Loading summary
Transcript18 lines
- [00:00]
Ben
Welcome to a very special episode of Command Post. I'm joined, as always, by our very own Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. And, General, we've got a special guest this week.
- [00:08]
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
We do, and we've been looking forward to this for a long time. Ben. We asked Senator Alyssa Slotkin to join us and talk about the state of affairs. And interestingly enough, it comes on a day when the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Agriculture are testifying before Congress. That's why I'm so dressed up. I was narrating some of that for one of our partners. And to have Senator Schlatkin on is a special joy. I know her from her time as a CIA analyst. We ran into each other quite a few times in Iraq during our two different tours. And I think asking her some key questions about the state of play in Iran and the state of play across the board in the US Senate is going to be very interesting. What do you think?
- [00:58]
Ben
I think it's absolutely right. And without further ado, let's welcome Senator Slotkin. I wanted to start off by asking you about a little bit of spicy testimony that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave today during his hearing. I'm not sure if you've seen this yet, but we have a video of an exchange he had with Senator Jack Reid.
- [01:17]
Senator Jack Reid
The Department of Defense has been planning for potential operations against Iran for many, many years. And one of their obvious assumptions was that the three of homoz could be closed. Were you unaware of that?
- [01:36]
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth
Senator? You are correct. Nobody plans more and looks at more contingencies than our department. And so, of course, undertaking a historic effort like this, of this scope and scale, of course, the Strait of Hormuz was front and center in every single aspect of that. Hence why one of our key objectives to begin with was to sink the entirety of Iran's navy, which its conventional navy was sunk. Now, you can't get rid of every single fast boat and every single machine gun and a fast boat or every single coastal cruise missile. So we acknowledge that if the state decided to become a terror state, shooting at commercial shipping, that would be an ongoing and contested part of the battle to include their willingness to mine international water. One side weaponized the Strait, and we've
- [02:17]
Senator Jack Reid
been fighting completely aware that the Strait of Hormuz could be closed. And obviously sinking their ships has not affected their ability to effectively close the straits.
- [02:27]
Ben
Senator, was that a convincing answer to you?
- [02:30]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Look, it is literally Middle East 101 to talk about the Strait of Hormuz I can remember being in college and taking my first Middle Eastern classes and it was like, there is a strategic choke point in this area. So I think that's a very well known thing, or at least in military planners, it's a well known thing. And obviously it's true that we took out a huge chunk of their Navy. We have incredible firepower that has done incredible work over there. But their definition of winning is different than our definition of winning. Their definition of winning is keeping us on our toes and unable to process ships through the Strait of Hormuz. And they can do that by drone, they can do that by mine. They can do that by fast boat. They can do it by boat, drone now. So I it's not that we didn't do important things to their Navy. We did. It just wasn't enough. And for them, just kind of ankle biting in the Strait of Hormuz is their definition of winning. And right now I don't know how you can say anything other than they continue to have veto power over the straits.
- [03:36]
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
Senator, first of all, thanks for joining us. I'll echo what Ben said. We've been hoping to get you on for a long time, but I'm going to start off with perhaps a softball question to you. We know each other. You served as a Middle Eastern analyst at the CIA, and during your work you spent several tours inside of Iraq, where I think we first met in Baghdad. You have a better understanding of the region than likely all of your Senate colleagues and a lot of other people too, by the way, given what you know about the culture, the dynamics of the Middle east, how does that shape your questioning of what's going on right now? And specifically when people appear before you in the sask, how do you approach them when they try and give you answers that are just, let's just say, uninformed?
- [04:27]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Yeah, I mean, look, I think we're all prisoners to our own experience. And for me, I mean, just the most formative thing that shaped my adult life was 911 and, you know, I was in New York City that day. It was my second day of grad school. I had just moved there. And by the end of the day, you know, when the smoke was clearing, I knew I was going to go into national security and, you know, got recruited by the CIA. And within a year starting there was off on my first of three tours in Iraq. So my defining experience, along with a lot of other people I know, was stepping up to serve after 911 and then watching our country that we love get embroiled in very long, very difficult wars in the Middle east, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and obviously beyond those places, in the greater Middle East. And so it's impossible for me to hear testimony about what's going on in the Iran war and not pull those lessons forward from these other two wars that I engaged on and to take a really critical eye to things like not having an end game, not being able to tell us the cost of a war. You know, we now have coffins coming back to Dover Air Force Base tomorrow, another three, at least, young men and women who lost their lives in this war. So it's very real, I think, for, for people who served over there in previous wars. But all those things that we didn't do the right way, I think, in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you're trying to, like, help your country not make the same mistakes. So I think that's. That is my overwhelming lens that I bring to it. And then just being a CIA officer and then serving for years at the Pentagon, like, you know, sort of, you have a decent BS meter when someone's in front of you and saying, well, of course, you know, we couldn't possibly do that. I was like, we do that every day.
- [06:26]
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
Day.
- [06:26]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
I mean, so I think it colors everything that I do, certainly in the Armed Services Committee.
- [06:33]
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
Yeah, it's interesting you say we can do that, but there's also a lot of times when you probably say, yeah, we don't do that either. Ben, if you don't mind, I ask one more question and turn it back to you. But, you know, if you can do this, Senator, put, put your senator hat away and go back to your military analyst, your CIA analyst hat, and, you know, what kind of things are you looking for right now in this operation in terms of the state of the military campaign and connecting that with policy, the state of the political campaign. And what we're hearing from people like Secretary Hegseth and President Trump and Secretary Bessant and others about how they are portraying what's going on and the overall strategic campaign, whether the US Has a defined end state and a path to get there. Is there going to be escalation or de. Escalation? And I know that's a lot of questions to answer in one tranche. But, you know, I want to ask you from a, from a CIA analyst viewpoint what you think about what's going on.
- [07:40]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Whether you're a CIA analyst or you, you know, are just talking to your neighbors in Michigan. They want to know how this ends. For me as a, you Know, putting on my analyst hat. There's basically three options as I see them, and correct me if you see more, but one is just to continue what we're doing and hope for a different outcome, right? Significant military activity every night, tit for tat. Significant capability coming back from the Iranians on allies like Jordan and other Gulf states. You know, kind of hoping that that changes the balance somehow eventually, and we exhaust the Iranians. That's number one. Number two, you know, this escalate to de escalate. How do we change the terms of the negotiation that we ultimately have to get to? We bring in overwhelming firepower to punish the. The Iranians and get them to sort of feel compelled to go back to the negotiating table. Unfortunately, the minute you start thinking about that, you gotta start talking about ground troops. I mean, you know that that's in the ether and the president won't rule it out. So d. So escalate to de escalate is number two, and then third is like just cut a worse deal with the Iranians where we accept that they have some sort of toll taking that they do. For every ship, they get approval of every ship. 20% of the world's oil going through that very, very narrow area. None of those are great. None of those are good options. So whether I'm. I'm wearing the analyst hat or just talking to my neighbors, they. There is not great options on the table. And in the meantime, the American people are paying for it, right? When you're a CIA officer, you focus on the strategic issues of protecting the country. You don't have to answer for the cost of gas or fertilizer, but people are. Are feeling it. And when, you know this, when the country, when the population is not feeling good about a war, when they are questioning it, when they feel exhausted by. Starts to break down the staying power that the. The political cover that the military has to prosecute the war. I think this president is desperate to get out of this war. I think he wants it over. I think he doesn't want to talk about it. He's trying to distract us and talk about other things. And I guess that's good that he wants to get out of the war. But if that's, you know, we, you know better than anyone, it's a lot easier to get into a war than it is to get out. And I think that's the reality he's living in.
- [10:17]
Ben
So, Senator, I want to ask you another question, which is basically, let's answer, right? How does this end? If. Let's Say there's a Democratic president in 2029. And they say, Senator Slotkin, I want you to be the Secretary of Defense. And the first thing I want you to do is tell me how do we fix the Iran issue? Where do we go from here? What does the solution look like?
- [10:37]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Yeah, I very much hope that we're not still in a hot war in 2029. Then we have a real problem and our economy and sort of the world's economy is in a different place. So I hope and I pray that we're not dealing with that issue. But I do think there is some pretty different perspectives on Iran and Ukraine, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. And I think those two issues have to be dealt with. I think certainly on Iran, I mean, I would be putting every ounce of capital I have into that negotiating team and being creative and thinking long term. I think it's difficult to get the Iranians to trust us for a big deal. You know, we had a big nuclear deal back in 2015, wasn't perfect, but when we broke that deal a couple years later under Trump, it told the Iranians, like, we're not great at keeping to our word, so you're at a disadvantage. But I would put all my energy into the negotiating team. I'd maybe mix up that negotiating team. I'd put a few more military folks on that team, so that one hand was kind of talking to the other. And then I would figure out frankly how we get back to the status quo ante, not having any Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz, but then, you know, having a deal on the table that gives them some things that they want. And I think it's difficult, but I think that's where I would be putting my energy on Ukraine, of course. I think that is a very important fight that continues to go on. I think actually there's been some interesting developments in the past 90 days in Ukraine. And if Russia does not hit steel, if they do not feel like the world pushes back on them when they invade other neighboring countries, they'll just keep doing it. It's just a matter of time. So those two things, I think we'd have pretty different views if I were. If others were put in charge.
- [12:41]
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
During the Iraq war, we both repeatedly heard the phrase planning for phase four and how it was not part of what we did very well. You know, you just talked about the long term solution to combat and I'm with you. It is going to be delicate at best. I personally don't think that Iran will ever give up some type of the straight of Hormuz now. But whatever happens there. Can you talk a little bit about from, you know, a policy standpoint, what do you see coming after combat if, if for with some miracle combat does end and it de escalates, what comes next? What's, what's a long term vision that we should be looking toward?
- [13:26]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
I mean, I think the, the long term vision again is some sort of.