Speaker 1: Israel's response, and there should be a response should not
Speaker 1: be proportionate. It should be far stronger, because when the
Speaker 1: turns fails to re establish it, you have to teach
Speaker 1: the adversary that any gain they may hope to get
Speaker 1: by any future attack will be more than outweighed by
Speaker 1: the damage that will be caused.
Speaker 2: Oh you recognize that voice, perhaps as John Bolton, who's
Speaker 2: one of the hockiest of the hawks out there, former
Speaker 2: Trump administration dude. All the way he hates Trump. He says,
Speaker 2: we get Israel has to hit back hard at Iran,
Speaker 2: and the administration has made it very clear they're the
Speaker 2: exact opposite. You take the win, and if you try
Speaker 2: to hit back, WI ain't going to help you.
Speaker 3: For those who are busy watching the Masters or other fare,
Speaker 3: over the weekend, Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles
Speaker 3: at Israel. The vast, vast majority of them intercepted and
Speaker 3: did very little damage. But what comes next? Doctor Jeff mccauslin,
Speaker 3: CBS News military consultant joins us now to discuss.
Speaker 2: Jeff.
Speaker 3: It's always a pleasure. How are you.
Speaker 4: I'm doing very well and great with you guys.
Speaker 2: Well, let's just start with the witch of those two approaches.
Speaker 2: Do you like the Bolton approach or the Biden approach?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm kind of leaning towards the Biden proach quite
Speaker 4: frankly at this take your moment. I mean, one has
Speaker 4: to talk about using military force to what end. Mister Bolton,
Speaker 4: who has known for a long time when had encounters
Speaker 4: with it, has been a very hard and very conservative,
Speaker 4: very hawkish kind of guy, as you described, and he's right.
Speaker 4: You could argue that by doing a massive response this
Speaker 4: serves to enhance the terrence for future and perhaps prevent
Speaker 4: future war. You can make that particular argument, but this
Speaker 4: will in this case, I would argue, Israel's got a
Speaker 4: lot of war right now to take care of, and
Speaker 4: so expanding this and going into another major conflict with
Speaker 4: Iran might not be the most appropriate thing to happen
Speaker 4: at the moment. You know, you do deterrence, as he
Speaker 4: talked about, through punishment, That's what he's just striving. He
Speaker 4: also did do deterrence through denial, and that's exactly what
Speaker 4: the Israelis did, in which they really, in some ways,
Speaker 4: I would say, made the Iranians look strategically kind of foolish.
Speaker 4: When you fire three hundred drones, cruise missiles and ballistic
Speaker 4: missiles and only a handful actually hit target, ninety nine
Speaker 4: percent are destroyed, and then reality, Okay, we fired seven
Speaker 4: missiles at a target in Damascus, they all hit target.
Speaker 4: They killed an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general officer whose deputy
Speaker 4: and several others, and your effort of three hundred weapons
Speaker 4: managed so far to kill one Palestinian girl. Might we
Speaker 4: want to focus our attention on the war in Gaza?
Speaker 4: Might we want to use this as an effort to
Speaker 4: diplomatically isolate Iran even further and perhaps recruits some of
Speaker 4: the loss we've had in the world community. Might we
Speaker 4: actually want to use this as a leverage to encourage
Speaker 4: the United States to move forward as quickly as possible
Speaker 4: in providing US additional military aid. I think that might
Speaker 4: be a better tack for the moment for the Israeli.
Speaker 3: Government, Jeff. I think if you assume that Iran has
Speaker 3: made its move, and this was the move, then I
Speaker 3: can see that point of view a little more clearly.
Speaker 3: But I've heard it suggested by some that this was
Speaker 3: something of a test of Israeli air defenses. It's a
Speaker 3: dry run address rehearsal if you will, and that a
Speaker 3: multi front attack could be coming, and that's why you
Speaker 3: wanted might want to exact a price from the Iranians
Speaker 3: and let them know if we go tit for tat,
Speaker 3: we're going to make every single level of this too
Speaker 3: expensive for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, And you can certainly make that argument, but concerned
Speaker 4: I would have with all the conflicts. If all these
Speaker 4: other conflicts weren't ongoing, then that argument might become much
Speaker 4: more persuasive. Your military forces are heavily engaged with the
Speaker 4: about five fronts right now, you have a front and
Speaker 4: gos I. You're facing a major offensive military operation Rofit.
Speaker 4: You're facing a very high likelihood of having to make
Speaker 4: a military incursion to southern Elebanon to drive Hitsviel off
Speaker 4: far the north and allow eighty thousand Ukrainian or Ukrainian
Speaker 4: forgive me Israeli refugees to return their homes. You've got
Speaker 4: increasing violence on the West Bank groups that you need
Speaker 4: to keep an eye on in Syria and elsewhere. You
Speaker 4: got the Huthis down in Yemen. So should we take
Speaker 4: on another conflict at this particular moment is the question?
Speaker 4: We can respond certainly at a time and place of
Speaker 4: our choosing. That's a phrase the Israelis used a lot.
Speaker 4: Could that response be a massive cyber attack against Iran?
Speaker 4: Israelis are capable of doing that. Could this be over
Speaker 4: time a whole series of special operations missions by Israel
Speaker 4: against targets in Iran have very possiblely done that in
Speaker 4: the past. It killed off as Iranian nuclear scientists and others.
Speaker 4: Might those the other ways are going about some kind
Speaker 4: of a response over time.
Speaker 2: Was this a real attempt by Iran to blow stuff
Speaker 2: up and kill people in Israel? Or was it a
Speaker 2: telegraphed gesture for all kinds of different political reasons that
Speaker 2: they knew would be thwarted. Do you know some US
Speaker 2: officials said yesterday that Iran was attempting a mass casualty event.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean fire three hundred weapons to somebody, it
Speaker 4: seems to me to the attempt to do an awful
Speaker 4: lot of damage. And you know, the idea we fire
Speaker 4: three hundred weapons because we want we want to be
Speaker 4: defeated and we want our military to kind of look
Speaker 4: pretty badly and its employment does not seem to pass
Speaker 4: to me the logic test. But perhaps that is the case.
Speaker 4: So the Iranians has really try to argue that this
Speaker 4: should be the end of this picure event. They have,
Speaker 4: I guess, assuaged their honor for the killing of this
Speaker 4: Iranian general and they've made a response. A lot of this,
Speaker 4: don't forget, is not for public opinion at home, for
Speaker 4: the Uranian people to say, what is our government doing
Speaker 4: when we get hit? Well, we actually have done something,
Speaker 4: and they'll try to describe it, I'm sure in the
Speaker 4: public present or on as a major success. But I
Speaker 4: do think it's a little bit of a stretch to
Speaker 4: say we're going to fire three hundred weapons hoping we
Speaker 4: don't hurt anybody, and by trying to do it in
Speaker 4: certain ways that it precludes major damage to our opponent.
Speaker 3: On CBS military analyst on the line, Jeff, I'm really intriguing,
Speaker 3: and I think one of the most significant aspects of
Speaker 3: this whole thing may be the fact that the Israelis
Speaker 3: received significant help, intelligence and hands on guns from not
Speaker 3: only the US, but a number of Arab countries as well.
Speaker 3: Feels like maybe the dawn of a new relationship there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, these people don't like Aroan. I was just at
Speaker 4: a major series of meetings in Paris with some senior
Speaker 4: folks kenicalon of golf and their biggest concern, their biggest
Speaker 4: threat is are on. So there's no great love lost
Speaker 4: there for sure. But at the same time, and this
Speaker 4: is also a danger now they're protecting their airspace. The
Speaker 4: Jordanians have spoken very loudly since his attack occurred that
Speaker 4: they did intercept a number of these weapons as they
Speaker 4: were heading towards Israel because they were violating Jordanian airspace.
Speaker 4: Quite frankly, Saudi's may have provided some information in tracking
Speaker 4: as well, and less clear about that. This signate is
Speaker 4: a problem for Israel. If Israel is going to strike back,
Speaker 4: it's going to violate their airspace as well, and I'm
Speaker 4: not sure we would see them then, just were of
Speaker 4: ignoring that, which would indicate they were actively involved in
Speaker 4: an Israeli counterattack against Iraq, which might pull them into
Speaker 4: that particular conflict. In fact, the jority of the Deans
Speaker 4: have suggested, we defend our airspace. If it's Iranian missiles
Speaker 4: heading westward, we're gonna shoot those down. But oh, by
Speaker 4: the way, if it's Israeli missiles going eastward, we're want
Speaker 4: to do the same thing. And for the Israelis, a
Speaker 4: major response could be done to some degree using missiles
Speaker 4: they have sun but the Israeli military force would be
Speaker 4: I think more likely to try to employ aircraft. I
Speaker 4: have thirty five in some type of series of air strikes.
Speaker 4: That's a very complex operation based on the distances involved,
Speaker 4: the country's airspace that you have to fly through, your
Speaker 4: ability to do aerial refueling, which Israel has at best
Speaker 4: a very limited ability to do so absent direct US involvement.
Speaker 4: And the Biden administration has said, hey, we're going to
Speaker 4: defend you, will help defend you, but we're not going
Speaker 4: to participate directly. The United States is not going to
Speaker 4: provide military forces. Three part and parcel of an Israeli counterattack.
Speaker 3: Jeff mccauslin's CBS News military consultant, Jeff, thanks so much
Speaker 3: for the time, good stuff.
Speaker 4: Take care of guys, Armstrong and Getty