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October 27, 2023 12 mins

Talking to The Armstrong & Getty, Military analyst Mike Lyons breaks down what we're seeing with Hamas, Israel and Iran. He also touches on the fact that US soldiers have come under attack in Syria.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And those US strikes in Eastern Syria overnight conducted by
American F sixteens against Iranian link positions in eastern Syria
at this base. US Secretary Lloyd Austin releasing a statement saying, quote,
these narrowly tailored strikes in self defense were intended solely
to protect and defend US personnel in Iraq and Syria.
They are separate and distinct from the ongoing conflict between

(00:23):
Israel and Hamas. This is significant because since the conflict
developed on October seventh, following that massacre here in southern Israel,
we've seen a number of attacks on not just Israeli
interests across the region, but also American interest.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
One of the first things I did when I heard
about these attacks by the US and the Middle East
as I went to Mike Lions Twitter feed at mag
Major Mic Lions Mag Mike Lions to see what he
had to say about it, and I thought, well, we
got to have him on the radio today to see
where we are with that. Mike, Welcome to the Armstrong
and Getty Show again. Thanks for having so How big

(00:58):
a deal is this? I'm I'm the complete layman on
this stuff. It just doesn't feel like enough with the
number of times that Iran has struck us. But what
are your feelings as a guy who knows what he's
talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
No, it's not. Had a conversation over the weekend with
a couple of former colleagues and it's like, it's about time,
and you know, the fact of the matter is they
have been attacking US forces there aaron is the most
responsible country for US soldier deaths within Iraq when we
were there from you know, two thousand and three through

(01:33):
twenty eleven, I mean the IEDs and everything they did,
We've done nothing. And then a lot of it is
we just continue to believe that all of a sudden,
we're going to wake up in the Iranians are going
to be friendly, and they're going to change, and something's
going to be different. But just not the case. If
you're a soldier in combat right now in Syria or
in Iraq and it's a combat zone, you're concerned about

(01:55):
what's the you know, what is our government doing to
protect you there? Aside from you know, maybe vehicles. We
obviously hear that there's an individual was killed in a
in a bombshelter, but that's nice but at some point,
again enough is enough. And right now, the whole gamble,
the whole assumption is that the Iranians are not going

(02:16):
to escalate. They're not going to do anything to force
an escalation. So they continue to go around with the
you know, the margins here and make small little things.
But at some point, again enough's enough. They have to decide,
just like Israel. Israel has decided enough's enough. They're not
going to do louder rents repeat this time. They're not
stopping in guys. They're not going to take any pressure.
They're not going to take any pressure from the outside world.

(02:36):
They're just not gonna They're just going to keep going.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
So, as you said, Iran was behind a whole bunch
of attacks and deaths of Americans, well for a long
long time. So what is the hesitation with the United
States facing off against Iran? What what is their military capability?

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, no, it's not much. It's more from the sky,
it would be soul based, it's regional, it's uh, you know,
it's it's the terror funding that they do. They don't
provide an existential threat to us. And I think I
think the problem is we're psychologically disarmed from them because
we would destroy them, and the rest of the world

(03:17):
would say, what's going on in the United States, Like
why did you do this? Meanwhile, they continue to kill
our soldiers and and and harm our allies and do
all these things. So again we've got to decide enough's enough,
and we've got to you know, somebody used this expression'll
punch them in the nose? Well kind of what does
that mean? You know? Do we attack their pentagon? Do
we attack their their capability to manufacture oil and petroleum?

(03:42):
So if we do that, though it upsets the economic
balance of power, You've got to think that we would
need allies to do this, and I think that ally
is Israel. So that fuse gets lit right October seventh,
and that views is continuing to burn right now. So
the question is what war would Iran do? Will they
back down the sum are that around's going to bock down?
They're not going to do much more.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
But we have to just say, uh, well, do you
agree with that assumption or not.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
I don't think it's a good assumption to make from
a military preparedness perspective. No. I think that let's say
the Israelis when they decide to go. So Israel wants
to fight, it's kind of war. They don't want to
fight the war Homas wants them to fight, right, So
they're going to do this ground war when they're good
and ready, and that's going to mean they've got either
better intel on the hostages, that they they're going to

(04:29):
be assured that they're going to win, that they're not
going to take a lot of casualties. But once that
starts and they commit there, then who knows what happens
in the north. Who knows? Then if the Uranians decide
to help has Bella more and they encourage them, and
next thing you know, they've opened up another front to
the north, and now Israel is already facing an existential threat.
So I don't I just don't think it's a good assumption.
The assumption is being made that the Hutis are not

(04:52):
going to do anything. Has Bellahs kind of tired, Lebani
Lebanon is not going to want to do anything. The
Uranians are going to eventually back down rather rent repeat
here we go, will eventually bring the Israelies up for
you know, for war crimes because they're going to attack disproportionately.
But the world's not getting that Israel is at war.
They've said they're at war. They've the defense managers said,

(05:12):
is the time for pieces, the time for war. This
is the time for war. They're going to destroy as
use for us as much as possible as they can
until they feel that that this is that their goals
are accomplished.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
So what's our uh, Because we've talked about how we've
got two aircraft carriers now and all the support that
goes with aircraft carriers and two thousand troops have put
on and put on notice to deploy and all the
in terms of our assets in the region currently, how
how well are we stocked the.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
We're good from a strategic perspective and from from putting
air defense platforms in place to support Israel, because what
the Ranians would likely do is fire multiple long range
missiles at at Israel going to attack Tel Aviv. They
have no capability to do any kind of a ground force.
They couldn't get there. That wouldn't happen. They could unleash

(06:05):
these terror organizations that have come from the north. So
what the defense they need are iron dome rockets and
patriot missiles and SAD so that is kind of bullets
hitting bullets. It's another complex air defense system against ballistic missiles.
Is what is what we're doing, which is fine, which
is exactly what we should be doing and allowing. You know,

(06:28):
that's our level of the terrence right now. So Israel's
trying to restore the terrens with their neighbors, and they
do it disproportionately. That's why that's their level of the turns,
whereas ours right now is proportional. So for example, we
attacked these two, we tacked a bunch of logistic bases
inside of Syria. So again from a military perspective, okay,
we took away some capacity for these malicious to fight,

(06:50):
but really didn't make any kind of impact on the ground.
That's they're going to still come back and start to
attack American troops there. The question is how do we escalate?
Where we escalate there is attacking those places inside Iran,
and you know that opens up another level of discussion.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
So the President was asked on sixty minutes a couple
of weeks ago, we've got a war we're supporting in
the Ukraine, supporting the Ukrainians against the Russians. Now we've
got supporting the Isras. Can we handle two different fronts?
And then of course you've got to throw in the
idea of if we are busy with those, does China
decide to do anything anywhere? Can we handle all this stuff?

(07:26):
Are we big enough and powerful enough to handle all
these things at one time?

Speaker 3 (07:29):
Well, we could, we'd have to mobilize, we'd have to
do things, you know, we'd have to create a situation
where you know, in the past thirty years, the United
States has really not gone to war. The military has
gone to war. So ask a military family and ask
the soldiers that have been deployed, you know, three or
four times over six or seven years, and the damage
that's created to that military environment because that's happened. But

(07:51):
the United States would have to deploy. The United States
would have to mobilize. And I haven't seen that yet.
I haven't seen that appetite yet. And that's the that's
the hard political decision that some political leader would have
to make. The reality would have to kind of hit
us in the face. We're acting different in the Middle East. Also,
because there's no nuclear power we're eventually up against, right,
I mean, in Ukraine, were giving Ukraine the means, so

(08:15):
they don't lose. Right, We've not really given them the
means for them to win, because then that would tip
the balance. And potentially Russia does something and they have
nuclear capability, So that's out there. But what's different here
in the Middle East because there's no other nuclear power
that we have to kind of face off with. Now
you brought up China again, who knows another wild card?
We have to assume that they're going to sense weakness

(08:38):
and countries and leaders make these calculated decisions and history
about whether they go or whether they don't go right,
you know. So again you look at how World War
one started, World War one started, and all these bad
assumptions that everybody didn't think were going to happen, Well,
I'm sure they're happened, and they happened for four years,
and everybody can say, oh, it's going to be over
by Christmas and never never went that way. Yeah, where

(09:00):
we're at right now, we're all facing off each other saying, oh,
that's not going to happen because they would never his
Bla would never do that, and the Ranians would never
do that, and the Chinese would never do that. I mean,
it's really bad. Assumptions got us into those places in
the past, and if we don't learn from him, then
shame on us.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Well, I know you're an expert in military history. I've
read a lot of military history. If it seems like
every big war in world history began with the side
believing it'll be over by Christmas or summer or spring
or whatever it was, and it doesn't work out that way.
I'm looking at cable News right now and they're talking
about close call with the Chinese fighter plane or whatever.
They ran one of their ships up against a ship

(09:37):
in the Philippines the other day. So we had Ian Bremer,
the political scientist, on last week and I asked him
about why wouldn't China go now? And he thought, well, economically,
there's just no way they're going to do that now.
But you know, it's one guy's decision. President she and
if he looks at Joe Biden and thinks the guy
is old and a little lost in the United States
is busy, there's never going to be a better time.

(09:59):
I just I don't know. I can't imagine why now
wouldn't be a good time.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
The question is whether our country will declare war. That's
what it's going to take for the country declare war.
Then we're all in. We're mobilized, national guard units, industry changes,
We're now providing weapons, go back to the Ukraine. We're
providing weapons to the Ukraine. We're taking stuff from the
nineties that was about to expire. But what we need
to do now a complete refresh of all of our

(10:24):
defensive systems, because that's kind of happening here. Our enemies
could be drawing down our supplies, and now's the time
to go. If you're China, now's the time then to
go to war the United States, because you know, we're
tone out in world wars for a reason, right, because
we can crank up the industrial machine pretty quickly if
we have to. If you ever go to the World
War Two Museum down in New Orleans, it's pretty amazing
that you see how quickly if the United States wanted

(10:45):
to crank up the war machine, we could do that.
But again, we end up losing the beginning of those
wars and we take a lot of a lot of
casualties because we're just we're not ready to the point
where the enemy has got that capability.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
One more quick thing before we let you go the
it's three weeks tomorrow since the horror happened in Israel.
I think most people probably thought they'd be in there
with tanks faster than now. Does it make sense to
you to to strategically wait and get your ducks in
a row like.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
This, Yeah, it does. I sat in the desert for
a couple of months in desert storm, and then watch
for thirty five days in the air campaign, and we
still faced off at an enemy that had capability. I
think Israel is torn between knowing that if they go
large scale on the ground that's not a good outcome
for the hostages that are there, and I think they're

(11:36):
doing everything they can. The raids that they're doing right now,
they're doing quick across the border raids, try to gather intelligence.
But I think that they're faced with that decision knowing
full well now again when the time comes, they're not
going to allow Hamas to hide behind civilians, because they're
going to say, if you're a civilian in the northern
part of Gaza, you're a combatant. Right, everyone's been warned,

(12:00):
everybody's been told to get south, Go south. They'll they'll
likely have no fires on too. I mean there's a
reason why the Egyptians won't left the Palestinians in, and
the Jordanians won't let the Palestinians, and there's like the
rest of the Middle East does not want to help
Israel solve this problem. So they're going to solve the
problem by just you know, destroying it, by flatting it.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Thanks for your time today. It's good to talk to
somebody who actually knows what they're talking about, because you know,
my blathering is of no use. Mike Lions, thank you
very much, thanks for having me. And as I mentioned earlier,
you can find him if you want to follow him
on Twitter at mag Mike Lions, and he's one of
the first places I go when anything militarily is happening

(12:39):
to get his opinion, or you see him on CNN
on a regular basis Armstrong and Getty
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