S8 Ep40: Israel and Iran climb (and descend?) the escalation ladder with Phillip Smyth

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[00:00:24] Secrets and Spies is a podcast that dives into the world of espionage, terrorism, geopolitics and intrigue. This episode is presented by Matt Fulton and produced by Chris Carr.

[00:00:38] Hello everyone and welcome back to Secrets and Spies. On today's episode I'm joined again by Phillip Smythe, one of the leading researchers of Iranian-backed militia groups in the Middle East.

[00:00:47] This time we discuss last month's exchange of missiles, drones and airstrikes between Israel and Iran. Phillip helps unpack what triggered this latest cycle of violence, gauge Iran's intent behind launching an unprecedented attack against Israel itself, and look ahead at how it may impact the war in Gaza and the wider conflict throughout the region.

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[00:01:54] Okay, Phillip Smythe, welcome back to Secrets and Spies my friend. It's always good to have you on.

[00:01:59] You had me again I'm shocked.

[00:02:01] This is your fourth time on I think since October 7th alone.

[00:02:07] It's nice to know that I'm better than all of your other guests. I mean I don't tell anyone that. A lot of people tell me that, but it's okay.

[00:02:13] Okay, I mean I accept it.

[00:02:15] One more time I gotta get that five-timer jacket for you.

[00:02:18] That's coming up soon.

[00:02:20] Yeah, you've been sort of our go-to guy here for all things Iranian proxies and all that since the war in Gaza started back in October.

[00:02:29] For anyone who has missed those episodes with you just tell us briefly if they could. Your background, what you kind of study, that stuff.

[00:02:37] I mean I specialize in kind of focusing on Iranian proxy groups and that goes for Shia militias that they might coordinate and control.

[00:02:46] They're in Iraq, Bahrain, Syria, Lebanon, Lebanese Hezbollah is a good example.

[00:02:51] Other groups like the Palestinian organizations Hamas could technically be considered an Iranian proxy, Palestinian Islamic Shahad, kind of same vein.

[00:03:00] But it's organizations like that. It's interesting. Like a lot of people think Iran proxy and they think just Shia militias.

[00:03:06] I really enjoy studying Shia militias and I really specialized in them.

[00:03:10] But Iranian proxies come in all sorts of different shapes, sizes and flavors and sometimes they don't even fit the sectarian model of Iran.

[00:03:18] But I generally focus on them, kind of their politics, military strategy, kind of how they're built up, how Iran utilizes them.

[00:03:26] And I've been doing that for the past 15 years now.

[00:03:29] And I've had fellowships at the Washington Institute, worked with the Atlantic Council, been at University of Maryland.

[00:03:33] I've written a number of monographs and different articles on that subject matter.

[00:03:39] Thank you for that. I asked you to come back on, of course, to talk about the last month or so of this kind of tit-for-tat cycle of exchanges between Israel and Iran directly for the first time.

[00:03:53] When I say sort of directly in quotations and we'll get into that more in a bit.

[00:03:57] So as we have in past episodes here, I'll give a quick rundown of the events, what happened and then we can get into some of the details here and start digging through it. Sound good?

[00:04:11] That works for me.

[00:04:12] So on April 1st, the IDF launched an airstrike on an annex next door to the Iranian embassy in Damascus.

[00:04:19] Some sources have described the annex as a consulate.

[00:04:22] Others claimed it was an apartment building for embassy staff, I believe.

[00:04:24] The distinction is a bit fuzzy, but it was an Iranian-owned diplomatic facility.

[00:04:29] 16 people were killed, including IRGC Quds Force, Brigadier General Mohammed Zahedi, his deputy and five other Iranian officials.

[00:04:38] The New York Times reported that they were meeting there with Palestinian Islamic jihad leaders to discuss the war in Gaza.

[00:04:45] This followed several other strikes targeting senior IRGC officers in Syria since October 7th.

[00:04:50] About two weeks later, on October 13th, Iran retaliated with a long-range standoff attack launched from within Iran against Israel directly.

[00:04:59] In all, they sent up about 170 one-way kamikaze drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles.

[00:05:06] According to Iran's chief of staff, the primary targets were Neva Team Air Base, from which the IDF launched the airstrike on the consulate and a unit 8200 SIGINT post on Mount Hermann.

[00:05:16] That supplied intelligence for the strike. Other targets were located near Tel Aviv and in the Ngev Desert.

[00:05:23] Israel then activated its missile defense network, including the Arrow 3 and David Sling systems to intercept the objects.

[00:05:29] US, British, French, and Jordanian forces in the region likewise sorted to prevent the bulk of the attack from even reaching Israeli airspace.

[00:05:37] The Saudis and Emiratis potentially had some offensive role here, but it seems at least they shared radar tracking data with SENTCOM.

[00:05:46] SENTCOM reported that their forces alone shot down 80 Iranian weapons over the course of the attack.

[00:05:52] By the end of the night, only five ballistic missiles struck Neva Team Air Base, causing minor damage to a runway, and a seven-year-old Israeli Bedouin girl was seriously injured by falling trap.

[00:06:03] Iran's UN ambassador claimed then that the matter could be deemed concluded, but nevertheless the Israeli War Cabinet vowed to respond.

[00:06:11] Then on April 19th, IDF aircraft operating from outside Iranian airspace, we think probably their new F-35s, destroyed a SAM battery guarding the Dutton's nuclear facility near Isfahan.

[00:06:24] Other mysterious explosions were reported in Iraq and Syria but not confirmed to be connected to the Israeli attack, at least as far as I've seen.

[00:06:32] We can talk about that a bit more later.

[00:06:35] Iranian officials and public statements directed both domestically and internationally quickly downplayed the strikes, denying that any damage had occurred.

[00:06:44] An IDF spokesperson declined to comment on them at all.

[00:06:47] And now here we are about a month later from the initial strike that sort of caused this spiral.

[00:06:57] Philip, going back here to the start, I guess, could you tell us who was Muhammad Zahedi? What did he do?

[00:07:06] He was a leading IRGC QF commander, meaning the Quds Force overseas, the external operations for the Iranians via the IRGC, the Islamic Relationary Guard Corps.

[00:07:20] There were some interesting reports that were both in Persian media and Arabic media, and then it kind of dripped into English language media that he may have even had a seat on the Shura, or the council for Lebanese Hezbollah.

[00:07:35] They have an internal council and he was probably set up with their Jihad committee that deals with kind of the military affairs like they have an Islamic resistance in Jihad committee.

[00:07:46] And I mean, there's some who've written about Lebanese Hezbollah that they're two separate ones.

[00:07:51] Then there's other people who said no, they're joined.

[00:07:53] But he most likely had some form of a seat at the table when it came to Lebanese Hezbollah.

[00:07:58] You could see that by the people who actually attended his funeral, Nebih al-Ka'ub, who was the commander for Lebanese Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

[00:08:08] And he was this for like a decade and a half, probably longer than that.

[00:08:13] And he's held a number of really key positions within Lebanese Hezbollah, a real power player in the south.

[00:08:18] He was right front row for that one.

[00:08:22] And that usually is a certain sign if you're doing kind of Iran credulonology and you're trying to analyze how they've set the people up, then it tends to say that.

[00:08:29] But then beyond that, he was another one of those key nodes that was set up around the same time as Qasim Sulaimani was kind of rising through.

[00:08:37] The ranks of the IRGC QF, Qasim Sulaimani being the commander who was killed in early 2020 along with his aide Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, who was an Iraqi Shia militia commander.

[00:08:49] But he was one of these key guys, these key nodes in the IRGC QF that not only maintained some level of control, but it was also kind of a command influence.

[00:09:00] So a positive influence in a way where he would deliver for some of these proxy groups, like for instance you mentioned Palestinian Islam Shihad may have been having a meeting there.

[00:09:09] Interestingly, some of the earliest reports to come out claim that one of the leaders, Assyrian leaders for the PIJ was actually killed in that attack.

[00:09:18] There was no real evidence that really came out of that.

[00:09:21] But I mean, that would be kind of part and parcel if you're trying to get the Iranian war plan together when it comes to what's going on in Gaza, how that involves love.

[00:09:29] Lebanon, how it may even involve the Houthis, aka Ansar Allah in Yemen.

[00:09:34] You would have a meeting like that.

[00:09:36] Same thing goes with what are you doing on the Golan front?

[00:09:38] How are you sending guys over?

[00:09:40] It's important to note that PIJ Hamas, a lot of other factions that are associated with Lebanese Hezbollah, including Lebanese Hezbollah, have also been launching a ton of attacks from southern Lebanon into Israel.

[00:09:53] Rocket attacks.

[00:09:54] You'll see Palestinian fighters.

[00:09:56] PIJ has lost a number of them that have tried to cross the border and attack the Israelis.

[00:10:01] Interestingly enough, they always take these kind of propaganda pictures for kind of the post facto martyrdom pictures.

[00:10:07] And interestingly, they're always holding Iranian-made submachine guns and rifles.

[00:10:13] There's a little kind of hint, hint, hey, here's who supplies us.

[00:10:16] So again, it wouldn't be, it's not even just that he's kind of issuing orders.

[00:10:19] The way that they're meeting up, it's, it's, think of it as them trying to get together and come to a cohesive plan sometimes.

[00:10:26] Other times it's to rein them in.

[00:10:28] At other times it's to de-conflict because sometimes factions have many, many different issues.

[00:10:33] But he was, you know, again, he was also kind of a key influence person when it came to Iran's campaign to essentially retake Syria for Bashar al-Assad and to really impose more control by Iranian controlled factions that were there.

[00:10:47] So he really, he had his finger in pretty much every pie.

[00:10:51] And given he was a senior commander, but again, even more in the shadows than Qasim Sulemani, the so-called shadow commander, you know, it's interesting.

[00:11:01] There wasn't as much known about him compared to say Sulemani, even in certain analytical circles because you could kind of see where the drip, drip, drip of certain pieces of information.

[00:11:10] I mean, you'd see the name before if you're kind of in certain spheres looking at what's going on with IRGC QF or looking at Syria.

[00:11:18] There were little blurbs that would pop up every once in a while in IRGC media, but it was interesting what was being dripped out probably by, you know, intelligence sources or whatever in the newspapers.

[00:11:28] Oh, and all of a sudden, you know, and he was also doing logistics for this. Hmm, where would that come from?

[00:11:31] Because I know it wasn't open source.

[00:11:33] But I mean, he had a very, very interesting background and it was interestingly unveiled when it came into the news who was killed.

[00:11:41] And I think it's important to remember it wasn't just this commander.

[00:11:44] You also had two other senior IRGC commanders.

[00:11:47] You're talking about kind of the full deck of rather important people who are not mid-level.

[00:11:52] They're senior who are running affairs in Syria, in Lebanon, dealing with Palestinian issues, deconflicting and running the show in pretty much the Levant.

[00:12:02] And these are old hands.

[00:12:04] You know, IRGC doesn't just produce commanders like this who've been on job for decades and really have close personal relationships with different commanders.

[00:12:12] This was one of the issues when Sulamani and Abu-Makti al-Nuhandis were killed because it caused some dissension in the ranks.

[00:12:19] There were some other issues.

[00:12:21] And so when you lose somebody like that who's key, then it's a big deal.

[00:12:25] And I do want to add to this, the Iranians themselves now, you could read this a few ways.

[00:12:29] The Iranians themselves said that he was a key planning node when it came to the October 7th attacks.

[00:12:36] And I would fundamentally agree with that assessment, but you could read it a few different ways.

[00:12:40] Maybe it's the Iranians thumbing their noses at the Israelis and say, yeah, yeah, we had a much bigger role than we actually had.

[00:12:45] I know there are some analysts that would take that position.

[00:12:47] Frankly, I think the information that's there actually demonstrates that there was a hell of a lot more planning and organization that was done by the Iranians.

[00:12:55] Not just of the Palestinian factions, but when it comes to media training and a whole bevy of different subjects.

[00:13:03] And a person like him would have actually been, again, that kind of key person in there who's kind of handling these issues and forming them into a more effective, I guess, more effective ranks,

[00:13:15] having partnerships work, allowing different groups to kind of bloom in Gaza.

[00:13:20] And we could see that.

[00:13:21] And he's quite expert at doing that.

[00:13:23] You could see his work in Syria, how many little kind of Hezbollah copies started sprouting up all over Syria, whether they were run by Aloys or other Shia that were there or tribal groups.

[00:13:35] And in Gaza, I mean, you could see kind of the replication of that where certain factions that really hadn't.

[00:13:41] And I actually wrote about this in December for West Point's CTC Sentinel, their Combating Terrorism Center.

[00:13:47] But there were groups that really were kind of on the outs when it came to much influence in Gaza, both militarily and politically, because it was Hamas controlled.

[00:13:58] But magically they were kind of allowed to sprout up again and kind of do what they wanted to when they were there, clearly demonstrating that Hamas and the Iranians kind of cut a deal.

[00:14:08] Hey, you know, you can let some of your factions grow and that'll be fine.

[00:14:10] But it was interesting what was allowed to kind of sprout up and kind of the media profiles they attained.

[00:14:16] You know, one of these groups that PFL PGC was really cut to pieces during the Syrian war.

[00:14:22] And then beyond that was extraordinarily unpopular in the Palestinian territories.

[00:14:27] Ahmed Jibril, who is their old leader probably guys rocks off more to killing fellow Palestinians than he did, you know, killing Israelis.

[00:14:34] And also the effectiveness of the group, given they're pretty much locked into, unless Hezbollah lets them do something, in Lebanon locked into certain refugee camps or training bases out in the Bacaw.

[00:14:45] And then all of a sudden, you know, they went from only being able to execute like a few shooting attacks or maybe like some rinky dink rocket attack to having rockets recruiting fighters.

[00:14:54] They have new uniforms. They have new rifles. The Hamas is allowing them to kind of do different things in Gaza.

[00:15:00] That just doesn't happen by chance.

[00:15:01] There is clearly a deconfliction and some allowance for it to grow.

[00:15:06] And kind of going back at where the IRGC QF is and where certain key commanders were influencing it, you need figures like that to allow for that growth, to allow for the partnerships to kind of blossom and then also allow for what essentially function does is kind of a quasi umbrella group to really exist.

[00:15:23] Yeah. Thank you for that.

[00:15:24] It's been described that this strike sort of was essentially a decapitation of the IRGC is kind of command and control network in the Levant, as you said.

[00:15:33] So spanning Lebanon and Syria was, I guess, was this more so a target of opportunity for the Israelis?

[00:15:42] I mean they got the intelligence that's a heady and these senior people were in one place at one time.

[00:15:47] Okay, let's take this gift and get rid of them.

[00:15:52] Or was have you heard anything to the extent that maybe there was some sort of operational planning effort underway in that meeting that the Israelis decided, okay, we have to act on this now?

[00:16:03] Well, again, I'm sure there was some level of operational planning and organization because when you have that many senior commanders and you're also having people from a variety of different groups.

[00:16:11] Again, reports for like PIJ. Maybe there was a Hamas guy. Maybe there was an Assad, a few Assad people.

[00:16:17] Maybe there were Lebanese Osbola that were there.

[00:16:19] It's not one of those kinds of meetings that really comes around all that often if you have intelligence for it to go and attack.

[00:16:26] So I'm sure something was possibly, you know, whether it was in planning stages or maybe it was de-confliction.

[00:16:31] Who knows?

[00:16:33] I mean, I haven't seen evidence one way or another to say, oh no, they were planning the next big attack.

[00:16:36] I mean, unfortunately the position I'm sitting in doesn't really allow for me to know it.

[00:16:42] But what I would say is in terms of it being a quote-unquote target of opportunity, if you're having that many planners, that many influential important people in the same room and I'm the Israelis,

[00:16:53] it's a hard target to pass up because it will offer some level of degradation to their kind of systems for planning, how they're executing their business in the area.

[00:17:04] And I think, you know, it's hard for a lot of people in the West to understand this but the way the Iranians operate, it's often kind of based on the personality of one guy, one commander who is really doing the hard work.

[00:17:17] And I'm not saying that doesn't mean they don't have their surrogates or that they don't have, you know, an effective network of people. They do.

[00:17:23] But often, and you saw this with Qasem Soleimani, you know, his personality helped really lead the day and you still, he needed to put lieutenants in place that could effectively execute his own work.

[00:17:34] He wanted to put his operations, what he wanted, had a good operational relationship with guys on the ground. I mean, that's how you build any, you know, any kind of core network and then, you know, construct from there.

[00:17:46] I mean, a classic example of this. You can see this in Iraq where there are IRGC commanders in certain areas that will like, right around, you know, right around in a car or a motorbike and de-conflict when it comes to, you know, like criminal networks that are going out there that just happen to be associated with

[00:18:00] Shia militias that they control. So often it comes down to that. They are essentially operating as the representatives for Iran on the ground. Iran doesn't have the capability to send, you know, 50,000 Iranians over there.

[00:18:14] So what do you do? You send, you know, some kind of key nodes to get the job done. So looking at that in terms of what one could see in post-2020, let's say Iraq as an example, what happened after Wahandis and after Soleimani were killed,

[00:18:28] there were issues within the militia networks themselves. You know, sometimes they wanted to execute more attacks. Other times they would have certain conflicts with the Iranians or not listen to them.

[00:18:38] Maybe they didn't like, you know, Ismail Rani, the new commander of it for whatever reason. Maybe they missed Soleimani and expected a greater response from the Americans.

[00:18:46] Maybe they tried to capitalize off of that for their own ends. You get moves like that. Now if I'm dealing with the Iranians who are now trying to run not just Lebanese Hezbollah,

[00:18:56] they are crown jewel, the jewel in the crown for them, like the biggest of the proxies, meaning the best for them. But you're now having an issue where the Palestinians which really took a while for them to cultivate.

[00:19:07] And again, this is often forgotten. Hamas and Iran had some huge issues going all the way back to the Syrian war. Pij even, Palestinian Islamic Shahad, even though they've had a very, very close relationship with Iran, also had their issues.

[00:19:22] And sometimes it was over relatively minor things where the Iranians went so far and actually I did write this in that West Point piece. They used a sticks and carrots technique where Hamas realized that, you know, while they may be getting money from

[00:19:34] Kultar and support and everything else, it's still not the same support that the Iranians bring. And when the Iranians cut their funding, boy does that hurt the group. You cannot pay your lower functionaries.

[00:19:45] You can't get those rocket facilities up and rolling. I changed quite a bit within that organization. Within Pij, there's a classic example where Pij didn't come out and support the Houthis when they were watching rockets at the Saudis,

[00:19:59] rockets and missiles UAVs and stuff. And the Iranians said, well, it's a shame that you didn't listen to us. We're going to have to cut funding now. And you know what we're also going to do?

[00:20:07] We're going to start a splinter proxy group to really counter both you and Hamas. We realize it's not going to be that strong and it's pretty small, but it's going to annoy you and you're going to have to deal with it.

[00:20:17] So, you know, imagine this. This is all kind of going on in the background. And so, you know, a hit like that in terms of taking away certain operational and kind of other capabilities, strategic capabilities is, you know, it's quite a move.

[00:20:30] I found it somewhat interesting and now that you sort of just mentioned Hamas, it jogged my memory on this. But I found it interesting that Pij people were cited as being in the meeting, at least one Hezbollah advisor that I understand, but no one from Hamas,

[00:20:49] at least that I've seen, you know, stated anywhere being there. Does that say something to you about the dynamic on the ground between these jihadist groups in Gaza? Is it weird that Hamas was left out if they were?

[00:21:08] I don't think it necessitates that there's another deeper issue or some other problem. I just think Pij has a markedly closer relationship with Tehran than Hamas does. But then beyond that, if you're looking at a lot of the Pij operations that were being run out of southern Lebanon,

[00:21:22] some of them were claiming that they were part of Pij Syria, meaning they were recruited from Islamic jihad people in Syria, probably from Palestinian camps like neighborhood camps that exist there. That could be one thing.

[00:21:36] I mean, also Pij, because they had that markedly closer relationship if there's an issue and they're trying to work things together with Hezbollah and with Iran, who knows how they're coming into it as again a de-confliction mechanism maybe with Hamas.

[00:21:51] There could be a variety of different things. I mean, I think it's kind of like throwing confetti up in the air and try to find the red pieces. I mean, I don't want to say, I don't want to lead from a conclusion backwards in search of facts.

[00:22:03] But I mean, it doesn't strike me that that's the reason that that was happening. Again, I don't have any signals of intelligence or anything on that one.

[00:22:12] But I mean, it seems like this would be kind of a normal high level meeting that would occur with some main proxies where the Iranians have a lot of influence with them and there might be some strategic planning going forward.

[00:22:24] But again, that doesn't mean I think I don't want to get people confused in terms of issues that happen amongst Iran's proxies. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of heavy detail and a lot of stuff.

[00:22:36] But that doesn't always mean that there isn't kind of a good working relationship. And we can see this again in other ways. Hamas is an outgrowth of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and has a lot of close links with them.

[00:22:50] However, you'll also notice there's a lot of other overlaps that Hezbollah also has with Muslim Brotherhood factions. There were issues with certain Syrian Muslim Brotherhood factions when they were fighting Bashar al-Assad.

[00:23:01] I remember Hamas actually went over and sympathized with them, sympathized with Muhammad Morsi when he was saying anti-Assad stuff and saying more sectarian things when he was elected president in Egypt.

[00:23:12] So there's an ebb and flow that kind of happens there. But to take it to the more contemporary times, right now, Lebanese Hezbollah is dealing with saying that they're castrated to being correct.

[00:23:24] But saying there's a weakened kind of Muslim Brotherhood network of sorts in certain places. And that weakness doesn't necessitate that they can't operate, doesn't necessitate they're not trying to pull their own political moves.

[00:23:38] But in places like Lebanon, in places like Syria, you will get different factions. The primary faction in Lebanon, which is Jamal Salami, they've been fielding troops to fight the Israelis.

[00:23:52] They are fighting alongside with Lebanese Hezbollah. They have a much closer working relationship. And again, a lot of that comes from practice over time.

[00:24:00] The Syrian war is now kind of considered yesterday's news, even though it's still ongoing. And you have these groups trying to attain some level of presence.

[00:24:07] And you also have groups like Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranians. They don't want to make this look like it's a Shia-only affair.

[00:24:14] They did that in Syria and it really harmed them when it came to their Sunni proxies, Sunni allies, you name it.

[00:24:20] Because those were few and far between. They're pretty blatant in their Shia sectarian interests.

[00:24:25] So, you know, how do you put a nice veneer on this while we need those Sunni Muslim groups that look like this is more of a pan Islamic effort?

[00:24:33] That's always been kind of an Iran thing. But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself on the weed stuff.

[00:24:39] But being the weed stuff, you know, I think it translates out to you'll have, I think it's hard for us to see within an opaque kind of operating system.

[00:24:50] It's very, very tough. And you can kind of only see the shadows on the wall.

[00:24:54] I've played a shadow on the wall when you're looking inside the cave.

[00:24:57] But I mean, what I would make the argument of, I think the issues between Hamas and Iran, clearly Hamas is not a fully controlled,

[00:25:07] I mean, 100% controlled, you know, like Katab as Bola in Iraq.

[00:25:12] They're not a fully controlled entity by the Iranians. But the Iranians have kind of a good modus fivendi or kind of working relationship with them.

[00:25:19] And frankly, I mean, this is now out of necessity too. It doesn't mean that certain things haven't boiled to the surface.

[00:25:25] I mean, you look at Hamas was saying, OK, when's Lebanese Huzballah going to attack?

[00:25:29] You know, it's interesting talking about this, the missile attacks and the drone attacks and everything else that occurred.

[00:25:35] It's interesting. People were talking about, you know, kind of the escalation and what's the red line for Huzballah?

[00:25:40] What's the red line for the Iranians? And, you know, they're missing a few things because no one was looking back to 2006.

[00:25:47] And I think it's interesting when you look at this in concert with what's kind of going on now.

[00:25:52] In 2006, you had Hamas, you had Hamas pretty much take over Gaza.

[00:25:57] You had the Israelis who were going to invade in and Nasrullah got out there and said, hey, you know, this goes too far.

[00:26:03] You know, Huzballah will become activated. Well, what did Huzballah do?

[00:26:07] It literally started a war on the northern border.

[00:26:09] Yeah. I mean, that devolved into a huge conflict.

[00:26:13] And so there's a possibility of Hamas going, OK, well, we made nice with the Iranians.

[00:26:16] Now we're kind of expecting that, you know, maybe we're going to get some help because you guys are also promising a big game.

[00:26:22] And I think in a way that kind of translated out into what happened with the Iranian response to the Israeli strike on the building next to the consulate.

[00:26:32] You know, I think in part they demonstrated time and time again, one, a level of weakness that too many people were commenting on.

[00:26:40] You know, Huzballah was what? Sniping at some control towers and what are they called?

[00:26:45] Like electronics monitoring towers in northern Israel.

[00:26:48] Yeah, the cameras and stuff.

[00:26:50] It didn't mean they weren't attacking. I don't want to underplay that, but it's not the kind of hey and we're nailing Haifa every single day, you know, like in 2006.

[00:26:58] And we tried to hit an Israeli Corvette that was off the coast of Lebanon.

[00:27:05] It was not to that level, clearly was it was leveled out.

[00:27:09] The Houthis were becoming active and you know, you had all these other different factions.

[00:27:14] Yes, strategically, the game has changed.

[00:27:17] But you know, if you're looking at it and let's say you're a Palestinian faction, yeah, it's changed for the Iranians and their benefit.

[00:27:22] And they didn't expend that many resources in a meanwhile, you know, Gaza's getting flattened because of this attack that, you know, you were like you guys meaning you, the Iranians were likely cheering us on to do.

[00:27:32] So I think for them, you know, how do you do this to not just demonstrate that there's some truth behind some Iranian promises?

[00:27:40] But I also think it hit that point where it's kind of like, OK, well, you look, we did our big thing. We can do that.

[00:27:45] You know, we sent the message and all right, we're going to slink back now.

[00:27:49] Because, you know, frankly, I would make the argument that Iran and it's unfortunate.

[00:27:54] I think American policymakers in part, a lot of European policymakers already do this anyway.

[00:27:58] But Iran really practices kind of this, this they live in this kind of house of mirrors.

[00:28:03] And, you know, they project a very, very strong game.

[00:28:06] And I think a lot of people buy it by the wrong pieces of that projection.

[00:28:11] And then kind of like, yeah, but we don't want to deal with this.

[00:28:14] Yeah, but you know, let's be a little, let's let's let's deescalate wherever that means.

[00:28:18] And the Iranians will test, test, test every single time.

[00:28:21] And so, you know, you get these kinds of actions where it's like, OK, well, we didn't really expect all that much.

[00:28:25] Well, how does this happen?

[00:28:26] Well, I mean, it clearly fits with their game plan.

[00:28:28] And I will say this.

[00:28:30] Initially, I didn't think the attack would be that big.

[00:28:33] Frankly, I, you know, when I was interviewed by a few different places, I was saying, look, you know,

[00:28:39] I was going to look at other kind of soft targets that they could possibly hit other demonstrations of what they could do.

[00:28:44] I was convinced they were going to use drones, maybe even ballistic missiles at some point.

[00:28:49] But I didn't really think it was going to be kind of the, you know, that big, that big push that they tried to execute.

[00:28:57] Now, on a side note, I'm sorry I'm getting ahead and like jumping around and stuff, but there's something kind of going on here too.

[00:29:04] You know, there were, you said, what was it?

[00:29:07] That was like 120 rockets that were launched.

[00:29:09] 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles, 120 ballistic missiles.

[00:29:12] OK, so you know, the numbers when you're looking at this, I mean, the Iranians claimed it was like 300 of all sorts that were thrown up there.

[00:29:20] Yeah.

[00:29:21] Something a lot of people are not mentioning is the amount of failure that occurred with these launches.

[00:29:25] Right.

[00:29:26] Now, needless to say, some amount of failure is going to happen.

[00:29:29] And it's kind of interesting, you know, that occurred not because of introduction by American, British, Israeli, Saudi, Jordanian, who you name it, forces.

[00:29:39] That occurred because well, the Iranians often have kind of a faulty setup and a faulty apparatus and not everything is perfect.

[00:29:46] But it also demonstrates that they were in this to cause some level of damage.

[00:29:52] I think by the seat of their pants, by luck, kind of like after they've responded to Qasem Soleimani getting killed and they launched a number of ballistic missiles at US forces in Iraq.

[00:30:02] It's by the grace of God that more Americans were not killed.

[00:30:06] It's the same thing that goes with a lot of their attacks in Syria and Iraq.

[00:30:10] Their attacks are aimed to kill people.

[00:30:12] They have payloads to kill people.

[00:30:14] And I think, you know, sometimes that the slight level of incompetence or maybe just poor machinery didn't allow for that.

[00:30:21] You know, I think the argument that well, it was all planned and executed in the background.

[00:30:26] I don't fully buy that at all.

[00:30:28] I don't really think that's the case.

[00:30:29] I'm sure a number of signals were sent by the Americans.

[00:30:32] I'm sure a number of signals were sent by European entities and also by Middle Eastern ones.

[00:30:36] But, you know, at the end of the day, I think, you know, the Iranians both lucked out that it didn't kill more people because if you look at the Israeli response,

[00:30:45] it was kind of like what they do when they call the roof knocking.

[00:30:48] Kind of like, oh, we're warning you before we bomb the building because we also want you to know that we know where your guy is.

[00:30:54] We want to kind of send a deeper signal.

[00:30:57] The Israelis essentially did that by, you know, knocking out an advanced SAM site right where, you know, their nuclear facilities are.

[00:31:04] I mean, that could have spun into something quite different.

[00:31:06] But I also think that part of the calculus by the Iranians is that they don't really care if it does.

[00:31:12] I know that sounds really counterintuitive.

[00:31:14] But I think, well, if it happens, it happens.

[00:31:16] It's a grace of God.

[00:31:17] It happened.

[00:31:18] And you know, we got to deal with that.

[00:31:19] But I, you know, I get the impression that a lot of the munitions that were aimed at the Israelis, you know,

[00:31:25] they knew what a certain end effect would be, you know, because everything had been telegraphed beforehand.

[00:31:30] But if it happened to kill 10 Israelis, well, you know, that's how it worked.

[00:31:35] I mean, I know it sounds kind of crazy.

[00:31:37] It's just, I think two opposing things can be true.

[00:31:41] And I think that's kind of how the Iranians have done that.

[00:31:44] You taught me a while ago that if you want to understand the Iranians' intentions,

[00:31:52] what they're trying to say, what they're trying to accomplish through any particular kind of operation or act,

[00:31:57] pay close attention to, A, the proxies that they activate when they do so,

[00:32:03] B, the hardware that they pull out to do it, whether that's unveiling some sort of a new weapon system or something.

[00:32:09] I think a lot of observers myself included, and maybe you here too,

[00:32:14] really just sort of expected the response to be limited to maybe Syrian proxy groups or IRGC units in Syria

[00:32:21] firing at Israeli units inside the Golan.

[00:32:25] So for listeners, the Golan Heights, it's a sliver of land sort of between Israel and Syria

[00:32:32] right around the Sea of Galilee captured by Israel in the Six-Day War, 1967,

[00:32:38] is claimed by Syria, it's disputed.

[00:32:41] I sort of figured that they would, looking at that kind of retaliatory escalatory issue,

[00:32:46] right, that you mentioned before, that they would focus their response to the Golan Heights

[00:32:50] and not attack Israel proper.

[00:32:53] But a combined strike package of 300 missiles and drones fired at Israel itself,

[00:32:59] that's a significant response.

[00:33:01] So you're saying they didn't just, it wasn't all for show that they really intended to do some damage here

[00:33:07] or didn't care if they did or didn't?

[00:33:10] Well, there was clear calculation of the targets they picked,

[00:33:13] or at least the ones that we know that they picked.

[00:33:15] So there can be a calculation that, all right, certain, you know,

[00:33:18] maybe no one's going to die from these, but it can demonstrate our metal

[00:33:21] and how we can execute things.

[00:33:23] But if you're launching that many, I hate this term suicide drone, it's just so stupid.

[00:33:30] But if you're launching the quote-unquote suicide drones

[00:33:33] and they're falling over all over Jerusalem,

[00:33:36] there's kind of a high chance that they're going to not hit a military target.

[00:33:42] There's a high chance that they could kill someone.

[00:33:44] There's also a high chance, and this is the other interesting calculation here,

[00:33:47] you know, we're talking about how the Saudis and UAE joined in.

[00:33:52] And I'm sorry to take this on a different direction.

[00:33:54] I promise I'll revisit what you were saying earlier.

[00:33:56] But that, you know, and they joined and they were, you know, it's essentially taken as,

[00:34:00] and they were defending the Israelis.

[00:34:02] Yes and no.

[00:34:03] And the no part is one, you've had groups like the Houthis

[00:34:07] and you've had Iraqi Shia militias that have launched

[00:34:10] and also threatened UAV attacks, rocket attacks,

[00:34:14] and they've executed them.

[00:34:16] And, you know, this was happening for the past couple of years.

[00:34:19] Again, not as many people were paying attention to it

[00:34:21] because it's, you know, it's like how Syria kind of ebbed in the news,

[00:34:25] you know, who was really following the Saudi war in Yemen.

[00:34:29] But that had happened and they have an air defense

[00:34:31] and also these, the aircraft and missiles were flying over their territory.

[00:34:35] Yeah, they had to pass through their airspace to get to Israel.

[00:34:39] Yeah, it's not...

[00:34:40] It's like a normal response.

[00:34:42] That aside, think of it this way.

[00:34:45] Well, given there was a huge rate of failure from some of these missiles

[00:34:49] and sort of from some of these UAVs,

[00:34:51] well what happened if they like one of them just kind of fell near Abu Dhabi

[00:34:54] and ended up killing some people?

[00:34:56] I mean, you have to think about that in terms of the calculation.

[00:34:59] Yeah.

[00:35:00] I mean, I, a few colleagues that were putting up,

[00:35:02] well it kind of demonstrates what happens when you put a bunch of radicals

[00:35:05] who are incompetent that maybe this wasn't 100% thought through

[00:35:09] and maybe the reaction had to be kind of emotional like this

[00:35:12] because you have to demonstrate that you can do it.

[00:35:14] We've pushed against the wall. How else can we respond?

[00:35:17] We have to show that we can launch 300 rockets and cruise missiles

[00:35:21] and UAVs at the Israelis

[00:35:23] and we have to just keep doing this because everyone keeps saying,

[00:35:25] don't think they don't read Twitter, they do.

[00:35:27] We have to kind of do something and demonstrate this shocking power.

[00:35:31] I mean, there's different ways of executing that

[00:35:33] and this was one of those ways to say

[00:35:35] and it's markedly different than how the Iran's have done it before.

[00:35:40] Again, Iran is directly involved with it.

[00:35:42] That was a big thing.

[00:35:44] But they did also, you know, you brought this up before,

[00:35:47] the proxy groups that were involved, you can tell a lot from there.

[00:35:50] Well, they were threatening.

[00:35:51] A lot of the imagery was going up.

[00:35:53] They were saying, you know, UAVs, they were going to do a UAV type attack.

[00:35:56] They were kind of showing the typical stuff for like televised burning,

[00:35:59] that kind of thing.

[00:36:01] It was nothing really all that.

[00:36:03] They did get a shot of missiles flying over the al-Aksh-Ghamasq in Jerusalem,

[00:36:08] which you and I both know will be in propaganda materials for the rest of time.

[00:36:11] But actually, when that happened, the minute that went up,

[00:36:13] I had actually put it up on Twitter and I was like,

[00:36:15] yep, they're going to be using this for the next 100 years.

[00:36:17] And they did.

[00:36:19] Immediately they used that.

[00:36:20] I mean, there's other pieces to this.

[00:36:22] I don't, you know, I think whenever you look at,

[00:36:24] this comes with any country that's executing,

[00:36:27] you know, a form of kind of complex attack or strategy,

[00:36:31] you know, there are a multitude of different things that they can get out of it.

[00:36:35] Iranians are pretty good at capitalizing

[00:36:39] on things for propagandistic needs.

[00:36:43] And a lot of it's really driven by that.

[00:36:45] You know, you'll see attacks that never happened

[00:36:48] and yet they have claims, you know, that, oh, we did this, you know.

[00:36:51] And the other bit they'll do, it's like, you know,

[00:36:53] we actually killed 100 Americans during that, you know,

[00:36:55] during that ballistic missile attack.

[00:36:57] And they're lying about it.

[00:36:58] Meanwhile, simultaneously behind the scenes,

[00:37:00] yeah, we're really glad, wink, wink, that we didn't get anyone.

[00:37:02] They'll say this to American policymakers

[00:37:04] and then they'll say to their own guys,

[00:37:06] you know, we totally wanted to get 100.

[00:37:07] You know what? Launch that Shahad 129 at them

[00:37:10] and do a full payload in the nose count.

[00:37:12] And if it doesn't, you know, try to kill them,

[00:37:14] but you know what, don't kill too many.

[00:37:16] It's so odd and kind of weirdly contradictory.

[00:37:19] But I think in part, you know, it's, for them,

[00:37:22] it's kind of a reading of both American weakness

[00:37:25] and again, this isn't like a partisan comment.

[00:37:27] It's just they literally try this.

[00:37:29] They test with every single president who comes in

[00:37:31] in one way or another.

[00:37:33] They're like, you know, they're like,

[00:37:35] you know, we're not going to be able to deal with that.

[00:37:37] We're not going to be able to deal with that.

[00:37:39] And so I think in part, you know,

[00:37:41] this is what happens when we're dealing with

[00:37:43] a rather aggressive, outwardly focused regime in Tehran.

[00:37:47] But then you're also dealing with kind of an America

[00:37:49] that is, you know, it's resigned itself

[00:37:51] like the military and the military

[00:37:53] and it's kind of like a war between us

[00:37:55] and the United States.

[00:37:56] So I think that's one thing that we're going to do

[00:37:58] is we're going to be able to deal with the Iran deal

[00:38:01] and it's resigned itself like the Middle East is screwed.

[00:38:04] You know, what are we going to do?

[00:38:05] And then you have other domestic issues that are going on here.

[00:38:07] You have other issues with the Israelis.

[00:38:09] There's a high level of complexity that for the average voter,

[00:38:13] they're like, what the hell is a Houthi?

[00:38:15] What is this?

[00:38:17] And I mean, I think all of that's kind of culminating

[00:38:20] in this type of response strategy that the Iranians did.

[00:38:23] Yeah. We're going to take a quick break

[00:38:25] and then we'll be right back with more.

[00:38:36] I want to get back to that rate of failures

[00:38:47] with the drones and the missiles in a second there,

[00:38:49] but just to wind it back to the strike on Zahedi,

[00:38:53] this of course follows a number of strikes

[00:38:57] on IRGC operational figures in Lebanon and Syria

[00:39:02] over the past few years,

[00:39:03] several of which happened since October 7th.

[00:39:07] Okay. So in the intro, I said, you know,

[00:39:10] this is like sort of, but not really

[00:39:12] the first time that Israel and Iran have attacked each other directly.

[00:39:16] You kind of had a face there and I agree with you that it's not,

[00:39:21] but this is the first time I guess that it was maybe telegraph

[00:39:23] two weeks in advance and covered like live on CNN as it happened, right?

[00:39:29] What was so significant for the Iranians about that airstrike

[00:39:33] in Damascus that caused them to respond

[00:39:36] in the significant way that they did?

[00:39:38] Was it just like they've been losing guys for months and years

[00:39:43] since Soleimani and the org chart is just getting hacked to pieces

[00:39:46] and, you know, we can't stand it anymore.

[00:39:49] Okay, Zahedi's gone, you know, we got to hit him hard this time

[00:39:53] or was it more that they hit a diplomatic facility

[00:39:57] and they had to say face somehow?

[00:39:58] Well, hold on.

[00:39:59] I mean, let's not turn this into a black or white.

[00:40:02] I mean, I think there's a few reasons here.

[00:40:04] One, I mean, I think the claims that it was,

[00:40:07] this is a diplomatic facility and they kept honing that.

[00:40:10] One, the irony of that statement coming from the Iranians

[00:40:14] is so classic, I don't even know where to go with it.

[00:40:17] I just like the endless list of diplomatic facilities

[00:40:20] that their proxies and they have assisted in attacking

[00:40:23] is like through the roof.

[00:40:25] Again, that doesn't right.

[00:40:26] USMSE and Baghdad repeatedly.

[00:40:28] It doesn't mean attacking diplomatic facilities is not all okay.

[00:40:31] But the other thing is, I mean, you're looking at the strike.

[00:40:34] The strike itself hit a building that was next door

[00:40:36] or was it within that annex?

[00:40:38] Again, I don't know.

[00:40:39] I'd been down that street once in my life

[00:40:41] and this was like 2008 or 2009.

[00:40:44] I'm trying to remember.

[00:40:45] It's like years and years and years ago.

[00:40:47] So my memory on it is pretty cracked on that one.

[00:40:49] But the Canadians are down the street.

[00:40:52] The Canadian, the old Canadian embassy.

[00:40:54] But again, with the Iranians, they operate a bunch

[00:40:56] of different annexes that are close.

[00:40:58] I mean, they have annexes that are all over

[00:40:59] Saydezaynab, a shrine, a religious shrine

[00:41:02] that are next to it, within it.

[00:41:04] There's these bull up meetings that are going on

[00:41:06] within the grounds of a religious building.

[00:41:08] So you have issues like that too.

[00:41:11] But knowing the Iranians and trying to,

[00:41:13] the way that they craft things,

[00:41:15] how do you make the Israelis look even worse?

[00:41:17] Because the evil hated Zionist enemy.

[00:41:20] Well, and look, they attacked a diplomatic facility.

[00:41:22] It's just, again, I say it with some irony,

[00:41:26] but also it works propagandistically,

[00:41:29] whether it is true or not.

[00:41:31] Again, it's immaterial.

[00:41:32] Whether it's true or not, it will work to push

[00:41:35] an Iranian goal of the Israelis.

[00:41:37] Look at them.

[00:41:38] They're on hinge and they just keep attacking.

[00:41:40] We're trying to deescalate.

[00:41:42] Don't you see even though they just launched

[00:41:44] rockets the day before?

[00:41:45] It reinforces a narrative.

[00:41:47] Yes, it helps reinforce the narrative.

[00:41:49] But then there is that orc chart issue

[00:41:51] that you're talking about.

[00:41:52] Well, yeah, they've been taking loss after

[00:41:54] loss after loss and it's not just that.

[00:41:56] It's also, the Israelis have,

[00:41:58] I think I've lost count.

[00:42:00] I can't even record half of it.

[00:42:02] And some of them aren't even reported where

[00:42:04] they were airstrikes in Syria.

[00:42:06] And you can interview a few people,

[00:42:08] you talk to a few people here in the West,

[00:42:10] you talk to a few people out there,

[00:42:12] and a million people, a million different views.

[00:42:14] It wasn't just that the commanders are getting knocked off,

[00:42:17] but you're also losing high-end equipment

[00:42:19] and it doesn't mean the Iranians have it.

[00:42:21] The Shahad 129 drone, for instance,

[00:42:23] is literally using an Upt Juanmour engine.

[00:42:26] It has a lot of components that you need

[00:42:28] to buy illegally and get stuff in there.

[00:42:30] But let's be honest here,

[00:42:32] it's an extremely upgraded,

[00:42:34] combat-worthy model plane.

[00:42:37] That's really what you're dealing with

[00:42:39] with some newer sensors and some other stuff on it.

[00:42:41] It's not the same as the Israelis

[00:42:43] pretty much hitting every precision-guided

[00:42:46] missile transfer and missile guidance transfer

[00:42:49] that's going on to get to Lebanon and get to Hezbollah.

[00:42:51] So that the eventual big conflict

[00:42:54] and the big hits and the big kind of,

[00:42:56] like what happened in 2006 when Nasrallah was on TV

[00:42:59] and said, I'm going to fulfill a sacred promise to you

[00:43:02] that the Israelis will be hit in a way

[00:43:04] that you won't even know.

[00:43:06] And then right as that was going on,

[00:43:08] the INS Hanit was hit with like a C-802 missile.

[00:43:13] It was a silkworm, yeah.

[00:43:15] You look at something like that

[00:43:17] and it's kind of like, well, they're degrading that.

[00:43:19] They are degrading our command and control.

[00:43:21] We are trying to capitalize,

[00:43:23] and I'm talking as if I'm,

[00:43:25] we are trying to maintain a good level of control

[00:43:27] and influence on Palestinian factions.

[00:43:29] It's going to be very, very hard for us to resupply

[00:43:32] given we have no idea how the Israelis

[00:43:34] are going to deal with Gaza in the future.

[00:43:36] Hezbollah, we can't fully unleash.

[00:43:38] One, because they might not actually be completely ready.

[00:43:41] Two, we don't know what equipment is like

[00:43:43] because they've nailed a lot of the shipments in.

[00:43:45] We don't know if this will give the Israelis

[00:43:47] an opportunity to essentially wipe out Hezbollah

[00:43:50] because we don't want to lose that jewel in the crown.

[00:43:52] You have a bunch of different things here.

[00:43:54] If I'm transmitting this to the world,

[00:43:57] of course, there's a great way of playing

[00:43:59] what they call cry bully online.

[00:44:02] It's the, I can't believe that you slapped me in the face

[00:44:04] while you literally just spit in my eye.

[00:44:06] It's like, what do you want?

[00:44:08] But I mean, that's also,

[00:44:09] that's part of diplomacy with pretty much every country

[00:44:11] plays that at some point or another.

[00:44:13] The Iranians are quite skilled at it.

[00:44:16] But I think in that case,

[00:44:18] it's kind of showing the, could you believe this?

[00:44:21] How dare you hit commanders

[00:44:22] that are totally involved with this war

[00:44:24] that's also going on in your country?

[00:44:26] And it's in a different country, can't you see?

[00:44:28] Because they know that it'll resound in certain places.

[00:44:31] And I think that's part of that calculation.

[00:44:33] But there's another piece to it too where

[00:44:35] you're having, the IRGC itself

[00:44:39] is not a moderate institution.

[00:44:41] It is an institution within Iran,

[00:44:43] but it has extraordinarily extreme goals.

[00:44:46] And it's interesting, those goals were also

[00:44:49] paralleling with other things going on domestically within Iran.

[00:44:52] For instance, they were putting the Shaddur,

[00:44:55] kind of the Hezhab restrictions

[00:44:57] and beating women and hauling them off to jail

[00:45:00] at the same time that these attacks against the Israelis are going.

[00:45:03] And if you know anything about Homeini's ideology

[00:45:06] and kind of the descendants of Homeini

[00:45:08] and their ideology with Hamana-e and the IRGC,

[00:45:12] then obviously these women who are unclothed,

[00:45:16] that's part of that Zionist influence.

[00:45:18] And so you were hitting it all at the same time.

[00:45:20] I know it sounds completely ludicrous,

[00:45:23] but again, you look back at Homeini's writings,

[00:45:26] like the first page of Willay Tulfoqe,

[00:45:30] the Islamic government,

[00:45:32] how it's called Islamic governance,

[00:45:34] the first line talks about how it's really the Jews

[00:45:36] that are pulling all the strings and the Jews did it.

[00:45:38] And that's why the Jews are trying to destroy Islam

[00:45:40] and that's totally why we need to do this.

[00:45:42] And it's just interesting, it's like,

[00:45:44] there might be a little piece in there

[00:45:45] that they're kind of ideologically fighting

[00:45:47] that ideological war that fits within that paradigm.

[00:45:50] And then meanwhile, we're looking at it here going,

[00:45:52] wow, there's so much going on.

[00:45:53] Why does it dovetail with that?

[00:45:54] I have no idea.

[00:45:55] Anyway, there are pieces of that attached too.

[00:45:58] So you can even argue, you know, within the IRGC,

[00:46:01] hey, we've lost enough guys.

[00:46:02] We are listening to ideologically our leader,

[00:46:04] the supreme leader,

[00:46:06] and maybe he wants something different.

[00:46:08] I mean, it was interesting.

[00:46:10] I don't want to go...

[00:46:11] I'm sorry I'm going down so many rabbit holes,

[00:46:13] but it was interesting.

[00:46:14] I saw...

[00:46:15] There was a lot of commentary going on there.

[00:46:16] The commentaries really taking a more moderate position.

[00:46:19] Okay, well what led you to say that?

[00:46:21] Well, he had a few comments here.

[00:46:22] Well, no, like many Shi'a clerics,

[00:46:24] there's a statement that can be read many different ways.

[00:46:27] And often it's deliberate to either hide your opinion,

[00:46:29] to push another opinion,

[00:46:30] or to do a multitude of things.

[00:46:32] You know, and I got the impression from a lot of his statements

[00:46:35] that that was kind of playing that ground where,

[00:46:37] well, I'll see where the centers of power are

[00:46:40] at the end of the day

[00:46:41] and if we have to launch this big attack,

[00:46:42] maybe I don't want to do it,

[00:46:44] but there's...

[00:46:45] You know, I have to keep a balance somehow.

[00:46:46] But I did notice that quite a bit,

[00:46:48] like unequivocally people who don't read,

[00:46:50] you know, the Persian language press

[00:46:52] or the Arabic language press

[00:46:53] or anything else just like,

[00:46:54] you know, he's been...

[00:46:55] He doesn't really want to do that attack.

[00:46:57] Okay, maybe not.

[00:46:58] Or maybe he's saying that publicly

[00:46:59] to offer a conflicting message

[00:47:01] which the Iranians constantly do.

[00:47:03] For instance, saying in English

[00:47:04] we had nothing to do with October 7th

[00:47:06] to American diplomats

[00:47:08] and to other diplomats overseas,

[00:47:10] while, you know, in all of their newspapers

[00:47:12] and all of their propaganda publications,

[00:47:14] saying we totally did it,

[00:47:15] we were totally involved.

[00:47:16] Here's the weapons systems that we gave to them

[00:47:17] and look at the training we gave.

[00:47:18] You know, it's...

[00:47:19] Yeah.

[00:47:20] I mean, I think we run into a problem

[00:47:21] with a lot of that

[00:47:22] and I think we have the same issue

[00:47:23] with the consulate attack.

[00:47:25] I think, you know,

[00:47:26] given how the Iranians were executing things

[00:47:28] and it was widely considered kind of weak

[00:47:31] and standoffish,

[00:47:32] that, you know, they wanted to have

[00:47:34] a big show both internally

[00:47:36] and also for certain external elements

[00:47:38] that are kind of within their orbit.

[00:47:40] And I think that's kind of why

[00:47:42] it filtered down in this way.

[00:47:43] I think, you know,

[00:47:44] it might have been a one-too-many for them

[00:47:46] given his key place,

[00:47:47] especially with Lebanese Hezbollah.

[00:47:49] You know, I just...

[00:47:50] I get the impression that

[00:47:52] there was a lot going on.

[00:47:53] There was a lot going on

[00:47:55] and there had to be some form of response.

[00:47:57] Again, I mean, I will repeat this.

[00:47:59] I thought that response would be

[00:48:01] one different, meaning, you know,

[00:48:03] UAVs and stuff would be launched a different way,

[00:48:05] but it totally makes sense what they did.

[00:48:07] And again, I've said this before.

[00:48:09] I've said it on Twitter a bunch of times that,

[00:48:11] you know, they will kind of tell you

[00:48:13] modes of execution and what they want to do.

[00:48:15] Well, one of those things

[00:48:17] that they telegraphed was,

[00:48:18] okay, we're going to have a mass rocket attack

[00:48:20] and drones and you're going to be under the weight

[00:48:22] of these new systems

[00:48:24] that Iran can bring to the table.

[00:48:26] Well, okay, well,

[00:48:27] they wanted to demonstrate it

[00:48:28] and they pretty much did.

[00:48:29] Yeah.

[00:48:30] I wanted to ask you about

[00:48:32] the rate of failure in the

[00:48:34] drones and missile systems

[00:48:35] that the Iranians sent up here.

[00:48:37] Do you think, yeah,

[00:48:38] that rate of failure to say nothing

[00:48:40] of the ease with which

[00:48:43] Israel, the US and its coalition partners

[00:48:45] knocked down the rest of it?

[00:48:46] Do you think, do you think

[00:48:48] they were surprised by that

[00:48:49] and did that maybe play a role

[00:48:51] to keep them from escalating it further

[00:48:53] in a third or fourth round of strikes?

[00:48:55] No, I mean, I think they were just going to do this one round.

[00:48:57] And I think again,

[00:48:59] don't get me wrong.

[00:49:00] Like if the Israelis were on their knees

[00:49:02] and really getting pummeled,

[00:49:04] I'm sure they'd try to do something else

[00:49:06] because the opportunity has come up

[00:49:08] and why not take advantage of it?

[00:49:09] I mean, clearly we're being sent

[00:49:11] a divine message that they're weak.

[00:49:12] But I do think, again,

[00:49:14] so much was telegraphed beforehand,

[00:49:16] so much of it was.

[00:49:18] People knew something was going to happen.

[00:49:20] You kind of knew within 48 hours.

[00:49:21] And then, oh my God,

[00:49:22] it happened within that 48-hour window

[00:49:24] that it would be hard to say,

[00:49:26] you know, if they tried doing even more,

[00:49:28] I think for them,

[00:49:30] you know, okay, we sent our signal

[00:49:32] and we can, you know, hold our own,

[00:49:34] you know, with the Israelis

[00:49:35] and we feel good at least internally

[00:49:37] that we've demonstrated we could do that.

[00:49:39] I don't know, honestly,

[00:49:41] like if it just occurred like now

[00:49:43] and then they just kept doing it.

[00:49:45] One, I mean, what are the stocks looking like

[00:49:47] for them in terms of how many UAVs

[00:49:49] and cruise missiles

[00:49:51] and other rockets that they're deploying?

[00:49:53] Then I guess the other pieces to it as well,

[00:49:55] it's the, okay, well, how long

[00:49:57] do you want to keep this going for?

[00:49:59] And do you really want to look,

[00:50:01] is it worthy to you to look a certain way internationally?

[00:50:05] And I think maybe some pieces of that

[00:50:07] kind of chimed in with it.

[00:50:09] It was interesting because one of the narratives

[00:50:11] that was taken on a lot of Western news channels

[00:50:13] was, you know, wow, here the Israelis are,

[00:50:15] you know, diplomatically isolated

[00:50:17] and people are tagging them for how they've

[00:50:19] executed their operations in Gaza

[00:50:21] and here are the Iranians who just came through

[00:50:23] at the worst possible time

[00:50:25] and now, you know, put the shoe on the other foot.

[00:50:28] I mean, so there might actually be

[00:50:30] a calculation that came to that as well.

[00:50:32] But again, I mean, it's not like the attacks

[00:50:34] have stopped. I mean, I think people forget this.

[00:50:36] It's not like, you know, Hezbollah has stopped.

[00:50:38] It's not like Hamas is stopping.

[00:50:40] You know, there's a lot of other things

[00:50:42] that are going on.

[00:50:44] But I can say, I doubtful that, you know,

[00:50:48] unless the Israelis were like literally on the floor

[00:50:51] that they would have really kind of gone beyond that.

[00:50:54] I mean, again, I think this was

[00:50:56] broadcast a little too widely for it to be,

[00:50:59] you know, kind of, hey, we're going to have 300 drones every day.

[00:51:02] You know, it's not going to work that way.

[00:51:04] So the Lebanon issue,

[00:51:06] at least in his public statements since October 7th,

[00:51:09] Hassan Isra'ala has pretty strongly suggested

[00:51:12] that he doesn't want the smoke to put it a certain way.

[00:51:16] Meanwhile, there are still 70,000 Israelis

[00:51:19] evacuated from towns in northern Israel

[00:51:22] along the Lebanese border.

[00:51:24] There's been some reports in the latter half of this month

[00:51:28] that the Israelis are considering maybe some sort of a preemptive

[00:51:32] attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon.

[00:51:36] How do you feel about that?

[00:51:38] Do you think it's likely, do you expect it?

[00:51:41] What do you think?

[00:51:42] It's interesting.

[00:51:43] I mean, because you use the terminology that I've seen a lot,

[00:51:46] a preemptive attack on Hezbollah,

[00:51:48] Hezbollah has already attacked them.

[00:51:50] Yes.

[00:51:51] You know what I mean.

[00:51:52] It's interesting how this is getting framed.

[00:51:54] You know, Hezbollah has already done it.

[00:51:56] I think, you know, I try to analyze it from a lot of different points of view

[00:51:59] just to see where it's coming from.

[00:52:01] Hezbollah, one could make the argument that, you know,

[00:52:04] hey, we can only get so involved in this.

[00:52:07] We only have so many capabilities.

[00:52:08] We've got to worry about Syria.

[00:52:09] We've got to worry about a bunch of other stuff.

[00:52:11] We were, you know, pretty much expressly told

[00:52:13] that maybe the big conflict isn't going to happen now.

[00:52:15] We need some patience, da-da-da-da.

[00:52:17] Okay.

[00:52:18] Here's the packages that we can deliver to the table.

[00:52:21] But there's, at the end of the day,

[00:52:23] you also, you're looking, you're saying,

[00:52:24] you know, why was it 70,000?

[00:52:25] There's a ton of Israelis that have been evacuated from northern Israel

[00:52:28] and it's already hard enough for them, the Israelis,

[00:52:30] to keep those people up there.

[00:52:32] Like there's high incentivization to keep people in towns and villages

[00:52:35] that are in northern Israel.

[00:52:37] And when Hezbollah is literally launching these short-range, range catechesis,

[00:52:41] that's another issue here.

[00:52:43] You know, there's a lot of talk about,

[00:52:45] well, you know, the Iron Dome and the, you know,

[00:52:48] whatever the, you know, like David's Arrow,

[00:52:50] what's the, it's like the Arrow 3.

[00:52:51] David's Sling.

[00:52:52] Yeah.

[00:52:53] So you look at that, but most of those systems,

[00:52:56] and Iron Dome while it's marketed as like for a short-range rocket systems,

[00:53:01] well, they're kind of expensive.

[00:53:03] Whereas a 107 millimeter rocket, like, or, you know,

[00:53:07] a Catoosia 122, like Rad, you know,

[00:53:09] those things don't cost all that much.

[00:53:11] You can make them in your garage, you know,

[00:53:13] if you've got the right pieces.

[00:53:14] And they do.

[00:53:15] And they do.

[00:53:16] But I mean, you look at something like that and okay,

[00:53:18] well, the cost-benefit analysis says how much money is this going to cost?

[00:53:22] And by the way,

[00:53:23] Hezbollah and a lot of the Iraqi proxies and Bahraini proxies,

[00:53:26] all of them have come out.

[00:53:28] It's interesting how they will market this kind of,

[00:53:30] ah, we know how beholden to money, you know,

[00:53:32] the evil ones our enemies are.

[00:53:35] And they'll put up stuff like, hey,

[00:53:36] we destroyed this like convoy of Humvees.

[00:53:38] That cost the Americans this much.

[00:53:40] You know, they won't even put up how much they spent,

[00:53:42] but obviously it's less if you're, you know,

[00:53:44] piling on a bunch of plastic explosives

[00:53:45] and shoving them somewhere on the road.

[00:53:47] You know, it's much less expensive to what's that's costing,

[00:53:50] you know, quote unquote the occupation forces.

[00:53:52] So I mean, I think there's a piece of that that's in their calculation.

[00:53:56] The other thing is a lot of these, these anti,

[00:54:00] you know, the anti ballistic missile anti rocket systems,

[00:54:02] all that stuff, it not just costs money,

[00:54:05] but also has only certain effectiveness.

[00:54:07] It's not as effective when it comes to the smaller rockets

[00:54:11] that are cheaply produced and, you know,

[00:54:13] and they're launched in droves.

[00:54:15] And so, you know, you have to deal with attacks like that

[00:54:17] and then combine that with a few key operations

[00:54:20] that Hasbulla has done like where they've attacked a center

[00:54:23] where the Israeli military was gathering.

[00:54:26] I think this was like a month ago, about a month ago.

[00:54:28] Oh yeah, that was near the border, right?

[00:54:30] It was near the border.

[00:54:31] You look at that and it's kind of,

[00:54:32] it's interspersed with these more organized,

[00:54:35] kind of highly detailed and a lot of intelligence work

[00:54:38] went into organizing an attack like that.

[00:54:40] And then you have other little kind of pinprick bits

[00:54:43] like, oh hey, we're going to nail all the sensors on,

[00:54:45] you know, on the border.

[00:54:46] Right, so raptors testing the fences.

[00:54:49] I mean, essentially, that's essentially what it comes down to.

[00:54:52] And, you know, I would say if you look at that

[00:54:55] from an Israeli perspective and you've seen this

[00:54:57] in the press quite a bit and the Israeli press

[00:54:59] and also with oppositional political figures,

[00:55:02] it's the, you know, we screwed stuff up in 2006.

[00:55:06] It's interesting how they never look back at 1982.

[00:55:08] They talk about 2006 now.

[00:55:09] It's like interesting how memories just faded.

[00:55:12] But they look at 2006 and they're saying,

[00:55:15] you know what?

[00:55:16] We should have stayed there longer

[00:55:17] and we could have just destroyed Hezbollah,

[00:55:20] at least in the South.

[00:55:21] There were a ton of issues with even that thinking

[00:55:24] because if, like Jonathan Randall wrote this book back in,

[00:55:28] I'd say like 1985, called Going All the Way

[00:55:31] and Going All the Way, he was a journalist in Beirut.

[00:55:34] Going All the Way was the Israelis going

[00:55:35] all the way to Beirut, you know?

[00:55:37] And working with Christian allies that were there

[00:55:40] and trying to get, you know, Christian,

[00:55:42] Christian politician elected anyway.

[00:55:44] I just want to give some context here, Phillip.

[00:55:46] Sorry.

[00:55:47] So for listeners, the, and correct me here

[00:55:51] or add more details if you would like to, Phillip.

[00:55:54] So the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 1982

[00:55:58] to unseat the PLO.

[00:56:00] So that's Yasser Arafat's organization.

[00:56:02] That was at that point headquartered in Beirut.

[00:56:05] That's why they went into Lebanon.

[00:56:07] Their occupation of parts of Lebanon,

[00:56:10] which continued up until what? 2000?

[00:56:12] 2008-2000.

[00:56:13] 8000 or May.

[00:56:15] Right.

[00:56:16] That occupation is what Hezbollah was created in response to.

[00:56:19] No.

[00:56:20] Fair.

[00:56:21] I mean, I'll get the little details.

[00:56:22] So in part, yes, from 1978 they did an invasion

[00:56:26] south of the Lattani called the Lattani operation.

[00:56:29] Literally called the Lattani operation

[00:56:31] because it went to the Lattani River.

[00:56:32] Then in 1982, it was Operation Peace for the Galilee.

[00:56:36] And then they went pretty much all the way to Beirut.

[00:56:39] In part, it was to get the PLO out of Lebanon.

[00:56:42] And then the other part was also some political games

[00:56:44] that were going on where they wanted Bashar al-Jama'il,

[00:56:46] who was kind of main leader within the Qatayb party

[00:56:50] to help get elected because they thought maybe a peace

[00:56:52] treaty could come out and maybe you kind of push up

[00:56:55] kind of Christian leadership there and there'll be more

[00:56:57] faculty of the Israelis that didn't like the Syrians.

[00:56:59] They didn't like the PLO.

[00:57:00] But then Hezbollah, Hezbollah was actually in the works

[00:57:03] for a while.

[00:57:04] And I think it's interesting because it's now become

[00:57:07] so ingrained in how people tell the story of the group

[00:57:10] that, well, it was in response to the Israelis.

[00:57:12] No, it was in response to the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

[00:57:15] You had clerics that were actually, they knew Khomeini.

[00:57:18] They were in the Dawa party, which Khomeini was also part of.

[00:57:22] And they wanted to essentially initially create

[00:57:25] an Islamic government in the Khomeini style in Lebanon.

[00:57:29] And they saw that as an opportunity just like

[00:57:31] the Israeli occupation that was there.

[00:57:33] Yes, they were there to oppose the Israeli occupation,

[00:57:35] obviously for a lot of reasons.

[00:57:37] But there are other kind of pieces that are tied in with it.

[00:57:40] I'm sorry, again, I'm doing like the weird nuance.

[00:57:43] You're good.

[00:57:44] This will be a longer one.

[00:57:45] And I think that's good.

[00:57:46] Let's give the people all the details, stuff that you

[00:57:48] want here.

[00:57:49] Well, it is important to remember because I think

[00:57:51] a lot of people, I'm using a lot of very Trumpian,

[00:57:54] a lot of people say, many people are saying,

[00:57:58] but it is kind of true even in academic circles.

[00:58:03] Well, they were formed in response to the Israeli occupation.

[00:58:05] Okay, one part of that is, but they, you know,

[00:58:07] in their founding document in 1985, this is when the Israelis

[00:58:10] had pulled away from Beirut and were just occupying the south,

[00:58:14] the south Lebanon army.

[00:58:16] They stated they wanted an Islamic state of Lebanon.

[00:58:20] That's what they wanted.

[00:58:21] An Islamic Republic of Lebanon.

[00:58:22] And they looked at Khomeini.

[00:58:24] And they still look to Khomeini and the leadership

[00:58:26] of Hamana-i in Iran as supreme leader.

[00:58:29] So that has never changed.

[00:58:31] Like in 2009, for instance, they had this reformed manifesto.

[00:58:36] But meanwhile it didn't say that, hey, we've dropped this

[00:58:38] whole absolute with Ayatollah Fakir thing, which is their

[00:58:41] transnational ideology and having Khomeini-i as the supreme

[00:58:46] leader and having kind of the same religious ideological

[00:58:49] framework that went along with it.

[00:58:51] So yeah, it was a multi-fold deal.

[00:58:53] Yeah.

[00:58:54] I love how I've completely, I'm sorry,

[00:58:55] I went in such a tangent that we've completely lost

[00:58:57] what I was even getting out for going all the way.

[00:59:00] You were talking about going all the way to Baruch in 2006,

[00:59:04] right?

[00:59:05] To just put an end to his ball.

[00:59:07] What they were saying was we should have gone back to

[00:59:10] the old situation of we should have occupied a chunk of

[00:59:13] south Lebanon, kicked Hezbollah out and then we can find a

[00:59:16] way to either renegotiate or you occupy it or what.

[00:59:20] For me, I kind of look at that.

[00:59:23] It's like step one, take over southern Lebanon.

[00:59:25] Step two, question mark.

[00:59:26] Step three, profit.

[00:59:28] Right, yeah, the underpants norms.

[00:59:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:59:31] But it's, I mean, I kind of look at that and it's the,

[00:59:34] okay, well that still leaves Lebanese Hezbollah and the

[00:59:37] Bakal Valley for the most part, which is where they

[00:59:40] formed.

[00:59:41] It doesn't get rid of their main transport networks that

[00:59:43] go through Syria.

[00:59:44] But what it would do is, and this is kind of a major

[00:59:47] thing, if you look at kind of this weird kind of

[00:59:50] dichotomy that's forming, it would be very hard,

[00:59:52] I'm not saying impossible, but very hard to pop off

[00:59:54] those 107s and 122 millimeter rockets.

[00:59:57] Yes, do they have the range?

[00:59:59] Yeah, but it gives you extra time if they're launching

[01:00:02] it from like Nabaltea compared to if they're launching

[01:00:05] it from like Ramesh.

[01:00:06] Ramesh is all the way on the border with Israel's

[01:00:09] a Christian town.

[01:00:10] Nabaltea is a main town that's, it's in southern

[01:00:13] Lebanon, but it's up a bit more.

[01:00:15] I'm just thinking like the idea that like,

[01:00:18] in 2006 they should have stayed and occupied part

[01:00:22] of southern Lebanon to establish more of a

[01:00:25] buffer, I guess, force a disarmament there.

[01:00:28] But I mean, in a way they did that up until

[01:00:31] 2000 and at least on paper, that's what

[01:00:34] UNIFIL is supposed to be for, the UNP

[01:00:37] Skipping Force.

[01:00:38] I mean, and it's...

[01:00:39] When UNIFIL is on paper to do a lot of

[01:00:41] things.

[01:00:42] Right.

[01:00:43] Have they done it?

[01:00:44] No, because...

[01:00:45] No.

[01:00:46] Look, you've had UNSCR 1559 and 1701 and

[01:00:50] both have essentially called for disarming

[01:00:53] militias that are in that area.

[01:00:55] Now, that's not just Lebanese Hezbollah,

[01:00:57] but Lebanese Hezbollah is obviously the

[01:00:59] largest and the big coordinator.

[01:01:00] When UNIFIL has even like, when the UN

[01:01:03] has gone out of its way when it's come to

[01:01:05] let's say certain politicians being killed

[01:01:07] in Lebanon, it's interesting how UNIFIL

[01:01:10] convoys will get surrounded by these

[01:01:12] random partisans who are protesting,

[01:01:14] I put that in quotes, they're just

[01:01:16] protesting UNIFIL's presence even though

[01:01:18] they've been in the area for God knows how

[01:01:20] long and also simultaneously those same

[01:01:22] types of protesters also will talk about

[01:01:24] how the Israelis deliberately target

[01:01:26] UNIFIL that's down there too as kind

[01:01:28] of another bludgeoning point.

[01:01:30] But it's like fascinating, UNIFIL is

[01:01:32] there and I mean, I think there are

[01:01:34] strong arguments to say, well this

[01:01:37] is done, this isn't working, but there

[01:01:39] are also strong arguments to say, okay,

[01:01:41] then what takes over in the meantime?

[01:01:43] What else is there as a monitor and

[01:01:45] what else is there as kind of another

[01:01:47] pressure point? I look at it and it's

[01:01:50] kind of like, well if their job was to

[01:01:52] enforce 1559 and 1701, cool, they're

[01:01:54] going to get nailed with a bunch of

[01:01:56] EFPs that Fremontis as Bulla pulls out.

[01:01:58] That's, you know, as Bulla has already threatened it.

[01:02:01] They'll never turn over their arms

[01:02:03] because they are the Islamic resistance

[01:02:05] to pray for them. And the Israelis

[01:02:07] also simultaneous, you're like, yeah

[01:02:09] they're completely useless and they

[01:02:11] don't do anything and what's the deal?

[01:02:13] But they're there.

[01:02:15] But again, it's, you know, UNIFIL's

[01:02:17] goals have not really been met at all.

[01:02:19] And then beyond that, it's also, you know,

[01:02:22] the Israeli occupation of the south,

[01:02:24] the argument for why would they want

[01:02:26] to occupy the south and stay there

[01:02:28] for an extended period would be,

[01:02:31] I mean, there's a lot of stuff that

[01:02:33] was written in the early 2000s about

[01:02:35] this that was from kind of the flip

[01:02:37] side of well, the security zone was

[01:02:39] evacuated and look what ended up

[01:02:41] happening. The proxy forces that

[01:02:43] the Israelis used, meaning the south

[01:02:45] Lebanon army, completely disintegrated

[01:02:47] and you had a couple thousand Lebanese

[01:02:49] fleeing into Israel. But one of

[01:02:51] the big things was, Huzbola

[01:02:53] was unable to really, and this is

[01:02:55] according to these two Israeli

[01:02:57] experts and Israeli policymakers

[01:02:59] who were on the side of no, we need

[01:03:01] to maintain the security zone, they

[01:03:03] weren't really all that effective

[01:03:05] when it came to targeting the

[01:03:07] Israelis. A lot of these attacks would

[01:03:09] be kind of cordoned off in the south

[01:03:11] and then if you add on to that, I brought up

[01:03:13] the SLA before. Well, there was

[01:03:15] a skeleton force of

[01:03:17] Israelis of about a thousand to

[01:03:19] two thousand guys, whereas the

[01:03:21] SLA was at its smallest

[01:03:23] anywhere from like 1500 to 2,000

[01:03:25] guys. Can I give some more

[01:03:27] context here? Sure. So the

[01:03:29] SLA that you're referring to, that's the south

[01:03:31] Lebanon army that was

[01:03:33] an Israeli backed militia

[01:03:35] up until 2000.

[01:03:37] Yeah. So in 1975

[01:03:39] it was started

[01:03:41] in part by Sadh Haddad

[01:03:43] who was in 11

[01:03:45] his armed forces. He was based in Marjayun

[01:03:47] which is a southern Christian town.

[01:03:49] It had a good amount of Christians

[01:03:51] that were in it. It was mostly Christian leadership.

[01:03:53] Later was taken over by Antoine

[01:03:55] Lachad, who was also SLA

[01:03:57] commander. It had its own intelligence apparatus,

[01:03:59] had its own kind of quasi-social

[01:04:01] services and it was deeply connected

[01:04:03] with the Israelis through

[01:04:05] the good fence.

[01:04:07] Through

[01:04:09] kind of like certain border check points

[01:04:11] that they had with the Israelis. So they were kind of

[01:04:13] closely integrated

[01:04:15] and also they kind of ran their own system down there

[01:04:17] but the way the Israelis executed the pull

[01:04:19] out, and this is under Ahut Barak

[01:04:21] who essentially announced it

[01:04:23] in 1999. He's like, yeah I want to be out of there

[01:04:25] by 2000 which

[01:04:27] what did Hezbollah do? Hezbollah actually

[01:04:29] started to try to kill

[01:04:31] certain key leaders that were like involved with the SLA

[01:04:33] and stuff which just caused them to

[01:04:35] totally disintegrate by

[01:04:37] the time the Israelis

[01:04:39] were pulling out. But anyway

[01:04:41] to kind of get back on to what the SLA was

[01:04:43] at that time you had a proxy

[01:04:45] militia force that also

[01:04:47] was pretty well funded, well

[01:04:49] equipped, well trained. They were doing their jobs

[01:04:51] for the Israelis

[01:04:53] anyway and there's a disintegration

[01:04:55] of that. Do you expect that's going to be

[01:04:57] magically rebuilt by the Israelis? No.

[01:04:59] No. They're not going to trust that.

[01:05:01] It's not going to happen.

[01:05:03] That's just like issue number one.

[01:05:05] Issue number two is, okay

[01:05:07] so cool, where are we drawing a line for where South Lebanon

[01:05:09] is? Because I've read a number of articles

[01:05:11] that have said, right at the LaTani River. Cool

[01:05:13] well the LaTani River goes all the way to Baalbek

[01:05:15] but so let's

[01:05:17] think critically where is it going to go

[01:05:19] and then also what do you deal

[01:05:21] with Hezbollah after you've

[01:05:23] pushed them out of the south? Do you just leave

[01:05:25] them there as this kind of

[01:05:27] metastasized cancer for you

[01:05:29] that's just kind of sitting up there and launching

[01:05:31] attack, launching attack, launching attack.

[01:05:33] How does that work? Because it seems

[01:05:35] like a lot of this talk

[01:05:37] really comes down to where

[01:05:39] rightfully again I can understand

[01:05:41] from these really position we are rightfully

[01:05:43] bothered by the 107mm

[01:05:45] 122 the grads. It's

[01:05:47] just interesting post that but then

[01:05:49] there's a ton of other things you kind of have

[01:05:51] to address and you have to deal

[01:05:53] with acting as

[01:05:55] an occupying force down there again.

[01:05:57] There's also the population issue

[01:05:59] let's say you conquer it all the way

[01:06:01] to Sur which is Tire

[01:06:03] that's if nobody evacuates and I'm sure a lot of people

[01:06:05] would evacuate but if no one

[01:06:07] evacuates that's like 200,000 people

[01:06:09] that live in the Tire area

[01:06:11] these really

[01:06:13] just kind of execute

[01:06:15] that. I mean I know they did during the

[01:06:17] Lebanese Civil War when they went in there during Operation Peace

[01:06:19] for the Galilee but

[01:06:21] you're dealing with a very very different setup

[01:06:23] than you've got it you've got now

[01:06:25] it's like it's night and day. I mean

[01:06:27] just my personal view of it I don't know

[01:06:29] I think the situation

[01:06:31] for post-war Gaza has yet to be kind of

[01:06:33] decided but

[01:06:35] I do not see the Israeli public as having

[01:06:37] the appetite to occupy both

[01:06:39] Gaza and

[01:06:41] some portion of southern Lebanon

[01:06:43] it just doesn't seem feasible to me.

[01:06:45] I don't know

[01:06:47] I mean I think

[01:06:49] time will tell more than anything else but I think

[01:06:51] you have Israelis that now feel like

[01:06:53] they're against the wall a lot of

[01:06:55] both with Gaza with international

[01:06:57] opinion and all this other kind of

[01:06:59] stuff going on where

[01:07:01] you know I talked

[01:07:03] it's interesting you know I had today I spoke

[01:07:05] to an Iraqi

[01:07:07] militia guy and then I also spoke to

[01:07:09] an Israeli friend so it was

[01:07:11] hilarious to kind of you know the two

[01:07:13] different views and weird stuff that was going on

[01:07:15] and you know what's actually going on with Gaza

[01:07:17] and well the Israeli view

[01:07:19] that I kind of constantly hear is one of

[01:07:21] did they not see that you know

[01:07:23] for the Israelis did they not see that we got

[01:07:25] massacred on October 7th that we're trying to

[01:07:27] execute this war we're trying to do this we're trying to do that

[01:07:29] you know they're holding our hands behind our backs

[01:07:31] you know we're dealing with rocket attacks all

[01:07:33] the time it's just like treated like this is normal

[01:07:35] and no one cares and even America

[01:07:37] is annoyed like what right do they have

[01:07:39] and I think in part

[01:07:41] given it's what almost six months

[01:07:43] since October 7th

[01:07:45] there was six months. Yeah

[01:07:47] you know I think it's still burning quite

[01:07:49] hot with a lot of Israelis but so

[01:07:51] was 1978 and 1982

[01:07:53] you know those same time

[01:07:55] periods you know we're under attack what are we going

[01:07:57] to do here we can change the balance of power

[01:07:59] in the Middle East if we go all the way there

[01:08:01] we can also get rid of the PLO which is

[01:08:03] an issue for us you know why not

[01:08:05] sweep it clean and so it's a lot

[01:08:07] of these things initially sound

[01:08:09] great and sometimes they sound great on paper

[01:08:11] if you're an Israeli like I'm pissed I'm sick

[01:08:13] of dealing with this crap and then you have to deal

[01:08:15] with the other 10 years of all the other

[01:08:17] you know the other kind of

[01:08:19] heartburn that kind of comes with it

[01:08:21] and I think it's that kind of

[01:08:23] position of you know how much

[01:08:25] are you willing to deal with

[01:08:27] I think that's kind of where Israelis

[01:08:29] would kind of get sick and tired and annoyed with it

[01:08:31] and then the other thing is you know

[01:08:33] looking at it from the other point of view

[01:08:35] from let's say an Iranian

[01:08:37] proxy point of view

[01:08:39] I think the argument can be made

[01:08:41] that it is very very easy

[01:08:43] for Hezbollah to actually

[01:08:45] get some new wind in its sails even

[01:08:47] a ton of guys and loses a lot of stuff

[01:08:49] but it can get

[01:08:51] a good kind of narrative blow if

[01:08:53] you know you now have an occupying

[01:08:55] Israeli force in Lebanon because

[01:08:57] what happens then I'm not saying again

[01:08:59] like we run into this problem where it's the

[01:09:01] well if only you know there are plenty of people in Lebanon

[01:09:03] who don't like Lebanese Hezbollah this is very

[01:09:05] true in fact there's a ton of them who

[01:09:07] hate Lebanese Hezbollah but then what's

[01:09:09] then what happens if the Israelis

[01:09:11] now have taken over southern Lebanon

[01:09:13] will some just like not care and say well they did

[01:09:15] this Hezbollah did this to themselves yeah I'm sure

[01:09:17] some will but it's very very easy

[01:09:19] to kind of engender this hey you see the

[01:09:21] resistance is still here and we all we were doing

[01:09:23] defending the Palestinians and look what these Israelis

[01:09:25] did to just cause this new round

[01:09:27] of just you know more

[01:09:29] it doesn't really allow

[01:09:31] for you know kind of an end strategic

[01:09:33] goal of you know

[01:09:35] of Hezbollah kind of either learning

[01:09:37] its lesson or being you know pigeon

[01:09:39] hold in some direction I'm not saying that that's

[01:09:41] even effective either but

[01:09:43] you know it puts

[01:09:45] it puts Hezbollah and the Israelis in a weird

[01:09:47] position and puts the Iranians

[01:09:49] also in another weird position

[01:09:51] and frankly I think the Iranians and Lebanese Hezbollah

[01:09:53] would know how to capitalize

[01:09:55] on it in some form

[01:09:57] to at least kind of win out and make people

[01:09:59] forget you know all the other things that they had done

[01:10:01] in the previous years you know from killing

[01:10:03] from killing Christians to killing

[01:10:05] Sunnis in Syria to

[01:10:07] killing Sunnis in Lebanon to causing

[01:10:09] all sorts of problems and economic issues

[01:10:11] in Lebanon. Oh well you know

[01:10:13] there's an occupation here and let's capitalize

[01:10:15] on it and you'll forget because that's how politics

[01:10:17] moves so I mean I always

[01:10:19] see that as a risk

[01:10:21] for Israeli policymakers

[01:10:23] but again I mean I think a lot of Israeli

[01:10:25] policymakers are coming up with kind of the

[01:10:27] what else do you expect us to do so it's

[01:10:29] like it's crazy you're literally between a rock

[01:10:31] and a hard place and they're just all bad

[01:10:33] solutions let's choose the

[01:10:35] least worst. All the heart

[01:10:37] burn that their post October

[01:10:39] 7th strategic position gives them

[01:10:41] aside it and correct me

[01:10:43] if I'm wrong it sounds like you're saying that

[01:10:45] you feel that

[01:10:47] the Israelis trying to occupy

[01:10:49] southern Lebanon again would be a bad idea.

[01:10:51] If I'm well I think again

[01:10:53] it takes long-term planning

[01:10:55] and kind of also thinking through the possibilities

[01:10:57] of what they can actually

[01:10:59] execute and what they can do and how effective

[01:11:01] that's going to be for how long

[01:11:03] and I think you know a lot of people who throw

[01:11:05] that out there and again a lot of

[01:11:07] Israeli policymakers or at least

[01:11:09] politicians and again

[01:11:11] politicians only mean so much

[01:11:13] when they say something but I just

[01:11:15] get the impression that's the you know you're sick of

[01:11:17] rockets we're going to get rid of those rockets cool

[01:11:19] okay the way you're doing it is

[01:11:21] there are long-term constraints

[01:11:23] that you now have

[01:11:25] that you have to operate and no one seems to

[01:11:27] be addressing this and the reaction

[01:11:29] you get is well we already thought about that

[01:11:31] okay like everyone thought about that in 1982

[01:11:33] again not saying that it's not

[01:11:35] coming from a place of we have now been pushed

[01:11:37] against the wall what other options do we

[01:11:39] have it's just

[01:11:41] that's why I can't say it's entirely

[01:11:43] good or entirely bad

[01:11:45] again I'm also not an Israeli policymaker

[01:11:47] I'm an American number one

[01:11:49] and I just kind of watch the stuff

[01:11:51] but I mean I can see

[01:11:53] I can one see why there's

[01:11:55] some level of consternation two

[01:11:57] I can also see where

[01:11:59] you know longer-term planning really needs to go into it

[01:12:01] and how that can go completely haywire

[01:12:03] and three I mean I think

[01:12:05] some some of the people who are kind of out there who

[01:12:07] and I read one article recently

[01:12:09] it was like you know the Israel should just change

[01:12:11] the borders and annex everything up to the Latani

[01:12:13] huh what yeah

[01:12:15] do that that was one of them out there

[01:12:17] and and I

[01:12:19] I get it from a messaging angle

[01:12:21] from a rhetorical cycle went so great

[01:12:23] the first time well I mean part of

[01:12:25] the argument though part of the argument on this one is

[01:12:27] well you know Lebanon and Israel's

[01:12:29] at least mandate Palestine's borders

[01:12:31] were defined later on

[01:12:33] you know the French the British and so who knows

[01:12:35] really what a frontier is you know Lebanese

[01:12:37] nationalists now will still discuss the

[01:12:39] seven villages that are you know within

[01:12:41] Israel that happen to have a Maronite population

[01:12:43] or something in it but it's

[01:12:45] you know anyway looking at that

[01:12:47] I mean I get it from a rhetorical

[01:12:49] side if I were if I were in the political

[01:12:51] position there yeah I might send out some

[01:12:53] smoke singles like that to Warren

[01:12:55] sure oh well but then I also think

[01:12:57] you know sometimes when you hear it from

[01:12:59] normal people are like yeah that should be done

[01:13:01] well okay hold on let's think thinking

[01:13:03] thinking critically here and thinking clearly

[01:13:05] I mean I I just

[01:13:07] think there's it's like a 50-50

[01:13:09] in terms of you know what's

[01:13:11] the return on the investment

[01:13:13] you know I and I just

[01:13:15] I worry about it from that that

[01:13:17] angle I'm just saying I mean by the way

[01:13:19] I am I am solidly

[01:13:21] addressing kind of the

[01:13:23] a renewed some form of occupation

[01:13:25] of southern Lebanon obviously if an attack

[01:13:27] happened against Lebanese

[01:13:29] Hezbollah that would have to go

[01:13:31] in concert with it like it would have

[01:13:33] yeah to happen but you know it's

[01:13:35] just interesting to see those talking points but it's

[01:13:37] it's also you know is an attack

[01:13:39] worthwhile right now and I think

[01:13:41] from a policymaker perspective I can make

[01:13:43] the argument that Lebanese Hezbollah is in a weak

[01:13:45] position they have been taking

[01:13:47] casualties they've been taking some heavy losses

[01:13:49] the Iranians have been taking some heavy losses

[01:13:51] no one finished the goal early

[01:13:53] in 2006 why the hell

[01:13:55] not take take an opportunity like this I

[01:13:57] you know why the hold up

[01:13:59] and I can totally

[01:14:01] understand it from that position as well

[01:14:03] that's kind of why I'm sitting here going okay

[01:14:05] you want me to write a policy piece

[01:14:07] but it's not it's not

[01:14:09] the easiest thing to say yes or no

[01:14:11] and and I I hate

[01:14:13] it because I tend to be solutions oriented so it

[01:14:15] kind of just makes me insane if I'm trying to

[01:14:17] analyze it from either position

[01:14:19] I don't know man the the logic here

[01:14:21] in favor that just to me

[01:14:23] it it rings a lot like

[01:14:25] us looking at Iraq at

[01:14:27] 9-11 or

[01:14:29] Putin thinking he can do a three-day special

[01:14:31] military operation to conquer Ukraine

[01:14:33] you know like great plan

[01:14:35] on paper yeah sure makes sense

[01:14:37] to you know get rid of this

[01:14:39] unresolved threat that we have here but

[01:14:41] once you initiate it you just

[01:14:43] doesn't go the way you want it to

[01:14:45] oh yeah I mean look that that risk is always

[01:14:47] there in any military operation

[01:14:49] you always have that risk and what I

[01:14:51] would say is I think there's a few other pieces

[01:14:53] here that are

[01:14:55] more of an issue so the Israelis are very

[01:14:57] airpower dominated when it comes to

[01:14:59] how they execute their attacks and how

[01:15:01] they execute

[01:15:03] warfare in general and I think

[01:15:05] what's already been seen from

[01:15:07] 2006 during the 2006 war

[01:15:09] it was so airpower heavy

[01:15:11] that you know people like well we bombed

[01:15:13] it look it's all great has both

[01:15:15] been wiped out then meanwhile has both

[01:15:17] kind of like pop up again and you see this in Gaza too occasionally

[01:15:19] although I think it's a little bit more

[01:15:21] propagandistically focused all Hamas just

[01:15:23] pop back up over there yeah well of course

[01:15:25] they have a tunnel there and hasn't been cleared

[01:15:27] and it takes a while to clear stuff

[01:15:29] I mean the same argument can be made

[01:15:31] you know in southern Lebanon but I think

[01:15:33] the old strategies of everything

[01:15:35] is super airpower heavy

[01:15:37] and you know you can't

[01:15:39] let's pause and let's wait and kind of

[01:15:41] what these Israelis were doing we're just going to wait here

[01:15:43] and you know wait for this to get cleared out

[01:15:45] and you know and then you had the issues

[01:15:47] with policymakers

[01:15:49] I almost feel like it's like

[01:15:51] reading a lot of post-Vietnam books

[01:15:53] you know well the generals had the right idea

[01:15:55] but those politicians held us back

[01:15:57] you know it's that kind of attitude

[01:15:59] but I mean you did have that you did have

[01:16:01] kind of a piece in there for you know

[01:16:03] some people were hard chargers hey you know

[01:16:05] we can get into this area we can cut Hasbal off here

[01:16:07] well you know let's pause let's see what

[01:16:09] you know what's being said you know

[01:16:11] politically speaking and then also how effectively

[01:16:13] we're doing this no no we don't need to advance

[01:16:15] to the next level yet and that's fine

[01:16:17] you know I think some of that

[01:16:19] I don't know if that's been completely

[01:16:21] bred out of the Israeli system

[01:16:23] post-2006 and we can kind of see that

[01:16:25] in some form from what's going on in Gaza

[01:16:27] because if you look at that

[01:16:29] again I timetables for it

[01:16:31] it's interesting how a lot of

[01:16:33] a lot of western analysts will say

[01:16:35] hey you know if you guys executed this really quickly

[01:16:37] and went in there's no way they could have executed

[01:16:39] that really quickly and just jumped right

[01:16:41] in you know and finish

[01:16:43] the job in five days that's not

[01:16:45] going to happen but I

[01:16:47] do think that there is some lag

[01:16:49] that's going in I think that

[01:16:51] you know there's some other issues that are there

[01:16:53] it's kind of like okay but you know

[01:16:55] we've went into Gaza

[01:16:57] one of the issues is get back to hostages

[01:16:59] okay well some hostages were rescued but

[01:17:01] the majority of them are not they're still in captivity

[01:17:03] what are the other end goals

[01:17:05] you know there have been maps

[01:17:07] that have shown you know

[01:17:09] kind of splitting Gaza in half

[01:17:11] where the Israelis wanted to put kind of

[01:17:13] maybe a buffer zone or maybe something else in the middle

[01:17:15] okay so what's kind of being

[01:17:17] executed on that six months later

[01:17:19] what's going on there now imagine

[01:17:21] you're duplicating something like that possibly

[01:17:23] for southern Lebanon and they have

[01:17:25] tons of plans in the books and they have tons of stuff

[01:17:27] that they've worked on but then

[01:17:29] what's that also going to involve in maybe

[01:17:31] a year after and I

[01:17:33] don't know if that has been entirely

[01:17:35] answered by Israel's policymakers

[01:17:37] and I you know

[01:17:39] maybe it never will be who knows

[01:17:41] yeah I mean think like

[01:17:43] DC stated

[01:17:45] goal here since October 7th

[01:17:47] has been to like quote

[01:17:49] avoid a regional war in

[01:17:51] the Middle East and I mean we've

[01:17:53] we have one we've had one for a while

[01:17:55] but I think you and I also

[01:17:57] both know it could still get a lot worse

[01:17:59] um it's that

[01:18:01] like the kind of scenario I

[01:18:03] deal with every day when I open up

[01:18:05] Microsoft Word and just personally

[01:18:07] I really hope that scenario

[01:18:09] stays in my

[01:18:11] Word doc because it's not

[01:18:13] it's ugly any other

[01:18:15] uh thoughts you'd like to add here

[01:18:17] before we wrap for the day I think bring

[01:18:19] what you just brought up and I'll kind of make this short

[01:18:21] sorry I've gone down so many rabbit holes

[01:18:23] with this now you're okay haven't even fit like

[01:18:25] I haven't polished them all for anything but

[01:18:27] it's

[01:18:29] I love going back to this whole

[01:18:31] we don't want an escalation

[01:18:33] I want people to know there has been

[01:18:35] escalation after escalation after escalation

[01:18:37] after escalation after escalation

[01:18:39] well we want to de-escalate

[01:18:41] and you know Suzanne Maloney she recently

[01:18:43] wrote a piece I there are chunks

[01:18:45] of it that I like 100% agree with some other

[01:18:47] pieces I don't as much

[01:18:49] um and it was in foreign affairs

[01:18:51] and I think one of the bigger issues

[01:18:53] here and I again this goes to

[01:18:55] killing of Zahdi and it goes to the

[01:18:57] you know Iranian response

[01:18:59] the Iranians now have a completely

[01:19:01] different self manufactured

[01:19:03] policy standing

[01:19:05] in the region and acceptance

[01:19:07] of that standing by the United States

[01:19:09] and

[01:19:11] it's interesting how that's just kind of

[01:19:13] flying under everyone's radar and it's just

[01:19:15] kind of like we're acting like it's accepted well

[01:19:17] really we're against escalation

[01:19:19] hold on a second here

[01:19:21] escalation can mean a million different things you may not

[01:19:23] want a larger war and actually maybe

[01:19:25] your enemy is a paper tiger

[01:19:27] and you really need to find certain nodes

[01:19:29] to hit and maybe that would actually push it

[01:19:31] back a little bit more

[01:19:33] I don't think American policy makers because

[01:19:35] we have no real stomach for it right now

[01:19:37] to deal with it and you know American populace

[01:19:39] I don't think wants you know another war in the Middle

[01:19:41] East but there are other ways of executing

[01:19:43] this without taking this like

[01:19:45] hyper conciliatory view on the Iranians

[01:19:47] and I feel like the Iranians

[01:19:49] whether they have issues internally

[01:19:51] with their own proxy groups

[01:19:53] or they have issues even within IRGC

[01:19:55] or anything else at the end of the day

[01:19:57] they've won a massive strategic victory

[01:19:59] and the response in part

[01:20:01] wasn't really a true demonstration

[01:20:03] of it I mean it was just one of many

[01:20:05] demonstrations but I do

[01:20:07] think you know that going into the future

[01:20:09] is going to be

[01:20:11] an increasingly more important issue

[01:20:13] and it's one of those slow drips slow drips

[01:20:15] in this American acceptance of it

[01:20:17] I think there

[01:20:19] are fissures that can happen not just with

[01:20:21] the US and the Israelis but also with other

[01:20:23] Arab allies too and how they're

[01:20:25] doing things in the region and it's just

[01:20:27] something that's really stuck in my craw

[01:20:29] but in addition to that kind of the retaliation

[01:20:31] also is demonstrative of this change

[01:20:33] that has occurred

[01:20:35] well you know I guess we kind of have to allow

[01:20:37] you know the Iranians to do something but we'll shoot down

[01:20:39] that stuff and so don't worry about it that's there

[01:20:41] we've solved the problem well no

[01:20:43] you know now the

[01:20:45] the balance of power

[01:20:47] has changed in a different way

[01:20:49] I just want to follow up on that we talked

[01:20:51] earlier about the Jordanians

[01:20:53] the Saudis and the Emiratis to some

[01:20:55] lesser extent spinning up

[01:20:57] to help propel this

[01:20:59] attack against Israel and as you

[01:21:01] said you know it wasn't a matter

[01:21:03] of like the Jordanians like jumping

[01:21:05] in front of the bullet for Netanyahu

[01:21:07] it wasn't that I mean this attack was

[01:21:09] passing through their airspace right

[01:21:11] and as much as these Iranian

[01:21:13] systems are a

[01:21:15] threat to Israel they're a threat to

[01:21:17] the Arab states as well but do you think

[01:21:19] that sort of like

[01:21:21] open alliance

[01:21:23] with the United States

[01:21:25] Western countries Israel

[01:21:27] Jordan the Gulf Arabs

[01:21:31] the way they more sort of openly

[01:21:33] coordinated and work together

[01:21:35] to thwart a significant

[01:21:37] large potentially

[01:21:39] deadly Iranian attack

[01:21:41] does that kind of

[01:21:43] does that change the strategic

[01:21:45] landscape in more of a positive way here does that

[01:21:49] I mean yes for

[01:21:51] focused if we're focused on American policy

[01:21:53] and how to build

[01:21:55] up strong alliances and if we're keeping this I mean

[01:21:57] Trump policy

[01:21:59] back in the day Trump policy which did the Abraham

[01:22:01] Accords and was really pushing forward

[01:22:03] a new relationship between

[01:22:05] Gulf Arab states the state

[01:22:07] of Israel and potentially Saudi Arabia included

[01:22:09] in this there's

[01:22:11] the change has been going on for the past

[01:22:13] like 10 years it's in and again

[01:22:15] again it's like drips drips drips and then

[01:22:17] all of a sudden we've noticed oh they're shooting down

[01:22:19] Iranian stuff too oh my god you see it on CNN

[01:22:21] you're like oh cool this is happening right now

[01:22:23] that happened you know

[01:22:25] but I mean I think

[01:22:27] from an American perspective if you're trying

[01:22:29] to kind of pull more out of

[01:22:31] the region and give more responsibility

[01:22:33] to local actors

[01:22:35] well yes in large part that is a

[01:22:37] far more effective way to do it

[01:22:39] or the is the framework there

[01:22:41] and kind of again more

[01:22:43] de-confliction mechanisms and other stuff

[01:22:45] yeah I think some of it's been built up I think

[01:22:47] it's good for in some respects

[01:22:49] to counter the Iranians

[01:22:51] but you know how formalized is this

[01:22:53] and it's kind of the like how

[01:22:55] effective is the the working process

[01:22:57] I think it's still required

[01:22:59] a large amount of American efforts

[01:23:01] to kind of keep it not just glued together

[01:23:03] but also kind of at least the military

[01:23:05] response to it to really be effective

[01:23:07] I mean look even the Brits were involved

[01:23:09] in shooting down some of the

[01:23:11] some of the missiles you know it's just

[01:23:13] it's interesting how that kind of culminated

[01:23:15] Americans are very very big on building

[01:23:17] coalitions to deal with the problem

[01:23:19] some level of multilateralism is

[01:23:21] is quite effective especially

[01:23:23] when you're dealing with

[01:23:25] pretty much a unilateral entity like the Iranians

[01:23:27] you know with their proxies

[01:23:29] and they kind of control the guys and that's what

[01:23:31] what's gonna happen

[01:23:33] it's that on a very small scale

[01:23:35] but again I mean I

[01:23:37] I do wonder where it goes from here because

[01:23:39] it's interesting I mean recently today

[01:23:41] there was some report and I think this was like

[01:23:43] a messaging kind of cue to see where it would

[01:23:45] go in the press that Saudi Arabia was

[01:23:47] moving in the direction of normalizing

[01:23:49] relations with Israel

[01:23:51] well we've heard that one a number of times

[01:23:53] it's like an ever almost like an evergreen post

[01:23:55] these some Saudi officials

[01:23:57] said publicly that

[01:23:59] you know they thought that October 7th

[01:24:01] was an attempt to derail that normalization

[01:24:03] effort and they're determined not to let it

[01:24:05] happen yeah I think that there's a

[01:24:07] clear argument that could be made for that

[01:24:09] I am actually inclined to agree

[01:24:11] that the timing of it very obvious

[01:24:13] I mean I thought they were met October 7th

[01:24:15] was the Iranians being met with catastrophic

[01:24:17] success

[01:24:19] wait the paragliders did that well

[01:24:21] you know it's yeah I mean

[01:24:23] I think that's kind of where that was going

[01:24:25] but I mean I do think the Iranians

[01:24:27] have a vested interest for

[01:24:29] trying to derail any of that

[01:24:31] and that's I mean again this also goes back to the response

[01:24:33] that the Iranians did

[01:24:35] I mean I was interviewed by

[01:24:37] one newspaper

[01:24:39] and they said well you know you were mentioning that

[01:24:41] you know there could be an attack on diplomatic

[01:24:43] facilities and I said yeah you know if I were to do it

[01:24:45] it would probably be in Bahrain it's been threatened before

[01:24:47] nobody cared but you can have

[01:24:49] that drip drip drip of warnings

[01:24:51] you might have one cell of people on the ground

[01:24:53] who might do something with a drone they built

[01:24:55] and that just shows another capability there

[01:24:57] or maybe they just launched across the Persian Gulf

[01:24:59] in there where the US 5th Fleet

[01:25:01] is based just to say hey screw you

[01:25:03] yeah I don't know

[01:25:05] but I mean I do think you know that would also deal

[01:25:07] with hey Bahrain is normalized relations

[01:25:09] interestingly like after October 7th

[01:25:11] and with the Israelis

[01:25:13] defending their interests

[01:25:15] Bahraini's had some like floral

[01:25:17] criticisms of the Israelis

[01:25:19] but what does that really mean at the end of the day

[01:25:21] there's a very good working relationship between

[01:25:23] Manama and Jerusalem

[01:25:25] so you know the Iranians have threatened it before

[01:25:27] the Iranians like they've put out videos

[01:25:29] for these proxy groups that are

[01:25:31] showing them in computer animation

[01:25:33] for like targeting an Israeli

[01:25:35] Palestinian going to the Ritz Carlton

[01:25:37] that's there

[01:25:39] it's quasi surreal but these are real

[01:25:41] things like showing an LL plane landing

[01:25:43] in Manama and they're attacking it you know

[01:25:45] I mean again I'm misremembering chunks

[01:25:47] of this but you know there were

[01:25:49] threats of attack

[01:25:51] it's like such like just fantasizing

[01:25:53] like just putting out

[01:25:55] their fantasies of what they would love to do

[01:25:57] yeah well the other piece

[01:25:59] of it is also I mean you have that element

[01:26:01] but then you also have the one of wait a second

[01:26:03] what are they actually trying to do

[01:26:05] because it's I mean some of this stuff is laughable

[01:26:07] where they're like showing a freighter

[01:26:09] this one propaganda image

[01:26:11] they show a Shahad 129 a guy in a hand

[01:26:13] glider a bunch of guys

[01:26:15] in a jeep with the machine on the back

[01:26:17] you know and then they've got this freighter

[01:26:19] sinking that's on the other side and

[01:26:21] well some elements of that are quite

[01:26:23] actually all elements in one way or another

[01:26:25] are quite real it's

[01:26:27] joky the image and you kind of like go

[01:26:29] but they've actually ended up

[01:26:31] pulling a lot of that off and I think it's

[01:26:33] it's still very hard

[01:26:35] for a lot of people in the west

[01:26:37] you know what I think it even comes down to

[01:26:39] when westerners threaten this too

[01:26:41] not to do the kind of reductio at hitler

[01:26:43] here but you know when Hitler was saying

[01:26:45] you know what we should totally do we need to take over these slavic areas

[01:26:47] and we need to wipe these places clean of those Jews

[01:26:49] oh well that's not he's just trying

[01:26:51] to get Germany back on its feet you know

[01:26:53] that's a lot of rhetoric yes you know for his anti-semitic base

[01:26:57] so I mean you have stuff like that

[01:26:59] you're dealing with kind of an ideological regime

[01:27:01] that really views that they are

[01:27:03] the spear point for God himself

[01:27:05] and that they are

[01:27:07] supporting causes and they may be quite realistic

[01:27:09] and pragmatic and cruel and

[01:27:11] crass even to their own guys

[01:27:13] at the end of the day they are true believers

[01:27:15] in many respects to get what they want

[01:27:17] and to kind of get this

[01:27:19] this possibly ideological

[01:27:21] end goal and political end goal

[01:27:23] no matter how ludicrous it sounds

[01:27:25] and now imagine this 20 something years ago

[01:27:27] if we were to say actually

[01:27:29] let's take this date

[01:27:31] on September 11th 2001

[01:27:33] if I were to tell you

[01:27:35] that Iran in

[01:27:37] April of 2024

[01:27:39] is not only establishing

[01:27:41] rings around its main Arab

[01:27:43] and Israeli foes

[01:27:45] and even Kurdish foes

[01:27:47] but that they also have built an entire army

[01:27:49] of proxy militia groups

[01:27:51] in that area some of which have taken over

[01:27:53] different countries that we

[01:27:55] in 2003 would later

[01:27:57] liberate from Saddam Hussein

[01:27:59] if I were to tell you that

[01:28:01] you probably look at me and say okay

[01:28:03] how much crack did you do today Philip

[01:28:05] we all know that they have been

[01:28:07] sanctioned and they have been cordoned off

[01:28:09] and don't worry about it

[01:28:11] look at how time has changed

[01:28:13] so again

[01:28:15] it's interesting how

[01:28:17] the winds of change are always

[01:28:19] blowing through

[01:28:21] good point to leave it on that

[01:28:23] people find more about you and your work

[01:28:25] I mean, well

[01:28:27] you always ask me this and I always have

[01:28:29] answers for it

[01:28:31] well Google my name

[01:28:33] I've got two L's SMYTH

[01:28:35] but I'm also on Twitter

[01:28:37] usually when I'm working on something

[01:28:39] I don't post as much on Twitter

[01:28:41] so don't take that as like he's given up

[01:28:43] he hates Twitter I didn't post on Twitter for like two years

[01:28:45] even though I built up a lot of followers

[01:28:47] and stuff but what I would say is

[01:28:49] Twitter is a good place to find me

[01:28:51] you have a question on there I'm at

[01:28:53] Philip's smith one word

[01:28:55] two L's for Philip and then SMYTH

[01:28:57] you know when we stole the name from the Irish

[01:28:59] we screwed up the spelling and the pronunciation

[01:29:01] but

[01:29:03] that's kind of where I am but I've got work all over the place

[01:29:05] cool well

[01:29:07] we'll drop links to all that stuff in the show notes

[01:29:09] I'll have a link to your new West Point paper

[01:29:11] that you mentioned earlier in the show

[01:29:13] I'll have a link for that in there too

[01:29:15] Philip's smith thank you so much for coming back on

[01:29:17] when stuff like this goes down

[01:29:19] you know there's no better person that I'd rather talk to

[01:29:21] I appreciate it sorry I'm not as

[01:29:23] succinct as most of the other

[01:29:25] better guests you have on

[01:29:27] I don't call you when I want

[01:29:29] succinct I call you when I want

[01:29:31] to dig into this shit and get nerdy

[01:29:33] and really unpack it

[01:29:35] I'm gonna put that on a business card

[01:29:37] I don't call you when I want succinct

[01:29:39] get hired by men

[01:29:41] yes

[01:29:43] alright man I will talk to you soon

[01:29:45] I'm sure either here or

[01:29:47] elsewhere alright well I really appreciate it

[01:29:49] it was great talking to you about it yep later buddy

[01:29:51] thanks for listening

[01:30:21] Mrs. Secrets and Spies