WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Kyle Moran: Did Israel’s ‘Rising Lion’ Trap Iran?

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

A fragile ceasefire has paused a 12‑day maelstrom of hostilities sparked by Israel’s “Operation Rising Lion,” which pummeled Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Kyle Moran, a political commentator specializing in international affairs and national security and Voung Voices contributor, joins WRFH to discuss the latest. 

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Emma Wehrman. With me today is Young Voices contributor, Kyle Moran. How you doing today, Kyle? I'm good. Thank you very much for having me. Of course. So I know that you are very up to date on what is going on in the Middle East. Obviously, we've had a lot going on there recently. Would you be able to give us a little breakdown of the current dynamics in the Middle East relations that kind of set the scene for those who have not really been aware of what's been going on? Yeah, monitoring the situation has kind of become a full-time job at this point. So much going on. But basically since the U.S. strikes last week on the Iranian sites, there has been a significant amount of pushback from certain people both in the left in this country as well as more anti-Israel and anti-American forces abroad who are disputing the assertion from the administration that we have dealt a significant setback at the minimum to Iran.

nuclear program. And so while the intelligence reports are still coming out, it is increasingly clear that we have dealt a very crippling blow at the minimum to their nuclear ambitions. This is not to say that they are not able to begin producing more centrifuges to enrich more uranium. And they still have a significant amount of relatively highly enriched uranium, a fair amount of 60% enriched. on hand, which is a problem that needs to be addressed. So this is not in and of itself a victory point, but it definitely is a key achievement that this administration took following the actions that Israel put themselves in the front line for. Right. So was that Operation Rising Lion, what you're referring to with Israel putting themselves in the front line? Yes. And I don't think

that Trump really would have green lip these strikes if Israel had not. put itself out on the line like they did. I believe the current death count from Iran strikes into Israel sits at 28 Israelis. Okay. Which does not count the Palestinians who died when the Houthis in Yemen attempted to strike Israel and then landed their missiles in the West Bank, which did kill Palestinians. Something like 550 missiles were launched from Iran as well as over a thousand drones. The Israelis have an incredible success rate of shooting these down well over 90%. With the Iron Dome.

They were, yeah, they were largely successful in this, but nevertheless, they did put themselves at great risk. And like I said, 28 Israelis are dead because of it. But seeing this action and the success that the Israeli Air Force had in achieving air superiority over every major Iranian city, including Tehran, by the way, really motivated Trump to get in the game on this. Yeah. So what is the danger of Iran gaining nuclear capabilities? Because obviously a lot of people, even on both sides of the aisle, have been downplaying the necessity as well as the success of Trump's strikes on Iran. But in your opinion, were they necessary? And what did we protect by enacting these strikes? They were for two reasons, two main reasons.

The first being that this was an incredibly rare window of opportunity that will not be repeated again anytime soon. The last year has seen the complete collapse of the Iranians' axis of resistance where their buddy in Damascus fell. Assad is no longer in power. Hezbollah has been mostly destroyed throughout southern Lebanon. Their missile stockpiles have largely either been blown up or captured by the IDF. their cross-border raids, as well as Hamas in Gaza has largely been defeated. They hold on to some positions there, but it's a shell of its former self. So Iran is simply alone at this point in a way that it wasn't even six, ten months ago.

And it is already seeking to rebuild some of these alliances. So in doing this now, Israel has acted in a way that is very, very tight. time sensitive. If we did not take this action now, it would have missed this window. And to your point, the second angle of this is that Iran does pose an existential threat, not just to the region, but to the Americas as well. Yes. So they were, it's pretty conclusively shown that they had involvement in funding the attacks that they wanted taken place on Israel for the October 7th attack, as well as not even just in the Middle East, they have been selling their drone programs, as well as various other ammunition supplies throughout the Americas as well, especially in Venezuela.

And let it not be forgotten that we're coming up now on July 18th, which marks the 31st anniversary of the murder of 85 when the Iranian-funded and backed terrorist group Hezbollah. blew up a Jewish facility or structure in Buenos Aires, which again killed 85, and that was not the only attack in the Americas. They are willing to come across the ocean and attack us here in South America, at least. And if they can do that in Buenos Aires, it's not a far cry from being able to do it here domestically in the U.S. Yes, absolutely. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM, and I'm Emma Weirman, talking with Young Voices contributor Kyle Moran about Operation Rising Line, the current state of affairs in the Middle East, and the recent U.S. strikes.

So, yeah, absolutely. That's a really good point, the existential threat that Iran poses, especially if they were to have intercontinental missiles and nuclear weapons. So I agree that it was very essential. And for our own benefit, not just Israel, that we did carry out these strikes. So recently, though, it's been continually reported by New York Times and CNN, for example, that based on a preliminary defense intelligence agency that foredo had not been knocked out and not much has been obliterated and such. And so obviously at this point, we know that's really not accurate. Can you talk about, though, the sort of misinformation that has been going around and how that affects the United States? Yes, especially in the first few days after the strikes. It was extremely irresponsible to be making such wide-ranging claims, shall I say, because a lot of the intelligence simply had not come out.

We did have some open-source intelligence that did point to more extensive destruction. But again, the point here being, these facilities were set up. to be not just unstrickable, but basically impenetrable because they were buried so deep in the mountains. I believe Fordot was 80 meters underground and Natanz is 30 meters underground. So they were extensively fortified and built to be impenetrable. Yeah, apparently Israel did not have the ordinance to get there. They did not. They did not. So they really did need us if they were, if they were going to take out any of these facilities. Yeah. And again, And there has been a bunch of people who have been very isolationist slash anti-war.

And I definitely sympathize this should not be a boots on the ground operation. But the people who are arguing that from the anti-war perspective are making some extremely irresponsible claims when they're doing so because this was never going to be a second Iraq war. Dropping a few bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities is not equivalent to sending. tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of American soldiers overseas. It was never going to be that. And those who were claiming otherwise should have known better. And Iran does not have the allies that is needed to launch something like this World War III scenario. The only friends that they have left at this point are going to be China and Iran, excuse me, China and Russia.

Russia is already bogged down in Ukraine. China's eyeing Taiwan. and they're not going to blow up that avenue to support the Iranian nuclear program. Yeah, that's a really good point you brought up about sort of the isolationist and the anti-war point of view. For example, I was listening to Tucker Carlson recently and he was talking to Marjorie Taylor Green and they were talking about how they want to go America first and such, which I completely understand.

But what I don't quite understand is how they were juxtaposing America first and this involvement in Iran. They're basically making it seem like because of how we were backing Israel in these situations and because of how we've gotten involved in Iran and are dropping these bombs. Therefore, that is the cause of why we have not been doing more America first things domestically. But I just don't think that that's the case. I think that we have so much money that we're spending on so many different things that could properly be diverted to more America first initiatives and taking care of things in the economy at home.

But what we were doing abroad in Iran was actually completely essential. and was not itself preventing us from doing other things that we need to or that we want to do here at home. So I feel like that's just been a little bit disingenuous. I'm not completely understand where they're coming from. So yeah, I agree with you about the claims being a bit irresponsible, and they're making it seem like dropping these bombs is going to be a second Iraqi war. So I'm curious what your thoughts are on Republican commentators who are making similar claims like those. Yeah. So America first was a very effective term to push back against what can be

analyzed as genuine overreach from the United States. So when we're talking about nation building and all these other countries, you can you open yourself up to criticism such as this. However, it has outlived its, its merit in my opinion, because pretty much everything is now being considered America first, to the point in which people are somewhat ironically arguing that it's America first to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb. Yeah, that doesn't make sense. That causes all sorts of headaches. But the uns seriousness of this is just so hard to overstate because when people are saying

that America has to sit back and allow these people to pursue whatever avenue they want, it just flies in the face of any type of common sense. Yeah, I agree. In terms of foreign aid, I'm even, like Europe needs to be pulling its weight more. Yeah. But to choose Israel as the target of

the people who we need to support less with foreign aid is just mind blowing. Israel had put itself on the front line. Mm-hmm. We're giving them money to essentially take out the Iranian sphere of influence throughout the Middle East. I cannot think of a better return on investment than that.

Absolutely. While zero American lives were on the line up until Operation Midnight Hammer in which zero Americans died. So the return on investment here is just, it's, it's hard to compare to anything else. Absolutely. Yeah, because it makes it seem like people are under the impression, or at least sometimes the media is under the impression that we are simply supporting Israel for no reason. And it's just that we are doing it because we love Israel or we just want to be just want.

want to support them. But the fact of the matter is that Israel is our key ally in the Middle East and is surrounded by a bunch of nations that are hostile to the U.S. So could you just talk a little bit more about that, how the reasons why it's important to support Israel as our ally and why what we are doing in supporting them is also supporting us? I think a lot of this comes down to, you can look at how the surrounding Arab states have handled this versus, say, Israel's handling of the Iranian, or excuse me, the Palestinian conflict, because the opposition to Israel's actions in Palestine, be it what they may, were completely removed from the actions of certain Arab states who were helping Israel shoot down Iranian missiles and drones that were coming into their

airspace. Because the Arab states surrounding Israel know that whatever they may think about what's going on in Gaza, Israel does not pose the same level of existential threat that Iran does. Nobody is talking about potential Israeli invasion or supporting terrorist organization of anywhere outside of its own borders. This is very much not the case with Iran, which has operated various proxy networks of terror throughout the region for decades and has consistently maintained its number one spot as the state sponsor of terrorism. And so Trump deciding that we need a ceasefire has allowed this regime to stay in power for the time being.

Whether or not that holds and whether or not they are now willing to enter into more serious negotiations is yet to be seen. but if they are not, this regime is teetering on the verge of collapse. And I think that Trump should keep that very much in mind when it comes to future peace negotiations with them. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. And I'm Emma Weirman talking with young voice contributor, Kyle Moran, about the current state of affairs in the Middle East. So I'm curious, what could... a new Middle East potentially look like? What do you think the possible outcomes are? Will diplomacy

succeed? Will it fail? How will power shift in the region? A new Middle East that is free from the blackmail of a nuclear armed Iran and free from the domestic blackmail that so many nations face in which Iranian-backed terror groups, such as Hezbollah and Lebanon, which is essentially a state within a state, or at least it was until last year, would be a significantly more stable region and, in my opinion, one that would be far more peaceful than it is today. So should we be expecting some sort of regime change? I know there's been a lot of discussion about whether the Trump administration has been pushing for a regime change or whether it has not been doing this. that and whether this is a good or a bad thing, I don't really know much about that. And I'm sure some people have heard these buzzwords as well. Could you explain what's going on with that a bit? Sure.

So a lot of this is going to come down to how Iran handles itself in the following weeks and months. So the Israel has been pretty clear that it will not allow the Iranian government to get its hands on nuclear weapons. The U.S. has essentially solidified this approach. Israel is willing to take it further. Their code name for this operation, Operation Rising Lion, was no accident. It was referencing the Kingdom of Iran, which had, instead of the red symbol on the flag,

it had a lion. So they were essentially advocating for a return to the Kingdom of Iran under the Shah, who may or may not come back, but there's been a lot of back and forth on this. He is very different than his dad, who was the last Shah. He's been calling for a liberal and democratic Iran, whether or not they would be able to implement that because Israel does not have the capability of invading Iran. And the U.S. will not be doing that. So whether or not they're able to achieve that as a separate question. But the Iranian regime has been very unpopular domestically in their country for many years at this point.

And their last grip on power has been the claim that they are the one standing up to the great Satan and the little Satan. And they have not done a great job of doing either of those things. So they have really kind of entered into this sort of identity crisis. And so you can see they're trying to spin the situation to make it seem as though they were victorious. But I don't think anyone's buying this. Iranians throughout the country could see Israel just flying. over their cities. Yeah. And the Iranian government basically went into hiding. They, their secret police and whatnot have emerged from their bunkers over the last day or two and started arresting

people who were critical of the regime. But for a week there, they were just in hiding, hoping that they would not be bombed themselves and relatively powerless to do much of anything else. Yeah. And I find it absolutely amazing that, well, it seems like anyone with eyes and who sees the Israeli defense force plays just flying an open airspace overrun can see that, well, yeah, they're not winning. But obviously, the regime is going to be posting things on X, for example, claiming that they've slapped the U.S. in the face, you know, with their bomb dropping on that deserted airbase or that they, either that the U.S. has been completely ineffective in what we did at Fordo. But what's amazing is that our own media,

like CNN and such, will actually listen to these terrorist regime leaders and what they claim, which is just a safe face because obviously honor is a big deal in their culture. And the fact that we actually take that and use it as support to deny our own United States historic success in what we've done in dropping those bombs, it's honestly just quite a, quite a shame. And it says something about the current state of the media. So I'm just curious what you think about that. The media in the United States, with select few exceptions, would basically never admit that Donald Trump has done anything well. Yeah.

And so I wasn't entirely surprised. But when I was surprised a little bit more was some of the World War III arguments coming from those on the right. Yeah. At this point, like I understand the New York Times, CNN, they are gone. Yeah. No hope there. Yeah. But to be honest, like, I did not see any situation at all in which any of these actions could have resulted in even a more broad regional war. Israel has steadily been dismantling all of Iran's proxies. There is no allies for them left. They have some presence and support in Iraq. but Iraq is not going to be launching an invasion of the United States or war with the United States.

That would be a mistake. Indeed. So, I mean, there is simply no path to that. And like I said, I think a lot of the people who were advocating that did know better. They just chose to go down that route anyway. Yeah. Which I think that we should look closely at what they were saying at the time and compare it to what actually happened and keep that. in mind when analyzing the validity of their future statements.

So speaking of corrupt media, let's look at the flip side. Let's look at some non-corrupt media. Where can we find you and what you're reporting and what media outlet is that? And what media outlets would you recommend people keep up on to understand what's going on in the Middle East? Sure. So I am on X at Kyle P. Moran. National Review, the Wall Street Journal, have both had excellent coverage.

The Daily Telegraph over at the UK has a live blog throughout most of this that has been pretty excellent. They've been much more clear with the impact that this has had. My original article on this was published in Visigrad. They have an excellent ex presence as well. I don't know who's staffing that, but they must be making some crazy overtime because they are just all over this all the time. Awesome. Great. Yes, there you go. Well, thank you so much, Kyle, for being with us today.

Thank you very much for having me. Of course. Our guest has been Young Voices contributor, Kyle Moran, and I'm Emma Weirman on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM.