Fareed Zakaria

as a hegemon has been very careful to try to have that longer-term, more enlightened view, again, with lots of mistakes and lots of hypocrisy.

But compared to other hegemons, it really has played that role.

And now it is trying to extract for short-term benefit.

And I emphasize this because it's actually terrible for the United States in the long run.

We have benefited enormously from being at the center of this world.

But so we're getting these short-term gains at enormous long-term loss to our position, our status, our influence, our power.

Look, I think for a particular view of Israel, which has viewed Iran as this absolute existential threat, which is clearly Bibi Netanyahu's view, Iran is destroyed militarily.

There's no question about it.

I mean, remember Netanyahu in that opening video says, I've been dreaming about this for 40 years.

He's always been obsessed with Iran, even before there was a credible nuclear issue.

So for him and for people like that,

Yes, you can make the case that a failed Iran, a crippled Iran, even if it descends into chaos the way that Syria did for 10 years, has its advantages.

It takes a kind of adversary off the field.

But I would argue that Iran had been

contained in many significant ways, particularly after the Obama nuclear deal.

Remember, no enrichment, 98% of its enriched uranium had been taken out of the country.

Israeli intelligence, American intelligence, and the International Atomic Energy Agency all said that the Iranians were following the deal.

And you had the reality that you had the most intrusive inspections regime that you had ever had in the history of nuclear tech.

So was it possible they could be cheating a little bit on the side?

It's possible.