David French

Absolutely, it did.

But all of that is very temporary.

It is not hard for a country that is receiving billions of dollars in new revenue, potentially because of its use of its own strategic levers with the Strait of Hormuz, they can reconstitute all of that.

And, and

Iran has established a degree of deterrence because Iran has demonstrated that even in that weakened state, it can close the strait and keep it closed against the world's greatest superpower.

Now, we absolutely have the ability to open it, to force it open, but we show, Iran showed the world that that's not what we wanna do, that that is not a price we are willing to pay.

And so in a strange way,

I would say it's very difficult to say that at the end of the day that Iran emerged strategically weaker.

It's definitely tactically weaker.

And that matters.

It does matter.

We should not say it doesn't matter.

This wasn't the Russian Navy.

This wasn't the Chinese Navy.

So no, Iran is a regional power.

It is not a global power, but it is a regional power that successfully showed that it could take a global powers direct hit and

And at the same time, impose global consequences, global economic consequences on everyone without us having the will to stop it.

Now, to sit and look back at that situation and say, well, we clearly won.

What?

I'm probably going to go maybe a little further than you in saying that we accomplished some concrete goals that will degrade Iran's ability to, say, project power against Israel.