00:00Do you think the Trump administration's objectives were clear to you from the outset?
00:06Were they adequately communicated to U.S. partners around the world and to the U.S. population, for that matter?
00:14What are your thoughts on that?
00:15Well, yes and no, respectively.
00:18Yes, it's clear what President Trump wanted.
00:21I mean, he wanted either a solution like he thinks he is getting with respect to Venezuela,
00:27where there is now a Venezuelan leader who is more aligned with Trump's foreign policy goals.
00:35He was hoping for that kind of a government in Iran.
00:39And whether that came by bringing to power some different Iranian general or some other kind of a leader,
00:48or whether it came through a popular uprising, that part seems to have been a sort of, well, we'll see.
00:57And there really is a significant amount of improvisation on that.
01:04Other countries are aware that this is what Trump's goal is.
01:08But most of the questions are being raised as to how you're going to achieve those goals.
01:13Because the idea of creating, for example, a rift in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps
01:21is one that is obviously would have to be done in secret,
01:27and one wouldn't know the mind of an Iranian general until he does something.
01:32But the apparent lack of planning and the lack of having someone, as we say, waiting in the wings
01:39is certainly striking to the American public and to other countries around the world.
01:46So you seem to be saying the Venezuela model, as some are calling it,
01:50is wholly inapplicable to the situation in Iran.
01:54And one of the things I've heard quite a few commentators say...
01:56Actually, I wouldn't say wholly inapplicable.
02:00There are different views within the Iranian hierarchy,
02:03and there probably are ambitious generals or colonels who would welcome the chance to seize power.
02:12There has been a pattern of this in Iranian history, if you go back a little over a century.
02:17And so you could see a general taking power.
02:21But the IRGC is carefully vetted for political loyalty.
02:26And to some extent, that will be tested in the weeks and months ahead.
02:30It just may not happen overnight.
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