00:00Right. But those talks are not like previous rounds of talks in Oman.
00:03Those talks will be taking place in the context of massive U.S. military presence and firepower in the region.
00:12How does that change the dynamic?
00:14Well, I think it certainly drives home to Iran what difficult circumstances they're in.
00:19They've lost all their proxies and allies.
00:21They themselves have been badly, badly beaten by the airstrikes.
00:25The good news, at least from my perspective, is that there really aren't, given all that force, it's really a show of force.
00:33There aren't any attractive military options.
00:36If you want to try and degrade the military, we do some of that.
00:42If you want to try and further degrade the nuclear sites, you could do that.
00:47That's probably unnecessary.
00:48We've seen no sign that Iran is really working at breakback speed to try and reconstruct the nuclear program.
00:54And if you try to do something about the forces of security and order, you'd end up killing lots of innocent Iranians.
01:01So I hope this reflects understanding by the Trump administration that there really are no attractive military options,
01:09that that show of force may be helpful, may be cowing the Iranians a little bit,
01:14or at least reminding them how weak their position is.
01:17But to actually use that force would be, seems to be extremely counterproductive.
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