Thursday, during Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” panelist Mark Halperin called President Donald Trump’s next move in the Israel-Iran conflict the biggest decision “of his life.”
However, he also said Trump had “unprecedented” leverage over the Iranian regime, comparing the situation to that of his predecessors.
“I agree with what Hugh [Hewitt] said,” he explained. “Not of his second term, not of his presidency — of his life. I agree with Meredith [McGraw] about the ambiguity. And here’s the ambiguity — no one has ever used this weapon in this way. It’s been studied by the Pentagon for decades. But we don’t know and he doesn’t know. He likes ambiguity for others. He doesn’t like it for himself. And I think the president has done what his predecessors could not do. He has leverage over Iran, unprecedented, since this became a problem, since the Shah was deposed. He’s got it in part because the proxies are weakened.”
“He’s got it in part because Israel has laid down a massive predicate controlling the airspace, etc,” Halperin said. “But he’s also done it through his own actions. And now he’s not in any rush, as they said today at the White House. He can wait and see how this plays out and basically say to Iran, ‘You can do this the hard way by negotiating essentially a surrender, or the harder way, through U.S. military action.'”
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