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Transcript

The Throw · I Believe

• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: The day before we started bombing, Iran agreed to stop stockpiling nuclear material.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: The day before, we bombed them anyway.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: This is a piece about what strength actually means and what we do now.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to I Believe, where we talk about America.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Joel Douglas, and I believe in America.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for joining me.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Act 1.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: The Playground.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: The morning sun, warm on the black top.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: The yard smelled like cut grass and rubber.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Beyond the kickball diamond, a basketball hoop with a chain net and monkey bars where the younger kids hung upside down.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Row swings with pebbles worn smooth underneath.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: The bases painted on the black top in faded white.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the outfield ran long to the fence where the grass was patchy from a thousand sneakers.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was the kind of yard where everything important happened in 20 minutes.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: The game was kickball.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Rules whatever the kids said they were.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: No referee, no umpire, just the black top and the chalk lines and the fence around the yard, and 20 kids who wanted to play.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Fair or foul, safe or out.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: They argued and settled it themselves.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Someone would storm off.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: They always came back.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: The game was the thing that mattered, and everybody knew it.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: There was a big kid.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: When he was a fourth grader, his class had won the school kickball tournament.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: They had beaten even his sister's fifth-grade class, and he would probably remind her forever.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now he was a fifth grader.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: He could kick the ball over the fence, and everybody knew it.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't need to prove it every time.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: He just played.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: He knew that when the game was orderly, he got to play more.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: They only had a 20-minute recess twice a day.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: There was no time for kids to both argue and play kickball.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: So he played straight.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: The game moved along.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: The team stayed even, and the little kids got their turns at the plate.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: He was the best player out there, and the game was better because of him.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes there was trouble.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: A kid would shove another kid off the base.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: A kid would bring something to the yard that didn't belong there.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody looked at the big kid.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Not because someone told them to, because that is what happens when you are the biggest kid out there.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: You don't get to decide whether that responsibility is yours.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: It just is.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the big kid would step in.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: He'd get between the two kids, and he'd sort it out, and the game would go on.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody questioned it.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: That was the deal.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't have enough time to argue and play.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: You are the biggest, so when it matters, you act.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And when you act right, everyone respects you.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Not because they fear you, because you earned it.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: He won them by being the kid everybody wanted on their team.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: The kid who held the game together.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: The kid who could kick it over the fence but didn't need to every time.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: His power was obvious, and because it was obvious, he didn't have to use it.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: The game moved faster when he kept it quiet.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: One day, the third grader mouthed off.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Kicked rocks at him.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: This kid mouthed off a lot, and most of the other kids didn't love it.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Today, maybe the call was bad.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it wasn't.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was the kind of thing that happened every day on the blacktop, and every day the kids sorted it out.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Today, something was different in the big kid.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: He had been out there every day.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: He sorted out the fights and kept the teams even and stepped in when the little kids needed him, and nobody ever thanked him for it.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: The game went on because of him, and the game always went on.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Some days he was tired of being the reason.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Some days he just wanted to kick the ball and not carry the whole yard on his back.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: The third grader mouthed off.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: A small thing.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: But today the big kid felt something hot and simple rise in his chest.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: For a half second, he held the ball and knew.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: He knew what the right thing was.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: He had done the right thing a hundred times.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Walk away, let it go.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Be the big kid who doesn't need to prove it.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: He knew.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: But knowing wasn't enough.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not today.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: He took the ball and he threw it hard into the little kid's face.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then the game stopped.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: No more kickball.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Not because the kids were afraid.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: The big kid was always the biggest.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: That was never the question.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: The question was whether he would play straight.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And now they knew.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: The third grader sat on the blacktop with blood on his lip, and the other kids stood there.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: The blood tasted like copper, and the kid didn't cry.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: He pressed his hand against his mouth, looked at it, and then he looked away.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Not at the big kid.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not at anyone.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: He got up and walked to the fence and stood there with his back to the yard.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: He would remember, not the pain.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: The pain was already gone.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: He would remember that he was small and the big kid was big, and the big kid chose to do it anyway.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Something had changed that you could not change back.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: The big kid was still the biggest.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: He could still kick it over the fence.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: But nobody wanted to play with him now.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Not because he was strong, but because he had shown them what he would do with it.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: The game didn't end that day.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: The kids came back the next morning because kids always come back.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: But it was different.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: The little kids played careful.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: They watched the big kid and they kept their distance.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when the calls were close, they didn't argue.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: The game went on, but the game was worse.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Smaller.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: A game held together by fear instead of respect.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: The big kid was still out there.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: He was still the best player on the blacktop.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: But he had traded something he couldn't get back.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe he could.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the game wasn't over.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the little kids would come back when the big kid gave them a reason to.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not with another throw.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not by being the biggest, but by playing straight again, morning after morning, until the yard remembered what it was like before.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: It would not feel like winning.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it was the only way the game could be good again.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Act two.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Diplomacy with other means.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: The playground is a metaphor, but the game is real.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: For 80 years, America kept a game going that most of the world depends on.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: We keep shipping lanes open in the Persian Gulf so that oil moves and economies run.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: We keep a navy in the South China Sea, so trade routes stay free.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: We built alliances across Europe and the Pacific, because stable partners make stable markets, and stable markets make Americans prosperous.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: We are the big kid on the global blacktop, and when we play straight, the game works.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is not generosity.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is strategy.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: When we invest in the security of our partners, we invest in the conditions that benefit the American people.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: The sailors on destroyers in the Gulf aren't there for Iran or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: We are right to be there.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: We are right to protect the American people.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: We are right to maintain the architecture that keeps the world's economy from collapsing into chaos.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: That is not imperialism.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's the big kid stepping in when someone gets shoved off the base.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: That is what strength is for.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Another wrinkle.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Should an oil company sell oil to Americans for less when the global market commands a higher price?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: No business would.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: No business should.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: The oil man isn't cheating you at the pump.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's responding to the market, and the market is responding to supply.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the supply is responding to what happens in a narrow waterway on the other side of the world.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: When the Strait of Hormuz is open, oil flows.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: When oil flows, the price at your gas station reflects a stable global market.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Even though it's on the other side of the world, when the strait closes, supply shrinks and the price goes up.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not because anyone decided to punish you.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is what happens when the big kid stops playing straight and the game falls apart.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: You felt it at the pump this month.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: You will feel it in groceries next month and in airfares the month after that.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Your kitchen table is connected to the playground.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It always has been.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: We just don't think about it until the price tells us.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: The question is not whether America should be strong.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: The question is how we should be strong.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: The most famous line about war has been misquoted for two centuries.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard it said, war is politics by other means.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, that's wrong.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or at least a lazy translation.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: The original, written in German, says that war is diplomacy with other means, not by.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: With.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Diplomacy is our main effort.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: We combine other means, including force, to strengthen it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: But force alone lacks the power of diplomacy.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Even if we try and kill every person we believe to be an adversary, force has a narrow effect.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Only diplomacy lasts.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: America's founders didn't need a Prussian general to understand this.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: They made one of our six national goals to provide for the common defense.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not attack, not war, defense.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Diplomacy is the main effort of defense, with other means only when diplomacy alone cannot protect the American people.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Force exists in support of that effort, but not instead of it.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: In modern American thought, this concept has two parts.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: First, patient diplomacy is the primary instrument of American power.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Economic partnership, political engagement, measures short of war.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Military force is a supporting effort, necessary in some cases, dangerous when it becomes the main effort.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: The greatest example is the reconstruction of Europe after World War II.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: That effort didn't drop a single bomb.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: It rebuilt a continent.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: It took years.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was tedious and expensive, and nobody made a movie about it.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: It created stable markets that made America prosperous for generations, and it worked better than any weapon we have ever built.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Second, none of that matters if you can't defend it.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Diplomacy without credible military strength is just talk.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: The world watched the Soviets blockade Berlin, detonate a nuclear weapon, and back an invasion of South Korea all within two years.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Diplomatic efforts only work when the other side believes you will act.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Without capability, patience is just weakness with better manners.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: America needs both pieces.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Diplomacy carries the load with military capability and support.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Military strength must be robust enough to make diplomacy credible.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Neither piece would endorse force that undermined alliances we built.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Neither would use force instead of diplomacy that was already working.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Neither would recognize what we did on February 28th.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: In the weeks before the strikes, the United States and Iran were engaged in indirect nuclear negotiations mediated by Oman.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: The day before the strikes, Oman's foreign minister announced a breakthrough.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Iran had agreed to never stockpile enriched uranium, and to full verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Iran had agreed to irreversibly downgrade its enriched uranium to the lowest level possible.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: The foreign minister said peace was within reach.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: The American envoy was skeptical.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: We will never know who was right, because we started bombing the next day.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: For months, the Iranian regime had been fracturing from the inside.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Beginning in late December 2025, the largest protests since the 1979 revolution swept across all 31 provinces.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: The economy was collapsing.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Free fall and mayhem.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: The regime's own security forces killed thousands of protesters.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: By January 2026, the Islamic Republic was at its weakest point in 47 years.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Diplomacy had produced a breakthrough.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: The regime was breaking from within.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Iran had agreed it would not pursue nuclear weapons.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: We were at a point of maximum strength.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Time was on our side.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then, instead of letting diplomacy force the internal fractures to spread, we chose to act with overwhelming force from the outside.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: On February 28th, the United States and Israel launched nearly 900 strikes in 12 hours.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: We killed the Supreme Leader and his family.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: We announced that regime change was our objective.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: We did not use force with diplomacy.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: We used force instead of diplomacy.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: A catastrophic waste of strategic advantage.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: At a moment of great American strength, we threw it away.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: We chose weakness.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: We took the ball and we threw it into the little kid's face.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the game stopped.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Within days, the regime that had been fracturing consolidated.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: The protests that had been shaking the government from inside went silent.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Mushtaba Khamenei, the dead Supreme Leader's son, a hardliner with deep ties to the Revolutionary Guard, a man whose mother was killed in our strikes, became the new Supreme Leader.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: The IRGC pledged to obey him until their last drop of blood.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: The Iran that was ready to break apart rallied around a wartime flag.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Our allies who depend on us to keep the game going took missiles they didn't ask for in a war they didn't choose.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Russia pledged unwavering support for the new supreme leader.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: China opposed any targeting of him.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: The global order we made began to fracture along exactly the lines our adversaries wanted.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't weaken the regime.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: We unified it.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't advance our interests.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: We handed our adversaries the grievance they needed to consolidate power for generations.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't play straight, we threw the ball, and now the yard is different.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Act three.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: What do we do now?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Iran cannot have nuclear weapons.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: That is not negotiable.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: It is not partisan.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: It is a legitimate interest of every American and most of the world.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: The big kid is right about that.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Iran's regime is brutal.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: It killed thousands of its own people in January.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: It sponsors violence across the Middle East.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: It threatens our allies and attacks our service members.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: None of this is in dispute.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: There will be no sympathy.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: But being right about the threat does not make us right about the response.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: We violated our Constitution on February 28th.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Some argue that the President didn't consult Congress.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's important, but not the main argument.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: The deeper violation is that even if Congress had authorized force, the action itself doesn't achieve what the Constitution means by defense.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Diplomacy is the main effort.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Force supports diplomacy when diplomacy alone cannot protect the American people.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: That is the order.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: To act in the common defense, you must first exhaust the tools of defense.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Iran was not an immediate threat to the American people.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Diplomacy was not exhausted.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Diplomacy had produced a breakthrough.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: The day before the strikes, Iran had agreed to never stockpile enriched uranium and to full international verification.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: The regime was fracturing from within.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: We abandoned the effort.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: At the moment it was producing results.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: The purpose itself was unconstitutional.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: We did not defend the American people on February 28th.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: We created conditions that will threaten them for generations.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: We do not know today the full effects of this war.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: And if we can't find a way to de-escalate, it may just be getting started.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: But we know some things.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Iran is not just a state.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Its leaders speak for a faith, and nearly two billion people heard the bombs.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: When you strike Iran, you are not just striking a government.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: You are striking at something woven into an identity that reaches far beyond its borders.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: The consequences of that do not fit into a neat damage assessment.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: In the long run, America's involvement in the Middle East destabilizes the region for future generations.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: We have watched it happen for 50 years.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: We watched it in Iraq.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: We watched it in Afghanistan.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: We are watching it now.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Iran will respond.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: The pattern of attacks have names Beirut, Kobar Towers, the USS Coal.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: These are already written.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: We just gave Iran a generational grievance to fuel it, and every time it happens, our temptation will be the same.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Hit back hard, show strength, make them pay, and every time we give in to that temptation, without discipline, we feed the cause.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Iran is a cause as much as a state.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Its identity believes suffering means legitimacy.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: The more crudely we respond, the more clearly we play the part they wrote for us.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: The third grader is standing at the fence with his back to the yard.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: The blood is already dry.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: He is not thinking about today.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: He is thinking about every day after this.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And he will remember that he was small and the big kid was big, and the big kid chose to do it anyway.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: So what do we do now?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_03: We return to the Constitution.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_03: We strive to achieve our six national goals.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_03: We must tie every national effort directly to a national goal.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: Justice, union, order, general welfare, liberty.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: In this case, the common defense.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: Diplomacy as the main effort, force and support, not the other way around.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_03: We lead with diplomacy.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_03: Maintain credible force and reserve.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: We hold the line on Iran's nuclear ambitions through sustained diplomatic pressure, backed by the credible threat of force.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: The only approach that has ever produced lasting results.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: We define our own interests.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: We support our allies without becoming them.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: Defense first.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: Diplomacy as the main effort.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_03: Force serves diplomacy.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: That is the constitutional order, and it is the right one.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: We accept that Iran will provoke us in the future.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_03: They are a slow, patient, determined adversary with a long memory.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: We must meet their determination with our own.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: Not impulse, not escalation.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_03: Disciplined patience.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: The kind of patience that rebuilt a continent after World War II.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: The kind that won the Cold War without firing a shot.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_03: The big kid is still the best player on the blacktop.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: The game is damaged, but it's not over.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: The little kids are watching.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: They are deciding whether the big kid is the one who threw the ball or the one who held the game together for all those years before.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: When diplomacy is working, it is our strength.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_03: To abandon it when our adversary is weak is folly.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: May God bless the United States of America.