Nora Jones

and moved by their ideology and they disregard any kind of tangible gains for their own country, for their own people and so on and so forth.

So in that sense, I think they're very pragmatic and they've shown, I mean, it's not a kind of a statement

or analytical statement, but this is sort of a historical fact that in the past 30 years they always followed a very pragmatic policy in the region.

And all these things about Iran's allies in Hezbollah or in Iraq or in Yemen, these are always understood in Iranian context from their standpoint as defensive postures.

And I remember when Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State and they were talking about overthrowing Bashar Assad in Syria.

And she made this comment in Istanbul.

She was in Istanbul.

She said that we're going to clip the wings of the Islamic Republic, you know.

So for them, when they hear this, they completely understand.

And today it has become quite clear when they were saying that, no, we are fighting in the streets of Damascus and southern Lebanon and in Palestine.

We are doing that so we won't be ending up fighting in the streets of Tehran.

now that statement gained a lot of credibility because with the weakening of those allies in other parts of the region, now they're fighting in Tehran.

I'm not saying that it was really good news for the people in Syria that Iran is there, or maybe it was for some, it wasn't for some others, but that was the rationale.

It wasn't coming out of a

blind ideological commitment.

It was coming out of a very calculated, rational, pragmatic politics that they were fighting in Syria or in Lebanon.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you guys so much for watching.

We appreciate it.

We've got John Mearsheimer on the Friday show tomorrow.