Brian there on WNYC.

Dixter Filkins is with us, staff writer for the New Yorker the last 15 years.

He previously had been the Los Angeles Times, New Delhi Bureau Chief. He covered the Iraq War for three years. He previously had been the Los Angeles Times New Delhi Bureau Chief. He covered the

Iraq War for three years and was part of a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times team for

coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He's also reported from New York. You know that place?

And Dexter Filkins is author of the book, The Forever War, which covers a timeline

from the rise of the Taliban in the 90s through September 11th and the U.S. Wars of Regime Change

in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed. Very relevant right now, obviously, as people start to make

that comparison and the Trump administration tries to refute it.

Dexter, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Thank you very much for having me.

Can I just jump right in on the No More Forever Wars issue and your book The Forever War?

Maybe with your reporting history, you have a grasp on how Trump plans to define success

in this case and hang the mission accomplished flag and bring our troops home without staying

a long time or looking like it ends in kind of a draw. Do you? Well, I don't think we know the outcome yet i mean there are there are no

american troops on the ground in inside of iran but my my sense is that what they want what trump

wants to do and what israel wants to do is is degrade or eliminate their ability to project any kind of power outside of

the country and also is degrade as much as they can their ability to shoot their own people

in the streets as they did en masse in January. So at some point, at some point, and we don't know when that is, I think Trump will call it

a day and say, I've done my best for you.

Now it's in your hands.

And that's a weird outcome, but I think it's probably the most likely.

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