It's Wednesday, June 3rd, 2026, and welcome back to Goodfellows, a Hoover Institution broadcast,

examining history, economics, and geopolitics. I'm Bill Whalen. I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy

Fellow, and I'll be your moderator today. You've been watching this show for these many years. He already know that. You also know what I'm going to do next, which is introduce the stars of our show. My great pleasure to welcome back. The historian, Sir Neil Ferguson, the economist John Cochran and former Presidential National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General, H.R. McMaster, Neil, John, and H.R. are all Hoover Senior Fellows.

Guys, it's great to see you. I hope your June is off to a good start. And we're going to do a mailbag show today. But before we do the mailbag show, since we haven't been together for a few weeks, let's talk about pressing news. Breaking news, in fact, this morning, apparently the airport in Kuwait has been struck.

H.R. I turn to you. Let's do about 10 minutes

on Iran here with this question. H.R.

is news, in fact, this morning, apparently the airport in Kuwait has been struck. H.R. I turn to you. Let's do about 10 minutes on Iran here with this question. HR is a game on now. Yeah, I mean, this is all predictable, right? I mean, people keep talking about, hey, the end of the war. There won't be an end of the war because it's been going on for 47 years, you know, and this is just the latest phase in a 47-year-long war. And what we've seen,

you know, over the last, you know, 60 days or so is a ceasefire war, I guess you could call it.

You know, it's a pretty, it's a pretty darn inaccurate term, this ceasefire, it turns out. And

and so I think what you will have is this continuous interaction with the Iranian regime.

But I think what President

Trump will have to conclude is we can no longer continue this kind of tit for tat, you know,

strikes against Iran. They retaliate. I mean, I think what you're going to see is a resumption

of the massive air campaign aimed initially, you know, at causing further

attrition on their missile and drone strike complex, and then going after targets that are

aimed at clearing the way for a forcible opening of the Strait of Hormuz. And that's a phase

of the campaign that was planned at the outset,

but never got to it because of this of this ceasefire. So I think that's what we're up for.

And one of the reasons why, you know, I think there have been all these predictions,

is there going to be a deal? Is people were focused on like what Donald Trump's going to do?

Hey, this has a lot to do with the intransigence

of the Iranian regime. And of course, we have to remember that, hey, every, every off-ramp

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