Phil Stewart

I mean, these are words of a president who is looking to wage a major conflict against Iran.

And I think that everyone needs to sort of digest the idea that we're in uncharted waters right now.

It's hard to read that any other way than a goal of regime change, but one that doesn't explicitly, at least at this point, include the concept of US ground forces.

If there are US ground forces, we haven't seen them yet.

We're learning about strikes by air and by sea.

In the weeks running up to this, Reuters was first to report that the US military was preparing for a sustained campaign

against Iran if ordered to do so.

And at this point, we have multiple U.S.

officials telling Reuters that this campaign will last for multiple days.

And so we're not talking about something that we've seen before.

So the talks, you know, were inconclusive.

But just hours before this operation began, Oman's foreign minister had flown to Washington, D.C., and actually given an interview in which he had said that peace was within reach.

And so, obviously, the White House did not, you know, feel that was the case or decided to go ahead, regardless of that opinion by Oman.

You know, these talks obviously did not succeed and now we're in a situation of real conflict.

President Trump has an enormous amount of vulnerability right now.

And he kind of recognized that when he spoke in his video address about the risks of U.S.

casualties.

Any major Iranian counterattack against the United States or against Israel could drag the United States much, much deeper into a conflict against Iran.

Right now, again, we're seeing air and naval strikes against targets in Iran, but should dozens, hundreds of American or even Israeli casualties

take place as a result of retaliation by Iran, it's not unreasonable to think the U.S.