JULIE BANDERAS (GUEST CO-ANCHOR): History will tell you Iran only responds to strength. And -- strength in numbers, strength in military action, is needed, according to Mike Pompeo, who says that the president would back that. Do you believe that military action is needed?
DANIEL HOFFMAN (FORMER CIA OFFICER): Well, I agree with the secretary. I think that Iran wants to induce Europe and the United States to return to the deal to negotiate on Iran's terms. And we're of course not interested in doing that, it was a flawed deal and the administration withdrew from it. I think that the administration, as Secretary Pompeo hinted at, is dealing with a flexible response based on the nature of Iran's attacks. If there were a direct and serious attack on the United States, Iran knows that that might mean regime suicide for them. We've got the USS Abraham Lincoln and B-52 bombers in the region. If there's something smaller, then we might respond with something less serious than that.
BANDERAS: General Jack Keane, he joined us earlier in the show. He said that basically, military action would not lead to war. So, a lot of people when they hear military action, they think wow, are we going to be striking Iran? And if we did, that would indeed turn into a war. But listen to what he said earlier in the show to contradict that.
[BEGIN VIDEO]
JACK KEANE (FOX NEWS SENIOR STRATEGIC ANALYST): People will be -- critics of any military action saying, that's leading to war. That is not leading to war, the Iranians do not want war with the United States, Bill, because that will end their regime. They are willing, however, to escalate militarily, to get us to shut down, to get us to back off. And we've got to have enough resolve to stand up to that, much as Ronald Reagan did in the late 1980s.
[END VIDEO]
BANDERAS: He says that Iran doesn't want war with the United States. The United States does not want war, as well, with Iran. But they are going to step up the game, because these war games that are being played by Iran? The United States isn't going to go for that.
HOFFMAN: Yeah, we -- neither country wants a full-scale war, but what the United States wants is to deter Iran from a miscalculation that might lead to that. And so we're being very clear that if Iran does attack us in the region or beyond, that we will respond. And ultimately, that is how we ensure that Iran doesn't make the sort of move that would lead to an all-out war. That's what deterrence is all about, it's a credible threat from the United States. And I think, as General David Petraeus has noted multiple times, that this Iranian regime should not take this administration lightly. They mean what they say.
