Transcription
Let me be straight with you right now. Something just happened. Just happened that the major networks are still trying to figure out how to frame for you. They're sitting in their studios right now waiting for a talking point, waiting for someone in Washington to tell them what to say. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to tell you what I know, what it means, and why it matters right now before the spin machine gets going.
Iran has fired ballistic missiles at Tel Aviv. Let that land for a second. Not a proxy, not Hezbollah lobbing rockets from southern Lebanon. Not a drone swarm from Yemen. Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran launched ballistic missiles directly at the city of Tel Aviv. That is a threshold event. That is a line that has now been crossed and there is no uncrossing it.
I want you to understand something before we go any further. What you're watching right now is not an episode of this conflict. This is not another exchange of fire that gets forgotten in a week. What happened in the last several hours is the kind of moment historians write about. The kind of moment that when you look back on it five years from now, 10 years from now, you say that was when everything changed. I want to make sure you understand exactly what changed and why and what's coming next.
Let's slow down. Let's talk through this together because you deserve a real conversation, not a countdown clock and a panel of people yelling at each other. Here's where we were before this happened. You have to understand the context because without it, none of this makes sense. For months, really, for the better part of two years, the Middle East has been operating on what I'd call a controlled escalation ladder. Everybody was climbing, but nobody wanted to be the one to go to the top. Iran was running its proxies. Hezbollah was doing what Hezbollah does. The Houthis in Yemen were striking shipping in the Red Sea. And Israel was conducting operations in Gaza and Lebanon. This is important. inside Iranian territory, strikes on Iranian soil, strikes on Iranian military assets, strikes that if another country had done them, we would have called acts of war without hesitation. And Iran for a long time absorbed those strikes, responded through its network of proxies, kept the nuclear question alive as a deterrent, tried to stay just below the threshold of direct confrontation. That calculation just ended.
Now, why now? That's the question you should be asking because the timing of something like this never happens by accident. Ballistic missile launches require preparation. They require targeting. They require a decision made at the highest levels of the Iranian government. And that means signed off on this. This was not an impulsive act. This was a deliberate strategic decision.
So, what changed? a few things and I want to walk you through them honestly because the picture is more complicated than the headlines are going to give you. First, Israel's operations inside Iran have been escalating. We've seen strikes on Iranian military infrastructure, on missile production facilities, on individuals in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Israel has been systematically trying to degrade Iran's military capacity and at some point that produces a response. You can only absorb so many blows before the internal political pressure inside Thran becomes impossible to manage. Kam has hardliners around him. He has the IRGC pushing for action. He has a population that whatever you think about the government has national pride. There is a domestic politics dimension to this that Western analysts consistently underestimate.
Second, I want you to think about this carefully. There is a deterrence logic at work here that is actually rational, even if it's terrifying. Iran has watched what happened to countries in this region that gave up their military programs, that tried to accommodate, that tried to negotiate. They've watched Iraq. They've watched Libya. They've drawn a very specific lesson from those experiences. The only thing that protects you in this neighborhood is the credible threat of force. And if Israel keeps degrading your military assets, at some point you have to demonstrate that the cost of continuing is too high. That is exactly what Iran is trying to communicate right now.
Third, I know this is uncomfortable for some people to hear. There is an American dimension to this that we cannot ignore. What the United States has been doing in this region for the last several years, we've been maintaining what I'd call a posture of strategic ambiguity with a lot of firepower behind it. We have carrier strike groups in the Eastern Mediterranean. We have assets in the Gulf. We have bases across the region. And we have been, depending on the administration and the moment, either actively backing Israeli operations or looking the other way while they happen. Iran is also sending a message to Washington. They are saying, "Your support for Israel has a cost. Your bases are within range. Your assets are within range. And if this escalates further, we are prepared to make that cost real."
Now, is that a bluff? Is it a real threat? That is exactly the question that is being debated in classified settings right now. And I'll tell you my honest assessment. It's not a bluff. Not entirely. Iran has spent 20 years building a missile program specifically designed to hold American and Israeli assets at risk. They have the Shahab series. They have the Ahmad. They have the Koramshar. These are not crude weapons. They're accurate. They're capable of reaching anywhere in the region. And they've being tested not just in exercises, but in the real world. We saw what they can do in 2020 when they hit the al-Assad air base in Iraq after the killing of Kasum Sulammani. 17 traumatic brain injuries among American service members. Though initially denied, the missiles hit their targets. So when Iran says they have the capability to escalate, I believe them. Not because I support what they're doing, but because I spent a career studying military capability and I call it as I see it.
Now, let's talk about Israel's position in all of this because that matters enormously to what happens next. Israel is in a genuinely difficult strategic situation. And I want to be honest about that. On one hand, they cannot simply absorb a ballistic missile strike on Tel Aviv and do nothing. that is not politically sustainable, that is not strategically sustainable. The Israeli public will demand a response. The government, whatever its composition at this moment, will be under enormous pressure to act.
On the other hand, and here's where it gets complicated, what does an Israeli response look like that doesn't trigger a broader regional war? If Israel strikes Iran and strikes hard, Iran escalates further. Hezbollah activates more fully in the north. The Houthis intensify their attacks. Iran could move to close the straight of Hormuz. And if that happens, you're looking at an energy shock that hits every economy on the planet. You're looking at oil prices that make 2022 look mild. If Israel doesn't strike or strikes in a limited way, they risk looking weak both to their own population and to Iran. And in this region, perceived weakness is an invitation.
There is no easy answer here. I want you to understand that anybody who tells you there's a simple play, a clean move, a way out of this that doesn't carry enormous risk, they don't know what they're talking about. What you're watching is a situation where the ladder of escalation has very few rungs left before you hit the top. And at the top of that ladder is something nobody in this region and nobody in Washington actually wants to see.
Let's talk about the United States because this is where I want to have a very direct conversation with you. What is America's role in this moment? Right now today, we have diplomatic channels working overtime. We have back channel communications with Iran through intermediaries. We have our ambassador to Israel in intense conversations. We have the Pentagon running scenarios. We have the intelligence community in crisis mode trying to understand Iranian intentions, Iranian capabilities, Iranian decision-making. And here's what I want you to think about. What is the right American posture?
Because there are people in this town, and I've dealt with them my whole career, who believe that the answer to every crisis is American military power. That the way you solve this is by demonstrating overwhelming force. That if we just make clear to Iran what we're prepared to do, they'll back down. I've heard that argument many times. I've seen it applied many times. And I'll tell you something, it doesn't always work. It didn't work in Iraq. It didn't work in Afghanistan. It didn't work in Libya. The assumption that military superiority automatically translates into political outcomes you desire, that assumption has cost this country enormously over the last two decades.
Now, that doesn't mean military force is never appropriate. Of course, it is. But the question, the critical question is what are we trying to achieve? What is the political objective? And is military action the instrument most likely to achieve it? Right now, the most dangerous outcome is a general Middle East war that pulls in the United States directly. That is a scenario with no good end. Iran is not Iraq in 2003. It is a country of 88 million people with a cohesive military structure deeply embedded in the geography of the region with the ability to make any conflict extraordinarily costly and extraordinarily long. Anyone who thinks we walk into a war with Iran and it ends cleanly is not reckoning with reality. I'm not saying Iran is invincible. I'm saying the cost of a direct confrontation is so high that we need to exhaust every other option before we even approach that threshold. And right now, I'm not convinced we've done that.
Here's something else I want to raise with you. Something that's not getting enough attention in the coverage you're probably seeing right now. The regional dimension of this goes well beyond Israel and Iran. Saudi Arabia is watching very carefully. You have to understand what's been happening with Saudi Iran relations over the last couple of years. There was a Chinese brokered normalization, diplomatic relations restored. That was a significant development. And now this happens. What does Riad do? Do they stay on the sidelines? Do they quietly provide intelligence to their traditional partners? Do they make statements that try to deescalate? Saudi Arabia has its own complicated relationship with Iran, its own complicated relationship with the United States, and its own complicated domestic politics. They are not a passive actor here.
Turkey, let's talk about Turkey for a moment. Erdogan has been playing a fascinating and frankly quite skillful game of strategic ambiguity for years now. He's a NATO member. He also has relationships with Iran, with Russia, with Hamas. He's positioned himself as a potential mediator. Does he try to step into that role right now? There's actually a case to be made that Turkey is one of the few actors with enough relationships on all sides to potentially be useful in deescalation.
Russia, I want to be very direct here, Russia is watching this with great interest. And I don't just mean passive interest. Russia and Iran have a deepening military relationship. Iran has been supplying Russia with drones for use in Ukraine. In exchange, Russia has been providing Iran with certain capabilities. That relationship means that whatever happens in the Middle East right now has echoes in Ukraine, in European security, in the broader great power competition that is the defining feature of this era. You cannot separate these theaters. They are connected.
China, Beijing is also watching very carefully. China has enormous economic interests in the Middle East. They depend on Gulf oil. They have relationships with Iran. The two countries have a long-term cooperation agreement. They also don't want instability that disrupts global markets and slows their own economy. China's preference almost always is stability because China's economic model depends on stable supply chains and stable markets. But China also has an interest in seeing the United States overextended and tangled in costly operations in yet another region. So the Chinese calculus here is genuinely complex.
I want to come back to something because I think it's the most important thing I'm going to say to you in this entire conversation. Wars in the Middle East have a habit of expanding beyond what any of the participants intended. The First World War is the most famous example. Nobody in 1914 wanted the war that actually happened. They were all making calculations, rational calculations. They thought they understood the risks and ended up producing a catastrophe nobody anticipated. The mechanism of escalation once set in motion is extraordinarily hard to stop because every actor is responding to what just happened, trying to demonstrate they won't be pushed around, trying to signal resolve. And in doing so, they push the next actor to respond in kind, and it spirals.
I've studied warfare my whole life. I've been in combat. I've watched conflicts develop, escalate, and end. And the thing that strikes me about the situation right now, the thing that genuinely concerns me is that I don't see a natural stopping point. I don't see a place where both sides look at each other and say, "We've both demonstrated what we need to demonstrate. Let's find a way to step back." Those opportunities exist, but they close very fast. And the window for the kind of diplomatic intervention that could create that pause is not unlimited. That's what I need the people watching this to understand. This is not a spectator sport. What happens in the next 48 to 72 hours? The decisions made in Jerusalem, in Thrron, in Washington, in Moscow, in Beijing will shape whether this remains a serious but contained crisis or whether it becomes something much larger and much harder to control.
Now, let me tell you what I'm watching because if you want to understand where this is going, these are the signals that matter. Watch the Israeli cabinet. Are they moving toward a massive retaliatory strike or are they considering a more measured response? The internal debate in Israel's security cabinet will be decisive. If the hawkish elements carry the day, and there are very hawkish elements in the current Israeli government, you could see strikes on Iranian territory within hours. If the more cautious voices prevail, you might see a delay, a period of intensive diplomatic activity, possibly pressure from Washington to hold back.
Watch the Straight of Hormuz. This is the choke point. Roughly 20% of the world's oil passes through that narrow waterway. If Iran makes any move toward threatening that strait, mining operations, naval harassment, anything that signals they're prepared to weaponize it, you will see a global economic response almost immediately. Oil markets will spike. Governments around the world will be forced to act and the United States will face a decision about whether to intervene militarily to keep the straight open, which is a commitment we have had for decades.
Watch Hezbollah. Right now, Hezbollah in Lebanon is the wild card. They have a massive arsenal. Estimates run into the hundreds of thousands of rockets and missiles. If Hezbollah activates fully, if they move from the lower level exchanges that have been happening in the north into a fullscale offensive, Israel faces a two-front war simultaneously. That changes the military calculus entirely.
Watch American force posture. Are we moving additional assets into the region? Additional carrier strike groups, additional air assets, additional groundbased air defense. Every military movement signals intent. If you start seeing significant American force movements, that tells you Washington is either preparing to defend Israel directly or preparing for a broader intervention.
Watch the diplomatic backchows. This one's harder to see from the outside, but pay attention to any unusual diplomatic activity. Qatari intermediaries, Omani intermediaries, European foreign ministers making unexpected trips. These are the pipelines through which deescalation messages travel. If those channels are active, that's a reason for some hope. If they go quiet, that's a warning sign.
And here's what I believe is coming. Based on my understanding of the actors, the dynamics, and the history of this region, Israel will respond. That is a near certainty. The political pressures are too intense, the strategic logic too compelling for Israel to absorb a ballistic missile strike on Tel Aviv and do nothing. The question is the scope and the targeting of that response. If Israel can limit its response to military targets, to missile sites, to IRGC facilities, and if it does so in a way that is visible enough to satisfy the domestic audience, but calibrated enough to avoid triggering the next Iranian response. There is a narrow path through this. That narrow path requires American involvement. It requires Washington to be very actively working both sides reassuring Israel of our support while simultaneously sending unmistakable signals to Tyrron about the consequences of further escalation. That is extraordinarily difficult diplomacy. It requires skill. It requires credibility and it requires the kind of sustained attention that Washington has not always demonstrated it's capable of in recent years.
Iran's response to an Israeli strike will depend heavily on the scale and the targets. If Israel hits in a limited way and Iran feels it has made its point that it has demonstrated its willingness and capacity to strike directly at Israeli territory, there is a possibility, not a certainty, but a possibility that Iran chooses to pause rather than escalate further. Iranian leadership, despite everything, is not suicidal. They understand what a full-scale war means for the regime's survival. And regime survival is the paramount concern in Thrron. But here is the scenario that keeps Syria people up at night. If Israeli strikes hit Iranian civilian infrastructure, if there are significant Iranian civilian casualties, the domestic political pressure on Kaman becomes overwhelming. And at that point, the rational calculus breaks down because sometimes leaders, all leaders, get pushed by their own populations into actions that they know carry enormous risk. That's when wars that nobody intended become wars that nobody can stop.
I want to end by telling you something that I genuinely believe and that I think you need to hear. The people of this region, Israeli, Iranian, Palestinian, Lebanese, all of them are paying a price for decisions made by governments and leaders and outside powers. And they did not choose this. Every time a missile lands somewhere, there are human beings on the other end of it. families, children, people who woke up this morning thinking about ordinary things, work, school, what to have for dinner, and are now in a world transformed by violence. That reality should never get lost in the strategic analysis. The goal, the only goal worth having in any of this is to find a way through that reduces the killing and creates conditions for something better. That's harder than it sounds. It requires honest accounting of what's actually happening and why. It requires resisting the temptation to fit events into a simple narrative where one side is purely good and one side is purely evil. Real conflicts are almost never that simple. And pretending they are in either direction makes them harder to resolve, not easier.
What I want you to take from this conversation is not fear. I don't want you walking away afraid. I want you walking away informed because informed people make better decisions. Because an informed citizenry demands better policy from its leaders. Because the people who watch this channel and take the time to listen to an analysis like this one are exactly the kind of citizens a democracy needs in a moment like this. So watch the signals I gave you. Follow the straight. Watch the Israeli cabinet. Watch what Hezbollah does. Watch American force movements. And watch whether those back channel diplomatic lines stay open. And remember this, the most dangerous moment in any escalation cycle is not the beginning. It's when both sides have gone far enough that they feel they can't step back without losing face. but haven't yet gone so far that they're forced to talk. That middle zone is where accidents happen. That middle zone is where miscalculations happen. That middle zone is where the small decision that nobody thinks will matter very much turns out to matter enormously. We are in that zone right now. Stay sharp. Keep watching. The next few days will tell us a great deal about which direction this is going. And knowing which direction that is means you'll be ahead of it, not behind it. That's the truth as I understand it right now.