Speaker 1: On this episode of News World. On Friday, June thirteenth,
Speaker 1: Israel launched a surprise attack on dozens of targets inside Iran,
Speaker 1: including nuclear sites, and killed many of the Iranian military's
Speaker 1: top leaders. Israeli strikes have killed at least two hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty four people in Iran and injured hundreds more.
Speaker 1: On Monday, Iran struck back with a barrage of ballistic missiles,
Speaker 1: hitting several Israeli cities and killing at least twenty four people.
Speaker 1: But the question remains, will the United States joined the conflict?
Speaker 1: Here to discuss the Israeli Iranian conflict, I'm really pleased
Speaker 1: to welcome my guest, benham Ben Talablue, senior director of
Speaker 1: the Foundation for Defensive Democracies Iran program, which, whether it
Speaker 1: is something I pay constant attention to, the Foundation for
Speaker 1: Defensive Democracies is a remarkable institution. Ben, I'm welcome and
Speaker 1: thank you for joining me on news World.
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to be back with you, sir. Thank you.
Speaker 1: This is an amazing time that we're chatting. Can you
Speaker 1: help us understand the scale and significance of Israel's campaign
Speaker 1: and why it is different from past campaigns.
Speaker 2: Well, first and foremost, this is the longest ever. We're
Speaker 2: in day five right now of the overt Israeli Ron
Speaker 2: shooting war, but this is the longest ever campaign on
Speaker 2: Iranian territory since the nineteen seventy nine revolution that follows
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty eight Iran Iraq War
Speaker 2: that was actually the longest conventional war of the twentieth century.
Speaker 2: It's something that is often forgotten in history books. Since
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventy nine revolution, Iran has carried out a
Speaker 2: shadow war, a proxy war against Israel that really came
Speaker 2: to a head and the post October sevent mid least,
Speaker 2: when it crept out of the shadows twice, once in
Speaker 2: April and once in October with direct ballistic missile attacks
Speaker 2: from Iranian territory to Israeli territory, something we never saw
Speaker 2: even during the Cold War, meaning a non nuclear weapons
Speaker 2: state fire nuclear capable ballistic missiles at a nuclear weapons
Speaker 2: state and then lived to tell the tale. These attacks
Speaker 2: by Israel on June twelve, June thirteen were coordinated, they
Speaker 2: were synchronized. They took out the military brain trust of
Speaker 2: the Islamic Revolutionary guardcore the regime even in day five,
Speaker 2: if you asked me, is still phased, is still struggling
Speaker 2: to respond and Israel if we're looking at the military
Speaker 2: performance of this, and I'm happy to get the politics
Speaker 2: and the nuclear side as well, if we're looking at
Speaker 2: the military performance to this, they have taken the regime's
Speaker 2: greatest quantitative assets, it's ballistic missile arsenal, which is the
Speaker 2: largest in the entire Middle East, and quickly attriting it
Speaker 2: and cutting it such that the regime is facing a
Speaker 2: user lose problem as well as of course what to fire,
Speaker 2: because the Israelis have actually created a drone base on
Speaker 2: Iranian territory that is targeting Iranian ballistic missiles as soon
Speaker 2: as they pop up on their launchers before they can
Speaker 2: be fired. So it's turned the regime's quantitative advantage on
Speaker 2: its head, and the longer this conflict goes on, the
Speaker 2: million dollar question will increasingly become what role will Uncle
Speaker 2: Sam play? What role would the US play in all
Speaker 2: of this? And what role can the Iran people play
Speaker 2: in all of this?
Speaker 1: The Israeli campaign clearly had been planned for months and
Speaker 1: they'd thought it all through, and they have remarkable penetration
Speaker 1: of Iran. I've been watching a TV series you may
Speaker 1: have seen called Tehran, which is basically the Mozad operating
Speaker 1: literally inside Iranian territory with help from Iranians who are
Speaker 1: either opposed to the regime or for some other reason
Speaker 1: are willing to work with the Israelis. And apparently, if
Speaker 1: I understand it, one of the pieces of this campaign
Speaker 1: was that actually built the equivalent of a drone factory
Speaker 1: inside Tehran and launched drones from inside Tehran against various
Speaker 1: Iranians assets in a way which is almost like science fiction.
Speaker 2: Like science fiction but also part of the reality of
Speaker 2: I would really say the two decade chasm that we've
Speaker 2: seen between the state in Iran and the street in Iran,
Speaker 2: because let me tell you, sir I know you've mentioned
Speaker 2: this before, the people in Iran are no fans of
Speaker 2: the government in Iran. But also the people in Iran
Speaker 2: are quite patriotic, quite nationalist. I myself of the first
Speaker 2: generation American of the Iranian ancestry and born and raised
Speaker 2: here in the States. Sometimes it's quite obviously Iranians are
Speaker 2: among the most nationalistic of any peoples in the region.
Speaker 2: So one could say how would this happen in an
Speaker 2: exceptionally nationalist population where the conventional wisdom is that if
Speaker 2: there was an attack, they would always be a rally.
Speaker 2: And it is because of the chasm between the state
Speaker 2: and the street. It is because of the fact that
Speaker 2: the regime is Islamist and the people is nationalists, because
Speaker 2: the regime is old and the people are young, and
Speaker 2: these two things are like water and oil. And the
Speaker 2: Iranian people have been saying this loud and proud in
Speaker 2: their multiple iterations anti regime protest, even dating back in
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, when they said, not Gaza, not Lebanon,
Speaker 2: my life only before Iran. And you've seen Iranian policy
Speaker 2: go exactly one hundred and eighty degrees in the opposite direction,
Speaker 2: sacrificing the Iranian national interest and the public good and
Speaker 2: the health and welfare of the average Iranian on the
Speaker 2: altar of exporting the nineteen seventy nine revolution to the
Speaker 2: Eastern Mediterranean. I have to tell you there was a
Speaker 2: story in Axios this weekend that reminded me of something
Speaker 2: a actual former Iranian intelligence minister had said. It was
Speaker 2: an intelligence minister from the mid twenty tens who was
Speaker 2: saying this in twenty twenty one, and he was saying
Speaker 2: that the level of Mosad penetration in Iran is astronomical,
Speaker 2: And he was saying this in twenty twenty one, so
Speaker 2: imagine what it must be in twenty twenty five. And
Speaker 2: he essentially intonated that at that time, no regime official
Speaker 2: should sleep safely at night because of this level of penetration.
Speaker 2: And he actually blamed it, he himself a cleric, he
Speaker 2: himself an eye, he himself an intel minister. He blamed
Speaker 2: it on the regime's ideology and its warring factions, and
Speaker 2: it's creating of a state within the state, and just
Speaker 2: looking from the outside, the regime has been policing cyberspace,
Speaker 2: the regime has been policing hijabs. But the gross incompetence
Speaker 2: of the regime, coupled with the population's willingness to contest
Speaker 2: this regime at any cost, is exactly how, in my view,
Speaker 2: you get the Israelis to be able to build its
Speaker 2: own base right under the nose of the Ietolas.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about this because there's an argument apparently underway
Speaker 1: that the establishment, including the intelligence community, had given the
Speaker 1: Iranians pretty high level of capability, But there were analysts
Speaker 1: who deeply disagreed and said, look, this kind of a
Speaker 1: regime can't be very competent because it's not going to
Speaker 1: be able to reward merit, and it's not going to
Speaker 1: be able to promote people purely based on merit because
Speaker 1: it'll be so busy first of all, being corrupted financially
Speaker 1: and second worried about abs loyal to the Ayatola. And
Speaker 1: it does seem that in many ways, starting with a
Speaker 1: remarkable Israeli campaign in the spring where they gain total
Speaker 1: air dominance to an embarrassing degree for the Russians, prove
Speaker 1: that American technology was simply generations ahead of the Russian
Speaker 1: air defense systems. But if you come all the way
Speaker 1: through this, it does seem like there's a certain lacking
Speaker 1: level of just plane everyday competence in the Iranian system
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: Certainly, And if you're starting at a baseline negative number,
Speaker 2: once that negative number meets an exogenous shock like four
Speaker 2: point thirty in the morning, your entire military commanding heights,
Speaker 2: your entire strategic brain trust being killed in a missile attack,
Speaker 2: then you're going to be performing even worse. So it's
Speaker 2: going to take quite a bit of time to get
Speaker 2: out a hole. And that's what I mean when I
Speaker 2: say I think even in day five of this conflict,
Speaker 2: the regime itself is quite shattered. And you mentioned this
Speaker 2: ideological versus technical versus competency Paradigmond problem, and these things
Speaker 2: are found these warring with one another in various elements
Speaker 2: of the Iranian system, in the political establishment, in the
Speaker 2: military establishment, in the security services, even within the clergy.
Speaker 2: You see this tug of war between politics and competence,
Speaker 2: and this is a regime that actually rewards loyalty rather
Speaker 2: than that competence. There is a phrase in Persian. I'll
Speaker 2: say it came from the Cultural Revolution in the nineteen
Speaker 2: eighties when the Homaanists were purifying the universities and everything else.
Speaker 2: The phrase was takva not tavona, meaning righteousness not competence.
Speaker 2: They would reward righteousness, they would reward loyalty, and like
Speaker 2: any other authoritarian regime that is remotely afraid of anything military,
Speaker 2: they engage in coup proofing, just as next door neighbor
Speaker 2: former Saddam used to do. And this is a very
Speaker 2: toxic combination. If you are unpopular and you're also trying
Speaker 2: to literally fight technologically superior adversaries like the Israelis or
Speaker 2: even the Americans. So this was all a witches brew
Speaker 2: in my view.
Speaker 1: From that perspective, I've written several things arguing that the
Speaker 1: real goal has to be a regime change, not just
Speaker 1: taking out the nuclear system, because if they take out
Speaker 1: the nuclear system, but the regime says in charge, eventually
Speaker 1: they'll rebuild it. So if you're really serious about getting
Speaker 1: to a peaceful, long thirty forty to fifty year coexistence,
Speaker 1: you really have to find a way to break the
Speaker 1: entire system of the Mollah dictatorship. What would your take
Speaker 1: on that be.
Speaker 2: I think we have to have at this point in
Speaker 2: time the courage of our convictions to say that two
Speaker 2: words that are perhaps the fifth rail of politics in Washington, DC,
Speaker 2: which is regime change. As we speak, there's a huge
Speaker 2: Republican I don't want to say civil war, but a
Speaker 2: huge Republican internal struggle over the soul of the party,
Speaker 2: over what kind of Republican state craft we're going to
Speaker 2: see in the twenty first century. I think Donald Trump
Speaker 2: has done a good job balancing these two competing visions
Speaker 2: and value sets of isolationism versus internationalism. They're both organic
Speaker 2: in the American policy and body politique. But as it
Speaker 2: relates to Iran, there aren't many places in the Middleast,
Speaker 2: with the exception of Israel, where you can marry your
Speaker 2: head and your heart. And given that, politically, voters in
Speaker 2: this country have been voting to do less in the
Speaker 2: Middle East and not more. Since the Bush Too administration,
Speaker 2: every president has come in Obama, Trump bied in Trump
Speaker 2: again trying to actually deliver on that promises and getting
Speaker 2: stuck back in. I think the only real way you
Speaker 2: create the political space to do that and deal with
Speaker 2: great power competition is if you flip the script on
Speaker 2: the iatolas. Because there's no straight line in the world
Speaker 2: where you appease the ietolas and counter the CCP. You
Speaker 2: have to deal with the most urgent state threat there.
Speaker 1: Trump has been shifting. He's always said pretty clearly there
Speaker 1: cannot be an Iranian nuclear weapon. They did a lot
Speaker 1: of dances and met and all that stuff for sixty days,
Speaker 1: but the bottom line was always if we have a deal,
Speaker 1: it's going to mean no nuclear weapons. And now I
Speaker 1: noticed in the last few days he's moving towards basically
Speaker 1: saying to the Iranians, you know, it'd be very smart
Speaker 1: of you to surrender before you're annihilated, which is a
Speaker 1: pretty bleak direct statement. And my sense is that this
Speaker 1: growing awareness that the nuclear program was much bigger than
Speaker 1: we expected, the effort to build next generation ballistic missiles
Speaker 1: that would have been extraordinarily dangerous to Israel are much bigger,
Speaker 1: and I think for a lot of US, and I
Speaker 1: think for almost all israelis the pictures of Iranian missiles
Speaker 1: hitting Tehran and the simple thought what if one of
Speaker 1: them had had a nuclear warhead pretty much has hardened
Speaker 1: the line of both Israel and the Trump administration. At
Speaker 1: least that's my sense. That we're now into struggle that's
Speaker 1: probably not going to end with the Iatola still being
Speaker 1: in charge.
Speaker 2: I think we could go based on the very fast
Speaker 2: moving facts of the Crown, we could be going in
Speaker 2: that direction. I still think the President means what he
Speaker 2: says when he intonated ever since, even before entering office,
Speaker 2: when he was campaigning in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, that
Speaker 2: he quote buys bad deals and makes them into good deals,
Speaker 2: and that he tried to fix the Iran deal first,
Speaker 2: and that he spent some time trying to negotiate it
Speaker 2: now again in term two. I do think in that
Speaker 2: world the president may see is really military action and
Speaker 2: is really military prowess as actually a source of leverage.
Speaker 2: To tell comedy. Listen, I'm the only thing that is
Speaker 2: standing between you and certain death coming from these Raelies.
Speaker 2: So dismantle or die. Dismantle or watch your program be
Speaker 2: dismantled for you, or potentially even wash your regime be
Speaker 2: dismantled for you. I mean, this has great implications for
Speaker 2: the future of US foreign policy in the region, for sure,
Speaker 2: as well as for the future of the US Israel
Speaker 2: relationship based on how such a thing would be done.
Speaker 2: But I certainly see the President trying to maximize all
Speaker 2: of his options here, both on the diplomatic front, to
Speaker 2: drive an exceptionally hard bargain, to make the IE tool,
Speaker 2: to know that there is no way out but through.
Speaker 2: To basically get the second Supreme Leader of Iran to
Speaker 2: do what the first Supreme Leader of Iran did, which
Speaker 2: is to realize what he's losing, as Komeni did in
Speaker 2: the end of the Iran Iraq War, to drink the
Speaker 2: proverbial poison chalice, but Also, I think the president actually
Speaker 2: has to have what the forgive me the nine to
Speaker 2: eleven Commission report warned about, which is imagination, and we
Speaker 2: have to see this as an imagination issue. We have
Speaker 2: to dare to imagine a fundamentally different Iran that doesn't
Speaker 2: perpetually sucker the US in with a missile issue, woul
Speaker 2: drone issue, with terrorism issue, a nuclear issue, that we
Speaker 2: get to drive the conversation, and that fundamentally we will
Speaker 2: always be reacting to something so long as this regime
Speaker 2: is there and in power.
Speaker 1: I mean assumes to me. Well, Trump has not talked
Speaker 1: about regime change. The standard he's setting for an agreement
Speaker 1: is almost impossible for this regime to achieve. It's pretty
Speaker 1: clear that Trump is going to insist that they dismantle
Speaker 1: all of It seems to mean that for the regime,
Speaker 1: for the dictatorship, it may literally not be able to
Speaker 1: handle the stress of that agreement.
Speaker 2: That certainly is one view and is one reason why
Speaker 2: many believe that Hamine has rejected obviously the dismantlement's lingo,
Speaker 2: and it is also why he's held firm on something
Speaker 2: like uranium and richmond, which, by the way, Iran has
Speaker 2: not stopped doing for a single day since August two
Speaker 2: thousand and six. I mean, that's the thing that really
Speaker 2: got us into this crisis. Believe it or not, there
Speaker 2: was a time when Europe and Russia and China and
Speaker 2: America were passing multiple UN Security Council resolutions, all united
Speaker 2: in the belief that there should be no enrichment in
Speaker 2: the Islamic Republic of Iran, particularly so long as they
Speaker 2: were violating their safeguards agreements. But here we are nearly
Speaker 2: two decades later and facing literally the exact same problem.
Speaker 2: I think that is one theory, and another is that
Speaker 2: I think you can get the Iatolas who fundamentally love
Speaker 2: life more than you and me. You know, there's this
Speaker 2: picture even among some of our friends, more republican or
Speaker 2: more hawkish foreign policy circles, that see things through the
Speaker 2: prism of ideology. And absolutely you have to understand the
Speaker 2: revolutionary and Islamist and authoritarian ideology of Iran's clerics. It's
Speaker 2: Islamism and Marxism and third Worldism and all of those dangerousisms.
Speaker 2: But we shouldn't be ideological about ideology. And what I
Speaker 2: mean by that is, if you speak to people who've
Speaker 2: come from Iran. More recently, you will see that a cleric,
Speaker 2: a theocrat is actually one of the most corrupt, opportunistic
Speaker 2: peoplelog and ends as well as a means to an
Speaker 2: end for those types of people. And I think in
Speaker 2: that kind of world, if they are really put to
Speaker 2: the choice, if Trump really grabs their jugular, maximum pressure,
Speaker 2: could work, could deliver. You have to put the adversary
Speaker 2: in the position to have to make a mistake, to
Speaker 2: drive them to choose between again their economy or the bomb,
Speaker 2: or a dismantling or dying, to make it a lose
Speaker 2: lose no matter what. And the art of the deal
Speaker 2: is constantly making your adversary settle for the least bad
Speaker 2: option with as little cost to you as possible. So
Speaker 2: I think there was potential there for that. But nonetheless,
Speaker 2: we are where we are now, and I think Trump's
Speaker 2: leverage has significantly increased, but less we forget, ideology is
Speaker 2: still powerful. There is a world in which the regime
Speaker 2: does not want to take the Nathan Donald Trump, even
Speaker 2: though technically they already have because for seven years they
Speaker 2: said no negotiations with Trump, and then spring twenty twenty five, Okay,
Speaker 2: we'll negotiate with Trump so long as it's indirect.
Speaker 1: And now, of course they're saying, you know, we'll be
Speaker 1: glad to igo share with Trump if it was just
Speaker 1: get as well as to stay up. Suddenly he's becoming
Speaker 1: more desirable by comparison. One of the things I was
Speaker 1: struck with, and I know you must have seen the
Speaker 1: same thing, was the video of the Israelis hitting the
Speaker 1: Iranian state broadcasting system. You may know since you speak
Speaker 1: Farsi what she was saying at that moment, but had
Speaker 1: a little bit of a throwback to Bagdad Bob, you know,
Speaker 1: we can hang tough. This is not that bad. And
Speaker 1: suddenly the studio gets bombed. Did you think that had
Speaker 1: any significance? And do you think that it sent any
Speaker 1: signal to the Iranian people about what was going on?
Speaker 2: It absolutely had immense significance, both technical and political, because
Speaker 2: this is a TV station that is the state broadcasting
Speaker 2: arm of the government of the Islamic Republic that brings
Speaker 2: the regimes, views, values, and interest onto the TV screens
Speaker 2: and multimedia of Iranian citizen v This is a TV
Speaker 2: station I think was sanctioned under the Obama administration, if
Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken, So way back in the day. It
Speaker 2: coordinates with the Ministry of Intelligence and Islamic Revolutionary Guard corp.
Speaker 2: It airs tortured and false confessions of everybody, from Iranian
Speaker 2: reformists to regular citizens to even dual nationals. It's parated.
Speaker 2: It really is spewing the invected and is synonymous with
Speaker 2: that kind of corrupt revolutionary resistance ideology. And you are right,
Speaker 2: if memory serves me correct. She was going on the presenter,
Speaker 2: I think, was going on a ti rate about resistance
Speaker 2: in America and then had to obviously flee the scene
Speaker 2: because of the strike. But there's also an equally chilling,
Speaker 2: powerful video from a little bit later on of that
Speaker 2: strike that was also making its way around on Persian
Speaker 2: social media. And it was from a distance seeing that building.
Speaker 2: It's the Irib Islamic Republic of Iran broadcasting. It was
Speaker 2: that building in Tehran viewed from a distance, potentially from
Speaker 2: a camera or drone, who knows, with the call to
Speaker 2: prayer in the background, and the entire edifice of this
Speaker 2: one building, nothing else but just this one building burning
Speaker 2: and with black smoke rising. And that is the kind
Speaker 2: of stuff that in the medium term, not right now,
Speaker 2: because bombs are still falling, and Iranian citizens, regardless of
Speaker 2: their political orientation, are all in survival mode, particularly the
Speaker 2: nearly ten million that live in the capital Tehran. But nonetheless,
Speaker 2: this is the stuff that can stiffen the spine of
Speaker 2: anti regime Iranians. And you know, if I had one
Speaker 2: second to advertise to the Israelis, you know I'm not
Speaker 2: here in the strike world. I still think there was
Speaker 2: room for a lot more maximum pressure. But the Israelis
Speaker 2: need to be translating these targets, emotionally, translating these targets
Speaker 2: for the Iranian audience. Why is it important that the
Speaker 2: Israelis have struck Irib? Why is it important that these
Speaker 2: rallies have struck the commander of the Aerospace Force. It's
Speaker 2: not just because this guy had his finger on the
Speaker 2: trigger of the missiles going to Israel. It's because that
Speaker 2: guy in January twenty twenty fired on a civilian airlinerer
Speaker 2: killing over one hundred and seventy innocent people. Israel is
Speaker 2: also dismantling the apparatus of repression, and that's why this
Speaker 2: strike on Irib the television is very politically and technically
Speaker 2: significant in my view.
Speaker 1: To take a point view reference. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: the US to part of the treasure this is under
Speaker 1: Biden released the press really saying they're designating the IRIB
Speaker 1: in its subsidiaries not as objective media outlets, but rather
Speaker 1: as a critical tool in the Iranian government's mass suppression
Speaker 1: and censorship campaign against its own people. They went on
Speaker 1: to say IRIB has produced and recently broadcast televised interviews
Speaker 1: of individuals being forced to confess that their relatives were
Speaker 1: not killed by Iranian authorities during nationwide protests, but died
Speaker 1: due to accidental, unrelated causes. And I assume that related
Speaker 1: back to about two years ago when they killed five
Speaker 1: hundred people for being part of an effect demonstrations exactly.
Speaker 2: It was the post twenty twenty two to twenty three
Speaker 2: women life freedom movement that was triggered by the killing
Speaker 2: of an innocent girl in Tehron who was twenty two
Speaker 2: years old, was Massa Gina Amini for not properly wearing
Speaker 2: her her job. She was beaten by security forces and
Speaker 2: then sustained major mortal wounds that led to her death
Speaker 2: just a few days later in a hospital in Tehran.
Speaker 2: Actually separated from her family and protests began that fall
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two and mushroomed into the biggest ever anti
Speaker 2: regime protests we saw since the nineteen seventy nine revolution.
Speaker 1: This is a regime where a young lady who didn't
Speaker 1: totally cover her hair, if I'm mon correctly, she had it,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't totally covered somehow infuriated the guards and
Speaker 1: they beat her to death, and then that led to
Speaker 1: a huge public outrage, which they then suppressed, I think
Speaker 1: with about five thousand arrests and five hundred killings.
Speaker 2: And they followed that. There was a less advertised story,
Speaker 2: but we actually had FTD. We created a tracker of
Speaker 2: it because living and working in Washington, there's plenty of
Speaker 2: NGOs talk about women's rights and human's rights. We noticed
Speaker 2: there was a whole string of attacks on young schoolgirls,
Speaker 2: almost something out of the playbook of the Taliban, but
Speaker 2: by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And
Speaker 2: they were basically chemical attacks, causing tons of basically young
Speaker 2: teenage and preteen girls who are going to school to
Speaker 2: get sick. And this, in our view, was a direct campaign,
Speaker 2: a state campaign against the next generation of Iran's best
Speaker 2: and brightest female youth, and this I think was some
Speaker 2: crazy deterrent basically WMD use by the state against society
Speaker 2: to instill fear. So yes, they married that campaign of
Speaker 2: killing and arrest and detention with this CW campaign as well,
Speaker 2: which is really horrifying.
Speaker 1: This is one of those rare regimes. They're not quite
Speaker 1: as bad as the Syrians we used to be, but
Speaker 1: they're very close. This is one of the worst regimes
Speaker 1: in the world in terms of how it oppresses its
Speaker 1: own people well at the same time threatening off of
Speaker 1: its neighbors. Now I've noticed this with Hamas and Hezbollah
Speaker 1: and now with the Iranians, that the Israelis really focused
Speaker 1: on taking out the leadership and seem to have an
Speaker 1: amazing level of intelligence about where they're going to be.
Speaker 1: They wiped out, I think virtually all the Hesbalal leadership
Speaker 1: in one meeting. They wiped out virtually all of the
Speaker 1: Iranian Air Force leadership and one meeting. I mean, how
Speaker 1: do they do all that?
Speaker 2: They did all that, I think through a combination of
Speaker 2: I'm no espionage scholar, but through a combination based on
Speaker 2: what's been reported, through a combination of human intel and
Speaker 2: assumedly signals, intel, so tech and human sources, probably being
Speaker 2: able to follow some folks around, being able to tap
Speaker 2: into the electronic systems. And again, these are the folks
Speaker 2: that are at the commanding heights of the Islamic republics,
Speaker 2: political and military establishments. As we mentioned earlier, these are
Speaker 2: folks who are not necessarily promoted for their capability. They're
Speaker 2: promoted and rewarded for their loyalty. There's a couple exceptions
Speaker 2: here too, very lethal, very nasty individuals, but also very
Speaker 2: very capable and competent, and I always do fear a
Speaker 2: very competent adversary. I think the Commander of the Aerospace
Speaker 2: Force Hodgizada and the Armed Forces General Staff Bobbery. These
Speaker 2: were people known to Iran watchers to be a little
Speaker 2: bit unlike their colleagues, were actually technically and politically savvy,
Speaker 2: not that much evidence of financial or political corruption, but
Speaker 2: real true believers and a capable, ideological but lethal adversary. Nonetheless,
Speaker 2: they still were obviously able to be surveilled, and the
Speaker 2: Israelies went after them to induce this surprise effect, to
Speaker 2: induce this shock that when you saw the reporting about
Speaker 2: all of these IRGC folks in one place or all
Speaker 2: of these nuclear scientists too, which is a separate story
Speaker 2: targeted in Tehron at the same time. I think it
Speaker 2: was four thirty in the morning, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2: It was very reminiscent of what we all watched on
Speaker 2: the news back in September twenty twenty four with the
Speaker 2: Pajer gate and the Deeper gate in Lebanon, and that
Speaker 2: just goes to show you how effective the intelligence arem
Speaker 2: of Israelis and how critical intelligence is to even a
Speaker 2: conventional war fighting campaign.
Speaker 1: So the Israelis hit them and I think pretty powerful
Speaker 1: initial round, but the Iranians do fire back. The Israelis.
Speaker 1: I'm actually a little surprised because they've been faring its
Speaker 1: civilians when I would have thought they'd have been much
Speaker 1: better off to try to hit the airfields. I mean,
Speaker 1: if they could slow down the tempo of the Israeli
Speaker 1: Air Force, and the best way to do that is
Speaker 1: to kill the planes on the ground. But they're going
Speaker 1: for Tel Aviv for Haifa. What do you think is
Speaker 1: their rationale for basically doing area bombardment that has almost
Speaker 1: no strategic effect but just causes pain.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that is the intention to cause pain.
Speaker 2: But also on day one, I think on Friday, the
Speaker 2: regime's first ballistic missile wave that followed the first rone
Speaker 2: wave essentially did try to go after some air bases.
Speaker 2: But even in the Persian press, which hyperbolizes a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff, they ended up saying that the following waves
Speaker 2: were essentially all targeting population centers, and they mentioned Haipha,
Speaker 2: they mentioned Tel Aviv, and they mentioned a couple of
Speaker 2: other suburbs, particularly round ut Gun for example, But they
Speaker 2: mentioned that this was basically targeting cities. Occasionally, IRGC leadership
Speaker 2: and what is left of the military leadership or who
Speaker 2: became the new military leadership would say, oh, please leave
Speaker 2: these cities. But ultimately the regime was trying to break
Speaker 2: the will of these Raelis to fight, and also to
Speaker 2: break the will of these rallies to actually stay in Israel.
Speaker 2: I mean, these are folks who don't believe in Zionism.
Speaker 2: They don't actually believe that Israelis are Israeli. They believe
Speaker 2: you need to scratch them. They're probably European or South
Speaker 2: American or Arab or something else. So they're also trying
Speaker 2: to induce strategically in the long term, the same kind
Speaker 2: of shock waves that they hoped that their proxy would
Speaker 2: have set off back on October seven, which is to
Speaker 2: land a blow on Israeli society and foster reverse immigration
Speaker 2: away from it. I mean that is a bit longer term,
Speaker 2: but they were trying to draw blood and specializing in
Speaker 2: Iran's long range strike capabilities. I got to tell you,
Speaker 2: the regime does believe like you talked about mass, the
Speaker 2: regime does believe that quantity has a quality of its own.
Speaker 2: But these are qualitatively more impactful systems than we've seen
Speaker 2: in the past. Yes, less have made it through, but
Speaker 2: that is just because of how well layered Israel's air
Speaker 2: and missile defenses. But there are apartments, city blocks, tons
Speaker 2: of civilian centers. This is a massive counter value campaign
Speaker 2: that the Islamic Republic of Iran has engaged, and it
Speaker 2: really should be further exposed and shed light on one day.
Speaker 2: But the regime was trying to get even and draw
Speaker 2: blood and also to try to erode the will of
Speaker 2: these Raelies to continue their military campaign. Because the Israeli
Speaker 2: military campaign is focused on basically defanging Iran's long range threat,
Speaker 2: going after the missiles, the drones, but also the launchers
Speaker 2: and the support infrastructure.
Speaker 1: When you look at all the the as well as
Speaker 1: are gaining, but they have not delivered a knockout punch.
Speaker 1: The Iranians are less and less capable, but they're still
Speaker 1: hanging in. How vital do you think it is for
Speaker 1: the US to use its very very large bombs against
Speaker 1: the Fodo Nuclear Site facility? Or do you think it's
Speaker 1: possible that by just continuing to erode the regime, at
Speaker 1: some point the aswel As could force the Iranians to
Speaker 1: actually dismantle it themselves.
Speaker 2: I don't think alone the Israelies will force them to
Speaker 2: dismantle it themselves, but I do think alone these rallies
Speaker 2: will be dismantling large chunks of it themselves. It depends
Speaker 2: on what the priorities are for these relies in their
Speaker 2: targeting campaign. To keep going after bases, to go after
Speaker 2: future supply lines, to go after the existing arsenal, to
Speaker 2: go after elements of the shorter range arsenal. There's a
Speaker 2: whole host of military variables for these rallies. And just
Speaker 2: because these Raelies don't have the B two bomber or
Speaker 2: the thirty thousand pound massive ordinance penetrator, bunkerbuster bombs doesn't
Speaker 2: in my view, mean that they can't do other damage.
Speaker 2: Perhaps they could bring in special forces, some kind of
Speaker 2: above ground below ground team, or they could train to
Speaker 2: hit the same spot. Given that they've taken out the
Speaker 2: air defenses and they have more freedom of maneuver and
Speaker 2: operation in Iran, they could train to drop their own
Speaker 2: more limited bunker busters, like the two thousand pound bombs
Speaker 2: in the same spot and try to have them burrow
Speaker 2: deeper and deeper. You can also disable some of these
Speaker 2: facilities by going after their support infrastructure, airways, shafts, vans
Speaker 2: and even electricity. You can cripple it that way as well.
Speaker 2: But there's no doubt if you're talking about a knockout
Speaker 2: punch that is much more likely going to have to
Speaker 2: come in my view from Uncle Sam, if you're going
Speaker 2: to quite literally try to collapse the architecture of this
Speaker 2: four door facility, which is about three hundred feet underground.
Speaker 1: A couple of years ago there was an amazing Israeli
Speaker 1: Special Forces rate in Syria where they took out a
Speaker 1: Raneum nuclear facility that they were building in Syria. I mean,
Speaker 1: they went in very precisely, did the job and got
Speaker 1: back out with no casualties. Do you think that fordoh
Speaker 1: is too far inside Iran and just physically too big
Speaker 1: to have that kind of a commando approach.
Speaker 2: With the surprises these relies have had up their sleeves
Speaker 2: in the past few years, you can really never say never.
Speaker 2: But if these rallies have this aerial overmatch or superiority
Speaker 2: we should say, against the Iranians, and they can translate
Speaker 2: that into a few more pockets in the land, there's
Speaker 2: a heck of a lot more they can do that
Speaker 2: could allow them to basically bring in through an uncontested
Speaker 2: air corps door across them add least special forces to
Speaker 2: do this. Oh And by the way, a dividend of
Speaker 2: this is if these rallies are trying to much more
Speaker 2: narrowly tailor their campaign, there would be no civilian casualties
Speaker 2: in this sort of scenario, would be more of a
Speaker 2: one and done situation. So if you create the military space,
Speaker 2: this could become a political option. Conversely, you mentioned how
Speaker 2: else America might get involved. I still do there's a
Speaker 2: chance that America might try to leverage Israel's increasing military
Speaker 2: successes into trying to get Combina to accept this dismantle
Speaker 2: or die paradigm. And the reason I'm mentioning that while
Speaker 2: you're asking me about four Dough is because right now
Speaker 2: we don't know what's going on at four Dough. I mean,
Speaker 2: I've been in a lot of wargames. They've usually had
Speaker 2: me to roleplay the Iranian side. Whenever my side is hit,
Speaker 2: I try to squirrel away as much uranium as possible.
Speaker 2: So we don't know enough about diversion god forbid, potentially
Speaker 2: happening there. And we don't know if the machines that
Speaker 2: were already spinning and thus far are still stable and
Speaker 2: assumed to be spinning in four Dough, which has been
Speaker 2: hit by these Raelies but not penetrated. We don't know
Speaker 2: if the machines that used to be producing sixty percent,
Speaker 2: which is a hop, skip and a jump to weapons grade,
Speaker 2: just made that final hop, skip and a jump and
Speaker 2: went to ninety percent. And that's a huge intelligence question.
Speaker 2: And no matter the military successes these Raelis have against
Speaker 2: the rest of Iran's missile and military infrastructure, if they
Speaker 2: get the counter proliferation element of this larger campaign wrong,
Speaker 2: there will be more issues, shall we say politely, to
Speaker 2: have to deal with do.
Speaker 1: You have any sense of whether the regular military has
Speaker 1: been particularly degraded. And what I'm thinking of is, if
Speaker 1: you have absolute air superiority, you can bring in with
Speaker 1: see you one thirties a pretty large number of troops
Speaker 1: who could in fact occupy and take over fourdo and
Speaker 1: methodically destroy it. And the question will be how rapidly
Speaker 1: and how coherently the Iranian military would be capable of responding,
Speaker 1: even in their own country, given the fact that they're
Speaker 1: now operating under complete Israeli air supriority.
Speaker 2: Well, given that we'd be talking about the conventional military,
Speaker 2: which is larger than the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps but
Speaker 2: really under serviced and underfunded, there's certainly the chance that
Speaker 2: they would have to engage them, because they would probably
Speaker 2: have to defend either the airfield or the base or
Speaker 2: whatever facility these reelis which try to come at or
Speaker 2: drive at, or fly or land at, So there probably would,
Speaker 2: in my view, be a firefight. How significant it would
Speaker 2: be is really more of a crystal ball question at
Speaker 2: this point in time. But I think if the military
Speaker 2: successes these really have elsewhere are high and the messaging
Speaker 2: is good, this could be really more of a lay
Speaker 2: down your arms. We have no qualms with the people
Speaker 2: who are trying to protect their country. But if you fight,
Speaker 2: you're not trying to protect your country, You're trying to
Speaker 2: protect the Iatola's nuclear enterprise. And there is public diplomacy,
Speaker 2: public messaging space both for Israel and America to exploit there.
Speaker 2: Because one way we can prevent this from being a
Speaker 2: civil war is if you do get some of the
Speaker 2: security services to flip right.
Speaker 1: Min you could end up in Assyrian civil war kind
Speaker 1: of problem where you have two or three or more
Speaker 1: factions fighting for control. Let me ask one last thing
Speaker 1: about all this are ware to point where we really
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to profoundly reshape the region by eliminating
Speaker 1: the primary sponsor of terrorism or is that an overreach?
Speaker 1: With where we.
Speaker 2: Are, I think we're getting closer towards the first opportunity
Speaker 2: to get rid of that state sponsor of terrorism. But
Speaker 2: that requires again, so many politicians to have the courage
Speaker 2: of their convictions. There's so many easy punts. Unfortunately, I
Speaker 2: see across the Atlantic in the West trying to say no,
Speaker 2: regime change is only local. We can't have anything foreign imposed.
Speaker 2: No one is asking for anything foreign imposed, and I'm
Speaker 2: not here to beg for charity or whatever on Americans.
Speaker 2: It is in first and foremost and only, by the way,
Speaker 2: but foreign policy is not missionary work. That's the Henry
Speaker 2: Kissinger couoth that I really loved. By the way, but
Speaker 2: if you have the opportunity to deal your adversary a
Speaker 2: blow and then also do good by your own ideology,
Speaker 2: and then to bring into power someone who also shares
Speaker 2: your ideology, and then you have the luxury of living
Speaker 2: up to your style of government, which is all about
Speaker 2: representative government, and you realize there's a people over there
Speaker 2: who for one hundred years have been trying to have
Speaker 2: representative government. This isn't imposed, this is foreign supported, and
Speaker 2: that is why Iran is not Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. That's
Speaker 2: my view of it. But I understand absolutely there's a
Speaker 2: million and one things that can go wrong. There's a
Speaker 2: million one issues opposition wise, there's a million one issues
Speaker 2: in terms of resource scarcity and political capital and attention.
Speaker 2: I understand all of those things, but I also understand
Speaker 2: that we do have to finally find a way to
Speaker 2: flip the script on the iatolas, because it would be
Speaker 2: in my view strategic, political, and moral malpractice to decapitate
Speaker 2: the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism and leave an
Speaker 2: eighty six eighty eight million person nation smoldering as a
Speaker 2: failed state, and that would risk losing one of the
Speaker 2: things that Iran is that really nowhere else in the
Speaker 2: region is which is both pro American and pro Israeli,
Speaker 2: and that's an asset that the US and particularly is
Speaker 2: Real cannot afford to lose.
Speaker 1: My guess is, if we had a stable government willing
Speaker 1: to work with the rest of the world, that the number,
Speaker 1: for example, of stunningly successful Iranian Americans who would have
Speaker 1: an interest in helping rebuild the country they came from
Speaker 1: would represent a source of both entrepreneurial knowledge and sheer
Speaker 1: capital That would be breathtaking because the diast was pretty
Speaker 1: big and pretty prosperous, and if they had a place
Speaker 1: where they were safe and they were welcomed, we could
Speaker 1: have a pretty prosperous Iran within ten years. Amen, listen, ben,
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for joining me. We are
Speaker 1: going through wild times. Do we have to call on
Speaker 1: you again in the not too distant future just because
Speaker 1: of all the changes our listeners can learn more about
Speaker 1: your work that Foundation for Defensive Democracies by visiting your
Speaker 1: website at FDD dot org. And I really want to
Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time in the middle of
Speaker 1: all of these activities.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, sir. It's a pleasure and looking
Speaker 2: forward to continuing the conversation with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you to my guests, Benham, Ben Talablue. You can
Speaker 1: learn more about the Foundation for Defensive Democracies on our
Speaker 1: show page at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by
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Speaker 1: Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show
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