For additional perspective now, we turn to retired real admiral John Kirby.

He's the former White House National Security Communications Advisor in the Biden administration.

Admiral Kirby, welcome back to the show.

Can I begin by just asking for your reaction to a little bit of news we heard from the Iranian Foreign Minister,

saying earlier his country is ready for a U.S. ground invasion, that they're prepared to fight U.S. troops on Iranian soil.

We know President Trump hasn't ruled out ground troops.

What do you make of that? Could that actually happen?

I don't think that that's what the administration wants to do, and I think they've been kind of clear,

although they're keeping their options open, and obviously you don't want to foreclose any decision

space by the commander-in-chief, it doesn't appear that they're very enthusiastic about

moving in on the ground and that kind of an option. And as for what the Iranian foreign minister

said, I mean, that's the kind of bluster you would expect to hear out of these guys to intimidate or to bolster their own

sense of morale and perhaps point to their readiness to fight a ground invasion. But I really don't

see that right now as a strong option, and it certainly doesn't seem to be something that the

Trump administration

is really leaning towards with any great energy.

What about what we've heard from President Trump in that he would back Kurdish militias

if they launched an offensive inside Iran? In your view, is that good policy? And what kind

of impact could it have on the war? You know, I think I need to know more about what their plans are.

I do worry a little bit about trying to foment an uprising when you clearly aren't going to be on the ground yourself to help direct how that goes.

I mean, you're counting on another party here who may be well trained or not to sort

of take it in a direction that you're expecting it to go. And I think it could be very, very

...