Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - EMERGENCY EPISODE - Israel Attacks Iran: with Nadav Eyal and Jonathan Schanzer

Episode Date: October 26, 2024

WATCH THE CONVERSATION ON YOUTUBE: youtu.be/ERj4GQ82wcwLIVE EVENT ALERT – PITTSBURGH: On Monday October 28th at 6:00 PM, Dan will be speaking at a live event in conversation with Dave McCormick, combat veteran, former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, and candidate for U.S. Senate. A West Point graduate, Dave was deployed to the Middle East during the first Gulf War with the 82nd Airborne Division. He later served as the Under Secretary of Treasury and Deputy National Security Advisor. Dave has distinguished himself as an outspoken ally of the Jewish community and of the U.S.-Israel relationship. In Pittsburg, Dan and Dave will have a conversation before a live audience and take questions. To register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dan-senor-and-dave-mccormick-live-in-pittsburgh-tickets-1042361389977?aff=oddtdtcreator TODAY’S EPISODE: To help us better understand what happened with Israel’s military operation against Iran, Nadav Eyal and Jonathan Schanzer join us for an emergency episode of the podcast. NADAV EYAL is a columnist for Yediiot. He is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. Dr. JONATHAN SCHANZER is senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Jon previously worked as a terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he played an integral role in the designation of numerous terrorist financiers. Jonathan has studied Middle East history in four countries. He earned his PhD from King’s College London, where he wrote his dissertation on the U.S. Congress and its efforts to combat terrorism in the 20th century. He speaks Arabic and Hebrew.  CREDITS: ILAN BENATAR - Producer and EditorREBECCA STROM - Media ManagerMARTIN HUERGO - EditorIDAN COHEN - Military Intelligence Research 

The pilots last night, and we're talking about probably somewhere around a third to a half of the Israeli Air Force was deployed last night, from what I understand. And they stayed up in the air for hours and hours on end, carrying out three waves of strikes. And they did so with deadly efficiency, and they all came home and had breakfast with their families. That is a remarkable feat in and of itself. It's 10.45 a.m. on October 26th here in New York City. It's 5.45 p in Israel. With me today are Nadav Eyal of Yediot Akhronot and Jonathan Shanzer from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies to talk about Israel's attack in Iran last night. Before we jump into the conversation, just one quick note. On Monday

night, October 28th at 6 o'clock pm., I will be in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with my friend Dave McCormick, combat veteran, former Pittsburgh about national security more broadly, the U.S.-Israel relationship and events over this past weekend. If you want to register for the event, please just look for the link in the show notes and I'll also be posting it on X. Now into our conversation. Israel, as most of our listeners will know by the time they hear this, attacked Iran last night in several waves of attacks in what appears to be a particularly complex air operation at a distance of about 1,500 kilometers from the territory of Israel and also under many air threats from Iran and elsewhere. The attack, as we know it, was carried out by dozens of fighter jets, refueling planes, intelligence planes, while being prepared for an immediate rescue,

potentially, from enemy territory. So as far as we understand it, all of Israel's aircraft assets returned home safely to its various Air Force bases. We'll get into the targets, what they were, and what targets were successfully hit. Defense Minister Gallant and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin apparently talked, according to public reports, during the attacks for an update call and deal with some coordination of next steps. And Israel is obviously now anticipating what could follow this. I just want to start with understanding the actual attack. I'll start with you, Nadav, in terms of what your sources are telling you, just to give us a better understanding

of what and how Israel did last night. So Israel was preparing its response to the Iranian attack at the beginning of October, and it's preparing it even before that Iranian attack. I should remind the people listening to us that Israel responded in April with a very targeted strike as a response again to Iran's attack with hundreds of projectiles, unmanned drones and ballistic missiles shot at Israel. And since then, I think it was clear to Israeli decision makers that this might escalate again. The Iranian response back in April was a surprise to the Israeli intelligence. This is a story that we broke at the time. They didn't anticipate that the Iranians will react the way that they did react with a full-fledged frontal attack on the record attack against Israel. This was back in April. When they saw this, they started assuming, Dan,

that the next time that Israel does anything dramatic that might hit either Iranian targets or Iranian proxies, then the Iranians would strike again. And they started preparing the Israeli response in the last few months. And after Iran struck Israel substantially with ballistic missiles, and this time, I would say more effectively than the April attack, they started charting out what kind of response this is going to be. And there were basically three types of responses considered. The first one would be heavy duty hits against Iranian energy, symbols of government, and possibly even nuclear installations. This was taken almost immediately off the table. It wasn't only that the US administration was pressuring Israel not to do that. It was also about effectiveness. and it was about Israel not wanting this to

devolve into a full-fledged regional war. A second option was to have another sort of very targeted, slim attack against Iran. This was against ruled out because this time, and this is something we have said on your show, the general consensus within the Israeli defense apparatus and within the Israeli government is that this time, it's not only the regime that needs to understand what has happened, but also the people of the Islamic Republic need to know for themselves that Israel has hit Iran, and that this needs to be an effective strike in the mean that it will actually produce some results that will assist Israel if this again will escalate and if Israel will find itself in a full-fledged war with Iran. So more than 100 combat aircrafts, including fighter jets, unmanned drones,

as you said, fueling jets, and many more other elements were on the air. And this evolved with basically three waves of strikes. First of all, Israel took out some radar systems, air radar systems in both Iraq and Syria. And then it went on to attack radar systems within Iran, basically between four to five batteries of SA-300 and SA-400. Three of those were surrounding Tehran, and they are basically the entire aerial defense of Tehran and the most advanced aerial defense of Iran in general. And if I'm not mistaken, another one in the area of Isfahan. Now, this is basically taking out the Iranian aerial defense. And I cannot stress enough how important that is, because it's not that the Russians can resupply the Iranians immediately with those radar systems that have been taken down. And the point about

this, Dan, and really the challenge here technically for the Israeli Air Force was, how do you do this when these systems, the SA-300 and 400, can look on Israeli airplanes when they are outside of Iranian territory, from wherever they're shooting this or wherever Israel is shooting this. Any drones that you're using, their ability of these radar systems is to look on these airplanes from, you know, hundreds and hundreds of miles away. And the Israelis managed to do this undetected. According to foreign sources, I need to say, Israel has the capacity to shoot ballistic missiles from its own Israeli Air Force airplanes. It's something that it developed in the last 15 years. There's a lot of criticism within the Israeli defense apparatus. Why doesn't Israel focus more on ballistic missiles? And as time goes by, we understand that it's not that it has not been focusing on ballistic missiles. It thinks that shooting ballistic missiles from airplanes is much more effective, considering the types of interceptions and technology that we're seeing today.

If you look at Arrow, if you look at TAD and other abilities. Now, at the third wave, Israel was attacking actual ballistic missile production sites, specifically, if I'm not mistaken, and according to foreign sources, guidance elements to those missiles. The stuff you put into missiles so that missile will hit at the right place. the industry of ballistic missiles in Iran, not touching too much on inventory, so not blowing up too much of stockpiles of ballistic missiles, as trying to damage production. And as far as the Israelis are concerned, mission was accomplished. You know, they still need to see satellite reports, and they're right now analyzing this. But this was achieved with almost 100% success, as far as they know, until now. That means that Iran's ability to reproduce ballistic missiles and to shoot them to the extent that they did on the October attack has been diminished as

a result of the Israeli strike. And this is a big thing. This is a big thing because we saw that when the Iranians shoot about 200 ballistic missiles into Israel, the Israeli air defenses, including Arrow and others, has a big problem intercepting all of those. And we've seen dozens of Iranians' rockets landing at the vicinity of the Nevatim airbase. Now, they didn't damage anything substantial there. But there's no question that people listening to us can assume that if Israel could have intercepted every one and each of these ballistic missiles, regardless of the number of interceptors that it has, it would have. So it's very meaningful to try and slow down the production in the Islamic Republic of these ballistic missiles.

They have been enhancing production in the last two months substantially. And Israel has damaged that, I don't want to say immensely, but in a meaningful way, according to Israeli sources. Overall, the most sophisticated Israeli Air Force operation probably in history, even if I count into this the daring operation of taking out the Iraqi nuclear reactor by the begging government back in the 80s. And the general message here to the Iranians is, again, look, you have no viable effective air defenses against the Israeli Air Force. And we can basically do as we please. And we have just proven you that. And if you go into an all-out war,

if you break out towards a bomb, that is meaningful, and you should remember that we Israelis can do that. And another note as to a target, one target that was hit is in Farachin. Farachin is a base in which the Iranians develop advanced military technology, sometimes ballistic missile technology. And in Farachin, they also had their experiments of the weapons group. The weapons group are the people within the Islamic Republic's nuclear program that are supposed to actually make sure that you don't only have enriched uranium, but you also have the capability to cause a nuclear reaction of a nuclear weapon or a nuclear bomb. And then, of course, delivery. And we know for sure that in Parachin, they conducted these kind

of experiments. So Israel was sending very, very signal messages to, for instance, by the attack on Parachin, we know what you've been doing. We know how to hit in these places. And even in choosing specific buildings, if the Iranians know what has happened within their walls, Israel was continuing to send this message. The Israeli cabinet is content with the results of this. There was some kind of, is this it kind of talk within the Middle East? John, just anything to add to what Nadav said? First, I agree with a lot of what Nadav has just reported. I think there was a lot of messaging that was sent last night to the regime. And I think we need to understand that that's a big

part of what Israel's strike was about. It was trying to tell the regime exactly what Nadav said that, hey, if you keep pushing for this war, you're going to pay a heavy price. The regime right now is, I don't want to say it's completely naked in terms of air defenses, but they have lost a vast number of those S-300 air defense systems. And that leaves them extremely vulnerable moving forward. The attacks on the ballistic missile facilities are also important for two reasons. One, it's going to make the calculus of the regime much more difficult moving forward. They have enough to continue to attack Israel several times over along the lines of what we just saw in early October. But if they don't have the ability to replenish those missiles, then they have to start to think, how many more do we have? How many more should we fire this round or the next round before we begin to run out? And so what the Israelis have done, at least for now,

is made them think twice about future attacks. The attacks on the facilities that produce them, specifically that precision mechanism, is also important because the Iranians have made actually great strides in their ballistic missile capabilities over the last two rounds of attacks. They have gotten better, right? They realized after the first round of strikes in April that the drones and other missiles didn't work. So then they focused on ballistic missiles. And then what they got was the first round had eight that got through. Then they got somewhere around two or three dozen that were able to make it through. And we saw that some of them actually hit air

bases. They hit near the Mossad. That, I think, has been arrested right now. Their ability to continue to improve on those capabilities, I think, has been delivered a setback. So what the Israelis have done right now is they've started to make the Iranians think twice about future ballistic missile attacks. They've set back their ability to hit perhaps with greater accuracy. They've shown them that they're now vulnerable to future attacks. And by the way, I think they've just also shown that they can fly long distances. Let me just hammer this home here. The pilots last night, and we're talking about probably somewhere around a third to a half of the Israeli Air Force was deployed last night, from what I understand. And they stayed up in the air for hours and hours on end,

carrying out three waves of strikes. And they did so with deadly efficiency. And they all came home and had breakfast with their families. That is a remarkable feat in and of itself. I wrote a piece for commentary where I was talking to a bunch of former senior Israeli officials. We talked about how the capabilities that we've seen in Lebanon really look markedly different from what we've been watching in Gaza. In Gaza, it's been a tactical grind. In Lebanon, they're pulling off these remarkably technological operations and delivering immense blows to Hezbollah. What we watched last night was something even more complex, multiple moving parts, really like high tech platforms, all being integrated at once in communication with the United States, in communication with CENTCOM allies across the region, flying over hostile territory as well as allied territory and doing so with a fair amount of stealth and efficiency. A truly, I mean, I really, I'm in awe of what happened last night.

I do understand that there are going to be people who say, well, you didn't hit the energy sites. You didn't hit the nuclear sites. How effective was this? Let me just say, I think that A, Israel now has proof of concept that they can go back and do it again. And B, they've cleared the path for an easier strike next time around because of the sheer number of S-300 systems that have been destroyed. Nadav, you were starting to say there was criticism within Israel, there was criticism outside of Israel, or at least skepticism that this was as successful an operation as you guys are describing. Can you respond to that charge? Well, first of all, this was mainly, you didn't see politician or decision makers making this charge because Netanyahu did something he didn't do before. He took the far-right ministers, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, and they were actually part of the decision-making

process here. They were part of these confidential meetings with the prime minister and defense minister and others. And this is one of the reasons, by the way, that nothing leaked, because they were part of the actual decision-making circle. But it's true that the first few hours after the attack, you can see people writing, including some analysts, you know, is this it? Gallant talked about a lethal attack. At the time, I remember asking people close, very close to Gallant, the defense minister, what do you mean by lethal? Are you actually, do you want, you know, Iranians to be killed in this attack? Are we trying to cause casualties? And he said he used this as a figure of speech. He used

this as a figure of speech. What he meant is efficient, extremely efficient. And I think that, as Jonathan said, we have seen an incredibly efficient and impressive operation of the Israeli Air Force. And I remember talking with American administration officials after Israel struck back, back in April. And they, of course, didn't want Israel to respond. At the time, they didn't want Israel to respond at all. Then Israel basically convinced the administration it's going to be very targeted. And after Israel responded, these administration officials told me, you know what, we are very impressed by what the Israeli Air Force did. We are very impressed by the level of messaging here. You did exactly what you needed to do. Now, after I said all that, the attack back in April did not deter Iran from responding to the killing of Hassan Nasrallah with the attack in October,

which was substantial. So Israel kills Nasrallah. Iran responds October 1st, right? What you're saying is that the operation against Israel on October 1st was more than a little jostling for Israeli officials because it was much more effective than the operation that Iran conducted against Israel in mid-April. They were focused on drones. The first operation in April, I don't want to say focused, but they used a lot of drones. And they basically understood that that's not a good way to go and cruise missiles because they take much longer to travel. And Israel can detect those. That's just one example. And also in terms of targeting, they did learn from their first attack in April.

And they had some specific conclusions that they implemented in October that made the damages or the ability of the ballistic missiles to actually land on Israeli soil more effective, unfortunately. And my point is that the Israeli attack and the American statements since April did not deter the Islamic Republic from doing this again on October. They are not deterred. And I think it's something that we need to stress because the April operation by the Israeli Air Force was very successful. And the defense in Israel in April, led by this regional coalition, which I'm not sure that exists anymore,

but let's say it does exist, and led by the United States and the administration. So everybody was so optimistic about this. Yeah, yeah, that worked well. But here we are in October, and the Iranians are attacking again. And the question is, are the Iranians deterred? And the answer that I'm getting from Israeli officials is that they are assuming, and this is more than an assumption, is that Iran will respond also to this attack at a certain point. Now, this might be limited to an extent. They want to believe that now that the Iranians have been downplaying this within their media, it's going to be something symbolic, not the sort

of, you know, hundreds of ballistic missiles shot at Israel. But this is the question at hand. And I'd be happy to hear what Jonathan thinks about this. Are the Iranians more deterred than they were back in April or the beginning of October as a result of this attack? Because at the end of the day, the Israeli Air Force, the Israeli Defense Department, they're not doing this so that they can say, oh, we destroyed another factory or their ability to shoot ballistic missiles has been harmed. You know, taking out those SA-300 and 400 is very substantial strategically. It's not the same as the ballistic missile thing. It will not be rehabilitated by the Iranians soon because the Russians don't have enough radar systems to begin

with. But will this actually deter them if Israel does another operation that would be substantial, not as the one that killed Nasrallah, because there was only one Nasrallah? Will the Iranians decide to pull out of this conflict with their frontal attacks on Israel? And that's a big question. And another question that you're going to probably discuss without me is, what does it say about Iranians and nuclear program? What does it say about the ability of Israel to attack without the U.S. nuclear installations in Iran? because this is going to be the dominant question in the Middle East, specifically if Donald Trump wins the elections in the U.S. This is what Israeli officials are saying. They're saying if Trump wins the elections, there is a probability that

we will need to consider a wider strike against nuclear installations between November and January. What does it say about that? And I'm not sure. I think the jury is still out about this. Okay. So, John, what is Israel's objective here from your standpoint to deter Iran or to actually begin to lay the groundwork for what Nadav is getting at there about ultimately hitting the nuclear program, the big enchilada? It's both. I mean, it has to be both, right? I mean, what we heard last night from Israeli officials from Israeli, let's say, surrogates on Israeli television as these attacks were unfolding was how Israel is really trying to convey a message. They don't want to play the word that

they kept using was ping pong. I had never actually heard that in Israeli terms before. But apparently, that's a thing, right? You don't want to keep playing ping pong with the with the Iranians and have one volley after another of shots. That's not their goal. They were trying to convey to the Iranians that it's simply not worth the fight. Now, I think you're right that they're not fully deterred, Nadav. I think that is 100% true. I think, though, that there is a question of how much more we're going to see from the regime itself, whether they think it's, you know, the juice is worth the squeeze, whether they want to continue to attack and then find themselves even more vulnerable in the future. I think we need to come to terms with

the fact that even if the regime doesn't want to, even if they decide that it's not worth the continued fight in terms of direct confrontation, they still have the so-called ring of fire and they can deploy all of the proxies. I mean, Hamas is now effectively a spent force. Hezbollah still has long range missiles we've not yet seen. They have precision guided munitions that have, I think, only been introduced maybe once or twice on the battlefield so far and could have lethal precision against Israeli strategic targets, key infrastructure. You can activate all of the fronts, so Syria, Iraq, Yemen, plus all the others at once. That's also still very viable as far as an Iranian strategy. So they have a lot of options right now at their disposal. That worries me. And I think we need to keep an eye on

that because that's always been the worst case scenario, right? We've seen each of these fronts activate at different times at various intensities. We have not seen a full saturation of Israeli skies. That's something that the Israelis cannot stop right now. And that's why the THAAD is there. That's why Israel has invested so much in its missile defense systems. But it would be a very scary moment for Israel. But as for, you know, potential strikes in the future, you know, I was talking to a couple of folks this morning out of Israel, just trying to get a, you know, just a sense of what's happened here. One thing I'll just say, and this was interesting, that there are things that apparently happened last night that the Iranians still don't know about. And I don't

know what that means. And it was just sort of almost a casual remark that was made in passing. And I said, well, can you explain more? And the answer came back with a resounding no. So I don't know what that means, but we could see more that could deter the Iranians in the future as a result of something that happened last night. But then there's the last part of this, which is if those air defenses are in fact down and the Israelis were going to have an easier path. Right. They cut a path last night through Syria and Iraq as well to get to Iran. So now they know how to get through in ways that they would encounter less resistance. And then once in Iran, then they also have a fairly clear path to whatever it is that they want to hit. So, yeah, they can probably strike multiple times at the same target over the course of weeks.

That is the painful but I think maybe not exciting path to destroying that nuclear program. There may be other ways of doing it as well, but slow erosion over time. Sort of think about what they did with Nasrallah's bunker, where they were able to fire off 82,000 pound bombs in succession and kill him in one evening. They would have to do that over a much longer period of time, at least as I understand it, if they want to hit some of these nuclear sites deep beneath the ground. Israel's defense apparatus thinks that the only effective way that a strike against Iranian nuclear installations can actually happen is the only effective way is by the U.S. doing it. The U.S. doing it alone or the U.S. doing it with Israel?

Either way, the Israelis will be happy to participate if they're allowed in. But you know that politically, Dan, sometimes it's, you know, the U.S. would say, this is our decision and we would want to do this ourselves. And some Israeli sources are not ruling out the possibility that even the Biden administration between November and January 20, if they see signs that Iran is breaking to a boom or that the people around the Supreme Leader are managing to convince him that he needs to change the fatwa and to actually allow the Iranians to develop nuclear weapons, even in theory, even in narrative, that this might lead this administration after the election, after everything is over, to do that specifically if the administration is losing power, right? If it's going to be a Trump after him. And I think that Trump, you know, might be happy

if this administration does that. Now, I think, you know, Americans are hearing me, and I guess most of them are saying, you know, that's not going to happen. That's not going to happen. You know, Biden's not going to order a strike against Iran in his final days in office, that he's not going to leave this as his legacy. This is the beginning of a war. Presidents, you know, that are going to retire don't do these kind of things. And I tend to agree. I don't think it's a very plausible scenario. But I want to stress that if the Israelis do this and they attack nuclear installations, it is their purpose of making this everybody's problem more than just military effectiveness. And the quote that I usually

bring and I brought on your show, Dan, in the past was by Eud Barak, who told me, I think 10 years ago when we discussed this, you don't need to be 80, 90% effective. You need the oil to be at $200 a barrel for the world to understand that it is no longer Israel's problem. It's a regional and it's a global problem. In other words, it might be an interest of Israel to have a strike against nuclear installation, even if it's not effective. If the world understands that, and Iranians understand, that Israel just is not going to allow this to develop and that there will be prices to pay, even globally and regionally, if the Iranians are going to trespass on that red line and start really wading into a nuclear position.

Of course, Israel's position would be much more difficult if the Iranians will strive to negotiations, will actually be serious about returning to the JCPOA. If there's an administration in the U.S., you know, both Vice President Harris and President Trump have said before that they want a new agreement with Iran. I want to just add one little wrinkle here about what happened last night. We could talk about the American administration's calculus as it relates to Iran negotiations, Iran strategy, and what that looks like moving into the lame duck period and what it looks like maybe even after. I think you also have to think about how the Gulf states viewed last night.

I think that is a crucial factor here for this administration to be considering. They finally got a sense of what Israel's capabilities would be with an aggressive Iranian regime that is threatening the entire region. They can see what might happen if the Israelis wished to strike the Iranian nuclear program. They put some new capabilities on display. This is in addition to what they've already put on display in Lebanon. I think this could be a moment that convinces them that perhaps normalization is the right move, right? They got a sense of what the defensive architecture looks like when Israel had a lot of those ballistic missiles shot out of the sky during the April attack and then again in

October. And I think that was positive, but they, I think, were probably still hedging quite a bit because they were watching tension between the U.S.-Israel relationship. They could see that Bibi and Biden weren't in lockstep. They weren't agreeing. Last night, the Israelis got the green light. And on top of that, there were, and we know this, there were American aircraft in the sky that were there patrolling at minimum to make sure that things went as planned. You had air defenses on high alert. You had all of the surrounding CENTCOM countries in the Arab world also on high alert. This was the way that it was supposed to go. They actually showed what a successful Israeli strike with American support, with American buy-in, what that would look like. Obviously,

we were all watching just the immediate military impact of last night's strikes. And I think we're still going to learn a lot more about what the direct impact will be. But I think we can say, I think as Nadav and I have both laid out, I think it was a success. And then I think there is now, what is the impact with the broader region? I think there is room to be somewhat optimistic, not giddy about it yet. But I would say that we are probably in a place where the Arab world is looking on and saying, yep, I think I want to be part of this. And I'll be very interested to see if President Biden tries to leverage this in the couple of months that he has left. I think there is actually an opportunity. Nadav, I know you need to hop, but before you do, final comment. Yeah, I agree with what Jonathan said. And I want to add something that has nothing to do with the analytical or strategic nature of what happened last night. And that is that, you know, the IDF spokesperson just published photos of those pilots. And four of the pilots,

actually navigators, are women. And you see them in the cockpit. These are photos taken last night of them just before they are, you know, going to strike at Iran. So these women, you know, flew tonight to Iran together with the Israeli Air Force pilots and struck in a country, the Islamic Republic, which as we know, you know, we know exactly how the way that they think about the place of women in societies. And there's something to be said about that. But I'll leave it to you, Dan, because you probably know to phrase it better than me, right? The only observation I'll make is several weeks ago, Defense Minister Gallant signaled

that the Israeli response would not be invisible to the Iranian people, that many of the operations Israel's done in the past, they gave the regime the ability to save face, that they knew they were hit strategically, but it wouldn't weaken them in the eyes of the Iranian people. And I was wondering what he meant, that what would embarrass the regime in the eyes of the Iranian people, if in fact Israel thinks that the Iranian regime is fragile. And maybe this is one example. Well, it was interesting last night. There was at least one moment I was watching Channel 12 where there was at least a hint that the Israelis may have taken out the Basij, some base that belonged to the domestic forces

that enforce the brutality of the regime. These are the people that go around beating up women. And, you know, these are the kinds of people that are arrested and then ultimately murdered Masa Amini. As I understand it, that did not happen. But I think that there is an interesting message that could be sent in the future should the Israelis choose to target elements of the regime in charge of enforcing some of these draconian rules at home. I don't know if we had any of that last night. I think the best we could say that came out of last night was that the

Iranian people could see explosions in western Tehran and southern Tehran and Isfahan and Haraj and Shiraz, all of these places, right? This was across a wide swath of Iran. They could see that their regime was vulnerable. And that could, in fact, lead to a more emboldened opposition. And I think that really is the best thing that could come of this, as we always say at FDD, our CEO, Mark Dubowitz, who I know has been on your program a lot, right, that this is the secret weapon of the Israelis of the West, that if ultimately we're going to bring down this regime, the best weapon that we have are the people of Iran themselves. And hopefully they saw last night that their regime is vulnerable, that it is

not, you know, eight feet tall, that it can be defeated by the Israelis. And perhaps they're now thinking a little bit more carefully about what their next moves might be and, you know, thinking exactly about bringing down this regime. John, before we wrap, the U.S., Russia, Saudi, there are a lot of players that are involved here. I guess let's start with the U.S. You were telling me offline that the U.S. was really not involved in this particular operation at all. Look, my understanding is that they did not take direct part. Was there intelligence? Probably. Was there coordination up front where the Israelis let them know exactly what they were going to hit and how? I'm pretty sure there was given the many conversations that took place between Lloyd Austin and Israel's defense

minister between Bibi and Biden. We know that there were multiple conversations. It was a negotiation. By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if this was sped up as a result of those Pentagon leaks. The Israelis might have been put on hold for a bit, maybe even until after the election. I would probably guess that the Pentagon leaks has had an impact on at least some of the targets or the timing. Meaning it actually had the opposite response, it accelerated operations? Well, if any of the targets that were leaked, or at least implied, made the Israelis nervous, that would be one component of it. The other thing is, hey, you know, you've eroded our trust here through this leak, you know, you've got to make good, right? You got to remember each one of these discussions, as I understand it,

as it's been described to me, it's like going to the shook, it's haggling, it always is, right? And so I wouldn't be surprised. Obviously, I don't have any direct knowledge of exactly how things were discussed. I don't think there's a disconnect here when we talk about the timing of this. So soon after those leaks, I think that it did have an impact. But again, I think we did hear about U.S. personnel in the skies and certainly on high alert yesterday in the event that something went wrong. But I think the Israelis have always said and will always say that they want to do this for themselves and by themselves.

I even thought that the deployment of the THAAD system to Israel felt like something that was very out of character for the Israelis. They truly wish to do this on their own. It's a matter of national pride. And it's for that reason that I think we can probably trust them when they say that the U.S. was not directly involved. And of course, I don't think the U.S. wants to be directly involved here. I think, you know, leaning into the elections, the last thing they want right now is to start to sustain potential attacks, even asymmetric attacks from the Iranian regime.

But you did mention some of the other players. Before we move off the U.S., do you buy into this because I'm hearing this more and more from different officials, this idea that there's a world in which the Biden administration could decide to deal with the Iranian nuclear program between Election Day inauguration. I've been skeptical of that. I'm skeptical, too. I mean, I think really, there is a school of thought, though, that says that Iran may say now that they've been hit, that that's the thing that changes their calculus about making a dash to Obama. And if and when that does happen, that the Biden administration would have to make some tough choices. Am I convinced that the Biden administration would make the right choice and neutralize that program? No, I'm not convinced. Are there things that the Israelis could do that would set it back,

even by hitting targets above ground or burying some of those underground sites deeper and making them harder to get to under a whole bunch of rubble. Yeah, that's possible. But that's a temporary measure. And it would put us right back to where we were a couple of months later. And then we're starting over again. I'm not holding my breath on any major action taken by the Biden administration, at least for right now. But that's just not been their character throughout these last four years. If all of those S-300s, Nadav mentioned S-400s, I'm not aware of S-400s that are operational there, but I may be wrong. But the Russian air defenses were shellacked last night. That was a message, I think, to a lot of people that are buying up Russian platforms, that they're fallible, that they can be destroyed. And I think that that's probably not a good thing for Vladimir Putin.

He's probably not having a great day today. I think it does have to start to pose questions to the administration about whether there are things that they can do to help the Ukrainians in their war. There was, I think, a message sent last night that the platforms of the Axis, so to speak, are absolutely beatable. And I think that was an important message as well. Okay, John, we will leave it there. I appreciate you calling me back as quickly as you did. I know we were like chasing you down and pulling you out of social engagements in your travels to hop on this. So this is true to form of how we try to do things to call me back. This is going to be very timely conversation. And I look forward to having you back on soon. My pleasure, Dan. Thanks.