All right. I'm with Ben-Benthaliblu, everybody. Welcome to Walkins. Welcome. Thank you so much for being here. I'm really excited to talk to an expert and all things are on. Before we get into it, thank you. I want to just date this because we usually record a couple of days in advance. So it is March 16th at 11 a.m. Eastern time. This is a very

fast-moving conflict. So I just want everyone to know what time and day it was when we record.

And before we start anything, I want to know in this moment right now, what are you optimistic about and what are you pessimistic about as you wake up on this Monday?

Well, this is the Middle East. And as you know, things can go from bad to worse. So there can be a lot to be pessimistic about usually when the

shooting starts. But I have looked at the Iranian street and its battle with the Iranian state for

quite some time now. And the sheer resiliency of Iranians. And I hate to say, even just the dark humor

of Iranians who have limited access to internet and social media right now, thanks to

things like Starlink, for example. The jokes they continue to make about the new so-called

Supreme Leader, their willingness to talk about bearing the brunt of the cost so long as the West

actually helps them finish the job, you know, that gives me room for cautious optimism,

potentially in the medium to long term.

Some short-term fears that I have, however, are that the West will replicate the things we've

seen in the Middle East for quite a while, which is not the wars of the post-9-11 Middle East,

but really the trend line of many military victories, but not followed on

by many political victories. I have no doubt that America and Israel militarily will prevail

against the Islamic Republic, but will they nest that military victory into a larger political

strategy to take down this regime and empower the most pro-American and most pro-Israeli street,

or will there be a premature victory lap?

And if we're looking at a lot of the discourse right now as it relates to oil,

the price of oil, the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, this stuff is critical.

But my fear is that this stuff may be critical to getting President Trump to have an off-ramp,

and you might get a military victory paving the pathway to political indifference towards this

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