FOX News chief political analyst Brit Hume discusses President Donald Trump increasing pressure on Iran and the U.S. military presence in the Middle East on “Special Report.”

JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS: Let’s talk more about the U.S.-Iran tensions. Joining us tonight is FOX News Chief Political Analyst Brit Hume. So, Brit, what do you make of President Trump’s desire to try to enter into some kind of negotiation with a country that just never negotiates what the U.S. wants it to? BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I think the president’s in a predicament here, John. I think, you know, he told Iran, told the Iranian authorities not to attack the people when they were protesting. Then they carried out this hideous slaughter, this hideous slaughter that killed, we know, tens of thousands of people, I mean, just ghastly. He said that help was on the way, as we heard Lindsey Graham point out in that piece by Jennifer. And, you know, he’d warned them not to do it. He said what might come of it, if they did, would be worse than what happened before when they took out a big piece of their nuclear capabilities. So he’s in a situation where, you know, he needs to do something. And the idea that there’ll be some kind of nuclear negotiation now with a country that has proven itself time and time again untrustworthy in such negotiations seems to me that will leave him with a lot of people thinking he came up short. ROBERTS: So in terms of this discussion about red lines, let’s go back to August 20th of 2012 when another American president, Barack Obama, laid down this red line to Syria. Listen here. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA (AUGUST 2012): We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that’s a red line for us and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons. ROBERTS: So he laid down that red line to Bashar al-Assad. He said, don’t use chemical weapons. That’s a red line. Don’t cross it. Assad went ahead and used chemical weapons quite liberally, and Obama did nothing. Does President Trump risk finding himself in the same position as Obama? HUME: Well, I think the worry has to be, John, that very thing and the fact that a pillar of our defense strategy is now and has long been the establishment and maintaining a deterrent, people looking at you and saying, we don’t want to mess with them because they have force, they have a lot of it, and they’re willing to use it. And when you threaten to use it, and then when something happens that you’ve warned against and you don’t use it, think about this. Think about Joe Biden pulls out of Afghanistan, and the next thing you know, Russia marches into Ukraine. So the consequences for this kind of thing can be quite serious, and this president has shown himself willing to do things in the past. I mean, he, with the help of Israel, took out that big piece we talked about of the nuclear weapons program over there, and then, of course, he put the pressure on Venezuela, he surrounded them, he put an armada there, much as he’s done here, and the next thing you know, they go in and snatch Nicolas Maduro in a military operation that I think probably dazzled much of the world. So the president has some standing to protect here, and he earned it and deserves to have it, but this is yet another challenge for sure. ROBERTS: Well, let’s put it up on the screen, because we’ve got quite the armada assembled in the region, and there’s plenty of firepower to do in Iran exactly what he did in Venezuela, and I’m sure that the Delta Force has been practicing for it should the president pull the trigger on that. HUME: When you have a force that big, I suppose you have a lot of options, but the goal, I suspect, has to be something that would, you know, not just a nuclear weapons agreement, which I think wouldn’t help the people of Iran very much. It has to be something that would topple that regime and put in place, or at least create the atmosphere in which could be put in place, a regime that would get along with the rest of the world. You know, I don’t know what all his military options are, but I’m sure that’s what he’s looking at, is something that would somehow be really effective, and not just destruction, but something that would help the people in that country, and some massive destruction in that country wouldn’t do that, I wouldn’t think. ROBERTS: Yeah, but the real trick is to get in place a regime that would be friendly to the rest of the world. A lot of people are concerned that what comes after the Ayatollah may be worse. Brit, always good to catch up with you. HUME: Exactly right, John.

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