Karim Sadjadpour

Well, I think part of the challenge we have, David, is that it's not clear in President Trump's head what his intentions are and what his endgame is.

If we rewind, the reason we've gotten ourselves into this situation is that when these protests began in Iran in late December of last year, 2025, President Trump initially said to the Iranian regime, if you kill protesters, there's going to be consequences.

The United States is locked and loaded and ready to protect them.

He later went on to issue, by my count, at least nine more of those red lines, warning Iran that if it kills protesters, the United States was going to have their back.

And he incited protesters to the streets.

He said, go and seize your institutions.

And Iran drove a giant truck through Trump's red lines.

By some accounts, the regime killed as many as 30,000 people over a 48-hour period.

We don't know for a fact.

And it was very clear that the regime in Iran totally flaunted President Trump's red lines.

And there's recent history on this one when President Obama issued a red line against the Assad regime in Damascus against using chemical weapons.

I said, use chemical weapons.

And that was one of the foreign policy critiques of Obama's presidency, that that red line wasn't enforced.

And what are the implications and messages for other adversaries if we don't enforce red lines?

So I think that's the context of how we got to where we are now.

But isn't the context also that...

The big question is, does the United States have the power to transform Iran's government?

Or the right.

Or the right.

Or the right.