Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / Ret. Navy admiral explains 'Dante's Inferno' of US firepower near Iran

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Ret. Navy admiral explains 'Dante's Inferno' of US firepower near Iran · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Padro, let me begin with you tell me about the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: firepower that we've assembled in the Middle East.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: You started with a comparison to two thousand and three.
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  Speaker 2: It's also like nineteen ninety Persian Gulf War one. This
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  Speaker 2: is a huge amount of US firepower. And let's kind
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  Speaker 2: of do it from the outside in, if you will.
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  Speaker 2: And concentric rings descending like Dante's Inferno. On the outer
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  Speaker 2: rings are big strategic bombers. They can come all the
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: way from the United States, they can operate from other bases,
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  Speaker 2: but at distance. Inside are the two aircraft carriers. One
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  Speaker 2: you see there on the screen. It's in the northern
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  Speaker 2: part of the Indian Ocean. The other one is going
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  Speaker 2: to park right against Israel where you see the word
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  Speaker 2: Syria on that chart. So now you've got two Axesis
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  Speaker 2: or eighty combat aircraft, each with F thirty fives, our
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  Speaker 2: most advanced jets, as well as plenty of FNA eight hornets.
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  Speaker 2: And then you go inside that you've got the capacity
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  Speaker 2: to launch Tomahawk missiles. You can send drones in, you
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  Speaker 2: can use cyber and of course there's land based aircraft,
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  Speaker 2: air force aircraft at many of those bases you showed
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  Speaker 2: there so again, think of it like Dante's Inferno, descending
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  Speaker 2: right in the center of it, at the very bottom
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  Speaker 2: is iotola come and n I agree with President Trump
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  Speaker 2: he would be wise to negotiate.
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  Speaker 1: David Sanger. You know the President, well, you've covered him extensively.
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  Speaker 1: You were part of that New York Times group that
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  Speaker 1: spent three hours with him in the Oval Office recently.
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  Speaker 1: So I put my unusual question to you, should the
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  Speaker 1: iatola be nervous that the administration just lost the tariff
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  Speaker 1: battle in the Supreme Court?
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  Speaker 3: Well, you can certainly argue that the President is probably
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  Speaker 3: feeling right now the first pushback on his powers that
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  Speaker 3: he's felt really in the first year of his residency.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: For the first time, the courts have sort of come
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  Speaker 3: in in a big way and said, this is not
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  Speaker 3: within the powers of the presidency unless the tariffs that
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  Speaker 3: he had imposed were were not legal. And he may
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  Speaker 3: well want to push back by showing that he can
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  Speaker 3: operate in an area where the Constitution gives him an
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  Speaker 3: enormous amount of leeway. But even here, the interesting question
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  Speaker 3: is this would clearly be an act of war. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: the way you test it is if somebody massd this
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  Speaker 3: kind of force off the United States and threatened to
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  Speaker 3: conduct this. We would consider that a potential act of war.
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  Speaker 3: And yet Congress has not issued either an authorization to
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  Speaker 3: his military force as they did in the case of Iraq,
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  Speaker 3: or passed a war resolution. And you know what did
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  Speaker 3: the President tell us in that interview? He asked whether
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  Speaker 3: there were any limits on his power? He said, really,
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  Speaker 3: only my own morality. That's the only limit that I have.
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  Speaker 4: Iran is prepared a new draft proposal after nuclear talks
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  Speaker 4: with the US. Iran's foreign minister is optimistic about a deal,
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  Speaker 4: he says, the US says not asked Iran to halt
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  Speaker 4: uranium enrichment, and Iran is not offered to suspend it voluntarily.
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  Speaker 4: He told MS now they're hoping to hand over the
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  Speaker 4: new proposal to Trump's envoy, Steve Whitcoff soon.
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  Speaker 3: And I don't think it tastes Longe.
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  Speaker 4: Perhaps in a matter of a week or so we can
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  Speaker 4: start some real serious negotiations on the text and come
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  Speaker 4: to a company. Meanwhile, the President warns that he's considering
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  Speaker 4: limited strikes on Iran to pressure the country into a deal.
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  Speaker 4: The USS gerald Ford Carry Strike Group is already in
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  Speaker 4: the Mediterranean Sea heading towards the Middle East to join
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  Speaker 4: other US military assets in the region, but top Democrats
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  Speaker 4: are urging the Trump administration not to take military action
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  Speaker 4: without congressional approval. Benham Ben Taleblue, Senior director of the
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  Speaker 4: Iran Program at the Foundation for Defensive democraciesins US. Now,
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  Speaker 4: thanks for coming back. Let's take this in bites. First,
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  Speaker 4: the optimism you're hearing from Foreign Minister Arachi at least
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  Speaker 4: on the path to substantive negotiations. I read that you
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  Speaker 4: see iron playing the game it has always played. What
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  Speaker 4: do you see here in this optimism?
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  Speaker 5: Well, great to be back with you again. I think
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  Speaker 5: we have to pay attention to who the real decision
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  Speaker 5: makers are in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and that's
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  Speaker 5: not the Foreign Minister. It's actually the Supreme Leader. That's
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  Speaker 5: a title meant to be taken rather literally. And he
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  Speaker 5: hasn't been speaking that much since the end of the
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  Speaker 5: Twelve Day War with Israel in America, but he's spoken
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  Speaker 5: about maybe fourteen sixteen times since then, and his most
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  Speaker 5: recent speech struck a drastically and I want to stress
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  Speaker 5: that for the audience, drastically different tone than what Arakchi
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  Speaker 5: has said, both in his Fox interview as well as
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  Speaker 5: in his MSNBC interview that you just alluded to. So
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  Speaker 5: while Arakshi is in rejecting a little bit of cautious optimism,
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  Speaker 5: I would say the chances of a deal are about
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  Speaker 5: twenty percent and dropping with the Islamic Republic at this rate,
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  Speaker 5: even if, for example, in Richmond was not discussed. There's
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  Speaker 5: a whole host of other issues that do divide and
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  Speaker 5: keep it part the US and Iran, especially at this
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  Speaker 5: very tense moment.
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  Speaker 4: And so you say there's a strong contrast between what
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  Speaker 4: we're hearing from the Iatola and what we're hearing from
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  Speaker 4: the Foreign minister. What's the most relevant contrast that you
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  Speaker 4: hear from the Supreme Leader.
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  Speaker 5: Well, I don't want to get too into the details.
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  Speaker 5: It might sound a bit too theological, but the Supreme
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  Speaker 5: Leader of Iran also is in iatola, as you mentioned,
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  Speaker 5: and he does reference Islamic political history and in particular
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  Speaker 5: site political history to justify political moves. For example, when
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  Speaker 5: he authorized nuclear negotiations with President Obama back in twenty
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  Speaker 5: thirteen under the auspices of the P five plus one,
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  Speaker 5: he talked about Imam Hassan and he talked about heroic flexibility,
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  Speaker 5: needing to show flexibility with your opponents, and that paved
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  Speaker 5: the pathway for the time twenty fifteen JCPOA deal. But
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  Speaker 5: here he's been talking about Imam Hussin, whose epithet the
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  Speaker 5: Master of Martyrs kind of tells you all you need
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  Speaker 5: to know about the direction the Islamica public is headed in.
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  Speaker 5: And it's quite rare also internally to have military, political
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  Speaker 5: and religious elites sing from the same sheet of music,
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  Speaker 5: and the same sheet of music is that if there's
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  Speaker 5: a strike, no matter how limited, Iran will respond in
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  Speaker 5: a massive way.
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  Speaker 4: And so you mentioned the JCPOA that President Trump ended
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  Speaker 4: in his first term in twenty eighteen, and I just
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  Speaker 4: want to read a bit of what we learned from
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  Speaker 4: that interview from the Foreign minister. We've not offered any
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  Speaker 4: suspension in the US. The US side is not asked
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  Speaker 4: for zero enrichment. What we are now talking about is
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  Speaker 4: how to make sure that Iran's nuclear program, including a Richmond,
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  Speaker 4: is peaceful and will remain peaceful forever, which would be
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  Speaker 4: too similar to the JCPOA that it would be a
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  Speaker 4: complete contrast to what we're hearing for President Trump publicly
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  Speaker 4: is that credible at all, that that continuing enrichment program
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  Speaker 4: is part of the conversation.
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  Speaker 5: Well, certainly, the challenge for the Islamic Republic right now
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  Speaker 5: is how to transpose the reality that they're currently not
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  Speaker 5: enriching since the end of the Twelve Day War into
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  Speaker 5: something that looks like it's a concession for the United
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  Speaker 5: States of America. And that's precisely why America can ask
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  Speaker 5: for bigger things, more things, more challenging things, because it's
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  Speaker 5: actually taken away in Richmond from the Islamic Republic. It's
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  Speaker 5: taken away the capacity. It hasn't taken away the capability AKA.
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  Speaker 4: Then know how.
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  Speaker 5: But nonetheless Iran is not currently enriching today. So the
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  Speaker 5: Islamic Republic has increasingly decreasingly been able to actually threaten
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  Speaker 5: to restore enrichment or anything else like that. And therefore
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  Speaker 5: it's trying to find a way to make Trump pay
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  Speaker 5: what he previously got for free. And that gets at
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  Speaker 5: the heart of the matter of enrichment in this agreement.
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  Speaker 4: The USS Joe Ford, that strike group is in the Mediterranean,
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  Speaker 4: of course, the Abraham Lincoln has been there for some time.
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  Speaker 4: You've said that the chance of a deal is twenty
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  Speaker 4: percent and dropping. So we know on what you believe
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  Speaker 4: about the potential for a military strike. What are the
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  Speaker 4: indicators from Iran that they believe that a military strike
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  Speaker 4: is coming.
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  Speaker 5: Well, it's actually very interesting that both America and Iran
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  Speaker 5: continue to talk about being interested in negotiations but also
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  Speaker 5: continue to do things physically that tell you that they're
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  Speaker 5: getting ready for a strike. The Islamic Republic, for example,
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  Speaker 5: continues to build back better when it comes to its
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  Speaker 5: ballistic missile program. We know that that's really the spinal
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  Speaker 5: cord of its deterrence at this point in time, it's
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  Speaker 5: the long pole of the regime security strategy. And then
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  Speaker 5: most importantly, it seems to be hardening some nuclear sites.
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  Speaker 5: So in the case that there's a strike that is
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  Speaker 5: not just against missile facilities, but actually against what's left
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  Speaker 5: of the nuclear program, particularly a future a plant that
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  Speaker 5: is believed to be future enrichment facility or previous research
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  Speaker 5: and development labs. Those things, per commercial satellite imagery, are
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  Speaker 5: being hardened. So when you take its tough rhetoric on
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  Speaker 5: missiles and then you look at this kind of hardening
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  Speaker 5: and dispersal, it looks like both sides are getting ready
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  Speaker 5: for exit options from negotiations.
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  Speaker 4: Man am Men Talablue, thank you so much for being
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  Speaker 4: with us.