October 21, 2024 • 11 mins
Military analyst Mike Lyons joins A&G to talk about Israel's successful campaign to eliminate the leader of Hamas.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Israeli jets pounded southern Lebanon, and despite US concern over
Israel's bombing campaign in Beirut, there were a series of
strikes around the capitol. This comes a day after Hesbel
avow to strike deeper inside Israel. The Israeli military says
it's targeting Hesbel as strongholds, but there have been more
(00:22):
than two thousand casualties and nearly eleven thousand wounded, many
of them civilians.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I was just thinking, this is listening to that because
that's about Hesbelah and Lebanon, and the news today right
now is all about Hamas in Gaza, and it looks
like Sinwar has been killed, the leader of Amas and
the mastermind of October seventh. And I was going to
talk about the two front war or is it really
(00:51):
a one front war against Iran? And soon that will
be more obvious when Israel does attack Iran, which they're
planning to do. That's why we thought we'd bring Mike
Lyons in. He's our go to guy anything military. We
catch him on CNN all the time. I follow his
Twitter feed all the time and wanted to hear his opinion.
First of all, Sinwar being dead. If that's true's good news.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Hey Mike, Hey one of guys.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Yeah, I think so. It's not the end or anything
of this. It's not that things will change there. There
is others there within Hamas that will, you know, look
to step up to take his place. But he's been
the leader since I think twenty seventeen. You know, Hamas
has got this you know, kind of set up where
they run the military, they run the political side of things,
(01:34):
They have elections, they do a lot of different things
that you would think a terrorist organization wouldn't do on
some level. But there'll be somebody to take his place.
I think you're looking at there's a deputy leader. There's
a guy named Sally Aurora. He was the deputy head
there runs the West Bank operations. So he'll be the
next one on the target, you know, Israel. It's kind
of like next man up when it comes to this
(01:56):
decapitation strategy. We saw what they did and let in
the North with with Hesbelah taking out significant leadership. With
the Pager operation. This is much more difficult, much more
precision strikes. But this is a good start, but surely
not over yet.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, So the reason we wanted to have you on
was the news came out yesterday that Israel is ready
to attack Iran. They are going to attack Iran, and
it is going to be before the election, So sometime
in the next nineteen days. I would imagine sooner rather
than later, because the closer you get to a presidential election,
the more influence it would have on it.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
What do you.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Expect to happen, Well, I think the administration is going
to no longer put red lines on our allies, which
is what they've been doing for the past few months.
And we saw yesterday, now what it was, We saw
the B two's coming from the US to drop bombs
on the hoofties. I think that's a good sign. That's
an indirect message to the Iranians to stop taking our
(02:51):
threats lightly.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Just since you brought that up, I just saw that headline.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
So that's the first time we had used our B
two bombers are really big bombers in quite a while.
That's a fairly significant thing, huh.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
It is, And and they go along way. Those are
nuclear capable, not that we're going to drop a nuclear
weapon on anybody over there, but it just it just
reflects the level of weapon system that we've brought into
the theater now that we're prepared to use. It's not
just going to be these naval assets and and other places.
So I think that's that's a we're good at sending messages.
That sends a big message on a lot of levels.
(03:24):
But I would take it a step further if if
I'm the US president or the chiefest Staff, you're advising
the president and you're meeting behind doors with bbing net
and Yahoo right now, Look, this is a generational opportunity
to take out the Iranian nuclear capability. And there's Reel
has done this in the past. And if i'm if
I'm I'm saying, look, we're all in. We'll we'll go
ahead and light the way for you guys. We'll take
(03:44):
out all the c ED we'll take out all your
defense platforms. But you guys got to go accomplish that
mission because the world will be a safer place when
the Ranians aren't close to having nuclear weapons. We're traveling
about you know, how close are they to break out?
We're watching internal Iranians argue about the fought while that
the Ayatola issue that they weren't produced nuclear weapons that's
(04:04):
a bunch of garbage. I mean, obviously they're moving it forward.
So I think this is the time, and I think
there's a lot of things going to happen the next
nineteen days before our election, and you're going to see
this administration also come off, you know, the rains a
little bit because they recognize that that's what most Americans want,
and what they want to do is get re elected.
This administration wants to get reelected. And I think that's
what you're going to see, so less less red lines
(04:26):
for Israel, going to see is reel kind of go forward.
But they were going to go forward anyway. But I
think you're going to see that happening.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Wow, that's interesting. I didn't know that would be your take.
I'm happy to hear it. So you think we would
actually use some of our unique fire power to lay
the groundwork for Israel's attack, In other words, we would
be involved in the attack on Iran?
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Yeah, I think so. I think we would. You know,
that would be a big step forward. Yeah, would for
us to attack, Yeah, I mean, but I think you'd
have tremendous support to do that. I think they they
would be support within our country and with our politicians
to do that. Not great Britain and France though, yeah,
you know I saw that and where they are there
(05:09):
they're struggling with their own you know, internal forces right now.
But politically this would be the right move at this point.
So again, they don't Israel doesn't need them, and Israel's
going to have long memory about how they acted, especially
in particularly the French. But with the Friends have done
this before. I mean you look in history and sure
the French haven't been The French haven't been a thing
(05:29):
militarily since what April of nineteen thirty nine, I mean
since then, since right before Dunkirk. You know, they're the
greatest military ever in the world, and then you know,
pretty much over a four day period that that went
away and they haven't recovered since.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
So well, what was it?
Speaker 3 (05:42):
I don't know, you might know it. I read the
Schwartz Cough quote about France the other day that going
to war without France is like something going to something
without a banjo or something.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
It's pretty funny.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Yet, yeah, you know, so again you know, they pick
at choose when they want to be in the game,
and you know, so I don't think you know, Israel
this roles Arise doesn't doesn't really care about it. The
United States is the one that is superpower in the region,
and Israel's acting like a superpower. Let's be clear, right,
So here's a well Israel has nuclear weapons as well,
(06:15):
but so that they act like a superpower. They're going
after leadership, looking to decapitate. It's all air strikes, using
tremendous intelligence assets, you know. So they're they're acting like
a superpower in that region. And what I'm seeing too
is other countries now Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt quietly
so these other countries recognize the threat of Iran. They
(06:36):
want Israel to take out the threat as well. In
the United States. Now, I'm glad we're going after the Houthis.
It's been a long time coming since since since we've
had uh, you know, done something about that situation. So
you know, I think you're going to see this stepped
up reliance on de terrence we have as of right now,
we have no deterrence that I see with Iran. Israel's
going to re establish it and they're going to re
(06:57):
establish it by hurting them pretty badly.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Fantastic. I'm very excited about that. I grab the popcorn.
I'll be watching that and it's got to happen in
the next you know, nineteen days before we let you go.
I want to switch to another spot because President Zelensky
of Ukraine has laid out his peace plan or plan
for ending the war. I guess he's calling it that
(07:19):
includes giving up no Ukrainian territory. I don't know if
he actually believes that or not, or if that's you know,
your classic pegging the negotiations. This is where we'll start
and go from there. But what do you think about
where that is?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
I think he has to say that he has to
start and go from there first of all. But and
he'll be lucky to get some of that the coastal
area back in the south there from from Russia, given
what it occupies, given what it has occupied since Obama
was president, and then when Joe Biden was president, they
decided to go after it again. They've got maximust objectives
(07:56):
that it still can't be accomplished militarily. I saw this
morning also that the new NATO Secretary General speaking to
the fact of you know, Ukraine will be a NATO
country that's not going to help anybody. That's that's you know,
we should just be quiet on that. But then you
have Zelinski saying, well, we're going to develop nuclear weapons
if we're not part of NATO, So they're using nuclear
weapons as a way as defense mechanism. It's too late
(08:19):
at this point. Let's let's you know, Russia will take
some land back, primarily Crimea. They need Crimea for the
Black Sea Fleet. Let's sop Ukraine gets some of that
coastal area back, which is what it can use. But
it looks like that part of the Dombas likely becomes
part of Russia. You have a DMZ set up. We
have a North and South Korea. The wall is up.
Everybody's good because it's going to mean more conventional arms
pouring into Europe and the US defence contractors are going
(08:42):
to be happy about that.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
North Korea blowing up those roads between North Korea and
South Korea, which was an odd move. Earlier in the week,
he got China with some of the biggest military exercises
around Taiwan they've ever done, still running their ships into
Philippines navy vessels. There's a lot of hotspots around the world,
kind of a global macro question for you is this,
(09:09):
are we in more of the like this is what
the world's always been like? Is period right now? And
we kind of got lulled into a weird state of
you know, things being calm there for a couple of
decades when we were the superpower really establishing a global order.
Is this was that more normal for the world or
(09:29):
is this more normal for the world where we are
right now?
Speaker 4 (09:32):
We got lolled into it a little bit, and it
all has to do with we we've established, We've not
established the terrence in these other countries we've allowed. Look
with the Iranians, how much they were able to arm
Hesbelah and how opt you see these pictures of those
weapons caches, all those weapons are a clear a result
of the Obama administration sending palace of cash to the
(09:54):
Iranians to try to do a nuclear deal. So we
again lost our way with the term, and so did Israel.
Israel probably will never forgive itself for what happened on
October seventh, because that was a tremendous lull and then
in fact they got off to a very bad start
as well in that war. We knew that they would
recover but now that's why they're not stopping. They are,
you know, very biblically. They're at this is this is
(10:15):
how they're looking at this is his war. But I think,
I think that in in Obama's administration, we lost our
de terms. With Iron Trump as president for four years,
he definitely acts tougher and acts more afraid, kind of
goes the the Reagan way of de Terrens about speak softly,
carry a big stick, and that crazy every once in
a while, right, And then these last four years with
with with Brydon and Corla Harris, I just don't know
(10:37):
what's where they're going. They again they give red lines
to our allies, which is a non starter. They we're
telling Israel, we whip saw back and forth with Israel
supporting them and not supporting this. And it's based on
a voting block where in Michigan or Minnesota or someplace.
I mean, it's just we've got to get back to
what's important for the United States, what's important for our
national security, and how we're going to project power. And
I hope, hope we start doing that again.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Appreciate you time to Mike today. Mike. I follow you
all the time and other people should. At m a J.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Mike Lines, Major Mike Lines, thanks for your time today
and insight and all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
Thanks. I seen that later. So hopefull cool.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Ye tune it in Armstrong and Getty
Israeli jets pounded southern Lebanon, and despite US concern over
Israel's bombing campaign in Beirut, there were a series of
strikes around the capitol. This comes a day after Hesbel
avow to strike deeper inside Israel. The Israeli military says
it's targeting Hesbel as strongholds, but there have been more
(00:22):
than two thousand casualties and nearly eleven thousand wounded, many
of them civilians.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I was just thinking, this is listening to that because
that's about Hesbelah and Lebanon, and the news today right
now is all about Hamas in Gaza, and it looks
like Sinwar has been killed, the leader of Amas and
the mastermind of October seventh. And I was going to
talk about the two front war or is it really
(00:51):
a one front war against Iran? And soon that will
be more obvious when Israel does attack Iran, which they're
planning to do. That's why we thought we'd bring Mike
Lyons in. He's our go to guy anything military. We
catch him on CNN all the time. I follow his
Twitter feed all the time and wanted to hear his opinion.
First of all, Sinwar being dead. If that's true's good news.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Hey Mike, Hey one of guys.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Yeah, I think so. It's not the end or anything
of this. It's not that things will change there. There
is others there within Hamas that will, you know, look
to step up to take his place. But he's been
the leader since I think twenty seventeen. You know, Hamas
has got this you know, kind of set up where
they run the military, they run the political side of things,
(01:34):
They have elections, they do a lot of different things
that you would think a terrorist organization wouldn't do on
some level. But there'll be somebody to take his place.
I think you're looking at there's a deputy leader. There's
a guy named Sally Aurora. He was the deputy head
there runs the West Bank operations. So he'll be the
next one on the target, you know, Israel. It's kind
of like next man up when it comes to this
(01:56):
decapitation strategy. We saw what they did and let in
the North with with Hesbelah taking out significant leadership. With
the Pager operation. This is much more difficult, much more
precision strikes. But this is a good start, but surely
not over yet.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, So the reason we wanted to have you on
was the news came out yesterday that Israel is ready
to attack Iran. They are going to attack Iran, and
it is going to be before the election, So sometime
in the next nineteen days. I would imagine sooner rather
than later, because the closer you get to a presidential election,
the more influence it would have on it.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
What do you.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Expect to happen, Well, I think the administration is going
to no longer put red lines on our allies, which
is what they've been doing for the past few months.
And we saw yesterday, now what it was, We saw
the B two's coming from the US to drop bombs
on the hoofties. I think that's a good sign. That's
an indirect message to the Iranians to stop taking our
(02:51):
threats lightly.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Just since you brought that up, I just saw that headline.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
So that's the first time we had used our B
two bombers are really big bombers in quite a while.
That's a fairly significant thing, huh.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
It is, And and they go along way. Those are
nuclear capable, not that we're going to drop a nuclear
weapon on anybody over there, but it just it just
reflects the level of weapon system that we've brought into
the theater now that we're prepared to use. It's not
just going to be these naval assets and and other places.
So I think that's that's a we're good at sending messages.
That sends a big message on a lot of levels.
(03:24):
But I would take it a step further if if
I'm the US president or the chiefest Staff, you're advising
the president and you're meeting behind doors with bbing net
and Yahoo right now, Look, this is a generational opportunity
to take out the Iranian nuclear capability. And there's Reel
has done this in the past. And if i'm if
I'm I'm saying, look, we're all in. We'll we'll go
ahead and light the way for you guys. We'll take
(03:44):
out all the c ED we'll take out all your
defense platforms. But you guys got to go accomplish that
mission because the world will be a safer place when
the Ranians aren't close to having nuclear weapons. We're traveling
about you know, how close are they to break out?
We're watching internal Iranians argue about the fought while that
the Ayatola issue that they weren't produced nuclear weapons that's
(04:04):
a bunch of garbage. I mean, obviously they're moving it forward.
So I think this is the time, and I think
there's a lot of things going to happen the next
nineteen days before our election, and you're going to see
this administration also come off, you know, the rains a
little bit because they recognize that that's what most Americans want,
and what they want to do is get re elected.
This administration wants to get reelected. And I think that's
what you're going to see, so less less red lines
(04:26):
for Israel, going to see is reel kind of go forward.
But they were going to go forward anyway. But I
think you're going to see that happening.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Wow, that's interesting. I didn't know that would be your take.
I'm happy to hear it. So you think we would
actually use some of our unique fire power to lay
the groundwork for Israel's attack, In other words, we would
be involved in the attack on Iran?
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Yeah, I think so. I think we would. You know,
that would be a big step forward. Yeah, would for
us to attack, Yeah, I mean, but I think you'd
have tremendous support to do that. I think they they
would be support within our country and with our politicians
to do that. Not great Britain and France though, yeah,
you know I saw that and where they are there
(05:09):
they're struggling with their own you know, internal forces right now.
But politically this would be the right move at this point.
So again, they don't Israel doesn't need them, and Israel's
going to have long memory about how they acted, especially
in particularly the French. But with the Friends have done
this before. I mean you look in history and sure
the French haven't been The French haven't been a thing
(05:29):
militarily since what April of nineteen thirty nine, I mean
since then, since right before Dunkirk. You know, they're the
greatest military ever in the world, and then you know,
pretty much over a four day period that that went
away and they haven't recovered since.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
So well, what was it?
Speaker 3 (05:42):
I don't know, you might know it. I read the
Schwartz Cough quote about France the other day that going
to war without France is like something going to something
without a banjo or something.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
It's pretty funny.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Yet, yeah, you know, so again you know, they pick
at choose when they want to be in the game,
and you know, so I don't think you know, Israel
this roles Arise doesn't doesn't really care about it. The
United States is the one that is superpower in the region,
and Israel's acting like a superpower. Let's be clear, right,
So here's a well Israel has nuclear weapons as well,
(06:15):
but so that they act like a superpower. They're going
after leadership, looking to decapitate. It's all air strikes, using
tremendous intelligence assets, you know. So they're they're acting like
a superpower in that region. And what I'm seeing too
is other countries now Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt quietly
so these other countries recognize the threat of Iran. They
(06:36):
want Israel to take out the threat as well. In
the United States. Now, I'm glad we're going after the Houthis.
It's been a long time coming since since since we've
had uh, you know, done something about that situation. So
you know, I think you're going to see this stepped
up reliance on de terrence we have as of right now,
we have no deterrence that I see with Iran. Israel's
going to re establish it and they're going to re
(06:57):
establish it by hurting them pretty badly.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Fantastic. I'm very excited about that. I grab the popcorn.
I'll be watching that and it's got to happen in
the next you know, nineteen days before we let you go.
I want to switch to another spot because President Zelensky
of Ukraine has laid out his peace plan or plan
for ending the war. I guess he's calling it that
(07:19):
includes giving up no Ukrainian territory. I don't know if
he actually believes that or not, or if that's you know,
your classic pegging the negotiations. This is where we'll start
and go from there. But what do you think about
where that is?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
I think he has to say that he has to
start and go from there first of all. But and
he'll be lucky to get some of that the coastal
area back in the south there from from Russia, given
what it occupies, given what it has occupied since Obama
was president, and then when Joe Biden was president, they
decided to go after it again. They've got maximust objectives
(07:56):
that it still can't be accomplished militarily. I saw this
morning also that the new NATO Secretary General speaking to
the fact of you know, Ukraine will be a NATO
country that's not going to help anybody. That's that's you know,
we should just be quiet on that. But then you
have Zelinski saying, well, we're going to develop nuclear weapons
if we're not part of NATO, So they're using nuclear
weapons as a way as defense mechanism. It's too late
(08:19):
at this point. Let's let's you know, Russia will take
some land back, primarily Crimea. They need Crimea for the
Black Sea Fleet. Let's sop Ukraine gets some of that
coastal area back, which is what it can use. But
it looks like that part of the Dombas likely becomes
part of Russia. You have a DMZ set up. We
have a North and South Korea. The wall is up.
Everybody's good because it's going to mean more conventional arms
pouring into Europe and the US defence contractors are going
(08:42):
to be happy about that.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
North Korea blowing up those roads between North Korea and
South Korea, which was an odd move. Earlier in the week,
he got China with some of the biggest military exercises
around Taiwan they've ever done, still running their ships into
Philippines navy vessels. There's a lot of hotspots around the world,
kind of a global macro question for you is this,
(09:09):
are we in more of the like this is what
the world's always been like? Is period right now? And
we kind of got lulled into a weird state of
you know, things being calm there for a couple of
decades when we were the superpower really establishing a global order.
Is this was that more normal for the world or
(09:29):
is this more normal for the world where we are
right now?
Speaker 4 (09:32):
We got lolled into it a little bit, and it
all has to do with we we've established, We've not
established the terrence in these other countries we've allowed. Look
with the Iranians, how much they were able to arm
Hesbelah and how opt you see these pictures of those
weapons caches, all those weapons are a clear a result
of the Obama administration sending palace of cash to the
(09:54):
Iranians to try to do a nuclear deal. So we
again lost our way with the term, and so did Israel.
Israel probably will never forgive itself for what happened on
October seventh, because that was a tremendous lull and then
in fact they got off to a very bad start
as well in that war. We knew that they would
recover but now that's why they're not stopping. They are,
you know, very biblically. They're at this is this is
(10:15):
how they're looking at this is his war. But I think,
I think that in in Obama's administration, we lost our
de terms. With Iron Trump as president for four years,
he definitely acts tougher and acts more afraid, kind of
goes the the Reagan way of de Terrens about speak softly,
carry a big stick, and that crazy every once in
a while, right, And then these last four years with
with with Brydon and Corla Harris, I just don't know
(10:37):
what's where they're going. They again they give red lines
to our allies, which is a non starter. They we're
telling Israel, we whip saw back and forth with Israel
supporting them and not supporting this. And it's based on
a voting block where in Michigan or Minnesota or someplace.
I mean, it's just we've got to get back to
what's important for the United States, what's important for our
national security, and how we're going to project power. And
I hope, hope we start doing that again.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Appreciate you time to Mike today. Mike. I follow you
all the time and other people should. At m a J.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Mike Lines, Major Mike Lines, thanks for your time today
and insight and all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
Thanks. I seen that later. So hopefull cool.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Ye tune it in Armstrong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Jack Armstrong
Joe Getty
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