David E. Sanger

Great to be with you, Michael.

What a month.

Well, as you suggest, Michael, it's a more complicated question than it sounds like.

And I would say the simple answer is that the United States is engaging in operations right now to shape a negotiation with Iran.

But I wouldn't say the negotiations have yet started.

So they were both fibbing to some considerable degree.

Huh, both.

Aren't you shocked?

Who are you going to believe here, the president of the United States or the Iranian government?

And in this case, I would not really believe either.

The president wants to make it sound as if he has forced the Iranians through the show of brute strength that has resulted in 11,000 targets being hit

Mm-hmm.

And so we're at a bit of a standoff in which the Iranians are fundamentally saying, hey, we're winning by virtue of the fact that we're still alive.

And the president is in the unusual position here of having to move from calling for an unconditional surrender to calling for some kind of talks.

Right.

And talks almost always mean compromise.

Yeah, he has put himself in a real box here.

where he has discovered, as you suggest, that the kind of military power that he's exercised has not brought about the kind of political result that he envisioned.

And it certainly hasn't brought it about in the time period he had in mind.

That he can do all of this bombing, but it doesn't necessarily lead to regime change.