Ian Bremmer

So everything—

between basically 2005 and 2000, October of 2023, was Israel mowing the lawn.

Every couple of years, 2008, 2012, 2018, 2021.

And I mean, every couple of years, there were these skirmishes between Israel and Hamas.

And what Israel would say at the end of any of these operations is, I mean, unofficially, they'd say we've mowed the lawn.

They've been degrading their capabilities.

They can rebuild their capabilities and we'll have another skirmish again.

I'm concerned that,

and I think this is where you're going with your question, that that is where we're heading with Iran.

Yes.

So is it better than doing nothing?

Yes.

If we seriously degrade their capabilities and then Israel or the U.S.

or both have to go back in in a few years, well, if that gets us some semblance of quiet and sort of reigns in Iran's ability to threaten the region and threaten us—

That's better than doing nothing.

But I do worry that it's going to, to your point, wind us up back in a situation where Israel or the U.S.

or both have to keep mowing the lawn.

Dan is focusing on the part of this that is going the best for the U.S.

and Israel so far, which is that the military, the conventional military capabilities of Iran are being very significantly degraded, very significantly.

The naval capabilities, the ballistic missile capabilities, they had more than the Americans had believed going in.