Tommy Vitor

Um, Trump didn't use the words red line like Obama did with Syria, but clearly he drew a red line by saying if the regime kills protesters, the U S will quote come to their rescue.

However, it does seem clear like the regime is already killed protesters.

So Trump has not done anything yet.

So the red line has been crossed, but maybe, I don't know, maybe we interpret it as like some widespread use of force by the Iranian military or something.

But

Again, the question is, one, Ben, like, do you believe him?

Two, do you think the Iranian protesters believe him?

Because the U.S.

has this long history of promising or at least suggesting to protesters that if they rise up, we will get their backs and then we let them get massacred, for example, in 1991.

George H.W.

Bush encouraged Iraqis to take to the streets to take down Saddam Hussein.

So a bunch of them did.

And then Saddam massacred tens of thousands of Kurds and Shia and the U.S.

did nothing.

So the words matter a lot.

The stakes are very high here.

And it's sort of a question of, you know, we know Trump is not like, you know, measured with his words.

But in the wake of the Maduro operation, maybe they take on some added weight.

Who was making a lot of noise about coming back, did a Wall Street Journal Q&A.

Yeah.