00:00Jamie, welcome back. The American government had previously claimed that they had decimated Iran's air defences.
00:06What does the downing of this F-15 US fighter jet say about Iran's military capabilities?
00:13Well, it suggests, Jamie, and good afternoon to you, and thanks for having me back on.
00:18It suggests that Iran, of course, has squirreled away, despite 12,000 US attacks on it so far,
00:25that Iran has squirreled away a number of so-called pop-up systems.
00:29They could be, for example, ballistic missile launchers or drone launchers,
00:34which explain why Iran is still able to sort of strike targets in the Gulf, oil refineries,
00:40the tech companies that your previous correspondent was talking about, and also pop-up air defence systems.
00:45I mean, some air defence systems, like the Russian-made S-400s and S-500s, require a great deal of
00:51infrastructure.
00:51But older SA-10, SA-8, SA-12 systems are much easier to hide and can be quickly launched.
01:00And the F-15 Strike Eagle fighter, the one that's been shot down, is a fourth-generation fighter.
01:07It doesn't have the same stealth defensive technology that some of the more modern US planes, like the F-35,
01:14have.
01:14So it flies at fairly low altitude for its bombing runs, and so it's an easier target for the Uranus
01:20to strike.
01:20All of which begs the question, then, has the United States underestimated Iran, as well as the global fallout from
01:29this conflict?
01:30Well, it certainly, I think, underestimated the Iranian resilience.
01:35First of all, of course, in terms of being able to decapitate the leadership, as in Venezuela,
01:40and expecting other leaders to immediately fall in behind the United States.
01:45That hasn't happened. The Iranian leadership has been decentralised.
01:49New leaders have emerged quickly to replace those that have been killed.
01:52And they are just as defiant as the old leadership.
01:56So we haven't really seen any crumbling of Iranian resistance there.
02:00Secondly, of course, Iran has an economic weapon.
02:03In exchange for the US weapon of mass destruction, it has the weapon of mass disruption,
02:08in terms of closing the Strait of Hormuz with all of the economic pressure.
02:12That seems to be working very well for the Iranians at the moment,
02:15and putting President Trump on the back foot with oil prices, petrol prices, spiralling in the United States.
02:21And so the Iranians are hanging on to that.
02:23And I think, thirdly, yes, the Iranians, despite the military damage that they have sustained,
02:29have shown that even with limited residual capability,
02:33for example, a few air defence systems or a few drones or a few ballistic missiles,
02:37even if they fire them much more sporadically than what the Americans are able to do,
02:41they can still retaliate and they can still inflict a great deal of that economic damage,
02:46which is their main weapon going forward.
02:49Given where we are all these weeks in,
02:51what is the likelihood, do you think, of seeing US boots on the ground in Iran in this conflict?
02:59Well, we might see them immediately, Jamie,
03:01because we've been talking about this F-15 strike Eagle that's been shot down,
03:06the search for the second pilot.
03:08And, of course, the longer that search goes on,
03:11the more the United States may have to put ground forces in, special forces in,
03:15to cover the territory, to sort of fight back Iranian forces
03:19that will also be looking for this missing pilot and perform an extraction.
03:24And we saw, you remember, back in Somalia in the 1990s,
03:28that this could also lead to very large numbers of American casualties
03:32if those boots on the ground get involved in a firefight.
03:35The other aspect of boots on the ground, of course,
03:37is occupying Karg Island in the Straits of Hormuz
03:39or the coast of Iran along the Straits to try to reopen the Straits.
03:44President Trump has certainly got the wherewithal,
03:47in terms of troop numbers in the region,
03:48about 10,000 Marines and special forces.
03:52So he could potentially do something.
03:55But, number one, this ground operation is extremely unpopular
03:59with American public opinion, including among his own MAGA base.
04:03And he would be taking an enormous political risk to do that.
04:07And, number two, President Trump keeps flying hot and cold
04:10whether he wants the U.S. to reopen the Straits of Hormuz
04:13or just think that it's going to happen naturally,
04:16as he said the other day in his address to the nation,
04:19once the conflict is over, or drop the problem onto the Europeans
04:24and then let them do the job.
04:26So, yes, he has the option, but there's no sign of any consistent strategy
04:30towards which those American forces, those ground forces, would be employed.
04:36Jamie, good to see you.
04:37Jamie Shea, Senior Fellow of the Friends of Europe Think Tank
04:40and former NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General.
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