On this episode of The Middle, we ask you what your thoughts are on U.S. involvement in Iran. Jeremy is joined by Fox News chief political correspondent Jennifer Griffin, and General Phillip Breedlove, Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Georgia Tech's Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe. DJ Tolliver joins as well, plus calls from around the country. #Iran #Israel #Trump #military #nuclear #middleeast #Fordo #Khameini #Netanyahu
Welcome to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson along with our house DJ Tolliver and Tolliver. First off, we are now the first Place audience Engagement show. Thank you to the Public Media Journalists Association for that award.
Why see, you never tell me anything. I don't know we won an award. I'm wearing joggers. Man, you gotta let me know.
You should have been wearing a tuxedo for this one. Also, I hate to say it, but Generation Z has been screwed again because we were going to do our show about the challenges of gen Z this hour, but now we're going to talk about Iran instead.
You know, they're distracted, they're on TikTok. They don't care.
We'll fight maybe, Okay, we'll find out next time when we do that show. We are going to do that later this summer. But as you know, in the past week or so, the US entered a war between Israel and Iran with airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran struck back with a strike on an American military base in Kataro, though no one was injured, and then President Trump announced a ceasefire and since then has been defending the strikes after leaked US intelligence assessment found they may not have set back Iran's nuclear program by all that much. With all that said, we want to know this hour how you feel about the US getting involved in a war with Iran. Tolliver. Tell people how they can get in touch.
Yeah, you can call us at eight four four four Middle that's eight four four four six four three three five three, or you can write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com. You can also comment on our live stream on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, all.
The places, all right, joining me this hour, Fox News Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin. Jennifer is great to have you on the show.
Thank you so much. Jeremy, great to be.
Back with you.
And General Philip breedlove Is willis with us as well, Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Georgia's Tech's Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe. General Breedlove great to have you back on as well.
It's good to be back. I love this format.
Well, thank you so much. And before we get to the phones, Jennifer, the Trump administration is pretty angry about the intelligence assessment that was leaked that found the strikes didn't obliterate Iran's nuclear program as Trump had claimed. What do we know at this point about the effectiveness of the US action in Iran?
Well, let's talk about that leaked intelligence assessment. It came from the Defense Intelligence AGENCYEE. That's the main military intelligence branch, if you will, one of seventeen intelligence agencies, and they would be one of the principal lead groups that would work on bomb damage assessment.
What we know about this.
Intelligence report is that it was deemed to have low confidence, but it did say something that got people's attention that within the first twenty four hours this intelligence was basically went till about nine pm Eastern on Sunday night, so a little over twenty four hours after the strikes. The initial assessment, again with low confidence, was that they may have set back the program anywhere from a few months up to a year. That's a big range, and it's not the final word. There're going to be other intelligence agencies and also parts of the intelligence community that weigh in and it will then be compiled through the OD and I and given to President Trump. So this is not the final word, but it certainly gives some indication. I don't think they would just say that for without having any evidence. And so it does raise some questions, particularly when you look back at some of the things that Iron told the IAEA that you are going to do before the strikes, and also some of the satellite imagery of the site at four Doh that showed a lot of trucks, about a thousand trucks two days before the strikes, and the question was what were those trucks doing. Could some of them have been taking some of the near weapons highly enriched uranium out of that right, and did some of that highly enrichedanium survive?
Yeah, General Love, what do you think whether the strikes were as effective as Trump said, which he said they obliterated the nuclear program, or as ineffective as the worst assessment that came out, the sort of lowest assessment that came out of that intelligence assessment. What is the significance of the US getting involved in the way that it did.
Well, let me just add a thought to Jennifer's excellent thoughts on this. You know, battle damage assessment is an art, not a science. There is a lot of science involved in one of the things we learn as commanders who have not only flown these missions, but led these missions and then commanded these missions. Battle damage assessment is the classic for the statement you've heard a lot. It's never as good or as bad as you first hear, and most of the time what you get immediately after a strike is later refined. We will say that. And so, yeah, this first leaked document or leaked report was a preliminary one, and I think one of the reasons they labeled it of low confidence is because it was made so quickly. And what we're finding out day by day now is more facts that talk to these things, and so you know, this will continue to refine, and at some point we'll bring in some of the very highly technical things that some we could talk about on this program, others that are not, and they will look at air sampling in all manner of things to determine what went on under the ground, and we will get to a very good conclusion.
But General Breedlove, there are many presidents that have looked at the situation in Iran and considered military action. They didn't take it. Trump took it. Is their consequence of that.
Well, the fact of the matter is a lot of those presidents didn't have a MOP. You know. The son of MOP that we've been dropping for many years and we understand and learn how this worked is the Bluey one O nine And we dropped Bluey one O nine's in several of our wars, and we learned how the physics of this kind of weapon works. And so only recently have we come to the MOP. And remember that this is the very first time it's used. That's another time another reason why we have to be very introspective when we look at what happened, because it's the first combat use of the weapon.
Jennifer, what are your sources telling you about potential retaliation on the part of Iran. Was that attack on the US base in Qatar all that's going to happen or are people expecting more?
Well?
I think what if you look at the history of Iran, usually they don't fight a conventional war. You know, they know they're overmatched with the United States, and so that is why they alerted through Oman or Cutter. They gave a sense that of what the scope of what they were going to fire, so that the US could be ready. There were some incredible details during the press briefing at the Pentagon today in which we learned that there were just forty four young soldiers between the age of twenty one and twenty eight who stood by two Patriot missile batteries and shot down those fourteen ballistic missiles which take less than two minutes to fly from Iran towards America's largest base in the Middle East. That's aluded and Cutter. It is quite extraordinary. The Patriot missile performed incredibly well. Those soldiers performed incredibly well. I think General Breedlove would agree with me that if you look back at the mission itself and what was accomplished by the military, let's not talk about whether it destroyed everything or the entire nuclear program has taken offline. That we can't say at this point. But what we can say is that what the US military was asked to do and the mission that they were given, it went off on the flawlessly to have B two bombers take off from Whiteman Air Force Space in Missouri and fly a round trip thirty seven hours, refueled along the way by fifty air refueling planes that were positioned across the Mediterranean and Middle East, and then to drop what we learned today more details about At four Dough. They dropped twelve of those mop bunker buster bombs that General Breedlove talked about. They're thirty thousand pound bombs. They dropped the first bomb into two There were two air ventilation shafts, if you will, in four Dough, and there was some debate before that as to whether they had cratered the entrances. But all along the plan was to send those mop bombs down the shafts, and they had to use the first mop to take the concrete that had been laid in the last few days by the arians over the shaft. They used that to remove that, and then five successive GPS positioned thirty pound bombs were sent down those shafts. That's why they feel pretty confident that they were able to take all those centrifuges offline down below at four Doh. That doesn't deal necessarily with the highly in geranium which could have been removed. But in terms of that Mifton, and we can't forget the Navy. The Navy was involved as well. You had a submarine that was four hundred miles away that fired thirty Tomahawk missiles at Isfahan, another very very important site there, and they all were done with synchronicity and general Bridlove can talk about how hard that is since he was in the Air.
Force right soyl just a superior mission. And as the Chairman laid out lots of things that he said, some of us wondered if we could say so now we could talk about these things. But we had the combination of what we call target hearing. These guys that were developing this target had been doing it for fifteen years and they watched it built and they watched how it worked. Then we had some great targeteering. The MOP, as good as it is, was not going to go straight through the mountain into the mission space. As Jennifer laid out, we had to find a different way to get blast and over pressure into the mission space, and that was by going down these shafts. And the beauty of the MOP is it is able to penetrate to a certain depth and then cook off. And so these bombs were set to go down until they intersected with the halls that went into the mission space, and then they went off and all of that blast and over pressure went up into the mountain into the spaces and did the.
One so clearly very impressive operation, and I'm sure we're going to get to this in the calls. I just want to ask, just briefly, very briefly, Jennifer Breedlove, before we take a quick break, are you worried about the US getting sucked into another conflict? Though, even if it is an impressive operation.
I think Jeremy, that the fact that the President.
Was actually successfully able to drop those bombs not leave too much time for and once they knew that the Iranian response was going to be kind of one and done, and to basically declare victory and get out that I think will present prevent a larger conflict right now for the US military.
We shall see, Tolliver, you know that the strikes on the facilities were actually not the first time President Trump has ordered an attack on Iran.
Yeah, back in twenty twenty, near the end of his first term, he ordered the assassination of top Iranian general because sim Sulamani, who was in Iraq at the time.
We took action last night to stop a war.
We did not take action to start a war. I have deep respect for the Iranian people. They are a remarkable people with an incredible heritage and unlimited potential.
We do not seek regime change.
However, the Iranian regime's aggression and the region, including the use of proxy fighters to destabilize its neighbors, must end, and it must end now.
He said he didn't support regime change, then kind of changed his tune in recent days on social as people do, as people sometimes do. We'll be right back with more of your calls on the Middle. This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just tuning, in the Middle is a national call in show. We're focused on elevating voices from the Middle geographically, politically, and philosophically, or maybe you just want to meet in the Middle. This hour, we're asking for your thoughts on US involvement in Iran. Tolliver, what is the number to call in?
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four four six four three through five three. You can also write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com or on social media. And I'll just say one more time, if you write six paragraphs, it's tough for me to get that on air.
Okay, sure it does not to be heard by others. I'm joined by Fox News Chief National Security correspondent Jennifer Griffin and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Phillip Breedlove and the phone lines are completely full, So let's go to Dan, who's in Kansas City. Dan, your thoughts on US involvement in Iran.
Good evening.
I'm a long time three time Trump voter, which means in the urban libertal milieu of Kansas City, I've paid a pretty high social price among friends and family, and I really do not like these strikes at all. It's not a red line for me because I believe it's domestic agenda is so important. But if we get sucked into a boots on the ground Iraq style regime change war, I will be right out hand in hand by liberal friends in the streets and I'll be done. That's not in America First foreign policy. I don't care what kind of regime Iran has. They haven't committed any act that could be construed as an active war against US. And nukes, I mean, Pakistan's much less stable. We give them billions of dollars, they have nukes. Israel, unlike Iran, isn't part a member of the Non Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. They have a secret, illegal nuclear program. They started that by stealing the enriched uranium from US. They've got the Sampson option where they've threatened friend and foe alike if they get in a tight spot.
And I just.
We have no business over there. And I'm really worried, Like how the net and Yahu. It's like the tail lagging the dog. The Israel lobby is so powerful it makes people confused about what Americans interests really are.
Dan, I really appreciate your call. And Jennifer Griffin. We've heard already from people like Marjorie Taylor Green, a very conservative Republican member of Congress, Thomas Massey, a conservative Republican member of Congress. Both of them have articulated what Dan did there and saying that they are they're Republicans, they're Trump supporters, but they're not in favor of what's happening.
Well, I think every American should agree and would agree that the US does not want to be involved in another forever war. If you will in the Middle East or find itself sucked in, and we all know how this goes, you can do something that is a perfect military operation in the I remember the thunder run into Baghdad seemed pretty perfect, and then you know, in the months that followed, you found yourself in the middle of a very very complicated war involving regime change. I think the President was very clear he didn't he drew a red line. He had some mixed messaging for a little while, frankly in those initial days about regime change, and toyed with it a little bit, but it was very clear, and frankly, the Israelis were frustrated that they had to stop before they were going to go on, and they knew where the Supreme Leader was and they were probably going for regime change, but the President stopped that. I think right now that the real question is what did we accomplish by using the military in the way that we just did, bombing a country that we are not at war with. And there are issues about the War Powers Act, and they should be debated in Congress, frankly, but I think right now, I think all things considered, it does seem like the President was able to carry out the strikes, stop, called for a ceasefire, and then get the American military back to a more relaxed posture. That being said, the Iranians get a final say, and they typically do things like terrorism and assassinations. They have long memories and they've been finding the US basically since nineteen seventy nine.
Well in general breedlove. Even if the nuclear program wasn't obliterated, Iran has already now lost several key military leaders. They're not getting the help that they want from Russia or China. Their proxies like Hesbal and Hamas have been weakened. Is the regime at risk of collapse?
I wouldn't want to make the judgment about whether the regime is at risk of collapse, but I think there's some facts that we can consider about the status of the theocracy and how much it controls its future. And that is one of the things that's not discussed here is that Israel went in an established air supremacy over half of Iran and was defeating Iran's military in detail, plinking their high value assets, taking things away from them. And I think that's a reason why Iran brought back a very very measured response towards Alu d And if you believe the reporting, they even warned us that attack was coming, et cetera, et cetera, And so internally the theocracy is representing that there's a great strike and we're going to do we did great damage. But externally, I think they were actually messaging us that they're ready to stop the big kinetics because let's just say it one more time, when another nation owns the airspace over your country, you are in a very very bad way. And I think that theocracy understood that and was trying to get out of this problem before they lost all their military capability.
Let's go to Brian, who's in Tampa, Florida. Brian, welcome to the middle Go ahead with your thoughts.
Well, I am generally not a Trump supporter. I got against him every time I can, but he's got a point a few times. I think he's right on this attack. Why think we needed to perform our adversaries. I hope that Ukraine wins in their war are like to see him get more aggressive towards Russia in our adversaries. I almost believe at this point that we might have been better taking Patent's advice wipe them out while we can.
Are you worried at all, Brian about unintended consequences about the US getting sucked into a war having to send troops into Iran. Uh maybe, Brian, Brian maybe.
Yeah, Yeah, I'm thinking about it. Well, I'd rather not, but I'm barn with Sandon planes.
Yeah, I was sending planes. Okay, Jennifer Griffin. As you hear that that that is, that's one view of supportive wants to confront America's adversaries.
Well, I think what's interesting to hear is that there is a feeling of support even among well many Americans would like to see the president be tougher with Russia in Ukraine. So this was kind of a releveling, if you will. And because it ended so quickly and if it is done for now, which it does sort of feel that way, if you know, at the Pentagon and elsewhere, is that it was did send a really strong deterrent message to China, in particular as they look toward Taiwan, because really, the American military performed incredibly well and showed that they could kind of reach out and touch their adversaries very far around the world without them even seeing them coming. With self technology, now that would be a different situation with China. But I still think that president she was watching the US military and it would perhaps give him pause in terms of using his own military anytime soon. I wish the president, like your collar said, would get tougher with Putin over Ukraine, because Ukraine, like Israel, is an ally of the United States. Ukraine has I mean, one of the reasons the Patriot missiles worked so well is that they have been used in Ukraine and the data that they've been able to glean and use. They've improved the software so much that they're incredibly accurate thanks to the Ukrainians. So the Ukrainian model is using a proxy ally like Ukraine to fend off an adversary and US troops not getting involved. So I think nobody has the stomach for US troops getting involved involved anywhere per se. But using military might properly to send a message and to say you've crossed a line, it does tend to have a deterrent effect.
Yeah, it's interesting how all of these things are connected, Tolliver, what's coming in online?
Robert from Boise says, I'm curious about the status of the enriched uranium the Iranians had already. Where is it if it didn't get moved, proud of the strikes. Can it be recovered? If it is recovered, can be used in other smaller attacks not needing nuclear missiles. What about a dirty backpack style of weapon? And Amy in Rochester, Minnesota been there, says my husband escaped from Iran. We, like many or most Iranians within an outside of Iran, long for the end of this regime. This attack was not only from the air, but also from the ground. Moreover, the banks were also successfully targeted. My husband is very hopeful. What was accomplished in Iran was and is encouragement to the vast majority of Iranians and discouragement to the fanatics.
In Iran general. Breed love On that first point, what about the enriched uranium? I mean, the reason that we care about this is because Iran could have a nuclear weapon that may affect the United States or other allies. Do we know where the enriched uranium is at this point?
So I don't think that it has been revealed or maybe we don't know. But here's something that I think people are just flat overlooking. We were in a state of what we call in the military persistent stare at this target. We were using all manner of technical ability to watch what was going on around this target, and the trucks are being presented as a mystery. I don't think there's any mystery of those trucks. We will eventually find out, something will be revealed. I don't think we've been given all the data and knowledge we know about those trucks, but I will bet you that we watched them from the minute they pulled up to the minute they left with various methods, and we will eventually know more about what happened there. So I don't share the concern of the mystery. I think will will eventually be allowed to understand what we know about those trucks.
Let's go to share it a greed love.
Don't you agree that once we find.
Out where that highly enriched uranium at sixty percent enriched and it's nine hundred pounds worth enough for nine or ten bombs, it's not weapons great yet, but it's a short centrifuge cycle away that it will still take negotiations, and it will take inspectors, and it will take the IEA being allowed back in and leaving it as is. You can't strike at something like this and then just leave it. You do have to stay engaged with Iran, And I'm not sure that I have a strong sense that the president wants to remain engaged with this problem.
Well, I think it was Clausewitz that said, you know, war is politics by other means. So we have both more possibly quote unquote war in front of us, and we certainly have more politics in front of us. And you're right, we're going to have to figure out where this stuff is. Lots of voices now saying it's still in the whole, lots of voices questioning that, And I think that'll play out over time.
Yeah, Sharon is calling from Erie, Colorado. Sharon, what are your thoughts about US involvement in Iran?
Well, aside from our fascination and our budget, where their ability with our weapons and our brilliant ability to drop bombs. I remember Iraq and their weapons of mass destruction and the lies that were told to the American people to go over and basically destroy Iraq. I believe the US and Israel are committing war crimes while we've been watching a live stream genocide for the last two years. Since the Israel bombed Iran, they have continued to increase the slaughter of starving Palestinian people, all while we're all looking at Iran and talking about our brilliant military moves. The US had no business bombing in Iran. We were not at war with them, and our own intelligence told us that there was no threat. Iran was in compliance. And it makes us look like Israel's lap dog. Israel has been proven to repeatedly lie every accusation they've made, as there turned out to be a confession. And now we're bombing Iran on their behalf. And you know who's gonna enlist for this?
Yeah, let me that thing.
Where's the red line for Israel? Where's the red line for Israel?
Sharon, thank you for that call, General breed Love. Let me let me pick up on the point that Sharon just made about the US being Israel's lap dog. Some people are looking at this and saying Israel was the one who started this. They put the Trump administration in a position where they really didn't have a choice and had to had to do what they did. Do you think that net and Yahoo is the one sort of leading and Trump is following or the other way around.
Right now, I'm not going to answer that. I'm gonna I'm gonna go back a little further in this history and just restart the conversation. Israel has never said we are about eliminating Iran and everything about Iran and eliminating them as a country. Iran has said over and over and over that their goal is to eliminate Israel, and they have developed weapons programs to enable them to do that. So I think while I understand the passion of the caller, there are many things that were said that I don't agree with and the impetus for Israel responding. If you go really back to the beginning of what Iran is trying to do to Israel, you might see it in a different light.
General breed Love.
I would just add also that if you look at the bombing that the US carried out, which lasted a couple of hours, as it involved thirty five munitions, is we have not heard any casually told from that.
It's not like they were carpet bombing.
Cities or these were isolated targets in mountains, and I can't say that nobody was killed, but it is not like what we saw what we have seen in Gaza, and that is a very different problem set exactly what we're talking about here.
You're exactly right, and I think that, separating from the conversation of Gaza, if you look at the bombing that Iran was doing into Israel, almost every aim point was a civilian aim point. Now, I don't know that the accuracy of the Iranian missiles are good enough to really say they were aiming at the things they were hitting, but the fact of the matter is all of their strikes went almost completely into civilian areas. As you pointed out, Jennifer, the strikes that went back into Iran were absolutely one hundred percent focused on nuclear facilities and not not civilians.
But Jennifer, we did hear just briefly, we did here the other day a lot of frustration from President Trump and used the F word to talk about Israel and Iran not knowing what they're doing.
Well, absolutely, and I think you felt that frustration from the President. But I also you know, I lived in Israel for seven years covering the Second Indefada, and so I'm very, very familiar and still have a lot of great sources inside Israel, and they were frustrated too with the White House. They don't want to say it now, and of course, everybody's papering over those differences, but I would say that relations might be a little bit strained right now. That's why BBDT Yahoo, the Prime Minister is making his way to the White House, I think next week, and he wants to make nice right now with the President because he knows that Israel needs the United States. I think it was interesting watching President Trump actually wield a power that most American presidents have not been willing to or able to over Israel. So on the one hand, he might have got pushed into a more accelerated timeline to getting involved and taking military action against Iran's nuclear program because of Bob Ntnia, who because of the Israeli strikes. On the other hand, it was him who told them to stop.
And they had to well, Tolliver.
As we've heard, the US relationship with Iran has been in a bad place for decades. The Obama administration tried diplomacy.
Yeah, that very famous nuclear deal that Trump pulled out of, even though I thought he liked deals. Here's President Obama announcing it back in twenty fifteen.
Today, after two years of negotiations, the United States, together were international partners, has achieved something that decades of animas has not a comprehensive, long term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon. This deal demonstrates that American diplomacy can bring about real and meaningful change, change that makes our country and the world safer and more secure.
Well, a lot can change in ten years, Tulliver.
I mean, look at my hair, man.
I didn't know you ten years ago. So was your hair very different then?
Flat?
Much?
It's better now. I think we'll be right back with more on the middle. This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. In this hour, we're asking you for your thoughts on US involvement in Iran. You can call us at eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four four six four three three five three, or you can reach out to listen to the Middle dot com. I always feel bad when I give the phone number and all the lines are full, but you can leave a message. Listen to it.
Message me.
I'm joined by a former NATA Supreme Allied Commander, Europe General Philip Breedlove and Fox New Chief International Correspondentational Security correspondent Jennifer Griffin. And let's go back to the phones. And Dino is in Wassaw, Wisconsin. Idno your thoughts on US involvement in Iran?
Yes, thank you so much for taking my call. I wanted the State General Brieloved restated an excellent point that the airspace in Tehran was wide open, I mean because they Israel did clear it out. So it made the mission for the American plans to go in there and complete the mission. But what really took me back was what when the National Security press conference with Pete Hegseth, how angry he was. He was so angry that that he was saying that people were questioning the mission that was accomplished. You know that it did a job, It did a job. Did they just did they blow up the mountain or did they actually get to where they you know what was No, I know we don't understand, we don't know yet what what the result was about. Yes, but it just created doubt in my mind a lot that Pete HEGXSS was so angry that people didn't agree with with the with the mission. Yeah, and it kind of you will be created doubt.
I'm glad you brought that up, Dina, I'm glad you brought that up. Dona because it is the elephant in the room this hour, because we've got Jennifer Griffin and Pete Hegseth uh went after Jennifer Griffin, who's a long time reporter there the Pentagon, and Jennifer Griffin went right back and stood stood for herself. And she's been praised across the media, rightfully so, for being an excellent journalist. But Jennifer, what do you think about just the anger that was clear and obvious by Pete Hegseth and other members of the administration that people are not celebrating what happened as much as they would like.
Well, well, I think the anger and the motion. I mean, he was very emotional at the press briefing. Really comes from the fact that he doesn't like to be questioned and he wants people to just take this leaked report started to get in the way of a night nice, neat and tidy narrative. And as we know, with military operations and with intelligence and with the Middle East, it's never neat and tidy. And it is our job as reporters to ask questions, and we were asking questions that frankly Americans were asking, and he didn't want to answer those questions, and he instead goes on offense against the press and blames the press and says that, you know, we're not patriotic and this, that and the other. And I just find it very rich and a bit ironic, given the fact that one of the reasons he's Defense Secretary is a feeling that the American people were lied in the lead up to the Iraq War, and he, who served over there honorably had, you know, he and his the other fellow veteran and have a lot of questions about the Iraq War, and wanted the press to do a much better job of questioning the Defense Department, the State Department, the intelligence community, and the lead up to that war. So I find it a bit rich and a bit ironic that he doesn't want any questions and just wants the press and the American people to take their word for it. That's not how it works in America. That's not how it works under the First Amendment. And that's why reporters were pressing him today and he got very upset.
Well, in general, what do you think I mean, doesn't the tone of the administration when dealing with any war or any military action matter in terms of public support and public perception of what's going on.
So Jeremy, I've spent thirty nine years remaining a political and I'm not going to answer that question because it's decidedly a political question. Let me, however, point out that the Chairman went on to I think hit a five hundred foot home run with his presentation. I'm not denigrating what or even commenting on what the Secretary did, but the Chairman nailed it. And the he opened up by wrapping himself in the flag a little bit, but that was because he was really proud of the brave work of all the people out there. And but then he went on to, I think get to some first penncipal facts about the targeteering, weaponeering execution and expectations, and now we will develop the proof or the proof of the putting of the expectations. So I think he really nailed it.
General, we'd love The one thing I would add to that, and it is a point of criticism, is that General Kine said at one point that we don't do battle damage assessment BDA, and that's just simply not true.
The intelligence.
Agencies, there are three that fall under the Pentagon the NSA, the National Geospatial Agency, and the DA and they absolutely report to the chairman. So to wash his hands of any questions of the battle damage assessment I thought was disingenuous and I think was not actually truthful because he may not want to reveal the battle damage assessment at this point. It may be preliminary, and he's been saying from the get go it would take days, if not weeks to know more. But therefore, then a lot of the press were asking, well, how is it that you that the political leadership is saying that this is a completely destroyed the program. It's it's obliterated, was the term they use, which is not a term that intelligence officers would use. And then to say wipe your hands of it and say, well, we don't do BDA. That's for the intelligence community. That's not totally accurate.
Yeah, I think Jennifer, as I listened to that, there are a lot of people that sort of had a stop and think moment when he said that. I think his context was operators don't do intel. Intel people do intel. But you're right, there are multiple military intel people and having been in run an AOC and Beta jfat it is it is something that the operators helped gather and set the stage for the analysis that intel people do. But as you correctly state, many of those intel people actually live and breathe in the joint and the DoD environment.
So they love their acronyms in the military. I've heard more in the last few minutes. And also, Jennifer, I have to say I had never heard of the National Geospatial Agency is that's one of them.
One of the most interesting and secretive and most extraordinary intelligence assets that we have. They're the ones who do all the satellite imagery and reading, and they can do a lot of special stuff and they're pretty impressive.
Well, they've never had a TV show about them, so that we're waiting for that. Let's let's go. Let's go.
That's a good thing.
We want them very quiet, but they are the best.
Hubert is calling from Boston. Hubert, what do you think about us involved in any run?
I don't think we should do it.
A reason why because we already had an agreement on paper that he threw out. Now that's a president throughout now he wants to put us back to where we were already at number.
We also.
Got to realize that our president.
Is saying this country into into a form of government that is authoritarian, and he's following these authoritarians, and.
We have to be careful who were following. I mean, not to degrade his rule. But Israel knocked off a super weapon. They killed uh an American scientist who was helping the Kuwait who's helping the Racks build a super weapon way way back. Now Iran gets a bomb, or was supposed to be getting a bomb. Now now we're now, with our help, we're supposed to knock that out. Well, So now where we're gonna go next? Saudi Arabia, then Jordan's, then Kuwait. I mean, as all these countries have money and they can do the same thing, a launch a nuclear program. I mean, will is it going to stop?
I mean?
And plus with following authoritarianism, Israel is under an authoritarian regime.
Okay, they have let me. Let me get a response to what you've just said to from from from there's a lot there. But what about the very first part of that, Jennifer, the the nuclear deal that we heard Obama talking about that was signed ten years ago. Trump pulled out of that deal, but now he wants to have a conversation next week, potentially with Iran's with Iranian leaders, do you expect that any deal that they reach is going to be pretty similar to the one that already existed before.
Well, let me back up on one point. Israel is a democracy. It's not an authoritarian and so. But the caller's concerns about authoritarianism and authoritarian leaders around the world is valid, but not in terms of Israel. In terms of the JCPOA, the nuclear deal that President Obama signed that was negotiated for two years. One of the criticisms of that deal was that it did not deal with the ballistic missile program that Iran, which we've now seen in the last year, the extent to which they were building ballistic missiles to threaten not just Israel but also the Middle East. And what I would say is one of the problems and one of the reasons I think we got to a military moment where the President decided to use the military is he was extremely frustrated after sixty days of being sort of, you know, run around by the Iranians.
They're very good.
Negotiators and they're good at giving the run around. He didn't feel like he was getting the deal, any deal that was a any better than the JCPOA which he had ripped up, and it may have.
Been even worse.
So now I think it's hopeful that at least I would be much I would be very concerned if they weren't going back to negotiations next week. I just don't know how serious the Iranians are about it, and I don't know how much bandwidth the president has to pursue negotiations at.
This A lot of other things going on right now.
Yeah, I can add on that. And some of our very best friends were a part of developing the I call it the Jick POA, and and although they are esteemed colleagues of mine, we can disagree. And I would add to Jennifer's point about what the President was not happy about, and many of us were not happy about, is the inspection regime under the Jick POA was in many minds questionable. I used three words earlier in the show and I'll use them again. What if we have a new agreement with Iran, we need pervasive, persistent, intrusive inspections because Iran was able to keep an awful lot of what they were doing, and they just wanted us to trust them in that old agreement, and so again some of my very most esteemed colleagues and I don't agree on this, but I believe that any new agreement has to address the concerns of inspections, and I don't think the Iranians are going to sign up to that. This's going to be a hard thing to move forward on because they want to even if they don't have a program now and it has been destroyed, they want to keep the world worried about it, concerned about it, and confused about the facts. They need that to keep their regiem intact.
Let me go to Dennis, who's in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hi, Dennis, your thoughts on US involvement in Iran Yeah.
Well, first of all, I must say, being in the middle here in Wisconsin, I really appreciate your show. I'm about as gainst Trump as possible, but I have been so disturbed by what the Iranians have done and so on, and given that it would take maybe somebody as chaotic the kind of the chaos that Trump can pull something like this off. Because what the Democrats had been doing and approaching other areas, it just seemed like when you have bullies around. There was nothing from that democratic approach that was going to put a little fear in them. And so that's one way I can support Trump.
Yeah. Interesting, thank you Dennis for that, Jennifer. I was speaking with somebody the other day who is not a Trump supporter, but said, you know the same thing. Maybe the chaos is actually useful in this case.
Well, it's interesting. It's not just in the Middle East.
He just came back from NATO and he got I think nearly all except Spain to agree. And I think General Breedlove will be able to expand on this. But to spend five percent of their GDP on defense. Now, there's still a long ways from doing that the NATO allies, But the fact of the matter is nobody but Trump has been able to get the NATO allies to increase their spending. Now, Vladimir Putin has you Arguably they wouldn't be doing it if they hadn't invaded Ukraine. But President Trump's been very effective of getting the Europeans to sort of wake up to the danger on their doorstep and start and pushing them to invest more in their defense. And that is significant, and that is because of his chaotic way, as the caller described it, of negotiating and sort of being very unpredictable.
And the NATO allies were supposed to be spending two percent on defense of their GDP, and he finally got many of them to do that, almost all of them, maybe all of them to do that, And now he's saying five percent is the new number. Jennifer Brelove.
Yeah, So actually the numbers are that he got going into this, about twenty eight of the nations, thirty two were hitting the two percent, but all not all, thirty two were. Spain was going to be a hold out, Jennifer, but they signed it, so Spain came on board. I think there was some negotiating that was done behind closed. There's rumors out there in the press about what the president used to get to them there, but Spain is there. But may I just say that that, yes, for all the quote unquote mean tweets and things in the first administration and for all of the tough love in this administration, whether you like his techniques or not, we have to agree with what Jennifer said. This is the first president in the history of NATO to get NATO to improve their spending. I'm not getting political here and supporting anybody, but it is a fact he's the only president that got NATO to increase its spending.
Let me just finally come back as we close out this hour or two, this question about US involvement and Jennifer if because of any of these actions from the US, from Israel or from an uprising in Iran, the regime falls, are there conversations taking place about what the US responsibility would be at that point in terms of, you know, building a new Iran, getting getting in with whoever is going to take power there.
I think the model that you should look to is the way the President decided to start relations again with the Syrian leader that you know, after Bashar Asad fell in Syria quite suddenly and fled to Russia. And you had this new leader, al Shara, who had really been on the US terrorI list.
He may still be on the list, but he had an.
Al Qaeda ish background, and the President decided, Hey, if Syria is going to have a shot at you know, we'll engage them. We're not going to go and do nation building and we're not going to have our military on the ground there. But I think if the Iranian people rose up and a better leader came forward than the current theocracy there, I think you would be very nimble diplomacy. But the US, I think the President has really sent a lot of messages to the iran In people that he wants them to have a big, beautiful economy and start trading with the United States. But right now, unfortunately, and this is Israel's argument, they stop short of regime change, which obviously every American that sence shudders through their spines after the experience in Iraq. But I think that we don't know how this plays out. But I cannot see the American military being involved there, but I could see trade relations and promises of support diplomamatically.
Great great note to end on, I want to thank my guests so much Fox News Chief National Security correspondent Jennifer Griffin and General Philip Breedlove, former Supreme Allied Commander of Europe for NATO. Thank you both so much for joining us. Thank you, thank you, good night, and don't forget the Middle is available as a podcast in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. On the iHeart Apple rere you listen to podcasts where you can also listen to our weekly podcast, Extra One Thing Trump Did.
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The Middle is brought to you by Longnook Media, distributed by Illinois Public Media and Urbana Illinois, and produced by Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander, Sam Burmasdas, John Barth, Anika Deshler, and Brandon Condritz. Our technical director is Steve Mork. Thanks to our satellite radio listeners, our podcast audience, and the hundreds of public radio stations that are making it possible for people across the country to listen to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson, and I will talk to you next week.