Fareed Zakaria

You see countries like Russia acting in predatory ways, but you think of them as the sort of spoilers of the global system.

They're the ones that are trying to shake things up, disrupt things.

They don't like it.

the rules-based international system.

They want to destroy it or erode it in some way and allow for the freedom of the strong to do what they can and the weak to suffer what they must, in Thucydides' phrase.

The U.S.

has never done that.

And the U.S.

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.