Ben Rhodes

You laid out well what their options are for response, right?

They're not going to do all of them.

So we're not suggesting that all these things will happen, but they are all the available paths.

You know, ballistic missiles, drones, asymmetric attacks, including terrorist attacks, proxy attacks across the region, cyber attacks.

All these things are kind of in the Iranian kit.

And the question is essentially, do they try to kind of empty the, you know, magazine here

in the early days, or do they periodically do these waves of strikes and try to make this war hurt for people in Israel and the United States and the region over time?

I agree with you.

It's interesting.

There are strikes on the Gulf countries, and they hit just about everyone except Oman, and that was interesting.

Oman was the one that was not hit.

Some of them were just, you know, strikes at U.S.

military facilities.

And that makes sense.

And no surprise.

These other strikes that include like drone attacks, you know, like as you referenced on places like Dubai and Bahrain, it does seem like that the message they're trying to send is, you

So long as we are under attack, you are not secure.

And yes, they're taking the risk that certainly the Gulf governments now will probably feel potentially more inclined to allow the U.S.

to use bases to attack Iran.

Thus far, a lot of the Gulf countries have opted out of that or maybe even participate themselves.