It's the Ryan Lair Show on WNYC, good morning everyone.

Robert Wright from The New Yorker is back with us.

Her latest article written almost right after the October 7 terrorist attack looked already

to what happens in the long run and that's what we'll focus on mostly in this conversation.

And as specific events are obviously taking place, we'll touch on a few of those too.

Robin Wright, columnist and contributing writer for The New Yorker is also a joint fellow

at the Woodrow Wilson Center and the U.S. Institute of Peace.

And she is among other things, a leading expert on Iran, which is relevant to this.

Her books include Sacred Rage, The Wrath of Milligent Islam, The Last Great Revolution,

Her Memorial, and Transformation in Iran and other books.

Robin, thanks for coming on again.

We'll come back to WNYC.

I'm always happy to have these conversations with you, Brian.

In your article, you quote counterterrorism expert Bruce Hoffman from the Council on Foreign

Relations, saying unlike other confrontations in previous decades that followed a pattern

of death, destruction, and negotiated cease fires, this one seems completely unpredictable.

Can you describe the pattern he was referring to first, because Israel and Hamas have had

shooting wars before us, we know?

Yes, several times.

And usually the pattern is the Hamas organization fires, rockets and missiles into Israel,

Israel responds with airstrikes, sometimes brief ground assaults, and then got her and

Egypt engaged in diplomacy to bring about a temporary ceasefire with the emphasis on temporary,

...