STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Kori Schake has been listening with us. She served on the National Security Council and at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration. She's now at the American Enterprise Institute, which is a conservative think tank here in Washington. Welcome to the program.
KORI SCHAKE: Thank you.
INSKEEP: OK, so this is unusual. Just looking at the negotiations today - complex negotiations, one set in the morning, one set in the afternoon, same couple of guys. What would it normally take for the U.S. government to mobilize its resources for something like this?
SCHAKE: Well, you would have an interagency process to vet policy ideas. You'd have extensive consultations with allies. You would prepare the field with a lot of expertise and with high-level envoys who have been confirmed by the Senate into roles for which they are accountable, none of which is happening.
INSKEEP: Oh. I was going to say, how is that different from what you understand is happening as you view it from the outside?
SCHAKE: (Laughter) I think none of those things are happening. I mean, Secretary Rubio was at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, and he didn't even mention Russia in his speech, and he didn't participate in the Ukraine meetings.
INSKEEP: So we have this very different administration that doesn't really believe in expertise, thinks a lot of the government is against them, and you have a president who is very much into personal diplomacy. We heard Greg Myre say that he wants to play a leading role in major, major issues. And we should be frank, in this administration, one person's opinion matters. In fact, one person's most recent attitude matters. And so I would ask, is it better, in fact, to just have Witkoff and Kushner, a couple of guys he trusts, get in the room and try to get to a bottom line?
SCHAKE: Well, it hasn't produced results so far. You know, the president seemed to think that he could solve the war of Russia's invasion in Ukraine in a single day, and it's been over a year. And the reason it's been over a year is because the things that the parties to the conflict want are incompatible, and the president doesn't appear to be putting any pressure on Russia to change their maximalist aims. The Russians want to be given territory they couldn't conquer, which is unlikely any Ukrainian government could agree to. And Ukraine wants security guarantees from the U.S. that, given the Trump administration's behavior, they can't offer with any credibility.
INSKEEP: This is very interesting. We talk about carrots and sticks. And I think you're correct that, although the president has periodically made threats about Russia, he has mainly offered carrots to Russia - talked about future business deals. When it comes to Iran, the other negotiation today, you've got the big stick out there. You've got the aircraft carriers and other warships mobilizing in the region. Do you think that that is perhaps a more productive approach?
SCHAKE: Well, I think unlikely because, as with Venezuela, the president doesn't have a strategy to create positive change, nor is he committing the resources to achieve it. So in Iran, if the U.S. attacks to force a regime change or destroy all the ballistic missiles, it's likely to result in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps running the country, which is an objectively worse outcome, both for the U.S. and the 50,000 protesters Iran has rounded up after President Trump claimed we'd protect them.
INSKEEP: I want to just define that term, Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps. We're talking about this sort of alternate army in Iran that is supposed to guard Iran's Islamic Revolution. So that would be a regime change without actually a change in regime, much as we did see in Venezuela. Is that what you mean?
SCHAKE: Yeah, except that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is actually worse. In Venezuela, we left the defense minister, the interior minister and the complicit vice president in power. But in Iran, if we move against the government, in all likelihood, something worse - you won't just get the status quo, you'll get something objectively worse in power.
INSKEEP: Are you saying that in both the case of Ukraine and Iran, the administration is walking up to the table with what they feel like they want without actually reviewing what they think they can realistically get?
SCHAKE: (Laughter) Yes, they're not actually negotiating. They're not taking into account what is achievable and the compromises necessary to make progress, nor are they coming with the full suite of American power. They are over-optimizing the use of military force and not engaging the things that are going to make the use of military force add up to strategic achievements.
INSKEEP: Kori Schake is with the American Enterprise Institute. Thanks so much.
SCHAKE: It's a pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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