Elliott Abrams

The president's threat to destroy Iranian civilization, for example, whatever that meant.

the apparent lack of what we would used to call, anyway, a policy process.

It seems as if policy is being made by a very small group of people.

And that has some benefits, of course, in terms of secrecy, but it means that a careful look at options and dangers around the corner was probably absent.

The only strategy that makes sense to me is that damage being done to the Gulf allies of the United States would lead them immediately to rush to Washington and say, stop it.

Stop the war immediately.

That did not happen, but it was not a crazy idea in the minds of Iranian leaders.

Yeah, I think it backfired.

I think that certainly the Qataris and the Omanis who had spent a lot of time and energy establishing decent relations with Iran must have been shocked to be hit.

Their greatest single piece of damage was the damage to an LNG facility in Qatar.

which apparently cannot be repaired for five years, and which will do something like diminish by 20% the amount of LNG they can export.

And this is a country which I think no one would have called an enemy of Iran.

So I think that it backfired and they, at least in some cases, have been saying to the United States government, this regime in Tehran is too dangerous.

You have to do something about it.

You have to take it down.

Yes, particularly the United Arab Emirates.

They had much more.

Although, again, if we count by numbers, it's the Emirates.

If we judge damage, I think it's Qatar.

The Strait is important because so much oil comes from the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the Emirates.