Napoleon: Iran offered to reopen the Strait on the seventh day, and the President said no. I once waited five weeks in Moscow for a letter like that. He is right not to wait.
Duke of Wellington: You were offered the Rhine in eighteen thirteen and refused it. By the following spring you were offered Elba.
Napoleon: A blockade is a siege, and I have never once lost an argument about sieges.
Duke of Wellington: You invented the Continental System, which is a blockade, and it took you all the way to Moscow.
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Napoleon: Arthur, we meet again on the subject of Iran, which is fast becoming the longest campaign the two of us have ever fought together, and I notice that neither of us is being paid.
Duke of Wellington: I was paid handsomely for Waterloo. Parliament bought me a country estate. You were given an island.
Napoleon: That is good. That is very good, and I resent it enormously. Here is the map. The war began in February with the killing of the old Supreme Leader. His son Mojtaba took the chair and has not been seen in public since. A ceasefire in April, a memorandum in June, and by August it had expired quietly, like a marriage in which both parties had already moved out.
Duke of Wellington: Then September arrived and the shooting resumed at sea. The Americans destroyed five Iranian oil tankers after Iran fired missiles at an American warship. Then the President announced that the war would end immediately after the midterm election, the first time I have heard a commander announce the date of his own retreat.
Napoleon: And last week at the United Nations, Iran made its move. Foreign Minister Araghchi offered a seven day roadmap. America releases at least twelve billion dollars in frozen assets, waives the oil sanctions, and lifts the blockade. And then, on the seventh day, Iran graciously reopens the Strait of Hormuz, which it closed, and agrees to begin talking about the uranium, which it hid.
Duke of Wellington: And on Saturday, leaving for a campaign stop, the President rejected it. He said Iran only made the offer because it is losing so badly. Then he posted a map on which the Strait of Hormuz had been renamed the Trump Strait.
Napoleon: I admire that enormously. I conquered most of Europe, and posterity gave me a pastry and a psychological complex. He has not conquered anything yet, and already he has a strait.
Duke of Wellington: I won, and I received a boot and a beef dish.
Napoleon: Very good. The beef is the better of the two, and I will deny I ever said so. Now, my position. The President was right to refuse. Tighten the blockade. Let me tell you about Moscow. I arrived in September. I wrote to the Tsar proposing peace, and every morning I asked my aide whether the Tsar had written back. The first morning he said, sire, the Russian post office is on fire. Because the whole city was on fire. And I waited five more weeks for a letter from a man whose entire strategy was promising nothing and delivering less. That is this roadmap. Every American concession arrives on the first day. Every Iranian concession arrives on the seventh, or later, or in talks. I know this trick. I invented half of it.
Duke of Wellington: You left out the part where you walked home.
Napoleon: I did not walk anywhere. I rode home in a sleigh, which was very cold, and gave me considerable time to reflect on the Russian postal service. And look at Iran today. Araghchi now says the President’s refusal was only an initial reaction, and he is waiting for a definitive one. When a man is told no and asks for a more definitive no, he is losing. The blockade has turned back more than one hundred and twenty ships. Inflation near eighty percent. Grocery prices more than doubled in a year. The invisible Supreme Leader has issued a written order forbidding his officials from saying anything discouraging, which is what governments do when the truth has become discouraging. Their vice president says the policy for two years is neither war nor peace. That is not strategy. That is a bankrupt man telling his creditors he is taking a sabbatical.
Duke of Wellington: My position is the one I held in April, and it has not improved with age, because neither has yours. The President has said no. He has not said what yes looks like. A blockade is a means. It is not an end. One newspaper reports he has told aides he expects to resume bombing after the election, while his own officials say the talks remain positive and constructive. That is not a policy. It is a weather forecast. In eighteen ten I built the Lines of Torres Vedras and starved Marshal Massena out of Portugal. It worked because I knew exactly what I was holding, and the Royal Navy could feed me for as long as I liked. Washington has neither a clear objective nor unlimited patience. It has gasoline above four dollars a gallon, record diesel prices, and a poll showing under a third of Americans support this war. The besieger is starving too.
Napoleon: Very well, I will summarize the Duke’s argument fairly, the way a butcher first admires the cow. A siege is only as strong as the besieger’s patience, and America’s patience now has an expiration date printed on it. Pressure without a defined end becomes punishment, and punishment is not policy. An imperfect deal struck now, backed by force, is better than a perfect deal that never arrives, because the enemy has openly chosen to wait out the American calendar. That is his argument, and it is good, the way a good fence is good. It works perfectly until someone walks around it.
Duke of Wellington: And the walk around it is what, exactly?
Napoleon: Twelve billion dollars, Arthur. You pay them on the first day, and they walk around your fence carrying it. Every tyrant with a coastline is watching to learn whether seizing a strait pays.
Duke of Wellington: Now I will summarize his position fairly, so that there is something left standing when I knock it down. The Emperor argues that Iran is closer to breaking than it admits, that paying before verification rewards hostage taking, and that the roadmap front loads American concessions while Iranian ones drift into the future. On sequencing, he is right, and I say that only because he will be insufferable if I do not. It is also exactly the case you would expect from the man who invented the Continental System. You were going to strangle Britain by closing every port in Europe. Russia stopped cooperating, so you marched to Moscow to enforce your blockade, and your blockade enforced you straight into the snow.
Napoleon: The Continental System was a magnificent idea that was let down by a disappointing continent.
Duke of Wellington: And in November of eighteen thirteen, after Russia, the allies offered you the Frankfurt proposals. France would keep the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. You stalled for better terms, because you were certain the other side would break first. By April of eighteen fourteen you had abdicated and they gave you Elba. You are the only man in history who haggled his way from the Rhine to a Mediterranean rock. And now Washington says Iran is losing so badly that there is nothing to bargain over. That is precisely what you said about the allies in eighteen thirteen.
Napoleon: I refused because I was certain I would win, which is the only reason anyone refuses anything. And you will notice I came back.
Duke of Wellington: For one hundred days, and then I handled it. So here is what the President should have sent. Not yes, and not a bare no. A counteroffer. You treat their seven days as an opening bid, and you change the order. The blockade eases as ships verifiably move through the Strait. The money moves when inspectors move. American forces stay in the region until the terms are kept. After Waterloo I commanded the allied army that occupied France for three years to make certain the peace held. That is what a settlement looks like. You sign it, and you stand next to it.
Napoleon: You negotiated with the House of Lords for years, and now you want to negotiate with a man nobody has seen since February, whose own president says Iran has no trust in the American side.
Duke of Wellington: Here is what neither of us knows. The last public count put Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium at about four hundred and forty kilograms. No inspector is known to have seen it since the war began. We do not know where it is, who in Tehran gives orders, or whether Iran breaks before America’s patience does.
Napoleon: Agreed, and that is exactly why I would squeeze harder. You do not pay the man on the other side of the hill to describe the hill.
Duke of Wellington: A blockade does not find a single gram of uranium. And kindly stop borrowing my line about the other side of the hill. I said it first, and I said it better.
Napoleon: Everything you ever said, you said slowly, which the English always mistake for saying it better. And you are missing the point, the way you missed Lord Winchilsea in your duel. Iran’s president said just days ago that before the American elections or after, it makes no difference to them. That is a bluff from a government that cannot pay for groceries. Call it.
Duke of Wellington: You called the Tsar’s bluff too, and you lost an army!
Napoleon: You want to reward a hostage taker for returning the hostage!
Duke of Wellington: THE BESIEGER IS STARVING! THE PUMPS ARE EMPTY AND THE POLLS ARE WORSE!
Napoleon: THEIR SUPREME LEADER HAS BANNED BAD NEWS! THAT IS WHAT COLLAPSE SOUNDS LIKE!
Duke of Wellington: THAT IS WHAT FRANKFURT SOUNDED LIKE! YOU THOUGHT THE ALLIES WOULD BLINK!
Napoleon: THEY BLINKED TWICE! I WAS SIMPLY LOOKING THE OTHER WAY!
Duke of Wellington: AT ELBA!
Napoleon: AND YOUR SIDE LOST THE ARGUMENT! THE PRESIDENT SAID NO!
Duke of Wellington: AND THEN HE RENAMED THE WATER! IT IS STILL CALLED HORMUZ!
Napoleon: NOT ON HIS MAP, YOU IRON SHUTTERED ANTIQUE!
Duke of Wellington: I PUT UP THOSE SHUTTERS BECAUSE A MOB BROKE MY WINDOWS!
Napoleon: I WAS ON SAINT HELENA! I HAVE AN ALIBI!
Duke of Wellington: MOSCOW!
Napoleon: TORRES VEDRAS IS A FENCE!
Duke of Wellington: WATERLOO!
Napoleon: THE NEAREST RUN THING YOU EVER SAW! YOUR OWN WORDS!
Duke of Wellington: AND I STILL WON IT!
Napoleon: If you enjoyed watching me win an argument against a man who needed the entire Prussian army to win anything, please like this video and subscribe. Unlike the Duke, you can make a decision without waiting for Blucher to arrive.
Duke of Wellington: And if you enjoyed watching a man who traded the Rhine for a rock lecture the rest of us about negotiating, subscribe anyway, so that at least one thing he touches grows instead of retreating.
Napoleon: This entire debate was animated with AITalkerApp.com, where you can turn your own script into an animated conversation. The link is in the description, and it is the only offer in this video the Duke did not try to renegotiate.
