Welcome to Pushback. I'm Aaron Mate. On this show, we have been speaking to a number of critics

of the Trump administration's policy towards Iran. Well, today we're doing something very different

and speaking to a leading proponent. My guest, Michael Duran, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.,

and previously held a number of senior positions inside the Bush administration,

including serving as the senior director for the National Security Council.

He joined me earlier for a wide-ranging conversation about U.S. policy towards Iran.

Michael Durand, thank you for joining me.

You are someone who is very immersed in the issue of Iran.

You have extensive experience in government and national security policy.

And you're also on a very different side of the political spectrum. So I really appreciate

this opportunity to speak to you. Let me ask you to lay out for us the case for the Trump administration's

current policy on Iran. Someone like me looks at the Iran nuclear deal and sees something that was working, something

that the IAEA and the Pentagon say that Iran was adhering to. Why do you think it was wise

for Trump to withdraw from the deal to reimpose sanctions and now you can get to the point where

the U.S. has just assassinated a top

Iranian leader, Qasem Soleimani. Well, first of all, thanks for having me. I appreciate this

opportunity to have a cross-partisan dialogue. Something that you said to me is sorely lacking.

So if we can just talk for the next 20, 30 minutes without screaming at each other,

I think we will have contributed to the national conversation.

With respect to Iran, I never believed that the Iranian nuclear deal was going to achieve any of its stated goals.

And when I say I, I think just about everyone on the right, every Republican candidate for president in 2016, with the, I think, sole

exception of Rand Paul, said that the nuclear deal needed to be scrapped. And some of them,

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