Rory Stewart

And now we are with some pretty major bombing underway.

Rory, where do you want to start?

Yeah, and he also said that there was some method in this madness because, of course, unpredictability was a useful weapon.

But I think we have seen this coming recently.

I read something just a few days ago when I was in Ukraine, and it was that some of the kit that has been sent as this build-up, two-thirds of the U.S.

's E-3 command-and-control aircraft,

Somebody said this would totally not be required just for PR in the way that some of the Armada might be.

I think the other point to make, Rory, is that, you know, one of the things I kept hearing in Ukraine was that these negotiations with Wyckoff and Kushner are just fake.

They're for show.

And you sort of feel it's been the same with this.

The Iranians turn up, the Americans tell them to capitulate, the Iranians say no, and they go away.

And there was a very interesting, there's this guy, I don't know if you follow this guy, Trita Parsi from the Quincy Institute, who seems to be like Rob Malley, something of an expert on Iran.

He is adamant that most of the information flow that goes to Trump about Iran comes from Netanyahu.

And he's convinced Trump that one, that Iran is a lot weaker than it was, which is true.

It is weaker than it was on the nuclear front.

It's weaker economically.

And it's just had the biggest demonstrations, probably the biggest demonstrations that we've seen in recent memory.

and has persuaded him that a few big hits and a few big threats and Iran will crumble.

And Parsi tweeted recently, he said this, Trump's fundamental misread of Iran is that he believed that the theocratic leadership would fear all the US aircraft carriers and their firepower, and as a result, opt to surrender.

It's the opposite.