From Special Report with Bret Baier | Tuesday, March 13, 2012
On whether the Iranian regime is rational and economic sanctions will be effective:
Well, Iran is rational in the sense that it has this idea, a correct one, that if it acquires nuclear weapons it becomes the dominant hegemon in the region, dominant over all the Arabs, which has been a Persian dream for thousands of years, dominant over the region, dominant over oil, and in a position to annihilate Israel if and when it wants. So that is rational.
The problem is what have we done? When the president speaks about a diplomatic resolution, there is not a shred of evidence that that is in the cards. In fact, acting as if it is going to happen is irrational. His own director of national intelligence said to the Congress that economic sanctions have had economic effects on Iran, but over all these years they have had zero effect on the progress of the nuclear program.
So what evidence is [there] that it will have an effect in the future? It’s a hope, but it is hardly anything [for which] you would risk the lives of 8 million people in Israel and… the existence of Jewish state.
On the success of the Israeli Iron Dome missile defense system:
This is something that the Israelis developed that …shoots down incoming missiles. It was used in the fighting we have had in the last week from Gaza.
Apparently, the success rate was extremely high, about 80 to 90 percent.
Which changes the strategic equation, because if it weren’t in place there would have been high casualties on the Israeli side and there likely would have been a huge escalation. As a result of that, it makes the kind of missile attack that the Gazans have much less of a threat. And it creates a situation in which escalation is less likely.