Transcription
From the Free Press, I'm Eli Lake, the host of Breaking History. Joining me today is analyst Dan Caldwell. Dan is a former senior adviser to the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hexath. He's a veteran of the US Marine Corps, for which he served in the Iraq War. And I would say that Dan is someone who I definitely respect. He knows his stuff, but we have our disagreements. Uh, specifically when we're talking about weighing America's overseas commitments and intervention. Dan, you could—I—I have written this. I think Dan would agree that he was a leader of what I would call the Trump administration's restrainer group, which are the um policy makers in the Trump administration that were much more wary of kind of overseas commitments than the traditional Republican party. Um, and he recently shared his arguments in a very good fight club with Simone Ledine, another um former Pentagon official, um in his arguments against the US intervention in Iran. So, whilst today we're going to discuss this question further. Dan, thanks so much for being here on Free Press.
Thank you, Eli, for having me. This is a lot better than talking trash back and forth on Twitter as we've done for uh for a few years now. So it is nice to do it face to face, and and I just want to say you—I—I'm actually looking forward to uh listening to your new uh Breaking History uh episode on William F. Buckley.
Oh, thank you so much. I hope you like it. Um, so let's start. So I want to just ask you the first big kind of big question. Do you think that Iran poses a direct and serious enough threat to the United States and the West to justify a military intervention? That's my first question. Let's let's let's hash that one out.
So I—I think this is probably one of the most important questions, if not the most important question. And for me, um, as I said in the back and forth, uh, that I did a few days ago, I do think it is in America's interest for Iran not to have a nuclear weapon. It is not generally good for—not—it's not good at all for a revolutionary Islamic regime to have a nuclear capability. Where I diverge from others though is the question of is it an existential threat to the United States and is a vital national interest? Meaning does a nuclear-armed Iran threaten the United States in say the same way that a China does or a nuclear-armed Russia does. And for me right now, the answer is no. Um, I don't believe that Iran is uh going to get a nuclear weapon imminently, and I know there's a lot of debate over the intelligence of that, and you could even argue around what does imminently mean. Um, there is also uh a question of, you know, will they be able to develop the delivery systems, the the capability to strike um the United States, and I do also think that you have to look at what is the intent for Iran behind getting a nuclear weapon. It's worth noting that Iran's nuclear program, uh their pursuit of a nuclear weapon actually began under the Shah, and along with the development of their long-range missile program. It began under the Shah because Iran is in a region where they're surrounded by a lot of states that don't share their religious values that traditionally have been hostile to them, and they look to do things like fund proxies and build missiles and acquire things like nuclear weapons to help better secure themselves in that environment. Now, the fact that Iran is ruled by a bunch of Islamic radicals obviously adds another element to it. So, with all that said, again, I don't think it is—it is good for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, but I can't say it is existential for the United States or it's in our vital national interest to prevent them. So for me, that means that I think the best way to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon is through diplomatic means, and yes, diplomacy requires a credible military option. But I think the risks of an American intervention in Iran, what that could do to our ability to properly deter China, the cost it could occur in primary lives and dollars, the impact it could have on the global economic situation, and the broader instability it could bring to the Middle East, for me leads me to believe that that it is not currently in our interest for us to get militarily involved in this war—between directly involved. We are involved in defending Israel—directly involved in this conflict with Iran.
Okay. Well, let me—let's go through a couple of those things because you talked about instability. Um, don't you—wouldn't you agree that Iran is a driver of instability in the region?
Absolutely. Currently, it is um uh it is uh it has funded proxies in the region; it has uh supported bad actors in the region, as have other countries as well. You know, Saudi Arabia uh and Saudi Arabia and Iran right now are—are have a a bit of a daunt. But um they have at various points driven instability in the region. But this gets to another important point for me is that the Middle East is not as important to the United States as many people here in Washington D.C. make it out to be.
Well, I want to put a pin in that because I think that's a an excellent point, but I want to kind of get back to the instability point. Um, because I would argue that um if you want to take the long tail history of Saudi Arabia, there was a period—I would argue probably up until the mid-2000s, let's say—more or less where the Saudis played a Janus-faced kind of double game where they would not allow—as you know—uh radical Salafi jihadists to really operate within their country, but they were happy to export support that and to fund it abroad. So they, you know, the Saudis worked very closely with Pakistan, which certainly seeded Salafi terrorist groups in Kashmir, in Afghanistan, and and they did it all over the world, and it's not good. But they—they have reformed. I think you would agree with that. Let's just establish that.
Yes, the Saudis are no longer uh playing that game largely because of the the leadership of the crown prince Muhammad bin Salman, um who has done other things we don't like. But let's just give him credit for that. The Iranian regime, on the other hand, their raison d'être since 1979 has been to advance what they consider to be sort of their Shia version of an Islamic revolution. And so that has meant that yes, the Saudis were involved in a in a vicious war in Yemen recently, but what were they responding to? They were responding to Houthis who were supercharged and and funded and and armed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Ditto in terms of Syria. Lots of countries got involved in Syria as that—as Syria was um kind of unraveling. But it was the Iranians who intervened along with the Russians on behalf of Bashar al-Assad, who was really—I would say—kind of creating the conditions under which the other Sunni jihadists—mainly ISIS and al-Qaeda—kind of themselves became more involved. Um, and that's what I mean by like Iran itself is this sort of driver of instability. So if a war like this that really humiliates them or leads to an end of that regime or a rethinking of that regime, a kind of massive military defeat that gets them to rethink a strategy that's nearly half a century old, wouldn't that contribute to stability in—in a—in the medium term?
Again, that's another very important question.
Yeah. And I—I—I think the—the—the biggest thing is is we cannot say for sure, and there's—there's a lot of evidence that actually it would make instability worse in the region. And here's a couple reasons why. Okay. Is—is first um we—we don't know for sure what would replace the Islamic regime in—in Tehran—in its current form. So if—say—I—if—say the Israelis kill the supreme leader, um there is a world where an actually more radical uh uh mullah takes over, someone less willing to—to engage with the West, someone who doesn't want to continues their taunt with Saudi Arabia and with some of the other Gulf states, which I—I have to say I think is good because it disincentivizes both sides from funding more extreme proxies. In the case of the Gulf States, some of the extremists that you saw pop up in Syria and Iraq and Yemen. Um, and in the case of the Iranians, it makes proxies like Hezbollah less important to them. Um, so that's—that's a risk. And there's also a risk too is that Iran could devolve into a civil war. Um, it is a a country that is yes dominated by Shia Persians, but they have a Kurdish minorities, they have Arabs in the southwest, they have Azerbaijanis, uh Turkmen, uh Baloch in the—in the uh southeast.
Don't forget my favorites, the Kurds.
Yes. Yes. The Kurds in the northwest who are—I believe—their second or third largest minority, and they have a lot of armed groups. So you could have a situation where Iran turned to groups.
Yes.
Yeah. They're two big ones. I mean, I'm sure there's other, you know, but that's a whole—
Yeah, that's a whole interesting conversation. But the—the point there is—is that in that situation is that you could have a situation like you had in—you currently have in Yemen or you had in Syria where you have different armed groups that are fighting it out. It draws in other countries, and that—that in of itself creates more instability. And let's—let's also say too, there's a risk that some of these groups could get a hold of uh nuclear material that Iran has or advanced conventional weapons. You could have a situation like you had in Libya where militants flow in, weapons flow out, and the region actually becomes less stable. And I also think there's a—there's a bigger thing that I think a lot of folks are—are missing here is in that situation. And I—I—I'm somebody who thinks it's actually in our interest, unlike some other restrainers. I thought the Abraham Accords was good—is good as long as it doesn't turn into like an Arab NATO where we have more defense commitments. I think it's an effective balancing coalition that checks Iran and can help keep an external hegemon out of the region. But if you remove Iran in that situation, what happens to the incentive for the Gulf States to work with Israel? Now you have business links, you have cultural links. Those could be enough to keep that relationship. But there's a world too where you move—you remove Iran as a threat to the Gulf States, or they have to focus on Iran in a different way. I'm actually pro-Abraham Accords because um it—you know—other restrainers were not comfortable. There's actually was a big debate in the restraint community about it. I'm—I'm somebody who's pro-Abraham Accords because for me that creates a balancing coalition that can help contain Iran and help keep an external hegemon from coming into the region and dominating it. And so that could allow more retrenchment. Now there's some that wanted to turn the Abraham Accords into an Arab NATO. Um, that is not something I'd support, you know, where we'd have more defense commitments in the region. But my point is is that without Iran as a threat in—in the—you know—with an Islamic regime, what would happen to that coalition? And that's not a justification in of itself to—you know—not do regime change in Iran. But it is worth considering—would the Gulf Arab states once again become more hostile to Israel? Maybe, maybe not. Um, so those are kind of the second and third-order implications that I think we need to think through about a regime change in Iran is that we could get a much worse situation. And we've seen that unfortunately play out in places like Libya, Syria, Iraq, and—and—and other parts of the world as well, too.
All right. Well, I want to address the sort of regime change point because I do think it's fair. It's unclear right now what exactly the Israeli strategy is because what you have is um on the one hand a very clear line—Tsachi Hanegbi, the national security adviser, said at the beginning of the war, "We're not targeting political targets." Trump reinforced that with his very interesting tweet about Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader—"We know where you are; we could take you out (parenthesis) kill, but not yet"—you know, I'm paraphrasing. The point is is that Um, I think that there has been a deliberate decision not to target the president, the foreign minister, things like that from the Israelis. But you also see this messaging from the Israelis asking the Iranian people to rise up. Um, which, given recent history, there have been five major national uprisings since 2017. Um, I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of Iranians uh despise this regime and that the reason that this regime has been able to stay into power is because of the incredible cruelty that they are willing to um uh basically uh levy on their own population. So, um, but that said, so I'm not entirely sure that Israel's plan is to kind of do a regime change that we associate say with the Iraq War. Um, I think that the line that Netanyahu says is that if—you know—if this is a—you know—if this is a happy kind of—you know—side effect of our war against their nuclear program and their the leadership of the security services which keep the regime in place because it is a regime that um only exists because of—of violence and the fear of the populace. Um, well then, you know, no one's complaining. But I see your point that if there was to be a sort of sudden collapse of the regime that you would potentially see anarchy. In fact, you know, I have a piece coming out that looks at that as a real possibility. So these are risks, but I would argue that there were risks on the other side of the ledger, which is to say, and maybe this is a good opportunity now to sort of get into the sort of let's agree on the sort of common set of facts. Um, we don't have to go on rumor, intelligence, you know, estimates and this one and that. We just say we know they were enriching to 60%, which is, you know, a hair's breath from what you would need for nuclear fuel. There's no peaceful purpose for that. We know that they had an industrial-sized program which they were allowed to keep because of the JCPOA. We know that they were massively increasing their ballistic missiles program. The Chinese were actually helping them with that. And we know that um this was kind of a window of opportunity because the Israelis had taken out their air defenses in earlier attacks and had basically decimated the proxy networks that Iran would have counted on sort of to join the fight—Hezbollah and Hamas. Uh, the Houthis are still around, but they are not as—they're not as serious as particularly Hezbollah and the massive amount of missile stocks that they had, which are now—they've basically been neutralized. So there was an opportunity to do it from Israel's perspective um where sort of Iran had less of an opportunity to sort of do their retaliations. We're already seeing, by the way, they're—they are able to hit civilian kind of targets in Israel, but not at the level that they would have had their full proxy network been there. Um, and so I—I would argue that there was—that Iran's game was to get right up to the point where they would be able to push a button and have a weapon, you know, fairly quickly. And then at that point, it probably would have been too late. And then once Iran gets a nuclear umbrella, well then I mean I would say that you would—you would see an all—of the—the destabilizers that they supported would become emboldened, and Iran itself would have this sort of trump card that they would be able to sort of terrorize the region in such a way that um I think that we would have all like looked back and said, "Well, why didn't somebody do something about this?"—was—they were inching to the bomb. So faced with—I think—two bad scenarios—one being the uncertainty of a potential regime collapse and then the other being a nuclear Iran and already a radicalized regime with a nuke. Um, and using the threat of nuclear—using the—they would—they would—I think—like Russia—they would use the fact that they had a nuke to justify further wars of aggression. um then, you know, the balance of those risks lead me to say that Israel was right to do what they're doing. I also don't think, by the way, that the Israelis would do it if they didn't have a plan for—that didn't involve the United States because I don't think they ever got a commitment from Trump to do that. Um, so kind of how do you respond to that, which is that you sort of laid out a potential list of—of things that might happen, and I'm conceding—I think—that there—there is a risk that if the regime topples, if there is anarchy, if they haven't gotten—they haven't taken out—you know—the major nuclear sites and they haven't secured the materials. Yeah, there—there are a lot of really bad scenarios, and we have to grapple with that versus the risk that Iran at—would—is just—was at that point where they push a button and they get a nuke. Um, do you—can you sort of see my side of the ledger on that—that like it's not a—it's not a—you know—all these terrible things are going to happen if you do it versus—right—the status quo is fine. It's like you have to sort of make a decision—like—you know—kind of a pick your poison, right?
Well, I mean, this is uh this is a a big part of the debate that I think we have to acknowledge is that as a—in my view—a not great defense secretary—maybe one of the worst uh ever—said, "You know, there's a lot of unknown unknowns here"—known unknowns—that states like Israel and the threat they face from a nuclear Iran would compel them to do things that—from the United States perspective—maybe is not in our interest, and faced with the consequences that they would face in their region, they would—they would look at this balance of threat a lot differently than we would. A couple things I would say is um it gets down to the question of—from a military standpoint—can you actually truly eliminate an Iranian nuclear program short of a full-on invasion and occupation? And I—I think that based on what I have seen and what I've read is that—that's—is that at best you're—you're—you're looking at a—you know—medium-term setback of the Iranian nuclear program, and that in fact military strikes, if they aren't successful—and a lot of these military operations are incredibly high risk—and let's acknowledge that—you know—Israel is in very successful at uh actually executing high-risk, low-chance-of-probability-success. I mean, in—in—is the perfect example—military operations, but even then there is risk that if these are not totally successful is that you're actually incentivizing Iran to truly sprint for a bomb and actually go for one in this current environment. And then I would also say too is that in my view, Iran wants a threat of a nuke—of their ability to get a nuclear weapon uh or having a nuclear weapon—for primarily one reason, and that's regime survival, is that they have looked at what has happened in places like Libya, Iraq, you know, potentially what could have happened in—in—you know—North Korea where they have—not—that regime has not collapsed—and then even Syria where that nuclear—as—and you've—you've acknowledged this—where that that nuclear capability is the ultimate guarantor of regime survival. So with that, that would also compel them not to do certain things with nuclear weapons because if they were to say use a nuclear weapon, then that would uh mean that Israel or the United States with its robust second-strike capabilities would truly once and for all eliminate uh the Iranian regime and you know inflict massive damage on the region. Now, that is a doomsday scenario, but I bring it up in that um you know, the Iranian regime, a lot of what they do is clearly dictated by regime survival. So, would they do things that they know would invite destruction of the regime? And I—I don't think so. Now, one other thing is you brought up—I want—I want to just push on that a little bit.
Mhm.
Um, I think you're right that uh tyrants want nukes for regime survival, and the history of—you know—I don't know—non-proliferation—when you look at the Libya example, when you look at Iraq—um—says that countries that don't have nukes will get invaded—how—but I think that you have to acknowledge on the other side because the nature of the regime here
Matters, and I think this is a flaw in a lot of the foreign policy realists in general, which they don't make enough distinctions between the compositions and the motivations of states. And so, you know, Iran, for their regime to survive, means that the Islamic revolution, in the broadest sense, survives. And so if they have a nuclear umbrella, then that would mean that the region would have to tolerate more of their already awful, destabilizing behavior.
Um, you know, the Iranian leadership may or may not have known about October 7th. The reporting is somewhat mixed on that, but they certainly are irresponsible because they fund and train and arm Hamas, um, the group that did it, um, and they were delighted when they pulled it off. So, I think from Israel's perspective, they're saying, "Well, that's not tolerable, and we're going to only get more of that if they have a nuke because that'll make it that'll that'll deter us or deter others even more." So, yeah, they want regime survival, but it's the nature of the regime that matters. So, I don't think it's just a matter of leave us alone.
And the other thing I would just say is that, you know, using Occam's razor, if you just wanted to survive, there's a lot of things Iran could do that would secure their regime from external threat, which would be like don't support terrorism, don't kill Americans, don't violate the IAEA NPT safeguard protocols, as they were just called out for last week. Um, there's all kinds of things that the Iranians could do that would be much less costly ways and simpler ways of ensuring their regime survival.
Um, I think it's more than just saying they want to sur they want regime survival. What they want is they want to have an aggressive revisionist regime that seeks to alter the Middle East and become the dominant hegemon in the Middle East; they want that to survive. And so that I think does change the calculus in that regard. And I think it's just not as simple as saying, "Oh, they just want to survive like any other state." You know what I'm saying? Like there's there's a there's a reason why Oman right now is not like a threat because Oman doesn't do stuff that anybody would be like, "Oh, we got to get rid of Oman." It's it's Iran is is is the is the problem, right? You know, but there's a we kind of touched on this beginning conversation. There's a difference between Oman and Iran in the sense that Oman is an Arab country, a Gulf Arab state, good relations with its neighbors, has a lot in common where Iran historically has not, because of its, you know, their different ethnic composition, different religious composition. Yeah. But they could, Iran easily could have a fine relationship with its neighbors. It's not because of their ethnic relationship. It's because of their behavior, I think, that there's a problem. Right. But these these antagonisms have been historical and predate the Islamic Revolution.
And again, I'm not downplaying that that the the the Islamic Revolution adds a danger here that that can't be ignored. But again, I think that that we also too need to acknowledge that um Iran has at times shown an ability—and this is I know maybe a controversial thing to say—not at times but in many points, act rationally to do things to help it survive in the long term. And I I I I look back at at what happened in 2024 in their response to the Israeli strikes against um uh you know, like Hezbollah and their embassy in Damascus, is that they they could have gone a lot further in terms of their escalation, but they rightly assessed that that point escalating against Israel more would have not been in their interest. If they were more of a a suicidal—and I know you're not saying this—Islamic regime, say of like the ISIS type, that they would have probably behaved a lot more differently. And so instead they telegraphed their attacks, um they caused minimal damage. They did demonstrate that hey, we have this capability to harm you. They backchanneled uh through other countries in the region and let them know, hey, this is coming. And they also showed an ability to cut losses, like they cut they clearly cut losses in Syria, um uh the Hezbollah defeat. Uh, they did not double down on defeat there, and they readjusted accordingly. And and again that with a nuclear capability that gives them more ability in the region to do certain things because they have a a nuclear deterrent and that can deter states from doing certain things against them. But um at the end of the day though, I think we need to to recognize that if this is it is truly about regime survival is that you're not automatically going to have them do the most extreme things because that invites actual things that could undermine the regime.
The last thing I would say though is you brought up the missiles. In my mind, the actual biggest thing that for them is the biggest guarantor of regime survival is their missile program. And it goes back to their experience in the Iran-Iraq war where Iraq was bombing them and hitting them with Scud missiles and their Tupalev bombers and that that really was a had an immense psychological impact on them as a country. In a lot of ways, I am I am I I look at that as more of their biggest guarantor of regime survival and why they're less willing to talk they're not even really willing to talk about it and why they're willing to get talk about the nuke program, but because I think the nuclear program gets to kind of what you're talking about, how do they get better relations and what they want with with the rest of the world and rest of region is in some ways a nuclear program is a bargaining chip to get the sanctions removed to get better integration with with the region. And so I I I do think it's such a huge national project. They've put so much money in it. I think it's more than just a bargaining chip to get better relations. I mean, keep in mind they do Biden de facto Biden deacto stopped enforcing the sanctions even after Trump got out of the deal. So under Biden, they really didn't face the kind of crippling sanctions. And yet it was under Biden that we saw them go and start com, you know, stockpiling the 60% uranium and aggressively expanding, expanding, expanding. Um, they were they had the best of both worlds under Biden. Biden was desperate for a deal. He didn't do anything in terms of the economic warfare that Trump did in his first term. And you know, Iran didn't care. They weren't they if they again if they were just interested in using it as a leverage or bargaining chip they had Rob Mali the softest of the soft basically leading the Biden administration's negotiations they could have easily taken that and run with it gotten another you know JCPOA like agreement and you know it would have been fine. And the reason they didn't do that is because they want that nuclear trump card I think well I actually think that you didn't there's a lot of reasons you didn't the actual like there's been more progress I think on the first Trump in the Trump administration towards a deal than there was in four years of the Biden administration and you even have a lot of folks that are involved in that admitting them is that that speaks more to the Biden administration and kind of the mess that they had. Interestingly, they were deferring a lot to people like Robert Mendez who's now a federal inmate, like Biden in a lot of cases was not as bought into getting a nuclear deal as I think no no no Biden that was a number one priority. They never they never enforced the sanctions. I I have I have to disagree with that. If you talk to people who were involved in that process is that internally it was a mess and they never had the full support of the president to do it is they were never on the same page. And again, I think that speaks more to like just the internal chaos you saw within the Biden administration and you know the fact that we didn't really have a president with a fun I know Dan that sounds a lot to me like the old line the communists used to say like we never tried real communism. We never tried real appeasement. I mean they had again I I I think that I think the executive branch has enormous leverage to negotiate these deals as you know and by the way part of that is the JCPOA president which should have been a treaty and they and the Iranians said no. There was a famous scene because you remember there was like about a year of Rahani into the Biden administration where the Supreme Leader humiliates Javad Zarif and Rahani the old you know the people who did the JCPOA and said you know what happened to this deal and we're not you know basically we're not going to do it. I mean, that was the I think the official policy was they weren't going to do it. And what Biden did was instead of internalizing the decision that the Iranians had made and maybe trying to ratchet up the economic pressures on Iran, they just never ended up doing it. They were, you know, you could say maybe they were distracted by the war in Ukraine or getting out of Afghanistan or any number of other things. But Dan, they didn't they did nothing to try to, you know, bring, you know, they didn't they didn't punish the Iranians for all of their activities for Well, I guess then my my question to you is is then why didn't on day one they just get back into the JCPOA? I I like there was there was a lot of pressure for them to basically just take by then the Iranians were already kind of in violation of the terms of the JCPOA. So they wanted to go back to the status quo anti just go back to where you were under the JCPOA and we'll get back in the agreement. That was the that was the deal. And by the way, the Iranians were smart because what they understood was Biden wasn't going to enforce the sanctions anyway. So they had the best of both worlds. They continue there was sign I mean there wasn't a actual complete roll back of of maximum pressure and especially act after October 7th you did not see another attempt to really try and get back well it's true they they they unfroze some assets and then they froze them back on the margins they didn't go after the secondary they didn't do the secondary sanctions the way that Trump did which was the thing that really stung they didn't bring back they didn't sanction the central bank of Iran again. I mean, all the things that like were done economically before the Biden administration really didn't do it. And they by and I mean obviously Rob Mali had his own problems uh which we we don't have to get into, but you know, they made sure to put the guy in charge of of the negotiations to be somebody who the Iranians would be incredibly comfortable with. So, I mean, to put it, I I think I I I I'm don't want to be in the awkward position of um defending Biden because I actually do think where you and I would agree on a macro level is that and even maybe on some specifics is that they they they did not do a good job in the region. Uh you know, one with our force posture, they didn't make significant changes. uh if anything uh especially after what happened in Afghanistan and then after October 7th they doubled down in a way that has ex made a military operation more risky against Iran. And I just think that that what you saw in the Iran effort was a bit of of a bipolar nature where you had one part of the administration that did want to pursue a diplomatic solution. You did have others and then their allies in the Senate and this is important is is from what I have understood and this has been reported and talking to other people as well too is that Biden still had a lot of the mindset of the senators is that he had to go back and and constantly check with people like Chris Coons and Robert Mendes Robert Mendes who was hostile to the deal and so they they didn't really have a a collective understanding of what we're trying to achieve and that just made the policy I think for the region like that own I like that that that that whole team they assembled was a mess. They were leaking on each other. Some of them got fired. Some of them we found out later were communicating with the Iranians, you know, uh directly like the um uh the I forget her name, but she went and actually worked Adrian Tag Tagatai, I think. Yeah. Uh, I have I've never heard a a good thing about her, by the way, even from people that are pro more Iran deal. So, it was it was a mess all around. And I will I will acknowledge that on the on the Biden policy, but the point is is that um ultimately I I don't think you you mentioned the JCPOA and I think the to be clear on the JCPOA, it was a very very flawed um arms deal or excuse me, arms agreement. I think you know, General Matt, we agree on that. Was very very flawed. But I think it's important to remember the environment which that that um agreement was made and it's much different than it than it was today is that I will acknowledge as you've pointed out is Iran's more on their back foot. You know, they've taken um losses in terms of their proxies, losing Assad and and other things. But it's also important to remember is that that that agreement and the negotiations for it began right after the overthrow of Gaddafi and the uh um the Libya descending into chaos. And that in my mind ultimately and still to today puts limits on diplomacy. And even though I still think diplomacy is the the the best option that make it difficult and this gets back to like why why Iran wants to still have um in these negotiations still wants a latent nuclear capability is I I I think that they still want that so that there is not something that happens to them like happened in uh uh Libya. But I think a negotiated sol deal, a uh a diplomatic solution still is the best way to restrain Iran's nuclear capability to put permanent hopefully permanent checks on it and to keep them away from full weapon.
Okay. Well, on this last point, I would just say this. Libya didn't fall because of an Iraq-style regime change war. Libya fell because there was an uprising in the middle of the Arab Spring against a brutal dictator, and that Gaddafi had threatened to wipe out his second largest city, which then prompted NATO intervention. Um, and um, you know, in retrospect I think the critics of that are correct, but again it wasn't like Gaddafi was just going around mining his business and then uh somebody woke up one day and decided to get rid of his regime. His own people decided they didn't want to live under his regime. He threatened and was in the process of using uh of of committing you know horrible atrocity, um and had threatened to wipe out a a a city of I think 300,000 people, and the Obama administration and the frankly the the the capitals of Europe um sort of decided that they had a humanitarian obligation to prevent that, and then in the process with a state of weakened regime and an uprising in his country Gaddafi uh was eventually kind of found in a drainage ditch under a bridge by rebel forces and uh sodomized and murdered. Um, and obviously every dictator is like, I never want that to happen to me. But to which I would sort of say, well, it's not like Gaddafi was, you know, just an innocent bystander in all of this. He was in the process, if if he had prevailed, he would have had a butcher bill of, you know, several hundred thousand people on his hand.
Now I want to end on on something though here which I think is important and that is let's are you surprised by the success of mil of Israel's military campaign? Has that in any way changed your assessments as you kind of look forward is that you know the the su what what the Mossad and the air force has been able to do is astounding. So just one one final thing on the on the Libya front is again as you point out that would not have happened you would not had Gaddafi overthrown after he without NATO and primarily American air support and it wasn't just it wasn't even American air support it was American after the first few weeks indirect support of NATO because they didn't have enough bombs they didn't have enough refueling capability all true and we had Gaddafi had eliminated his weapon mass destruction program, but also had become a a partner of ours in the fight against al-Qaeda and Islamic radicalism. And so I I think it it you know, as one of my my uh former colleagues said, is really truly an underrated foreign policy disaster. But I I I understand your points about the European dimension and whatnot, but to your point about the Israeli No, the Libyan people dimension too, Dan. That's I just want to say that some of this is like a a you know a nuke will protect you from being invaded. A nuke will not protect you from you know the Soviets deciding it's not worth it anymore. We're not going to put down you know these uprisings in Germany. I mean you I'm just saying there's a limit to it. There there there's an internal dynamic. No, I understand that nuke doesn't really protect you from but anyway. Okay. I understand. Yeah.
Um, now to your question about the Israeli um military uh operations is a couple points is um clearly on the first 48 hours is that they caught the Iranians on their back foot is that the elimination of their their high command um some of the the the missiles would that would have been used in the first strike that was obviously a military success but what we've got what what the war currently is absent an American American military intervention is really a type of race or you could call a war of attrition. And and I use the race analogy because Israel and Iran are in a race to see who can destroy the others critical weapons systems that are hard to replace and exhaust their key munitions before the other side does. So for Israel, they are right now trying to destroy uh Iran's ballistic missile and more importantly their ballistic missile launchers. And Iran is trying to outlast the Israelis and their precision munitions that they're using in these strikes and also I think more critically the supply of anti-ballistic missile interceptors that both the United States uh and Israel have very limited quantities of and I note the Wall Street Journal has reported that Israel's already running out of their arrow missiles the United States because of our intervention in in in Yemen both uh last year and this year is very low on certain types of interceptors that we've been using to protect Israel. We make only about and again I'm not revealing anything that's classified here. This is public knowledge only about 100 to 150 THAAD interceptors a year and Iran so far has launched I believe somewhere in the neighborhood of five to 600 ballistic missiles. So, it's it's a race right now and and I have smart people that tell me that Israel has a slight advantage and Iran has a slight advantage. So, it's you could reach a point and it's it's absolutely terrifying to watch some of these reports of strikes before this call. I was actually supposed to talk to somebody who was in Israel and we had to cancel the call because there's ongoing strike. It's terrifying and and there's a real human dimension to this that we can't ignore. But if if you get to that point where we don't have enough interceptors to protect Israel, then you could see significant damage. And we're just talking about the missiles that can reach Israel. We're not talking about the thousands of other drones and missiles and cruise missiles, which they haven't even introduced to the fight yet, that could hit American bases in um in the Gulf if we get involved. Now, the good news is is that with this two-week pause is I think we'll have more time to reposition and harden our forces. Is is it a pause? All I'm saying on that one is he didn't say I'll make a decision in two weeks. He said I'll make a decision in the next two weeks. Either either way, it is buying us more time to do some things to harden up our forces and reposition them in the region. Good point. And and I, you know, I I will admit that um uh if that happens, if we're able to successfully do that, that does lower some of the risks of of a military operation. And I just I do want to say this is if we do get into a shooting war with Iran, the one thing I hope is that I'm wrong.
And that I hope that you can call me an idiot. I don't know if I can say that on here because if I'm if I'm if I'm if I'm right, then it means Americans dead, and I don't want that at all. Okay.
But I just want to point out earlier you said that they wanted their nukes for um, leverage and because they wanted regime survival. Don't you think that if that was what they were thinking, then firing on US positions would be a shorefire way of losing the whole kitten kaboodle? This is a good point. This gets into how does Iran interpret us coming alongside an Israeli operation, which you said its objectives aren't totally clear. Like, is it regime change? Is it not? So if Iran sees us coming um, in coming alongside that, they can interpret that as us helping with the regime change operation. And there's some reporting that they would consider that. And so they would feel like we have no choice. We need to go all out. And I do think that they would calibrate if if they if we were able to say, make clear like, "Hey, this is the extent of what we're doing," and we can successfully back-channel that, they would calibrate their retaliation accordingly. But there's there's still a lot of risk in that as well. So I I I think that's important. How would they interpret us getting involved alongside what they are increasingly viewing as a regime change operation against them?
But there there is a bigger kind of 50,000-foot issue here too that I don't think we can ignore: if we do get into a shooting war in the Middle East and we are more successful than you know, anticipated—like it's overwhelming success—is that we would still be expending a tremendous amount of critical munitions, wearing down military equipment that are needed in a potential potential fight in the Pacific, where I do think we face real vital interests and threats, and we are in in not great shape regarding those things. And and getting involved in this right now would entail significant tradeoffs against other things we need to do around the world to keep ourselves safe and and uh, protect the conditions of our economic prosperity.
Well, that that's a good that's a good place to end it. And we'll have to have you back, Dan, to talk about the things that the Pentagon is doing and what you were preparing when you were at the Pentagon to address this anemic defense industrial-based problem that you have identified, which I know that that is something that I know that that is a high priority for Secretary Hegathth and President Trump. And I know that you and Darren and Colin and others were playing a big role in trying to turn that thing around. It's not it doesn't get the headlines. It's not as sexy, but I think it is as important to our national security as almost anything else. It's it's that and and the debt that I think are two things that don't get enough attention in the national security discourse. Um, so, thank you again for coming on, Dan. This was really fun.
Thank you, Eli. I enjoyed it.