Alex Ward

But we can't forget that last June he announced to the world after the Wall Street Journal reported he had made the decision to attack that he was actually open to two weeks of diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear program and instead went ahead and attacked Iran anyway.

I'm talking to certain officials who are telling me it's possible.

They don't know for sure, but it's possible that Trump is stalling for time because there are certain amounts of military assets that he would like to see in the region that we currently don't have that could, if he were to order it, lead to a much broader scale attack on Iran and help the U.S.

protect not only troops in the region, but also allies like Israel.

There is concern that if the U.S.

were to attack Iran, it would actually undermine the protests for a couple of reasons.

One, it would help the Iranian propaganda that the U.S.

is actually behind these protests and that they aren't organic, and Israel potentially too.

And then there's the other side of this, which is if the U.S.

does attack, but it doesn't actually have any meaningful effect, then will the protesters be demoralized?

Trump feels that the U.S.

military is just on a hot streak, effectively, and he's feeling pretty good.

And so in his mind, military options have a high rate of success.

But there's tons of research out there and tons of real-world experience that shows just because you airstrike something doesn't mean you solve the problem.

And so the sort of main strategic question Trump has to ask is, if the U.S.

were to bomb Iran, does that lead to a better future for Iran?