Karim Sadjadpour

I'm very grateful to you.

I'm in snowy Washington, D.C., Scott.

It's not as bad as New York City.

I think the worst is probably behind us in D.C.

Let's bust right into it.

So I think, Scott, we're in a game of chicken right now between two individuals.

That's President Trump and Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

I think President Trump thought he could essentially recreate the strategy

that seemingly worked in Venezuela, which is to subject Venezuela to enormous economic and military pressure as a prelude to decapitating that regime and forcing about its capitulation or compromise.

And in the case of Iran, this is the largest military buildup in the Middle East that the United States has had since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Iran is obviously under enormous economic pressure.

And Trump's top advisors have actually expressed confusion as to why Iran hasn't yet compromised.

And I think that has to do a lot with the will of Iran's 86-year-old dictator, Ayatollah Khamenei, whose one big idea over the last few decades has been resistance against America.

So I think in President Trump's heart, he would prefer to have a peaceful revolution to this matter.

If he can get a deal from Iran, major concessions from Iran without having to go to war, I think that's a preferable option for him.

And every conflict, especially one of this nature, entails potentially enormous risks, right?

Iran is a more powerful country than Venezuela.

It has thousands of short-range missiles, which it's threatened to use against U.S.

bases in the Persian Gulf.

It's threatened to go after oil installations to spike the price of oil.