Armstrong & Getty Extra Large InterviewsMilitary analyst Mike Lyons joins A&G to talk about Israel's successful campaign to eliminate the leader of Hamas.
Israeli jets pounded southern Lebanon, and despite US concern over Israel's bombing campaign in Beirut, there were a series of strikes around the capitol. This comes a day after Hesbel avow to strike deeper inside Israel. The Israeli military says it's targeting Hesbel as strongholds, but there have been more than two thousand casualties and nearly eleven thousand wounded, many of them civilians.
Wow.
I was just thinking, this is listening to that because that's about Hesbelah and Lebanon, and the news today right now is all about Hamas in Gaza, and it looks like Sinwar has been killed, the leader of Amas and the mastermind of October seventh. And I was going to talk about the two front war or is it really a one front war against Iran? And soon that will be more obvious when Israel does attack Iran, which they're planning to do. That's why we thought we'd bring Mike Lyons in. He's our go to guy anything military. We catch him on CNN all the time. I follow his Twitter feed all the time and wanted to hear his opinion. First of all, Sinwar being dead. If that's true's good news.
Hey Mike, Hey one of guys.
Yeah, I think so. It's not the end or anything of this. It's not that things will change there. There is others there within Hamas that will, you know, look to step up to take his place. But he's been the leader since I think twenty seventeen. You know, Hamas has got this you know, kind of set up where they run the military, they run the political side of things, They have elections, they do a lot of different things that you would think a terrorist organization wouldn't do on some level. But there'll be somebody to take his place. I think you're looking at there's a deputy leader. There's a guy named Sally Aurora. He was the deputy head there runs the West Bank operations. So he'll be the next one on the target, you know, Israel. It's kind of like next man up when it comes to this decapitation strategy. We saw what they did and let in the North with with Hesbelah taking out significant leadership. With the Pager operation. This is much more difficult, much more precision strikes. But this is a good start, but surely not over yet.
Yeah, So the reason we wanted to have you on was the news came out yesterday that Israel is ready to attack Iran. They are going to attack Iran, and it is going to be before the election, So sometime in the next nineteen days. I would imagine sooner rather than later, because the closer you get to a presidential election, the more influence it would have on it.
What do you.
Expect to happen, Well, I think the administration is going to no longer put red lines on our allies, which is what they've been doing for the past few months. And we saw yesterday, now what it was, We saw the B two's coming from the US to drop bombs on the hoofties. I think that's a good sign. That's an indirect message to the Iranians to stop taking our threats lightly.
Just since you brought that up, I just saw that headline.
So that's the first time we had used our B two bombers are really big bombers in quite a while. That's a fairly significant thing, huh.
It is, And and they go along way. Those are nuclear capable, not that we're going to drop a nuclear weapon on anybody over there, but it just it just reflects the level of weapon system that we've brought into the theater now that we're prepared to use. It's not just going to be these naval assets and and other places. So I think that's that's a we're good at sending messages. That sends a big message on a lot of levels. But I would take it a step further if if I'm the US president or the chiefest Staff, you're advising the president and you're meeting behind doors with bbing net and Yahoo right now, Look, this is a generational opportunity to take out the Iranian nuclear capability. And there's Reel has done this in the past. And if i'm if I'm I'm saying, look, we're all in. We'll we'll go ahead and light the way for you guys. We'll take out all the c ED we'll take out all your defense platforms. But you guys got to go accomplish that mission because the world will be a safer place when the Ranians aren't close to having nuclear weapons. We're traveling about you know, how close are they to break out? We're watching internal Iranians argue about the fought while that the Ayatola issue that they weren't produced nuclear weapons that's a bunch of garbage. I mean, obviously they're moving it forward. So I think this is the time, and I think there's a lot of things going to happen the next nineteen days before our election, and you're going to see this administration also come off, you know, the rains a little bit because they recognize that that's what most Americans want, and what they want to do is get re elected. This administration wants to get reelected. And I think that's what you're going to see, so less less red lines for Israel, going to see is reel kind of go forward. But they were going to go forward anyway. But I think you're going to see that happening.
Wow, that's interesting. I didn't know that would be your take. I'm happy to hear it. So you think we would actually use some of our unique fire power to lay the groundwork for Israel's attack, In other words, we would be involved in the attack on Iran?
Yeah, I think so. I think we would. You know, that would be a big step forward. Yeah, would for us to attack, Yeah, I mean, but I think you'd have tremendous support to do that. I think they they would be support within our country and with our politicians to do that. Not great Britain and France though, yeah, you know I saw that and where they are there they're struggling with their own you know, internal forces right now. But politically this would be the right move at this point. So again, they don't Israel doesn't need them, and Israel's going to have long memory about how they acted, especially in particularly the French. But with the Friends have done this before. I mean you look in history and sure the French haven't been The French haven't been a thing militarily since what April of nineteen thirty nine, I mean since then, since right before Dunkirk. You know, they're the greatest military ever in the world, and then you know, pretty much over a four day period that that went away and they haven't recovered since.
So well, what was it?
I don't know, you might know it. I read the Schwartz Cough quote about France the other day that going to war without France is like something going to something without a banjo or something.
It's pretty funny.
Yet, yeah, you know, so again you know, they pick at choose when they want to be in the game, and you know, so I don't think you know, Israel this roles Arise doesn't doesn't really care about it. The United States is the one that is superpower in the region, and Israel's acting like a superpower. Let's be clear, right, So here's a well Israel has nuclear weapons as well, but so that they act like a superpower. They're going after leadership, looking to decapitate. It's all air strikes, using tremendous intelligence assets, you know. So they're they're acting like a superpower in that region. And what I'm seeing too is other countries now Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt quietly so these other countries recognize the threat of Iran. They want Israel to take out the threat as well. In the United States. Now, I'm glad we're going after the Houthis. It's been a long time coming since since since we've had uh, you know, done something about that situation. So you know, I think you're going to see this stepped up reliance on de terrence we have as of right now, we have no deterrence that I see with Iran. Israel's going to re establish it and they're going to re establish it by hurting them pretty badly.
Fantastic. I'm very excited about that. I grab the popcorn. I'll be watching that and it's got to happen in the next you know, nineteen days before we let you go. I want to switch to another spot because President Zelensky of Ukraine has laid out his peace plan or plan for ending the war. I guess he's calling it that includes giving up no Ukrainian territory. I don't know if he actually believes that or not, or if that's you know, your classic pegging the negotiations. This is where we'll start and go from there. But what do you think about where that is?
I think he has to say that he has to start and go from there first of all. But and he'll be lucky to get some of that the coastal area back in the south there from from Russia, given what it occupies, given what it has occupied since Obama was president, and then when Joe Biden was president, they decided to go after it again. They've got maximust objectives that it still can't be accomplished militarily. I saw this morning also that the new NATO Secretary General speaking to the fact of you know, Ukraine will be a NATO country that's not going to help anybody. That's that's you know, we should just be quiet on that. But then you have Zelinski saying, well, we're going to develop nuclear weapons if we're not part of NATO, So they're using nuclear weapons as a way as defense mechanism. It's too late at this point. Let's let's you know, Russia will take some land back, primarily Crimea. They need Crimea for the Black Sea Fleet. Let's sop Ukraine gets some of that coastal area back, which is what it can use. But it looks like that part of the Dombas likely becomes part of Russia. You have a DMZ set up. We have a North and South Korea. The wall is up. Everybody's good because it's going to mean more conventional arms pouring into Europe and the US defence contractors are going to be happy about that.
North Korea blowing up those roads between North Korea and South Korea, which was an odd move. Earlier in the week, he got China with some of the biggest military exercises around Taiwan they've ever done, still running their ships into Philippines navy vessels. There's a lot of hotspots around the world, kind of a global macro question for you is this, are we in more of the like this is what the world's always been like? Is period right now? And we kind of got lulled into a weird state of you know, things being calm there for a couple of decades when we were the superpower really establishing a global order. Is this was that more normal for the world or is this more normal for the world where we are right now?
We got lolled into it a little bit, and it all has to do with we we've established, We've not established the terrence in these other countries we've allowed. Look with the Iranians, how much they were able to arm Hesbelah and how opt you see these pictures of those weapons caches, all those weapons are a clear a result of the Obama administration sending palace of cash to the Iranians to try to do a nuclear deal. So we again lost our way with the term, and so did Israel. Israel probably will never forgive itself for what happened on October seventh, because that was a tremendous lull and then in fact they got off to a very bad start as well in that war. We knew that they would recover but now that's why they're not stopping. They are, you know, very biblically. They're at this is this is how they're looking at this is his war. But I think, I think that in in Obama's administration, we lost our de terms. With Iron Trump as president for four years, he definitely acts tougher and acts more afraid, kind of goes the the Reagan way of de Terrens about speak softly, carry a big stick, and that crazy every once in a while, right, And then these last four years with with with Brydon and Corla Harris, I just don't know what's where they're going. They again they give red lines to our allies, which is a non starter. They we're telling Israel, we whip saw back and forth with Israel supporting them and not supporting this. And it's based on a voting block where in Michigan or Minnesota or someplace. I mean, it's just we've got to get back to what's important for the United States, what's important for our national security, and how we're going to project power. And I hope, hope we start doing that again.
Appreciate you time to Mike today. Mike. I follow you all the time and other people should. At m a J.
Mike Lines, Major Mike Lines, thanks for your time today and insight and all that stuff.
Thanks. I seen that later. So hopefull cool.
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