Speaker 1: People have just been told leave by any means possible.
Speaker 1: There are just over two million people in the Gaza strip.
Speaker 1: It is broken up into roughly too heavily populated areas,
Speaker 1: the north with Gaza City, and then in the south.
Speaker 1: And what Israel has done at han unis in the south,
Speaker 1: and what Israel has said, everyone should leave the north,
Speaker 1: evacuate Gaza City, evacuate an entire city of a million people,
Speaker 1: and get in their cars, get in donkey carts. And
Speaker 1: there are still donkey carts in use in Gaza, and
Speaker 1: move south, moved below the Wadi Gaza Valley.
Speaker 2: That's the biggest news overnight, Israel saying, hey, you in
Speaker 2: the north, move south. And I assume that means the
Speaker 2: ground war is about to start.
Speaker 3: Major Mike Clons served the United States military in a
Speaker 3: number of capacities around the world. He has now respected
Speaker 3: military analysts for CNN, among others. Mike's always a pleasure.
Speaker 4: How are you take one of guys great to be
Speaker 4: with you?
Speaker 3: So I think it goes without saying that the fighting
Speaker 3: in Gaza, when it does commence, is going to be
Speaker 3: difficult to watch and difficult to execute. What should we expect.
Speaker 4: Let's hope there's not a lot of video coming from it. Frankly,
Speaker 4: if they've shut down the Internet and everything coming, because
Speaker 4: it's going to be exactly that, you know, a concrete jungle.
Speaker 4: I'm still not quite sure this is as imminent as
Speaker 4: people think home because these defensive positions have been prepared.
Speaker 4: You know, this has been a wrong plan that they've
Speaker 4: had here, and I think Israel's going to still look
Speaker 4: to protect their force. That's going to be very important
Speaker 4: for them. So I don't know. You know, the thing is,
Speaker 4: you do you run all the traps on all the
Speaker 4: different courses of action that happen here, and is this
Speaker 4: the time that we're going to kind of change this
Speaker 4: cycle of what happens of war in the Middle East,
Speaker 4: And that is it's just gonna win. They're going to
Speaker 4: go in there and they're going to flatten things and
Speaker 4: level things, are gonna kill thousands of civilians, and at
Speaker 4: some point the West says enough's enough and Israel's forced
Speaker 4: to stop and Hamasco's you know, back to their holes,
Speaker 4: and then in the next three or four years they
Speaker 4: regroup and they do the same thing all over and
Speaker 4: over again. So I personally think though Israel's had enough,
Speaker 4: and I think you heard their chief of staff say
Speaker 4: it's time for war. So I think I don't think
Speaker 4: they're going to stop this time. I think there's a
Speaker 4: lot more things to go, and I think we're at
Speaker 4: the beginning of the beginning, so to speak.
Speaker 2: So in other words, you think Israel, even with lots
Speaker 2: of collateral damage, you said earlier this week, it's going
Speaker 2: to be the worst we've seen this century, probably with
Speaker 2: lots of collateral damage, they're just going to keep going
Speaker 2: until they've wiped out Homas. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And they're gonna they're gonna take over. Likely they're
Speaker 4: going to cut the Gods Strip in half and they're
Speaker 4: going to occupy the northern portion of it, and they'll
Speaker 4: set up another border between north and the northern port
Speaker 4: of Gaza and the southern portion. And I mean, look,
Speaker 4: we're the Arab nations helping these Palestinian refugees. Where are
Speaker 4: the Egypt has closed their border. They're pretty smart. We
Speaker 4: should be that smart close our border, right. They're not
Speaker 4: letting these people into their country, why because they know
Speaker 4: they would come in and disrupt what's going on there.
Speaker 4: No other Arab countries are taking these refugees. Israel needs
Speaker 4: an ally. They don't have anybody on the Arab side
Speaker 4: to do this. And here's the United States now, and
Speaker 4: I still look to the north. There's a Washington Post
Speaker 4: as an article that says the United States intelligence agencies
Speaker 4: thinks that are war and the North is unlikely, which
Speaker 4: is called for it's likely, right. I mean, those guys
Speaker 4: have not been very good at predicting what's actually going
Speaker 4: to happen. And if you're Hesbla, you're looking at Israel saying,
Speaker 4: you know, you guys are over stretched right now. If
Speaker 4: you're going to commit all these forces to the south,
Speaker 4: I got to think they're not going to put thre
Speaker 4: hundred forces to twe undred thousand soldiers down there. That
Speaker 4: just doesn't make any sense. But now now the time,
Speaker 4: Israel is vulnerable. So if it's time for war, HEAs
Speaker 4: block to say, you know what, let's go. Here we go.
Speaker 4: So they're marched to Tel Aviv from the north, and
Speaker 4: now it's Juel's got this two front war. So and
Speaker 4: then what's the US doing? Did the US then go
Speaker 4: after are we in? And now too are we going
Speaker 4: to start attacking from there? So there's so many tipping
Speaker 4: points still to happen here.
Speaker 3: Well, I have a quick observation, then a question on
Speaker 3: that tech I saw comparing contrast the gates. The security
Speaker 3: apparatus of the gate out of Gaza into Egypt contrasted
Speaker 3: with that into Israel, and the one into Egypt is
Speaker 3: much more secure and fortifying. The Egyptians are serious about
Speaker 3: not let adding hamask guys into their country, no matter
Speaker 3: what it takes. So as usual, the Arab world yells
Speaker 3: and beats their chest, then does nothing for the Palestinians.
Speaker 3: But I was going to observe that the Biden administration, Well,
Speaker 3: the United States military is moving various hardware from ships
Speaker 3: to planes much closer in the region. Is that merre
Speaker 3: gesturing Mike, or might we use that hardware?
Speaker 4: Well, the hardware is right now. It's going to be
Speaker 4: air support. We won't put troops on the ground. But
Speaker 4: you know we've got that Navy, the carrier group that's there.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of combat power that's there. I think
Speaker 4: that's what we would do if something does come from
Speaker 4: the north to protect Israel, and then does it open
Speaker 4: up an avenue to attack into Iran. I think you know,
Speaker 4: Israel is not going to let Iran get away with
Speaker 4: this anymore. I think they're going to go after their
Speaker 4: capability to manufacture oil and petroleum and drill, and then
Speaker 4: as well as they're going after those, their nuclear capabilities
Speaker 4: just a matter of time. They did it in the Rock,
Speaker 4: they hit it in Syria, and the second we think
Speaker 4: we've talked about, the second they know that they have
Speaker 4: that capability, they're going to go after it. I mean,
Speaker 4: and all these everything has been done in the past
Speaker 4: to kick the can down the road. I think the
Speaker 4: can is here now. I think this might happen. I
Speaker 4: think is right. I think we're ready to go.
Speaker 2: So given all that and where this is likely headed,
Speaker 2: why wouldn't now be the best time for China to
Speaker 2: move on Taiwan that's ever gonna come with us as
Speaker 2: involved as we are with supplying Ukraine, and we might
Speaker 2: actually be involved in this situation in the Middle least,
Speaker 2: and a senile old president my words, not yours.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it could be. It could be that as well.
Speaker 4: It depends on what they're looking at. I mean, they
Speaker 4: still want shipping lanes open, you know, they're they're they've
Speaker 4: got their own internal problems themselves, and all these countries
Speaker 4: now that are aggressive. Countries are making these calculated risks
Speaker 4: as to what they should do. I mean, like I said,
Speaker 4: Lebanon has blown the north of Chinese into i Wan.
Speaker 4: Russia already made their commitment last year. They thought it
Speaker 4: would be over by now. They thought they'd be you know,
Speaker 4: having coffee in Kiev by now. But that's just as
Speaker 4: it happened. So you know, these are the decisions that
Speaker 4: countries make when they go to war as an extension
Speaker 4: of foreign posts, right, because that's really what this is.
Speaker 4: When when Israel said we're going to war, everything's changed
Speaker 4: that you know, that means that that there's an extension
Speaker 4: of foreign policy. They can use their military or accomplish
Speaker 4: what they what they want to do. And then the
Speaker 4: Second World I think we talked about a siege. The
Speaker 4: word siege means pretty clear things. To a military guy,
Speaker 4: it means everything's going.
Speaker 3: Mike Lyon's military analyst on the line. Mike, back to
Speaker 3: the Middle East. What should we know about the capability
Speaker 3: of the hesbalav forces or Lebanon. Is the Lebanese government
Speaker 3: in bed with Hewela? Are they frenemies? How does that
Speaker 3: all work?
Speaker 4: Yes, they they've got more capability than Hamastas, more anti tank,
Speaker 4: more fighters, more experienced fighters. I think it potentially draws
Speaker 4: the Syrian military, whatever's left of that into this. I
Speaker 4: think the mask becomes a target. I think Asad is
Speaker 4: going to be targeted then too. It's back. It's literally
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy three, it's just fifty years later. Can't gets
Speaker 4: kicked down the road. I think that they've got more
Speaker 4: capability and that's why Israel cannot sleep. And I know
Speaker 4: there's somebody in the room there saying that to bebing
Speaker 4: Net and Yahoo. Is that if we're going to put
Speaker 4: one hundred thousand, if we're going to put one hundred
Speaker 4: thousand troops or two hundredousand troops in the south, we've
Speaker 4: got to put another couple of hundred thousand up north
Speaker 4: because that really could go fast and it would be
Speaker 4: the same, literally, the same thing that happened back in
Speaker 4: seventy three. They'd get to the goal and heights and
Speaker 4: then just because of poor military operations on the other side,
Speaker 4: they won. That wouldn't happen now. Hamas has got much
Speaker 4: better a military fighters, much more capability than was in
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 2: Do we have the ability to continue to supply Ukraine
Speaker 2: the way we are and promise Israel that their iron
Speaker 2: dome won't run short and all these different things. Can
Speaker 2: we do all that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's funny said two different weapons systems. Rather, the
Speaker 4: Ukraine military needs one five to five ammunition, which we've
Speaker 4: pretty much in the last year now increased our capacity
Speaker 4: to manufacture. That's still nuts to where they need it.
Speaker 4: We still aren't getting it from a lot of different places,
Speaker 4: but that's what they need. One five to five rounds.
Speaker 4: Israel is going to need small arms fire seven point
Speaker 4: sixty two rounds as well as the Tamiir rockets. Those
Speaker 4: are made by Raythion. Here they still have about thirty
Speaker 4: to thirty five thousand rockets inside of the Gaza Strip someplace.
Speaker 4: So that's what the military is going after right now.
Speaker 4: But they still have capacity. And here it is day
Speaker 4: six and Hamas is still firing rockets into Israel. It
Speaker 4: shows you they have capability and that so what Israel
Speaker 4: needs is those Tamio rockets.
Speaker 3: Mike Lyons. I think the quote of the interview Mike
Speaker 3: is we're at the beginning of the beginning, so we
Speaker 3: sure appreciate the thoughts and the perspective. Good to talk
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 4: Thanks guys, thanks for me every weekend. Armstrong and Getty