06 16 25 POLITICO Pentagon reporter Jack Detsch on the Israeli and Iranian conflict

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is Colorado's Morning News. Marty Lenz Chad Bower fillin
in for Gina Gondeck. Israel and unleashing air strikes across
Iran for a third day yesterday and threatened even greater
force as some Iranian missiles evdd Israeli air defenses to
strike buildings in the heart of the country.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
President Trump in recent days reportedly vetoed an Israeli plan
to kill Iran supreme leader. Joining us now to talk
about all this on the Kowa Commons Spirit Health Hotline.
Defense reporter for Politico, Jack Detch. So, Jack, let's start
with the latest from overnight. What has happened? What is
the latest?

Speaker 3 (00:32):
So strikes have continued from a third to a fourth day.
Now the Israelis this morning saying they've hit the command
center of Iran's elite Coudes force. That's, of course, the
force that United States assassinated the leader of back in
twenty twenty and is responsible for a lot of the
proxy groups throughout the Middle East that are on controls.

(00:54):
So potentially another big casualty after, of course, the head
of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. Killed on Thursday going
into Friday morning, so you just see a decimation of
Iran's military leadership so far and some of their scientific
capability to build the nuclear program. But it looks as

(01:14):
if for now Israel's main goal to really decimate Iran's
ability to produce nuclear weapons is still out of sight
at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Jack we here, and there's been reports that the US
is not involved, but that the President intervened and told
it is run out to kill this Iran's leader, the Ayatola.
So how involved or not involved is the US actually
with Iran and Israel at this point?

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Well, remember Marty, of course, the Americans are very very
key for Israel's air defense. They refill the arrow and
the iron dome batteries that Israel's using to defend itself
against Iran. They have two destroyer groups in the region
as well that are equipped with air defenses to knock
down Iranian drones and ballistic missiles that are being fired Israel.

(02:00):
So it does seem that's given the Trump administration some
veto power just when it comes to how far Israel's
going to take this campaign. But it still looks like
even if there's some guardrails, not going after the supreme leader,
not going after some of the clerics. It's still going
to spiral out potentially for weeks, and you do have

(02:21):
within that period the potential for this to escalate even further.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, Jack, you mentioned that the goal for Israel is
to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities. Explain a little bit about
how difficult of a proposition that is with so much
underground Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
I mean, one of the key facilities that you were
referring to, chad FORDAU in central Iran, is located inside
of the mountain, so you would have to use very
sophisticated bunker busting bombs, perhaps beyond the capability carrying capability
of Israel's F thirty five and other fighter jets that

(02:58):
are going to be flying over it and dropping these weapons.
And then you just have the possibility too, of Israel's
pilots being under durested. It does seem like the Israelis
are confident at this point they have air superiority over Iran,
but still it's a dangerous mission to be constantly flying

(03:19):
pilots in and out of this tide of airspace. So
just puts a lot of strain and pressure on the
Israeli military that's already overstretched by the mission into Gaza,
and of course the long term fight back and forth
that's been going on with the.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Lebanese off and on yesterday and faced the Nation, Jack
Senator Lindsay Graham called for the President to go all
in for Israel should a diplomat again to the conflict
with Iran not be met. Do you know if this
is the sentiment of many of the GOP leaders or
is there a little more caution with some of them
about getting more entranced or in interseiege with this, with

(03:55):
what's going on with Iran and Israel.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, the Senate has long been very hot fish in
terms of going after Iran and supporting the Israelis. You
will get members like Tom Cotton, like Lindsey Graham, who
you just mentioned, who want to see the US support
the Israelis to the fullest extent. Here. The interesting thing,
right is this tugs it at two of Trump's impulses.

(04:18):
I mean, one you have kind of the hard power
hawk is Trump that we've seen in the past, and
the other much more isolationist figure somebody who are dating
all the way back to twenty nineteen twenty twenty really
abandoned the US prerogative to defend the flows of oil
going through the region after the the Iranian attacks on

(04:39):
Saudi Arabia and thereon Richmond facilities. That precedent had dated
back to the Carter administration. So you've seen major reversals
in both Trump administrations on the defense of the least
and defensive allies. It seems that there's been a lot
of frustration within parts of the administration, especially Marco Rubio,
about how far Israel's carrying out this campaign. So there

(05:00):
may be a lot of hawkish gung ho voices on
Capitol Hill, but I think you can expect the administration
to be a little bit more restrained.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Jack.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
We've talked about how President Trump rejected a plan for
Israel to assassinate around Supreme Leader. How much of a
goal is regime change for Israel, and how else might
they go about doing that.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Well, certainly since October Semschad, what you've seen across the
region is Israel trying to reset the security context in Lebanon,
going after the leader of Hezblan, successfully assassinating him back
in September, Hassan Izrala. Of course, what they've done in
Gaza and basically trying to quarantine that area and keep

(05:45):
a long term Israeli military for something we hadn't seen
for a number of years now with the Iranians. That's
kind of the final stage of trying to reset the
security context. It could be going after the Supreme leader.
Certainly there are people within net and Yahoo's a far
right cabinet that would like to see that, and he's
really been pushed to the right by embracing some of

(06:07):
these figures. But of course there's going to be a
lot of counter pressure from the Americans from other groups
to hold off on the decapitation strikes that could change
the regime. So we'll see how this will play out.
But ultimately, if you don't have a different figure in Tehran,
it seems unlikely you'd see sort of any liberalization or
the siem chansa.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Jack final question, is this the result where we're at
right now of the Trump administration and those that did
not like the JCPOA and doing away with it, or
would we have gotten ended up to at this point
anyways with the run.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Well, it's interesting, right, Marty. I mean, you have this administration.
Of course Trump abandons the JCPOA, the all that Era
Aron deal in twenty eighteen. Now he's trying to get
back at the negotiating table. So there's been frustration with
the Israelis that basically these strikes have up the negotiation.
Of course, the Israelis feel as if they're giving the

(07:04):
US added leverage to camp down on Irani enrichment, which
is something that US negotiators had not made much progress on.
But it does seem like an interesting development in Trump's
philosophy when it comes to foreign affair. As you saw
sort of during the first Trump administration, a president much

(07:24):
more willing to sort of let things play out in
the Middle East when it came to conflicts, sort of
pushing his chips to the center of the table. Now
you see a president a little bit more focused on
the diplomatic side, but with a lot less control over
allies in terms of their own approach to the region,
whether they want to reset the security balance. So you
see much more offensive Israeli capability and perhaps the US

(07:47):
being a little bit more defensive and diplomatic.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Here, Jack Detch, defense reporter for Politico. As always, thank
you for joining us.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
Thank you so much.