Speaker 1: This is a TAC number of one sixty or so.
Speaker 1: So Joe, I am one who is always let's try
Speaker 1: the diplomacy, let's try the incremental steps here. I think
Speaker 1: we are at the point where what is necessary is
Speaker 1: a hammer blow against the proxies. I'll expand on that
Speaker 1: in one moment if that doesn't have the intended effect.
Speaker 1: And yes, it's time to go after Iran.
Speaker 2: That's former NATO commander James trevetis Man. I took in
Speaker 2: a lot of cable news yesterday after this news broke,
Speaker 2: and I didn't see a military analyst who didn't say
Speaker 2: deterrence has not worked. We've known this for a long time.
Speaker 2: That seemed to be pretty upset with this result. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I think they were holding back. Help said they were well.
Speaker 2: Mike Lyons joins us.
Speaker 3: Mike the excellent military analyst from CNN among other places. Mike,
Speaker 3: it's always great to have you. It's a frustrating day, though.
Speaker 4: Oh coome on, guys. This is particularly bad because we
Speaker 4: fail to protect our forces. That's really what this comes
Speaker 4: down to. This throne was able to get to the
Speaker 4: air defense platform whatever we had there to protect them
Speaker 4: and basically attack soldiers while they slept. Now, if there's
Speaker 4: one thing that we expect as a soldier in the
Speaker 4: United States is that our government will take care of
Speaker 4: us and protect us. And we have great equipment. But
Speaker 4: this is inexcusable, the fact that this got through, in
Speaker 4: the fact that the airspace was violated the way it was,
Speaker 4: And again, yeah, I have no words. This is a
Speaker 4: very predictable event. We've talked about this for months and
Speaker 4: now the administration has come home to roost and now
Speaker 4: we're going to see what happened because we run out
Speaker 4: the clock. There's no way We've all have this DISI
Speaker 4: will reaction. We want to attack back, but what are
Speaker 4: we going to attack. There's all these militia groups that
Speaker 4: scattered to the winds. There's no real target out there,
Speaker 4: So this is just going to go on for a
Speaker 4: long time before we get any kind of revenge on
Speaker 4: this attack.
Speaker 2: Well, why don't we hit Iran hard and then hope
Speaker 2: they can rain in their groups. Isn't that the easiest
Speaker 2: way to do it?
Speaker 4: Well, that would be terrific. I'd like to see, for example,
Speaker 4: you know, take their navy and put it at the
Speaker 4: bottom of the Persian Gulf and there's lots of things
Speaker 4: we can do, but this is still an administration that's
Speaker 4: just not willing to escalate. And it's we've got this
Speaker 4: almost like a twenty year now malaise of not wanting
Speaker 4: to win, and we've just we've forgotten how to win.
Speaker 4: And what it takes is just that we've tried to turns.
Speaker 4: We've tried all of these things from the diploma, you know,
Speaker 4: diplomatic perspective. But to Admistrebuss point, it's now it's over.
Speaker 4: I mean, we're at a we're in a low grade
Speaker 4: conflict with Iran, and it's surely want to when they
Speaker 4: want us out of there. And the question is just
Speaker 4: going to bounce to is what you know, what we're
Speaker 4: going to do about it.
Speaker 2: By the way, your tough talk is echoed in the
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal, their editorial board today said, put Iranian
Speaker 2: ships that have been prowling the Red Sea on the
Speaker 2: ocean floor. That's from the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, here's one in particular, that's yeah, that's supporting the
Speaker 4: housies and collecting intelligence. And we know it's all there,
Speaker 4: and you know, we just don't feel its own issues
Speaker 4: right there could be on the brink of someone of
Speaker 4: a collapse themselves internally, They've got their challenges, and we
Speaker 4: just we just are whatever reason, we just fail to
Speaker 4: you know, put them over the top, and we just
Speaker 4: we're not willing to protect our forces at the same time, So.
Speaker 3: I have I have struggled to come up with a
Speaker 3: you know, a diplomatic excuse, reason, rationale for this lack
Speaker 3: of a serious response, and that was the only thing
Speaker 3: I can come up with. But at some point I'm
Speaker 3: reminded of Maya Angelou's famous phrase that you know, when
Speaker 3: somebody tries to tell you what kind of person they are,
Speaker 3: believe them. Well, when an administration tries to show you
Speaker 3: what sort of administration it is, over and over and
Speaker 3: over again, from the abandonment of Afghanistan, the disastrous exit,
Speaker 3: to the lack of response here, it's just it shocks
Speaker 3: me how feckless they are, how they will take no action,
Speaker 3: remind the right or wrong action.
Speaker 4: It's just in action, right, It's a it's a world
Speaker 4: they want to believe exists, of more globalism. We're all
Speaker 4: going to get along. You know, America has enemies. It's
Speaker 4: a challenge every day to think it through. But you know,
Speaker 4: this is not an administration, And the problem is this
Speaker 4: is now going to be It's going to go on
Speaker 4: for months and perhaps years if we don't start to
Speaker 4: fix it. We've got to start rearming. We have to
Speaker 4: start doing things to make sure that other countries don't
Speaker 4: feel the same way. Look, this situation could easily spill
Speaker 4: over to the Pacific with regard to China. China looking
Speaker 4: at us and saying, how are they reacting to this?
Speaker 4: Will they do anything if we go into Taiwan. I
Speaker 4: think that's pretty clear we won't.
Speaker 2: Yeah to your point about the troops sleeping in their barracks,
Speaker 2: my brother spent many a night sleeping in a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of different places around the Middle East when he
Speaker 2: was active duty, and I would be horrified if this
Speaker 2: were going on. If you're so, I mean, it's just
Speaker 2: it's just it's just hard to even believe it's real.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a one soft target out there. If you
Speaker 4: look at that part of the world on a map,
Speaker 4: it's one of the most auste places on the planet,
Speaker 4: and everything has been brought in built up there. There's
Speaker 4: not you know, there's not a lot of hard stands,
Speaker 4: there's not a lot of ways to protect yourself and
Speaker 4: and and again you look at the fact that they
Speaker 4: let someone come in, and we should create that entire
Speaker 4: no fly zone. Now, nothing now should be flying in
Speaker 4: that that part of the world. We're gonna have to
Speaker 4: put the Air Force and Navy.
Speaker 3: Back to work.
Speaker 4: But that's that's the kind of thing that we in
Speaker 4: our forces.
Speaker 3: Speaking of navy, Mike, I know several of our allies
Speaker 3: have taken a pretty active role in protecting shipping in
Speaker 3: that part of the world, from the Brits to the Indians.
Speaker 3: Do you have any sense of how much naval brawn
Speaker 3: they could bring to backing us up and whether they
Speaker 3: might be willing to.
Speaker 4: It's not as much as we would like. We'd have
Speaker 4: to deploy another carrier group. I think from the people
Speaker 4: I've talked to in Norfolk, we know that the the
Speaker 4: Eisenhower just got there was a General four that just
Speaker 4: got back. But I wouldn't be surprised if they turn
Speaker 4: around and go back here within the next nine to
Speaker 4: twelve months. They recognize that the only way to project
Speaker 4: power there is to bring destroyers and cruisers into the region.
Speaker 4: Those other navies don't have that same level of objection
Speaker 4: of naval assets. So while while I think it's good
Speaker 4: we're gaining allies, it's the kind of thing we did
Speaker 4: during Desert Storm. They just don't bring enough military to
Speaker 4: the table, unfortunately.
Speaker 2: So I came across this nugget, and now I was
Speaker 2: trying to look up whether it was true or not.
Speaker 2: I heard that we had not had any forces killed
Speaker 2: by an enemy air strike since the Korean War, right,
Speaker 2: because we have controlled the airspace whenever we have troops
Speaker 2: you know, in harm's.
Speaker 4: Way, right exactly, We've always controlled the airspace. And that's
Speaker 4: what's most concerning about this, which is what this administration is,
Speaker 4: you know, wants to slide under the rug. Here is
Speaker 4: the fact, you know that we've lost control of the
Speaker 4: air domain and we allowed an enemy to come in.
Speaker 4: And again it's a nation state, you know, a bunch
Speaker 4: of Hooti rebels or she A militia groups are not
Speaker 4: assembling drones within their within their purview. That's coming from
Speaker 4: a state, It's coming from some kind of sponsor there.
Speaker 4: So that's where this I think is really the most
Speaker 4: egregious of the entire operation.
Speaker 3: CNN military analyst Mike Lyons on the line with US Mike,
Speaker 3: speaking of the drones, as you know better than I do.
Speaker 3: The history of military conflict is a history of technology.
Speaker 3: I think this introduction, and it's been huge in Ukraine
Speaker 3: of these cheap, easily acquired and armed drones is going
Speaker 3: to have huge effects on warfare going forward, and or
Speaker 3: just the stationing of troops.
Speaker 4: No question. And we still haven't seen them deployed in
Speaker 4: even more creative ways. We haven't seen them, for example,
Speaker 4: in swarm formations. This was a suicide drone that you know,
Speaker 4: leaves its station, comes never to return one target has
Speaker 4: payload on it, you know. And our drones are equipped
Speaker 4: at rocketter more like planes that decline and return back
Speaker 4: to base. But we've not seen these. If they just
Speaker 4: just deployed a thousand of these at once, I mean,
Speaker 4: if they would completely overwhelm air defense systems, and so
Speaker 4: we still haven't yet seen. We're at the beginning of
Speaker 4: what the drone technology is going to bring to the battlefield.
Speaker 4: And I think that as our enemy gets more creative
Speaker 4: and than we are, unfortunately, they're going to start doing
Speaker 4: those kinds of things and creating more kinds of damage.
Speaker 3: Military analyst Mike lyons, Mike, thanks, we appreciate the wisdom
Speaker 3: very much and look forward to chatting again soon.
Speaker 4: Thanks thanks for having me Armstrong and Getty