Name: Robert Malley on war in Iran: “Donald Trump is nervous” | UpFront
Uploaded: 2026-03-21T23:02:05.000Z
Duration: 13 min 41 s
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So Israel has recently attacked the South Pause gas field, part of the world's largest natural gas reserves, shared by both Qatar and Iran.

Iran has retaliated by attacking the Qatari side, Ras Laffen.

This has caused widespread spread damage.

We are now seeing ramped up attacks on key energy infrastructure, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said Israel will hold off of attacking further infrastructure at the request of President Donald Trump.

What are the implications of this escalation that we saw this week?

Listen, first of all, I think what you were seeing are two actors who are behaving according to type, exactly as one would expect.

Israel, whose goal is to decimate as much as possible, not just Iran's military, ballistic, naval missile, drone capability, nuclear capability, but

And therefore they're seeking state collapse, collapse of the regime if they can.

And chaos is not simply a possible outcome, it's the outcome that they are seeking.

And therefore going after infrastructure makes sense.

Going after every layer of the leadership makes sense.

This is what I would call a policy of not just mowing the lawn, but

pounding the soil beneath the lawn, beneath the grass, on a regional scale and in an intensified way.

Iran is also reacting exactly as it had previewed and as it had worn, which is it's, if it's, if it is attacked, particularly if it's attacked in a way that threatens or designed to threaten the regime, it will retaliate by regionalizing, even internationalizing the war.

I would call this a guerrilla warfare at state level, attacking all the nodes of the world economy that are most vulnerable and that will hurt others, so that it externalizes the cost of the war.

They're not the only ones who are going to bear it.

And it means that they're also targeting countries like Tatar, like Saudi Arabia, like uae, that may have nothing to do with the war, but

are the targets they find the most vulnerable and therefore the most logical, however much one may dispute that logic.

The most unpredictable and more moody actor, if you will, in that sense is the United States.

And when I say the United States, I really mean President Trump.

And he has his finger in a way that, on the, on a, in a way that can either escalate the war or de escalate it.

And what just happened is we saw that it was escalating in yet more dangerous, perilous way in terms of the attacks on the gas fields in South Kores.

And President Trump then decided to de escalate.

What we don't know is whether this is a sign of a further de escalation or whether it's just one interlude.

And the United States will continue in the hopes of achieving some still unidentified goal which will then allow the President to declare victory and go home.

Both US President Donald Trump and the Secretary of Defense Pete Hexseth say they were unaware of Israel's planned attack on South Pas gas field.

In fact, President Trump, Trump said, I quote, the US knew nothing about this particular attack.

However, Israeli officials told Reuters that it was done with the coordination of Washington.

I mean, this is the President of the United States.

How credible is his account of not knowing?

Like most of his accounts, not particularly credible.

I think in this case what appears to have happened is that the President may be encouraged, convinced by Prime Minister Netanyahu that by hitting Iran where it hurts, they will be forced to either surrender or capitulate or that it would lead unrest in the country which could lead to the collapse of the regime very quickly.

Of course, the way Iran reacted, which I think was extremely predictable and in fact predicted by most analysts and I suspect most governments around the world, is that it took it out against gas fields in Qatar.

That was again, it's not a matter of justifying it, but expecting it.

I think President Trump is nervous about the impact on the price of oil, the price of gas.

He is nervous about the impact it has on the domestic, on the stock market, and

he's nervous about the impact that all of this has on the prospects for the outcome of the congressional midterm elections which will take place in November, which is why he's now saying that he didn't know anything about it and he's now asking for de escalation.

I think there's every reason to believe the accounts that we heard that the US knew very well that this was coming and had acquiesced in it.

The global economy is feeling this viscerally.

There's a global oil shortage, fuel prices have just shot up and there are predictions that this could get even more perilous.

So my question is, does Iran's strategy of exacting maximum economic damage, does it help or hurt the chances of negotiations towards ending this war?

I don't think this war is going to end with negotiations.

It's very hard to see, first of all, Iran trusting anything that the US would set the negotiating table, since at least twice already the US in the mid negotiations chose to bomb Iran.

So I don't believe there's even enough common ground between the two.

I think this will end, as I said earlier, when President Trump decides that the economic, financial, political costs are too high, he can then declare victory.

And by the way, it will be relatively easy for him to declare victory because he's never stated clear objectives.

So we could always invent an objective that he will say will have been met.

And then the question is ensuring that Iran doesn't continue the war because it is said so far that it will not accept, you know, that will cease fire.

Okay, let's just talk about the Gulf states themselves.

They're being attacked in these retaliatory actions by Iran.

I mean, they're in an impossible situation.

I mean, you know, they're victims, twice victims, twice over.

First by victims of the US And Israeli attack, which exposed them more than anyone else.

I think all of them or the vast majority of them were against this war.

And yet they are the ones who are now paying the greatest price for war that they had nothing to do with and that most of them, I believe, if not all of them, tried to prevent.

And now they're being targeted by Iran for the reasons I gave earlier.

Iran is implementing a scorched earth policy and it is going after the earth that is closest to them that is most vulnerable, and

And also going after them helps them in their strategy of externalizing and exacerbating the costs, because their financial and trade and economic costs associated with attacking GCC states.

So they are in a very difficult position right now.

They need, they want this war to end at the same time, of course, they're worried about their relationship with Iran in the wake of this war.

But I suspect that most of them, again, if not all of them, would prefer to see this war and now rather than have it continue at a great cost to their economic future, economic stability, and, as you said, the world economy.

I think one of the paradoxes, of course, is that they've discovered that two of their gambles, one was an American security umbrella and the other was improving relations with Iran.

Both of those gambles proved to be hollow.

Security umbrella with the US had holes in it and they ended up being targeted despite their security relationship with the US and improved relations with Iran turned to be of very little use when Iran chose to strike them.

And yet they really don't have much choice.

At the end of this war, they probably going to still be dependent on that umbrella and still banking on somewhat improved relations with Iran, however disappointing both gambits turned out to be.

You've dealt with Iranians extensively and they've been assassinations in the last couple of days of key figures of the Iranian leadership.

What are your thoughts of Israel's strategy to assassinate key figures, namely the Iranian security chief, the intelligence minister was also killed.

Your thoughts on that as a military strategy?

So again, it goes to the strategy I describing earlier, which is that Israel feels like dismembering, decapitating, fragmenting, weakening Iran in any way possible serves their interest.

And so they're not thinking so much in terms of who are we going to negotiate with in the future or who is more pragmatic, less pragmatic, more radical.

Anyone in that system who has a political responsibility that they could get rid of.

And their view is we just need to weaken, systematically weaken so that the state is not able to govern and certainly is not able to project any threat beyond its borders.

So, you know, is it short sighted in terms of the possibility of one day having an interlocutor in Iran that could negotiate with the United States or others?

Potentially, yes, but that's not their objective.

They're not thinking in those terms and they don't believe that it's the right way to think about it.

Where they have the opportunity to weaken Iran in an unprecedented way, the regime in an unprecedented way.

And if they are not constrained by the United States, which so far they have not been truly constrained, they will take this to the next level.

Which is why it is interesting at least that President Trump called on them to stop targeting infrastructure.

He's not told them to stop targeting regime figures.

I think the other observation, sorry, is that even though clearly these are significant losses from the Iranian regime's point of view, it is still striking that the regime is able to continue to act and to react very quickly in terms of their response both to Ayerl Al Rajani's assassination and to the strike on their energy infrastructure to respond right away, which shows that the regime has decentralized decision making and has prepared for this day.

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Robert Malley on war in Iran: “Donald Trump is nervous” | UpFront

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