JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Tonight, questions about how the war in the Middle East ends.

What we know is that Iran has boxed itself into a bit of a corner.

Since its ally, Hamas, launched an invasion of Israel on October 7th, 2023, Iran has suffered one loss after another.

Hamas has been largely destroyed.

Hezbollah has been dismantled.

Iran's air defenses have been neutralized.

And today, the country that Iran's leaders have sworn for over four decades to destroy, Israel controls the skies over Tehran, bombing nuclear, military and infrastructure sites at will.

One thing Israel has failed to achieve is the destruction of the Fordow nuclear site.

For this, it might need bombs that only exist in the American arsenal.

To figure out what's going to happen next, and if America will join the fight directly, I'm joined by a panel of experts.

Jonathan Karl, the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News, David Ignatius is a columnist at The Washington Post, David Sanger is a White House and national security correspondent at The New York Times.

We're also joined by Nancy Youssef, whose last day at The Wall Street Journal is today.

She's our newest staff writer at The Atlantic where she'll cover defense and national security.

So, how do you like them Apples?

NANCY YOUSSESF, National Security Correspondent, The Wall Street Journal: I'm very excited.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Pretty exciting stuff.

David, before I go to our newest staff writer, let me start with you and just give us the current state of play in the actual war in the Middle East.

DAVID SANGER, White House Correspondent, The New York Times: Well, the state of play right now is the Iranians are not doing terribly well in day seven here.

We're one day past the length of the six-day war, and I would say you probably have several weeks left of this.

At this point, they're down, we think, to roughly a thousand of their long-range missiles.

That means they've lost a huge number of the missiles and the launchers.

They've lost a lot of nuclear scientists.

They've lost a lot of the officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

They've lost use of the Natanz nuclear enrichment plant, one of the two plants that make the fuel that you need to produce a nuclear weapon.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: The other being Fordow.

DAVID SANGER: And the other is Fordow, right.

And Fordow is the one that's deep under a mountain.

It was designed to go under there after it was recognized by the Iranians that they were subject to air attack by the Israelis, cyber attack by Israel and the United States, who, 15 years ago, executed a really ingenious attack on the Natanz plant.

And they wanted something you couldn't get at.

And the next two weeks will determine whether or not you really can't get at it.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

David Ignatius, Trump has said that he may take two weeks to decide, as much as two weeks to decide.

Is it possible that the Israelis can do the job before then?

DAVID IGNATIUS, Columnist, The Washington Post: So, we don't know what capabilities they have to strike Fordow beyond depending on the U.S. bunker buster bomb.

The Israeli tactical success, as David just described, it has been brilliant that they've managed to essentially wipe out the leadership of the military, the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

There are a whole lot of tests I'm sure they'd still like to accomplish.

I think one of the reasons that they've been rushing is that they have worried that Donald Trump wanted to intervene in negotiations.

Donald Trump wants to find a way to have a new nuclear deal and sort of turn this whole crisis, the heat down.

So, I think that's one of the urgent issues for these Israelis.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

DAVID IGNATIUS: And Israel has to decide, is that in Israel's interest?

What kind of settlement could it accept?

And, you know, how will it destroy the things it can in the time it has left?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

But, Jon, you've talked to the president quite a bit in the last period of time.

He also seems pretty excited about the Israeli military success.

JONATHAN KARL, Chief Washington Correspondent, ABC News: He sure was after the first night.

I spoke to him before 7:00 in the morning on Friday, a week ago, and he was -- I mean, he just sounded jazzed, frankly.

I mean, he greeted me, hello, Jon.

You know, this was excellent.

He was very eager to talk about what a tremendous success it was.

And I asked him, were we involved in any way, because Marco Rubio had said we weren't.

And he said I can't comment on that.

I was like, wait a minute.

Your secretary of state, I mean, he clearly wanted -- he saw success and he wanted to take part in that success.

But, look, he is really conflicted here.

And, you know, he's facing a deep divide within his own movement.

Remember, in his inaugural address, he said, we will measure success by the wars we end and perhaps more importantly the wars that we don't get into.

And he is facing -- he will face, actually, I think, maybe for the first time ever a significant blowback from his prominent supporters if the U.S. gets dragged into a protracted conflict.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

I want to get -- come back to Trump and the decision-making process.

But, Nancy, I'm also very curious to know what they're saying in the Pentagon right now about what the next two weeks could bring.

Did they feel, Central Command in particular, do they feel, CENTCOM, which is the area of responsibility is the Middle East.

NANCY YOUSSEF: That's right.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Did they feel like, A, the Israelis could do this without their help, or do they feel that they can take care of this quickly?

Because one of the things it seems that Donald Trump likes is quick, neat victories.

NANCY YOUSSEF: So, the first thing you'll hear there is force protection.

There are tens of thousands of U.S. troops based in the Middle East, and so you've seen a movement of assets.

Five destroyers are in the Eastern Mediterranean in part to defend those troops.

So, when you talk to Pentagon officials, I think that's their primary focus.

The fact that Iran is in a more precarious position, the fact that there's some who believe the U.S. has been involved puts those troops in potential harm's way.

NANCY YOUSSEF: Having said that, I think there's division within the Pentagon about the way ahead.

I think one of the most aggressive supporters of moving forward is General Kurilla, who's the head of Central Command and has been a very vocal proponent of moving forward.

So, I think what you're hearing now is sort of multiple military plans being put forth with the intent of not putting U.S. troops in harm's way, not inviting, for example, proxies Iranian proxies in Iraq to come after us forces.

The other factor that I think people don't think about are that I think is very important is during the U.S. campaign against the Houthis just a few months ago, the U.S. used an extraordinary amount of ordinance for missile defense and other capabilities, and I think one of the factors you're hearing from the military is considering what they have in terms of capability, just ordinance, because of how much they've used already this year, not only defending the Houthis, but also providing weapons and support to Ukraine and to Israel.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I have to imagine that the Air Force in particular has been studying the Israeli success in the air and coming to some conclusions about Iran's vulnerability.

Is that fair?

NANCY YOUSSEF: Yes.

I think what they're looking at is, look, when you have air superiority, it opens all sorts of options in terms of what you can do and what assets you can bring in and what defenses you need to put in place.

So, I think seeing Iran's air defenses collapse, as they did, certainly changes the calculation.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Jon, I would note that Netanyahu is trying to make the case pretty strongly that Iran is an American problem as well as an Israeli problem.

Let's watch a bit of your conversation with the prime minister from a few days ago.

JONATHAN KARL: What do you say to those supporters of President Trump, some of his supporters, who say the United States should not be involved in any way?

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israeli Prime Minister: We're not just fighting our enemy.

We're fighting your enemy.

For God's sake, they chant death to Israel, death to America.

We're simply on their way, and this could reach America soon.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Come back to this point about what Republicans in particular are hearing.

Is that an effective message?

JONATHAN KARL: Well, he also said to me, I understand, the prime minister, I understand America first.

I don't understand America dead, and that's what these people want.

So, he is speaking, trying to speak the language of the MAGA movement from Tel Aviv to try to make the case that they -- I think that fell very flat with Trump supporters.

It's like, who's this guy to tell us, you know, what we're going to do?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But what's interesting and I guess you have to be a certain age to have visceral memories of the 1979 hostage crisis, but they have been chanting death to America for 40-plus years in Iran.

I mean, David, talk about whether Iran poses, in your opinion, a national security threat to the United States dire enough to warrant this kind of intervention.

DAVID SANGER: So, Iran is threatened to assassinate President Trump, other senior officials in retaliation for Trump's order to kill Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force.

I began covering the Middle East in 1980, the year after the Iranian revolution.

And the reverberations that you felt then continue in many ways across the region.

Iran's revolution set off convulsions.

It transformed, it created Islamic fundamentalism in the Sunni world in response.

So, I think Iran threatens stability for America's friends, threatens stability for economic interest in the Middle East.

The arc of that revolution at some point is going to crest and we'll be in a different era.

And that's my biggest question about what's happening now.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

DAVID SANGER: Are we're going to see an end of that story that began in 1979 through some kind of fundamental transformation of the regime?