Israel’s Year of Battles Against Tehran’s Proxies and Pawns
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On October 6, 2023, Israelis and Gazans were coexisting, perhaps not entirely peacefully, but at least for the most part, nonviolently. There were no Israelis in Gaza had any wandered in. They would have been lynched by Hamas, which had ruled the territory with an iron fist since 2007. Thousands of Gazans, however, were peacefully crossing the border to work in Israel for jobs at higher salaries than they could command at home.

Then, on October 7, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, slaughtering men, women, children, babies, raping, torturing, dragging civilians into Gaza and down into an elaborate subterranean fortress Hamas had built over the years with help from Iran's rulers and others. One day later, on October 8, Hezbollah, Tehran's Lebanon-based foreign legion, began firing missiles at Israel's northern territories,

destroying villages and farms, setting fire to forests, killing children, forcing tens of thousands of Israelis to leave their homes. From Yemen, the Houthi rebels also have fired missiles at Israel. Syrian-Araqshia militias have attacked Israel as well. And the West Bank terror cells planned and in some cases carried out lethal attacks on Israeli civilians.

And on April 13th, and then again on October 1st, Iran unleashed major airstrikes, hundreds of ballistic missiles against Israel directly from Iranian soil. To discuss these ongoing battles, battles in the long and openly genocidal war that Iran's jihadist regime has been waging against Israel since it took power in the Islamic Revolution of 1979,

We're joined by Jonathan Shanzer, FDD's Senior Vice President for Research, whose first book on the Middle East was published 20 years ago, if I'm not mistaken. Am I not right, John? I think that's right. I think it's 2004, no? Also with us, Eyal Halata, Senior International Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the first foreign visiting fellow at FDD headquarters.

Yala served as Israel's National Security Advisor and head of Israel's National Security Council. He holds a doctorate in physics from Tel Aviv University and an MA in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School. Well, welcome. Good to see you both. There's always a lot of questions I want to ask you, John and Yala. Look, let's talk just a little about October 7th itself. It was a failure, no question about it. I don't think we know for sure why.

Everything about why, whether it was too little intel or bad intel or intel not acted upon. You know, just, I mean, just tell us a very little bit about kind of current thinking about what happened on October 7th in Israel. What we know, what we don't know, what we need, know we need to learn quick, you know. Yeah. Thanks, Cliff. And I'm very happy to be here again on Foreign Policy. I think...

the fact that, uh, the idea of Israel in general is not engaged in, in full, uh, investigation of, of what happened October 7th actually, uh, leaves us with, with many questions because there are many ideas or maybe hypothesis on them. I can tell you what I think were the fundamental flaws. Uh, um, and maybe for this purpose, this will serve. Um, I, I don't think there was lack of, of Intel. Uh,

If in fact there was a lot of clutter in the intel, which means that Hamas was able to mask our collection apparatus and to make sure that we were fed with things that kept us at bay. It is quite clear at this moment that there were several troop wires, if we'll call them then, that the security establishment or the intelligence establishment saw that Hamas were crossing.

And we always have to define those tripwires in advance so that we don't get confused once we see them happening, but we did get confused. I think the overall paradigm was that Hamas wouldn't be able to do something like that. And when we're in that mindset, when we're undermining our enemy,

maybe a bit of hubris associated with it, then we make fatal mistakes. And I think the notion that the worst that can happen is not that bad as it comes to Hamas, another garden of the walls, if you would, like in the summer or May of 21. When this is the mindset, then the intelligence can make mistakes. What worries me even more was that the defensive positioning of Southern Command around Gaza was clearly not enough.

to withhold even something much smaller than what happened in October 7. And I think that's even a bigger failure because we know that the contact line will always be penetrated and we know

That the IDF is called the Israeli Defense Forces because we need to defend our civilians by our military and our soldiers. And our soldiers just weren't there. And I think that's even more painful for the society and Israel even more than the intelligence failure because people feel that they cannot trust the IDF anymore. They cannot trust that they will be there if something bad happens by surprise or any other thing. I mean, this is – I mean, I've been at that fence many times in Gaza.

and the Gaza envelope and Israel proper and been told, you know, this is a very high tech fence, a spiral lens. We know about it, all that. And I was convinced that was the case. I guess what I don't understand is why not near the fence have something as simple, conventional, old fashioned as a minefield, you know, and then, you know, whether it's a bulldozer or an ATV or, or terrorists on foot, uh,

The mines go off and it's not so easy to get in. So as you know, on the Gazan side of the border, Israel couldn't put a minefield. This is not a territory controlled by Israel. On the Israeli side of the fence...

There were places where the distance between the fence and the communities is very, very small. And there are fields that the kibbutzim and moshavim are, this is their agriculture. That wasn't that. I think, you know, I mean, the fence, we all knew that the fence has weaknesses.

Those who designed it knew it. And I hear more and more that we actually had intel to know that Hamas has been studying very, very carefully those weaknesses and learned how to do it. They didn't just penetrate with a bulldozer through the fence. They knew exactly what they needed to do to take down those poles that were holding it. They knew what they were doing. We were just not alert. We needed something way simpler than a minefield to be there. We needed our soldiers to be awake, alert.

early in the morning as they should be. Insufficient numbers. Insufficient numbers. And we needed to believe that when those soldiers, those female soldiers saw through the cameras. These are the female soldiers in the high booths looking over. Yeah, looking through cameras. They weren't in high booths, but they had cameras that were looking deep into Gaza and they saw all of this coming. We just needed to know that when we set tripwires, we need to act on them. And if we see things that are abnormal, then we wake up

the division, and they stand there the way they should. And the fact that we failed to do that is very painful because this was so unnecessary. This didn't need to happen. John, I would never talk about silver linings in a case like what happened on October 7th. But I would say things could be worse. And what I have in mind is that the Israelis have now know, which I don't think I did know,

That's something very similar to the invasion of Gaza was being planned by Hezbollah's Rodwan force in southern Lebanon. And that could have taken place simultaneously or even it took place by itself. The belief is, tell me if you're wrong, you've studied Palestinians for years, that

That would have been a much worse invasion and pogrom than could be waged by Hamas from Gaza, from the Rodwan forces of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon into the northern territories, Galilee, etc., of Israel. Am I right on that? You're 100% right, Cliff. And just to build on...

your last question for just a second. I think it's just important to understand here that, you know,

The Israelis had a very clear idea of the threat matrix surrounding them for years. They understood Hamas. They understood Hezbollah. They understood Islamic Jihad. I mean, there were people that studied the Houthis and the Shiite militias. There was a full understanding of the threat environment. And they all knows this better than anyone. There was a lack of imagination. And so that even as the intelligence started to come in and

And even as people began to grapple with the, you know, this sort of question of what was Hamas doing at that particular time, there was kind of a decision. And I heard this, by the way, from some intel types in Israel back in January, that it was literally they had the clues. They just didn't have the imagination. They didn't have the ability to connect the dots.

they believed that they were too strong or that the other side was too weak. And I think that, you know, there's a lot of talk now about the, you know, the kind of 10, six versus 10, seven mentality in, uh, in, in Israel. And I think the, um, the, the 10, six mentality was we're too strong. They're too weak. This is never going to happen. The 10, seven reality is, uh,

This cannot happen again, and we're going to need far more people on these borders. We're going to need...

better defense. We cannot let this happen again. And I think that's actually the silver lining out of all of this. Getting to your second question. Yes, it could have been worse if the Red One forces from Hezbollah crossed over and there could have been thousands more deaths and there could have been tragedy after tragedy if Hezbollah had either done this first or done it in concert with Hamas. And it could have been a far worse war.

But I think the best thing that can come out of this right now, if we really want to take a look at silver linings, it's just that in the 10-7 reality, this new understanding that the Israelis have, there is no, we're too strong.

There is no thinking we have this contained. The new thinking is we need to put more men and women on the wall. We need to have more arms. We need to have the ability to act quickly and to dispatch our enemies quickly. That is the new mentality. And I think

Look, it was the old mentality too, right? But there was this moment, and Cliff, you and I have talked about it here in the U.S., sort of taking a peace dividend, taking a holiday from history. I do believe that that's what the Israelis had been doing. They began to kind of drink their own Kool-Aid as far as how impressive they were, and they were impressive. Don't get me wrong. They are still the best fighting force in the region, the best intelligence in the region. But you know what? Mistakes can still be made.

Well, I mean, the concept, the concept is really say, I mean, with Sufo, one is that Hamas actually did want a better life for its people. That, you know, that's kind of mirror imaging or strategic narcissism. Surely they want what we would want in their place. So they want control.

Gazan's coming into Israel for jobs, something like 17,000. The Israelis said you could have 30,000 coming in. This is only good. I think life in Gaza, this is a whole different story that I want to get at probably another time. Life in Gaza was much better than people understand for quite a lot of people. Not everyone, but certainly for Hamas, certainly for the UN people, certainly for people who were getting government jobs. I mean, there were

But anyhow, it wasn't an open air prison. I think we know that. But the Israelis had this idea that all you need to do is mow the lawn occasionally. You have the war between the wars. You can slow down the Iranian nuclear program from time to time with targeted eliminations. I think, I guess I would say there's been and there is a rethinking of all of that at this point.

So, number one, of course, there's rethinking of many things. I want to add, though, that not on all of the fronts this was the case. I'm sure we're going to talk about what happened in Lebanon over the last two weeks. But let's just understand for a second what Israel did in Lebanon after the end of the Second Lebanese War for almost 20 years.

was a very different mindset than what we just said. We took Hezbollah very seriously and we understood that we need to prepare in advance not only intel but also other capabilities that would allow us when time comes and we need it to put them off balance. And I think that this is proven effectively. The...

I think what's the irony here, if to use that word, because October 7th is so devastating, I'm not sure that this is the proper word, but what makes it so painful for me is that

We know better, not only theoretically, we actually acted better. We prepared things in the Lebanese context where we did not take them for granted. We did not take them to, we took them very, very seriously. And this just unimaginable difference between the way that we're prepared to Lebanon to the way that we did not understand in full extent what can happen in Gaza, that is very, that's very painful.

Yeah, and just so we make sure people understand, we talked about October 6th, the mentality, essentially a ceasefire. October 7th, the invasion. October 8th,

The Radawan forces of Hezbollah do not invade simultaneously for whatever reason. They do start to fire missiles at Israel immediately and continue that for all the months, almost a year now since then. But what we also know and what you're talking about alluding to, Eyal, is that for some time, the Israelis had an idea of what was going on and what the Radawan force was doing, was

did have a plan that was in the works. It wasn't put in the works only after October 7th and 8th. We're going to talk about that. And, uh, and actually we talk, we're talking this, these recent days about Israeli ground forces being in Lebanon. Actually, they've been there for some time in small numbers, commandos, special forces working on this. Um, uh,

Anyhow, why, John, do you think that they didn't at that point in October 8th just say, okay, let's do in northern Israel what Hamas is doing in southern Israel? Why say, no, no, let's just – we'll shoot missiles. That's what we'll do. We'll hold up on the tunnels, hold up on the invasion. Why do you think that was? You know, Eyal may have a clearer answer on this. I've seen multiple reports –

Some saying that they were surprised that they actually didn't know it was happening. Some say that they got cold feet and decided that, you know, they weren't going to jump in right away. I think if the goal was the elimination of the state of Israel or to make Israel's borders change and to force Israel into a defensive crouch, I think they missed a huge opportunity. Whatever the reason was,

Hezbollah, I mean, you know, people always sort of talk about this in terms of Israel's enemies, that Israel has been blessed with enemies that have not been able to unify, they've not been able to work together. And I think we could say the same for what happened on October 7th. Maybe you know the answer as to why they didn't at the end of the day, but Israel is blessed by

by the fact that they did not. I'm not saying that Israel should be thankful that 8,000, 9,000 rockets have been fired into Israeli territory. And of course, over the last couple of weeks, Israel's lost several dozen, or I guess a dozen fighters and another couple more dozen have been injured. You know, 150,000 people have been forced from their homes as a result of Hezbollah's rockets and missiles. But man, it could have been worse.

And Iran could have could have could have shot 300 ballistic missiles and drones on October 7th as well. And I mean, this wasn't coordinated militias in Iraq and Syria. I mean, that full ring of fire could have been activated. Israel skies could have been darkened and saturated. I mean, there's any number of horrific scenarios that could have played out.

And it's funny because and I remember talking to both of you guys about this early on. I was immediately afraid of that full ring of fire being activated. Right. I saw this eventually all roads led to Tehran. And the question was just how quickly we were going to go there. For some reason, this played out in slow motion.

And I think maybe we can give some credit to the White House for having deployed some assets to the region and maybe spooked the Iranians in Hezbollah, got them to stand down at different points, maybe at different inflection points along the way. And I think, look, we can give them credit for that. I think we can also fault them for holding Israel back when it had offensive plans to take it to both Iran and Hezbollah and Israel was restrained.

But yeah, this could have been a lot worse. It could have deteriorated more rapidly. That all said, I think we have arrived at the moment that was inevitable, which is that Israel is now being forced to fight the more formidable forces after a year of a slog in Gaza.

it does look like Israel is going to have to fight a different two-front war. Initially, people were saying Gaza and Lebanon, and they were two-front wars.

But this is different. This is Hezbollah knockdown, drag out fighting as we're seeing. And Israel, I think, has the upper hand right now. And then there's this broader question of the exchange of blows between Iran and Israel. And that's, I got to say, that's uncharted territory for me. We've not seen Israel engage in that kind of combat. No, I want to focus on that, but I want to hold up just for a minute, just so we get everything else clear.

spoken about at least a little bit. And particularly, all right, let's see if I understand where we are right now. In terms of Hamas, it's no longer a military force. It's still an insurgency, but not one that is being resupplied because the Philadelphia corridor, through which we believe most of the weapons were coming, they can't get resupplied with weapons. They can get plenty of food because the Israelis are sending food in,

And Hamas still steals it. And the international community has no problem with that, evidently. But it's an insurgency. These are cells that are not communicating well and are kind of disconnected. And it's kind of a cleanup operation in Hamas. Am I correct on that? Is that the way to see it? I think the situation in Gaza after a year of fighting is –

Hamas is not only is it not what it used to be, when you look at the facts, there hasn't been a siren deep in Israel because of Hamas rockets in a long period of time. Because they've run out. One would have thought that when the situation in Lebanon is so hard, Hamas would come to Hezbollah's aid like Hezbollah came to Hamas' aid. But Hamas is incapable of doing that. If they were capable of doing that, they would have done it.

And so for all practical purposes, the fighting in Gaza, I wouldn't want to say over because then the question will come, well, why isn't there a ceasefire? Well, the reason there isn't a ceasefire in Gaza is because we have 101 hostages in Gaza. And as Prime Minister Netanyahu said the other day, he thinks or he estimates that about half of them are still alive and we need to get them all back, all of them.

The live ones, the dead ones. And this is what's preventing us from reaching an agreement in Gaza. We can talk about that. And the UN doesn't care. Let me just point out. The International Red Cross doesn't care. The EU doesn't care. The Biden administration has tried to broker deals. But Hamas has never agreed to any deal, even though the Israelis have agreed.

Um, we don't know if, uh, yeah, yes. And more, who is the still leader is alive or dead. If he's communicating or how he's communicating, we don't know any of that, but it's kind of impossible to make a deal because who you make a deal with at this point. Anyhow, but I just want to point that out. I mean, there must be someone in, in, in Gaza that is responsible that can make a deal. My, uh, uh,

What I think is happening over the last months for a host of reasons is that it's not a high enough priority for Hamas, clearly. Sinwar was waiting, or whomever is there was waiting for a regional war to start because he was hoping that this will push Israel even further back and improve his conditions. Well, clearly this didn't happen. Not only that, it's not likely to happen because there's not enough left of Hezbollah with their ability to surprise Israel right now.

And the Houthis, which have, I think, done almost everything that they can to fire directly at us, they didn't hit anything. And we blew up their major port twice and cured a lot of damage to the Yemenites. I don't want to make this look better than it is, but I think if you look at any of those fronts...

Our situation with Gaza is that Hamas is no longer what it used to be. With the Houthis, I think the United States problem with the Houthis is greater than the Israeli situation with the Houthis. I mean, they're continuously preventing trade to go through, but they're not able to damage our infrastructure, our civilians. And in Lebanon, that's the crucial thing at the moment. I mean, we were able...

over the last, mainly over the last two, three weeks, uh, um, to degrade a lot of, of, of Hezbollah's, uh, leadership, um, a lot of its personnel, uh, you know, maybe this wasn't planned to happen, but it happened. And once it did, it's been called the grim, the grim,

the Grim Beeper, uh, plot was planned. That's not something you do at the spur of the moment. That took a lot of years of planning. I mean, I, you know, I cannot, what's according to, according to foreign press, this has been in the works for many, many years. That's what they're right. The decision to, uh, uh,

to activate it at the moment. I'm not sure this was clear strategy, but in any case, once this condition happened and once this opportunity emerged, it changed the landscape quite dramatically in Lebanon. Doesn't mean that Hezbollah is decimated, not by a long shot. A lot of leadership has been eliminated. A lot of leadership, but we know Hezbollah very, very well and we never should underestimate them. They still have a lot of rockets

and they have a distributed organization, they were prepared to work in a very compartmentized situation, they can continue to fire rockets for a long, long, long period of time. And of course, Israel has to take this into consideration as we move ahead. But if we look at all of this ring of fire around us and we compare it to, let's say, of course, if you compare it to several months ago,

The plain truth is that Israel is in a better situation compared to several months ago on all of those fronts. Hamas can hardly do anything. Hezbollah lost a lot of its operatives and its ability to surprise Israel. And the Houthis are eminently

at least for now, in damaging us. Does this put us in a good strategic situation? It could. It could, right. But it needs a lot of work from this point. Yeah, and there's a big F in terms of the patron of all these groups in Iran. And I'm going to get to this. We have to start talking about Iran, please. I'm going to get to it. But while we're on Lebanon, I do want to say this.

Very weird that, I forget how long ago this was, a week or two ago, John, when you had the U.S. and France and others insisting they wanted a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, and they wanted a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. And what's so weird about that is there was a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Israel and the Lebanese armed forces were...

We're not having, there was no conflict there. It's only Hezbollah. And yet the name Hezbollah couldn't be mentioned. This is like something out of a Harry Potter book. You can't say the name Hezbollah. That's who has to be the ones who you have a ceasefire with if you do. And you didn't. But the question that occurs to me is if the Lebanese armed forces can't reestablish control over Lebanon now when Hezbollah has been so invigorating

badly, not entirely, but badly incapacitated, then they might as well be Boy Scouts. And the U.S. supports the Lebanese armed forces with a lot of money, and there are a lot of people in the administration who say, oh, yeah, we've got to support. Again, you could also say, why don't we go to the president of Lebanon and talk to him about this? And the answer is, there is no president of Lebanon.

Because Hezbollah won't allow it. So my question is, should the U.S. and the so-called international community not be saying now time for the Lebanese armed forces and a Lebanese government to come together and take or retake control of their country from the foreign legion of the Islamic Republic of Iran?

Yeah. And that's actually, Cliff, what we're starting to see. Reports were kind of starting to come out of the region on Friday that the administration was looking to install a new president in Lebanon amidst the chaos of

In an effort to try to rebuild the institution of the government of Lebanon, which has been defunct. I mean, let's just remember here, we have a caretaker government. It's been a caretaker government for as long as I can remember. You've got debt right now as a result of Hezbollah's stranglehold over the economy. That's probably $200 billion right now. The currency in Lebanon is in the toilet.

there is just not anything good that has been coming out of Lebanon as Lebanon for a very long time. And so the administration is kind of thinking about trying to restart the government and to give it some new legs. My question is, and look, I appreciate the idea of trying to jumpstart these institutions and to strengthen them at a moment where Hezbollah is weaker, maybe not completely destroyed, but certainly on its back foot.

My question is, given the complexities of this sectarian divide, Shiites, Maronites, Sunnis, the chaos that we've seen in this country over the years, how it's been gutted out from within by Hezbollah and Iran, is that something that can be done on the fly right now? I mean, this is an open question, I think, for me. And I'd be curious to hear what you guys think. But the idea of

while we're trying to avert a wider war, and that is the stated goal of the Biden administration, right? They're trying to stop a bigger war from happening. And they're just going to say, timeout. We know Israel is about to attack Iran and Iran's probably going to attack back.

and the Houthis and the Shiite militias and everybody's firing. Right now, just everybody time out. We're going to go in there. We're going to install a president who's going to be able to restore order in Lebanon. I mean, that to me strikes me as completely disconnected from reality, right? We're about to watch potentially an unprecedented thing where the U.S. and Israel may actually even team up to strike Iran together.

Maybe. And and Iran is bracing and getting ready and they're going to probably order his ball to fire off thousands of rockets. And they're like, oh, yeah, let's just put in a new president. This seems insane to me. The only way that possibly works is is the Lebanese armed forces, since they do have guns and they do have bullets. They say we're taking control. I've been in countries where you have a civil war or you have a coup. And the and what happens is the army takes control.

That's what happens. It's not a good thing, but it can be the least bad alternative because you're right. The president making a speech and an installed president means nothing. But the Lebanese armed forces, again, they have been weaker than the militia of Hezbollah, weaker than the foreign legion of Iran. But at a certain point, they should say, we're not so weak now. This is our country. We're taking control. And UNIFIL, by the way, which is the UN peacekeepers,

You might think they should either do something useful or just, you know, go back to Israel and have their lunch again because that's all they've been doing for... I don't think UNIFIL is there at the moment, by the way. They're not anywhere? They left entirely? There was war in southern Lebanon. There's no weather there. Peacekeepers leave when there's a war. Of course. Look, the only thing I'll add to this is that you cannot plan that, right? I mean, there is no way to plan how to take over a country...

ruled by a terrorist organization like Hezbollah. There is no playbook. This doesn't look like anything else

But we need to be opportunistic. I'm saying we as an international community, as actors looking at it, who definitely needs to be opportunistic at the moment are the Lebanese themselves and their supporter in the pragmatic Arab countries. And I think also potentially in Europe and also here in the United States. I mean, John isn't wrong in the sense that everything is so chaotic, but it's always going to be chaotic.

If they want to take over their country, if there is any chance that they will take over this country, this is probably the best conditions they can get ever. And they should be able to get a little help maybe from the French military who aren't doing anything particularly useful right now. They're no longer in Niger, no longer in Mali, maybe. And the French say they care a lot about Lebanon, used to be a protectorate. Maybe they help the Lebanese armed forces get a little exercise, wouldn't hurt them.

there are many, uh, actors who can, who can, uh, uh, help them do this. It starts from the question, are the Lebanese up to it themselves? And Nasrallah prevented, uh, uh, any reasonable president to be elected over the last, uh, a couple of years. He's incapable of doing this now. Uh,

I think there are ways for the Lebanese to gather and to elect a president even though there is a war. This has nothing to do with Israel. It's an internal Lebanese issue. And once they do that, maybe things can start moving ahead. I'm not very optimistic about it. And I have to say from an Israeli perspective,

we shouldn't really care. What we should care about is to push Hezbollah north of the Litani, to degrade their capabilities close to the border, and whatever agreement that will come afterwards, because there has to be agreement to end this, what's most important for Israel is that we are granted the legitimacy to act

when there are violations of the agreement. And we need the United States of America and the EU3 and all of the rest to grant that because whatever deal there will be, who is going to verify it? It's the only hope for Lebanon too, by the way. Whoever tries to verify it,

Once they fail, because Hezbollah will clearly violate the deal, Israel needs to know that we can interdict and we can act upon it. And we cannot wait for years and years for Hezbollah to continue to accumulate like they did after the Second Lebanese War to come to a position where they have such large amounts of Redwan forces and infrastructure and ammunition and rockets and missiles and whatever they have.

a so close proximity to our communities, this will not, we cannot allow this to happen again as Israel. People should remember too that there are only two, people on the campuses who claim they love diversity, there are only two diverse countries left in the Middle East. One is Israel, 20% minority, they vote, they have rights, freedom of religion, all that. I mean, there's no place where minorities have rights as they do in Israel.

Lebanon was a diverse country. Christians, Jews, Shia, Sunni, and there was an attempt to find a way for these diverse communities to live together together.

And Hezbollah is a major reason why they were unable. I'm not saying it's the only reason, a major reason saying, no, we're going to take over. And they've been and they've oppressed them or said you have to. We're going to co-opt you if you if you go along with us, we won't kill you. If you don't, we will. You know, if you believe in diversity or multiculturalism and you and you think it's OK.

and you hate imperialism and colonialism, then you should understand that the Islamic Republic of Iran is neocolonialist, neoimperialist throughout the Middle East and opposed to diversity and inclusion, just so you know on campuses. I don't know how much you read, but maybe you can listen to a podcast.

All right, now we should go on to the next very important stage. And this has me a bit confused because there's a lot of talk about what Israel is going to do next because they have the opportunity because Israel has twice been attacked with hundreds of ballistic missiles. They have the right to respond. People say they have a right to defend themselves.

Iran has not run out of ballistic missiles, so they could again. I just worry a little bit that there is...

over an overestimation of what the Israelis can achieve since they can be attacked again, since Iran is a big country. You know, people saying, well, they should just take out the nuclear facilities. That's not so easy. There is missile defense and air defense. Talk about that to the extent you can about how how Israeli military

and political leaders are thinking this through, which is what I imagine they're trying to do. And probably knowing Israelis arguing about it too. Yeah, definitely. And I, I guess in loud voices and, uh, it's, uh, first of all, it's appropriate, uh, that we talk about Iran, uh, cliff, uh, on this podcast that will be out, uh, towards the one year, uh,

anniversary of this shameful events of October 7 because indeed Iran is not only the architect of the ring of fire around Israel and the supplier of the arms and money most of the money

uh, in training to, to, to Hamas, this entire philosophy that Israel could be, uh, crushed by, uh, a combination of, of terror from the outside and, and, and surfing on the internal fracture that we've exhibited in Israel. Unfortunately, over the last, mainly a couple of years, uh, uh, this is Iran thinking, right? Uh, uh, Supreme leader Ham and I, I think he really believes that it's just a matter of time until the state of Israel collapses, uh, from within. Um,

and they've got as close as they could in October 7th. There are many, we don't get now more perhaps into why exactly all the other ring of fires didn't join. There are many reasons for that, but you know, that's, that's behind us. And part of the past Iran has decided that,

to put itself in the forefront of this conflict this week. Of course, it happened once before in April. In April, they had this bizarre excuse that we targeted an official building of theirs in Damascus. That wasn't

But we did kill IRGC generals and they decided that this was, and they did this unprecedentedly, right? An excuse or a justification to fire about 300 projectiles over at Israel. That attack completely failed. And now, almost six months later, they decided to do this again. I think this time, they don't even have an excuse for that.

I think the main reason they did this is because they understand that their major stronghold, Hezbollah in Lebanon, is crushed. I think the Supreme Leader and the people around him mourn the death of Hassan al-Saghala genuinely. I mean, of course, he's...

uh, just, he was their say trap. He was their region, governor, region, the general. He was one of the worst terrorists in the history of the Middle East, but it was, they were there, uh, uh, his patron, uh, and we took Ismail Al-Nia in Tehran and, and so forth. But there was no immediate reason for them to do this. They decided to, to fire, uh, ballistic missiles in large quantities, almost 200 of them, uh,

And by the way, they didn't fire drones and cruise missiles because they knew they won't succeed as them. So they only fired the weapon that they thought could succeed and they didn't cause a lot of damage. But the only reason they didn't cause a lot of damage is because Israel has great air defense systems. And we also had the assistance in defense, both in intel and in interception by the United States of America. But if Iran had headed their way,

We won't be talking now and speaking so gently about what Iran has done and what Israel will need to respond because there would have been a lot of casualties in Israel if those rockets were not intercepted on the way to Israel. And this puts Israel in a position where, of course, we must respond. I mean, there is no way that Israel cannot respond to this. I think there is a general understanding of that by everyone. The question, of course, is how.

And in order to give some ideas on how to think about it, we need to go back to April. Israel responded to the April attack

but in fact, very symbolical. Israel decided to fire very few missiles on a single target to make a point that Iran cannot penetrate our airspace with any of their weapons, be it a drone, a cruise missile, or a ballistic missile and cause significant damage. And we'll have just one attack

and prove to them that we can hit on where it's very, very painful in a core component of S-300 air defense system that they paid. That's a Russian air defense system. A Russian air defense system that Iran potentially paid a lot of money for it and it was a lot of pride for them and we took it out. But I guess that wasn't enough.

And now when Israel thinks about it, there are various things that we can do. Many people ask, so why wouldn't Israel, like you said, Cliff, and I think that's a good question, why would Israel not take the Iranian nuclear program right now? Well, as you alluded in your question, because it's hard.

Because it's hard because Israel needs to prepare. This is not something we do, uh, as a, as a snap of fingers. The U S could do it faster and easier. Well, point that out. Yeah. But given, I mean, given the weapons, I'm not in a position to ask. I'm not asking you to ask. I'm just saying, and I think you're right. But, uh, uh, clearly when president Biden comes and says that he thinks that this will be a mistake to attack the Iranian nuclear program, then it is very clear that should Israel do this, uh, uh,

There could be consequences to that. And this is not a time for Israel to be at high odds with the United States. I mean, President Biden specifically assisted Israel throughout this year immensely on the Iran issue. There are great differences in views between Israel and the US, has been for years, even when I was national security advisor. But just to get to that, this is about the Iranian nuclear program. I think it's going to be very, very hard.

Other people are asking, okay, let's blow them back to the Middle Ages and take out their oil refineries and everything. I'm not sure this is the right time to check what happens if the oil prices go up and Iran retaliates on Saudi Arabia oil fields. What will the US do? Will you defend them or not? I'm not sure we need to take those chances at the moment. But what we clearly need to do, and this is my personal opinion, I'm not talking on behalf of the government, I don't work for the government. I think what Israel can do

is do something way more massive on the Iranian defensive and offensive capabilities, military capabilities. We only signaled in April what we can do. We know exactly where there are surface-to-air missiles. And if we take them out, it's way easier to come again in another time. We know where most of their missile facilities are.

And we definitely need to target that. And, and, and if the signal we gave in April wasn't enough, now we need to make a statement saying, we're going to deprive you from your, uh, capabilities to defend yourselves against future airstrikes and also to degrade your capabilities to continue to attack Israel to the extent we can. Uh, um, I think this would be the maximum, uh,

benefit that we can take out of this position because they're going to be more rounds to it. We cannot get into a full confrontation with Iran. It's 200 kilometers or 2000 kilometers away, some 1600 miles away from Israel. We cannot go over, hoover over Iran the way that we hoover over Lebanon or definitely cannot invade them the way that we did in Gaza.

As you said before, there are other forces or militaries who might be able to do this. But, you know, if Israel is left to deal with this alone, we need to do the best we can under these circumstances. My only point here, and it's a point I make in my most recent column in The Washington Times, is that

is that President Biden has said on more than one occasion, it would not be acceptable. It's not acceptable for this regime in Iran to have nuclear weapons. Republican and Democratic presidents before him have said exactly the same thing. None of them have ever taken action. Now, Will Markorek, who works here at FDD, former CIA, says, you know, when politicians say something's not acceptable, that usually means they've accepted it. What I'm saying is,

Biden should be as good as his word. He should say to himself and to his military, OK, I've said it's not acceptable. I think this is the time to at least damage and clearly delay, if not destroy, the

the nuclear facilities, weapons facilities, development facilities that Iran has. And then he would go down in history as having achieved something that his predecessors could not. He wants a legacy. Tell me what else is his legacy at this point. What else he has done that is useful? And certainly deterrence has not been his strong suit. He hasn't deterred anybody anywhere. Not Russia, not Iran, not Hezbollah, not Hamas.

I would argue that what he did in Afghanistan was a shameful capitulation to the Taliban and its good friends in al-Qaeda. So here's how he could redeem himself. But do I expect him to do what I'm suggesting? Of course, I don't. But I'm still going to suggest it anyhow. I'm sorry, John, I haven't let you get worried in edgewise. Well, look, I mean, I've enjoyed the conversation. Here's what's on my mind.

I mean, a couple of things that I've been thinking about since that Iranian attack. I mean, the first is, you know, Israel had a good month of September in Lebanon in particular, and I guess, you know, against Hamas. But I think as Eyal alluded to, I think maybe a bit gently, that

Israel fell backward into that that string of tactical victories. Right. I mean, somebody figured out that the that the beepers were a problem and Israel had to use it or lose it moment and they used it. And then that led to the walkie talkies and then that led to targeted strikes.

I'm not seeing a deliberate strategy here on the part of the Israelis. And I think as we hear about the Iranian threat, I'm still not hearing a strategy. In other words, when we say, well, Israel has to strike this or it can't strike that. OK, you know, I mean, fine. We can say there are things that they should hit or they shouldn't hit or it's a problem now, but maybe it won't be a problem later. The question is, they've been fighting a war now against Israel for a year.

And I know what their strategy is, right? It's a war of attrition. They're wearing the Israelis down economically, psychologically. They're trying to spend down Israel's missile defense. They're trying to hit whatever they can. I get what's going on here. What I don't get is what's the Israeli strategy and what's the American strategy?

Because I don't see either right now. I see the Israeli strategy of looking for an opportunity to hit back and make statements. And the American strategy is let's kick the can down the road till after the election and make this someone else's problem. Maybe we'll do something now, but there's a month left. But now a couple of other things I want to inject into this conversation that have really been kind of like bugging me, like they've been itching me in the back of my brain is

Is there a risk right now of great power competition, for example, creeping into the next round of this conflict? The Israelis just allegedly took out a Russian weapons depot in Syria.

And and by the way, if the Israelis take out Iranian oil, that's oil that China relies on. Right. And this is stuff that could make for a much messier next phase of this conflict. And I guess, you know, as we sit here trying to figure out what the messaging is, it seems to me like there is a much bigger game at play here that has not yet been fully understood. Right.

And then maybe a little less important, but I still think it's worth asking. We have about maybe a three-month window

during which Israel can do what it needs to do with some freedom. There's actually a possibility that the next president would say, nope, it's January. We just came in and we're not giving Israel the weapons that it needs any longer. So then what you have is the potential for Israel right now to have to fight this in a very condensed period of time against Iran to get things done

in a way that might prevent them from fighting back. I guess all of these things pretend right now a pretty high pressure couple of months ahead. And, you know, I think it's worth broadening out the discussion to kind of think about what may be happening on the horizon. It is. Let me just point out that just in case anyone's misinformed on this.

Russia and China are not innocent bystanders here. That the Israelis in southern Lebanon have found thousands of weapons,

Anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles made in Russia and China, Kalashnikovs, heavy machine guns, cameras, updated maps, aerial imagery, massive amounts of ammunition, explosives intended for breaching border walls, military communication devices, command computers. You know, Russia, again, this gets back to something FCD has been saying for a long time.

that we've got an axis of aggressors here. China is the major partner, but junior partners include very much Tehran, which also is supplying military weaponry to Russia to use to slaughter Ukrainians. Now, again, that doesn't mean that Russia and China, if they get mad, aren't a problem for Israel. They are, and that doesn't mean they can't make a problem for the Biden administration or for the U.S.,

which should be deterring Russia and should be deterring China and may not be because they constantly say, we don't want escalation. Oh, we don't want escalation. When you say we don't want escalation, you're telling your enemy, here's a good time to escalate and get something in return for stopping that escalation for a few minutes. So...

What else do we need to talk about on this anniversary? Well, I am curious to hear what Eyal thinks about that long-term strategy. Does Israel have one? Does America have one? Well, you know, I mean, for me to talk about America's strategy... I'll tell you, America doesn't have a strategy. I can tell you... But America, people think this is a whole... People think America should have a strategy, does have a strategy, really does, because we switch parties and the party... And it used to be...

We say, you know, foreign policy ends where the oceans start. Vandenberg said that no longer the case. Very hard to have a strategy over a four-year period. If you were a dictator in power for 40 years, you can have a strategy and develop it and refine it. But President Biden couldn't, and to be fair, very hard for him to have a strategy. It's going to be very hard for Trump in one four-year to have a strategy. Strategy takes a lot more. What you can do is,

is have power and use that power to tell, so that when you tell your enemies don't, they think I better not, as opposed to, oh, screw him. What do I care? I'm sorry. No, no. So maybe I'll say that maybe there isn't a strategy, but there is clearly a policy. And sometimes we don't want to say what the policy is, but it doesn't mean that there isn't one.

And when the policy is de-escalation, and clearly this has been the case, you know, I can attest to the time that without National Security Advisor and communicating with the White House on this, you said before that when the policy is to de-escalate, you're signaling to your enemies that they can do more. That's true. There's another thing that happens when your policy is de-escalation, you miss an opportunity. Right.

because you're not willing to take a minimal risk that might need to change a little bit of your policy, but eventually you will get in a better situation.

We are, and maybe this is something that it's important to say, you know, this is the beginning of the Jewish New Year, and we're telling each other Shana Tova, Happy New Year, in this regard. I said this before, and I truly believe it, even though it's hard for me to see how all of this materializes. And I will refer also to John's question about Israeli strategy. Israel could have a strategy at the moment.

I'm not very confident that the composition of the Israeli government would allow this to happen at the moment, but let me just sketch it out as we look at it. If the ring of fire has been degraded so dramatically, if Iran is on the defense,

If we are now capable in a way more meaningful way to go after and weakening the Iranian regime, which ultimately does not have any support by the Iranian people, and Supreme Leader Khamenei is going weaker, Israel could be, I think, together with the United States for sure, but let's say the U.S. is out of the question because of policies of de-escalation and whatnot.

Israel can be in a position where in a matter of years, we're able to put Iran in a much weaker situation, in a much weaker stand as they were a year ago, two years ago, or five years ago. And this could be very, very meaningful in reshaping the way that the Middle East is created because there are a set of pragmatic countries in the region. Some of them have already normalized with Israel. Some of them would want to normalize with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and others not.

We all share our same interests. Iran is a threat to all of us. Iran is the most aggressive actor in the region. As you said, they do try to colonialize the countries around them. They failed Lebanon. They failed Yemen. If we give them a chance, they will fail Jordan. They completely took over Iraq. And if the international community isn't careful, they'll take over Jordan as well.

This is the threat to the region. We are now in a better situation than we were before. I'm very sorry that we need to go through October 7 for that, but as Winston Churchill used to say, never let a good crisis go to waste.

And now we're able to make something very meaningful out of this crisis. There is an opportunity to have a new architecture in the region where Iran is pushed very severely back. Eventually, I think the regime will end and there will be a new horizon also in Iran. But the ring of fire has been pushed very severely. There could be a new arrangement in the region.

But it means that Israel will need to do more than just move from one operational success to another. It means that we should not strive for this, what I think is very hollow notion of just a total victory, which is basically militarily and not strategic politically. We need to do something more meaningful of that to move the tools on this board in a way. I think this is doable.

I wish it will. And I hope that when we talk about the second anniversary of this awful October 7, we'll be seeing the materialization of such a strategy, which I believe in a lot.

You have some final words there, Jonathan, for the new year? I do. I mean, you know, we've obviously we've looked at a lot of things that have not gone right. What I will say is that when you look at the body of work that Israel has turned in over the last month, it has been nothing short of astounding. The pinpoint intelligence, the ingeniousness.

technological feats that have been pulled off, the total penetration of Israel's enemies, specifically in Lebanon. And I've got now

I've got a lot of curiosity as to what may lie ahead with the Iranians. If, you know, if, if Lebanon was 20 years of planning, what happens if you've been looking at Iran for 30 or 40 years? I'm curious. Eyal can just smile and nod. He doesn't have to tell me what he knows or, or how he knows it. But I don't look, I think that it's been, obviously it's a tough year for Israel. And I think there's still probably some tough months, maybe even years ahead of,

But I do get a sense that the shame and the disarray that we saw after 10-7 appears to be dissipating. I do get a sense of a renewed pride on the part of the Israelis, a sense, just a tenacity right now that they're getting back up off the mat and they're getting ready to fight. I'd like to see a strategy start to form and be articulated. I'd like to see a little bit more unity there.

from the Israeli public that's been, I think, missing. But I am heartened and I think it's important. And on a high note here, I think the Israelis seem to be getting their act together now. It took a bit to get their deterrence back up.

Um, but it's there and I think, uh, Israel's enemies know it. And, uh, the fact that the Biden administration is even considering carrying out a strike jointly with Israel, I think is also another good sign. It's a sign that, uh, you know, there's a unity of purpose, uh, on, on, on at least this side of the battle. And, uh, and so I think there's, there's reason to be hard. And even as we know that there are tough days ahead.

I'll just emphasize that there's reason to be heartened. You and I, John, know a lot of American military analysts. I don't think none of them that I know of believed Israel had the capabilities to do to Hezbollah what it has done in terms of taking out thousands of senior members. You didn't get a pager if you're nobody. You had to be somebody. And many of its leaders all in all that quickly. I mean, I don't know anybody who thought Israel had that capability.

And one hopes, I certainly do, that Israel has a lot of other capabilities of which I am totally ignorant. All right. Thanks for this good conversation, Eyal, John. I think it's important to discuss all this stuff as we end one year and begin a new Jewish year and a new year in combat and politics in the Middle East and beyond. And thanks for all of you who have been with us for this conversation here today on Foreign Policy.

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