Konstantin Kisin: The Iran War, Europe’s Decline, and the Future of the West (Transcript)

That’s irrespective of cultural fit, cultural compatibility, and all the rest of it.

But then you add on top of that that we have a problem that you do not have to nearly the same extent in the United States, which is we don’t have a British dream or a French dream or a German dream. There is no vision for what it means to be British. People get very uncomfortable even if they’re asked to define Britishness or to talk about British values or whatever.

Whereas an American — a first generation American, someone who comes here — you guys all know what the American dream is, which is: you work hard, you make money, you get rich, you respect the law, you respect the Constitution, etc. And historically speaking, I think you’ve been very successful at integrating people from all over the world.

In Europe, that is not the case, partly because we don’t have a positive vision that we’re trying to sell people. And therefore we also don’t know what it is that we should insist on when we say to people, “You must integrate.” Integrate into what? Right, exactly.

And so that has given the people on the more progressive side of things — who actually think the idea of integration is silly and pointless — an opening. In fact, the quote is, “Diversity is our greatest strength.” It’s a claim with no evidence, but nonetheless, they will say, “Well, what do you mean? Are you saying that Muslim people should go to the pub and drink beer?” Because that is how we’ve come to think of it, because we’re not very clear on what it means to be us. And that’s a challenge.

And then of course, on top of that, you have the issue of Islamism, which is separate, in my view. There are people who disagree about this, but in my view it’s quite clear now from other countries around the world — like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan, where I was earlier last year — that it’s perfectly possible for countries with Muslim populations to deal with the problem of Islamic extremism and Islamism, as I would call it, if they’re prepared to be honest about that problem and actually do something about it.

We in Europe have not been honest and have not been prepared to do anything about it. And so we have a situation where — you can look this up, this was in the Guardian several years ago — more British Muslims joined ISIS and Al-Nusra than joined the British Army. So you have this discrepancy when, on the one hand, you don’t encourage integration and people clearly don’t feel like it’s their duty to serve their country. On the other hand, there is a minority within that community who are serving something else.

Assimilation: Europe vs. America

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Well, this comes up a lot because people look at the American picture and say America’s done a good job of assimilating immigrants in a way that they might not say about Europe. And your point about there not being a bigger picture to get on board with — like the American dream — is interesting. One might also say that in a lot of European countries, the barrier into society is high. For example, if you move to France and your French isn’t perfect, you might be cast out in a way, and then it might incentivize people to ghettoize themselves or not even try. And I’m curious what you make of that line of thinking or that argument.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: If you are looking for evidence of that, you can always find evidence. But my experience — I came to Britain in 1995 for the first time, but sort of came to stay really in 1996 — I found Britain to be an incredibly welcoming place. Is America more welcoming to immigrants? Sure. But I think it would be absurd to claim, as some people do, that European countries are hostile to immigrants. They’re not. But they are increasingly going to become hostile to immigrants as this continues.

And by the way, the one other point I think I should add is all of the things I’ve just described happened against the expressly stated wishes of the electorate. The British electorate voted against immigration in 2010, in 2015, in 2016, in 2017, in 2019, and in 2024. And at all of those elections, they were promised that the things we’re talking about would end, and they weren’t delivered.

And so, on the one hand, you have the issue, and then you have the massive frustration about the issue and about being lied to, which is now welling up. And that’s why you see these populist movements on the right.

But also — and this speaks to the point you made earlier — in Britain, actually, the fastest rising party is not the populist right, which would be Reform. It’s the Greens. And the popularity of the far left is a product of effectively poverty, as economic stagnation continues in a way that it hasn’t done here. You guys are growing economically. It’s one of the things that makes life easier. We don’t have that. And so the populist left, which says “eat the rich, tax the rich,” they are now rising very rapidly as well.

So my fear for Europe and Britain is that what you’re likely to see is the far left versus the far right.

Political Shifts: Is the Rhetoric Changing?

RAFAELA SIEWERT: I want to get to all of that. I just want to ask you one more on this, which is there seems to at least be a rhetorical change in a lot of the European leaders. A lot of people look at Denmark as a role model country, and they’ve moved asylum claims outside of Denmark. Keir Starmer apologized for “incalculable damage done by mass migration.” Friedrich Merz increased deportations. There’s been a little bit of a change, at least in terms of the way they’re talking. What does that signal and where do you think that is going?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: What it signals is they’ve worked out that the body politic and the electorate will no longer tolerate this. However, I wouldn’t read too much into it.

I always quote the statistics. And it’s true — after Keir Starmer said what he said, much of that speech, by the way, he walked back. But nonetheless, more people come into Britain illegally today than came legally the year that I came to Britain. More people come illegally than came legally 30 years ago. So if you want to understand what has happened, that sentence sums it up.

We used to have an immigration system which I think worked really well, which is: you handpick the best and the brightest from around the world, you make sure that they are compatible in different ways, that they are going to get a job and all these other things, and you welcome those people to your society in manageable numbers, and you really make sure there is no illegal immigration to speak of.

And then what happened is we suddenly decided the borders are racist, or whatever nonsense. And by the way, this to a large extent happened in your country as well. In my book — An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West — I give the quotes from your Bill Clintons and Barack Obamas and others who were all far, far to the right of Donald Trump on immigration. All of them. Because it was universally understood that illegal immigration in particular harms Americans — particularly if you’re on the left, like Bernie Sanders — through the jobs market, where it drives down the wages of your existing citizens.

So I think, yes, you’re right, the mood music and politics is shifting, but the practical reality is not.

Europe’s Economic Malaise

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Let’s go to the economy, which you brought up. Europe has been defined in the past 10 years — maybe more than that — as economic malaise. I pulled this one stat in preparation for this: over the last 20 years, the EU’s GDP growth barely averaged 1%. The US was about double that. Why is Europe not thriving economically? We touched on net zero briefly.

Europe’s Economic Decline: Culture, Policy, and the Path Forward

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, first of all, let’s touch on net zero again because it’s worth touching on. In Britain, we have the highest industrial electricity prices in the developed world. And in many other European countries, it’s also the case that they have very high energy costs. So if you want to run a manufacturing business, energy will be one of your key inputs. It’s one of the things. So it’s like if you’re a bakery and the price of dough goes up, it’s harder to run a bakery. So if you want to have industry in your country and you make yourself the most expensive place to do it, you’re not going to have industry.

And of course, if you look around now and you look at what is really driving all the growth, it’s tech and AI, right? Very energy intensive, very energy intensive. So if you have that position where you don’t produce your energy and you import expensive energy from abroad, you’re not going to be able to compete. So that’s one of them.

The other reason is, and it’s something that people in America don’t understand unless they go to Europe, and people in Europe don’t understand unless they go to America. The extent to which Europe has become — I mean, decadent is a word that sort of doesn’t really convey it very well — but Europe has become stagnant mentally. When we come to America to film episodes for Trigonometry, we meet lots and lots of people and everybody’s, “Hey, let’s work together. Oh, let me introduce you to that guy.” There’s a kind of “let’s get s* done” culture here.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Sort of maybe like the memeified version of this is that Americans don’t take lunch breaks. You know, the conception is that Europeans are taking like hour-long lunch breaks.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: And some of them are. Look, I’m not against lunch breaks per se, but what there is, is a kind of lack of a go-get-it mentality, which I think is striking to Americans, and the opposite of that is striking to us. So I actually make a point of trying to bring as many people from our team into that mindset, which we got here. Like when we first came to the United States to interview people, we had a different mindset, and it was discovering the way people are here that really helped us open up our eyes to the possibility and to the opportunity that are available.

A lot of it is about culture, and then it comes to that culture being reflected in the tax system, which is obviously another huge part of it. I think in Britain in particular, but I think in many European countries, there is the sense that really we don’t want people to get too rich, and what we need to do is tax them as much as possible. There’s a kind of feeling that wealth is automatically an ill-gotten thing. In America you’re like, “Oh, that guy’s rich. Well, I want to be like that guy. So what do I do to be like that guy?”

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Sure.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: In Britain it’s like, “That guy’s rich, I need to take his money and give it to other people.”

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Mm.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: You know what I mean? And that’s partly a more communitarian approach. There might be some strengths to that. But overall I think it’s the cultural attitude that is the number one thing. And then that’s reflected in government policy when it comes to things like tax and regulation.

I mean, the funniest thing I remember seeing in the last years — when Nicolas Maduro was snatched from Venezuela, there was that picture of him with a blindfold and the handcuffs and he’s holding this plastic bottle — and there was a statement from the European Union. “This bottle cap is non-regulated, not compliant with our regulation.” You know, it was a joke, but it kind of is like that. They’re literally regulating bottle caps and all this other stuff, and regulation is automatically going to put a drag on the economy.

Can European Culture Change?

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Well, I want to unpack everything that you just said, and starting with culture — do you think it’s possible to change the culture? I mean, not everyone is going to be able to take an American field trip and learn the ways of American dynamism. And I’m curious if you think it’s possible.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I do think it’s possible, but I think in order to change, real change requires very serious motivation. I don’t know if you found this in your own personal life, but people tend to change when they have some kind of breakdown or something goes really bad. And then you kind of go, “Oh, maybe I need to start looking for things that will help me be different.” People don’t tend to change dramatically for no reason.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Right. So it has to get worse.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I think I’ve been an accelerationist about Britain for a very long time. I don’t think people will wake up and smell the coffee until there’s a serious fiscal crisis, which we may well be heading towards. I mean, all the credible economists that I’ve heard lately are saying that that is likely to happen. And at that point, sure, the culture can change.

I mean, we saw it in the 70s. We had the winter of discontent. We went down to a three-day week, bodies weren’t being buried, trash was piling up in the streets. And then after that you had the Thatcher revolution and there were totally different cultural attitudes. So culture can change, but I think it takes some very, very strong stimuli for that to be the case.

What Would It Take to Keep European Founders in Europe?

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Well, one component of what we were just talking about is that there seems to be European founders who just moved to the United States. And I think that segues us into going deeper on the other points you made, which is what would it take to keep them in Europe? Particularly changes in the regulatory framework and the tax structure. If you had a magic wand that you could wave to change those two pillars that at the moment could be crippling innovation, what would you change?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I don’t think there is a magic wand for these things. And so you’re going to have to change the culture first, and all of this other stuff is downstream. If we had a different culture, then we would have a different politics, then we would have different regulations or less regulation, etc. So right now I could say to you, “Well, you need to lower energy prices and you need to reduce taxes.” But the British public don’t want that. They don’t agree with me. The British public want high taxes and lots of redistribution, and they believe in net zero and they think that they are saving the planet. Do you see what I’m saying?

RAFAELA SIEWERT: But they don’t want high energy prices.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: They don’t want high energy prices, but most people don’t understand why we have high energy prices. They think it’s gas companies price gouging or taking advantage, or it’s, you know, the rich don’t pay their — it gets very confusing for a lot of people. So most people haven’t made that connection. One of the reasons I’ve been banging on about net zero as much as I have is I’m trying to communicate to lots of people in Britain and in Europe that the reason we are where we are is partly because of that, and that’s an uphill battle all on its own.

Eastern Europe as a Model: Poland and Estonia

RAFAELA SIEWERT: One country that people look to lately is Poland. It surpassed Switzerland, as my understanding goes, in terms of economic activity. Another country people laud is Estonia. What do you think is going right in terms of economic productivity and output in a country like Poland or Estonia?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, as an Eastern European, I’m extremely unsurprised by the fact that Eastern Europe is doing better. Because if you remember, when we started our conversation, I talked about luxury beliefs. People who lived through Soviet communism don’t have a lot of luxury beliefs. And so they don’t do the stupid things that we’ve done. I think it’s a Rand quote that you can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. They understand how the world actually works, and so they’ve been much more pragmatic about mass immigration. They’ve been much more pragmatic about economic growth and all these other things.

Europe’s Dependence: A Utopian Worldview Gone Wrong

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Do you think a portion of European leaders have just sort of given up and said, “You know, it’s okay to be reliant”? I mean, my understanding is that Europe is reliant on the US for arms and military, which is sort of a downstream consequence of manufacturing; reliant on Russia and the Gulf for energy, a consequence of, as you pointed out earlier, shutting nuclear projects; reliant on American tech companies, AI, semiconductors. That they’ve just sort of given up and accepted reliance.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Yeah, I don’t know that they gave up and accepted reliance. I think it was a much more utopian worldview. If you think about what has happened really since World War II, Europe has been effectively — and the United States, frankly — entirely unthreatened. No one was invading Europe. No one was likely to invade the United States. The United States hasn’t had the luxury of this because you guys have to have the biggest military and use it to maintain the world order such as we’ve had. But Europe didn’t have that constraint.

And so we lived in this world where it’s actually worse than what you described, because it’s more like we just thought, “Well, whenever you need stuff, you’re going to be able to buy it from the market, and the prices are kind of going to stay relatively stable. Because why wouldn’t they? Because we’re going to have peace and everything’s going to be wonderful.”

So when Covid happens and suddenly you can’t import PPE from China anymore because China is not going to give it to you because they need it for their own citizens, that’s like a shock to the system. The same with energy prices. What’s happening now is the consequences of reality are coming. But we have generations of politicians who’ve lived through a very long period when they’ve been able to pretend that reality isn’t real.

And I think that’s actually the reason that we’ve ended up here. It’s not so much that we’ve got used to reliance, it’s just we kind of thought, “Well, the world is…” In many ways, the whole woke movement that we’ve seen the last 10 years is predicated on many of the same things, which is the idea that if you mess with the founding structures of us as a society, you can do that because nothing bad will happen. So you just mess with this and there will be no consequences. But the consequences are real. And I think that really is what’s happened to Britain and to Europe.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: I had one curiosity about how much of this picture is the consequence of bad government policies versus just global trends that have impacted the continent. You know, deindustrialization, offshoring. I mean, some of that was maybe mitigatable a bit with different policies, but some would just say it was bound to happen.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, there was a period when everybody embraced the idea of globalization. And globalization was effectively the idea that we now have a world market for everything which will never be disrupted. And therefore the most important thing to do is to drive down the price of everything. Because if we import our drugs from other countries, that’s absolutely fine because that supply will never be disrupted. And so of course it makes sense to have our things made in other countries — to the point now where Europe, I believe, has one cradle-to-grave antibiotic production facility in the entirety of the European continent.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Yeah.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: And as long as the world remains safe and relatively peaceful, and piracy is controlled by the United States Navy, and all of those other things remain the case, then that makes sense. But that world is not there anymore. You can pick whichever date you want to go back to, but I think it certainly would have and should have been clear during the pandemic. And then with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that world is just not there anymore. And now people are scrambling to adjust to the new realities of the world.

The Failure of Europe’s Centrist Leaders

RAFAELA SIEWERT: I was looking at the approval ratings of the E3 leaders — Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz, and Keir Starmer. Way lower than the right wing, like Giorgia Meloni, for example. I think it’s like 16%, 21%, 23% versus 42% for Giorgia Meloni. What’s preventing the center from making sweeping changes? Obviously their approval ratings are quite low, but you’re kind of giving it an interesting perspective, which is that a lot of people still want some of these luxury belief positions. And so my question to you is, clearly things aren’t going right, their approval ratings are low — why not make big changes?

The Rise of Populism and the Hollowing Out of the Center

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, I don’t know enough about French and German politics to comment. And as I understand it, Mertz is kind of signaling a movement to the right. But with Keir Starmer, why not make dramatic changes? It’s very easy because his own party would not let him. And his own party believes that the way to solve their problems is to move further to the left.

And in some ways it makes sense because as I said, actually, in addition to the right wing populism, there’s a fast growing left wing populism, and they have to head that off. And by the way, they’ve tried. I mean, they’ve tried to. For example, one of the biggest issues we have in Britain is the welfare bill, which is completely unsustainable. And they tried to reform it. Their own back benches, their own people within their own party wouldn’t let them.

So they just don’t have the ability to do what’s necessary because they’re held to ransom by their own party. And by a lot of the people, like you, rightly said, by a lot of the electorate who want left wing economics.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Do you think if a figure like Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, was in power, the picture could be different, or do you think it would be broadly the same?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I think Kemi is smart and she has some good ideas, but her party was in power and they were in power for the last 14 years, however long it was. And we saw that they were not able to do the things that even she’s now saying she will do. So one of the issues that she has is convincing people who watched her party for the last 14 years not do the things that she’s now saying that she will do them. And that’s a hard sell.

Nigel Farage and the Reform Party

RAFAELA SIEWERT: The candidate that’s growing is, I mean, a lot of people know Nigel Farage, but now Americans know him, too. As his profile rises, should people give him a try as an alternative?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, I do not tell people how to vote, but I do think he will be very popular at the next election because he is speaking to the issues that the majority of the country care about, and he offers a fresh go. This is the difference between the Conservatives and Reform. Nigel Farage’s party, they are not seen as having had 14 years to do the things that they’re saying. And we’ve had Nigel on Triggernometry many, many times. I think he’s been pretty consistent about what he believes should be done.

But people should be under no illusion. Even if he is elected and becomes prime minister, he’s going to have a very, very difficult job on his hands turning things around for the reasons that we discussed, which is the cultural attitudes and the views of the majority of the public who do want a lot of things that may not be compatible with other things that they also want.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: They’re speaking to the issues. Obviously the word fringe has a negative connotation, but some of these more fringe political actors, do you think they have the political savvy to actually make a difference? I mean, people cling to political rhetoric. And it goes in tandem with maybe feeling like the center wasn’t speaking honestly about immigration or about the hollowing out of whatever the European equivalent is of the American Rust Belt, maybe like the coal mines of Northern England, I don’t know. But do you think they have anything more than rhetoric, like actual ability to make changes?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I think they recognize, certainly from observing Reform, they recognize that they are primarily a rhetorically based organization so far. And so they have tried to bring in lots and lots of people who either have been in government or who understand how the British civil service works. So they are trying to mitigate that.

But then, it’s also true that no leader in history really comes in — well, in this country, Donald Trump’s pretty much the only one who came in having had experience in government before at that level. So it’s pretty normal.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Well, in his second term.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, that’s what I mean.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Yeah, yeah.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: So he’d already had a term.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Right, right.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Right. Before when he came back in 2024. But it’s kind of normal for people who are coming in not to have, especially the leader, not to have huge experience in government. Typically, of course, the big parties have a kind of structure that has that institutional knowledge. Reform do not. But they will try to get as much of it as they can. Whether they’re successful, I mean, that is a big question. This is why I wouldn’t tell people how to vote, because I just think Europe and Britain are in very difficult situations that will be very difficult to get out of. So I certainly wouldn’t sit here and say Reform are the way to go. I do not know.

The Hollowing Out of Center Politics

RAFAELA SIEWERT: People worry about Europe being dominated by far right and far left. Maybe this is like Steve Bannon’s dream. But other people look at this and say, like, oh, this could lead to a lot of destabilization. And I’m curious how you think of the hollowing of center politics and the growth on both sides and what the larger consequence, or maybe not consequence, is.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, look, Reform certainly I wouldn’t describe as far right at all. I would see them as center right. Whereas the Conservative Party moved, as far as I can tell, not just to the center, but on many issues when they were in government, they moved to the left in terms of their actual behavior.

The hollowing out of the center, I think is a natural consequence of the fact that the center ignored the people and the scale of the problems our countries face. I mean, I think it’s very clear if you look at Europe, that there is a rise in both the far left and the far right. And I won’t sit here and say that’s a good thing because I don’t know that it is. But I do think it’s an inevitable consequence of what we’ve seen. The poor government, the mismanagement of mass immigration, that was always going to produce these consequences.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Do you see a scenario where the populace abandoned some of the vanity — I mean, maybe that’s too judgmental of language — but these sort of luxury belief positions, you know, Palestinian statehood, net zero, mass migration.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, those are different issues.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: But I guess they’re all different issues and they have different followings. But the sort of larger idea of, some might call it like rose colored glasses on.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Yeah, well, Palestinian statehood is not a luxury belief in Europe. It’s a belief that politicians have to advocate because they’re pandering to the Muslim voters whose votes they crave and need. But the other stuff, the economic and net zero stuff, they will abandon them once they realize that it’s hurting them.

But abandoning the idea that we should increase taxes to 70 or 80% and tax the rich — I don’t know if that will happen. It may go the other way. And in fact, if the far left get elected, we may in fact see a period of those policies being pursued with great vigor.

Free Speech and the Decline of Civil Liberties in Europe

RAFAELA SIEWERT: One other thing that comes up a lot at work that I want to bring up here — there’s not a perfect segue into it, but it seems to be a part of the picture — is free speech or the decline of free speech. We’ve run a lot of different articles at the Free Press about things that I think most Americans would be appalled by. They don’t even know what’s happening. A comedian who was arrested for a post on X. A Finnish parliamentarian who used the word God in a social media post and then was charged under the country’s crimes against humanity law. A 31-year-old mom who’s serving a 31-month sentence for alleged hate speech, also on X. Can you give us more context about the free speech question in Europe?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Yeah. Well, first of all, there is a cultural difference between the United States and Europe. We don’t have the same — well, we don’t have a written constitution in Britain, so we don’t have the First Amendment. And for example, Nazi parties and Nazi speech is banned in many European countries since World War II. So there’s a cultural distinction.

But the other thing is when you create a society where increasingly there are tensions around things because the government is doing things that people don’t want, suppression of speech is the natural consequence. That is what happens when you don’t want the public to be expressing concern. And so the pursuit of hate speech laws and restrictions on what people can talk about and prosecuting comedians and arresting them, like Graham Linehan at an airport for a tweet about trans and all of this other stuff, it’s a product of the fact that the government is trying to keep the lid on the pressure cooker down. They’re actually making it worse, I think. So combining the cultural and historical differences between our countries with that is how you get to where we’ve got to.

The Decline of Political Leadership in Europe

RAFAELA SIEWERT: As we’re thinking about all of these problems, who are leaders to you in Europe? In the UK, you could say across the European continent, or in the UK, because that’s where you live, that you think could do a good job leading. I mean, I was talking to some colleagues about this and they were saying to me, like, ask if there are any leaders left in Europe. And broadly the subtext of that was that they were saying there are no leaders in Europe. And so I’m curious if you think there are, and if there are, who they are.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, who are the leaders in America? The same thing has happened in both our countries. And I would say that President Trump, whether you like him or not, by the way, is an outlier in this respect. But the average caliber of the politician or the person who goes into politics and the way they behave when they get there has dramatically changed in my lifetime.

I think partly that’s because of social media, which has had a huge impact on that, because they are increasingly pandering to the media, the audience they think of through social media, as opposed to actually trying to govern the country or communicate properly. But I would say, where are the leaders in politics across our nations? Where are they and who are they? The caliber has gone down. I don’t see people of principle. I think it’s very rare now to see people of real talent and caliber.

And that’s partly because it’s kind of a sh*y job. It has become a very, very unpleasant job. In your country, it’s more well paid than in ours and there are more opportunities afterwards than in ours. But broadly speaking, if you are, say, a British parliamentarian — you may have to fact check me on this — but I think a British parliamentarian makes about $150,000 a year, which to a lot of British people is a lot of money. But if you are somebody of real caliber and talent, you can get a private sector job in which, or start a business or whatever, in which you’d make a hell of a lot more. And you don’t have all the crap that gets thrown at you and you don’t have half of the country thinking you’re evil and you don’t have to work within the constraints of whatever. You can just have a good life and enjoy a family. So it’s become a very unappealing job and therefore attracts very unappealing characters.

Why Americans Should Care About Europe

RAFAELA SIEWERT: I think one thing that I want to put to you is why should Americans care about this? Because I think they might be like, oh, I like to vacation in, I don’t know, pick your European destination. But they might say, like, does it matter?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Again, I’m not a big fan of telling people what they should care about. I think Americans should care about their country first in the same way that we should care about our country first. But I do think America has taken on the mantle of the leader of Western civilization. We are part of the same civilization and that shared history and connection is something of value.

But on a practical level, I have my disagreements with the current administration, but the one thing I think they’ve been doing that’s absolutely right is trying to encourage Europe to become more self sustaining and to take this issue seriously. And frankly, using the power of the White House to try and shape policy in certain areas in Europe, particularly when it comes to things like free speech, defense, net zero, et cetera. I think that’s a great thing.

And the reason I think, to the extent that I might recommend that American viewers care about this, is America will — you are the greatest power in the world and it’s all wonderful, but no one has ever — having strong allies has never been a problem. It’s never been a bad thing to have. Having a strong and confident and powerful European alliance with the United States will make all of us better and stronger. And from that perspective, I would hope that we take some of the advice that President Trump is not the most diplomatic about the way he’s delivering. I thought Marco Rubio did it far better.

The Iran Strategy: Skepticism and Unanswered Questions

RAFAELA SIEWERT: And you mean like increasing NATO spending and self sustaining from a military perspective.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: But if you listen to Marco Rubio, Secretary Rubio’s speech, he also talked about mass immigration, he also talked about cultural issues, he talked about free speech. All of these things matter too, because they’re part of our shared heritage. And I don’t think America wants a strong Europe that has abandoned all those values because that might not be the best alliance for the United States to have. Because partly our alliances are based not only on shared history, but also on shared cultural values as well.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Well, to that point, one thing that’s interesting about the conflict right now between the US, Israel and Iran is that some are looking at Israel and saying, wow, it’s a little bit split in the American politics. Like some people are saying Israel dragged us into this conflict and other people are saying, wow, that’s a really powerful military ally that maybe once the US would have said about some of the European allies.

If we look back in history and the next step in that thinking is had Europe been a more formidable military force, maybe Russia doesn’t invade Ukraine, and well, obviously, and so forth. And I’m wondering now in conversations if Europeans are saying, should we be a little more Israeli, so to speak, as still the junior partner in military action.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Some are, and I’m of course one of them. I’m not saying I would frame it exactly as “more Israeli.” But we need to be able to. In my book, which came out in 2022, I basically predicted the invasion of Ukraine in general terms because I basically said that the best way to prevent war is to be strong. And if you keep making yourself weak, then you’re going to end up in a bad way.

By the way, I find it fascinating, as we sit here today, Joe Kent has resigned from his position.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: He’s a top counterterrorism official, for those

KONSTANTIN KISIN: who aren’t familiar with him. And in his statement, he said that Israel dragged us into the war, which I don’t think there’s any evidence for at all. But also, I just think it’s an incredibly insulting thing to America in general and President Trump specifically to suggest that a very small country like Israel can drag America into the conflict. Clearly, President Trump thought it was in the United States’ interest to engage in this. And that I think can be true, whether you think it will go well or not.

I’m someone who, as I’ve said publicly, the coin is in the air, and I don’t think we know which way it’s going to land, but I’m increasingly skeptical that this is going to go well, personally.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Tell us a little bit more about the skepticism. I mean, I checked crude oil, I think it’s at 96 today. It’s been higher, it’s since come down. And I think a lot of Americans are really torn. So I’m curious what your perspective is.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, first of all, I think it’s fair to say that the things that people are saying about the rationale for this conflict are not true. I do not believe that it’s true that Iran was about to pose a threat to the United States.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: You think it was like a window of opportunity?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: My understanding is that they thought that they could take out Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missile program and also some of its leaders. This is the bit I understand even less than the others. And this was the opportunity to achieve that.

But the problem is, and this may be my ignorance and my lack of expertise, it’s perfectly possible, and I’m open to that possibility. President Trump, I think it’s fair to say, has proved his critics wrong on a number of occasions in the past. So I’m open to the possibility that that might happen. But currently, as I sit here, I don’t understand the strategy.

So, for example, the 12 Day War, the idea that you bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities — sign me up. I think that’s great. Wonderful. Except we now learn, and I think it’s clear, given that they’ve attacked again, we didn’t get the nuclear material at the time.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Not obliterated, as they would have.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Not obliterated. And in fact, there is some satellite imagery showing a bunch of trucks leaving those facilities.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: The 16 cargo trucks, right? Yeah.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: So clearly they didn’t get the nuclear material. And clearly, as you and I sit here today, they still haven’t got it. Otherwise, I imagine they wouldn’t be done. So we haven’t got the nuclear material. What we have done is given the Iranian regime every incentive to develop an actual nuclear weapon, because that’s how you ensure your own security. What is the one thing that would have prevented the United States and Israel —

RAFAELA SIEWERT: If they had a nuclear weapon?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: So if you are the Ayatollah, or the Ayatollah’s son, or whoever is there after he gets killed, what’s the rational thing for you to do? The rational thing for you to do would be to actually develop a nuclear weapon. And the United States and Israel haven’t destroyed your nuclear stockpile. So that’s one issue.

The other issue is regime change. I’m not clear on what the rationale is behind the timing. This may be just a practical reality of it takes X number of days or weeks to get your battle groups to the Middle East. But you just watched 30-something thousand protesters get killed. Those were the people who would have done the regime change that you wanted after you’d taken out the Ayatollah. Well, now they’re all dead. And you are now bombing people in order to do regime change.

Can you name one instance in human history when airstrikes have achieved regime change on a country of the size of Iran? Japan may be one example. You had to drop two nuclear weapons. And even about that, there’s still, as someone from the former Soviet Union, I have to say, what happened in between those two nuclear bombs being dropped is that the Soviet Union attacked Japanese forces in China. And that may have been actually the final straw as well. We don’t know.

My point being is I don’t think there’s any evidence to suggest that bombing people produces regime change, or that the regime you create as a result of that is a better one than the one you had before. So the Ayatollah gets killed, his son is injured. I think his son’s wife and son were killed. Does that make you more moderate?

Regime Change, Food Security, and an Uncertain Endgame

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Well, I think this is a good critique. Is that like $11 billion for one Khamenei to be replaced by another Khamenei? I think the idea was that the bombings would facilitate such instability that people would topple the government. That said, they’re all dead.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, they would have done the toppling.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: I mean, some people think that there’s enough middle class that’s unhappy with the regime. That said, the opposition isn’t organized. I mean, that’s like the biggest critique, is that even if there was the

KONSTANTIN KISIN: instability. And also you have 200,000 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a million men in the Iranian military, and you’re expecting middle class protesters to go up against that and be successful. I don’t think so.

And then on top of that, the other problem you’ve got is the Iranians, from what I understand, have given — I think it’s called Mosaic doctrine or something like that — whereby effectively local units have been given standing orders irrespective of who’s formally the head of the country. Which means that the Strait of Hormuz is going to remain. It’s not actually closed because Chinese vessels and Indian vessels are making their way through it. But what you have is a bunch of oil, but not just oil. You have half of the world’s traded chemical fertilizer going through that, and it’s not coming out. We are now in planting season. So you’ve got food security issues coming down the pipe, a lot of the plastic that’s made in the world, the helium which we use for cooling chip manufacturing facilities — all of this stuff. And it does not strike me that this has all been included in the strategy.

So I worry, like I said, just coming back to what I said earlier. There’s a very real possibility that President Trump is the smartest man in the world and this is the art of the deal, and everything’s going to happen wonderfully. At this point, as I sit here looking at the facts that I see, I am seriously concerned that this will drag on and will not end well, and by the way, will not lead to the stated objective even of preventing nuclear escalation or preventing nuclear breakout. So I’m just struggling to see how this ends well at this point. Doesn’t mean it won’t, but I’m struggling to see it.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: We’ll see if there’s an ace up his sleeve, but I think that’s a good place to end. Konstantin Kisin, thank you for having me. Thank you.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I always like to end on a depressing note.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: We’ll have to have you back for something more uplifting.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Unlikely, but thank you.

RAFAELA SIEWERT: Thank you so much.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Thanks for having me.

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