General Stan McChrystal (3:37)

Yeah, I think if we go back to the American experience, starting in 1979, I was a young special forces officer and I remember that the American embassy in Tehran was seized and there were people chanting death to America. And that was upsetting. And that was only a few years after Vietnam. And so I think America was vulnerable emotionally. And then suddenly you have this country that had been our ally, at least in the minds of most Americans during the peacock regime of the Shah from 53 to 78. We felt comfortable with that. They were the bulwark of stability. And then suddenly in 79 we see these, the Ayatollah Khomeini and he doesn't want to negotiate. And then we watched a war break out between Iraq and Iran and most of us were far enough away to say, wow, good, somebody's taken on the Iranians. They don't like Americans, so it's somebody taking them on. And then in 1988, the US Vincennes mistook an Iranian airliner for an attacking F14. They thought it was and they killed 290 civilians. So if you take that period, Iran seemed like a recalcitrant enemy that hated us for some reason that we couldn't really understand.

David French (5:09)

Right.

General Stan McChrystal (5:09)

And then we get into 2007 when you were in Dialla and I'm leading a counterterrorist task force, we had to stand up an entirely new task force focused on the Shia militia that were supported by Iran. So the explosively formed projectiles and all of the things that Iran did to, to give them capability and it became a bitter fight. Yeah. So in the minds of someone like me and my force, of course they were the enemy. They were killing us and, and we were killing them. And it looked as though they were also a threat not just to the mission in Iraq, but the stability across the region. So it becomes an emotional feels like our lifelong enemies Now I'll stop there, but tell you, I think that's only part of the story.

David French (6:05)

Well, I mean, of course, if you're going to say if that's only part of the story, we have to keep going because, you know, if you wind it down, when say the surge started to wind down around 08 of 2009, 2010, there was a real sense that we had won in many ways, that we had really turned the tide. By the time I left in late 08, I remember the statistics when we got there, it was about a 25% chance if you drove out of the front gate of our base. So about a 25% chance of enemy contact, whether it's an IED, sniper fire, rockets, mortars, whatever. By the time we left, it was less than 1% chance. But the story doesn't end there, of course, General, the story keeps going. And Iranian supported militias have been a thorn in our side really in Iraq ever since. So let's pick it up after the surge. What happens next?

General Stan McChrystal (7:00)

Well, let's really pick it up before that because I think it's important. We have a tendency in America to view things in very short periods. Our year in Iraq, or in my case, five years in Iraq. Yeah, but we tend to come in and say we are going to fight the war to end all wars, at least in our minds. Right. But it really starts in 1953 when the US and British intelligence services overthrew the constitutionally elected Prime Minister and put back into power the peacock regime of the Shah. They oppressed the people tremendously through, particularly through Savak, the secret police. So when the Iranian revolution erupts in 1978, we may be surprised. The Iranian people are not surprised. And when they suddenly say death to America, most Americans are saying, what's your problem? Why are you angry at us? And then of course, we spoke earlier about the Iran Iraq War, which was for eight years, it was this brutal bloodletting. And so Iran survives this eight year extraordinary experience twice as long as the First World War. And it sets a mark upon the Iranian population that we shouldn't forget to this day, because the baby boomers are veterans of that experience and the clerics get a lot of support from them. So then after 2002, when George W. Bush names Iran to the axis of Evil, reportedly to their surprise, you start to continue this set of grievances. So I try to remind people, whenever we think of what's happening now, if we don't understand that journey to this point, we don't understand the Attitudes that are going to drive decisions people make.

David French (9:07)

So I'm so glad we have dived into this from the Iranian perspective because I think understanding the Iranian perspective really helps us maybe understand how the rest of this war might go, what kind of staying power, for example, the Iranians might have. And there have been comparisons, for example, to the lightning quick raid to get Maduro out of Venezuela. That was there some expectation that you could do something very rapid, very fast decapitation strike and really alter the behavior and composition of the regime in a substantial way. And my perception of that from the beginning was that that was a bit of a vain hope because you have a very different composition of enemy when you're talking about say a South American strongman versus an Islamic revolutionary regime. That the level of commitment that exists within the regime is just something, it's theological, sometimes it's apocalyptic. When we were in Iraq taking on Shia militias, the level of their commitment was such that, you know, for example, the medics who were treating wounded Shia fighters would sometimes report that the Shia fighters, even gravely wounded, would try to bite them or harm them in some way even though they were gravely wounded. That was the level of commitment. So we hear a lot about that the Iranian people are ready to rise up, that they're ready to overthrow this government. But at the same time we have seen extreme levels of commitment, even to the point of a million plus casualties. How are you judging sort of the state of the Iranian opposition at this moment? Is it brittle, is it fragile? Or are you seeing that 47 year long commitment continuing?

General Stan McChrystal (10:51)

Yeah, I really want to go two lines on this. The first is that question. I don't know because the Iranian opposition is not really evident. We saw in 2009, they came in the streets and they were sort of beaten back into submission. And then reportedly thousands of Iranians protesting were killed by the regime in recent months. But I couldn't name the opposition leader. Right. I couldn't tell you the liberation front of Iran. And I know that the Shah's son is going around, but I don't think he's a legitimate alternative. I think that we can't gauge the actual strength of the desire of Iranian people to change. And of course a war will often cause people to coalesce around their government to coalesce around. In your really well written article today, you said something I really believe in. You said, I'm an American, I want our side to win. I feel the same way. Even though I disagree with many of the things my government's doing. I'M unequivocal on this side, and that may be the case. The other thing I want to talk about, though, is because you brought up the Maduro raid, there are three great seductions that happen to American administrations and to military. The first is the idea of COVID action. And a new president comes in and he's told by the intelligence community, we can create this great effect, and it will be covert. No one will ever know who did it, and it'll just be a good outcome. And in my experience, it never stays covert and it rarely works, but it's seductive because it seems like an easy approach to a knotty problem. The second seduction is, which I lived as a part of, is the surgical Special Operations raid. And that. That is probably epitomized by the Maduro raid. And I would argue that we demonstrated extraordinary competence that night, but not much changed. I don't think that we actually demonstrated the ability to change the facts on the ground to any extent. Which gets to the third great seduction, and that's air power. And we all love air power. In World War II, we went into the war with the Duhei theories that air power, the bomber, will always get through, and therefore air power will be dominant. And it was certainly very, very contributory, but it was never dominant. When we got into Vietnam, which was the classic case. And we developed a strategy that said for North Vietnam, we will have a rheostat and an escalation strategy, and we will raise the pressure on them until we hit the point at which they're willing to quit. It's not worth it anymore. What we didn't perceive is, like the Shia wounded that your medics ran into, there was no point for North Vietnam. They were asymmetrically committed to the outcome. And so we've entered Iraq in 2003 with shock and awe, and then we spent a decade there fighting after it. I think that we fell for the seduction, that if we bomb key targets, that we will produce the outcome we want. But the outcome's in the minds of the people, and unless you're going to kill all the people, you may not affect that outcome. So we may be at a point. You use the word in your article, Quagmire, but we may be in a point where we've run into a country that has an extraordinary capacity to be bombed.

David French (14:54)

Right. General, let me make the case to you that has been made to me about air power in this current war, and that is, David, everything that you've walked through from the daylight bombing raids in 1943 to the air war over Kuwait during Desert Storm, all of those things. We just weren't as capable then as we are now. We have loitering drones. We have high visibility over the battlefield. We have in connection with the Israelis, we have deep penetration into the Iranian regime. This time it is different. This time we have more capability. What's your response to that argument?

General Stan McChrystal (15:38)

Yeah, since I've retired from the military, I've been involved in some investing, and I love that line. This time it's different. And I go, okay, I agree. The capability is so much more, and I have to keep an open mind that it is possible that the dynamic has changed so much that we finally hit a tipping point where it will be decisive. But I'm not seeing that, and I don't feel that. And the other part that I would bring out is we thought really early in Afghanistan that the people on the ground who we were targeting would be awed and intimidated by the bombing and that they would respect our capability in many ways. What we found, particularly with the tribal members, they were disdainful of it. They. They knew you could bomb them, but they said, if you're not willing to get down on the ground, look me in the eye and fight me mano a mano, then you are not morally on my level. And I think that we can't forget that people fight because of their passions. It's not a geopolitical calculation that's going to drive what Iran does. Eventually it will be what's in their hearts. And so this idea of decapitating the regime, and we've got this current leader where we killed his father, we killed his wife, we apparently banged him up pretty good, and then we say, well, that will make him more willing to negotiate. It wouldn't have that effect on me. No.

David French (17:20)

And it's 100% opposite of my own experience in dealing with Al Qaeda. So one of the things that I. You just sort of see this when you've been in the military and you're out of the military. One thing I'm very grateful for is that the military is still the most highly respected public institution in the United States. And I think there are a lot of good reasons for that. But it has also sort of led to a sense that we're supermen, that the military can accomplish almost the impossible until we look at a situation like the Strait of Hormuz is closed. And we think we can open that. Of course we can open that. So just give us some perspective on, as a practical, realistic matter, why is it hard why would it be hard to force open the Strait of Hormuz, or would it be hard?

General Stan McChrystal (18:10)

Yeah, it would be hard to keep it open. And so it is like what we found in Iraq. We could bomb Iraq pretty easily. We could even take Baghdad with relative ease. We could get rid of the existing government. But once we wanted to change the reality on the ground, who actually controlled things, how things worked, now you're not at 30,000ft, you're at 6ft, and you're the same height as your potential opponent. And I tell people about this war, if you like this war, enjoy this first part, because this is the best part, because everything after this will be harder because it will be more equal. Even though we will have bomb them, we'll have to get down to a level like in the Strait of Hormuz, where we've got ships potentially facing mines or even autonomous surface and under surface aircraft, all the different threats that they can bring out just to make it lousy. And it's not. They're not all coming after U.S. warships. They don't have to. They only have to shoot a civilian tanker or cargo vessel, you know, once a week.

David French (19:28)

Right.

General Stan McChrystal (19:28)

And then, then people go, well, I don't know what day they're going to strike somebody. So I'm not going to let my ships go now. And so they can have an effect with a fairly low level of effectiveness.

David French (19:41)

And the insurers won't ensure that the ships. In that circumstance, the financial risk becomes unacceptable, which renders it virtually impossible to transit the strait, because nobody's doing that with no insurance, with total financial exposure. So, General, when we're talking about the risks of the current war, there's been such an emphasis on the economic risk, in other words, that if the Strait of Hormoz remain closed or nearly closed, that we're going to talk about higher gas prices, rippling economic problems across the globe. We've been hearing about budgetary risks. The administration is seeking 200 billion or more dollars. But there's also another risk which is above these. The risk to the human lives of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines who are out there. And so how are you seeing the risk here to human life? What kind of escalating risks would we be facing to our own service members in this conflict?

General Stan McChrystal (20:47)

Yeah, I think it's great to bring up because we've fortunately suffered few casualties to date. But every casualty has a family and carries a loss, and we need to remember that. But if the war were to drag on, and, for example, if it gets grittier if we get forces on the ground, whether they're inside Iran or in neighboring areas, casualties will go up, frustration will go up. Now we have a volunteer military now, so it's largely limited to people who self selected in. But the reality is there is part of our society that goes in the military and there's a lot of our society that does not. And there starts to be a divide that comes from that and the resentment. And those are dynamics that you don't see early in a war but over time come home.

David French (21:37)

So, General, one thing that concerns me is this sort of civilian military divide that we do have. Only a very small percentage of people who serve the greatest. I believe it's still the case that the greatest indicator of service for you is that you had a family member serve. So it's a small self perpetuating part of our culture. And I'm not sure that's necessarily healthy for us over the long term that we essentially have a soldier caste or a warrior class that defends this democracy, but is increasingly separate from the rest of our society and culture. One of the questions I have is do you see that yourself also? And do you think that that could result potentially in a too great a willingness to use force? Obviously we have an extremely respected military, very trusted military. But do you see warning signs in that kind of divide?

General Stan McChrystal (22:32)

Well, I do on several ways. One, I agree with you. It's not healthy to have a military cast grow up, even though it's been largely professional and apolitical and all the good. But if you think about it, the propensity to go to war, at the end of the day, people who are professional soldiers, they have a reason to want conflict. I mean, the reality is it gives you a chance to work your craft and promotions. I mean, so they wouldn't even really think about it directly. But you become incentivized for the kinds of military actions that give that opportunity. Plus it increases defense budgets and whatnot. And then the other great danger is the more insulated the force is, the more potential for politicization. Particularly you have in the current environment where there have been generals fired simply because they don't fit in politically to the current administration. You start to shape that military and it starts to maybe align with a certain political leaning. When I was in the service, you never knew what your peers felt politically, you never talked about it.

David French (23:46)

Right.

General Stan McChrystal (23:47)

And I think that that's under pressure. And so I think the danger of having this separate entity is that after a while it starts to think of itself as, as We've seen in some countries, sort of the guardians of the Republic or of the nation. Right.

David French (24:06)

So. So let's even get a little bit bigger picture for a moment. How do you see this conflict fitting in with a more global grand American strategy, or does it fit in with a particular grand American strategy? Because we've had a lot of debates over the 10 years of the Trump era. Is he isolationist? And I think that that has sort of people have turned the page on that. Is he a guy who is interested in spheres of influence? Where are you seeing the Trump sort of, for lack of a better term, grand strategy in Trump 2.0?

General Stan McChrystal (24:39)

Yeah, I think the first thing we saw that was obvious is the America first idea economically. The tariffs were designed to encourage onshoring, things like that. The direct confrontation economically with China, same thing. But then you step back from that and you say, okay, what really provides security in a world that's interconnected? We can onshore things, but the reality, it's still interconnected and going to stay that way. We're not going to undo that. Well, in my view, it is credibility in the world, it is alliances, it is relationships you can trust on it is the rule of law writ large, international norms and rules and things like that. And I think President Trump took most of those on and said, they're unfair to America, you, allies don't carry your weight or any number of things. And so he weakened institutions, he challenged norms, he, in many cases eliminated relationships that we had under the idea that that was going to advantage the strongest dog left on the. On the block, which would be us. And I think that's proven not to be true. You can't be that strong to do that. I think the recent adventurism, I'll call it, I think it comes from this idea that there was a fair amount of success in threatening people early. I could threaten Canada, I could threaten Greenland, and there was no cost to it. Now, there was no military action taken, but there was no cost to it. And then shooting at the drug boats in the Caribbean were sort of a muscular way to do something. I don't think it had any effect, but. But to do something. The Maduro raid, I think, crossed a point in which the President got seduced by one of the things I mentioned, the idea that you can do something on the cheap if you're clever enough and you can pull it off. The thing about special operations missions is they are high risk. And we say, well, they're high risk, but they always work. No, they don't that's what makes them high risk.

David French (27:11)

Right.

General Stan McChrystal (27:11)

So I think he got emboldened by that. And then I think that the other dynamic was, of course, Israel. The October 7 attacks created a dynamic in Israel, and then that the operations in Gaza. And then there has been a dynamic driven by Prime Minister Netanyahu largely to expand Israel's security, expand Israel's power, expand all of the things that he would like, and to do away with the boogeyman, which was Iran. Those became just absolutely defining objectives that President Trump had always been in sympathy with. And now I think he sort of got caught up in the current of, you know, it starts moving that way.

David French (28:01)

Well, you know, there was a phrase used before October 7, mowing the lawn or mowing the grass, where essentially periodically you have conflict with Hamas or Hezbollah and you knock them back. You knock them back on their heels, and it takes them months or years to recover. And you just can sort of cycle rinse, repeat, and just keep doing that. But I think October 7th, in my view, should have blown up that idea that. That they had, quote, unquote, mowed the grass time and time again. And then Hamas, far from being cowed, was plotting this horrific, horrific, purely evil massacre. And so that creates a situation. You have threatening enemies. You have enemies who wish you harm, but you have no real capacity. You have an enormous capacity to damage them, but you have no real capacity to eliminate them, to destroy them. It's a serious strategic dilemma.

General Stan McChrystal (28:59)

It is, and we've seen it around the world. You see it in the west bank now. You see the reality that all of the resentment you create through what you do now at some point comes back to you. I think that for everyone we kill in bombing Iran, they have a brother, sister, father, mother, and they are unlikely to go, oh, yeah, it's okay, you killed my father. But, yeah, it was geopolitical necessity on your part. That's not the way we respond. And so sometimes it's necessary. I don't deny that some wars are just and required, but no wars that I'm familiar with are neat, clean, or produce the kind of outcome we actually want. They produce this messy thing that might be better than before the war, but it's not a lot better.

David French (29:52)

Right. So let's move on to some other issues. So one of the things that I am often asked about is leadership and leadership within the military. And, you know, you have been described as one of the finest leaders of men in combat in the modern American military. And what we are seeing right now in the current Secretary of Defense is a very, an enormous amount of bravado of, you know, sort of a, we are lethal. We, we will kill you, we will destroy you. You've got the, you've got the, you know, the bench pressing and the push ups and the, all of the everything. And I get a lot of questions, how does this land with soldiers? And my perspective, it has been, well, with some soldiers at land, they really like it. You know, they like it when a senior leader will get their hands dirty. They like it when a senior leader is fit and that they can share like they can do the same things that the, the guys on the line do. But at the same time, in my experience, bravado is not necessarily really appreciated. It's a more of a show, don't tell culture in the military. You've led men in combat for much of your life. Talk to me a bit about sort of that line between sort of bravado and cool, calm professionalism. How do you see all of that?

General Stan McChrystal (31:18)

I'm disappointed by the current atmosphere that is communicated from the top. I had the honor and opportunity to serve with some of the most elite forces, people who really did some extraordinary things, but they didn't beat their chest about it, right. And they weren't braggadocious and they didn't talk about, yeah, we love killing people. That's just not the way they behaved. Now, the danger, though, of some of that verbiage now is much of the force is 18 years old, right. And. And it's influenceable. And they see that and they go, wow, that's the way we ought to think. That's the way we ought to be. We are superior. And there's another reality that even in, particularly in today's military, you know, the number of people who really need to have big biceps and be able to kick open the door is minuscule, right? Because most of the force is intelligence, communications, logistics, all the enablers that allow you to, with great accuracy, put that very small number of operators. So when you say all people should look like me, that would be a disaster. You know, I think people ought to look like whatever they look like so that they are capable in their jobs. I think, you know, the idea that we wouldn't want gay or transgender service members to serve if they're good is preposterous. I, I want who's ever good to serve. And you also get different perspectives. And what we found in the counterterrorist force, when I was young, it was sort of homogenous. It was sort of white males with, you know, good posture. And by the time you got to Iraq 2007, as we had matured, it had become a meritocracy of older men and women, young people, all this different because they had proven they were contributory to the fight. So your ticket to being accepted was no longer just your bench press. It was now, are you smart? Are you committed? Will you be a good colleague? And that became a much healthier force, if we would think that way. I think it's a healthier way for military service to be. And I even have a problem with the word warrior. And it's not because you can't say what, the warrior ethos is bad. But traditionally, warriors were separate from soldiers. And the difference between an army and a mob is discipline and leadership and the uniform code of military justice. It's why we operate in a certain controlled way. Because when you give young people the ability to carry weapons that can take life, you have to have a level of discipline, part of which is values and culture, and part of it is just military prescribed dispute. It's essential. Yeah.

David French (34:32)

You know, if I think of it like this, big brains are more important than big biceps. And if any military force in the world is teaching us that right now, it's Ukraine, which has used innovation, especially in drone warfare.

General Stan McChrystal (34:47)

That's right.

David French (34:47)

They're still surprising us. It feels like. I don't know. You know, you may be less surprised than me, General, but Ukraine is consistently surprising me every six to nine months with its extraordinary resilience. And, you know, just to. To switch gears a tiny bit from Iran, it feels to me as if one of the outcomes, if we are able to achieve a satisfactory resolution in the fight against and Ukraine's fight against Russia, that at the end of the day, we'll have added to the Western alliance one of the most capable militaries and most potent militaries in the world at the end of this conflict.

General Stan McChrystal (35:26)

Yeah. I mean, there is no way to take away the value of on the ground experience and that experience of having to innovate. Armies don't innovate well in peacetime. Too many limitations in wartime, particularly to survive. Ukraine has been just a hotbed of constant innovation. And so if we're not going to school on that and if we're not trying to replicate that energy to innovate in our force, then we're missing a requirement.

David French (35:58)

Well, General, you've been very generous with your time, but I wanted to end because I want you to give you a chance to tell me how wrong I am about something. And that is you've been an advocate for national service, a mandatory national service for young people. And I'm a huge believer in service. One of my greatest regrets in my life is I didn't join the military until I was in my mid-30s. I wish I had done it when I was much younger. General, I can tell you, a mid, a 36 year old lawyer in officer basic is not the greatest site in the world, I have to say, but I made it through. So I'm a huge believer in service, whether it's joining the military, Teach for America, Peace Corps, you name it. But that sort of libertarian side of me is saying it's too much to make people do it. We should urge them, we should not make them. But my understanding is you're an advocate of sort of a mandatory national service, not a conscription into the military necessarily, but national service. Tell me your perspective on that. Why is my voluntary emphasis going to be ultimately wrong?

General Stan McChrystal (37:03)

Yeah, it's funny because when I first thought about national service, I thought mandatory. And then they talked me off the ledge and they said, no, it needs to be voluntary. And so for a decade I hewed to the line that it should be voluntary but expected, culturally expected. I'm back to mandatory now. And so I go back to why did 36 year old David French go into the military and go to serve? Because he was not the same person that he was at 17 or 18. If you had been as mature then, you'd have done service then maybe Teach for America or something. The point is, my life choices at 17 or 18 weren't the best and they were on record as having been very problematic. But the point is, I think if we wait for everybody to arrive at the right answer, just way too many, and you are affected by your peers and whatnot. I think if we just said the heck with it, it's mandatory and give a range of different options, but what I think it would do is it would be a great leveler in American society. It would be something that every American had do. And they would, when they got together later in life, they might joke about stuff, but they'd start the conversation, well, where did you serve?

David French (38:23)

Right.

General Stan McChrystal (38:24)

I taught New Orleans, I did X or you know, whatever. And it would be a way to bridge divides and you know, all of us could use a period in our lives when we're doing something that's inconvenient or maybe unpleasant or that sort of thing, we come out better for it. And I know that says, who am I at 71 to tell young people what they ought to be doing. Well, if I can't do it now, when can I do it?

David French (38:52)

Well, General, this has been a real pleasure. I really appreciate you giving me the chance to pick your brain on some of the most thorny issues that we're dealing with right now as a nation and a culture. Very much appreciate it.

General Stan McChrystal (39:06)

Well, you're kind to have me, Dave. Thank you.

Podcast Host/Producer (39:30)

If you like this show, follow it on YouTube, Spotify or Apple. The opinions is produced by Derek Arthur Vishaka Darba, Victoria Chamberlain and Gillian Weinberger. It's edited by Gillian Weinberger, Jasmine Romero and Kari Pitkin. Mixing by Pat McCusker. Original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Sabaro, Efim Shapiro and Amin Sahota. The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. The head of operations is Shannon Busta. Audience support by Christina Samulewski. The director of opinion shows is Annie Rose Strasser.

Redfin Sponsor (40:28)

There's a difference between liking a house and actually getting it. Redfin is built to close that gap. Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents, so when you find a home you love, you're not a step behind when it's time to make an offer. That means less watching great homes disappear and more zeroing in on the one you'll actually end up calling home. Redfin helps turn saved listings into to real addresses. Get started at redfin. Com Own the dream.