Will Cain Country - Understanding What Just Happened And May Soon Happen In Israel

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Israel's security cabinet declared war Saturday night after Hamas terrorists launched a surprise barrage of thousands of rockets into Israel, killing hundreds and wounding thousands.   To break down the significance of the events, as well as how it may play out geopolitically, Will brings on the Director of the Center for National Defense at The Heritage Foundation, Robert Greenway.   Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail]   Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Understanding what just happened and what may soon happen in Israel and the Middle East. It's the Will Kane podcast on Fox News Podcast. What's up and welcome to Monday? As always, I hope you will download, rate, and review this podcast wherever you get your audio entertainment at Apple, Spotify, or at Fox News Podcast. You can watch the Will Kane podcast on YouTube and leave it a comment or a five-star review. Today, after the events over the weekend, I wanted to go in depth to help not just you but me understand the events that took place in Israel. The terrorist attack that is killed now over 700 people and left thousands of dead, including reports indicate who knows how many casualties are taken that are Americans. What's the background? What's the world stage? How does this play out? There are those that are already suggesting this is the spark that could ignite World War III. In order to have a little more depth for all of us in understanding what just happened in Israel, we're going to have a conversation with the Center for National Defense Director at the Heritage Foundation, Robert Greenway. But first, I want to share with you a few notes on sports. I'm weirdly optimistic. I feel good.

when it comes to sports. Look, Texas lost the Red River rivalry. Texas lost to OU. Why did I kind of feel like it's a win? I mean, I was let down. Don't get me wrong. I mean, I was a little down in the mouth on Saturday. You can see it on my social media.

It's a horrific way to lose, you know. Up by three, one minute to go. The Sooners have no timeouts, and they go the length of the field to crush your spirit. But something about that, where Texas made all the mistakes they could potentially make in a game. Three turnovers, Quinn Ewers came out of the gates cold. Complete chaos at the beginning of the game. That was the wildest first 10 minutes of a game, even considering that it's the rivalry of Texas OU, that I've seen in, I don't know how long.

I mean, dudes were hitting. You had everything. Block punts, turnovers. The crowd was going nuts. The bands were fighting in the stands, not literally. but they were playing fight songs back and forth, and it was pandemonium. And Texas was bad. Nine penalties, three turnovers, a goal line stand, four chances from the one yard line,

and Texas does not score. And you can say, yeah, that's on Texas, but that's not the Texas that I've seen all season long. Letting the Sooners go the entire length of the field in one minute with no timeouts, That's not the Texas defense that I've seen against Alabama or Kansas or anyone else this season. And let me give credit where credit is due. Oklahoma is good. Dylan Gabriel is good. And yet, and I know all my sooner fans that are listening right now will hate this,

I kind of feel like Texas is better. I'm just telling you, I think these two teams are going to meet again. I think it's going to be in December. I think it's going to be for the Big 12 championship. And my prediction is, write it down. mark it down. Not only does Texas win the Big 12 championship, not only do I think Texas actually ends up beating Oklahoma handily. I think a one-loss Big 12 champion Texas goes to the college football playoff. I feel optimistic. And maybe because the Texas Rangers are up 2-0 on the Baltimore

Orioles, and this little team that could might just be able to, I wouldn't want to place too many bets against the Texas Rangers. This is the way they go, by the way. Nine game winning streak, six game losing streak. Let's hope that six game losing streak comes after the World Series. You know, like, if you were at Vegas and you're like, well, it can't keep coming up red at the roulette table. Sooner or later, it's going to end up black.

Well, let's just hope that's after I've left the table and picked up my bet. I hope Texas's streak lasts through the ALDS, the ALCS in the World Series before their luck runs out. But right now, they're on a heater. It just keeps coming up red. And I wouldn't want to bet against the Texas Rangers. Just an awful weekend in news. If you scrolled across your social media, you would have seen absolute savagery in Israel.

And if you haven't, in order to fully understand the scope, you probably should. You'll see not just one but several, 20-something-year-old women attending a rave. roughly, I believe, 10 kilometers away from Gaza, Gaza being the small strip of land occupied by Palestinians in southern Israel, militarized border, reports are some 400 terrorists poured out from two dozen different breaches in the wall. Road motorcycles, rode paragliders, went town to town, village to village, kibbutz to kibbutz, murdering children, murdering women, kidnapping the elderly, kidnapping children and dragging them back to Gaza, who knows how many right now, are buried in tunnels and bunkers and hornets nests inside of Gaza. Who knows how many Americans, reports are there a lot of Americans among the dead or the kidnapped? Beautiful, 20-something-year-old young women, lifeless bodies in the backs of trucks,

pictures of them with bullet holes in their bodies. This was not what you think of when you think of war, even though we all know intuitively it is an element of war. This is what you think of when you think of savagery. This is the type of stuff that you heard about, honestly, in the old West, in the 1800s, as the settlers came across the plains Indians. This is backwards. This is violence for violence's sake.

This is bloodlust. People chanting Hala Akbar over the dead bodies of innocent young women. Israel suffered a horrific terrorist attack over the weekend, and now Israel has promised overwhelming retaliatory force. But that is set against not just an incredibly complicated historical picture of ongoing feuds and fights dating back well over 75 to 80 years. And that's just among the era of the nation states, tribal conflicts in the Middle East going back hundreds of years easily since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, not just set against

that picture, but a geopolitical collage that includes Iran behind the people. seen, pulling all the strings, to set in motion Hamas mowing down young children. Iran versus Saudi Arabia, Iran versus Israel, Iran versus the United States, Iran proxies Hezbollah, Hamas, the Quds forces, sowing violence and chaos and praying for an overwhelming response from Israel, to divide the Middle Eastern world, to set everyone against Israel, to begin, a war with America, the summer suggesting ends up as the war to end all wars. That's World War III. I, like many of you listening right now, am so skeptical of reactionary knee-jerk responses

to once again drag America into a position of war. I want to think. I want to know. I want to ask what is America's interest? that answer seems more obvious if there are Americans who are hostages in Gaza. But before America commits herself once again, we've got to ask all the right questions. We've got to know. We have to understand.

And I hope that we can begin to do so, just begin, because there will be much more to ask and understand as we move forward. But begin to understand today with Robert Greenway, the director for the Center of National Defense at the Heritage Foundation. Robert Greenway has more than 30 years of experience as a senior U.S. government official, developing coordinating and implementing U.S. government policy for all of the Middle East and North Africa. Prior to serving on the National Security Council, he served as a senior intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency and a veteran of the United States Army Special Forces. That's a green beret with six combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Following his government service, he established and led to Abraham. Accords Peace Institute, dedicated to strengthening and expanding the historic agreement.

He played a role, according to his biography at Heritage, as the architect of the historic, the principal architect of the historic Abraham Accords, the most significant diplomatic breakthrough in the Middle East peace since 1994. Robert Greenway will offer us a perspective today on understanding what's happening in Israel and what may soon happen, not just in the Middle East, but in the world. Here's Robert Greenway. Robert, I'm very pleased to have you today on the Will Kane show to discuss this very, what seems like, monumental and obviously tragic weekend of events. As we are speaking, the numbers at the moment appear to be more than 700 killed in Israel by Hamas terrorist attacks in the thousands on the number of injured.

I think the question that I want to start with, Robert, is how does it? this happen. This seems to be something that the entire apparatus of the state of Israel is designed to prevent, that the Gaza itself is secured with a militarized border, that Intel services in Israel are some of the world's most sophisticated. I have seen videos from former IDF members saying that you can't sneeze near that border wall without security services being awoken. How does something like this happen? Well, I appreciate you have me on. Look, there are two answers to your question. The first on the tactical side is either you have the information and you discount it at the time for whatever reason, bias, etc. Or you don't have

the raw information. As you said, this is an area. They've been staring out for decades. They know every centimeter of ground. But I do think that they probably diverted resources potentially to the northern border in the last few weeks and perhaps for good cause, we'll see. And I think that created a gap. I also tend to think based on what we know that they probably did have some indication, but perhaps not the scope and scale, which I think surprised everybody. They'll go back and do an autopsy. And the same applies to the U.S. There should be no instance where we are caught off guard to something this horrific. And so on our side, we'll also have to do an autopsy. And you saw today, administration officials were claiming they didn't see Iran's culpability.

And then the Wall Street Journal pops out, spoke with Hamas, and managed to put the pieces together. And once again, we find our own trusted government behind the aid ball. Now, at the strategic level, the real problem here is the administration is pursuing conflicting goals. We are on the one hand trying to integrate Tehran into the region and appease them and provide as much resources as we can to convince them ostensibly not to build a nuclear weapon. and we're not integrating Jerusalem and Israel into the region as we did under the Trump administration. And these two sort of policies, support for Israel, support to Tehran, you can't attempt to hold both at the same time. So this entire fallacy is collapsing and unfortunately we're now witnessing it and there's a price to be paid for it. I want to stay on the tactical side of the surprise for another moment.

What we're looking at most likely for most reports that I've seen is something like three, four hundred, different Hamas terrorists pouring over that border and just unleashing hell on women, children, the elderly kids in terms of 20-year-olds attending a music festival. And it does resemble chaos, Robert. It doesn't look like my friend and co-host Pete Hegseth mentioned, having served in the military, militarized, trained individuals operating in stacks going town to town. Instead, it looked like pure chaos. But on the other hand, that required some coordination to pour hundreds of men over that border, even if it's a bum rush, even with supplies in terms of firearm.

And as you said, we now know that Iran was behind this in some way. Hamas has admitted that it was supported by Iran. So what I'm getting at is this should have popped up on a radar for Intel. I just don't understand. and I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on that area, on Gaza. But again, I have been led to believe, the term you used is they stare at that border. I mean, I've been led to believe that IDF forces, Israeli defense forces, look at monitors or have eyeballs on ground all the time that people are woken up. Soldiers are woken up.

I saw a lady saying if a bird lands in a place that is too close to a secured location. So I just don't get how this, I don't get this scope of failure. Yeah. So, you know, it's possible, look, that they did, that they did not see this coming at all. There were no indications. It's possible, but it's unlikely. And like you, we were all laboring under the assumption that nothing could happen there without their notice of it. But also keep in mind that this is an area that typically is well defended.

And you'll notice that there were military casualties, to be sure, there are military installations down there. But most of the casualties were civilian. because most of the force structure on the southern front has been relocated elsewhere to address and anticipate other threats. And part of that is the coalition government, Israel, insisting they have a strong presence in the West Bank at the moment. And you could argue, I guess, that case. And the same for the northern Lebanese border. But at the end of the day, this is a failure. They'll have to go back as we will and figure out what happened.

I'll also say as to the quality of troops, look, I think the breaches probably, as we saw, the blinding of the observation towers, et cetera, were not done by and didn't require elite troops by any stretch. There probably were qualified cadet, leaning, unorganized individuals, probably with minimal training because they were expendable. But once they were on the other side of the border, all they really encountered were civilians. And so you have to wonder why they let their guard down and what the calculation is. They're going to have to go back and obviously do an autopsy on it.

We're going to step aside here for a moment. Stay tuned. It is time to take the quiz. It's five questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play. along let's see how you do take the quiz every day at the quiz dot fox then come back here to see how you did thank you for taking the quiz this is jimmy phala inviting you to join me for fox across america where we'll discuss every single one of the democrats's dumb ideas just kidding it's only a three-hour

show listen live at noon eastern or get the podcast at fox across america dot com so yesterday morning on fox and friends the israeli ambassador to the united nations told me and my co-hosts that among the hostages taken, and I don't think we have a firm grasp yet on the total number of hostages taken, they were, you can see horrific savage videos of not just dead bodies, but live individuals as well, women drug around by their hair, and most likely now at this point, all drugged back into Gaza, that among the, who knows how many hostages, at that time he told us there was most likely dozens of Americans among those that had been killed. kidnapped. Now, he came back after the show. He said that on national television. He came back

after the show to clarify that the number might be closer to one dozen. And we're probably talking about, just for complete accuracy and understanding for the viewer and listener, probably talking about dual citizenship, Israeli Americans, perhaps American tourists, which I'm sure as well, Robert, will be counted among the dead. But I'm curious, do you think the existence of American citizens among the dead, and certainly maybe even separately, you have to answer this separately, among the hostages, changes the game for America? Does it change our response? It damn well ought to.

Look, it was inevitable. And a lot of the witnesses who would know were probably among the killed. So it'll take a while. We may never know with great deal of certainty how many were actually taken hostage and how many are just missing and on account it for. But we still don't know how many were left in Afghanistan, right? So we're still trying, you know, almost two years later trying to figure out how many people we inadvertently or intentionally left on the battlefield there. It should absolutely make a difference to us. No American should be left in that circumstance. And the response as a result ought to be

equally resounding. And that's why it's good to see the maritime forces come and restore deterrence that we've been dismantling for now since 21 and try and restore it. And I think we also should be supplying the requisite response forces and intelligence to help recover Americans from this. But those videos that you talk about, I think now for those that were laboring under false assumptions, it demonstrate exactly what we're dealing with and who we're dealing with. These are not people that can be negotiated with. They're not people that can be left alone to be responsible for Gaza or anywhere else. And that's what the next operation is going to presumably take care of. So I want to explore that statement you

made it, damn sure better make a difference. So let's hone in on difference for just one moment. And in order to explore that, which I'm intellectually curious about, but also I think it's the type of honest conversation you have to have in moments of heightened tension. The hypothetical I want to present to you right now is no American casualties, no American hostages. And the reason I want to present that calculus to you is I have to ask you under that scenario, what do you think should be or should have been the American response? So without U.S. casualties or hostages, I would say our cheap response is contained. Let the Israelis mask their resources and effects in Gaza, deal with the immediate problem,

and prevent Hezbo from getting pulled in the conflict from Palestinian, Islamic Jihad, PFLP being pulled into the conflict, prevents Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen from being drawn into conflict, keep it contained. I think that's still goal one, but I think now that we've got U.S. individuals that obviously changed the equation. But the first goal for the United States is to handle what Israel doesn't have the resources to do. And that's the octopus, as they call it, from Tehran and it's surrogates across the region, which are undoubtedly, this was set in motion to elicit exactly this response and draw Israel into a regional conflict. There's really no other plausible explanation. So I want to come back to that in just one moment. I want to talk

about the role of Iran and their strategic objective behind the scenes in this terrorist attack. But so if I understand you correctly, were there no American casualties of American hostages, what you're saying is the role that you would see America playing, and we've always supported Israel with intelligence. So that wouldn't be a big difference, right? It wouldn't necessarily change based upon what just happened. I see you, I see you questioning what I just said. Not questioning, but I would amplify. So there are circumstances in which we have of necessity increase the intelligence cooperation between our two countries. It is exceptional, but there are times when it could be accelerated to an entirely

different level, and that is the provision of U.S. intelligence that we don't always share in an immediate sense. And I don't want to imply that there are barriers on it, but what it does imply is that we have resources that, frankly, no one else does, and we can, when necessary, focus a great deal of resources to specific problems in areas and illuminate what other would be dark. Yes, we're a nation state, and our job, in our intelligence apparatus, this job is to protect America first.

So I understand that, you know, those two intelligence agencies wouldn't be always 100% in cooperation, and that there are times perhaps like now where you would amplify, as you point out, that cooperation. But I want to move beyond that then. So that's one level of American response. And the second, if I heard you and read you correctly, is to ensure that this war doesn't bleed over into really honestly a nation state war that involves Jordan or Iran or whatever may be. And I think I heard you correctly. In that role, the United States plays the role of

deterrence. You already talked about us deploying maritime facilities, naval ships. So we're just sitting there off the coast, basically flexing our biceps saying, think twice, Jordan, think twice, Egypt, think twice Iran. If you dare do anything to respond to Israel's response to this attack. Yeah, this is your friends in a bar fight making sure it's mono and mono, right? And everybody else clears out of the way and lets two people address the threat. That's exactly what I think our role still has to be, but that's what it would be barring U.S. killed and U.S. wounded, which changes things. And okay, let's talk about that now, because that seems to be the reality will slowly

get confirmation on everything here because we want precision. But it does seem to be the case that there are American casualties, which I think, again, is probably a different response than if there are American hostages. So American hostages might even demand a different type of response than simply acknowledging American casualties. So let's, at this point, we'll call it a hypothetical, that there are American hostages inside of Gaza. And we should say for the listener and the viewer, and I don't like taking anything for granted,

and you can put flesh on these bones, Robert, you're the expert, but we're talking about a 140-mile strip of land with 2 million people, one of the most highly dense places on Earth, apartment complexes almost cover it up completely, five-story, 10-story apartment complexes, tunnels running underneath Gaza, underground bunkers, Hamas, to the extent that is even in Gaza, it might be somewhere else in the world, its leadership structure, embedded within the civilian population, and you got to go into that hornet's nest, whoever you is, and get out hostages. That's the task for Israel. If there are American hostages, are you suggesting also that's the task for America? So having had to do that before, I would not envy it of anyone. What I would rather suggest is, and what I think it would be more effective, is we go back to the organ grinder and not deal with the monkey that is Hamas in Gaza, but go back to Tehran and make it incredibly clear to them, probably to get their attention, we probably have to eliminate some of their leadership to do it, which isn't a bad thing, and remind them that this is their call and that their call ought to be

released American hostages immediately. We can work with other intelligence services that have additional capabilities, but as a last resort, would we want to put U.S. personnel into that situation. It might come to that. I'd rather see that than I think them languish in a tunnel in Gaza or die as a result of neglect. But I do think that there's a more sophisticated way of about doing this, and that's applying pressure where it counts. And that's on their Iranian sponsors. Hamas is a wholly owned subsidiary. This is the Quds force we're talking about on behalf of Tehran. That's where the decision is made. Congressman Michael Waltz, who I think like yourself, served as Special Forces, Army Special Forces, saw my tweet this morning about the potential

for American hostages. And he immediately said, if this is true, he would expect that there are special operators of whatever calling of the American military on their way to Israel. Do you feel the same? I think it's a prudent measure. We'd want that capability there, especially if we have American citizens being held hostage. There's no doubt. I hear you that the primary tool might be to lean on Tehran to get those hostages released. But again, I think you have some personal experiences, as you just alluded to, Amindigo. That's just speaking on behalf of the American hostages.

There are going to be dozens, if not hundreds of Israeli hostages. And the Israelis are going to be tasked with getting those people out of Gaza. How is that possible? I never served, Robert. So I profess my ignorance on something like this. It looks like a tactical impossibility to go into Gaza and surgically remove, well, either to surgically remove hostages or surgically remove Hamas. Well, that's why they did it. Obviously, the leverage there was anticipating an Israeli response to their action.

They knew that they had to have some cover and increase the complexity. Hostages will do that. It is among the most difficult things to do to go into denied terrain and recover persons being held by an armed party, especially in the complex structures underground that Hamas has labored to build because they've been allowed to. And so that I can't imagine too many more difficult challenges than this one, but nothing is completely impossible, which is why I state you'd want to exhaust every other alternative. And in my mind, you go back to the people that are calling the shots. Whose decision it is to release hostages as it was to take them, and you start there. Having failed that, or if you failed to do it, you might be prepared. It goes back to your point on having the resources in Israel, in the region that can respond immediately.

And that has to be something that has to be prepared for. No question about it. It just seems like a tactical bloodbath, Robert. I mean, well, that's – and I'm not just talking about on the side of Hamas or the civilians embedded in Hamas. I'm talking about Israeli or American actors that have to go into this urban environment, go door to door. I would just have to think the losses are going to be incredible. Well, this is going to be horrific. You know, in my own experience, in similar circumstances, although I would say these are probably even more challenging,

but trying to clear Northern District's infusion in 2004 after our contractors were hung up on a bridge just outside the town, it's an ugly business. and it is going to be incredibly horrific for those participating in it, and unfortunately for civilians that are being used as human shields in order to constrain Israel and paint them as creating civilian casualties. But this is also inevitable the moment that they struck Israel and inflicted this kind of damage on Israeli territory, killing men, women, and children in the way that they did. It's absolutely human and despicable. Inevitably, Israel is going to have to respond. And it is going to be incredibly horrific. But it could be only the beginning. And I think, again, that's their intent, is to

escalate this far beyond Gaza. It starts in Gaza. I hope it ends there. But the odds are that this is going to escalate much more quickly than that and beyond Gaza. Okay. That's not going on heard. And I'm definitely going to come back to that in just a moment that this goes beyond Gaza and possibly into a regional conflict in the summer suggesting the beginning of the war to end all wars, the beginning of World War III. We'll come back to all of that in just a moment. But But what would you say, you know, I don't want to attribute this exclusively to social media because Benjamin Netanyahu has said basically that Gaza will be reduced to rubble. There is a mindset out there because of the strategic impossibility, flatten Gaza, flatten

it, turn it to glass. Now, obviously, the moral atrocities, the human and civilian losses would be possibly untenable for the world. And I'm not even addressing those moral. I'm not addressing those moral questions. or maybe they're inextricable. Actually, forgive me, because they're inextricable from the calculus. Is that something that you think is legitimately on the table? You just go overwhelming force and reduce gauze to rubble. I don't. I understand the rhetoric. I certainly understand the

emotions, but as a practical military necessity, it's not feasible. It's not possible. It's also, I think, immoral for us, it'd be immoral for the Israelis to do. I also don't think that's necessary, to the job. But I do think it's going to be more costly for Israel to go in and clear Hamas out of Gaza among the two plus million civilians that reside there. And so I think that I understand it. But that's what Bashar al-Assad would do. That's what Putin would do and is doing in Ukraine. That's what Hezbollah would do. But that is not what Israel would do. Certainly not the United States. As a result, it's going to produce tremendous casualties on the Israeli side, and inevitably

civilian casualties, but I don't think that they're going to be wanton in the application of force. And okay, so let's explore that that application of force in this moment, because do you think that is the wish and hope of Iran, in fact? Does Iran hope that Israel

does come in an attempt to turn Gaza to glass? Well, I think they certainly anticipate this was designed to solicit a response, a ground response. There's no other option available. They've been reluctant to do it since they surrendered Gaza now 15 years ago. And so I think the calculation of Tehran is one is the United States would not actively seek to deter them and would probably

constrain Israel. That's been the practice really for the last two years. And I think Tehran's calculation is they have an opportunity to do a couple of things. The first is to waylay and disrupt all of the discussions about Israel normalizing his diplomatic relations. That was actually going to take a bit more time with the Saudis, I think, than most people appreciate, but they were moving in that trajectory, and I think Tehran obviously wants to disrupt it. The second is that they have the opportunity while they have surrogates now arrayed all around Israel to apply them now in a concerted fashion, which is what they were intended to do, and to bring Israel to its knees. And I think they see an opportunity they weren't sure they were going to have. And so now they've made the

calculation that they can do it without the U.S. being an appreciably part of the problem. And you can see why. In March, Austin, Secretary Austin, testified that Iran had attacked the United States since 2021, 83 times, and the United States responded a grand total of four. We just gave them $6 billion sitting in Qatar if there to be believed, and we've given them over $49 billion of oil revenues last year to be over 70 this year. It's a staggering amount of resources to the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. And so you can see, how Tehran's calculation is, I can send drones to Russia and to Ukraine. I'm not going to pay a price for it. I can interdict shipping. No one's going to hold me accountable. Now's the time I can apply all

of my surrogates against Israel and the United States won't intervene. And I think that's their calculation. And I think that's their expectation that Israel will go in. They will produce civilian casualties. They'll be pilloried in the media for it as they often are. And then they will expand the conflict when Israel is committed from the north in Lebanon, then from Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. And in their minds, they will have brought Israel to the brink and collapse the government probably as a consequence. I think that's where they're headed with this. And if we're not careful, it could happen. And I think the U.S. is the key in ensuring it doesn't. So the U.S. is the key in ensuring it doesn't. Let's just go back just a few pages in what you had

to say. So a lot of people are talking about the $6 billion that was given by the Biden administration to Iran. That $6 billion was part of a hostage negotiation exchange. It was five for five, but also, I guess the cherry on top was $6 billion from the United States to Iran. Now, the Biden administration would have everyone believe that it was for humanitarian aid. They would also say today that none of that money has been deployed. It's still sitting in a bank account somewhere, not in Iran's hands. I don't know how you feel about it, Robert, but if somebody told me, hey, you've got an I owe you or a line of credit, I would then feel more free to spend whatever money I already had in my pocket on whatever is my choosing. What you don't spend on A, you can spend on

B. And people live on credit, nations included. So I don't see a big distinction here. You'll keep hearing the phrase, money is fungible, money is fungible. It just means that it flows everywhere. It doesn't matter what you earmark it for. It frees up other money somewhere else. It seems at this point, I don't know about the timing, but the timing as well. If Iran knew this was coming in, this money, they could have increased support for Hamas for the last several weeks. They could have, I mean, and on that, so address that, but also how long it does occur to me as I'm talking to you, how long do you think something like this has been in the planning? So first, I think the planning for this would have taken months, that they would have had this concept,

well developed, more or less, for quite some time, potentially years. But I think they wouldn't have gotten the execution planning until probably months ago. And then I think it would have been weeks for final coordination of the detailed planning necessary in order to bring it to execution. And again, I'm confident that Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as the constellation of surrogates and proxies from Qatab Hisbalah and the different factions of the Quds Force have been involved in this. So I think it's been months.

But the Wall Street Journal, the only real information we have publicly disclosed so far, indicates that the April timeframe was when this began. And that's when this was announced, not coincidentally. And so I think you're right, ultimately. I think common sense would tell you that once they knew they were going to get $6 billion and it was only a question of when, they could liberate assets. But again, a broader point here is we've given Iran already far more than $6 billion since 2021.

$49 billion of oil revenue last year compared to less than seven when we left office is closer to five a year associated with their oil exports. So 49 last year, it'll be over 70 this year because the price of oil has gone from $55 to $85 dollars a barrel. So they already have more than enough in the tank. The $6 billion, in a lot of ways, that's the real cherry on top of a much larger pie. We have been laboring to build for them under the Biden administration, and they're taking full advantage of it. And make no mistake that Hezbollah and Hamas and all the rest of them are wholly owned subsidiaries. They're almost exclusive source of funding, with the exception to what they get in extortion, crime, and the drug

trade like Capagon, all comes from Tehran. And when Tehran is rich, everybody else enjoys it. They are poor. Everyone else has to fend for themselves. In this case, they are taking instructions for the source of their funding, and that is Tehran. And they have a lot more than $6 billion. And if this $6 billion isn't pulled back, re-frozen, and perhaps redistributed to the victims in Israel and the United States who just lost loved ones, then something is horribly wrong here. We're going to step aside here for a moment. Stay tuned.

Listen to the all-new Brett Bear podcast featuring Common Ground, in-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your. Brett Bear favorites like his all-star panel and much more. Available now at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. So I don't want to take anything for granted, Robert. You're very obviously well read in an expert on all these things, and I don't want to presume that I or anyone else listening is. So if I'm remedial, please forgive me here. So you've referenced this a couple of times.

So Iran is a radical, Shia Muslim, theocracy. Most of the rest of the Arab world, Iran is not. an Arab nation. It's a Persian nation, but the rest of the Arab world is Sunni Muslim, and it's not as though those two groups at all get along, which makes them rival powers in the Middle East. Iran has placed surrogates all around Israel. You've named those surrogates several times, most of which are designated terrorist organizations. Hezbollah in Lebanon, just to the north of Israel. Hamas, which is not Shia, which is Sunni, which in and of itself is interesting, inside of Israel, in Gaza, in Gaza. in the West Bank. I think Iran is connected to the Houthis in Yemen. I don't know if they are Shia or Sunni, actually, the Houthi. Are they Sunni or Shia? They're Shia, but they're not the same Shia as are the 12ers in Iran. They're sort of a branch, much like those that are in power in Syria. Right. And you point out at this point, Syria's surrogate relationship with Iran as well. So, in effect, surrogates of Iran have surrounded Israel.

When you mentioned to us earlier that one of the biggest fears is this turns into a regional conflict, not simply secluded to Gaza. Is that your primary concern first? Before we even get to the nation stage of this, of Iran doing something direct, is it that those forces, those surrogate forces, Hezbollah has already begun. So we already know that Hezbollah has already initiated attacks in the north of Israel, that Israel starts experiencing attacks from all sides, from all of these Iranian surrogates? That's what they're there for. That's their purpose. And they exist because they've been funded to do it. It's why we decided deliberately to starve them of resources beginning, again, at the source in Tehran. And it worked. They spent more time trying to get resources and smuggle oil and drugs than they did trying to conduct attacks against Americans and our partners. Now it's the reverse. Now they are flushed with cash. They have ample resources and the tools necessary to threaten Israel. And Iran's calculation now is it's time to exercise.

what I have constructed, and this vast array, what they call the axis of resistance, is now in motion. And they will fight to the last surrogate and proxy. And the Iranians, give them credit where credit is due, are careful to use surrogates and proxies to do the dirty work for them so that Iranians are directly involved. So they'll fight to the last Hamas member. And Hamas will fight to the last innocent civilian in Gaza. And the same is true with Hezbollah. They've destroyed a beautiful country and a tremendous people, beginning with the Beirut bomb blasts, and actually well before that, they've destroyed the country, and they'll fight to the last innocent civilian, and Iran will be behind it all, having not lost a drop of

blood, unless we hold them accountable for all of this, and we have to. Otherwise, it will not end. I'll come back to what that means to hold accountable Iran, but I want to keep with this backdrop because it's not just, it's not just context. It's actually directly related to what we just witnessed. So while we just described the Shia backdrop to the Middle East, the Sunni backdrop is basically everybody else. I mean, it is Jordan, all of the Arabian Peninsula. It's most importantly, it's Saudi Arabia. And you mentioned it. I mentioned it. It does seem to be either the primary goal or a very happy byproduct of this attack that Iran can interrupt any potential peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which is a

historic and was moving forward. You were a little more skeptical in how far away it was in your earlier answer. But, I mean, it was two weeks ago that Muhammad bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and Benjamin Netanyahu, were both speaking very optimistically on Fox News about approaching a potential peace deal. And again, that would be historic, not just going back 75 years of Israeli existence, but, I mean, you could go back hundreds of years on the entire region being destabilized. So Iran's looking at that. And by the way, Saudi Arabia is Iran's enemy, Sunni versus Shia.

And they're looking at it going, I can't have two of my enemies ally together. I've got to stop something here. And if Iran with Hamas as its tool can provoke Israel into an overwhelming response that, as you mentioned earlier, the media goes nuts about, everybody is appalled by Israel's brute response to this. and there's images all of your television, all of a sudden Saudi Arabia, who has to kind of, by the way, Saudi Arabia's statement in the last day or so, pretty friendly to the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian side. Now, I don't know if they have to do that. I don't know the geopolitics behind that statement.

But I can't imagine Saudi Arabia looking at horrific images of Palestinian civilians dying and say, we're ready to sign a deal with Israel. Yeah, the reason I said that the deal wasn't as close. And you'd expect Muhammad bin Salman to be positive about it in the interview with an American journalist and an American audience because he's trying to negotiate with the Americans to get concessions on a number of different critical fronts. And so it's in his interest to do so. It's also in BB's interest to have the same interview with the same American outlet, same American audience, to say this is really material and it's happening. And in a sense, they're right, but recognize that everything that they're asking for, more incidentally than they asked for when we were first having these conversations. before we left office, enrichment is going to take congressional action. A security deal of any

substance will probably take congressional action. Large arms sales, the provision of capabilities to deal with the peace agreement, which is at the crux of it, would take congressional support and assistance. Is anyone right now confident in what Congress is able to do right now, even if they wanted to? And so again, I think that there would be a longer road to hoe, but they were certainly on that road. Iran certainly wants to scuttle it. A point two on the Sunni-Shi, Arab-Persian divide. Hamas as a Sunni terrorist organization and Iran, there's often, I think, debate about whether or not the cooperation is genuine and real. Look, the ideology that we're dealing with here when it comes to radical Islamic extremism is not as alien between the two sides as you would imagine. There's far more cooperation than you would appreciate.

And I'll give you an example. Currently, the current leader of al-Qaeda, after Zawahiri's untimely and thankful death in Afghanistan, his number two, now number one, Saif al-Alan, has. been in Tehran or in Iran, let's say, for quite some time. And Mohamed al-Masri, a senior al-Qaeda official, was killed during our term in office inside of Iran. Why would al-Qaeda senior leadership be then and now inside of Iran? Why would there be cooperation? Because they're pursuing the same goals. Again, the ideologies are not as far apart, and you get right down to it, as many would suspect. And so the differences matter, but the cooperation sometimes can trump it. That's been the case for some time.

You know, Robert, I want to ask you about this as well. We started our conversation talking about how something like this can happen. And we're talking about one of the most surveilled and secured borders in the world. And, you know, it doesn't escape anyone listening that right now at our southern border, we have one of the most porous borders, perhaps, in the world. Who knows who's coming across our American southern border? But I do know this, that just yesterday, in New York City, there were protests in midtown of people flying the Palestinian flag, chanting from the river to the sea, supporting Palestine. And you say to yourself, supporting what?

Well, the only thing they could be supporting in this moment was the horrific savagery that we saw over the weekend. There's nothing else that occurred. Israel has launched, at minimum, a limited strike at this point in response. So there's nothing to protest yet. There's no political fight to behold. There's nothing but a celebration of savagery. And that happened on the streets of New York City, Robert. What am I supposed to take away from those images?

You're 100% correct. And it didn't just occur in New York. It occurred in Europe as well. We saw it in London. We saw it in different parts of the continent. It's absolutely egregious. And you're absolutely right. The only thing that they were demonstrating their support for was what we saw the preceding 24 hours.

were women and children gunned down in their homes, dragged out, raped, mutilated, and held hostage in some cases where they were not shot at point-blank range. How anyone could conscious it, I don't know. How anyone could tolerate that? I don't know. Freedom of speech, I understand. But in this case, a line certainly crossed, and I don't understand it myself. But look, they're not the only ones. Interestingly, a lot of media outlets, and you know this better than I, are not calling them terrorists. We're still calling them militias in different media organizations and outlets, not just in the United States, but abroad. And this has gone on far too long. There's this moral equivalence being drawn between terrorists and between their victims, and it makes no sense.

And you talked about our southern border. And I think it's a critical point because the expansion isn't just regional. If we think that they have not infiltrated, and they, I mean, Iran, their circuits and proxies, have not infiltrated terrorists in the United States since we've been letting in almost 200,000 a month. I think we're gravely mistaken. They absolutely have, and we need to account on it. And it's not the first time they've attempted to do it. In 2011, the Iranians were responsible for plotting an attack to blow up the Cafe Milano restaurant in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. in order to kill Otto Al Joubert, the Saudi then ambassador. And it would have obviously caused a tremendous amount of damage. And so not only did this occur, it occurred

because the Iranians were coordinating with a Mexican drug cartel called the Zetas, who thought they were insane. And so if we think this isn't going to happen again, we're horribly mistaken. Yeah, look, by the way, I'm an absolutist on free speech. I actually find the utilitarian nature of seeing that that exists among our society, because it does exist, clearly. That mindset exists. I'd rather have it seen than have it go unknown.

And I'm sitting there looking at what's taking place in the streets of New York, and then what you just brought up and thinking, okay, Israel was unprecedented. How about us? Are we unprepared? Again, it didn't take sophistication. It took coordination. You know, we're talking about gunfire. I interviewed this weekend one of the big paramedic groups in Israel that responded to a lot of this. He said, normally look, it's rockets. And there were something like, who knows, 2,000 to 5,000 rockets that were shot. But he goes, this is different because this is all gunfire. This is AKs. And on that note, really quickly, Robert, I have seen images of God. guys, they weren't carrying AKs. They were carrying M-Force. American stuff. What am I looking at, Robert? Is this from Ukraine? Is this from Afghanistan? Where's this stuff coming from? Well, look, because it's the predominant weapon of the IDF, you can presume that they might recover some over time, but it'd be small a number. We already know, because it's been reported some months ago, that weapons from Afghanistan have found their way, not surprisingly, and not only, into Gaza and the West Bank. So we know they're there. we know it's there. There's no question about it. And yes, you're right. We are unprepared here as they were. And if we're not careful, we're going to pay a price for it. And we certainly shouldn't. But when those people are streaming across our southern border, we should be mindful that within that, they are being exploited by terrorist organizations and have been now for two years. So let's talk about that war now spilling out regionally like you talked about. Okay, Iranian surrogates, perhaps. I think it was Dan Crenshaw. Congressman, former Navy SEAL from Texas, who used that term that I used earlier.

He said, this isn't a transient Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And I want to speak to you as much as I am to the audience in this, or speak to the audience as much as I'm speaking to you here, Robert. This is a difficult story for many people in America to stay abreast, okay? And I count myself among them because it is an ongoing and never-ending fight. From 1947, that doesn't even have to be our starting point. we could go way further back. It's complicated, disputed facts, whose land is it, religious rivalries. It's almost beyond comprehension. But, you know, war in 47, war in 67, war in 73,

intifada's in the 80s and 90s, intifada's in the 2000s. You know, we should note this is the first Netanyahu said it will be war. So that's the first time in 50 years we've used the word war. but it's just it's an ongoing and never-ending fight and so when I see Dan Crenshaw say you know this isn't just another chapter in the transient Israeli-Palestinian conflict this is different and he used the term war to end all wars do you agree and why so I look this is a continuation of a conflict in a sense it's not so much about the Israelis and the Palestinians it's larger than that and the Palestinians and the Palestinian militias the Palestinian terrorists are all being manipulated by an outside party and supported by an outside

party. In that sense, the struggle here is between Iran and all of its neighbors and the United States. And it just happens to show up now at this time in an unprecedented way. And that's why the Declaration War for the first time is 50 years. And it's impossible to presume that this is going to be the war that end all wars. Unfortunately, I think we're going to be plagued by them for the foreseeable future. What I would say is that this is different. And this could become regional and it could become more than that if we are not careful. And that's why deterrence matters. And ultimately, it's cheaper to deterrent than it is to respond.

And we've dismantled our own deterrence. Israel is a key component of it. In 2021, we had passed off the first agreements in a generation between Israel and its Arab neighbors. One that Secretary Kerry and others vehemently maintained was absolutely impossible absent progress on the Palestinian front. And yet it happened. And now just two and a half years later, we're in a completely different circumstance. And it's all because we pursued completely different policies. Instead of confronting the problem and the threat from Iran, which is the principle here,

which is the real problem, we've decided to feed and appease it. And now we're facing the consequences of it. And not just us, Israel and everyone else in the region, who has suffered from these same attacks from these same animals sponsored by Tehran. And we've got to confront it. There's no choice because if we don't, it is inevitably going to come here. And again, Americans now we know we're killed, wounded, and are probably held hostage. now. And so we have no choice. We're not observers. We are participants. You say that because of

the existence of America. You said it's going to come here. Are you talking about the terrorist threat that we just talked about? When you say it's going to come here, what do you mean by it's going to come to America? Is my belief, my judgment that they are, they have infiltrated our southern or perhaps our northern border, but they have infiltrated our border. And we already know we've gotten, I think, well over a hundred on the terrorist watch list and just the last thing. Proxies of Iran. Of course. Yes. Because that doesn't even count what might have come in the form of al-Qaeda, ISIS, or Sunni terrorists. Well, that's right. But as I said, you've got al-Qaeda's leader right now residing in Iran. So you could differentiate between the two, but I don't. Iran's the world's

largest state sponsor terrorism for a reason. I think they've put people in the United States and they've exploited the border to do it. And you also say this is, this is a our fight, America, because of the existence of American casualties? Absolutely. For both reasons, really. One, because they're here. Second, because now, as we know, American blood has been spilled. You know, and the reason that I clarify with you, and I wouldn't even say what I've done is push you. The only reason that I clarify with you right there is because there is war fatigue in America. There is weariness. There is, I think, in my humble estimation, a valuable strain of thought in America that always asks the question, America

first, what is America's interest? How does this serve America? I don't want to have a debate with you about it, but I think it is the essentially, it's the unanswered question. How about this? That's not the right word. The unresolved question of why there's so much division in the United States regarding Ukraine. You have to answer, and I like this about America right now, you have to answer for us why we should spill blood and treasure in any war. We can't just go around, we're not strong enough, we're not rich enough, we're not big enough to go around and fight every war. So even when I hear you say, and I don't disagree, you know, we got Americans somewhere, we need to go kick ass and get those Americans back. But before this becomes a war of America,

Nikki Haley said, an attack on Israel is an attack on America. That, to me, seems a bridge too far. You need to sell me on why this is our fight for America. Yeah, look, I think you're right, and I think the American people are right to question it every time force has been applied and for good reason. Personally, as someone who spent my entire adult life in this part of the world in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan for six years alone, longer before that, I completely understand the fatigue and the desire. I've lost a lot of friends over there, and it has a lot of, I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. But at the end of the day, it's given me an appreciation of when and why people wear and serve the uniform in the United States, and that's to prevent

any harm coming to Americans. And sometimes that means acting overseas. We have to be judicious about it. There has to be cause. I would not say an attack on Israel of necessity, because they're attacked routinely, is a situation that warrants U.S. response. And by the U.S. response, I mean, our own troops, our own blood, not our treasure, because we already commit that to Israel, and we should. But I don't think it requires U.S. participation. And they don't ask for it. The exception here, the one that you are right to point out is that American blood has been spilled, as we are told, in this conflict in last 36 hours, in Israel by Hamas, sponsored by Iran. And my judgment that they are also present here, but set that aside as a hypothesis,

American blood has been spilled. Then I think we have cause and justification. Again, it has to be to a certain extent proportional about the commitment from the United States. And I don't think an exhausted commitment is required here because the Israelis are incredibly capable, but I do recognize that once American blood has already been spilled, we really don't have much choice. We'll end our conversation on sort of a optimistic and pessimistic note, because you've hinted at optimism several times. So what I would like you to do, the optimism you've hinted at is the role that America can play in ensuring that this doesn't become not just a regional conflict, but something perhaps much wider. And you've talked about the role of deterrence, the pressure

on Tehran. How does America, and I guess I'll have to grant you whatever president you would like to execute this strategy. Unfortunately, though, in reality for the next, you know, 18 months, it's going to be Joe Biden. How does America respond in order to execute that optimistic vision of not having this become a world war? So the first and the most important thing is we make a fundamental decision. We're no longer going to appease Iran. That's over. There's no more a pursuit. There's no more unenforced sanctions. There's no more transfers of funds. That stops. What does start is our support for Israel, our partners and allies in the region. And we let them do the heavy lifting that they are altogether capable of doing. We make sure that they have the equipment responsible that necessary in order to do it. And they have, in Israel's case, the intelligence necessary in order to do the job. And when it comes to the specific instances where Americans themselves are held, we need to exercise the force required to recover our own personnel if that's what's required. Ultimately, it comes down to

confronting the problem in the region, that is Iran, not appeasing it, and supporting our partners and allies, and that chiefly is Israel. And I think once we make that decision, we'll find the region rally around us as we did in the previous administration because we agreed with them and we agreed together that that was the calculation. If we try, on the other hand, to continue to appease Iran, we're not going to be satisfied with the results. We're seeing him now. but to your point, I think we do have a chance to turn this around, restore deterrence, and support a partner, and there's a way to recover from this. And frankly, I think that ultimately we get to a better place for everybody because Hamas has done nothing but torture and abuse the people that they've been in charge of in Gaza.

And Israel has the chance to reset that. It'll be painful and ugly to watch, but ultimately I think we'll be better off if they do it. No threat of provoking Iran into that regional conflict, into an overt state actor. no threat there if you flex your muscles at Iran? Look, there's always a risk, but it's less if we confront them. My experience with Iran is very personal. If you confront them with overwhelming force, they will back down. The only thing they charge is weakness, and that's what they've been shown.

Everyone argued that when you killed Qasem Soleimani, that the streets would run red with blood and that they would attack and we would start a regional conflict. The opposite occurred. They were quick to de-escalate because they knew that we were going to climb higher on the escalation ladder than it was possible for them to do. So what do you mean specifically when you say respond with strength? You said it earlier. So start taking out, is your suggestion for your optimistic scenario?

Now, we're talking about your optimistic scenario, the one that avoids regional conflict, start taking out Iranian leadership? So in the most optimistic scenario, we would be able to exert enough force to be able to demonstrate that they would... What does that mean? Exert force. What does that mean, exert force? We would have to probably take out their infrastructure that is critical to supporting

and sustaining their operations. We'll get more specific than that, but there's plenty of options to do it without taking leadership out per se. But we'd have to remove infrastructure and demonstrate credibility. If that failed, we might have to, and probably would have to, eliminate leaders as we have in the past, because we've let this get too far. And then if that failed? If that, well, first, history has proven that it's unlikely to, but if that failed, we would have to follow through and ensure that we maintain sufficient deterrence. And again, the best way to do that is to equip our partners and allies in the region. All they want are the tools to do the job with almost no exception. And then only those things that the United States is required

to do. Circumstances like we're seeing now would we have to change the equation and become involved. I'm just trying to play the devil's advocate to game this out. Are we talking about, so we're talking about air strikes in Iran, drone or air strikes in Iran to take out that leadership or you're talking about espionage covert operations. But, but, but, but, I mean, again, we're presuming that fails to bring Iran to the knee. And then you said to me, well, we'd have to fulfill the next step in overwhelming deterrence. That term means nothing to me. So, like, what is – I mean, I'm trying to game out and hopefully avoid full-scale war in Iran.

I'll phrase it a different way. There are two options in confronting Iran. The first is to demonstrate to them that you will unhesitatingly prevent them from taking action. What that means is an overwhelming response that eliminates all their offensive capability. We can talk about that detail or we can set that aside. Option two is if they're not convinced that you're going to do it, you're not serious, then you're going to have to do some of it. I wouldn't, of necessity, think it means strikes within Iran, but it might.

It means eliminating their offensive infrastructure, missile launch and storage facilities spread across the region, drone facilities, manufacturing, and storage locations, all the communications responsible for connecting all the nodes. And lastly, all of the resources, all the resources that support this entire entity that come from oil sales to China would have to stop. And that's enforcing sanctions as we once did. That's the sort of concentrated effort that we were required to prevent Iran from taking offensive action. And this has historically been the case. It's when you don't do these things that you encounter this sort of escalation from Iran. What would you expect the response from Russia and China to be to those attacks on Iran?

I don't think Russia's not a position to do much of anything right now. They bled themselves on Ukraine and will continue to do so and proving themselves to being capable of even the modest military objectives they set for themselves. China, I think, is principal concern is as long as they get enough energy to supply their own economy, that they're probably not going to take offensive action, and they certainly can't project far outside their own borders or far outside their territorial waters. So I don't think we'd see a principal threat there. And the deal we've made before is when we take Iran off the oil market, we replace it and we replace it with our partners and allies.

That means to the benefit of our friends in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, we let them assume the responsibility of exporting oil to China. And as long as it comes from our friends and China takes no action, it's a much better alternative. As long as Iran doesn't benefit from the sale of oil. We've done it before. We can do it again. All right. Quickly now, for me, game out the pessimistic scenario. Mario, how it goes from, how it becomes a regional conflict, but perhaps even, as you suggested, bigger, a conflict that envelops the world.

So Israel, in a matter of days, but probably less than a week, will start a ground incursion in Gaza. They will get inevitably, no matter how this is done, they'll be fully committed in terms of resources. They'll be pilloried in the international media for the civilian casualties, which will be real and imagined. combination of bull. And the pressure will be enormous. The pressure enormous, especially could be enormous from the U.S. administration. When they're fully committed in Gaza, Hizbalah then could be unleashed to launch an attack from the north, beginning with missiles and drones, but it could, again, invite a ground incursion. And then when Israel is committed on two fronts, the West Bank may also, at some point, also rise and require additional resources to prevent that from being unmanageable.

at that point Israel now has two hands and three problems. And then Syria and Iraq and Yemen could be employed again for surrogates and proxies. And at that point, as long as the U.S. is trying to restrain Israel and not Iran, at that point, there's little option left. And they would be unable to meet the escalatory spiral without U.S. support. And that's the scenario where the U.S. doesn't do its job and constrain this fight. That's the problem when you don't confront Tehran. And when that happens, the entire region changes altogether. And keep in mind all this time now that Iran is, according to international reports, two weeks away from enough enriched material for a testable nuclear device.

The world changes at that point. What does that mean to us? It means that Iran is in control the world's energy markets. It's not a good recipe for anyone. We think we're flirting with recession in some cases that could push us into a global depression if Iran decides to restrict the movement of oil throughout the world. to its international customers. They'd be in control of it, and there'd be very little we could do about it, and that's their goal. You game-planned that out to say, essentially, Israel is overwhelmed

by a multi-front war, but how did you skip me ahead to Iran controlling all of the Middle East and all of Middle Eastern energy? Well, the principal obstacle between Iran and the rest of the region is the United States and Israel, and if the United States takes itself out of the game, which in my pessimistic scenario, we would, which is what they've largely done so far, then Israel is the only obstacle to their aims. And if Israel is no longer capable of doing it because they've been confronted with a multi-front war that we're not supporting them to address, then Tehran has de facto control over the region. There's no impediment to their designs. The ultimate is, again, the acquisition of a nuclear weapon, which then means it's uncontested. And there's nothing we can do

to reverse that course. That is their goal. All right. And so what's your prediction? What happens here, Robert? It's difficult to predict with certainty, but I think that odds are we're going to see a regional escalation. I think that the overwhelming probability is that Iran is going to overwhelm Israel to the extent that it can. And the only question in my mind is when the United States constrains that and when we intercede and prevent it from happening. It'd be cheaper for us to do it now than to wait. But my fear is that the current administration is going to wait and not become involved for a variety of reasons. And this has been the pattern in Afghanistan, in Ukraine, and now in this conflict.

And it was also evident in Sudan, by the way. So my fear is that we will not interject ourselves until it becomes a regional conflict. And at that point, then our options are incredibly bad. And the ability to contain this problem is going to become very difficult. Robert Greenway, long conversation in depth. I hope it's enlightening for everybody listening. I know it is for me. I really appreciate your time and your perspective.

Thank you so much. Thanks, well. Appreciate it. Good to be with you. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Robert Greenway. I hope you found it enlightening. We'll continue to have more.

We'll have conversations with skeptics. We'll have conversations with hawks. We will do our best to be one of the few corners where you're allowed to think critically so that we can understand the world around us and how it affects America. I'll see you again next time. Listen to ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription. on Apple Podcast, and Amazon Prime members, you can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon music app.

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