Mark Dubowitz

If there's an Iran standard, we want the Iran standard.

We don't want the gold standard.

In fact, that's been the subject of

intensive negotiations between the United States and Saudi Arabia for the past couple of years, both under Biden and Trump as part of the U.S.-Saudi agreement, defense agreement and economic agreement that has been underway.

It is very clear that there's going to be a proliferation cascade in the Middle East if the Iranians get a nuclear weapon, and certainly if they're allowed to retain this enrichment capability.

I also worry about, we haven't even talked about it at all, this conversation.

I mean, the most important

area in the world, the United States.

It's not the Middle East.

It's China and the Indo-Pacific.

And I worry that the South Koreans, the Taiwanese, and the Japanese will say, you know, we don't trust any U.S.

commitments to stop nuclear weapons.

You failed on Iran.

We don't trust you.

We don't trust your nuclear umbrella.

We too want nuclear weapons in order to guard our security against China.

And so what you would see

I hope it doesn't happen, but I worry about is this kind of proliferation cascade in the Middle East and in the Indo-Pacific, two of the most important areas for American national security, which is why I think it's very important that Iran's be stopped.

Now, whether this attack succeeds in stopping Iran's nuclear weapon or accelerates it, we disagree, but I think neither us know yet.

Hard to predict.