Jeffrey Goldberg: President Trump is angry at NATO again, insulting the alliance as a, quote, paper tiger, for not supporting his effort to open the Strait of Hormuz, even as he sends more Marines to possibly do that very job.

The war is intensifying in some ways, and Iran appears unready to fold, though it's offensive and defensive capabilities have been quite obviously degraded by continued American and Israeli strikes.

One question hovering all of this, if and when the Arab states of the Gulf under Iranian attack themselves, join in the fight.

Joining me tonight to discuss this and more, Idrees Ali is a national security correspondent and Pentagon correspondent at Reuters, Stephen Hayes is the editor of The Dispatch, Vivian Salama is a staff writer at The Atlantic, David Sanger is a White House and national security correspondent at The New York Times.

Thank you all for being here.

Let me start by reading you showing you something that Donald Trump just posted on Truth Social.

It's his conditions.

He's arguing, it seems today, that most of the conditions for ending the war have been met.

He says that the goals of America include completely degrading Iranian missile capability, launchers and everything else pertaining to them destroying Iran's defense industrial base, eliminating their Navy and Air Force, including anti-aircraft weaponry, never allowing Iran to get even close to nuclear capability, protecting at the highest level our Middle Eastern allies.

So, David, in another presidency, we would say, oh, the president has issued a statement saying that the war is winding down, but in this presidency, what he says today might not be relevant tomorrow.

Is the war winding down?

David Sanger, White House Correspondent, The New York Times: Well, the opening sentence of his statement, Jeff, said, as the war is winding down.

Jeffrey Goldberg: That's why I'm asking.

But don't -- I'm not taking it at face value.

David Sanger: But at the same time, you could argue the war is winding up because he is sending more Marines in.

He is increasing the pace of the attacks.

And we can talk later about what kind of targets they are hitting.

What struck me about the statement was a few things.

First of all, what was missing?

You may remember that when the war began, and the opening hours, he talked about so wiping out the Iranian government that the people could rise up and take over their government.

That was gone here because he recognizes that if he leaves sometime soon, he's going to be left with a rump Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

David Sanger: -- center to the state.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

David Sanger: He softened his language a little bit about the nuclear program, making sure that they couldn't gain access to it.

Well, that's very different from making sure that all the fuel is out of the country, which was their earlier goal.

And you saw suddenly he was saying to the allies, hey, patrolling the strait is your problem, not our problem, because we don't get oil through the straight.

You do.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

David Sanger: And the question is, can he actually hand that over?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Idrees, how do you read this?

Idrees Ali, National Security Correspondent, Reuters: I think as a Pentagon reporter, we have learned over two now administrations, watch what he's doing, not what he's saying.

And like David mentioned, he is sending 5,000 Marines.

They should be there in a couple of weeks.

The strikes have started to really ramp up.

We've seen about 7,000 targets hits so far.

And so the reality is, if he is looking to wind down, he's not doing a very good job.

All the sort of the tea leaves and the movements indicate that this is going to get a lot tougher and a lot stronger really for Iran.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Are they running out of targets, slowly but surely?

Idrees Ali: Well, it's basic math situation, right?

You hit 7,000 targets.

Iran is known to have about at least 6,000 missiles.

They produce 10,000 drones a month.

And so just basic math-wise, he's probably got a lot of targets he could hit.

And, you know, the one -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Smaller and smaller.

Idrees Ali: Smaller and smaller, but the one important thing, right, we talk about the Strait of Hormuz, mines, they have about 6,000 mines available.

And at some point, you're going to run out of missiles to hit all these small targets.

A small missile, a small drone, can do a lot of damage.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Steve, you study the ever shifting moods of this White House and this president.

How do you interpret this?

Stephen Hayes, Editor, The Dispatch: Well, I think David's counsel is wise and we're smart to pay attention to what the president is doing more than what he's saying.

He had meetings with allies today at the White House and conversations that military planners had with allies in the region.

There was no indication before the president's tweet tonight that anything had changed, that there was any move to actually draw down.

To David's other point on the war aims, I mean, we've talked about it here before, there are -- he's given many reasons, right, but it was notable that not a word about the Iranian people.

When he gave an interview to The Washington Post three hours after the airstrikes began, he said, I will read it, all I want is freedom for the Iranian people.

And he talked about his legacy in conducting this war being that, and tonight, as he's announcing maybe the winding down of the war, not a mention.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But, Vivian, to be fair to Trump, we've seen other presidents, both parties, make big promises about freedom for other peoples in the greater Middle East and elsewhere, and then kind of reality sets in and, well, maybe we're not going to change the politics and culture of an entire country.

Vivian Salama, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Absolutely.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, are we -- is that a -- is the omission a reflection of a kind of sobering reality?

Vivian Salama: I think the omission is part of the fact that he does not know what comes next.

And one of the interesting things about the Post that he put on Truth Social was he can say that we're winding down because he has never quite defined what the endgame looks like, what victory looks like.

And so in this case, you know, he can say it today and then maybe change it tomorrow.

The objectives have also been sort of a moving target.

The president has, for a time, talked about freedom for the Iranian people, but we've also seen that that's not necessarily his M.O.

It's not a priority for him in many of the operations that we've seen in recent months with Venezuela, for example, even though, at one point the administration, did talk about freedom for the Venezuelan people, once the mission was done and Nicolas Maduro was in U.S.

custody.

The focus was economic.

It was, we want the oil.

For President Trump right now, there's so much political blowback over the war, the military has been strained.

He realizes that they've taken on a lot more than they can chew, and at this point he wants to refocus the mission.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But can I ask you about the strain on the military?

That's an interesting point, because I've been thinking a lot about the fact that Iran is a third tier power.

I mean, America has no true peer adversary.

China's a near peer adversary.

But imagine right now if China made a move across the Strait of Taiwan and the U.S.

decided, the president decided that we're going to go defend Taiwan.

Continue on this theme.

Are we learning something about American limitations?

Vivian Salama: Oh, absolutely.

And one of the things that, you know, all of us have been talking to our sources in government, but also some of our foreign sources, and one of the things that we have heard repeatedly in the last few weeks is that the reason that presidents past did not do this, although many of them would've loved to see regime change in Iran, is because the Iranian government always had the ability to weaponize the straits.

And that was some sort of their superpower here, and it was always going to be a losing battle with the U.S.

having to fight this military battle.

Also worry about helping to defend Israel if they were to come under attack.

And then you open this third issue where it's, you know, ensuring safe passage through the straits and making sure that, you know, ships get in and out -- Jeffrey Goldberg: And defending all of the Arabs.

Vivian Salama: And defend -- not to mention defending all the Arabs, which has now opened Pandora's Box for the U.S.

in terms of challenges that they're going to be facing, not to mention the destabilization of the energy markets.

And just layer upon layer, again, they bit more than they could chew and this is something that they're realizing.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Stay on this, because it's a really interesting question.

I mean, we have the greatest military in the history of the planet, the largest and most potent military in the history of the planet.

How much of a strain is this?

Idrees Ali: Yes.

I will point out of Afghanistan, Iraq, the United States came out of those not necessarily winning, I would argue, right?

So, you can be the greatest military force, you can have tactical victories, but until you have a strategy that is defined, it's not going to make a difference.

You know, look, Iran is, like you said, a third tier at best.

The Chinese are ramping up ship production, missile production.

They have capabilities that Iran could only dream of.

And so if you're struggling against an adversary like Iran, you're really going to struggle against China.

And this is with, you know, 50 percent of the Air Force is currently in the Middle East.

That's not currently the case.

Jeffrey Goldberg: David, is the United States actually struggling?

David Sanger: Well, what we're struggling with is achieving our political objectives.

Think about -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, we're struggling in defining the political objectives, right?

David Sanger: Well, even as that far, but certainly in achieving the few that the president did lay out the night that the battle began.

So, think about the previous two American attacks.

There was one evening where the Air Force took out three major nuclear sites right within Iran, and then went home.

And so the political objective of setting back the nuclear program and the military objective were one-for-one.

Maduro, same thing, pulled him out of his bed in Caracas.

He ends up in the Brooklyn Federal Detention Center, again, a one-for-one match.

But this time, what we're trying to do is apply so much military pressure that the government itself would collapse and change, and we haven't found in history a single time in modern times that you could bring about regime change just from the air.

And that's why all of a sudden there's all this discussion of, do we need to put troops on the ground to grab Kharg Island, which is where -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

David Sanger: Right, or to get the nuclear material out of Isfahan where it's buried down deep.

And that's why this tends to result in mission creep.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Stephen Hayes: You know, we should be clear though.

I mean, we have had military success.

I mean, if Iran is a third rate power today, I mean, a nuclear armed Iran, and there's certainly room to debate how close they were, how close they were in June, would have been a significant threat.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I think we know from North Korea that it would have been a lot easier to manage North Korea and protect South Korea if somebody had done this back then.

Stephen Hayes: Right.

So, to me, the way to look at it is short term success, military success in the short-term, which I think we've had a lot.

They're a degraded power.

What -- the power that they had, if they were a third rate, they're a fifth rate now.

I think the real question is what now?

Sort of what comes next in the medium and the long-term?

And, you know, if you look at a regime that's, you know, badly damaged, they've lost a lot of leaders, but still in place, the Basij militias still have power.

They're angrier.

You've got the -- you've shown them the Strait of Hormuz is problematic if they shut it.

We have Arab allies who are, you know, not wanting to get engaged offensively, but don't want to sit back either.

There are plenty of medium and long-term problems that this -- Vivian Salama: Definitely no question about the superiority of the American military.

The question is strategy.

When, you know, the Iranians go in and they start weaponizing the straits, is the United States able to do that?

The president has publicly said this was going to take four to five weeks, but we could go longer.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Vivian Salama: Really, what's happening is that we're being drawn in longer because of the circumstances.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But I want to -- I just want to -- I was really struck by something.

Wall Street Journal and other places have reported this, that this is fairly remarkable, you're talking about the limitations of air power to result in regime change.

But -- so you have Israeli drones flying over -- loitering drones, as they say, loitering over Tehran and other cities targeting individual militia, Basij and Rev Guard checkpoints and sites, and the Israelis are getting tips from average Iranians.

Hey, there's a checkpoint over there at the corner of Elm and Maple.

You might want to take it out.

I mean, that suggests to me that the Iranian society is at a tipping point, that they're pretty pleased that Israel and the U.S.

are degrading the power of this hated regime.

Is that a sign that maybe they are closer to tipping?

David Sanger: They may be.

And it could be that - - you know, it takes months for years.

The fact of the matter is Iranian society doesn't have the guns and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard still does.

And the president -- Jeffrey Goldberg: They killed 30,000, we think, people on the street.

David Sanger: In a few days time, right?

And that was actually what instigated all of this.

You know, as you pointed out from what you read.

So, that's the president's first problem.

But his other problem is if you were to rank all of the challenges to the United States, is this the one that you want to be absorbing this much effort into?

Because every administration running up to this for the past 15 years has said it's China that is the number one technologic military economic competitor.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

David Sanger: And are you basically handing it to them by lifting the sanctions on Russia?

Are you undercutting the efforts in Ukraine?

Jeffrey Goldberg: No, it's yet another presidency that is suffering The Godfather dictum.

You know, just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.

Although this isn't really the same level of pull as it was after the 9/11 period.

This is more of a -- Vivian Salama: Legacy-seeking.

Jeffrey Goldberg: This is -- it's legacy-seeking.

It's also opportunistic.

It's also lacking strategy in some ways.