The Lurking Escalation with Iran & the Future of the Mideast: Tamir Hayman

the supreme leader.

You are creating a perfect storm.

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

Today I'm joined by Israel's retired major general Tamir Hamen, executive director of the Institute for National Security, Studies and Israel. He previously served as the chief of the Israeli Defense Forces Intelligence Directorate from 2018 to 2021. In this episode, major general Hamen shares his perspective on the latest in U.S.

Iran tensions, including whether the United States and Israel may strike Iran militarily. We also discuss the Gaza peace process and other potential flash points in the Middle East. Stay with us as we speak with major general Tamir Hamen.

“General Hamen, welcome back to NatSec Matters.”

Thank you so much Michael, it's always a pleasure being here.

Thank you again for joining us last time. We talked about many intelligence issues, especially arising from October 7 and those events. One of the things we talked about last time was Iran and that's where I want to begin today. Here we are. We believe on the precipice of U.S. military action, probably with Israel to join.

There have been some diplomatic talks of late and your Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on his way here to Washington very soon to visit with President Trump, presumably about where the diplomacy is and where the war or where the strikes might go if indeed they occur. Do you agree with that read and kind of just generally tell me what the mood is in Israel and

the house is real seeing this new Iran issue? The general notion here in Israel that we are anticipating some for military action. Most Israelis accept the necessity of military action against the Mesa's project of the Iranians having aware of its potential damage in the last 12 days war, the fact that Iran rebuild its manufacturing sites of those missiles created the legitimacy inside Israel for the next

sessions or next round of violence against Iran. So most Israelis do not reject and on the contrary approve and support military action. And if that action will be conducted or lead by the United States, it's even for the better

because of the powerful military power that the United States can bring into the scene.

There is a tension, okay, it's not a walk in the park confronting Iran. There will be casualties. We will be in secure rooms and shelters during this for how long that it will take because the assumption is that Iran will retire against Israel, no matter if Israel participates or not, because it's considered Israel as a part of the general presence of U.S. in the region.

So that's where the sentiment lies between general approval and legitimacy and warring of the consequences of that kind of struggle.

“Well, Israel, I think, was definitely green-lighted by President Trump and Marlago at the”

very end of last year, but I think you all expressed that you really needed to go after some of the ballistic missile sites across Iran that they had either reconstituted faster than they anticipated or we hadn't hit as many as we thought. Is that generally accurate? Was Israel going to hit Iran in this calendar year anyway?

That depends on the pace of them rebuilding their stockpots. There is a general notion in Israel professional arena that if they will reach the target number,

Some may call it as even existential threat.

“I'm not using that existential threat, but I approve and I believe that 8000 ballistic”

missiles with heavy warheads are a severe strategic threat that cannot be tolerated by Israel's defense concept. We are far away from that number, very far, there's less than 2,000 warheads right now

that capable of reaching Israel, but the problem is it's the manufacturing line.

You are absolutely right when you are describing the reconstitution of those sites that were destroyed in the 12th day's war, and that's troubles Israel's defense establishment.

“Whether it will be this year or the next year or when that's not determined yet.”

But there is a cross interests or merged interests developed through the circumstances of what happens in Iran.

We are in the situation right now because of the dire economic situation of Iran, that

led eventually that the backbone of the Iranian economy revolved, rejected, protest against Iran, which is unprecedented. It's not students that the riots, it's not women, liberty, freedom, it's not over political corruption, it's the backbone of the economy that says clearly enough is enough. And all over the Iranian regime cannot solve the problem without external help.

The zero potential of economic recovery from this dire situation and put above it the

fact that they have pushed back against the riots using violence and atrocity that created the scar that will endure in the tissue of the resilience of the Iranian people. And the fact that Israel is becoming regionally a different player up for October 7 and it's retaliation, all across the Shiite access, prove it to be a strategic player that has no boundaries, that can even strike in broad daylight, the negotiators over a hostage

deal in Qatar, in plain in daylight. And the Trump effect that hubbers across all the Middle East, which is unpredictable uses force in order to promote his interest or on US interest worldwide, all of that situation creates very unique circumstances that should be exploited or we are supposed to see that exploited in the next round of military campaign.

Fascinating, so I'd appreciate your view of the Iranian protests and we might try to

“go a little deeper on that, but what is the view of these really defense establishment?”

If the United States hits and tries to hit some of these instruments of regime repression, are we going to be able to spark another popular uprising or is this just some way for us to express solidarity with the protesters? I don't believe that you can externally engage or increase the riots inside Iran or create some renewed energy to embed new renewed energy into the protest by a military action.

Military action can eventually create a ripple effect after concluded that may end up with another waves of riots of protest, but during the operational pressure, low probability of that igniting something that will alter the regime from inside.

aerial campaign and ground operation and the only entity worldwide capable of doing that is the United States. The question is whether Trump will issue that mission, and I'm not sure that that's the case considering the history of Trump decision making and how he perceives powerful decisive clear-clean operations.

If you were advising the president at this day, first of all, I take it you don't believe

that we really missed a critical opportunity by not being able to bomb while the protesters

were on the streets then, do you?

“I think we missed something, I think we missed something, but in the peak of the riots,”

if you are conducting a surgical strike, let's say for the sake of example, you eliminate the supreme leader, and in that case you are creating a perfect storm, a single accurate strike, not a general campaign that will probably diminish the riots in the street, but a single strike in a very very sensitive period of time that made help, but we have lost that crucial potential point, and by the way, maybe, after, I don't know, next week, the

40 days, it will be the 40 days after the event of the January 8th, maybe, another cycle of violence will occur, and that would create an additional opportunity.

I was going to ask you here in a second, if you were advising the supreme leader, I'm

sorry, the president of the United States, what your target set would be, but in the 12-day war, many, many press accounts said these railies, new were the supreme leader was, we're interested in hitting him, but President Trump said don't do that.

“Is that an established fact, can you shed any more light on all of the stories?”

Well, I can't say that it's highly unnot-accurate, okay, there was no restrictions done by the American president over the eliminating of the supreme leader, but there was not an operational chance to do that, an opportunity to do that. It was beyond the then back then circumstances, and for that reason it was not carried on, okay? I don't know whether if we would have this opportunity very then available, whether we would

have considered doing that, but that was not on the agenda, it was irrelevant, the discussion was irrelevant fact. Okay, that's interesting, then it's still out there then, it's an urban myth. So let's say you're the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in your advising president and Trump on what targets he ought to hit in Iran.

Would you go for instruments of regime repression, including IRGC, would you also go for IRGC

“Navy and other things that I keep hearing here in the United States or on our target list?”

Would you go also with ballistic missiles, would you go for economic targets or all of the above?

I would first of all ask the president, what do you want to achieve?

What's the goal? What's the mission? Okay, state the mission out and I'll tell you what the method, do you want to change your territory, to remove the regime, that's one, do you want to degrade the regime, just to destabilize that's due, do you want to eliminate specific strategic essence that third?

And according to those three very different mission statements, I can recommend. If it was the first, I would say to the president, it will take a very long time. We need to mobilize more capabilities on the region and it will not be efficient without the ground operation eventually. And I cannot guarantee the length of the operation and how much the will it cost in all of

the essence to the United States. Right. If you would say degrading, well, I would recommend the bunch, a group of targets related to the IRGC, to the Paralla establishment, which is responsible, allowing other symbols

that all of the generation, the senior generation of the IRGC should be eliminated because

“of the generation cliff inside the IRGC, they have massive problems in regenerating and conducting”

carrying on this very religious radical atmosphere in the next generation in the gen Zs of the IRGCs who really are different than the old god. All of those are destabilizing mechanism that they will not ensure the collapse of the regime. But it might promote a ripple effect, as I said before, an after action effect that will

probably promote the chances that this regime will collapse.

But moving back to a broader perspective or recommendation, I would probably say to the President, there is another option, which is not violently acting towards Iran.

“There is kind of a blocade, maybe not 100% blocade, but partial blocade that we can do that”

will prevent Iran from exporting oil, that with additional sanctions and long presence in the Arabian Gulf can increase tensions inside Iran that may eventually get the same effect you want to achieve during a false scale, direct operation, that's another option available to the United States Army kind of a blocade or partial blocade. And the last thing I would say to the, and that's, I'm bringing here my Israeli interests

since I did, giving this regime lifeline by relieving sanctions without any concessions from profound concessions from them is a huge strategic mistake, because there is no ongoing nuclear projects right now. So if it's just for the sake of nuclear, they are giving nothing in return, they are getting the lifeline that will help them get away from the whole that they are inside.

Hi, you're wise, I like that, asking the President what he wants to achieve. General, so let's assume the United States strikes his strikes Iran. Let's assume Israel is part of that strike. We assume that, of course, even if Israel wasn't a part of it that the Iranians would target Israel, but the Iranians have also warned of a regional war.

First of all, do you think that they'll come after Israel with more than they did last

time?

“And what do you think the chances are that the Iranians hit the Saudis and the UAE?”

All of those statements right now, with our part of the negotiation and our part of the terrorist statements and strategic messages, I want to really give too much attention to what's being spoken publicly, but yeah, according to the work assumption in Israel, Israel will be a part of the retaliation and the Iranian retaliation depends on the scale of the U.S. strike.

Whether if it will be a symbolic strike, we might, we might not be included in the retaliation, but most definitely, if there is a huge, if there is an elaborate campaign or very extended aerial campaign conducted by the United States, and certainly, if in some context in Israel will be a part of the aggression, it will be part of the offensive Israel will be definitely in the target, and it will be similar to the events we still need 12 days of war.

But maybe due to the fact that Iran would not need to retaliate, not just again Israel, but need to retaliate on the rest of the presence of the U.S. in the Middle East, it will

of U.S. in the Middle East and in Israel. As for the targets, it's very interesting to

“see whether the Saudis will be attacked, because of the close connections recently established”

between Saudi and Iran, and it seems like Saudi has removed Iran from its primary national security concept threats. Iran is no longer prioritized as an enemy, it was replaced by Israel by the way, moving to the previous discussion of Saudi. Israel has been perceived as a threat to the stability of Saudi Arabia, see how it distanced us from the normalization.

UAE is a presence of U.S. in the UAE, UAE is not a part of the former alliances between

Saudi and UAE, so they would probably be part of the retaliation targets. And the Iranian Foreign Minister clarified that striking U.S. bases in a country does not mean that we are striking or violating the sovereignty of a country. We are just retaliating against the U.S. presence.

“So I think he meant he wanted to say that directly to the Qatar and to the UAE, if they”

will strike again, bases in Qatar, bases in UAE, they want to clarify that they are not involving engaging in war, Qatar and UAE. Jordan is very, very interesting. There is a huge deployment of Air Force American Air Force in Jordan, and it seems like Jordan is the weak sheep in the bunch, because they have no retaliation measure. And it can be considered as a legitimate target, because it was used as a base for launching strikes again. It

will be used as a launching pet for striking against Iran. And so along that structure, we will see a retaliation course against the ships, the vessels of U.S. by using UAVs, using ground to a maritime missiles that they had. So by the way, last time when they targeted Israel with drones and ballistic missiles, a tentative conclusion was the ballistic missiles were not as accurate as we had assumed, because they seemed to have missed, sometimes by

hundreds of yards, what they were aiming at. Is that accurate? And two, do you or do these railies believe that the Iranian shots at Israel last time were symbolic? Because they were in the many hundreds, and that doesn't seem really symbolic to me.

As for the first question, according to Iran in perception, it was accurate, and it was

efficient. In fact, there were a few hits in Israel that were very accurate in the Bitesmen Institute, for example, in other places, in the refinery near the fafer. There were a few very, very accurate hits. But generally, the Iranian perceive the accuracy as efficient and that, if that line of effort is a successful one that they need to emphasize in the

“next drop. As for the concept of operation, I think that the Iranian didn't hold back”

their punches back then. They tried to do the best in order to inflict as much damage as possible inside Israel. It was far away from symbolic retaliation. They tried the best in order to inflict as much pain as possible to Israelis across Israel. That's the situation. Let's talk a bit about the news of the last few days. The United States set down in Oman with Iran and discussed several issues, of course, the nuclear programming at the

top of the list. Apparently, what's going to go on this week is primarily a maybe additional talks with certainly Netanyahu's coming here. What do you think he, and he's moved his

Apparently, the fact that the first round of negotiation was positives from both parties

involved, positive that it means that we will have a second round of discussions and from the Israeli perspective, it is bad. Because any form of a deal that does not include a full solution to all of the strategic threats that Iran poses to Israel in the current context

“is a bad deal. I think that was an Netanyahu's rushing to explain the Israeli interest”

in that aspect. That is, don't go to a deal unless you are ensuring that the ballistic missiles

and the regional terror network and, of course, all of the nuclear project is being part

of the deal. And of course, the cynics may say that it's good for Netanyahu to push forward the visit to Netanyahu to be in the inauguration board of peace meeting, which creates a photo up of Netanyahu with the elder one and other members of the board of peace that he does not want to be a picture alongside of them. Yeah, I understand. Okay. So, he's heard that the talks went better than expected and so Israel's a little bit nervous about it. Okay. Well, let's

also talk a little bit about the other developments in Israel. You mentioned the Board

“of Peace. We haven't spoken to you since the return of the hostages. I remember one of the”

themes we discussed was just these rarely psyche had changed after October 7th that we had to rethink your deterrent strategy. You had to be more forward leaning to eliminate threats before they gathered. Tell us a little bit just in general how are Israelis feeling about their security posture, how are things changing and where has Israel settled? Yeah, on the one hand, Israelis are satisfied of the fact that Israel is taking control of their insecurity,

interest by itself, using enforcement and all through the region from Lebanon to Syria to Gaza,

“maybe Iran. This being absorbed in Israel's community as a lesson slurms from the mistake”

of October 7th, that's on the positive side and the negative side. Every file is open. We have really closed any arena. His bala, a ceasefire, but we know that his bala is returning as good is a really building its former capabilities, smuggling weapons from Syria, building the units that were destroyed and regaining its former position in front, deterring the Lebanese formal government in Syria. It's fragile. We don't know where Ashara

heads to and there are growing tactical threats on the Syrian Israeli border in Iran. We've talked to the laboratory about that and in Gaza, although we control of a Gaza, but Hamas controls the other are. Hamas attacks the humanitarian aid and the trade with Gaza with 30% of his which creates additional income that afford him to recruit new recruitsmen to the lines of the organization. It is using shells that are not exploded in order to build the explosive device,

preparing for the next arrival round of cycles against Israel. So that's really frost rate Israel. Now come, we ended up after two years of war and Hamas is on its feet and Qatar and Turkey are involved in its reconstruction, potential reconstruction. That creates frustration. Nobody knows if there is a viable or credible means to disarm Hamas as promised in the 20 points planes of

during that war. Of course, please of the fact that there's no hostages in Gaza for those first

“time since 2000 and seven and that's a very good situation. That's how things are.”

It's so interesting, you're right. I mean, every file is still open. I guess we always

talk about Israel has whatever six or seven fronts and the Houthi has below Hamas, everyone is still at it. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with more of our discussion with major general to me or Hamas. 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. So on the situation in Gaza, we have a green zone, and then as you said, we have where Hamas still controls Gaza. We read that the plan apparently is to rebuild the green zone, maybe expand the green zone after long periods of time. Is that the just of what the plan is going forward,

“and do you have any confidence that that's going to be successful? First of all, there was the”

huge confusion between red and green. Let's get things clear. When in our discussion, there is a yellow line that divides Gaza's trip into two. Fifty three percent of Gaza is under the control of IDF. Let's for the sake of discussion. Let's call that the green area. That is in that area, Hamas has no presence. There is a freedom of action, no real threat to Israeli forces, and it is consists of four families that cooperate with Israel, few thousands, thousands,

tens of thousands of civilians, but most of the civilians of Gaza are located in the other half of Gaza's trip, 47 percentage under the control of Hamas. Let's all the sake of discussion. Let's call that the red, the dangerous area. The red area is controlled by Hamas. In that, that's the

situation right now. Second, we are in the twilight zone. The first stage of the Trump plan

is concluded successfully after the returning of all of the hostages. Second phase has begun by opening the roughest crossing and should be followed up by the administration or the deployment of the Technocratic Committee of Gaza, which is for the sake of simplicity. Let's call it the government of Gaza. That has full authority on all aspects of daily life of Gaza's. It should be in a, it should enter Gaza in the next few days or week. They are currently in Cairo training,

preparing themselves. They will enter Gaza's food. They are off a crossing and they will be located in the red zone in the area controlled by Hamas. Next stage that should be decided by the Board of Peace, a inauguration meeting next week is the construction. The reconstruction and the demilitarization. Reconstruction will begin in the area controlled by Israel. A new neighborhood, let's call it the UAE neighborhood because most of the money for that neighborhood comes from the

United Arab Emirates. It will be in the area controlled by Israel as a model as something that can be duplicated in terms of logistics. In the meanwhile, while construction is going on on the Israel

be operated. According to the knowledge we have, Hamas will voluntarily disarm itself

“after being forced to do that by Turkey and Qatar. They will give up”

to the they will hand over to the government of Gaza, the tunnels, the heavy weaponry, and there is a debate regarding the AK47 whether it is considered to be heavy weapon or side weapon. Israel insists that AK47-Kalajdukov is a heavy weapon that should be transmitted, transformed into or given to the government of Gaza. And that's the, secondly, they will give up all of the

manufacturing sites of rockets. And if that happens miraculously and all of them end over the weapons,

the factories, the tunnels, the missiles and the AK47, that is the disarmament of Hamas. And then we can move on to duplicate the UAE project in neighborhoods all across the red zone in Gaza Strait. That's the Kushner-Witkov plan that the Israelis are very skeptical about it,

“but that's what they are trying to achieve right. So the disarmament really seems that the”

disarmament of Hamas really seems to be the most difficult part of this. Is it,

can we really see that happening? What is, what is your cuts? I'm skeptic. Hamas is a resistance

organization, all essence of its existence is resistance and there's an armed resistance and you can't be Hamas without the weapon. So I think that they will play games. They might consider handing over 100 rockets left in Gaza. They don't use it anyway, anyhow. They might give the men of the underground tunnels that can be destroyed by the international committee, whatever. Okay, no problem because they don't really use it anymore. They will not

have to use it. They are above ground if there's no threat to their life. But handing over all of the weapons seems to be low probability scenario. They will hide them. They will maybe create some ceremonical transition of number of weapons symbolical, but they will maintain the weapons in order for the future self security and more important to challenge the newly, the new government and to convince the new government that the only solution of law in order enforcement if

Gaza is by asking Hamas to do that for them. That's their ambitions that the international platform, the board of peace and the government will ask Hamas. Please help us maintain law in order in order for us to re-build Gaza. And by doing that, they were rebuilding themselves. That's their

“that's how I see it. On the technocratic government, Hamas signed off on the Palestinians who”

will serve on it. Is that right? The list of 15 officials was approved by everyone, including the Israeli government, including Hamas. And do we think Hamas is going to accept them? Is there anyone worried that they're kind of murdered them? How do you think it's going to go? No, no, there they're have the assurance of Turkey and Qatar for their own survival. And it's against the Hamas interest right now to disrupt the civilian element. Because practically they are handing over all of the

chaos of Gaza into the technocratic committee hands, all of the death, all of the problems, all of the enormous challenge of Gaza is being handled over to them. Let them build Hamas, build Gaza as long as Hamas maintaining its potential future military mic or military capabilities

situation in Gaza. So I think the first stage will be approved by, even backed by Hamas. We know

that they've already assured that the Qatar and Turkey, the negotiator, to Egypt also, second space, full disarmament and skeptic. Okay, so earlier you mentioned Israel's strategic concept, and you mentioned it with regard to, of course, Iran and Hamas ballistic missiles they might have. But I wonder if you just might speak generally of the strategic concept, is it to

“constantly go after your adversaries? What was it before October 7th? And what is it now?”

Well, we didn't really settle on our hands before October 7th. We were very much proactive, but we backed in accepted the situation that a conventional forced generation of militias of terror organization, along our border, is acceptable as long as they don't act against Israel. And that's not no longer the case. Any terror organization or guerilla presence, along the borders of Israel will be crushed, will be destroyed, and there's zero tolerance of that aspect.

And the message to do that is what we call by enforcement and pre-emptive strikes.

The problem is, and here I'm putting my personal point of view, that if you extend that,

too much, you are losing a grip on the principles of agreements. It rules against the basic notion that war ends with an agreement, that this new agreement creates the stability, the stable situation of a different and improved security status. And I'm worried about the fact that we will extend that. We will expand this idea to that level, which will risk us in ending with an endless wars without any stable situation,

eventually that we aspire to achieve. Yeah. As we begin to wrap up a little bit, I want to talk briefly about Israel's relationship with the Gulf Arabs. First, your relationship with the UAE, it's still, of course, Abraham Accords, you recognize each other. Also, on Saudi Arabia, it really feels like Muhammad Ben Salman has put off normalization for the, me, at least the medium term. That was a little surprise when

he came to Washington, and he really cited Sudan as one of his many reasons why he couldn't move forward. He talked about the instability there, the possibility of refugees coming across and disrupting. He talked about just generally the security situation that he didn't feel comfortable in, and, of course, he needs something out of Israel. What's the Israeli view

“on the Gulf Arabs and the prospects for some sort of normalization with Saudi Arabia?”

Well, Saudi Arabia is distancing itself. Yeah. Thank you. From normalization. And it's very, very interesting what happens there. There is, it's a bunch of reasons. One of it relates to arrogance in driven by the very close connection with Trump. It seems like Saudi can get the 20, 30 vision without Israel as an necessity. It's not a

crucial factor. They are aspiring to increase their economic situation and become a haggm on

in the region, and they are in the fact that Trump is highly supportive of and the S creates

“this arroganceist statement or feeling. Secondly, the most important development is the confrontation”

against UAE. And because of the fact that UAE is a very, in a very close connection with Israel, they are constantly criticizing UAE for that connection. It's collaborators with Israel against

in the Saudi arena against UAE and against Israel. Third, there is a very unique cooperation

“between the Wahhabi, that is the UAE. It is Saudi and the Islamic brotherhood with Qatar and Turkey”

and other sections. Fourth, Egypt turned over from being supported by the UAE,

following them a lot. Practically, the UAE saved a CC and now they've shifted the loyalty

“and there are much more involved with the Saudi Arabia aspects. So all of that and of course,”

Saudi Arabia is also in a reprochement with Iran. Saudi is now fortifying its position in the middle

is a way from Israel, a way from the UAE, supporting sections and elements that are affiliated to the Islamic brotherhood, like in Somalia, like in Libya, like in other places in the Middle East. Very unique, very dangerous normalization is far away from achievement in this current context. Fascinating. So, you were terrific. Thank you so much for joining Netsek matters. We really

“enjoy it and you've given us an important view from Israel, view from the region and I know”

our many, many listeners appreciated. So thank you again. Thank you, Michael. That was Major General Hayman. I'm Michael Allen. Please join us next week for another episode of Netsek Matters. Netsek matters is produced by Steve Dorsey with assistance from Ashley Barry. Netsek matters is a production of beacon global strategies.