 So Iran, I think, continues to be a threat to the United States in spite of what some libertarians would tell you. Iran is still developing nuclear weapons and still interested in having nuclear weapons. It's still interested in being a nuclear power. The problem and what differentiates Iran from other nuclear powers is that Iran is a theocracy. It is a religious, fanatic, nutty place. And you cannot trust a theocracy, particularly a theocracy that believes in dying for Allah. You cannot trust such a theocracy with nuclear weapons because they might be willing to engage in a suicidal action. I think probably the nuclear power in the world today that is most likely ultimately to use nuclear weapons is Pakistan for exactly that reason. For the reason that it could easily fall into the hands of Islamists or even existing people within the Pakistani power structure. That will say dying, you know, taking out a billion Hindus is worth it. Even if it means Pakistan is wiped out because we will go to heaven as a consequence. You cannot deal with that kind of irrationality, that kind of death wish, that kind of insanity. And it's enough that we have that in Pakistan. I wish there was a way to defuse that threat. I hope, I don't believe, but I hope that the United States has plans to somehow take over the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. If the time comes to have to do that, maybe the Indians have a plan to do that. I don't know. But it's certainly the case that if we can prevent Iran from every achieving nuclear weapons, that should be a major goal of American foreign policy. Unfortunately, nobody is really committed to that goal. While the Trump administration withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal, which was the right thing to do. It didn't take the next step, which was to crush all of the facilities and all of the ability of the Iranians to engage in nuclear research and the development of nuclear weapons. The Israelis are continuously trying to do that. There was just yesterday or the day before yesterday, a big explosion not far from one of the nuclear power plants in Iran. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the Israelis destroying something, who knows what exactly, related to the nuclear program in Iran. So the Israelis are doing what they can to prevent the Iranians from developing nukes with the help, I think, and one of the reasons why many of the Gulf states kind of deal with the Israelis was because they all view Iran as a threat. So they're probably helping them with intelligence and helping them with other things. But it would be good to wipe the straight out once and for all, and either for the United States to give Israel a green light to take the Iranians out, or for the Americans just to do it. I think that overall giving Israel a green light to do it is maybe safer for the United States, easier for the United States, less political, difficult for the United States, but it doesn't look like the United States is willing to do that. Trump didn't do it, Obama certainly didn't do it, Bush didn't do it, Bush actually prevented the United States from doing anything, Israel from doing anything, and it certainly does not look like Biden is going to do it. So Iran is emboldened by, again, the weakness of the United States. The whole world is emboldened by the weakness of the United States. As a consequence, Iran has gone to the negotiating table with Biden basically telling them to shove it, and they don't really care what the United States thinks. They're basically going to the United States with demands that the United States cannot give into it too, basically delaying any kind of agreement, and in the meantime developing their own, you know, I'm sure, working to develop their own nuclear capability so that the day will come where they'll say, well, all this negotiation is irrelevant because we already have nukes, goodbye. If you add to that, right, if you add to that the fact that Iran has increased its global power, not global power, its power in the Middle East dramatically under Trump, really since Bush through Trump 9-11, the invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan have increased the power of our largest enemy, our most significant enemy in the Middle East, which is Iran. Iran today to a large extent controls Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Much of that, particularly Syria and Lebanon, was achieved under Trump. They also now control Yemen, even though the Saudis are trying to push back against that. They're not being very successful, so they basically have Saudi Arabia and Egypt on three fronts. They've got them surrounded. They are becoming a significant, they're also a significant play in Afghanistan with the United States leaving. They have real presence over there, real presence over there in Afghanistan. So Iran has been a winner. Iran is very weak. They have weak weapons technologies. The only reason, the only reason they have the kind of power they have is because they're fighting against enemies that are a lot weaker than them. And of course, it's because the United States won't defend itself and won't project its power over Iran. Iran is an overall, a very weak country, militarily and economically. Iran, like Russia, is completely dependent on natural resources. Right now, they're feeling strong and powerful because the price of oil is high. But when energy prices decline, they have a really hard time and they got hit really hard by COVID. What surprises me, what continues to surprise me is that we haven't seen an internal revolution in Iran. I don't understand it. The only explanation I have for that is the fact that the United States is not investing enough in the opposition in Iran and is not encouraging it to revolt against the regime or that too much of the country is actually religious and supportive of this regime. But the fact is that at least within Tehran, I think the regime is in the minority and there is a significant number of people within Tehran that would like to see the regime disappear. It's sad that there hasn't been an internal revolution in Iran. That would have solved all our problems quite easily if Iran became a secular country. That would be pretty cool. I think we often tend to overestimate the degree to which countries are indeed secular while the intelligence here, the relative intelligence here within Tehran might be. Many of them have left Iran and in the countryside, Iran is very, very, very religious and committed to this regime. Let's see. I saw some Tehran questions. Doesn't matter whether or not Iran agrees to return the 2015 nuclear deal. I mean, let's hope they don't because I think the nuclear deal is a deal that actually allows the Iranians to in the background do all kinds of things to develop their nukes. It has very little verifiability in that treaty. So if there was a treaty, if there was a deal, it would have to be a revised deal which was a lot stricter on the Iranians and I don't think they'd agree to that. Generally, I don't think that that agreement, I think that agreement was a betrayal of U.S. interests. I think that agreement was horrible and it doesn't matter whether they agree or not to join it. What matters is will they develop nuclear weapons and is the United States committed to preventing that and is the United States willing to use force in order to prevent it? That's all that matters. The treaty is irrelevant. It's just a place for the Iranians to flex their muscles and to show the Americans the extent to which the Americans actually pay for tigers. Terrorism. I expect to start seeing a rise in terrorism around the world. Primarily targeted U.S. interests. I think that will come probably not in 2022 but I'd say over the next five to ten years. That will come to a large extent because of the pathetic nature in which we fought in Afghanistan and the way in which we left Afghanistan. While I believe we should bring troops home from all over the world, we should make it clear to our enemies the consequences of killing Americans are going to be. We're in a position in which the Islamists are being revitalized primarily by the Afghanistan victory of the Taliban. They're being revitalized by Iran and Iran's victory over the last ten years over American interests across the Middle East. You can imagine Iran starting to scheme about a war with Israel, where they attack Israel from Lebanon, Syria, from the West Bank, from the Gaza Strip and with long-range missiles from Iran itself. That would really challenge the Israelis to be able to defend themselves. Iran is going to be emboldened. Iran being emboldened will only embolden terrorism against the United States. I see over the last five to ten years an increase in that terrorism. I don't see anybody talking about how to defeat that. I don't see anybody talking about how to stop it. Remember the Saudis have been funding Islamists in Syria. Again, with the agreement of the Trump administration, Trump basically let the Saudis do whatever the hell they wanted, allowed them a free reign that cannot be good. It cannot be good for American interests. The Saudis' interests are not America's interests. In many respects, the Saudis are still the second largest funder of terrorism in the world. Whether they do it, they don't do it directly, they do it indirectly, but they're still out there. Terrorism has been a decline because ISIS was defeated. It looked like Al-Qaeda was being defeated. The Taliban was too busy fighting a war against the United States and Afghanistan. Now that they've won, they have got resources, energy prices up. There's more money in the Middle East to fund terrorism. It's going to be interesting, but I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a spike in terrorism over the next ten years emanating from the Middle East. Thank you for listening or watching The Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening, you get value from watching, show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbrookshow.com. I go to Patreon, subscribe star, locals, and just making an appropriate contribution on any one of those channels. 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