00:00Ambassador, you are a longtime critic of Iran, but I'm wondering what you think about these strikes and how they
00:06were carried out and if they were legal under presidential authority.
00:10Well, I think the objectives of the strikes are clearly correct and proper, eliminating the threat of Iran's nuclear weapons
00:18program, its ballistic missile program, its long history dating back to when it came to power in 1979 of international
00:27terrorism, particularly against Americans.
00:30And its repression of its own people, which Donald Trump drew a red line against back in January and said
00:37that help was on its way and didn't come until earlier today.
00:41So I think the objectives are clear. This is manifestly within the president's constitutional commander in chief authority.
00:48The gang of eight were briefed on this on Tuesday. And if Congress doesn't like it, Congress can cut off
00:54appropriation. That's where congressional power comes in.
00:57Ambassador Bolton, if you were to take that book off the shelf, John Bolton's plan for regime change in Iran,
01:02how closely would it hew to what we've seen take place here today?
01:05I'm curious what you make of the means by which the president decided to do this, the element of surprise
01:10so much as there was one here, and the cooperation with Israel on these attacks.
01:15Well, I think there are a couple of things that worry me in his statement in the very early morning
01:20hours today when he told the people of Iran that that he was finally delivering.
01:26He said, now you have a president who is giving you what you want. So let's see how you respond.
01:32That doesn't sound like cooperation with the opposition, Ron. It sounds like a challenge.
01:38And I'm worried that that this this campaign in the air, however important it may be for other reasons, has
01:46not been made clear to the people of Iran how they they can use the time to seek defections from
01:54within the regime to try and pull it apart at the top.
01:57And I think it's something when autocratic regimes begin to fall, people look around to say, I want to be
02:03on the winning side of this.
02:04And if they think the regime is in danger, they could well defect to the opposition.
02:09I think it's that coordination with the opposition leaders and their their debt to disorganized opposition, to be sure.
02:16But I feel a lot better if I if I knew there was more to that.
02:20And second, I just I worry about the potential that after a couple, three days, Trump declares, OK, that's a
02:29victory.
02:29And now it's up to the people of Ron. That's that's not going to be enough.
02:33It's not a one and done kind of operation.
02:35These attacks, I think, as they destroy the instruments of Iranian state power can be very effective.
02:41But but it remains to be seen if Trump will carry through.
02:46That's what we were just talking about. You break it. You bought it.
02:49If if the U.S. does, in fact, destroy this regime, what should the U.S. set up in order
02:55to facilitate some sort of democratic transition in that country?
02:58Is that even possible, given the decades long repression of civil society?
03:03Who leads Iran if the Ayatollah does not?
03:06Well, that's going to be up to the Iranians. And I don't think it's up to us.
03:10I don't buy the Pottery Barn rule. I buy American national security interests, which are threatened by the nuclear program,
03:17the ballistic missile program, decades of terrorism.
03:21I think we should certainly help the Iranians in in in many different ways.
03:27But ultimately, it's up to them.
03:28I think the most likely near term outcome of the fall of the Ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard will be
03:34a military government, a secular military government,
03:39not the Revolutionary Guard, but the conventional military that will hopefully then allow the Iranian people to have some kind
03:46of constitutional process to decide on what they want their new government to look like.
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