Isfahan

We've seen hypersonics used obviously and, you know, against Israel, uh- during the escalation of recent years, but very sparingly Iran has used their technology very much not as frequently as probably some people on the axis of resistance would have liked to see.

But it is really curious how at this stage the Iranians have, well, according to their IRGC generals, they're not afraid actually to strike against American Navy vessels, even though if a destroyer was struck and sunk or even damaged severely, if an aircraft carrier, if there were hundreds of American lives taken, knowing the Trump administration, knowing, of course, the sort of rhetoric, the personal, I guess, stake he has in all of this, reputationally speaking, his ego, Trump is the sort of guy I think who would literally most likely use even a tactical nuclear missile on something like Pickaxe Mountain, obviously somewhat isolated north of Isfahan, in order just to prove a point that we Americans are not to be messed with.

And that's, of course, I think what the Iranians are trying to avoid, knowing Trump's personal sort of stake in all of this, the fact that the Israelis are also playing up to Trump's egotistical view that he has defeated Iran.

Every single interview that Trump gives these days, he claims that Iran basically is on their knees and surrendering.

As my, as I understand it, a lot of, lot of granite and ver- and ver- very, very deep.

So, um, United States showed in, in its, uh, bombing of, uh, for example, the Isfahan facility, uh, that, uh... and Fordow, et cetera, that, uh, we tend to attack at weak points, uh, uh, such as access points.

Uh, but the reality is that can be dug out pretty quickly if the internals, uh, survive, uh, survive military strikes.

Yeah.

Uh, and frankly, I have to say that while the, uh, 2025 bombings of Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, uh, did clearly, uh, you know, ph- [laughs] physical damage to the, to the nuclear sites, uh, it's not so clear that the war, uh, since February of this year, uh, has accomplished very much on the nuclear side.

I want to go to what was, a, a part of your agreement when you were the Secretary of Energy, and that is domestic, uh, oil and gas prices, and this is a week in which we saw diesel climb above $6 a gallon.

I think we have here something all TV journalists like to show, which is a signage indicating a high price of gas, high price of diesel, in this case, 9.99 a, a gallon out in, in California.

Until it happened, I'd seen Islam insofar as I'd thought about it.

As a benign force in the world, as a backpacker, I'd travelled the length of a country like Iran and gazed and wondered at mosques in cities like Isfahan and Tehran.

But after 9-11, that curiosity turned into trepidation.

Islam was no longer just a gentle creed which gave us Sufi mystics and the evocative memoirs of Lawrence of Arabia.

And so there are over a hundred and forty sites damaged, but amongst these sites, there are sites that are very significant, but not on a UNESCO list.

So for example, there are sites in Isfahan, not just Chehel Sotoun Palace, which was a UNESCO site listed as one of the ones that was, uh, badly damaged, but sites around Meydan Emam, Emam, uh, Square, which is a part of a UNESCO Heritage site.

There were sites there that were damaged that are quite significant.

In Tehran, Saadabad Palace, very significant site in northern Tehran, comprises of eighteen palaces.