Speaker 1: US and British forces launching another major attack on Iranian
Speaker 1: back militias had multiple targets across Yemen. They're aim stopping
Speaker 1: Houthi rebels attacks on ships in the Red Sea. The
Speaker 1: White House insists the strategy is working, but so far
Speaker 1: retaliatory air strikes have failed to stop the Hoothies, and
Speaker 1: it comes amid escalating tensions.
Speaker 2: In the region.
Speaker 1: US troops at Alasad Air Base in Iraq came under
Speaker 1: attack over the weekend. Iranian back militias fed seventeen ballistic
Speaker 1: missiles and rockets. Most were intercepted, but the Pentagon says
Speaker 1: at least two US personnels suffered traumatic brain injuries.
Speaker 2: I like the two back to back sentences. The administration
Speaker 2: insists their deterrence is working, the Houthis continue to attack.
Speaker 2: Those two things do not fit together. It became clear
Speaker 2: to me. I was just thinking about it before we
Speaker 2: played these clips. The reason the I could call it
Speaker 2: the Obama Biden crowd because I think it goes clear
Speaker 2: back to the not acting on the Red Line in Syria.
Speaker 2: But if you make it clear to people that you're
Speaker 2: not going to punch them in the mouth, then the
Speaker 2: whole don't don't doesn't work. The only way don't doesn't work.
Speaker 2: It does work is if you've made it clear to
Speaker 2: people that you mean business, you're going to punch them
Speaker 2: in the mouth. Then dont can work. But it doesn't
Speaker 2: work if you've made it clear that you're not willing
Speaker 2: to do that.
Speaker 3: Right, I agree one hundred percent. I think now might
Speaker 3: be a great time to usher in. Mike Clions, military
Speaker 3: analyst from CNN. Mike, it's always enlightening.
Speaker 4: How are you taking one of you guys? Good to
Speaker 4: be back?
Speaker 3: Thank you. I think it would be fairly safe to
Speaker 3: say that practically the entire mission of an intelligence operation
Speaker 3: is to figure out what your opponent is actually going
Speaker 3: to do, what they're actually thinking. And it's our opinion
Speaker 3: that the United States is absolutely telegraphing the fact that
Speaker 3: what we're actually going to do is practically nothing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's difficult to see where this administration goes. They
Speaker 4: whip saw back and forth, beature these air strikes and
Speaker 4: to Yemen and thinking they're going to stop the hooties
Speaker 4: and actually deter them and make statements like you just said,
Speaker 4: and then actually having that as a result. And my favorite,
Speaker 4: my favorite is when they sit there and say, well,
Speaker 4: the Uranians are not involved with this. Uranians don't want
Speaker 4: any escalation. But the Iranians fingerprints are all over this.
Speaker 4: They're the ones directing these attacks, they're the ones that's
Speaker 4: provided the information, they're the ones that have given them
Speaker 4: all supply. So I don't buy that one either. I
Speaker 4: don't buy that the Uranians don't want to escalate it.
Speaker 4: I just think they're confident that we're not going to
Speaker 4: do anything. On top of that, to your point, it's
Speaker 4: you know, we've gotten away from the Teddy Roosevelt speaks
Speaker 4: softly and carry a big stick. Instead, we have hysteronics
Speaker 4: and we try to proclaim all kinds of things with
Speaker 4: regard to what we're going to do, and then and
Speaker 4: then you know it just can't can't follow through.
Speaker 2: Well, you said on TV the other day and then
Speaker 2: you tweeted it what a what really hitting back would
Speaker 2: look like with the sustained air campaign.
Speaker 4: Explain that to it, right, right, So we've got to
Speaker 4: tell the who he's okay, we're going to end we're
Speaker 4: going to be at war with you now, and the
Speaker 4: fact that we're shooting each other for different reasons. I
Speaker 4: think you know the hoho. Thies want well with us.
Speaker 4: They want to punch up, they want to punch up
Speaker 4: for their weight, and we keep saying, oh no, no, we
Speaker 4: just want to open up the shipping lanes. But we
Speaker 4: have to sit there and say, now, okay, we need
Speaker 4: a thirty day air campaign twenty four to seven twenty,
Speaker 4: you know, two thousand sorties a day, continuous bombing, continuous mission,
Speaker 4: similar to what we did in Desert Storm. It would
Speaker 4: be a tremendous investment for us to do this. But
Speaker 4: this is going to not stop until you stop, and
Speaker 4: it's we're not going to be tit for tat. We're
Speaker 4: not going to only fire these rockets at you when
Speaker 4: you fire one at us. And I think that's what
Speaker 4: we should do that we should do it for a
Speaker 4: certain period of time, have a specific metric that says
Speaker 4: you're going to stop fighting at us, and it should
Speaker 4: last for a while, as opposed to saying, okay, this
Speaker 4: is it. Now is the last one we're going to fire,
Speaker 4: so don't fire anything more of us. So a formal
Speaker 4: air campaign up puts a lot of American airmen and
Speaker 4: Navy pilots and harms way. But I think that's the
Speaker 4: only way you're going to get them to stop the philosophy.
Speaker 3: The answer to that would be they're going to be
Speaker 3: in harm's way eventually. Anyway, we're trying to preclude the
Speaker 3: greater harm and not to get too far afield into
Speaker 3: psychology and diplomacy. But it strikes me that in the
Speaker 3: same way that the Twitter left has a wildly outsized
Speaker 3: influence and domestic policy as if that's the American people,
Speaker 3: I think the diplomatic intelligentsia un crowd has an outsized
Speaker 3: effect on the Biden administration's foreign policy. They are so
Speaker 3: interested in courting the approval of these people as opposed
Speaker 3: to fixing their eyes on a successful execution of the
Speaker 3: goals of the United States and the needs of the
Speaker 3: US that I just I think that the foreign policies
Speaker 3: perverse in that way.
Speaker 4: Right, it's a globalist mentality that exists on a one level,
Speaker 4: but it's also wishing the world the way they want
Speaker 4: it to be, as supposed to the way it is
Speaker 4: real politique. And I think that is the main reason
Speaker 4: that the main change that will come to an administration
Speaker 4: if it happens, and the Obama administration and the Biden industry,
Speaker 4: we should think that this is a world but the
Speaker 4: Iranians will eventually come to the table and be part
Speaker 4: of the international community, and all lot will go with that.
Speaker 4: This is not going to happen, and they're doing everything
Speaker 4: they can in order to try to give the Iranians
Speaker 4: every way out to do that. I just think we've
Speaker 4: run out of time for a long time about that.
Speaker 2: You also tweeted out the large number of different sorts
Speaker 2: of little I don't know what you want to call them,
Speaker 2: points of conflict around the Middle East to exist. There's
Speaker 2: there's like a dozen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's an amazing we think about it. If you
Speaker 4: just take inventory about who's shooting at home in the
Speaker 4: Middle East, and they're all mostly trending up. We saw
Speaker 4: the Iranians. Now let's go back to Iran. Iran is
Speaker 4: an authoritative government that now as I see it, is
Speaker 4: more focused on internal problems. The fact that we had
Speaker 4: isis to attack. We saw Isis attack them in Kerman
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks ago. They're starting to have I
Speaker 4: think internal issues with separatist organizations, which is why they
Speaker 4: decide to attack into Pakistan, into the Blue Cheese and
Speaker 4: those organizations that want to see the overthrown of of
Speaker 4: the Iranian government, and now they are attacking into Syria
Speaker 4: to attack ISIS units in there, and then they're attacking
Speaker 4: into Iraq and US forces are seeing the side effects
Speaker 4: of that, but they're also attacking the Kurds there. The
Speaker 4: Iranian government I think is now sending a message within
Speaker 4: the Middle East about they've got to show within their
Speaker 4: country that they're going to stand up the threats that
Speaker 4: they have, and they're starting to see the fact that
Speaker 4: terrorism has now come home to roost in Iran is
Speaker 4: a big change, and I think that's why they're going
Speaker 4: to see them escalate with a lot of these attacks
Speaker 4: outside of Iran by Iranian forces, not the proxies.
Speaker 3: Let's turn our gaze to Israel for a moment at least,
Speaker 3: it seems that the trading of ordinance with Hesbala is
Speaker 3: absolutely on the brink of erupting into an all at war.
Speaker 3: Does it seem that way to.
Speaker 4: You, Yeah, that's the biggest concern in that. The only
Speaker 4: thing holding that back is two things. I think the
Speaker 4: population there does not want a war, and it's classic
Speaker 4: example of Hesbolah runs the country as a kind of
Speaker 4: an outside organization and the Iranians, I think are putting
Speaker 4: a little bit of the brakes on them as well,
Speaker 4: because if they gave them the green light, I think
Speaker 4: that they would go and I think that would open
Speaker 4: up a second front. You know, this is two countries, Israel,
Speaker 4: is An Ali, the United States, Hesbela Gaza or the
Speaker 4: Housis Hamas, all of these other Iranian proxy organizations, they're
Speaker 4: all under existential threats right now. And I think that's
Speaker 4: the calculus that the Iranians are making. And I think
Speaker 4: that for right now, they don't want to see hes
Speaker 4: Blah destroyed because I think they're watching Hamas be destroyed
Speaker 4: in place in the southern part of Israel.
Speaker 2: Well, with Israel losing was it twenty one or twenty
Speaker 2: four guys in one day, man opening up another front,
Speaker 2: that'd be something.
Speaker 4: Well, they have those units that they had brought up.
Speaker 4: That's why they brot up three hundred thousand recalls back
Speaker 4: in October, and they since some home already, but they're
Speaker 4: in it for an existential fight, so I don't think
Speaker 4: they're going to stop. It's starting to hurt their economy.
Speaker 4: This is where no allies that they have right now
Speaker 4: is really hurting them if the world will change, if
Speaker 4: the Saudis or some other Middle Eastern country the sides
Speaker 4: to come to the support of Israel, and I think
Speaker 4: that's when the world changes. But we just don't see
Speaker 4: that in site.
Speaker 3: Interesting. Yeah, from what I've understood, the Israeli the IDF
Speaker 3: are a little discouraged at the extent to which they
Speaker 3: have destroyed Hamas, because Hamas is pretty good at melting
Speaker 3: into the landscape and the tunnels and the rest and
Speaker 3: surviving it. So it's just unquestionable that this is going
Speaker 3: to be a long slog, and you know, the fatigue
Speaker 3: both of Israel and its people and the international community
Speaker 3: is going to be balanced against more and more hostages
Speaker 3: turning up dead and more and more attacks from Hamas
Speaker 3: and Hesbel. I just I think this. I think we
Speaker 3: need to settle in for the long haul.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't see any and in sight, in fact,
Speaker 4: I think is double trending up. I think it's the
Speaker 4: Israeli government is not going to stop. And at this
Speaker 4: point now until they get more hostages back, there'll be
Speaker 4: no cease fire, there'll be nothing. They're just going to
Speaker 4: continue to just raise the ground down there.
Speaker 2: So the we mentioned this. Yesterday, the Open Intelligence Defense
Speaker 2: crowd was reporting that there's some people in defense in
Speaker 2: the Pentagon or wherever that are really unhappy with the
Speaker 2: administration not letting them just do what they got to
Speaker 2: do to stop the houthis do you hear any any
Speaker 2: of that kind of chatter.
Speaker 4: Well, I know they've been given many courses of action
Speaker 4: because back to one of those courses of action has
Speaker 4: been an air campaign and has been a much more detailed,
Speaker 4: in a better operation. We know where the who, the
Speaker 4: supply chains are, we know where the logistics are. The
Speaker 4: other thing that just going to go with this though,
Speaker 4: is we're going to have to resupply. If we keep
Speaker 4: launching Tomahawk missiles in their direction, we're going to start
Speaker 4: running out ourselves. And now you think about from strategic perspective,
Speaker 4: if you know, if all these destroyers that we're sending
Speaker 4: there and firing all these Tomahawk missiles were kind of
Speaker 4: not keeping our powder dry for something that could potentially
Speaker 4: happen in the Far East. So it's got to be
Speaker 4: part of an overall campaign that the administration thinks it's
Speaker 4: going to be over very quickly. But I think from
Speaker 4: what the people I talked in the Pentagon, and the
Speaker 4: people that I know there are always looking over the
Speaker 4: horizon to make sure that we're ready to go for really,
Speaker 4: what's going to be the next bigger conflict.
Speaker 3: Military analyst Mike Liones a CNN. Mike, great to talk
Speaker 3: to you, Thanks for the time.
Speaker 4: Thanks guys, thanks for habbing me.
Speaker 2: Armstrong and Getty