Suzanne Maloney

And the presumption was that Iran would simply collapse.

That didn't happen.

They fought back.

And I think what we're seeing now is that same resilience, that same determination to push forward even when the odds seem tremendously negative.

And we discounted their ability to do exactly what they have done in the past.

I think they've learned a lot of very dangerous lessons.

And this is something that we know the Iranians have studied, not just America's wars, they've studied their own wars.

The Iran-Iraq war was the subject of like a hundred volume study by the Revolutionary Guard.

And this is something that the entire Iranian leadership has essentially been tutored on over the course of their careers.

And so they're watching this war.

And I think some of the lessons they're taking are that time can be on their side.

They can actually seize the straight and then they have the upper hand.

That ingenuity and some of the same skills that they used to sustain the war with Iraq at a time where they were largely cut off from international weapons supplies as well as battered economically can be applied here, that they can still manage to sustain a war, and again, that time will be on their side again.

Finally, I think they have seen in real time that they can hit their neighbors in a way that strikes not just at the economic infrastructure, but at the larger political and strategic aims of their leadership, particularly in the Emirates and in Saudi Arabia.

These are leaders that are trying to affect a massive transformation of their societies, really, and try to tie them much more thoroughly together.

and in more widely networked ways with the global economy through tech, through tourism, through sports.

And all the Iranians need is a drone through a window of a luxury hotel to persuade Americans and Europeans who might have been planning a spring break in Dubai to reconsider.

And a drone through an airport will cut off the traffic that is so important to these countries.

The Iranians have targeted very clearly some of the emerging tech infrastructure in the region, the data centers.

And so that's going to be a really long-term concern for their neighbors.