28 minutes of Fareed's Takes on the Iran war: Month 1

[0:00] My first reaction to news of the death of Ayatollah Khamenei was relief, relief for the [0:06] 92 million Iranians who are freed from the grip of an 86-year-old tyrant, a man who over nearly [0:14] four decades ran his country into poverty at home and isolation abroad. Khamenei was the [0:22] hardest of the hardliners who defined Iran's unyielding opposition, not only to America and [0:28] the West and Israel, but also to freedom for his own people. He shaped the modern Islamic Republic [0:35] into the strange hybrid regime that it is, run by clerics, military officers, and bureaucrats, [0:42] all repressive, dysfunctional, and corrupt to the core. No one should mourn his passing. [0:49] But when we step back and ask, where does this go next? Things look murky. President Trump has [0:57] chosen to go to war with a country that did not have a government. [0:59] President Trump has chosen to go to war with a country that did not have a government. [1:00] President Trump has chosen to go to war with a country that did not pose an imminent threat to [1:02] the United States. His claims to the contrary are belied by his own words. After the United [1:09] States bombed Iran last June, the president loudly and repeatedly declared that he had [1:16] obliterated Iran's nuclear program. Yet eight months later, he asks us to believe that this [1:22] obliterated program posed such an urgent threat to the United States that Trump had to act without [1:29] seeking authorization from the United States. President Trump has chosen to go to war with a [1:30] country that did not have a government. In his brief speech announcing the attack, [1:36] President Trump revealed the true purpose of the military action, regime change. He explicitly [1:42] called on the Iranian people to overthrow their government. In doing so, he has defined the purpose [1:49] of this war and the measure by which it will be judged a success or failure. Historically, [1:57] regime change from the air has rarely taken place. I cannot think of a single case in which a [2:02] country in the Middle East has failed without military forces on the ground actually doing the [2:06] toppling. And more broadly, the record of American-sponsored regime change in the Middle East [2:12] is not a happy one, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya. There is always the possibility that this [2:19] time will be different, that Iranians are more educated and desperate for freedom, but it is [2:25] likely to be a long and complex struggle. Fears of a broader regional war are likely unfounded [2:32] because Iran has already acted in self-defense against the United States. Iran has already acted [2:34] in self-defense against the United States. Iran has already acted in self-defense against the [2:34] United States. Iran has already acted in self-defense against the United States. Iran has already acted in [2:35] self-defense against the United States. Iran has already acted in self-defense against the United [2:35] States. Iran has already acted in self-defense against the United States. Iran has already acted in [2:36] self-defense against the United States. Iran has already acted in self-defense against the United [2:36] States. Iran has already acted in self-defense against the United States. Iran has already acted in [2:37] self-defense against the United States. Iran has already acted in self-defense against the United [2:37] States. Iran has already acted in self-defense against the United States. Iran has already acted in [2:38] self-defense against the United States. Iran has already acted in self-defense against the United [2:38] States. Iran has already acted in self-defense against the United States. Iran has already acted in [2:39] self-defense against the United States. Iran has already acted in self-defense against the United [2:39] between the United States and the Gulf states, [2:42] which had expressed neutrality in this conflict, [2:45] Tehran went after the Gulf states in attacks [2:47] that caused little military damage [2:50] but incensed those countries. [2:52] Above all is the basic reality. [2:54] Iran is very weak. [2:56] Iran's military battered. [2:58] Dozens of its leaders killed in airstrikes. [3:01] Its allies like Hezbollah and Hamas are also in tatters. [3:05] Meanwhile, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE [3:07] are bristling with military might. [3:11] Yet none of this will easily translate into success [3:14] on the terms that Trump has implied, [3:16] regime change and a substantially better government [3:19] for the long-suffering Iranian people. [3:22] The most likely outcome is that a badly bruised government [3:25] stays in power with new faces. [3:27] Perhaps the military becomes more powerful [3:30] and the mullahs less so. [3:31] Perhaps Iran comes back to the table [3:33] with even more concessions on the nuclear issue. [3:37] President Trump seems already to have recognized [3:39] the complexity of the regime change strategy [3:42] and has floated the idea that one of his off-ramps [3:45] might be to deal with new leaders of the same regime. [3:49] But once you call for the overthrow of a government, [3:53] that becomes the definition of success or failure. [3:57] There is also the legacy of the way that Trump went to war. [4:01] The United States has a messy and far from perfect record [4:04] of using force abroad, but in modern times, [4:07] it has usually done so by first defining [4:11] the broad principles at stake, working with international [4:14] law and organizations, building a broad coalition of allies, [4:18] and consulting with Congress and the American people. [4:21] None of this was done in Operation Epic Fury, an apt name. [4:26] This was a decision-making process that was fast and furious, [4:30] as much about a dramatic show of strength as anything else. [4:34] As other countries look around and think about [4:36] what kind of world they are living in, [4:38] what rules they can rely on, [4:40] what institutions they look to for stability, [4:43] they're confronted by the reality. [4:45] That the world's leading nation, [4:47] the creator of the international rules-based system, [4:51] has said loudly and clearly, [4:53] might makes right. [4:55] It's a new rule, and one that will gladden the hearts [4:59] of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. [5:01] Regime change by jazz improvisation. [5:05] That is how the respected scholar of Iran, [5:07] Karim Sajdapour, described the Trump administration's strategy [5:11] in the war it has initiated with Iran. [5:15] Sadly, it's the most accurate description [5:18] of the scattered, shifting, and uncertain approach [5:21] that emanates from Washington these days. [5:24] The president launched this war, [5:26] exhorting the Iranian people to overthrow their government. [5:30] It will be yours to take. [5:32] Perhaps he had assumed that the regime would collapse instantly. [5:36] But when it didn't, in a day or two, he changed course. [5:39] He began musing about dealing with potential leaders [5:43] within the regime and praising the U.S. intervention [5:46] in Venezuela as the model to be followed. [5:49] Perfect, quote-unquote. [5:51] Precisely because, far from regime change, [5:54] it only involved the arrest of two people. [5:57] Pete Hegsett specifically denied that this was a regime change war, [6:01] as did his senior aide, Avrish Koby. [6:04] Both said the goal was merely to degrade Iran's military forces, [6:08] many of which had been, quote-unquote, [6:11] obliterated last June in a 12-day bombing attack [6:15] that included the use of stealth bombers. [6:17] But then, in a new twist, [6:19] Trump reached out to Kurdish leaders in Iran and Iraq, [6:23] promising them support if they would join the fight, [6:26] presumably not to degrade Iran's military power, [6:29] but to topple the government in Tehran, [6:31] maybe even change Iran's borders. [6:34] This weekend, however, the president backpedaled on this plan. [6:37] Trump has also now proclaimed that there won't be a deal [6:41] without unconditional surrender from Iran. [6:44] So the goal isn't regime change, except when it is. [6:48] The most dangerous element of this war, however, [6:52] is not that the lead actor is improvising like a saxophone player. [6:56] It is that the two countries waging the war [6:59] have separate and perhaps incompatible agendas. [7:02] For Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, [7:05] the war is clearly about destroying the Islamic Republic. [7:09] In a video he released, he acknowledged that this war [7:12] was the culmination of a 40-year-old dream. [7:15] Israel's military strategy has been focused, [7:18] brilliantly implemented, and aligned with their goal. [7:22] The Israeli strikes are decapitating Iran's leadership, [7:25] destroying its military forces, striking its leadership compounds, [7:29] even hitting police facilities. [7:32] It is, as the Wall Street Journal reported, [7:34] methodically destroying Iran's police state, [7:37] leaving the regime ripe for a collapse. [7:40] And on the current trajectory, Israel might well succeed in its objective. [7:45] And that will likely result in a power vacuum in the country, [7:49] which could invite revolt, but will almost certainly result [7:52] in a civil war. [7:55] Keep in mind, whoever makes Sikh power, [7:58] this regime will fight back. [8:00] The appropriate analogy here is Syria, [8:02] a country that was mired in a civil war for more than a decade, [8:06] with hundreds of thousands dead and millions of refugees. [8:10] Iran is a country that could easily explode, [8:14] as Tom Friedman has written. [8:16] It's filled with ethnic groups, Kurds, Armenians, [8:18] Azeris, with ties to neighboring countries. [8:21] They've lived peaceably together, [8:23] but as history demonstrates, from the Balkans to Iraq, [8:26] when order collapses and a power vacuum develops, [8:30] people retreat to their tribal groups and lose trust in others. [8:34] And that's how a civil war begins. [8:36] What would fuel this war is the fact that Iran's government [8:40] has a vast cadre of dedicated soldiers, armed to the teeth, [8:45] who will fight against any new government or group. [8:48] Its Revolutionary Guard is estimated to be almost 200,000 people strong. [8:53] With an additional paramilitary force, the Basij, [8:57] of several hundreds of thousands. [8:59] And then there's the regular armed forces, [9:01] which is around 400,000. [9:03] Just as Saddam Hussein's army melted away after the American invasion, [9:07] and then much of it reappeared as an insurgency, [9:10] so too one could imagine the IRGC fighting in different garbs [9:14] to deny any new government the ability to control the country. [9:18] In Libya, more than 14 years after Gaddafi fell, [9:23] there is still no one group that controls the entire country. [9:27] It's much easier to destroy a state than to rebuild one. [9:31] For Israel, this is an acceptable outcome. [9:35] It rids the country of its greatest foe, [9:37] and if that produces chaos in Iran, so be it. [9:40] The Syrian civil war actually improved Israel's security [9:44] because it did not face a major Arab state dedicated to fighting it anymore. [9:49] But an Iranian civil war is not in America's interests, [9:52] and it's not in the interests of America, [9:54] it's in the interests of those closest to Arab allies [9:56] who depend on the region being stable and predictable [9:59] so that oil, goods, money, and people can flow freely and easily through it. [10:04] Washington needs to find a way to ensure that it secures the gains [10:09] it has made in this war, a disarmed and defanged Iran, [10:13] but without pushing the country into civil war. [10:16] There are still ways to bolster the achievements and close out this war. [10:21] As usual, Qatar could play a useful role as an intermediary, [10:25] but time is running out. [10:28] At some point, this war will reach a tipping point, [10:31] and no one will be able to control the spillover. [10:34] For around 15 years, many American leaders, [10:37] including all three presidents in that period, [10:40] have believed that the country was too deeply entangled [10:43] in trying to reorder the societies of the Middle East. [10:47] They felt the more pressing challenges were rebuilding America's industrial base at home [10:52] and confronting the rise of China. [10:55] Yet, here America is, once again, [10:59] fighting a war to reorder a society in the greater Middle East. [11:03] And like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, [11:06] this seems unlikely to turn out quite as its proponents hoped. [11:11] Why does this keep happening? [11:14] To understand the present, let's look at the past, [11:16] at the only country in modern history whose global reach matched that of the United States. [11:22] Britain, at the turn of the 20th century, was the world's sole superpower. [11:27] The British Empire, [11:28] its share of global GDP reached roughly 25% in the late 19th century, [11:33] about the same as the U.S. today. [11:35] And London was the world's financial capital. [11:38] Britain had thwarted Napoleon's bid to rule the European continent [11:43] and Russia's effort to expand more into southeastern Europe during the Crimean War. [11:48] It presided over a vast empire that spanned the globe [11:51] and set the agenda for international life, [11:54] much as Washington does today. [11:56] Over the course of those decades, [11:59] roughly from the 1880s through the 1920s, [12:02] Britain found itself responding to instability, [12:06] nasty regimes, and power vacuums all over Asia and Africa. [12:11] It sent troops and asserted control in places like Sudan and Somalia, [12:16] Iraq and Jordan. [12:18] These missions all seemed compelling at the time, [12:21] but had the effect of keeping London distracted [12:24] by an endless series of local crises in peripheral parts of the world, [12:29] often at great cost. [12:31] The Iraqi rebellion of 1920 required more than 100,000 British and Indian troops [12:37] and tens of millions of pounds to put down, [12:41] at a time when the estimated total budget for education in Britain [12:45] was roughly the same as the cost of that Iraqi excursion. [12:49] While British leaders passionately debated their strategy in Mesopotamia, [12:54] they fundamentally neglected the real economic and technological challenge that they faced. [13:00] As Britain battled with tribes in the Middle East and Africa, [13:03] across the Atlantic, [13:05] the United States was quietly building the most advanced industrial economy [13:10] the world had ever seen. [13:12] In Europe, after World War I, [13:14] a defeated Germany steadily rebuilt its industry [13:17] and a highly mechanized military apparatus. [13:20] Britain, distracted by the chaotic periphery, [13:25] was being systematically surpassed at its core. [13:28] The result over time [13:30] was that Great Britain collapsed as the world's leading power. [13:36] America today is at least as powerful as Britain ever was, [13:39] but it is succumbing to some of the same imperial temptations. [13:43] It responds to genuine crises in the Middle East. [13:46] It sees a logic that is political, military, and moral in responding. [13:52] But ultimately, Grant's strategy is about prioritizing finite resources. [13:57] The U.S. does not possess infinite political capital, [14:01] bandwidth, military capacity, or economic resilience. [14:05] Every airstrike on Tehran, [14:07] every anti-drone interceptor shot over the Persian Gulf, [14:11] and every hour administration officials spend debating the nuances [14:15] of Iranian political succession [14:17] is energy diverted from the true tectonic challenges defining the 21st century. [14:25] The primary, indispensable role of the United States [14:28] is to anchor the global system [14:30] against the revisionist ambitions [14:32] of Beijing and Moscow. [14:34] China is not getting bogged down in Middle Eastern quagmires. [14:38] It is relentlessly investing in artificial intelligence, [14:42] quantum computing, solar and wind power, [14:44] batteries and robots, [14:46] the technologies that will determine the balance of global power. [14:51] Russia remains fiercely committed [14:53] to disrupting the European security architecture [14:56] and undermining Western democracies [14:59] through hybrid political-military warfare [15:02] that has proved hard to detect and even harder to defeat. [15:06] But while Moscow and Beijing challenge the basic architecture [15:10] of America's world order, [15:12] Washington is preparing once again [15:14] to spend blood and treasure policing the Middle East [15:18] and trying to pick the leaders of one of its countries. [15:21] History suggests that great powers often succumb [15:25] to the allure of small wars, [15:27] precisely because they tempt the strongest nation [15:30] to use its awesome military might, [15:33] and offer the illusion of quick political and moral victories. [15:37] Unfortunately, these tactical successes [15:41] rarely translate into strategic gains, [15:44] and more often serve as the first step [15:47] toward long-term exhaustion. [15:49] Even if the intervention in Iran succeeds, [15:52] it would require that America get deeply involved [15:55] in the fate of that country. [15:57] Is that ultimately where America's time and energy [16:01] would be best devoted over the next decade? [16:05] The lesson from Great Britain is clear. [16:08] Great powers do not usually fall [16:10] because they are conquered by foreign armies. [16:13] They fall because they overextend themselves [16:16] on the periphery while neglecting the core. [16:19] Beneath the daily headline of strikes and counter-strikes [16:22] in the Middle East, we're witnessing something seismic. [16:25] War is being utterly transformed. [16:29] In the first week of Tehran's retaliation campaign, [16:33] drones accounted for [16:35] about 71% of recorded strikes on Gulf states, [16:39] according to a CSIS analysis. [16:42] The UAE alone reportedly faced 1,422 detected drones [16:48] and 246 missiles in just eight days. [16:52] We could already glimpse many of these trends in Ukraine, [16:55] but in Iran, the future of war [16:58] has definitively come into view. [17:01] Michael Horowitz of the Council on Foreign Relations says, [17:05] We are now in the era of precise mass in war. [17:10] For decades, precise, precision warfare [17:14] meant a handful of Tomahawk missiles, [17:17] stealth bombers, or fighter jets. [17:20] Now it can mean a one-way drone [17:22] built from commercial parts and launched in swarms. [17:26] What used to require great industrial nations' capacity [17:30] can increasingly be assembled, adapted, and scaled [17:33] by much smaller states. [17:37] The economics of war are being turned upside down. [17:40] A Shaheed-type drone often costs around $35,000. [17:45] A Patriot interceptor costs about $4 million, [17:49] which would buy over 100 drones. [17:52] This is the new arithmetic of conflict. [17:55] The attacker spends thousands. [17:57] The defender spends millions. [17:59] But the revolution is bigger than drones. [18:03] It's really about a new military architecture, [18:06] cheap autonomous systems, [18:09] AI-assisted targeting, [18:11] commercial satellite imagery, [18:13] resilient communications, [18:15] integrated sensors, [18:17] and cyber tools all operating together. [18:20] The aim is not merely to strike. [18:23] It is to compress time, [18:25] to find, decide, and hit faster [18:27] than the enemy can move, hide, or recover. [18:30] In an experiment last year, [18:32] the Air Force said that machines generated recommendations [18:36] in under 10 seconds [18:38] and produced 30 times more options than human-only teams. [18:42] The old model of military supremacy [18:46] relied on exquisite systems [18:48] magnificent, costly, slow to produce, painful to lose. [18:52] But they are no longer enough by themselves. [18:56] The side that wins tomorrow's wars [18:58] may not be the one with the single best platform. [19:01] It may be the one that can field enough good platforms [19:04] cheaply enough, quickly enough, [19:06] and network them intelligently [19:08] and effectively enough. [19:10] Lots of good stuff [19:12] will beat small numbers of great stuff. [19:16] Ukraine remains the great laboratory of this new age. [19:20] Out of necessity, [19:21] it has built a model of adaptation at wartime speed. [19:25] Ukraine's Sting interceptor drone [19:27] costs about $2,000, [19:29] flies up to 280 kilometers per hour, [19:32] has downed more than 3,000 Shahids [19:35] since mid-2025, per its manufacturer, [19:38] and produced at more than 10,000 a month, [19:41] according to Reuters. [19:43] One Ukrainian test pilot said that learning to fly it [19:46] takes only three or four days [19:48] for those who can already operate drones. [19:50] And then there is the software side. [19:54] Ukraine has opened access to its battlefield data [19:57] so allies can train drone AI, [20:00] which will boost pattern recognition [20:02] and target detection capabilities. [20:05] Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov says [20:07] the country now possesses [20:08] a unique array of battlefield data [20:12] that is unmatched anywhere else in the world, [20:15] including millions of annotated images [20:18] gathered during tens of thousands of combat flights. [20:22] In other words, [20:23] the war's most valuable output [20:25] may not just be hardware, [20:27] it may be data. [20:29] This is why the implications stretch [20:31] far beyond Ukraine and the Gulf. [20:33] Ukraine's top commander says [20:35] Moscow is now producing 404 Shahid-type drones [20:39] every day, [20:40] and aims eventually for 1,000 drones a day. [20:44] By contrast, Lockheed Martin produced [20:47] about 600 Patriot interceptors [20:50] in all of 2025, [20:53] and hopes to scale that to 2,000 by 2027. [20:57] Remember, that's 1,000 drones a day [21:01] versus 2,000 interceptors a year. [21:04] The contrast tells the story. [21:06] The problem is no longer simply technological sophistication, [21:10] it is industrial scale, [21:12] software integration, [21:14] and the speed with which lessons from the battlefield [21:17] are turned into mass production. [21:19] There are many deeper implications [21:22] of this revolution in military affairs. [21:25] With drones out there, [21:26] the battle is everywhere, [21:28] and soldiers will not get a respite. [21:32] With human beings far from the battlefront, [21:34] war might become easier to contemplate, [21:37] but also easier to deadlock. [21:39] And with these deadly weapons [21:41] easy to produce, [21:43] terror groups, [21:44] drug cartels, [21:45] and criminal gangs [21:46] can wage the kind of war [21:48] that was once the domain of organized armies [21:51] with arsenals. [21:54] In 1991, the Gulf War taught the world [21:56] that advanced technology could make war precise. [22:00] In 2026, Iran is teaching the world [22:03] something more consequential. [22:05] Precision will now be mass produced. [22:07] The countries that prevail [22:09] will not simply be those with the finest platforms. [22:12] They will be those that can combine [22:14] small numbers of exquisite, expensive weaponry [22:17] with vast numbers of cheap drones. [22:20] Human judgment will, over time, [22:22] give way to computer algorithms. [22:25] That is the future of war, [22:27] and it's arriving faster than most of us imagined. [22:31] In the years after Barack Obama's presidency, [22:33] it became an article of faith [22:35] that one of his central errors in foreign policy [22:38] was the Syria red line. [22:40] He said that he would attack Syria [22:42] if it used chemical weapons. [22:44] But when evidence emerged [22:45] that it had used those weapons, [22:47] he pushed the question of intervention to Congress, [22:50] which declined to act. [22:51] A disaster, Donald Trump called it at the time. [22:55] A cause of generational and reputational damage, [22:58] said then-Senator Marco Rubio. [23:01] Part of an incoherent maze of foreign policy, [23:04] Pete Hegsett argued a few years later. [23:06] In ignoring a red line that he had drawn, [23:09] Lindsey Graham explained, [23:11] Obama had risked squandering [23:13] American credibility around the world. [23:17] Obama's red line flip-flop [23:19] looks like the model of careful policy-making [23:22] compared to what we have witnessed [23:24] since the Iran war began. [23:26] Last week, President Trump posted on social media that [23:29] if Iran doesn't fully open without threat [23:33] the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours [23:36] from this exact point in time, [23:39] the United States of America will hit and obliterate [23:42] their various power plants, [23:44] starting with the biggest one first. [23:46] The rest of the story is well known. [23:50] Iran refused to be cowed by this threat [23:52] and continued its attacks and its closure of the Strait. [23:55] Trump's response? [23:57] To quickly climb down and announce that he had postponed [24:00] any action on energy infrastructure for five days, [24:04] claiming that suddenly, overnight, [24:07] Iran and the U.S. had been engaged in productive conversations [24:11] to wed a complete and total resolution [24:15] of our hostilities in the Middle East. [24:18] The Iranians denied any such talks were taking place. [24:23] Now Trump says he's extending the pause [24:25] by another week and a half. [24:28] It is by now clear that Donald Trump [24:30] is being graded on a curve. [24:32] When he says he will raise tariffs to 130%, [24:37] or that he will blow up Iran's biggest gas field, [24:40] or that, quote, [24:42] the war is very complete, pretty much, unquote, [24:45] none of these statements mean much. [24:48] They could be actual American policies or not, [24:51] or they could stand as policy for a day or a week [24:54] after which they will change. [24:56] After saying that the war was pretty much complete, [24:59] that same day, Trump asserted, [25:02] we haven't won enough and we will not relent [25:05] until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated. [25:08] He said that he agreed to negotiate with Iran's leaders, [25:13] but then couldn't because they keep getting killed, [25:16] though it is, of course, his own military [25:19] and Israel's which is doing the killing. [25:23] All clear? [25:25] Trump's supporters claim this incoherence [25:27] is strategic genius, [25:29] that he's keeping people off guard, [25:32] except that the policy seems to change [25:34] for a variety of reasons. [25:36] Maybe the stock market falls, [25:38] or maybe the target country lavishes praise on Trump [25:41] and gives him a gold bar. [25:44] Trump's superpower is that he is flexible enough [25:47] to turn on a dime and has a base [25:49] that will accept anything he proposes. [25:52] Once unalterably opposed to Middle East wars, [25:55] many of his MAGA supporters now believe [25:58] in this Middle East war with the zeal of converts. [26:02] And while Trump has made clear [26:05] that he would like to end the hostilities, [26:08] the problem this time, unlike with tariffs, [26:11] is that he cannot unilaterally stop what he started. [26:15] Iran gets a vote, [26:17] and it is currently voting to keep fighting, [26:20] calculating that though weakened, [26:22] it has enough military power [26:24] to do damage to the world economy, [26:26] thereby inflicting pain on the US. [26:31] For the world, there is no longer any such thing [26:33] as American credibility. [26:35] Just a strange reality television show [26:38] in which the main actor swerves, bobs, [26:41] and weaves his way through crises, [26:43] hoping that what he says today [26:45] will solve the crisis caused by what he said yesterday. [26:50] The day before he threatened to obliterate [26:52] Iran's power plants, [26:54] Trump claimed that the US was considering [26:56] winding down its military operations against Iran [26:59] and implied that protecting the Strait of Hormuz [27:02] was not his problem and could be dealt with [27:04] by other nations whose imports pass through the Strait. [27:07] At another point, he said he didn't need [27:09] any other country's help. [27:11] Businessmen used to rail against previous administrations [27:16] because of policy uncertainty. [27:19] Now they line up to praise Trump [27:21] as his carnival of chaos roils markets [27:24] almost every week. [27:26] Donald Trump has gotten used to playing [27:29] with the United States' massive power, [27:32] punishing those who don't bend the knee [27:34] and rewarding those who do. [27:36] In doing this, he's squandering credibility [27:39] built up over decades [27:41] to extract short-term goodies, [27:44] sometimes to the benefit [27:45] of his own family's business interests. [27:47] But in Iran, he seems to have come up [27:50] against an adversary that won't play by his rules.