David E. Sanger

And to buy the time to assemble the forces.

And so the Iranians are saying, we're not going to listen to what you say.

We're going to look at what you do.

And currently what they're seeing is that the U.S.

is sending thousands of more troops to the region, starting with two Marine Expeditionary Units.

And so from the Iranian point of view, they're looking at this and thinking, well, the president is building up to another attack while he's urging us to negotiate.

Right.

Here we go again.

Yeah, right.

And of course, Michael, we don't know if the president is actually planning to go use these troops or whether he's just using them for leverage for whenever those negotiations start up.

Well, in most administrations I've covered, and this is the fifth president I've covered, that would have been the case.

But in the Trump administration, I think there's sort of a more general view that force isn't necessarily the last resort.

It could be an early tool that you use.

before you come back for negotiations a second time and say, want that again?

Want worse?

And so I think that this administration views the use of force as truly an element of the negotiations.

I'm not sure that their adversaries always see it the same way.

Well, there could be an element of pride to this, as we suggested.

And this is a deeply unpopular government.

Probably at any given point in time, as we've discussed on past episodes, something like 80% of Iranians would give you a long list of complaints about economic mismanagement, corruption, and the sheer brutality of the Iranian government.