00:00Elliot Abrams joins us right now. He actually used to work for the president during his first term, a former
00:04special envoy for Iran. He was also a special envoy for Venezuela during the first Trump administration. He's now a
00:11current senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Elliot, first, let's start with Iran first
00:17here because there's been a lot of discussion here about what comes next. We've seen the aerial assault, the missiles
00:22flying over, but a lot of questions right now about will there be boots on the ground, whether it's U
00:27.S. boots or Israeli boots, but also this idea
00:29that Trump himself has floated about trying to maybe potentially arm U.S.-friendly insurgents, including the Kurds, to help with
00:38regime change in that nation.
00:41I don't think there's going to be U.S. boots on the ground. I don't put out of mind a
00:45commando raid, you know, where 10 or 20 or 30 people go in for a few hours.
00:50But if people are comparing this to Iraq or Afghanistan, that's wrong. That's not the way Donald Trump thinks.
00:58He lived through those. He lived through those. And he's not going to do that.
01:02Now, there are substitutes, maybe. And one of them could be the Kurds. So I don't put that out of
01:08mind either, that he could decide we need some armed group on the ground.
01:12It's not going to be us. So they are the obvious candidate. I don't think you'll see significant numbers of
01:18Israelis either.
01:20For one thing, they're doing some on-the-ground activity in Lebanon. For another, it's very far away from them.
01:27And that's not how they fight that kind of war. They don't do that kind of long-distance fighting.
01:36But it gets to the question, then, of exactly sort of what the goal is here. I mean, we've seen
01:41our military might, but that only goes so far.
01:43At some point, you have to start talking about a functioning government and ideally a government that would be friendlier
01:51to the U.S.
01:52and the Middle Eastern, other Middle Eastern nations out there.
01:56Well, one option is what the president did, and he obviously is very happy with in Venezuela, where somebody within
02:03the regime is willing to give him what he wants,
02:07make the compromises that the Ayatollah Khamenei would not make and that the whole government of Iran would not make
02:14until this war.
02:16Another possibility, of course, is another uprising, and that would really put pressure on the president.
02:22What happens if hundreds of thousands of Iranians rise up, as they did in January, and the regime starts shooting
02:30them, as it did in January?
02:31Will the president act to prevent that? And I think the answer is yes, he would act.
02:37But again, it would be from the air.
02:40There is a possibility that the country just falls apart.
02:44That is, you see the inability of the central government to really have any sway in different parts of it.
02:51For example, Iranian Kurdistan.
02:55All of those are possibilities, and it's hard to see right now how it is going to turn out.
03:01And it is hard for the Iranians in the regime to make decisions, because they know that if they ever
03:07get together to have a meeting to make such decisions,
03:11they're likely to get hit by the United States or Israel.
03:15They're going to be having Zoom meetings for a while.
03:18Well, Elliot, what do you want to see, or what are you looking for as we enter the weekend?
03:22We saw the strikes happen late last Friday here in New York time.
03:26What are you looking for as we head into a critical stretch, or is it not critical?
03:31Well, I think it is.
03:34Week two, I think, looks a lot like week one, except in two ways.
03:39I think the Iranians are going to be less and less able each day, less this weekend, less Monday, Tuesday,
03:48less able to attack us, Israel, our Arab allies, their neighbors, because we are really suppressing their ability to do
03:57that.
03:57We're going after their missiles, going after their launchers especially.
04:01So there's less of that.
04:02I think that that's critical.
04:04And the second thing is we will be using a new or older class of weapons.
04:09We've been using things like the F-35 because they are able to avoid being shot down.
04:15But once we've completely suppressed the Iranian anti-air ability, which we are pretty well doing right now,
04:24we can use older machines like the B-52, the B-2 that can drop more ordnance.
04:32So there's more and more.
04:34Yeah.
04:34I have a question, though.
04:36I have a question, though, Elliot.
04:37And forgive me if this is a bit selfish and it focuses a little bit more on the market's concern
04:41here.
04:41I understand there's a broader aim here.
04:43But when do we get to a point where the Strait of Hormuz is open, the flow of oil and
04:48gas is back to normal,
04:50because all this firepower and everything else, it does not necessarily help, at least not in the immediate term, in
04:57getting that back open.
04:58It's closed.
04:58It's effectively closed.
05:00When does it open?
05:02I'll give you a number, though it's probably foolish to do so, about two weeks.
05:06I think we need to suppress the rest of the Iranian Navy, their fast boats, cigarette boats, their ability to
05:13mine.
05:14And I think that takes another two weeks.
05:17At what point does cost matter or does it not matter from the U.S. perspective as it relates to
05:21this ongoing war or conflict,
05:23depending how you want to break it down?
05:25You know, the deficits have been so gigantic that the cost of this war is a marginal error.
05:32I don't think that's going to control how long this goes.
05:37So, Elliot, when we talk about also this idea of the U.S. being involved in a lot of different
05:42areas,
05:43Iran obviously being the most significant at the point, but obviously we have Venezuela,
05:47who knows what we're doing in the rest of the Caribbean as well here.
05:50Does it get to a point where our military becomes a little bit too stretched?
05:57Not unless something perks up in Asia.
06:00That is, we are not now really involved militarily in Venezuela.
06:05We're doing a little bit going after boats in the Caribbean, but it's not a real stretch for the Navy.
06:10This is a real stretch for the whole U.S. military.
06:14They can do it, but we're not in the position anymore of fighting two and a half or three wars
06:19at a time.
06:20So, as long as nothing is added to this, we're fine.
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