As President Trump departed for Beijing with major American business leaders in tow, the question of what finishing the job in Iran actually looks like remained contested. Ted Snider, contributing editor at The American Conservative and anti-war.com, joined Dan Proft on Chicago’s Morning Answer to argue that the squeeze strategy being applied to Iran is less effective than its proponents claim and that the assumptions underlying it deserve more scrutiny than they are receiving.
Snider’s central argument is that Iran has demonstrated an exceptional capacity to absorb suffering and economic pain without producing political capitulation, and that the historical record of American sanctions and military pressure against the Islamic Republic provides no real basis for expecting that the current campaign will produce regime change. He said Iran has lived under decades of sanctions and isolation without the political structure breaking down, that the transition from Khamenei to what Trump himself described as an unacceptable successor showed remarkable continuity rather than transformation, and that the population has not taken to the streets in the organized and decisive way that would signal genuine revolutionary momentum capable of overthrowing the IRGC.
He pushed back on optimistic assessments of the military damage inflicted on Iran’s weapons infrastructure, citing reporting suggesting that Iran has recovered significant missile capacity from hardened and underground facilities and that the actual degradation of Iranian military capability is considerably less than the Defense Department has publicly claimed. He said the cost to the United States in terms of depleted precision munitions, which he estimated at potentially sixty to seventy-five billion dollars against the Pentagon’s stated figure of twenty-nine billion, represents a meaningful drawdown of exactly the capabilities needed for any potential future conflict with China. He said in approximately thirty-nine days the United States burned through roughly half of its most important munitions stocks, and that the question of whether the campaign can be sustained for another several months needs honest examination alongside the question of whether Iran can sustain the pressure.
Proft pushed back throughout, noting that SenCom commander Admiral Brad Cooper has assessed that most of Iran’s ballistic missile capacity and naval forces have been eliminated, and that the question of why Iran has not been more effective in striking American ships and Gulf State targets is itself evidence of Iranian degradation. He also noted that food inflation in Iran has exceeded one hundred and fifteen percent, the rial has lost more than half its value in a year, and industrial production capacity has been substantially reduced in just two months of conflict.
On the nuclear question, Snider said the consensus position of the American intelligence community as expressed in recent National Intelligence Estimates is that Iran has not made the decision to build a nuclear weapon, that the enrichment program has been for civilian purposes, and that there is no confirmed evidence of an active weapons program. Proft responded by citing Marco Rubio’s repeated argument that if the enrichment program is truly civilian in purpose, there is no explanation for why Iran buries and hides its facilities rather than operating them in the transparent manner the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s safeguards framework contemplates. He noted that when the JCPOA was in effect, Iran was found in compliance with its terms for a period of consecutive inspections, but that the design of underground facilities at sites like Fordow and Natanz raises obvious questions about intent that civilian use alone does not explain.
The conversation ended with a direct question about whether Iran is a benign state. Snider acknowledged it is not a completely benign actor but argued that its support for terrorism is often overstated compared to American allies like Saudi Arabia and that within its own borders it is a state trying to survive rather than a uniquely aggressive threat, positions Proft contested before the interview concluded.