Transcript: Webinar – Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion: U.S. and Israel Strike Iran
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PANELISTS
Gen Frank McKenzie, USMC (ret.)
JINSA Hertog Distinguished Fellow; Former Commander, U.S. Central Command
IDF MG (ret.) Oded Bassiuk
JINSA Sherman-Vidal Distinguished Fellow; Former Operations Directorate, Israel Defense Forces
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror
JINSA Distinguished Fellow; Former National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Israel
John Hannah
JINSA Randi & Charles Wax Senior Fellow; Former National Security Advisor to U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney;
The discussion was moderated by JINSA President and CEO Michael Makovsky, PhD.
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.
Michael Makovsky:
Hi everybody. I’m Michael Makovsky, CEO of JINSA. We have an all-star lineup today to discuss the U.S.-Israel campaign against Iran.
I’m going to start with General McKenzie. Let me just start with the broad and then we’ll go narrow. I don’t know of any operations like that the United States has done in collaboration with Israel. It’s a bilateral campaign. What does that tell you about it, before we get into all the operational details and the aims, what we’re trying to achieve in the campaign?
General (ret.) Frank McKenzie:
First of all, great to be here with everybody. I truly enjoy my association with JINSA. It means a lot to me. I am happy to have an opportunity to talk this afternoon.
So if I were going to draw out the broadest possible funnel and bring it down, I think all this that we’re seeing today in February, March, 2026, is directly attributable to two events that occurred in 2020 in 2021, and I must cite three events. One you’re all familiar with, I think the strike of Qassem Soleimani in January 2020 actually did a couple of things for destabilizing Iran in their planning and their execution in a way they’ve never recovered from. They’ve never gotten the footing they had under Soleimani back so I think it’s an important thing. It’s led them to make some mistakes in execution planning that have hobbled them to their current state. So that’s one.
The other one is, I think the Abraham Accords is very important, because it opened the aperture for Israel to come into the region in a variety of different ways. And the third thing, actually, in 2021—but the work was done in 2020 and JINSA had a huge hand in that—was the movement of Israel from European Command to Central Command. And, you know, to a lot of people that’s a bureaucratic thing. But in fact, it’s not. It’s a huge thing. Because what it allowed CENTCOM to do was to plan directly with Israel. It allowed the Israeli CHOD to be exposed to other CHODs in the region in meetings hosted by the CENTCOM commander. I hosted two of those myself at Sharm El Sheik with Aviv Kochavi and CHODS from across the region, and that actually set the architecture in place that brought us to today.
The other thing I would tell you is all three of those decisions were linked to one guy, and that one guy was President Trump, and so that sort of completes the loop to today.
A lot of things have happened between 2020, 2021, and now, but the thread that pulls it forward is the personality of the president United States, who undertook those three things back in that in that timeframe, and who actually undertook the operation that we’re going to talk about a little bit more detail today. So I think it’s very important to begin with recognizing those things, but also recognizing the personality of the president.
I argued in my piece in The New York Times earlier today that I think Iran exercised effective deterrence for really pushing 50 years against a succession of American presidents, both Republican and Democrat. And the only guy that ultimately they were not able to deter effectively was President Trump, back in 2020 with Soleimani, and then, more recently, a series of activities that you’re all very familiar with so I’ll just, I’ll just sort of pause there.
That’s the narrative arc that brings us to the point we’re at today, and it’s tied around, really, the personality of the president of the United States, actions that were taken six years ago, actions that were taken far more recently, but all uniquely and inextricably linked to him. And I’ll pause.
Michael Makovsky:
That’s excellent framing there, General McKenzie. I think before we do get into the operation, General Amidror, from an Israeli perspective, all that broader framing—how do you see it?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I agree that all this is the seeds which are very much connected to the situation. But I think that it is, it is part of a war, unfinished war. We went to war in the seventh of October 2023. We had fantastic achievements. And General Bassiuk is here and is one of the architects of this achievement. But it was an unfinished war in all the three main areas. We didn’t finish the job in Gaza. Now we are going by the 20 points of President Trump. We didn’t finish the job regarding Hezbollah, and we have to find a way how it will be done by the Government of Lebanon or by the IDF.
And we didn’t finish in Iran. In the minutes at the end of the operation, we could [have done] more, and the President decided to stop it because he wanted to negotiate with the Iranians and to achieve a good agreement. We are giving the Americans time in all the three areas. By the way, we don’t push, not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, and we didn’t push in Iran. In Iran, it was a decision which was taken by the President when he saw the demonstrations outside in Tehran and other parts of Iran, he said, continue to do it. Go to the street. I’m coming to help you. And now it is his commitment.
And it’s very important to emphasize that this part of the war was not initiated by us. We gave the Americans all the time that they need to negotiate only when it is clear. What was clear for the Americans, the negotiations, as the Iranians know to do, they tried just to win time and not to give something. In reality, it was understood in Washington, the decision was taken. But I think that General McKenzie was right about the history of the beginning and the foundation of the area for the moving forward for Trump, under his leadership, I think was a very important part of it. But I think that what we see today is something different. It is about finishing the war, which was initiated by Hamas in the 7th of October, and it is the result of the success, of which, as I said, General Bassiuk was a huge part.
Michael Makovsky:
By the way, I should note that General McKenzie was CENTCOM commander at the time of the killing of Soleimani, obviously heavily involved in that. So obviously kudos on all that General McKenzie.
Let me ask one follow-up. To see the two countries really as partners, to me, it’s a very interesting moment. I mean, Winston Churchill, always thought about the special relationship between America and the UK. The special relationship seems to be right now, is Israel and the United States, at least on the military side. I mean, it’s an interesting moment, don’t you think, between these two countries?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I think it’s more than just good relations.
Technically, it’s, you know, it’s links and then decisions and procedures and so on and so forth. The trust between the two sides, I think this is something that you cannot order, and it’s not by the procedures that you do. It is much more than that. In the trust between the commanders and between the pilots, you know that in your left side there is someone that you can trust, that someone which make the plan is someone that you can trust in spite and all that is something that is achievable only if both sides feel very open towards each other, and no one is trying to make any tricks.
And I think it’s a very important moment for us as Israelis, which never fought side by side with any other military forces. Here it is something from our point of view, unlike the Americans, you have a lot of experience about that. For us, it’s a unique experience, very important. And at the end, it’s the trust that succeeded in the young generation.
Michael Makovsky:
Do you see the two countries having the same interest in this collaboration, the same objectives?
IDF MG (ret.) Oded Bassiuk:
Basically, I would say that, first of all, we’re seeing a true alliance which is very different than what the United States got with other countries.
This is a true alliance in which other countries, which are not the United States, are willing to pay the prices, to put their money where their mouth is, and actually do something which is very different than a lot of others. And there’s good coordination, I would say excellent. And General McKenzie is completely right that this wouldn’t have happened, couldn’t have happened, without us joining to the AOR of CENTCOM. This was a crucial issue in this, a crucial component. And I would say another thing before answering directly to your question, I think what was learned in 2023 before October service, and definitely within the lesson learned from October 7 is that there is a big price for deciding not to decide.
And for over a decade, all of us, in a way, decided not to do anything with the Iranian problem. For actual doing. And there’s a price for that, because you think you’re delaying the problem. And maybe somehow, this will get a solution somehow, but it doesn’t.
And the problem is growing and growing and growing, and you’re facing a monster called Iran that has proxies all over and are killing Americans and Israelis all over and trying to have a nuclear program. And what we’re seeing here is two countries that decided to step up and to make sure that this stops.
Operationally, I think we’re seeing excellent coordination. We saw a very, very successful first strike, which is also always important in this kind of operations. I think it’s very successful. The achievements are very good.
And I think the biggest question right now, Mike, is how and when the Iranian people will move forward and step up, move to the streets and actually do something. There’s a question. We need to wait to see when will this happen and how large the phenomenon will be. We’re watching, and we should be watching about what is happening to the institutions in Iran, the IRGC, the Basij, and others. People are defecting or not defecting. People are moving from side to side. People are doing the job on the street.
It’s too early to say. There’s a lot yet to be done after this first strike, and we’re seeing what is happening today. And again, this is just the second day. We need to be patient here. We’re far away from ending this, and there are many routes that can be taken, but the end is still far.
And of course, there’s a question of who can replace this regime. A lot of options—we can discuss this later—there are a lot of options of what can happen, may happen, and what are people aiming for, and we’ll just have to wait and see.
Michael Makovsky:
JINSA, for many years, we’ve pushed for a regime collapse strategy towards Iran, and no president has embraced that, really, it seems to me, until Friday. You had Trump kind of talking about a little bit, not consistently, in early January, when the Iranian government was massacring its people. But I thought from the Friday night speech, President Trump pretty much said that.
Maybe I’m projecting, but I thought it’s kind of what we’ve been arguing, which is weaken the regime in every way possible, and then you’re going to have to turn it to the people of Iran to bring down this government. As he said, it’s an opportunity they might not get for generations—and that’s how it looks to me.
That’s the U.S. approach. But that means an end state here in this campaign that might not be so black and white. You might, I mean, you could get lucky, or it could happen that the U.S. and Israel pound the regime so much that then it collapses, the people rise up and take over.
John, how do you see this?
John Hannah:
Thank you, Mike. I agree that you know, it’s too early to know. All possibilities are open. You could see the regime crumbling. You could see the Iranian Deep State stepping up and asserting some form of coherence and control, and you can see people rising up and defections occurring.
But you can also see people coming to the streets and getting crushed again, getting mowed down. And, you know, the question for President Trump is, does that speech on Friday night actually, has he now set a bar for success, as you know, a crumbling displacement of this regime, or some kind of radical discontinuity in this regime, and will anything else look like failure?
I think you’re probably right, though, that Trump’s unique in that he’s left himself an opening that we’ve done everything we possibly can to degrade and weaken this regime and give the Iranian people another shot to take down this government. But if they don’t do it, if that doesn’t happen, he can still claim, obviously, a great success in delivering another major blow to a regime that, as he’s laid out, has threatened us for 47 years and killed our soldiers and citizens. So Trump has a unique capability to argue different sides of the question and claim success every time, no matter what the outcome.
Whether or not another leader could do that, given the speech he gave on Friday night, and kind of setting that as a potential market expectation, I don’t know, but I think Trump still left himself a lot of maneuvering room in putting this responsibility on the Iranian people.
Michael Makovsky:
General McKenzie, do you see it the same way?
General (ret.) Frank McKenzie:
So, Mike, actually, I do. And I talked a little bit on CBS Face The Nation today about end states. I think it’s too early to think about off-ramps. What we need to do right now is we need to continue to punish the opponent. We need to enforce our will here. It’s too early to start searching for an off-ramp, as we often do.
The day hostilities begin, is not the day to start looking for an off-ramp. We need to continue this, and we need to continue it for several days, but yes, we need to have an end state in mind.
So at least as I look at it, I can see two separate conditions that obtain. Here’s condition one, somehow you get regime change, you get something materially different. That looks to me, from all my years of study of Iran, and I’ve said this publicly in many forms that looks very difficult to achieve, because, you know that regime has systematically murdered and killed any possible person who can emerge internally to be a candidate for something like this, or any group. And those groups that do exist are suppressed. They’re scattered. They have no one. They have little cohesion. Okay, right? And so that’s a problem in the external groups. They may be attracted to us, and they often are in the United States. But merely because someone is well dressed in the United States doesn’t mean they’re going to be effective in Tehran to go exercise a leadership role. So it’s hard for me to see that.
However, the other thing I think about when I talk about this, we have been consistently wrong, weighing the collapse of regimes. Consistently wrong in weighing and understanding how to tell when totalitarian regimes collapse under pressure. We missed, we missed Syria completely. And really, you know, in a way to think of it is how Hemingway described going bankrupt. How did I go bankrupt? Well, gradually and then suddenly. And so this could, this could be a nonlinear event. I would like to see that happen. Lord, I’d like to see that happen. I think it’s the less likely occurrence.
The other alternative is you’re going to get some successor to this guy who’s going to be at least as far to the right have many of the same views, and then I think you have to compel them with a narrower band of concessions. But I would say the nuclear file. I would say the ballistic missiles. You know, I always say recognition of the State of Israel.
You are not going to get it out of these guys, but you can get something out of them, and then, if you don’t get it, I think you’ve just got to go in again. You’ve got to continue striking until you completely destroy all the processes that exist in the state to do those things, and that’s going to take a little bit of time, but it’s doable.
It’s an inelegant solution, and it means we’re going to be back in three or four or five or six months, whenever the Chinese or the Russians get their courage up and begin to give Iran more material, you’re going to have to go back in and restrike. I don’t see a third way forward, I see one of those two options.
I would like for it to be some form of regime change that embraces a different approach to statecraft, but everything I know about Iran tells me it’s difficult to get to that point. So I’ll pause there.
General (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I agree. These are the main options but, and there is a big but, it’s the new people from the same regime. But new people, I don’t know how they will react to the success of what we did with the leadership of the regime. You know, even Khamenei, General McKenzie is totally right—this stubborn guy would not make any concessions. But here we have a different situation. They will have to pick people from the same system, but totally different, and very few of them had been in a position to make decisions in the past.
Think about the newcomers to those offices. New offices, by the way, because we destroyed the old ones. They have to sit there and to see the war continuing, and they don’t have any real answer.
Their failure to launch missiles into Israel in a way which will make a problem to our defense system. It is a very important example of their failure. They didn’t succeed to organize it. Up till now, they launched around 200 missiles, but here three, and there five, and never a big number that they know, and we know is more problematic to our defense.
They didn’t succeed to make a big salvo, you know, which is making our defense very complicated, decision making and so on and so forth. They didn’t succeed. It’s five here and seven here and three here and two here. It’s more like the Houthis. It’s not like the Iranians.
And of course, statistically, they succeed after 200 missiles were launched inside Israel and some hit civilian centers. We lost many people. But this is statistically insignificant. It says nothing about their ability.
What is important here is that the newcomer, the new guy which will come to the office, which never had been there to make decisions, will have to make decisions, and the pressure of this operation continues—and the Iranians do not have an answer.
General (ret.) Oded Bassiuk:
So if I combine what General McKenzie and General Amidror said, what we might see is a change of regime, and not exactly a collapse. It’s a possibility.
There are many pictures that you can picture that, in a way, it could be the opposition within the revolution, within the Islamic Revolution, like someone who is in the system right now. But, he is in opposition to the regime. He is more moderate or something, and he’s willing to be in charge and to make the decisions.
I also agree that I don’t think that this is someone who is coming from the United States. It probably would be someone from the inside of the system. But it’s very hard to forecast. But I would say there are many ways that we can see regime change. It’s not only that everything collapses and something new is coming. There are many options in between, and we might see these, and it will take time.
And I think Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump were aiming for this, but are discussing war or phrasing more the phrase of conditions for a regime change, and not specifically the way the regime change will look. So this is very important operationally. I would be very careful here, but I would say we saw great success with the leadership, both military and political, echelons, which is very good, and you can see the decision making right now is as General Amidror said, not it’s the best that the Iranian regime could hope for.
Many Iranian mistakes, I think, are being done, but we should be modest, because there will be prices for us to pay, as we saw in the last 24 hours.
We’re seeing air superiority very close to being achieved. We’re seeing a lot of strikes in Tehran, on Basij and IRGC targets. I think we’re going to keep on seeing this. And I think we’re going to see two or three efforts continuing all the time. First, leadership. What’s left of it. Second we’re going to see air superiority all the time. This is a continuing effort. You don’t just get it and leave it. You need to work on this all the time. Third, and very important for the Israeli citizens, my family and others, and the army, is the hunting of the launchers and the missiles to make sure that the numbers that are being launched, the numbers are going down, which is very important.
The Iranians, I think, will try to rush on this and to do it in a small scale, to have, you know, prospects to do this in a long and longer term. And what we’re starting to see now, we’ll start to see large scale bombardment on Tehran, on the infrastructure, what is left from, maybe from the nuclear program, which is not much, and what is being restored and being rebuilt within the ballistic missile industry, which is for Israel. You have asked me about the goals for Israel. This is a very important thing.
And now the question when we look at the future is if this will be the end of it or there will be a part three in this war, which is, which is not good, maybe, but, but might happen. So I think we see all of these again, three efforts continuing all the time, and then some others changing, and the pressure on Tehran and on the regime in Tehran will be very high.
We are going to see also, and we are seeing now, strikes on the regime’s internal security forces, and command-and-control. It’s not a matter of how many people you’re killing because there are many Basij and IRGC guys. It’s numerous numbers, but you can take the command-and-control centers and others, and I think we’re seeing that right now. We’ll have to see how this plays out. Also, there will be some other efforts—but I think it would be best not to speak about that right now.
General (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
You have to take care of the fact that the Iranians are moving against only Israel. It’s Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar. And the reaction for that might surprise us and the Iranians, because it’s looking like the Iranians tried to put pressure on the Americans through these countries—so that they would say to the Americans, stop it.
Yet, it might lead to a totally different situation. And there are some rumors in Saudi Arabia that they will say, if you continue, we will join the Americans and the Israelis. And I’m not sure that this is what Iranians had in mind, and we have to see what the reaction around the world will be.
General (ret.) Oded Bassiuk:
I completely agree. I think the Iranians made a strategic mistake here, which, you could see this coming, but this is a big mistake from their side, and good, maybe, in a way, good for us. Not that it’s good that people are getting bombed. But it’s good that, I think, the Arab world understands that no deals can be done with the Iranians, actually, and you have to step up. And I hope this will happen.
Michael Makovsky:
John, why don’t you address that? Were you surprised the Iranians were doing that?
John Hannah:
I guess I wasn’t. I know a lot of people say they’re surprised, what a big strategic mistake it was. And maybe it’ll prove that way. Maybe it’ll solidify this coalition of Gulf States and other Arab states that were on the fence before this, and some, many of them, looking to avoid any involvement in this conflict, and maybe these attacks get them into the end of the fight. And as far as the Saudis and Emiratis are concerned, at least they have some capability, particularly in air power, too, that they could contribute. But I wasn’t surprised, because I do think once, once this thing becomes existential for the Iranians, once it becomes defined as a matter of regime survival, I think they just think they have to go all, all out and really inflict as much damage as possible.
In the Gulf, in a place like the UAE, these places have fashioned a model for 50 years of being a bastion of stability, safety, economic prosperity in the Gulf. To have these drones and missiles, you know, flying so close and inflicting damage is a real shock to the system.
They haven’t had to really be through this intensity before. I spoke to somebody just today in the Gulf. With the shutdown of these airports and with the ports being closed, with the Strait of Hormuz being kind of paralyzed for the moment. Hopefully, that won’t be very long, but they went to the store, this grocery store today, and you can’t find beef, chicken, fish. Stores have been raided, and there’s a degree of panic, obviously, and not a lot of communication on how they’re going to solve all of this.
Now, the Emirates have got a serious government, and I’m sure they’ll get on top of it and work with the United States and Saudis and others to figure out solutions. But I, you know, I wouldn’t underestimate the level of shock this is for some of these societies that haven’t been through this before.
Their defenses do seem to be operating reasonably well. But, obviously ,the statistics inevitably result in some of these getting through and doing damage in a way that these populations aren’t as accustomed to, as and hardened to as the Israelis. Israelis are. So you know, it is really a matter for the Iranians of how long they can sustain this.
Can they outlast the ability of the Americans and Israelis to really cripple not only the medium range missiles and launchers capable of striking Israel? Can they do that same kind of damage fairly quickly to the short range capability and their ability to launch obviously, destroying the Navy is a huge issue that seems to have started and at some point in time, if they do attempt to and succeed in mining the Gulf or sinking some additional ships of probably the American Navy and maybe some others trying to make sure that they can open that up, what the impact on global oil prices and stock markets will be?
We’ll all see tomorrow.
But I am not surprised that the Iranians have opted for an option of trying to inflict real damage, build real pressure on the President to see whether or not he’s got the breath to last as long as he may need to last year for a week, two weeks, whatever it takes to get the job done here—or whether, as with the Iranians saw with the Houthis earlier last year, that the President finally gets fed up when things don’t result in some kind of conclusive success and victory, and he decides to look for an exit ramp.
I think that’s it’s a matter of Iranian desperation, but I think they see the stakes as relatively existential at this point in time, as a real matter of survival, particularly after the speeches by the President and Prime Minister and obviously the decapitation strikes yesterday.
General (ret.) Frank McKenzie:
The Iranian decision to strike UAE and Saudi Arabia, I think that’s the equivalent of Hitler’s declaration of war in the United States after Pearl Harbor. It’s an unforced error. Hitler never should have done that. It’s a terrible mistake. We would have had problems as a nation negotiating what to do next after that attack, but he made it a lot easier, and I think we may see that path develop as a result of this.
I also acknowledge it will have a negative—there is a negative effect to that too, and I agree with those comments as well. Let me just talk about the missiles for a minute, because that’s one that I spent a large part of my professional life thinking about, and I’m going to be excited to see how this pans out over the next 120 hours or so, 120, 144 hours.
What we’re seeing, and I’m talking mainly about the U.S, right now, is, and there’s not much, not much in detail I can talk about, but what you’re going to see over these next few days is the calculus will be, can we reduce the Iranian ability to generate volleys of missiles to a degree where they will remain disconnected and disaggregated and not able to overwhelm our systems? And you can, you’ll be able to see it if they, you know what, if you’re going to strike Al Udeid, you want to hit Al Udeid with 120 missiles. They have not been able to do that.
They’ve been able to hit Al Udeid with much smaller strikes. And of course, every once in a while, something gets through, because nothing is perfect, but you’re not going to be able to overwhelm our system. And the places that can be overwhelmed, Israel is a more difficult problem for them because of distance, for a variety of reasons that we’re all aware of. But you know how you did Al Dhafra, Manama, Kuwait, those places right along the Gulf the Iranians do have the capability to fire large numbers of relatively short range missiles and rockets, and they have not been able to do that, and sitcom is working very hard to ensure that they do not regain the capability to do that.
And that’s a question of striking missile storage areas, transporters, although not all these missiles require transporters, as you’re well aware, you know, I would argue the underground facilities are great. You can’t move. We’ll get you in an underground facility. They should dig more. I would encourage the arenas to do that. But go after those facilities. You go after the transporters, you go after the launch sites, and you go after the command control. You go after the parking lots where people are parked to go to work for these facilities. There are a whole lot of things that we’ve been looking at for many years in order to do this.
What it requires, of course, and what we always struggle with was air superiority and freedom from the air defense systems. And we appear to be on the cusp of achieving, really both those, even in the Tehran-Isfahan corridor, which means out in the hinterlands, where we’re going to be doing a lot of this work, it’s even going to be more pronounced. But what, you know, we used to go to elaborate lengths, and I can’t say much more about it, to look at jammers, stealth aircraft, non stealth aircraft, pairing them up into hunter killer teams. We’re doing that now, but the goal has to be and this will become very clear in the next few days: are we able to prevent the Iranians from massing those fires?
Because, as has already been noted, if we can keep them uncoordinated at small volley counts, we will be able to catch them on the other end a lot more efficiently. And as you all know, it’s a lot easier to kill that guy before he launches, rather than to get him on the other end. When he’s descending, he might be able to deploy penetration aids. There’s just a lot of and he’s going to land somewhere. Even if you even if you hit the rocket, you’re still going to get the warhead descending to Earth, and you lose control over where it’s going to go.
So a lot of things militate for us to try to solve this problem. This in my view, and when I was a CENTCOM commander, this was the essential calculus that I looked at, if we’re going to fight Iran, can we do this? And we were talking about doing it in all the mowers, the ballistic missile operating areas, although we’re focused on the south now, because that’s where the high volley count rockets are that can do grave damage to not only our bases, but also to cities like Riyadh, cities like Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Manama, and other cities that are uniquely vulnerable to these kinds of attacks. So that’s sort of that. I’m sure that has Admiral Cooper’s total and complete attention right now as they work at.
Here’s the other thing we talked about it a little bit, what’s going on at sea. So I think the nuclear weapon for Iran here, if you will, is to mine the Strait of Hormuz. If they do that, first of all, they’ll cross a Rubicon that would be hard to come back from. Second that would have a significant effect on international commerce because of the hydrocarbons that move through there.
They have practiced doing it. They have a lot of mines. They have some very sophisticated mines. It is my understanding that we have struck some of these targets. And so what are the targets that you strike? Well, you strike the places where they store the mines. Some of those are underground. We can still get to those warehouses where they are stored, the places you load mines, the ships you put the mines on, and the command-and-control facilities associated with that. We’ve done some striking of that, but my understanding is right now we’re going after higher priority, higher priority targets, so maybe we come back.
We may be visiting those targets right now. I just don’t know. I’m not read into that, but I think we want to prevent the strengths of our moves from being mine. Because I’ll tell you, the United States is mind clearing, capability is and I’ll use this word advisedly. It is modest, and I’ll just leave it there. It’s modest. We can get it clean, we can get it cleared, and we will, but it will not be an easy process.
And again, remember, like in the Bab el Mandeb, who makes the decision on where their ships go through, it’s not a government, it’s international insurance companies that make the decision on whether or not those ships are going to be allowed to go through. So you got to prove it and prove it, and prove it to a very high standard. And the United States Navy learned all these lessons many years ago, and it’s forgotten. I’m sure now we’re going to possibly have to relearn those lessons here in the days and weeks ahead.
I’m going to watch very closely, what happens there. The other thing I would argue is we ought to sink the Iranian Navy just, just to check the box. I mean, you know, there’s no, there’s no reason to there’s no reason for those guys to be around.
We ought to go after that intelligence collection ship down there in the Red Sea. I dreamed of that when I was a CENTCOM commander. I dreamed of it and then, as many of some of you in the room may know, some other party actually damaged it and had to go home. It wasn’t us, but some other interested party, probably not the Germans that damaged it and it had to go home, but they’ve got another one down there. Now we ought to just wrap that up as a matter of course, and I’m sure we’ll get to that in the fullness of time.
The last thing I’ll say before I get off the topic, is leadership targets. Absolutely continue to strike those, based on the three-pronged approach that has been previously described. I can’t improve on that discussion. You know, I’m sure we’re coordinating closely with our partners in Israel about how those targets are going to be serviced, how they’re going to be addressed.
What I look at is the missile count, I look at the Iranian ability to launch missiles. And I do agree. I think a lot of you know what passes for elite command and control in Iran is gone. Now you have got lower level guys. And somebody sent me a clip from somebody in Iran who said they have decentralized command and control of these forces out to the regions, so that local commanders are making decisions.
If so, that would be good and bad. It would be bad because they can’t control them anymore. If you reach an agreement to stop shooting, it may have trouble getting down to them. It’s good because they’re going to have less information. They’re not going to be able to do targeting as well as or as effectively. I want to look and I would recommend we all look over the next few days to see how robust that Iranian national command and control system is in terms of its ability to generate target packages for these missiles.
So we’re entering, I think, a very the decisive period of the war for me, which is why this morning on CBS, and I’ll say it again, this is not the time to think about off ramping This is the time to think about imposing our will on the enemy, and that means continuing to strike and to strike very hard. And I’ll pause.
Michael Makovsky:
Well, a lot was in there, General McKenzie. Before I turn to General Amidror, let me just ask you one follow up. Do you have concerns? Does the United States have enough interceptors, enough of what we need in the region, for what we need to do?
General (ret.) Frank McKenzie:
Well, when I was the CENTCOM commander, I was never satisfied, because I wanted them all. It’s not my problem to make global decisions for the United States about where those interceptors go. All I wanted was all of them, and I wanted them all at CENTCOM. So I’m sure, I’m sure Brad Cooper is screaming for more. We have expended a lot of interceptors. I go back to the point you want to get to these weapons before they launch. Because even if you’re having success with your interceptors, you’re right. You have a finite stock of interceptors. They are very, very expensive.
You want to get on the other side of the cost imposition curve. And the other side of the cost imposition curve is to get them before they launch, get them in stockpile, get them in those caves, blow the caves up. And again, I would say, repeat something. I said, we should encourage the Iranians to dig fixed, deep silos for their missiles. That’s a myth that that’s safe. Nothing’s safe. If you can’t move it, it’s going to die. So we should want them to be in the fixed locations. That’s good for us overall.
Michael Makovsky:
General Amidror – how do you see it on the operational side, from your standpoint, how it’s been after this period of time and what both parties need to do?
General (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I spoke to them here in Israel, in the media, and I said that if there is one, one thing that we should do is to continue and be very aggressive, not to stop, not let the other side to reorganize and to push whenever, wherever. We have good targets, and to do it with the combination with the Americans, they will take their share. We will take our share.
But it’s very important to continue the momentum, and not to let the other side to feel that he can stop or ease the pressure on its systems, and the more that we neutralize their ability to launch missiles into Israel, the more that we and Americans can minimize the number of missiles that they can launch into their neighborhood, the more that we will destroy in The in the area of the facilities of the both nuclear and the ballistic missiles and all the targets that are making the regime weaker regarding the need of the regime to oppress the next wave of the opposition.
These are the areas in which we should not stop and all the time, put pressure on the Iranians. The modern Iranians understand that they cannot launch. The more they understand that they cannot, cannot stop us from totally destruct their nuclear and ballistic projects, and the more they understand that they are slowly, slowly losing their ability to control the forces that are needed to oppress the opposition, the chances that they will ask for a ceasefire in which we will be ready to compromise, really compromise, not what they thought before the war is coming and we are and the chances that the opposition will come out of the back to the street and we try to topple the regime is high when it will be understood in Iran that the regime is very weak, and this is very crucial.
The problem is that we don’t have we don’t know how to measure it. And you never know when you reach the slowly, slowly, and what was said by General McKenzie, suddenly: collapsed. You don’t know where you stand, relating to this process of slowly, slowly. And at the end, it’s a cliff that they have to jump from.
So we have to continue the pressure. This is the only advice that I can give, a lot, you know, to think about the day after, to think about what will be, who will be, blah, blah, blah, all this nonsense. Continue as much as you can, and if you can do more, okay, all right.
Michael Makovsky:
We only have about 10 more minutes left, so about another round of everybody at the most, but General Bassiuk, given where we are so far, I think General McKenzie laid out where he sees the US, what they’re going to be focusing on. You see kind of a division of labor here between the two parties. What do you see Israel doing in the next few days? And do you think we’ve this has exceeded expectations so far? And how do you see, what is Israel? They kind of just keep it in the missile sites, keep it in or at certain point, and of the leadership, are they going to start pivoting? They’re going to start hitting more of the nuclear sites that maybe some people have brought up, Pickaxe Mountain.
How do you see the next few days going?
General (ret.) Oded Bassiuk:
So first of all, I think that again, the start, the beginning was excellent, and it was part two of what happened in June, and the conditions because of what happened in Junes are better because of very, very low capabilities of air defense that the Iranians are left with, and a bit lower capabilities within the ballistic missile although they do have big numbers. And as McKenzie said, this is something that we all have to pursue all the time. This is an ongoing effort. I think we are going to see the way it was. So far. It’s been great coordination, amazing.
And I think we’re going to see the two military forces keep on doing, each one of them using their special thing that each and every one of these forces can do. The good intel, the precision, the quantities. Israel has a lot on the ground here, capabilities to put bombs in the right places. In Iran, we’re seeing the amount of force that the United States brought to the to the arena. And I think this is going in the right way. I think, as I said, we’re going to see all the routes of strike, of striking, the families of targets, and the right way of targeting.
And again, the issue of the missiles is very important. The next important thing is how to pressure the regime for this change or for this collapse, and how to build this pressure and to help the Iranian people go out, I would say this. We would have to think that this operation is well planned, and not only the first two days, it’s planned for longer, at least a couple of days forward, including the issues which are not only targeting, there are other stuff being planned, and I’m sure I can assess and a lot of things are going to happen.
And we just need to keep on doing this pressure together. It’s well aligned, and I think we’re in the right direction. Let me completely agree that to discuss how will this end, is too soon. We just need to make sure that we’re going in the right path.
Michael Makovsky:
Maybe I missed this, but you know, Israel really did the max they could with these refueling tankers, the old refueling tankers they had in June. But we saw a case. We saw refueling tankers parked in Tel Aviv. I think it was in Ben Gurion Airport. I think, if I’m not mistaken, is the United States helping Israel refuel, are there certain operational changes like that?
General (ret.) Oded Bassiuk:
I think we’re seeing many changes. I will not elaborate, but I think we’re seeing a lot of changes, and I think we’re seeing a lot of achievements, because the forces are being aligned, combined, and doing this within in a way for joint leadership, between militaries, tribes, and between Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and the President, President Trump. And we’re seeing this well aligned, and the alignment gets you better military and operational results.
And this is a very important thing. What we’re seeing here, I will tell I would say this, I am not sure that one of the two countries, although no doubt that the United States is a big barrier, but without the combination between the two countries and two militaries, I don’t think we could have seen this kind of success at this period of time.
I mean, this is something which is unique for this situation. I mean, operationally, how this will play strategically, there’s time to go. And I think General McKenzie, and also JINSA, is invested in this. And this is something that I would like to acknowledge here.
Michael Makovsky:
General McKenzie. You know, I’ll remind everyone. You wrote a paper that we circulated. You wrote a paper for us about a year and a half ago on our force posture and about our basing in the region. And you said, then, this is, I think, September of what is that? 2024? I guess. And you said, you know, elude and all some of these bases, they’re kind of anachronisms in the sense that they we had these bases with the Cold War, but if the next conflict was with Iran, is expected, these bases are too close, and we should have bases farther away. And one of the suggestions you had is that we have a base, and Israel are making more use of a base in Israel.
And, indeed, JINSA actually put out something in the fall because of that recommendation. We had a couple retired US Air Force generals now Marines, who we have brought out to the region. And they recommended utilizing this base in near a lot in the south, and indeed that we still have F-22s move there. How does that you think, seems to me, what you laid out a year and a half ago turned out to be obviously very prescient. But how?
I know it just may be an interesting but it’s one of these changes we didn’t see in June, of course, but this utilization of Israel, moving into the refueling tankers, having F-22s in Israel, it’s, it’s a change for the United States, and it’s actually what you had recommended.
General (ret.) Frank McKenzie:
Well, thanks, Mike. It is a change for the United States, but those bases on the southern edge of the Gulf, they’re just not tenable.
You know, you have to go to heroic lengths to protect them. We’re seeing that now you can’t do, you know, they’re down to cadre or sub cadre level right now, you’re not going to be able to sustain them for the long haul.
And yes, so I think very much you got to look at, you got to look at going Israel, you got to look at going west and Saudi, a variety of places you need to look at going to if you’re going to get into a sustained fight with Iran, although I would argue we’re in a pretty good I’m satisfied with where we are right now. There are going to be some dark days ahead, because that’s the nature of warfare.
But I would rather, I think we’re in a pretty good place, and I acknowledge the unique, the unique relationship with Israel that we have achieved here is what has allowed us to be as effective as we have been. And I don’t think we’d be anywhere near where we are without that unique relationship. And I think it’s going to continue, and it’s going to be tested, because the Iranians, they’re smart, they’ll come up with some. They’ll throw a couple of curve balls out there. But, you know, we have a few curve balls ourselves to throw that are not yet exposed and so that, you know, so I’m, I feel pretty confident about where we are right now.
Michael Makovsky:
John, do you want to make any concluding comments?
John Hannah:
Just to, obviously footstep that point that this is, you know, another huge leap forward in the US, Israel strategic relationship. This level of coordination and integration is obviously going to be is critical in this current conflict, but I think it’s got long term implications as well that we all need to get together and think through really seriously.
How do we take advantage of this? How do we build it? How do we consolidate it, and how do we get these Arabs fully on board to be part of this larger system that we could create for a new security architecture in the Middle East, they’ve seen what sitting on the fence can bring you, ultimately, in a conflict with an adversary like the Iranians, you’re a target anyway. You’re going to be hit anyway. So why not do the work in advance and be part of this larger regional security picture that I think the United States and Israel are fully open to building.
Michael Makovsky:
It’s interesting. Seems to me, you know, we’ve heard those of us who follow this and certainly follow Israel in the United States, so much, you know, Israel’s become a much more you know, I don’t know what you know, a controversial issue in American politics, on the left, on the right, but between the two militaries. I mean, look, just listening to General Bassiuk and General McKenzie speak, for example. I mean, I’ve never seen any closer, you know, collaboration, trust. I’ve never heard anything like it. I mean, such an amazing, seamless collaboration, like we’re seeing.
General (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
We should continue together. The more that we will do it together, the better the future.