John Mearsheimer

The protesters were going to undermine the regime.

And then we were going to come in and deliver the coup de grace with American military power.

But once the protests fail between January 8th and January 14th,

It doesn't make sense to use American military power because we no longer have the protests working in our favor.

So using military force just doesn't make sense.

There's no question we can pound that country.

bringing in all that firepower will definitely wreak destruction on Iran.

But the question you have to ask yourself is, what will the regime, which remains in place, do as a consequence?

And number one, as I just explained, the regime will pound Israel, and the Israelis don't want that.

Secondly, the regime will go after American military bases and American troops in the region.

And we really don't want that.

And the third thing is that the regime in Tehran is likely to shut down the Straits of Hormuz and therefore shut down the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf, which would have devastating effects on the international economy.

So the point is that as long as the regime in Tehran is in power,

It doesn't make sense to hit them with American military power or Israeli military power because the regime in Tehran has retaliatory options.

Again, what we had hoped to do was topple the regime and the American military would come in at the last moment and facilitate that outcome.

Well, let me just point out that I agree with everything you just said.

Very important what you just said.

But just to come at it from a slightly different perspective, you

You want to remember that we didn't do regime change in Venezuela.

All we did was take away Maduro and elevate the vice president to the presidency.