Transcript: Webinar – Middle East War: Washington and Jerusalem’s Next Moves
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PANELISTS
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror
JINSA Distinguished Fellow; Former National Security Advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister
VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.)
JINSA Generals and Admirals Program Participant; Former Deputy Commander, U.S. Central Command
The discussion was moderated by JINSA Fellow for American Strategy Jonathan Ruhe.
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Hello everyone. Welcome to today’s JINSA webinar on Washington and Jerusalem’s next moves in the war with Iran. I’m Jonathan Ruhe, JINSA’s Fellow for American Strategy.
We’ll discuss a range of timely issues today, including what’s going on around the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s nuclear sites, and Hezbollah’s decision to enter the war against Israel. I’m delighted to be joined by two distinguished panelists today.
Vice Admiral (ret.) Mark Fox is former Commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and former Commander of U.S. Fifth Fleet, among many other past positions. Currently, he is a member of JINSA’s Abraham Accords Policy Project and JINSA’s Eastern Mediterranean Policy Project, as well as a JINSA Generals and Admirals Program participant.
IDF Major General Yaakov Amidror is the former National Security Advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister and a JINSA Distinguished Fellow.
Admiral Fox, I’d like to start with you. The naval standoff around the Arabian Gulf is the most pressing issue, certainly here in the United States. Before we start discussing what some of the options might be on the U.S. side, could you please just start by giving our audience a sense of what is going on? Could you set the scene for our audience? What are Iran’s naval capabilities, as we understand them, in terms of what remains? What is Iran’s ability to threaten these vital shipping lanes?
Vice Admiral (ret.) Mark Fox:
Thanks, Jonathan. I’m glad to be with you, and Yaakov, thank you for joining us.
The Strait of Hormuz is only, at its narrowest point, less than 20 nautical miles wide. One interesting thing is the Strait of Hormuz itself is really deep, so it’s not very easily mined, at least not with the classic moored mines or that sort of thing. But during the 1980s conflicts, Iran actually mined over in Kuwait, and they went into the other Arabian Peninsula waters to mine, away from their own shores. So it’s not like they only mine in their own territorial waters.
You know, [Central Command Commander] Admiral Brad Cooper was a former Fifth Fleet Commander and he was also a former Deputy Commander of Central Command. So he’s eminently qualified, to those of us who have had those responsibilities. I haven’t been the CENTCOM Commander, but I was the Deputy Commander.
The one thing that I hope has been done is CENTCOM undertaking a really disciplined and thorough approach to destroying known sites of mine magazines and the places where they would be assembled. And we are well over a week into this conflict. You hear all of the stories of how many Iranian warships and craft have been sunk, I would really expect that this campaign has been focused on really blunting their ability to put mines in the water.
The way that the Iranians have been squeezing the economies of all of their neighbors has been by hitting tankers there. Well over a dozen tankers have been hit. And it’s one of those cases where there are incredible numbers of places for them to launch these drones and coastal defense cruise missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles. And so that’s one that’s part of this air campaign, I think: finding a way to thoroughly create a disinfectant, if you will, a corridor where Iran is incapable of launching and hitting merchant ships.
There’s another thing that I think is worth mentioning. Imagine if Iran had a nuclear weapon, what they would be doing. There’s a good reason why this conflict is going on, and it’s to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. And it’s just a good, sobering reminder.
The Iranians don’t quit. They issued keys to children in the Iran-Iraq War to clear minefields, and they suffered probably half a million casualties. They are tenacious. I see it in a similar way to the end of World War II. It was the [Japanese] Emperor’s edict that Japan surrender that created the conditions for a peaceful end of that war.
Iran’s new Ayatollah is in that same kind of position. Only the Ayatollah is able to make those kinds of decisions. Look at Ayatollah Khomeini, back in 1988. If you remember, on July 3, 1988, the U.S. Navy’s USS Vincennes, in a horrible miscalculation of war, shot down an Iranian airliner with 274 people on it. And it was that, coupled with the Iraqi attack with chemical weapons that summer of 1988, that made the Ayatollah Khomenei come up and say, ‘you know what, this is a chalice of poison I’ll have to drink.’ He thought that we had finally taken the gloves off. But it’s only the Ayatollah that, as best I can understand, can make those kinds of decisions.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you, Admiral Fox, and that raises a good question. This issue about the Iranian regime’s posture and attitude toward the war – we have heard defiant statements from Ali Larijani, one of the de facto major players in the Iranian regime, even if the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is officially a new head. General Amidror, what is your understanding of the appointment of the new Supreme Leader, the previous Supreme Leader’s son? Does that signify anything to you about the regime’s willingness or ability to continue prosecuting this war externally?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
It’s a continuation of the same regime. I don’t see any change.
The inauguration was done, not with the guy who was nominated, but his picture. His picture was inaugurated. It tells you something about the situation in Iran today. He didn’t appear in public. He sent someone on television to read his declaration.
It’s probably the same regime, without the authority of the father. What it means for the future, I don’t know. Let’s see.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you, General Amidror.
Admiral Fox, so far, we’ve heard President Trump publicly entertain the idea of the U.S. Navy potentially escorting naval vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. There’s obviously a precedent for that, which you hinted at, in the 1980s. Could you give us a sense of what that operation might look like and the challenges it might face, especially in the context of all the ships that we understand now are bottled up on the Arabian Gulf side of the Strait of Hormuz?
Vice Admiral (ret.) Mark Fox:
Well, there are a couple of things. Back in 1988 we had a close to 600-ship Navy. Today we have a less than 300-ship Navy. Our Navy has a bigger mission than it has resources to meet the mission. And so the ships that would be engaged in this are either doing ballistic missile defense, or they’re protecting the aircraft carriers and the strike groups, or they’re launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, or they’re in certain positions for Tomahawk launches. Our naval surface warfare assets are extremely busy right now.
If there is tasking from President Trump to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, then that’s certainly what the Navy will do. But that’s not, right now, where the Navy’s focus is. We’re focused right now on ballistic missile defense, defending the carriers and preparing for Tomahawk launches, to ensure that we’re capable of servicing the targets that we’re tasked with.
I think that there are ships that are going through the Strait of Hormuz. They turn off their Automatic Identification System, the AIS. I think they’re Iranian shadow tankers trying to smuggle oil out of the Strait of Hormuz. But what they do is turn off the AIS and go in and go out. So, it’s really a difficult thing to truly know how many ships are coming and going.
I do think that the Iranians have capabilities still that represent a significant threat. These little drones that they’re launching, and the cruise missiles, and so forth. Until we’ve beat that down and created a condition where merchant mariners are capable of operating in international waters safely, for some amount of time, we’re going to have to deal with this.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. Just one quick follow-up question that’s come up from our audience. We’ve talked about the threats that Iran can pose to the Gulf nations here. What is your understanding of the extent to which the U.S. has targeted Iran’s own ability to export energy, either through the Gulf or from its shores more generally? I’ve seen reports in recent days that Iran is still getting its own energy exports out.
Vice Admiral (ret.) Mark Fox:
Now, I’m on the outside looking in, so I can’t speak with authority about this. However, I do think that this has been a focused campaign on military capabilities. We haven’t taken down the electrical grid. We haven’t taken down their oil production facilities. There’s certainly more pressure that’s available to ratchet up in this kind of situation. We’ve been focused on military capabilities rather than trying to just or take out their infrastructure. And it’s clear to me that’s been a conscious decision.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you, Admiral.
General Amidror, I’d like to turn to you. Admiral Fox mentioned how different this situation would be if the Iranian regime had a nuclear weapon. And obviously it’s been a explicit goal of both the United States and Israel in this operation to degrade or eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons capability. Then there’s the uncertainty that attends military operations, and the fog of war.
Could you give us your sense of what the main remaining risks are from Iran’s nuclear capability? What are things that we need to know, but that we don’t know?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
By definition, the thing that we don’t know, we don’t know. So I don’t know to speak about something that I don’t know.
I mean, we have a list of all the facilities which are important in the nuclear project, and we are, with our partners the Americans, destroying almost all of them. If they have something that we don’t know about, it will not be destroyed. But if there is a site we find out about, the minute that we find about it, we will move and do what is needed.
I believe, based on our very deep knowledge of the system and what was built by the Iranians in the past, that most of the nuclear project was destroyed. The question that I don’t have an answer to, and this is a question of battle damage assessment, is how long it will take the Iranians to rebuild it if they decide to do so.
I think that in the future, if needed, both Israel and the Americans know how to get back to Iran and do what is needed to destroy any attempt by the Iranians to rebuild their capabilities.
What is very important is Iran’s project to make long-range missiles. What we are doing now is we are destroying the industrial base of the Iranians. It’s not just focused on the missiles and the nuclear programs. It is wider than that. I mean, we are trying to destroy everything which is related to the missiles and to the nuclear projects, but it is broader than that. We are destroying facilities which are part of the industrial base of the Iranians, because we want to be in a position after the war, that even if the regime stays as it is today, the ability to threaten Israel will be minimal—really, close to zero.
Though no less important is Iran’s ability to renew it. That would be very problematic. Due to that, we are broadening the list of facilities that we are destroying, so that we speak now not just about those two projects, but about the industrial base of the Iranian regime.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. In terms of Iran’s nuclear program—and we’ve heard this concern voiced by the head of the IAEA recently—there may be some uncertainty about where Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is. Also, we know Iran has a new facility at Isfahan, and also at what’s called Pickaxe Mountain, a deeply-buried facility under hard rock near Natanz.
We’ve heard in the press there may be considerations to go in there, and that requires a ground operation, because it’s beyond the reach of U.S. and Israeli air-to-ground munitions. Is that something you think is part of this assessment, in terms of how far back you can set Iran’s nuclear program?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
This was one of the reasons for taking all the measures and beginning the operations two weeks ago. There was the notion that if we did not do it, the Iranians probably would successfully bring more facilities underground, in places that, as you said, cannot be reached by the Israeli Air Force or the American Air Force. We want to destroy these facilities before they will be moved underground by the Iranians.
The main issue that we don’t know how to resolve is the 440 kilograms [of highly enriched uranium] which the Iranians have, according to the IAEA. Part of it is in Isfahan, and the other half, it is not known where it is. People are speaking about Natanz. Maybe. I don’t know.
This is something that we, in the present situation, don’t know how to remove from Iran. That probably will wait for the negotiations in a ceasefire after, or towards the end, of the war. If the Iranians will be ready to negotiate, I’m not sure that they will be ready to negotiate.
This is something that is a weak point in the whole thing: the fact that this 400, more than 400, kilograms of enriched uranium remain in the hands of the Iranians. It’s 60 percent enriched uranium.
They need two facilities to make it good enough for a warhead. First of all, they have to enrich it to 90 percent purity. Second, convert it to metal. Lastly, chemical processes. As far as we know, they don’t have enriching places which have not been destroyed by us or the Americans. But the truth is that even if they have the ability to reach the uranium, the weaponization project is a situation where they do not have the same capabilities they had before the war.
The Iranians had an explosive laboratory in Parchin, which was a very important part of the weaponization efforts of the Iranians. Without it, you cannot organize the enriched uranium, even if you enrich it to 90 percent purity and even if you convert it into metal. You need the explosive system. Without it, you don’t have a warhead.
That facility was destroyed in the last few days, according to the intelligence. Totally destroyed. So, I think, just about the nuclear project, I think the achievements are very high. As I said, the one weak point in the whole picture is the 400 kilograms of enriched uranium. With that material, for the Iranians, it’s much easier for them to go to the next stages. They don’t have the capabilities now. And as I said, we succeeded at destroying most of the facilities which are needed for these steps ahead. But this is something that we should resolve.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. I have a question for Admiral Fox from the audience. Why have the Iranians’ small fast boats, that could potentially be used for mining operations, not been taken out yet?
Vice Admiral (ret.) Mark Fox:
Well, you know, Iran’s got an enormously long coastline. Think of the United States, let’s say, from New York to Charleston. So it’s an enormous task now to ensure that no boats come out. I have no doubt whatsoever that it’s somewhere in the target priority list, and especially as they represent a threat, I think they will be eliminated, but I don’t have a specific answer there. It’s a hard problem.
Remember, over on the Red Sea side, the difficulties of being able to handle the Houthis, who are less sophisticated in many ways than the Iranians. It’s a hard problem in terms of just geography and numbers.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you, Admiral Fox.
Zooming out a little bit from that last question, are you surprised by Iran’s ability to continue projecting force across the region so successfully now, almost two weeks into the war?
Vice Admiral (ret.) Mark Fox:
Well, I think I would probably turn that on its head. I had every expectation that the Iranians would be as destructive and recalcitrant as they are now. They’re a pariah nation, and they are a state sponsor of terror, and they weren’t bothered by killing 32,000 of their own people in January. So why are we surprised that they’re doing what they’re doing now?
You do a military campaign, and you set priorities, and you go after the things that are really important early. We’re flying B-52s now over land. That’s incredible. We have air supremacy over Iran.
I’m not that surprised the Iranians haven’t changed their stripes. Somebody that has a rational mind would go, ‘Well, you know what? Maybe we ought to change their mind about this.’ No, they’re absolutely committed to this track. And it’s not the Iranian people necessarily, it’s the regime, and the Iranian people have not been well served by their leadership – by this regime.
It’s a lot more difficult to solve some military problems than you think, and this is probably not.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you, Admiral.
General Amidror, turning to you. What is your assessment of Iran’s ability to continue projecting power now, two weeks into the war?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I’ll give you some numbers.
After 12 days of the previous operation in June, the number of claims submitted by Israelis who had damage to their property reached the amount of 5.5 billion shekels after 13 days. The number of the damage which was claimed by Israeli citizens after 13 days of this war is 400 million shekels. I mean, less than 10 percent compared to last June’s war. It says something about the ability of the Iranians to launch missiles that we cannot intercept. And this gives you the ratio between the capabilities of Iran in June and its capabilities today. More than anything, it’s the most objective judgment of the situation.
Iran didn’t succeed at firing even one real salvo. It is launching into Israel here and there, hours between the missiles—and from our point of view, for the defensive systems, it is much easier to deal with the threats that way. The successes of the systems—it is the American system and the Israeli system, totally integrated: the THAAD, and the Arrow 3—that is why the damage in Israel is so low.
So, yes, the Iranians still have capabilities to launch into Israel and to destroy facilities in the Gulf. Remember, in some cases, it is less than 100 kilometers away. It’s very close. It’s systems that can be used in America at the level of a division, and they are using it from their side to launch into the countries.
Overall, though, we are succeeding. When I’m saying we, I mean Israel and America. We succeeded at reducing the capabilities of the Iranians every day. Every day. It will take time, because the mistakes that we made were to let them build so many launchers and missiles and so on. So that was a mistake. Today we are—I’m not saying slowly, but surely—making them less and less capable of attacking Israel, their neighbors, and to defend themselves. I don’t know if you heard about the fact that we made a whole operation against Basij checkpoints into Iran, more than 100. How many Basij members have been killed? I don’t know, but the fact is, we could do that operation.
Because of the overall superiority that we have over Iran, we are flying over Iran today. We: the Americans, and the Israelis. We are flying over Iran like we are flying over Gaza. I mean, there are no anti-aircraft positions around all of Iran. The Americans are bringing in the B-52s and the B-1Bs.
You understand, Jonathan. The image in Iran will be much, much more intensive. Yes, it’s going to take time. And people think that military operations are like what they see in the movies. They are not. Operations need time. They need the persistent resilience of the decisionmakers to continue. We are making mistakes, but we should continue.
Yesterday, here in my house, the BBC came to hear my views about the situation. The lady asked, ‘what do you need to finish the job?’ I answered with one word: time. After what we achieved in the skies of Iran, what we need—both America and Israel—is only time, and when it will end, if we have enough time, the Iranians will be set back many years. They will lose the ability to rebuild what they had before the war, and it will be a totally different Iran. You know, people don’t understand—at the end of the war, it will be a totally different Iran, without the capacity to produce and to launch missiles, and to use force.
We need time. If the Americans will be patient enough, and we give the guys in uniform on both sides, in America and in Israel, we will succeed. Today I spoke with the father of an Israeli Air Force F-16 pilot, and he told me that the F-16 pilots feel, after around 10 days, that the integration with the U.S. pilots is like being part of the same Air Force. The direction is clear. The momentum is clear. The Iranians don’t have any secret card that they can use to change the situation. They don’t have any secret that tomorrow they will reveal, and it will be problematic for Israel.
Any target that the intelligence gives to either the American Air Force or the Israeli Air Force, will be destroyed within a few hours. It’s an unbelievable situation.
Think: we are 1,500 kilometers away from the target. Some pilots are flying four hours in and four hours back. And in the middle, they get the fuel from the system of the United States of America. It’s a kind of gas station in the middle of the skies. And by the way, all the airplanes are American made. And the common language is English. The pilots speak the same language, use the same intelligence. They share the same way of thinking.
We didn’t change your system, and you didn’t change our system. But the combination is unbelievable, and the result, at least for today, is that we have total superiority over Iran, and they don’t have any way to stop us or to prevent us from destroying something, should it need to be destroyed.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you, General Amidror, and that perfectly tees up my next question.
Admiral Fox, could you give us your American perspective on how you assess this joint U.S.-Israeli operation? It’s not the first time that American and Israeli pilots have cooperated, but I’d love to get your sense of how you see that currently.
Also, this is the first time I’ve had a chance to ask this of a naval aviator since the conflict started: what is your perspective on what naval aviation has been accomplishing so far in the conflict?
Vice Admiral (ret.) Mark Fox:
Well, first of all, in one word, the air campaign has been remarkable. There’s never, ever been an air campaign as effective as what we’ve seen over the last 13 days. I was the strike leader and mission commander for the first strike of U.S. Operation Iraqi Freedom in March of 2003, and what this team has put together is orders of magnitude greater. We hit hundreds of targets with hundreds of airplanes. This time they’ve hit thousands of targets. It’s just been unbelievable, really remarkable. I can’t overstate it.
The effectiveness of the tactics and the way that we’ve employed our forces has been remarkable. There’s just no other way to put it. I’m glad we’re on the same side. I’ll put it that way. I would not want to face the problem that we’re giving Iran right now.
As far as naval aviation is concerned, we’ve got stealth airplanes. We have the F-35 off of the USS Lincoln [aircraft carrier]. The F-35 is, as you recall from the 12-Day War last year, a game changer for Israel, and it’s one of those capabilities that gives you real-time information that’s usable in the cockpit. It’s not something that’s got to go back to get intel. The F-35 and the ability to communicate amongst the airplanes and share information is at an entirely new level. The quality, and the accuracy, of the intelligence that we have is unprecedented. It’s at a whole new level.
I flew in U.S. Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and I only dropped dumb bombs, except for some anti-radiation missiles, in that conflict. And then we went into Iraqi Freedom in 2003, and we had precision weapons. And now it’s at a higher level. My hat’s off to a bunch of very, very disciplined and capable young warriors, young males and females on both the Israeli and the U.S. side.
On the Navy side, we bring in the [Boeing EA-18G] Growler in particular. It’s an electronic attack airplane, effective for blinding radars, for collecting electromagnetic signals, and so forth. But we’re a joint team. We all come together. And as was just said before, it’s like now we’re operating together at a Red Flag Exercise. I mean, this is high-end operations at its finest.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you, Admiral. And I would just note, Admiral Fox was a member of a JINSA task force that went over to Israel after the 12-Day War and did an assessment of Israel’s Operation Rising Lion and U.S. operations. And I would note for everyone, that November 2025 report is available on our website.
General Amidror, I want to switch gears a little bit. I want to discuss what’s going on in Lebanon. Could you give our audience a sense of why Hezbollah is joining the war?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
Yeah. Hezbollah was under pressure from Iran. I was the chief intelligence officer of the IDF Northern Command in 1986, when Hezbollah was being built up. So for more than 40 years, Hezbollah has been built up by the Iranians in Lebanon. And when I say built up by Iran, I mean they invested huge sums of money. I don’t know how many billions of dollars. They gave them the best weapons system that could be provided by Iran and by Syria. They trained them and made efforts so Hezbollah would be ready for war with Israel: Special forces, missile launchers, anti tank missiles, anti air-missiles, and so on. And, at the end of the day, everything collapsed.
Towards the end of 2024, with American intervention, the organization agreed to a ceasefire in which it knew Israel would have the ability to react to any attempt by Hezbollah to rebuild itself. The strategic difference between the past and today is there is no land bridge between Iran and Hezbollah. Syria is out of the land bridge. And without Syria, there is no bridge. And because of that, the ability of Hezbollah to regain its capabilities after the end of 2024 was very limited, very, very, very limited. And we, according to the side letter which we signed with the United States of America as part of the ceasefire agreement, intercepted any attempt of Hezbollah to rebuild its capabilities or to come back to South Lebanon. But we couldn’t act, because of the ceasefire, with a high amount of forces, as it should be.
Now, Hezbollah gave us an excuse. We had to make a decision, how many resources to take from the Air Force operations in Iran and allocate to the effort in Lebanon. This regards mainly the Air Force, because the ground forces, anyhow, are not involved in Iran. I think that after the first 12 days, the Iranians’ pressure on Hezbollah was unbearable, and Hezbollah decided that it should demonstrate its capabilities. We destroyed, probably, between 75 to 80 percent of its launching capabilities in 2024, but the 20 to 25 percent which remain, means it’s more than 20,000 [projectiles] left.
Yesterday, they decided to launch 200, and we intercepted, as far as I know, more than 190 of these 200. They didn’t cause any damage inside Israel from these 200 missiles, and we successfully destroyed two-thirds of the launchers that they used or prepared to use—some of them immediately after they were used, and some of them before they were used. The plan was to launch three times, around 500 to 600 they launched 200.
Today they don’t have any substitute for what they launched. As I said, they lost Syria, which was the place from which they got all these capabilities. We are preparing the ground forces to advance our forces in South Lebanon, more to the north, and more forces, and in accordance with the demand from the civilian population to leave the area. I don’t know where the ground forces will arrive, but slowly, they are moving ahead, pushing the civilians to leave the area. We don’t want them in the battlefield. We don’t want it to be a situation where Hezbollah, like Hamas, can stand and stop them. Hezbollah is too weak to stop the civilian population. They are leaving, going towards the north.
We are acting very aggressively in the south of Beirut, what we call the Dahiyeh, which is the headquarters, and then the storage areas of Hezbollah. And from time to time, we are bombing in the north part, in the Beqaa Valley. Today there was an interesting report that the Syrian President called the Lebanese President, and the two presidents spoke about cooperation between Syria and Lebanon, to deal with Hezbollah. If that is going to happen—I am not sure that it is not fake news; these days, every other fact is fake news—for Hezbollah, it is a disaster. Let’s see what will happen.
We are very active, but very slow. We don’t want to go too fast when we know that the air support which is needed for the ground forces is coming from the same forces that are very active in Iran. So how to manage between two fronts is something that the headquarters in Tel Aviv should take into consideration. And this is why we are not running into a big operation. It might happen within a few days when we feel better about operations in Iran, about the list of targets we prioritize.
As the Admiral said, at the beginning, you go to the most important targets and you go down the ladder. Once we are far enough down the ladder, more forces will be moved to Lebanon—for the Air Force, it is much easier. It’s very close. Instead of flying 1,500 kilometers, they have to fly only 100 kilometers, which means you can bomb more targets in one sortie.
So, Lebanon is boiling. We are preparing ourselves, but it’s clear that this time we have to go all the way. And the whole way means that many areas in Lebanon will be destroyed. We will bring ground forces into not only the first 10 kilometers from the Israeli border—they will be going deeper than that. We want to deny Hezbollah the ability to launch anti-tank missiles into our communities. For that, we have to push Hezbollah to the north. It is going to be a long war, and not an easy one, because it’s very problematic terrain for the ground forces. Yet they’re very determined this time to make it to the end.
Israel doesn’t have any experience of wars of elimination. We always said, ‘Okay, we will do something. The situation will be better. And maybe in 10 years from now, we will act again.’ Now, all that we have in mind is to eliminate them, eliminate Hezbollah as a military organization.
I spoke with someone who is living in Beirut last week. He told me that the situation of Hezbollah is very problematic. Hezbollah does not have the money to pay their people and the people who lost their houses in the south. The situation within Lebanon, the legitimacy of Hezbollah in Lebanon, is in a very low point. If they will be pushed more by us, it will be clear in Lebanon that Lebanon is paying the price for Iran, and that might lead to a new situation in Lebanon.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you, General.
Admiral Fox, we heard General Amidror talk about this idea of working your way down the ladder of targets in terms of priority. We have also seen reports that potentially a third U.S. Navy carrier strike group may be headed toward the Middle East, the USS George Bush.
Does this signal anything in particular to you? We’ve constantly heard in the American press about concerns that the United States is running low on munitions of all types. Do you think that’s related to moving a third carrier strike group into the region? How do you read that?
Vice Admiral (ret.) Mark Fox:
You can replenish an aircraft carrier at sea with ordinance and with food and with fuel. You know, the great strength that naval aviation brings to this fight is that you don’t have to have the permission of host nations to operate.
So that always is a wedge that you can use to open the door, because once you’ve now said, ‘Well, we’re going to be able to operate, whether you want us to or not,’ then that typically will open the door to ‘If you’re going to operate regardless, we’ll just go ahead and let in your ground force or your land-based aircraft.’ So naval aviation creates a unique entry point in terms of the basing and access piece of it, because you don’t have to ask for permission from anybody to operate in international waters.
We had six aircraft carriers in Desert Storm in 1991. In Iraqi Freedom. 2003, somewhere around five. We had some in the Mediterranean. We had them in the Gulf. The capability of the air wing from 1991 to 2003 to 2026 has evolved: three aircraft carriers are capable, more than capable, of doing what six aircraft carriers did before, in terms of servicing, targeting, delivering ordinance.
You’ve got the USS Gerald Ford in the area, which was designed to generate sorties, and they’ve completely redesigned the ship with new elevators and new ordinance handling. It’s so much better than the Nimitz class, and the Nimitz class is the best that there was.
We do have high end ordinance that we keep an eye on in terms of THAAD and the Aegis Weapon Systems on our ballistic missile ships. That’s a manageable problem. I mean, it’s something that we’ve figured out: you don’t use the high-end hammer to squat a fly.
So there are a number of different ways that we’ve now figured out how to handle the low, slow flyers or and it’s just one of those cases where a new adversary capability is introduced, we adapt, and they adapt, and we’re in that cycle right now. But, you know, the way that you keep it relevant is with new airplanes or new weapons. And the aircraft carrier remains viable because it’s always got the latest and greatest weapons and it moves. It gives the President all kinds of options.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. I want to thank both Admiral Fox and General Amidror, as always, for joining us and sharing their thoughts and time today, and to our audience. Stay tuned for further JINSA webinars as the conflict goes on, and keep an eye out for JINSA materials related to a lot of the topics we discussed here today.