Up next in 10
'Trump isn't concerned about toppling Iran's regime', says his former advisor | LBC
3K views
Jun 20, 2025
Andrew Marr is joined by former deputy national security advisor to Donald Trump, Victoria Coates, and former chief of MI6, Sir John Sawers, to discuss whether the U.S. will join the Israel-Iran conflict. Victoria Coates said President Trump remains undecided but may consider a targeted strike to halt Iran’s nuclear programme, avoiding full-scale war or regime change. Both guests emphasise the risks of escalation and stress that any action should be limited to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. They also agree on the need for caution and avoiding wider conflict in the Middle East. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #andrewmarr #politics #donaldtrump #iran #israel #middleeast #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
View Video Transcript
0:00
And the biggest questions, of course, are about our real options and what's really going on now inside the Trump administration
0:06
So I am delighted to be joined this evening in the studio by John Soares, the former chief of MI6 and founder of Newbridge Advisors
0:14
and Victoria Coates, the former deputy national security advisor to Donald Trump and one of the longest serving staffers in his last administration
0:22
Victoria, it's great to have you in the in the studio. Thanks so much for coming in
0:25
I guess the big question is what is he going to do and not even you know that for sure but I'm very very interested in the dilemma that he is he's working through because he has always been a man against foreign entangments against foreign wars and that was part of the make America great again the MAGA manifesto and yet now he finds himself quite close to actually starting one
0:45
Well, it's very good to be with you, Andrew. Sir John, it's a pleasure to share the desk with you
0:53
You're absolutely correct. I don't think he's made up his mind. He said as much that he'll make up his mind with the most information he can have before he has to make up his mind
1:02
And he is against wars. And in this case, I think what he would tolerate would be a very targeted, specific mission and strike, similar to what he did with Qasem Soleimani
1:13
That was a one-time shot, and there was not a significant response to it, but I think that would be what he would be in the mood to authorize
1:23
So in a sense, there's a gap between him and what the Israelis are now talking pretty clearly about regime change, but he'll be more interested in removing the possibility of nuclear weapons and leaving it there
1:34
Absolutely, and I think it is important that the United States not be in the business of regime change for Iran
1:40
That's not in our vital national security interests. I can see how the Israelis could see it in theirs, but it isn't in ours
1:47
We're there because the president has laid down a red line that this regime will not get a nuclear weapon
1:53
And so whatever he might or might not authorize is going to be closely directed and limited to that
2:00
And so that's, I think, what would be persuasive to him to take that action
2:06
And that means these bunker-busting bombs. But there are reports from Washington that the American military are not sure they would work
2:13
And if they didn't work, you'd have to use a tactical nuclear weapon. And that, I would guess, be one stage too much, even for President Trump
2:19
That would be another very weighty decision to have to make. And, you know, the U.S. military is rightly very cautious about these things
2:27
They don't want to oversell and then underperform. So I'm not surprised to hear that
2:32
Is there a kind of sort of philosophical political division going on here between, as it were, the traditional nationalists who support President Trump
2:40
I'm thinking of people like Steve Bannon. I'm thinking of Tucker Carlson and various people like that on the one hand
2:45
And a slightly more neoconservative part of the MAGA base who are more enthusiastic about defending Israel at all costs and less sort of scrupulous about going to war
2:54
I don't think I would cast it that way because we at the Heritage Foundation do not consider ourselves neocons by any stretch of the imagination
3:03
I wasn't necessarily talking about you. We are very robust in our support of Israel, and we do see that as a vital national security interest that needs to be defended, not only because of the extraordinary performance they've put on
3:15
I mean, this has been a master class for the last six days, and that is because of a significant investment on the part of the U.S. taxpayer, as well as the ingenuity and bravery of the IDF
3:27
So from my perspective that something I want to protect We put a lot of money into it Let me ask you one final question about the way President Trump is operating Because you watched him work very closely for a long time
3:41
He is kind of playing with everybody at the moment. He's saying we're going to do something really big, really terrible
3:46
Just wait till next week. Just you wait. Just you wait. And then he says, nobody knows what I'm going to do
3:51
Nobody can tell. Just wait and see. It's almost like he's enticing
3:55
trying to entice the Iranians back to the negotiating table. a bit of threat, a bit of enticement. Let's see what they do
4:02
I think he has an audience of one there, which is the Supreme Leader. And what he wants the Supreme Leader to say is yes to the deal that he proposed
4:10
And I think he would not disagree with the Prime Minister. He wants diplomacy. He tried diplomacy
4:15
What he doesn't want is the diplomatic doom loop we got into in the previous administration
4:20
where the negotiations just went on and on and on, regardless of their behavior
4:24
I'll come back to you in just one sec, Victoria Coates. But let's turn now to Sir John Sawyers, former head of MI6
4:30
And, man, you must have been watching. There was Cobra and then there have been more meetings again today
4:34
You know what it's all like. You were there back in the day. I don't know if we could mention Iraq so early in the process
4:40
but you know what it's like. Keir Starmer has a really difficult decision to take, doesn't he
4:46
about whether or not to back Trump if Trump goes to war? Well, first of all, we don't know how this is going to unfold
4:53
I think there is a case for President Trump to take the decision to support the Israeli action
5:00
but in a way that Victoria describes, very carefully targeted on the nuclear facilities
5:06
which are deep underground and beyond the reach of Israel. Sorry, to be absolutely clear, you would support, if you were advising President Trump
5:13
you would say, bomb that nuclear facility and do it quickly? We're in a situation now, it may not be entirely of our own choosing
5:20
but the Israelis have created a new situation on the ground with considerable military success
5:25
the worst thing in the world would be to bring that to an end with a deeply angered and aggrieved administration in a regime in Tehran
5:35
which still has a nuclear program that it can turn to. Because one day they'd use it
5:39
One day they would use it. The point about... I'll get on to the Keir Starmer point in a minute
5:43
But the point about this nuclear program, and we've been negotiating for 20 years
5:49
I started this back in 2003 when Jack Straw was Foreign Secretary. And the Iranians have built up a nuclear program
5:59
which can only have one purpose, which is a military goal, to have the capability to produce nuclear weapons
6:05
Because the uranium is so enriched. Yeah. To have a civil nuclear power station
6:11
you need uranium enriched about 4%. There are a few sort of rarefied medical purposes
6:16
which require a bit higher, but the only thing that requires 60% and above is nuclear weapons
6:22
And why have they buried it 80 meters under rock and concrete to protect it
6:26
They clearly have a military plan in mind. And that's always been the conviction of not just the Americans and ourselves
6:33
but the French and Germans and probably the Russians as well, when we've been negotiating with the Iranians
6:38
Now, what is Keir Starmer's position on this? Well, I think he has sort of a couple of decisions to take
6:45
first of all about the use of Diego Garcia where the American B2 is likely to be based
6:50
the island based in the Indian Ocean. Which is where they would fly from to bomb this nuclear base
6:56
Can I just ask you about that? Because there seems to be some confusion. After the deal that been struck is it entirely in Britain gift to say yes go ahead or not go ahead Or do we have to talk to Mauritius as well I don think we need to talk to Mauritius no That not part of this deal And it would be very odd indeed having gone the extra mile to ensure that America can have an ongoing military base in Diego Garcia
7:19
that we should raise any reservations about how it's used. That's a matter for the United States
7:23
So that's the first thing. The second thing is, do we get involved in any way militarily
7:29
And I think there's no real pressure on Keir Starmer to do that. no one's asking us to be involved
7:35
we haven't been involved in the planning for these operations we don't have any unique capabilities
7:40
that we can provide so why would we need to get involved? I guess there's Akrotiri and Cyprus
7:46
the base there if the Americans wanted to use that and in the past
7:49
the last time there was a huge blizzard of Iranian missiles aimed at Israel of course the RAF was part of the coalition
7:55
trying to defend Israel and I think there would be a case for defending Israel again
8:00
But again, that's perhaps a more balanced political decision as to whether we should do that again
8:05
But I would have thought there was a case for doing so. I mean, we, like successive U.S. presidents, have always said Iran can never have a nuclear weapon
8:14
And I think the Israelis decided to preempt this whole argument by launching this strike because there was an opportunity to do so
8:23
Just coming on to the legal aspects of this, it's not an imminent thing, this nuclear weapon
8:28
And nobody thinks that they're about to actually put it together and have it. I mean, certainly the Americans don't think that
8:34
So it's a bit strange that this is the moment to kind of remove it from them, isn't it
8:38
And doesn't that cause legal problems if we got further involved? Well, Andrew, are you suggesting we should wait until the Iranians have a nuclear weapon and then take military action against them
8:46
That doesn't sound to me very wise. Well, I'm just going back to the Iraq war, where the whole argument was about the imminence of the threat
8:52
And I can remember a young lawyer called Keir Starmer saying it had to be imminent, otherwise we wouldn't have legal cover
8:57
So, imminence is about preemptive action. This is preventive action. We all know, because of the monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Authority
9:06
what Iran's capabilities are, how much enrichment they've got, enriched material they've got, how many centrifuges they've got, and so on
9:13
The one thing we don't know about is their plan to turn that into a nuclear weapon
9:18
I was reading just before we came on air an article in The Economist that suggests that Israel has shared some intelligence
9:25
of an accelerated program of weaponization. I don't know whether that's true or not
9:31
I have no basis for assessing it. But I don't think this hangs on the same sort of intelligence assessment
9:38
because it's very clear to any objective observer what Iran's long-term objective was
9:44
And the Israelis saw a window of opportunity to deal with it. Let me just open up to both of you
9:49
One thing that concerns me is whether this produces a wider war
9:53
We've been speaking to people in Tehran, and they're clear that they would attack American forces around the Gulf in Qatar
10:00
and the other states there. And, of course, after Iraq, the Iraq war, Iraq started to come apart a bit
10:07
Now, Iran is, I think it's about 50%, 60% Persian, but there's very, very big minority groups there who feel they've been oppressed
10:16
The possibilities, or is there a wider collapse in that part of the world, are quite high, aren't they
10:21
There is a possibility, and I agree very much with Victoria on this
10:25
that the goal should be to do as much damage as possible to the nuclear program
10:31
rather than to go for regime change. Because regime change, how do you achieve regime change from the air
10:36
That's extremely difficult. It not like Syria six months ago when with one push the Assad regime fell but there was a militia the Ahmad al was able to go to Damascus and restore a degree of order
10:50
and provide a basis for a future state. I'm not aware of any militia inside Iran that has that capacity to do so
10:57
So the answer would either be, you know, if the Ayatollah's regime collapses
11:02
you would either have the military taking over or you'd have some form of ethnic fragmentation
11:05
I don't think either is in our interest. It could be worse than what we've got. And I think we'd have to go back to negotiations with whatever is left of this Iranian regime
11:14
to try to negotiate a way forward so that Iran's nuclear program is permanently erased
11:20
How much worry is there in the states, in Washington, Victoria, about Iranian retaliation
11:26
We know that they're not as militarily strong as they keep saying they are. They've lost a lot of their missiles already, and the Israelis took out a lot of sites very, very easily
11:34
but they have a lot of missiles scattered around that huge country, and you, the United States, you have forces all over the place who might be vulnerable
11:43
We do, and these are the shorter-range missiles that could strike Qatar, Bahrain, UAE
11:49
The entire Fifth Fleet has sailed off from its moorings, so we are clearly taking this very seriously
11:56
I think that's the other reason that Gerald R. Ford, our newest and most capable aircraft carrier
12:03
joining the Carl Vinson and the Nimitz in the region. That is a ton of air cover, a number of destroyers there
12:11
And so I think that that is also a bottom line, a fundamental line for the president, that our people be protected
12:18
And that is why all that is there. The one other thing the Iranians could do
12:23
which would cause absolute mayhem, is try to close the Straits of Hormuz. And if we saw the oil spike, the oil price really spike again
12:30
they could push the whole world into economic recession. Well, they've tried this in the past, and I think in that case, they are also doing enormous damage to themselves and to their largest customer, which is China
12:45
And China might not be thrilled with that. They might well not be, yes
12:48
We have much greater capacity now to surge product if we need to, to mitigate that
12:56
So that is one of the reasons the 2019 attack on Abbaqaq on the massive Saudi oil processing center was not as dramatic as they wanted it to be
13:07
So they are very willing to do sort of geopolitical energy terrorism, for want of a better phrase
13:14
But I think, A, we can defend against it more effectively. and B, we are not as beholden to the Strait of Hormats as a vital national interest of the United States
13:24
as we were in 1980 when President Carter declared that one. Very interesting indeed. Victoria Coates, thank you very much indeed
13:32
Sir John Sawyer, one last point. I think you're right to look at this issue of how the Iranians would retaliate
13:39
I think we have to recognize that a weakened Iranian regime with a deep resentment against the United States and Israel
13:46
will pursue what you might call asymmetric responses. And possible they've got sleeper cells in this country
13:51
We've seen already that they've tried to assassinate Iranian dissidents in this country
13:56
There was a report in The Times recently that Iranians were plotting an attack on the Israeli embassy here
14:02
I think we should probably expect more of these things, but that would be the job of the security services to foil them and prevent them happening
14:09
which by and large they've achieved in both our country and the United States. All right, Sir John, Victoria, both
14:15
Thank you both very much indeed
#news