For additional perspective on all the latest developments, we turn now to our panel of experts.

Holly Dagress is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

That's a Washington think tank.

She spent her teenage years in Tehran and now curates the Iranist.

That's a weekly substack newsletter.

Alan Eyre served in the U.S. government for four decades.

He was part of the Obama

administration's negotiating team for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA deal with Iran.

He's now at the Middle East Institute. And retired Colonel Joel Rayburn served in the Army for 26 years.

During the first Trump administration, he was on the National Security Council

staff focusing on Iran in the Middle East. He's now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Thank you all for being here. Holly, I'll begin with you because we've seen in our reporting

an evolution of messaging from the administration. President Trump calling for regime change

a couple of days ago. Secretary of Defense Hegset now saying it's not about regime change.

What's your reaction to that? And how is all that resonating in Iran?

Well, the messages that are, they are conflicting and it is a bit disturbing because, you know, the sense that some Iranians on the ground got was that they were actually going to see

some sort of change inside the country.

And this was started, of course, with that unprecedented massacre in January.

And President Trump saying that help is on the way, take over your institutions.

And it seems that we're hearing from senior U.S. officials that they do want the Iranian people to take control

of their own future. But at this juncture, much of the clerical establishment is still in power,

so it's hard to envision that. And just on the note that President Donald Trump said that

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