Mark Mazzetti

It's now up to you to do what you want with your country.

You have the opportunities, he said, for the first time and maybe the only time in generations, right?

But what exactly does that mean?

And so it's what, as you said, could be the recipe for a protracted, violent civil war that doesn't necessarily have any outside guidance on what the outcome would be.

And that's what's so dangerous about this.

That kind of instability obviously could affect not just Iran, not just the entire region, but I'm sure a lot of people are wondering or worried that it could affect Americans here in the continental United States.

What are the risks to the U.S., like the homeland or our allies in the West in this moment?

Well, they could be many.

So even if Iran is no longer capable of firing missiles at American bases or at Israel, and we know that they can't fire a missile at the United States, there would still be the possibility of Iran responding in sort of asymmetric ways with terror attacks, either in Europe or in the United States.

They could draw this out automatically.

over a very long time, long after President Trump has stopped thinking about the Iran operation of 2026.

So if some remnants of the regime stay in place, and if there is still an Iranian government that is adversarial to the United States and Israel and to Europe, there is a lot of reasons to think that there is danger in the future.

You both have talked about the risks as a result of instability in Iran around the world to the U.S.

and our allies.

And that last part does make me wonder, how have our allies responded so far?

The American allies in the Middle East have responded with support for the operation, especially after they themselves were attacked by Iran on Saturday.

I'm thinking of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and other countries.

They have at least said that symbolically we support the operation, if not joining militarily.

Allies in Europe are far more cautious about

in expressing concern about the operation.