Aaron David Miller

It's not serious.

And this should be a concern because we're dealing with life and death issues that are very, very, very serious.

You know, I have no doubt, and the Times reporting is very revealing, that this Israeli prime minister pushed very, very hard on this president.

The notion that Netanyahu conned the president into this, frankly, I don't think it holds up.

It doesn't hold up because of several reasons.

Number one, the president's experience with Iran has, in his mind, been a relatively happy one.

He was warned by the experts not to leave the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which he did in 2018.

People told him it would be the end of the world.

Well, the end of the world didn't come.

Then he was warned by the experts not to kill Qasem Soleimani, which he did in January of 2020, head of the Iranian al-Quds Force of the IRGC, a mastermind of Iranian proxy activities throughout the region.

He was warned there would be severe response.

There wasn't.

And finally, he was warned, if you strike Iran's nuclear sites, as the president did after Israel's 12-day war, you're going to spark a regional war.

And guess what?

The Iranians responded with a highly telegraphed strike against Qatar.

So there was no regional war.

So Donald Trump's view of Iran is very risk ready.

If you marry that with what he said during the January protests and you tether that to

the incredible array of military hardware that he deployed over the course of two months.

And you don't do something like that and then say, oops, I made a mistake or, oh, I changed my mind.