Jeffrey Sachs

So Trump and his partner in this Netanyahu might say the only thing we can do is make the maximal threat.

And if that threat does not lead to Iran conceding,

then we have to follow through not with more time and waiting because of this unstable situation, but we have to return to massive bombing, this time even more.

And what we can suspect on that alternative is that the Iranians will, of course, strike back and strike back very hard and very rapidly.

And what we have all learned also since February 28th, since the start of this war, is that the entire Gulf region

is exposed to missile fire from Iran, as is Israel, in fact, because we also have come to understand that the anti-missile defenses are permeable, limited, even depleted in many areas.

But we know that the desalination plants in the Gulf region, the oil and the gas fields, the port facilities are not protected systematically and comprehensively against Iranian attacks.

And Iran would completely, totally, understandably respond to what Trump has repeatedly threatened, which is the destruction of Iran.

So if we don't take the exit ramp, I personally don't see anything realistic less than an all-out war.

And while I'm an economist, a simple economist, not a military analyst, having watched this for decades and tried to understand from the military analysts,

I think it would be but a few weeks before a very, very large part of the infrastructure of the region was destroyed.

The Gulf.

In Iran and in the Gulf and a lot in Israel as well.

And the result of that would not be peace followed by some easy recovery.

It would be a global calamity brought upon us in a few short weeks.

So to return to the basic question,

Trump could say, we're not going to go to disaster.

We just pull back.

That's the right answer.

If he says instead, we can't wait any longer.