Mark Dubowitz

Welcome to The Puck, Venture Capital and Beyond, a show that examines the changing landscape of our world. Before we dive in, a quick word about who I am and why we're here. I'm Jim Bier, corporate lawyer and restructuring professional. I've spent the last two decades helping companies navigate their toughest transitions. And about eight years ago, I found myself having fascinating conversations with clients and friends about everything from venture capital to the broader shifts happening in our economy and society.

Those discussions were simply too good, so the puck was born. Now while we started on venture capital, hence the podcast name, the Puck Venture Capital and Beyond, We've naturally evolved to focus more on the and beyond portion of the title. Today, we explore how business intersects with the bigger forces shaping our world. I still run my restructuring practice by day, but now I get to host these conversations by night. It has become one of the most rewarding parts of my life.

Today's guest continues that tradition. Once you had a nuclear warhead carrying ICBM, then you can threaten The United States Of America. And once you have that, then you have a stranglehold over The Gulf, over Hormuz, and you are now the dominant regional power in The Middle East, and you have a stranglehold over the global economy. Before we begin, let me set the stage. My guest today is Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense and Democracies.

He has spent more than two decades shaping US policy in Iran around sanctions, nuclear risk, economic warfare, and regime strategy, and he's widely considered one of the leading strategic thinkers on the issue. We are sitting here right now with US forces in the region, the straight up Hormuz effectively closed, and global energy markets are in turmoil, and negotiations reportedly are on the table. This is not a theoretical conversation. The decisions being made in the next few weeks could define the next generation of American foreign policy. Mark Dubowitz, welcome to the Puck.

Honor to be with you, Jim. So as we're sitting here with the Strait Of Hormoz effectively closed, US forces active in the region, oil spiking, and negotiations reportedly underway. Just level up for us. How's The United States doing? United States is doing well.

If you look at the military objectives that the president laid out when he first launched this campaign on February 28, and that is to severely degrade the war making capabilities of the Islamic Republic Of Iran as measured by their missile capabilities, naval capability, military, and and nuclear capabilities. And I think a month into this, The United States Military flying in partnership with the Israeli Air Force, relying heavily on Israeli intelligence to to feed these targets has has really severely degraded and, in some cases, decimated these war making capabilities. So having worked on this issue for twenty two plus years, what makes this window genuinely different from every administration that's come before? Well, I think other administrations had this had a similar opportunity to defang Iran's war making capabilities and decided not to. But I think October 7 was really a moment where the Israelis were able to, in response to that devastating day, start to decimate the the terror proxies that the regime in Iran had depended on, not only for external aggression, but for deterrence.

I mean, remember, we had Jim, as you recall, Hamas had had launched that invasion on October 7. And shortly after that, Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon, began launching missiles and rockets at Israel, followed by the Houthis, Iran's proxy in Yemen. The Shiite militias in Iraq got into the action. And so you had this kind of ring of fire that that Ali Khamenei, the late supreme leader of Iran, had established around Israel, and he activated that ring of fire against the Israelis. And this time, the Israelis were not there to try to constrain it or contain it or deter it as they had in previous years.

They were there to defeat it, and they went to war against this this ring of fire. And they did severe damage to these terror proxies. And as a result, Iran lost a formidable instrument of of terror and of deterrence, and that really opened up the the skies for initially the Israeli Air Force and then the US Air Force to do severe damage to the nuclear missile and military capabilities of the regime. So we've got this unique opportunity. And when people hear about Iran, they all often think about nuclear weapons.

But you've argued for a much bigger frame that what Iran is actually trying to become And is the bomb the goal or the instrument of something larger? So the bomb, I think, is the is in in some respects the goal, but it but it is an instrument of something larger because to have the bomb means you now have this ultimate instrument of of terror and deterrence. And behind the bomb, you can build a massive missile arsenal. And that's what exactly what Iran was on path to do before the June war of of last year. They built the largest missile inventory in The Middle East.

They had thousands of ballistic missiles, tens of thousands of of short range missiles and rockets, medium range missiles that they could threaten US bases, US Embassies, US allies. And they also had an active intercontinental ballistic missile program, the goal of which is to threaten The United States' homeland. And so once you have the bomb and an ICBM, and ICBMs are really only designed to deliver nuclear warheads. Once you had a nuclear warhead carrying ICBM, then you can threaten The United States Of America. And once you have that, then you have a stranglehold over The Gulf, over Hormuz, and you are now the dominant regional power in The Middle East, and you have a stranglehold over the global economy.

So we, fortunately or or president, fortunately, did not wait for Iran to reach that end state of nuclear weapons, ICBMs, thousands of missiles, a powerful navy, an air force. He acted sooner so that we could forestall that possibility and be able to effectively go to war against the Islamic Republic when it's weak and we're strong. And I would just add, Jim, it's always worth remembering as Americans that it's the Islamic Republic Of Iran that dragged us into this war forty seven years ago. They took our hostages. They held them for four hundred forty four days.

They declared war against America. They've been killing, maiming, kidnapping, and torturing thousands of Americans ever since. And, unfortunately, no US president was willing to do it. No will will was not willing to confront the Islamic Republic. I think president Trump thought no president has done it.

No president will do it. I have to do it now. I have to ensure that the Islamic Republic never gets to that end state where we have no ability to stop it, and it has nuclear tipped ICBMs, thousands of missiles, and powerful military, and then has a stranglehold over over the global economy? No. I think the average American understands that, for instance, when you look at North Korea with a nuclear weapon, the dynamics change as the ability to really have effectively deter them.

But if Iran has this ballistic missile capability together with the ability to choke off the straight up her moves, Why as an American why do we care that they have that ability? Well, so that say, effectively, they can blackmail us using nuclear tipped ICBMs and and then thousands of missiles threatening our allies in the Gulf. And then they can close the Strait Of Hormuz with that kind of lethal capability. So we're having a difficult time now opening up Hormuz. I I think the military has been moving methodically through a plan that has been long in the preparation to neutralize Iran's offensive capabilities around Hormuz, the missiles, the drones, the fast attack craft.

They're moving through that, and at some point, they'll move to the next phase of that plan. Next phase may be US marines seizing key islands or key parts of the coast and or the US Navy beginning to sweep for mines with our allies and then starting to escort ships through the strait and and getting the strait open. There the military is moving through that plan. But imagine, Jim, that we were trying to do that, and Iran, instead of being having lost two thirds of its missile capabilities, lost its navy, lost its air force, lost much of its leadership, under severe economic distress, facing a massive water crisis, and having just killed its way through the massive protests that erupted in January of this year, that Iran was a instead, a nuclear weapons power with ICBM, thousands of missiles, a powerful economy, its leadership intact. It had bought military technologies from the Chinese and Russians that had fighter jets, attack helicopters, submarines, modern navy warships.

It was a modern military with all of those capabilities. Imagine that at that point, the Islamic Republic closes the straits, chokes off global oil supply and natural gas supply, and now we have to deal with that Islamic Republic much stronger and much more deadly. I think at that point, we wouldn't be able to deal with it. I think our options would be severely constrained. And you mentioned North Korea, and I think North Korea is a good example of where the United States military has very few options to deal with the North Koreans.

North Koreans have nuclear tipped ICBMs. They have a massive conventional arsenal sitting on the DMZ, the Demilitarized Zone there with South Korea, and they could destroy Seoul in a week. And so the United States military and the South Korean military together have very few military options to try to constrain and deter the North Koreans. And the North Koreans, at this point, don't have global ambitions. They don't have regional ambitions.

They wanna survive, and they wanna reunite the Korean Peninsula and take back South Korea. That is their those are their ambitions. They they control no oil. They control no natural gas. They have very little impact, if any, on the global economy, but they're a dangerous enemy with dangerous capabilities.

Imagine the Islamic Republic with the same capabilities sitting in this vital geographical region that is so essential to the global economy, to global prosperity, being able to choke off our moves, but having these deadly capabilities that we were not able to address. Well, I understand that we use North Korea as an example that they want. But when you go back to I mean, the average American knows that, LAN has been direct to Israel and that Israel obviously is doing everything we can to neutralize that threat. But when you talk about global ambitions and you are the Japanese or Koreans or Western Europe or America, what is it about the Iranian regime that should square the rest of the world? So I think it's always important, and we don't we're very bad at doing this as Westerners.

I mean, I think we tend to mirror image with our with our enemies, and we think that everybody wants to be like us. Right? Everybody wants health and happiness and prosperity in this world. I think, you know, many people in the West are are atheists or agnostics. They probably don't believe in the next world.

And even true believers, you know, religious people in the West who may believe in the next world also wanna have a decent life in this world. And so we assume that our enemies want the same thing. And in some cases, you know, we do have enemies around the world that believe in this world. And in this world, they want power and they want prosperity and they and they want some semblance of stability. But the Islamic Republic is very different.

This is a theocratic regime of hard men with hard ideas. And those ideas including spreading the Islamic revolution. I mean, they don't believe in an Islamic revolution just for Iran. They believe in spreading the Islamic revolution throughout The Middle East, throughout the broader Muslim worlds, and ultimately achieving not only dominance in terms of arms, but dominance in terms of ideas. They are men with ideas, and I think we've we've we we don't understand that, and we don't respect that enough.

And so we think that this is just a conventional power that can be deterred and constrained in the way that others can, but it is not. And I I'm not just saying this based on my my belief. I'm saying this because as somebody who's followed Iran for for twenty three years and has read the documents of the Islamic revolution and have read the speeches of the founder of of Islamic rep Republic, and the recently deceased supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and his son now, There's a there's a consistent through line in everything that they have said, and they truly believe in this revolutionary ideology. Again, one of internal repression inside Islamic Republic and external aggression outside the Islamic Republic. And they've demonstrated their willingness to both repress internally and aggress externally repeatedly, including against Americans, including in the killing, maiming, kidnapping, and torturing of thousands of our fellow citizens.

And I think president Trump decided enough is enough. So when we think about history and we think about World War two, the world was exhausted. I believe 80 or 90% of Americans before Pearl Harbor did not wanna get involved nor We remember when Chamberlain said that he went to Munich and made peace for our times, and Churchill said, not so fast. And the world sat back and let Hitler rearm Germany, and we lost a 100,000,000 people. The world's exhausted again.

We've got the war in Ukraine right now. We've got a situation where we spent a lot of money in Iraq and a lot of money in Afghanistan, and Americans are not really excited about the idea of getting bogged down in another war with regime and so forth. And I know you've talked about a three phase vision, military degradation, dismantling the repression, apparatus, and then maximum support for the Iranian people. I'd love you to walk us through that, but also help us think through whether or not the world really is being given a redo where it's rising to the occasion to really take out a potential real evil regime and whether or not essentially, if we stayed a course this time, we can avoid a major debacle, or are we essentially allowing ourselves to fall back in a trap where we allow these people to have too much power and really wreak, you know, havoc on the rest of the world? So, look, I think there's always significant risks, and one must always be aware of those risks.

I think we it's always pays in life and in geopolitics to expect the worst and be surprised on the upside rather than expect the best and be devastated on the downside. So with, you know, with all the risks in mind, I think we just need to think through, well, what what has happened? What could happen? How do we mitigate those risks? But, also, where would we have been if we didn't act?

And and that's the conversation, Jim, you and I were having a little earlier about if we had allowed Iran to achieve nuclear weapons capability with ICBMs, you know, tens of thousands of missiles, a modern military capable of of closing Hormuz and not then not being able to act, that's the way we were heading. And and I think, you know, I I'm always careful with World War two analogies and Hitler and but I think Churchill was right. I mean, Churchill was warning about the gathering storm in the thirties. And Churchill was talking about the risks of inaction and what happens when you don't act and you wait too long and then you face a much more formidable enemy. And that was the trajectory Iran was on.

So I think the three phase strategy we're in phase one right now in terms of US military action and Israeli military action in the degradation of Iran's war making capabilities across nuclear, missile, and military. And I think that's going going pretty well. As part of phase one, obviously, we're gonna have to win the battle of Hormuz, and the US military is moving through their phases step by step to lay the conditions to take back Hormuz. The phase two, which the Israelis have been executing on on already, which is to go after the repression apparatus of the regime, and that is to eliminate or severely degrade the ability of the regime to repress Iranians the way they did in January of this year when they killed 32,000 Iranians in two days. And you saw the Israeli air force and the Israeli intelligence community since February 28 really moving methodically through that plan, which began, by the way, with the killing of Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, and 40 of his top generals and advisers on February 28, the first day of of the war.

And the Israelis have been moving through that by going after Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the Besiege, the intelligence services, the Iranian police, those who are responsible for repression. Phase three and and phase three only starts once major military operations are finished because no Iranians are gonna take to the streets while bombs are dropping in their cities. But phase three is is to see if Iranians will take the streets back again the way they have repeatedly and been on the streets repeatedly since the late nineteen nineties, in 2009, in 2017, eighteen, nineteen, twenty two, 2023, end of twenty twenty four, beginning of twenty twenty five. Iranians had been on the streets repeatedly yelling death to the dictator, had been courageously standing up and trying to take back their country. And, you know, thousands of them have been have been killed, imprisoned, tortured.

And in fact, the regime, in order to break the back over the woman life freedom movement in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three, launched chemical weapons attacks against Iranian schoolgirls. And I think it just underscores how ruthless this regime is. So for Iranians to take back the streets, they're gonna have to be stronger than they were in January, and the repression apparatus is gonna have to be weaker. So when that when the people hit the repression apparatus, they have a fighting chance, and we don't end up in the same situation we were in January where tens of thousands of them are slaughtered and and the protests are put down. So it may be a month after major military operation's over.

It may be two months and maybe six months. It took six months for the Iranians to take back the streets after the June war of last year that ended in in June. They were back on the streets by December. So phase three is really to create a situation where we are providing maximum support to the Iranian people. We're engaged in a campaign, which is, at that point, more of a covert campaign, though there may be some overt elements of continuing to fracture the regime and undermine the support base of the regime.

And at some point, when when Iranians are back on the streets, hopefully, this time with weapons, with communication devices, with financing, with the kinds of things that they're gonna need in order to confront this regime, we're providing them both air cover, and we're also providing them with ground support to to take back this to take back their country. Because, I mean, as I understand it, if we don't complete the job, isn't the risk that we poke the bear and then, essentially, they are going to now wanna rush even more so to develop a bomb? Well, they they were they were rushing to develop a bomb last year, which was the trigger for the Israeli strikes in the twelve day war. I mean, it it has absolutely been clear for decades that the Iranian regime wants a nuclear weapon, and they've been moving towards that capability. Why haven't they gotten it?

Well, it was a combination of American and Israeli efforts to roll back the program. And then it was also Ali Khamenei was waiting for the right moment to go for nuclear weapons. And he was moving as a, yeah, a very patient chess player to try and assemble everything so that the time that he made that decision to go for the bomb, he were he had developed ICBMs. He had tens of thousands of missiles. Right?

He was able to be in a position where it was a. We would have to just accept a nuclear armed Iran the way that we ended up accepting a nuclear armed North Korea. So he was moving patiently and methodically. By last year, Israeli intelligence had detected that Iranian nuclear weapon scientists were starting to move ahead on warhead assembly, which would be the last step to developing a deliverable nuclear warhead. They already had multiple bombs worth at 60% enriched uranium.

That is 97% of what you need for weapons grade uranium. There's been no country that has ever gone to 60% enriched uranium that didn't develop nuclear weapons. They already had the long range missiles. We saw a demonstration of that just recently where they fired a missile 4,000 kilometers to try and strike Diego Garcia, which is our our military base. And they had an active ICBM program, which the CIA director has said recently and sent a testimony that they would would be able to move very quickly, maybe even six months, in order to to finish that that ICBM program.

So Khamenei had made that decision last year, and Israeli strikes in June during the twelve day war followed by United States entering it on the eleventh day and dropping massive ordinance penetrators to destroy these deeply buried hardened enrichment facilities, that set them back at least two and a half, three years from where they had been before. And now they are where they are, and their program is much weaker. We've done severe damage to their nuclear program, their missile program, their military. By the way, I mean, Jim, there's still much to do. You know, there's at least 11 bombs worth of highly enriched uranium at 60% buried under the rubble at two nuclear sites.

There's a place called Pickaxe Mountain where the Iranians are going even deeper than they did in Fordow to try and create an enrichment facility, a centrifuge manufacturing facility, and a weaponization facility buried, you know, underground, surrounded by granite, hardened, and maybe a place that we couldn't destroy even with those massive ordnance penetrators. So there's there's two very important nuclear elements that still need to be dealt with. But we have set them back considerably. They've always had the will and increasing in the capabilities to develop nuclear tipped ICBMs, and we needed to make a choice. We there's nothing we can do to change their will except for regime change and bring in a new government with a different will.

But what we needed to do was we needed to destroy their capabilities, and that's what The United States and Israel have been hard at work at in the June war last year and in this war now at severely degrading all of those capabilities, so they end up a much weaker enemy. I'll just say one other thing. I mean, I'm always trying to remind people, you know, since time immemorial, it has been a long standing principle of military strategy to try to weaken your enemy and try to remove your enemy's war making capabilities. And that is what the US military and the Israeli military is working at right now and try to achieve what whatever comes out of this. If it's the same regime led by the same hard men, at least they don't have the same capabilities to threaten The United States and our allies.

And that clearly, in the short run, buys time, which is a good thing. But in terms of the recent news where Trump is now saying, hey. We're close to a deal, and we're dealing with a new regime. Can you give us any insight into whether or not this is to get the markets calm down and the stock market up, which it seems to have been effective at? Or is there really something substantively going on right now?

Yeah. I mean, with Trump, you never know. You know, Trump is he likes to create a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. But, certainly, part of what he's doing is is also creating some level of assurance and confidence in the markets to try keep, obviously, the price of oil down and stock markets from from crashing. I do think substantively that there are negotiations taking place.

There are discussions, not directly, but through intermediaries. And the current leaders of Iran, a guy named Calabaf, a guy named Vaidi, and then we don't we're not sure about the new supreme leader, Mosheba Khamenei, to what extent he is involved in these decisions and discussions. But I I think they are also looking for a way out. I mean, they they make much of this notion that they are winning. I think their their influence operations, which are trying to either convince their people that they're winning or more likely try to convince the world that they are winning and Trump is losing, has been aided by a media and a western elite that I do think wants Trump to lose.

I think, you know, it it is quite a remarkable situation now where we have people effectively rooting for The United States to lose and for the Islamic Republic Of Iran to win. I don't know why. I I assume some of that is, you know, people who have some semblance of Trump derangement syndrome. I think there are other people who just absolutely oppose the war and and think it'd be a good thing for The United States to lose, so The United States doesn't enter any more wars. I don't know all the reasons, but it's helping the Iranians, this kind of influence operation.

I don't know to what extent they believe their own delusions. That would be dangerous. If they do think they're winning, then then this thing could go on longer than expected. And if they do think they're winning, they may be less willing to compromise and make a deal with with president Trump. But if they are facing the realities that actually are true, which is they are losing, and that every day that goes by, their military capabilities are being decimated.

Their economy is nearing collapse, and they've got tens of millions of people when we think about 85% of the population that despises them and wants to bring them down, then their their smart course of action is to do a deal with the president. Because I think if they're calculating this correctly, it's a two and a half year deal. And no matter what they agree to, even if they agree to every one of president Trump's 15 demands that he's put out, that's two and a half years. Because if I'm the Iranians, I'm thinking the next man or woman in the White House is not gonna be as tough and as focused and as willing to use power as president Trump. So I'll do the deal for two and a half years.

Trump's gone. And who's ever sitting in the White House on either the Republican or the Democratic side, maybe with the exception of Marco Rubio, is not willing to enforce the deal and is not willing to use American power and is not willing to green light the use of Israeli power. So that would be the smart play for them. The question is is is that the play they're gonna they they're gonna run? And it may be that because they're they are theocrats who believe in the next life, because they are believers in resistance against the West at all costs.

They may not be willing to do a deal. We shall see. We shall we shall see where negotiations go. And it's hard to know exactly what happens if there is no deal in that. If the straight stays closed, it seems to me economically, we have to open up the straight one way or the other even if it is expensive to do it.

And so if you game this out, at some point, there's going to be an end of the hostility at the straits gonna get opened and whether or not, you know, they're bargaining for another two and a half years or otherwise. Israel has been on a leash when need him to be on a leash. But if you don't get regime change and you're looking at it from Israel's perspective and you realize that Iran is just stalling, Isn't there gonna be a tension between Israel and The United States because Israel's gonna wanna continue to keep the pressure on and arming people and try to get that regime change to actually take place. Yeah. I mean, I think there's potential for tension or there's also potential for what we've seen, which is really close cooperation between president Trump and and prime minister Netanyahu between the US military and the Israeli Defense Forces, and between The US intelligence services and the Israeli intelligence services.

Because if you imagine the end of major military operations are over, whether there's a deal or no deal, whether there's a successful fight over Hormuz or not, this thing is going to major military operations will end. And if you're president Trump and you're thinking to yourself, over the next two and a half years, I need to wear down the enemy. There are other ways to wear down the enemy beyond major military operations or major US military operations. And that's where Israel, I think, looms large. I mean, I think the Israelis have demonstrated extraordinary military capabilities, which that that have been on display in April 2024, in June of twenty April of twenty twenty four, October 2024, June 2025, and now in February and March of twenty twenty six, where where the Israeli Air Force has shown extraordinary capabilities.

They're they're flying peer to peer with us. They're responsible for somewhere around 50% of the actual strikes. They're responsible for 80% of the intelligence. We've never gone to war, Jim, even in World War two that you referenced, where we've gone to war with an ally that is operating at equal capabilities as we are. Even in World War two with the British who were extraordinary courageous and extraordinarily useful as an ally, they were our junior partner.

I think at this point, we are equal partners, and the level of cooperation integration between The US and Israeli militaries is extraordinary. The level of political coordination between the White House and Jerusalem are extraordinary, and the level of coordination between CIA, NSA on the American side, and Aman and Mossad on the Israeli side are are extraordinary. If we continue that level of extraordinary cooperation, then we can leverage Israel to continue to wear down the Islamic Republic, support the Iranian people, run covert campaigns to continue to take out key members of the security apparatus, weapon scientists, those engaged in building ICBMs to threaten America. I mean, that that is something that the Israelis have shown extraordinary capabilities at doing over many years. And then we can lead a economic pressure campaign against the regime, which only The United States can do to continue to squeeze the regime economically and financially and really put this regime on its back.

And I think all of that can be done without, you know, major military operations. Now there may be times where we green light the Israelis to go strike at specific targets. We see the Iranians digging out the highly enriched uranium at Isfahan and or at Natanz, and we green light the Israeli Air Force to go and bomb them and eliminate them and put that back under the rubble. Or we, you know, we see the Iranians reconstituting their ballistic missile capability, and we say to the Israelis, okay. Go and and strike at those launchers or at those inventories and continue to to diminish them.

That that's still a possibility, but a lot can also be done in the shadows. And I think the Israeli intelligence community has has demonstrated extraordinary efficacy in the shadows. So, again, in the with the puck, we're trying to anticipate realistically how things are gonna go. And when you look at desalination plans, you look at the oil fields around The Middle East, and you look at the economic weapon that this regime has. Are we looking at several months, if not years of disruption of the energy markets if this regime doesn't essentially give in?

Because if they are as theocratic as you say and fundamentalist, to crush them and get rid of all of their launchers and and their drone abilities, I mean, isn't that gonna take a lot of time? Yeah. I I don't think you can eliminate everything. I mean, that I just think that's impossible. The question is, can you eliminate enough that you have severely weakened those war making capabilities and their ability to strike at, at tankers, at at oil fields, at pipelines, and as you say, at, you know, electrical grids and desalination plants.

And also really look. At the end of the day, if the regime is prepared to continue to escalate, the only way to get them to deescalate is they have to understand that The United States Of America will join Israel in regime change. Because right now, The United States has not made regime change our objective. Our objective has been very clear. We are gonna weaken their capabilities and severely degrade that their war making ability to threaten The United States and our allies.

We have not adopted regime change as a policy. Now the Israelis have, and the Israelis have been severely weakening this repression apparatus with a view to one day having Iranians back on the streets and supporting those Iranians to take down the regime. But that's an Israeli strategy. And one would could rightly question whether Israelis have that ability given the fact that it's a country of 10,000,000 people with a small air force and a small intelligence community without the leverage and the capabilities of The United States Of America. However, if we join them in that strategy, then the Islamic Republic Of Iran has got to know that we can bring down their regime.

And in fact, it was Ali Khamenei, the late supreme leader, who always, this was his greatest fear. His greatest fear was that The United States Of America would try to bring down his regime. And when he calculated and made certain decisions over the many years that he was in power, he always made it with a view that The United States was the only power on Earth capable of bringing down his Islamic Republic. This regime, Khamenei is gone. So the question is to Calabas and Vahidi and these other men who are now running the show.

Do they understand what Khamenei understood? Which is that if they escalate in the ways that you suggested, that we join the Israelis in regime change operations. And, again, regime change is not 500,000 mechanized US troops on the ground in Iran. Right? That's not in anybody's contemplation, and that's certainly not the Israeli strategy.

The Israelis don't have 500,000 Israeli troops to put on the ground in side Iran. What they have is a number of capabilities, both overt and covert, that if we were to join them, we could significantly amplify those capabilities. And then the Islamic Republic Of Iran would need to know that we can bring them down. So I think that is their calculation right now, which is why they would have to be looking for a deescalation opportunity unless they are so diluted that they actually think they're winning. And this is back to my earlier comment.

I mean, this is, you know, this is where this the information war is as important as the actual war because they're running an information war right now based on resistance. And and there's sort of, Jim, three kind of resistance movements at play right now. There is the Islamic Republic resistance movement. They they are resisting the West. Then there is the resistance movement that is the anti Trump, anti Netanyahu movement in the West.

That is the that they literally called themselves the resistance, if you remember in 2016 when Trump was elected. And now you've had the no kings protests all over America, which is a resistance movement against against Trump. And then there is the resistance movement of average Iranians against the regime in Iran. There's these three resistance movements that are operating right now. And if the Islamic Republic resistance movement continues to feed into the Western anti Trump resistance movement, then this regime may think they can wake Trump out or they can exhaust the West, and they can win, and they can be in control of Hormuz.

And then they'll just start rebuilding all their capabilities, and they'll be as dangerous, if not more dangerous than they were before. But if if we can resist them and we can support the Iranian people to resist the regime, and then we can wear down this regime over time, and we can ultimately bring down Islamic Republic and replace it with something better. And people always say, well, there's no examples of of us ever having done that successfully. And, of course, the answer is that's exactly what we did in the cold war against the Soviet Union when we brought down the Soviet Union. This was the genius of American strategy across multiple administrations, bipartisan strategy, but it was ultimately Ronald Reagan who truly understood that you could bring down the Soviet Union by providing maximum support for anti Soviet dissidents, putting maximum pressure on the Soviet economy and on the regime, and by supporting anti Soviet movements around the world that would exhaust the Soviets, exhaust the Red Army.

And we did all of this. While the Soviets had nuclear tipped ICBMs aimed at our cities, and we were able to bring down the Berlin Wall and then bring down the Soviet Union. So we've done it before, but we need to be patient, and we need to be smart about it. And we need to if we could, and I'm not optimistic, we will, we need to refind or or rediscover some bipartisan consensus that America is a good country. The Islamic Republic Of Iran is a bad is the regime is a bad regime, and that we need to to defeat it, strip of of its war making capabilities, and ultimately support the Iranian people to replace it with something better.

And all of that make makes sense. I I wouldn't say we're the most patient people in the world in these situations. But in terms of trying to frame this in an optimistic way, but also balanced with realism, when you look at the Abraham Accords and you look at what's going on in The Middle East, if if we do have a once in a generational opportunity to change things, what do you think The Middle East could actually look like in five years? Well, I I think on the Abraham Accords, if if we are willing to see this out and the Saudis and The Emirates and the Bahrainis and others in in The Gulf are imploring the president to continue. They they are asking the president to continue this operation and not to fold.

They understand how dangerous the Islamic Republic Of Iran is. They've seen a demonstration of that threat over the past month as thousands of missiles and drones have been fired at The Gulf, more more than have been fired at Israel. They understand how vulnerable they are to a regime that could destroy their energy infrastructure, their salination desalination plants, and can, you know, take down their cities and and kill thousands of their civilians. So they understand that. And and so if the president sees this out, if we are able to severely weaken this regime, then president Trump has already made clear as he did very recently at the FII conference in Miami, which is a conference, an investment conference sponsored by Saudi Arabia.

He said very clearly, I think quite undiplomatically to MBS, like, get on with it. Like, keep giving me excuses why you're not joining Abraham Accords. You have no excuses. I I'm there. I've I've supported you, so get on with it.

And I think MBS is gonna get on with it. I think MBS understands more now than he ever has that the only two powers in the Middle East that can defend the kingdom against the threat of the Islamic Republic. And by the way, other extremist threats, including from the Muslim Brotherhood, are The United States Of America and Israel. And if he's even smarter about it, he understands that we have global commitments. We may not always be there.

We may be in the Indo Pacific defending Taiwan from China. We may be in Europe defending the Baltics from Putin. He's got an he's then got to appreciate that the only power that has the ability and the staying power is Israel. And so he needs to join the Abraham Accords, and I think he will. And I my guess is he'll do that before Trump leaves office.

So then you've got an extension of the Abraham Accords. The Saudi's coming in. Once the Saudis are in, most Muslim countries will join. There will be exceptions, but most will join. You'll be expanding this arc of peace and prosperity throughout The Middle East.

And then the real opportunity, again, it may be a dream, but one has to dream things for them to become a reality. It's not just the Abraham accords, but the Cyrus accords where there's peace between Israel and Iran, a new Iran that is not led by brutal theocrats, but but led by sensible pragmatists. And the Cyrus Accords, a peace agreement between a new free and prosperous Iran and and Israel could open up even more enormous opportunities between, actually, the Iranian people and the Israeli people who, for the most part, have a real affinity for each other. And once you get rid of the theocrats and get rid of the revolutionary guards, I'm very optimistic. I've seen this play out in many many conversations and many gatherings I've been in.

You put Iranians and Israelis in a room, and within five minutes, you might as well just leave because they're not paying any attention to you. They have this natural affinity and and cultural bond that is really quite extraordinary to see it manifest itself. So I think there's huge opportunities in The Middle East, and it's very important for The United States because we need to we need to focus on the Indo Pacific. We need to focus on Eastern Europe. We now have a model ally in Israel that is capable of fighting and defending and patrolling that region.

We've seen them in action. We need to continue to defend them. And I just hope we don't get a a a US president who who believes that by imposing an arms embargo on Iran that that how, oh, an arms embargo in Israel, I should say that that somehow was good for US national security because the president of AOC moving in that direction would do severe damage to US national security. And if she were president, I hope her the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and her CENTCOM commander and her secretary of defense says, you know, madam president, that would be devastating for US National security to impose an arms embargo on a model ally that is capable of defending the Middle East against American enemies. We have huge priorities in the Indo Pacific and in Europe.

I think that's the hope. A lot could go wrong along that along the way. Well and that is a optimistic and great way to frame, and I would would hope that because of the patient's issue that we are able to get well flowing and consume. And it Iran has been degraded in about that they had to do catastrophic damage to the other infrastructure in the Middle East. Because if we can limit their ability to do that, we can actually get oil flowing again for the next few weeks.

Then I think we really do create the opportunity for the Iranian people to take the time necessary to change the regime. Because with the 70 to 80% of Iranians that are not happy with the regime, you would think that they would come back on the street when the bombing stops and it's safe to do so. But I think it presupposes that at some point economically, we can get oil flowing again. Yeah, Jeb. I think so.

Listen. I mean, you said we're not a patient people. We're not a patient people, but we have to be we have to be a little more patient, I think. I mean, it's only four weeks into this operation. A lot has gone right, and I I think the Pentagon and the US military and Israeli air the Israeli military are well ahead of where they thought they would be.

But, yes, the battle of Hormuz must be won. Oil must flow. But we must remember and keep reminding ourselves that if we hadn't acted, if we continue to kick the can down the road, which is a very Washington thing to do, and in some respects, it's an American thing to do. You know? We don't wanna deal with problems now.

Let's just defer and defer and defer, and maybe maybe the the problems will disappear and maybe things will get better. But things were not gonna get better with the Islamic Republic Of Iran. It was on a trajectory to reach that end state, that lethal end state that I described. And then we would have done what would have been prudent at the time facing that nuclear armed ICBM carrying, missile power. We would have done nothing because that would have been the prudent thing to do because to do anything would have risked potential nuclear war with a theocratic regime.

And even if they didn't use nuclear weapons, they would have had tens of thousands of missiles to devastate The Gulf. They would have turned in effect, they would have turned Dubai into Seoul, back to that analogy. Right? If the North Koreans can destroy Seoul in a week, and because of that, we have no military option to really defend Seoul because the North Koreans have nuclear arms and ICBMs and a massive conventional military, then they would have turned Dubai or Riyadh or Manama into Seoul or Tel Aviv into Seoul, meaning that they would have been able to hold those cities hostage, and we would not have the options that we do today to neutralize that threat and to severely weaken those capabilities. And that was an end state that we we couldn't we couldn't reach.

We we we absolutely had to avoid, or we would have been either at war with the devastating consequences or we would have been held hostage by this brutal brutal, homicidal, and in some respects, suicidal regime that was prepared to kill hundreds of thousands, if if not millions of people to advance its own its own warped and and dangerous agenda. So we had to act. I hope we act, continue to act prudently, and I hope we continue to act with patience. And I hope we resolve this quickly and, you know, keep the US military and and the Israeli military in our prayers. Well, Mark, thank you so much for joining us today.

You know, we we do have when we look at the stock market and other things, we've been able to kind of talk about AI and big data and crypto things. This is one of those things where I think we're gonna talk in the next month or two. We're gonna really stink how this plays out, and it's and, obviously, there's a long horizon here, but at least next month or two, when it comes to the global economy in this well, it's gonna be off disruptive if we don't figure this out in the next month or so. So I look forward to kind of talking to you again and staying in touch, but thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us today. Thank you, Jim.

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