I'm John Batchel with my colleagues from the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, Bill Rajo and David Dajud.

The connection to Iran is direct.

The Iranians are ready to die to the last Hezbollah fighter in Bakar.

Therefore, the Iranians built-in Lebanon to their so-called memo of understanding.

I give the cynical version, knowing that it's a built-in

booby trap. It's a failure every time. The Iranians control the Hezbollah combat pace. The Iranians

control the Hezbollah money, their armaments, their recruiting, they control everything. Who does it benefit for Washington to go through

the charade of having an agreement signed with the state of Lebanon when it knows that it's about

Tehran? Who does it benefit to pretend that there is a security zone imaginable for the Lebanese

when it's the IRGC that gives all the orders. Who gains from

this, David? Well, I mean, that's a good question, John. I think the issue is that Iran exploited

the stalling of the U.S. war effort in Iran, the streets of Portmose,

our inability to bring down the regime, our unwillingness to do, right?

To make this all about Lebanon, to create a Lebanon situation where, you know,

they're calling the shots on Lebanon.

They're saying, you want this ceasefire with us?

And as we've said on the show before, we want a concurrent ceasefire in Lebanon.

So Iran's calling the shots.

And that obviously, first of all, it's bad optics for us, right?

It kind of compounds how badly the war is looking in Iran.

So you want to attempt at least optically

to take to take that back. But I think there has been a genuine effort by Secretary of State

...