Presenter calls U.S. strikes on Iran ‘‘unexplained’’ and ‘‘not a plan’’

A presenter criticized a U.S. president’s decision to order strikes on Iran, saying the move was made ‘‘without so much as bothering to explain it to anybody’’ and describing the approach as unplanned and risky.

The presenter quoted the president’s own words about the campaign against Iran: ‘‘I can go long and take over the whole thing or end it in 2 or 3 days,’’ and said the president even promised ‘‘members of the Iranian military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps complete immunity if they laid down their arms,’’ citing the remark that ‘‘hopefully, the IRGC and police will peacefully merge with the Iranian patriots.’’

The presenter argued those statements show that ‘‘hope, to state the obvious, is not a strategy. Wishing for a regime to collapse is not a plan,’’ and warned that similar expectations have failed in past U.S. foreign interventions. He listed Vietnam, Iraq and Libya as examples of campaigns that did not produce the intended outcomes and used those analogies to argue the current approach risks repeating historical mistakes.

The presenter also criticized external influence on the decision, saying it was ‘‘egged on by another corrupt leader in Benjamin Netanyahu’’ and portraying that leader as acting as if he could ‘‘do whatever he wants, wherever he wants with the most powerful military in history at his disposal.’’

No formal vote or procedural action was recorded in the transcript. The presenter’s remarks focus on public and political analysis of the strikes and the statements of the president; the transcript does not record any immediate policy response or additional speakers addressing the claims.