The New Statesman.

Yesterday, the US and Israel launched a coordinated attack on Iran.

Over the weekend, missile strikes have escalated across the Middle East,

and it has been confirmed that the Ayatollah Ali Hamini, Iran's supreme leader since 1989, has been killed. A successor has not yet

been named. I'm Megan Gibson and you're listening to Daily Politics from the New Statesman.

I'm joined now by Fiona Hill, a former advisor to presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald

Trump.

Fiona Hill, thank you so much for joining us.

The last time we spoke was in the wake of the U.S.'s strike on Venezuela earlier this year.

And at that time, we were discussing the return of the Monroe Doctrine with U.S. seeking dominance in its Western Hemisphere, where regions like the

Middle East could seemingly become more of a secondary consideration.

But with the events that we've seen in Iran over the weekend with Operation Epic Fury,

it looks as though the US could be involved in a longer

entanglement in the Middle East once again. So is this war a break from the national security

strategy or is it somehow an extension of that? I think all these things can be true at the same time. This is the

dilemma of the moment that we're living in, particularly with somebody like Donald Trump.

And as we've discussed so many times, he is inherently unpredictable, even to himself. And if he

sees an opportunity to do something that I think from his perspective will accrue benefits,

he will take it irrespective of where it is.

And it's clear that the war with Iran is a war of choice, just like the war of the Iraq, as launched by the Bush administration, was as well. In the previous case of the launch of an attack on Iraq, and I'm meaning of course the second

phase of that, not with George H. W. Bush, but with George W. Bush in the wake of 9-11 and the

U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, there was, of course, a major effort to put together a rationale for

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