to nuclear weapons capability. but let s make no mistake about it, when we go after assad and hezbollah and the revolutionary guard and the quds force in syria, we are hitting iran directly. and i think it s a way to not only send a message, but in doing so, seriously degrade iran s military and overseas terrorist activities. if you think of iran as a corporation, as terrorism and destruction incorporated, khamenei is the supreme leader, and this man b, sulemani, is the ceo and chief operations officer. he s on the ground with his men in syria. this is a way to severely degrade his terrorist capabilities. jenna: let me just ask you about iran quickly here because we ve talked a lot about the nuclear program, and we re not talking about it now because we re talking about syria. but we have the new leader in iran, people are calling him moderate. now there s an announcement that he s putting a new person in charge of nuclear negotiations, the foreign minister also being called a moderate
some are saying here s another opportunity for the west for diplomacy in iran. how do you see it? if you extend that analogy as terrorism and destruction incorporated, if khamenei and sulemani are the executive chairman and the ceo, rue wanny and his foreign minister are the vice president of marketing and sales. and it s their goal to sell and to market particularly this illusion that the regime is at all moderate. i think that they have very little influence over syria and iran s nuclear program, and their goal is to create the illusion of moderation and of moderate change when the reality is that sulemani and khamenei are in charge, and these are men who are committed to seriously damaging american national security interests and are absolutely committed to building a nuclear weapon. jenna: it ll be interesting to see if the president speaks more directly about iran when he makes the case to the american people coming this tuesday. mark, thank you very much. great to see you. th