And on one particular point, which is, Bibi, we are not going another day with you, another minute, another hour if two things don't happen. If I see another settlement in the West bank, another nail, another brick, another bag of cement, okay, and if you don't come up with a Palestinian partner, a credible, legitimate Palestinian partner, we can't help you, and you can't help yourself.

And I think saying that over and over, loudly and loudly, the Israeli system needs that. And that's where I would give Biden lower marks. See, the Israeli prime minister depends on the United States and the American president. So, the prime minister goes to his cabinet and says, I'd like to do all these crazy things that you right wing settlers want me to do, but the American president broke my arm. He broke my arm. I'm with you. I'm with you.

But the Americans, we haven't been that clear and we haven't been that clear publicly. You know, I learned a long time ago as a journalist, what Bibi Netanyahu tells you in English in private is irrelevant. All that matters is what he says in Hebrew in public to his own people. And, by the way, if Bibi Netanyahu is inviting you as a journalist for an interview, here's a tip. That's not a compliment. Okay. It's because he thinks he can get something past you.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Thomas Friedman: And so he is still in that mode.

And what we don't do enough with Israel, it seems --

Jeffrey Goldberg: I'm relieved to tell you that I haven't been years. I don't think you've been.

Thomas Friedman: I'm not. We don't exchange holiday cards. But the point is we need to speak more to the Israeli people In public ourselves and less to him. And that's been my opinion from the very beginning.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I want to come back to something which I think is fairly shocking that you said, the use of the word existential -- the term existential danger to talk about where Israel is. And obviously this is a massive preoccupation of American foreign policy thought and America generally.

Do you think -- you've been doing this for 45 years covering that particular part of the Middle East and the broader Middle East and the rest of the world as well, but you've been on that Israel beat for 45 years. Have you ever seen Israel in this much trouble?

Thomas Friedman: No, I've not.

Jeffrey Goldberg: 1982, the Lebanon War?

Thomas Friedman: No, it was not an existential danger. It had a danger of losing some ground in Lebanon, losing soldiers, losing a global P.R. battle, but it wasn't facing a regional a superpower like Iran. That's extremely smart that has got Israel. And in 1982, remember, none of the Arab countries around it had precision weapons.

Why is the fight with Hezbollah in Lebanon so scary? And why do they each go right to the brink, it seems, every day, and then just pull back? Because Hezbollah now has 100,000 to 120,000 but maybe 20,000 of them are precision weapons. So, if you think of Hamas, they had to fire 10,000 -- sorry, they had to fire 50 rockets to maybe hit one target.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Thomas Friedman: Precision rocket, you fire one, you hit the Israeli oil refinery. You hit another, you hit the air base. You hit another, you hit the defense ministry. You had another, you hit Ludd Airport in --

Jeffrey Goldberg: The one international airport.

Thomas Friedman: And so the next Israeli-Hezbollah War is one neither can afford they will destroy each other.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Let me ask you this. It's something fascinating you wrote the other day about Saudi Arabia, key player obviously, the most important Arab-Sunni country, and you're talking about the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who obviously has quite a controversial reputation in our country. You wrote Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has put his country's worst religious extremists in jail while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put his country's worst religious extremists in his cabinet.

We all know that the only constant in the Middle East is sudden and dramatic change, but that's crazy. I mean, that Saudi -- you're saying in some ways the leader of Saudi Arabia is more progressive on the subject of fundamentalism than the leader of an ostensible democracy, Israel?

Thomas Friedman: Well, because one is not a democracy and one is. So, Bibi needed a coalition. And to stay in power, he needed to bring into power people who have never been given that kind of power before. And we are talking about Jewish supremacists. We're talking about a cabinet of, in American terms, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Steve Bannon as secretary of state, you know Flynn as secretary of defense, people you never imagined --

Jeffrey Goldberg: You're referring to next February, by the way.

Thomas Friedman: Exactly, yes. We may be there.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Stop with the science fiction, yes.

Thomas Friedman: Exactly, yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Thomas Friedman: You know, I always say Israel is to wider trends in western civilization, what, off Broadway is to Broadway. A lot of stuff starts there in miniature and comes to Broadway.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, this is -- I mean, in some ways, I was going to ask you that. This is an Iranian triumph, what's going on?

Thomas Friedman: Exactly. And Trump and Netanyahu are brothers from different mothers. I mean, Netanyahu is smarter, but they represent the same political phenomena in each country.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Thomas Friedman: And so Saudi Arabia, basically, when you talk to, you know, the Crown Prince, he'll tell you, we've basically been sleeping, you know, for 20 years. And his focus is economic development, shake the place up, and we're going to get away from this whole Islamist trend. People have to learn real subjects, have real jobs.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Thomas Friedman: In Israel's case, Bibi brought these people in because it was the only way that he could survive politically. But as I've told my Jewish friends, brothers and sisters, you didn't go to Jewish summer camp with these people, Jeff. They were not in the cabin in the Catskills next to you. You've never met people like this. They just walked out of the Second Temple. They are messianists. They're extreme and they're extremely smart.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And they're the equivalent in some ways of the people who populate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran in the certainty of their messianic vision.

Thomas Friedman: I have to say one thing about that.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Thomas Friedman: When I lived in Beirut back in the late 70s and 80s, we had a landlord in our apartment, my wife and I. His name was Eddie Ghanoum (ph). Around 4:00 every day, not every day, many days, Eddie would shout down, he was on the fourth floor, we were on the first, Thomas, come have coffee, come have coffee. And I'd say, Eddie, I got to work, I can't, I got to write something.

These guys, the Hezbollah guys, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, these settlers, they don't come to have coffee. They will take you down, they will take you out, and then they will go home and quietly enjoy a Turkish coffee on their own.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Not with you?

Thomas Friedman: These are serious people.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, let me ask you this, because it's a question about the approach of Donald Trump to the Middle East versus Joe Biden to the Middle East. You could argue after the Soleimani hit that Trump ordered, you could argue that that actually scared Iran into a kind of quiescence for a while.

My question to you is this, who are the Iranians more afraid of right now, the Iranian leadership, Donald Trump or Joe Biden?

Thomas Friedman: I'm not sure they're afraid of either one. But let's remember, Donald Trump did, in my view, in partnership with Benjamin Netanyahu, the single stupidest thing that's been done in post-Cold War foreign policy. They tore up the Iran nuclear deal and got nothing in return. That deal that President Obama negotiated had Iran a year away from a bomb, basically. Iran is now weeks, days away from a vote.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Or it might. We don't even -- we don't know for sure.

Thomas Friedman: But we're talking -- we gave up real leverage on them. That was a disaster.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, that was not Trumpian toughness?

Thomas Friedman: Exactly.

Jeffrey Goldberg: That was just a dumb move?

Thomas Friedman: And Bibi talked him out of it, talked him into tearing it up, I think, because he thought, well, if the Iranians go ahead and enrich more, Trump will bomb them. Well, he didn't do it. Remember when Iran bombed Abqaiq, the Saudi oil facility, Trump didn't do anything. In fact, he said, we'll sell you more Patriots.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. So, in other words, Trump is unpredictable, but he's not clever?

Thomas Friedman: Well, you know, he's predictable in this sense, and it's been something I would say, Jeff, that Israeli security people have misread all along about the United States. You know, if I can use my cup, Israel is here. Iran is here. America is over here. We were never ever, ever, ever, ever going to bomb Iran for Israel.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And that remains the case.

Thomas Friedman: That remains the case today.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Does it remain a bipartisan case today?

Thomas Friedman: I believe so. And the Israelis --

Jeffrey Goldberg: Even if Tom Cotton is the secretary of defense in the next Trump administration?

Thomas Friedman: I'm talking about, obviously, if the Iranians threatened us directly, that's another question. But the Israelis thought if they just came over and spoke louder and explained the problem louder, we would understand it better.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Speaking of which --

Thomas Friedman: And we didn't. It was a big misreading of America's strategic interests.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And speaking of which, the prime minister has been invited once again to address Congress by Mike Johnson, though, to the chagrin of the Israeli liberals with Democratic kind of approval. So, Netanyahu is coming to America soon. What do you expect to happen out of that trip apart from Bernie Sanders' boycotting the speech?

Thomas Friedman: Of all the useless things I could think of to be done right now, you know, I always, I've often say, Jeff, I love Israelis and Palestinians, but God saved me from their American friends, you know, who basically dive into this conflict and sometimes exploit it for their own interests. This is the case of Republicans wanting to bring Netanyahu over here, force Democrats to come out, the Democratic progressives to come out against him, embarrass Democratic Party, embarrass Biden, and win votes. That's all this is about.

I find it shameful that if all that Biden -- when you think of all the things Biden's done for Netanyahu, I mean, since this war started, he knows this is something that is not helpful to Biden at all, or the Democratic Party. And he's playing along, rather than say, hey, that's so nice of you to invite me, but I really can't come right now.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Does he want Trump to win?

Thomas Friedman: I think he focused on one thing, his own survival. And I don't think -- because he and Trump -- Trump doesn't like him, because he acknowledged that Joe Biden won the election.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, he congratulated him.

Thomas Friedman: How crazy is that? But I mean --

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right, no, this whole situation as well.

You know, it's interesting, you talk about save us from the friends of the Palestinians and these are on the Palestinian side. You've been following what's going on in the campuses and in the left most precincts of the Democratic Party. You're a two-state solution guy. That's the only thing you could -- they are not the. The hard left is for the eradication of Israel. Talk about that and how it feeds into this general tumult in American domestic political scene.

Thomas Friedman: Look, if you want to -- I'm glad young people and old people are concerned about this war, and the incredible number of civilians who've been killed on both sides, but particularly because there's more Palestinians in Gaza, women and children. But if you're going to wade into this conflict, to me, you have to be morally serious. And being morally serious involves three things.

One is you have to acknowledge how this started, that it started with a vicious attack by Hamas on Israel out of the blue. Men, women, kids killed in front of their parents, parents in front of their kids, women raped, okay? So, if you just pretend that this Israel got up one day and did this, that's not morally serious.

Second, in my view, if you want to be for a solution, guess what, you know, Jeff, it's actually even more fun to chant two states for two people, two states for two people, than, you know, from the river to the sea. And the only morally serious solution is two states for two indigenous people. That's the only way out of this.

Now, a lot of people have been writing a two-state solution's impossible, it's a pipe dream, et cetera, to which my reaction is, oh, thank you very much. I thought it was a slam dunk. Thank you very much. I agree it's got about a 5 percent chance of success. And I'm going to devote a hundred percent of my energy to that 5 percent, because the only alternative is a forever war.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Mass death.

Thomas Friedman: Mass death on both sides,

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Thomas Friedman: And if you're going to be morally serious about this, you have to acknowledge how many Hamas civilians detested -- how many, sorry, Gazan civilians detested Hamas' rule, okay? They were not popular. There were two popular uprisings against them in the last few years.

So, to think that there's some Boy Scout troop in charge there. So, yes, I'm glad people are involved, I'm glad they care about civilian casualties. I want this war ended yesterday.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Thomas Friedman: I wasn't for it to begin with, let's be clear. But you got to be morally serious about it.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. In the minute that we have left, I need you to solve the Middle East crisis. No, I'm not going to ask you an impossible question. I'm going to ask you a near impossible question. Is there anything in that part of the world, and U.S. relationship with that part of the world, that gives you any kind of cause for optimism?

Thomas Friedman: Yes. You know, I covered in the year before the Hamas war, this incredible uprising in Israeli civil society, a democracy movement against Netanyahu's effort to quash the Supreme Court. I met young Israelis who I'd never met before. I think there's a new generation of leadership ready to take over there, are ready to move into politics. They're incredibly impressive. They're real Democrats. But we need to get this war over. And I believe the same can be true on the Palestinian side.

Jeffrey Goldberg: You've seen that?

Thomas Friedman: Yes, I believe that they're there. And one of the things that really disappointed me is that we, this is another criticism I would have with Biden, we let Abu Mazen, the P.A. leader, appoint a new government not of that new generation because they're there. And I think that's what we're going to have to get to. That's my one hope.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Tom, I wish we can go on for another couple hours, but we can't. Unfortunately, we need to leave it there for now. But I want to thank Tom Friedman for being here and for sharing his thoughts insight and analysis. And thanks to our viewers for joining us as well.

For more on what America's allies think about a possible second Trump presidency, check out McKay Coppins' new piece on theatlantic.com on NATO.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg. Good night from Washington.