October 21, 2024 • 12 mins
Washington Post foreign policy columnist, Josh Rogin, joins A&G to talk about the end of Hamas' leader and more!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The armstrong and getting showed.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
What we do have are multiple reports suggesting that they
have got him. We know from his radio officials that
they have a body someone who appears to be Yajya Sinoa.
They have not conducted a DNA test on that body.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I think we have to exercise extreme caution. Has been
reported killed a number of times over the last more
than a year now, since this operation in Gaza has
been ongoing. And what we do have for a number
of photographs that are circulating online which some people suggest
could be him, but again we have absolutely no confirmation there.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yeah, I think it's him. I think in this case
it is him. He is actually dead. I've seen the
pictures myself, and you know, I haven't extracted his teeth
or anything like that, but I think that Sinwar, the
leader of Hamas, is dead. Josh Rogan, who are about
to talk to, follows open source intelligence on Twitter, just
like we do, and they're reporting that both US and
Israeli officials are concerned that the elimination of Sinhwar may
(00:58):
lead Hamas to execute the remaining hostages being held in Gaza,
which obviously would be horrifying. Josh Rogan is the Global
opinions columnist for the Washington Post, and he joins us
again on the Armstrong and Getty Show. Josh, what do
you think of the latest news?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Well, you know, if true one more terrorists off the
face of the earth, that's a good thing. You know,
this guy psychopaths blood of Americans, the blood of israelis
blood of Palestinians all over his hands. So yeah, I
think we can take a moment and appreciate the fact
that he's no longer breathing. After that, it doesn't seem
(01:36):
like this is going to change much. To be honest,
the war is going to go on. They'll find some
other terrorists to lead a mosque sooner rather than later.
It's not likely this will cause a breakthrough in the
ceasefire talks because usually when you kill the guy who's
in charge of the talks, that slows down the process. Anyway,
the Israeli showing no intention of slowing down their new
(01:59):
assault in Gaza and in Lebanon. So this is gonna
get worse before it gets better.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Jacks. I'm always fascinated in this question of killing a
leader makes any difference. You know, if you killed Hitler,
wouldn't of that made a big difference in the Nazi
regime or is that like a particular example like bin
Laden that is different with Hamas and Hesblow, where you
get rid of one leader and you just get a
different one.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Yeah, I mean it's important militarily, but not necessarily strategically.
Hitler is kind of a different example. I mean, his
own generals are trying to kill him. So if he
had died, yeah, we could expect a big change in policy.
It's not exactly the same thing, but tactically it's a
good accomplishment. It keeps the enemy on their toes, disrupts
whatever they've got going on. Strategically, again, it's kind of like, okay,
(02:46):
well then what And you know, we won every tactical
military battle in Iraq and Afghanistan for twenty years and
managed to lose both of those wars in a strategic sense.
And it's not exactly the same thing, but you could
see that informs what's going on with Israel now. They're
getting very very good, probably the best at killing terrorists,
but does that lead piece of stability? I would like
(03:09):
to hear, how you know, I would like to hear
the theory of that case.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So is it a big deal that we used our
big B two bombers to bomb the Houthis yesterday.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Uh yeah, well again, escalation, I think this is getting
You know, you've got Lebanon, you've got an impending Israeli
attack on Iran, a retaliation for the missiccial attack that
we're still waiting for. You've got Gaza, and now you've
got escalating war. And ye, I mean that's four right there, Syria,
that's five. So that's five wars that Israel's in. And
if Israel's in them, that means we're in't them. It
means our assets are being used. It means our men
(03:41):
and women are involved, they're in danger, and we've got
men and women all over that region that are in
danger right now. So yeah, it's an escalation. And again,
if the goal is to restore deterrence, to scare the
bad guys is to stop fighting, okay, I can understand that.
But okay, is that happening? I don't think so, they
don't seems to tred And then what happens the day after?
(04:02):
How do you get past this at some point? That's
I think what everyone's really struggling to understand.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, so I didn't actually hear your podcast you're on
with David Ignatius. Just how bad would the Middle East get?
And I know it's a gas. The story that came
out yesterday is Iran or Israel is ready to attack Iran.
They are going to attack Iran before the presidential election.
How do you see this playing out?
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Well, depends what the attack is. I mean, Iran fired
three hundred pulistig miss is An Israel that that would
be dangerous if they didn't respond to that. So they've
got to do something. What they hit, how they do it,
and whether or not it's sparked another escalatory round of
attacks from Iran or Those decisions are all being made
by the Israeli government. We don't really know what they are.
We won't know until they see the attack. So yeah,
(04:52):
this is the problem of an escalation ladder once you
get on and it's really hard to get off of it.
And you know, we're making a calculation about Iran's deterrence,
they're making a calculation about Israel's deterns, and those calculations
could be all wrong. They often are, And so in
a way, it's just sort of like what we're really
contemplating here is the best case scenario is a long
medium boil war like that we have this level of violence,
(05:16):
are slightly worse for years. That's that seems to be
the wow, the positive scenario. The negative scenario is that
we escalate into something like a huge regional war, all
out war with around or even a nuclear exchange. That's
the downside risk.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
A nuclear exchange between the nuclear exchange between who.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Well, Iran is what one to two weeks away from
having a nuclear weapon assembled. According to the essence, Israel
has about one hundred to two hundred that they don't admit.
We've got two thousand Russias. You know, you eventually one
of these actors could get desperate enough to use one.
It could be the Russians using it in Ukraine because
that complex is connected to this one. The Iranians are
(06:00):
in Ukraine now, the North Koreans are fighting in Ukraine,
and you know, Russia supplying Moss, Russia supplying has Belah.
It's this is getting worse, not better. These conflicts are
getting more connected, not less. And yeah, that's the slippery
slope that we're facing. And yes, the nuclear exchange is
absolutely the worst scenario but there are a lot of
perfectly terrible scenarios short of.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
That, right, right, Yeah, And it gets very world warry
when you start putting all those pieces together the way
you just did. So we talked to I don't know,
if you know, go ahead, No, people.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Forget that, like World War two didn't pop off in
a day. Took about, you know, ten years to really
get cooking, you know. And we're into what year three
of the Ukraine War and year two of the Israel War.
So yeah, it might not be tomorrow, but this is
how world wars get going.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah. And World War One, you know, the psalm and
the Germans and the Brits facing each other in France
was a lot different than the assassination of Archiduke Ferdinand,
but it all fit together exactly. Uh So, I don't
know if you know Mike Lines. We had him on earlier.
He's a military guy. He does a lot of stuff
on CNN, and we have him on regularly. He thinks
(07:10):
we will that the administration is starting to get more aggressive,
letting Israel take the gloves off, and that we will
lay the groundwork in Iran by taking out some of
their stuff that only we can do. And that and
then let Israel do most of the attacking, but that
would get US pretty involved. Do you think that's likely?
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Or no? Yeah, No, I think that's fine. I mean,
I don't know. I can get fundamentally wrong in two respects.
One is that you know, the I don't think US
military asses is going to be used to strike Iran.
That's something to a Biden, it's something he's not going
to do. And even Donald Trump wouldn't do that. He'll
they're perfectly happy to let our allies strike Iran, but
using military assets to strike Ron crosses a line that No,
(07:51):
I don't think that's and from my sources and ad miners,
there's no way that they're going to take that stuff.
And secondly, I don't see you know, I guess I
agree with Mike. The administration is getting more formissive with
the Israelis. But it's not because they're really enthusiastic about it.
It's because Biden is a lame duck and the elections
coming up and they just don't have anything to do.
The ceasefire talks are dead, you know, and they don't
(08:12):
want it. They've already sort of lost the Muslim and
narrow voters if you're the Harris Walls campaign, so you
might as well double down on your support from the
pro Israel community. And the politics and the inertia and
the basic laziness of a lame duck presidency all add
up to just letting Israel do whatever it wants and
then pretending. Remember Joe Biden said to the cameras he
like bet iSER stopped in Lebanon. He was against it,
(08:32):
and then they did it, and when I was just like,
oh no, it's a really great idea.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Right, you know, they totally reversed it, right, right?
Speaker 4 (08:38):
So is that them taking an active stance and support
of visit. No, No, it's just them following events rather
than shaping interesting.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Do you think that should take this opportunity to take
out their their nuclear facilities best that that can be done.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
That seems like a pretty risky poin to be honest, Jack, Yeah.
I mean, first of all, take out their nuclear facilities.
They got a lot of them. They're they're pretty well hidden,
they're pretty well defended. If it doesn't work, then we're
we're we're we're in it. You know, you can't attack
on one's nuclear program and then not succeed, and you know,
it's a really hard target. Plus there's a lot of
(09:16):
nuclear stuff at those targets. They could have a pretty
bad effect if you blow it up. You know, I'm again,
I'm like against degrading Iran. I think that's a good idea,
but it's you know, you have to sort of stop
for a second and think, Okay, Iran doesn't really want
a regional war. It's they've made that pretty clear. We
don't want a regional war. Lebanese don't want a regional war.
(09:36):
So maybe we can just you know, find a way
to back away from the ledge, as we've done before,
by the way, several times. Right.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But man, that just doesn't feel like that's where things
are headed, does it.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
No, No, it doesn't look good. I can't say it's
it's looking that way. Yeah, I have to agree with
your assessment that it's looking like things are getting worse,
not better. That's that's the pattern. That's if you had
to predict, you would have to say things are going
to get worse before they get better.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
And not to just and not just to be the
you know, the audio version of doom scrolling. But it
isn't China getting more belligerent than they have been with
their exercises around Taiwan and what they've been doing to
the Navy and the Philippines.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Yeah, this is crazy idea sort of in Washington these
days that you might have read in some papers. I
want to mention about how sort of like, oh, China's different.
You know, Russian around in North Korea. Sure they're aggressive
and reckless and want to attack the West and redo,
but China is different. They want stability in business. And
you know, this is kind of a line that's also
promoted by the Chinese government because it masks what they're
actually doing, which is taking a much more sophisticated and
(10:40):
clever approach to their aggression. They're not you know, bombing hospitals.
They're just you know, harassing ships in the South China Sea,
doing mock blockades of Taiwan every time the time when
he's president dares to open his mouth, and you know,
building up the biggest nuclear and missile force, biggest military
expansion in history. And that is in a long term sense,
(11:03):
much more dangerous and permicious, pernicious and aggressive than even
what Russia and Iran and North Korea are doing right now.
But because they're doing it slightly more quietly than their allies.
We're totally missing it because you know, here we can
only sort of follow one, maybe two international crazies at
the time.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
We don't have plus plus the Golden Bachelor's on, so
you get that.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Exactly. There's a lot going on. People are busy. But
the truth is that, like the Chinese garment is very
intentional about, you know, wrapping up their aggression in a
way that it goes under our radar. That's exactly their strategy,
and they have a lot of Americans who help them
do it.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Josh Rogan is a global opinions columnists for The Washington Post.
If you like this sort of stuff, he is a
must read all the time, or follow him on Twitter
at Josh Rogan. Josh, thanks for your time as always
any time. Yeah, man, he is I could. I could
talk to him all day long. I love. I have
like a fantasy of sitting at a bar with him,
like late into the night, listening him tell me stuff
(12:01):
that he can't say on the radio that he knows. Uh,
China's biggest military build up in world history? How about that?
Oh my god? Yeah me, you live in exciting Times,
which oddly enough is a Chinese expression armstrong Andnghetti
The armstrong and getting showed.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
What we do have are multiple reports suggesting that they
have got him. We know from his radio officials that
they have a body someone who appears to be Yajya Sinoa.
They have not conducted a DNA test on that body.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I think we have to exercise extreme caution. Has been
reported killed a number of times over the last more
than a year now, since this operation in Gaza has
been ongoing. And what we do have for a number
of photographs that are circulating online which some people suggest
could be him, but again we have absolutely no confirmation there.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yeah, I think it's him. I think in this case
it is him. He is actually dead. I've seen the
pictures myself, and you know, I haven't extracted his teeth
or anything like that, but I think that Sinwar, the
leader of Hamas, is dead. Josh Rogan, who are about
to talk to, follows open source intelligence on Twitter, just
like we do, and they're reporting that both US and
Israeli officials are concerned that the elimination of Sinhwar may
(00:58):
lead Hamas to execute the remaining hostages being held in Gaza,
which obviously would be horrifying. Josh Rogan is the Global
opinions columnist for the Washington Post, and he joins us
again on the Armstrong and Getty Show. Josh, what do
you think of the latest news?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Well, you know, if true one more terrorists off the
face of the earth, that's a good thing. You know,
this guy psychopaths blood of Americans, the blood of israelis
blood of Palestinians all over his hands. So yeah, I
think we can take a moment and appreciate the fact
that he's no longer breathing. After that, it doesn't seem
(01:36):
like this is going to change much. To be honest,
the war is going to go on. They'll find some
other terrorists to lead a mosque sooner rather than later.
It's not likely this will cause a breakthrough in the
ceasefire talks because usually when you kill the guy who's
in charge of the talks, that slows down the process. Anyway,
the Israeli showing no intention of slowing down their new
(01:59):
assault in Gaza and in Lebanon. So this is gonna
get worse before it gets better.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Jacks. I'm always fascinated in this question of killing a
leader makes any difference. You know, if you killed Hitler,
wouldn't of that made a big difference in the Nazi
regime or is that like a particular example like bin
Laden that is different with Hamas and Hesblow, where you
get rid of one leader and you just get a
different one.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Yeah, I mean it's important militarily, but not necessarily strategically.
Hitler is kind of a different example. I mean, his
own generals are trying to kill him. So if he
had died, yeah, we could expect a big change in policy.
It's not exactly the same thing, but tactically it's a
good accomplishment. It keeps the enemy on their toes, disrupts
whatever they've got going on. Strategically, again, it's kind of like, okay,
(02:46):
well then what And you know, we won every tactical
military battle in Iraq and Afghanistan for twenty years and
managed to lose both of those wars in a strategic sense.
And it's not exactly the same thing, but you could
see that informs what's going on with Israel now. They're
getting very very good, probably the best at killing terrorists,
but does that lead piece of stability? I would like
(03:09):
to hear, how you know, I would like to hear
the theory of that case.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So is it a big deal that we used our
big B two bombers to bomb the Houthis yesterday.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Uh yeah, well again, escalation, I think this is getting
You know, you've got Lebanon, you've got an impending Israeli
attack on Iran, a retaliation for the missiccial attack that
we're still waiting for. You've got Gaza, and now you've
got escalating war. And ye, I mean that's four right there, Syria,
that's five. So that's five wars that Israel's in. And
if Israel's in them, that means we're in't them. It
means our assets are being used. It means our men
(03:41):
and women are involved, they're in danger, and we've got
men and women all over that region that are in
danger right now. So yeah, it's an escalation. And again,
if the goal is to restore deterrence, to scare the
bad guys is to stop fighting, okay, I can understand that.
But okay, is that happening? I don't think so, they
don't seems to tred And then what happens the day after?
(04:02):
How do you get past this at some point? That's
I think what everyone's really struggling to understand.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, so I didn't actually hear your podcast you're on
with David Ignatius. Just how bad would the Middle East get?
And I know it's a gas. The story that came
out yesterday is Iran or Israel is ready to attack Iran.
They are going to attack Iran before the presidential election.
How do you see this playing out?
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Well, depends what the attack is. I mean, Iran fired
three hundred pulistig miss is An Israel that that would
be dangerous if they didn't respond to that. So they've
got to do something. What they hit, how they do it,
and whether or not it's sparked another escalatory round of
attacks from Iran or Those decisions are all being made
by the Israeli government. We don't really know what they are.
We won't know until they see the attack. So yeah,
(04:52):
this is the problem of an escalation ladder once you
get on and it's really hard to get off of it.
And you know, we're making a calculation about Iran's deterrence,
they're making a calculation about Israel's deterns, and those calculations
could be all wrong. They often are, And so in
a way, it's just sort of like what we're really
contemplating here is the best case scenario is a long
medium boil war like that we have this level of violence,
(05:16):
are slightly worse for years. That's that seems to be
the wow, the positive scenario. The negative scenario is that
we escalate into something like a huge regional war, all
out war with around or even a nuclear exchange. That's
the downside risk.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
A nuclear exchange between the nuclear exchange between who.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Well, Iran is what one to two weeks away from
having a nuclear weapon assembled. According to the essence, Israel
has about one hundred to two hundred that they don't admit.
We've got two thousand Russias. You know, you eventually one
of these actors could get desperate enough to use one.
It could be the Russians using it in Ukraine because
that complex is connected to this one. The Iranians are
(06:00):
in Ukraine now, the North Koreans are fighting in Ukraine,
and you know, Russia supplying Moss, Russia supplying has Belah.
It's this is getting worse, not better. These conflicts are
getting more connected, not less. And yeah, that's the slippery
slope that we're facing. And yes, the nuclear exchange is
absolutely the worst scenario but there are a lot of
perfectly terrible scenarios short of.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
That, right, right, Yeah, And it gets very world warry
when you start putting all those pieces together the way
you just did. So we talked to I don't know,
if you know, go ahead, No, people.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Forget that, like World War two didn't pop off in
a day. Took about, you know, ten years to really
get cooking, you know. And we're into what year three
of the Ukraine War and year two of the Israel War.
So yeah, it might not be tomorrow, but this is
how world wars get going.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah. And World War One, you know, the psalm and
the Germans and the Brits facing each other in France
was a lot different than the assassination of Archiduke Ferdinand,
but it all fit together exactly. Uh So, I don't
know if you know Mike Lines. We had him on earlier.
He's a military guy. He does a lot of stuff
on CNN, and we have him on regularly. He thinks
(07:10):
we will that the administration is starting to get more aggressive,
letting Israel take the gloves off, and that we will
lay the groundwork in Iran by taking out some of
their stuff that only we can do. And that and
then let Israel do most of the attacking, but that
would get US pretty involved. Do you think that's likely?
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Or no? Yeah, No, I think that's fine. I mean,
I don't know. I can get fundamentally wrong in two respects.
One is that you know, the I don't think US
military asses is going to be used to strike Iran.
That's something to a Biden, it's something he's not going
to do. And even Donald Trump wouldn't do that. He'll
they're perfectly happy to let our allies strike Iran, but
using military assets to strike Ron crosses a line that No,
(07:51):
I don't think that's and from my sources and ad miners,
there's no way that they're going to take that stuff.
And secondly, I don't see you know, I guess I
agree with Mike. The administration is getting more formissive with
the Israelis. But it's not because they're really enthusiastic about it.
It's because Biden is a lame duck and the elections
coming up and they just don't have anything to do.
The ceasefire talks are dead, you know, and they don't
(08:12):
want it. They've already sort of lost the Muslim and
narrow voters if you're the Harris Walls campaign, so you
might as well double down on your support from the
pro Israel community. And the politics and the inertia and
the basic laziness of a lame duck presidency all add
up to just letting Israel do whatever it wants and
then pretending. Remember Joe Biden said to the cameras he
like bet iSER stopped in Lebanon. He was against it,
(08:32):
and then they did it, and when I was just like,
oh no, it's a really great idea.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Right, you know, they totally reversed it, right, right?
Speaker 4 (08:38):
So is that them taking an active stance and support
of visit. No, No, it's just them following events rather
than shaping interesting.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Do you think that should take this opportunity to take
out their their nuclear facilities best that that can be done.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
That seems like a pretty risky poin to be honest, Jack, Yeah.
I mean, first of all, take out their nuclear facilities.
They got a lot of them. They're they're pretty well hidden,
they're pretty well defended. If it doesn't work, then we're
we're we're we're in it. You know, you can't attack
on one's nuclear program and then not succeed, and you know,
it's a really hard target. Plus there's a lot of
(09:16):
nuclear stuff at those targets. They could have a pretty
bad effect if you blow it up. You know, I'm again,
I'm like against degrading Iran. I think that's a good idea,
but it's you know, you have to sort of stop
for a second and think, Okay, Iran doesn't really want
a regional war. It's they've made that pretty clear. We
don't want a regional war. Lebanese don't want a regional war.
(09:36):
So maybe we can just you know, find a way
to back away from the ledge, as we've done before,
by the way, several times. Right.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But man, that just doesn't feel like that's where things
are headed, does it.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
No, No, it doesn't look good. I can't say it's
it's looking that way. Yeah, I have to agree with
your assessment that it's looking like things are getting worse,
not better. That's that's the pattern. That's if you had
to predict, you would have to say things are going
to get worse before they get better.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
And not to just and not just to be the
you know, the audio version of doom scrolling. But it
isn't China getting more belligerent than they have been with
their exercises around Taiwan and what they've been doing to
the Navy and the Philippines.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Yeah, this is crazy idea sort of in Washington these
days that you might have read in some papers. I
want to mention about how sort of like, oh, China's different.
You know, Russian around in North Korea. Sure they're aggressive
and reckless and want to attack the West and redo,
but China is different. They want stability in business. And
you know, this is kind of a line that's also
promoted by the Chinese government because it masks what they're
actually doing, which is taking a much more sophisticated and
(10:40):
clever approach to their aggression. They're not you know, bombing hospitals.
They're just you know, harassing ships in the South China Sea,
doing mock blockades of Taiwan every time the time when
he's president dares to open his mouth, and you know,
building up the biggest nuclear and missile force, biggest military
expansion in history. And that is in a long term sense,
(11:03):
much more dangerous and permicious, pernicious and aggressive than even
what Russia and Iran and North Korea are doing right now.
But because they're doing it slightly more quietly than their allies.
We're totally missing it because you know, here we can
only sort of follow one, maybe two international crazies at
the time.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
We don't have plus plus the Golden Bachelor's on, so
you get that.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Exactly. There's a lot going on. People are busy. But
the truth is that, like the Chinese garment is very
intentional about, you know, wrapping up their aggression in a
way that it goes under our radar. That's exactly their strategy,
and they have a lot of Americans who help them
do it.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Josh Rogan is a global opinions columnists for The Washington Post.
If you like this sort of stuff, he is a
must read all the time, or follow him on Twitter
at Josh Rogan. Josh, thanks for your time as always
any time. Yeah, man, he is I could. I could
talk to him all day long. I love. I have
like a fantasy of sitting at a bar with him,
like late into the night, listening him tell me stuff
(12:01):
that he can't say on the radio that he knows. Uh,
China's biggest military build up in world history? How about that?
Oh my god? Yeah me, you live in exciting Times,
which oddly enough is a Chinese expression armstrong Andnghetti
Hosts And Creators
Jack Armstrong
Joe Getty
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
Today’s Latest News In 4 Minutes. Updated Hourly.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.