Ben Rhodes

I mean, obviously those are terrible things that happen, but it's an absurd reason to launch a war now.

The only new pretext they developed is this ICBM threat,

which is totally false.

Iran has long had an ICBM program.

It cannot hit the United States with an ICBM, is nowhere near being able to do that, and doesn't have a nuclear weapon.

And so it matters that this is being done under false pretenses with very little public support and no legal basis,

because it's not a very strong footing to take the country into a war of regime change in a country over 90 million people.

Now, we know Israel wants this.

I mean, Bibi Netanyahu has been pushing for this for a very long time.

And he finally got this kind of window with Trump because he sees that Trump is a guy that is willing to ignore Congress and public opinion.

Trump's a guy who, frankly, has done what Bibi Netanyahu has wanted to do before, whether it was moving the U.S.

embassy to Jerusalem or the 12-day war.

And one thing that I was thinking about, Tommy,

is that it doesn't matter how many days he bombs Iran.

We are in a forever war with Iran.

One way to think about this is the 12-day war was not a 12-day war.

This is still part of the war.

Once you start bombing a country, this is the same war as the 12-day war that's happening.

Just because you periodically stop bombing doesn't mean you're not in a forever war.

And so Trump can spin it however he wants to MAGA supporters from Tucker Carlson to his own vice president who have political identities based on opposing this.