The Iranian 'Escalation Trap': Gen. Joseph Votel

aspects of this.

I'm host Michael Allen with Beacon Global Strategies.

Today I'm joined by General Joseph Hotel, former commander of U.S. Central Command. General Hotel has also served as the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command. General Hotel joins us today for discussion on the latest in Iran, including the status of negotiations, and the outlook for a continued ceasefire. Stay with us as we speak with General Joe Votel.

General Joe Votel, welcome back to Natsek Matters. Great to be with you Michael.

Well thanks for coming back when you were on previously.

We got a bunch of good feedback that people really loved it. We discussed whether it was possible to, you know, come into Iran, figure out a way to take out the highly enriched uranium and people really loved those details and maybe we'll get back into that today as well. Let's take it from the top. Here we are. We're in a ceasefire. President has renewed it

seemingly for some period of time. As long as the Iranians are negotiating, as long as the two parties are talking. But this sounds like a moment to sort of step back and

evaluate how the campaign went.

And based on your long and storied career, especially at Central Command, what's your sense of how everything looks now? Yeah, thanks Michael. That's interesting. The kind of review all of this. I mean, my view has not really changed over the last several weeks, particularly from a military standpoint.

“And I think we have done some substantial damage to the Iranian regime's military capabilities”

or ability to project power. It's not absolute as we've seen. They've been able to generate missiles and drones. And, you know, just in the last 25 hours, apparently, the ability to see ships in the, in the, in the streets oformous. So, it's not absolute. But, you know, I think the military did what it was asked to do in terms of, you know, substantially treating the missile, the drone capabilities and the associated, you know, industrial

bases, you know, removing the Navy and putting a lot of pressure on the regime. I think I think we did that. That said, I think, you know, we're at where I am right now. I think it's a big reminder. I think for our listeners that the military can do a lot, but it can't do at all. And it can't really be decisive in terms of this in terms of getting to some type of solution or some type of end state. So, we really now are beginning to see

the other elements of national power and their importance in bringing this to a conclusion, whether it's economic or diplomacy or whether the power of our information and ideas. Those

“of all really have to have to kick in at this point. Yes, sir. So, I think one of the primary”

achievements here, as you mentioned, is the attacks on their defense industrial base. From most accounts, I think that was pretty complete, is there anything in particular, with regard to that or the degradation of the ballistic missiles, or you just generally say, you know, what? It's, we can't get them all. We substantially degraded them and that counts as success. Well, you know, we, we, we struck what we knew or assessed, I think. And, you know, I think

what we have to appreciate about, you guys have to have an element of respect for adversaries here. And what we have to respect about about Iran's military is their ability to do things underground and to conceal it and to protect it. And so, you know, I think there is, there probably is a fair amount of their, of their stores, whether missiles or drones or others that were in protected locations or places we couldn't see and couldn't assess and were,

you know, kind of a little bit out of sight and beyond our ability, the effectively target. So, that, that, that I think still still probably, you know, pretends a challenge for us

“down the line. I think the disruption of the industrial base is really important, because”

that does is that does put the, the real reliance on what they have left and not what

effort to reconstitute those, those capabilities so they can get back up to, you know, kind

“of a production rate for some of these systems. So, I think that is, that is a, a little”

bit more of a lasting effect. But, but clearly, the Iranians, you know, have some capabilities they were able to protect from our, from our tax. Yes, sir. All right. So, let's move to, what's

actually going on in the Straits today? First of all, did you think it was sort of a good geopolitical

move for the president to announce that we're going to placate Iranian ports? And I, I assume, as a military man, as a general that someone that was, ah, very senior at Centcombe that this is within the, the powers of the United States military to do this consistently over time? Yeah. Well, I certainly do think it's, it's in the ability of the military to do it. It's a statement of this, of course, is it's likely that we can sustain this, sustainment

comes with a cost, comes with a cost of readiness and, ah, and, you know, deploying resources from other areas to, to make sure that we can do that. We certainly have enough in the

United States Navy and across the broader joint force to continue to sustain this first long

as we, as we need to, but I think we have to recognize there is a, there's a cost associated with that. Nothing, there's nothing is free here. We don't have that much access capacity. We can just do this and then do everything else to do. So, there has to be some trade-offs that are going to have to be made with that. And that will be important to work for the joint staff and department of defense and the combatants to make sure they're balancing

our risk. So, I'll just say that upfront. You know, in terms of the, the, the, the idea of the blockade, ah, and my, my, my feeling is I, I think the, I, again, once again, I think the president, I think the administration was trying to ramp up pressure on the, on the regime.

“And I think it's important not to just think about the blockade as a military capability,”

but it really has an economic capability, ah, as well. And that's really what it's designed to do, is to impact that. And I think what it had the effect of doing was putting us back in a position where we were exercising control in the streets of our moves. And I think that was really, really important. And you know, I, I, I think the other thing we saw on there, I haven't really seen all that much public discussion about it is, is that, you know, in the, in the immediate

time after that, we also sent a couple of our destroyers up through the streets of our moves to kind of begin to open up, open a, ah, passage through the streets of our moves that's much closer to the Amani side of the straight of the straight, ah, and of course, I think we're continuing to kind of proof that out. I think doing both those things is really, really, I really think those are,

“those are important things to do. And I think it is to our benefit to do that. So I, I think it's an”

advantage force right now to have the blockade in place. Let's assume that this doesn't have an intended effect. And that the Iranians do more of what they've just done apparently today, which is to take shots at oil tankers. And this will maybe have a chilling effect if anybody was thinking of going through the straight. Do you think the option of an escort mission is feasible? Do you get the sense that St. Com has recommended it? Talk a little bit about like if you were there,

is this something you would be urging on the president? Well, I think, I think certainly the

option of an escort mission is always one that's available to us. And hopefully this would be a

mission that we might be able to entice some of our international powers to join into a, to assist with, although while there are still, you know, kind of a level of violence in the, in the straights of her moves, that that may be a little bit of a dampening effect, but certainly it's within the capability of, I mean, I think we can do all these things. There are associated risks and ramifications with all of this in terms of resources and other things we

can do and stuff like that. I think that it'll be balanced out. So I mean, I do think we can do this. My, my, my gut feeling, however, is that I think the effort, the effort going forward should be really less on trying to ramp up militarily. I think we've done a lot to do that right now. I really think this is, this is the, the point at which we really need to work hard on the diplomatic aspects of this and begin to, you may perhaps bring some others into this. I mean, Pakistan is

and communicating to our leadership and to the Iranian leadership, really, really good here.

But, you know, fundamentally, I don't think these negotiations are going to move forward unless there is an element of some trust in this. And we've got to, I think we've got to really double our efforts in this particular area that doesn't necessarily mean just the United States or the Vice President going to Pakistan or something else. It means engaging the broader, broader international community to come in and begin to address this problem and put the proper pressure on this.

I think a real challenge for us is, as has been talking about in the media here, at least in the last one for hours, is what, what is this regime? Who is in charge, who's calling the shots?

“I think this is, this is, this is important. And so in addition to, you know, kind of our military”

status and pushing on the diplomats, if we really had a double down, I'm making sure we understand what we're, what we're dealing with here and how we, how we influence that to actually get to some kind of decision that's beneficial to us and, and one that they can, they can come to grips with as well. Okay, good. I will ask you about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in those stories just in a second. I had heard from someone that, and I hear you move towards

diplomacy that the military campaign had maybe begun to reach a point of diminishing returns. I wonder if you think that makes sense and, you know, the President has said so many times that he's

going to go hit power plants and bridges and then he never does. And so I wonder if you

thought it was wise for him to just go ahead and take force off the table here for the foreseeable future? Well, I don't, I don't know that we don't need to take force off the table. I do think I do think we would be benefited by a little more careful communication strategy with all of this. I do think the Iranians are playing off a lot of the kind of loose rhetoric that's coming out of our government right now around the situation. And I don't know that that helps us. So I think

a more careful communication strategy would be, would be, would be really, really important. In terms of the military, you know, I mean, we can do more. I think there could be more damage done,

but I do think that we are approaching a point where there would be diminishing returns from that.

That it would just be more damage to things that we've already damaged or, you know, maybe just making the situation more difficult to move forward in the diplomatic realm. I think having

“force there is really, really important. I think it backs up our diplomacy. That's the whole”

idea that at this stage. But again, I don't know what more the military can do that is going to compel the regime to come to the table anymore than we already have. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. I think they're dug in and we have to move towards this this economic pressure to keep it up. So the big news, of course, as we've referenced, is the fighting in a sense that's going on in the straits. The Iranians shooting at tankers, we've turned around

a couple of ships so far. This is what I think people are afraid of, which is we're in a very tense situation and there could be unforeseen consequences or escalation. How nervous would you be about this if you were at St. Com today, or do you think this is, you know, manageable?

“Well, I think that I think that we are in a little bit of an escalation trap here. I mean,”

we have put in the blockade and now we've kind of seen some of the things that Iran has done over the last couple of days here in terms of, you know, seizing ships and shooting not ships and and, I mean, I think, so that is that's come in escalation in and of itself. You know, I think we, we sometimes think of this escalation strategy as escalating to a point where our adversaries are going to begin looking for off ramps. We have not seen that yet and that's I think what would be

most concerning to me at this particular point if if I were still in the position, I'm not. So it's easy for me to talk about this, but that would be very, very concerned about that about, you know, a regime that does not seem to be reading the messages that we're trying to send them through our own escalatory activities and continues to escalate within their own means at almost every step. That, that I think is concerning. I think is, you know, any military commander,

or well beyond the standard operating methods in the straights and more moves here. And in

there are hundreds of ships at rest. There are others trying to run the blockade. We've got American ships in place. People are trying to fade through it. So this I think is a very, very tense situation. And I think it would, if I was in a position, this would require, I think the majority of my attention here as we, as we move forward. Right. When we fired at this ship the other day and turned them around, you know, we recorded a video of that and released it, which I thought was a

great idea, because it was an illustration of our deterrent effect. I wonder if you might mention, you know, how much of a deterrent effect do you think we've been able to demonstrate so far,

“and will that cause pause on any of these ships coming out of a rainy and important area?”

I, I absolutely think it does. And I, and I, I, I, I, I share your assessment of that. I was a good, it was a good example of professional, you know, a mariner ship here. I mean, the ships, I mean, our, we hailed them, we warned them, we asked them to vacate the interim, we disabled them, and then we boarded them. All very, very proper way of doing things and all in accordance with the appropriate, you know, international law and everything else I think was done quite

quite professionally. I think it's not a very good message to others who might try to be running, running the blockade and that, that they will be challenged, and then that we will, that the military will back up what it, what it's doing. So I, I don't want to minimize any of that. There's,

“there's risk involved in all of that, but, you know, I think they, I think they performed”

extraordinarily well here, and I think it sends, it sends the right message that I think we were trying to send with the blockade. Well, let's talk about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. I know you've probably been briefed in your career on this hundreds of times, but by most accounts, for at least as long as I've been in the government, this, of course, has been sort of the radical element of the military to protect the regime, different from the, the regular army,

if you will, and they've always been a significant part of the governance truck for you often here,

power behind the throne. And if there's anything I've heard of late, and I want to see whether you agree with this, it's that they've even gotten still more powerful since the, the death of the supreme leader, they seem to be in the ascendance right now. And as you referenced, the newspaper article seemed to be coming to the conclusion that there is a, there's serious infighting in the regime about the approach. Do you think that's basically correct? I do. I think that's, I think that's a

very accurate assessment of this. I think the, the Iranian, or the Islamic Republican Guard Corps leadership is ascended in this. I think, I think we've seen examples of that, where we've seen kind of on the clerical side or on the political side of making statements about opening the straits, and then only to be counter-mandered very, very quickly, by, by what I would assess to be the military side of this. So yeah, I definitely, I definitely think they are ascended in this,

“and they are, they are exerting their authority. And I think it's important to appreciate that,”

you know, we, we, we aren't necessarily beyond a generation of, of kind of the most revolutionary

members of the, of the IRGC. I mean, you know, they're most senior folks are about my age, mid to late 60s, and, you know, they were around in 79. They saw, they've been believers from the beginning. So, you know, we are still, I think generation or two away from, you know, fundamental shift away from that. So these are, these are, these are true believers, and then I think they're going to continue to act that way. What's your sense? Let's assume this blockade of Iranian

ports works, and that President Trump keeps it going for another week to 10 days. I often hear experts say it's not, it's almost not even within the very nature of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to make substantive concessions that the only reason they went along with the Obama a deal some years ago was that none of the core interest of the regime were taken off the table. For example, uranium enrichment was allowed later down the road. Do you think they're, do you

think they would just tough it out for months despite these horrible economic conditions just

history on this. I mean, they fought, I ate your war with Iraq, or they absorbed hundreds of thousands

of casualties, and they endured that. So, yeah, I think there is a high level of endurance capability for it to endure pain, to endure economic setbacks and certainly with the regime. And again, as we talked about the last time, we were on was, this is existential for the, for the regime. So I don't think they particularly care about the people and about the normal Iranian citizen and about their suffering in terms of this. I think they only care about their survival in this.

“And so I think that's an important, they're going to continue to act in a way that is really”

focused on that there is no out for them, there's no alternative, there's no place they can go to,

there's no safe place in Iran if they get set off to the side where they can survive.

So, it's very existential now. And I do think they are going to continue to push back as hard as they can, and particularly when they think they have cards to play. And, you know, of course, the biggest card they think they have right now or have right now is the, is the straight of war moves. They're going to continue to, to play that as much as they, as much as they can. Yeah, it seems like their position now is we're not coming to Islamabad until you commit

to take the blockade of Iranian ports off the table. And I think that's probably a bridge too far because one of the things we wanted was them to open the streets. They say open the streets, but it means to them, apparently, call up the military and ask permission, tolls by crypto, count and take this route,

“clubs to the Iranian coast. So, I think we've got some real definitional problems and a lot of”

demands being made to even show up. Does that? I think that's right. I think we're still, you know, as we saw a couple weeks ago and kind of these 10 point plans and in our corresponding whatever number of point plan we had, these really, I think, represented maximalist, kind of approaches on each side of this. And I don't know that we've seen a whole lot of movement off of those sense. And so, this is, I guess, where the kind of the hard work of diplomacy comes in.

And I know, you know, I know our desire is to have, you know, a big one big meeting, one big session that, you know, solves all the problems. I'm not sure that is how this is going to take place. I think when you look back at things like the JCPOA, I think that went up year and a half or more for negotiations. And they're going to try to extract as much as they can on this.

“So I think we have to, we have to figure out how much more layered approach I think to how we,”

how we begin to move these maximalist approaches towards some areas of compromise here.

Let's assume, well, first let me ask about the communication strategy because

that's a point that really resonates. It seems like the president has prioritized messaging the markets and maybe the American people on where almost done here, we're on our way out. We've won. They've made these concessions, but that doesn't seem like it's helped convince the Iranians that the United States is in it for the long haul. It feels like it's a signal, and I can see them interpreting it this way, that President Trump is under pressure. He doesn't like his economic

forecast. He's got a midterm election, et cetera, et cetera. So then maybe they're hanging in there tougher than they ordinarily would, because they think they have more time than we do. Is that fair? I think that's right, and I think they do have time on their side, and we just talked about it. I think they're willing to, they're willing to suck it up here. For as long as they need to, they try to extract something out of this. And I, you know, the

President has a very unique way of communicating. I think we all appreciate that. And I'll we does that, but in this situation, I mean, this is weird. We're not dealing with an unsavvy adversary here in the information environment. They are giving as good as they are getting in terms of this. And so I think we need to be building a more international consensus around this. We need to, I think, be a little more careful and deliberate with our overall communication strategy

to make sure that we have considered the effects of the things that we are saying. So we don't find ourselves getting walked back on some of these things or have all said and tripping over our own red lines when we, when we come up to them. I think it really begs for a much more deliberate

about all of this. Yeah, and it doesn't help if it looks like we're always rushing out the door.

So I take your point on a time, you know, who seems to have more time seems absolutely relevant to who might compromise. So let's say the President said General Votel, the blockade is working. I'm glad we're putting pressure on them, but I need more pressure on them. And this is in the service of diplomacy. I don't necessarily mean the resumption of kinetic activities. But if he says to you, let's put more pressure on the regime,

is it, what would you recommend? Is it Carg Island? Is it, is it the escort mission? What

“would you do if you had to send a memo to the President? Yeah, I mean, well, I think there's a lot”

of things here. And again, all of these things I think have ramifications. You know, one of the things we haven't really talked about. And we really talked about the hoothies and what they might do with this. I mean, they kind of have done a little little bit here, but that dog is large and not barked in this thing so far. So we have to think about some of the ramifications of the things we're doing. I mean, I think the idea of trying to perhaps loosen

up some of the ships that are kind of bottled up in the golf and helping get some of those out through a more subtly approach that either we escort or we pick it or we do something to, you know, to improve the level of confidence and people's ability to move through there, that they one won't hit minds and say them all they won't be interdicted by by my rainy and

“missiles and drones. I think would be would be a good, I think good thing to do. I think it's kind of”

get, you know, relieve some of the pressure in there and then the golf, I think would be good. You know,

going to something like Carg Island, I mean, that's, I think always on the table, we could certainly

do that. That would give us control over a major export location, although I think we have pretty good control over that right now with kind of the blockade. They're not really able to do much more out of that without us having to accept the risk of that. I mean, there may be, there may be some kinetic targeting we can do that that might be of some value in putting more pressure on struggling to think of what that might be right now at this particular point. I'm

not as, obviously, as up to speed on and as is our kind of our current military leadership would be,

“but, you know, there may be some of that. I, so I think the main thing would be trying to”

maybe relieve some of the pressure inside the, inside the golf. Yeah, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with more of our discussion with General Joe Votel. Beacon Global Strategies is the premier national security advisory firm. Beacon works side by side with leading companies to help them understand national security policy, geopolitical risk, global technology policy, and federal procurement trends. Beacon's insight gives

business leaders the decision advantage, founded in 2013, Beacon develops and supports the execution of bespoke strategies to mitigate business risk, drive growth, and navigate a complex geopolitical environment. With a bipartisan team and decades of experience, Beacon provides a global perspective to help clients tackle their toughest challenges. How do you quantify, or how do you, you know, explain to a maybe a policy maker, how risky an escort mission or a picket would be,

is it? I mean, do you think Iran would target a US naval ship with the drone? Do you think that, no, they wouldn't do that. They would, they would, but they would try to target more commercial vessels, or they might take another shot at the UAE's, anything in the UAE. That seems to be their favorite target. How is here, it's very risky, but tell me, unpack that. I mean, my experience, you know, and just my honest perspective in the kind of the CT fight was

that, I think what really works with civilian leaders is, you know, it's taking the time to, I used the word educate, I don't mean that, and then kind of negative or pejorative way here. I mean, just to make them understand what this operation looks like. What does it look like on the ground or in the on the sea? And, and then very carefully taking them through all the risks that are

associated with that. I think that's really, really, really critical, and then when, as identifying

we can get them to a level where we're at a moderate or some level of risk that can be acceptable

to not only a military commander, but more importantly, to a civilian decision maker, there's

“going to make that. So, I mean, I think that's the way you do it. I don't know, there's anything”

particularly magic about it, but, you know, this is the value of a process, frankly, of a national security process. If we're considering these things, it would bubble up, it would there would be some, there would be meetings, discussions on this, so that by the time it got up to a higher level, you know, a lot of issues will have been resolved or identified and, and maybe some options removed and some refined. So, by the time you get up to

up to the Secretary of Defense or the, you know, President of the United States, that you've got some refined options that you can lay out for him and that, you know, not only shows how we're going to do it, but then makes him very aware of what the risk is that he is accepting in terms of doing this. I mean, I think that's, I think that's just the way it's got to be. Yeah, yes, sir. I want to move over to the HEU in just a few minutes here, but can you

sort of help explain? First, there's this question out there of, well, why weren't we more prepared

for this Iranian straight-of-war moves contingency? And I've sort of argued without knowing for sure, but understanding the military and reading a lot that, of course, the military briefed the White House on this and briefed the President on this. This is something we've been talking about for 50 years. It's been an every study and article not to mention intelligence piece.

“It'd be first of all, you didn't endorse that, wouldn't you?”

Oh, yeah, the threat that Iran would pose against straight-of-war moves, does that was a very well-known risk going into this, so that we've recognized that for a long time. So I guess we have to just conclude, and maybe the Wall Street Journalist article that says the President didn't thought the Iranians would have capitulated before they moved to the straight. I mean, in the absence of any other information, I guess I'm going to conclude that

that rings, that rings true to me. Well, you know, Michael, you know, I don't know if we talked about this in our last episode here, but you know, the President is a very instinctual decision-maker. I think, and, you know, I think that's reflected in the national security decision process that we have here right now with that, and I think he is very influenced by his own experience. So we think back to something like Venezuela and all that went, and the confidence he had in the

military and the way that they kind of performed in accordance with all of those expectations,

“I think is probably something that informed him, and I think it's important also appreciate that”

there, you know, in addition to the U.S. National Security Enterprise and Form this, we also had the Israelis informing, informing some of the decisions early on. I think he probably perhaps put a lot of stock in what the, what was coming from the Israeli side in terms of this, and, you know, that's, you know, those might have been influential factors in his decision-making. Yeah, that's fair point. Yeah, he could have thought that maybe the regime change people might have

poked their head out, and maybe we were thinking about doing the, the Kurds options at some point before that was, or that over that, you know, that an overwhelming strike as we, as we did execute here, that, you know, it took all leadership and attacked a lot of things simultaneously and put a lot of pressure over a number of days would lead to a capitulation before we even got to something like the Straits of Formus. I think might have been one of the assessments that were made.

So here's what I'm driving at. People say, well, I can't believe we, the United States weren't

prepared for this contingency, and I wonder, and I'm not blaming the military, of course, it's the policy makers at the end of the day, but is there more that we could have done? We talked last time about how it hurt from others, the admels in particular, that we had to do the attack commission to degrade the ballistic missiles. We had to do it for the drones, and only then could we start focusing on the strait? But could we have done more? Should we have

stationed several destroyers all across that route? So if they said we're going to threaten the straits, it would have been, we would have been a sense negated it. I mean, did we make a mistake? I don't know that we made a mistake. I think we made a choice about how we were going to conduct

Gulf of, you know, the Arabian Gulf there, as it was always, as always, a significant over time,

particularly as Iran has developed advanced capabilities. There was a time when we used to pull carriers up into the Gulf and operate them, you know, think about desert storms, think about some other things. We pulled carriers up into that area and operated carriers from inside the Gulf.

“We don't generally do that now, and I think that is a recognition of, you know, the capabilities”

that our principal adversary, Iran, has, in terms of that. Now, could we have perhaps, on that? Yeah, we could have. But again, we would have had to make sure we, you know, we understood the

risks, and then we took measures to mitigate that, and I would suspect that what, you know, the decision

that comes out of that is the potential gain of putting ships into the into the Gulf or picking them across, didn't, didn't outweigh the risk, and it may be adversely impacted on our ability to orchestrate the campaign that, you know, was approved by our civilian leaders to go after Iran. So, yeah, I mean, I think there can be a lot of discussion about all of this, but I, I certainly can appreciate the decisions and choices that were made and why they were made in this

particular situation. Yeah, understood. Well, last time we had a terrific conversation on the

440 kilograms of 60 percent highly enriched uranium and experts have noted, well, there's more

than that, there's a lot of 20 percent enriched uranium as well, and we talked about a military raid on the site and what that might entail. It seems like that idea has been taken off the table because it would, you know, be risky and escalate to worry and who knows what else. Have you heard anything on this in particular or maybe read anything in the last few weeks on how we ought to see this option and whether it's even practical or just two weeks? Yeah, I think the consensus

that I'm seeing on this now, listening to people that are others that are talking about this and and think, I mean, I think the consensus is that the retrieval of this material, this highly enriched material and whatever grades that it is, is something that is probably most effectively done as kind of a post-agreement activity. And again, that's one of the, that's one of the, you know, kind of the sticking points here in the current negotiation process is what is the, what is the disposition

“of that material and how do we get it out there? I mean, I think the best way of getting this is”

supporting the IAEA, who comes in and supervises this and we come in as a supporting military force or maybe somebody else does and grabs the stuff and moves it to some safe location. I mean, I think that's the, that would be the best of all worlds. And I think that's what the consensus is kind of moving towards here in terms of what's, what's the best way to get control of this. And I think the other consensus point is that there needs to be control of this material

that, you know, leaving it here, leaving it in Iran may not be the best, best option on this. So I think that puts a little bit more pressure on some type of longer-term solution, and maybe post, post, post a agreement here on, on the disposition of those materials. As we begin to rip up here, let me just ask you a little bit about Israel and where you think they're, where do you think they are and all of this? It seems like the president pulled a fast

one on the Prime Minister by announcing that Israel had agreed to a, has a, a Hezbollah cease fire before they had decided they would, or at least they had not talked to their own cabinet about it yet. But it feels like BB Nanyahu's has to make sure there's no daylight between him and President Trump. But what's your sense of generation of a decades of talking to them? Are they itching to get back into the fight? What, what, what do you, what do you think's going on there?

I think I think they are very focused on trying to address this problem for a final time.

“I think that's really been their orientation. I think it's important to appreciate that, you know,”

for the, for the Israelis, this is, as we are existential, they certainly view it as existential, because they're, they are within range of, of, of, of Iran. They have been attacked by, uh,

with all these proxies around them. So, you know, I think there is a little bit of a fundamental

difference at the strategic level between how we look at the situation, how the United States looks at the situation, how Israel looks at the situation. I think we view that there, we would like some type of government in place, you know, that's compliant, that would be more attuned to maybe integrating back into the, back into the, kind of the community of nations and the region here and being, you know, more, you know, positive, you know, contributor to this. I don't know that Israel

really shares that. I don't know that they are, particularly concerned that there's any effective

government left in, in Iran. I think they are very much, uh, focused on doing as much damage

and destruction as possible against this regime from, for which has been, uh, kind of been the pain of their existence for a long time. So, I think there are some fundamental differences at the strategic level. I think

“that's why it's really important to kind of diplomacy track and only kind of keep coming back to that.”

But it's right, you know, that's got to kind of be knit together as, as well. And as this goes on, I think you're going to begin to see these pressures being put on our president about how we're wrapping this up, how we're, you know, going to get the market's back moving in the right direction and stuff like that. Those are not necessarily Israel's concerns. They are our concerns. And those are fundamental differences here that are going to have to be addressed and have to be resolved

as we, as we move forward in this song. And I don't think there's certainly no rupture. I think we're still very much in alignment, certainly militarily we are. Uh, but, uh, you know, fundamentally, I think at the very highest strategic level, there are some, there are, there are some gaps

“there that need to be, that need to be sewn together, I think. Last question, just, you know,”

I won't hold you to it. But, uh, what do you think we're headed? I mean, or, what do you think the next few weeks are going to look like? I mean, I think, uh, I think what we're looking at right now is what we're going to see in the next few weeks. And that is, because this continued posturing here, diplomatically, why we try to work through this, whether whether it's your Pakistan or other interlocutors that are trying to begin to knit together a framework around which discussions

can be made. I think we'll continue to see some of these activities in the, in the, in the straight-of-war moves, whether it's us stopping ships and maybe disabling them if they tried run through this. And, uh, and Iran exercising their control, uh, if they, if they, if they, if they

“have to, just as they apparently did today and in season a couple of ships, I think we're going”

to continue to continue to see that. Um, I'm also kind of paying attention to what's happened in Lebanon. Uh, we're about six days into a ten-day truce there. Um, and that's going to come to an end or it's going to be extended. And what happens there has an impact over here. It definitely has an impact over here. Iran is definitely like these things together. So we should be paying,

uh, we should pay very, very close attention to, uh, to that as well. Um, there is a third carrier,

third U.S. carrier moving into the, into the region, um, you know, whether we keep all three or whether we replace one with the other. Uh, I think we'll be a little bit of an indication of what our posture looks like going forward here. Uh, so that's definitely something worth, uh, worth paying attention to. But I, I think we're, what we're seeing right now is probably what we're going to see for the next week or so. Yeah, it feels like we're, uh, there's going to be a lot of

posturing and maneuvering to see if we can get back for a second round in its llama bud. Uh, General Jovo Tell, that was terrific. Thank you so much for, for, for being on Natsek Matters. Thanks, Michael. Great to be with you again. That was General Jovo Tell. I'm Michael Allen. Please join us next week for another episode of Natsek Matters. Natsek Matters is produced by Steve Dorsey with assistance from Ashley Barry.

Natsek Matters is a production of beacon global strategies.