Speaker 1: I know that you have paused with your president shipments
Speaker 1: of two thousand pound US bombs to Israel due to
Speaker 1: concern that they could be used in any offensive on Rafa.
Speaker 1: Have those bombs, those powerful two thousand pound bombs been
Speaker 1: used to kill civilians in Gaza?
Speaker 2: Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of
Speaker 2: those bombs and other ways in which they go after
Speaker 2: population centers. And I made it clear that if they
Speaker 2: go into Rafa, they haven't gone on Rafa yet. If
Speaker 2: they go into Rafa, I'm not supplying the weapons that
Speaker 2: have been used historically to deal with Raffa, to deal
Speaker 2: with the cities, to deal with that problem.
Speaker 3: So if.
Speaker 4: An ally that you said on Tuesday that we are
Speaker 4: rock solid standing behind, if their military judgment is we
Speaker 4: need these weapons to win our war, we're going to
Speaker 4: say no, no, we don't think so, so we're not
Speaker 4: going to let you do that.
Speaker 5: Well, and I despise is the way he phrased at
Speaker 5: the way they go into population centers, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: there could get into population centers because that's where Hamas
Speaker 5: is Well again, every bit of the wording in that interview.
Speaker 5: If you didn't like, if you flew in from outer
Speaker 5: space and didn't know the story. You'd think Israel was
Speaker 5: the bad guy in this story because nothing bad was
Speaker 5: said about Hamas at all or no, there are no
Speaker 5: red lines for Hamas apparently, but I wanted to know.
Speaker 5: I was just wondering the reality of these weapons. Does
Speaker 5: Israel need them to go into Raford? Can they go
Speaker 5: into Rafa without them? What else we got to ask
Speaker 5: an expert?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's.
Speaker 5: Discuss that question the situation in a broader context as
Speaker 5: well with Mike Leon's military analyst. Mike, of course, served
Speaker 5: the United States military in a variety of capacities throughout
Speaker 5: the world through his career.
Speaker 3: Mike, it's always a pleasure.
Speaker 6: How are you tank money, guys, Great to be back
Speaker 6: with you.
Speaker 5: How significant is this holding back of the heavy bombs.
Speaker 6: It's not from a if you're fighting a city war,
Speaker 6: fighting this urban conflict that the Israelis are going to
Speaker 6: like to do.
Speaker 7: They're not stopping.
Speaker 6: I mean, this is their only way to defeat Himas
Speaker 6: is to defeat the military, get their leadership to surrender that.
Speaker 6: This is the this is how wars are won. What
Speaker 6: Joe Biden is doing is pure politics. It's almost signaling
Speaker 6: to political forces in our country. And to hear a
Speaker 6: president make the kind of comments he's made about not
Speaker 6: killing another thirty thousand civilians or so, it's just nonsense.
Speaker 6: I mean, the policy is incoherent, it's asides a moral
Speaker 6: from a military perspective. But the Israelis are faced with
Speaker 6: a situation that their survival is at stake.
Speaker 7: So I think they're.
Speaker 6: Going to recalculate they might hold back a few more weeks,
Speaker 6: let's say, but when the time comes, they will likely
Speaker 6: go into Rafa. No one's dropping two thousand pound bombs
Speaker 6: on city centers there and killing civilians wantly. The Israelis
Speaker 6: never not doing that, but they're not stopped until they
Speaker 6: can completely eradicate the military threat. And there's still battalions
Speaker 6: sitting inside that city that they're hiding because that's that's
Speaker 6: the last fashion of the place where they can escape to.
Speaker 4: I don't want to make this a Biden bashing conversation necessarily,
Speaker 4: but you're you're the you know, military historian, and you
Speaker 4: participated in some of these things. So one thing Joe
Speaker 4: Biden said yesterday is he'd warned bb Net and Yahoo
Speaker 4: don't do what we've done. We went after Bin Lauden
Speaker 4: and then we went into Afghanistan with all these troops
Speaker 4: and we went into a rock with all these troops
Speaker 4: and and don't do the same thing. And we were
Speaker 4: trying to figure out what is the parallel between that
Speaker 4: and going into Rafin getting Homas out.
Speaker 6: So it's totally different. I just wonder who's putting these
Speaker 6: thoughts and words in Joe Biden's mouth as he spouts
Speaker 6: them out like that and yesterday, I mean and things
Speaker 6: he says, because it's not the same analogy. We went
Speaker 6: after Asamo bin Laden for the attack that was made
Speaker 6: on nine to eleven, and.
Speaker 7: It took us almost ten eleven years, the.
Speaker 6: Same amount of time it took the land of Man
Speaker 6: on the moon. It took the to capture, kill and
Speaker 6: capture him. But the Colon Powell rule once you you know,
Speaker 6: kind of you break it, you buy it. You know,
Speaker 6: we tried to stand up a government Afghanistan. Then we
Speaker 6: got distracted. We got distracted inside of a rock that
Speaker 6: was a kind of a separate mission. So you look
Speaker 6: back and in the United States definitely committed mistakes in
Speaker 6: those wars there, but it's not.
Speaker 7: The same thing.
Speaker 6: Israel is fighting for its existence, it's fighting an enemy
Speaker 6: on three fronts. This is not the same thing as that.
Speaker 6: Right now, Hamas is just hoping that the United States
Speaker 6: will continue to treat Israel the way they're treating them,
Speaker 6: and because they're going to survive. They're going to survive
Speaker 6: another day. They get a ceasefire, they got a six
Speaker 6: weeks cease fire. They're going to do something to try
Speaker 6: to survive, and that's that's their goal here. And if
Speaker 6: they do, then Israel doesn't win this war. And politically,
Speaker 6: the Israeli leaders now look bad and Israel now continues
Speaker 6: to spiral downward.
Speaker 5: Wow, it was my speculation that the Biden administration is
Speaker 5: just desperate to get the accord going with the Saudis
Speaker 5: and the Emeran and that they're essentially saying, Israel, look,
Speaker 5: what's in our best interests is for y'all to calm
Speaker 5: down for a little while.
Speaker 3: Do you think that's more or less accurate?
Speaker 6: No, for sure, this is this is a political quid
Speaker 6: pro quo. Right did we have the last president get
Speaker 6: pieced over this? I mean, trying to do me a favor,
Speaker 6: stay out of Rapa while I come the political forces
Speaker 6: on my side here with regard to the situation here,
Speaker 6: I'm not seeing the difference here that you want to
Speaker 6: see a good analogy. There's a good analogy there, But
Speaker 6: the bottom line is there's no legitimacy within the Biden
Speaker 6: administration to do that, to create that diplomatic kind of environment.
Speaker 6: They're not not Anthony Blincoln. Not when you whip saws
Speaker 6: back and forth between support for Israel and support for Hermas.
Speaker 7: Not when we don't. We don't have the.
Speaker 6: Same level of credit credibility with regard to what actually
Speaker 6: we're going to do when who we're going to support.
Speaker 6: And the political forces unfortunately against Joe Biden right now,
Speaker 6: are such that they're threatened US national security.
Speaker 7: Look at that.
Speaker 6: If anybody doesn't think this is a challenge or a
Speaker 6: problem inside our country with these pro Palestinian protests, you're
Speaker 6: not paying attention way worse than white supremacist I mean,
Speaker 6: where's the FBI, where's everybody you know concerned about this?
Speaker 6: These college campuses are these places where these things are happening.
Speaker 6: The Democrats are going to have this problem in the
Speaker 6: summertime at their convention, and they're trying to do everything
Speaker 6: they can to keep that from happening. But there's there's
Speaker 6: this clear cross blurring up the line between national security,
Speaker 6: what's investments of the United States, and what's going on
Speaker 6: politically right now, and right now the Democrats and Joe
Speaker 6: Biden particular, whatever's putting the word in his mouth, are
Speaker 6: choosing the political side of this.
Speaker 4: Since you said BB is going to go in no
Speaker 4: matter what, maybe in a couple of weeks, but it's
Speaker 4: still going to happen.
Speaker 3: What is that going to look like?
Speaker 4: How likely is it that they're able to wipe out
Speaker 4: those last couple of battalions, you know, get the Osama
Speaker 4: bin laden of Homas and be able to feel like
Speaker 4: they won.
Speaker 6: Well, I think they're going to have to capture the
Speaker 6: leader Sinwar. They're going to have to do show extensive
Speaker 6: amount of kill and capture of the leadership there. And
Speaker 6: that's that's one thing that they've tried to work on.
Speaker 6: Continue to destroy the tunnels. I'd say this kind of
Speaker 6: court on the kind of offensive operation where the city
Speaker 6: is totally surrounded, they'll let they'll probably start to limit
Speaker 6: humanitarian supplies that go in. There'll be somewhat of a
Speaker 6: feeds there. Hamas won't be able to hold off there
Speaker 6: for long, and we're waiting for the tipping point for
Speaker 6: gods and citizens to recognize that Hamas is not acting
Speaker 6: in their best interests. But Israel is going to win
Speaker 6: this war conventionally, kind of the good old fashioned way.
Speaker 6: They're going to find somebody that says we surrender and
Speaker 6: the war's going to stop it. Then they're not stopping
Speaker 6: just because the United States is telling them to stop.
Speaker 5: Well, and on that topic, you have an enemy that
Speaker 5: began the fighting has vowed unequivocally to continue it until
Speaker 5: you're wiped off the face of the earth. And the
Speaker 5: Biden administrations of session with what's escalatory is really frustrating.
Speaker 5: And it's not like you know, as as a guy
Speaker 5: far too old and sore of back to go fight,
Speaker 5: I don't want to be talk show warmonger guy. It's
Speaker 5: a cliche, but you know there's some people who are
Speaker 5: guilty of it. But at the same time, if you
Speaker 5: intend to win a conflict, and there's plainly a conflict
Speaker 5: in front of us, you're gonna have to escalate.
Speaker 3: That's what winning is.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And we take we've made assumptions about things that
Speaker 6: are just aren't true because we say they are for example,
Speaker 6: you know you can't use force to change the ideology.
Speaker 6: History show that, yes, you can use force to change ideology.
Speaker 6: If you escalate that force, I think you're going to
Speaker 6: see at the end of this Israel taking.
Speaker 7: Much more control over gods.
Speaker 6: They're going to have to This two state solution is
Speaker 6: now off the table from their perspective. I know that
Speaker 6: our our administration still thinks that's some kind of possibility.
Speaker 7: But the challenge is.
Speaker 6: Until the United States puts pressure on tar and other
Speaker 6: governments that are housing these Hamas leaders, you know, they
Speaker 6: continue to control and operate this territory from outside Goslam.
Speaker 6: So that's that's part of the problem. And if if
Speaker 6: we can't, if we we should be putting pressure on
Speaker 6: Hamas and the leaders of these other countries in order
Speaker 6: to get our hostages back number.
Speaker 7: One, and then then having them not.
Speaker 6: To have the influence inside of the city, then then
Speaker 6: maybe you'll see that Israel would would acquiesce and have
Speaker 6: new leadership for the thousand people, for the Palestinian people there.
Speaker 6: But until that happens, you're not you're not seeing any change.
Speaker 6: Israel is going to continue to just raise the earth
Speaker 6: down there.
Speaker 3: Military analyst Mike Lyons, Mike, thanks so much. Really interesting.
Speaker 3: We appreciate it.
Speaker 7: Thanks guys, thanks for having me