Israel came out on top, but hasn't achieved its aims: Ex-Pentagon official

India Today

In an exclusive interview with India Today, Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official, said that Israel came out on top in the war but hasn't achieved its aims.

Transcript

00:00And joining me now, my first guest tonight is someone who's tracked the Trump administration

00:10in American government for years. Michael Rubin joins me there from Washington. Appreciate

00:15you joining us, Mr. Rubin. 12-day war. Let's cut the chase and ask the big question. Who's

00:21really won and lost this war? Israel came out on top. They haven't won because they haven't

00:30achieved their aims. The uranium, the enriched uranium stockpile is still missing. But it

00:36does appear that Iran's nuclear program has been set back considerably. That said, Iran

00:44can still reconstitute this and the ceasefire may have snatched defeat from the jaws of

00:49victory. Let's get that again. You're saying the ceasefire may have snatched defeat from

00:55the jaws of victory. Are you saying, therefore, that Israel was not keen on a ceasefire, that

01:00they were pushed into this ceasefire, possibly by American pressure or dare one say Qatari

01:06mediation? Israel was pushed into the ceasefire by American pressure. And we've seen that from

01:13the statements of Donald Trump. At the same time, all sides, I think, understood that there

01:18needed to be a pause because we're coming up to the month of Muharram in the Islamic calendar.

01:24And of course, on the 10th of Muharram is one of the major Shiite holidays where religious

01:30passions are naturally high. Israel didn't want to be bombing Iran at a time when the Ayatollah

01:37could really wrap people around the nationalist and religious flag.

01:42You mentioned Donald Trump briefly there and possibly his statements coming out in the

01:48last few hours suggest that, Mr. Rubin, that he was more exasperated than doing any kind

01:56of victory lap. You know, when he mentioned Israel and Iran in the same breath and almost

02:02hyphenated them, saying he was angry with both of them, even used the F word, you sense a sense

02:09of exasperation. Is that how he felt, you think? Why wasn't he doing some kind of a victory lap?

02:15No, I think Donald Trump truly believes that he can control the world and that if he tells people,

02:24he doesn't, if he tells other countries to do something, he expects that they will do that.

02:30What he is discovering is that countries will always prioritize their own national interests

02:36over Donald Trump's feelings. The Israelis have made clear that even if there is a ceasefire,

02:41from here on in, they're going to treat the Islamic Republic of Iran much the way they

02:47treated Hezbollah. If they derive any intelligence, they are not going to hesitate to strike. In effect,

02:56Iran has become the new southern Lebanon. In effect, also, does that mean that we have a very

03:03fragile peace, that it could take the slightest incident for this fragile truce to break?

03:10Well, absolutely. That's the nature of most ceasefires. Ceasefire is Paul's combat. They're not

03:16the same as peace agreements. And so we are very, very far from any sense of peace. The next question,

03:22however, and this is where the frustration of Donald Trump will likely grow with Iran,

03:27is whether they are going to fulfill his demand that they forfeit entirely their nuclear program.

03:35The Iranians don't seem to be in the mood to do that. But Donald Trump isn't your ordinary president,

03:41isn't your ordinary diplomat. He's simply not going to allow the Iranians to change the context

03:46or to prioritize the process over the end result.

03:50No. So, Mr. Rubin, what then have the Americans and the Israelis really achieved?

03:55I know that they claim that their stated objective, certainly the Americans' claim was not regime

04:01change. Either way, as of now, we don't see regime change or even regime collapse. We are still

04:07uncertain just where Iran's uranium-enriching nuclear stockpile lies. We don't know whether

04:13that's been fully destroyed or not. So, what really has been achieved in your sense over these 12 days?

04:20Let's just look at a sheet of paper and see what has been achieved and what has not been achieved.

04:28Okay.

04:28The not been achieved is regime change, if that was the goal. It was the goal of Israel,

04:33not of the United States. And we don't know where all the enriched uranium is. Those are the

04:38two drawbacks. What has been achieved is the destruction for months, if not years,

04:44of key Iranian facilities, Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. Whether or not Fordow has been as destroyed

04:54as Donald Trump has claimed, whether or not it has been obliterated, it's not ready for operation.

05:00And even if you had the best Russian, Chinese, or North Korean scientists and engineers working,

05:06you're still months or years away from reconstituting that.

05:09And so, ultimately, the Iranians are reeling. At the same time, the Israelis have managed to sow chaos

05:17within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It's one thing to appoint someone new to take over

05:22the position of someone who has been killed. It's another thing to build their skill set.

05:28And what Israel has successfully done is create a paranoia that corrodes within the Islamic

05:34Revolutionary Guard Corps and the office of the Supreme Leader, because no one knows where the

05:41spies are. I mean, paranoia just runs supreme.

05:45But there will be those who will say that this regime, Mr. Rubin, has survived to fight another day.

05:51We've seen in the past the regime has this unique ability to reinvent itself almost without giving up

05:58on its core goals. And that's happened for the last 45 years. Do you believe this time it's been

06:03very different that this 12-day war has changed that fundamentally, that this regime therefore

06:09could well be having its last 10?

06:12Well, you know, let's compare this war with the Iran-Iraq war. During the Iran-Iraq war,

06:17people rallied around the flag because they saw themselves as defending Iran. When Israel attacked,

06:24people haven't really rallied around the regime so much. In fact, many Iranians have been pointing out

06:29on social media that the casualties, even by official figures that Israel caused, the civilian

06:35casualties, are far less than the casualties when the Iranians cracked down on protests in 2019 and

06:442022. So there is persistent anger directed at the regime. This is my fear, however. You know,

06:51when Saddam Hussein was forced out of Kuwait, George H.W. Bush got up and said,

06:57I call upon the people of Iraq to rise up and throw off Saddam Hussein. And they did. And then

07:03the United States and the international community stood aside while Saddam Hussein massacred tens of

07:08thousands. If this regime reconstitutes, the bloodbath in Iran is going to be supreme.

07:14I want to ask you this, Michael, because there's a lot of confusion over what actually led to the

07:21ceasefire. Last night at this time, we were getting breaking news of how Iran was targeting

07:27U.S. air bases in Qatar. And that seemed to throw the world into a bit of a tailspin again. Is this

07:33conflict escalating? What happens this morning? Donald Trump unilaterally announces a ceasefire.

07:38What really changed? Was it the Qatari involvement? What made Iran and Israel agree so readily to a

07:45ceasefire? Well, you know, the attack on the Al-Udeid airbase in Qatar was mostly performative.

07:52It was ripped from the Ayatollah's playbook after the assassination of Quds Force Chief Qasem Soleimani

07:58on June 3rd, 2020. Basically, you bluster and then you warn the Americans the attack is coming so that

08:07no one gets injured and you're signaling that you want to save face, but you also want an off-ramp.

08:12So the Americans believe that the Iranians wanted an off-ramp. What's really looming in the background,

08:17however, is that you have these Shiite holidays coming up and analysts are afraid of a situation

08:26in which ordinary Iranians might be riled up with religious passion. And so they want to deny

08:33Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that opportunity. The Israelis are fully cognizant of this as well.

08:39From a Trump point of view, do you believe this has strengthened him or does it weaken him?

08:44We saw with the India-Pakistan ceasefire, Donald Trump rushing in to take credit. He's trying to do

08:49it again. You've told me in the past how he wants to be at the center of every such agreement that's made

08:56or anything that's happening in the world. But have the last 12 days actually split apart his MAGA,

09:02make America great again coalition, or has it strengthened him?

09:06You know, I think he might come off a little bit strengthened. The MAGA coalition was always

09:11vociferous and the sort of political rhetoric we have now has also been consistent. Now, what's

09:18actually going to happen as we start going towards midterm elections in the United States

09:22is Donald Trump is going to see who among his own coalition spoke against him, and they are going

09:28to get primary. They're going to have to face someone else striving for their job supported by

09:33Donald Trump. And so Donald Trump is going to try to impose loyalty going into the second half of his

09:41term. And, you know, those preambles to those midterm elections are already starting.

09:47Just a couple of more questions, Michael. Is your sense, particularly with what Netanyahu has

09:54done to Hezbollah, to the Houthis, to taking on Hamas and now Iran, is West Asia, Middle East now

10:04going to be a little bit more stable in the near term? Or do you believe what we've seen in the last

10:0912 days could erupt any time in the near future? And therefore, we're heading for a period of chronic

10:14instability. Well, I think it's somewhere in between. The Islamic Republic has always been

10:20a source of instability, at least from the United States perspective, and from the perspective of

10:26many Arab states in West Asia. That said, it's a positive that they no longer have control over

10:34Hezbollah, that the Iraqi militias are largely staying in their barracks and so forth. My fear,

10:40and this is something to which too many American policymakers are blind, is that all these so-called

10:45resistance groups, which have been orphaned, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iraqi militias, could actually be

10:54adopted by another state like Turkey or Pakistan, or perhaps both of them.

11:00So in that sense, from an Indian perspective, Michael, should India be, how should India see

11:05the developments of the last 12 days? We've seen Donald Trump entertain and launch the Pakistani

11:13Army Chief General Munir. There was a sense that he wanted Pakistan support as a state, as a country

11:20which shares a large border with Iran to be on America's side. Is there, should India feel sanguine

11:26about what's happened? Uh, we generally seem to have, uh, been supportive of Israel without saying

11:32so openly. We've remained at least relatively neutral. How do you see India's options as, uh,

11:40as these various fault lines emerge?

11:42You know, first of all, uh, Donald Trump's loyalty is not long. And so, Asim Munir may believe that he is

11:51Donald Trump's best friend, but make no mistake, Donald Trump isn't going to hesitate to throw

11:57Asim Munir under the bus. I think that Prime Minister Modi was wise for not getting dragged in

12:03to an amateurish and counterproductive photo opportunity. That said, India has tremendous

12:10potential to leverage its interests here. After all, I can't think of another country in the world

12:15against the backdrop of this crisis that enjoys the confidence of Washington and Jerusalem and

12:22Tehran. My final question, we started off by saying who are the big winners? Who's the biggest loser

12:27according to you? I think the biggest loser is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, without a doubt.

12:33The biggest loser is probably the Houthis, even though they don't realize it yet, because Iran is going

12:39to be inwardly focused as they try to, um, ensure their own stability. The periphery, I mean, no

12:45Persian is going to die for an Arab. Uh, and the periphery, if they don't realize that the so-called

12:50axis of resistance, they deserve what's coming to them. Michael Rubin, as always for speaking so

12:55plainly and clearly pleasure talking to you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much.

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