David Frum

Not blind to the opportunities for a better Middle East, but don't be blind either to the risks of a much worse future for Americans here at home.

And now, my dialogue with Tom Nichols.

But first, a quick break.

Tom Nichols is an ex-professor at the Naval War College, an expert in nuclear weapons, and of course, a colleague at the Atlantic who filed early in the morning of the first hours of this war in an act of amazing summary of knowledge and expertise.

Tom is a five-time Jeopardy!

champion and now a returning

two-time guest on the david farm show i'm very grateful to him for making the time on this busy day i'm going to just for the information of listeners and viewers point out we're recording midday monday the audio will post early morning wednesday video midday wednesday so there's a gap for a lot of events to happen in the united states and around the world but we're going to do the best we can to focus on some

domestic issues raised by President Trump's action in Iran.

Tom, let me just start with this.

I think you and I belong to that tiny little Venn diagram, section of the Venn diagram, that is broadly sympathetic to action against the Iranian regime and deeply worried about action by the Trump administration.

Okay, let's break this into pieces.

Here are the pieces that I think we should address.

The first is your question, what is this?

The second is competence of the team.

And the third is intentions of the team, both for the region and here at home.

So I'm going to try to get to all of those points.

Let's talk about what this is.

I listened to the recent press conference by Pete Hegseth, who denounced other wars in very personal terms waged by Presidents Obama and Biden and President W. Bush, I presume.

And he said, this is not going to be a war of regime change.

There's no nation building.