Impolitic with John Heilemann Jake Sullivan: Death & Destruction All Day Long – And Then What?
15 snips
Mar 9, 2026 
Jake Sullivan, former U.S. National Security Advisor and Iran deal architect, joins to unpack the Iran war's murky aims and cascading risks. He maps how the conflict could widen regionally. He examines foreign partners, military realities, and the political forces driving intervention. The conversation also ties the campaign’s ripple effects to Ukraine and global munitions supply.
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Air Superiority Is Tactical Not Strategic
- The U.S. military quickly gained air superiority over Iran but that tactical success doesn't resolve broader strategic problems.
- Jake Sullivan points out Iran still managed many diverse strikes regionally and the administration lacked a coherent explanation for why it launched the campaign.
This Conflict Is Already Regionalizing
- The war has already regionalized and could widen through multiple unpredictable actors and chains of alliances.
- Sullivan lists Houthis, Gulf states, arming Kurdish factions, and a Saudi–Pakistan security link as specific escalation pathways to watch.
Repeated Use Of Force Creates Appetite For More
- Trump's antiwar rhetoric historically clashed with his actions because successive tactical uses of force created an appetite for more strikes.
- Sullivan argues operations like Venezuela and the Soleimani raid normalized force and eroded earlier reluctance.