David E. Sanger
speaker
1,917 appearances
16 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 23 Jul
David E. Sanger’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 11 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.
Appearances
And that's not really available to them now.
It hasn't been for a year since the U.S.
attacked the three major nuclear sites at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan.
The second piece of leverage they have is the ability to cause havoc in the world economy and world energy markets.
Now, Rachel, that is not necessarily a lasting power for the Iranians.
You're already seeing countries figure out how to get energy elsewhere.
Over time, you're going to see more pipelines built to avoid having to send oil across the strait.
The Saudis have already reactivated an unused pipeline they had to route around the Strait.
So the Iranians know that this is not going to be a forever weapon, but it's pretty good for right now.
Well, I'm not sure that they've got a long-term endgame here, but the value of deploying it right now is they are showing that they can invoke as much pain on the United States as the U.S.
can invoke on Iran by resuming military action.
And what we've learned over the past few months is that the Iranians have a two-step play every time things get rough with the United States again.
Step one is try to shut down the Strait.
And step two is direct missiles or drones at U.S.
bases in the Arab world that they can strike because they're relatively nearby.
Right.
What they're doing is sending a message that they can still target their Arab neighbors, that there's a price for hosting the United States.
You know, as one former official put it to me, for years, the Iranians sort of kept a blind eye to the fact that the U.S.
was keeping all these bases in the Arab world.
And now they're outright attacking them.
Showing 261–280 of 1,917 · page 14 of 96
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