Chas Freeman: The War Against Iran Could Destroy the U.S. Republic
Glenn Diesen
Feb 28, 2026
Ambassador Chas Freeman discusses the US attack on Iran. In a war of attrition, Iran could outlast the US and the crisis from a lack of victory could destroy the US republic.
Ambassador Freeman was a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, earning the highest public service awards of the Department of Defense for his roles in designing a NATO-centered post-Cold War European security system and in reestablishing defense and military relations with China. He served as U. S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm).
Transcript
Welcome back. We are joined by Chaz Freeman, a former diplomat and former assistant secretary of defense and also
very relevant for the discussion today, the former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia. So, uh, thank you for taking the
time. It's great to see again. Glad to be back with you. uh a lot is
happening and we don't know a great deal about uh what is happening um because we
have military censorship in Israel again um which means that reporting from there
is in unreliable and of course the internet is shut down in Iran
uh and we don't know uh the damage that has been done at the various US bases
that have been struck although we're told there are no casualties ies.
Whether that's still true or not, I don't know. But uh from your perspective though,
when you look at the overall picture here, what are the strategic objectives for the United States uh to achieve with
this attack? Well, the United States uh has a laundry list of objectives. Uh which one is at
the top of the list depends on how the laundry is sorted from day to day. Um uh
but overall I' I'd say the question is irrelevant. Uh the question is what are
Israel's strategic objectives because they have they have determined this war.
Uh we now know from an Israeli source that the timing of the fighting was in
fact agreed. The time of the attack was agreed December 29th at Mara Lago. uh
which butresses the conclusion that the negotiations conducted by Witco and
Kushner with the Iranians were another deception intended to string things out.
Um uh Israel's objective is clear and President Trump has obviously embraced
it. Uh that is to remove Iran from the geopolitical chess board in West Asia.
Um, and uh to do that by eliminating the Islamic Republic, uh, the regime, if you
will, uh, starting by murdering the uh, the leaders of it. Uh, the Israelis are
now claiming that they have confirmation that they killed uh, the Ayatollah,
that his body was found in the rubble of his compound. Um whether that's true or not, I don't know, but I suspect uh it's
very plausible. Uh then, uh this has all sorts of implications.
Um if I may just jump ahead to those because there's a there's a lot of other
implications to this. Um for one thing, uh Iran has a very wellestablished um
constitutional succession mechanisms. Presumably that will now go into effect.
Uh the Ayatollah uh Kam has been a viciferous opponent apparently of
building a nuclear weapon for Iran. His removal will strengthen the hands of the
many in Iran who see that following North Korea uh as an example is the only
effective way to assure the integrity of the state. that is maximum pressure in
the case of North Korea uh had as its principal result the development of an
ICBM with a nuclear warhead or actually multiple nuclear warheads on it aimed at
the continental United States. So that is one set of uh consequences that we
may now expect. In other words, if the objective or one of the many objectives
in this attack was as has been stated to finally eliminate the Iranian nuclear
program, it is likely to have exactly the opposite effect. Um the second uh
major implication is uh imponderable and that is uh there was there were
statements from husbah before this war began um or this aspect of the war began
uh because the war has been ongoing uh just low intensity up to now um uh they
said that if uh if the supreme leader in Iran was murdered they would enter the
frackas the Israelis are obviously very concerned about this because they called
up reserves to buttress the border uh with uh with Lebanon fearing a
repetition of something like October 7th. Um so those are immediate uh
implications. Uh there are others of course um the people being or the
equipment or the bases being attacked in uh Kuwait, Bahrain,
um Qatar and the UAE, not Oman or Saudi Arabia. Apparently um
uh are are American. They're not local.
Um there's no indication that any Kuwaitis, Bahrainis or Qataris or
Amiratis have been killed as far as I know. I mean I suspect that eventually this they will not be immune from uh
from uh from from these attacks but at the moment those attacks are focused not
on them but on uh the basis they are permitted to be established on their territory by the United States. And
therefore uh they face a dilemma. On the one hand they were moving toward a sort
of informal coalition with Iran to counter Israel. On the other hand the
Israeli and American action has resulted in the violations of their sovereignty.
you know, of course, Israel violated Gutter's sovereignty in an earlier uh in
June, but um um uh this is um
uh this is no doubt a dilemma for them. Uh what do they do? Um uh they can't
really uh endorse an attack on Iran that includes an attack on themselves. they
can't ignore the attack on themselves and thereby excuse
the Iranian retaliation. Uh so I think uh this will be uh
interesting to watch. I don't know what the reaction will be. Uh so uh the main
point however Glenn I think is that um we're told that if the um if the plan of
attack was approved on December 29 uh the original date for it to take
place was February 20th. There are reports that Russian intelligence
managed to acquire the entire battle plan and hand it to the Iranians that
the United States became aware of that or Israel became aware of it and um
passed that information to the United States and that therefore the attack was postponed.
Um I have felt from the beginning and I believe I said so about a week and a half ago in a discussion with you that
uh the negotiations were fraud. Uh that they had no serious purpose. Uh that the
terms being demanded were um out of line with any um reasonable
expectation of Iranian response. Uh and that therefore uh an attack was almost
inevitable. We have now seen that that is the case. Uh and uh this has caused
uh I think a real constitutional awakening in the United States.
uh because in a sense a president who
launches an attack uh of this magnitude on another country without even
informing Congress until the very last moment and not going through the
constitutionally mandated process of obtaining u of of debating the issue uh
in the Congress and having u a congressional legislative decision.
to back the war. But and not only does he do that, but 75% or so of Americans,
it depends on the poll you look at, have been opposed to this war. Uh so it's not
only a constitutional violation, but it is a dictatorial act at odds with
entrenched public opinion. Uh so we'll see as the week ahead comes uh goes
along whether uh any of the inver invertebrates people who inhabit
Congress uh will be able to grow a backbone and uh reassert any aspect of
their constitutional authority. We have mixed reactions. Of course, the the
loyalists, loyal Trumpists, uh are all behind this. Uh and um those
who were skeptical about Trump, even in the Republican party, um are now
of a different uh view. Interestingly, perhaps the strongest condemnation of
the attack came from Donald Trump's former cheerleader, Marjgerie Taylor Green. Uh but uh there
have been other voices on the Republican side that seem to recognize that it if
this is not corrected, it marks the end of the American republic and its constitutional aspirations.
It could be this serious for for the United States. Indeed. Well, there are levels of
seriousness. We know for example that uh whoever prevails in this uh in this war
which is not going to be a few days but uh has aspects of a war of attrition to
it. Uh the United States is going to expend a great great part of its arsenal
uh depleted as it already is um through the defense of Ukraine uh in
an earlier period and more recently the defense of is of Israel.
So, um, the ability of the United States to respond to other challenges, whether
they're in Europe or in the Pacific Asia, um, is greatly diminished no matter what
happens. Um, and of course, if uh, some of the, um,
uh, estimates of Iranian capabilities are in fact correct, uh, it's not at all
certain that the United States will prevail. uh and uh a defeat on this
level uh would be enormously discrediting not only to Donald Trump who bears the sole
responsibility for for this attack. Uh having decided that Netanyahu was a
better source of authority than the US Congress or the Constitution. Uh he now is out on a limb. Uh but for
the United States, this would be a humiliation. it would devalue the uh
reputation of the American military considerably. So um I don't see anything particularly
good coming out of this for anybody but including um I include in that my own
country the United States but you are um yeah the former US
ambassador to Saudi Arabia. So when the United States attacked Iran today and
the Iranian retaliation uh came following uh it seemed to have
focused very heavily on the Gulf States or maybe that's just where we get information from because we can see the
attacks happening in you know from Dubai and well across the region but um but
but what do you think is going to be the consequence of this though? Why will
will they will will some of these small kingdoms fall or how how do you view
No, I don't think so. Um uh I think they're all very nicely entrenched. Um
some of them depend on Israeli u surveillance technology
to manage, you know, police state technology to stay in power. Um um I
think um uh they have a pro political problem. They can certainly can't be
pro-Israeli. Um they can't support the United States. They can't endorse Iran.
They're in a hard place politically. Um but um you know um they have a
long-standing habit of uh differentiating their rhetoric from their actions.
Uh and they're very risk averse. They're very cautious. The exception is the UAE.
Um the others are notoriously cautious. Uh so we've had a reaction from the
Saudis which has strongly condemned um the Iranian attack on fellow members of
the Gulf Cooperation Council. But as far as I know, as I said, there's been there
are American aircraft um that have been moved to Princettown Air Base, which is
south of Rian um at Alcades. Um and um
uh but I don't see any reaction from the Iranians um uh to that. So I have to
assume that there is some kind of effective communication going on between
Riad and Tehran. Yeah. Well, uh, but given that you see
the US, uh, well, the republic at, uh, at stake here, what other long-term
impacts do you think this could be have on US interests? Well, a lot of it depends on how it
comes out. you know in a sense um as I think we discussed before a week and a
half ago this there are elements of sign of American cooperation u competition
involved here uh and uh American competition with Russia u there are
Russian and Chinese u defensive weapons systems that um are going up against
American u offensive systems um and uh one of the consequences would
that you know either the US reputation for leadership in high-tech weaponry
would be butressed or it would be tarnished now and we don't know yet. In fact, there's a great deal we don't know
at this point. Um we don't know for example
uh what installations were actually taken out uh in Iran. Um I mentioned we
don't know what's happening in Israel either. Um and uh if the you know the
last round uh in June the 12 so-called 12-day war um resulted in the
destruction of about 480 buildings and in Israel none of it reported in the western press uh due to military
censorship and Zionist command of the of the American and other western media. So
um we don't know um uh it's far too early to judge uh the answer to the kind
of question you raised. Uh I will however say in one respect there's a
security council meeting which got underway as we began to speak. U it'll be interesting to watch that. Uh we have
u the usual vassal state sorts of uh statements of support from some key
European countries. Uh we have a a a ridiculous statement from President Mron
who said that you demanded the Iranians to negotiate in good faith as though
they were the ones who were managing a deception. Uh very hard to understand um
unless you understand his political weakness and the and the strength of the Zionist lobby in in France as well as
Islamophobia in France which is very strong. Um so uh but we've had the
statements from uh Germany, from Britain uh and so on um that um uh basically
seem to tow the American line. Uh we'll see what happens in the security council. Um I think uh anyone who was in
any doubt that the former um uh regulation of international affairs
by international law was still alive should um should now understand that it
isn't and uh and that is a loss for the United States in terms of reputation I
think. Yeah. uh German chancellor as well um Mertz he was also tweeting out his uh
comments well that uh now the Iranians can choose their own leadership so
they're they seem to be going with that this is about democracy yeah regime change this is about somehow
democracy I I find it um well it's bizarre I mean it's very bizarre the card you play
let us let us recall that um they protests were fueled by the smuggling in
of 50,000 um Starlink sets uh for Iranian uh
discontented Iranians. Um this the protests themselves were set off by in
in or at least Scott Bessant, the American Secretary of Treasury uh claims
that he and the Treasury u destroyed the Iranian currency which and therefore
were able to initiate the protests. Once the protests began, the people with the
Starlink links um um began to agitate to move them from peaceful protests into
violent riots. We've had a huge propaganda campaign uh greatly
exaggerating the number of deaths in Iran on the part of um of protesters or
maybe a agents um uh of foreign interests who were exploiting the
protest. We know that those those those claims are exaggerated. We don't have an
exact reliable figure from Iran itself. Um and so uh this is yet another case
where it's right out of the playbook that um uh you emiserate people. You
make them so wretched that they feel obliged to protest and um and demand
change from their own government some kind of response to the misery that
you're causing. And then you say to them, as which is what we did say apparently in these negotiations, look,
you got to give up your ability to defend yourselves, get rid of your missiles or we'll bomb
you. And of course, if we get if you get rid of your missiles, we'll probably bomb you, too. Uh so what kind of a
thing is that? Um there's so many bizarre elements to this. uh and uh I
think the underlying assumption that u Iranians
will react to misery uh by blaming not the source of the
misery, the the United States and its sanctions and the West, but their own
government is very very um dubious at least.
Well, I see the same propaganda being very heavy in this country. The whole narrative is essentially we can't let
the Ayatollahas acquire a nuclear weapon. So, the whole premise being that they are irrational actors, that they're
extremist, and that they're pursuing a nuclear weapon. And uh you know this is
um yeah and then of course you add that additional layer about democracy and human rights and then
it's almost immoral to be against war by this point. Yeah. And then you know actually the
country in the region that did cheat and clandestinely develop a nuclear weapon
including through the theft of uranium from the United States is Israel. And so
this is uh in a sense an extreme case of mirror imaging. Israel looks in the
mirror and thinks good heavens I what I did they must be doing too. Um well uh
so far there's no evidence. You know there's a wonderful uh thing circulating on the internet which is a a steel
in written in pun form from 3000 BC which says Iran is only a few days away
from a bomb. And um you know I mean they have been only a few days away or a few
years or a few months or something um uh for as long as I can remember. I was
being I was told in 1991 to go to the then crown prince Abdullah when I was
ambassador in Saudi Arabia and and warn him that Iran was two years away from a
bomb. That was 1991. Um you know here we are. I think it's a more than two years
have passed since then. Um and uh so we have these uh continual uh warnings
about something that the intelligence agencies that look at these things say is not true. Uh but it's politically
true. It's not factually true. In a world in which uh nothing is true and
everything is plausible, this is the accepted wisdom. Why? Because Prime
Minister Netanyahu, who knows better from his own intelligence services,
finds this an extremely convenient way to get countries like Norway or the
United States or whoever uh behind him in his hostility to Iran. Uh and uh you
know obviously if you listen to uh Israeli spokesman um I just heard
Naftali Bennett the uh previous foreign uh prime minister speak his wording is
identical to that of Donald Trump. Uh well one might expect that there's been
a bit of coordination and it's something of a conspiracy. Um and uh one would be
right. Uh but um the mainstream media, I don't know about Norway, but the
mainstream media certainly in the United States will not print anything that is
critical of Israel or the Israeli line. They tow it. U therefore
uh there is no opposition to the flood of falsehoods.
Well, if we look beyond the bes the sides the the strategy or lack thereof
and uh what's actually happening in terms of who's striking what how do you
assess the the impact on the economy especially for the Gulf States because
as you've seen Iran has uh now shut down the straight of Hermoose there's about
uh 20% of the world's oil going through there more importantly for the Gulf
states this is uh well how are they going to survive or of course you know
they have reserves but but what will be the wider impact here? Well it varies from country to country.
I mean um oddly enough Oman which is mostly outside the straight of Hormuz
has very limited reserves and uh to the extent its oil exports are affected it
will be in financial difficulty. The UAE is got a strong reserve position
huge state um uh investment fund. Um
Saudi Arabia is somewhat behind it. Saudi Arabia is in already is already in
financial difficulty because of the low price of oil to the extent it's able to
export oil um which it won't be able to do through the Persian Gulf um which is
where it does most of its exporting um to the extent it's able to export oil
it's going to benefit from the enormous inflation of energy prices on the global level that we can now expect. Uh so um
uh you know a country like Kuwait is far less dependent on oil exports than it is
on coupon clipping from uh bonds and stocks and uh other investments. Um that
dwarfs the equity the Kuwaiti income from investments dwarfs its oil income.
Uh Bahrain is very vulnerable. Um it is in some respects an offshoot of Saudi
Arabia uh which can be expected to help it but um charity generally begins and
ends at home and um Bahrain of course the has been the headquarters of the
fifth fleet which was apparently struck during this initial round of retaliations.
Clutter um has enormous reserves um and of course shares the ga the gas
field in the in the Persian Gulf with uh with Iran. Uh but they're all going to
get shut down including Iran. Iran ships its oil through the straight of Hormuz.
So this is in fact a um uh a kind of suicide
move by uh Iran in economic terms. what the implications will be depends on how
long this goes on. Um and uh there we don't we don't know u you know uh uh we
can't tell how long it will go on. It's not going to it's not going to be over in a few days. Um so um at what point
the um uh oil oil oil prices will become ridiculously high as a matter of
conjecture at this point but it seems likely. And let me just say one thing about shutting the straight of Horns.
Um, the minute you um you you declare a blockade of some sort, as the Houthi
government in Yemen did in the Red Sea, insurance companies don't provide insurance to ships. So, the shippers
can't use that route. And it's not a matter of shooting, you know, sinking ships. You just um get Lords of London
to be unwilling to underwrite insurance on ships. Um and that is
exactly what will happen. So uh you won't have anyone other than a military
vessel daring to uh brave the blockade.
And here again I would just say that you know um the Houthies
uh who were fairly primitive um in their weaponry and capabilities
uh were able to defeat the United States which spent over a billion dollars and
expended a vast amount of weaponry uh to try to uh relieve the blockade and
failed. The Iranians are vastly more capable than the Houthies.
So, I don't think anybody's going to be running this blockade anytime soon.
But as we see now, Iran has struck the airport in Dubai to the ports
in United Arab Emirates. How how far can this go before it
pulls these actors directly into war, or they don't really have anything to fight with to begin with?
Well, I don't think they want to get involved in this war. You're correct. Dubai
International Airport, which is the largest in the world, is now shut down as is the Maktum airport, the other
one. And so I think there's an enormous disruption of transit, air
travel, ship travel, energy supply all in store. And it will be
very painful for not just the countries in the region but for the world.
Yeah, we already know they've shut down our access to air travel across Russia. Now,
all air travel seems to go through the Middle East. And now
this whole region appears to be shutting down as well. It's a bit surprising, or maybe not surprising, but
concerning, that all these conflicts around the world, that the only
thing being done is to throw more gasoline at the fire. There's very little serious attempt it seems to actually put an end to any of this.
Sorry. if by a serious attempt you mean diplomacy, obviously diplomacy is now used
simply as a means of deception to serve military purposes. You know, that is the
lesson of multiple American negotiations with others. And I note that
this is having its effect. We're talking about Iran, and the United
States and Israel. But we might as well be talking about Russia and
Ukraine and the Europeans. I think the interest of Moscow continuing
negotiations about the Ukraine issue with the United States is clearly on the wane. There's no
enthusiasm.
Why should there be? The negotiators that we have appointed have
no credibility. They have been flying all over the place, largely in Geneva
recently, deceiving people, not reaching any
agreement, and when they do agree to specific elements of an agreement, they
repudiate them. They have no authority from anybody other than Donald
Trump, and Donald Trump makes up his mind from minute to minute.
But uh in terms of escalation uh both regionally and globally do you well
regionally I guess we yeah we we we have seen this but the
possibility of pulling in Turkey or Egypt some of the larger countries uh do
you see a threat of this or or even worse if uh the Russians or Chinese
begin to play a more overt role? I'm not I assume they're already doing a little
bit to make sure that Iran doesn't get defeated. Well, I think the the Russian and
Chinese response will, as you suggest, largely be limited to a combination of
rhetorical support, political diplomatic support at the UN and elsewhere. um and
uh uh and and and and technology and weapon uh defensive weapons transfers um
which are going to be a bit difficult in under conditions of u uh where shipping
lanes are shut down and so forth. But um but um the uh the the broader point I
think um is that the Chinese and Russians will make hay out of the discrediting of the United States. to
your question about whether the war should widen. Um what would uh Egypt and Turkey do? Why
would they be in on this? Um uh they certainly wouldn't support
Israel and the United States in this context. Um
could they um could they make common cause with Iran? Well, the Turks
might usefully provide weaponry and um indirect military support. Um Egypt does
not really have the capability to do that. Uh I don't think the Egyptians have are very unhappy with the Israelis,
but I don't see them uh creating a diversion. Um so uh I'm not sure how the
war would expand beyond uh the Levant and Iran um the Persian
Gulf countries. Um there is a possibility of course depending on how
badly Israel behaves that uh Pakistan which has a defense pack now with Saudi
Arabia and uh which has been the target of Israeli operations
which is currently the target of Indian operations. The Indians supporting the Taliban um uh in the war between
Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is some danger that Pakistan could be drawn in.
It has a huge number like India of has a huge number of its citizens working in
the Gulf in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries and it has a history of
having provided support uh in the past uh for example during the uh war of the
cities of the war between Iran and Iraq. Pakistan helped garrison Saudi Arabia.
Um there there is u uh during uh operation desert storm uh Pakistan
garrison in southern Saudi Arabia and protected Saudi Arabia against Yemen which was part of the of the U
triad that was attempting to rewrite the Middle East borders. Saddam Hussein,
King Hussein of Jordan, and Ali Abdullah Salah in in Yemen were all part of a a
plan which didn't work. U so uh there are possibilities,
but I don't think great powers, China, Russia want to get involved. I don't see the Egyptians taking action and and and
and I think Turkey would limit its support to um technology and weaponry
rather than directly involve itself. But who knows? I mean war one of the
things about war is you know the wars are very easy you to start unilaterally.
They're very very hard to end. and um you can't control them. They are a
gamble. Uh so you're right to be concerned, but I'm I I don't I don't see
the mechanism for expansion at this point. Yeah. Well, the comments coming out of
Turkey and Egypt so far has been focused on concerns for the their well they're
not allies but at least their friends that is the Gulf States. So, not
expressed in any support for the US or Israel in terms of the attack, but more
um yeah, but I guess something like that had to be said uh in order to show some
solidarity with the Gulf States without actually doing anything. Um this was the
last question. Do you has a train left the station now or is there any way to put an early end to
this? Can Trump realize he made a horrible mistake? you know, claim that, well, I called Iran. They promised they
will behave better now. They're going to be serious in negotiation, some of this nonsense. Or is it all over? And uh if
if this war will go on now, I know there's a lot of unknown variables, but
where where do you think it will be heading if you would not guess? ice button.
I many people um uh uh believe rightly
or wrongly that Iran is actually better equipped to manage a war of attrition
than Israel and the United States. Um the United States, as I mentioned, has
depleted a great deal of its arsenal in other adventures elsewhere.
um uh and in the earlier defense of Israel
uh Israel basically uh was wasn't able to continue defending
itself during the June so-called 12-day war at the end of it. You know, it it
was vulnerable uh to Iranian attack. Here's a question I don't know the
answer to. Um uh perhaps uh uh someone does. Um but if you look at the June war
uh where Iran mounted the first effective um response to Israeli
aggression by anybody in the region for many decades. Um uh it began its missile
barrage on Israel by expanding its more obsolete,
less capable uh missiles with the purpose of depleting Israel's
self-defense capability. and it succeeded at that. Uh it ended the war
with hypersonic missiles um breaking through is what remained of Israeli
defense uh and American and British assistance and defense. Um so and by the
way, you know, you asked about the expansion of the war. uh K Starmer uh
you know began by saying well you Britain wasn't going to be part of it but now he's talking about having the
RAF the British Royal Air Force up and about um supporting American ally and
everything else. So there is an expansion right there um uh happening in
front of our very eyes. Um so I you know um it's um
uh I I don't think at this point anybody really can tell you with assurance uh when this will stop, how it will
stop. Eventually it will stop. Um but when how long eventually is and and what
the conditions will be when that eventuality occurs. Uh they may very well be um um an Iran that um has been
shaken but not stirred into uh rebellion as Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu
uh I think falsely believe it might be. Well, that's what you said. this um war
of attrition. Uh we already had this in June and uh and the the Israelis uh and
Americans were exhausted by after 12 days. So I'm wondering what would be
different now I guess but uh exactly and know we don't know um you
know the charge is that the Iranians had ramped up missile production
um uh you know and of course the n their nuclear program which had previously
officially been obliterated had somehow revived and was becoming an imminent
danger. I think the correct analogy here is North Korea. Uh you know you if you
push hard enough uh at a proud people they will respond um by developing some
capability that you don't like. And you know, we saw this in a sense on 9/11
when uh we learned that if you bomb people, they will bomb back and if they don't have uh bombers to do it with,
they will repurpose passenger aircraft as cruise missiles to do it. Uh human
ingenuity will not be subdued by threats. In fact, it tends to be
stimulated by them. So, how will this end? I don't know. Um and uh I think we
have to leave it there. Yeah. Well, I think at least can seems very certain that Trump's assumption
that this could be a quick victory. I think uh on the contrary, this I think
this will have implications for decades to come. So, uh well, thank
you very much for taking the time. I know you're Yeah, you're supposed to be on a holiday
now, so I appreciate you taking the time. Well, um, it's always a holiday with you, uh, Glenn. Thank you.
