Who is Winning the War with Iran?

MEF Chief Strategist Jim Hanson had a substantive discussion with Mario Nawfal about the likely outcome of the war, but also some positive changes in the region that are often overlooked. The Islamic Republic of Iran has lost the vast majority its oil revenue for several months now and has none outside the U.S. blockade left available to sell. They need income or their economy will crash and they will be unable to pay the thugs who keep their people subdued. That makes some sort of deal likely.

But the bigger impact is the rise of other regional players starting to take matters into their own hands. President Trump has said the U.S. will not be the Middle East’s policeman and the people who live there need to take care of their own neighborhood. That is starting to happen. The Gulf States have become more united in opposition to Iran through this conflict. But now the Saudis are the ones fighting the Houthis, not American military. And more surprisingly they are using intelligence from the Israelis to do so.

Prime Minister Netanyahu recently visited the United Arab Emirates and most of the other Gulf states sent representatives as well. That is a very positive sign and can lead to the ability for this power bloc to oppose a resurgence of Iranian malign activities.

Here is the video and a transcript of the interview.

Mario Nawfal Show — Jim Hanson on the Iran blockade

Source:

(posted 2026-10-01, 35:00)

[00:00] MARIO NAWFAL: Just trying to make sense of everything that’s happening. You’ve got the, the, the, uh, y- what is it? The bomb threat or the bomb attack in the UK or the alleged bomb attack in the UK. They’ve got the hijacking of the fly Dubai flight. You’ve got Trump already blaming Iran. You’ve got the aircraft carrier heading to the region. That’s just today. An Iranian British, um, citizen was arrested in the UK for that plot. Just so much going on.

But this is the first time we speak, and I actually wanna ask you kind of a broad question is... The big question that everyone is wondering, the likelihood of a resumption of the war after the midterms. That’s what everyone’s trying to figure out ‘cause all the pieces we talk about, how many ships are going through Strait of Hormuz, um, will the hijacking of the plane be politicized by Netanyahu? Will, will, will Iran be blamed for both attacks? Will Iran preemptively strike the US? Um, will the negotiations go anywhere? What will the Gulf do? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just to come to one conclusion is what happens next. I’d love to ask you that question.

[01:03] JIM HANSON: Yeah. There’s the easiest question in the world (laughter). Uh, I don’t believe that Iran has much capability left to continue resisting, so one of two things is gonna happen. The regime’s going to collapse, or they’re going to make a deal. And I think the likelihood is they’re going to make a deal.

President Trump has bled them dry. You know, they have no revenue coming in and have not since the blockade began. They had a certain amount of oil, you know, that was in tankers and in storage that they were able to continue to sell, uh, to China and others, and that’s kinda kept them afloat along with smuggling, you know, both, uh, oil out into Iraq and Turkey and also, uh, drug smuggling is another big revenue producer, but not enough to keep the regime operating. And they’re getting very close to the point where they’re not gonna be able to pay the Basij, you know, the thugs who keep the people in, in touch. Uh, they’re not gonna be able to pay the Artesh, the, the regular army.

And the IRGC is the only ones who are gonna, you know, continue to operate because they own all of the illicit revenue streams. So they are pretty much on their last legs, and I think President Trump has, has managed to, to enforce the blockade and gain the assistance of the other countries in the region in a way that’s gonna make it almost impossible for them to resume, uh, their axis of resistance, you know, he- hegemony of evil.

[02:27] MARIO NAWFAL: So if that’s true, so people debate whether that’s true or not. On one extreme, Iran’s about to collapse. They can’t even pay their military, which are the people they usually pay first. On the other extreme, Iran has the upper hand, the US economy is crumbling. And the truth is, I would guess somewhere in the middle, and we can debate where it is. But if it’s more on that direction, if Iran is about to collapse,

I’ve always said that if, if the blockade works, the sanctions work, the air blockade with the sanctioning of the flights, the sea blockade, there’s no land blockade yet. If that does work and the Iranian economy is struggling, can’t Iran or won’t Iran just do what they did in Jordan a couple of weeks ago? They fired all these missiles at Jordan. The US used eighty, according to The Wall Street Journal, eighty-two interceptors. Another ten, fifteen attacks like this with the same amount of interceptors used, the US would be completely out of interceptors.

So wouldn’t that be Iran’s-- one of Iran’s cards on top of the fact they could start striking if this becomes existential for them? They could do what they did during the war, strike the energy infrastructure, have the Houthis involved in striking the energy infrastructure as well. We saw the amount of damage they did in Saudi, um, including yesterday to the Yanbu pipeline, according to satellite images. Does not-- Doesn’t that worry you, or is that a possibility?

[03:43] JIM HANSON: Oh, it’s absolutely a possibility. And the question is, okay, how many interceptors does the US have? How many, you know, attack missiles and long-range accurate missiles, uh, does Iran have left? Nobody knows that. Now everybody likes to pretend that they may have more than they do, but it’s a legitimate threat. Uh, but the US also has an awful lot of escalatory capabilities that have not been exercised yet. You know, there have been a very distinct, uh, preference for hitting targets that only damage the regime and only damage the military, and I, I think that could change.

Now, I don’t think President Trump... You know, he makes a lot of, of threats that he will destroy the energy infrastructure that runs Iran. Uh, that’s a pretty huge threat, and that would cause some humanitarian damage that I don’t think he wants to do. But there are things like debanking the regime. There are a lot of non-kinetic ways that the president can push the, you know, the volume up to eleven on pain for them when they’re already hurting in a major way. So I, I think, yes, Iran is, is absolutely still an asymmetric threat, but I don’t think there are enough absolute hardliners who are willing to absorb the amount of pain that the free world can put on them.

And at this point, it is becoming a coalition of the free world, and they’re even losing their proxies. You know, they’re, they don’t have a lot of that, uh, operating in a good way. I, I think those are things that are gonna lean toward them wanting to maintain their control without being, you know, the emperors of a vast wasteland that used to be the Islamic Republic of Iran.

[05:26] MARIO NAWFAL: I’m muted. Sorry. You said they’re losing their proxies. Uh, who, who do you think they’re losing? ‘Cause for me, the Houthis have gained more territory. Hezbollah is still there in Lebanon. Their-- the government has not-- There’s no efforts to disarm them based on the agreement. Obviously, they lost Assad. That’s a big loss for them. The Iraqi militia is one of them just made threats today. The other one, there’s re- today reports that they did not disarm. One of the ones that was meant to disarm apparently only disarmed half of their weapons. I can mention-- I can get you the source for that one. I think that’s Washington Post. Um, so I just--

The way I see it, uh, uh, uh, Mr. Hanson, is Look, I, I’m definitely not in the camp that Iran is doing great and they could sustain this forever. I know they’re hurting economically, but I also know these missiles are very cheap to manufacture. Not as cheap as the drones. The drones are even cheaper. That asymmetry of cost has been a big problem for the US, same as it was a big problem for the Russians in the early days of the Ukraine war. Um, there’s no solution yet. There is-- There’s, they-- It’ll take time to come up with long-term solutions, especially against the missiles. The drones, they’re coming up with quick solutions with the help of the Ukrainians from, from some of the guests I’ve spoken to. But that asymmetry continues to exist.

I’ve spoken to a lot of people, otherwise Trump would have continued the war. Otherwise Trump wouldn’t have stopped. So I feel like maybe the blockade does work. There is some oil coming out according to sources, but Iran and their, their axis could still do a lot of harm. There is a lot of missiles there. We can debate whether it’s tw- you know, fi- two thousand, one thousand, one thousand five hundred, but that’s-- any of those numbers would still be more than enough to deplete all the interceptors and cause havoc in the region. That’s the worry that I have.

[07:12] JIM HANSON: And, and as I said, it is a legitimate worry, but let’s, let’s talk about the proxies. Hamas is toast and hanging on by their fingernails. Uh, there’s a good chance Israel will get one more shot at rooting them out before any rebuilding goes on in Gaza. Hezbollah had almost all of their legitimate, uh, armaments destroyed. They’re down to a smaller amount. They have some rockets and mortars and things like that, but they don’t have any of the things that over the past decade Iran had supplied them with because Israel destroyed all that.

You look at the, uh, militias in Iraq, one of the, the main ones, Kata’ib Hezbollah and others, are at this point considering becoming businessmen because there’s no money coming to them from Iran. So the payments that were causing them to be essentially Iranian proxies in that country, uh, has dried up because they, the Iranians need it for internal purposes. As you mentioned, Assad’s gone. What al-Sharaa will do, you know, is questionable, but he’s certainly not an ally of the Iranian regime. So the, the axis of resistance is essentially gone.

Now, the Houthis are the wild card, but look at one thing about that. Who’s fighting the Houthis? It’s not the United States, it’s the Saudis. And who’s giving the Saudis intelligence to fight the Houthis? The Israelis. Now, that right there is one of the biggest developments I don’t think enough people have talked about. The fact that now the Israelis and Saudis are allied against the Houthis, good chance, I would say, the Emiratis might at some point, uh, support that in some way because they had a long-standing operation against the Houthis that the US forced them to stop. We’re not gonna stop them a second time.

So I think there is a, a change in the Gulf States that says there are, you know, forces in the region that have been problematic for a long time, all of which were funded by Iran. President Trump has told all of them, “We’re not gonna be... The US is not going to be the region’s policeman. All right? This is your neighborhood. Take care of your business. We helped destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but we’re gonna, gonna be there every time, you know, they throw a drunken party and start shooting fireworks at the neighbors. That’s not our problem, that’s yours.” And now you see a growing Abraham-like accord where those states and others are working together. You had a, a big meeting where, you know, all-- everybody went to the Emirates. Yeah, and I think the-- Netanyahu went, and he met with the Emiratis.

He also met with a lot of the other Gulf States, and it seems pretty obviously that he had at least some representatives from the Saudis there. So that’s the big change. It’s, it’s the US is not gonna be there forever. Iran is going to have to face the fact that they’re not going to be the regional hegemon. There are too many other powers there that want security and prosperity, and they’re gonna take it.

[10:01] MARIO NAWFAL: We’re also seeing... You know, we, we’re seeing that happen for sure. We’re seeing some of the countries move closer to Israel. Now, I would speculate that’s more short-term because-- or it depends what happens with Iran. I think if we-- if the war ends as is now, then Iran as a threat would remain, and those countries would need to figure out a diplomatic solution to their relationship with Iran. And that may require what Iran has been requesting, is moving further away from Israel.

We will see that power struggle between Iran and Israel. But we are seeing early indications now of some of the countries improving relations with Iran. Um, Saudi and Turkey, there’s the... Pakistan, the Mecca Defense Agreement, there’s already talks on both sides about Iran potentially joining. So if the war ends as is, we don’t see a collapse of the government. I just don’t see the regime collapsing anytime soon. Um, if the war ends as is, is there also a possibility that Iran does come out of this as a regional hegemon?

They’ve shown their ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. They do have the support of China and Russia. Um, and the attempt to get rid of their ballistic missile program, their axis of resistance, their ally, the proxies, has not succeeded, at least not yet where we are today. If a deal is reached now and the negotiations are ongoing, we don’t see a resumption of the war, would you consider the possibility of a stronger Iran?

[11:19] JIM HANSON: I don’t think there’s any chance of that. Uh, Iran is no longer going to have the position they had where they were, if not calling the shots, they were at least everybody was playing defense against them. And, and they were highly effective at it. You gotta give them credit. You know, over the years, they built a strong collection of proxies. They funded them, they bought them, they operated them, and they caused a tremendous amount of damage. Nobody is going to allow that again.

So you talk about the Mecca Defense Pact, but you-- that group of countries that are together have so many competing interests, there is no way that can be a mutual defense pact. You know, there’s a better chance that they all get in the same room and, and a giant war breaks out in there with people lobbing grenades at each other. So I’m not particularly concerned about that, and I don’t think the rest of the countries in the region want Iran to be strong, and they’re not going to allow it You know, there’s plenty of levers, both diplomatic, economic, and if need be, military, again, that can be used to keep Iran in check.

So to the extent the Islamic Republic survives this intact in some way, you know, and right now it’s more or less a military junta running the country with puppets in, uh, in particular positions. If they survive and they continue to let the IRGC run their criminal enterprises, run the country as, as kind of a corrupt mafia-like entity, uh, they’ll do what they have to do, but they’re not going to be allowed to rebuild the proxy army. They’re not going to be allowed to, uh, cause the level of destruction to everyone’s, uh, prosperity and security that happened before.

And that was the deal President Trump made, you, you’ll notice. His first overseas trip, he went to see the Saudis, Emiratis, and Qataris, and he told all of them, “Again, your neighborhood, we’ll help with some things. We’ll sell you weapons. You know, we’ll deal with Iran in a big way, but then it’s going to be economic and diplomatic and other ways, and the small stuff you’re going to have to take care of.” And I think you’re going to see more of that.

Now, whether it’s, it’s agreements with Israel or whether it’s just agreements to not allow Iran to rebuild a spider web, uh, to the extent the Islamic Republic survives, it’s going to be a much weaker, uh, entity than it was, regardless of its threats to shipping and other things.

[13:39] MARIO NAWFAL: I found it. So, um, it c- but th-there is the other reality. The Qatari prime minister in his interview with Piers Morgan said this, “Iran has been our neighbor,” and this is Qatar, a country that was bombed by Iran, and that sentiment is shared by other Gulf countries. “Iran has been our neighbor and will remain our neighbor forever. We are not going anywhere. They are not going anywhere. We have decades of relationship with them based on mutual respect. The cooperation has been limited given the sanctions, but we tried our best to maintain this good neighborhood relationship, although we had lots of disagreements throughout these decades and in many other policies.”

So this is Qatar saying the obvious, Qatari prime minister, that Iran is a neighbor that those countries need to find ways to work with. Saudis, multiple reports of the Saudis improving relations with Iran, the meetings between the Saudis and the Iranians. The Emiratis had multiple jets go from the Emirates to Iran. They met in Pakistan as well. So Omanis obviously have a good relationship with Iran. Bahrain and Kuwait aside, because they’ve been very hawkish, but they’re the smaller, you know, the smaller members of the Gulf. The countries are echoing pretty early on, and we’re not talking about enter the war. The hostilities continue. Saudis getting bombed by the Houthis and the groups in Iraq, um, yet they’re still talking about improving relations with Iran.

Um, there seems to be another path, one of coexistence with Iran. Is there-- I, I know you’re, you’re not a fan of the Islamic Republic, um, but is there also a diplomatic path to all this? You know, Iran’s been attacked. W-we’ve tried war. We’ve gotten the outcome w- that we have right now. Um, could we just turn a new page that doesn’t involve doing all we can to keep Iran weak or getting rid of the Islamic Republic?

[15:21] JIM HANSON: I would be in one hundred percent favor of that, as long as they do not have a nuclear program, they’re not building intercontinental level missiles of any kind, and they’re not rebuilding their proxy terror networks. If they stop doing that, I don’t care who runs the country of Iran. You know, I... You’re right, I’m not a fan of the Islamic Republic. I think they’re a apocalyptic death cult. But they-- at this point, the Iranian people are not in a position to change that. So the Gulf countries are smart to go ahead and say, “Look, if the Islamic Republic is there and they still have teeth of any kind, we’re better off coexisting unless they’re gone.”

All of that still points to, if not a deal in the traditional sense, where we get together and we sign on a battleship, you know, and everyone agrees to, to certain things, you can have a tacit deal or a backroom deal where as long as the Iranians aren’t crossing any of the red lines, then the rest of the countries tr- start doing more trade, start doing things, start helping rebuild, start all of that, all of which leads away from the likely need for more war. I mean, I, I think President Trump has been abundantly clear he would much prefer economic deals to military action. So as long as the security is, you know, ascertained to be sufficient in that Iran is not a, a potential nuclear power, then there’s every reason to believe that the US would support that and help with that. That was one of the things discussed on that initial round of, uh, trips President Trump made with the Gulf States.

[16:58] MARIO NAWFAL: What do you think is the main sticking point now, putting aside what Trump says, because Trump s- says many things? Um, my position is that it’s about the Strait of Hormuz. All military action, all the rhetoric, you know, especially by the diplomats doing the... behind the scenes doing the negotiations, as well as the leaks that we keep getting seem to be focused on who controls Strait of Hormuz. The latest report that Iran proposed not to charge a fee now, but to charge it later as long as they control the Strait of Hormuz. Gulf countries weren’t happy with that.

It seems Gulf countries want Trump to clean up the mess or ensure Iran doesn’t control the Strait of Hormuz. Reports before that was about what fee will Iran charge. Talks between Iran and the Omanis. Oman is like on Iran’s side. They’re not America’s side because, you know, they keep getting yelled at by both sides. What do you think... From, from the people you speak to, you’re very well connected as well, um, what would you speculate is the main sticking point that’s not making a deal happen?

[17:51] JIM HANSON: I think the, the strait is definitely one of them now, and there’s near zero chance the United States will accept a situation where Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz-

[18:01] MARIO NAWFAL: Wow

[18:01] JIM HANSON: ... whether tacitly, you know, through, uh, threats or whether through some official arrangement where people are paying for, uh, safe transit. Uh, that’s unacceptable.

[18:12] MARIO NAWFAL: Do you mind if I ask you-

[18:13] JIM HANSON: Yes, they’re not going to.

[18:13] MARIO NAWFAL: Do you mind if I ask you... Sorry. Do you... So that’s a pretty big statement, and I want to press on it a bit further.

[18:18] JIM HANSON: Mm-hmm.

[18:19] MARIO NAWFAL: You think there is no way under any scenario Trump would accept Iran being able to charge a fee? That’s completely out of the question?

[18:27] JIM HANSON: If they wanted to make a grand deal and show up with the nuclear dust and shut down, you know, all of their missile production and do a bunch of things, President Trump makes deals. So I’m not about to say he would not make a deal given the right conditions, but I don’t see the conditions necessary coming from Iran to get that big a concession where we’re gonna put whatever percentage of the world’s energy, you know, travels through the Strait of Hormuz, and that can’t be rerouted through pipelines or rerouted in other ways.

Uh, we’re not gonna allow that to be held hostage by a hostile regime. So I don’t think that’s gonna happen, whether it requires a, a semi-permanent blockade or occasionally rolling up, you know, a couple aircraft carriers and, and causing enough trouble to Iran, uh, to dissuade them from doing that. But I think, again, when you talk about what’s being discussed between the Gulf States and Iran as they look at an acceptable situation, none of the Gulf States want that. So that’s going to be the one thing Iran’s gonna have to give on.

And, and they don’t want to because they’ve seen that’s the place where that’s the easiest squeeze point where they can freak the world out by, you know, squeezing oil supplies, uh, making the price go up. So they don’t wanna give that up. They’re out of all of the rest of their threats, you know, so that’s all they really have left. But it’s still an asymmetric threat. Right now, the US owns the Strait of Hormuz. It is an American-controlled thing. There’s enough oil flowing through it, and we can continue that, and they can’t continue not being able to send oil from Kharg Island out to the world. They are, they are going to, you know, crash and burn, uh, if that doesn’t happen.

So, um, that’s gonna have to be the place where they give in, and I think it’ll be regional pressure plus the, the threat of, you know, whatever escalations the United States is willing to put on the table. And as I said, there’s plenty in both the military, economic, and diplomatic realm that still haven’t been deployed. Uh, that’s where they’re gonna have to cave.

[20:27] MARIO NAWFAL: So you sort... You, you do think that the Strait of Hormuz, control of the Strait of Hormuz is the main issue on the negotiat- negotiating table in, uh, the UN General Assembly, for example, or in Qatar or in wherever they’re talking, in Oman?

[20:41] JIM HANSON: Short term, absolutely. You know, because that’s the one that, that affects everyone. That’s the one, okay, you know, oil’s back at what? 100-plus a barrel. You know, so there are a lot of things that that does as a very, uh, immediate pain point for the global economy. So that’s, you know, unacceptable to the people who comprise the global economy, including the United States.

And now that it’s, you know, it is what it’s going to be for the US midterms, so the... whatever leverage Iran had against the US using that, hoping that President Trump would do something advantageous to them, uh, in order to, you know, gain what he could in the US midterms, that’s pretty much gone. There’s nothing... Unless they wanna cave and, and give a grand, you know, deal now, great, he would take that.

But the US isn’t gonna make any deal that’s not hugely advantageous in our direction right now. So that means short term, uh, there’s not gonna be a deal. Short to mid-term, there’s going to be some sort of accommodation in the strait. And then longer term, we still have to have a long-term solution, uh, to the nuclear program, to the, the missile programs, and to any, you know, re-emerge- re-emergence of the proxies in the region.

[21:53] MARIO NAWFAL: What do you, um... Uh, the aircraft carrier that’s going to the, to the region, is that replacing one of the existing one, I think the Washington, or is that adding on to the other two? What would you... We don’t have any reporting on this, but which one do you think is more likely?

[22:04] JIM HANSON: I, I think that depends on whether Iran starts causing a larger amount of trouble or whether they back off. You know, there are, there are signals being sent that we’re not going to accept attacks on the, the traffic that’s going through now. We need to have the amount of oil and energy flowing out of, uh, the strait or through the strait, uh, to basically keep the, the global economy on a level pace.

So if, if it needs to be multiple carriers and we need to conduct strikes, that’s there as a threat. And I don’t think, you know, in the, in the short term until that handoff is made, it could be a handoff or it could be a double down, uh, based on conditions in the region.

[22:45] MARIO NAWFAL: Hmm. Were you surprised in the, um... when the president, the Iranian president went on US TV was, and offered... Well, not offered, but the, the Iranian position was to remain as part of the, um, the NPT, to abide by the-- to have the IAEA allow them into the country to down blend the 60% enriched uranium. Um, would you say that indicates Iran is willing to concede on what Trump at least claims to be the main issue, however, not conceding on the Strait of Hormuz? If the nuclear issue is resolved, if Iran concedes on that, would that be enough, do you think, for Trump?

[23:22] JIM HANSON: I think that’s a, a step in the right direction. You know, I don’t, I don’t think at this point having shown the amount of problems that, you know, trouble in the Strait of Hormuz causes for all of us, uh, that it’s going to be something where he says, “Okay, you’re, you’re giving me what has always been a false promise on nuclear programs and has never been followed through on for what is actually causing the pain right now.” The, the nuclear program is unable to build anything vaguely resembling a problematic device, uh, anywhere in the next decade plus.

You know, so the amount of damage that was done to that can’t be reclaimed anytime soon, especially not without us finding out. You know, between CIA and Mossad, they’ll find out, and then boom, it’s Operation Midnight Hammer II. So I don’t think that alone, uh, given the history of, you know, lies and, and obfuscation around what they will and won’t do is going to cut it. It was good to hear. You know, it was, it was a good piece of, of propaganda For the, the world to consume. But I don’t think the US, uh, security apparatus and President Trump believed that that was sincere. And I think the-

[24:33] MARIO NAWFAL: Mm.

[24:33] JIM HANSON: ... we’re gonna have to deal with the short-term, uh, issues in the Strait and then deal with the long-term issues of, of not allowing strategic, uh, problems to blossom again, uh, inside Iran.

[24:48] MARIO NAWFAL: Uh, Jim, in hindsight, looking at where we are today, um, the depleted munitions. My position on the war, I think you know this already, but my position that I, I just, I’m, I’m not a fan of this war at all. It never happened. I think it went horribly for the US. Now, obviously, I will change my mind as data comes in, and I’ll mention why I think that. Um, I just think a diplomatic solution was possible. Trump was looking for a swift victory. But if we, w-we look at things in hindsight now, we look at the depleted munitions, we look at the destruction that is caused in the Gulf. The Gulf, they depend on the US still, but they’re also upset with the US.

We saw a few letters, a few reports. There’s a letter by the Habtoor family in the UAE. A few leaks out of a few Gulf countries as well. They’re not too happy with things. So the Gulf countries have been hit, the global economy has been... American allies in Asia and Europe have been hit even more than the US. Um, Iran maintains, according to the reports coming out of Israeli media and US media, “New York Times,” “Wall Street Journal,” channel 12 or 13, Iran maintains months ago they would have rebuilt more of it now. This latest report, I think CNN came up with the... No. Whatever it is, 70, 80% of their missile capabilities. The drones are obviously very easy to manufacture. If you’re putting all these things together, there was a certain objective. That objective was not achieved.

In hindsight, do you think the war was the right decision? And, um, what do you think went the, the most wrong in your view in this war? What bothers you the most? Is it the low interceptors, which I find to be the biggest concern militarily?

[26:23] JIM HANSON: I think there are a lot of things that could have gone better. You know, the, the question is whether there was an actual diplomatic solution available to President Trump in some reasonable time frame, and I would disagree with you. I don’t think there was. I think there was a tremendous amount of dissembling and tap dancing and other things going on, and I don’t think the Iranians thought they needed to. I thought they... I don’t-- First of all, I don’t think they would hit... They thought President Trump would hit as hard as he did. Uh, I don’t believe they thought they were going to be in a position where the survival of the regime was legitimately at some level in question.

If you look at the first day of the strikes when 40 members of their leadership were killed, you know, there was a, a... If we had decided that regime change was what we were aiming for, it would not have been all that difficult to follow on from that, you know, and kill a bunch more levels of that and then do some things to do that. So there was no interest in regime change. The attacks, the initial round of attacks were designed to show that continuing to refuse a legitimate, uh, diplomatic solution was unacceptable, and the time to boom was unacceptable as well, then there was no real choice. And, and for

President Trump, he took a massive political risk. So he put the security of what he considered of the free world and what he considered an existential threat above his own political survival and his party’s political survival. And I think given that, and then let’s back up just a, a little bit, let’s pull the lens back a hair and say it was not just about Iran. President Trump’s plan for the region is for the US to be finished as the sheriff of that town. So to do that, he had to take down the biggest bully. It’s what you do in the bar. What do you do? You punch the biggest bully in the bar in the face, and then you look around at everybody else, and you say, “Who wants some more?”

So he did that, and now he’s in a situation where he’s talking to the other people in that neighborhood, as we mentioned, and saying, “Will you step up?” And they are. You know, demonstrably, there is a stronger coalition to oppose Iranian hegemony and as the nexus of the spider web of p-trouble in the region than there ever was before. And so you can look at the damage that was done. Everybody took hits. But also Iran, as I mentioned, I don’t believe can return to the predominant position they had. You know, Turkey and Syria and, you know, Lebanon on one side, you’ve got the Gulf States and Israel, allied and not allied, but all in opposition to Iran as a hegemon. That’s a larger, you know, w-war, that’s a larger theater of operations to look at.

And if the goal for the United States is to d-you know, defang a potential existential threat and then turn the region over to the people who live in it, I would say that’s on a relatively decent path. So I don’t think the war was a, an immediate raging success. It would have been fantastic. Okay, we bomb the first night, kill 40 leaders, and they surrender. That would have been phenomenal. Everyone except Ir-- the Islamic Republic would have been happy. The people of Iran would have been happy. That regime’s not popular. You know, we always need to differentiate between the 30-plus percent who are feeding off the regime and doing well and the 70-plus percent who are not and who would take another government in a minute.

So if you look at this current situation, I think the path President Trump put the region on is a less powerful and dangerous Iran, a more powerful collection of regional s-powers, you know, the Gulf States, Israel, Turkey, et cetera, and the Iranian people with at least an idea that maybe the Islamic Republic has an ex- an expiration date.

[30:21] MARIO NAWFAL: And Jim, just one last question I wanna ask you, and something I’ve been thinking about for months, and that is- You know, Trump is full of wild cards. You know, you just cannot expect what he would do next. And there’s one thing that was a possibility I was hoping for, and I think he might have considered it if you look at his rhetoric a few months ago, and that is opening a new page with Iran, doing a complete U-turn, saying, “Look, we’re gonna lift the sanctions. Let’s work together.

We’ll bring you back to the global economy, and we need you to do X, Y, Z in return.” And there’s that grand, as you said earlier, a grand bargain that will be a win-win for both sides. Iran’s welcome to the global economy. It’s great for the people, lifting of the sanctions, and the region gets an Iran that’s, you know, the incentives get more aligned when it’s intertwined in the global economy. Israel stops threatening Iran. Iran stops talking out, talking about wiping out Israel. Um, and I thought if anyone... And remember Joe Kent told me this, if anyone’s is able to do this, it would be Trump because he’s always full of surprises.

Now, I feel like that door was shut relatively quickly, not because Trump didn’t want it. Remember, Trump was even talking about sharing the fee with Iran. Um, but I think because of Iran, you know, killing their leader, killing all these people, the Manab incident, the Manab school bombing, uh, all these things play a role in Iran’s mindset. We saw how many people hit the streets in the funeral of Ali Khamenei. So we did see a rally around the flag effect. Even people that don’t like the IRGC went on the streets. Um, and I think that door was shut. Or is it?

Do you think there is a possibility that we actually come out of this with a massive surprises, surprise that shocks everyone, that just chan- completely changes the Iranian, uh, US relation, or that is extreme wishful thinking that is not even something you think about?

[32:04] JIM HANSON: I don’t think there is much chance, you know, that President Trump and any of the Iranian leaders, uh, currently in the, in power or in the queue to be in power are going to be, you know, popping champagne corks anytime soon. That doesn’t mean that the bulk of the things you just mentioned as benefits of that, you know, as the potential outcomes of that aren’t an outcome. Because as we mentioned, with the, with the Gulf States now negotiating directly and talking about accommodations, if not, you know, some sort of formal deal, but how do we coexist now, you know, in a situation?

There’s, there’s only a few things Iran has to do to get President Trump to take his finger off the trigger, and we all know what those are. So do they. So if they want a chance to rebuild, if they want rapprochement in the region, you know, and with the United States, I don’t think President Trump... He would be honestly the first person who would celebrate it. He’s, he’s got a-- His favorite thing to do is to take the most dangerous people in the world and make them less dangerous. So that’s why he’s always talking nice about Xi and Putin and Kim. You know-

[33:17] MARIO NAWFAL: And Jong Un

[33:17] JIM HANSON: ... he, he says, yeah, these are, these are people who could cause tremendous problems. And so President Trump would rather butter them up, you know, and deal with them, uh, in, in a s-semi-positive way, if possible. So if the Iranians, and probably through dealing with people in the region first and with us as, as kind of a, you know, a back channel part of that, come to the accommodations necessary that the, the red lines are no longer being crossed, then I don’t see why that can’t be the outcome. You know, and it, it is not as neat and clear as, “Oh, let’s have a big deal. We’ll go to Paris, you know, we’ll sign a, a giant piece of parchment that someone will stash away somewhere.”

But it can be the actual outcome, which is more important anyhow. So whether it’s a, a big fancy ceremony or whether it just slowly comes to a position where Iran is no longer that big a problem and it’s, it’s an acceptable issue, well, there’s a lot of countries like that. You know, you just don’t want a country who believes they need an Armageddon-like event to bring the return of the Mahdi to, so they can rule the world to have a nuclear weapon. I think that was a perfectly legitimate red line. Let’s get that one out of the way. Let’s talk about the missiles. Let’s deal with no more proxies. And then what is the problem?

You know, what is it? I would love to have a prosper... Iran is a massively powerful economic engine if it could be unleashed. And I think that, in the end, was what President Trump wanted. They just had to stop playing with their dangerous toys first.

[34:53] MARIO NAWFAL: Jim, it’s a pleasure to meet you, and I appreciate you joining the show. Thank you.

[34:57] JIM HANSON: It was a pleasure for me too, Mario