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In the rooms where war, peace, and power are decided, words matter most. The Diplomat brings you raw conversations with ambassadors, envoys, and negotiators who shaped the hardest decisions in U.S. foreign policy and Middle East diplomacy. Hosted by Joe Kawly. Recorded from Washington. Produced by Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN).
Joe Kawly brings extensive experience from conflict zones in the Middle East to the power corridors of Washington. As a journalist, he’s seen how words can escalate a crisis or open the door to peace. A Georgetown graduate and former CNN Journalism Fellow, he’s known for connecting the dots others miss, so people don’t just hear what happened, they understand why it matters. As producer and host of The Diplomat, Joe brings clarity to diplomacy and politics, one conversation at a time.
Some truths don't fit into headlines
because power is rarely just about policy.
It's about memory, identity,
and the stories we tell
ourselves, especially at home.
In the end, no country separates its
foreign policy from its domestic politics.
And here's what I've learned.
If you want to understand why the US makes
the choices it does in the Middle East,
don't just look at maps or alliances.
Listen to what's said at campaign rallies,
in Congress, at church, in living rooms.
And if you want to understand power You
have to listen to those who shape it, even
when it's uncomfortable, especially then.
I'm Joe Hawley, and in this episode of The
Diplomat, I sit down with Aaron David
Miller, a former US peace negotiator,
policy adviser, and one of the clearest
voices on what Washington says
and what it tries not to say.
Miller spent decades inside the room
trying to broker peace between
Israelis and Palestinians.
He's advised Republicans and Democrats,
spending decades behind the scenes of US
diplomacy, from Camp David to Gaza, from
Clinton to Bush to Obama,
and now He says what others won't.
In this conversation, Miller and I talk
about what has changed in the evangelical
and pro-Israel alliance, and what hasn't.
The political cost of staying silent on
Gaza, and why, even now, no President
wants to be seen the one who lost Israel.
This is the Diplomat, where I decode what
power says and what it tries not to say.
And this is a conversation
you won't hear anywhere else.
Mr. Miller, thank you for being with us.
Let's start with our first theme, Trump,
Netanyahu, and the Evangelicals, who
actually is in the driver's seat.
Trump 2.
0, Netanyahu is still power, but the
relationship isn't what it seems to be.
Evangelicals still support Israel deeply,
but the cracks are showing, especially
among younger voices and Maga figures who
are watching the humanitarian crisis in
Gaza, from Marjorie Taylor-Green
to Tucker Coulson to Candice Owens.
They are speaking up now differently.
You have said before that the United
States Israel policy is often shaped
more by domestic politics than strategy.
What are we really looking at right now
with Trump and Netanyahu partnership,
power play, or political convenience?
It's a good question.
We're only six months into the Trump
administration, and Trump administration
is dealing with the longest governing
Prime Minister in the history of the state
of Israel, the most politically ruthless
and skilled politician,
and a man who stands a fair chance if
elections in Israel come about in
early in 2026, of being reelected.
Donald Trump, on the other
hand, is a situationalist.
I don't think he has...
He has strategic instincts, but I don't
think he thinks in terms of
strategic implementation.
He's very much moved by the moment.
Domestic politics, his financial
interests, his vanities, his
ego, his likes and dislikes,
continue to drive much of what
you've seen over the past six months.
I think In that, Donald Trump and
Netanyahu have an instrumental
relationship based on
shared interests at times.
There's also tension,
and there's been tension.
I served in every administration since
Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter to Bush 43.
No American President, without exception,
Republican or Democrat, has done things
to sideline and marginalize Israel
to the degree that Trump has.
How is he marginalizing Israel?
He ordered his hostage negotiator or
sanctioned his hostage negotiator, Adam
Bowler, in March to open a dialog with
Hamas,
an organization which is declared a
foreign terrorist organization
by American law and statute.
The Israelis learned
about this after the fact.
He cut a deal with the Houthis,
which essentially
said, as long as you leave
naval ships alone,
we don't like the fact that you're
attacking Israel, but we're not going to
make that conditional on this arrangement.
He eliminated sanctions on the government
of Ahmad Shah above the objections,
over the objections of Netanyahu.
He opened negotiations
with Iran literally announcing them
in the presence of the Israeli Prime
Minister in April, something
Netanyahu urgent him not to do.
And he freed Idan Alexander on the cost of
his trip to Saudi Arabia through an
American-Palestinian cutout, Bishar Ababa,
who was dealing directly with
Hamas's external leadership in Doha.
A fact that the Israelis
learned about after the fact.
No American president I ever worked for
ever undermine the so-called no-daylight
policy that has bound Israel and the US.
But there is tension.
And in my judgment, Netanyahu has not
crossed the three red lines
that would, in fact, compel an American
President, in this case,
Trump, to apply pressure.
Number one, he still doesn't believe, even
though he may think it privately,
that Netanyahu is playing him.
That's one.
Number two, he doesn't believe that
Netanyahu has made him look weak.
In fact, you could argue,
based on Israel's 12 days of strikes
against Iran,
that he opened opened the door, Netanyahu
opened the door for Trump to be strong.
Trump did what no American President
ever did.
He struck Iran directly without
triggering a regional war.
There was zero cost or consequence for
Donald Trump,
maybe among some of his mega base,
because he said he
wouldn't get US into wars.
And finally, Donald Trump would pressure
Netanyahu if he came to believe that
Netanyahu stood between Donald Trump
and something he really, really wanted.
Which is?
But right now, well, I
can think of a couple of things.
An Israeli-Saudi normalization
agreement and a Nobel peace Prize.
But we're far away from that.
So Donald Trump has the potential
to be tough with Israel.
Right now, I think there
is very close coordination.
Tomorrow, Monday, or maybe even sooner,
the administration is going to announce
a new assistance plan for Gaza.
Donald Trump has asked the
Israelis to fund it, $30 million.
Number two, I don't think that
Trump has yet concluded
that he has to force Netanyahu,
pressure him to end the war in Gaza.
So I think it's a very
instrumental relationship.
Neither man trusts one another.
Neither man likes one
another, I don't think.
But to understand more this relationship,
Trump once gave Netanyahu everything.
Jerusalem, the Golden Heights,
the Iran deal kill switch.
Now, he sounds frustrated.
He even contradicted Netanyahu
on starvation in Gaza.
Is that a crack in the armor
or just Trump being Trump?
I mean, again, American presidents,
based on my experience, don't like to
to fight with Israeli prime ministers.
In fact, no American president
that I worked for willfully
picked a fight with Israel.
There have been moments of tension.
The Reagan administration suspended three
shipments of American
advanced aircraft to Israel.
My former boss, James Baker, denied Israel
$10 billion housing loan guarantees.
But the last President, the only
President, the only President in the
history of this relationship to truly
threaten Israel with consequences?
It was Dwight Eisenhower, who threatened
to sanction Israel, Ben Gurian, if he did
not withdraw Israeli forces from Sinai
during the British-French Israeli campaign
to seize the Canal and to pose Nasser.
No American president since.
None.
Why is that?
Why US presidents cannot criticize
what their ally, Israel, does.
You said in 2022, in a podcast for
Carnegie, America is
trapped in the Middle East.
It cannot transform and cannot leave.
Is that one of the reasons
why this is happening?
I think,
look, the underlying reasons that
constrain American presidents
from pressuring Israel.
Number one, it's bad politics.
And no American President,
with possible exception of Jimmy Carter,
risked profoundly angering pro-Israeli
supporters in the United States.
Now, the evangelical Christians
play a considerable role.
They did in pressing Trump on Jerusalem,
not just recognizing Jerusalem
as a capital, moving the embassy.
You have for the first time in the history
of the US-Israeli relationship,
an evangelical Christian, Mike Huckabee,
who is the US ambassador to Israel.
So there's a political cost
for fighting with Israel.
Second, many presidents
have an emotional bond
with Israel that is quite rare
in the way presidents relate to
other foreign countries.
Bill Clinton, I saw this
personally when Rabin was murdered.
Bill Clinton wrote in his memoir, and I
watched the President
grieve Rabin's murder.
Bill Clinton wrote in his memoir, I love
in his memoir, I love Rabin
as I love no man.
That's an extraordinary statement.
Ronald Reagan had this deep and
abiding commitment to Israel.
One of the reasons Joe Biden
failed to exercise any pressure on Israel
in the wake of October 73, October
seventh, 2023,
'83, was Biden's emotional commitment.
So that's the second reason.
And the third reason is most American
presidents look at cooperating with
Israel as a way to achieve some success.
Kissinger and Nixon
ended up negotiating successfully three
disengagement agreements,
two with Egypt, one with Syria
in the wake of the October War.
Jimmy Carter
told me in When I interviewed him for both
of my books, that Monachem Bagen
came farther with respect to making
concessions than Anwar Sadat.
And James Baker
had a functional relationship with
Ishaq Shamir, despite all the tensions.
These three presidents, Nixon and Ford,
Carter, and Bush 41, all achieved
successes by working with Israel.
And one last point, and I turn
the question around to you.
I don't expect you to answer it.
I ask it because it demonstrates a point.
When was the last time a US President
used any leverage and serious pressure
on any American ally, partner, or friend,
with the exception of Donald Trump?
We don't leverage our friends.
How does that
play in the world seeing the United United
States, specifically from
partners in the Middle East?
Well, you tell me.
I've watched
since October seventh, 2023,
two administrations willfully enable and
acquiesce in what Netanyahu has done in
Gaza, imposing no cost or consequence.
You tell me what Arab state,
as a consequence of what the US
has done, imposed any cost
on either Israel or the US.
The answer to that question is zero.
Why is that?
Israel's treaty partners,
Egypt and Jordan, have not.
The Abraham Accord countries, the
Bahrainis, the Saudis, the
Emiratis, the Moroccans.
So I asked the question,
to me, this is extraordinary.
Extraordinary.
I would have thought
that Arab states, even though they're
authoritarian without exception
and can ignore public opinion, maybe.
All Arab countries are authoritarian?
Yeah.
I mean, they are.
Yeah.
I mean, they're not.
Yes.
I mean, where do you want to start?
The functional ones, the ones who have
functional governance, Bahrain,
the Emiratis, the Saud, the Humanis.
So you're saying all But
these countries who are...
Trump visited them.
You're saying that Trump visited and they
made deals with all these
authoritarian regimes?
And they couldn't
get to Washington fast enough.
This is something...
Look, I'm not a...
Despite my critiques, I'm not an Israeli,
and I don't play one on television.
I'm not a Palestinian,
and I'm not an Arab.
And yet I do not understand why
there have been no costs or consequences,
none, imposed by any Arab state.
In fact, you have We tried to get
Hafez Asad to sanction
direct contacts with Israel.
We could not do it.
And yet now you see the government of
Ahmad Shah under
US mediation, meeting directly
with Israelis after they have repeatedly
struck and violated Syrian sovereignty
and interceded
to protect and to extend their influence
over the Jews community in Syria.
It is head-exploding.
Why?
I know the answer.
The answer is that
Arab governments have interests.
Money National interest, money interest,
geopolitical interest, what interest?
Everything.
Mbs, who alone among Saudi leaders, is
pursuing what I call a
360-degrees foreign policy.
He's got relations with just about
everybody, including the Chinese
and the Russians, close relations.
But MBS wants something
from the United States.
He wants many things.
I don't see him antagonizing Donald
Trump over the Palestinian issue.
I don't see MBS or MBZ.
And then people ask me, US influence
in the Middle East is waning.
Don't you understand
the moral hazard of what you are doing.
You're supporting the Israelis in Gaza.
People are accusing Israelis of genocide.
Don't you understand that you have no
influence in this region, that
people won't deal with you anymore?
I'm at a loss.
You tell me how it is possible
for Arab states, on one hand,
to genuinely care about the Palestinian
issue, and their publics care more.
And yet, they won't do anything.
Probably the issue is the divide between
the regimes of these Arab countries,
the governments, and the people?
Yeah, sure.
That's an explanation,
but it doesn't stop.
I want to go back to the evangelical
point, because this is
a very important point.
The evangelical support has long been the
firewall for US policy,
as you said, on Israel.
Part of it, as you
mentioned earlier, here.
But today, younger evangelicals,
MAGA-realists on podcast like Marjorie
Taylor-Greene, like Tucker Coulson,
and many others, they're wavering.
You've written that this
space is fracturing.
Are we looking at a generational
drift or a political realignment?
Well, I think, look, all the
polls, forget the evangelicals.
The few polls show two things.
Number one, there has been a significant
loss of support in terms of
Israel's favorability ratings.
It's well over 50 %.
And if you look at the numbers of
Democrats and Republicans that support
Israel, the numbers are
mirror images of one another.
Most Republicans, the Republican Party, by
and large, even with the MAGA outliers,
is the Israel Can Do No Wrong Party.
And the Democratic
Party is deeply divided.
You saw the Senate vote on
military assistance to Israel,
was it 70 something to 27?
You've got 27 Democratic senators
trying to pass a legislation that will
withhold US military assistance, or at
least this specific delivery, a thousand
pound bombs and other equipment,
if the Israelis don't do more to deal
with the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
So there's no doubt,
yes, it's generational.
There's no question about that.
The strong base of domestic support that
Israel has in this country
shows serious signs a fracture.
Now, does that mean that we are on a
straight line
in
which that public, the diminutional public
support would change US
policy toward Israel?
I'm not prepared to say that yet because
I don't see the change in policy.
You've been in rooms during some of the
ugliest chapters in the United
States, Israel Diplomacy.
Did you ever imagine, for instance,
that you will listen to
some far-right voices in the media talking
against Israel like that, that
starving children and the images that
we're seeing coming from there
would be their talking point?
I think you've seen
diminution in both parties.
Much greater tendency and frequency
to criticize the Israelis.
There's no question about that.
The issue is, is this a headline
or is this a trend line?
What's the difference?
Well, one is the moment
and the other is the future.
From all those years that you have
witnessed the chapters of
US-Israel diplomacy and Western diplomacy
with Israel, did you ever imagine one of
these European countries like the
Netherlands, would call Israel
a national security threat?
I mean, no.
But then the question is, I
raised the same question to you.
I can't answer it, neither can you.
Is this a moment we're looking at
or is this the shape of the future?
To help us and
our listeners and viewers to understand if
this is a momentarily thing or a
change in the future or the status quo.
Slovenia and Sweden banning arms exports,
the UK, France, Canada,
announcing or moving forward
toward Palestinian statehood.
Is this just a wave of protest to appeal
maybe to what we're witnessing on social
media or these governments appealing to
their base, their citizens, or the
beginning of a real international pivot?
When we talk about the international
community, I must tell you,
I've watched since October seventh.
The response of the international
community, we're approaching two years now
in October, has been
divided, self-interested,
distracted, and largely feckless.
They have failed to impose any single
costs or consequences
that would fundamentally alter US policy
or Israel's policy.
The Middle East is littered
with the remains of great powers
who wrongly believe they can impose their
will, their dreams, their schemes,
their ambitions on smaller powers.
This is not a land of opportunity
for the United States.
We have interests there.
We have adversaries, and we have allies.
If you ask me what are the three core US
interests, the three vital interests
that the US has in this region.
They all relate to American security
and to American prosperity.
We need to pursue
a very determined counterterrorism policy
to prevent attacks on the homeland and
against our interests in the region.
That's number one.
Number two, we don't need
Middle East oil and hydrocarbons,
but the rest of the world does.
So it's critically important that
the free flow of that oil.
And by the way, it is one of the ironies
that CENTCOM
produces security arrangements in the Gulf
that facilitate the flow
of Middle East oil to American
adversaries, particularly China.
Number three, the third critical interest,
is that we need to prevent the emergence
of a regional hegemon
with a nuclear weapon.
You mean Iran?
Yeah.
Everything else could be Very important.
But I
divide American interests into the must
haves, which are the three I just laid
out, and the it would be nice to haves,
which is all the rest.
I wish I devoted most of my life to Arab,
Israeli, Israeli, Palestinian peacemaking.
I wish we could
accomplish something there.
You mentioned Iran.
I wish that you didn't have five Arab
states, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, and
Syria in various phases of
dysfunction and failure.
You mentioned Iran.
When Iran tests boundaries,
as they are doing now with proxies, media
warfare, even aid, diplomacy, are we
seeing calculated escalation
or calibrated chaos?
With respect to?
To how Iran is maybe waiting and seeing.
I think some of the Iranian experts I know
throw up their hands and they say, I've
been following in Iran for decades.
I really don't know anymore.
I think Iran has any number of
possible possible choices.
One is obviously more important than any
of the others, which is regime
preservation and survival.
I don't know whether the 12 days of
Israeli strikes and the
hours of American strikes
has further cemented Iran's conviction
that they need a nuclear weapon, or
whether it's given them pause,
not to break out to try to achieve one,
but to pursue to a longer game strategy,
rebuilding their proxies,
maintaining ties with key Arab states,
making sure the Chinese and Russia
relations are functional,
and then rebuilding gradually and slowly
its enrichment program.
Or the third option,
and I don't think this is
a realistic one, Iran has concluded that
they need a
not transformational agreement with the
US, a transactional agreement which would
cause the US to ease up on sanctions
and that they would be prepared at some
point to return to the negotiating table
to produce something more or less
along the lines of the joint
comprehensive plan of action.
I don't know where the Iranians are now.
Let's link those two ideas, Iran, the Gulf
States, and China and Russia,
since you mentioned them.
The Gulf States are hedging, buying from
China, selling to Russia,
keeping doors open to Iran.
What does that say about US influence?
Or it's just evolving into
something less central.
Or it's just as Trump mentioned in his
campaign, he does not want to keep being
involved in the Middle East like that.
Does that mean it's just fatigue dressed
up as foreign policy at this point?
No, I think Saudi Arabia, as I mentioned,
is pursuing a 360-degree foreign policy.
The late Saoud Al-Faisal told my former
colleague, David Ottaway,
who was once at the Washington Post.
He was at the Wilson Center
with me for a long time.
Saoud Al-Faisal said, We want
a Muslim marriage with the US.
We don't want a Catholic divorce.
We want to be able to pursue a very close
relationship with you, but we have other
relationships as well.
Mbs, I think, has taken
that another level.
I think he's hedging.
I think his preference would be
to get things from the US.
He'd want support for
his own nuclear program.
He wants a defense treaty.
That's what the Biden administration was
working on, something that would require
Senate ratification that would commit
the US to the defense of Saudi Arabia.
And I think other Gulf States as well,
Bahrainian Plus, they're more dependent on
the Saudis and their host,
Monamah Hosts CENTCOM.
We have two important bases in Qatar
and in the UAE, Aldafra and Al-Udeid.
So no, the Gulf States, I think, would
prefer the US as a security partner.
But they'd want to
see what other dimensions
on the financial economic
side are available, particularly with oil
as a key factor in the Saudi-Russian
relationship, but want to keep their ties
with the Chinese and the Russians as well.
You've been, as I said, you've been in
the thick of this from
Clinton to Bush to Obama, and you've seen
pivot points that history did
not recognize at the time.
What do you think is the word that the
United States keep using, but it is
backclashing, and probably
it should be retired?
I've never believed, even though I'm a
proponent of protecting American national
interests, I never believed in
an America first problem
because I think it leads in part
to an America alone problem.
And I worry that
we don't understand nor are willing to
take seriously
the needs, requirements, and interests
of many of our partners in the region.
I think that situation has played out to
the detriment of US influence under Trump.
Thank you for listening to the Diplomate.
If what you just heard made you pause,
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Because language isn't just how power
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