Bill Kristol (5:37)

Now when I saw that news, I couldn't help but flashback to when our son was deployed in Afghanistan in combat in late 2010 and 2011. And then their unit took a fair number of casualties, unfortunately. 3. Five Marines in Sangate, well, in Helmand Province. And you know, worry you'd hear it was complicated. They, as, you know, as we were discussing before we went on the air, they, they shut down communications to make sure there's no, you know, that the family is notified properly first. So you have communication shut down. Email, you know, you wouldn't be able to get an email and you know, something had happened, but you wouldn't know, of course, what had happened. And so that's those seven months for. Yeah, not quite like anything else, honestly, I think Susan and I have. Have gone through. So my, My heart went out to, as you say, obviously, especially those who's. Who will. Who will be notified, sadly, that their loved ones have died, but also to everyone else who's on now, you know, as you say, worried. And you don't want to sort of. It's very hard psychologically. You don't want to root. Obviously, you know, it's like you care most about your own, your own son or daughter or spouse. But on the other hand, you don't want to sort of also want to think about the others. Say a word. Just while we're on this, I think people, the notification process, the personal notification by officers or who show up at your door. Right. I remember sort of you hate to. That was sort of the dreaded knock on the door that could come almost at any time of day or night. Right.

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (7:08)

Well, it sounds like you're wanting me to tell my story. When I was wounded. I'll tell this quick vignette. When I was wounded in Desert Storm, the notification process, frankly, was not that good. We had not had a chance to practice it in several decades. So when I was wounded, along with about 30 of my colleagues in 1st Cavalry Squadron, one of the aviators who was flying the mission that day knew we were wounded by monitoring the radio. And they had a thoria phone. There were no cell phones back then, but he had a thoriaphone. And he called home to his wife and said, hey, Major Hurtling's been injured along with these other people. Well, that wife called my wife and said, hey, your husband's been wounded, but he's okay. Don't worry about it. He's been taken care of. But then when it went through the formal process and the notification officer called or actually showed up at the house to talk face to face. My wife thought this was a second strike and that I was probably now dead because this guy's showing up.

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Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (8:09)

So you can imagine the angst that occurs within families when something like this happens. And you have a marine son. We had two army sons and an army daughter in law and we were rotating in and out of Iraq. So my wife was at home continuously worried. And I'll just use the expression she used one time, which is having a member of your family serve in the military is at once your moment of pride, but it's always your moment of fear. And that's what military families go through.

Bill Kristol (8:44)

And the military has maintained the practice right of personal notification by

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (8:51)

there's no telephones, there's no telegraphs. It's a personal notification. And sometimes that gets difficulty. I mean, if you have as an example a National Guard soldier, and I'm not saying that's who this is, but if you had a National Guard soldier, soldier from Nebraska, and they live in small town, sweatshirt Nebraska out there somewhere, then that casualty notification officer probably has to get on the road, find your house, do all those kind of things. Sometimes it gets rather difficult. And sometimes, you know, the interim period. I had one incident of a soldier whose parents were divorced and he had his mom as his next of kin, not his divorced father. Well, the father was extremely upset when he wasn't the first to know. And you know, the radio announced the name. So there's all kinds of intricacies to these notifications. And it's just God bless the soldiers who gave their life and sacrifice for what they were supposed to do. And it also is a signal, I think we'll probably talk about this is the requirement for civilian leaders who, who send the military into combat to really understand the implications of things like this.

Bill Kristol (10:04)

No, well, I couldn't echo. I just would echo your God bless these young men and women. And also I got to say the military's maybe as you say, it was a little chaotic in the early 90s. We weren't used to it. And also modern communications was beginning to happen and they probably had to adjust to that. They were pretty well adjusted to the fact that Facebook and cell phones and so forth existed by 2010 and the amount of care and concern and, and professionals in the military showed. And the notification process is really extraordinary. And it's, you know, it's. You could say, well, they're taking resources away from fighting the war or something. They could do it in a more simple way. They don't have to have two officers show up at your door at the door of every single person. But it was really admirable that they I think our military takes that so seriously.

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (10:48)

Well and part of the soldiers creed in the army anyway is I will never leave a fallen comrade. That doesn't just mean rescuing somebody on the battlefield, it means making sure they're taken care of after they're fallen too. So that's part of the ethos of the military.

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Bill Kristol (11:34)

What time is it? Chumba time? Chumbacasino.com is the online social casino with over 100 free games. Play anytime, anywhere for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. No purchase necessary VGW Group Void where prohibited by law 21/ terms and conditions apply so war is a serious business and we're at war and I thought would really be helpful as you had an excellent piece in the Bloomberg this morning. People should read on the more what follows from the military strikes the more let's call it political military side of things. But actually I really thought it would be useful to go through a little bit just what do we know about the actual military situation and what's your sense of so far as you can tell from open source information and so forth where we are.

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (12:19)

There's not a whole lot of reports coming out of the Pentagon. I think that was purposeful when they eliminated most of their press corps a few months ago. But what we do know from open source and also from Arab sources. I'm getting a lot of news from Al Jazeera and some of the other Arab sources which I'm familiar with having spent some time in the Middle East. The attacks continue this morning. They've continued all night long. Estimates are that there's been over 800 strikes combined strikes by both Israeli and US forces that that's a combination of airstrikes but also missile strikes from ships offshore. There's also been the use of what's called Lucas drones, which is a one way drone that strikes a target after it's given some coordinates to hit. So there's a combination of some old technologies, some new technologies all striking a variety of of targets that are part of what the Air Force and Navy call a strike package. So every hour during this campaign, they're going to get another strike package and say, here are the targets we're going to hit this time. Their early strike packages were based against things like air defense systems inside of Iran, intelligence targets. Certainly the first strike, as we now understand it, was against a meeting location where several Iranian officials, to include the Ayatollah, were allegedly meeting. That's early reports. It's allegedly been confirmed. But you know, those things can always bounce back to bite you if it's not true. But the Iranian TV did announce that the Ayatollah was dead last night or early this morning. I guess it was our time. So you know that the war continues. The President has said that the strikes could continue for two or three more days or two or three more weeks. One of the wild cards now is, I guess, in my view is with these three soldier deaths being killed by Iranian, whatever they were killed by, assuming, let's assume, rockets or missiles, will that ramp up the kinetic activity? Will there be more strikes because of that? If it was done, if it was a result of, say a PMF strike, a professional military force of some militia unit in Iraq or Syria or someplace like that, would that mean more strikes in the region? And what would be the effects of that? How, you know, again, we were talking about this yesterday. Whenever you start a war, you don't know how it's going to end. That's the problem with warfare. You don't know if it's going to grow, be over quickly. You know, 100 years ago when I went into Desert Storm, we were anticipating 50% casualties and a very long war. The war was 45 days of airstrikes and a four day ground campaign and very small number of casualties for that amount of size of the force in Iraq. Our Secretary of defense in 2003 said, hey, this is going to be a cakewalk. Everybody's going to rise up to greet us with open arms and hug us and it's going to be great. Well, 15 years later, I was there on my third tour and we were still fighting in Iraq. So again, you don't know. Once you unleash the dogs of war, as the saying goes, what's going to happen?

Bill Kristol (15:47)

No, they are the degree to which it's unpredictable, both in a big sense that what will be the big ramifications of starting or engaging in a war or not starting a war, backing off from a war? Syria, the Red line and then a refugee crisis. So this is the big geopolitical ramifications. But just I've always been struck as an observer, obviously just as a mere observer by the degree of just unpredictability. Almost day to day these things zig and zag in unpredictable directions and suddenly there's a front that wasn't supposed to be a big front or a development that wasn't supposed to be a big development or vice versa. So very important. Go ahead.

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (16:22)

You know, if I can say a little bit more about, you know, I'm focusing on the military forces in my update to you, but what I think is also important to recognize is the update on the civilian forces. We are seeing a smattering of direct hits by Iranian rockets in different countries. They have struck in seven different Arab nations. Some of them have been expected, like the attack on the US Naval base in Bahrain, some of the pmf, the professional military force strikes in Iraq and Syria expected. The diversion of some of the Israeli aircraft to specific locations in targeting. Expected. What wasn't expected, I think by many, but which I anticipated was some of the target list of things that Iran is trying to hit. Certainly they're going to hit military bases, especially US Military bases. Certainly they're going to launch toward Israel, which they have done with multiple barrages. What a lot of people may not have expected is some of the strikes against places like hotels in Dubai, you know, the island in Dubai, some of the resort centers and some of the Arab nations. But that's expected because I think Iran is testing the circumference of some of the air defense systems. And as we've often said in the war between Russia and Ukraine, you can't defend everywhere with air defense. They are a point target. I mean they're basically you set a Patriot system or a thaad system somewhere to defend something that's a high value target. And as crude as this is going to sound, a resort hotel is not a high value target. So if I were in the Iranian military because I want to bring pain to my enemy just like they're bringing pain to me, I may strike at the areas where I think are less defended by air defense system. And along with that, you know, the air defense systems are relatively what do I want constrained, let's use that word in terms of firing. They want to fire a million dollar plus Patriot missile at an incoming ballistic missile that cost about the same. They are not going to fire a million dollar Patriot missile at a $400 drone. So again, commanders on the ground have to make those choices, and the ones defending in those air defense units have to make those choices or what are the most important targets to knock out of the sky? And when you do knock those important targets out, the missiles and the cruises and those kind of things, are the lesser important weapon systems like the Shahid drones gonna get through? And how do you counter those? So this is what is sometimes called battlefield mathematics and battlefield calculations. It's very difficult to be a commander on the scene when this much kinetic energy is flying around in the space above you.

Bill Kristol (19:35)

I can imagine. Let me ask you about. I read somewhere, it seemed plausible to me, but I want to do a real check with you that our initial strike, or the combination of our initial strike and the Israelis initial strike was broader than one might have expected. That is to say, it wasn't simply on nodes of regime control or on the nuclear program or the ballistic missile program, which are the main things one would have people have been talking about. Either for regime change, you obviously go after the regime leadership, or for the nuclear program, you go after both, presumably, whatever's left of the nuclear stuff, seal up some more mountains and so forth. But also the missiles, which have been a great concern to Israel certainly, and to us to, to some degree too. But it seemed, I read somewhere that's quite interesting, that we've attacked a whole bunch of military sites down to kind of warehouses with, with conventional weapons and so forth, scattered all around the country. Very, very. And this really is an attack, therefore, that seems to seek to disable the Iranian military, the Iranian regime's military capabilities very broadly and, and surprisingly broadly. I mean, that there was attacks all the way to the north. But one, one person put it in a. What he wrote that there are places that are brief attack, that are never been met, that are nowhere mentioned in any IEA report or any US military planning document. Well, I guess they are. Must be in the planning documents, but not publicly, you know, as a kind of site of concern. It's not like Natanz or one of these places we've all heard of, you know, because there are warehouses there that stock other kinds of munitions and so forth. So very broad attack, which would require a lot of planning and a lot of intelligence, of course. But is that your sense of it too? Is that correct?

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (21:16)

It's certainly that's. That's the way a straight initial strike package works. The first thing you want to hit, if you're bringing in a lot of aircraft to hit the bigger targets, is you have to go in with jammers and what are called, well, I won't use their name. I'll just say what they do. They're anti radiation missiles. So they're looking for radars, anything that would be linked to an air defense system that could shoot down an incoming aircraft. Those are the first things you want to destroy as a military commander. You want to open up the freeway, if you will, for all the other aircraft that are going in. So what might seem like a minor target, like a radar dome, is a critically important target to allow other aircraft to get in to bomb the bigger targets and to bring in the bunker busters or to have the targeting against intelligence centers. And as you can imagine, if I'm in the Iranian intelligence and I'm in a building somewhere in Tehran or Isfahan, I want to have a whole bunch of air defense systems around me to make sure I can continue to execute my mission well. Those are the first targets you want to hit as a coalition force, air force. And, and some of them are hit with rockets, some or missiles rather. Some of them are hit with missiles, some are hit with airplanes, some are just jammed to see what kind of signature they give off and how it opens things up.

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Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (22:51)

the analysis of the Iranian military is pretty good. I mean they haven't changed a whole lot in the last decade or so. They've continued to receive equipment from Russia and from China and from others. But for the most part it's an old force and some of their equipment is decrepit. Especially their air force is just absolutely terrible. So that's all it goes into the calculation of a campaign. If, if you're the United States going against a foreign country, let's say China, you know, their aircraft are top notch and they're, they're level five fifth generation aircraft, sixth generation potentially. So you want to knock those out on the ground. The aircraft in Iran you don't have to much worry about. They're still using in some cases F4 fighters, the kind we used in Vietnam, because they're the sanctions regimes have, have been depleted of spare parts and the ability to operate some of these equipment equipments. But having said all that, their air defense equipment is relatively good for their country. So that was the first target before you could go after some of the other ones.

Bill Kristol (24:07)

But it also does sound those, if we had a broad, went beyond in a way the normal, if you will, you know, suppressing their air defenses and so forth. And I wonder how much it really was intended therefore to be a kind of the military operation seems consistent with the goal of regime change. In the sense that it really tried to weaken the regime throughout the country. It sounds like it didn't just go after nose militarily, places they could hit us back, places that also might be where they might hit other countries, obviously, I don't know how we'll see how much we've degraded that. But also even places where they could terrorize their own people, I don't know how much we can sustain that. And that's a big, big thing to try to do in a country of 90 million people and a big geographic size. And we have limits on our own capabilities, I suppose. Let me ask you about that in a second. But I guess the other question I'm curious about are you, I mean, how quickly do you think, do you think Iran can sustain the ability to hit the Gulf states and even US and other allied bases around in the region and Israel for that matter, where there have been casualties for quite a while, they just have too many missiles and rockets and too many places to launch them from that you just can't reasonably expect to suppress all of that. Or would that be? I don't know. Where do you think that might be?

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (25:25)

Again, that gets back to the battlefield calculation. That's the big question. Estimates, intelligence estimates are saying they have a massive amount of missiles. I've heard numbers anywhere from 4,000 to 15,000. So when you talk about that, you say, okay, well then we got to hit their missile sites, we got to hit where their launchers are, we gotta strike their arms facilities, where they're storing them, their warehouses. And yeah, that's all part of the target set. But you know, again, Iran is not Iraq. They have mountains, they have places to store some of these things that are deeply buried. They have certainly the, the great sand plains, but a good portion of the country of Iran is covered by mountain ranges. So that's where a lot of their launch sites are. That's where a lot of their nuclear facilities are located because they want to protect them. But to get back to your question, you know, I can't answer how long can they sustain it? It depends how good the strikes are. Now, when you're talking, as we've heard this morning, that there's been close to a thousand strikes, airstrikes and missile strikes by us against them, you got to believe that some of the more important parts that have been targeted are critically contributing to the launch of more missiles. How many? And it almost brings us back to the old Soviet days, Bill, and you remember this well, when the army used to tick off the advanced Guard tanks and how many tanks did we kill and what's coming next? It's literally a numbers game of what do we think we struck, what do we think we've depleted in their force, how many more missiles can they fire and, and how many more missiles can we send up to defend against the incoming missiles? And that's where we're constrained. So you want to hit if, if I'm a military commander, I want to, I want to destroy these missiles and these launch sites on the ground. But as you just said in our last question, there are all kinds of targets you want to hit. You want to hit air defense, you want to hit the intelligence community, you want to hit the headquarters, you want to hit the leadership, you want to hit the Republic or the Revolutionary Guards. So you can see that target list starts to expand and that's what happens with these strike packages. So you have multiple types of US and Israeli aircraft going against the best targets they can strike to get the most damage assessment.

Bill Kristol (28:00)

And we're very strong and very effective and impressive, obviously military and large, I guess you'd say, certainly compared to anyone, compared to Iran or compared to others in the region. But we don't have infinite resources. Right. I mean, I think people sometimes talk about, well, we can just, you know, I mean it's great that we're proud of our military, but we can see if we can just infinitely do this, say a word, obviously based on what we, what's appropriate to speak about publicly and open source information about what constraints we might face.

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (28:29)

Well, they're massive and truthfully I can speak a lot about it because that was my job. My first Pentagon, my first and only Pentagon job was the J7 on the joint Staff. And one of our requirements along with, and the J7 is in charge of war at the time, was in charge of war plans and transformation, things like that. In conjunction with the J4, who's the logistics person. You know, we have to maintain the war plans so we see where the threats are around the world in a global environment. So if we saw different things happening in one location and we had to put a lot of ordinance on that site and a lot of equipment, my job as the war planner to say, okay, where are the risk in other places? If I were the war planner today and I saw the number of strikes we have going in, my first red flag would be, hey, we're using a whole lot of ammunition in Iran, not quite sure whatever what our end state strategy is. And I know my counterpart in the Chinese navy is or Chinese headquarters. The PLA is ticking off how many precision weapons we have used, how many aircraft carriers have been deployed for a long time, how many Air Force airplanes have been flying different sorties. Because all of that wears down the force. So we have to, you know, concern ourselves with our enemy who is also ticking these things off and really estimating what kind of level of risk are we assuming in doing an operation like this.

Bill Kristol (30:06)

And even with respect to Iran itself, a friend of mine who follows this stuff quite closely was saying we don't have, you know, infinite numbers of some of these high tech missiles, some of the air defense things. And it's one thing to do this for two weeks, another thing to. Or think you do it for two months, you know, and we, we civilians back here just have great faith in the military and we spent a lot of money on it and kind of assume that this is just. We have endless ability. But I think that's not the case.

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (30:33)

Right, well, and this is, this is why, I mean, if I can bring this in, it's not Iranian based, but it's Ukrainian based. It was during the last administration when people were so upset that we weren't giving more stuff to Ukraine to bite the Russians. Well, what I know for a fact is we were giving them the massive amount of stuff that we possibly could while taking those risk assessments in other theaters. And how would it affect the potential for our operation? So that all becomes part of that calculus. And I'll say one more thing because you mentioned it. The US being infinitely capable of replenishing supplies. When you're talking about precision weapons, those things take a long time to build in the industrial base. So when you use them, there's a, there's a big hole in your warehouse for a long time, Mark, this has

Bill Kristol (31:24)

been so instructive, I think, for people. Well, for everyone, you know, and certainly those of us who don't have your experience, which is 99.99% of us. And so interesting. We didn't really get to the four political military stuff, but you'll have plenty of chance to. Everyone should read your piece up at the Bulwark and you'll have plenty of chance to discuss this with my, well, Ben, Ben and Tim and all my colleagues over the next days and weeks. I suppose we'll see how long this goes. And even afterwards we'll have to discuss the implications. Of course, so many of the implications of these wars I've, in my lifetime have been not what were first expected, both, both abroad and at home. But I'll let you go. You have a book signing. I should mention that your book is. So it's actually out now, right? I think we promoted it before it was out.

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Bill Kristol (32:04)

It exists. And really in the real life.

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (32:08)

I've got a copy of it that I'll show you.

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It's right here.

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (32:10)

But packing things over. But it looks something like this. I've got copies of it. We're doing an opening book signing at a local library here in Florida. Just because I have connection with that library and they asked me to do it. But the book will come out next Tuesday. I'm sorry, the 10th. And there's Tim Miller and he's going to talk to you about politics because I don't want.

Bill Kristol (32:34)

Oh, yeah, he is.

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Bill Kristol (32:36)

He'll also promote your book, right? What's that, Tim? Welcome to.

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (32:39)

Yeah, next week. All right, thanks, guys. Thanks, Bill. Appreciate it.

Bill Kristol (32:43)

Thanks, Mark. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it.

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Bill Kristol (33:17)

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Bill Kristol (33:47)

Thanks, Tim, for joining and Hello, Bill.

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Crystal.

Bill Kristol (33:50)

Yeah, quite a. That was a very interesting discussion with Mark, I think. And it's good to have someone who really understands the military stuff. Right?

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Bill Kristol (33:58)

It is sobering, you know, and. And one sort of jumps over it a little bit in our world, if I can say. And, you know, we have intelligent discussions, I hope, of the, you know, implications abroad and at home, but you sort of jump over the actual war that's being fought a little bit.

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Bill Kristol (34:13)

Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about the domestic side and if you want to add anything on the geopolitical foreign side, it's not like you don't know about that too. Feel free to. But otherwise I thought we could talk about sort of what do you think? I don't know. What are your initial senses of how this affects politics here at home? Both Trump himself, Trump's approval and Trump's support, but also the MAGA coalition, the Democrats, Congress.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (34:36)

But look, I mean, obviously we're about only 24 hours in here, so this stuff is developing and changing and a lot of it kind of depends on events. I just, you know, it's hard for me to see how this is a political win at all for Trump going into it. On the beginning, there were some who suggested that part of this was distracting from Epstein, distracting from his domestic issues, that he's gonna do this and get some sort of rally around the flag effect. And I just don't see that. I think that there's gonna be some hardening of support for Trump maybe in some areas where people were starting to get a little queasy about various things. I think you see this on Fox News and in the Senate, on Capitol Hill, there were very small flashes of people starting to distance from Trump and treat him like a lame D. I think that, you know, they'll close ranks around him. And you've kind of seen that this weekend from Republican elected officials for the most part, with a couple of exceptions. Davidson out of Ohio, Massie. But you know, like the, that, you know, whether it becomes a major political problem or a small or just a kind of a minor issue with managing his coalition, I think it's going to be event dependent. Right. And you know, I think that obviously it was very impressive military operation the first 24 hours. Like, you know, Israel has demonstrated, if nothing else, just a ton of military capability. You know, the fact that they could in 24 hours, you know, just take out 40 plus of the top leaders of Iran is not nothing. And you know, it's what we call the beginning of Iraq shock and awe. And it's like shock and awe times 10, you know, and it was really, they decapitated the top of the Iranian government and reg. And so that demonstrates military skill that Russia didn't demonstrate in Ukraine, for example. Right. So there's a demonstration of power here. And you can see how you see some jingoism domestically around that, and rightfully so in certain cases. But then what now what. And I think that what Trump obviously wants is kind of a Venezuela style transition to just another member of the regime. We've already seen this. He talked to the Atlantic, I think, while you were on with General Hartling. So I was reading this, but you know, basically says the Atlantic, he's Already open to negotiations with the Iranian regime. We don't even know he's running the Iranian regime, but Trump is open to negotiating with them. And then when the Atlantic asked him if he was interested in support, providing military support for, you know, dissidents, I forget the exact word they use, but, you know, anti regime groups in the streets of Tehran, Trump was very hedging on that. You know, it's kind of like, well, you know, we'll have to see what happens. Right. Basically. So it's like, okay. I mean, that's not exactly a signal to people who are hoping for a total, you know, for freedom blossoming in Tehran. It's not exactly a signal that they're going to have America on their side. If you just look at Trump's words in that answer. And so you know that whatever you think about that, if the reality is that Trump gets out of this in a similar fashion to Venezuela and that there's no additional fallout in addition to the three Americans we've already lost and the girls school that the girls had already killed, if there's no additional fallout, then I don't know, maybe this doesn't resonate. But that's not how things have gone in the Middle East. And you know this better than anybody, Bill. We've talked about this before. It's like foreign midterm elections are usually not about foreign policy. They're not about foreign policy till they are, right. Like, and they're not. They haven't traditionally been about foreign policy. People traditionally don't care about it, but sometimes they do. Like, they cared about it at the end of the Cold War. You know, it was important to Reagan and H.W. bush and they cared about it. And the doldrums of Iraq was important to the Democrats winning, you know, so, like, it can matter. And, and I think that the extent, how much it matters domestically, you know, it's going to be dependent on what happens over the next weeks.

Bill Kristol (38:40)

You know, I want to echo two of your points. One sort of a mega, you know, a sort of macro point, I guess. Yeah. Things are so event dependent, as you put it. That's a good term in wars. I mean, reality matters is the way I think, you know, we're so used to a politics of spin and of culture war and of bullshit to some degree and of who's the cleverest at faking, you know, a crisis that isn't real or it using a cultural symbol. It's, you know, as a way of bashing your opponents. I mean, of course, all that can matter a little bit in the politics of wartime, but it's swamped, and this is my experience, obviously someone following closely Iraq, but it's been true. In other words, everything is swamped by just what happens actually and what the results are. And so I think there's probably a little too much actually analysis of, you know, the culture war side of we're beyond. This is not a culture war. This is a real war. And so I think that's a very, really an important point. I would also say just on the democracy side, unlike with Venezuela. Well, more so even than with Venezuela, maybe not more so, just at least similarly. I mean, I was happy to be with totally by chance at something yesterday with a wonderful person who left Iran has had people very close, very key part of the human rights and dissident community has lost, you know, relatives to assassination attempts, not successful ones, sadly, by, by this regime. The, the one can't begrudge people the exhilaration, obviously, at the Khamenei's death and at the death of others who were murdered. So many people, including just in the last two months. Right. Maybe 30,000 or something, Iranians seeking freedom. So on the one hand, there's this, and I personally feel this. And so it makes one, you know, maybe, okay, I didn't like the way they went to war and I thought Congress should have authorized it and I don't trust Trump. But on the other, this is really a thing. I think that so much of that, too, that depends on where we are a week or a month or two months from now. Right. And sort of are we at a. Is it a beginning of. Doesn't have to be a media, but the beginning of a birth of freedom or something like war freedom, let us say, in Iran, or is it a transfer to the. Some other IRGC head that you and I haven't heard of before, but we'll know his name in a week and he'll be as brutal as Khamenei. Or does it. It could weaken the regime over the medium term, incidentally, in terms of legitimacy, but maybe not right away. So, so many variables there, I think. But I think some people on the left who are really, you know, just very sincerely and strongly anti war, maybe slightly underestimating, though, the sense of that a lot of Americans will feel some sympathy with the Iranians dancing in the streets in Tehran at the, you know, killing of this brutal leader they've had to endure for decades, for sure.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (41:28)

But. And I feel sympathy with them and, you know, but at the end of the day it's like, okay, well, what is this? Are we fighting for them? Is that like they're, you know, the Trump. Trump didn't even make a case for this war under, under that construct. Right. So, so I can simultaneously feel happy for Iranian dissidents that are, are people that have fled Iran or people whose families fled Iran or generations later who are here in America, who are the streets, because this regime that has brutalized their family and friends is finally getting some payback. I'm here for that. At an emotional level, but at a political level, I don't think that there's support in the country for a war that's going to include lots of casualties to try to further that cause, especially

Bill Kristol (42:19)

if the cause doesn't get furthered. I mean. That's right.

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (42:21)

Yeah.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (42:21)

Who's arguing for.

Bill Kristol (42:22)

No. And this is, I mean, people forget someone said to, oh, it's not like Iraq because of what, what I was, what we were just saying. And Saddam was captured, and that was a big moment. People forget. And people like me who were supporters of the war thought, okay, maybe this really is a inflection point. And the, and, and, and we'll have less resistance there in the country. And domestically, people will see that it was worth getting rid of this really horrible, brutal tyrant. And it was, it was nice that he was captured and then tried and executed. But on the other hand, it didn't save the fact that the war went badly. Right. So I think that, yes, you say the real outcomes are so important and really can't be spun.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (42:57)

And I just. One more thing on that. I think the shallowness I agree with you about, you know, I also bristle sometimes when I see, like, you know, people, you know, like Luck Shank, who's a popular YouTuber, and some of these are kind of like, you don't ever have to hand it to the Ayatollah. Right. And you can be happy for those, you know, who have been under, under that oppressive regime that has killed, you know, tens and ten tens upon tens of thousands, but also, like, just totally opposed to an administration getting us into this type of war without any, without any plan. Like, without a support from the American people on that front. Without any plan. Like, they've not made the case that this war is about freedom for the Iranian people. I mean, have said that in a call after he'd already started the war. He didn't make that case in the buildup for the war. I don't think that there is mass popular support even within his own coalition. Forget about within the country for that. Meanwhile, they are oppressing people. They were sending people back to Iran who were Iranian dissidents. This administration doesn't care. I guess this is my point. This administration doesn't care about Iranian distance and Iranian freedom. And if there was an imaginary other administration that was executing this war under that construct, I might have a different view about it. But, like, this administration doesn't. They've sent people to die back to Iran because of their harsh immigration policies. They're not allowing refugees into this country for right now from Iran or anywhere else. And Trump doesn't really seem to care that much about, like, what happens with Iranian people. And he wants a scalp. He wants legacy. He wants to do, you know, to do a BB ones. He wants, like, that's. He wants to see things blow up because he's 12. Right. And so it's hard to say that I'm for. It's hard to have to be in solidarity with people who are happy about this when the actual mission is not in line with what their stated desires are.

Bill Kristol (45:00)

I mean, one could hope, and I do hope that despite Trump ends up, it could be right. We end up with just very.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (45:07)

You never know what the future holds. I would love for the, I would love for there to be some dissident inside Trump doesn't. Maybe the person who's been, who's been telling Israel and the United States where all the, where of all the clerics are, you know, is a secret freedom fighter who's going to lead a coup from internally. And if that happens and, you know, Tehran is free again and, you know, I get to go on a retirement trip to a free Tehran and, you know, that would be amazing.

Bill Kristol (45:33)

Think.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (45:33)

But I just. That's not what Donald Trump's trying to do.

Bill Kristol (45:36)

No. And I will say, you know, maybe it was Iraq could well have been a mistake. Probably was a mistake. And certainly setting in all the ground troops, you know, is what led to so many casualties on our part for the US and in some ways for the Iraqis as well. It's a real war. But on the other hand, there was a reason we sent in the. I wasn't just silly like, hey, let's send in ground troops. No one wanted to. People would have preferred there really was a real analysis that you, you can't do regime change and secure and help manage that without having boots on the ground. And maybe that's wrong. Maybe you can do the bombing and then it just kind of works out. And I, as I say, I hope it Does. But yeah, it seems like that's a little. That would be good luck. But you can't count on that in war, I guess. Yeah. At all. So what about the. I do think, also, do you think the congressional. You made this point? Actually, I think you did yesterday with Sarah and JBL and internal hurtling. The, the lack of congressional buy in. It sounds like one of these things that people say in Washington, it doesn't really matter, but it did. You know, the fact is Iraq, which went badly, let's not kid ourselves. We, we were three months in. The Weekly Standard was calling for big with McCain for a big increase. Juice, you could see it was going badly. They denied it for quite a while. Bush was still helped over the next year by the fact that Democrats had voted for the war. And the proof, of course, is the 2024. It was a presidential campaign. The war began in 03, so it wasn't a mid year situation, but 18 months after the war had begun. John Kerry had voted for the war. John Kerry had to then explain that he voted for it, but he also voted against it. And you know, there is something just on the pure politics. Trump does not have that cover. It seems to me it's the degree it gets difficult. Right?

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (47:11)

Yeah, he doesn't have the COVID too. But just one final thing on the freedom point because I just saw this post and I need to rant about it by Mike Waltz, former national security advisor, where he posted in reaction to these three troops, record troops that have died. We don't know the details about that yet. His former national security advisor still in the administration. Mike Waltz tweets freedom isn't free America flag. And I'm like, okay, well wait a minute. But whose freedom is he talking about? Are we fighting for the freedom of the Iranian people and we're willing to sacrifice American lives for that? That's a mission. That's an ideology. There's some people who are for that, but that's not the state of the aim of this administration. Certainly those three young men or women or whoever, the soldiers will remain to be seen who died. Certainly they didn't die for the freedom of America. The freedom of America was not at threat in this war. And so I just think that it's just a very muddled case that they're trying to make right now that I think complicates it. And that relates to the Hill stuff. I think there are probably some Democrats that would be for this. And you saw Greg Landsman and Jared Moskowitz and a couple others who've put out statements. I'm putting Fetterman kind of another category because he's just kind of acting like a crypto Republican basically at this point. But like the others, there have been a couple others that I think would be for a mission in Iran if it was well defined and, you know, it was clear what the goals were. There are Democratic hawks that would be for that. But, like, how could you be for that with how they've done, how they've managed this? Again, they haven't made a case. They haven't. And so I do think it limits the ability. I mean, there's a technical legal limit, which is, what, 90 days on the war without congressional authorization. Now, Trump hasn't really cared that much about. Hasn't cared at all about legal limits on his behavior. But so I do think there's some political limits and the fact that he's not gonna have Democratic support and some legal limits potentially as well, with Congress. Now, last thing just on the Democrats, and we'll see how this goes, is. And I keep reiterating this because I feel like maybe I have some credibility to mention this as somebody who might be sympathetic to war for freedom overseas in a different context, which is like, even if there are some positive outcomes of this, you cannot trust Trump. Anything that starts based on lies and corrupt means it's going to bear the fruit of that. And I think that the Democrats just would benefit from being very clearly opposed to it. And I do think that there. And it's fine to say Ayatollah Khamenei was a bad guy. And I celebrate with those who, our families who were victimized by his oppression, that said, no war with Iran. We are not going to war with Iran. We oppose this. And I think that some clearer messaging would probably benefit the Democrats. They feel a little mixed on this.

Bill Kristol (50:11)

Oh, that's very interesting. I was going to ask you about that, but you covered that.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (50:14)

I preempted your question.

Bill Kristol (50:14)

That was good. It was good, though. One footnote on that. I want to come back then. I want to come back to Wallace and then a minute about the MAGA coalition. But I mean, on the Democrats, I guess if they vote for the War Powers Resolution, that I guess is going to come up this coming week. I mean, they could be accused of you're undercutting our troops who are fighting as they're fighting. But in fact, am I right that the War Powers Resolution gives the troops President and gives the military 60 days at least?

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (50:45)

Yeah, 90. I think it was 60 to 90, I forget.

Bill Kristol (50:47)

And then they can come back, of course, and get the authorization. So I think the Democrats can pretty plausibly say we're not undercutting anything. We just, Trump himself has said this should be a pretty, shouldn't be an endless war. And we're trying to make sure that that's the case. We're also trying to get an actual congressional debate if it turns out that we have longer requirements to stay.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (51:05)

I think that's right. Yeah. Yeah. The legal.

Bill Kristol (51:06)

Do you think they're not in great risk as a war of just what?

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (51:10)

I think that some Democratic politicians think that they're at great risk of that, but I don't think so. Again, like, there, there are certain communities of people, you know, I mean, most obviously Jewish Americans and Iranian Americans who have like a particular stake in this. If there's another, you know, there are also, you know, people that are just very interested in foreign policy and the foreign policy of the Middle east, like college educated type Republican hawks. Besides that, there isn't a lot of support for this because there was no case made for it. Right. And I think there are big parts of Trump's coalition, which we'll get to, that are just naturally against this sort of thing. And so to me, if you're the Democrats, I just don't see how like overthinking this and you know, is, is sensible because even if there is a good outcome, which again, we all hope for, like, is he going to get a ton of credit for that? Like with who, like who want again with maybe with those, those small groups that I mentioned and you know, maybe gets a small burst of turnout among Persian voters in Los Angeles or whatever. But, you know, I just, there isn't, there isn't big support for this because he, this is different than Iraq in that other sense. Say what you want about Iraq, but people wanted some retaliation to nine, eleven and Bush made the case for it and some of that case ended up being right. But that isn't what happened. That's not what's happening here. There is no popular support base for it. There is some, like, put on your teen jersey, I hope Trump kills bad guys, support for it, but that's about it.

Bill Kristol (52:45)

And as a longtime supporter of interventions abroad, I would say personally, if precisely if it's going to be, I'm not against, as a uniform matter, intervening for the sake of freedom of others, but you then do need to get congressional support. You cannot. The president has some ability to use US Forces, obviously against an immediate threat, against an urgent threat in retaliation without getting congressional support, at least ahead of time. I think that's probably correct. But this is. But if you're going to make it about helping free the Iranian people, the American public and their representatives in Congress are entitled to decide to have a vote on whether they want to American young, American men and women to be put in harm's way. For that, I say I might vote for that. Personally, I would have voted for it with Sudan in 1994, for God's sake. But, but you, you can't just do it as president based on this. You said without any congressional vote or without even any sort of implicit, let's say, sanction for the American public. But she made this case.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (53:37)

And based on the stated case being a lot.

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Bill Kristol (54:09)

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SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (54:35)

Right. Like the state of case was like this was a preemptive strike because we had some risk to, you know, the Iranian nuclear. Like it was a lot.

Bill Kristol (54:42)

So that's important to say. Say it wasn't deep enough. Yeah. Seriously. I mean. Yeah, yeah. So the walls thing, if I could just say I saw that just before coming on too. He's the U. S. Ambassador to the U. N. So he's speaking for the administration. Presumably he's not just a. He was fired as national security advisor, but he's not a private citizen. I find it. It's a little grotesque, isn't it? I don't, you know, it's a tweet, so whatever. But freedom is. Was freedom. Freedom.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (55:05)

Freedom isn't free.

Bill Kristol (55:06)

You don't preface that by deepest condolences to the family or, you know, we so admire our brave soldiers, sailors, marines and Airmen who are in this. And of course, you know, sadly, freedom is, I mean just this kind of one sentence like that takes care of it. I feel like people will not be if that's the general attitude the Trump administration is going to take to casualties in this war, whether certainly American servicemen or women, but also more broadly to civilian casualties and casualties in Israel and elsewhere and possible threats to American civilians for that matter. Obviously in the Middle east, their attitude is this kind of cavalier. Well, freedom isn't free.

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (55:43)

I don't know.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (55:43)

That's not going to, that's glib. That's good. And also again, we don't. It was kind of glib in 2002 but like we had been attacked, you know, the, the, you know, I mean terrorists had taken out the World Trade Centers, you know, the Twin Towers rather and you know, attack the Pentagon. Right. And so there was a plausible concern for American freedom at that point. There's like no plausible concern for American freedom in this mission.

Bill Kristol (56:13)

And so that's important.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (56:15)

You have to make another case for it.

Bill Kristol (56:17)

Trump sort of nods to, with the, you know, some of the missiles, but I mean that's just silly really. Like what?

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (56:23)

It's totally silly. And these, the missiles we're watching how again and it's been impressive from just a military standpoint watching how incapacitated Iran is now. And we'll see. Can they, this is not my area of expertise. Will they change tactics? Will they adjust? Figure it out. But like the missiles that they have can barely hit the Arab states in the region. I mean, you know, it seems like that Bahrain has taken it the worst probably because they have the least air, air defense systems. Like they're not even involved in this war. And you know, beyond having a U.S. base. And so like you cannot possibly say that America was a threat from, from the missiles. So one other thing I should have mentioned at the top on the political, if you don't mind, that's just also kind of crass compared to obviously, you know, the death of three Americans and other, other deaths that have been result of this is the economic impact depending on how long this goes is also real. You know, Iran. There's a Bloomberg report about what closing the Strait of Hormuz could do to oil prices. Those could go up significantly. I saw one analysis that said basically inflation's at 2 point something percent right now. It could go up to 4%. You have that happening simultaneously with Trump having this new Fed chair coming in that has the mandate to decrease interest rates. You know, and this is a Small issue compared to life or death. But like, again, as political, things matter. If you get to a point where we get back into an inflationary place because of this, I just, I think the overwhelming majority of the American people are going to be like, what it. Why? What? Like, what was this for? Like what? Like when inflation is back, now American troops have died and I don't even understand what the mission is. I just think that is. I think there's some real dicey politics for him ahead.

Bill Kristol (58:23)

So let's finish up on the two parties. So the Democrats, you think you should say a word more about it, they'll be sniping back and forth and Schumer's not being aggressive enough and others are being too dismissive of freedom for the Iranian people. But you think they basically can hang together and just being against this as unjustified and unexplained and unwarranted and then say a word also about the Republicans and the MAGA coalition.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (58:47)

Yeah, again. And I think that it's fine for there to be different Democrats who have different types of instincts or interests as far as what America's role in the world should be. And it's fine to throw it clear a little bit about how you do believe that America should be more aggressive and opposing autocracies abroad and support our allies, blah, blah, blah. There are ways to talk about this. If you're a Democrat and say, state your values while also stating that as a practical matter, this war is crazy. It is based upon, it is illegal, it will end up being illegal depending on how long it goes. And it also is without purpose, without a stated purpose, at least for the American people. You have to guess what the purpose of the war is and try to influence, like read tea leaves and Kremlinology. That is not something that Democrats should be supporting. The Democrats don't even know what's happening behind the scenes and what kind of deals. Trump and Wyckoff and Kushner and Bibi. Trump is not working with them candidly. Right. So there's just no rationale for being for this or caveating. In my opinion, if you're the Democrats, the MAGA thing is tougher because I think there'll be a rally around Trump, not rally around the flag effect. In MAGA media. You already see this. You know, you have these two strains of maga, like the America first nationalism versus like the machismo. I think about when you, when you made me wear the read the Umberto Echo, you, err, fascism, like machismo and like the strength is a big part of the fascist instinct. And I think that kind of overtakes a little bit in moments like this, the, you know, nationalist impulse. And so I think that there will be a big rally around Trump among MAGA elected officials and among a lot of his supporters. But I think there's going to be some pretty key groups that don't rally around him. And I think some of the latest people that came into the coalition, I just, I expect that, you know, the comedian podcast space, like, I think that those guys are going to all be like uniformly against this for the most part. A lot of the younger voters that he won over who thought that he was the peace candidate, which is, we could do a whole nother conversation about how he pulled that con off, but some of them believed him. I think those folks are off the ship. You'll see some very small portion in the House. I think that there's, in the House of Representatives, there's a small, like decently genuine isolationist caucus at this point among the Republicans, but it's pretty, pretty small that's meaningful. They only have a two seat House majority. So that could potentially be meaningful if, if this thing goes to Congress. And yeah, at the end of the day, I just don't, I don't see what the political benefit for Trump ends up being among voters. And I think that he ends up getting, you know, staving off the like, very slow separation from him that you're starting to see from right wing media as well as some on the Hill. But that's kind of it. I don't know. What do you think that you see in the magazine?

Bill Kristol (62:05)

I sort of agree. I think there will be a rally to Trump and he's been pretty good at suppressing areas where there should have been dissent because of people's previously stated views. He's been pretty good at suppressing that and having people rally to him. But again, pretty event dependent. It wouldn't take too many things going too wrong for a much bigger chunk of that coalition. Yeah, hey, what, you know, me and Marjorie Taylor Greene for now is a bit of a outlier and there are a few people like her, but there could be a lot more. I mean, we've seen that in other wars as well, obviously. Right. It starts slow and, and can accelerate pretty fast.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (62:40)

I mean, so again, this is not Iraq. There are a lot of differences with Iraq. You know, there'll be some lessons learned. But that was I. Bush's like political problems with his own base came as a combination of like Iraq and kind of Harry Myers and managing like this all was happening in this beginning of the second term. Like people, you know, like there's only so much appetite for this stuff. And Trump, Trump capitalized on that. Like a lot of those people that were upset with Bush are Trump's biggest supporters. And so, you know, eventually there, I do think there's some risk here, you know, event dependent.

Bill Kristol (63:16)

We will see it all unfold over days and weeks. And I do think it's actually, I'm not just touting us at the Bulwark, but I think this is a case where one wants to come back almost every day to it because it is evented. Right. So you can't sort of say some other issues we could analyze, I don't know, some culture war issue and come back to it in two weeks and probably update. Right. But I think we need to update this and we will. And I will actually join you tomorrow. Right on. We'll see how much has changed in 24 hours. But I suspect a lot will have and it doesn't mean it will always be clearer. But if somebody zigs and then zags back the other way in wars, I'm very, always been very struck by that, you know, can. It's going well, it's not going well, this part's going well, you know, but, but that's what it, it's important to follow and especially really this is important for the country obviously. So it's important to follow in pretty as much as we can, you know. So thank you for taking time out of your Sunday to join me and I'll take time out of my Monday to join you tomorrow. So thanks.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (64:12)

Sounds great. We'll see you tomorrow, Bill.

Bill Kristol (64:14)

And thanks all of you for joining us.

Lt. Gen. Retired Mark Hertling (64:16)

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