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05:17In the past, there's only been one case of that in the past, but generally as you look at the
05:24candidates for this, they tend to be pretty hardline ideologues similar to the most recent Supreme Leader.
05:33And you've seen already defiance by the foreign minister. He's the one person who has spoken publicly on this.
05:41So again, I think we have to be cautious about our hopes that a pragmatic figure could emerge.
05:46It's by no means impossible. Kareem Sadjapur, the great Iranian analyst here in the United States, has noted that it
05:53used to be that the regime was comprised of 80 percent true believers, true ideologues, hardliners, and 20 percent charlatans,
06:03they're called.
06:03They're just basically opportunists trying to get what they can by being part of the regime.
06:08But now it's 20 percent hardliners and 80 percent charlatans.
06:13So the possibility is there, certainly, that someone could emerge who might say, look, Mr. President, you're right.
06:21And what the nuclear program and the arming of proxies and our killing of Americans and Arabs and Israelis has
06:29brought us is ruin.
06:31And we see the error of our ways and we want to sail straight.
06:35We want to get along with our neighbors and those in the region and with you.
06:40And we're willing to give up our aspirations in all these cases.
06:43That would obviously be a very dramatic departure.
06:47In terms of what we could expect to see next in terms of the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign in Iran,
06:55do you think that this could extend into a prolonged war?
07:00We saw the war secretary, Pete Hegseth, today refusing to rule out potentially troops on the ground.
07:07Do you think that this could evolve into something more dangerous, more spiraling than the U.S. maybe originally intended?
07:15No, I think the president and the secretary and others have been very clear that we're not going to put
07:19boots on the ground.
07:21And frankly, I think that as the days go by, while noting that there is still a very real possibility
07:26of 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 the drones.
07:47So I think they will be hard-pressed to maintain even remotely what the pace has been by Iran so
07:54far.
07:54And there's been so much damage to the command and control facilities and indeed the commanders themselves
08:00that this is all quite decentralized now, but it appears that they plan for this.
08:05Yet we are seeing quite a relentless response from Iran.
08:09We've seen unmanned vehicles, drones flying towards the EU island state of Cyprus, for example.
08:16Do you think they've been preparing for this, that the response is intentionally relentless in order to scare off the
08:25U.S.?
08:25Because we are seeing talk of...
08:27Well, they're not going to scare off the U.S., so put that aside.
08:30They have retaliated, as I noted, and I do think that they did prepare for the eventuality
08:36that there may not be central command and control, and they have a deck of targets that they are executing.
08:42We'll see if that pattern continues.
08:45It's premature to assess based on that.
08:48But no, our focus is on what they have that they can use to retaliate.
08:54We are seeing, General, also European nations talking about potentially supporting the defensive capacities of the U.S., including the
09:04U.K.
09:05Do you think President Trump is expecting the support of its European allies here and is counting on them to
09:12support this operation in some way?
09:14I think the plan that was conceived was essentially the U.S. and Israel and then the host nations in
09:21the region
09:21whose air and ballistic missile defenses are always integrated into those of the U.S. and Israel.
09:28I don't think there was an assumption made that the Europeans would join in.
09:32It would have been good if they had, at least for defensive purposes from the very beginning, because it's very
09:38clear,
09:39it should have been clear at the outset that Iran is not going to limit its targets to just U
09:45.S. bases, Israel, and so forth.
09:48It's going after civilian targets, airfields, ports, and so forth in the Gulf states and beyond,
09:55and 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 the retaliatory
10:11capabilities of the U.S. and Israel.
10:14Is that something that you can foresee happening, European nations joining in a more offensive capacity?
10:19My understanding is that that has been discussed.
10:22I don't know that I'd predict what the outcome would be, but the fact that it's just being discussed,
10:27I think, indicates that it's certainly a possibility.
10:30Very briefly, just to close off, do you believe that the U.S. has the lessons learned from its experience
10:37in Iraq in mind here,
10:39when we know that Saddam Hussein's government and administration was completely wiped out by the U.S.,
10:46leaving the country essentially not functioning?
10:49Is that something you feel that the U.S. administration is bearing in mind as it continues with this campaign?
10:54Well, very much so.
10:55I think they've been explicitly clear about that.
10:59I'd just also note that it was not just that the regime was toppled,
11:03it's that we then took some catastrophically bad decisions.
11:07I was part of the invasion force, and we were cut off at the knees
11:10when the decision was made to fire the entire Iraqi military without telling them how we were going to enable
11:17them
11:17to provide for themselves and their families.
11:19And then when we fired the entire Ba'ath Party down to level four,
11:24the level at which it was tens of thousands of bureaucrats, many Western educated,
11:28that we needed and were already using to help us in a country that we didn't sufficiently understand.
11:36So it wasn't, we could have very quickly, I think, brought back major elements of it
11:42and had sort of a Venezuela light, if you will,
11:45because the top levels clearly were gone or in the deck of cards to be pursued.
11:51Okay. General, thank you so much for your time and for joining us on your own.
11:54Good to be with you. Thank you.
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