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04:30Do you think we could potentially see a situation similar to what we saw in Venezuela, where
04:35the head, the figurehead of the regime is removed, but we potentially see a slightly softened,
04:42more moderate version of that same regime come into force? Is that something President Donald
04:49Trump could contemplate accepting? I think the answer to that is yes, and I think that it is
04:55possible. It's conceivable. I don't know that it is the most likely outcome. Keep in mind that,
05:01as you noted, there is an interim council right now led by the president, the senior judicial
05:06official, and a cleric that are taking the place of the supreme leader. The assembly of experts will
05:12gather the conclave, if you will, that will select the next supreme leader. In the past, there's only
05:20been one case of that in the past. But generally, as you look at the candidates for this, they tend
05:26to
05:26be pretty hardline ideologues, similar to the most recent supreme leader. And you've seen already
05:35defiance by the foreign minister. He's the one person who has spoken publicly on this. So again,
05:42I think we have to be cautious about our hopes that a pragmatic figure could emerge. It's by no means
05:47impossible. Kareem Sajjapur, the great Iranian analyst here in the United States, has noted that
05:52it used to be that the regime was comprised of 80 percent true believers, true ideologues,
05:59hardliners, and 20 percent charlatans, they're called. They're just basically opportunists trying
06:05to get what they can by being part of the regime. But now it's 20 percent hardliners and 80 percent
06:12charlatans. So the possibility is there, certainly, that someone could emerge who might say, look,
06:19Mr. President, you're right. What the nuclear program and the arming of proxies and our killing
06:25of Americans and Arabs and Israelis has brought us is ruined. And we see the error of our ways and
06:33we
06:34want to sail straight. We want to get along with our neighbors and those in the region and with you.
06:39And we're willing to give up our aspirations in all these cases. That would obviously be a very
06:46dramatic departure. In terms of what we could expect to see next in terms of the joint U.S.-Israeli
06:53campaign in Iran, do you think that this could extend into a prolonged war? We saw the
07:01war secretary, Pete Hegseth, today refusing to rule out potentially troops on the ground. Do you think
07:08that this could evolve into something more dangerous, more spiraling than the U.S. maybe
07:13originally intended? No, I think the president and the secretary and others have been very clear that
07:18we're not going to put boots on the ground. And frankly, I think that as the days go by,
07:24while noting that there is still a very real possibility of additional casualties,
07:28again, those in host nations, those in Israel, those of American forces and others,
07:33that over time there will be a degradation of the ability of Iran to retaliate,
07:39will continue to reduce their missile stocks, the launchers, the short-range missiles, and even
07:46the drones. So I think they will be hard-pressed to maintain even remotely what the pace has been by
07:53Iran so far. And there's been so much damage to the command control facilities and indeed the
07:59commanders themselves that this is all quite decentralized now, but it appears that they
08:03planned for this. Yet we are seeing quite a relentless response from Iran. We've seen
08:10unmanned vehicles, drones flying towards the EU island state of Cyprus, for example. Do you think
08:17they've been preparing for this, that the response is intentionally relentless in order to scare off the
08:25U.S.? Because we are seeing talk of- Well, they're not going to scare off the U.S., so
08:29put that aside.
08:30They have retaliated, as I noted, and I do think that they did prepare for the eventuality that there
08:36may not be central command and control, and they have a deck of targets that they are executing.
08:43We'll see if that pattern continues. It's premature to assess based on that. But no, our focus is on
08:51what they have that they can use to retaliate. We are seeing, General, also European nations
08:58talking about potentially supporting the defensive capacities of the U.S., including the U.K. Do you
09:05think President Trump is expecting the support of its European allies here and is counting on them
09:11to support this operation in some way? I think the plan that was conceived was essentially the U.S.
09:18and Israel and then the host nations in the region whose air and ballistic missile defenses are always
09:24integrated into those of the U.S. and Israel. I don't think there was an assumption made that the
09:31Europeans would join in. It would have been good if they had, at least for defensive purposes from the
09:37very beginning, because it's very clear, it should have been clear at the outset, that Iran is not going
09:43to limit its targets to just U.S. bases, Israel, and so forth. It's going after civilian targets,
09:50airfields, ports, and so forth in the Gulf states and beyond, and reaching as far as Cyprus, as you noted.
09:59So I think from a purely defensive standpoint, that would have been wise from the beginning.
10:04The question now is whether or not they go on the offensive and start contributing to taking down
10:10the retaliatory capabilities of the U.S. and Israel.
10:14Is that something that you can foresee happening? European nations joining in a more offensive
10:19capacity? My understanding is that that has been discussed. I don't know that I'd predict what the
10:24outcome would be, but the fact that it's just being discussed, I think, indicates that it's certainly
10:29a possibility. Very briefly, just to close off, do you believe that the U.S. has the lessons learned
10:36from its experience in Iraq in mind here when we know that Saddam Hussein's government and administration
10:42was completely wiped out by the U.S., leaving the country essentially not functioning? Is that
10:49something you feel that the U.S. administration is bearing in mind as it continues with this campaign?
10:54Well, very much so. I think they've been explicitly clear about that. I'd just also note that it was not
11:01just that the regime was toppled, is that we then took some catastrophically bad decisions. I was part
11:07of the invasion force, and we were cut off at the knees when the decision was made to fire the
11:12entire
11:12Iraqi military without telling them how we were going to enable them to provide for themselves and their
11:18families. And then when we fired the entire Ba'ath Party down to level four, the level at which it
11:25was
11:25tens of thousands of bureaucrats, many Western educated, that we needed and were already using
11:31to help us in a country that we didn't sufficiently understand. So we could have very quickly, I think,
11:39brought back major elements of it and had sort of a Venezuela light, if you will, because the top
11:46levels clearly were gone or in the deck of cards to be pursued.
11:50Okay. General, thank you so much for your time and for joining us on U.S. Good to be with
11:54you. Thank you.
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