Bob Kagan

Look how we're fighting together here, et cetera, et cetera.

So I just sort of thought...

What the Chinese saw was that the Israelis took all the risks.

The Americans took no risks.

I mean, not no risks, but took very few risks.

So did we take out the air defenses?

No.

Are we sending our ships through the strait to deal, you know, what we're asking the Europeans to do, even though they have much less capability, but we're also unwilling to do it.

So what do the Chinese see?

The Chinese see that when the Americans have a free target against a deeply dis...

decimated country like Iran, we will blow them up for as long as we possibly can.

Does that tell the Chinese anything about what we would do in the event of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait other than not wanting to send our ships into harm's way?

You know, we all enjoyed Hegseth noting that the reason we weren't sending our ships in to the Strait was because the Iranians would shoot at it.

Yes, that is...

That is how that works.

And that's also how it will work in a China scenario.

Look, the big picture after we finish patting ourselves on the back for blowing everything up is we started this war and we are unable to win it.

And we are unable to win it at a cost that is acceptable to us and to many of our allies.

You know, we allegedly did this to some extent for the Gulf states.

The Gulf states are furious at us now because we have kicked the hornet's nest and are threatening to walk away and leave them with the mad hornets.