Failure to Launch

[Music] Welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily Podcast. Today is Tuesday, March 17th, 2026. Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone who observes. I'm John Puthor. It's the editor of Commentary Magazine with me as always. Executive Editor Abe Greenwald-Hayab, Ajahn. Senior Editor Seth Mandel-Hayseth. Ajahn. And joining us today, Commentary's contributing editor and Puba at the Foundation for the Defensive Democracies, Jonathan Chanzar, Ajahn. Hey, John. Is it Foundation for the Defense of Democracies or is it Foundation for Defense of Democracies? Is there a thought? There's no thought. There is no thought. For the minimum articles, no articles, foundation for defense of democracies. Yes. Okay. Momentous day, yesterday, or this morning, or overnight, in the war to the huge developments in the war, we have the assassination of the. I don't know what you would call them, sort of like the civilian head of the government now. Ali Larjani, or sort of like the one of the triumvirate leaders of Iran. Technically, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of the Islamic Republic, which doesn't sound as important as the guy that was attacked by Ali Khamenei to be a successor before he got whacked. And so now the guy that Ali Khamenei had hoped to steer the ship is now no longer with us and it does seem like things are not going well for the regime. Meanwhile, also, the head of the. Is it the Basish? The Basish. Another guy named Soleimani, but apparently no relation to the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Soleimani, who was assassinated in 2020. This is a new different Soleimani assassinated overnight thus be heading the leadership of the internal security police. Do I have that right? Yeah, or maybe more simply the repression apparatus. So this one was a real shot in the arm to the Iranian people as they now weigh their next moves and consider getting back out into the streets to resume their protest movement or dare I say revolution. I think this one feels like a momentous occasion for them. And the third announcement, which was sort of a leak semi-announcement, not quite clear, that the Israelis believe that they have now eliminated the Iranian ballistic missile capacity entirely, meaning that either Iran has fired off its last ballistic missile, that it has an arrow in its quiver, or that they have not only done that or some version of that, but have taken out the facilities in which the ballistic missiles were either being moved out or reconstructed or something like it. So that's a little fuzzier. The way that I understand it is that Israel has now destroyed all of the facilities used for producing new missiles. So in other words, whatever they've got is all they've got. This is now used and are lose it for the regime. And that's important because, you know, according to at least some of the folks that I've talked to, the total number of missiles are somewhere between 500 and 1,000, probably closer to that 500 number that are left in the hands of the regime. Is this short range to? No, no, no, long range. The stuff that, you know, will get asked to get put out on those launchers that the Israelis in the United States are hunting right now. The short range stuff is going to be harder and that's, you know, that's the discomfort of the Gulf Arab states. They're dealing with that and they're not going to probably be able to end that anytime soon. But these big missile launches, this is what will, I think, enable the Israelis to probably start to focus more on the northern front as the number of launches out of Iran continues to drop. It has already dropped and the Israelis have noticed this and it's like a 90% drop from the first day. They're able to squeeze off a couple every day as opposed to, you know, several dozen. I think actually it might have even been 160 something on the first day. Now, you know, we're really talking about a handful. So progress, which is not what we're hearing in the mainstream media, but absolutely seeing progress right now. Look, I've spent decades arguing that ideas matter and I really believe that sleep does too. I suffer from sleep apnea and dealing with my sleep apnea has been one of the signal issues of my life. If you or someone you love suffers from mild sleep apnea or snoring, there's an FDA approved daytime therapy called ExciteOSA available through Good Night RX and you need to hear about this. No masks, no equipment strapped to your face while you sleep just 20 minutes a day, strengthening the muscles that keep your airway open and in clinical studies, it cut apnea events nearly in half. Think of it as a workout for your tongue. Go to GoodNightRx.com and use code pod to check out for 25% off. That's GoodNightRx.com code pod sleep better. So you can argue better. And to move north rather than east, Israel is aggressively moving on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, which is important because Hezbollah has ballistic missiles and short range missiles and the because Hezbollah is so close, the, for example, the siren time between the alert that you have a missile coming to you from Lebanon and the impact is something like eight seconds. So it's a distinction that you can't get to the shelter in ATEC. I mean, you could if you were Jesse Owens, but you know, if you're not Jesse Owens, you're not getting there in eight seconds. Does that date me? Then I'm making a reference to somebody who's like 90 years ago was famous. I don't even know who's a famous runner now. Okay, except Shanzer, who is a runner. Maybe Shanzer could make it in eight seconds, but I could. Anyway, but Israel is Israel and Lebanon made a ceasefire deal at the at the end of the Biden administration that the Lebanese government would quiet Hezbollah on Israel's northern border. And when the war started 17 days ago or how long ago it was that the war started, Hezbollah started firing. And this put the Lebanese government in a terrible quandary because Israel basically said, look, either you do what you said you were going to do or we're going to have to go in and and mo the lawn and take out what we can take out. So how is that going? So it's going, I think, as well as one could expect when you're fighting two fronts at the same time. And I think there are a lot of people who are wondering whether Israel can juggle both of these fronts and potentially have other ones erupt. It's not like this thing's over. So I think there's concern about strategic overreach. But as of yesterday, the Israelis are starting to call up reservists. They have limited operations right now in southern Lebanon. I think the goal is to retake all of southern Lebanon to prevent that eight second, rocket threat that you just described. And then to continue to batter the area known as Dahia, this is the southern suburb of Beirut that has just gotten absolutely hammered. This is the strong hold of his Bala. But then I think the goal after that is to go after those long range rockets from the north of the country, as well as the, they're known as PGMs, the precision guided munitions, which are lethal. We've not yet seen a lot of them try it out by his Bala. But it's kind of the thing that the Israeli sphere the most. This is, I think, this is the big one as far as Israel's concern. They're going to try to wipe out his Bala this round. And what's interesting is that we're seeing some efforts, namely by the French, although the French have tried to deny it subsequently. But they want to have some kind of a mutual recognition, normalization deal that postpones this. And that leaves his Bala's dismantling to some multinational force. And I think Israel was and is sort of tempted by the idea of normalization with Lebanon. But my guess is that it's going to happen regardless. And the Israelis would rather be the ones that dismantle what was once the most formidable terrorist group in Iran's orbit. And now I think is really beginning to crumble under the weight of these Israeli operations. Would you say that I mean what's interesting about Lebanon as opposed to Iran is that it's not just a fight from the air. There are boots on the ground, Israeli soldiers who are crossing the border and who seem intent on this classic move that Israel has to make every 20 years which is that they occupy the 20 kilometers south of the Latani river and create a buffer zone in you know that prevents Hezbollah from from using that territory to fire at them with these missiles that are very close. Now the Hezbollah missile archived but that's not the right word like it's Hezbollah missile arsenal excuse me is kind of like mind-bogglingly huge if I remember. Yeah it was before the war you know that erupted on October 8th when his ball has jumped in right after Hamas it stood at around 150,000 missiles and rockets projectile projectiles yeah and and so now what we're hearing is that it's maybe 20% of that so which is great right in terms of reduction. 30,000 but still 30,000 for yes for all the math majors yeah it's it's really it's still enormous right I mean this is essentially what Hamas had at the beginning of this war before Israel started going after and but again these are far more advanced there some of them are larger with larger and the Hamas rockets you mean yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah these are these are more advanced again longer range you know some of these can hit Tel Aviv some of them are designed to try to reach D'Amona you know where Israel's nuclear facilities are and then the PGM's which you know have the GPS guidance and some of the other things that make them far more accurate all of this is I think what the Israelis are looking to just remove and what's really fascinating is this is exactly what the Lebanese government wants I mean they don't want the war they don't want the destruction but I think there is now an understanding that this cannot continue which is interesting because it's also what we're hearing from the Gulf states right now as well there is this understanding now across the region that what is happening is just not tolerable and that and see the Gulf states are for the first time saying finish the job Mr. President right when they're talking to Trump and the Lebanese are like we're sick of this his ball of thing let's get this over with already and and so that kind of mentality right now I find fascinating it's a pivot and it is such I mean I'm gonna this is probably a theme today but when you see all the negative coverage of this conflict I just don't think that it matches the reality in terms of what we're hearing from from friends and partners or not even friends and partners in the Arab world and it does not reflect the severe beating that the Islamic Republic and its proxies have taken over the last 17 days it's really remarkable to watch I think it's important like I just said one thing which is this is very important because of course Jonathan Chanzir too long time listeners of this podcast is familiarly known as E or comes on while we're all cheerful about how things are going goes well you better become I don't know I'm worried about this I'm worried about that so the fact that you have come on and said what you have just said is itself a landmark moment in the history if you want I mean I can tell you about all the things I'm worried about I just want to say you led with something positive that's that's all I'm saying this is a look I mean let me just say this is a huge day in the war to have the head of the besiege and Ali larjani taken out same day right the Israelis have incredible intelligence that they're still wielding and the precision weapons to be able to use the intelligence in ways that will be beneficial to the war the people of Iran I think are you know I think encouraged today you know his ball up looks like it's you know starting to buckle a little bit it's kind of hard to complain this morning but I can definitely muster up some complaints whenever you're ready one one final point and then I want to get to Seth which is can you guys I'm not gonna ask you a question Jonathan knows the answer but I'm gonna but because this I just looked this up and so I'm kind of startled a lot of talk about the Straits of Formos all the Iranians are playing the long game they know that or moves is the get is the ball game it's all hormones and they're gonna they're gonna control the horror movies and we're gonna have to make these terrible choices and who boy they're in the cat bird season look like they're in the cat bird seat but they're in the cat bird seat when was the last time that or that Iran fired on anything in the straight of four moves they know five days ago there's been no military activity from Iran aimed at shipping in the straight of four moves now maybe they don't have targets or they're letting the ships in that they want to let in because of side deals but or moves is not like a charter house of destruction and death and doom and you know the Bermuda triangle of world oil shipping no this is perception John right this is fear that what happened a few days ago can happen again and so what actually the analysis is is that the Islamic Republic is doing this on the cheap I mean and they're they're doing it just based on market concerns they're somehow able to get away with this and they have not yet been truly challenged so you know I think it's now you know it's Pete Hagsath's move you know I think this is time for him to tear off his shirt and do some push ups and then order whatever he's gonna do next a thoughtfully built wardrobe comes down to pieces that mix well and 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The decapitation strategy, the targeted assassination strategy, excuse me, gave rise to decades, a decades long debate over whether it matters, you know, how much you gain versus how much you lose by taking out these leaders and all that. When you explain the differences with the state, this happening with the state now, I mean, you know, we are frame of reference for targeted assassination is Hamas, let's say, or Hezbollah. It's not an actual state of 90 million people. What does this do to the perception of the war in the region? What does it do for people in Iran, this, you know, this game of every time a new person pops his head up, it gets locked off? Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question. I will say the Israelis have definitely been trending in this direction for a time. I mean, you know, when they took out the Houthi leaders, I mean, a lot of people call the Houthis terrorist group, they're essentially the government in North Yemen. I mean, no one's recognized the full split yet, but it's a state, right? And so the Israelis did that, I guess it was last year. And then obviously you had Donald Trump take out, cause some Soleimani back in 2020, the other Soleimani. And so I think we've seen this moving in this direction. I think from the US perspective, I think we're probably not as eager to do this. I think there's sort of a norm that we're worried about. Israelis, not so much, you know, and I think they're going to be, they're going to be on the war path for as long as they can be taking out these top leaders. There was a decision reached probably three years ago, maybe a little longer, that the regime had to go and that they started actually planning for this and it meant decapitation, but it really just meant bringing down this regime at all costs. And I think this is a turning point for the Israeli strategy for the longest time. We heard about how the Israelis were fighting the arms of the octopus and not going for the head or right. I mean, there are all the different ways that Israeli leaders have described this sort of matrix of proxies. But I mean, you know, what we've told you, it made exactly that criticism against BB, right? Correct. He said BB kept going for the arms instead of the head. And so now no longer they're going for the head and you can, you can get the sense right now that this strategy is working. The question is, you know, what does working look like in the end? You know, do they try to do some kind of a Venezuela thing? Obviously, it's not neat or clean as what happened with Maduro, but with enough of these leaders taken out, can they find some kind of pragmatist within the system that would be willing to take over and work with the United States in some shape or form? But by the way, we'll not sit well with the people of Iran and it may not sit well with the Israelis, but you know, this could still be where Trump tries to steer things or we see the entire edifice collapse and then the chaos comes after and that will lead to some new leader. But I think there's a lot of unknowns that happen in between, you know, that moment and stasis. Since we're still in the pre-DOOM and gloom part of the show, excuse me, I want to ask a question here. The reports that the new Ayatollah, the intelligence, is gay? Is this a legitimate piece of intelligence or is this some sort of science? Well, I think it's important and I will refer to John Podhoritz's tweet. I guess it was from yesterday. Does this mean that he's going to hang himself in public? I mean, it is sort of this kind of crazy irony if it's true that this guy, you know, just you know, is naturally and inherently an abomination to the Islamic Republic and its ideology. That in and of itself would be a real blow to the legitimacy of this new supreme leader. So it's undermining. Right. Right. Make the point that this is genuinely no joke with a reference to our least favorite university, Columbia. If you remember a lot of the trouble at Columbia that was eventually stirred up 20 years ago over the coming of Mach of Ahmadinejad coming to speak at Columbia and the activation of among others in undergraduate named Barry Weiss who led the student revolt against the invitation by Columbia's president to have Ahmadinejad speak on campus that the leading professor on the campus who was the advocate of this in the what was then called the Oriental Studies Department was a professor named Joseph Masad and according to Joseph Masad, there were no homosexuals in Iran. There could be no homosexuals in Iran because she I mean according to Ahmadinejad. No to Masad. Oh, okay. Because Ahmadinejad said that in his speech also. No, that's right. He did. Ahmad preceded it by saying there was no such thing as a homosexual in Iran. So this is not just us, you know, having a like a ha ha. They're homophobic and now they have to deal with a gay leader. Yeah. Like, this is doctrine that regime apologists, as you said, the standing president at the time, 1918 years ago said was simply a sort of, I don't know what you would call it like a physical impossibility. There were no such that this could not be. So if that view has remained the Orthodox view of the Shiite leaders and it is known that in fact, young Hamine is gay and has indulged these proclivities and that this rumor that his father did not want him to succeed. Haminej senior because of this, we have regime legit, we have a massive regime legitimacy issue right in the middle of the war that raises questions about how he was actually appointed by this panel who did it. How could they even have appointed him if he is as severely injured as intelligence suggests he might be so he was just put in there because he has the name and isn't going to make any trouble for a larjani to do whatever larjani wants to do except now larjani is dead. So there is no, there is no, he's not a front for larjani anymore because larjani's front is a tombstone. So I think this is a big thing, it's a shockingly big thing, it's not just like Paris Hilton outing somebody on the web, it has genuine regime consequences. It potentially does. I mean, I think the internet in Iran has been shut down now for 17 days. For anyone who cares about internet freedom right now and anybody that cares about human rights inside Iran or anywhere else, it's really just amazing that there's really not been a peep about this. So the people right now in Iran are operating largely in the dark. There were just operations by the way to confiscate starlink terminals. This is the satellite system, the private satellite system that Iranians have been using to smuggle information in and out of Iran. And so anyway, I mean, I think I still have questions about how this is being absorbed by the Iranian people. But I think 80% of Iran could care less which way this guy swings. I mean, that's kind of the silly part about all of this is that most Iranians don't care. It's the IRGC themselves and the regime itself and the clerics. These are the people that are wrestling with it and that's what's fascinating right now is that I would pay money to see some of these WhatsApp groups where they're like, "Oh my God, did you hear this?" What about Mochitaba? What are we doing about this? This is the stuff that would be fun for me because I think trying to make sure that their heads don't explode from this news, I think that's what they're struggling with right now. I just want to say I think that it's the Iranians that put out the rumors because they're pinkwashing the regime. Very deep. I see what you're doing. Very deep cut. You're very deep cut. So the triumvirate that Larjani and Khameine apparently are two of has a third, Pesash Pesashian, a sued Pesashian president of Iran. Okay. The president of Iran is now Pesashkin. That was the position that Ahmed did. John held 20 years ago. He is not a comfortable person today. They spent 17 days tracking Lerjani to kill him. Lerjani, of course, knowing that they were trying to kill him, should have been able to evade assassination. If you know, you should be able to hide, and this is really like, boy, there's nowhere to hide. So politically, what happens if Pasheshki and gets it in the next day or two? You don't, the Iatola is not, is out of commission at best from what we can tell. There's no head of the council. There will be no president. There's a really interesting question about like, what it means for the regime to be surviving under these conditions, except in zombie and tropic condition in which it's simply going of itself with no direction and no protection and no ability, if this ballistic missile stuff is true, with the exception of the drones that it is not, that it is aiming elsewhere at targets that don't really matter. They have no ability to project force, except maybe driving around in trucks with guns, making sure that people don't come out to the streets and protest. Right. So I mean, I think here's where there's the good news and then there's the unknown and maybe a little bit of the Dr. Doom, EOR stuff starts to come out. But bear with me. Number one, I mean, there are Pasheshki on yes as an endangered species. I've got questions about Abasa Raghcchi, the foreign minister who's become essentially the, you know, spokesperson for the regime during this war. He's kind of Baghdad Bob with a suit, you know, you get a sense that he, you know, he's kind of the calm voice that is kind of telling everybody at least out in the rest of the world, we're fine. We've got this under control. We're going to win this war. So I kind of, I do wonder what happens to him next. There's obviously there's leadership within the IRGC, which I think is really what matters most. But the more they're thinned out, I think the more these people are going to, they're going to doubt whether they can continue to wage this war. You know, when you look at what happened to large, large, Johnny, he was apparently hit in a safe house. So apparently it wasn't safe. The, the Soleimani hit was apparently in some kind of tent structure. And somehow the Israelis found him out, you know, out in the field. So this is, this is bad news for the regime. And I think that's where I want to focus first. Now, if you ask me kind of what the regime has moving forward, if their ranks are thinned out and they don't have ballistic missiles, what they have are drones and short range rockets and shoulder fired stuff. And what that means is they can harass their immediate neighborhood. And there I think we steer back to the Hormuz crisis. And yes, the regime is not actively destroying ships, but they've apparently fired on something like 16 or even 20, according to the reports that we've seen so far. And that's enough to spook everybody for a while. And it is forcing the United States to deploy additional forces. And we've got, you know, I think questions about what the strategy is moving forward. The other part of this is that if the drone and rocket strikes, don't see soon in the air Gulf states. I can't imagine there'd be what we've already seen some of the oil facilities damaged in the UAE and in Bahrain. And you know, the Qataris are, you know, I think they've got less than 50% of the people that usually work on natural gas. I mean, there's things have slowed to accrawl there as well. Shaba oil field where they produce like a million barrels per day out of Saudi Arabia. That's under constant threat from Iranian drones. This is the next phase of this. And that needs to be solved for. But I think when you can, you know, right now it's there's a sprawl of this war across the Middle East. I think you can then begin to contain it and contain it still. But there's a lot of danger in these last phases because if the Iranian regime is like a wounded animal and they're thinking, you know what we're going to bring down the rest of the region with us, including the oil and the energy. This is a crisis that we can't afford. Nobody wants it. Certainly Donald Trump is trying to avoid this at all costs. So I do think that as we start to get closer to an end game, we're going to need to see a strategy for how to end this chaos in the immediate region surrounding Iran. So let's move to the drones because I've been being, people have been asking about me about this and I'm not an expert in this stuff. So they're cheap and they're effective. They fly low. So they're not easy to intercept. And there's a couple of drone related issues, one of which is geopolitical. And people were asking me last night, where is Yemen? Like Yemen was, of course, firing drones on Israel during the Gaza war, flying long distances, like 900 miles or something from Yemen. Had a couple of direct hits in Tel Aviv with these drones, one pretty close to the headquarters of the Israeli military, like a block away. Where's Yemen? Why aren't they in this fight? Are they like keeping themselves in reserve to jump out the Houthis and like the devil, everybody? Are they like a final strike capability? Or is something going on that has quieted and silenced them? Do you have any idea about what the story is there? So I mean two things to just note, number one, the drone threat is one that is something that the Iranians can continue to pose for, I don't know, I think a pretty long time. These Shaheed drones, the ones that are, you know, frustrating air defenses around the immediate region, they're, they cost like something like 30 to 50 thousand dollars to make. They're cheap. All things equal, you know, relative to the damage that they're able to, to impose. And so, you know, I want to watch that carefully. People talk about Iran as, you know, the Islamic Republic as a drone power in the region, just by the volume, the sheer numbers that they have in their arsenal. So we need to watch that really carefully. By the way, Chinese, I think we should just note they're the number one providers of the drone parts and engines that are being used right now. And I do think that China has, you know, some accounting, you know, they're, they're going to have to answer to some of what has happened. I'm guessing that the Arab states surrounding Arab states are pretty unhappy with the Chinese. And I hope that we can leverage that. You know, we, we're hearing right now that the Xi Jinping Trump summit at the end of the month is likely going to be pushed back. I think Trump had hoped to kind of walk in and say, look at what we just did in the region. Can't quite do that yet with the crisis that's going on. But the Arab states, the surrounding Arab states have to be aware of the role that China has played and Russia too in all of this. And I hope that, you know, this begins to tip the balance in the great power competition stuff that we're watching in the region. That's, I think point number one, as for the, the hoothies, this is actually one of the strange things that I can't account for right now. And none of the analysis that I've seen or heard has really convinced me that the hoothies have made a decision one way or the other, whether they're going to sit out or jump in. I've seen the hoothies say that they're going to be there for their brethren in Iran, but they have not done so. But what's really fascinating to me is everything that I've heard over the last seven months since the last war with Iran is that, that the hoothies now have indigenous capabilities for rocket production, that they don't need the Islamic Republic anymore for the ballistic missiles that they've been firing at Israel. So why are they not firing them? Why are they not firing off some of those drones? Are they deterred? Are they waiting? Nobody seems to be able to answer this right now. Not in Israel and not in the United States, not the folks that I'm usually in touch with. So it's kind of one of the great mysteries. The other one is, of course, the Iraqi militias. They appear to be also deterred or at least concerned about joining the fray. Some of that may actually stem from the political calculus, how the people of Iraq, how the parliament, how the leadership in Iraq would respond. But these are two dogs that have not yet barked. And they do concern me as this thing drags on. And if the regime finds itself cornered and on the verge of collapse, is this when they call up the, you know, additional waver to of proxies? I don't know. The I was relieved based on something you said on the show last week. You said Israeli sources were telling you that Trump really wanted this route and would seek to have this mission wrapped up by the 31st of March so that he could have his summit with G. So when he said yesterday or the day before, we may have to postpone it. We can always meet later. It's okay. I found that reassuring in the sense that he has figured out that his priority is this, there is nothing matters more than a successful resolution to this war and that ending it unilaterally on the cheap without a resolution that he can claim is unquestionably a victory for the United States. He's not going down that path. He is going to put everything second to this mission. Did you have the same feeling? I did actually. On the one hand, I think a little bummed out that he didn't have the big victory that I think he wanted to present to Xi Jinping and say, look, we own this neighborhood now, socket. That would have been my number one preference. For him to understand that this is his legacy. This is going to be the big thing that when people talk about his presidency, there's all the insanity that I think everybody will talk about for a long time, just this mercurial president, etc. But in terms of major foreign policy, he was the guy that bombed Iran in the 2025 war and then he went back to finish the job in 2026 and reshaped the region. This is Reagan-esque. This is the kind of thing that will shape the way that people talk about your presidency for years and years to come. I think he understands this. I think he understands that, again, I think when the Gulf states are telling him, go for it, Mr. President, I think that speaks volumes to the guy. I think he sees this as transformational if he can get it done. I don't know if he would use that word, but I think he understands that there are big things, map changing things that are happening right now if he can get the Islamic Republic to buckle and then drop. Is there a sense that there really is no rush to putting this war in a box about whether it's over or not? Is there the idea that we, if we and the Israelis are basically able to choose whether each new leader lives or dies and whether the Israelis are taking out besieged checkpoints? If they're literal, we made the joke last week, but they're directing traffic in Toronto. Is that part of it, too? Is there a sense that you don't necessarily need a bold, this war is over sort of denouement to this whole conflict that as long as we have the skies over Iran, we can do whatever we want, we can stop them from starting their nuclear program, we can stop them from cracking down again or whatever. That time is actually maybe on our side? It's an interesting question. The way that I would kind of frame, there's a couple of different ways that you get victory. One is surrender, which just doesn't happen in warfare too much these days. Especially when you're talking about these geodist ideological actors like the Islamic Republic or al-Qaeda or ISIS, it ends with more of a whimper than a bang. I think the theory that we can get a white flag out of this, I'm not sure I buy it. What I do think is probable here, the scenario that I would look for is the Israelis have already taken out their air force and their navy. The Arctic missile production has now been wiped out. I think they've got a couple of nuclear issues that they're still needing to wrestle with. There's talk about extracting the enriched uranium and needing potentially to put a large contingent of special forces on the ground in order to be able to do that. I would look for that as maybe a moment where we say, okay, mission accomplished. I think there's the broader question of can you erode the regime's capabilities for all the things that they're doing, the drones, the rockets, the production, the besiege, the IRGC. Can you reduce all of these things to the point where Iran just simply can't pose a threat to the region in the way that it was? If you can do that, then I think you can say, okay, the military objectives of this war have been met. We are ending our operations. The US says that the ships start to steam home. The Israelis continue to do the asymmetric stuff on the ground when they see opportunities, shadow war, grey zone, whatever you want to call it, campaign between the wars, which I've written about for years now, had commentary. This would be, I think, the beginning of that with the idea of trying to bring the people out back into the streets and to carry out the final phase of this revolution. I think that's kind of like the John Grisham ending for all of this. But I think there's a lot that needs to happen between now and then, a lock and go wrong. Here's the part where I say the thing that I worry about the most in phase two is the question of unity inside Iran. The minorities within Iran are a patchwork of peoples that, let's just say they have some hostility toward the previous regime and this regime. The Iranians, the majority Iranians are concerned, the Persians are concerned about the Balkanization of Iran in some kind of poster regime construct. There's a lot of stuff we can't see how they're getting along, right? I mean, it's a black box and we won't actually be able to open it until we say the war is over, the kinetic part of this war is over. Then you start to see what's happening on the streets and how people are interacting with one another and who is a potential leader and whether they're willing to work with Reza Shah Palhobi and all these other big questions about post-conflict Iran. I think we're rightly focused on the war right now, but there are a lot of complicated questions that will need to be answered. I think in due course. I think with that in mind, something to be cognizant of is that because as we've seen, there are so many opponents of this war here in the U.S. speaking of the media mostly, but others on the left and the right, that because there's so much to wrap up in the ultimate game, after phase one, then there's still the question of bringing the people out to topple the regime and what needs to be done in order for that to be safe and then preventing the the boldlyization of complications that even when if and when the U.S. wraps up the phase one part that you were talking about, which would be an extraordinary thing, completely destroying the regime's ability to manage the region. There will be people that will continue to say this war was not a success, right? Because you've got the next phase and the next phase and the next phase and you should be prepared for that because they're wrong. But I want to talk about the or the the orneriness of Trump in relation to that because he told us, uh, Liz Landers of PBS News Hour in a phone conversation, I think Monday night. He said, this is how she phrased it in her tweet. Trump said the conflict is, quote, a very small price to pay, unquote, after years of terror from the regime, and quote, the oil prices will drop like a rock as soon as it's over. When I asked for a timeline on those dropping, he said, well, as soon as the war is over, I don't believe that it will be long. And then she asked whether he saw troops on the ground in Iran and whether that might happen. I don't want to say that. He said when I asked if his thinking has changed on the issue, he said, no, it's not changed, but just didn't want to discuss strategy with a reporter. This is important because yesterday in a press conference, uh, before the Kennedy Center, where he started talking about the white paint that you use on steel that they're going to use at the Kennedy Center, he, um, he said, uh, I'm sorry, I lost my, I lost my train of fuck this I decided to make. a joke about the paint. So you should really not do that. But yesterday, so he says it's small price, but yesterday he said, look, the Straits of Hormuz are not even a problem for us. We import, we, 1% of America's oil comes as a result of transshipments for the Straits of Hormuz. That's why he thinks it is meat and proper for Japan and China and Great Britain and France and Germany and other countries to come in with him to, to, to escort ships if necessary to keep the strait open because we Americans are energy independent and they're not. Now, oil is a fungible substance. The price of oil is a world market question. So, you know, it matters what if you shut the Straits of Hormuz down because then on the open market, a barrel of oil that we buy for $60, a barrel will still cost us $120, a barrel if the oil supply shrinks in terms of futures. Like, we don't, we don't, we aren't, we aren't isolated from world oil prices. In fact, American companies would benefit from a sharp reduction in the amount of oil being produced if they're American energy oil producers. So you know, I've actually have weird parts of the economy that would gain from this. But I think it's striking that he's saying, I'm going on as long as I want to because whatever price that people are going to pay should be paid because we got to get this regime out of there. And as long as he is ordinary, this is my feeling, as long as he doesn't say, I got to get the hell out of this because the oil prices are going too high. He seems to have crossed some Rubicon in his head in my sense in the last week where he's like, we're just going to finish this. And so, you know, I'm not, and he's weirdly calmer. I said this yesterday, it seems to me. So he's already decided they're going to say he didn't do it. They're going to say he didn't succeed. They cannot be that they cannot play a role in how they can't get into his head. And if you want this mission to succeed, you have to not have a date certain on it like March 31st, which is what Israelis were telling Jonathan last week. You have to have no date certain where he's got to get out nor some kind of mythical target oil price beyond which the world cannot go. So, you know, to make him pull back. And therefore, what it means for the war to end now comes down to whether he thinks that he has secured the aim of not only ending the regime's ability to reject power, but that he has created the conditions or he and these Israelis have created the conditions, which are not going to happen while the war is on, which is what's important for the regime to collapse. And that's why the Israelis are going and going to local beseech headquarters and things like that. They are doing whatever they can to send the message to the Iranian people that they are eliminating the people in Iran who will who would kill them if they decide it's to try to take their country back. Yeah, and I think, you know, it's funny. I've been ever since I wrote that piece for commentary for for you, John. The the thought that's been on my mind is, you know, is Trump in danger of making any of the kind of mistakes of the Bush administration, you know, and, you know, where they double down on a failed strategy and got themselves deeper and deeper into a hole that they couldn't dig out of. I don't think that's where we are. I mean, I mean, and again, I'm surprising myself by not being all do me and gloomy with you. But, you know, the I think this first of all, we don't have like a strategy of trying to, you know, rebuild society. There's no big thing here. It's actually about destroying something and we've got ample tools to do that. And we're using them. And I think, I think that's important. And I think, you know, Donald Trump has a lot of faith in the US military. And I think for good reason, it's remarkable what our military has done. And it's remarkable what they've done in tandem with the Israelis. And I mean, I don't think anybody has talked enough about this, the success story of what's happening right now between the Israeli military and the United States, the way that, you know, Israelis are fighting this war in English. So their first war in English, and they are, I mean, completely integrated into what's happening here. And I think that's that's kind of remarkable. So I think from a military perspective, it's all going really well. And, you know, Trump is not sharing the details of what he expects to achieve with anybody. He's just saying, I've got a goal and I'm working toward it. And no one can play gacha with him. And I think that's kind of he is just not allowed himself to get sucked into this. I will say the way in which the media is describing this is almost comical because everybody saying, okay, well, he's losing the war, but ignoring all of the achievements that he's not along the way. And without knowing exactly what he's trying to achieve on a tactical level from one day to the next, they're, I mean, they're just projecting the Trump derangement syndrome out there into the world. And people are kind of clapping at it, but it's a really bizarre spectacle because, you know, apart from the Hormuz issue, which again, does need to get settled. Set that aside. All of the military objectives of eroding this regime and doing what he wants to do, it's working. And in the meantime, the Chinese look like they're horrible allies to the Gulf for not coming to their rescue and not helping. I mean, this guy looks like he's playing everybody right now. Now again, things can easily go wrong, but I just don't see the doom and gloom that that we keep reading about. I'm struck by some of the coverage in this sense. So imagine that you are back in the 12th, the mythical past of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And of course, the indelible scene in Monty Python and Holy Grail where Arthur faces down or landslide, I'm over who faces down the black night, who is, you know, like challenging and very threatening, very terrifying. And then our systematically first cuts off one arm, then the other arm, then he cuts off his legs. And the dark night is like, have it, you I will take you down. And then he's like a torso on the ground and saying, I'll bite you, you know, I'll do it. And instead of it being a hilarious scene, you have media commentators looking at the dark night, losing his arm, losing his leg, losing his other arm, losing his other leg and becoming a torso on the ground. And they're going, you know, the dark night is really holding his own, not only that, but the dark night has this playing a long game. The dark night is really going to when he sinks his teeth into Arthur's arm, then you're going to know they are really in the cat birds. It is very weird to read some of this commentary suggesting that the Iranians who are clearly dazed, confused without the ability to talk to each other, imponently firing missiles at Israel that do almost no damage and spraying fire around and threatening the Straits of Rome was more verbally than since in the last five days they've done nothing really to impact shipping and Hormuz except the threat. And it is as though people are saying they're doing, you know, boy, got a head handed to them. Meanwhile, meanwhile, there's a headline at Al Jazeera yesterday saying, the strategy against Iran is working. Here's why. Yeah. I mean, you have to presume that the strategy isn't working in order to make an argument that the strategy isn't working. You have your prior has to be, this can't work. Right. Now, there is a logic to say this can't work because you can't destroy a regime from the air and it's never worked. So I'm pessimistic about that. Or, you know, Iran's ideological roots are so deep, the regime's roots are sunk so deep that they cannot pull it out from its roots and all this idea that the Iranian people are ready to rise up. Was flies in the face of how just how strong Shiaid ideology and the, and the, and the, the, the, the, the a military and feelings are there and all of that. But you have to bring that into the conversation without reference to the actual effect of 17 days of 5,000 strikes a day. Well, that's the trick. That's, that's the, that's the trick of the criticism of the war is that if, if I, if I believe that you can't destroy a regime from the air, this has already failed. And therefore, you, you, you don't have to measure it. It's like, you know, it's like a baseball game like, you know, you don't have to measure it by the run scored by each team. Just measure it about, you know, whether they have, you know, a chance to, I don't know, win the World Series or something like that. It's like, you don't have to actually defend based on what's happening in the the war, you can even acknowledge if you want that the strikes are effective for what they're doing, but the trick is that you can just say, well this has no end point at which this could possibly succeed. And therefore, no matter how well it's going on the ground or in the air, you don't have to concede that a war is going well means the war is actually going well in traditional terms. And by the way, I also think that I saw that Al Jazeera had lined in. I'm also kind of curious if what that means about where the guitarries are. That headline is unusual to put it mildly. And we know that Cutter has been kind of put in the middle of this. They don't really want to. They're not the UAE. They're not out front against Iran and they're not used to sort of taking the brunt. And also, the guitarries probably wonder if Iran goes what happens to them. I think Jonathan, I think you've said, if there's no Hamas and Gaza for example, there's no need for us to have the guitarries treated like an ally and have a base there, all this others. Is that headline? Am I reading too much into it? No, no, you aren't. Let me just say, I mean, the guitarries are in this moment. Let me just explain. We need to explain. Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar. So if it puts out a very controversial op-ed, essentially praising American and Israeli strategy, we figure that they must have run it up the flagpole to the censors in their government who said it's okay for it to be public. I would actually go even a step further. I think they're getting direction right now from their overlords in Doha telling them, "Okay, we're taking a different editorial approach now and we're going to get behind this thing." But what's amazing to me as I watch this is, apparently, the Hamas leadership has refused to come out and to condemn the Islamic Republic for firing on all these Gulf states. And so the Qataris, after years of hosting Hamas and giving them a headquarters and giving them $30 million a month that I think funded the war. I mean, you know, and these, just to be clear, these guys were the patrons along with the Islamic Republic of Hamas, which is the terrorist group that started this thing, right? And so now they're getting hammered by Iran, their partner in the cultivation of Hamas, which started this war. They're getting bombed and they are on the verge of kicking Hamas out of the country. The wheels are falling off. The Qatari bus right now. The whole strategy of kind of playing everybody against one another, arsonist and firefighter, I got to tell you right now. I mean, I think they're just sorry that they were playing with fire in the first place. And that, to me, is poetry. I love seeing this right now that the Qatari's are finally beginning to realize, you know, I saw this tweet right before we got on. The Qatari Emir met with the king of Jordan and the two of them were lamenting how they got dragged into this and that they were bystanders and that they, you know, they're like, oh, God, look how unfair the world is. How tough the, you know what, Qataris, you've been at the center of this. You inserted yourself into this and you're just getting the beating that you deserved. So I mean, I think there is some really interesting stuff that can happen. This is all going to depend on Trump and it always does, right? But this is the moment where we can start to say, you want to be an ally of ours? Okay, fine. Here are the new rules, right? No more of sponsoring Taliban and Hamas and Muslim brotherhood and no more sheltering al-Qaeda and ISIS. You're going to be an energy producer. You're going to be the place where we have our base and nothing else. That would be the, I mean, that would be poetry as far as I'm concerned. I have a quick question and I'm really curious about that. You just maybe think of. So during the entirety of Israel's war post October 7th, there was on social media primarily, I mean, overwhelmingly on TikTok, huge, foreign influence operation to get these TikToks up to, you know, influence all the kids essentially or whomever else watching. Has that dried up now? I mean, the this, this guitaree funded, Iranian funded. There are less of those, those, the propaganda TikTok because a) resources have to go to actual fighting and defense or b) because as you say, they're like, we're just sorry, we got involved in this to begin with. I think actually, it's an interesting question and I don't know how to answer it yet. I think these things take a little while, you know, where you start to be able to see these, you know, narratives that emerge on social media. But I find interesting is what, you know, this is at the end of the day, of course, a Chinese app, right? It's a Chinese algorithm. And everything that we've learned over the last couple of years is that the Chinese government has been actually promoting an algorithm that elevates and amplifies this kind of anti-Israel, anti-American sentiment. Anti-Semitic, by the way, too, you'll see that they have actually, you know, amplified that as well. So the question is, you know, are there fewer people saying this and the Chinese just continue to amplify it? Or do we start to see a leveling off of all of it? That is something I'd love to find out. We have at FDD, we've got a cyber team that looks at this sort of stuff at information operations. So yeah, I mean, stay tuned. I'd love to be able to get back to you with a clear answer. Okay, Jonathan Chans, or your FDD morning brief runs, is it, is it, is it, on the Wednesday Friday, fantastic resource, kind of like, this is an off day for that. So Jonathan's giving us what he might be giving you tomorrow morning, for example, on the FDD morning brief about what happens between now and then. So you should listen, go to commentary.org and read Jonathan's article, a regime change without nation building as part of our package, our April issue package. And one thing I just want to know tomorrow actually should be a really fun morning brief for one reason. I'm getting Scooter Libby to come on to talk about how you handle wars when you're getting inundated with American voices that are cheering for your demise. And to sort of talk about this weird dissonance of like, you know, cheering against the American military that is fighting for the country. And just that conversation I'm excited for because I just haven't heard anybody talk about it when they've lived it and he has. All right, so there we have it. Thanks for coming on and for Seth and Abe, I'm John Pudworth, keep the candle burning.