DEBATE: Should America Get Involved in Iran?

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It has been one week since Israel began launching strikes on Iran, taking out nuclear installations, scientists, and military sites, as well as much of the top brass of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in their homes.

Iran has responded with hundreds of missile and drone attacks, some of which have evaded Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system. For Israel, the aim of the war is the complete elimination of the Iranian nuclear program. But it would like America’s help in that endeavor, particularly with hitting the underground fortress of centrifuge cascades known as Fordow.

On Thursday, the White House announced that President Trump would decide “within the next two weeks” whether to launch a military strike against Iran. As debate within the administration for and against intervention rages, I sat down with Dan Caldwell, a former senior adviser to U.S. defense secretary Pete Hegseth and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War. Dan was a leader of the Trump administration’s “restrainer” coalition, which is much more wary of overseas commitments than the traditional Republican Party has been. He recently shared his arguments against U.S. intervention in Iran in The Free Press.

The FP's Eli Lake asked Dan about the threat that Iran poses to the United States, what its intentions with the nuclear program are, and what would justify military intervention. They debated whether more instability would come from further military escalation, or from a radical regime armed with atomic weapons.

It was a great discussion, filled with lots of healthy disagreement.