Mark Dubowitz

It was the United States who could bring down his regime.

And I could give you lots of examples how Khamenei made that decision to back down when the United States of America even sent a hint that they were willing to take down his regime.

But I think the...

the current leadership, and I think Kalibaf is the kind of man who understands that after losing Khamenei and losing Laranjani and losing many of his closest commanders and friends and colleagues for over many, many years, has a choice.

He has a fundamental choice with President Trump.

And the choice is either to do a deal

and end this, or the United States of America is going to adopt the Israeli strategy of regime change.

And when America intervenes and adopts that strategy, I think at the end of the day, we will bring down that regime.

And I think for that reason, they have to be very careful about going way up the escalation curve.

By the way, as they go up the escalation curve, not only are we on the Israelis going up it, but so are the Saudis and the Emiratis.

So I think they have to be thinking after this war is over,

did they go so far up the escalation curve that they risk regime change?

They also risk ending up in a permanent state of hostilities with their Gulf Arab allies.

And that is not a position this regime wants to end up in going forward.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And again, I mean, I've said one, all the risks that you outlined are risks I acknowledge.

Those are risks that I would also put up against the risks of inaction.

My view is the risks of not doing something were much greater than the risk of doing something.

However, the risks that you've outlined are substantial.