Ben Rhodes: Trump ‘Profoundly Doesn’t Understand How Things Work’ in the Iranian Region

EXCERPT:

RHODES: "Well, look, first of all, I’m gonna be blunt. If Donald Trump thought he could bomb three Iranian nuclear sites that were fundamentally important to the regime and not have some response, he profoundly doesn’t understand how things work in this region, and he doesn’t understand that the Iranian regime, of course they were going to respond. The question is, in what manner? Right? And the other question, of course, is what happens with their nuclear program? We’re now — I mean, you know, war is not cost-free. You can’t, as the administration say, bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities, but say you’re not bombing Iran, you’re just bombing their nuclear facilities. That’s not how people in Iran or the government of Iran are going to respond to this. We’re seeing their response. We’ll see how calibrated it is. That will matter a lot. Is this — is this a proportional response from their perspective, just designed to save face and show that they’re not going to let their territory being attacked, to go without a response, or is this the beginning of a kind of multiple responses from the Iranians? That remains to be seen.”