Are All Options Open on Iran?

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00:00The Pentagon is preparing to send additional U.S. forces and assets to the Middle East.

00:06As we're speaking to each other right now, John, they're on the move.

00:09And this is all amid the rising tensions with Iran that you and I are just talking about.

00:14So are all options still on the table, as the White House has suggested?

00:20We're talking about them standing down.

00:22But do you think there is still something else that could happen

00:26and the protests could possibly reignite again in Iran?

00:31Absolutely. I mean, there are several different directions all of this could go.

00:35And one is that the United States, Donald Trump, is very, very serious about hitting Iran

00:38and hitting it very, very hard in a serious military operation.

00:42And that's what we're seeing the buildup to.

00:43It's equally possible that this is a sort of demonstration of strength,

00:48while Donald Trump also looks for opportunities to negotiate with the regime

00:52to get it to capitulate on certain areas.

00:54What was very interesting in the clip that you played from Stephen Whitcoff a few minutes ago,

01:01he mentioned four areas where they want to see Iran fundamentally kind of give in on some of its red lines.

01:11And human rights wasn't one of those.

01:13It was all about the nuclear program and missiles and proxies,

01:17which I think is interesting, and stockpiles, right?

01:19So, you know, that's a very different tune from the one Donald Trump was singing just a week ago

01:24when he said, if you harm Iranian protesters, we will hit you very hard.

01:28You know, and sending messages to the protesters that help is on the way and all that kind of stuff,

01:33very, very regime-changey kind of language.

01:36We're not seeing as much of that in the last few days.

01:38So, again, we don't know.

01:40It could be that this military buildup is, in fact, a precursor to a serious action of some kind,

01:45or it could be part of a face-saving de-escalation.

01:49Or it could be another example of what we've seen a few times in the past year or two

01:53from both the Israelis and the Americans and the Iranians,

01:56where there's a sort of military strike,

01:59there's a choreographed careful response from the Iranians

02:03that's careful not to antagonize or escalate the situation even more,

02:07and then both sides just kind of continue with what they were doing.

02:11So I think any of those outcomes is still very much conceivable at this point.