ocus on richard goldberg: the last one is really important. the rotted regime it may also be convinced that the u.s. and israel are bent on the destruction of, not iran as a country, but the iranian regime? oubai shahbandar: the ayatollah equates the two. -- is survival of his regime the survival of his regime and the iranian revolution means for him, the continued existence of iran as a state, he equates the two. this is regardless, and to be completely bipartisan here, this perception, regardless of whatever the actions of the presidenttes, -- obama in 2014, according to reports and first revealed by the wall street journal's, j solomon, sent a letter to the ayatollah to try to reassure him of limited u.s. goals in the region. that the u.s. would begin airstrikes in syria but only against the rebels, not for in the ayatollahs proxies in syria, not to threaten the assad regime. this is according to reports of by obamaletter t to the ayatollah khomeini. this was to tell them that the u.s. had limited objectives in the region and not threatenin

and, of course, we have richard goldberg's senior adviser, foundation for defense and democracies.hat's interesting is he was a lead negotiator in the senate for sanctions against iran, the toughest sanctions that brought them to the table that may likely go back into effect. thank you for being here today. so we'll just quickly talk about what's happened over the last two to three weeks. we have incoming secretary of state, former cia director pompeo and also bolton going into the position on monday. and pompeo may be in his position as early as two weeks from now. probably closer to the first week of may. hopefully before the may 12th deadline. the president has his iran team in place. we're looking forward to hearing from the panelists on what that means the day after may 12th, the implications, again for u.s. foreign policy for iran and our allies and for iran's allies, our adversaries specifically russia and china. so with that, i'm going to give it to rich. he's going to give us a scene setter. what's likely to happen in the next month. >> thank you so much. thank you for hav