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- [00:00]
Andrew Fox
We know. I think it was a huge error from Netanyahu, one of many that he's made. You know, he cut off the Democrats in America. You know, he focused everything. All his eggs were in the Trump basket. And that has horribly backfired this week, as we've seen.
- [00:17]
Mona Charon
Welcome, everyone, to the Mona Charon Show. Thank you so much for taking time to join me today. Before we dig in with our esteemed guest, I want to just flag our next book club, which will be the week of July 4th. We're probably going to record on June 30th, and we will definitely let you know for sure in the next few days. But it's going to be with historian Lindsay Chervinsky. We're going to be discussing her book about John Adams called Making the Presidency. Hope you will take the time now to get your copy either from the library or wherever you buy books. And then send us your questions and we'll share them on the air. And this will be our celebration of America's 250th. With that, I am delighted now to turn to my guest today. Andrew Fox is a fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, also a lecturer at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst. Andrew, you have an unusual background for a pundit, let me say. And so I wonder if you. So I found you because I was looking at your Iran war dispatch, which were incredibly informative. But for people who don't know, can you tell us a little bit about your experience? You served in the British military for quite a few years. So tell us about your background and experience.
- [01:54]
Andrew Fox
Yeah. So I studied law at university at college, but I decided that I much enjoyed getting dirty and muddy and running around with a gun than being in a courtroom. So I joined the British army in 2005. I did 16 years, three tours in Afghanistan, including one with the US Army. I was an honorary Green Beret for six months. So we were doing some really interesting stuff in Afghanistan there together. I also served in the Parachute Regiment, which is our equivalent of sort of the 82nd Airborne. I spent a lot of time working with the 75th Rangers as well. We had a sister battalion working with them. So I spent a lot of time in the States, but I also invested in kind of my academic here as well. So I've got masters in war studies looking at Middle Eastern strategy and in psychology as well, because I figured that people fight wars. So if you can understand the people better, then you can understand the war better. And I'm currently Studying for my PhD in War Studies looking at the Future of armed conflict based on the sort of seven front war that's going on in Israel at the moment and the Ukraine war as well. And I was lucky enough to get into the front lines of Gaza, of Lebanon and of Ukraine as well. So I've actually been on the ground and done that field work in person. So I kind of try and combine my military experience with my academic pedigree. And Henry Jackson Society is a think tank based out of London. So most of my work is sort of. My academic work is published through there at the moment.
- [03:21]
Mona Charon
Was it difficult to get into Gaza? I understand that it's been quite hard to get foreign people inside.
- [03:28]
Andrew Fox
Yeah, well, it's very strange. They wouldn't let journalists in, but they would let veterans in, which is really strange. So the first time I went into Gaza was with the high level military group that was back in July 2025. We went into Rafah and that was a bunch of retired sort of brigadiers, generals, air marshals from across Europe and the United States. Absolutely fascinating to go with those guys.
- [03:50]
Mona Charon
What was the point of your visit? What was the. I mean, I assume the Israelis let you go. So what was the, what was the stated purpose of this trip?
- [03:58]
Andrew Fox
It was to write a report on what we saw and give a kind of military perspective rather than a kind of civilian perspective on it. And we ended up submitting a paper to the International Criminal Court actually in defence of Yoav Gallant and Benjamin Netanyahu. Because was Gaza perfect? No. Are they accused of the things that they're accused of? Sorry? Are they guilty of the things they're accused of? Absolutely not. So we submitted that to the prosecutor at the icc.
- [04:24]
Mona Charon
I want to come to that. That's very important. But first because we are in the midst of the news, the Iran so called deal. I'd love for you to give us your evaluation from our point of view. From my point of view, sitting here, it seems like a complete climb down by Trump and sort of an admission of defeat. And so I'm curious, what do you think of it?
- [04:56]
Andrew Fox
Well, I think in the first instance it is all of those things. You know, it leaves the Iranian regime potentially with a revenue stream they didn't have before, which they will undoubtedly reinvest into their missile stocks and everything else nefarious proxy networks that they spend their money on in the Gulf and in the Middle East. The one kind of silver lining in some ways I think is that it is just an MOU. It's just a memorandum of understanding with this 60 day clock that's ticking now, is Iran going to play fair on this? I'd be astonished. I mean, we have to remember with the Iranian regime, though, that they do think in much longer timescales than we do, they don't have to worry about elections in the same way that Donald Trump is worrying about the midterms and the Republican Party is worrying about the next presidential election. That doesn't bother them in the slightest. So there's every chance they might just see they'll try and extend the negotiations as long as they can. And they know there's a clock on Donald Trump. They know he's out of office in two and a half years time. They know if he loses them and
- [06:01]
Mona Charon
worried about the midterms, and if he
- [06:03]
Andrew Fox
loses them, he could well be completely hamstrung for the rest of his time in office. So the Iranians will know that, and they'll be trying to drag things out for as long as they can to get past that waypoint where Donald Trump can no longer have a meaningful impact because he's got a hostile Congress trying to hold him in check. But it is a pause. An MoU is effectively a pause. And that gives everyone an opportunity. So, yes, everyone's focused, quite rightly, I think, on the opportunity this gives the regime, but is also opportunity for everyone else in the Gulf. So the Gulf states could look at diversifying their export methods, they could look at building pipelines and things like that to make sure that Hormuz doesn't become the strategic choke point next time this happens, because I think it probably will happen again.
- [06:48]
Mona Charon
Israel, how difficult is that to build alternative pipelines to bypass the Strait of Hormuz altogether?
- [06:56]
Andrew Fox
I mean, it's difficult and expensive. But what's the alternative? You know, if I'm sat in Abu Dhabi or Riyadh, I'm deeply worried about what just happened that has choked off their income severely, not to mention the infrastructure damage that was caused by Iranian drones and missiles. And I'll be looking at ways to avoid that happening in future, because this instability that is the regime, isn't going anywhere in the immediate short term. So I would be throwing. If they've got money to buy football clubs and they've got money to throw into Qatar, throwing billions into American universities, they've got the money to try and build something that cuts off Hormuz. So that's what, you know, that gives them time. And from an Israeli perspective, look, we don't quite know what will happen. We know that Lebanon as a ceasefire is included in that deal. Israel didn't sign it, though, so they're not obliged to stick to it. Although, of course, they have to balance that with the strategic rift that might occur with Washington if they don't do as they're told effectively. But if they are, if there is a ceasefire and both sides uphold it, I mean, Hezbollah will try and restock and rearm, and Israel can do the same. And actually, after two and a half, nearly three years of war, a pause and a deep breath for the idf, for the reservist system, for the Israeli economy, for Israeli politics, might not be a bad thing in very short term. But look, I think we have to contextualize this. In nearly 80 years of history, Israel has never been at peace. They've always been at some level of conflict, whether that's one of the high point violent wars like 67, Yom Kippur, you name it, or whether it's just been that low period between the wars when they've still had a security threat that they've had to use military means to defend themselves against. And what this could, I think, mean is that for at least a very short period, we're in one of those slight periods of breathing space where Israel can just recock, rearm, get back to a relatively stable footing and make the most of this pause that's been forced on them. Like I said, it's not a good thing. But. But you've got to try and, you know, when life gives you lemons, you've got to try and make lemonade. So I'm trying to look for the, you know, the silver linings here. And that is. I appreciate that. That is a good silver lining, I think.
- [09:02]
Mona Charon
Okay. All right, that's fair. I would ask you, though, about this. For decades, really, since the dawn of the Islamic Republic in 1979, one US administration after another has held, you know, in abeyance, but has certainly held a sort of place over the regime. They have said, if you do not cooperate with us, if you do not accede to our various demands, we can impose sanctions on you, which we've done. Or all options are on the table. That was the tag phrase, all options are on the table. And that was the implied threat of military action. Trump has now pulled the trigger. He has done the military action. He has thrown everything that he could throw at Iran, not everything that the US could potentially have done, but only that he could do. Why do I say that? Because he didn't seek national unity on this issue. He didn't bring along anybody in Congress or anybody in the country. So it was all his own doing. Therefore, the idea that we would actually use ground troops, hundreds of thousands, it would have required. Right, to actually invade the country, that was never possible. But he did throw everything that the U.S. air Force and Navy could muster at this country, and they weathered it. They just took the punch and they held on to power. And now that threat, it seems to me, is completely empty. From now on, when presidents say, well, you know, all options are on the table, the Iranians are going to say, yeah, that's not a worry for us. Right?
- [10:49]
Andrew Fox
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, how do we, how do we look for any kind of a bright spot in that dark cloud? And I think the way we look at it is that actually the 12 Day War was incredibly effective. You know, it didn't remove the regime, but it did degrade their missile stocks. And the air campaign here was effective in doing some of those things. Now, some reports say they've only destroyed 20% of the missile stock. Other estimates think up to half. But it doesn't really matter because Iran has proven itself a missile force in the Middle east, and that needs to be taken into consideration. So going forward, I think what you have to do is you have to look at the enemy strengths and then try and work out how you're going to offset them. And first of all, that looks like hummus and everything I just talked about in terms of trying to find ways to bypass it. Secondly, it looks like huge upgrades in missile and drone defenses around the Gulf states and around Israel. I mean, Israel's already all over this piece, but the Gulf states need an upgrade quite clearly because there have been some really big hits on Gulf infrastructure since the start of the war. And you try to put, you look at the failure that just happened and you work out why it failed and how you offset it. And the reason it failed is because, frankly, they didn't come in with a coherent idea of regime change. They suggested that there was a plan to have the Kurds come in from the northwest and maybe some other ethnic groups. That was actually switched off by Donald Trump. That was the original plan. He switched it off at Turkey's behest when Erdogan made a phone call. So look at how you do this. And I think the most effective thing we've seen is the choking off of the Iranian economy. But unfortunately, that ticking clock of Hormuz was running at the same time. So the American blockade didn't have the chance to fully reach its full potential. And I think that's the plan for going forward in future. I think a way to remove the regime with military force looks like the airstrike campaign that we've seen. But also a plan to make sure that hummus is no longer a choke point, a plan to put an economic blockade in place to make sure the regime is choked off. And then finally, the most important thing is making sure the Iranian people don't feel abandoned and have the ability to rise up and do what they need to do. And I think that looks very much like perhaps the resistance in France in 1940 onwards. Maybe it looks like the, you know, an SOE equivalent, special operations Executive, you know, security operatives and agents on the ground to help them do this. And it's dangerous and not safe and it's not easy. But, you know, we have to have something in our back pocket now that that trigger, as you say, has been pulled and shown to be not, not what's needed. We need to find something else. And I think it looks like what I've just described.
- [13:31]
Mona Charon
So you've described what the Gulf states should do, what Israel should do is. And looking forward at America's military posture. You know, there's been a lot of talk about us firing off, you know, half a million dollar missiles at, you know, $10,000 drones. Do. Does America need to retool in this new world of drone warfare and rethink our own defense posture and the things that we invest in?
- [14:07]
Andrew Fox
Yeah, I think so. And this is basically what my PhD is about, because it's really difficult. I mean, we have to look at the Ukraine war and what just happened in the Gulf and what's happening in Lebanon with the IDF as to how drones are being used against conventional type forces. Now, we mustn't draw the wrong conclusion because actually when you go to Ukraine and speak to the Ukrainians, what they're really begging for is air power, not drone defenses or drones. What they really need is fighter jets and bombers, because that's where the huge disparity is. And that's why they're having to focus on these cheap, you know, low altitude, low speed, low yield, explosively low yield drones. Whereas of course, America does have that air power and we've seen how incredibly effective it is. I mean, the amount of violence America was able to bring to bear in the Gulf is astonishing. No other army or military in the world could do that. But what you really need is a clear strategy. And I think that's where this really fell over. So yes, you need drones, you need drone defenses, but you also need the full Orchestra of warfare, shall we say. But you need a good conductor. And that's what I think this campaign was lacking. It didn't have a clear end state and how you had a military path to get there. It kind of bombed. And they assumed that that would just lead somehow to the regime's overthrow if he just killed all the top guys. And that didn't happen. And it's because everything boils down to strategy. It boils down to Clausewitz. He wrote about this in the early 1800s, and his words are timeless. And that is that war is an extension of, of politics with the admixture of other means. So if you don't have the political goal to work towards and a credible pathway to get there, it doesn't matter how many drones, anti drones or aircraft you have, it's still not going to work. And that's the really big lesson here. I think, in terms of what lesson America can learn going forward is you have to have a strategy. And Donald Trump has not had the right strategy in place for this war.
- [16:00]
Mona Charon
How do the nations of the region feel about US Leadership going forward? How much of an evaluation is there going to be about trusting the U.S. yes, we have tremendous power, but it has not been deployed wisely. We've also shown ourselves to be unreliable in the extreme. The Israelis are learning that now to their sorrow, with Netanyahu having unwisely hitched his wagon to Trump's star, and now Trump has, for his own reasons, deciding to throw him over. So I know the UAE has cemented its relations with the US but what about Qatar? What about some of the others? Is this going to change things?
- [16:50]
Andrew Fox
Well, Qatar have made a significant investment in Donald Trump, specifically. They have seen their inflation.
- [16:56]
Mona Charon
They bought him that jet. Right, exactly.
- [17:00]
Andrew Fox
They've seen their power grow exponentially since the start of the 7th of October, Warren. They've become a real mediator and a real player in the Gulf in a way that they weren't really before. They are probably one of the real winners of the war since 7th of October, and that's not a good thing because they're not a good country. They're, you know, Muslim Brotherhood. They. They have every intention to subvert our democracies and our education systems. But until people work up, you know, work out at the political level that this is a bad thing, they're kind of drunk on Qatari money. You know, if someone offers you billions of dollars, you're probably going to. Because that's just human nature. And unfortunately, we need to wake up to that particular threat. Likewise, Turkey have really positioned themselves brilliantly over this whole period, and they've made themselves a real player in Syria. They've expanded their influence in Washington. They managed to get that Kurdish ground offensive turned off during this war. So that's a concern as well. Erdogan is also concerned.
- [17:57]
Mona Charon
Can I just stop you there for one second?