>>191174, >>191175, >>191176, >>191177, >>191178, >>191179, >>191180, >>191181, >>191182, >>191183, >>191184, >>191185, >>191186, >>191187, >>191188, >>191189, >>191190, >>191191, >>191192, >>191193, >>191194, >>191195, >>191196, >>191197, >>191198, >>191199, >>191200, >>191201, >>191202, >>191203, >>191204, >>191205, >>191206, >>191207, >>191208, >>191209, >>191210, >>191211, >>191212, >>191213, >>191214, >>191215, >>191217, >>191218, >>191219, >>191220, >>191221, >>191222, >>191223, >>191224, >>191225, >>191226, >>191227, >>191228, >>191229, >>191230, >>191231, >>191232, >>191233, >>191234, >>191235, >>191236, >>191237, >>191238, >>191239, >>191240, >>191241, >>191242, >>191243, >>191244, >>191245, >>191246, >>191247, >>191248, >>191249, >>191250, >>191251, >>191252, >>191253, >>191254, >>191255, >>191256, >>191257, >>191258, >>191259, >>191260, >>191261, >>191262, >>191263, >>191264, >>191265, >>191266, >>191267, >>191268, >>191269, >>191270, >>191271, >>191272, >>191273, >>191274, >>191275, >>191276, >>191277, >>191278, >>191279, >>191280, >>191281, >>191282, >>191283, >>191284
And then what happened is we got into this cul-de-sac of negotiations, followed by Iranian violations, followed by America having to retaliate, followed by more negotiations.
And we've been stuck in this since April.
And this could have been done in April.
I mean, the major combat could have been finished.
-
Q: What would you say, Mark, to people who said, Midnight Hammer, "I thought we did it in Midnight Hammer."
Why did we go in when we know that—you talked earlier during the break, you said the threshold for pain in Iran is very high.
But we kind of knew that before, right?
-
Mark Thiessen: Yeah. So Midnight Hammer was enormously important. Yeah. But what the Iranians were doing is they responded to Midnight Hammer not by saying, "OK, this president's going to stop us from getting a nuclear weapon."
They went on a barrage of building missiles, which what their plan was, was to have a large enough missile capability that they could overwhelm any defenses that the U.S. had of its troops in the region or Israel had of its country.
And then they could — they'd have a shield by way — behind which they could rebuild.
They could rebuild their nuclear program.
And President Trump saw that, and he had to stop them from doing that.
-
Q: I think just to add to what you're talking about, which is so smart and so insightful, is that we are looking at the administration unleashing an "economic strangulation" on Iran that has never before been seen.