Operation Epic Fury 2?: Adm. Robert Harward

Israel rejectives and the West, but more importantly, the people of Iran.

“I'm host Michael Allen with Beacon Global Strategies.”

Today I'm joined by Admiral Bob Harward, retired Navy SEAL and former Deputy Commander of U.S. Central Command. Admiral Harward currently serves as the executive vice president, Ed Sheeld AI. Admiral Harward joins us today to discuss the most recent developments in Iran and the evolving nature of the war.

Stay with us as we speak with Admiral Bob Harward. Admiral Bob Harward, welcome to NatSec matters. Michael, to be with you anywhere, and to be with you in this forming, considering where we

are today is just always a privilege and an honor and always to give me back what my ship

makes for you anything, brother. Well, you were a terrific colleague at the National Security Council, and so I'm so glad you're on the show today. You're the perfect person to talk about these issues, not only did you have a distinguished naval career, of course, but you actually lived in Tehran for some period of time, and so

“I wonder if you might start there, and then I think we'll roll into your perspective on”

how we got into this conflict in the first place. Great. And it just such a small world it is to come back together again and more importantly,

how fate takes you on this incredible adventure of the life and in my case, what a pivotal

role Iran played throughout my life. And that started in 1968 when my father was assigned to be the Navy Component Commander of the military advisory group. So his job was to go to Iran, work with their Navy, work with the Sean, the government to help build out the Navy capabilities.

So that was in 1968, and he served in that capacity through 1974. So six years, 1974 retired from the Navy, but he stayed in the country as a consultant and represented in numerous defense companies, hunting, hunting, tin, engels, shipyard, the building, ships, bell, helicopter, Harris, radio, all those defense industries who were helping Bell the Shaw.

So he was there representative or consulting to them from 1974 to 1979 when the revolution occurred. And in fact, my family was in Turin when the Shaw left home and you arrived, my mother, my sister and I left, my father stayed through August of 1979.

And while most people don't realize August 79 is the first time the embassy was seized.

The students stormed it, protested, but they released everyone and left the embassy the following day. So my father stayed in country from when the Shaw left, Komeni came to power in the first six, seven, eight months, still working until that day. And that happened, he said, that's not a good sign, I'm out of here and he left the country.

We all know two months later, they took the embassy for the second time, but this time the students did not turn it over and they took all the personnel at the embassy hosted. That's a great reminder. It's kind of shocking to think that they got in once and we didn't just sort of evacuated that point and instead of subjecting ourselves to them coming back at us later.

Exactly right, but those in the country knew it was probably time to go at that stage. And my father, an old Iran hand was pretty astute and tied into the government to watch that transition and know when it was the appropriate time for Americans to leave the country. You know, we read so much about the Shaw and sometimes torturing his own people or misgovernance or his riches and the alienation he allegedly had with his people, I mean, did you do your

“dad, see it that way and what was your take on what eventually led to the revolution?”

It's like Ron and how we now call it fake news, but that's when it was grossly misaligned with the facts and having been in Iran, we saw a close and personal day after day for 13

So let me give you an example of that.

“In 1968, when we arrived at nearby airport and we're driven north to our hotel where”

we stayed in while we were looking for a home and we arrived in the middle of Ashra. And Ashra, private highest day for the Shia Muslim Shia clan. And we were in a hotel when we checked in that at night, it said, well, next day you can't go outside of Ashra. In fact, don't even look out the windows and we watched, but you know, we're in the hotel

and we're young kids. We're just looking at crack through the window blinds and we watched hundreds of thousands if not millions of people marching in the street and beating themselves with chains to show their suffering for the prophet of Muhammad. So as a young kid, it was kind of scary and concerning, wow, this is the Muslim faith,

this is the people of Iran, they beat themselves with chain, they worked themselves into a fervor, but it really indicated it was my first taste of the challenges the Shah was facing.

And in 1968, the population of Iran was somewhere about 32 to 35 million people pretty

agrarian, yet Tehran was becoming the hub of activity with the Shah using oil money to develop the country and bring them into the industrial, if not the western age of civilization. So he had a challenge on his hand, and as he did that, you could see the reform he was

“putting in place, land reform, remember up to then, all the people were just basically”

indentured servants, they couldn't own land, they had no rights, so the Shah, very progressive leaning west wanted to align the values and morals of Iran, which traditionally were aligned

as demonstrated by the Great Persian Empire and Cyrus the Great who created the first

bill of human rights, so he was on that path, he established land reform, people could buy an own land, if you worked the land, you could be a owner of it, he put in women's rights, he was reconstituting human rights, so he was fighting a battle with a large agrarian community with a lot of influence from the ayatollas, the mullas who ran the religious master out the country, and so they leveraged the Shah to be a counterweight, he was moving west, where

they wanted to reinforce Sharia law as a way of covered it, so he fought that battle, and yes, he had a security apparatus called the Samak, and where he went after political dissidents, but if you look at the overall scheme of the political dissidents, were those who opposed civilized, industrialized and moving towards the west, human rights, a secular nation, which at that time had the largest Jewish community outside of Israel in Iran, had the

highs, they had the Zostans, they had a very secular nation, and the radical Islams were opposed to that, so he was in the middle of that battle his entire time, well, it's the tipping point, well the tipping point came when the people started riot, and it was

“a campaign planned, this is important to know, how many who had been exiled from Iran,”

that exiled from Iraq ended up in France, and France allowed him the protection to, and everyone knew it, he had a plan and a campaign plan for the Islamic Revolution, and what he was doing was siops and intelligence, he had a whole mechanism for recording his speeches and his sermons, getting those cassettes into Iran, where those were promulgated throughout radio and television by the Moulas and at the local mosques, so his information campaign

in this very agrarian community played very well, and he was able to convince people to go to the streets and protest, and I still think those protests, and that was funded by and supported by, you know, Russia and outside players who were, it was all part of the cold war, you know, if Iran goes west, we'd rather oppose them and put another government, so I think a lot of players were successful in galvanizing the population to protest against

the artiche, the professional army to put down the rebellion, and so very important, and I'll get to this next, the events that occurred in 1979 that became the tipping point. That's fascinating, and I can see how this is going to relate to the arguments today that the Iranian regime is largely incapable, and Admiral, I can see how this gets to the argument

that we hear so much today, that the Iranians are ideological, and it's a revolutionary regime,

and they're mostly maybe incapable of making concessions to the west.

“Is that the way you see it, given this history that you've laid out?”

Without it doubt, so let me walk through 1979, free, important events, and U.S. foreign policy in response to those events, and how it links back to Iran and the situation we're at now. So as we've just talked about, the show was using his army, and I was intimately involved with this through my father, because he was involved in this, and his position as a former military member in the country with the close relationships to all the military members

and the defense industry, and others. So as the show starts using his army to put down this rebellion, the Carter administration sent a team, an envoy out to Iran, and involved every tariff war star in general, many state

department message, and the bottom line to the show at the time was if you use your army

to quail this rebellion, and you kill a lot of people, that's the human rights violation and we're pulling out, and they told that to the army and others, and therefore the army turned against the show, because they didn't want to be slaughtered by the people, and they saw that they did not have U.S. policies to support them. So that was the first event in Iran.

U.S. foreign policy was now predicated on human rights, as far as I know, the first time in U.S. policy where it played a prevailing role in how we dealt with a partner we had for decades. So that was number one. Number two, later in the year after the revolution, the Russians came into Afghanistan.

“And if you remember, correct, our foreign policy was, we're going to fight the Russians”

to include the Mujahaddin, our financial billions of dollars, through the Pakistanis, to them, provide them with stingers to eradicate the Russian threat.

And then the third event that year was the Grand Mosque, the encased in Saudi and a capitulation

to the Wahhabis, you know, turn over the Mosque to this, you can live, and did that. So those three events only served to reinforce the, guiding principle of the Islamic revolution led by Khomeini, but our policies on all three of that provided funding, appeasement and accommodation for the Islamic revolution that transformed the region and continues to impact it significantly today, and defines one of the main reasons were in this conflict with the

regime and Iran and why our policies, statements, and our angles need to be clearly defined. And just one more historical question, you mentioned the Carter administration. And we, of course, have studied that they promoted human rights to try to make that central to US foreign policy, and I can subscribe to the tenets that they misplayed this. But there was no stopping the revolution.

Is that right? It was probably bound to happen. I don't know. I don't agree with that.

“I think if we had taken a more proactive role of how to go after the messaging, how”

we say ops, all the issues we could have done, and didn't do, I'm sure we don't. And I would tell you, if Nixon, more said, been president as opposed to Carter at the time,

We might have addressed Khomeini and France with the French before we got to that stage.

It was clear Khomeini's campaign was being instigated in the summer of '78. And yet no US foreign policy, no US actions were taking to address that and look after our interests. And the Graham scheme of the Cold War, that did not meet the criteria. And yet, in reality, it's an extension of the Cold War where Iran became and currently

is a surrogate to China, Russia, and is somewhat of a tipping point in the Cold War West versus East. And we'll talk about that later. So yes. Perfect.

“I think we could have addressed that earlier in the stage.”

So again, I hold it to a policy decision by the administration and a short term as opposed

to a long term perspective on Iran. So I think we could address the revolution that just as I believe we can address the or assist the current revolution that needs to happen in Iran. So I see these people on action, elsewhere, arguing that we've really been in a whatever that is, 47 year war with Iran, and this wasn't really a war of choice.

It was something that was inevitable. Do you subscribe to this and tell us about how their ideologies led them to be state sponsors of terrorism, to look for and pursue a nuclear weapon, and all the other sort of rogue activities they're undertaking? Got you.

“Let me just before my before we add one more historical perspective that I think is important.”

So you had the regime come in, the president placed, the country was still trying to define

and understand what the Islamic revolution was and what their policies were going to be. And then you had this very significant in 1980 where Iraq invaded Iran. And so for truth is for this Islamic revolution in the regime at the time, they had been attacked by Iraq, an arch enemies, so they could galvanize their population and leverage them under a nationalistic umbrella to accept and believe in the regime because the regime

was fighting the invaders of Iraq. That war lasted to our government, 89 years, 1988, I believe. But that gave them nearly a decade to galvanize, make the people believe in them because they were fighting a just cause, establish the IRGC, establish their policies at progress and really maximize their control of the population.

So coming out of the war, 89, 89, they had a country that was strong united against with the regime against Iraq. And so when you think of really this policies and when the end of the war, they had to shift that because again, they were in demanding Sharia law and everyone just served under their serve the government economically, financially, in every way, other.

So they had to find a new policy that would drive that nationalistic belief. And so they picked up, they shifted gears to Israel, the United States and the West and General, we were non-believers, we were now the enemy. So when you look back to the current policies and your question, ideological or no, the

“regime and when I say the regimes, unless concerned, I think the Iatomas have less impact”

than the IRGC, they leveraged the Iatomas as their cause and their purpose, not only to the control of the people, but to then take control of all the elements of power, be it financial, political and military in the country. They took over business, they now nationalized and run most of the businesses. They're profiting greatly, they built their own separate military, you have their professional

Army Navy Air Force referred to as the artiche, but then separate, you have the IRGC, which has their own Navy Army and stuff. And you can imagine who has the better resources, who is more power, but they leverage

Well, that's a great point, too, about they were able to consolidate their regime because

they went into an immediate war with Iraq, that's a, that's a student, I like that. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with more of our discussion with Admiral Harvard. Beacon Global Strategies is the premier national security advisory firm. Beacon works side by side with leading companies to help them understand national security

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Here we are today, so many years later, and we're trying to break Iran's ambitions for sort of regional hegemony, they obviously want a nuclear weapon. We've talked about the state sponsorship of terrorism, or at least I mentioned it, tell us a little bit about the makeup of the regime, and are we going to just have to rely on military action? How are we going to get them to compromise and do the things that we want

them to do short of outright regime change? Well, I think the biggest change today, and you don't hear people's talking about this

“in our strategy and policy, and the reason it's so important, and I think it's the key to”

the current situation, and for long term stability and security of Iran, is the Iranian people.

And in a country of nearly a hundred million people, I believe about 70 million want these

bastards gone. They have suffered miserably the whole time, inflation has been rampant, they can't, they're told what to dress, they can't go in, go to a party without the moral police on them. And if you object or anything, you're murdered and killed for it, and where this is really the tipping point came in the last five years, has caused the economy has been failed.

So they're sitting there watching this regime, fund his follow up, fund him, us, fund the Oothies, building out nuclear weapons, building out missiles, mines, making the ARG take all the business, well they're just trying to survive, and that's harder every day. And so that's the difference. They are on what they're going, not just ideologically opposed,

“but more important, just basic living, this government has squandered those forces.”

So how we leverage and support the internal dynamics are just as important as our external. And so let me go back to your comments, this elements of power. You've watched for 37 years at the end of the war where the resources of the country went into establishing more elements of power for IRGC. And first is building the organization, taking over businesses, taking care of them, taking care and building out the apparatus to

oppress and control the population, because they know that's their biggest threat. And in doing so, they moved towards a nuclear weapons program. And in 2012, 2014, we knew that, but the administration, the Obama administration strategy and approach was let's

reach accommodations to make sure they never have a nuclear weapon, and we'll do the

project power. And we awarded them significantly better. And we put in some good steps to control that, but at the end of the day, we still left the decisions and prerogative

“to the Iranians. And I think that's, and you were with me just watching this path long.”

We knew how much nuclear material we had. We knew their rich capacity, because the IAEA inspectors reported that we knew that the unknown was that if they, or were they doing a nuclear weapons program, because we know reducing the materials of one thing, but could you put it in a warhead? Could you deliver that warhead separately or the uncertainty in that?

and it was clear, while they were meeting the guidelines of the Jitpov and the IAEA, at least

“in the nuclear realm, they enhanced their capacity consistently to the point where we, you know,”

what, and they could still do R&D. They could still move towards advanced systems. Not only R&D, they were allowed to enrich, and I'm saying enriched. The highly rich rate, which is 60%, that was allowed. Yeah. And what we saw, they consistently continued to do that, increasing their stockpiles, but not only that, doing it at a much faster pace than we could inspect and realize. So, if they decided to take that 60% Iranian five,

40 and 56 kilograms, and enrich it to weapons grade 90%. They could do that with that material in a matter of days, because they, so we all knew that, and everyone was betting, well, we don't have any proof that they're weaponizing. So, we're okay. Well, secretly, we have to

“assume, and I believe they were moving on their nuclear weaponization, and the, the confirmation”

to me was this recent missile strike on Diego Garcia, which showed they had delivered, they had developed ICBMs that could reach all of Europe anywhere in the region, and into deep Asia,

be a Diego Garcia, Pakistan, and India. So, in my mind, that was the critical element that was

the tipping point of this administration. I think rightly so, we had to act before they had concluded that, or we would not have been able to act if they had the nuclear umbrella to protect and to attend for no one would challenge nuclear confrontation, and therefore the Saudis and others would move in the direction of nuclear weapon. So, I really applaud this administration in striking

“when they did. Yeah, but it's a, it's a problem that I don't think we were ever going to be able”

to solve only diplomatically, but you mentioned the 60% HU in, you know, in addition to being a decorated admiral, you're a retired Navy SEAL, and so many people have been talking about whether we should have mounted some sort of raid to get the HU apparently in a buried state near Esfahan, and who knows, may, that sometimes people suggest that there's HU or LU to 20% in different parts of the country. Is that a practical course of action or would it just require

and I'm making this up here? A thousand troops holding a perimeter for two days with Earth moving equipment and airplanes and helicopters, I mean, what, what would that have looked like? Was it realistic? Is that something you ever would have brought to the president? My quote, as you know, that was my portfolio, one of my portfolios at the White House, why I worked this program and stuff. So let's put it this way. We can do it. We've built all the capability to do that. We've

rehearsed it, worked through it with the inner agency team, because it's broader than just the military. And so we can do it if we want to do it. The problem in here and in that right now is the risk. And the only real risk is to the boots on the ground is getting into the facility itself. That's somewhat tactical. But once you take the facility and guard it and in the good part about this Iranian, we own the air. So we could put cap over day, every day, any response that you know,

the topography in Iran works on our behalf. Just let that raid to go in and get the pilot. If you go into Natans, some of these locations, they're only one or two avenues of approach. And anything coming down to that approach, we could take out with air power and other things.

But the problem is, you then become a target for those remaining drones or missiles they have.

And so that's the only real threat to doing that thing. And your time on the ground, the longer you're there, they're going to focus more drones, more missiles, and try to bomb you out of that.

bigger larger package with radars. And so once again, we can do it. It is a lot of risk involved.

It will take time. But the impact would be significant. Yeah. So I would not recommend a

“bottom up approach on going after material bottom up. What do you mean bottom up approach?”

By going season the land and taking it at four. Got it. And so how would you deal with it then? Okay. So I agree that that is has to be number one or number two, depending how you you deal with the streets of or lose. As the president has said, they came with back with this absurd reaction to the president. We either getting the material or not. Right. That's it. And since there's not doing so that's your bottom up approach.

Go and season taking it. Okay. Or politically they handed over. Here's the third approach.

And I think the better strategy for Iran. If we are able to and I won't say eradicate, but if this the rate the IRGC and their remaining components of power projecting, then we can have our will with them. Then we can compel them to hand over the material or more importantly, ensure that the government in Iran, when I say this the rate the IRGC, the radicals, those who don't, eviscerate the IRG and bring a government into function

who renounces the Iranian, the Islamic Revolution, the government in and power who renounces the Islamic Revolution and agrees to terminate all the programs and policies that came with it. So that's regime change, right? Well, you call it regime change. I'll call it regime change. I'm saying a different government. Got it. Okay. All I do either one. There are new ones this is associated with other that. But yes, a different government needs to be in place

in Iran, not only in line with our objectives, Israel, or objectives in the West, but more importantly, the people of Iran. Yeah. They wanted to. They wanted to. That's right. So I, but if you take care of that problem in the nuclear material, the missiles, the streets of remove the funding of the surrogates, you renounce that in those policies, then we do it from the top down with minimal risk that would come with seizing natans, pickaxe, mountain, you know,

“those facilities and holding them long enough to move that material out. Well, I think this is”

an important point too, and many people have said similar things, which is the regime is not capable of making meaningful compromises. They believe that that would be the kiss of death. It is for them. And therefore, it's just going to have to be a new regime, or else we're just going to be continuing to mow the grass as people like to say, when their ballistic missile capability

comes back, or we discover a new enrichment site or the rest. And so maybe that's ultimately where

this has to had to really bring Iran back into a state where they're not a regional, malign influence and adversary to the United States. And Israel and to the West that large. I agree with that assumption, I would that would be my strategy, and I think if you agree

“that and your gut up, you need to articulate that. Yeah. I think the president was very clear what”

is objectives were at the start of this campaign. You know, as he used the word unconditional surrender, no nuclear weapons, no missiles and mines, which was different than the Jekpoho, the Jekpoho didn't address that. No funding of the surrogates, and then a recognition of the streets of our mooses in and after the waterways that you do not control. Yeah. I think that needs to be the objectives, our strategy has to be aligned. And I think articulating that to the American people

and the rest in the world would resonate. I do too. With the two major objectives, I think this is those are all cornerstones of two really geopolitical issues here. The other reason that your perfect for this conversation, I could sense you going there, is that you were a decorated admiral, and you served as deputy commander of U.S. Central Command. And so you're in a terrific

getting back the streets of Hormuz is for the United States to resume what I think was called

Project Freedom last week, but essentially it felt like we were escorting vessels through the streets of Hormuz. And it's not without risk. And the UAE is the one that absorbs the blow after we did it because the Iranians hit their export terminal Fujaira. But is this a viable option going

“forward? To me, it seems like the only way to negate this advantage that they have over the”

streets of Hormuz in the short term because the blockade feels like to me, it's going to take a lot longer. It's a longer fuse. So tell me, do I have that right?

Do you think I think you have it? Completely right. But you, I thought you were going to go one step

for, not just reconstituting Project Freedom, but reconstituting Epic Fury too. Yeah, I do want to get to that too. So understanding those look two different strategies and I think at the end of the day Project Freedom is a much longer approach along to the impact the boycott's going to have on the Iranians and their economy as opposed to the impact Epic Fury too could have not only on the Freedom of Navigation, but on the regime itself. So again,

I would be a proponent for Epic Fury too to solve both of those problems, solve the free passage

of the streets of Hormuz while continue to undermine and eradicate the Islamic revolution.

Okay, well, I definitely want to go to Epic Fury part two, but just check our work here and we've, I have actually talked to some other former admirals as well to just sort of talk about the practicality of an escort mission and it's not the same as in the 80s and whatnot because they're now drones and fast boats and it seems much harder, but you know, is it something that we can do within a reasonable risk and it seems to me what that we have, a dozen destroyers, more or less

positioned all through the streets and they're the ones that are repelling ballistic missile attacks,

“drones and the fast boats are getting shot up by a patchy, I mean, is this a chief of bull?”

So many people say, hey, it's not a chief of bull quit talking about it. So let me give it, and why I'm different than other Navy animals. Okay, I served on a ship for four years. I was a surface war for our officer. I know the weapons systems, I use, I know that where it takes to be at sea and implement, but I'm also a seal where I think much differently and look at these problem sets outside of the

normal doctrine and training and education that our surface warfare officers and our pilot stunt and then I've lived it for decades. So I have, you know, I think I have a pretty good sense

“for the granularity of implement and you got to remember now when you talk about Project Threatum,”

we have not escorted straights and ships so that we remember, there's very carefully, we guided ships. Oh, I know, but I was thinking that was much, I mean, we had marines on the deck, we have the military was near by, okay, that's different. Let me make sure you understand if we escorted ships we're moving with them. Yeah. We're leveraging the capabilities of those ships to the anti-cruise missile. Right. The best counter UAS system yet in our inventory proven over

decades, the coast in weapon systems, the Balkan Falings on ships. Those systems keep that ships safe. Yeah. And if it's next to our Jason to tanker, it can apply those systems to help protect it. Got it. That's the difference between guiding and escorting and guiding. We're providing them intelligence. We're telling them time to go. We can hit some targets, but we're not in the direct line of fire for all of these ships. I see it's much more difficult, much more acid intensive,

you know, we still, I still don't have the granularity on where the mines are. Yeah. Everyone talks about this mines. We're doing counter mines. I have yet to see a report of anyone even seeing or finding a mine. And that may be we're just no one wants to disclose that. And I've

for invasion of Iraq and clearing the waterways to uncassar. And so I understand the problems.

So all those would be inherent in escorting a ship as opposed to guiding a ship. And I think

“until we get additional commitments from those countries involved. And that's why I've been kind”

of disappointed by the British, the French, the Germans, everyone else. This is important to them, not just for the free flow of commerce, but the threat Iran poses to them, both through the Islamic Revolution and those specific policies that go with it. So you're a skeptics, you're not. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're military can do anything it wants to do. Yeah.

But there may be a better way of doing it instead of escorting or guiding ships. And I'm a proponent of eradicating those elements of power ashore in Iran. And that that includes boots on the ground on for doing that. Because not only do we ensure the free flow of commerce, it further attrates the regime's capability. Fascinating. Yeah. They're their staturer, their viability, and pretends to their Iranian people, additionally how weak they are in the days coming

“when they can go to the streets. Well, wow. So where would you insert the troops?”

Am I hearing you that it's around the coastline to eliminate coastal defenses? Well, I'm like this. Having been there and know how remote and horrible hot and miserable is, and we're going into a very interesting time because summers upon us and it's starting to crank

out. But if you look at Jask. Yes. And you've never heard anyone, Jask is outside the streets

on the sea of a mode. It's secondary and strategic significance to Card Island. We could very easily go into Jask with the appropriate fireworks suppose. These Jask have everyone leave Jask and declare a kill zone for anyone ever returning and leave and make the approach all the access to Jask, which is basically one highway with what they would really need. That kind of kill box like we did in Kuwait. So that would be at the top of my strategy. That would probably

and I'm not saying that would be my top target, but that would be one of those that we could do with the significant impact on the regime and significant impact to the streets from above. So you're talking about real leverage. I mean, you're talking about the application of military force. And not just resuming strikes around the country on ballistic missile launchers in the rest. You're going for the jugular. Without a doubt. Fascinated.

Gotcha. If you look at the straight supermotes, there's three or four places that we don't need to occupy, but we need to raid, eviscerate it, make sure everyone leaves it, and then make them kill zones for anyone who comes back to them or be bonded or boss. Yeah. Keshe. Myelin. Jask. Maybe a few more up the coast, but if you've taken that coastline

and basically erad it, make sure there are no boats in any of those ports and any of those boats

are destroyed. You've set the stage for taking back full and unconditional control of the

“straight supermotes. Well, that's that's great. I mean, I haven't heard that view. I think that's”

interesting. I was like, "Talk down a little bit." I like it. I like it. This is creative and this is why you had such a storied career. In addition to your long experience in this realm, you're very familiar with the UAE. I think you've spent part of each year there and you're... I've been living there since 2014. So talk about the United Arab Emirates. They are now, according to the Wall Street Journal, but I think we had heard this even before. The newspaper

articles, it sounds like they're hitting Iran with missiles. Some have said as many as 150 per day. I've heard High Mars. I mean, here we are. UAE is actually in the fight and maybe Saudi Arabia, too. So will you address all of these news reports? Well, let me take one step back and add another historical perspective, which I think is very important. I have all of you. If you remember,

I, I hope I don't get the, yeah, 1971 was another one of those pivotal years before the revolution.

In 1971, the Shah had an incredible ceremony in Persepolis, one of the incredible archaeological

locations in Iran. And it was to celebrate the 25th hundredth year of the Persian Empire. And in fact, they brought out the clay tablet, which illustrated the first Bill of Human Rights,

“which was one of his guiding principles of his tenure as the Shah. And that's why it's whole”

revolution was fake news. And part of the radicals just trying to seize power and ask the West. So it's all part of that. But in '71, they did that. Well, this would happen in 1971. Five countries actually became new countries, UAE Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and Bahrain. They were not countries till 1971. Yeah. It was also the year that Iran seized islands from them. Lower tomb, upper tomb, several islands they took from them. But those countries basically were

pearl-viving and just started to get in oil and were now countries. So if you look, what they've accomplished from 1971 to today, highly industrial advanced technology,

“prosperous nations, people who live relatively free under monarchies, and are very”

secular, you go into UAE. There's three or four million people going to church every Sunday. Well, all the people at the mosque on Friday. So you see what those countries have become, and you see all the countries that were part of the Islamic revolution did Iran, be it Lebanon, be it Yemen, be in Syria. Those were incredible nations that have all just been destroyed under the umbrella of the Islamic revolution. So back to UAE, they realized this

existential threat Iran poses to them. And they've always been very progressive and aligned,

militarily, politically, even financially, as indicated by this withdrawal of OPEC with the United States and the West. I am sure they are willing supportive and want to be under the effort to undermine Iran in any way they can because they know if we strike a deal and we leave, they'll reconstitute and they may not exist. And back to that point, if Iran had the nuclear weapon and controlled, they could take the streets any day they want. But beyond that, they could take

cover. It's a small island, 250 people. 50,000. They could take UAE, a million emirates. So they

understand this. So it would not surprise me, but I can't speak of the facts that they would want to be involved in the fight, have a military and the capabilities to do that. And I would think it would work. It would help on both sides and for all. And in fact, I'd be surprised if most the GCC countries wouldn't feel and do the same thing. All of them, they don't have the same military capabilities that UAE does. So I can't confirm, but it would not surprise me if they

“are involved in combat operations. But one last caveat, where I think they can have the biggest”

play is if we do decide to put boots on the ground. If we take Josh, if we take Bond or Boss, that's where their capability is, their contributions as well, where any of the GCC countries be so significant. Yeah, well, tell us, well, UAE used to be called little sparta, as you mentioned, they've even grown beyond little. I mean, they have pretty serious military. And you're going to give Matt a credit for that first title. Yeah, it really stuck. What about Saudi Arabia? I mean,

I know we're in the midst of a divorce between the UAE and the Saudis, but there are news reports that Saudi Arabia also got into the act and needed to hit Iran as well. Tell us a little bit about their military. Do they have as much capabilities the UAE does it sound plausible that

appropriate. And let's not forget, and again, I don't have exact date, Iran has attacked both

of those countries. Yeah, that's right. Before this, I want to say it's two, three, maybe four years ago, Iran shot drones and missiles at Saudi oil production facilities and destroyed them. They launched missiles and drones into UAE attacking their oil fields and killing people, not only military bases, but commercial airlines and all them bases. So both of them have a lot of risk, and don't forget, they were in the war in Yemen where the Iranians were back in supporting the

Houthi and still today attacking not only UAE, but also Saudis. So it would not surprise either of them.

Now, the difference for Saudi is the numbers game. Saudis, 27 to 30 million people. So they can

they can establish a much bigger size of personnel they can bring into the fight. And they have a lot weapons and technology, but unlike UAE, they don't have the same experience as UAE. UAE,

“remember deployed, and there are very few militaries in the war in the world that have deploying”

capabilities. You build a military for homeland defense, and then you can build a military to fight wars, not only internally, but externally and deploy those forces where you move jets, you move

refuel as you so UAE has been doing that for decades. When we went into Bosnia, they came.

When we were dealing with Libya, they came. When we went into Afghanistan, they came. When they went to Yemen, they deployed. So the experience level and the capabilities, fine-tuning and experience of their command and control, their personnel is just much greater than Saudi. But I think both of them bring not only because of geography, but because of distance, bring components that can contribute to not only the defense, but offensive operations against

Saudi directly and indirectly. Well, we're starting to wind up here, but I want to ask you a little bit about what existing military targets ought to be hit elsewhere. For example, we're in the midst of a string of articles that have come out saying that the Iranians have so many more ballistic missiles than we thought even two weeks ago, which we believe had been blown up. Same with launchers, we've seen reports that say they still retain 75% of their launchers.

“Now, give us a sense of how important this is. What do you think is actually the truth here?”

I mean, these must be very hard to hunt if U.S. and Israeli intel were not able to suck out where they all were. In 2012 to 2014, when I was the deputy at Sankham, our number one intelligence requirement were not only, and this is what changed those two years, but before that, we had focused on the missile inventories. No, we're all a missile was a inventory. And you remember, I'm sure you remember Norma Royce, Mr. Rod from, and partnership with Norm,

we changed the intel requirement so that we knew where the missiles were, but we wanted to be focused on the launchers because we thought that was the easier target and harder for them to reconstitute. So that came our number one intel requirement. So I can't tell how that progress. What intel means were done, who prioritized it, what happened between there and the current

“conflict. But so I think we were surprised, not by the missiles. I think we knew pretty well,”

where they were, how many they were. I think what we were surprised by was the number of launchers, the hiding the launchers, and the distribution of launchers. So that was number one. I think more compelling and more relevant were drones. And I think this is the real untold story. And probably one of the problems with our defense industry, and I hold it accountable to leadership in that wrong, fighting the last war and not be innovative or proactive. If you look at

24/7 hours this. And that cost billions of dollars. And the only drone at the time were predators and all which thick CIA had developed for that and leveraged in Bosnia. And when the war kicked off, we didn't have any only the CIA did. So we started biring and acquiring our own. But we started billing and so that. And the only ones who were really kinetic were the the general atomic predators that are different variants who we put out fires on. Yeah. You then have the Ukrainians come together

and out innovate us much cheaper to take drones, armed, loitering, munitions, and be able to equal the

“balance of power with Russia. Yeah. Or Iran did the same thing with us. Yeah. And so I think we were”

shocked and surprised by underestimating how many drones they had, where they were and what just and the impact that's had. So instead of having to launch a $2 million missile, they're sending an $80,000 drone hundreds of them chronetically to achieve that. So I think that's the real but that's just so much harder to do to grade, right? Exactly. Exactly. Much less targeted and bring down. So that's where I think not only where we miss the boat and maybe a miss

Caucasa, we're always on F-35 or more hundreds of billions. Air powers, a tool you need, but in this type of war,

“it's not been the most effective tool for the cost. Yeah. And so I think this is the real paradigm”

shift we're seeing. And as you look at the Ukrainians who took out the strategic bomber fleet in Russia with a few thousand dollars in drones, they're making strikes in Russia over 1,200 kilometers with drones. And don't forget what happened at Salton Air Base. Yeah. We lost an E3, five refuelers, billions of dollars for a drone. And listen, I'm in Eastern Europe now and I see a lot of our tankers, a lot of our fighters here. And I tell you, I worry they're at risk to drone.

So I back to your initial premise, the problem and under us today that we're missed and we're having a hard time dealing with and presents the greatest risk to our boots on the ground, it's not from any land force and not from anything. We bomb unless we can find, get rid of this grossly distributed drone network and the remaining missiles and mines, those tools. So asymmetric warfare. So Admiral, we're almost at time, but let me just ask you one question. There's a lot of

defeatism out there, assuming that the United States has already taken a strategic loss,

that the straight-of-war moves will never be a free and open waterway again.

“And I don't like that kind of talk and I think it's too soon to dismiss this as a quagmire.”

It sounds like, you know, after this long conversation, that you believe we do have a number of policy and military options left to put this back on a good track. And so you think it's possible for us to salvage this as some might say. I'll put it a lot more specifically. We, where we are today, is unprecedented. We finally address the Iranian problem. We cannot squander these this opportunity with all the naysayers. What we can accomplish, we have the

opportunity to geopolitically alter the world in a way we've not had for 60 years to remove this regime and move Iran towards the West. So we can do it. It's within our capabilities and my humble opinion. We cannot stop until we have a change of government in Iran. And when we do, it will be the most defining moment in American history in the last 60 years. So I discount all the naysayers. It's, we are American. Yeah. And we can do this. And I can't understand how, or why everyone is so

defeated and do not understand how geopolitically essential that it is to us, our allies, be it

lucky to have you and you've been a terrific guest. And I think you've broken some new ground

“here today on things that I have not seen discussed very much. So thank you so much for joining”

Natsek matters. Michael, thanks and good to be and see you again. Anything I can do for you.

Just let me know. Yes, sir. You're the best. Thank you.

“That was Admiral Robert Harwood. I'm Michael Allen. Please join us next week for another edition of”

Natsek Matters. Natsek matters is produced by Steve Dorsey with assistance from Ashley Berry.

Natsek matters is a production of beacon global strategies.