WEBVTT - Israel Will Respond: Mike Lyons Talks to A&G

0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:05.120
<v Speaker 1>This was an extraordinary military success. Not only is Israel's

0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:08.320
<v Speaker 1>military superiority, but that Israel's not alone, that the United

0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:12.559
<v Speaker 1>States actually he actually put the President put American fighter

0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.799
<v Speaker 1>jets in the air actively defending Israel in harm's way.

0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:19.440
<v Speaker 1>That goes a long way, and that sends a strong

0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:22.840
<v Speaker 1>message about where Israel is in the region versus where

0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.760
<v Speaker 1>Iran is in the region, which is increasingly oscillated now.

0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:28.360
<v Speaker 2>Was John Kirby on all the talk shows yesterday making

0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.040
<v Speaker 2>the argument for the White House that you take the win.

0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:33.440
<v Speaker 2>We just showed that the rest of the world is

0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:38.559
<v Speaker 2>so much better than Iran. They are embarrassed. They took

0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:40.720
<v Speaker 2>their best shot and they've been embarrassed by the rest

0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:42.199
<v Speaker 2>of the world. You take the win. It was a

0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.520
<v Speaker 2>huge success. So one of the first places I went

0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.279
<v Speaker 2>as I followed this news very closely on Saturday over

0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:50.559
<v Speaker 2>the weekend for analysis was our friend Mike Lyons, who

0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.960
<v Speaker 2>were about to hear from and he presented two options

0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.000
<v Speaker 2>yesterday on his Twitter thread. The first option was to

0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:01.000
<v Speaker 2>take the win, as argued by John Kirby and others there,

0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:02.920
<v Speaker 2>but the second option was this from Mike Lions and

0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.520
<v Speaker 2>we're gonna ask him about it. Israel was attacked by

0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:09.000
<v Speaker 2>another sovereign nation who violated the international airspace of other

0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:12.840
<v Speaker 2>countries in an unprecedented attack of crews and ballistic missiles

0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:15.800
<v Speaker 2>and a swarm of drones. This is an escalated and

0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:19.200
<v Speaker 2>disproportional response to an attack Israel made against them. To

0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.840
<v Speaker 2>restore at turns, Israel needs to attack the military and

0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.880
<v Speaker 2>strategic targets, nuclear facilities to punish Iran. It's time for

0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.000
<v Speaker 2>war and to finally eliminate this threat. I don't know

0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.000
<v Speaker 2>which of these Mike advocates.

0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:32.840
<v Speaker 3>That's what I want to find out.

0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.040
<v Speaker 4>Let's find out. CNN military analyst Mike Lyons joins us

0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:40.399
<v Speaker 4>from his automobile. I believe to discuss the fairly complex

0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:42.680
<v Speaker 4>geopolitical questions before us. Mike, how are you, sir?

0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:45.000
<v Speaker 3>Hey, good morning guys. Great to be back.

0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:46.679
<v Speaker 2>And I'm not trying to pretend that this is an

0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.680
<v Speaker 2>easy decision. But of the two scenarios you laid out

0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:51.360
<v Speaker 2>to take the win or the one we just read,

0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:53.120
<v Speaker 2>which are you actually behind?

0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:56.760
<v Speaker 3>I think that you could take I don't want to

0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:58.600
<v Speaker 3>tread the needle necessarily, but you could take a little

0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:00.840
<v Speaker 3>bit of both. You could say was somewhat of a win,

0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.520
<v Speaker 3>thank god. The fact that ninety nine percent of those

0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.400
<v Speaker 3>rockets were fired and never made their target, and it

0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:11.160
<v Speaker 3>does show a little bit of incompetence on Iran inside. However,

0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.680
<v Speaker 3>the United States or anybody else, you have to respond militarily.

0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.239
<v Speaker 3>This is a complete escalation here. The terrence has got

0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:22.560
<v Speaker 3>to be restored, so Israel will respond. I was disappointed

0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:24.960
<v Speaker 3>that the administration felt that they had to leap the

0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:27.480
<v Speaker 3>information that said, hey, we're one hundred percent bind you,

0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:29.440
<v Speaker 3>but guess what if you decide to go on the offense,

0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:31.799
<v Speaker 3>We're not going to help you with that. So I

0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:37.360
<v Speaker 3>you know, again clearly the Israeli much respond to this.

0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:39.440
<v Speaker 3>It was nothing sort of a miracle that most of

0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.360
<v Speaker 3>those rockets were fired out of the sky. Yeah.

0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:46.799
<v Speaker 4>Putting aside the to my mind, shocking and disgusting passivity.

0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:50.160
<v Speaker 4>It's almost beyond passivity. It's we won't do anything. Just

0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:54.000
<v Speaker 4>trust us. We were doing anything off the table nature

0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:57.240
<v Speaker 4>of the Biden administration. What did you make of the

0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.520
<v Speaker 4>aid given to Israel will buy a number of countries

0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:02.480
<v Speaker 4>around the region.

0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.280
<v Speaker 3>I think it was terrific. Jordan in particular. Now, we

0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:11.320
<v Speaker 3>always knew that Jordan's was going to align itself more

0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:12.919
<v Speaker 3>with visuals that if they don't want to be public

0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:16.080
<v Speaker 3>about that. Other NATO countries were obviously involved as well,

0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.200
<v Speaker 3>and that was good, but you know, but now the

0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.280
<v Speaker 3>gloves are off from an intel perspective, So now the

0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.120
<v Speaker 3>Uranians also know what Jordan's capability is because this was

0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.440
<v Speaker 3>an intel exercise besides just being a military exercise. They

0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.519
<v Speaker 3>took notes on exactly what happened and how many interceptors

0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:34.520
<v Speaker 3>were fired. And we were on the wrong side of

0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:38.200
<v Speaker 3>this economic bell curve. We fired probably more missiles at

0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:40.440
<v Speaker 3>them than they fired it up or at those rockets

0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.120
<v Speaker 3>to take them down. And this from a sustainment perspective,

0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.440
<v Speaker 3>can't keep going. What if what if the range decide

0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.440
<v Speaker 3>to shoot another three hundred tomorrow or sneak a nuclear

0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.480
<v Speaker 3>around in one of those things. So again, it was

0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:55.119
<v Speaker 3>good to see other countries involved, and I think deep

0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:58.040
<v Speaker 3>down there's a lot of moral support for what Israel

0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.520
<v Speaker 3>is doing. It's just that they still can't go public

0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:01.560
<v Speaker 3>with in that part of the world.

0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.440
<v Speaker 2>So the reporting there was some reporting last night US

0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.720
<v Speaker 2>officials saying they believe Iran's intent was a mass casualty event.

0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:11.040
<v Speaker 2>As opposed to what I think a lot of us

0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:15.000
<v Speaker 2>believed for some of the weekend that they like telegraph

0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:17.080
<v Speaker 2>this so much with the idea that they would not

0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:19.920
<v Speaker 2>be successful. They just had to show that they were,

0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.719
<v Speaker 2>you know, trying to do this as a gesture, which

0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:24.479
<v Speaker 2>do you think it was?

0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:27.599
<v Speaker 3>Yes, I don't buy that. I think the analogy is,

0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:29.480
<v Speaker 3>we're going to rob a bank. We're going to tell

0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:30.720
<v Speaker 3>you we're going to rob the bank, so we want

0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:32.720
<v Speaker 3>everybody to get in bulletproof vests. We're gonna come in,

0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:34.960
<v Speaker 3>We're gonna shoot everybody up, but you'll have a bulletproof

0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:37.320
<v Speaker 3>vest and you'll be okay as we try to commit

0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.159
<v Speaker 3>this crime. I mean, that's the issue here. What they

0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.479
<v Speaker 3>did was an active aggression against another country, whether they

0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:45.520
<v Speaker 3>warned them or not, or whatever the case may be.

0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.239
<v Speaker 3>They didn't fire one missile or ten missiles. They fired

0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.680
<v Speaker 3>three hundred. I mean the stope and scale of it

0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:56.120
<v Speaker 3>was tremendous, and the measure of effective this can't be well,

0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:58.000
<v Speaker 3>we just didn't kill anybody, we didn't hit anything. That

0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.800
<v Speaker 3>just can't be it. All that really did was give

0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.440
<v Speaker 3>the Israeli cabinet top time to now decide what their

0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:06.960
<v Speaker 3>response will be, which again I do think will be

0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:11.120
<v Speaker 3>covertly in the shadows. We'll have some level of military

0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:13.960
<v Speaker 3>aspect to it. But if you're a nuclear scientist or

0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.200
<v Speaker 3>a military official in Iran right now, you better have

0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:18.240
<v Speaker 3>your head on a swivel because everyone is a target

0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:20.320
<v Speaker 3>and that's how those targets are going to be inside Iran.

0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:21.279
<v Speaker 3>I wouldn't be surprised.

0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.200
<v Speaker 4>Well, And it's worth keeping in mind that the Israelis

0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.440
<v Speaker 4>respond when they desire. Might be by noon today, it

0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:29.760
<v Speaker 4>might be in six weeks.

0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:34.160
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and I still we haven't seen cyber, we haven't

0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.240
<v Speaker 3>seen other you know, kind of soft ways that they

0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.960
<v Speaker 3>can respond. Uh. And who knows. We know that there's

0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.560
<v Speaker 3>challenges inside of Iran already with that with their government,

0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:47.520
<v Speaker 3>they have significant internal conflict of maintaining their own power.

0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:50.600
<v Speaker 3>So from their perspective, this might be a last gesture

0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.080
<v Speaker 3>in order to show that they're still control of their government.

0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:56.120
<v Speaker 3>It would be great if something happened in there, you

0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.360
<v Speaker 3>hat revolution again inside of Iran. I mean it would tip.

0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:01.640
<v Speaker 3>It looks like it appears it would tip back towards

0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:05.279
<v Speaker 3>at least some level of normalcy, let's say.

0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:05.880
<v Speaker 2>Uh.

0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:08.920
<v Speaker 3>But but for for what's happening right now. Israel is

0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:12.080
<v Speaker 3>looking at Iron saying existential threat and nuclear facilities. I

0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:13.640
<v Speaker 3>wouldn't be surprised if that was the target.

0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's the story that broke late in the week

0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:20.080
<v Speaker 2>last week before this attack that Israel was that Iran

0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.640
<v Speaker 2>is so close once again to a nuclear weapon.

0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.560
<v Speaker 3>And something to happen to because another thing could deliver it.

0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.640
<v Speaker 3>And so from from that perspective, I mean, let's just

0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:31.400
<v Speaker 3>say they can't go to North Korea and get a

0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.919
<v Speaker 3>suitcase or get something and and launch it and put it,

0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:37.440
<v Speaker 3>put it something and you know, kind of bring it

0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.040
<v Speaker 3>together in order to make this attack on the next time,

0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:41.760
<v Speaker 3>and that that has got to be what the concern is.

0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.120
<v Speaker 3>So those are all in the realms of the possibilities.

0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.280
<v Speaker 3>So that's when EMA Kirby systems like, let's take the

0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.040
<v Speaker 3>w here this is. This is not a baseball game

0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.160
<v Speaker 3>where we're going to play another game tomorrow. I mean,

0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:54.880
<v Speaker 3>this is a long term strategic objective. But what I

0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.680
<v Speaker 3>don't understand about this administration is it's very siloed in

0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.760
<v Speaker 3>how it's dealing with the same issue. There were all

0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.200
<v Speaker 3>of a sudden, we're now iron plaid against Iran, but

0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:06.080
<v Speaker 3>we're really not sure about what's going on with the

0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.080
<v Speaker 3>Moss and Southern guys that you Israel could do a

0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:10.920
<v Speaker 3>little better job of what's going on there. I mean,

0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.440
<v Speaker 3>it's the same enemy. It's the same enemy, and that's

0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.280
<v Speaker 3>how Israel looks at it. It's one thing. For some reason,

0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:18.920
<v Speaker 3>the two different research groups I have given the President

0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.840
<v Speaker 3>or whoever the advice is not talking to each other

0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.560
<v Speaker 3>because they think it's they're all separate, independent channels. It's

0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:25.880
<v Speaker 3>the same thing. It's the same channel.

0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.920
<v Speaker 4>Yeah. I never want to come off as some sort

0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.720
<v Speaker 4>of hyperpartisan, you know, bomb chucker, but I'm just astonished

0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.960
<v Speaker 4>by the ineffectiveness of the Biden foreign policy. It just

0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:39.160
<v Speaker 4>it shocks me. I'm not quite sure what to make

0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.600
<v Speaker 4>of it. Seeing in military analyst Mike Lions Mike, Hey,

0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:44.800
<v Speaker 4>we sure appreciate you squeezing this and it's great to

0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:46.080
<v Speaker 4>talk to you. Thanks for the insights.

0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.720
<v Speaker 3>Thanks guys, thanks for having me and Getty