Nancy, let's go to the rest of the world.
Let's go to the rest of the world.
And my first question for you is -- okay, so Pakistan and Iran are suddenly attacking each other, and we did not have that one on the bingo card.
Is it a blip and a burst and it's not something that the American administration is going to pay attention to, or is this just a sign of decomposition and destabilization across the greater Middle East?
NANCY YOUSSEF: So, I'll tell you what I thought was really interesting, that you saw those strikes and counterstrikes between Pakistan and Iran.
And in the 24-hour period around that, we saw Iran conduct strikes by its military in Iraq and in Syria, three countries in a 24-hour period.
Remember that Iran historically has used proxies in places like Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and in Pakistan.
And so, to me, what was interesting this week, we saw a much more aggressive Iran coming forward with its own military to assert itself.
Some of that, I think, was for domestic politics.
Some of that was to sort of position itself in the region as a voice in a state that has to be reckoned with.
Some of it was what it saw as self-defense.
In the case of Pakistan, what we saw almost immediately was an effort to de-escalate.
I think what we saw from both nations was an effort to say, we're not going to tolerate these kinds of strikes in our borders, but we're also not looking to escalate.
And so you saw diplomatic efforts almost immediately after the strike by Iran and the counterstrike by Pakistan.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I mean, Iran is busy right now in Lebanon, Gaza and the Houthis.
I want to come to the Houthis really quick.
NANCY YOUSSEF: But they're not at the frontline.
They're not at the front -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: No, but they got to pay attention to this, especially with the Houthis who seem uncontrollable.
I mean, they're a proxy that's very hard to get a handle on.
But I want to ask you this and then join the rest.
The interesting thing to me about the Houthis right now is Elliot Cohen, writing in The Atlantic, made this point.
He called the American strikes against the Houthis, he called it therapeutic bombing, which I thought was an interesting expression.
It's like it's bombing designed to make us feel like we're doing something, we, the Americans, are doing something, but it's not enough.
It's obviously not stopping the Houthis.
They seem to be pretty filled with vinegar about the whole, the whole thing.
So, the question is, as we move into this fateful year for America, American national security, American foreign policy, are we going to be in June, July, August still talking about the Biden administration's inability to get the Houthi situation under control?
NANCY YOUSSEF: I think potentially.
The thing is, remember, the Houthis have been in a war for a decade with the Saudis and have not been put down.
Their capabilities are vast.
While the U.S. has done at least six strikes since January 11th, that in and of itself isn't going to be able to stop them from being a threat to ships transiting.
Now, they could be less of a threat, have less radar, less launchers to do those strikes over time.
But if the U.S. is not looking to escalate and face a potential direct conflict with Iran, who's the Houthi backers, and at the same time it wants to put down the strikes, I don't think this is something that can be solved strictly through military strikes.
I think the key country is actually not the US, but China.
If we start to see China speak up and say, look, your strikes are hurting our ships' ability, our economy, because we can't transit through the Red Sea, then I think we see an impact.
We saw a little sign of that this week when China said to publicly, we need you to sort of clamp it down.
They're not willing to work with the U.S. so far, but they are signaling that this potentially hurts our economy.
So, when I think about putting down the Houthis, I don't think this is within just U.S. military capability.
It has to be some of countries like China coming forward and saying this is hurting us, and therefore we need you to stop conducting these strikes.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, here's like a big looming question.
You know, Biden is fighting with Netanyahu now about the two-state solution and about the actions in Gaza.
You've got the Houthi situation, of course, and managing the Saudis is a huge challenge for any American administration, for Biden especially.
You've got North Korea being especially bellicose-sounding.
China is talking about that.
I mean, it's interesting how -- no, no, no.
What's interesting is how for the last couple of years, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine now falls into this like category in the -- in this middle category.
But here's the key Ukraine question.
If Russia starts gaining territory back, you know, or starts going on the offense against Ukraine, even taking a few square kilometers, you know, you could see a narrative develop that, wow, Joe Biden doesn't really have a handle on the way the world is going.
And so the question is, you know, could this be, you know -- you cover the White House.
I mean, how worried are they that the world seems to be spinning a little bit too much out of control, worried for the world's sake, worried for national security's sake, but also worried politically?
ASMA KHALID: I think as it relates to the Israel-Gaza conflict, you do hear a degree of optimism from them that the fighting will move to a less intense phase, more humanitarian aid will be able to get in, and that the conflict will look different.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Maybe some hostages will come out and a ceasefire.
ASMA KHALID: They seem optimistic about that.
But to your point, I think, to me, this is bigger than what's going on specifically in Gaza, which is President Biden, he gave a very prominent foreign policy speech before he ever took office during the campaign.
And his pitch was essentially that America was back, that American leadership was going to be back on the world stage in a way that it, in his view, was not there during Donald Trump.
And you're seeing that.
Now, it's striking to hear you talk about China being the country in this moment that could potentially alleviate tensions, because that's really not where the United States is at this point.
And I think that there is a question about America's reliability if Congress can't particularly provide this funding for Ukraine.
Then where does Europe look?
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes, go ahead.
NANCY YOUSSEF: I think that's such a good point.
And he also said that the U.S. would be the defenders of democracy and here, in Ukraine, you're seeing that fight.
To me, it could go one of two ways in that you could argue that the world is so unstable right now in conflict in so many places and that the Biden administration is not handling it well.
You could also argue that because the world is so complex and there are so many conflicts going on and they're so nuanced, you need somebody with decades of experience to manage it.
So, it seems to me, if you're a voter, I think that's the question you're asking yourself.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But, Adam, I somehow don't think that Donald Trump is going to take the position just articulated by Nancy that, oh, well, Donald Trump is going to say, hey, look, Joe Biden, he's an old guy and he can't handle all this.
ADAM HARRIS: Well, one of the first things, a couple of days ago, maybe about a week ago, Trump actually said on the campaign trail, right, I am the first president in years and years that didn't have any wars, right?
And to voters, are they going to go back and check that?
Are they going to read the Snoops or Washington Post fact-check?
Is this base actually going to be -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I mean, if there's a meme on TikTok, then they will definitely go check it but I'm not so confident that they're going to fact-check it.
But no, Eugene, in the last seconds that we have left, I mean, can you imagine -- it's very rare that an election hinges on foreign policy but can you imagine this one?
EUGENE DANIELS: Yes, absolutely.
We wrote in playbook months ago.
Not to shake our shoulders, but we did say that this could be one of the first foreign policy elections that we've ever had because of what's going on.
And Donald Trump and Biden have such stark different views of the world in ways that we haven't seen in a really long time.
