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- [00:00]
Nadav Eyal
Foreign.
- [00:04]
Dan Senor
You are listening to an art media podcast.
- [00:09]
Nadav Eyal
As far as the mullahs are concerned, the ayatollahs are concerned, if you're not coming there to Tehran and you're not, and Israel is not preaching for that, it's not pushing for that, nobody's talking about boots on the ground, you know, so the country will be poorer, more devastated. It will have less of the military power. It will attack Israel in other ways. It will try to fund terror attacks against Jews around the world. It will seek its revenge. But they might not go for an agreement, but they will have less of an ability to develop nuclear weapons.
- [00:53]
Dan Senor
It's 12:00pm on Friday, June 20, here in New York City. It's Saturday 7:00pm on Friday, June 20, in Israel as Israelis enter Shabbat after a day of extensive missile barrages from Iran. On Wednesday, we reported in our news roundup that the damage resulting from Iranian missile barrages had lessened over the past few days. And we had hoped that this was an indication of Iran's dwindling missile arsenal and the strength of Israel's air defense. Well, at around 8am on Thursday, a barrage of Iranian missiles landed. Three direct hits, causing immense destruction and some injuries, but thankfully no casualties. One of the missiles hit Ramadgan, another hit Holon, and a third directly hit the Soroka Medical center, which is the largest hospital in Israel's south. Though it sounds strange to say, there's actually a miraculous story behind Iran's strike on the Soroka Medical center, the head of Magen David Adom, Israel's emergency Medical Services, said this morning that just the night before the attack, Soroka had been instructed to evacuate patients from certain floors due to the threat of missile attacks. The missile that struck Soroka Thursday morning hit one of the floors that had been evacuated the previous night. The IDF has announced that at least one of the ballistic missiles within the barrage that hit Siroca was carrying a cluster bomb warhead. These warheads carry multiple bombs designed to explode on impact and and scatter indiscriminately when the missile carrying them reaches a low altitude near its target. Cluster bomb munitions cause smaller explosions than typical ballistic missile warheads, but they pose a threat to a much wider geographical area. Home Front Command said that officials had found and disposed of 20 bombs from this cluster, but warned that there could be more out there and that the public should not approach any remains they spot on the ground. Earlier Today, at around 4pm Israel time, Iran launched another barrage of around 25 ballistic missiles. One of the Missiles impacted an area in Haifa, wounding 23 people, including a 40 year old and a 16 year old who are now in serious condition. Two other missiles hit central Israel and Beersheva with no reported injuries. Footage indicates that the missile that targeted Beersheva was carrying a cluster bomb warhead as well as one of the munitions from this warhead, which again carries multiple bombs that scatter indiscriminately, hit a daycare center. So far, the home front command has not changed its guidelines in response to the discovery of a cluster bomb. But this type of warhead could significantly change the way Israelis experience daily rocket attacks from Iran going forward. On Thursday, the White House press secretary said that President Trump will decide whether or not to join the war against Iran in the next two weeks. The statement said the president was holding off due to the substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future. Iran is in fact seeking diplomacy with its foreign minister, meeting today with diplomats from Germany, France and the UK In Geneva. Meanwhile, Iran continues to reject Trump's demand for a complete surrender. Where does all this leave Israel? Could Israel achieve its war aim of destroying Iran's uranium stockpiles in Fordo on its own? Would that entail a ground operation? Before we get into the conversation, one housekeeping note. We just released a bonus episode about the New York City mayoral election, which is set for Tuesday. The primary is set for Tuesday and has enormous consequence not only for the future of this great city, but but for the Jewish community in New York and the Jewish diaspora and for Israel. I highly recommend you take a listen. It's a conversation with Howard Wolfson. And joining us to discuss all of the issues related to Israel and Iran and the war is call me back regular and senior analyst for Yidi Yud Ahronot Nadav. Eyal Nadav, thanks for being here.
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Nadav Eyal
Thanks for having me, Dan.
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Dan Senor
All right, Nadav, it's been a week of missile attacks on Israel, including one today. What can you tell us about the intensity of these attacks and also the mood in Israel in the face of all these attacks?
- [05:18]
Nadav Eyal
I'd be lying if I won't say it's somber to an extent. And here's the reason. After the first thrill of the success that we have seen at the beginning of the war, the first six, seven days, the kind of success story that the IDF and specifically the Air Force had. Israelis just learned that the White House is saying it might take two weeks, that negotiations are on the table and many Israelis in the public, while definitely giving this War, the legitimacy. It's definitely a consensus in Israel are also tired. It's been more than a year and a half. It's 622 days in my account, since October 7th when we're recording this. And for many Israelis, they're thinking about the summer. They're thinking about the losses, about their loved ones who are right now fighting are in the reserve service, or the loved ones that unfortunately they have lost during this war and not knowing how this will end. This is the main question I've been getting as a journalist in Israel from Israelis. How and if it will end. They need to make plans to the future. And when you're sleeping in the Tel Aviv or Gushdan area in the center of Israel, you know that these ballistic missiles are so big that if your building gets a direct hit, even if you're in the shelter, that means that you can get hurt and your children can get hurt. And we're not seeing this mass exodus from the center of Israel. To an extent, it's somber. I don't want to overplay this, as though people don't feel that this is required, that this is essential to Israel's security, that this war is not supported. Of course it is. But I think that they want some sort of clarity as to how much time it might take. And I'm not sure that there's clarity to supply them with as to the intensity of the attacks. So we're seeing barrages that are much more limited in scope right now. It used to be a hundred missiles or more, and right now it's a few dozens. But they do manage, some of them do manage to penetrate the defense systems that Israel installed, the Arrow and the Thaad anti missile systems, and penetrate. The devastation is just huge. You know, I've been in several of these sites this week. It's hard to describe, but you really see these are not sites that we have seen in Israel before, maybe during the first Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein shot some of his Scud missiles. But these ones are more accurate, they're bigger, and the devastation is substantial. It only takes one to destroy, sometimes more than one building with apartments in it. And I've been speaking with Israelis near these buildings. It's a different story. You know, Israelis tend to, okay, so I'll go to the shelter room. Two minutes and it's over. No, no, no. Now many Israelis will go to actual bomb shelters, you know, the old bomb shelters, and they will leave their house. And now you get two kinds of alerts in Israel. One alert is an alert that it's coming. And the other alert is you have two minutes or you have a minute and a half to reach.
- [08:30]
Dan Senor
So just so I'm clear. So the first alert is just like, get ready, get in position. So you're near a place you can go if the siren goes off and you only have two minutes to get there.
- [08:38]
Nadav Eyal
Yeah. And then you would see people that are definitely going to the traditional bomb shelters. They're not own. They're not counting on their shelter rooms in their own apartments because they fear a direct hit at the apartment. And basically it's possible. We saw this in Ramadgan, we saw this in Batya. We see the devastation in the Soroka Hospital in Beersheva. It's very logical for Israelis to take their kids to shelters, to take them, for instance, in Tel Aviv to the light train stations underneath the ground. Many Israelis in Tel Aviv would go there. They feel more secure there because it just feels like a lottery. If this missile lands on your building, even if you're in your safe room, you might get hurt and your kids might get hurt.
- [09:24]
Dan Senor
And just what is Israel's plan for dealing with this? How successful has Israel's air defense actually been in intercepting missiles?
- [09:33]
Nadav Eyal
Israel is already taken out between the third and half of the launchers. The launchers are the issue. The launchers are the soft spot of the Iranians. And because the Israeli Air Force is flying over west Iran and Tehran rather freely right now and also starting to fly rather freely in eastern Iran, and because this is where most of the launching is coming from, Israel is managing to hit in real time, the launchers, sometimes minutes before they launch. And this is the reason they don't manage to launch as much missiles as they tried to do in the first 48 hours. The strategy is take away their missiles, attack. The inventories of the missiles, attack. The launchers, make it very difficult for them. Now, we know from the Second Lebanon War, it's very difficult. You can move them around, you can hide them, and Iran is a big country. So this is quite a challenge for the Israeli Air Force, thinking that every time that it flies through Iran, it needs to basically take off from someplace in Israel, and then it travels for more than an hour and a half, two hours, until it reaches the outskirts of Iran. It's a difficult operation, but Israel is doing quite well in that sense, considering the kind of strikes and blows that the regime has had as a result of the Israeli Air Force. They're so humiliated, they're so in distress that all they care about is seeing those pictures, which are really impressive, of the Soroka Hospital hit. Who cares? Then they can lie and say, you know, it's a military installation or something like that. Will this go away? When I speak with Israeli defense officials, they're saying no, it's our assumption they'll have some sort of launching capability up until the last day of this confrontation. We don't think it's going to go away completely, but we do think we can, you know, decrease this substantially. There was a report in CNN a few days ago that Israel's infantry of interceptors is dwindling. Israel denied the report strongly, I should say, and I think I can say this by now, that Israel has invested the last two years and more than two years in building a very extensive inventory of interceptors. Now, is it limited? Of course it's limited. Everything is limited. I guess they have enough interceptors at this point of the war for at least a few weeks or more than that. So I don't think it's about interceptors. I think it's also about the Iranians learning the defense systems of Israel, learning how to try to bypass them, learning the right times of day, learning weather conditions. Now, as to percentage wise, There was an IDF general last week that talked about more than 90% of interception. I have to say, talking with my sources within the defense apparatus, no one was able to give me credible numbers or to verify that, quote, okay, Israel.
- [12:39]
Dan Senor
Has been fighting militias and paramilitary groups, Hamas, Hezbollah, for as long as Israel's been a state in terms of its wars against sovereign states. Like the war it's fighting right now. It has not really fought one since the Yom Kippur War, since 1973, primarily against Syria and Egypt. But a war like Israel's fighting now is different from what Israel has had to deal with for a very long time. How is that affecting the strategy of the decision makers? How are they thinking about? Because this is. Many of these decision makers have never had experience fighting a war like this.
- [13:15]
Nadav Eyal
I think it's an excellent question. And when I ask them about this, my impression is that while the chief of staff is saying, and you just said today, Eyal Zamir just said today, we need to be ready for a sustained campaign, a prolonged campaign. And we, as the defense for the Israeli Defense Forces, we're ready for a prolonged campaign. While they're saying that, I don't think that they're really thinking about this. How will this actually be with the Israeli society? I don't think that those decision makers that I spoke with since the beginning of the war. I don't think that they think about this as a campaign that should last for months. I think that they were thinking in terms of weeks. And although this is a war and this is something that was made clear, this is a bombing campaign, right? There is no threat of Israeli invasion to Iran, and there is no threat of Iran invading to Israel.
- [14:10]
Dan Senor
You mean ground invasion.
- [14:11]
Nadav Eyal
Yeah, a ground invasion. Okay. So at a certain point, this aerial campaign will achieve its limits. Now, I spoke with a senior defense official two days ago. He told me, look, this is like a candy shop, what we're seeing in Iran today. Why? Because it's an arch enemy of Israel. We can fly freely over Iran. There's so many targets. It's a big country. There is the Revolutionary Guard. Everything the Revolutionary Guard is doing can jeopardize Israel. So, Dan, you can imagine how the intelligence branch of the IDF looks right now. You have these meetings and you have these young officers that don't sleep pale under the neon lights. And there's a few meetings during the day. And then there's this officer who says, we need to hit this place. And that lieutenant goes, no, no, no, let's not hit that factory. This factory or this research institute for explosives or for nuclear energy. That's more important because it's all about priority. And they know that time is running out. In what ways? For instance, if the US joins. If the US joins, it's the US that's going to decide. Whatever the Israeli Air Force can or cannot do over Iranian skies, it's obvious that the Americans would say, look, you either are not flying anymore, which is a possibility. The US had joint campaigns with many Western countries, but I don't remember any real joint military campaign with Israel flying side by side, bombing an enemy. And then if the Americans are entering this war, they'll probably say to Israel, look, we're going to take care of whatever we're going to take care. And then when they decide to end this, as far as the US is concerned, Dan, probably Israel would need to end this too. And it would also want to end this too, because it's a perfect exit politically. That's one of the reasons that Israel wants the US to join the war. It wants the US to join the war because of Frodo, but it wants the US to join the war also. Because think about this internationally and politically, this is what it really means in terms of an exit strategy. If they join the war, you, as an Israeli decision maker, you don't need to Think about it anymore. It's the U.S. president in the White House who are going to make the decisions for you when the war will end. And you're just going to be a tag along onto that. And it's a very tempting prospect for the Israelis. But then if you have some strategic targets there, you want to hit them before that.
- [16:53]
Dan Senor
So the Israeli Air Force is flying more or less freely over Iran's skies. As you say, it's about a 30 for our American listeners, it's about a 33,200 mile round trip from Israel to Iran. And how is that technically and logistically possible for Israel to fly that far back and forth with its aircraft?
- [17:13]
Nadav Eyal
First of all, because we have tanker jets and that's a big story. We have planes that are 50 years old, 50 that Israel fixed, put new installations on. And these tanker jets and the people flying those tanker jets are real heroes of this war. And this is one of the questions I asked my sources. How did you manage to have 60 fighter jets bombing around Tehran? And of course I'm not going to talk about the number of the tanker jets that Israel had, but it's a limited number. That's one of the issues. And of course making sure that these jets that are heavy are not going to be downed by the Iranian air defenses. So technically speaking, this is a huge undertaking, the sort that not many armies in the world can do with the limited resources that the Israelis have right now. We are seeing for the first time in history how high tech is leading to a potential military victory in ways never seen before. The military intelligence in Israel, you know, the sense of responsibility and seriousness and thoroughness that even as a really young lieutenant at the idf, as an intelligence officer and how committed they are, these are a bunch of perfectionists. And this is the reason why these were the hubs of the Israeli startups that you wrote so eloquently about. This is where they came from. Not only from combat units, and not mainly from combat units, but from a 250 and those intelligence units. And they have failed on October 7th and from that they've risen to the moment in a way in which Israel eliminated 22 nuclear scientists and army officials in the first two hours or an hour. One of the stories I've been just told this week is about how the new chief of staff of the Iranian army was eliminated. So he was hiding in Iran's most secret command bunker that was built deep in the mountains. And the Iranians thought that this is their most secretive base. And of course the intelligence branch knew about it. A strike was made, but he managed to escape that strike. Iranian officers died there, but he escaped to their second most secret command bunker that is in Tehran. And there, in less than 24 hours later, Israel got in. And this all is the result of superb intelligence. Let me give you an example what I mean by superb intelligence. And I need to choose my words here. Imagine that you have an intelligence branch that can tell you in the apartment of an Iranian army official who goes to sleep, at what time, who is sleeping right now and who isn't sleeping. This is just an example of the kind of abilities that were developed by Israel.
- [20:22]
Dan Senor
Okay, I want to talk about the US what we know about what's going on with the US Iran's foreign minister is set to meet today, Friday with diplomats from Germany, France and the UK And Geneva. As I mentioned in the opening, at the same time, Iran continues to reject President Trump's demand for complete surrender. And yet the president is keeping open the option for possible talks, although he keeps saying that Iran missed its moment and it was crazy not to have reached a deal before day 61. And as Karim Sajapour said in our conversation Dav earlier this week, that the Iranian leadership will rue the day that they didn't take a deal before day 61 because they will never get a deal like what was being discussed at the time. That basically the only deal that would be acceptable to the US now and to Israel possibly would be a version of the Libya model, which is the entire nuclear program just gets taken out of Iran. Iran, there's no, there's nothing for Iran as far as a nuclear capacity inside the country. And I'm sure there would be other restrictions as well on its offensive military capabilities. So if that's true, is your sense that from the Israeli perspective, is the Israeli sense, I guess, that the Iranians at this point are just buying time, that they still really won't cut a deal that will be acceptable to anyone, but they're just playing for time. Or do they think there's a deal? They're so desperate that there is still. Remember I was just struck in that conversation you and I had with Kareem earlier this week where he said Khamenei is never, this is not a man who capitulates. And even he's capitulated like once in a blue moon throughout his close to three decade history. And when he has, it has been an extremely generous offer to Iran and even that he viewed as a massive capitulation. So the idea that he would go for something akin to the Libya model is just completely out of whack with how this man has operated and led for the entire time that he's been Supreme Leader. So what's the Israeli perspective on all of this? What the Iranian strategy is at this point?
- [22:19]
Nadav Eyal
The Iranian strategy, if we just listen to Abbas Al Ghatshi, the Iranian Foreign Minister you just quoted, is basically trying to drag this into negotiations. They're saying we won't negotiate under fire, we're not going to agree to anything as a result of the Israeli attack. And I think that they're also hearing the internal discussion in the US and to some extent they're encouraged, I think too encouraged from what I know, as to the possibility that the President and the international community would lead again to some sort of prolonged negotiation path and would start pressuring Israel to stop. And we know that there is a meeting between foreign ministers and Iranian representatives of countries in Europe as to 24 hours and that is sanctioned by the White House. The White House said fine, as to that. So for the Iranians, that's actually symbolizing the possibility that if they just hold out there and they will because Israel doesn't intend to again invade the country and topple the regime, then something's got to give. And at a certain point either the Israelis will feel that the devastation in their country is too extensive, or maybe the US would make its mind to try and negotiations and then they'll pressure the Israelis, for instance, to have a ceasefire during that time. Now Israeli senior officials have told me that this is for them the worst case scenario. What they're saying is yeah, of course we want an agreement, but we want this agreement to be reached while we are still bombing in Iran or the US will not have enough leverage to reach the Reich agreement. So we are willing, says the IDF, to continue this until you reach an agreement. We will fight this. We will do the dirty work for you. To quote the German chancellor, but you need to reach an agreement while we are still having this targeted campaign in Iran. This is the view of the IDF now as to the hopes of Iran. Look, I don't know what's being said or not said. I do know that I keep on seeing the fueling jets of the American army and air force flying to the Middle East. The American buildup in the Middle east continues as we speak. The evacuation of civilians and non essential staff is continuing from the Middle east and from Israel. If I were the Iranians and I wrote this on X, I think that the best strategy for the Iranians right now is basically take the offer. The White House has said the offer that we have made to you is still on the table. The White House spokeswoman has said that yesterday the offer is there. All the Iranians need to do. The Islamic Republic just needs to say we accept. Even if it's we accept with one or two small. But it's going to work and that's the best case scenario for them. And why don't they do that, Dan? Because they are so fixated on notions of honor, sovereignty, resistance to the west, revolution, fundamentalism, that they're not doing what's best not only for the country, but also for the regime. Just listening to President Trump, President Trump as I see it, I'd be happy to hear what you think about this. Is looking for one of two images. One image is what he called an unconditional surrender, which is basically agreeing to the offer he made to the Iranians.
- [26:02]
Dan Senor
Zero enrichment.
- [26:03]
Nadav Eyal
Yeah. And the other image is an image in which the US Is bombing Iran. My assessment is that these are the two options out there. That the options of prolonged drag negotiations, the type that we have seen with the Iranians before. It's not out there. The president wants one of these two results. If I were an Iranian official in the government, I would have taken the offer of the president at this point because their assumption, if you wanted to.
- [26:35]
Dan Senor
Keep your regime intact and survive and.
- [26:37]
Nadav Eyal
If I would think about the good.
- [26:38]
Dan Senor
Of my country, well, that's I think, a bridge too far for this crowd.
- [26:42]
Nadav Eyal
Yeah, that's like a different story. Yeah. But what do you think?
- [26:44]
Dan Senor
I think I will choose my words carefully. Very senior officials around the president who are part of the conversation loop shaping, you know, that's, that's informing the president's decision making. But keep in mind this is a decision that is made solely by one man. So to really know what's going on, you have to be inside the head of the president. United States. And Nedava is plugged in as you and I are. Neither of us are inside the head of President Trump. And it's sort of a statement of the obvious because any decision of this scale is all up to the President, no matter who the president is. But I think it's especially the case in other administrations. Sure, the ultimate decision about war is up to the president or warlike action, but military action. But there's a whole system in place that inputs into the decision making process. There's the principles committee of the National Security Council, then there's the deputies Committee, meaning the deputy Secretary of State and the Deputy Secretary of Defense on the National Security Council. There's all these decision making bodies and they just don't have the same kind of relevance in this administration. So it's hard to read too much between the lines as it relates to what those entities are doing, the conversations those entities are having, without knowing where the President's head is at. And as President Trump is very effective about keeping us all off kilter and not knowing exactly where his head is at day to day, there are a handful of people talking to the President on a daily basis, if not an hourly basis. The White House Chief of Staff, which is Susie Wiles, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State and Acting National Security Advisor John Ratcliffe, the CIA Director, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, and of course, J.D. vance, the Vice President. That's basically it. Tulsi Gabbard, as the President has made clear, is out of the decision making loop. There's, there just really aren't many other people who matter that much. I think he's talking to a couple of senators pretty regularly, more than a couple. But in terms of the people who are hour to hour in the decision making, I just rattled them off. And what you hear from them is the president is just fed up with the Iranians when it comes to negotiating, that he believes they are either incapable of making a decision, unwilling to make a decision, or that those who are negotiating on behalf of Iran have not been empowered to actually make a decision. And this is a president who wants, remember this was he talked openly about how he was going to solve the Russia, Ukraine war within 24 hours of being president. Of course, that was not realistic. But even when he got into office, he started to work on the Russia, Ukraine issue and he wanted results quickly. And then he, when he realized that wasn't going to happen, he kind of got either disengaged or frustrated. And I think that is exactly what has happened here. He realizes there's not going to be a real deal with Iran and he was persuaded that they were just dragging things out. So if he gives them another chance to go back to the negotiating table and they don't move with the same kind of urgency that you think is the only logical way to go, which you would be prescribing if you were advising them, I think he's just going to be very quickly. I don't think it's going to take two weeks. I think he's going to be very quickly say, are they serious this time? Has their behavior changed? No. In Fact, I think there's a potential Nadav for it to be even worse than before the war because you have the same limitations that the President identified in terms of the Iranians willingness or ability to negotiate, combined with the fact that the dysfunction now in the Iranian decision making loop because so many key people have been taken out and the communications is all disrupted between leaders. The whole chain of command is messed up. It's a country under siege. They're waking up every day not knowing what's going to blow up, where, which Israeli aircraft operation is happening over their sky. So the idea that in the midst of that they're going to become more efficient about making a decision about what they'd be willing to accept rather than less efficient, I think is unrealistic. And the President is giving it time, but I'm not sure it's going to take a full two weeks for him to realize that what he had become fed up with before Friday, June 13th has not changed.
- [30:32]
Nadav Eyal
Unless of course they have changed.
- [30:34]
Dan Senor
If they have changed Nadav, I think it'll be obvious to the administration quickly. In other words, if it looks right away that it's the same old, same old, I think you're gonna see they're just gonna say, okay, nothing's changed. I guess if they actually have changed, they're gonna have to demonstrate it pretty quickly.
- [30:49]
Nadav Eyal
I tend to agree. And I also think that for the President, in terms of appearances, if this is going to develop into the type of negotiations that you have with Ukraine, Russia, after he made the statements he made, after he put the US army and defense apparatus on high alert for this to end with maybe Putin will somehow moderate or something like that, or China, it would be just terrible in considering the polls in the US I just don't see this. So we saw this resistance within maga and the President crushed that resistance, really crushed it to the extent of Steve Bannon saying basically giving it up. And it's only Tucker Carson, I think, who's really left out there with resisting any sort of campaign by the U.S.
- [31:42]
Dan Senor
But I think there's a misunderstanding, Nadav, about the President's understanding of how the Republican electorate thinks about Israel threats to Israel and that Israel and America have the same enemies. And if Israel is fighting those enemies and we can do certain things to help them do that, that is definitely in America's interest and should be a priority. A B. I think there is also a disconnect about how the President thinks about the use of force. People say President Trump doesn't like to use force. That's just not true. I mean, he took one of the most aggressive, one could argue, as a historical matter, one of the most aggressive preemptive actions against the regime during his first administration, which was taking out Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. So it's not that he's reticent about using force. He's reticent about the US Getting bogged down directly in Warsaw. But that doesn't mean he's not prepared to on an opportunistic basis when he sees that the American military power can have huge impact with not no risk, but little risk. This is a president who's invested over. We're looking right now, there's a bill moving through. I mean, we're talking about a trillion dollars in defense spending. Close to it. You know, to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, speak quietly, but carry a big stick. I think President Trump is comfortable with using the big stick of America's on an opportunistic basis when all the stars line up. And this is a situation where the US could say it has deftly relied on the capabilities of a very capable ally in Israel, to quote the German chancellor, to do the West's dirty work and do America's dirty work in the Middle east, the US Just has to do one part of it. And the fact that, you know, that no one's really planning or talking about regime change. So. And the other part that's so different is no one here is really contesting whether or not Iran has a nuclear program.
- [33:41]
Nadav Eyal
Right.
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Dan Senor
With Iraq, there was a real legitimate debate. Did the US really get it wrong? And even in the lead up to the Iraq War, there was a debate about does Iraq really have a nuclear. Here there's. That's not the debate. Where's the debate? Is it weeks? Is it months? Is it. No one is. No serious person is arguing that Iran does not have nuclear missions. No one. No one's here is across the political spectrum.
- [34:02]
Nadav Eyal
And by the way, this is exactly the point that's being made again and again by the president. He's saying it's not about Israel, even disregarding Israel, it's about the Iranians. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. Just reading his posts and hearing what he's saying, and for that, if he believes that they're advancing to a nuclear weapon, and I think he does, because there is no reason, just leave the weapons group aside and all the arguments made by Israel as to recent developments in the last two years and just look at the enriched uranium and what they've been doing in building this system for enriching uranium with cascades of centrifuges across the country in bunkers. Why are they doing that? Everybody knows that. They're playing with the idea at least. And because of that, my feeling is that the US Is still open for the Iranians to accept the offer made by Steve Witkoff. But if they won't, this can happen extremely quickly. And by quickly I mean, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if this happens in the next two days or three days. It's not about toppling the regime. It's not about trying to make sure that it becomes, you know, Operation Iraqi Freedom. That's not what we're going to see here. What we are going to see is unilateralism. And we're trying to escape this. We're trying to tell ourselves at the end there's going to be an agreement as far as the mullahs are concerned, the ayatollahs are concerned. If you're not coming there to Tehran, and you're not, and Israel is not preaching for that, it's not pushing for that, nobody's talking about boots on the ground, you know, so the country will be poorer, more devastated, it will have less of a military power. It will attack Israel in other ways. It will try to fund terror attacks against Jews around the world. It will seek its revenge. But they might not go for an agreement, but they will have less of an ability to develop nuclear weapons.
- [36:03]
Dan Senor
Okay, Nadav, before we go, I do want to ask you about the headline question, which I tend to agree with you, that the US Is likely to join. But if the US does not join in any direct way, and I know you've articulated Israel's concerns about that, but if the US does not join in a direct way, can Israel finish this alone? What are Israel's options militarily if it has to finish this on its own?
- [36:28]
Nadav Eyal
Israel will attack for do will not remain as it is. Now, I wouldn't have said that if Israeli officials didn't say this on the record, that Fordeau will be taken care of either way, whether the US Is in or out. To me, it seems incredibly, how should I put it, unwise to say that from two main reasons. First of all, you know, if you think you can do it yourself, why are you asking the US to do it? That's a plausible question. And Israel can try to tackle the four door problem, but it has no certainty that it can do that effectively. The president asked again and again, according to a report by Barack Ravid and Axios, during the discussions in the White House, it was very important for him and he was asking the right question. If we do it, do we know for sure that we managed to get it to get to Fordeaux, to the military base underneath the mountain and, you know, bomb the hell out of it? Do we know it's going to be effective now? That's, you know what, Dan? And President Trump doesn't get this type of credit that I'm going to give him. Now, usually by commentators, this is the type of question a decision maker should ask. It's a very tactical question. The generals come and say, we can bomb it. We have B2 bombers and we have these big bombs and they can penetrate it. But then it's the decision maker that needs to go all the way to the product, as they say in the tech sector, and ask, but will it actually work? And the answer he got is yes. So the Israelis can try to tackle for doubt, but only the US can do it with almost 100% certainty that would be affected. That's the big reason one way was.
- [38:09]
Dan Senor
Put to me, Nadav, I'm curious what you think by someone on the American side, I won't say who, was that? Israel can do it, but the odds of success if the US does it is much higher. They pegged it at the odds of success if the US does it at like 90% plus, which gets to your point. Secondly, if Israel does it, it could do it, but it will take longer, maybe a little messier. It carries perhaps some collateral risk that anything does. That takes time, takes more time. Is that your sense?
- [38:34]
Nadav Eyal
It's my sense. And one can only speculate. This would need a very unorthodox approach considering the weapons that we have, the ammunitions that we have, the way that the place is built. It's a big problem. And there is no way that we're finishing this without at least trying. This is what the defense officials have been telling me, they've been telling others. This is what right now Israeli politicians are saying. But to your question directly, in a few days, two, three, maybe four days, Israel can achieve its strategic targets that were rather limited. Israel never said it's going to destroy the entire nuclear weapons or enrichment program. It can't do that. It's not trying, for instance, to blow up the enriched uranium itself. Israel never said, by the way, that the Iranians decided to break for a boom, that there was an order by the supreme Leader to break now for a boom and they did that if there would be no order like that, they would have exposed it to the world and said, let's have a coalition there installed. Israel was very worried not only by the nuclear program, but also by the surface to surface ballistic missile program. The Iranians having 8,000 to 9,000 ballistic missiles in less than two years. And we are seeing now the devastation across Israel. And this was a point made today about the finding document that was sent by the IDF intelligence branch to the rest of the army, to the Defense Ministry, to the prime Minister. This is the document in which the intelligence branch is saying our recommendation is to attack and attack now. And in that document they specify very technically where the nuclear program is at, including the strides made by Iran as to the weapons group. But what they also mention is that this is a window of opportunity and there would be no other as to the surface to surface ballistic missile program. And that was incredibly important for the decision makers and for the intelligence branch to make sure that if we miss this point and we don't tackle it now, we will have a huge problem in the future. And that same deterrent that was built through Hezbollah will be built now through Iran. This wall of fire against Israel. And it will not allow us to do what we would need to do if they decide to break for a bomb in a year, year and a half. That document was the final enhancer to the decision of the Israeli cabinet to authorize this operation in this war if.
- [41:11]
Dan Senor
Israel does do it on its own. And I know you don't want to get into the specifics of what the capabilities are. Is there a world in which one option for Israel is to go in on the ground to take out Fordow?
- [41:21]
Nadav Eyal
Your guess as to that is as good as mine.
- [41:23]
Dan Senor
Okay, I bet my guess is not as good as yours, but my guess is probably purely speculative, where your guess is probably more informed. But some things we will have to wait, I guess. Nadav, thank you for doing this.
- [41:37]
Nadav Eyal
Thank you so much, Dan.
- [41:38]
Dan Senor
All right, talk soon. That's our show for today. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with others who might appreciate it. Time and again, we found that our listeners are the ones driving the growth of the Call Me Back community. So thank you. And to offer comments, suggestions, sign up for updates, or explore past episodes, please visit our website, ark media.org that's arkmedia.org where you can deepen your understanding of the topics we cover. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar, Sound and video editing by Martin Huergo and Mariangelis Burgos. Our director of operations is Maya Rakoff. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan. Senor.