كيف يمكن أن يبدو النصر الأمريكي في الصراع مع إيران؟

You've, you've described, you've, you've demonstrated a victorious American mentality.

So at this point in the conflict in Iran, what would you consider an American victory?

That's a great question. I think the two points that are important is to understand why we're in it in the first place.

Iran has been waging, whether we want to believe it or not, they've been waging war on the United States since 1979.

And the problem with this-

And the, the, the problem with this regime is its revolutionary nature.

One thing is to be a country, because you can have disagreements with countries.

The problem is the country of Iran is governed by an elected class of people who we don't agree with, and I'm not arguing they're moderates or people we can agree with.

That's-- the government runs the country, but the country is led by a religious Shia clerical class.

And not just Shia clerics, but radical Shia clerics who are motivated in their decision-making by theology.

Now, this sounds very strange because people, you know, that's-- you don't often hear this conversation when it comes to geopolitics.

But if you don't understand this, you don't understand Iran.

And these people are not governors of the Iran.

They could care less what Iran's economy looks like.

These people are revolutionaries. If you look at the founding documents of this Islamic Republic, it says that the supreme leader is not the leader of Iran.

It says the supreme leader is the leader of all Muslims, including Sunni, who by the way, don't agree.

Uh, and, and that their job is to export the revolution.

And what does export the revolution look like?

Well, it looks like Hezbollah, who they have created and funded and helped to grow to have capabilities that rival the nation state, and in many cases is more powerful than even the Lebanese state.

The same Hezbollah that blew up a bunker, the, uh, uh, a barracks that killed over 280 American Marines in 1982, '83, um, and have conducted acts of terrorism to the very present day.

It looks like the militias in Iraq, who as I speak to you now, are plotting and have plotted for years, not just to attack America, but to attack regional neighbors with very sophisticated weaponry.

It looks like their constant sponsor. It, it looks like the Syrian civil war, which they were clearly behind the destruction of that country, that at one time was a place that had all these different elements of society.

They had Sunni and Shia and Christian and Druze and Bedouin all living along, and Alawites, all living along each other.

Then it became a dictatorship supported by Iran and ultimately...

And that's the fundamental problem with them.

The second is they're the world's leading sponsor of terrorism.

No nation state in the history of humanity has spent more time or money sponsoring acts of terrorism around this planet than the Iranian regime.

Because through their proxies in Hezbollah, as just an example, in our own hemisphere, in the early 1990s, they blew up a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in our own hemisphere.

This is who we're dealing with. And these people want a nuclear weapon.

And they want a nuclear weapon, and they'll always say, "Oh, we're not interested in a nuclear weapon."

No, they're just interested in all the things you need for a nuclear weapon.

Okay? They built missiles for nuclear weapons.

They enrich uranium well beyond the need.

If what they wanted was nuclear energy, they could have had it, like South Korea has it, like Japan, like other countries do.

They argue, it's like saying, "Oh, I'm not interested in committing an act of violence.

I just want to buy ammunition and I want to buy a gun."

But the ammunition's not in the gun, but it would take a second to put the ammunition in the gun and become a weapon that can kill people.

And that's what they've done. And they built themselves to a point where they have, over the years of neglect on this topic, we have allowed them to build up so many missiles and so many drones and so many... that they were going to hide behind that conventional shield to do whatever they wanted with their nuclear capability.

And it had to be addressed. And I know it's unpopular.

Believe me, no war is popular. No conflict, military conflict is popular.

And right now, frankly, the economic pain that we are inflicting on that regime is so great that there's no need for, for, for military action, because we've weakened them so much.

But I think victory is ensuring that they never have a nuclear weapon.

As simplistic as that may sound, I assure you that as bad as things may appear today, you think that them shooting at ships on the, in the Straits of Hormuz is bad right now, even though 13 to 14 million barrels are getting out every night?

Imagine if they had a nuclear weapon. They would hold the entire region hostage.

They would hold this nation hostage. Imagine North Korea, but North Korea is just governed by a guy that's a little, you know, you know.

And, uh, but no, no, what I mean is, he's not interested in, like, conquering Japan.

Okay? He just wants to survive in his regime.

And I'm not excusing the terrible things that have happened there.

I'm just saying, but he's not, um, expansionist.

He's not looking to, like, invade Japan and, you know, invade China, whatever. He's not...

These people are expansionists. They're revolutionaries.

And armed with a nuclear weapon, last point I would make, every problem in the Middle East, every major problem in the Middle East, the Houthis attacking Saudi Arabia, the Shia militias that destabilize Iraq, the, the, the fighting elements that supported Assad and the destruction of Syria,

Hezbollah in Lebanon, everywhere you turn, there's one common denominator, the Shia clerics of Iran and their expansionist mentality.

This is an extraordinary historic danger and one that cannot be ignored, because I know we think it's a half a world away, but nothing is half a world away anymore.

Nothing is. It will reach eventually and threaten our country, and it's a threat that has to be addressed.

And it's not easy to address these things, because it's not popular to address them.

But to ignore them, which would have been the easiest thing for the president to do, frankly.

Four years in office, leave it for the next person to worry about.

But that's what he inherited, and he said, "I'm not going to leave it unaddressed."

But it's hard. It's not easy, and it's difficult, and oftentimes it inflicts, you know, pain, economic pain and otherwise.

So, uh, we recognize that. But victory is they can never have a nuclear weapon, one way or the other.

If it means they don't have the money for one or they don't have the, the, the equipment for one, we, we can never allow ourselves to live in a world, or our children, or any of you, to inherit a planet in which those people who have done these things and inherit, have a nuclear weapon.

They have killed tens and tens of thousands of their own people, slaughtered them in the streets.

Then when you're injured, they go in the hospitals and they kill you in your hospital bed, and oftentimes they will also kill the doctors and the nurses who treated you.

That's what they do to their own people.

Imagine what they would do to us if they had a nuclear weapon.

Are we done? Is that it? Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you.