Melanie Phillips posted her interview with Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster of the British podcast TRIGGERnometry under the title “Realism or Appeasement?” TRIGGERnometry gave it the title “Has Trump surrendered to Iran?” The discussion takes up the possible folly of President Trump’s stalemated war on the Iranian regime. Neither title quite captures the gist of the conversation.
Phillips provides this summary at her Substack site:
While in London, I was delighted to be invited back onto Triggernometry to discuss the issues of the day with Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster.
We started by talking about British politics, with the resignation of Keir Starmer as prime minister, the likely accession of Andy Burnham to Number 10 and the insurrectionists of Reform and Restore.
Then we moved onto the Iran war, and things got lively.
I argued that President Trump’s volte-face was potentially catastrophic as the war could not be left unfinished without doing terrible damage to America and the west. They disagreed.
We went at it for more than an hour. I argued that Iran was only strong because America was weak and that the entire process of negotiation was a dangerous farce. They argued that the only alternative was escalation to a Vietnam-style quagmire, and that while the war was in Israel’s interests these did not necessarily correspond to the interests of America.
I maintained that, while Israel was obviously fighting to defend itself against Iran’s moves to wipe it off the map, the Iranian regime had been waging war against America for more than four decades and that Israel was an essential resource in the war that was now being fought to defend America and the west.
It was a robust back and forth. The point about Konstantin and Francis is that they are always up for a powerful disagreement expressed civilly and without rancour, which these days is as rare as it is welcome….
While the conversation leaves much to be said, I found the argument interesting and worthwhile.
