School of War - Why a Weakened Iran Remains Dangerous, with Behnam Ben Taleblu

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ (FDD) Iran Program and a senior fellow specializing in Iranian security and political issues, returns to School of War to discuss the latest round of fighting between Israel and Iran. Why did this latest wave of Iranian missile attacks feel different? Why does a weakened Iran seem emboldened? Where is the regime most vulnerable? And will politics in Washington prevent the U.S. from doing what is necessary to stop it? 02:30 - Israel in Southern Lebanon 04:37 - Iran's Missile Barrage Against Israel 06:20 - FPV Drone Warfare in Lebanon 08:30 - A New Iranian Strategy? 12:16 - Cover for Terror Proxies 14:14 - The Danger of a Weakened Iran 17:44 - The Nazi Germany Comparison 21:00 - The Wehrmacht's Last Stand 22:07 - Iran's Reaction to Pressure 25:09 - Targets in Iran and Israel 30:15 - Where Is Iran Most Vulnerable? 31:47 - The Iran-Iraq War Analogy 32:44 - Exploiting Divisions in Iran 35:09 - Political Obstacles to Maximum Pressure 38:17 - Trump's Record on Iran Policy Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find more at The Free Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and good faith. If you're a paid subscriber, join us in the forum. If you're not, become one today at www.vfp.com slash forum. Today, a fresh take on where things stand between the United States, Israel and Iran, given the tumultuous events of the weekend ballistic missiles from Iran, hitting Israel, Israel again, striking targets in Iran, the dispute originating in the question of what the future of Hezbollah in Lebanon is. We've got Ben and Ben Talibu on the show talking about the new, reckless, less resource, but more rabid IRGC and Iranian regime

and what it means for the future of American strategy in the region. Let's get into it. It is for war. This Iraq and Asian is away. December 7, 1941, a date which will live in him. A bloody experience of blood. If we shall end in a state. We continue to face the grave situation in the ground.

We shall fight on the landing ground. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall never surrender. If you read the headlines about Israel, you're only getting a tiny slice of a long, complicated story without depth, context, or sometimes even the basic facts. I'm Norm Weissman, the host of unpacking Israeli history, the podcast that dives into the fact. and sometimes controversial events and figures that have shaped Israel's past and present each week on unpacking Israeli history. I explore the layers of Israeli history, debates around the Palestinian and Israeli conflict, the cultural forces at play, drawing from a variety of sources and perspectives. So if you're looking for a nuanced, thought-provoking take on Israel one that avoids the oversimplifications and political spin,

I think you'll really appreciate the show. Find aupackings or the history wherever you listen to your podcast or on YouTube. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks for joining School of War. I am delighted to welcome back to the show, Ben and Ben Taliblu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he is the senior director of the Iran program. I can't think of anyone better to bring in to talk about a very tumultuous weekend that is just in the review mirror now.

We're recording this at 8 a.m. D.C. time on Tuesday, June the 9th. where there does appear to be a pause in direct Iran-Israeli exchanges of fire following President Trump's intervention Sunday into Monday. Benham, today we're going to have, I know because we talked a little bit before we pressed record, a really interesting conversation about what these attacks mean for the evolution of Iran's warfighting doctrine, its grand strategy, what the new Iran looks like, what risks it's taking, all that kind of stuff. And that's where I want to spend the bulk of our time. Let's just review for a minute or two, like, actually what happened? Like, what's the TikTok of the last few days?

And maybe you can set the scene for us by just reviewing what is Israel doing with ground forces in southern Lebanon and striking targets in Lebanon? What's happening there? Sure. First and foremost, always a pleasure to be with you and a big fan of School of War. And happy to share my analysis with you and the viewers and listeners here. Listen, what Israel is doing in southern Lebanon is nothing new, per se, to anyone who's been following the northern front there, which has actually been a fairly active front. Israel has been trying to find ways to return fire and to preempt moves by Hezbollah, by Hezbollah, militiamen, by Hezbollah, air defense, drone drivers, you name it, because the northern front is still an active front for the Israelis. we may be in a period of ceasefire, but there are still FPV drone deaths, there's still

anti-tank movement, there's still a fight in northern Israel. And the ability, a desire of the Israelis to respond is not just strategically sound and consistent with their doctrine, but it's also popular. It's also something that is popular in Israel. So we're at the intersection of politics and policy driving a whole series of Israeli responses to Hezbollah attacks. And we've seen fits and starts of this since the November 24 ceasefire. No doubt the president has been weighing in on Israel's return of fire in Lebanon because since late April, the Islamic Republic of Iran has twice said that it's trying to link a potential ceasefire in Lebanon with any potential U.S. deal over the Strait of Kormuz.

So the Islamic Republic diplomatically is trying to do this. The U.S. has kind of said, eh, let's give it a shot. In the first go in late April, the Israelis were able to disconnect the dots and actually try to have that be a deal with the Lebanese central government. That was something brokered by Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State. Much more recently, we've seen a whole string of aggressive statements by Iranian officials, parliamentarians, security folks, religious folks, you name it, relinking the northern front, trying to load the deck for the president who is still very intent on a straight of Hormuz deal. and eerily enough in response to some Israeli maneuvers and potentially the desire to strike the suburbs of Beirut, which is a heavily Shia area, you had a whole string for 48 hours before Iranian attacks on Sunday of foreshadowing, eerie foreshadowing,

that brought you to statements by early Sunday morning Washington time that basically made it look like a matter of when, not if the Islamic Republic was going to militarily intervene. And that brought you to about late afternoon, D.C. time when the Islamic Republic was believed to have fired, I think, at least 11 ballistic missiles, just by virtue of distance. This would be medium range ballistic missiles towards a military base in Israel's north. The Israelis have reportedly intercepted essentially all of them. Then there was a question of, would the Israelis return fire? Because this is the first time ever the Iranians have run cover for a proxy, making this, you know, know, a potential doctrine change. The Americans weighed in, you know, President Trump said he would get on the phone with Prime Minister Netanyahu to essentially not respond. But again, those two forces, politics and policy driving not just this Israeli prime minister, but I think any Israeli prime minister to have to respond. There was at least four different cities struck in Iran, five, if you count a small town, that housed military installations or one of them, even an energy

facility and after the kind of calibration, the U.S. again intervened politically calling for both sides to stand down. First, the Islamic Republic did. Then the Israelis issued a notice, and thus far, no one has transgressed that truce. I don't even want to use the word ceasefire. But we saw a significant interruption the first ever Iranian missile fired directly against Israel since the April 8th ceasefire. That was an extraordinarily efficient summary. Thank you. And then just one detail I want to flesh out because I know Israeli troops been having real trouble with these wire-guided or optical FPV drones in Lebanon. I saw our friends at the Institute for the Study of War say that the target Israel hit in the Beirut suburbs on, I think that was Sunday before the Iranian strike. So sort of

the last major Israeli action. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong here, but the first time they've hit Beirut in a little while was some sort of target tied to that FPV drone. use on the battlefield. Does that track with what you understand, or what do you know about that Israeli strike in Beirut? It is reported, to be brutally honest, I neither know enough about the tool nor the target, but hitting something that actually has become an extremely efficient tool. Like if you look at every single round of fighting that the Israelis have had against non-state actors, there was always one tool that manifests itself, like the May 2021 War, for example, the tool that stands out as anti-tank weapons. Here, since November 2024, the tool that's

stands out as drones and much more recently, FPV drones with the fiber optic cables, the guided ones, you know, almost cheaper than line of sight, essentially. So there's no doubt that if the Israelis did strike such a thing, it would irk the Islamic Republic. But I see the regime's response, that military intervention driven more by ideology and strategy than the potential loss of a tool or tactic. Got it. Okay.

So I think the main question I want to ask. ask you today and what we can spend the balance of our time unpacking is what has changed here. What's new about these Iranian strikes compared to Iranian strikes on Israel in the past, of which there have been several rounds since October the 7th? You already sort of foreshadowed one, which is the first time that Iran has intervened on behalf of its proxy, as opposed to vice versa. Hezbollah has intervened on behalf of Iran on several occasions, including most recently, the current fight between Israel and Hezbollah, which really kicked into high gear at the start of

Epic Fury when Hezbollah intervened after Israeli strikes in Iran proper. So that was one. So say more about that, but also just tell us what's new here under the sun, because I know you think there are new things. So let me just begin by saying why we should be irked by the news of, you know, potential by reported Iranian missile strikes. And that is, this isn't the way the region is supposed to look. And many may look at another cycle of violence in the region and just say, ah, it's more violence by the same kind of cabal of terrorists. Why should we care? I mean, the Islamic Republic only started, you know, being willing enough to fire ballistic missiles at Israel, starting in April 2024. When we look at the rest of its national security doctrine,

when we look at the rest of its decades of the fight, that was a fight that largely remained in the shadows. And the Islamic Republic has come up and out of the shadows. The question is, would it be afraid? Would it like to return to the shadows at the earliest possible convenience? And after not one round, but two rounds of direct U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iranian territory, game-changing strikes, strikes that have taken things off the battlefield. Like for the first time in 20 years, Iran is not enriching uranium at a declared enrichment facility on its own soil. That's thanks to the war last summer. Iran has now lost a significant portion of its defense industrial base. That means why that might have ballistic missile capability, it will not have significant ballistic missile capacity,

basically the ability to scale up that capability in short order because of strikes that the U.S. took earlier this year in Operation Epic Fury. So sometimes Iranian bad behavior is motivated by these losses here. And the through line that I want to share before we we move to what's different is what's the same. And really, since different cycles of violence, since that April 24, 2024 attack, the regime has been weak and been weakened. But weaker does not mean not lethal. And the challenge for us, you know, studying the Islamic Republic trying to come up with ideas of how to counter it is how do you deal with a regime that is weak but still lethal and willing to take more risks. And it's in this effect, it's in this space that as the regime is

losing quantity of its ballistic missile arsenal, it is willing to expend what's left at that quantity over a greater number of things. So as the quantity goes like this, the conditions for that limited use are actually going like this. They're growing. You might say that, hey, this might be something foolish, but it's driven by their understanding, I fear, of their adversary, which is both the United States and Israel and both countries, as you know, are democracies, in both countries have rancorous debates of how to deal with their adversaries and there is a significant linkage in hierarchy,

a hierarchy that was inherent in what the president said, which is that I call the shots. So no matter your favorite, not your favorite, not your favorite anti-Semitic trope of viewers and listeners, but no matter anyone else's favorite anti-Semitic trope,

it's not America that controls that relationship. It's not Israel that controls that relationship. And to that ends, the focal point of Iran, strategy has been against America. And it's been all about influencing and shaping the willingness to respond so that America now isn't coming into the region to constrain and restrain an adversary. It's coming into the region to constrain and restrain an ally. And we saw that all in President Trump's comments. And even if one believes there was a good cop, bad cop, between Prime Minister

Yahoo and President Trump about how to respond and should the Israelis respond, what the Iranian have been doing, what the significant it is. What the change is is that as they're losing quantity, they're willing to expend that limited quantity over a greater number of things. And this is the first time they're extending ballistic missile cover to one of their terror proxies. And, you know, even though the Israelis did respond militarily, I think that public dissonance might be just enough for the regime's ego to get them to say, eh, on balance, this was worth it. And it falls into a line of a whole series of other mistakes of dealing with Iran's increased missile use, that will mean because the regime got one in, and because in the past against America,

at least, it got to close the round against Israel. It doesn't. But against America, unfortunately, in the region it has, whether you're looking at, you know, U.S. bases that were struck like Qatar, Al-Udade in 2025 or Al-Assad in January 2020, the perception is the regime got to. closed around. And while here the Israelis got to respond, the perception was America may not have been as keen to have the Israelis respond. So long story short here, increasing Iranian missile use, decreasing number of Iranian missiles, and a decreasing a number of restrictions or thresholds for

the use of these missiles. You know, we can talk about drone use, rocket use, what have you, but to fire ballistic missiles that can carry up to 500 kilograms of heavy explosives that can travel between Iran and Israel between 10 to 12 minutes, those are not signaling strikes. Those are weapons of war designed to hit and designed to kill. And it's very imperative that we look at the conditions for Iranian missile use versus anything else in the past, because this is a regime that knows it's conventionally weak and has long tried to avoid these sorts of direct engagements. So when they shift to more direct engagements, we always have to ask why. Well, it's a fascinating riff, and, you know, my takeaway from it is, you know,

you're saying that despite being meaningfully weakened, including and especially in its missile program, which itself was a kind of stand-in for strategic conventional weakness, right? The combination, which we've discussed before here on the show, the combination of the missile program, the proxies, and then, of course, in the longer run, the nuclear. program. These were choices made by the Islamic Republic, either at the expense of or to overcome the weakness of conventional military capacity. And here we have a situation where the missile program is manifestly, to some extent, measurably degraded, you know, a shadow of what it was in February, which itself, by the way, was already, you know, had already gone several rounds with Israel between

February back to October the 7th, 2020. And yet, because of their now lower threshold for missile employment, which seems to intersect with, it's not necessarily causing directly, but it's intersecting with a kind of self-determence on the part of the United States and a desire by the president to not escalate, which sort of resembles the Biden-Obama approach to the region and to, you know, conflict generally. You end up in this bizarre situation where Iran actually seems more powerful than when it had more missiles and you would expect it to have more deterrent effect. Is that fair? Unfortunately, I think that's very accurate and that's very fair.

It's the confluence of these factors that is allowing a considerably weaker actor today to at least strategically punch above its way. There's strategic effects the regime is trying to get in the region. The X factor, the only footnote, I would say to what you said, is that it's not just a U.S. Iran exchange, it's an Israel-Iranic change as well. And so as much as the regime, again, may be intervening, based on their rhetoric, to prevent further Israeli strikes against its chief transnational terror proxy Lebanese, Hezbollah, which is the poster boy of all these terror militias, and to find a way to bail them out and to save them, what the regime may end up to, doing is, you know, highlighting for the Israelis the imperative of, yeah, you actually better finish the job in Lebanon because this is how much this regime cares about it. And to that end, do I think the Iranians will have forever stopped or forever prevented the Israelis from having that freer hand like they've had against Lebanese asbelah, as we've seen in the region since the November

2024 ceasefire? No, I don't think they would have meaningfully deterred. But have they introduced more questions, have they introduced more risk for even some in these really national security establishments? You know, we've even seen a whole bunch of formers, former this, former that, come out and be critical of the war. Well, now they will have more data to make their arguments, and that is precisely the way the regime is trying to operate. It's trying to get more responsible actors by definition to become more restrained actors by objectively looking at a whole different series of facts on the ground. So, It's not that these Israelis can't do what they did in, you know, a potential strike on the Dahlia.

It's that they may have to think twice about it. And in that doubt, that's where the Iranians hope to affect their strategy. Yeah, I mean, let me preface this next question with saying maya culpa, because I think those who complain that reducing everything to comparisons of Nazi Germany and Nazi policy, that the reductio ad Hitlerum, it's been done and it's tired. in general one should avoid it, comma. And yet, let me say a thought that has occurred to me because it does Iranian behavior in this moment, you know, seems to me to bear some comparison to Nazi policy and strategy, say after, I don't know, we could pick a date, the fall of 1942, after things start to go really badly for Nazi Germany.

And the writing's kind of on the wall, that things are just not going great, kind of wherever you look, but they're not dead yet. You know, it's not the spring of 45. They're not, you know, they're not being overrun by foreign troops. They do still have industrial facilities. They do still have some war fighting capacity. They're playing what is by any conventionally measured, um, uh, uh, term, you know, a losing hand. Um, but they haven't lost yet. And, um, you know, Nazism was a revolutionary regime. Um, and, and, um, they did not become more rational and more accommodating as that process continued. They became more violent and wilder, sort of rabid. I mean, if anything, it's just more rabid in 44 and early 45 than in anything

in the lead up to that to include in, you know, non-warfighting policies like the final solution. So with that extended riff for which I offer my apologies, because we should probably go looking for other analogies, but, you know, the revolutionary regime, I think, bears some comparison. The Islamic Republic is a revolutionary regime. They are not dead yet. They are massively weakened. Again, by any conventional measure, theirs is a losing hand. They are much weaker than they were in 2023.

And yet, here they are, kind of wild dogs. But instead of pursuing doggedly regime change, which is what FDR and Stalin were pursuing in 44 and 45, in fairness, at an expense that the American people would simply not support today. And I'm not advocating for it. But just as a statement of pure fact, we're not pursuing that policy. And so we have this weird moment where the regime is now in mad dog mode or something approaching it. And we at the same time are hitting the brakes. Aaron, as you were speaking, I just wanted to say for the listener and the viewer, there's a saying in Persian when you think of something or you know,

you touch on something that someone else believes very strong way you say, del be del roch, or a heart has a path to a heart. and I am no fan of, you know, overplaying World War II analogies, but I absolutely love what you just said. And since the 12-day war, I have had this academic project in the back of my head. I'll say it now so I don't scoop myself later. I'm not doing it, but I would love to, you know, find a way to carve out the time to do it. And I would recommend a book to everyone right now because I know listeners and viewers of the podcast

are also a bit nerdy when it comes to war and the history of war, and I mean that in the best way. There's a great book called the Vermeck's Last Stand, and it's precisely about, I think, the last year or so, a little bit past the, a little bit earlier than the spring of 45, but quite a bit past your 42, 43 and on analogy. And it asks an important question. It goes through archival German documents to be able to explain it,

which is to say, why did they keep fighting when it was clear that at least on the battlefield they would keep losing? What are the political, strategic, and military reasons for not leaving the battlefield, for not engaging in unconditional surrender? There's everything from the nature of the doctrine to the nature of the high command, to what they feared from a certain adversary, the Soviet Union, things that kept them in the fight that perhaps could have been changed, like perceptions of the adversary, or things that you could not change at all, like the way the German military was built to have to fight. This is the IRGC's way of war.

And as that institution becomes more and more empowered, we should expect more, not less, of these sorts of things. I know many in Washington who are proponents of max pressure 1.0 and max pressure 2.0 don't like it, but I think it's worth driving this out. During max pressure 1.0, the peak of American non-kinetic pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran in American history in the past 47 years.

The period of time that the regime punched back the most is the period of time that they were most understrain. And I'm saying my friends and colleagues and acquaintances in D.C. don't like it, but it's true in that you have to liken this to asphyxiation. I know, you know, I never choked out anybody in order to anyone choked me out officially, but I did grow up in New York City in schoolyards

and going to public parks. And sometimes there would be a fight. And the more kind of, If closer somebody got to tapping out, the more violently they flailed. And every time you look, the more the U.S. touches directly at the things that really matter for this regime, you do see an attempt by the Iranians to respond, perhaps not responding in kind, but responding in ways that they can to do something that Iranian officials have been talking about since 2024, which is to change the equation.

Now, every time Iran has tried to change the equation to 2024, it's moved out of the shadows, and in so doing it has led with its chin. The Israelis realized the Iranian limited military capability. They realized, you know, where the radars were. They realized the nature of missile employment. And every time the Iranians moved, the Israelis were able to hit them back. And it got to a certain point where it wasn't just the Israelis seeing them back. It was the Americans as well.

You've got the 2025 and 2026. and they may have now just sense that they finally got to the position of a changed equation. They haven't deterred the Israelis yet, but they've induced enough restraint on the American side, and they've taken advantage of certain amounts of restraint that exist organic anyway on the American side, to raise more questions about the future use of force from Israel or America against the regime directly. This is what they're trying to do. And do I think that they put themselves in a worse off situation by trying to change the equation since 24?

Yes, I do. I think their low and slow, gradually asymmetric approach would have probably bored us or worn us out. But now that we're in this cycle of violence, the people at the helm today, just like the Vermach there, just like the Nazi party there, those are men willing to play to the edge. and the less they have, the less they have to lose. So it's not use it or lose it per se. It's play your bad hand well. And I fear that that's what they're doing.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. So we'll come back in a second to, you know, what the heck are we going to do and how are they, how are they, you know, potentially overextended or vulnerable because of the risks that they're taking. But before we do, let's just talk about war fighting for a second. Talk about the targets the Iranians struck. The targets that the IDF or IAF said that it hit in Iran didn't have too many surprises. For me, they seemed like they were going after, they said they were going after reconstituted Iranian air defenses. They also hit that big petrochemical plant there on the Kuwaiti border.

So hit an economic target that also, I think some of the chemicals produced there can be used for missile production. But the Iranians then said they were hitting Israeli air bases with apparently some, some voluble. of 10 or more missiles at single bases. Say more about that and what, if anything, has changed about the actual Iranian employment of their weapons. Well, one thing that might look similar is, if you look at the 2024 as strikes, both April and November, is that the regime would have claimed to have tried to concentrate its fire on an Israeli military facility. That contrasts very sharply with the wars of 2025 and 2026, where it's quite limited. literally there, it's countervalue targeting, but quite literally the regime is firing on

urban and semi-urban civilian population centers in an attempt to have either mass casualties or to cause mass economic damage and in a bid to erode the adversary's will to stay in the fight. In those strikes, the regime concentrated missile fire. And in this one, the regime tried to concentrate missile fire. The regime talked about trying to concentrate that fire at a base called Telnaf, for example. in Israel. Again, almost the vast majority of these strikes were intercepted, at least based on some public reporting, some strikes did land, but not at the airbase. And then the regime tried to return fire a bit later. So it's an open question as to the first volley may have contained anywhere

from 10 to 12, I think about 11, you know, took off from Iran. And then in the second one, that brings you up to 21 to 30, depending on the open source number. So less than 30, 21. one and above medium range ballistic missiles fired probably from Western Iran, which also, by the way, Western Iran tells you something because Western Iran has a significant numbers of underground or subterranean missile bases where tells or transport or rector launchers are. This is a lot of the stuff that the regime had been trying to dig out in the, you know, almost two months of the quote unquote ceasefire. That wasn't a ceasefire since April 8th.

Many of these haven't been destroyed. They've been degraded. They've been blockaded. They've had their entranceways buried. These are the construction activities that the regime has engaged in to be able to get it to reconstitute its ability to engage in these strikes. So while the strikes by the U.S. and Israel, February, March, April, 26, have set back production. The regime can actually grow parts of its arsenal by clearing out the rubble and getting it. at some of these missile stockpiles. And in essence, there are some who might say that concentrating fire on one base is very different than, you know, the strikes that landed near hospitals in Bersheba in 2025 and 2026, for example. But I think we should have to pay as much attention to the tool as we do to the target. I believe fundamentally ballistic missiles and ballistic missile use by the Islamic Republic should be in a different category because of the speed, because of the payload, and because the nature of this being something direct.

This is not like the Aramco strikes for the regime that you even take credit for it. This is something the regime is brandishing. It believes it gets something, even by having concentrated fire in one area. And that thing it gets is a, it believes is a deterrent dividend that you may have,

kind of in the Black Knight situation that we talked about in the past, you may have cut off one hand or something else, but I'm still an impediment to you on the road. That's a Monty Python reference. It's well played there. So then let's talk about, to close here, vulnerabilities, opportunities, you know, what you counsel in terms of American or Israeli policy going forward.

I mean, I want to revise and extend my remarks from earlier in our conversation where I said, you know, I'm not advocating for, you know, the maximalist regime change position. And to be clear, what I meant was, and I'm not familiar with anybody who's advocating for this. but, you know, something like what was happening in 1944 with, you know, large numbers of boots on the ground looking for a solution in Iran in that manner. I don't know anyone who's advocating for that right now. Israel doesn't have the capacity to do it. America would be mad to try it. That said, more aggressive actions designed not to reach a deal, but to further destabilize the regime on the premise that there is no peace with a regime like this. There might be very temporary accommodations on this. in that because they see it as in their interest, but peace, not so much. That's a policy I could see the reasoning for. And I am curious, maybe let's start from Benham where you think that because of the kinds of risks inherent in the reckless behavior, where they are most exposed, and from there, tell us what you would recommend. Sure. So the fact that the regime is extending cover to a whole

host of other topics and issues now, meaning not just some attack on their territory or attack on their military facilities or attack on their military personnel, but to now trying to run cover for a proxy rather than the proxy in the past running cover for it to bail it out, means that that limited quantity, that dwindling quantity of medium-range ballistic missiles, now has to defend more things. So you get to actually, if you're willing to go through, and obviously it might sound eerily casual with me sitting here, Washington and a folks living in the region having to go through cycle of violence after cycle of violence. But if that is a, if that is an option for Israeli policymakers, for Arab policymakers,

for American policymakers, that actually gets you to the kind of that strategic choke point in the Iranian missiles or the Iranian missile arsenal in terms of numbers much quicker. And it either puts you in a win-win situation. And it puts you in a win-win situation because either the regime has less to defend more things, which means that a potential follow-on campaign, they will have less to defend so you could exhaust them, or B, they will be cognizant of that exhaustion, and that can drive them to come to the negotiating table. Now, we may say there's no way this regime would negotiate, but again, remember the Iran-Iraq war analogy, when it was put on paper for the founding father of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, that what Iran would need to win not just

against Saddam, but against the American naval coalition that had come into the region. By the way, wink, wink, this is what Sencom was really being established because of, oh my goodness, Iranian maritime threats in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz and the tanker war, and Iran's ability to impact global shipping. When the Iranian showed their supreme leader then, the IRGC showed the supreme leader, the shopping list of the capabilities they would need, that really helped push him over the edge, as well as, you know, an accidental strike against a civilian airliner, as well as the domestic situation on the economic and social front at home, as well as a whole host of battlefield defeat.

So if you can box in the Iranians here while keeping the other elements of U.S. and Israeli policy, maximum pressure on the regime economically, maximum support to the Iranian population, potentially as Mark Dubowitz and FED has been saying, maximum fracture, trying to go and, you know, up the tensions that exist within some of the elites, or even between the hardline, right, social base which wants to continue and summon the regime which want to negotiate and find a way out. If you press upon the cleavages, while the regime might be more coarse, it could also simultaneously become more brittle. And either, they put themselves in the situation to make more mistakes, meaning that they would be on the receiving end of more kinetic strikes, meaning they

would be leading with their chin, which means you get to win more and more and more rounds and degrade them, kind of having like American Israel, forgive the analogy, but I heard it from an Iranian dissident friend, become kind of like a vulture, or become kind of like a hyena. It's a bad analogy, but praying on something that can no longer defend itself. And on the flip side, if that's not the case, then the regime would have to either make that trade off and drink from the poison chalice. Now, I'm not saying that much about the third supreme leader of this regime is anything like the first supreme leader of this regime because he seems to be drinking more from the Kool-Aid of his dad's resistance than the poison chalice of the founding father. But that's also because we haven't run the gambit. The

Rana Rock War lasted eight years. It is the defining foreign insecurity policy adventure for this regime that birthed the elite, that birth the deterrent strategy, that birthed every capability that we're fighting today. The interest in WMD, the interest in maritime harassment, the interest in ballistic missiles, the first drone use, the creation and cultivation of these transnational terror proxies. Everything we face from these guys dates back to the war. And now as they take that war out of the shadows against Israel and America, they're refining some of those things. And I think Israeli military policy and American military policy can help show them quite quickly that that escalation, confinement will be akin to leading with their chin.

So take advantage of when they make a mistake, or as Napoleon famously said, when your enemy is making a mistake, don't interrupt it. Look, what you say is eminently rational and self-consistent, and I get it as a strategic roadmap. The problem, of course, it runs into is obvious, which is, you know, you're describing a pretty protracted campaign or series of interlocking campaigns there, which, again, I get. but you have, you know, the president of the United States telling the American people back on February the 28th or shortly thereafter that this was going to be a four to six week war. And what seems to me to be a spirit there at the very top that this was something you could start and stop at your leisure.

And then when you stopped it because of our overwhelming power, we would naturally be in a stronger position, which in certain conventional senses we are in other senses, the Strait of Hormuz and then the sort of perverse outcome with the increased recklessness with the limited stockpile of weapons. that you've just very helpfully described. In other ways, we're not. And there just doesn't seem to be appetite at the top for the kind of thing that you're prescribing, at least not obviously to me. And instead, an increasing embrace of accommodation at the expense of American power in the region

and of the interests of our allies, which is to say a kind of embrace of at least some things that look like the Obama-Biden approach, as opposed to the Trump first-term approach, for the most part. I mean, Trump is, he kind of bounces back and forth. I mean, you remember, there's that whole period in 2019 when the Iranians were going after different Gulf targets

and Trump did nothing until some Americans got killed or an American got killed in Iraq, and then he oscillated to the complete other end of the register and killed Soleimani. And then similarly last year, in the lead up to midnight hammer, as things got very tense, and then ultimately the shooting started between Israel on the United States, I know that we have friends who argue that it was all good cop, bad cop routine,

and maybe in the last few hours or days it was, but I think the better explanation for Trump's ambivalence in the lead up to that operation was that he was actually just ambivalent, trying to see which way things were going to go. That seems to me like the Occam's Razor explanation for the phenomenon back there in early summer 2025. So all of which is to say, Ben, is that as a warfighting strategy. I totally get what you're saying. I am skeptical that the political situation in America exists to back it right now. The only, unfortunately, I agree, you know, living and working in D.C., sometimes it can be rough to hear from proponents of maximum pressure, the need for some sort of minimal or mediocre accommodation with a regime that, again, is weak, but still lethal.

And I understand everything from the gas prices argument to the midterm, argument to the markets argument to the media argument. The challenge is, is that those are actually the domains that the Islamic Republic actually has the advantage. And why we would not peddle to the metal in the one or two domains that we have the advantage to at least begin to equalize, that at least, that, you know, boggles the mind. The flip side is, you know, the one room for cautious optimism, you know, you mentioned the president going across different registers and one-eating is term two. even term two year one on Iran policy.

We saw the president pursue all options on the table, genuinely, but all options essentially in a synchronized fashion or at the same time. You know, in February 2025, he resurrected the maximum pressure sanctions. Between April and June, he engaged in indirect bilateral negotiations on the nuclear file. In June, he backstop Israel militarily. In June, he took historic, direct military action again. Iran's enrichment facilities and nuclear sites. And between August to October 2025, he actually supported multinational European efforts at the United Nations for snapback,

something that people have been talking about in D.C. for 10 years to restore multilateral sanctions. So he ran the gambit of Iran policy, something that would have taken several different administrations he did in about nine months. And, you know, cautious optimism here is that the Islamic Republic, as much as it might try to play a poor hand well, also has a history of overplaying its hand. And yes, I think the bar for the use of force, given the crisis with this regime that we're in of only responding kinetically if there's a loss of American life, that is a bar that I think that is too high, that the regime is keen to exploit. But perhaps, God forbid, but knowing that this regime does play to the edge and does overplay its hand,

we might get to that point. And in which case, have Hell hath no fear? like Donald Trump actually acting on his own red lines. Ben and Ben Taliblu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. I learned something, usually multiple things. Every time I talk to you, this has been a great overview and kind of a fresh take on what just happened and where things stand. So thank you so much for coming on School of War. Thank you, Aaron. Pleasures, by.

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