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Unless there's a miscalculation by the iranians. if they struck one of our ships or downed one of our aircraft that would prompt a strong u.s. military response. other than that it makes no sense to fight in the persian gulf. military power could take out their irgc naval elements for sure in 72 hours. we can't keep the gulf open with military power. we can't get their nuclear weapons with military power. the iranians don't want a fight. the saudis clearly will be a target. the iranians will try to bring in the israelis. thoughtful people will pull back and at some point we have to talk to the...

Understand he's bluffing. military power is not an appropriate tool to keep the gulf open. we can punish the iranians terribly, nor is it an appropriate tool and their nuclear capability. >> why do you say that? why would military punishment, which you argue wisely can be inflicted upon iran, while we may not be able to get to their nuclear plants all that effectively, we can certainly take out a lot of their refining capacity, their military capacity, why wouldn't that be a deterrent in your opinion, why would it not be effective? >> it's hard to imagine us achieving our objective by doing so...

They knew what they were doing and, frankly, i think president trump would be right to back off a little bit, warn the iranians privately, a stiff warning, get the allies behind us, keep the gulf open, contain iranian power. there is no reason to go to war with them. and the law of unintended consequences can come back to bite you pretty quickly, as we found out in iraq in 2003. >> are those the diplomatic options you were saying for de-escalation that you just mentioned there? >> they are. i mean, we have a way to talk to the iranians, and, frankly, we should be. president obama opened up a c...

Understanding the issues and, by the way, bringing in our allies and keeping them apprised of our thinking. i think most of that process has evaporated and we saw it if the reporting is correct, and i'll bet it is, that he actually ordered a strike and then stopped it during launch. this is the kind of miscalculation that will lead to a shooting war. by the way, i don't want to overstate this, but we actually have devastating capabilities to go after the republican guard maritime units in particular. we can't keep the gulf open if the iranians wanted to stop it. we could never find all the mis...

Week. the global economy depends still on the flow of oil and gas in the persian gulf. so there is a national security imperative here. keep the gulf open. and that's to warn the iranians not to do this again. but i agree with general clark, there is no reason to go to war. we've been containing iranian power for 30 years. president reagan faced a crisis somewhat similar to this 30 years ago. we can handle this if we're steady. and i hope that the so-called moderates in the trump administration will be able to win the day. >> mmm-hmm. general clark, i want you to take a look at this map. we'll...