Alex Ward

I mean, I think he's just trying to put a historical framing on all of this.

But that's not what this is about.

His main arguments have been that they are pretty close to acquiring a nuclear weapon and that they're pretty close to developing a missile that could hit the United States.

Based on publicly available intelligence and including some statements coming from Democrats now who are seeing that intelligence, Iran, because of the strikes from last year, last June,

They might have enriched uranium, but really no ability to turn that into enough fuel for a weapon.

The ability to make an intercontinental ballistic missile was probably years away from being done, assuming the Iranians had made that choice.

And we should also remember that in January, when there were protests in Iran, Trump said he was going to strike to defend the protesters.

So there have been a slew of reasons for why Trump said he's going to do this.

The history bit just seemed more window dressing than anything else.

Yeah, I mean, Venezuela and Iran are very, very different.

Those are more sort of one and done or at least lower risk operations.

There is nothing low risk about this.

There'll be days of airstrikes that could put American pilots and, of course, American troops in the Middle East in harm's way.

Who knows if the U.S.

will at some point have ground troops in the form of special operations forces.

And that's even before we get to the fact that this could spiral into a broader regional war if not contained.

So this is by far the biggest risk by President Trump in either of his terms.

And it is likely going to be the defining moment of his presidency, whether it ends with some sort of toppling of the regime, because that's what he's after.

or what could be a mess that doesn't necessarily lead to the toppling of a regime, or even if it does, a vacuum that could cause chaos.

So it's a massive gamble by the president here.