What the hell is going on in Iran? The Trump administration recently attributed to Iran attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, citing as evidence video footage showing a small fast attack boat (characteristic of those the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps uses) pulling alongside one of the tankers.

On their very first episode of “What the Hell Is Going On?” Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen discuss current US-Iran tensions with AEI’s Fred Kagan. They address the internal politics of Tehran, President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and whether the US should apply to Iran the set of policies that led to the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union, often called the “Victory Strategy.”

Fred Kagan, author of the 2007 report “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq, is one of the intellectual architects of the successful “surge” strategy in Iraq. He is the director of AEI’s Critical Threats Project and a former professor of military history at the US Military Academy at West Point.