Name: Iran has ‘many cards yet to play’ in war with U.S., Israel predicts Middle East expert
Uploaded: 2026-03-09T23:02:26.000Z
Duration: 12 min 14 s
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Julian, you've been able to confirm a report that appeared first in the Washington Post saying U.S.

Adverbs of degree

intelligence agency concluded before the war that even a large scale attack on Iran is unlikely to deliver regime change.

What more are you hearing about that intel report and how the President views it?

Well, look, it's important to remember that intel report is a product of the National Intelligence Council, and

sometimes that group is bringing in reports from across all the spy agencies.

But in this case, this report reflected the views of the NIC and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Nevertheless, intelligence officials are in general skeptical that at this point the Iranian opposition can take power.

The most likely result of this war is a continuation of, of the theocratic government.

Trump administration officials will tell you there's limited influence that the US can have in picking a new government.

Yet, as you have made reference to, President Trump has called for regime change.

He has said he wants a hand in picking the next government.

But those are easy things to say and harder things to execute on.

Because we've heard the President say that while they had their eyes on some people, those people, the person that he had handpicked at that point was taken out by Israel as well as successors down the line taken out by Israel.

We reported in the New York Times yesterday that when the US When Israel took that initial strike to killing the Supreme Leader and other top national security officials in Iran, there was another meeting down the hall where more people were killed.

And those included some of the people that the Trump administration had identified as pragmatists, people who might make a more conciliatory government.

These aren't moderates by any traditional definition, but

they are the people Trump was talking about when a couple times he said, you know, there were people we could deal with, but

So Dana Reuters is reporting some cracks in Iranian leadership with angry divisions between hardliners and the more pragmatic factions, fueled in part by the President's promise to not strike Gulf states.

What forced the President to make that promise, and how fractured is Iran's leadership right now?

Well, I think the challenge with the Iranian president making that statement is that he doesn't really reflect the decision making of the Iranian state.

And so the minute people who are Iran watchers followed this, they.

I think the reaction was, why would he say that at the exact moment that there were Iranian projectiles in the air targeting some Gulf states?

And very quickly, the other elements of the Iranian Apparatus rose up and said, no, that's not what's happening at all.

We're not targeting Gulf states, we're targeting US Military interests in these states, which of course they're not.

And then we actually saw the Iranian President Bezeshkian backtrack later today.

So I think this just underscores the crisis of the moment and that US Policymakers like President Trump, to the extent that he's making policy, need to not have knee jerk reactions, putting this stuff on truth social without listening to experts within his national security structure explaining the context behind these statements.

And to that end, Dana, given America's long held plans for an attack of this nature, how would you assess Iran's response so far?

Have they exploited all their options yet?

No, I think they have many cards yet to play.

So what they're doing right now is part of the worst case scenario.

Those of us who used to look at what going to war with Iran would mean in terms of retaliatory options, and

They've started to target energy infrastructure, they've targeted U.S. diplomatic facilities, they're targeting U.S.

military bases, they're targeting Israel, but they have not expanded more broadly.

They're not targeting humans, huge amounts of energy infrastructure, desalination plants.

They have not activated terror networks abroad in Europe or the United States.

So this looks to me like a security apparatus that's holding some of its cards to respond to what it expects is going to be more pressure down the line.

And Julian, the President now says Iran was responsible for the deadly strikes on a girls school in southern Iran that killed as many as 175 people, including children.

But several news outlets, including yours, concludes the strikes were taken in an area where US Forces were targeting.

What is your assessment of the President's new theory?

Yeah, this does not seem very likely that Iran did it.

New York Times reporting suggests it's very likely a U.S. strike.

You saw Secretary Hegseth jump in after the President spoke to say that they were investigating but, you know, tried to shift blame to Iran, where then the president grabbed that and just said Iran was responsible.

Look, Iran did not shoot a missile at its own school, did not kill its own school children.

And it's very different how the US Is handling this, how the Trump administration is handling it compared to, you know, collateral damage, accidental strikes.

In wars past, you know, we've usually gotten a lot more information a lot faster as the Pentagon is investigating it.

It's very likely this is going to turn out to be a U.S.

strike and one of the biggest mistakes of this war.

So, Dana, after Trump said yesterday Iran was about to be hit hard, sure strikes were launched on Iran's oil infrastructure.

Among the options that Iran has at its fingertips now are what, what, what could happen, if anything, here domestically.

Are you talking about potentially Internet disruptions?

Are you talking about attacks on our oil infrastructure in some way, whether it be they covert or otherwise?

Well, Iran has options to escalate geographically so they could widen the scope of their attacks.

They've been mostly concentrated in the Gulf and toward Israel, but

there have been attacks in Azerbaijan, Turkey and the British base in Cyprus.

So we could see the Iranians, their missile range and their drones can go beyond what we've seen.

So geographic number two is Iran operates a global network of terrorist cells.

We know from past disclosed operations that they've tried to target officials in the United States.

We know that they've targeted individuals in Europe and in Latin America.

So there are more kinds of civilian infrastructure, electrical grids, desalination plants, further energy infrastructure that would have severe economic blowback, not only in the Gulf countries, but

because the Gulf countries and the Middle east are this geotechnological crossroads for the entire world.

Let's also take a look at what the White House is doing today, which is defending, actually

the fact that it is suspending the sanctions on Russia to allow them to sell oil now legally.

We're worried about Iran and fixing a 47 year problem there, and we're worried about American consumers.

Look, Russia, Russia's expert at causing trouble around the world.

If they're helping Iran, it's not working very well.

But we're not helping Russia by just accelerating the sale of their oil to stop the rise of energy prices and keep European and Asian refineries in oil.

We're just doing pragmatic things to get through a short period that will bring in an era of even lower energy prices.

Will prices stabilize quickly as a result of this?

And what other steps will the US and the Gulf allies need to make that happen?

So, no, prices are not going to stabilize quickly.

Some of this is market reaction to what's happening.

Russia absolutely benefits from getting sanctions relief by Indian oil purchases.

And Russia in general benefits from the United States being at war with Iran.

One, the preponderance of our military focus is in the Middle east right now, which means it's not on Ukraine and Russia.

Number two, the Russians get to watch us wear down our military forces and spend munitions and missile interceptors in the Middle east, which means we can't be selling and supporting others in other theaters.

And three, with Iranian oil and Gulf oil coming off the market, both illicit sales, and

then, of course, legitimate, transparent sales from the Gulf countries, this opens up opportunities for Russia to sell.

Do you get any sense of what officials are really saying about how long this could last?

Well, that is the most important question here.

You get the sense that President Trump is sort of feeling his way through here.

We've got a lot of unresolved issues here.

We have not yet seen whether the Iranian people will take an opportunity to rise up.

We have the question of the highly enriched uranium at Iran's nuclear sites that has not yet been secured, dealt with.