Ben Rhodes

That was the basis under which Trump said he was going to take military action.

But now we're just talking about nuclear issues and ballistic missiles.

I know we're reading tea leaves here, Eamon, but what is your read on the kind of state of play with Iran?

What are you hearing from the region about, you know, people's concerns or maybe hopes for what's happening?

Yeah, it was fascinating because, first of all, inside the security conference and all the side events, really the focus was on Ukraine and European defense spending and these issues, Greenland.

But outside, there were like –

tens and tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people there to see Reza Pahlavi speak.

He was on the world stage.

He was meeting with leaders.

He met with Zelensky, who, I mean, he's trying to kind of obviously be on the right side of Trump.

We've seen Pahlavi with Netanyahu.

So first of all, the read in the rooms that I was in was that

This guy can't really be, nobody could really explain the scenario by which he's going to somehow become a leader inside of Iran.

Like literally nobody I talked to seemed to think there was like a practical way in which, you know, the US bombs Iran.

And then, and I should say what Pahlavi was saying,

was militarily intervene.

So kind of a strange situation where you have somebody asking the US to bomb his country.

That's where he's putting all of his cards.

Like, we need intervention.

And then he basically was promising,