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>> Jim Hansen's a former U.S. Army Special Forces and Chief Strategist for the Middle East Forum. Jim, what do you think is going on today in Tehran? >> I think they are scrambling and anybody who says this fracture between the religious leadership and the military and their civilian political leadership is a bad thing doesn't understand how to break a tyrannical regime. Of course we want them arguing with each other and obviously I think the military will come out on top as you said they do have the guns but in the end they don't have much in the way of weapons left and anytime they poke any of those weapons out of their holes we destroy them. So they've got a very short window before they run out of money, they run out of the ability to pump oil, they already can't sell it and there's not any money coming in to run the regime. Anybody who thinks they're ahead in this game is not paying attention. >> So is it more of a negotiating tactic or is it them trying to consolidate power as they lead negotiations going forward? >> They want the world and anybody else to think that they are ahead. That's why you hear them say things like 26 ships broke the blockade, well no, 26 ships got turned back and the 27th got a free engine room redecoration courtesy of a U.S.S. destroyers five inch gun, free ventilation, that's not how you win. Next we take a tanker and now we've got 2 million barrels of free oil. They don't have any way to come out ahead in the blockade game. They're wrong if they can think they can wait President Trump out and if he has to start breaking some more of their stuff to emphasize the point, we have plenty of ways to do that. They have nothing but maybe an opportunity to attack a ship trying to transit the strait. >> And they don't have a lot of time left. You heard Bessin say these oil wells, they're going to fill up and they're going to have to shuttle production soon. Do you think the president waits and sees how things unfold inside Tehran or do you think he needs to give him a little nudge? >> Here's the thing. Anything the president blows up right now causes damage for the Iranian people and he's got the opportunity, there was a point there where I guess the defeat mongers thought they were going to convince the world that President Trump had to stop this because of the pressure. We can absorb some short term oil price jumps and the political pressure at home is not going to change President Trump's calculation. He can beat them at this game. The fewer things he blows up from here going forward, the better, but they shouldn't think for a second, he will not give them an object lesson in how to make the rubble bounce. >> And the United States and Israel have been accumulating so much intelligence over the last two weeks that whatever fighting does break out will end pretty quickly. Is that your understanding? >> Yeah, we've got all of their people identified. If we wanted to, we could take out another layer of their leadership again, but we need somebody to go ahead and quasi surrender whatever this ends up being. So if they want to try and I mean, they can't fight in the normal use of that word. They can cause damage, they can be a terrorist state breaking other people's things, but they can't take us on force. And if they want to go ahead and let the IRGC take a run at being the heads of a military as opposed to a theocracy, that will be a very short-lived event.

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