Speaker 1: This was an extraordinary military success. Not only is Israel's
Speaker 1: military superiority, but that Israel's not alone, that the United
Speaker 1: States actually he actually put the President put American fighter
Speaker 1: jets in the air actively defending Israel in harm's way.
Speaker 1: That goes a long way, and that sends a strong
Speaker 1: message about where Israel is in the region versus where
Speaker 1: Iran is in the region, which is increasingly oscillated now.
Speaker 2: Was John Kirby on all the talk shows yesterday making
Speaker 2: the argument for the White House that you take the win.
Speaker 2: We just showed that the rest of the world is
Speaker 2: so much better than Iran. They are embarrassed. They took
Speaker 2: their best shot and they've been embarrassed by the rest
Speaker 2: of the world. You take the win. It was a
Speaker 2: huge success. So one of the first places I went
Speaker 2: as I followed this news very closely on Saturday over
Speaker 2: the weekend for analysis was our friend Mike Lyons, who
Speaker 2: were about to hear from and he presented two options
Speaker 2: yesterday on his Twitter thread. The first option was to
Speaker 2: take the win, as argued by John Kirby and others there,
Speaker 2: but the second option was this from Mike Lions and
Speaker 2: we're gonna ask him about it. Israel was attacked by
Speaker 2: another sovereign nation who violated the international airspace of other
Speaker 2: countries in an unprecedented attack of crews and ballistic missiles
Speaker 2: and a swarm of drones. This is an escalated and
Speaker 2: disproportional response to an attack Israel made against them. To
Speaker 2: restore at turns, Israel needs to attack the military and
Speaker 2: strategic targets, nuclear facilities to punish Iran. It's time for
Speaker 2: war and to finally eliminate this threat. I don't know
Speaker 2: which of these Mike advocates.
Speaker 3: That's what I want to find out.
Speaker 4: Let's find out. CNN military analyst Mike Lyons joins us
Speaker 4: from his automobile. I believe to discuss the fairly complex
Speaker 4: geopolitical questions before us. Mike, how are you, sir?
Speaker 3: Hey, good morning guys. Great to be back.
Speaker 2: And I'm not trying to pretend that this is an
Speaker 2: easy decision. But of the two scenarios you laid out
Speaker 2: to take the win or the one we just read,
Speaker 2: which are you actually behind?
Speaker 3: I think that you could take I don't want to
Speaker 3: tread the needle necessarily, but you could take a little
Speaker 3: bit of both. You could say was somewhat of a win,
Speaker 3: thank god. The fact that ninety nine percent of those
Speaker 3: rockets were fired and never made their target, and it
Speaker 3: does show a little bit of incompetence on Iran inside. However,
Speaker 3: the United States or anybody else, you have to respond militarily.
Speaker 3: This is a complete escalation here. The terrence has got
Speaker 3: to be restored, so Israel will respond. I was disappointed
Speaker 3: that the administration felt that they had to leap the
Speaker 3: information that said, hey, we're one hundred percent bind you,
Speaker 3: but guess what if you decide to go on the offense,
Speaker 3: We're not going to help you with that. So I
Speaker 3: you know, again clearly the Israeli much respond to this.
Speaker 3: It was nothing sort of a miracle that most of
Speaker 3: those rockets were fired out of the sky. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Putting aside the to my mind, shocking and disgusting passivity.
Speaker 4: It's almost beyond passivity. It's we won't do anything. Just
Speaker 4: trust us. We were doing anything off the table nature
Speaker 4: of the Biden administration. What did you make of the
Speaker 4: aid given to Israel will buy a number of countries
Speaker 4: around the region.
Speaker 3: I think it was terrific. Jordan in particular. Now, we
Speaker 3: always knew that Jordan's was going to align itself more
Speaker 3: with visuals that if they don't want to be public
Speaker 3: about that. Other NATO countries were obviously involved as well,
Speaker 3: and that was good, but you know, but now the
Speaker 3: gloves are off from an intel perspective, So now the
Speaker 3: Uranians also know what Jordan's capability is because this was
Speaker 3: an intel exercise besides just being a military exercise. They
Speaker 3: took notes on exactly what happened and how many interceptors
Speaker 3: were fired. And we were on the wrong side of
Speaker 3: this economic bell curve. We fired probably more missiles at
Speaker 3: them than they fired it up or at those rockets
Speaker 3: to take them down. And this from a sustainment perspective,
Speaker 3: can't keep going. What if what if the range decide
Speaker 3: to shoot another three hundred tomorrow or sneak a nuclear
Speaker 3: around in one of those things. So again, it was
Speaker 3: good to see other countries involved, and I think deep
Speaker 3: down there's a lot of moral support for what Israel
Speaker 3: is doing. It's just that they still can't go public
Speaker 3: with in that part of the world.
Speaker 2: So the reporting there was some reporting last night US
Speaker 2: officials saying they believe Iran's intent was a mass casualty event.
Speaker 2: As opposed to what I think a lot of us
Speaker 2: believed for some of the weekend that they like telegraph
Speaker 2: this so much with the idea that they would not
Speaker 2: be successful. They just had to show that they were,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to do this as a gesture, which
Speaker 2: do you think it was?
Speaker 3: Yes, I don't buy that. I think the analogy is,
Speaker 3: we're going to rob a bank. We're going to tell
Speaker 3: you we're going to rob the bank, so we want
Speaker 3: everybody to get in bulletproof vests. We're gonna come in,
Speaker 3: We're gonna shoot everybody up, but you'll have a bulletproof
Speaker 3: vest and you'll be okay as we try to commit
Speaker 3: this crime. I mean, that's the issue here. What they
Speaker 3: did was an active aggression against another country, whether they
Speaker 3: warned them or not, or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3: They didn't fire one missile or ten missiles. They fired
Speaker 3: three hundred. I mean the stope and scale of it
Speaker 3: was tremendous, and the measure of effective this can't be well,
Speaker 3: we just didn't kill anybody, we didn't hit anything. That
Speaker 3: just can't be it. All that really did was give
Speaker 3: the Israeli cabinet top time to now decide what their
Speaker 3: response will be, which again I do think will be
Speaker 3: covertly in the shadows. We'll have some level of military
Speaker 3: aspect to it. But if you're a nuclear scientist or
Speaker 3: a military official in Iran right now, you better have
Speaker 3: your head on a swivel because everyone is a target
Speaker 3: and that's how those targets are going to be inside Iran.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 4: Well, And it's worth keeping in mind that the Israelis
Speaker 4: respond when they desire. Might be by noon today, it
Speaker 4: might be in six weeks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I still we haven't seen cyber, we haven't
Speaker 3: seen other you know, kind of soft ways that they
Speaker 3: can respond. Uh. And who knows. We know that there's
Speaker 3: challenges inside of Iran already with that with their government,
Speaker 3: they have significant internal conflict of maintaining their own power.
Speaker 3: So from their perspective, this might be a last gesture
Speaker 3: in order to show that they're still control of their government.
Speaker 3: It would be great if something happened in there, you
Speaker 3: hat revolution again inside of Iran. I mean it would tip.
Speaker 3: It looks like it appears it would tip back towards
Speaker 3: at least some level of normalcy, let's say.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: But but for for what's happening right now. Israel is
Speaker 3: looking at Iron saying existential threat and nuclear facilities. I
Speaker 3: wouldn't be surprised if that was the target.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the story that broke late in the week
Speaker 2: last week before this attack that Israel was that Iran
Speaker 2: is so close once again to a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 3: And something to happen to because another thing could deliver it.
Speaker 3: And so from from that perspective, I mean, let's just
Speaker 3: say they can't go to North Korea and get a
Speaker 3: suitcase or get something and and launch it and put it,
Speaker 3: put it something and you know, kind of bring it
Speaker 3: together in order to make this attack on the next time,
Speaker 3: and that that has got to be what the concern is.
Speaker 3: So those are all in the realms of the possibilities.
Speaker 3: So that's when EMA Kirby systems like, let's take the
Speaker 3: w here this is. This is not a baseball game
Speaker 3: where we're going to play another game tomorrow. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is a long term strategic objective. But what I
Speaker 3: don't understand about this administration is it's very siloed in
Speaker 3: how it's dealing with the same issue. There were all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, we're now iron plaid against Iran, but
Speaker 3: we're really not sure about what's going on with the
Speaker 3: Moss and Southern guys that you Israel could do a
Speaker 3: little better job of what's going on there. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's the same enemy. It's the same enemy, and that's
Speaker 3: how Israel looks at it. It's one thing. For some reason,
Speaker 3: the two different research groups I have given the President
Speaker 3: or whoever the advice is not talking to each other
Speaker 3: because they think it's they're all separate, independent channels. It's
Speaker 3: the same thing. It's the same channel.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I never want to come off as some sort
Speaker 4: of hyperpartisan, you know, bomb chucker, but I'm just astonished
Speaker 4: by the ineffectiveness of the Biden foreign policy. It just
Speaker 4: it shocks me. I'm not quite sure what to make
Speaker 4: of it. Seeing in military analyst Mike Lions Mike, Hey,
Speaker 4: we sure appreciate you squeezing this and it's great to
Speaker 4: talk to you. Thanks for the insights.
Speaker 3: Thanks guys, thanks for having me and Getty