'The Opinions': General Stanley McChrystal on Iran

So you play New York Times games? Yes. Do you have a favorite? Connections. It just scratches an inch in my brain.

“It's really out of the box thinking with that game.”

I play with my husband every night. I refuse to let him play it without me.

He will always get the purple first.

And I always get the fun ones that he doesn't think about. I love that it's like a real-life connection. Yes. While you guys play connections very sweet. I promise I didn't play that.

You can play on New York Times Games at NY Times.com/games or on our app. Hey, it's Natalie. There's no episode of the interview this week. So I wanted to share something else with you. An interview with General Stanley Macristall from our colleagues in opinion.

He's the former commander of US forces in Afghanistan and ran special operations during the war in Iraq.

Macristall recently appeared on an episode of the opinions podcast

with the columnist David French. It's a thoughtful conversation between two veterans about the war in Iran, the challenge for American forces there, and the future of the conflict. To hear more conversations from our opinion colleagues,

you can subscribe to the opinions wherever you get your podcasts. My name's Dan Powell. I'm Marion Lzano. We are composers at the New York Times. And we write a lot of music for the daily.

I'm currently working on a piece called geometry. It's a musical moment of reflection to help the listener digest the story. This piece is for a space episode. I want to put the listener right into the deep darkness of space. For this cue, the producers wanted us to write something

that would evoke the late '70s. I started with a baseline and then I added some drums to it. You said, "Can you like add 20 or 30% more funk to this?" We write music to highlight a moment to draw you into the story without telling you how to feel.

Yeah, it's always the puzzle to solve.

So if you love the daily and you want us to keep making reflective, cosmic, sometimes groovy, but always subtle music for the show. Support us by subscribing to the New York Times. I'm David French. I'm a columnist at the New York Times, and I'm also a veteran.

When I was thinking about who I could talk to about Trump's strategy in the world, with an emphasis on the current conflict in Iran, there's just a list of two or three people in the entire United States

“who I think would be most interesting on this topic.”

And one of them is General Stan Macristol. General Macristol is the former commander of US forces in Afghanistan. He's the former head of Joint Special Operations Command. He served in Iraq when I was in Iraq. He has been called by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates,

as perhaps the finest warrior and leader of men in combat I have ever met. And he's got a lot of interesting things to say about this conflict, including observations about the origin of the conflict. The challenge American forces face the nature of the enemy that the United States is confronting. Whether Israel and the United States have similar interests and goals in this conflict,

and then we're going to end with the discussion of leadership and service that I think that you will find very interesting. So without further ado, here's my conversation with General Macristol. Well, General, thank you so much for joining us. All right, David, please call me Stan.

Even though you're a former Jag officer, we've got to set the table at the beginning. It's going to be hard for me. It's going to be hard for me. We served together in very different capacities. I was a Jag officer for an armored cavalry squadron in Eastern Diala province during 2007, 2008. You were orchestrating one of the most effective and efficient special operations missions.

Our nations ever seen that really helped turn the tide of the war, and I want to actually begin our discussion of current events there. Because there is something that I have seen since this most recent conflict with Iran broke out, and that is the veteran's perspective on this conflict.

“I think it's a different than the perspective that a lot of the folks who didn't serve,”

especially in Iraq have. And so even if someone is maybe objects to the way that this conflict began or has some questions about its prudence, there's a lot of feelings about Iran. And Iran's role in the Iraq War, and that losses and damage it inflicted upon us. And so when I was in Eastern Diala, we lost guys to explicitly formed penetrators, planted by Iranian back to militias. So general, if you could table set, what has been the recent

to the American experience, starting in 1979, that was a young special forces officer.

“And I remember that the American embassy in Tehran was seized, and there were people chanting”

death to America. And that was upsetting. That was only a few years after Vietnam. And so I think America was vulnerable emotionally. And then suddenly you had this country that had been our ally, at least in the minds of most Americans, during the peacock regime of the Shah, from 53 to 78. We felt comfortable with that. They were the bulwark of stability. And then suddenly in 79, we see these the Ayatola Hamani, and he doesn't want to negotiate. And then we watched a warbreak

out between Iraq and Iran. And most of us were far enough a way to say, wow, good.

Somebody's taken on the Iranians. And they don't like Americans. So it's somebody taken them on. And then in 1988, the U.S. Vincent's mistook and Iranian airliner for an attacking F-14, they thought it was. And they killed two hundred and ninety civilians. So if you take that period, Iran seemed like a recalcitrant enemy that hated us for some reason that we couldn't really understand. Right. And then we get into 2007 when you were in Diyala. And I'm leading a counterterrorist

task force. We had to stand up an entirely new task force focused on the Shia militia that were supported by Iran. So the explosively foreign projectiles and all of the things that Iran did to give them capability. And it became a bitter fight. So in the minds of someone like me and my force, of course, they were the enemy. They were killing us and we were killing them. And it looked as though they were also a threat, not just to the mission and Iraq, but this stability across

the region. So it becomes an emotional feels like our lifelong enemies. Now I'll stop there,

“but tell you, I think that's only part of the story. Well, I mean, of course, if you're going to”

say if that's only part of the story, we have to keep going. Because, you know, if you wind it down when say the surge started to wind down around 08 of 2009, 2010, there was a real sense that we had won in many ways that we had really turned the tide by the time I left and late 08. I remember the statistics when when we got there, it was about a 25% chance if you if you drove out of the front gate of our base. So about 25% chance of enemy contact, whether it's an IED,

sniper fire, rockets, mortars, whatever. By the time we left, it was less than 1% chance. But the story doesn't end there, of course. It's general. The story keeps going and Iranian supported militias have been a thorn in our side really in Iraq ever since. So let's pick it up after the surge. What happens next? Well, let's really pick it up before that because

“I think it's important. We have a tendency in America to view things in very short periods.”

Our year in Iraq, or in my case, five years in Iraq. But we tend to come in and say we are going to fight the war to end all wars, at least in our minds. Right. But it really starts in 1953 when the US and British intelligence services overthrew the constitutionally elected Prime Minister and put back into power the peacock regime of the shop. They oppressed the people tremendously through particularly through Savak, the secret police. So when the Iranian Revolution erupts in 1978,

we may be surprised. The Iranian people are not surprised. Right. And when they suddenly say death to America, most Americans are say, what's your problem? Why are you angry at us? And then, of course, we spoke earlier about the Iran Iraq War, which was for eight years, it was this brutal bloodletting. And so Iran survives this eight-year extraordinary experience. Twice as long as

the First War war. And it sets a mark upon the Iranian population that we shouldn't forget to

this day because the baby boomers are veterans of that experience. And the clerics get a lot of

reportedly to their surprise, you start to continue this set of grievances. So I try to remind people whenever we think of what's happening now, if we don't understand that journey to this point, we don't understand the attitudes that are going to drive decisions people make.

“So I'm so glad we have dived into this from the Iranian perspective because I think understanding”

the Iranian perspective really helps us maybe understand how the rest of this war might go. What kind of staying power, for example, the Iranians might have. And there have been comparisons, for example, to the lightning-quick raid to get Maduro out of Venezuela that was there some expectation that you could do something very rapid, very fast, decapitation strike and really alter the behavior and composition of the regime in a substantial way. And my perception of that

from the beginning was that that was a bit of a vain hope because you have a very different composition of the enemy when you're talking about, say, a South American strongman versus

Islamic revolutionary regime that the level of commitment that exists within their regime is just

“something it's theological, sometimes it's apocalyptic when we were in Iraq taking on”

Shia militias, the level of their commitment was such that, for example, the medics who were treating wounded Shia fighters would sometimes report that the Shia fighters even gravely wounded would try to bite them or harm them in some way, even though they were gravely wounded. That was the level of commitment. So we hear a lot about that the Iranian people are ready to rise up, that they're ready to overthrow this government, but at the same time we have seen extreme levels of commitment

even at the point of a million plus casualties. How are you judging sort of the state of the Iranian opposition at this moment? Is it brittle? Is it fragile? Or are you seeing that 47-year-long commitment continuing? Yeah, I'm going to want to go two lines on this. The first is that question. I don't know because the Iranian opposition is not really evident. We saw in 2009 they came in the streets and they were sort of beaten back into submission and then reported

the thousands of Iranians protesting were killed by the regime in recent months, but I couldn't name the opposition leader. I couldn't tell you the liberation front of Iran and I know that the

“Shia's son is going around, but I don't think he's a legitimate alternative. I think that we can't”

gauge the actual strength of the desire of Iranian people to change. And of course, a war will often cause people to coalesce around their government, to coalesce around in your, in your really well-written article today. You said something I really believe in. You said, "I'm an American, I want our side to win." I feel the same way, even though I disagree with many of the things my governments do and I'm unequivocal on this side. And that may be the case. The other thing I want

to talk about, though, is because you brought up the Maduro raid, there were three great seductions that happened to American administrations and to military. The first is the idea of covert action. And a new president comes in and he's told by the intelligence community, we can create this great effect and it will be covert. No one will ever know who did it and it'll just be a good

outcome. And in my experience, it never stays covert and it rarely works. But it's selected because

it seems like an easy approach to a naughty problem. The second seduction is, which I lived as a part of, is the surgical special operations raid and that that is probably epitomized by the Maduro raid. And I would argue that we demonstrated extraordinary competence that night, but not much changed. I don't think that we actually demonstrated the ability to change the facts on the ground to any extent, which gets to the third great seduction and that's air power. And, you know,

we all love air power. In World War II, we went into the war with the due-hate theories that

air power, the bomber will always get through and therefore air power will be dominant. And it was

certainly very, very contributory, but it was never dominant. When we got into Vietnam, which was

re-estat and an escalation strategy, and we will raise the pressure on them until we hit the point

at which they're willing to quit. It's not worth it anymore. What we didn't perceive is like the sheer wounded that your medics ran into, there was no point for North Vietnam. They were asymmetrically committed to the outcome. And so, we've entered a rack in 2003 with

“shock and awe, and then we spent a decade there fighting after it. I think that we fell for the”

seduction that if we bomb key targets that we will produce the outcome we want, but the outcomes in the minds of the people. And unless you're going to kill all the people, you may not affect

that outcome, so we may be at a point to use the word in your article, Quagbar, but we may be

in a point where we run into a country that has an extraordinary capacity to be bombed. Right. General, let me make the case to you that has been made to me about air power in this current war. And that is David, everything that you've walked through from the daylight bombing raids in 1943 to the air war over Kuwait during desert storm. All of those things, we just weren't as capable then as we are now. We have loitering drones. We have high visibility over the battlefield. We have

in connection with the Israelis. We have deep penetration into the Iranian regime. This time it is

“different. This time we have more capability. What's your response to that argument?”

Yeah, since I've retired from the military, I've been involved in some investing and I love that line. This time it's different. And yeah, I go, okay. I agree. The capability is so much more. And I have to keep an open mind that it is possible that the dynamic has changed so much

that we finally hit a tipping point where it will be decisive. But I'm not seeing that and I don't

feel that. And the other part that I would bring out is we thought really early in Afghanistan that the people on the ground who we were targeting would be odd and intimidated by the bombing and that they would respect our capability. In many ways what we found, particularly with the tribal members, they were disdainful of it. They knew you could bomb them. But they said if you're not willing to get down on the ground, look me in the eye and fight me, mono, mono, then you are not

“morally on my level. And I think that we can't forget that people fight because of their passions.”

It's not a geopolitical calculation that's going to drive what Iran does eventually. It will be what's in their hearts. And so this idea of decapitating the regime and we've got this current leader where we kill his father and we kill his wife. We apparently banged him up pretty good. And then we say, well, that will make him more willing to negotiate. It wouldn't have that effect on me. No, and it's 100% opposite of my own experience in dealing with Al Qaeda.

Right. So, you know, one of the things that I, you just sort of see this when you've been in the military and you're out of the military, one thing I'm very grateful for is that the military is still the most highly respected public institution in the United States. And I think there are a lot of good reasons for that. But it is also sort of led to a sense that we're superman that the military can accomplish almost the impossible. And so we look at a situation like the

straight of hormones is closed. And we think we can open that. Of course, we can open that. So, just give us some perspective on as a practical realistic matter. Why is it hard? Why would it be hard to force open the straight of our moves or would it be hard? Yeah. It would be hard to keep it open. And so, it is like what we found in Iraq. We could bomb a rack pretty easily. We could even take Baghdad with relatives. We could get rid of the

existing government. But once we wanted to change the reality on the ground, who actually controlled things, how things worked. Now you're not at 30,000 feet, you're at six feet. And you're the same height as your potential opponent. And I tell people about this

after this will be harder because it will be more equal. Even though we will bomb them,

“we'll have to get down to a level like in the straight of our moves where we've got ships”

potentially facing mines or even autonomous surface and under surface aircraft, all the different threats that they can bring out just to make it lousy. And it's not, they're not all coming after US warships. They don't have to. They only have to shoot a civilian tanker or cargo vessel once a week. And then people go, well, I don't know what day they're going to strike somebody. So I'm not going to let my ships go now. And so they can have an effect with a fairly low level of effectiveness.

And the insurers won't ensure that the ships in that circumstance, the financial risk becomes unacceptable, which renders it virtually impossible to transit the straight. Because nobody's doing that with no insurance, with total financial exposure. So general, when we're talking about the risks of the current war, there's been such an emphasis on the economic risk. In other words, that if the straight of our moves remained closed or nearly closed, that we're going to talk about

higher gas prices, rippling economic problems across the globe, we've been hearing about budgetary risks. The administration is seeking 200 billion or more dollars. But there's also another risk, which is above these, the risk to the human lives of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, who are out there. And so how are you seeing the risk here to human life? What kind of escalating risks would we be facing to our own service members in this conflict? Yeah, I think it's great to

bring up because we've fortunately suffered a few casualties today, but every casualty has a family

“and carries a loss and we need to remember that. But if the war were to drag on and for example,”

if it gets gritty or if we get forces on the ground, whether they're inside a rauner in neighboring areas, casualties will go up. Frustration will go up. Now we have a volunteer military now, so it's

largely limited to people who self-selected in. But the reality is there is part of our society,

the goes in the military and there's a lot of our society that does not. And there starts to be a divide that comes from that resentment. And those are dynamics that you don't see early in a war, but over time, come home. So general, one thing that concerns me is this sort of civilian military divide that we do have only a very small percentage of people who serve. The greatest, I believe, it's still the case that the greatest indicator of service for you is that you had a family

member serve. So it's a small self-perpetuating part of our culture. And I'm not sure that's necessarily healthy for us over the long term that we essentially have a soldier cast or a warrior class that defends this democracy, but is increasingly separate from the rest of our society and culture. One of the questions I have is, do you see that yourself also, and do you think that that could result potentially in a too great a willingness to use force? Obviously, we have an extremely

“respected military, very trusted military, but do you see warning signs in that kind of divide?”

Well, I do, on several ways, one, I agree with you. It's not healthy to have a military cast grow up, even though it's been largely professional and apolitical and all the good things. But if you think about it, the propensity to go to war. At the end of the day, people are professional

soldiers. They have a reason to want conflict. I mean, the reality is, it gives you a chance to work

your craft and promotions. I mean, so they wouldn't even really think about it directly, but you become incentivized for the kinds of military actions that give that opportunity, plus it increases defense budgets and whatnot. And then the other great danger is the more insulated the forces, the more potential for politicization, particularly you have in the current environment where there have been generals fired simply because they don't fit in politically

to the current administration. You start to shape that military and it starts to maybe align

with a certain political leaning. When I was in the service, you never knew what your peers

felt politically. You never talked about it. Right. And I think that that's under pressure. And so I

itself as, as we've seen in some countries, sort of that the guardians of the Republic or of the nation. Right. So let's even get a little bit bigger picture for a moment. How do you see this conflict fitting in with a more global grant American strategy? Or does it fit in with a particular grand American strategy? Because we've had a lot of debates over the 10 years of the Trump era

“is the isolationist. And I think that that has sort of people have turned the page on that.”

Is he a guy who is interested in spheres of influence? Where are you seeing the Trump sort of

for lack of a better term grand strategy in Trump 2.0? Yeah. I think the first thing we saw that was

obvious is the America first idea economically. The tariffs were designed to encourage, on-shoring things like that. The direct confrontation economically with China, same thing. But then you step back from that, you say, okay, what really provides security in a world that's interconnected? We can on-shor things, but the reality it's still interconnected and it's going to stay that way. We're not going to undo that. Well, in my view, it is credibility in the world. It is alliances.

It is relationships you can trust on. It is the rule of law writ large, international,

“norms and rules and things like that. And I think President Trump took most of those on and said”

they're unfair to America. U.L.I.s. don't carry your weight or any number of things.

And so he weakened institutions. He challenged norms. He, in many cases, eliminated relationships that we had under the idea that that was going to advantage the strongest dog left on the block, which would be us. And I think that's proven not to be true. You can't be that strong to do that. I think the recent adventureism I'll call it. I think it, it comes from this ideal that there was a fair amount of success in threatening people early. I could threaten Canada.

I could threaten Greenland. And there was no cost to it. Now, there was no military action taken, but there was no cost to it. And then shooting at the drug boats in the Caribbean was sort of a muscular way to do something. I don't think it had any effect, but to do something. The Maduro raid, I think, crossed a point in which the President got seduced by one of the things I mentioned, the idea that you can do something on the cheap if you're clever enough.

And you can pull it off. The thing about special operations missions is they are high risk.

“And we say, whether high risk, but they always work, no, they don't. That's what makes them”

high risk. Right. So I think he got emboldened by that. And then I think that the other dynamic was, of course, Israel. The October 7th attacks created a dynamic at Israel. And then that the operations in Gaza. And then there has been an dynamic driven by Prime Minister Netanyahu largely to expand Israel's security, expanded Israel's power, expand all of the things that he would like and to do away with the Boogie Man, which was Iran. Those became just absolutely defining

objectives. The President Trump had always been in sympathy with, and now I think he's sort of

got caught up in the current of, you know, it starts moving that way. You know, there was a phrase used before October 7th, mowing the lawn or mowing the grass, where essentially periodically you have conflict with Hamas or Hezbollah. And you knock them back, you knock them back on their heels and it takes them months or years to recover. And you just can sort of cycle rents repeat and just keep doing that. But I think October 7th and my view

should have blown up that idea that they had, quote unquote, "mode the grass" time and time again and then Hamas far from being cowed was plotting this horrific, horrific, purely evil massacre. And so that creates a situation you have threatening enemies, you have enemies who wish you harm, but you have no real capacity, you have an enormous capacity to damage them. But you have no

It is. And we've seen it around the world. You see it in the West Bank now. You see the reality

that all of the resentment you create through what you do now. At some point comes back to you.

“I think that for everyone we kill in bombing Iran, they have a brother, sister, father, mother,”

and they are unlikely to go, "Oh yeah, it's okay, you kill my father, but yeah, it was geopolitical necessity on your part. That's not the way we respond." And so, sometimes it's necessary. I don't deny that some wars are just and required, but no wars that I'm familiar with are

knee, clean, or produce the kind of outcome we actually want. They produce this messy thing that

might be better than before the war, but it's not a lot better. So, let's move on to some other issues. So, one of the things that I am often asked about is leadership and leadership within the military. And you know, you have been described as one of the finest leaders of men in combat in the modern American military. And what we are seeing right now in the current Secretary of Defense is a very, an enormous amount of bravado.

You know, sort of a we are lethal. We will kill you. We will destroy you. You've got the,

you've got the, you know, the bench pressing and the pushups and all of the everything. And I get a lot of questions, how does this land with soldiers? And my perspective has been, well, with some soldiers at land, they really like it. You know, they like it when a senior leader will get their hands dirty. They like it when a senior leader is fit and that they can share like they can do the same things that the guys on the line do. But at the same time, in my experience,

bravado is not necessarily really appreciated. It's a more of a show. Don't tell culture in the military. You've led men in combat for much of your life. Talk to me a bit about sort of that line

“between sort of bravado and cool calm professionalism. How do you see all of that?”

I'm disappointed by the current atmosphere that is communicated from the top. I had the honor and opportunity to serve with some of the most elite forces. People who really did some extraordinary things, but they didn't beat their chest about it. Right. And they weren't bragged doucheous. And they didn't talk about, yeah, we love killing people. That's just not the way they behaved. Now, the danger, though, of some of that Burbiage now, is much of the force is 18 years old. Right. And

it's influenceable. And they see that and they go, wow, that's the way we ought to think. That's the way we ought to be. We are superior. And there's another reality that even in particularly in today's military, you know, the number of people who really need to have big biceps and be able to kick open the door is is minuscule. Right. Because most of the force is intelligence, communications, logistics, all the enablers that allow you to with great accuracy put that very small number of

operators. So when you say, oh, people should look like me, that would be a disaster. You know,

“I think people ought to look like whatever they look like so that they are capable in their jobs.”

I think, you know, the idea that we wouldn't want gay or transgender service members to serve if they're good is preposterous. I want who's ever good to serve. And you also get different perspectives. And what we found in the counterterrorist force, when I was young, it was sort of homogeneous. It was sort of white males with, you know, good posture. And by the time you got to Iraq 2007, as we had matured, it had become a meritocracy of older men and women, young people. All this

being accepted was no longer just your bench press. It was now, are you smart? Are you committed?

Were you be a good colleague? And that became a much healthier force. If we would think that way, I think it's a healthier way for for military service to be. And I've been a problem with the word warrior. And it's not because you can't say what the warrior ethos is bad, but traditionally warriors were separate from soldiers. And the difference between an army and a mob is discipline and leadership and the uniform code of military justice.

It's why we operate in a certain controlled way because when you give young people the ability to carry

“weapons that can take life, you have to have a level of discipline, part of which is values and culture,”

and part of it is just military. It's essential. Yeah. You know, if I think of it like this,

big brains are more important than big biceps. And if any military force in the world is teaching us that right now is Ukraine, which has used innovation, especially in drone warfare, they're still surprising us. It feels like, I don't know, you know, you may be less surprised than me, general, but Ukraine is consistently surprising me every six to nine months with its extraordinary resilience. And, you know, just to switch gears a tiny bit from Iran, it feels to me as if one

of the outcomes, if we are able to achieve a satisfactory resolution in the fight against, and Ukraine's fight against Russia, that at the end of the day, we'll have added to the Western alliance, one of the most capable militaries, and most potent militaries in the world at the end of this conflict. Yeah. I mean, there is no way to take away the value of Omigrant experience, and that experience of having to innovate. Armies don't innovate well in peacetime.

Too many limitations in wartime, particularly to survive, Ukraine has been just a hotbed of constant innovation. And so if we're not going to school on that, and if we're not trying to replicate that energy to innovate in our force, then we're missing a requirement. Well, general, you've been very generous with your time, but I wanted to end because I want you to give you a chance to tell me how wrong I am about something. And that is, you've been an advocate

for national service, a mandatory national service for young people. And I'm a huge believer in

“service. One of my greatest regrets in my life is I didn't join the military until I was in”

my mid-30s. I wish I had done it when I was much younger. General, I can tell you a mid-36-year-old lawyer in an officer basic is not the greatest sight in the world. I have to say, but I made it through. So I'm a huge believer in service, whether it's joining the military, teach for America, peace Corps, you name it, but that sort of libertarian side of me is saying, it's too much to make people do it. It's, we should urge them, we should not make them. But my understanding is you're an advocate

of sort of a mandatory national service, not a conscription into the military necessarily, even national service. Tell me your, your perspective on that. Why, why is my voluntary emphasis

going to be ultimately wrong? Yeah, it's funny because when I first thought about national service,

I thought mandatory, and then they talked me off the ledge and they said, no, it needs to be voluntary. And so for a decade, I hewed to the line that it should be voluntary, but expected, culturally expected. I'm back to mandatory now. And so I go back to why did 36-year-old David French go into the military and go to serve? Because he was not the same person that he was at 17 or 18. If you had been, as mature then, you did unservice then, maybe teach for America,

something. The point is, my life choices at 17 or 18 weren't the best. And they're on record at

“seven, been very problematic. But the point is, I think if we wait for everybody to arrive at the”

right answer, just wait too many and you're affected by your peers and whatnot, I think if we just said the heck with it, it's mandatory. And give a range of different options. But what I think it would do is it would be a great leveler in American society. It would be something that every American had to do. And they would, when they got together later in life, they might joke about stuff, but they'd start the conversation where did you serve? I taught New Orleans, I did X or, you know,

when we're doing something that's inconvenient or maybe unpleasant or that sort of thing. We come

“out better for it. And I know that says, "Who am I at 71 to tell young people what they ought to”

be doing?" Well, if I can't do it now, we can do it. What general this has been, a real pleasure,

I really appreciate you giving me the chance to pick your brain on some of the most thorny issues

“that, you know, we're dealing with right now as a nation and a culture, very much appreciate it.”

We're kind to have me, Dave. Thank you.

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