Tension In The Middle East: Mike Lyons Talks to Jack Armstrong

The IDF stirred things up with the airstrike that killed 7 aid workers. Have they been too relaxed with their attacks?

Talking to Jack Armstrong, military analyst Mike Lyons breaks it down for us.

Hear the entire conversation in a new episode of Armstrong & Getty's Extra Large Podcast....

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
As Israel pursues any military operations against a moss, it
has to prioritize the protection of civilians. It has to
make that job number one. Too many people have been
caught in this crossfire of a moss's making, children, women, men,
losing their lives. Their safety has to be a priority,

(00:20):
and military operations need to be designed around their protection,
not the other way around.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
That's our Secretary of State saying, Israel needs to make
the protection of civilians the number one priority. He emphasized
that a couple of times number one above eliminating hamas.
I don't know if that is reality or not. Among
the things we will discuss with Mike Lyons, a military
analyst we've had on many, many times over the years
because we like talking to him. Mike served with various

(00:46):
military organizations both the United States and Europe throughout his career.
You can follow him at ma J Mike Lyons because
if something big happens militarily, I usually go to his
feed to see what he's got to say about it.
Mike Lions, Welcome to the Armstrong Show.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Hey, Jack, great to be back with you.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Hey, what was your first reaction when you heard about
the aid workers being.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Killed fog of war, frankly, and that's the most dangerous
place on the planet right now. And that that spot
the fact that from the combat zone perspective and you
put civilians in there, I didn't, you know, we learned
now more about the what what's kind of going on?
You know, Israel basically outsourced the security of those organizations

(01:28):
to Hamas. There was gunmen that were there that was
you know, if you're if you're in that environment, you
need protection as well. And it looks like they were
Hamas's operatives that were protecting those convoys. And so I
just figured out a lot of things must have went
wrong and misidentification mistakes, late at night, darkness, all these things,
even with all the technology that we have, and that

(01:50):
leads to the disastered hatem. I think that you know,
it was three different targets. They didn't bother to take
the ton in between after hitting the first target to
assess what was going on on. They were pretty set
on taking out those three targets right away, and if
they did that, they might have at least not shot
the second and the third truck in the convoy. But fundamentally,

(02:10):
that is the most dangerous place in the world. Then
there's an expectation that that's going to happen, and all
the things that went wrong went wrong, and this is
what happens.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well, so I assume that you agree that the growing
analysis that this was on purpose is ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, No, it wasn't on purpose. They could have done better.
A lot of it has to do with their rules
of engagement. It looks that, you know, the Israelis fired
the fire support officer, the one that was really responsible
for formulating the target and pulling a trigger, as well
as others in the chain of command. So they've taken
full responsibility for it. It was not on purpose. They

(02:46):
like anything else, it could have done better as they
go down and you know, redo what their rules of
engagement were. I mean, this is if you get into
the details of this. It was a convoy that that
did add gunman to it, that went into a way
our house and came out, and they made the presumption
that those gunmen were still on the on the trucks,
and they didn't see the world's central kitchen marker on

(03:08):
the top of course not it's eleven o'clock at night.
They didn't see that there should have been a beacon
on it, for example. That's what I would want. I'd want,
you know, safety flare beacons on those and telling everybody
that this is a safety this is a vehicle that's
delivering some kind of aid. But what the rules are
engagement I think changed now is that you've got to
put an Israeli soldier on the ground or a convoy

(03:29):
that's going to approach that, and you can't take it
out from a drone. They took that out from you know,
twenty miles away looking through a TV screen. That's where
it got impersonal. I think that's what the problem was.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Well, I I don't I'm just a talk show host.
I've never been involved in any of this sort of stuff.
I don't want to go too far down the road
of being callous. But are we holding or is the
world holding Israel to a standard that can't be met?
Or do you feel like they have been to Lucy Goosey,
I mean, we killed how many people did the Biden
administration killed there in Cobb Guy coming home with a

(04:01):
bunch of water bottles and his kids run out to
greet him, and we blew them all up with the
drone strike. Barack Obama when Joe Biden was Vice president,
the Doctors without Borders thing that happened, where like forty
people died in that. That was another mistake that we
apologized for. But we don't always get it right either.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
No. No, And in fact, when we didn't relieve anybody
for it either, we didn't punish anybody as well. No,
I think Israel has held to a very high standard
with regard to conducting this war. I think that you know,
they've warned their enemy that they're coming the next day,
they're trying to move civilians. This is an enemy that
embeds himself with civilians, and so no, I don't think

(04:38):
they've been Lucy goosey. I think in this case with
just all again with what all the situations that take
place in the time and the place between the twenty
minutes when they decided they had a target, when they
thought it was a combatant, and it turns out it wasn't.
It's just the worst possible scenario. But no, I think
Israel has been fined a help to a higher standard
the health to their own standard, which they've been able

(05:00):
to explain. And I just don't think the rest of
the world is listening. The rest of the world does,
for some reason hold den war responsile. Then Hamas right, death,
civilian casualty is Hamas's problem, not Israel's problem, right, So
that's kind of how I see it.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, that's interesting. So the news all day yesterday on
this story, at least like on the Sunday talk shows,
was that Israel had pulled a bunch of troops out
of southern Gaza, and they were sort of portraying it
as a sign that maybe Israel was back and off
we're heading toward to cease fire. Do you see it
that way or are they just rearranging for the big

(05:37):
final battle in Rafa.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah. I think it's smart, and I'll tell you why,
because they recognize that the maneuver element of this conflict
is over now, at least in these areas that they had.
What I mean by that is the use of shock
effect tanks and APC's and artillery. This enemy is so
embedded with the civilians in Rafa right now that they

(05:58):
recognize that that's just kind of let's move these maneuver
elements out for now and then get ready for this
attack that will take place maybe in a couple of
weeks from now as they as they kind of you know,
kind of gear up for it, so I and then
at the same time kind of put the cooling down
with regard to that. There's no way that you know,
they'll attack a convoy or something by accident at this point.

(06:22):
But in the same token, you had the most number
of trucks the other day, get into get into the gaza.
You know, this is an Israel allows its enemy to
be resupplied. I mean, this is crazy on some level.
They allow this to happen. They allow Hamas to come
in and take over all of these supplies that are
coming in from you know, from the outside. So they
still have an uphill battle, but I think this is

(06:44):
going to be a refit and rearm themselves in order
to eventually take take Rafa in the next few weeks.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
I know you're a big student of military history. Are
there parallels to this when you're attacked by someone? We didn't,
We didn't make it our number one priority. As the
Secretary State just said to feed the Japanese people as
we were bombing them. Does this happen ever before this?

Speaker 3 (07:08):
No, No, it's there's not a lot of historical parallels
to this, and that's because this is an enemy that's
fighting non conventionally, and that's why, that's why they have
to move those forces. They you know, traditional maneuver and
fire is against an enemy that does the same thing,
that that also admits defeat at some point recognizes that
it's not doing anything for the civilian population. And that's

(07:30):
you know that this argument about well, you know, we
can't you know, they can't win because you can't defeat
an ideology, Well, don't you know tell that's what happened
to the Germans. They defeated an ideology, they destroyed everything
that was there. And so the same ideology was defeated
in Japan. And that's what Israel is doing. Israel fighting
this war like it's nineteen forty five, and they're not stopping.
They're not stopping for one bit. They're not stopping because

(07:51):
of what Joe Biden says or what Blinkin says, or
whatever the case may be. The problem is Joe Biden's
finding it like it's nineteen eighteen. He wants to just
stop it and and give Hamas a chance to rearm
and retool and refuel. And that's what will happen over
the next forty years. But Israel's not going to let
that happen.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
So our government released a report on Friday. They kind
of flew under the radar. I feel like that we
are preparing for a retaliation by Iran somewhere in the
Middle East on a target either US or Israel. Do
you think Iran is going to retaliate? They they vowed retaliation,
but they've been vowing that sort of thing for you know,
since I was a kid.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah, my phone rang over the weekend off the hook
on that. I think that I just don't think that's
still the case, because that opens up a whole nother front.
If Iran launched a missile from Iran, some medium or
long range missile and hit Tel Aviv or hit something,
then that opens up a complete new front for Israel
to you know, to attack back, and there will attack

(08:51):
will not be proportional. They will go after their nuclear facilities,
They'll go after their Pentagon equivalent in Tehran. They will Again,
I don't think. I just don't believe Iran is you know,
kind of dumb enough to do that. That's that, you know,
that's to say that they're going to use their proxies
and use all what they can. One of the things
that I've seen reports on is trying to cut off

(09:13):
their land bridge that goes from Israel into the Persian Gulf.
That means activating proxy groups inside of Jordan, inside of
a rock and cutting off supplies that that Israel is setting.
It's you know, some of its goods to the person
gulf that way. But I again, for Iran to engage
Israel directly, I don't think that's a good idea from
their perspective.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
What is your that's interesting? Your phone was ringing off
the hook on that particular question. What is your worst realistic,
worst case scenario? Where where are you concerned? Like, what's
the sort of thing that could could keep you awake
at night over the next week or two.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
Yeah, it's the same thing that could have happened back
in nineteen seventy two and nineteen sixty seven. If all
these Arab nations decided to say, you know what, we've
had it with Israel, We've had it, and they all
got together and they decided to overwhelmed them. They Israel
still could potentially be overwhelmed in the North with Hezbollah
and in Lebanon they could and potentially have the Iranians

(10:11):
decide to get involved with ground forces, the Whosies. We
see what they're doing. They can, they can fire a
lot more rockets and then Hamas has been somewhat defeated,
but there's still battalions left in the south areon Ralfa.
That to me is the nightmare scenario, because then Israel
would have a real tough challenge defending all of those
different fronts. That's the nightmare scenario. And thank god in

(10:34):
the last fifty sixty years that hasn't happened. It almost
happened during the Yankapur War. As these Arab countries that
you decide to get together, but they just can't seem
to hold it together and Israel ends up defeating them.
That would be the worst possible scenario.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Interesting, Well, appreciate your time and your expertise on this
sort of thing. Need to talk to some of you
actually knows what they're talking about. Major Mike Leines, thanks
for coming on the Armstrong and Getty Show today.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Thanks Jack, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
You bet you Armstrong and Getty