Former NSC Official: The Iran War Exposed America’s Broken Strategy | Negah Angha

[00:00:01] The war with Iran has seen the United States make one bad decision after another. Something is broken in how we are making decisions. Today I'm joined by Negah Angha, a former senior advisor at the U.S. Department of State and National Security Council official under President Biden. This conversation looks at the war with Iran not only as a military crisis, but as a stress test for how the American national security establishment makes decisions.

[00:00:23] We talk about how decisions to use force are actually made, how allies are consulted and employed in a crisis, how Iran has been able to use the Straits for moves to pressure the global economy, and what this reveals about the American industrial base, Congress, and the lessons we've already seemed to have forgotten from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Negah brings a rare perspective from inside the American policymaking process, and this episode is really about a larger question.

[00:00:47] Can the United States still align military action, diplomacy, our allies, public support, and long-term strategy when a crisis starts moving faster than the system can handle? Please be sure to like and subscribe wherever you're watching this show, whether it's on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and share an episode with a friend. It really helps get the show out to more people. With that, let's get to our conversation with Negah. Well, good morning from me and good afternoon to you. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

[00:01:15] I'm doing good. Thanks for having me. Pleasure to have you on. So glad you could take the time, especially from across the pond, such a distance. It's my pleasure. For folks who aren't familiar with your work, could you introduce yourself and a bit of your own background to the audience? Yeah, of course. So I'm Negah Inga. I am a former senior advisor at the U.S. Department of State.

[00:01:40] I also used to work at the U.S. National Security Council under President Biden, where I helped sort of curate and execute the first Summit for Democracy in 2021. And then I also worked with a team working on engagement with the diaspora and other interested parties in war policy.

[00:02:09] Right now I am in London as a visiting fellow with King's College London, where I work on a few projects following up from around my Ph.D.

[00:02:22] And academic war. I'll say, you know, tangentially right now, this has me also working on a project in Germany where I get to curate and put together a photo exhibition and a catalog in Frankfurt at the end of the year.

[00:02:40] So, you know, my days are busy either doing a lot of interviews on television or radio or print about the current Iran war and all the secondary to true effects. And then at the same time, using the other side of my brain and doing a lot of artistic and curatorial work.

[00:03:07] So it's an interesting 2026 for me. Nice. Is photography like something that you've done before? Is that something like a passion project for yours throughout your life or is this a new thing? You know, it was a passion. Well, it's been a passion project, but it was always for fun. Even in high school, I was part of the photography club where you could, you know, put your own photos and all those sort of fun details.

[00:03:33] But while I was going through my Ph.D. and academic training, I started working quite a bit with my camera and working with a lot of the communities that I was researching. And I realized as much as I'm talking about a lot of the issues, there could be discrepancies in terms of how a reader, how another academic would view my study groups. So I started really sort of using photography as another sort of way of sharing my research.

[00:04:03] And a few years later, here's where I am, where I get to curate something and try to articulate a particular agreement with people in Germany to the German public. That's cool. So they say a picture is worth a thousand words and dissertations are typically incredibly long. It's like, do you get to take a thousand words off like your dissertation word count of every photo you include? Does that does it work that way? I wish. I don't use.

[00:04:31] So I will say I don't use photography as a form of my methodology. It's kind of it's to the side of my academic research. So the words still count. There are no photos in it, but I try to use a visual narrative to just explain it to a non-academic audience, I suppose. Well, that's awesome. So you've got a really cool background with National Security Council and senior roles at the state.

[00:04:57] From your time working in that community, can you describe for folks how major decisions like when to go to war are typically handled by not just the politicians that are elected, but by the senior either career civil servants or deep state flunkies, the senior people who staff those organizations? Look, you know, it's a it's a layered process.

[00:05:21] You have your working level officials who are, you know, generating quite a bit of information. They're doing their due diligence. Your embassies are collecting information, having conversations with the different societies, different political apparatus and academic experts in country. They're engaging with their counterparts in Washington.

[00:05:47] Those people in Washington covering a particular region are having those conversations as well with civil society. And others have, you know, at the time you obviously had the State Department, but you also had USAID and USAID had a whole plethora of civil society experts that they worked with or engaged with.

[00:06:08] And there would be a very sort of comprehensive understanding and knowledge of what was happening on the ground, what was happening within a particular region surrounding, you know, said area and where allies and others were sitting on on the issue.

[00:06:26] And then that sort of conversation would be brought to a center of gravity like the National Security Council, where the individual who was the director of a particular region or country or thematic issue would coordinate starting at the working level, gathering all the information, coming up with set of action plans. And then essentially layer by layer, taking the issue to more senior levels.

[00:06:53] So more senior decision makers could help guide the potential options that would then eventually, depending on the issue, we use the Iran example right now, such a big issue to the president of the United States. Every single option, every single scenario would have been fleshed out, all sorts of different perspectives, whether it was a technical expertise, regional expertise, you name it, including communications.

[00:07:22] You know, how would the American public react to it? How would an international public react to it? How would a diaspora react to it? And then the president of the United States would have the most informed decisions when making a decision based on the options presented to him.

[00:07:43] Again, he then could come back with various other questions, concerns, and then the entire system would then generate and react to those. I know what I'm sort of articulating as quite bureaucratic and, you know, almost mind numbing, but it really allows every single topic to have been analyzed.

[00:08:03] Every stone will have been turned to ensure that the United States would be acting with every possible decision, every possible scenario in mind before acting. Sometimes this could take days, months, but we've had scenarios where even in cases like Libya, where decisions were being made very quickly over a weekend and engagement was being had with allies and others in the UN Security Council.

[00:08:31] So as much as this sounds very cumbersome, it can happen very quickly if needed. But again, the idea is the president of the United States is supposed to be able to make very informed decisions. So from an outsider looking in and just seeing what we're seeing in the press right now, it doesn't appear that the Trump administration was well prepared for any number of potential outcomes that we're looking at right now, including, you know, Iran closing the Straits,

[00:09:01] and other regional actors participating in this conflict. Do you think that this decision-making process wasn't pursued here? Was it pursued by the state and then just didn't make it to the president? Or would the administration just not take the advice that they're given? Because they seem genuinely caught off foot at the moment.

[00:09:26] You know, if we're to look at, you know, the situation in Iran, you know, it's been very tricky. And this is where it's felt very misleading is because it seemed like the objectives of what the United States was, has and is still achieving keeps moving. Right. You know, it keeps sort of escalating. I think it was Brett McGurk who said, you know, it's escalating to get a deal.

[00:09:55] It doesn't necessarily mean it will get you a deal with Iran or at least a good deal with Iran. But that's, you know, I think that's the part where everyone is quite concerned is the fact that anyone who has expertise in the region have necessary,

[00:10:12] have essentially criticized the administration's sort of inconsistent messaging about whether it's the nuclear threat or just truly any absence of serious diplomatic effort before the strikes. And when those sorts of objectives shift in public or, you know, the allies not being clear about where the U.S.'s position is and losing confidence in that.

[00:10:40] If we think about the Iran scenario, also the markets being very concerned and not necessarily leaving, you know, political messaging and it feeling very, you know, very wishy-washy, I guess. You know, that's where it starts to give, you know, the general public a bit of that there must be some sort of political institutional problem.

[00:11:03] And this is where I would say the American system looks quite broken because the president has offered essentially evolving explanations. At the same time, you've had cabinet officials offering their own versions. And then you have Congress who hasn't seriously imposed any strategic accountability.

[00:11:25] And I think that sort of all these different sort of ingredients, you know, essentially align with what so many have essentially felt over the last year, year and a half.

[00:11:40] And in particular, you know, Washington is essentially strong in terms of action, but it becomes and it has become incredibly weak in terms of process and essentially weaker in terms of hopefully ending this war, other wars.

[00:12:00] And I think, you know, I think what's concerning and I think getting to the heart of your question is, you know, obviously there are certain surprises that could have taken place in this sort of context of the Iran war. But many haven't been surpactions by Iran and the region in general. And so I think that's the part that, again, it's quite concerning because how much was the president brief?

[00:12:28] How much did experts weigh in? Iran had essentially openly signaled it would essentially regionalize the conflict. It would interfere with Internet connections. It would interfere with the Hormuz straits. So I think we were often in terms of the Iran war talking about all these challenges and maybe intelligence gaps, but there was quite a bit that was available.

[00:12:55] And, you know, there was open information that was available that then begs the question of truly how much was the president briefed? Was the system working? Was the system not working? Yeah. You mentioned, you know, part of this process of deliberate decision making up to a big decision like should we go to a war? Looking at how this is going to get messaged to allies and partners, how has this conflict with Iran impacted America's alliances?

[00:13:21] Because we've seen impacts just from the rhetoric of the Trump administration towards NATO and their lack of involvement to serious resource constraints put on both partners in Europe and Asia as a result of the closure of the strait. How have our alliances reacted to this?

[00:13:39] Any big type of war or conflict or major strike, you know, the United States does engage with its allies. It coordinates, it consults with its allies. If we take the example of Iraq and the Gulf War, there was quite a bit of pre-consultations with allies and partners.

[00:14:06] There was an effort to ensure that they were on board. It took quite a bit of time also to get them on board with the U.S.'s decision. There was no consultation. The Europeans themselves were still taken aback, you know, what were fast forward, you know, several months now.

[00:14:25] The U.K. and France have been hosting their own meetings with other allies talking about the strait of Hormuz and what will happen with the strait of Hormuz once tensions and a ceasefire stays intact. And so the sheer fact that you have some of our closest friends and allies being a bit more strategic about their engagements in the region is quite startling.

[00:14:53] And then you have, you know, your Gulf partners in the region who are quite upset. They're quite surprised that the United States and Washington didn't put any effort into really listening to their concerns, their pleas that this could, you know, any conflict with Iran could spiral out of control and that they will be in the line of fire.

[00:15:19] Just, you know, just, you know, basic anecdotes of just, you know, average Gulf citizens who were essentially were saying, look, you know, this is in the middle of Ramadan. You know, our country has spent so much money on, you know, ensuring our security through the United States. And what's happening now, you know, there's bombs happening, you know, while we're praying in mosques, while we're trying to break our fast with our family.

[00:15:47] You know, there was this inherent concern. And there still is. The problem is that the war is still ongoing. And the issues of, you know, the issues that have been bubbling, even amongst civilians in this region haven't been resolved yet. And there's going to be quite a bit of concerns.

[00:16:09] You can, you know, I think you can comfortably plan around the fact that Gulf allies right now will be thinking about diversifying their security and kind of diversifying, not just working with the United States, but also working with other players who can provide the security assistance that they are going to need in these sorts of situations.

[00:16:34] The U.S. in all of its ability to have, you know, a strong force structure, its ability to be able to produce very strong sort of weaponry. But, you know, its inability to, you know, manage this sort of spillover effect has impacted not only Gulf allies, but has also affected key European allies.

[00:17:01] When we look at these alliances, I mean, there's a lot of hurt feelings right now in Europe and the Gulf states and everyone's complaining in the media and God bless them. Everyone's entitled to their opinion and their feelings. But when does the straining of these alliances actually begin to impact America's long-term national security interests? When does this go beyond headlines and actually hurt us as we try to find our way in an emerging multipolar world?

[00:17:28] I think this is going to hurt us in a variety of different ways. I think there's ways that the United States is able to make up for quite a bit. I think it's just a matter of whether this administration will be willing to do and engage in certain ways, right? You know, in parallel, the United States is every so often threatening trade wars with European allies. That's going to have an impact on their markets.

[00:17:57] Obviously, they're going to be dealing with a market shock over the summer, given the fact that the, you know, petrol prices are going to be quite high. Jet fuel prices are going to be quite high. But because allies felt blindsided, it's going to be a bit of a challenge when the next conflict occurs. Will they feel engaged and invested in supporting the United States or not?

[00:18:24] And similarly, again, as we were just discussing the Gulf and other regions, it's going to be a big question mark about whether or not any pressure that the United States may put on other countries to have exclusive sort of security packages with certain countries and bases in certain countries. Whether that will still be something that countries will be willing and wanting to engage with or whether they're going to stand by wanting to diversify.

[00:18:54] Having seen what happened in the Iran war and what the Gulf allies had contended with, because this has been not only a security, in many ways a security failure for these countries, but also an economic constraint for their countries.

[00:19:12] I think the other concern, again, is going to be the impact of, you know, the, you know, the ability for the United States to push out the same kind of military warfare, whether it can maintain the same kind of pace as it used to. You know, we've been reading in open source reporting quite a bit that this particular war has been exhausting quite a bit of resources.

[00:19:41] And of course, the U.S. has quite a large defense industrial base, but there is still a need that there's quite a bit that is lagging behind, given how much resources are being used for this particular war and what this means if there were to be another war, another future war elsewhere.

[00:20:01] It's going to be, I think, a challenge to come out on top after the conflict seizes and we're in sort of a peacetime space. So even, you mentioned the trade wars that started prior to this conflict with Iran. You know, the war with Iran's highlighted a whole bunch of issues with our alliance structure and really damaged a lot of our relationships. But a lot of those relationships were already under strain prior to this because of acts the Trump administration had taken,

[00:20:28] immediately coming into office with tariffs, with saying that we want to take over Greenland, you know, pick a story on your story. How much has Iran, the war with Iran, created new challenges for the American alliance system? And how much is it just accelerating trends that were already there?

[00:20:48] I think that the biggest issue I would say that the Iran war has presented is the ability for a country like Iran to be able to control the global economy. The fact that it was able to put so many constraints on the Strait of Hormuz with pretty cheap materials, right? They didn't require a sophisticated effort.

[00:21:14] And, you know, it still is holding out, but it can impact the Red Sea as well through its proxies in Yemen, which will really bring the supply chain and the global economy even more to a halt than it already has. Not only has Iran taken this lesson on board about, you know, its ability to operate in this asymmetric sort of warfare space and kind of where it can, for lack of a better term, flex,

[00:21:43] but it also has indicated to other countries and potential autocratic leadership type profiles what they can do, where it doesn't require this direct military confrontation, that there is other tools at these countries' disposal, especially if they have these very key strategic waterways or potential land borders.

[00:22:07] So I think that's been the biggest, you know, alarm bell that has gone off with the Iran war that's going to give not only the United States, but other markets, other allies, other countries a bit of pause. Yeah, the impact that Iran's been able to have with its fleet of inexpensive drones has been remarkable to watch,

[00:22:32] but it's curious because we've seen those same drones used in conflicts around the world over the past decade. Russia's used them ubiquitously in Ukraine. You know, you mentioned the Iran's proxies in Yemen. They've sunk container ships with these drones before. But despite having almost a decade to study this problem and look at it, we're watching the American military show up with a suite of weapons that seem ill-designed for the war they're actually fighting. And as we go into this new multipolar world and these cheap drone proliferate,

[00:23:01] is the American defense industrial base actually built to address the needs of the day? Because not only is there a gap right now, but this gap was anticipated by anyone who was watching over a decade ago. Yet we're still coming up short. You're absolutely right. I think, again, as you said, you know, it's been almost a decade that everyone's been watching these essentially cheap drones, being able to take on such incredible hardware and these exquisite platforms.

[00:23:31] But, you know, the United States and its industrial base is very well suited for, again, very high performing type warfare, long lead times, you know, very steady peacetime demand, rather than these cheap mass reductions or even a need for rapid replenishment. Or, quite frankly, even dealing with simultaneous crises,

[00:23:59] it's shown that it lacks the capacity or even flexibility or the ability to respond for these, you know, conflicts that the adversary is using these cheap and asymmetric type warfare capabilities. There's also, you know, I would just add a little bit more is the supply chain side,

[00:24:26] because that's equally as serious. You know, again, the U.S. defense industrial base has about something around 200,000 suppliers. But the Department of Defense still lacks this visibility, or at least adequate visibility, into where many of these critical components are actually made, right?

[00:24:54] And that kind of dependency does have an impact on, you know, the ability for the United States, you know, military warfare, its ability to react to, you know, very cheap interceptors. The National Defense Strategy of 2026 did make the point that there needs to be a, what it called a supercharging of the industrial base.

[00:25:22] It essentially identified it as one of its four core items that needed to be looked at and focused on. And so I think there's quite a bit of effort in place right now. Whether that's fast enough is another question, because it can take several years for this surge to occur. And again, when we talk about these surges, when we talk about these statistics,

[00:25:49] a lot of times it's based on sort of like a, you know, a peacetime clock, not necessarily a clock that's running on multiple different crises. And I think, as you said, your instinct is quite right in terms of drones. And the ability and the scale question is still a very big open question. It's unclear whether or not the United States and sort of the ability to produce a lot more of these autonomous systems

[00:26:17] in response to a lot of these autonomous systems, whether it will be in a place fast enough, given where we are. And as you said, we're in this very complex, multipolar sort of series of potential conflicts and exchanges. And so we're not, we have to be able to have all resources available to the United States for our own national security.

[00:26:42] And there's a bit of concern in terms of whether or not the U.S. is going to be ready, especially after this Iran war. Yeah, it seems like there's a longer term problem here, too, where there's this mindset in America that national security is the military's problem. And we're just given the big budget. They hand that to the big five defense contractors and spend, spend, spend. Doesn't address these underlining problems, though, at all. But it's also curious if you look at the U.S. government,

[00:27:12] you know, who in the U.S. government owns industrial policy from a national security standpoint? Like, what office does that even sit in? Do we even have a part of the bureaucracy that's focused on solving that problem? Look, I think there has been, you know, there has been the GAO who's been looking at this and other sort of different offices within the Pentagon.

[00:27:38] But again, in many times the Department of Defense doesn't act alone. There's also the ability to work with the State Department, obviously with Congress, the ability to work with some, you know, of this global network of suppliers to try to solve some of these problems, solve some of these concerns, coming up with potential solutions to help with the surge.

[00:28:03] And the issue is, you know, we haven't necessarily created this resilient industry yet. I think we, again, so much of the decision-making factors were being made in kind of peacetime type sort of mentality and processes, which then meant even fancier type of equipment, fancier sort of abilities of things that they can do that are just absolutely remarkable,

[00:28:33] but not necessarily realistic when you're thinking about sort of cheap type activities that adversaries like Iran are able to employ. At the end of the day, Congress has to be able to support the funding of these types of purchases and these types of requests being made to the industrial base. And the American public has been quite concerned. You know, President Trump ran on sort of this idea

[00:29:02] that there were going to be no more forever wars. Just most recently, I think it was Reuters that did a polling and it found essentially just last month that two-thirds of Americans wanted to end the U.S. involvement in this war with Iran and essentially were concerned that we weren't achieving whatever our stated goals were for this war. And many of those people who had been pulled

[00:29:31] were essentially people in their mid-30s. And that matters because, you know, a lot of this is, you know, quite a bit of great power competition, but it's also about the ability to endure many of these shocks and waves and the American public is tired of it. They don't want to continue to fund a lot of wars, a lot of these types of equipment, because it's not clear in terms of how it sort of enables the U.S.'s peace and security.

[00:30:01] But the American public does play a critical role in terms of how much the U.S. government is able to do in support of its own defense industrial base. When we talk about the American public, ostensibly they're supposed to be represented by Congress, but Congress, who also has the power to declare war, doesn't seem to want to get involved in constraining the executive branch in any way, shape, or form. And that seems to be a bipartisan consensus

[00:30:29] that Congress just does not want to actually own any wartime decisions that the executive might make, good or bad. What is it, do you think, that's going on where that entire branch of government has ceded their agency to the executive branch when it comes to one of their most important duties? Now, as someone who was a senior member in the National Security Council community and the State Department, both under the executive branch, when you guys were thinking through complex national security problems

[00:30:59] that could involve military force, did the role of Congress even come into play with how you were approaching those decisions? Or was there acquiescence kind of just baked into the conversation? Congress plays a huge role. In a huge form of democracy, there is a check and balance. And again, not only does Congress hold the strings, but they are also, you know,

[00:31:30] many times the voice of the American people. And so making sure that they were aware. So, you know, going back to your very first question in terms of how these decision-making processes are put into place, one of the, essentially, the constituencies is Congress. So you have an entire team of people, whether they're sitting at the State Department, Defense Department, USAID, at the White House, National Security Council, engaging with staffers and members of Congress,

[00:31:59] you know, talking through a lot of the strategies and plans. Again, these could be classified conversations. They could be more open type of conversations. But there is a consultation process that does take place. Congress is never essentially blindsided. It should not be blindsided when engaging in these matters and expressing some of the concerns that could transpire in terms of what would this mean for the American public? What could this potentially mean based on their experience,

[00:32:28] the way other governments and allies could react to it? And I can, again, speak to the time that while I worked in government, I think, as you said, things have changed quite a bit. You know, the U.S. Congress was quite, you know, many were quite surprised about the actions that the U.S. government took in reaction to Iran and, you know, how quickly the United States reacted to striking Iran, even though there was not enough of a chance that many have said

[00:32:57] that the United States gave to the diplomatic talks late last year. Again, I think the U.S. domestic politics has been evolving and changing. You always have to pay attention to the makeup of the House and the Senate. And the midterm elections will be quite important. In the United States, it will have an impact in terms of funding and types of support or lack of support of what the U.S. administration can take

[00:33:26] in the international sphere of it all, but also domestically. One of the really interesting things about this war with Iran to observe is that, you know, President Trump ran on the No More Forever Wars campaign promise. But we also have, you know, 20 years of the war on terror. Most of your senior people in government had experience with that conflict at this time. And, you know, key lessons from the global war on terror, you know, it's really hard to show up to a country, take out its leadership, and then try to turn it

[00:33:55] into any sort of, you know, stable governance structure afterwards. It appears that in the short span of, you know, was it five years now since we got out of Afghanistan? Afghanistan, we've brain dumped as an institution most of the lessons from the global war on terror. Is that your sense as well? Or is that just what it looks like from the outside? Or are those lessons still there, but they're not making it into the decision-making process? What did we learn from the global war on terror? And is it actually impacting the decision-making

[00:34:25] that we're seeing now? Look, you know, it's quite complicated. I think, you know, there's also just to lay out in terms of, you know, this potential brain drain that could have essentially occurred within the U.S. government too. You had quite a bit of the State Department and USAID essentially hemorrhaging individuals, whether it was the AID

[00:34:54] who was disseminated, but with the State Department, it was quite a hemorrhage of people, whether it was through efforts of downsizing or whether it was efforts of people just retiring or retiring early. And so you did lose quite a bit of those, whether it was technical experts, whether it was sort of the overall sort of lessons learned, having served in Iraq and Afghanistan and a lot of the other countries during the Arab Spring.

[00:35:24] And so a lot of those components, a lot of those conversations, you know, going back to your first question, when we have a lot of those NSC interagency type meetings going through and fleshing out every subject, you have, you know, experts having worked in other conflicts, other regions coming in and providing a lot of that granularity and those details. And I'm not saying it's entirely lost, but it's the departure was quite large

[00:35:54] and with that you do lose quite a bit of historical expertise. And there is a, there are some sort of components that we learned in Afghanistan. And obviously there's been quite a bit of reports, you know, the cigar lessons learned. You have the Afghanistan papers that have also showed where officials, sort of how they acted and what transpired during our time in Afghanistan

[00:36:23] or even during our time in Iraq. And it's not, you know, so much where there was this overall, very easy sort of component that, you know, we don't, the United States doesn't do regime change, but it was sort of broader than that, that you can't necessarily essentially define a realistic end state and you can't necessarily sometimes align the means to that end. And it's hard not to tell the truths about the costs

[00:36:53] and what the cost of war and rebuilding actually means, what it means in terms of building or rebuilding institutions that can survive without the United States' active involvement. You know, a lot of those components, you know, were discussed and outlined in a lot of these reports that reflected on the past that were still available. But of course, there's quite a bit of lost essentially human intelligence.

[00:37:24] And, you know, there is this, there is this concern where walking into a lot of these situations without the depth of knowledge that we used to have, without that kind of intelligence and relationships that we had with our various different communities where we could make more better and informed decisions. But I do hope

[00:37:53] that there are at least analysts and experts outside of the government who are trying to engage back into the U.S. government to share some of the lessons learned in even places of recent history in, you know, in countries around the Arab Spring and what transpired in the evolution of a lot of those countries. I know, you know, in Washington, there's quite a bit of the think tanks who are doing a lot of the analysis

[00:38:23] of lessons learned. What does it mean? What kind of impact would this have in Iran? What can, how can the United States be thinking about the next steps? The long and short of it is there is still an apparatus. It's just a matter of whether they're inside government or outside government and how much this, the inner circle of the administration takes those into account. One of the really cool things about America is that we do have all these, you know, different groups of folks from around the world

[00:38:54] and particularly with this war with Iran, we have this very robust Iranian diaspora community inside the United States. We saw, I think, back to war with Iraq, you know, elements of the Iraqi diaspora kind of hoodwinked the Bush administration into thinking that they could step in and take over the Iraqi government and run things from day one. Clearly, we know that wasn't the case, but it introduces this really, really interesting question. What is the role

[00:39:23] of the diaspora community in the decision-making process of the American National Security establishment? How do you approach that community? What benefits can they offer? What risks are there? And then you also have to imagine that in a situation like this, Iran can also use that same diaspora community. So as a tool of power, how do they fit into the equation? Look, diaspora communities matter, and they should be treated with respect, whether it's the United States engaging with the Iranian diaspora in the United States

[00:39:53] or whether it's the European allies dealing with the Iranian diaspora in their states because the diaspora is quite large, quite expansive, and it spreads across many Western capitals. But the reality is that they're not monolithic. They should never essentially be treated as proxies for foreign governments. You know, there was over 900 protests

[00:40:22] and demonstrations globally in the first week after the strikes. But that included Iranian exiles, whether it was in European cities or in American cities, celebrating the collapse of the old leadership. But in parallel, you had many others who were marching against the bombing campaign. And, you know, that sort of essentially underlines the point that diaspora politics is emotionally intense. It's riddled

[00:40:52] with trauma and it's politically consequential and can be divided, very sort of internally divided. And so it's always, I caution, you know, trying to treat, whether it's the Iranian diaspora or any other diaspora, treating it as a unified voice. Analically, that's a bit lazy and obviously politically dangerous. You know, there's a split that you find, not only generationally almost the U.S. diaspora, you know, among Republicans,

[00:41:22] but then you also find the same kind of generational split amongst Democrats. So I think when we think about the diaspora, it should be, again, that sort of domestic voice, you know, how we should be listening to our American public and treating them as our American public. What they do add is some of the cultural nuance, some of the language nuance, some of the understanding even,

[00:41:52] what the different voices inside Iran could be saying. Right now, as we know, there's been a complete internet lack of in Iran for quite some time. So you have to be incredibly wealthy, for example, to have the VPNs or the, you know, the various different satellite mechanisms that are out there. So they're able to access a bit of information of what's happening inside Iran, understanding sort of some of the

[00:42:21] components, maybe some of the challenges and reactions from the Iranian public. As you rightly point out, it wasn't just in Iraq, we saw that with Afghanistan and other countries too, the diaspora sitting in particular cities, especially cities in around Washington being able to articulate their ability to essentially lead from the outside. And again, every country is very different,

[00:42:51] every sort of historical component within every country in diaspora is very different. With Iran in particular, the Iranian regime has been al-Khazim for 47 years, and so the different sort of engagements even amongst the diaspora is scattered. depending on when they've left the country, what their most recent engagement was, and then you have many inside the country who've never been able to leave and may have this sort of allergic reaction

[00:43:21] to anyone from the outside coming and telling them how to live and run a country when they've had to burden quite a bit of the trauma and stress while living inside Iran. So it's quite a complicated scenario, and when you think about being a U.S. government policy professional or any other sort of Western capital foreign government official, it's about making sure, again, being quite respectful to the diaspora

[00:43:50] community because they do carry quite a wealth of information but not necessarily treating them as, again, a proxy for another foreign government. now we're coming up on time, but before we go, what's your number one concern as someone who's been inside the system, we've seen how the sausage gets made, what's your number one concern as far as what the U.S. might do next with the war with Iran and what advice would you give Trump on how to avoid it

[00:44:20] if he would actually listen? Look, I think what's very concerning about Iran's war with Iran right now is the fact that we can all tell at this point that President Trump may be getting a bit bored or agitated that this war continues to drag on. I'm sure he wants to move on to other more pressing

[00:44:49] matters that will impact his legacy. So, for example, midterm elections is around the corner will be quite important. I think as he thinks about his exit strategy and finding that off-ramp that both makes him look good and at this point in time will have to make the Iranian regime look good given where we are is not to, you know, set up a scenario that then

[00:45:18] allows Iran to continue to have the ability to use the Hormuz Strait as a political choke point. I think also not losing sight of the number one issue for the United States for quite some time which was Iran's nuclear file. Probably some of the best case scenario that we can look for is to find that sort of narrow political agreement.

[00:45:48] So it wouldn't be a comprehensive agreement but it would be a political agreement that there could be some cap on the nuclear file. There will be an agreement of sorts that the strikes will end, the Hormuz Strait will open and Iran essentially will need some form of economic relief given where the country is right now. Again, trying to find that solution and trying to find a way where the United States

[00:46:17] can ensure that Iran isn't able to control that very critical choke point will be key. I'm just very concerned that he's going to find that very sort of faith-saving diplomatic offering and a lot of the negative consequences will present itself months or even days, weeks down the road. The Iranians are playing hardball. They know that they want to drag this out as far as they can for as long as they can so that

[00:46:47] President Trump gets essentially bored and moves on or is pressured by the American public to move on. But they also do realize that they have a very short window. Hopefully we can keep the pressure on the negotiations, really keep the diplomatic channels open so that we can find something, some sort of faith-saving exercise without really impacting and destroying our economic control in around the

[00:47:17] region to a regime like the Iranian regime. Well, hopefully somebody's listening out there. Thank you so much for hopping on today and speaking with us. Really appreciate your time. And is there a place where folks can follow you or see some more of your work? Yes, you can follow me on X. My handle is essentially my full name. And of course, I think my LinkedIn prayer file

[00:47:46] is open and I post quite a bit on LinkedIn as well. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Take care of yourself. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And again, thank you for keeping the focus on Iran and where we are. I think there is a concern that the public will deviate to the next topic. And so many of these issues will go hidden for quite some

[00:48:15] time and we'll feel the repercussions later. Yeah, I have the dubious honor of being one of the last ground force commanders in Afghanistan. I got to watch that begin to unravel there at the end. Like, really, 20 years and this is what we got left with. Okay. So, trying to catch this one early if we can. Indeed. Indeed, it's true. It was a devastating few days. It was a Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Thank you.