Joe Kent

But they did.

If you would have told me a year ago that the Israelis were just going to attack Iran to get us entrenched in a conflict, I'd be like, no, I don't think that they would do that.

The Israelis view the threat from Iran as existential.

They also believe that this is a very, very limited time that they have to affect the result they want, which is regime change and not regime change in the way that Americans think about it.

Americans think about regime change in the way we go in and we take out the –

We take out the leader, we put in a new guy or whatever, and then we're kind of done with it.

The Israelis don't really care what happens to Iran.

They just want the Ayatollah and the IRGC degraded or just completely taken out.

And if chaos ensues from there, chaos in the Straits of Hormuz, you know, the country fracturing into a bunch of different warring factions, a migration crisis into Europe –

They don't really care because in their minds, they've taken away the threat.

And from the Israeli perspective, I understand that.

But that's where I have to be clear eyed as Americans and say us and our partners, who we may like in some regards, have very, very different strategic goals here.

And we have to pursue our interests.

So you are worried about an Israeli nuclear use?

I certainly am.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Well, then let's talk then a little bit about this escalation.

This is one of the reasons here that you decided to resign.

What I'm curious is in this escalation, there was a lot of speculation.