Hello and welcome to the Cato podcast. I am Brandon Buck, a foreign policy research fellow here at the Cato Institute.

And I'm John Hoffman, also a foreign policy research fellow at Cato.

The recent internal crisis in Iran once again pulled the United States to the edge of another intervention into the Middle East.

Beginning in late December of 2025, Iranian protests over inflation and economic conditions

escalated into broad demonstrations against the regime, which Tehran responded to violently,

killing by some estimates as many as 10,000 people.

During the height of the crisis, as he's known to do, the president

took to social media and promised that, quote, help us on the way. For roughly 48 hours

afterward, dueling media reports sourced to anonymous officials claim that an attack was either

imminent or unlikely, as Israel and the Gulf states urged restraint.

Caution now is echoed by parts of the administration itself.

On the 18th, the president said that he had called off the strike,

but has since declared that it is, quote,

time to look for new leadership in Iran.

The crisis is not over, however, as the USS Lincoln Carrier Strike Group

is en route from East Asia to join other U.S. assets already moved into the region.

Today, we will discuss the crisis, how Washington reacted, and how it may still respond, as well as what these internal debates tell us about where U.S. policy toward Iran could be heading next.

So, John, let's just kind of open things up with a broad

question. How, what is or is this crisis fundamentally different from the previous one, that of the

12-day war? Yeah, I think this one is different in the sense that it's not just purely external

pressure and escalation. There's this domestic angle to it,

to the widespread protests, which have died down in recent days, not necessarily because anything

...