June 20, 2025 • 34 mins
The Middle East is on fire. Again. What began as Israel's retaliation against Hamas after the October 7 attacks has now exploded into a multi-front conflict involving Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and now Iran. In this episode of In Our Defence, veteran journalist and national security expert Sandeep Unnithan joins host Dev Goswami to break down how the war escalated so dramatical, and what it means for the region and the world.
The two look at Iran's underestimated military, its dual-army structure, and the massive blow dealt to its leadership in just the first week of fighting. Why does Israel seem so unbending, even at the cost of global condemnation and regional chaos? And could any of this be happening without backing from the US?
Dev and Sandeep also explore the philosophical irony behind Western nations - especially the US - dictating nuclear rules to countries like Iran, even as they maintain massive arsenals themselves. Is this another chapter in global double standards?
And finally, the two unpack a surprising development: Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir's meeting with Donald Trump during his US visit. Could this signal a renewed American effort to position Pakistan as a behind-the-scenes player in the Israel-Iran war?
Produced by Garvit Srivastava
Sound mixed by Rohan Bharti
The two look at Iran's underestimated military, its dual-army structure, and the massive blow dealt to its leadership in just the first week of fighting. Why does Israel seem so unbending, even at the cost of global condemnation and regional chaos? And could any of this be happening without backing from the US?
Dev and Sandeep also explore the philosophical irony behind Western nations - especially the US - dictating nuclear rules to countries like Iran, even as they maintain massive arsenals themselves. Is this another chapter in global double standards?
And finally, the two unpack a surprising development: Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir's meeting with Donald Trump during his US visit. Could this signal a renewed American effort to position Pakistan as a behind-the-scenes player in the Israel-Iran war?
Produced by Garvit Srivastava
Sound mixed by Rohan Bharti
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is India Today Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome to season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
Deve Goswami, and every week I sit down with experts
and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
to decode all things to do with India security and
explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
(00:28):
stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
This is in our defense. Welcome to Another Defense. This
is an era of war.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Private Sanadamodi has been repeating that for the last three years,
but that message seems to be going in vain.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
We are in the middle.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Of the second biggest conflict that we have seen this year,
after India Pakistan is rel Iran, much much bigger. As
we record this, this is the sixth day of the war.
It will be entering a seven day by the end
of this episode. Gets out and for a quick overview
of what's going on, what's led to the led to
the current conflict.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I have with me. Thanks and hey, they've good to
be back. Good to have you as well.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Unfortunately, today I think we have sort of short on time,
so we won't be able to sort of do a
deeper dive, the deep dive rather that we normally do
on this on this subject. But I also feel that
this topic is going to be on this on this
podcast for many episodes to come. Now it's not going
sadly so sadly so. So what I'm going to do
is on this episode, I'm going to just focus on
(01:37):
the two three broad factors at day over a year,
what's led to the current conflict, and things that I
feel are not being talked about enough, and then perhaps
on a later episode we can do a deeper dive
into everything that's going on. First, how do we get here?
So the Middle East, the more I read about it,
the more complex.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
It seems to me.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Right, it's it's it's a region that see in a
conflict for thousands of years. Yeah, one thousands is so
bit much. I think thousands would be a better frame
to porput it. And you can trace it back to
many different factors. You have the whole Succession war after
profiting Huma's death that led to the Shia Sunni split.
You have the crusades over the ownership of Jerusalem between
(02:19):
Christians and the Muslim and the Muslim world, And if
we were to talk about the present conflict, the most
recent factor at player, I would say, and this I
think applies for any modern world problems, is the British
with the nineteen seventeen Balfour Declaration that ultimately led to
the birth of Israel in nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I think this is such a vast topic.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Covering this as part of the of the current conflict
would not be not doing justice to it. So I'm
going to keep it to how did we get you
from October seven? Because the question in my head is
what I saw on October seven in twenty twenty three
was Hamas attacking Israel.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Israel obviously was gonna hit back.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
This was the worst attack on Israeli soil ever and
one of the worst terror attacks in the world. You
expected Israel to hit back. But then from hitting Hamas
in Gaza and the West pac it's gone to Lebanon,
it's gone to Syria, it's gone to Yemen, and now
the biggest of them all Iran. Right, So the fact
is that play over year and how did we get
(03:20):
where we are today?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well, you hit the right date. They it's the seventh
of October twenty twenty three that started this conflict. It's
one of the you know, one of the most ferocious
wars that we've seen, and almost unprecedented in the way
that the you know, the Beligerans have been fighting this war,
like you mentioned six days of a war where two countries,
(03:45):
Iran and Israel, have been attacking each other. They don't
even share a border. They're over a thousand kilometers away.
So you have the Israeli Air Force pilots flying the
equivalent of a Bombay Delhi and return flight to drop
ordinance on Iran. Right, that's more than twelve hundred kilometers
one way to Iran and back. You have Israel Iran,
(04:08):
which does not have an air force to speak of. They've,
you know, and they've compensated for the lack of an
air force with a ballistic missile force. They've unleashed their
ballistic missiles on Israel today and we saw the hypersonic
missiles that we believe the Fata series and the Koram
Shared three and the Sagil. These are very very potent
(04:33):
intermediate range ballistic missiles that Iran has been firing at Israel.
So how do we get here? It was the seventh
of October twenty twenty three. Who were the participants in
the seventh of October twenty twenty three. It was Hamas
and it was this crazy guy, the Hamas chief, the
military chief, Yaya Cinema, who got it in his head
that he must go and massacre the maximum number of
(04:55):
Israeli civilians and bring upon himself and the Palinians the
wrath of Israel, which would then ignite Palestine, this cause
of Palestine that had been on the back burner for
many years, that would be front and center in a way.
Sadly is the case almost you know, two and a
(05:15):
half years later, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have
been killed because Israel is still looking for those hostages
that Yia Sinver's men captured from the civilian areas around
the Gaza Strip. So Yaya Sinver is the man I
believe is two twenty twenty five and the twenty first
(05:36):
century what Gabriel prince App was one hundred years back
in nineteen fourteen. Gaviril prince App is a Serbian ultranationalists
who fired the shot at Archideo Fransford in which triggered
off the First World war. Jaya Sinver is the man
who fired off that shot here against Israel, and that's
led to where we are today, where you have this
(05:59):
ring of proxies that Iran had built for its own protection. Hamas, Hisbola,
the Huthis, Katai Basbula in Iraq, all of those have
been taken out by Israel over the last two and
a half years with great precision and military ruthlessness. First
it was Hamas, then it was Hisbola. You saw the
(06:20):
kind of pager attacks that they launched against them. They've
flown and attacked the Huthis. Of course they're much further
away than Hamas or his Bola, so it's not that
easy to take them out. But now it is iranich
forty five years after the Islamic Revolution of nineteen seventy nine,
which is actually in a corner, which is fighting for
(06:41):
its survival, literally with this wave of Israeli fighter jet missions,
bombing nuclear sites, military installations, killing the military chiefs, the
IRGC assassinating Iranian scientists. So it's literally this war between
Israel Iran that's been bubbling, you know, under the surface
(07:02):
ever since the Islamic Revolution of nineteen seventy nine, when
you know, and the thing is, they've before nineteen seventy nine,
the Shah of Iran who ruled and Israel, had excellent relations.
Right from Israel's birth in nineteen forty eight right down
to nineteen seventy nine. Israel and Iran were the best
of friends. The revation came in nineteen seventy nine. Atolahamani
(07:27):
came and he declared at once that Iran was an
existential threat to ir Israel was an existential threat to Iran,
and therefore it had to be wiped off, and he
took up the case of Palestine. He took on, He
embraced the you know, the cause of Palestine, which is
very strange because Iran, as you know they've is a
(07:48):
country that's neither Sunni nor Arab, and it just grabbed
the one cause that is very dear to the Sunni
Arab people, which is Palestine. And so the underlying cause
for that is the leadership of the Islamic world. Iran
did what it did because it is that thousand and
two thousand year battle for the leadership of the Muslim world.
(08:10):
Is it the Assumis or the Shias who are the
rightful airs of profit momouth. That battle has not been
resolved yet. Iran's taken up that challenge, and you know,
it's been doing this for the last forty five years,
and here it is today fighting by itself against Israel.
Israel has been hammering them for a week now, and
(08:30):
there is every possibility that the United States could now
jump in on the side of Israel, thereby accelerating Iran's
existential crisis.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Right, So, if we were to talk about the conflict currently,
you know, the one thing I find lacking in the
discourse around the current war is there's a lot of
dissection of his daily capabilities. It's military and also the
US support, whether it's monetary or the military hardware you
were supplied to Israel. You don't see a lot of
that happening with Iran, and that has led to this
(09:06):
sense that you know, this is a you know, this
battle is you know, there's only one man at the
end of the day. But people forget that Iran is
a country. Is a vast country. It's a country half
the size of India. It's a country which, according to
my calculations, around seventy five to eighty times the size
of Israel.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
It is there a time in tiny country. It's the
size of money poor. Yeah and yeah, like you said,
Iran is half the size of India. It's one point
three million squae culo, has two armies.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It has it is one of the few countries in
the world to have mastered high persponding the sides.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Even India has not done that. We're not that.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
We are testing, yeah, from thost two projects. So what
do you what are your thoughts on this popular perception
that Iran military is you know, nothing compared to when
it comes to you become compared to what is it
really strengths are? How do you see it as a
defense analyst? And what what is your what are your
thoughts on this? Well, you know, Iran has its strengths
(09:58):
and its weaknesses. It actually has more weaknesses than it
has strings. But let's talk about the strings first. The
strings are that it's never had an air force of
consequence for several years, right because after the fall of
the Shah in nineteen seventy nine, Iran has it's got
about three hundred aircraft and it's only bought about three
(10:19):
or four fighter squadrons ever since. In the last forty
five years.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
It's just bought two squadrons of Mid twenty nine's, one
squadron of SUE twenty fours, and I think one squadron
of the Chinese JF seventeen's. So it's a very very
you know, let's say, a creaky ancient air force. It's
more than half a century old. Iran has no air
force to speak of. So what they've done is they've
(10:44):
compensated for the lack of an air force by raising
a rocket force, a ballistic missile force, a drone force.
They're very good at drones and ballistic missiles. In fact,
they're so good that they've transferred their capabilities to the
Russian Federation. Believe it or the Russians are the ones
who actually invented the missiles, like the Scud. They have.
(11:05):
They re engineered a riverse engineered German V two, V
one and V twos and built a whole range of missiles.
The Iranians have taken on the Scud, which is, uh,
you know, a Russian version of the V twos, and
they have created their own range of missiles, and they've
perfected cruise missiles that the Shahid won three six, which
they have then transferred to the Russian Federation for mass production,
(11:26):
which the Russians are using in the Ukraine War as
the Gehran. So that's a that's a Russian that's an
Iranian invention. So Iran has mastered all of these capabilities.
It's offset its lack of an effective navy. It's got
a very very uh you know, thinly a resourced navy.
It's air force, like I said, is nothing much to
(11:47):
write about. And it's army is an area that it has.
It is quite strong. But it's a large country and
the easiest thing to do is to raise an army.
And they've been you know, they've they've fought a very
very bruising war with Iraq. It's before your time there,
but you know, nineteen eighty to eighty eight, eight years
(12:07):
I remember reading those reports of the Iran Iraq War, horrifying.
Half a million people died in that conflict, you know,
And you're talking of Iraq, which actually took advantage of
the fall of the Shah of Iran and tried to
capture Iranian territory because Saddam was afraid that the Iranian
Revolution would spread into Iraq because he was ruling a
(12:28):
Shia majority country, right, he didn't want the Iranian revolution
to spread, yes, so he preemptively struck. The Iranians reeled back,
and then they came back into the game, and they
fought hard, and they fought him to a standstill. And
finally eight years later, after a lot of people dying,
I mean half a million people, like literally hundreds of
thousands of soldiers died, the Iranians used human waves, they
(12:51):
used their militia the bussiege to you know, overwhelm the
Iraqi forces. That war ended. So Iran is good at
the the the foot soldiers, like you mentioned, they have
two armies. They have the Army, the Iranian Army formerly
the Imperial Irani Army, and they have the IRGC, the
Islamic the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which basically protects the the
(13:18):
Islamic regime. It is like a like what the baffinessays
was to the Nazis, or you know, any other kind
of paramilitary force that would protect a government rather than
the country, like the PLA for instance, the People's Liberation
Army is the army of the Communist Party of China.
(13:41):
It is not the Chinese Army. The Army of China
is in Taiwan. So this is These are the strengths
and weaknesses of Iran. They're very strong on ballistic missiles.
They've just demonstrated their ability to strike at Israel over
thirteen hundred kilometers away. They're extremely weak when it comes
to technology, and that is where is Al has been
running circles around them. But you know where when it
(14:03):
comes to this standoff between Israel and Iran, Iran has
the endurance of a long distance runner with the kind
of missiles that it has built over the years. They
believe to have something like three thousand ballistic missiles. That's
a lot of missiles they can keep firing them. Israel
has a lot of missile interceptors, but only so many.
(14:25):
There are reports that they could run out of missile
interceptors in the next week or so. If the war
continues at the pace at which it is being waged currently,
Iran could overwhelm Israel by firing thousands of ballistic missiles
and Israel would not be able to prevent all of them,
and at some point they will run out. So Israel
is very good. It's a hair in a tortoise kind
(14:49):
of phrase. Now Israel is the fast hair moves fast.
It's it's got good technology, it's got good excellent strategy,
strategy and tactics, and one of the best intelligen forces
in the world. Iran is that slow moving tortoise much bigger,
made those investments in ballistic missiles, and therefore it's a
(15:09):
battle of attrition again, like you know, of the kind
we haven't seen possibly ever. Two adversaries slugging it out
over a thousand kilometers and you know, hoping the other
fellow collapses. Israel trying to overwhelm Iran and trying to
force regime change from the air, because you know, to
invade Iran. The only way to change a regime in
(15:29):
West Asia is to physically invade it and to overthrow
the regime. It's been done in Iraq in two thousand
and three, when the US m asked something like one
hundred and sixty thousand soldiers. The coalition forces were more
than one hundred and sixty thousand, and that's how Saddam
was physically defeated and removed from the scene. Syria, they
(15:51):
could not do that because all the militias that kind
of gathered were not strong enough to unseat Asad, so
Bashar al Asad continued for more than a decade. So
wherever you've seen regime change, meet Afghanistan or Iraq, Iran
or Iraq, you need boots on the ground. There's nobody
today who is going to deploy those boots on the ground.
No one has one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers to spare.
(16:13):
So what Israel is trying to do is to attack
Iran from the air, this withering series of air attacks,
hoping to kill as many people, leadership targets as possible,
military figures, to kind of force a regime collapse room within.
It's not been tried in this way. It has been
to some extent with Afghanistan in two thousand and one
(16:35):
when the United States went in, they moved the removed
the Taliban, literally bombing them out of the skies. And
you had a very light footprint of US soldiers special
forces with the Northern Alliance, but there were foot soldiers also. Again,
here there's no one and Iran, Iran, if you look
(16:56):
at it, it's a massive fortress. It's surrounded on all
sides by mount and ranges. It's got deserts in between.
So it's very difficult for you know, UH and invading
forced to enter Iran and capture territory and defeat the regime,
and no one's going to commit those kind of boots
on the ground. So the regime is betting on the
fact that it can wear down these rallies by literally
(17:20):
surviving all of their surgical strikes and their air strikes
and their cruise missile strikes. Which brings me to the
country of Pakistan. Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Again, an event that happened this week, you had Field
now Field Marshall Arsimon in Washington. He met President Donald
Trump over lunch.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
There was a lot of heartburn on Indian social media
way up where people were basically linking it to how
you know, just after what happened with Indian between Indian
Pakistan SI, the US is doing this and stuff like that.
Do you think it was more about what's happening in
West Asia, what's happening between Iran, than to do with
(18:01):
the recent India Pakistan conflict. And do you see at
some point in the future because Pakistan has done this previously, right,
it's always you know, been the so called US friend,
but also two timing it with you know, with the
proxies on the ground over there. Do you see the
US potentially looking at Pakistan as once again that staging
base it has always had.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Oh? Absolutely, yeah, sort so you hit the nail on
the head they I mean, it is Pakistan, which is
a rentier state, which is charging rent for its its
geographical location, and it is it was created by the British. Incidentally,
I've seen those papers from the nineteen forties where the
British General Staff actually said we need a country like
(18:44):
Pakistan because we need access to their basis, we need
access to their manpower and all of that. And India
will not give us that access, but Pakistan will. And
eighty years later, Pakistan continues to do that. And that
the trumpnir meeting, I see it as a meeting of minds.
Right here are two of the most self serving people
(19:06):
representing Trump. Maybe not the United States, but Trump represents
only himself and US interests and his personal interests. And
you have Money representing the Pakistan army, which is the
most mercenary army in the world, right guided by obsessive
self interest. So it was Trump basically trying to leverage
pakistan geographical access to get those air bases, potentially the
(19:28):
use of Pakistani airspace as well, in case if the
US chooses to go in and strike at Iran the
way it's been spoken on, speculated that it's a matter
of time before the US enters the conflict on Israel's side,
and if it does, it would need multiple areas of attack,
(19:50):
multiple angles of entry into Iran, and one of them
happens to be Pakistan, which shares a very large land
border with Iran, and it has a number of bases
as well. Pakistan Air Force Base is very close to
the border with Iran. PF Samungli is one of them,
which is right there in Baluchistan. That there's one other
base there in Balachistan that's Pasni. These are two very
(20:13):
critical bases in Baluchistan which are within flying distance of
the Pakistan Iran border. So Pakistan is very critical at
the moment for the United States when it's moving in
on Iran. And of course there is the larger game
here of the US trying to wean Pakistan away from China,
(20:33):
because China is the real target for the United States.
And if you see the way the US has been
playing it over the last couple of years, it's been
looking at all of the countries on China's flyings around
China's periphery, trying to flip them over to their side.
So you have Pakistan, you have Afghanistan where they haven't
entered yet re entered. Rather, there's Bangladesh that's another country,
(20:57):
and all of these countries they're trying to get on
their side in this big Titanic battle against China. So
that is the bigger game. But the shorter and the
most immediate utility for Pakistan is that it's a base
from which they could possibly launch operations against Iran and
also kind of to try and drive a wedge between
(21:18):
Iran and Pakistan. You don't want these two countries, however
different they may be ideologically, one is Shia and the
other Sunni, however different they might be. They don't want
this prospect of, you know, two Islamic nations coming together
and one of them is actually the only Islamic country
with a bomb and the way with all to deliver
that weapon. Right, we'll talk more on this topic, but
(21:41):
after a break.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Which car might suit you the best? So our budget
for today, gents is twenty lak rupees. The question is
what car are we buy? Adding to that perspective, Libyan.
In the last couple of months, we've seen this segment boom.
And why we have come.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Up with this twenty lak rupy question is because the
best selling car in India for the last couple of months.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Has been twenty lak top Psum.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Which is which is the Crata. It's the best selling Yes,
it's the Crata.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
In the month of I think April or Make I
might be either it's either April or Mate.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
It was a Kreta which was the highest sell. So
when you say data, this includes the electric data and
all two thousand other yes, yes, yes, all inclusive. Starting
from the base varial to the top.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Of the line, Crata roughly about fifteen thousand units if
I am not mistaken. So at the best top of
the line Crata is about twenty live exactly my point.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
No, so I mean we're twenty laks is. Let's say
a state of mind. So, yes, welcome back.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Something. I want to sort of zoom out.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Now for a beta because this war that's happening between
Mazieia and is still very fresh.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Like you said, the US may end up getting involved.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
In fact, it might even happen by the time this
record this this episode is out because the recording happens
almost a day.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Before we release it.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Uh So we don't know what a form of shape
this this war will take, and you will have to
closely watch it before we able to sort of dissect
it more. But I want to talk about two points
now that I think maybe could be classified as slightly
philosophical in nature, but again points that I think.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Are not being talked about enough. One about Israel.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Israel seems to be behaving in the last two years
since the October seven three attacks.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
As this, this, this, this.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Headstrong character not being posten to anybody, not giving a
damn about what its actions do, whether justified or not justified.
Right now on this podcast, we don't really want to
take sides in terms of who's wrong, but just want
to analyze what's happening and what our perspectives are on this.
So that feeling, the sense I get, is that that
you know, it's just bombing the living hell out of Gaza.
(24:06):
It started bombing similarly in Iran, causing lots of collateral damage,
which is really has even said for Gaza. It scietly
they've called upon themselves by launchester such a dastardly terror attack.
You have called upon our wrath and can't help it,
can't help the collateral damage. Sorry, sorry about that. What
are your thoughts on this and where do you think
(24:26):
this attitude of Israel is coming from.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Well, you know, Israel is a is a fiercely combative nation.
They've I've traveled there several times and the spirit of
the Israeli people is remarkable, and you know, it's been
a state that's been fighting for its existence from day one,
from nineteen forty eight, when you had the Arab armies
that gathered around their borders with a very clear plan
(24:51):
to wipe out Israel. So that is what they've been
faced with ever since their birth in nineteen forty eight,
that they've been surround gould by neighbors who don't like them,
I mean, don't that's an understatement. They get planning their elimination,
physical extermination, and that is what they've been up against.
And it's a very resilient country. And what they did
(25:13):
in nineteen sixty seven, for instance, the Sixth Day War,
that's the war that reshaped the Middle East, where Israel
in an unprecedented force of arms defeated three countries, Syria,
Jordan and Egypt when they attacked them simultaneously. You know,
in three directions. They fought and defeated all of these armies,
and they created the Israel that we know today with
(25:35):
all its attendant problems. Now, what has happened is that
there's an expression in a military terminology called mission creep
where your objectives change in the course of a battle.
And I doubt very much if Prime mins of Benjamin Natana,
who is the one who launched this counter offence against
Hamas on the seventh of October, I saw this coming,
(25:58):
and you know, I was looking at a two or
three year horizon. They've on the afternoon of the seventh
of October when I made a certain set of predictions
where I said what will follow now? I said, look,
there is going to be a massive Israeli ground invasion
of the Gaza of a kind that you've not seen before.
(26:19):
And you will see hisbola getting involved and hisbola being
knocked out as well. What I could not see was
three years down the line it would be Iranstern as well.
And this is where Prime Minister Nathan Yaho appears to
have taken the decision, which is a political decision, because
when I was in Israel, I didn't get the sense
from the military that the military was in favor of
(26:40):
fighting a long war of attrition. You know, wars of
attrition are They're not military calls, they're political calls. It
is a politician who decides whether or not to fight
a war and for how long we should fight it.
It is, for instance, President Putin who decides that I
will fight Ukraine irrespective of how many lives we lose
or how much time it takes, still we achieve our
(27:01):
military objectives. This is the call that Prime Minister Nathan
yah who seems to have taken as well, that he
has vowed to finish all of Israel's enemies. In this
opportunity that he has got with the utter horrific massacre
of Israeli civilians, he has launched this campaign of attrition
(27:21):
against all of Israel's enemies culminating with Iran, and Iran
is the big prize according to Nathan Yao that he
sees now a once in a half a century opportunity
to finish off the Iranian regime and the choice of
that name of the Operation Operation Rising Lion, which they
(27:43):
launched on the thirteenth of June. Of Friday the thirteenth
is also not accidental because when you say Rising Lion,
you have the old Parlavid dynasty flag of Iran, which
was replaced by the Islamic flag in seventy nine, actually
shows a lion and a rising sun behind it. So
(28:04):
that was put out by the Shah's Sun, who's an
aspiring leader of Iran. So there is a lot of,
you know, in built geopolitical strategies here in the wars
that Israel is fighting. It is trying to reshape West
Asia into a territory that suits its interest. Look at Syria,
(28:28):
for instance, what's happened there. Syria's collapsed in December. The
House of Asad that's ruled Israel Syria for almost half
a century just vanished overnight, packed up and left. And
you have Israel that surged into Syria, which is defunct.
Syria there's destroyed their air force and their navy and
captured territories to create a buffer zone in a way
(28:51):
that you wouldn't have imagined a couple of years back.
So Israel is today doing what it believes is in
its supreme national interest to ensure it survives. That you
create these buffer zones with its Arab countries, you eliminate
the Palestinian cause once and for all, you wipe out
Hamas Hizbullah, and finally you bring down the regime of Iran.
(29:14):
It's a very ambitious set of objectives they've set out
to achieve, but it looks like they could be very
close to it.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
And I guess the fact that this country is a
country of a community that has literally seen annihilation in
the form of the Holocaust, where you had fround six
million Jews being killed, that also perhaps plays a role
into this vault to ensure survival and not to be
wiped out from the face of the Earth. Last point
(29:43):
on this episode, again, like I said, sort of a
philosophical one, not to do with Israel as much as
it is to do with the West, especially the USA.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
I think it's a bit rich.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
For a country that has been that is the only
country in the world to have used nuclear bombs in
conflict to go around telling you cannot be developing nuclear technology,
you cannot be developing nuclear technology. It's a bit like,
you know, the whole argument between the developing world and
the developed world over carbon emissions. India, for example, among
the many countries, has always argued that hey, you've burnt
(30:15):
coal for two hundred years, you got yourself to where
you are, and then now you want us to cut
down on our coal burning so that we don't get
the benefits of you know, development.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
That's very That's like the speak from you.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Do you think on the topic of nuclear technology, that
double speak also exists, like you know you've done it,
now you don't want the.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
World to do it. Absolutely, there is a nuclear apartheid.
There's no two ways about it. There are nuclear haves,
and there are nuclear have notes, and the five nuclear
countries nuclear armed countries, have got together and created this
very cozy club of nuclear armed nations and they have
dictated to the other countries of the world that you
can't have these weapons. Now. You know, when you get
(30:58):
nuclear weapons, it creates such an enormous symmetry of power,
it's unimaginable. And which is why you have to thank
our our prime ministers, and our nuclear scientists, and our
generals and our military thinkers. For nineteen seventy four and
(31:20):
nineteen ninety eight, the Pokemon nuclear tests, because India had
decided very early on post nineteen forty seven that we
are not going to be part of any alliances, no treaties. Right,
So if you're not part of any treaties or any alliances,
you have to be prepared to defend yourself. And when
you see on your northern borders a country like China,
(31:41):
a communist dictatorship that is not reconciled to your existence,
has bought a border war with you and has gone nuclear.
China when nuclear in nineteen sixty four, so that quickly
eliminated any doubts in India's minds that, look, there is
no way we have to go nuclear. That nuclear weapons
(32:02):
program was hidden under a civilian nuclear, a civilian energy program,
as many other countries have done, including Israel, and we
tested in seventy four, weaponized and tested in nineteen ninety eight.
So countries like India, which have, you know, a slightly
(32:23):
long term view of things, know the way the world
is like. You know, this is my favorite expression. It's
just told to me by a film director of friends.
The difference between the Ramayan and the Mabarat is that
the Ramayan is the ideal world where it's all about
you know, the good son and the ideal husband and
the loyal brother. That's the way we want the world
(32:44):
to be. In the Mabara it's all grays. There are
no blacks and white. Everybody is gray. Right, that's the
way the world is. That's the Mabarath. So that's the
way the world today is. When it comes to nuclear weapons,
you have the nuclear has with a the five, and
you have the the other countries like Israel and India
(33:04):
for instance, who have chosen to get nuclear weapons because
they're afraid of their survival in fact, that no one
else would come to their assistance quickly enough. So yeah,
point there about this nuclear apatheid, and that's going to
exist because that that is you know how geopolitics is there.
(33:25):
It is unequal. It's at the end of the day,
it's might is right, the rule of the jungle. You know.
Thrice you will get presidents who will be suave and
will you know, uh, say nice things to you, but
they cannot disguise the fact that the United States is,
like you said, the only country in the world to
have used nuclear weapons and now en shures that other
(33:46):
countries don't and is a country that will preach democrats
democracy to countries like us, but then we'll sit down
for dinner with the Pakistani dictator, you know. So there's
lots of double standards there. But this is real politics.
I mean, this is what this is, the way geopolitics is.
(34:08):
It's it's cruel, it's ruthless, it's the rule of the
jungle in many ways. But that's what the world is.
I guess I have to accept that. Cool Salie, Thanks
great chat.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Like I said, I suspect that this topic is going
to keep coming up more in the upcoming episode. So
we'll wait and watch this content as it unravels, and
we'll talk more on this once we.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Have more to talk about.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Thanks so much, and thanks to our listeners and viewers.
That's it for this week's Defense Stores. For more, tune
in next week, and then stay safe and not loss
any boundaries for the passport
This is India Today Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome to season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
Deve Goswami, and every week I sit down with experts
and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
to decode all things to do with India security and
explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
(00:28):
stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
This is in our defense. Welcome to Another Defense. This
is an era of war.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Private Sanadamodi has been repeating that for the last three years,
but that message seems to be going in vain.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
We are in the middle.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Of the second biggest conflict that we have seen this year,
after India Pakistan is rel Iran, much much bigger. As
we record this, this is the sixth day of the war.
It will be entering a seven day by the end
of this episode. Gets out and for a quick overview
of what's going on, what's led to the led to
the current conflict.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I have with me. Thanks and hey, they've good to
be back. Good to have you as well.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Unfortunately, today I think we have sort of short on time,
so we won't be able to sort of do a
deeper dive, the deep dive rather that we normally do
on this on this subject. But I also feel that
this topic is going to be on this on this
podcast for many episodes to come. Now it's not going
sadly so sadly so. So what I'm going to do
is on this episode, I'm going to just focus on
(01:37):
the two three broad factors at day over a year,
what's led to the current conflict, and things that I
feel are not being talked about enough, and then perhaps
on a later episode we can do a deeper dive
into everything that's going on. First, how do we get here?
So the Middle East, the more I read about it,
the more complex.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
It seems to me.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Right, it's it's it's a region that see in a
conflict for thousands of years. Yeah, one thousands is so
bit much. I think thousands would be a better frame
to porput it. And you can trace it back to
many different factors. You have the whole Succession war after
profiting Huma's death that led to the Shia Sunni split.
You have the crusades over the ownership of Jerusalem between
(02:19):
Christians and the Muslim and the Muslim world, And if
we were to talk about the present conflict, the most
recent factor at player, I would say, and this I
think applies for any modern world problems, is the British
with the nineteen seventeen Balfour Declaration that ultimately led to
the birth of Israel in nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I think this is such a vast topic.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Covering this as part of the of the current conflict
would not be not doing justice to it. So I'm
going to keep it to how did we get you
from October seven? Because the question in my head is
what I saw on October seven in twenty twenty three
was Hamas attacking Israel.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Israel obviously was gonna hit back.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
This was the worst attack on Israeli soil ever and
one of the worst terror attacks in the world. You
expected Israel to hit back. But then from hitting Hamas
in Gaza and the West pac it's gone to Lebanon,
it's gone to Syria, it's gone to Yemen, and now
the biggest of them all Iran. Right, So the fact
is that play over year and how did we get
(03:20):
where we are today?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well, you hit the right date. They it's the seventh
of October twenty twenty three that started this conflict. It's
one of the you know, one of the most ferocious
wars that we've seen, and almost unprecedented in the way
that the you know, the Beligerans have been fighting this war,
like you mentioned six days of a war where two countries,
(03:45):
Iran and Israel, have been attacking each other. They don't
even share a border. They're over a thousand kilometers away.
So you have the Israeli Air Force pilots flying the
equivalent of a Bombay Delhi and return flight to drop
ordinance on Iran. Right, that's more than twelve hundred kilometers
one way to Iran and back. You have Israel Iran,
(04:08):
which does not have an air force to speak of. They've,
you know, and they've compensated for the lack of an
air force with a ballistic missile force. They've unleashed their
ballistic missiles on Israel today and we saw the hypersonic
missiles that we believe the Fata series and the Koram
Shared three and the Sagil. These are very very potent
(04:33):
intermediate range ballistic missiles that Iran has been firing at Israel.
So how do we get here? It was the seventh
of October twenty twenty three. Who were the participants in
the seventh of October twenty twenty three. It was Hamas
and it was this crazy guy, the Hamas chief, the
military chief, Yaya Cinema, who got it in his head
that he must go and massacre the maximum number of
(04:55):
Israeli civilians and bring upon himself and the Palinians the
wrath of Israel, which would then ignite Palestine, this cause
of Palestine that had been on the back burner for
many years, that would be front and center in a way.
Sadly is the case almost you know, two and a
(05:15):
half years later, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have
been killed because Israel is still looking for those hostages
that Yia Sinver's men captured from the civilian areas around
the Gaza Strip. So Yaya Sinver is the man I
believe is two twenty twenty five and the twenty first
(05:36):
century what Gabriel prince App was one hundred years back
in nineteen fourteen. Gaviril prince App is a Serbian ultranationalists
who fired the shot at Archideo Fransford in which triggered
off the First World war. Jaya Sinver is the man
who fired off that shot here against Israel, and that's
led to where we are today, where you have this
(05:59):
ring of proxies that Iran had built for its own protection. Hamas, Hisbola,
the Huthis, Katai Basbula in Iraq, all of those have
been taken out by Israel over the last two and
a half years with great precision and military ruthlessness. First
it was Hamas, then it was Hisbola. You saw the
(06:20):
kind of pager attacks that they launched against them. They've
flown and attacked the Huthis. Of course they're much further
away than Hamas or his Bola, so it's not that
easy to take them out. But now it is iranich
forty five years after the Islamic Revolution of nineteen seventy nine,
which is actually in a corner, which is fighting for
(06:41):
its survival, literally with this wave of Israeli fighter jet missions,
bombing nuclear sites, military installations, killing the military chiefs, the
IRGC assassinating Iranian scientists. So it's literally this war between
Israel Iran that's been bubbling, you know, under the surface
(07:02):
ever since the Islamic Revolution of nineteen seventy nine, when
you know, and the thing is, they've before nineteen seventy nine,
the Shah of Iran who ruled and Israel, had excellent relations.
Right from Israel's birth in nineteen forty eight right down
to nineteen seventy nine. Israel and Iran were the best
of friends. The revation came in nineteen seventy nine. Atolahamani
(07:27):
came and he declared at once that Iran was an
existential threat to ir Israel was an existential threat to Iran,
and therefore it had to be wiped off, and he
took up the case of Palestine. He took on, He
embraced the you know, the cause of Palestine, which is
very strange because Iran, as you know they've is a
(07:48):
country that's neither Sunni nor Arab, and it just grabbed
the one cause that is very dear to the Sunni
Arab people, which is Palestine. And so the underlying cause
for that is the leadership of the Islamic world. Iran
did what it did because it is that thousand and
two thousand year battle for the leadership of the Muslim world.
(08:10):
Is it the Assumis or the Shias who are the
rightful airs of profit momouth. That battle has not been
resolved yet. Iran's taken up that challenge, and you know,
it's been doing this for the last forty five years,
and here it is today fighting by itself against Israel.
Israel has been hammering them for a week now, and
(08:30):
there is every possibility that the United States could now
jump in on the side of Israel, thereby accelerating Iran's
existential crisis.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Right, So, if we were to talk about the conflict currently,
you know, the one thing I find lacking in the
discourse around the current war is there's a lot of
dissection of his daily capabilities. It's military and also the
US support, whether it's monetary or the military hardware you
were supplied to Israel. You don't see a lot of
that happening with Iran, and that has led to this
(09:06):
sense that you know, this is a you know, this
battle is you know, there's only one man at the
end of the day. But people forget that Iran is
a country. Is a vast country. It's a country half
the size of India. It's a country which, according to
my calculations, around seventy five to eighty times the size
of Israel.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
It is there a time in tiny country. It's the
size of money poor. Yeah and yeah, like you said,
Iran is half the size of India. It's one point
three million squae culo, has two armies.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It has it is one of the few countries in
the world to have mastered high persponding the sides.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Even India has not done that. We're not that.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
We are testing, yeah, from thost two projects. So what
do you what are your thoughts on this popular perception
that Iran military is you know, nothing compared to when
it comes to you become compared to what is it
really strengths are? How do you see it as a
defense analyst? And what what is your what are your
thoughts on this? Well, you know, Iran has its strengths
(09:58):
and its weaknesses. It actually has more weaknesses than it
has strings. But let's talk about the strings first. The
strings are that it's never had an air force of
consequence for several years, right because after the fall of
the Shah in nineteen seventy nine, Iran has it's got
about three hundred aircraft and it's only bought about three
(10:19):
or four fighter squadrons ever since. In the last forty
five years.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
It's just bought two squadrons of Mid twenty nine's, one
squadron of SUE twenty fours, and I think one squadron
of the Chinese JF seventeen's. So it's a very very
you know, let's say, a creaky ancient air force. It's
more than half a century old. Iran has no air
force to speak of. So what they've done is they've
(10:44):
compensated for the lack of an air force by raising
a rocket force, a ballistic missile force, a drone force.
They're very good at drones and ballistic missiles. In fact,
they're so good that they've transferred their capabilities to the
Russian Federation. Believe it or the Russians are the ones
who actually invented the missiles, like the Scud. They have.
(11:05):
They re engineered a riverse engineered German V two, V
one and V twos and built a whole range of missiles.
The Iranians have taken on the Scud, which is, uh,
you know, a Russian version of the V twos, and
they have created their own range of missiles, and they've
perfected cruise missiles that the Shahid won three six, which
they have then transferred to the Russian Federation for mass production,
(11:26):
which the Russians are using in the Ukraine War as
the Gehran. So that's a that's a Russian that's an
Iranian invention. So Iran has mastered all of these capabilities.
It's offset its lack of an effective navy. It's got
a very very uh you know, thinly a resourced navy.
It's air force, like I said, is nothing much to
(11:47):
write about. And it's army is an area that it has.
It is quite strong. But it's a large country and
the easiest thing to do is to raise an army.
And they've been you know, they've they've fought a very
very bruising war with Iraq. It's before your time there,
but you know, nineteen eighty to eighty eight, eight years
(12:07):
I remember reading those reports of the Iran Iraq War, horrifying.
Half a million people died in that conflict, you know,
And you're talking of Iraq, which actually took advantage of
the fall of the Shah of Iran and tried to
capture Iranian territory because Saddam was afraid that the Iranian
Revolution would spread into Iraq because he was ruling a
(12:28):
Shia majority country, right, he didn't want the Iranian revolution
to spread, yes, so he preemptively struck. The Iranians reeled back,
and then they came back into the game, and they
fought hard, and they fought him to a standstill. And
finally eight years later, after a lot of people dying,
I mean half a million people, like literally hundreds of
thousands of soldiers died, the Iranians used human waves, they
(12:51):
used their militia the bussiege to you know, overwhelm the
Iraqi forces. That war ended. So Iran is good at
the the the foot soldiers, like you mentioned, they have
two armies. They have the Army, the Iranian Army formerly
the Imperial Irani Army, and they have the IRGC, the
Islamic the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which basically protects the the
(13:18):
Islamic regime. It is like a like what the baffinessays
was to the Nazis, or you know, any other kind
of paramilitary force that would protect a government rather than
the country, like the PLA for instance, the People's Liberation
Army is the army of the Communist Party of China.
(13:41):
It is not the Chinese Army. The Army of China
is in Taiwan. So this is These are the strengths
and weaknesses of Iran. They're very strong on ballistic missiles.
They've just demonstrated their ability to strike at Israel over
thirteen hundred kilometers away. They're extremely weak when it comes
to technology, and that is where is Al has been
running circles around them. But you know where when it
(14:03):
comes to this standoff between Israel and Iran, Iran has
the endurance of a long distance runner with the kind
of missiles that it has built over the years. They
believe to have something like three thousand ballistic missiles. That's
a lot of missiles they can keep firing them. Israel
has a lot of missile interceptors, but only so many.
(14:25):
There are reports that they could run out of missile
interceptors in the next week or so. If the war
continues at the pace at which it is being waged currently,
Iran could overwhelm Israel by firing thousands of ballistic missiles
and Israel would not be able to prevent all of them,
and at some point they will run out. So Israel
is very good. It's a hair in a tortoise kind
(14:49):
of phrase. Now Israel is the fast hair moves fast.
It's it's got good technology, it's got good excellent strategy,
strategy and tactics, and one of the best intelligen forces
in the world. Iran is that slow moving tortoise much bigger,
made those investments in ballistic missiles, and therefore it's a
(15:09):
battle of attrition again, like you know, of the kind
we haven't seen possibly ever. Two adversaries slugging it out
over a thousand kilometers and you know, hoping the other
fellow collapses. Israel trying to overwhelm Iran and trying to
force regime change from the air, because you know, to
invade Iran. The only way to change a regime in
(15:29):
West Asia is to physically invade it and to overthrow
the regime. It's been done in Iraq in two thousand
and three, when the US m asked something like one
hundred and sixty thousand soldiers. The coalition forces were more
than one hundred and sixty thousand, and that's how Saddam
was physically defeated and removed from the scene. Syria, they
(15:51):
could not do that because all the militias that kind
of gathered were not strong enough to unseat Asad, so
Bashar al Asad continued for more than a decade. So
wherever you've seen regime change, meet Afghanistan or Iraq, Iran
or Iraq, you need boots on the ground. There's nobody
today who is going to deploy those boots on the ground.
No one has one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers to spare.
(16:13):
So what Israel is trying to do is to attack
Iran from the air, this withering series of air attacks,
hoping to kill as many people, leadership targets as possible,
military figures, to kind of force a regime collapse room within.
It's not been tried in this way. It has been
to some extent with Afghanistan in two thousand and one
(16:35):
when the United States went in, they moved the removed
the Taliban, literally bombing them out of the skies. And
you had a very light footprint of US soldiers special
forces with the Northern Alliance, but there were foot soldiers also. Again,
here there's no one and Iran, Iran, if you look
(16:56):
at it, it's a massive fortress. It's surrounded on all
sides by mount and ranges. It's got deserts in between.
So it's very difficult for you know, UH and invading
forced to enter Iran and capture territory and defeat the regime,
and no one's going to commit those kind of boots
on the ground. So the regime is betting on the
fact that it can wear down these rallies by literally
(17:20):
surviving all of their surgical strikes and their air strikes
and their cruise missile strikes. Which brings me to the
country of Pakistan. Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Again, an event that happened this week, you had Field
now Field Marshall Arsimon in Washington. He met President Donald
Trump over lunch.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
There was a lot of heartburn on Indian social media
way up where people were basically linking it to how
you know, just after what happened with Indian between Indian
Pakistan SI, the US is doing this and stuff like that.
Do you think it was more about what's happening in
West Asia, what's happening between Iran, than to do with
(18:01):
the recent India Pakistan conflict. And do you see at
some point in the future because Pakistan has done this previously, right,
it's always you know, been the so called US friend,
but also two timing it with you know, with the
proxies on the ground over there. Do you see the
US potentially looking at Pakistan as once again that staging
base it has always had.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Oh? Absolutely, yeah, sort so you hit the nail on
the head they I mean, it is Pakistan, which is
a rentier state, which is charging rent for its its
geographical location, and it is it was created by the British. Incidentally,
I've seen those papers from the nineteen forties where the
British General Staff actually said we need a country like
(18:44):
Pakistan because we need access to their basis, we need
access to their manpower and all of that. And India
will not give us that access, but Pakistan will. And
eighty years later, Pakistan continues to do that. And that
the trumpnir meeting, I see it as a meeting of minds.
Right here are two of the most self serving people
(19:06):
representing Trump. Maybe not the United States, but Trump represents
only himself and US interests and his personal interests. And
you have Money representing the Pakistan army, which is the
most mercenary army in the world, right guided by obsessive
self interest. So it was Trump basically trying to leverage
pakistan geographical access to get those air bases, potentially the
(19:28):
use of Pakistani airspace as well, in case if the
US chooses to go in and strike at Iran the
way it's been spoken on, speculated that it's a matter
of time before the US enters the conflict on Israel's side,
and if it does, it would need multiple areas of attack,
(19:50):
multiple angles of entry into Iran, and one of them
happens to be Pakistan, which shares a very large land
border with Iran, and it has a number of bases
as well. Pakistan Air Force Base is very close to
the border with Iran. PF Samungli is one of them,
which is right there in Baluchistan. That there's one other
base there in Balachistan that's Pasni. These are two very
(20:13):
critical bases in Baluchistan which are within flying distance of
the Pakistan Iran border. So Pakistan is very critical at
the moment for the United States when it's moving in
on Iran. And of course there is the larger game
here of the US trying to wean Pakistan away from China,
(20:33):
because China is the real target for the United States.
And if you see the way the US has been
playing it over the last couple of years, it's been
looking at all of the countries on China's flyings around
China's periphery, trying to flip them over to their side.
So you have Pakistan, you have Afghanistan where they haven't
entered yet re entered. Rather, there's Bangladesh that's another country,
(20:57):
and all of these countries they're trying to get on
their side in this big Titanic battle against China. So
that is the bigger game. But the shorter and the
most immediate utility for Pakistan is that it's a base
from which they could possibly launch operations against Iran and
also kind of to try and drive a wedge between
(21:18):
Iran and Pakistan. You don't want these two countries, however
different they may be ideologically, one is Shia and the
other Sunni, however different they might be. They don't want
this prospect of, you know, two Islamic nations coming together
and one of them is actually the only Islamic country
with a bomb and the way with all to deliver
that weapon. Right, we'll talk more on this topic, but
(21:41):
after a break.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Which car might suit you the best? So our budget
for today, gents is twenty lak rupees. The question is
what car are we buy? Adding to that perspective, Libyan.
In the last couple of months, we've seen this segment boom.
And why we have come.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Up with this twenty lak rupy question is because the
best selling car in India for the last couple of months.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Has been twenty lak top Psum.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Which is which is the Crata. It's the best selling Yes,
it's the Crata.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
In the month of I think April or Make I
might be either it's either April or Mate.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
It was a Kreta which was the highest sell. So
when you say data, this includes the electric data and
all two thousand other yes, yes, yes, all inclusive. Starting
from the base varial to the top.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Of the line, Crata roughly about fifteen thousand units if
I am not mistaken. So at the best top of
the line Crata is about twenty live exactly my point.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
No, so I mean we're twenty laks is. Let's say
a state of mind. So, yes, welcome back.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Something. I want to sort of zoom out.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Now for a beta because this war that's happening between
Mazieia and is still very fresh.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Like you said, the US may end up getting involved.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
In fact, it might even happen by the time this
record this this episode is out because the recording happens
almost a day.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Before we release it.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Uh So we don't know what a form of shape
this this war will take, and you will have to
closely watch it before we able to sort of dissect
it more. But I want to talk about two points
now that I think maybe could be classified as slightly
philosophical in nature, but again points that I think.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Are not being talked about enough. One about Israel.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Israel seems to be behaving in the last two years
since the October seven three attacks.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
As this, this, this, this.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Headstrong character not being posten to anybody, not giving a
damn about what its actions do, whether justified or not justified.
Right now on this podcast, we don't really want to
take sides in terms of who's wrong, but just want
to analyze what's happening and what our perspectives are on this.
So that feeling, the sense I get, is that that
you know, it's just bombing the living hell out of Gaza.
(24:06):
It started bombing similarly in Iran, causing lots of collateral damage,
which is really has even said for Gaza. It scietly
they've called upon themselves by launchester such a dastardly terror attack.
You have called upon our wrath and can't help it,
can't help the collateral damage. Sorry, sorry about that. What
are your thoughts on this and where do you think
(24:26):
this attitude of Israel is coming from.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Well, you know, Israel is a is a fiercely combative nation.
They've I've traveled there several times and the spirit of
the Israeli people is remarkable, and you know, it's been
a state that's been fighting for its existence from day one,
from nineteen forty eight, when you had the Arab armies
that gathered around their borders with a very clear plan
(24:51):
to wipe out Israel. So that is what they've been
faced with ever since their birth in nineteen forty eight,
that they've been surround gould by neighbors who don't like them,
I mean, don't that's an understatement. They get planning their elimination,
physical extermination, and that is what they've been up against.
And it's a very resilient country. And what they did
(25:13):
in nineteen sixty seven, for instance, the Sixth Day War,
that's the war that reshaped the Middle East, where Israel
in an unprecedented force of arms defeated three countries, Syria,
Jordan and Egypt when they attacked them simultaneously. You know,
in three directions. They fought and defeated all of these armies,
and they created the Israel that we know today with
(25:35):
all its attendant problems. Now, what has happened is that
there's an expression in a military terminology called mission creep
where your objectives change in the course of a battle.
And I doubt very much if Prime mins of Benjamin Natana,
who is the one who launched this counter offence against
Hamas on the seventh of October, I saw this coming,
(25:58):
and you know, I was looking at a two or
three year horizon. They've on the afternoon of the seventh
of October when I made a certain set of predictions
where I said what will follow now? I said, look,
there is going to be a massive Israeli ground invasion
of the Gaza of a kind that you've not seen before.
(26:19):
And you will see hisbola getting involved and hisbola being
knocked out as well. What I could not see was
three years down the line it would be Iranstern as well.
And this is where Prime Minister Nathan Yaho appears to
have taken the decision, which is a political decision, because
when I was in Israel, I didn't get the sense
from the military that the military was in favor of
(26:40):
fighting a long war of attrition. You know, wars of
attrition are They're not military calls, they're political calls. It
is a politician who decides whether or not to fight
a war and for how long we should fight it.
It is, for instance, President Putin who decides that I
will fight Ukraine irrespective of how many lives we lose
or how much time it takes, still we achieve our
(27:01):
military objectives. This is the call that Prime Minister Nathan
yah who seems to have taken as well, that he
has vowed to finish all of Israel's enemies. In this
opportunity that he has got with the utter horrific massacre
of Israeli civilians, he has launched this campaign of attrition
(27:21):
against all of Israel's enemies culminating with Iran, and Iran
is the big prize according to Nathan Yao that he
sees now a once in a half a century opportunity
to finish off the Iranian regime and the choice of
that name of the Operation Operation Rising Lion, which they
(27:43):
launched on the thirteenth of June. Of Friday the thirteenth
is also not accidental because when you say Rising Lion,
you have the old Parlavid dynasty flag of Iran, which
was replaced by the Islamic flag in seventy nine, actually
shows a lion and a rising sun behind it. So
(28:04):
that was put out by the Shah's Sun, who's an
aspiring leader of Iran. So there is a lot of,
you know, in built geopolitical strategies here in the wars
that Israel is fighting. It is trying to reshape West
Asia into a territory that suits its interest. Look at Syria,
(28:28):
for instance, what's happened there. Syria's collapsed in December. The
House of Asad that's ruled Israel Syria for almost half
a century just vanished overnight, packed up and left. And
you have Israel that surged into Syria, which is defunct.
Syria there's destroyed their air force and their navy and
captured territories to create a buffer zone in a way
(28:51):
that you wouldn't have imagined a couple of years back.
So Israel is today doing what it believes is in
its supreme national interest to ensure it survives. That you
create these buffer zones with its Arab countries, you eliminate
the Palestinian cause once and for all, you wipe out
Hamas Hizbullah, and finally you bring down the regime of Iran.
(29:14):
It's a very ambitious set of objectives they've set out
to achieve, but it looks like they could be very
close to it.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
And I guess the fact that this country is a
country of a community that has literally seen annihilation in
the form of the Holocaust, where you had fround six
million Jews being killed, that also perhaps plays a role
into this vault to ensure survival and not to be
wiped out from the face of the Earth. Last point
(29:43):
on this episode, again, like I said, sort of a
philosophical one, not to do with Israel as much as
it is to do with the West, especially the USA.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
I think it's a bit rich.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
For a country that has been that is the only
country in the world to have used nuclear bombs in
conflict to go around telling you cannot be developing nuclear technology,
you cannot be developing nuclear technology. It's a bit like,
you know, the whole argument between the developing world and
the developed world over carbon emissions. India, for example, among
the many countries, has always argued that hey, you've burnt
(30:15):
coal for two hundred years, you got yourself to where
you are, and then now you want us to cut
down on our coal burning so that we don't get
the benefits of you know, development.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
That's very That's like the speak from you.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Do you think on the topic of nuclear technology, that
double speak also exists, like you know you've done it,
now you don't want the.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
World to do it. Absolutely, there is a nuclear apartheid.
There's no two ways about it. There are nuclear haves,
and there are nuclear have notes, and the five nuclear
countries nuclear armed countries, have got together and created this
very cozy club of nuclear armed nations and they have
dictated to the other countries of the world that you
can't have these weapons. Now. You know, when you get
(30:58):
nuclear weapons, it creates such an enormous symmetry of power,
it's unimaginable. And which is why you have to thank
our our prime ministers, and our nuclear scientists, and our
generals and our military thinkers. For nineteen seventy four and
(31:20):
nineteen ninety eight, the Pokemon nuclear tests, because India had
decided very early on post nineteen forty seven that we
are not going to be part of any alliances, no treaties. Right,
So if you're not part of any treaties or any alliances,
you have to be prepared to defend yourself. And when
you see on your northern borders a country like China,
(31:41):
a communist dictatorship that is not reconciled to your existence,
has bought a border war with you and has gone nuclear.
China when nuclear in nineteen sixty four, so that quickly
eliminated any doubts in India's minds that, look, there is
no way we have to go nuclear. That nuclear weapons
(32:02):
program was hidden under a civilian nuclear, a civilian energy program,
as many other countries have done, including Israel, and we
tested in seventy four, weaponized and tested in nineteen ninety eight.
So countries like India, which have, you know, a slightly
(32:23):
long term view of things, know the way the world
is like. You know, this is my favorite expression. It's
just told to me by a film director of friends.
The difference between the Ramayan and the Mabarat is that
the Ramayan is the ideal world where it's all about
you know, the good son and the ideal husband and
the loyal brother. That's the way we want the world
(32:44):
to be. In the Mabara it's all grays. There are
no blacks and white. Everybody is gray. Right, that's the
way the world is. That's the Mabarath. So that's the
way the world today is. When it comes to nuclear weapons,
you have the nuclear has with a the five, and
you have the the other countries like Israel and India
(33:04):
for instance, who have chosen to get nuclear weapons because
they're afraid of their survival in fact, that no one
else would come to their assistance quickly enough. So yeah,
point there about this nuclear apatheid, and that's going to
exist because that that is you know how geopolitics is there.
(33:25):
It is unequal. It's at the end of the day,
it's might is right, the rule of the jungle. You know.
Thrice you will get presidents who will be suave and
will you know, uh, say nice things to you, but
they cannot disguise the fact that the United States is,
like you said, the only country in the world to
have used nuclear weapons and now en shures that other
(33:46):
countries don't and is a country that will preach democrats
democracy to countries like us, but then we'll sit down
for dinner with the Pakistani dictator, you know. So there's
lots of double standards there. But this is real politics.
I mean, this is what this is, the way geopolitics is.
(34:08):
It's it's cruel, it's ruthless, it's the rule of the
jungle in many ways. But that's what the world is.
I guess I have to accept that. Cool Salie, Thanks
great chat.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Like I said, I suspect that this topic is going
to keep coming up more in the upcoming episode. So
we'll wait and watch this content as it unravels, and
we'll talk more on this once we.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Have more to talk about.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Thanks so much, and thanks to our listeners and viewers.
That's it for this week's Defense Stores. For more, tune
in next week, and then stay safe and not loss
any boundaries for the passport
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