Dr. Bradley Thayer

Steve, it's wonderful to have a nice few summers day here in Sydney, Australia.

There's no shortage of sun.

No doubt about that.

Oh, I thought it was very insightful, Steve.

But I think there's problems with limited strikes in Iran, limited attack options.

We're not going to solve the problem that Trump seems, if he resorts to the military instrument, if he uses force, that is only going to be solved by major attack options.

A broader target set, going after the leadership, going after Republicans, essentially the military

and elements of the nuclear program, which means to remain as well as ballistic missiles and other military targets.

So a limited attack option has tremendous disadvantages.

It's not solving or addressing the problem that would be solved, that the military tool solves best.

So as Matt Boyle has stressed on your program multiple times, diplomacy is still on the table.

And President Trump, you never box him in, of course.

You never predict what President Trump is going to do.

But limited attack options, to my mind, are going to be inferior to major attack options against the pillars of the regime.

The central problem facing Western democracies in terms of the health of their democracy is the legitimation crisis.

That is, the elites are uniparty or however you want to describe them.

They have the same core and they have the same approach and attitudes, ignoring their base, ignoring their populations.

And that legitimation crisis has to be resolved, because if it is not resolved, you're going to see the continuation of what we see in Europe, Canada, Britain, and even in Australia, that is increasingly authoritarian.

formerly democratic political governments and political parties.

So advance is one of a group which is fighting far above its weight in terms of advancing very specific principles, but focusing also on the nuts and bolts of elections so that the people and populist political parties