Josh Rogin
@joshrogin • 258,949 subscribers
The Cable on Substack https://t.co/yvpUraUhTX Lead Global Security Analyst, Washington Post Author, Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi & the Battle for the 21st Century
Videos
“Somebody shorted the oil markets today by hundreds of millions of dollars exactly 20 minutes before Trump made his announcement that everything was going to be great. And if you see that once, it could be a coincidence. But that’s happened at least three times, if not more, since the war began. That’s a pattern.” “And what that suggests is that there’s rampant corruption and insider self-dealing going on with the president’s up and down predictions of what’s going to happen tomorrow in the negotiations and in the markets. And I’m sure that that’s being investigated. We can’t prove it, but it seems like the corruption that we’re seeing in our government, maybe not the President, but people who are in the know and the markets, is having a priority over the actual negotiations to end the war. And that’s a crazy thing that our system has never seen before.”
Josh Rogin2,101,265 görüntüleme • 2 ay önce
“The President has exactly two choices. He can pay Iran to open the Strait, or he can suffer the indignity of continuing this quagmire longer and longer. And because I listen to the Scott Jennings radio show religiously, I know that the White House has no intention of paying them to open up the Strait. A senior administration official told Scott Jennings exclusively, you should check it out, that they’re only going to pay them at the end of the process, not at the beginning of the process. The Iranians, by the way, are not going to go for that.” “That means this deal that they’ve been bragging about, which usually they brag about right before the markets open. It’s usually right before the markets open that there’s a lot of good news, and then somehow the markets go up. And then over the course of a couple of days, we find out that it was all BS. It turns out that that’s all BS because what’s going to happen is that they’re not going to want to strike this horrible deal, according to Scott Jennings’s top level sources. And that means that the deal is not going to be struck, and the war is going to go on, quite sadly, actually.”
Josh Rogin595,582 görüntüleme • 1 ay önce
“I don’t think the European countries are going to come and bail out of this mess. You have to think about the context here. Trump just spent a year hurting their economies on purpose, threatening to attack NATO, threatening to pull out of NATO. And then the Trump administration started this war without even bothering to consult them, didn’t take their interests into account until he needed them. And their populations are at historic levels of anti-Americanism because of how we’ve treated them over the last year.” “And they are democracies, so I don’t think their leaders are going to be able to overcome that. And why would they? It’s much easier, and you’ll see a bunch of countries doing this, to negotiate with the Iranians. The Iranians are setting up a system whereby they let the ships pass that they want to let pass. Just in the last 24 hours, they let several ships pass for countries that they’re not at war with. So if you were any country in the world, depending on this Strait, it’s much easier to make a deal with the Iranians than to send your ships down the Strait, to make them sitting ducks for Iranian drones and missiles, which seems crazy reckless.”
Josh Rogin1,109,215 görüntüleme • 3 ay önce
“What's going on here is very clear. It's a targeting of the Somali and Somali American communities that was directed by the President of the United States in public, on television, repeatedly. He called them garbage. He said they should go back to where they came from. And then all of the sudden, you've got the Treasury Secretary, HHS, DHS, the FBI, and every MAGA YouTuber flooding the Somali community is obviously a targeted attack on this community, which by the way the vast majority are American citizens. And that's not the way that law enforcement is supposed to work. Law enforcement is evidence based, not identity based in the country of the United States of America, as far as I'm aware.”
Josh Rogin448,728 görüntüleme • 6 ay önce
Me: “You have to ask yourself the question, if Trump says the war is going to end ‘very soon,’ then what’s the $200 billion for? Because if the war is going to end very soon, then it doesn’t cost $200 billion. And he gave us a hint. He said, ‘Oh, I want you to fund the next war.’ What’s that one? ‘Oh, it’s Cuba.’ What are you going to do? ‘Oh, I’m going to take Cuba.’ What does that mean? ‘Don’t worry about it.’” Moynihan: Don’t you think we don’t want to telegraph to the enemy our exact timeline? Me: “I wish they would at least tell the president, because he doesn’t seem to know how long this is going to to take.”
Josh Rogin252,835 görüntüleme • 3 ay önce
“Trump’s message is, ‘Don’t believe your eyes. Everything’s fine. We’re very close.’ That’s obviously not true. And what Vance offered is a slightly more honest picture, which is that this could take several months. The problem is that Vance doesn’t seem to think that’s a bad thing. He doesn’t seem to realize that Americans are suffering. Our allies are getting bombed. Our alliances are getting weakened. And the war is dragging our economy into an abyss.” “And just to say, it could take a couple of days or a week or several months is a completely unacceptable answer to the American people after they entered a war with no justification, no legal explanation, no strategy, and no realistic plan for getting us out of this thing.”
Josh Rogin61,960 görüntüleme • 27 gün önce
“The real cost is not to the United States, it’s to the Iranian people. Because Trump said, ‘Help is on the way.” And help was not on the way. And now this deal will enshrine the Iranian regime, for a generation, with American support and cooperation, and send a message to people all over the world who are brave enough to stand up to their dictators and despots, that when America says help is on the way, that doesn’t mean anything.” “And that’s the real cost of this. It’s that we’ve promised the Iranian people that we care about their lives, and now we are throwing them to the wolves. No matter what happens with the $300 billion or the Strait of Hormuz, those people will have to wait another several years before they get another chance at dignity. And it’s partially our fault, for raising their hopes and then squashing them unceremoniously because Trump just changed his mind and doesn’t care anymore.”
Josh Rogin39,979 görüntüleme • 20 gün önce
“Trump was bluffing. They called his bluff. And he backed down. And you can say that he was doing this to soothe the markets. Another way to say that is that he’s doing this to manipulate the markets. And what have we seen? We’ve seen the president completely change his explanation of what he wants. Just days ago, he was calling for unconditional surrender. Now he’s saying, okay, we want to make a deal with such and such terms. And this is complete strategic incoherence. And despite the fact that we have a military that can hit any target that trump tells it to hit, if we have no strategic direction, then there’s no clear way to get to the end of this war.” “Now, it’s a good thing, I think, that Trump has realized that he’s going to have to deal with the Iranians. But to do so in a way that has no coherence and no actual plan for extricating the U.S. out of this war is is diplomatic malpractice.”
Josh Rogin158,744 görüntüleme • 3 ay önce
Ukraine’s head of the presidential office Kyrylo Budanov addresses the McCain Institute Sedona Forum and says Ukraine doesn’t believe Putin really wants a ceasefire: “We completely understand the real purpose of Putin's call to President Trump on April 29 - they want the May 9 parade in Moscow to proceedpeacefully for a few hours and then they will resumethe attacks.” “We do not want any truce to become a tactical deception by the Russian Federation. At the same time, we always respond positively to proposals for a real truce with the Russian Federation, if there are any.”
Josh Rogin93,518 görüntüleme • 2 ay önce
“Of course, President Trump would like to have some help from China. But here’s the problem. China is Iran’s ally. They’re on the other side of this. China, Iran, Russia, North Korea, that’s that team. We’re on the other team. So it’s very unlikely that China is going to help Trump get himself out of the mess that he created.” “Napoleon once said, once your enemy is making a mistake, never interrupt them. And that’s XI jinping’s strategy here, to let America continue to commit superpower suicide, because all China has to do is sit back and collect the benefits.”
Josh Rogin77,090 görüntüleme • 1 ay önce
Today I visited my alma mater Gorzów University to see for myself what these protests and the tent encampment was really all about. People are free to make their own judgments based on what they see in this video, but here are some of my impressions. First of all, the protesters were not violent, not anti-Semitic, and nothing around the protests made me as a journalist or a Jew or a random passer by feel unsafe. There were about 200 people, 3 dozen tents, and a visible but quiet police presence at every entry point to the “encampment,” which is surrounded by metal gates. The protesters inside the gates have been there for more than 2 days, don’t have anywhere to go to the bathroom, and have no intention of leaving anytime soon. Those outside the gates can’t get in, meaning the encampment itself won’t grow although tents are popping up around it. The leaders held a press conference and said they won’t leave until their demands are met, which include the university divesting of all financial connections to what they called the “Zionist regime.” They said 9 GW students have been suspended for protesting. They said the president of the university refused to speak with them. They called for the police to leave campus. They emphasized that they believe antisemitism is wrong but anti Zionism is right. Their chants speak for themselves. If you are asking me, I don’t personally agree with what they are chanting. Specifically, I don’t think the term “genocide” is right but I do think there is lots of evidence the Israeli forces may have committed war crimes in Gaza and those alleged crimes must be investigated. But I was not there to express my views. I was there to observe and tell you my readers what I saw. I saw lots of young people who have lost all hope that the system will do anything to address their grievances or the suffering of their community members. At the same time, I saw a protest effort that is demanding things it must know it cannot achieve through these means. That tells me this is only the beginning and the goal of finding any common ground between these communities is tragically getting farther and farther from reach. #gaza #palestine #israel #gw
Josh Rogin861,494 görüntüleme • 2 yıl önce
“President Trump would like the war to be over soon. He’s clearly signaling he wants the war to be over soon. But the Iranians have a different strategy. Their strategy is to stretch this out as long as possible. Their strategy is to inflict as much pain on the U.S. and the world economy as possible. And that’s why Trump’s strategy of blockading their blockade really doesn’t make any sense when you think about it. They’re going to blockade the Strait, so we’re going to blockade the Strait to counter their blockade of the Strait? It’s a recipe for continued stalemate.”
Josh Rogin92,298 görüntüleme • 2 ay önce
“Courts have stopped the president from defacing the Kennedy Center, but they haven’t stopped him from destroying the Kennedy Center. And the larger fight is over the future of the Kennedy Center. And that fight is surrounding Trump’s plan to close it down for two years and then gut it, and then renovate it, however he sees fit, I’m sure with a lot of gold stuff, right? And that fight is still ongoing.” “And what that means is that after July 4th, there is nothing planned at the Kennedy Center. If you look on the website in the calendar, there’s nothing booked. So, he’s effectively killing the Kennedy Center, even though his name’s not going to be on it, by just not booking anything and not putting anybody in charge of it. And that’s a tragedy for the Kennedy Center. And whatever you thought about the Kennedy Center before, for the next period of time, it’s going to be vacant.” “And that’s Trump’s decision. He would rather kill it out of spite because he didn’t get his way than to let it continue even imperfectly in the way it was operating. That’s very sad for the people who care about the Kennedy Center and the programming that was going on there.”
Josh Rogin28,183 görüntüleme • 24 gün önce
My take on Graham Platner for Senate’s claim he didn’t know he had a Nazi tattoo on his chest for 17 years: “You know what your tattoo is. I have two tattoos and I know exactly what they mean because they are tattooed on my body. And if I got drunk and got something tattooed, I wouldn’t keep it for 15 years without checking it out. You can google it now or use google images. 15 or 17 years later? I don’t buy it. I think people know what their tattoos are.” H/T The Notorious JTB
Josh Rogin33,600 görüntüleme • 1 ay önce
What I heard most from Europeans here at the Munich Security Conference is how do we protect ourselves from the United States. They call it “de-risking.” They are reducing their dependence on us because they don’t see us as a reliable ally. And who could blame them? #msc2026
Josh Rogin95,551 görüntüleme • 4 ay önce
Maher Tarabishi is in ICE detention. He was the primary caregiver for his chronically ill son Wael. Wael died yesterday, needlessly, without being able to say goodbye to his father. Is this what we want America to be? Maher Tarabishi should be released now. He should be able to attend his son’s funeral. #FreeMaherTarabishi
Josh Rogin75,636 görüntüleme • 5 ay önce
“Seize the oil” means giving U.S. oil companies preferential treatment by threatening to kill Venezuela’s leaders. Thats a huge opportunity for graft & corruption. Also, wasn’t MAGA against using the military to depose presidents to steal oil? Now they’ve completely flipped.
Josh Rogin78,514 görüntüleme • 6 ay önce
Ukrainians don’t want to live on their knees. They are not going to sacrifice their right to have a military. They are not going to give up land to Russia that Russia doesn’t already control, because that’s condemning the people who live in those lands to a life of hell. So, it’s really predictable and sad that this gambit is going to fail.
Josh Rogin93,276 görüntüleme • 7 ay önce
“We’re in a quagmire. This state of affairs was not only predictable, but predicted. And we’re exactly where everyone except for Trump said they thought we’d be, which is a stalemate. And the Iranians have blockaded the strait and we’ve blockaded their blockade.” “And essentially, we’re playing a game of chicken. And the Iranians are not going to blink because they don’t care about the suffering of the Iranian people. And Trump’s not going to blink, because Trump doesn’t care about the suffering of the American people.” “And so when you have a game of chicken where neither side has any incentive to blink, of course it’s going to lead to bad outcomes and possibly more violence. Very tragically, actually. And so Trump a plan, but he won’t tell us what it is. Great. So what does that lead to? It leads to what we have here, which is a failure of communication.”
Josh Rogin25,725 görüntüleme • 1 ay önce
Scott Jennings says we have no say over Israel’s actions in Iran. I disagree. “We are the senior partner, they’re the junior partner. We have the weapons, we give them the weapons. We’re funding this war. We’re the great power. They’re our client state. So in theory, we should be able to have the more than a 50% say in whether American blood and treasure is spent to perpetuate this war for months and months. And it’s pretty clear from what President Trump said today about the war he wants to get out very soon. He keeps saying it. He wants to get out very soon. And it’s pretty clear from what Netanyahu said today that he doesn’t want to get out very soon.” “So both of those people can’t win. One of them is going to be right, and one of them is going to be wrong. So who’s going to win that disagreement? Is it going to be Trump and we’re going to end the war soon? Or is it going to be Bibi, the war is going to go on for a very long time? Both of them can’t be right, Scott. And in the end, we’re going to find out who really wears the pants in this bromance.”
Josh Rogin38,678 görüntüleme • 3 ay önce