I'm John Bachelor with my colleague Jonathan Shenzer, the Foundation for the

Defense of Democracy who's helping me understand contradictory reports,

not purposeful but different voices.

We've dealt with Synmar, who's on the run,

surrounded by hostages, now the autocrat of Hamas, but in Tehran, that's where the threat was made by

the Ayatollah, on purpose, over the corpse of a man who was part of the mass murder of October 7th, Hanya.

Now the Ayatollahs made this threat.

We have odd remarks from somewhere. It doesn't say where, that Iran may withhold or call off or postpone,

fill in the blank, the attack directly on Israel if and then the word cease-fire is mentioned.

Jonathan what does it mean?

We're actually not quite sure and I'm not sure that the Iranians know what it means. They have been threatened by the

United States. They have been cajoled and pushed and begged in no particular

order to get back to the negotiating table to try to reach some kind of maybe a new

arrangement in the Middle East after 10 months of fighting.

I get the sense that Iran doesn't feel particularly weak right now. I think they get the sense that they are

pushing Israel into a war of attrition. They've got the US in a very reticent place, a very fearful place.

And so from my vantage point right now,

Iran looks like either it's not sure what it wants to do

or that it's toying with the United States and Israel. The Israelis are on high alert.

Nerves are afraid right now in Israel. Every day there has been warnings of an

imminent attack by Iran, perhaps flooding Israeli airspace with drones and rockets.

So the Israeli populace, their nerves are afraid, the Israeli leadership, their nerves are afraid.

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