The Dispatch Podcast - Blind the Enemy | Interview: General H.R. McMaster

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

General H.R. McMaster joins Jamie Weinstein to discuss Iran’s weakened military state, the United States’ backtracking in Ukraine, and the conditions needed for a new Palestinian political order. The Agenda:—Iran’s nuclear program: Maybe not obliterated, but definitely devastated—Israeli and U.S. coordination—“Whenever an Iranian leader is speaking, they’re lying to you.”—War in Ukraine—Transparency of the modern battlefield—Putin doesn’t have all the cards—Pressuring Egypt to open their border to Gaza’s population Show notes:—Tucker Carlson interview of President of Iran Masoud Pezeshkian—H.R. McMaster’s piece for The Dispatch: Trump Ends the Folly of De-escalation— H.R. McMaster’s book: Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World The Dispatch Podcast is a production of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dispatch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and weekly livestreams—⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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What are the new technologies that will change aviation? Well, hydrogen would be one for sure if we got there. I mean, hydrogen is not just a alternative fuel. I mean, hydrogen would change it significantly if we ever managed to break the back of that. Today, I'm speaking with Kalin Rovinescu, the former president of Air Canada, and a trailblazer in global aviation. Join me, Chris Hadfield, on the On Energy Podcast. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest today is retired general HR McMaster. He was, as you certainly know, the National Security Advisor during the First Trump administration. And today he is the Fuad and Michelle Ajami senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. And we get into a little tour of the world. We talk about last month's Iran strike, where he thinks that has left Iran, what might be next for Iran.

We get into Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Gaza, and so much more. I think you're going to find this episode fascinating. So without further ado, I give you General H.R. McMaster. General McMaster, welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. It's Jamie. Great to be with you. General, I want to start, we're about a month after the U.S. strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities. Do we know anything now that we didn't do a month ago about the state of the Iranian nuclear program?

Do we know how much we've set it back? Well, I mean, not much more in the public domain. I think there are probably classified assessments that are building. But I think, you know, I think it's safe to say that it was a devastating effect on their nuclear program. I wouldn't maybe use the word obliterated, you know, but I think it's set them back years. I think that's a consensus view that we've all heard. But, you know, it also, you know, you have to take the strike on Ford O and, you know, in context of the campaign that Israel conducted against the entire nuclear supply chain,

including the scientists. So, you know, Iran faces a really difficult choice. Hey, do you restart the program, you know, knowing that that Israel and the United States may come after it again? and invest what they've invested in this program only to see it lost again. So I think it had a very significant impact, a positive impact, on blocking this theocratic dictatorships, this messianic, you know, dictatorships path to the most destructive weapons on Earth. You know, General, I think your assessment sounds right to me.

I wonder if this is a counter signal in any way, what I heard yesterday. The Iranian foreign minister was on special report with Brett Baer, And he said that the program was set back quite a bit and the destruction was rather large. Is that in any way a counter signal that maybe it wasn't as strong as we would hope that he is, he's framing it that it was large when it wasn't? Yeah, it would be unusual for Iranian leaders not to lie. I mean, that would be unusual.

So I think, I mean, that's a possibility maybe. You know, who knows what's motivating them. I think what's really interesting about the Iranian leadership is that a. to which you're getting mixed signals from them. And I think it's really an indication of the degree to which the regime feels its grip on power loosen it, loosening associated with really, you know, the people's discontent with this regime that has caused so much suffering for them, you know, and the world, you know, and also, you know, discontent associated with, you know, these, you know, these strikes in a degree it exposed the weakness of the Iranian regime. So you're

getting a lot of mixed signals. You know, where's Ayatollahominee? Like, he came out a little bit, you know, but I think he's kind of been hiding. And you've heard a lot of contradictory messages from the senior leaders. And of course, the Israeli campaign went after a lot of the leaders that are associated with repressing, brutally repressing the Iranian people. And of course, the regime has responded, you know, by hanging people from cranes, right? By taking even more prisoners, by brutalizing the population even more. I think there's a potential, for that to create a backlash as well. So I think what you're seeing are a lot of nervous Iranian leaders

because they know if that theocratic dictatorship collapses, the Iranian people will not be kind to them. You know, General, I was wondering, I know I read that story about how President Trump accidentally called you earlier in the administration, but he sometimes responds, even if he doesn't talk to someone for a while when he sees someone praise them

and you obviously have praised the Iran strike. Has he reached out to you at all? after the Iran strike to talk and get your thoughts on it? No, no, Jamie, he hasn't. It kind of, you know, it would warm my heart, though, if he did because, you know, the last conversation was not great.

I mean, I don't know how that, somebody wants to leak that from the White House because I didn't say anything about it. But, hey, you know, what the president was reacting to, I think was the 60 Minutes interview in which I was basically saying, hey, don't get played by Vladimir Putin. And here's how the way he's playing you.

But, hey, this is the way he's played other leaders as well. And I mentioned George W. Bush. And I mentioned Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Agla Merkel, right? So I wasn't really criticizing him as a person. I was just saying, hey, you know, don't get played by Putin. And don't fall into his technique.

You know, don't fall prey to his techniques. And so, you know, of course, there are a lot of people around the president. The way that they carry favor with him is to create kind of a mutual sense of aggrievement, right? And so if somebody says something, they go hey, look with this guy saying negative about you.

so forth. And I think they kind of just rile them up. But hey, I mean, I think like all of us, we wanted to succeed, right? And so whenever I criticize, you know, an administration policy, whether it's the Biden administrations or the Trump administrations, it's meant to be constructive, you know, Jamie. It's not meant to be pejorative or, you know, or critical. I know you're on the white, inside the White House now, but I wanted to get your sense. Do you believe this was all coordinated with Israel? The United States were on one page during these attacks or, you know, there are some people that believe that, you know, Israel said, we're going to go. And then the U.S. said, all right, if you're going to go, let's work together.

Do you think there was deception going on about the kind of the split? What do you think happened there? How close was Israel in the U.S. coordinating these operations? You know, we won't know for some time, right? I mean, we just won't know. I think probably, you know, maybe for many years, you know, but I think that what is clear is that ultimately we came into an alignment in terms of what was necessary to block Iran's path to the most destructive weapons on Earth. And while doing so, you know, really go after the regime's ability to repress their own people and to go after kind of other related supply chains associated with their missile and drone capabilities, as well as, of course, you know, the continued strikes against their air defenses,

which make Iran more vulnerable and vulnerable to future attacks as well. So, and then what you've seen since then, I think, is an effort to constrain the resources, available to the regime by tightening up economic sanctions of financial measures, as well as the physical interdictions we've seen of arms on its way to the Houthis and in Iran's effort to try to reconstitute the proxy forces and terrorist organizations, which had used to terrorize the Middle East for four plus decades. So I think, you know, this is one aspect of like now what is going to be a sustained campaign of maximum pressure against the Iranian regime. And I think that's the right thing to do. And the U.S. and Israel and others should work together

on that, including, you know, the Gulf states and the European states, I mean, these snapback sanctions should go back into place on Iran and recognize that, you know, that Iran cannot get the most destructive weapons on Earth because it would threaten all humanity. I wonder, General, what is your thoughts on what this does globally, if anything? What do you think when she and China saw the U.S. strike on Iran backing up what they said when Putin and Russia saw it. Does that have an effect in any way on their calculus and what they're doing? Hey, I think it does, Jamie, because what we've seen is a coalescing of this axis of aggressors. And they were aiding and abetting each other's aggression so they could each

accomplish their own objectives. For example, Russia's objective of reestablishing the Russian Empire and breaking up NATO. China's objective of creating exclusionary areas of privacy across the Indo-Pacific and creating new spheres and influence around the world to rewrite the rules of international discourse in its favor. You know, Kim Jong-un's, you know, ultimate goal of unifying the peninsula under the red banner. And Iran's effort to, you know, to extend its hegemonic influence in the region, kick the U.S. out of the region, and destroyed Israel and kill all the Jews. I mean, that's really what each of them wanted. And what they shared in common, though, is this belief that the West was weak. The West was decadent. It was their time now

for their authoritarian regimes to take, you know, center stage in the world to use Xi Jinping's phrase. Or, you know, as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin would say, we've seen changes that have not occurred in a century, you know. And this is a new era of international. relations. The message is, hey, we're in charge now. You know, you get used to it. You get used to us being in charge. But you know what that did is that mass profound weakness and how brittle these regimes are. And Iran has always been weak in my mind, you know, but it has been able to appear strong because we never acted like we knew what the return address was for their use of these proxy forces and terrorist organizations across the region. I think China and Russia are nervous.

You know, remember Putin said, yeah, Iran never really asked. for any military assistance? Well, of course they did, but Russia couldn't do anything. So I think what's important here is for us to recognize how brittle these authoritarian regimes are and how that creates an opportunity, you know, to increase pressure on them while, you know, while we strengthen our allies and our partners, you know, around the world. And we should be confident at this point, Jamie. I mean, you know, look at Russia, man. They're sitting on, they're sitting on piles of cash they can't convert. You know, they're spending, you know, 50% of their budget on, on defense. It's not sustainable. They've got a huge labor shortage. They're sustaining, you know, 30 to 50,000 casualties a month

in Ukraine. And, you know, Putin's driving is country into the ground. Xi Jinping has huge vulnerabilities in the real estate sector, the debt crisis there, you know, unable to get the consumer economy started. And this Ponzi scheme seems like it's going to run out on them. that is the Chinese economy. Iran, of course, is facing really devastating economic situation now. And so I think that we have to recognize that we have an opportunity to really achieve what President Trump often says, you know, peace for strength. It really has been the perception of weakness that has been provocative to this axis of aggressors. You know, I want to give you a general, I think you're probably as good as anybody responding. the president of Iran

was on Tucker Carlson's YouTube show and he said that Iran is a peaceful nation it's never attacked anybody it's never attacked the United States and they just want to stay within their borders

is that the history that you understand of Iran and if not how would you respond to such a claim hey Jamie I mean not to plug plug my book, but I'm going to do it. I mean, pick up battlegrounds, read the two chapters on Iran and just look at the highlight reel of Iranian aggression, right? You don't even have to look at all the specifics, right? Just look at the revolution. And then what we tried to do

is, you know, Zabignu, Brzynski went to, went to Algeria to meet with a foreign minister to say, hey, let's try to maintain good Iranian-U.S. relations after the revolution. What did they do? They took America's hostage, right? And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, And then after that, after the Carter administration, President Reagan, even as hawkish as he was, he thought, hey, maybe now's the time to reach out to Iran. I mean, they're under duress because of the Iran-Iraq war, and maybe we can provide them with some weapons. They'll release hostages, right? And, of course, you got the Iran-Contra affair. And what did you get in return?

I mean, really, even prior to that effort, you got the bombings in Beirut in 1983 of the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks. then President George H.W. Bush, he had a conciliatory message for the Iranians up front when he came into office, and that's when Iran's terrorist network goes global in the 90s. Remember the assassinations in Europe, the attack on the Jewish community center and the synagogue in Argentina, you know, blowing up of the Panamanian airline. And then Clinton comes in, right? There's always a reason for a presence to think, oh, it's time for a conciliatory approach. And there was, you know, a new president. it came in, Hot to me, you know, he's a librarian. How mean can a librarian be, right? So, so, so, so, so after the Cobar Tower's bombing where they killed 19 American, uh, servicemen in, in Saudi Arabia, we don't retaliate because of that because we think, oh, maybe now we'll have a better relationship. Even president, uh, uh, George W. Bush that did not really act like he, that, that administration knew what the, what the attorney address was as they're complicit in the killing of about 600, at least 600 American servicemen and women in Iraq through the use of proxy forces and these

explosively formed projectiles, roadside bombs that were engineered, designed, manufactured in Iraq. I mean, the list goes on, right? Those goes on and on. You know, there were hundreds of attacks conducted against U.S. forces and facilities in the Middle East after the October 7, 2023 attacks. So, you know, I mean, I could go on and on about this, Jamie, but hey, that's just ridiculous, you know, a peaceful nation. Look at what, look at the brutality they inflict on their own people, you know, and what they've done through the support of various militias like the Haas Dhabi militias in Iran, the Houthis in Yemen. I mean, the Houthis, you know, we talk about them because they fire missiles in the Red Sea, but we don't talk enough about them besieging cities and starving children to death in Yemen as well. How about this support for Assad and the serial episodes of mass homicide in the Syrian Civil War? I mean, you got me started, Jamie.

I could go on and on, you know, but it's just, it's important, you know, it's important to look at the facts and just to recognize whenever an Iranian leader is speaking, they're lying to you. They also, of course, have said many times, oh, we've never had, you know, a nuclear weapons program. But then, of course, you know, once we sanction them, once we draw from the JCPOA, they threatened to restart. part, the nuclear weapons program, they said they'd never had. You know, and they're enriching to 60%. You know, so anyway, this is a regime that has brought kind of duplicity and lying to kind of an unprecedented level. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you

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of families already applying through Ethos. It builds trust. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash dispatch. That's ethos.com slash dispatch. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online. Whether you're building a site for your business, your writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one place. With Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools, you can launch a website that looks sharp from day one. Use one of their award-winning templates or try the new Blueprint AI, which tailors a site for you based on your goals and style. It's quick, intuitive, and requires zero coding experience.

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He says he sees things that he was told we're not going to happen. There was a report I'm sure you saw in Financial Times that President Trump supposedly even asked Zelensky about weapons that might hit Moscow. Does that concern you at all? Or do you think that type of aggressive step would bring this war to a resolution? I think it's important for the Ukrainians to continue to strike military targets, especially those associated with developing the material and the capabilities that are being used in the continued onslaught against Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure, you know, schools and hospitals and power facilities and everything. So those are legitimate targets. I'm talking about the targets that were struck, for example, during Operation Spiders Web, that really, you know, fantastical kind of strike using, you know, using drones that had been smuggled.

into Siberia, right? So those are legitimate targets. And I think after that initial statement about striking, you know, potential allegedly, that alleged statement, and you know, you've got to take all the stuff with a grain of assault. Why is that being leaked from the Ukrainian side, all that stuff? So, but there's been kind of a little bit of backtracking toward what I would call the Biden approach, you know, to providing capabilities to the, to the Ukrainians by trying to differentiate between defensive and offensive weapons. Jamie, that's really just silly, because, you know, offensive capabilities are important to defending yourself. So, for example, if you're looking at tiered and layered air defense,

a really important aspect of tiered and layer air defenses is shooting down the arrows coming at you in the forms of drones and missiles. But it's also important to be able to kill the archer. You know, you have to have those long-range precision strike capabilities to augment your air defense. So what I would like to see is providing the Ukraine's with the range of capabilities that they need for really two things. first of all is to defend themselves against this onslaught. And the second is to bolster their defenses and over time be able to restore mobility to the battlefield to regain some territory. And you've seen that they're capable of doing this at times. But of course, what we're seeing in Ukraine is the effect of the transparency of the modern battlefield. And so you need more capabilities that are oriented on blinding your enemy. And I think what you're going to see, maybe not in this conflict, but in future conflict, Jamie, is, you know, war is going to go into space, you know, because you have transparency

to the battlefield because of all sorts of electronic intelligence capabilities and drone capabilities, but it's really what's up there in low Earth orbit that has kind of pulled the curtain back and forced all forces into theory of operations to act as if they're in visual range of the enemy. General, just one more on this. Is there any concern on your end? I know that some people who are more dovish, I'd say, on Ukraine, are concerned that if we provide weapons that are used to hit Russia, that Russia may respond by hitting somewhere in Europe or even going nuclear. Is that a reasonable concern? I think it's reasonable to be concerned. You should be concerned about it. But I think when you look at it, I mean, Vladimir Putin has to know if he uses a nuclear weapon,

it's a suicide weapon. He's got to know that, right? And then also, he's already waging a shadow war across Europe. And so I think Putin won't stop until he is stopped. And of course, I'm talking about sustained campaigns of political subversion and cognitive warfare, for example, everywhere from Moldova to Romania to Bulgaria to Hungary, to Hungary, to the Baltic states. But actually physical attacks, right, cutting undersea cables, blowing up warehouses. Heck, he put out a contract, you know, on the CEO of Ryan Mattel. So I think what we have to recognize is Putin won't stop until he is stopped. And I think already he's taking unsustainable losses.

And at some point, he's going to have to recognize that he's losing the war. Hey, I think it's laudable that President Trump wants to end the war, right? I mean, who's going to argue with that? Right? Nobody's going to argue with that. But I think it's also important to recognize that Putin won't agree to a ceasefire until he concludes that he's losing. And he's losing what he cares most about, which is.

which is maintaining his grip on power. And I think that that's got to be more and more tenuous. I mean, of course, he looks strong from the outside, right? The Russians look really good on like the May Day parade. But the regime, I think, is brittle. Of course, you know, Putin doesn't have to be that strong. He just has to be stronger than any organized opposition. But we have to remember, remember the Progosion and the Wagner Group uprising, right?

an ex-hot-dog salesman, an ex-con, took over the equivalent of sitcom headquarters, and then marched on Moscow while they're cratering the roads ahead of him and he's shooting down aircraft. So I just think we have to we have to not buy into Putin's ruse that he's strong or to use the parlance we heard in the in the Ovalovs that he has all the cards. He doesn't have all the cards. Let me just close on a couple questions with the Israel-Gaza conflict. It seems like Israel has incredibly neutralized most of its enemies around it, from Hezbollah to Iran. The Hamas element still seems to be the most difficult to eliminate. What do you make of the current state of the Israel-Ghazzo War?

I mean, you know why it's so tough? It's so tough because Hamas is using the Palestinian population as human shields. And what we have is an unprecedented situation in which a population, a population, that is caught in the crossfire can't get away because Egypt is not allowing that border to be open. I can't think of any historical example of a population that's been fenced in to an area of conflict like that. So what I would like to see, Jamie, is more pressure on the Egyptians to open the border, provide a temporary humanitarian facility there to screen people as they come out of Gaza and then allow Israel to complete the destruction of Hamas. And some people say,

well, what do you mean? That's not possible. Yeah, it's possible. In fact, it's really essential if you want any kind of an enduring peace in Gaza or even a glimmer of hope towards some sort of two-state solution. Because for that to happen, you need the emergence of a new political order in Gaza and broadly in the West Bank as well. especially in Gaza, that is not committed to the destruction of Israel killing all the Jews because, you know, how does that work for a two-state solution? And for any sort of alternative political order to emerge, you need to create that space. If Hamas has the guns, who's going to be the mayor of Gaza? Like as soon as you put your hand up, oh, I'll volunteer for that. You're going to get

a bullet in the head. So you have to be able to create conditions for a new political order to emerge. And I'm thinking, you know, what would be ideal, this is easier said than done is some kind of multinational peace enforcement force that has the mandate, not like, you know, the weak uniform in southern Lebanon, but has the mandate to physically stop Hamas from trying to come back in and creates the space for the emergence of a new Palestinian political order. And of course, what you're up against is you're up against, you know, the losses that the civilian population has taken and the resentment toward Israel, as well as the decades of brinkings of Israel, and of course, brainwashing of that population to fill them with hatred and to use that hatred to justify

violence against innocence, the brutal and horrible and almost unspeakable violence that you saw on October 7th. And remember, Hamas's leadership has said that they want every day to be October 7th. So how can Israel not make it their goal to destroy Hamas? Let me just close on this question. There are some on the right that are now saying that they don't believe Israel is a good ally. I think Steve Bannon calls it a protectorate. From your perspective, is Israel a good ally of the United States? And if so, why? While other money managers are holding, Dynamic is hunting. Seeing past the horizon, investing beyond the benchmark, because your money can't grow if it doesn't move. Learn more at dynamic.ca.c slash

active. Yes, they're a good ally of the United States. Now, Israel will always prior to its interests, right? Because it has faced an existential threat since its founding in 1948. And so there are going to be times when our interest diverge and Israel acts on its own. And you've seen even that tension with President Trump at times, you know, but actually, you know, it's in disregarding U.S. advice that Israel created a lot of these opportunities. Remember, we kept saying, you know, don't go into these neighborhoods in Gaza. Well, that's where they liberated, you know, many of the, many of the hostages. You always said, oh, don't escalate. Don't escalate against Iran. Take the win, you know, when, when Iran conducted the attacks last

April and October against Israel. But it was an escalation that it revealed Iran's weakness and blocked its path, at least for the time being, to a nuclear weapon. Don't go into southern Lebanon. Don't go after Hezbollah's leadership. Don't do these attacks into Syria. And so what you see is, I think Lebanon maybe, maybe we'll have a new lease on life and stop the freefall as Hezbole gets, it gets marginalized there. We ought to support that effort through President Ayun and what Tom Bark, who's a very capable representative for President Trump is trying to do. Syria is going to still be problematic, you know, but there are opportunities now in the Middle East associated with disregarding U.S. advice. So those tensions are going to be there,

you know, between the U.S. and Israel. But what you have with some of the U.S. these elements of the all right, they kind of go full circle to the far left. And I would call it kind of like a, you know, it's kind of a type of self-loathing, you know, where they think that we're the cause of all the problems of the world, right? And so that's what the far left thinks, right? All the ills of the world are due to capitalist imperialism and U.S. involvement of the world. And on the far right, they blame like the neocons and the Iraq intervention, for example, for everything. And you guess who gets a free ride? Ayatollahominee gets a free ride. Al-Qaeda gets a free ride.

ISIS gets a free ride. Hey, guess what? We have enemies and adversaries across the world and in the Middle East in particular who have aspirations that go far beyond anything that's a reaction to what we have done in the past. So what I would like to see is less self-flagellation, certainly a recognition, a recognition that we are not going to conciliate the furies of the Middle East or solve the Middle East problems. But to recognize we do have vital interests there,

vital interests associated with, you know, with access to energy, for example, for the global economy, but also from the defense of Israel, freedom of navigation, right? We've seen all these national interests at play, preventing Iran from getting the most destructive weapons on earth, and what that would mean for nuclear proliferation, the threat to us and the threat to Europe and others, you know, so we have vital interest there. We should prioritize, certainly America first, our interests, but all, and recognize that, you know, hey, problems that develop in the Middle East, they don't stay in the Middle East, right? They don't, they don't adhere to, as Kent Pollock once said, you know, they don't adhere to Las Vegas

rules. And we've seen that with jihadist terrorism. We've seen that with, you know, the migration crisis associated with the Syrian Civil War. And so just when you think it can't get worse in the Middle East, it actually can. And, and U.S. disengagement from the Middle East is not the answer. So, you know, and from a geo-strategia perspective, hey, China doesn't want us to have the keys to its gas station. So our relationships in the Middle East, our interests in the Middle East, I think really should lead to a reasoned, sustainable approach to the region. And I think that's what you've seen so far with the decisions of the Trump administration. President Trump used to, you have this kind of dissonance. I think he still does to a certain extent of

recognizing the threat from Iran, recognizing U.S. interests in the region, but also seeing the region is kind of a mess to be avoided. I think with President Trump, as long as he sees others sharing responsibility, like Israel did for its own security, like the Gulf states are, and the economic benefits of investment in the United States and so forth, you know, I think that the administration has come to the conclusion that we are going to pursue, you know, a reasoned strategy in the Middle East that recognizes the limits of our agency, but also recognizes that we have vital interests there. With that, General McMaster, thank you for joining the dispatch podcast. Hey, Jamie. I love what you guys do, man. Great to be with you.

Thank you.