CSPAN - Washington Journal Ben Taleblu
Aired: 2026-04-09
Duration: 49:59


=== Limiting Past Negotiation Failures (14:58) ===

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[00:00:49]  Back with us today to discuss the Iranian ceasefire is Benim Ben Taliblu.
[00:00:54]  He's a senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
[00:00:57]  He's has a background in nonproliferation, human rights issues.
[00:01:01]  36 hours into this ceasefire, which are top-line takeaways right now?
[00:01:05]  What's your biggest concerns?
[00:01:07]  Actually, the biggest concern is about Saturday, when the U.S. and Iran finally meet.
[00:01:12]  You know, these two countries on all of these issues were worlds apart before the fighting started.
[00:01:18]  Then the fighting took off and pushed them off even further.
[00:01:21]  So I think the chance of an actual good diplomatic agreement right now is slim to none.
[00:01:27]  That doesn't mean that there isn't a chance for some sort of framework for deconfliction, how you pull away from the table, how I pull away from the table.
[00:01:34]  But as it respects to the final status issues, Iran's so-called right to enrich, that's what they say, with respect to the uranium that is still buried in many of those sites that were struck last June, with respect to what the future of their missile program could or should or should not look like, I think that'll be darn near impossible to get a good deal on in this short order.
[00:01:54]  In terms of what's being put out ahead of this deal, what do you make of this 10-point Iranian plan that we've seen?
[00:02:01]  It's a different plan when it appears in Farsi versus when it appears in English.
[00:02:06]  That's a classic, by the way.
[00:02:08]  A lot of demands here.
[00:02:09]  What's your takeaway?
[00:02:10]  Listen, I think even the president himself may have had the old switcheroo on us, where I think in his tweets or his posts a few days ago, he talked about the basis being the 10-point plan.
[00:02:20]  Then, no, the basis has the actual 15-point proposal.
[00:02:23]  Then the White House press secretary actually says that the 10-point plan that the Iranians submitted is very different than that which is being discussed in public.
[00:02:30]  And I think even the president's statements on social media within the past 12 hours also talking about this difference.
[00:02:36]  And I think what you're getting at with the translation issue is that allegedly in the initially reported, even in the Persian language press, of the 10-point plan was not the right to enrich.
[00:02:47]  That was translated into English.
[00:02:49]  That became the basis for all of these things.
[00:02:50]  And then later on, it kind of slid its way back in there that, oh, no, first, America has to recognize this right as a predicate to talks.
[00:02:57]  Showing some of the points of that 10-point plan to viewers as reported by the Wall Street Journal, the English version of that plan.
[00:03:04]  What, in your opinion, must the U.S. have when these negotiations are done for a good deal to be reached?
[00:03:14]  I might push away from the table here and say that I don't think negotiations are the best idea right now.
[00:03:18]  The U.S. has sunk considerable time, considerable treasure, considerable human treasure, considerable blood, considerable national reputation in this conflict.
[00:03:28]  And it doesn't behoove American deterrence.
[00:03:31]  It doesn't help us with our nonproliferation goals.
[00:03:33]  It doesn't help us with respect to all the things that you and I spoke about when we sat here about two, three months ago with respect to standing with the Iranian people that the president himself said in January, if we are in a position where in the morning the president will say something with immense respect that I think was absolutely incorrect about civilizational erasure.
[00:03:55]  And then 12 hours after that, say, actually, I'm looking to do a deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
[00:04:00]  That 180 doesn't serve us.
[00:04:03]  Is regime change necessary in Iran?
[00:04:06]  I think if you're talking about solutions, again, there's a very big difference in Washington to push away from the table, to kick the can down the road.
[00:04:14]  That's managing the problem.
[00:04:15]  But I think we're at the point now where we've tried to manage this problem from the Islamic Republic so long, it ended up managing us.
[00:04:21]  It's confounded several American presidencies.
[00:04:23]  I think President Trump, in term one, he hit the nail on the head in terms of the right approach.
[00:04:28]  Now he has actually the opportunity to multilateralize that.
[00:04:30]  The very interesting thing is that Europe hasn't been throwing a fit over the actual fight itself.
[00:04:35]  Yes, there's issues over the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:04:37]  Yes, there's issues over NATO.
[00:04:38]  But actually with the fight against the regime itself, Europe hasn't been really throwing a fit there.
[00:04:44]  So to that end, I think we have to align ways, means, and ends to actually get the public to understand that it's not the trigger.
[00:04:51]  It's not the gun.
[00:04:52]  It's the finger on the trigger.
[00:04:54]  And this is a finger run by a group that have been chanting death to America and death to Israel for 47 years.
[00:05:00]  And the people in their own country are their longest suffering victims.
[00:05:03]  And those people actually tend to be the most pro-American and the most pro-Israeli in that entire region.
[00:05:08]  And if that group is ever empowered, that's when lawmakers in Washington, that's when the public actually gets what they want, which is us to do less, not more, in that part of the world.
[00:05:17]  Are you surprised that some sort of popular uprising has not happened in the past six plus weeks here?
[00:05:24]  Oh, it would be impossible to happen in the middle of a war.
[00:05:26]  I mean, the thing is, literally the speech that commenced the conflict, I think President Trump's 3 a.m. speech on February 28th, he told Iranians to stay home.
[00:05:35]  Then later on, exiled Crown Prince Faza Parlabi told Iranians to stay home.
[00:05:39]  Then later on, I think even Admiral Cooper, in a longer television interview, told Iranians to stay home.
[00:05:45]  I think everyone right now rightly understands that no one comes out in the middle of a conflict, because if you go out, that's basically a suicide mission.
[00:05:51]  The challenge now ex post-conflict is as the fog of war begins to dissipate, where will the opposition be?
[00:05:58]  What will be the relative balance between the street and the state?
[00:06:01]  Especially because just two, three months ago, we had the biggest nationwide uprisings in Iran, but also we had the most violently suppressed ones in Iran.
[00:06:09]  And the question is, what did the conflict do to that fight?
[00:06:13]  And here the answer may not lie with America.
[00:06:15]  It may lie with Israel.
[00:06:16]  Where I would say in the past maybe 11, 12 days of the conflict, looking at the stuff that they have been putting out, they have been targeting this thing, this cocktail that I call the apparatus of repression.
[00:06:26]  The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij paramilitary, the vigilante groups, the law enforcement forces.
[00:06:33]  And this is the group that every time there's a protest, the Islamic Republic takes a different proportion of them, shakes it up, and throws it at these protesters.
[00:06:40]  And they violently suppress these protesters, like we saw in the month of January.
[00:06:44]  So the question now is, if you are worried about what comes next, it's not what percentage of missile launchers did America destroy.
[00:06:51]  It's how much of that apparatus of repression did Israel degrade and spook and set back such that the next time folks come out, is there at all even a slightly different balance?
[00:07:02]  And we just don't know that yet.
[00:07:04]  The next time folks come out, who's most likely to be the leader of that group?
[00:07:08]  What is the face of the resistance right now in Iran?
[00:07:11]  Well, there is no one leader inside the country.
[00:07:14]  But if you're talking about outside, we saw the exiled crown prince of Iran be able to draw massive crowds on January 8th, January 9.
[00:07:20]  Even crowds that per European diplomats based in Tehran reportedly had 1.5 million just in that city alone.
[00:07:27]  You know, Mashhad, Iran's second biggest city on that longest boulevard in that city were also chanting pro-Path Levi slogans.
[00:07:36]  But this isn't about some kind of monarchist restoration or anyone's rich diaspora family member trying to do something to come back.
[00:07:43]  This is about the people in that country coming out and trying to draw as sharp a contrast as possible with the regime.
[00:07:50]  And if the regime is Islamist, what's the ideology that is a sharp 180 degrees opposite Islamism?
[00:07:57]  It's nationalism.
[00:07:58]  And that is actually why the exiled crown prince is more popular than ever before.
[00:08:02]  And that is actually why he's been able to galvanize such a group of people to come out more than ever before.
[00:08:07]  Benem Ben Taliblu is our guest.
[00:08:09]  Viewers know him from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
[00:08:13]  He is taking your phone calls on phone lines as usual.
[00:08:15]  Republicans 202-748-8001.
[00:08:17]  Democrats 202-748-8000.
[00:08:20]  Independents 202-748-8002.
[00:08:24]  Before we take the calls, come back to the negotiations.
[00:08:27]  I know you were talking about perhaps it not being the time, but if and when the Vice President and Jared Kushner and Steve Witcock sit down with the Iranians in Pakistan on Saturday, who is most likely going to be on the other side of that negotiating table?
[00:08:42]  It's an excellent question.
[00:08:43]  Even I believe the vice president mentioned the parliament speaker, who, given the way power is structured in Iran, being head of parliament doesn't necessarily give you a certain kind of capability.
[00:08:52]  But in Iran, it's also taking the line that we have here in Washington, personnel as policy times 10 or times 100.
[00:08:59]  And that person is a veteran of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
[00:09:02]  He's a veteran of the 1980, 1988 Iran-Iraq war, which really birthed the generation of people that are running that state today.
[00:09:10]  He is a close confidant of the former Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.
[00:09:14]  He was previously the head of the IRGC Air Force.
[00:09:17]  He was previously the head of the IRGC's construction arm.
[00:09:20]  He was mayor of Tehran, I think, for two terms.
[00:09:22]  He kind of envisions himself as like an ambitious, a fairly ambitious guy, I would say.
[00:09:29]  My fear is that Washington may be reading his ambition as pragmatism or moderation, and there's a real difference between those things.
[00:09:37]  But nonetheless, given what this parliament speaker has said really throughout the course of the conflict, there's no moderation there to be had.
[00:09:45]  I mean, he's really boxed himself in.
[00:09:47]  And more importantly, even if you do think that this is someone you can hang your head on, I mean, I had a piece in the Washington Post with a friend that said that this guy is not the Dulcie Rodriguez of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
[00:09:57]  But even if one does believe that, even if one does want to project that, the question is, well, the structure of power is fundamentally different today.
[00:10:05]  This is much more of a coarse, brittle, hardline, national security, deep state than ever before.
[00:10:11]  Hypothetically, even if you do think he's Del Codriguez, how could he deliver?
[00:10:15]  So my problem with the negotiating team is, how do you know that that regime will be able to deliver at this point in time, given how successful America and Israel have been dealing body blows to the regime over the past six weeks?
[00:10:27]  Come back to personnel is policy.
[00:10:29]  What does it say that JD Vance is leading these negotiations and not Secretary of State, Marco Rubio?
[00:10:34]  Well, I think this was a request by the Islamic Republic, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:10:38]  It's a request that seems to have been granted by Washington.
[00:10:42]  I don't know how we want to read the Washington tea leaves into it.
[00:10:45]  There's two ways to do it.
[00:10:46]  And again, sometimes it's easier to understand what's going on in Tehran than it is to Washington where you and I live and work.
[00:10:52]  But nonetheless, let's take a stab at it.
[00:10:54]  The first is this is the president's blessing.
[00:10:56]  You know, this is a very, if you have the vice president of the United States, it's literally just one step away from the president.
[00:11:01]  So this is a very, very high-level level delegation so it's a measure of American seriousness.
[00:11:06]  The other is, given that negotiations haven't gone on too well too far in the past with the Islamic Republic, perhaps this is a way to actually limit it and to say, hey look, we tried.
[00:11:19]  We tried to send a very high level person and it didn't go anywhere.
[00:11:23]  And because the president, you know, may not have the patience for diplomacy, I think even the clip you played of Vice President Vance in Budapest saying that the president is impatient will play to his advantage.
[00:11:34]  If someone like that, who has a president's ear, who has publicly sunk costs about how much limited time there is for this, if he goes and he was framed in a very recent NEW YORK Times piece as being very skeptical of the military operation and, and you know rightly pointing to the costs of the military operation over the past six weeks if he goes and if he says that the Iranians are not negotiating good faith well, you have maximum legitimacy.
[00:11:56]  To go back to the shooting, and that gets us to the president's tweet or post from this morning.
[00:12:01]  He's like that's when the shooting starts.
[00:12:03]  And then two other questions on on the negotiations front, why in Pakistan?
[00:12:07]  And why is China involved at least in some way in this?
[00:12:12]  Well, let's go in reverse, because the Pakistanis do call China an all-weather ally, despite the very tormented and turbulent and kaleidoscopic U.S.-Pakistan relationship over the years and sometimes that's being generous the, the Pakistanis do look to China as a strategic partner.
[00:12:32]  You saw that in the Cold War, you see that in spades.
[00:12:34]  Now why Pakistan Pakistan, less so Turkey, less so Egypt?
[00:12:40]  But also you broaden the aperture a little bit here there are these countries that for a long time have auditioned to be mediator or moderator between Trump and Tehran and a lot of them have failed and sometimes when they fail they double down.
[00:12:54]  In the past you saw Prime Minister Abe of Japan.
[00:12:57]  You saw Merkel, Chancellor Merkel of Japan.
[00:13:00]  You want to nest your own bilateral issues into the U.S.-Iran relationship.
[00:13:06]  Second, it's you as a rising power, as a middle power, as a different kind of power.
[00:13:10]  You want the status, you want the boon of having delivered these two very different sides.
[00:13:15]  But every time it fails, there's a whole new constellation of countries that come out and try.
[00:13:18]  I mean, just before this conflict we saw the GCC, the GULF Cooperation Council, states much more so Oman, slightly less so Qatar trying, but both of these countries were hit by the Islamic Republic during this conflict.
[00:13:30]  So it's interesting to see the constellation of countries that are willing to come in, the fact that the Chinese, who we have, as you know, great issues with a lot of strategic competition, with kind of poking and prodding the Pakistanis forward, but also reportedly trying to get the Iranians, who are shutting down the Strait Of Hormuz and are impacting the Chinese energy and economic trade, coming out of the Persian Gulf, trying to get both sides to come together.
[00:13:53]  I think there may be more kind of great power dress rehearsal in the shadows than meets the eyes.
[00:13:58]  What is there to know about the Iranian Pakistani relationship that is also a bit tormented.
[00:14:03]  I mean, if you're going to zoom out remember, January 2024 is the first time that the Islamic Republic, directly from its own territory, from Iranian territory, attacked the territory Of a country that has nuclear weapons.
[00:14:16]  Pakistan has nuclear weapons.
[00:14:18]  There's that Saudi defense pact.
[00:14:19]  A lot of people assume or project, given the very long Saudi Pakistan defense history, that the Pakistanis would cover the Saudis in some kind of nuclear umbrella.
[00:14:29]  But the Islamic Republic attacked Pakistani territory because there's Baluch separatists there.
[00:14:34]  The Pakistanis have also struck Iranian Balooch positions in response.
[00:14:37]  So there has been a real kinetic flare-up in the not too recent past.
[00:14:41]  Both countries have tried to manage very, let's just say, different Islamist ideologies at times.
[00:14:47]  They've been on very different sides of the pro-U.S. and anti-U.S. global war on terror.
[00:14:52]  And so sometimes they learn to live without.
[00:14:54]  And sometimes high neighbors, high fences make for good neighbors.

=== Targeting Resilient Leadership (08:09) ===

[00:14:58]  Benim Bentaliblou, a very good person to have on this week, and he's here to take your calls and questions on phone lines for Republicans, Democrats, and independents as usual.
[00:15:07]  Your first call from Hawaii.
[00:15:09]  Alan, up early, independent.
[00:15:12]  Alan, you're on with Benham Bentaliblou.
[00:15:15]  Hey, good morning, John.
[00:15:18]  Benham, it's great to speak with you again on C-SPAN Washington Journal.
[00:15:22]  I think the last time I spoke to you was actually we talked about David Albright's assessment of this was probably six months ago or so.
[00:15:32]  But what I was curious about was your article in foreign policy recently about what you wanted President Trump to do to try to get a regime change.
[00:15:44]  Sorry, let me interrupt you for a while.
[00:15:45]  Foreign affairs, you mean, right?
[00:15:47]  The February one.
[00:15:48]  Foreign affairs.
[00:15:49]  Yeah, yeah, foreign affairs.
[00:15:50]  And then what I was curious about, that would be the first part of my question.
[00:15:55]  You can address that as you wish.
[00:15:57]  But obviously, like Mike Duran and everyone has their own concerns about how well this ceasefire is going to play out, and if it was a strategic decision to allow a ceasefire now,
[00:16:13]  if it was an economic motivation because of the straight of Hormuz, or if it was basically there's tactical, you know, there's like tactics there where they're trying to assess who's actually in the leadership position and does that help them to decide if another attack is necessary, what needs to happen.
[00:16:32]  This type of modality.
[00:16:33]  I'm just curious because you're probably the best guy in the world to talk to about this.
[00:16:38]  So that's why I'm asking you.
[00:16:40]  Alan, thanks for the questions.
[00:16:41]  Thank you.
[00:16:41]  That's very kind of you, Alan.
[00:16:42]  Just to reference that foreign affairs piece, it came out actually after the protest, but before the fighting started.
[00:16:49]  What it will take to change the regime in Iran, the U.S. military must go big and then let Iranians do the rest.
[00:16:54]  The headline.
[00:16:55]  Yeah, so that's basically, it was my case for going big or going home with respect to U.S. military operations, that there is no baby bear approach to this.
[00:17:04]  You either go all in or you don't do this at all.
[00:17:06]  And in go all in, we don't talk about ground troops, but we talk a heck of a lot about suppressing the various ways that the Islamic Republic can respond before you begin to go after that one group that we spoke about, which is the apparatus of repression.
[00:17:20]  You have to suppress their missile fire.
[00:17:22]  You have to destroy their air and missile defenses.
[00:17:24]  You have to target their leadership.
[00:17:26]  You have to shred command and control.
[00:17:28]  You have to spook even mid-level missile commanders.
[00:17:31]  You have to do all of these things.
[00:17:33]  You have to fight.
[00:17:34]  You have to play to the edge.
[00:17:35]  You have to win, because this is going to sound a little too hard for early morning and first or second cup of coffee conversations.
[00:17:42]  But the definition of something that is in a national security interest is what are you willing to fight, kill, and die for.
[00:17:49]  And if you are not going to do that, by definition, that thing is not a core national security interest.
[00:17:54]  And I believe because this regime has been killing Americans for so long, because this regime has been sponsoring terrorism for so long, because it has been sucking us into a region that we've been trying to leave for so long, there is no way out but through.
[00:18:06]  And through means disabling this regime, kicking it to the curb, and creating the conditions for the people to come in.
[00:18:14]  And it's not some kind of a random humanitarian mission.
[00:18:16]  It's something that actually President Trump can do.
[00:18:19]  And in that piece, we talked about what he should do and what logistically that would look like.
[00:18:24]  Therefore, unlike with respect to some folks in Washington, I have not been surprised by a single thing in the past six weeks of warfighting.
[00:18:32]  The fact that the Iranians went for the straight, the fact that the missile capability was this resilient.
[00:18:36]  If you've been paying attention to why the Islamic Republic is a threat for so long, you should not have been surprised by how resilient they were.
[00:18:44]  Weak does not mean not lethal.
[00:18:46]  And I've been saying an iteration of this, the regime is weak, but it is still very lethal for the past three months now.
[00:18:51]  And I make the case why we have to deal with that lethality in that foreign affairs.
[00:18:55]  How close did we get to going all in?
[00:18:58]  I think we had a ways to go.
[00:19:00]  You know, America is a very interesting warfighter where there is as much politics and policy to the target selection and to the timeline afforded to this than anything else.
[00:19:10]  And there was as much negotiation throughout the six weeks of fighting with the president and himself than with the adversary.
[00:19:19]  And sometimes those deliberations were public, and sometimes even within a tweet or a statement, you saw different positions.
[00:19:25]  And I think this stems from the president's willingness to put everything out there, to quite literally do what every U.S. president said they would do, which is to put all options on the table.
[00:19:34]  And the president advances all of these options almost simultaneously, so as to have to avoid putting his entire political capital behind one, but also to provoke the adversary and see which one of these the adversary responds to.
[00:19:47]  Put it all out there, see what they will do.
[00:19:50]  It's talking and shooting, talking and fighting at the same time.
[00:19:54]  And so that is what we tried to deal with in the foreign affairs piece.
[00:19:57]  The gentleman's second question about what follows.
[00:20:01]  I mean, that's a great question.
[00:20:02]  You know, what do you want to follow?
[00:20:04]  I mean, this is not the point about regime change, but what follows within this regime when you de-racinate it, you decapitate it.
[00:20:10]  You have the longest serving autocrat in the contemporary Middle East, Ali Khamenei, no longer at the helm.
[00:20:15]  You have Iranians inside Iran making jokes about we have an AI supreme leader.
[00:20:19]  We have a cardboard supreme leader now because Mujtaba Khamenei, his son, has neither been seen nor any audio heard from.
[00:20:26]  There's all these rumors that he's very, very badly injured.
[00:20:29]  Is he cognizant?
[00:20:30]  Is he in a coma?
[00:20:30]  Is he in Tehran?
[00:20:31]  Is he in Qom?
[00:20:32]  Is he in Mashhad?
[00:20:33]  Where is he?
[00:20:34]  And in the absence of that supreme leader being not so supreme, forgive me, it is this deep state.
[00:20:40]  It is this body that is still running the country.
[00:20:44]  And that body is the veterans of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
[00:20:47]  That's the most important security organization.
[00:20:50]  And perhaps the most important political organization is the Supreme National Security Council.
[00:20:55]  So despite this regime calling itself the Islamic Republic, like a former Ayatollah who was defrocked and died under house arrest said, you know, this is neither Islamic nor a republic.
[00:21:08]  Who makes up the Supreme National Security Council and have they been targeted over the course of the past six weeks?
[00:21:13]  Well, as you know, the previous head of the Supreme National Security Council was indeed targeted, Ali Larijani.
[00:21:19]  That's perhaps a really key and very hard to penetrate and understand national security decision-making body.
[00:21:24]  It kind of functions like our National Security Council here, but then some.
[00:21:29]  It has a president, but more importantly, it has a secretary.
[00:21:32]  It has a secretariat that basically functions as this executive council slash think tank for the regime, passing ideas up and down the system, connecting the various overlapping Byzantine centers of power and getting folks together to deliberate.
[00:21:46]  And it has lots of military people, it has civilians, it has clerics on it.
[00:21:50]  It's not meant to say that it's representative, but it is perhaps a place where even this very hardcore authoritarian regime will consult with other centers and be deliberative.
[00:22:01]  And that's how even a regime as weak as this can kind of play to the edge.
[00:22:05]  And the previous secretary, I've mentioned Ali Larajani, was indeed targeted.
[00:22:09]  And many have said, hey, Vietnam, the new Supreme National Security Council Secretary is a hardcore IRGC veteran, which is true.
[00:22:16]  And he is a little bit different than Ari Larajani.
[00:22:19]  And that's not mincing words.
[00:22:20]  But the problem is, Ahi Larijani himself was an IRGC veteran, as was the previous secretary, as was the previous secretary.
[00:22:26]  So this talking point that exists out there in Washington that, oh, by President Trump taking these strikes or by Israel supporting these strikes, we have somehow reset the deck in Iran and the IRGC has come to the helm.
[00:22:38]  This was a movie we've been seeing in slow motion anyway.
[00:22:40]  Trump expedited with the military conflict, but we've been seeing this movie anyway.
[00:22:45]  And it is not because of an American or Israeli foresight or accident that brought the IRGC to the helm.
[00:22:51]  It is because of path-dependent decisions by the former Supreme Leader for 37 years to move the security forces into politics, into society, into the economy, even into religious institutions.
[00:23:04]  And that is what has made this state what you see now it to be.

=== The Ceasefire That Won't Last (04:38) ===

[00:23:07]  Anthony, Greentown, Pennsylvania, Republican.
[00:23:11]  Good morning.
[00:23:11]  You're on with Benem Ben Taliblou.
[00:23:14]  Good morning, John.
[00:23:15]  Good morning, Mr. Tagalboo.
[00:23:16]  Talibu.
[00:23:18]  I agree with our friend from Hawaii that you're the foremost Moisa I want to hear on this at this point.
[00:23:26]  You're very intelligent.
[00:23:28]  You know all the players.
[00:23:30]  You know all the pieces.
[00:23:31]  And I seek you out when I'm looking for information on this.
[00:23:35]  I have a couple of questions.
[00:23:37]  One of them has to do with, I saw Chuck Schumer before talking about how Trump has messed this up and goes on and on and on.
[00:23:45]  And his useful rhetoric is only for the Iranian government at this point.
[00:23:52]  He has no useful rhetoric for the United States.
[00:23:55]  I can't stand listening to him downgrade and take this conflict and make Iran thank him for his comments.
[00:24:08]  He's just disgusted me, and a lot of Democrats do at this point.
[00:24:11]  However, my question is, in the beginning of this, the Kurds were considered one of the potential ground invasion forces we could use.
[00:24:22]  And I just wanted to get your opinion on if that's still a viable option or is there something else that we need to do?
[00:24:29]  Just, oh, we're taking Carg Island.
[00:24:31]  I don't believe we're over.
[00:24:33]  The ceasefire is not going to last.
[00:24:35]  The Iranians seem to be very smug about it.
[00:24:39]  And I like the guy's analysis about the Monty Python character getting his arms and legs chopped off and still wanting to bite the guy.
[00:24:47]  The Iranians have lost a lot of teeth, but they still have teeth.
[00:24:53]  Just let me get your comments on that.
[00:24:54]  And please explain to the public how Chuck Schumer is just a useful idiot to the Iranian government right now.
[00:25:01]  Thank you very much.
[00:25:02]  Anthony in Pennsylvania.
[00:25:03]  Thank you, Anthony.
[00:25:04]  That was very kind of you.
[00:25:05]  I'm going to work backwards.
[00:25:06]  You said three things.
[00:25:07]  Ceasefire, Kurds, and Senator Schumer.
[00:25:10]  The ceasefire.
[00:25:12]  You mentioned the Monty Python.
[00:25:14]  Let me also... Black Knight.
[00:25:17]  Let me give you a different analogy, but actually something that comes straight from Iran.
[00:25:21]  I saw it on social media, the limited kind of dribs and drabs of information you can get from that country when folks are able to connect with Starlink or via VPN, given the internet black out there.
[00:25:32]  And it's essentially, it's a guy saying, man, I can't sleep at night due to the sounds of this ceasefire.
[00:25:37]  Meaning, the war is still very much going on.
[00:25:40]  Yes, today, for example, the UAE Foreign Ministry came out and said, yes, no missiles, no drones, which is historic.
[00:25:46]  You've had ships now go through the Strait of Horror, but even a lesser volume.
[00:25:50]  I think seven was the most recent number.
[00:25:52]  Six, six, or seven.
[00:25:53]  And I mean, that's even less than 10, which was at a high during the conflict.
[00:25:57]  So if during a ceasefire, peace looks more fragile than the economic trade looked during war, it kind of means we're not out of it yet.
[00:26:06]  So you're very right to be skeptical of the ceasefire.
[00:26:08]  Let me also just add, by the way, that there is a world in which there is a kind of a cold peace and no hot war, and it's really just a pause between the next round of fighting.
[00:26:19]  And I think that's the world that we've entered.
[00:26:21]  Whether I like it or not, whether you like it or not.
[00:26:23]  In fact, I actually think the limited rounds of fighting is not helpful.
[00:26:27]  I understand the logic of death by a thousand cuts, but the reason I wrote that in Foreign Affairs is I think Americans don't want to come and go and come and go.
[00:26:34]  And also more, you know, to the heart of the matter, given the fact of you and I again speaking last time in January, you will lose more of that great sea of Iranian support if you turn on and turn off and turn on and turn off, because you'll lose more people because fighting necessarily will come with civilian casualties.
[00:26:51]  And the regime, the more you kind of slowly collapse the house on the people, the more the people are not going to necessarily want to stand for that.
[00:26:58]  And there will be mistakes made.
[00:27:00]  So, you know, if we're going to do it, we should do it right.
[00:27:03]  And I actually think that this ceasefire approach and this thinking of a more minimalist way to solve the problem, push away from the table, that's not going to be solving us.
[00:27:11]  I think we have to understand that right now, the main shooting between America and Iran has stopped.
[00:27:16]  That's a good thing.
[00:27:17]  But this is nowhere at all close to being solved.
[00:27:20]  And we have to prepare ourselves for, if these guys remain in power, this is going to become a Middle Eastern version of North Korea.
[00:27:27]  So rather than talking about us helping them rebuild, we have to be talking about how can we contain them.
[00:27:33]  And that is the policy that Washington needs to be thinking about here and being prepared for if folks go into the streets again in that country to take down their tyrannical government, what is it that we can do to help them rather than us keep getting surprised every time people go out into the streets.

=== Fracturing a State on Front Lines (02:28) ===

[00:27:46]  So that's the conversation we need to be having.
[00:27:48]  So that's how the ceasefire issue stands.
[00:27:51]  With respect to the Kurds, you know, listen, the Kurds have fought bravely with and sometimes even for America for two or three decades now, depending on the conflict in Iraq, more recently, and perhaps more prominently in Syria, the fight against ISIS.
[00:28:05]  It's a very different issue with respect to the Islamic Republic.
[00:28:08]  You have not one Kurdish group, but various Kurdish groups, iterations of an alphabet soup of different groups, some of which want autonomy inside Iran, some of which want more than autonomy.
[00:28:19]  Some of them are separatist groups.
[00:28:20]  Some of them in the past used to have foreign backing.
[00:28:23]  You know, Masa Amini herself was a Kurd.
[00:28:25]  Masa Amini was a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who was killed and whose death sparked the Women Life Freedom Uprising in 2022-23.
[00:28:33]  Masa Amini's mother would say, and it was public back then during the protests, that Massa, I'll tell you it in Persian, Masa du Khtara Irana.
[00:28:42]  Massa is a daughter of Iran.
[00:28:44]  It's not a daughter of one ethnic group or one sectarian group.
[00:28:47]  And so I'd say it's a mistake to keep, even though Iran is a mosaic, it's a mistake to try to look at the mosaic and try to fracture it.
[00:28:54]  There's no ethnic segregation in Iran.
[00:28:56]  Yes, you have places where majority Kurdish is spoken, majority Azeri is spoken, majority Persian is spoken.
[00:29:02]  But for us to come in and take a Yugoslavia type approach or a separate-like approach like India-Pakistan or like a Kashmir-type approach, that adds to the problems of the Middle East.
[00:29:12]  It doesn't solve the problems of the Middle East.
[00:29:14]  And in Iran, where you have, again, nationalism now being felt by such a large swath of the population, if we default to ethnic insurgency rather than ride the nationalist wave, we're going to come out of it on the other end.
[00:29:28]  And I think no one said this better than the president himself when, yes, I have questions about what he said, but he did say that allegedly, and we don't know to whom or to which group, he said, allegedly weapons were given and they were not handed back.
[00:29:41]  And many were looking to the Kurds then because would they have been this ground force, this potential ground insurgent force?
[00:29:49]  I don't think that that would have even armed them to be able to go take Tehran.
[00:29:52]  So it would be too weak to actually succeed militarily.
[00:29:55]  And the U.S. probably would have an issue with giving them air cover, as was clearly proven to be the case.
[00:30:01]  So you would once again be putting Kurds on the front lines of a conflict that they could not win, but also be fracturing a state that really should not be fractured, and then losing the great sea of support that you could have among the population.

=== Using Americans as Shields (15:35) ===

[00:30:14]  So this issue of arm this ethnic group or arm that ethnic group, to me, it's a lose, lose, lose.
[00:30:20]  It's a lose on politics, it's a lose on morals, and it's a lose on strategy.
[00:30:24]  And then finally, you mentioned something about Senator Schumer.
[00:30:27]  I'll try very hard to be nonpartisan about this, but I think this goes to both sides of the American political spectrum.
[00:30:35]  Sometimes there's such a desire to own the other side that we could end up recycling adversaries' talking points.
[00:30:43]  And I don't mean an adversary from the left or an adversary from the right, because these are Americans, these are our neighbors, these are our compatriots.
[00:30:50]  But I mean an adversary like a foreign adversary.
[00:30:53]  And for us to kind of go so hard against each other, whether Schumer against the president or someone else against Schumer, that doesn't help any of us.
[00:31:01]  So let me just say, pushing away from the table here for a second, when Americans fight each other like that, it's not us who wins or the left who wins or the right who wins or the center who wins.
[00:31:12]  It's those foreign adversaries that win, that really want to sick us against each other and press upon our social cleavages.
[00:31:18]  Does it surprise you, amid this conflict, we've occasionally shown viewers several minutes of press TV, the English language television, the Iranian state-owned TV to see how this is playing in Iran, or at least how they're playing it for their people in Iran.
[00:31:34]  Does it surprise you when they will occasionally show tweets and social media posts from American politicians, Democrats criticizing the president on this?
[00:31:45]  No, it's not surprising.
[00:31:45]  And in fact, it's something that's grown, and not just on press TV, but a whole host of others, because press TV is the primary English language outlet designed to kind of press upon our cleavages.
[00:31:55]  So naturally, there is more coverage of American commentary there that is believed to be fringe, that is believed to be counter the mainstream, so that they can use American voices to fight other Americans.
[00:32:05]  But you look at even in stuff that they have in Persian for their own audiences, even for the hardline, for example, like Tasneem News Agency, semi-official news agency believed to be tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
[00:32:17]  They will cover some American academics, some American professors, some American media organizations, some American politicians.
[00:32:23]  And it's not just news coverage of people who said things that were newsworthy.
[00:32:27]  It is the selective slicing and dicing, and again, using of Americans in fights with other Americans.
[00:32:33]  It's to paint a picture of our society.
[00:32:35]  It's to use Americans as a shield to fight other Americans.
[00:32:39]  So I really want to stress this point because the Soviet Union did it very well.
[00:32:44]  Now the Chinese, less so than North Koreans, do it very well.
[00:32:47]  But this is one domain, this information warfare domain, where the Islamic Republic is doing this very well.
[00:32:52]  And we shouldn't simply sit back and let that happen.
[00:32:55]  To Philadelphia, this is Jonathan, Independent.
[00:32:58]  Jonathan, you're on with Benem Ben Talibu.
[00:33:01]  Great conversation today.
[00:33:03]  One thing I'll say about the former Soviet Union is they did not manage their debt load well.
[00:33:08]  And I think that the United States is falling into the same trap.
[00:33:12]  The empire is too broad, too many bases, and we're $39 trillion in debt and growing.
[00:33:19]  And this war is nothing but an economic quagmire.
[00:33:24]  And if you put boots on the ground, it's going to be a quagmire for a lot of dead soldiers coming home.
[00:33:29]  And I still don't know the reason we're there.
[00:33:32]  I understand that this is Israel's war.
[00:33:34]  I've heard that maybe there's Epstein files of Trump doing stuff the young girls that Israel has, and they're using that to sort of leverage him.
[00:33:42]  I don't know why we're there.
[00:33:42]  It's a terrible idea.
[00:33:44]  I really, really get offended by the way the media in this country does not cover this story.
[00:33:50]  They do not share any information that would help the American people understand the conflict, the risk, or why we're there and why we shouldn't be there.
[00:34:00]  But this is a war that we cannot win.
[00:34:03]  There's not a win in it for us.
[00:34:04]  It's just how bad do you want to lose.
[00:34:06]  Global recession, World War III, how bad do we want to lose is all that's on the table.
[00:34:12]  And these think tanks that come on and present one rosy side, one picture, always promote war as the answer to everything.
[00:34:20]  Man, do I dislike them?
[00:34:22]  And the media, again, they only present one side, the rosy side.
[00:34:26]  They act like Iran was just bombing its neighbors for no reason.
[00:34:29]  We had bases surrounding their country.
[00:34:31]  That's why Iran bombed those other countries.
[00:34:34]  It was to take out our bases that were being used.
[00:34:37]  What do you make of the hotels being bombed in the UAE, sir?
[00:34:41]  What do you make of the gas fields being bombed in Kuwait and Qatar?
[00:34:44]  Yeah, what I've heard is that Israel may have done things like that.
[00:34:48]  That was what Israel was trying to.
[00:34:49]  Okay, very interesting.
[00:34:51]  Listen, sir, you may not like some of the think tanks, and forgive me for being a little bit more forward-leaning in the line of questions and comments today, but we will respect and support your right to say all of that which you've said.
[00:35:05]  That is fundamentally the First Amendment.
[00:35:07]  That is what makes us different.
[00:35:09]  You can't have that caller call in in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
[00:35:12]  That is what makes us different.
[00:35:13]  So now let me begin to respond.
[00:35:15]  You are correct about the debt load.
[00:35:17]  And here I'm not the scholar to focus on.
[00:35:20]  Niall Ferguson has a lot of really excellent stuff about how empires, how countries, how states in the modern era have failed to properly manage their debt.
[00:35:29]  And when the debt and the spending ratio and the amount of money that you spend to service the debt goes higher and higher, that's when there is a real recession.
[00:35:37]  And that's when these empires in the past and states in the present really do begin to fall off.
[00:35:42]  And I guess it would be the time to point out that last Friday the president released his fiscal 2027 budget, a 44% increase in spending for the Pentagon at $1.5 trillion in that fiscal year.
[00:35:54]  And that is still going.
[00:35:55]  My challenge with the U.S. system is even if there was no conflict, the lines would be growing.
[00:36:00]  And the question is, how do you get those lines to go in the opposite direction for the things that Americans have wanted, whether that's health care, roads, services, what have you?
[00:36:09]  But that's an entirely separate domestic policy conversation.
[00:36:12]  The reason I mentioned the Niall Ferguson commentary is I think that the caller would like it.
[00:36:16]  He would benefit from it because it's the same first line of argument that you made.
[00:36:20]  There are countries in the past, there are empires in the past that have failed to deal with their debt, and it has real world national security consequences.
[00:36:28]  So we are not here to say that the conflict with the Islamic Republic is cost-free, but it is to say that there are alternatives that are even worse.
[00:36:36]  So one, learning how to manage the debt is going to be number one.
[00:36:39]  Number two is, again, this is a 47-year war of choice by the Islamic Republic against America.
[00:36:45]  Funny story, after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and this has zero to do with Israel, we kept our embassy open there.
[00:36:53]  We tried to recognize the new revolutionary government, even though they tossed out the U.S. allied king.
[00:36:59]  How long?
[00:36:59]  From February 11, 1979 to November 4, 1979.
[00:37:03]  And not once, but twice, there were TIFFs outside of the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
[00:37:07]  Sometimes the embassy would be able to work with the police against the revolutionaries.
[00:37:11]  Sometimes they'd be able to work with an armed faction against a different armed faction to secure the premises where the U.S. embassy was.
[00:37:17]  But ultimately, that led to the 1979 hostage crisis.
[00:37:20]  And that's where we severed the ties.
[00:37:22]  And the relationship has only soured and soured from there.
[00:37:25]  And if you look, and again, this is not Israel or Jeffrey Epstein or Donald Trump or whoever else, almost every president has really tried to make bridges with these guys.
[00:37:35]  We didn't get here by accident.
[00:37:37]  Sir, if you want to make it personal, you can look at that foreign affairs piece I had.
[00:37:42]  In my 13 years at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, that's the first piece I had calling for overt military action against the Islamic Republic.
[00:37:50]  None of us rushed into this decision.
[00:37:52]  The United States of America did not rush into this decision.
[00:37:55]  If you look at the 47-year U.S.-Iran diplomatic history, you will see that it is Uncle Sam, the stronger power, even confronted with the loss of life to its own service people, pushing away from the table, pulling punches, and saying, no, I'm not going to strike.
[00:38:10]  And you have this buildup.
[00:38:12]  you know, Beirut bombing, Khobar Towers, Iraq, Afghanistan, where these guys have baited, bleeded, and killed Americans, taken Americans, other dual nationals hostages for years, and we haven't been able to do anything about it.
[00:38:25]  So really, it's for the Islamic Republic.
[00:38:28]  It is the chicken that has come home to Rus.
[00:38:30]  So what are we trying to do?
[00:38:31]  At a sheer American patriotic national level, we are punching back for the first time in a meaningful way in 47 years against the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism.
[00:38:43]  And I couldn't think of a more red, white, and blue through line to what the president did than actually taking out the chief of that regime and actually dealing a body blow to the tip of that revolutionary spear at the IRGC and now defanging and trying to roll back the capabilities that they pose to our friends and partners and allies in the region, countries like the GCC.
[00:39:03]  You know, yes, Iran is firing ballistic missiles at Israel, but the real takeaway, the optics that the American public should know about this war in the past six weeks is that the Islamic Republic of Iran was at war with the Arab world.
[00:39:17]  That let that sink in.
[00:39:19]  Not once, not twice, not three times.
[00:39:21]  Four times the Islamic Republic of Iran fired directly at the territory of a NATO member.
[00:39:27]  Once the Islamic Republic fired two intermediate range ballistic missiles, which we didn't even know they had, 4,000 plus kilometers away from their territory towards Diego Garcia.
[00:39:37]  If you flip that geography, that means every NATO base now on the European continent can be targeted by Iranian missiles.
[00:39:44]  Should we have sit back and let the threat grow and grow and grow such that they could reach the U.S. homeland?
[00:39:49]  That would be a real strategic mistake, just like letting the debt issue go to be a mistake.
[00:39:54]  And let me connect the dots fiscally one more time with foreign policy here.
[00:39:59]  Yes, this is costly, but it will only get more costlier.
[00:40:02]  And if you are one of those Americans who says, to hell with all of this, let's sacrifice everything on the altar of the real competition for 2020s, sorry, for the 21st century, which is China.
[00:40:12]  It's not Russia, it's not the Islamic Republic, it's not Venezuela, it's not Greenland, it's not terrorism, it's not whatever.
[00:40:18]  It's China.
[00:40:19]  If you can't get this right, if we can't generate sufficient support right, if we're going to be penny pinchers over a fight with the Islamic Republic of Iran, who is basically the strategic pawn of Russia and China, how are we going to align ways, means, and ends to deal with a China challenge?
[00:40:36]  How are we going to deal with the economic shocks that will come in any kind of global competition vis-à-vis the Chinese?
[00:40:41]  If we're being penny pinchers over interceptors and Tomahawk cruise missiles vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic, and we haven't gotten our defense industrial base in order for that, how are we going to deal with the arsenal of the People's Liberation Army when they come marching across for Taiwan?
[00:40:55]  Come back to this week.
[00:40:56]  What do you make of Israel's actions in Lebanon, especially in the time since the ceasefire was announced?
[00:41:04]  Well, the Islamic Republic is trying to connect the dots between these theaters.
[00:41:07]  As you know, there was a war in Lebanon between Lebanese, Hezbollah, and Israel that started one day after October 7th, and the Israelis were looking for a way to respond.
[00:41:16]  And for the first year or so of that conflict, there was an incremental escalation.
[00:41:21]  I don't want to use the word tit-for-tat, but the Lebanese would hit, the Israelis would hit, the Lebanese, you kind of would go back and forth.
[00:41:27]  A lot of that changed with the Bieper stuff and the Pedra stuff in 2024 and the ceasefire there in 2024.
[00:41:33]  And then the Israelis being able to detect, deter, degrade, and destroy a lot of these Hezbollah capabilities really since then.
[00:41:40]  The Iranians now are trying to tie in the Israeli ability to still have a freer hand in Lebanon, to still move against its most important proxy, which is Lebanese Hezbollah.
[00:41:52]  They're trying to tie that now with the status of the ceasefire fight and the debate over what comes next with the Americans.
[00:41:58]  And this is again proof of the line that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a poor guardian of the Iranian national interest.
[00:42:07]  If these guys gave a damn about their own country, they would take the ceasefire opportunity.
[00:42:12]  They would take a president who's willing to trade and do deals with them and rebuild their country.
[00:42:18]  But no, instead, they're willing to run more risks of turning the fire back on, of sinking their country into a deeper war, just to try to bail out who?
[00:42:26]  The Iranian people?
[00:42:28]  No.
[00:42:28]  The Lebanese people?
[00:42:29]  No.
[00:42:30]  But their terror proxy in southern Lebanon, which is taking it from the Israelis.
[00:42:34]  And I think it would be an own goal of strategic proportions to let the Iranians disconnect the Das for us and tell the Iranians to tell us to weigh in and weigh down on the Israelis.
[00:42:44]  It should be the reverse.
[00:42:45]  The loser doesn't get to set the plate for the winner.
[00:42:50]  Steve, New Jersey, Republican, you're on with Ben Talibla.
[00:42:56]  And thank you.
[00:42:58]  Thank you.
[00:42:58]  This is such a breath of fresh air.
[00:43:01]  But, you know, we talk about regime change in terms of regime changing in Iran.
[00:43:08]  But I think it's also important to talk about the regime change Iran and its proxies have done to Western democracies.
[00:43:17]  I mean, there has been a long-term regime change.
[00:43:20]  They've been very patient.
[00:43:22]  They've done an incredible...
[00:43:23]  I mean, just hearing some of these callers, everything gets blamed on Israel.
[00:43:29]  And, you know, the regime change in Western countries where Iran fires a missile at the UK 2,500 miles, and the UK still doesn't get involved in this conflict.
[00:43:44]  I mean, it's scary to see how successful the mind rot has happened.
[00:43:52]  I mean, the suicidal empathy.
[00:43:54]  I was at a protest the other day, and a reporter asked me whether Netanyahu ruins the case for Israel.
[00:44:02]  And I asked the reporter, do you ask Palestinians whether Hamas ruins the case for Palestinians?
[00:44:09]  And he says, no, I don't.
[00:44:11]  I said, why?
[00:44:12]  I mean, there has just been this mind rot that has gone on over decades.
[00:44:19]  And that's the problem we have right now.
[00:44:22]  That's the problem we have right now.
[00:44:24]  Can I ask what the protest was that you were attending?
[00:44:27]  I was protesting to free Iran, basically.
[00:44:33]  That's Steve in New Jersey.
[00:44:35]  Thanks, Steve.
[00:44:36]  Certainly, there is an issue now.
[00:44:39]  Again, this kind of gets to the mosaic of public opinion in America, which we should respect and let it speak for itself, but also understand that our adversaries are not sitting idly by and watching our very open system and admiring it.
[00:44:52]  They're looking to press upon it.
[00:44:54]  And this isn't about, oh, they paid one person to say one thing.
[00:44:58]  It's this phrase that I think goes, again, back to the Cold War, and this is not meant to denigrate anyone.
[00:45:02]  But there are folks who will say things that will end up being anti-American.
[00:45:06]  And those are the folks that, again, within this context, you could call sometimes useful idiots, where they magnify the talking points of the adversary without the adversary ever having to make it, without there being any coordination or intonation or payment or anything else.
[00:45:19]  This is, again, how the adversary uses Americans to push anti-American talking points against other Americans.
[00:45:27]  And that doesn't mean that if an American is critical of their own government or an American is critical of a certain policy of a certain policymaker, that they necessarily are doing this.
[00:45:36]  No, they're not.
[00:45:37]  We have to also go the extra mile.
[00:45:40]  But we also have to be extra honest and understand that this is how these adversaries are playing this game.
[00:45:46]  So we can respect the right to free speech.
[00:45:48]  You know, just a funny story about protests.

=== Understanding Adversary Game Tactics (03:29) ===

[00:45:50]  I was actually at a university event.
[00:45:52]  I won't say where, but it was a university event recently.
[00:45:55]  And I was moderating a conversation with General Petraeus.
[00:45:58]  And there was a gigantic protest outside the building.
[00:46:02]  And I turned to him and I said, sir, is this for me or for you?
[00:46:05]  And, you know, just because this is the nature of campuses.
[00:46:08]  But none of us were perturbed by it.
[00:46:11]  And we continued our conversation.
[00:46:13]  I think that's when the adversary wins if that protest takes over the entire conversation, if that becomes the orienting focus, or if we fail to actually have the conversation that we wanted to have today.
[00:46:25]  So listen, I'm not going to say that everybody who's skeptical of the U.S. mission is necessarily taking some anti-American talking points from our adversaries.
[00:46:35]  I don't believe all of them are useful abediers at all.
[00:46:37]  I believe there's tons and tons and tons of American patriots who, for political reasons, military reasons, economic reasons, are skeptical.
[00:46:44]  And that's why I came on the show today to talk about the other side of the ledger.
[00:46:48]  I am not painting a rosy picture.
[00:46:50]  I'm saying that this is costly and that this is risky, but that everything else that got us here, taking the easier approach, kept making it harder and brought us to this juncture.
[00:47:00]  So good question, good point, but I have a slightly different spin on it.
[00:47:04]  But thank you for the kind words.
[00:47:05]  Time for one last call.
[00:47:06]  This is Don in Maryland.
[00:47:07]  It's been waiting line for Democrats.
[00:47:09]  Don, can you make it quick?
[00:47:12]  Good morning.
[00:47:12]  Yeah.
[00:47:14]  My question is: I mean, how can you broke a peace deal or ceasefire when you're killing all the heads of state and you're bombing the country?
[00:47:25]  I mean, make that make sense.
[00:47:27]  It just doesn't make any sense.
[00:47:29]  And I'm Ben Taliban.
[00:47:30]  Sure.
[00:47:30]  So actually, there is a key linguistic difference between peace and ceasefire.
[00:47:35]  And that's why I said I think peace deal, a big actual good agreement, chances are slim to none.
[00:47:40]  But a ceasefire, a deconfliction, and a phrase I've been using a lot today, a push away from the table kind of moment, that is entirely possible with whatever consolation of folks come out of this regime.
[00:47:51]  The conflict began, as the caller mentioned, by going after leaders.
[00:47:55]  The conflict began by targeting, you know, quite literally the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei, who had been in that position for 37 years as commander-in-chief, the most important religious, political, and military position inside of that country.
[00:48:10]  But if you look at the other folks who have been targeted, the vast majority of them are not politicians or political leaders.
[00:48:16]  A lot of them are the national security, deep state, and military folks.
[00:48:21]  So even then, you can take the counter position, which is: are we even doing, this is not a regime change war because you're not going after the politicians of that system.
[00:48:30]  You're going after the military elite, the strategic decision makers.
[00:48:33]  And yes, that is designed to throw a wrench into command and control that is designed to throw a wrench into the ability of that system to be cohesive.
[00:48:42]  Because look, my goodness, if this is what this regime can do when it is off balance, imagine what it would do.
[00:48:47]  Imagine what it could do when it's on balance and it wants to fight you at a time and place of its own choosing.
[00:48:53]  So there's a difference between peace and ceasefire.
[00:48:55]  I think we got them off balance.
[00:48:57]  Let's find a way to lock in the win and push away from the table, understanding full well that so long as these guys are at the helm, peace, that other word that you mentioned, sir, will not spring out, will not be at hand.
[00:49:09]  The Foundation for Defensive Democracies can be found FDD.org, and that's where you can find much more from Benim Ben Taliblu, the Iran program senior director there.

=== Peace Versus Strategic Ceasefire (00:39) ===

[00:49:20]  We do always appreciate the conversation.
[00:49:21]  Thank you so much.
[00:49:23]  We continue our live coverage of the Artemis II lunar mission later today with a NASA update on the moon flyby live at 3.30 p.m. Eastern.
[00:49:32]  Then the four astronauts on board will hold a news conference from the spacecraft at 7.50 p.m., one day before their return to Earth and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
[00:49:41]  You can watch both briefings on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-SPAN.org.
[00:49:53]  Friday, on C-Ban's Ceasefire, a bipartisan conversation on President Trump's handling of the Iran conversation.