Trump "Controls the Narrative" With Iran | VADM (ret.) Robert Harward on Fox News

Описание: JINSA Iran Policy Project Advisor VADM (ret.) Robert Harward, former Deputy Commander of U.S. Central Command, joined Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino on Fox News to assess the state of play as the U.S. edges closer to resuming military operations against Iran.

VADM (ret.) Harward argued that the ceasefire period has actually strengthened the U.S. position, noting that while roughly 30% of targets remained when operations paused, "those targets remain but we have better intelligence now after these five or six weeks, so that target list has expanded and is considerably more comprehensive." He pushed back against framing the current moment as negotiations, saying plainly "I don't see it as negotiations — it really is capitulation," with the president's two non-negotiable demands being full surrender of nuclear material and an end to any Iranian claim over the Strait of Hormuz. He also flagged the Hajj pilgrimage — with 30,000 Iranians currently in Saudi Arabia — as a factor shaping the timing of any potential strike, noting that "the president controls the narrative of when he would strike" and can afford to "let the blockade and economic sanctions continue to erode the economy of Iran and enhance the hatred of the Iranians for the regime."

On the question of Iranian resilience, VADM (ret.) Harward drew a sharp distinction: "The IRGC may have resilience but the Iranian people are suffering miserably." He returned to a consistent theme, arguing that "the real center of gravity is the IRGC — the entity that controls everything," and that the ultimate end state must include a government in Iran that hands over nuclear material, stops threatening the Strait, ends its ballistic missile program, and "quits exporting the Islamic Revolution throughout the region, causing the collapse of Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, and Syria."