Scott Ritter: 'Palestinians are being forced to pay in blood for a Palestinian State'

afternoon this is Demetri leras coming to you from Kalamata Greece on May 8th 2024 and I'm pleased today to be joined by Mr Scott Ritter Scott is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer former un weapons inspector and an author and you can find his always insightful penetrating and hard-hitting Analysis on Military and geopolitical matters on substack it's Scott Ritter extra and he joins me today from New York State thank you so much for joining me Scott thanks for having me so today Scott I'd like to focus uh our discussion on the genocide in Palestine particularly uh the military aspects of the resistance to that genocide both inside Palestine uh and other parts of West Asia and just by way of background uh two months ago I traveled uh to occupied Palestine I spent time in the Janine and tarm refugee camps I met Palestinians who were involved in the resistance including a militant in tul uh who sadly was subsequently killed by the Israeli military I visited uh the Israeli settlements boarding on Gaza I saw the huge uh Israeli military buildup there I then visited South Lebanon where I interviewed uh the international relations director of Hezbollah and I saw much of the civilian infrastructure that had been destroyed in the Becka Valley and uh the Hezbollah stronghold of nebeta and finally I was in Baghdad where I met uh politicians who had fought against the US occupation of the country and had been imprisoned for their resistance and my overall impression I don't think it'll surprise you to know Scott was that the forces AR raid against Israel and the United States in the region are highly United uh quite resourceful and I think it's fair to say uh fiercely determined and so with that as background uh I want to start by asking you about Israel's incursion into Rafa uh On the Border or near the border of uh Egypt and Gaza and toward the end of this past winter Israel's military claimed to have destroyed 18 out of 24 Hamas battalions uh as far as I know It produced no credible evidence to support that claim but it did acknowledge that Hamas retained enough combat capability to constitute a threat and it's that threat which Israel has used to justify its planned invasion of Rafa it says that it must conduct a ground assault on Rafa to finish off Hamas what do you make of Israel's claim that the core of hamas's remaining Fighters are in Rafa and do you think that Israel stands a realistic chance of destroying hamas's remaining combat capability by launching a ground incursion into Rafa well first of all I think we need to reflect on the fact that um the actual military strength um organization and disposition of um not just Hamas but the other resistance forces um operating in Gaza are um you know are sensitive to to that operation and they don't uh you know they don't say yes this is how many losses we've had yes this is uh what we've done they keep it um you know secret for a reason to keep the Israelis um guessing this is Guerilla Warfare this is um unconventional resistance um and so you don't want to give the Israelis any the indicator on U whether or not their operations are being successful or not the the reality on the ground is that the Israeli operations have not stopped the resistance um in any meaningful fashion um you know what Israel what what what goes into a an Israeli assessment that they have um destroyed a battalion is uh I think more reflective of conventional linear analysis than the kind of more abstract analysis that you would have to do with dealing with a resistance movement that is designed uh to operate independent of central Authority uh designed to um operate underground um to you know designed to hide itself from the enemy and only appear when uh necessary to carry out a strike against the enemy uh so you know if Israel bases their understanding of Hamas and resistance resistance capabilities on a peacetime understanding of above ground structures than they missing the point because Hamas was never meant to survive above ground in a war that involved Israeli troops moving into Gaza Hamas would always go underground and I think you have to evaluate Hamas From The Underground potential because that's where their combat potential lies the United States um intelligence uh estimates um at the same time Israel came out with their own assessment the United States said they believe that only 35% of hamas's combat capability had been uh eliminated uh the um the Alim brigades And discussing with um Hezbollah about whether or not Hezbollah needed to intervene um gave nasala a different uh assessment they said only 10% um and that was not a a statement made for public consumption it was a statement made you know from one resistance organization to to another um that may have been been overly optimistic on the part of Hamas but I think the truth lies somewhere in between that Hamas has lost um uh more than 10% and less than 35% of its combat uh potential um this means that the Israelis are dead wrong about their assessment of Rafa and we know this because we know that when Israel withdrew from northern Gaza Hamas um reemerged when they were through from cunis in the central part of Gaza Hamas reemerged um you know what exists in Rafa um you know Israel will seek to destroy but they will seek to destroy it based upon um assessments of um Hamas as an above the ground um organization when the reality is um Hamas will go underground in Rafa and will continue to resist the Hamas model is um as it's currently structured and as it currently operates is uh it cannot be defeated by Israel uh Israel's goal and objectives of physically eliminating Hamas as a military organization are unobtainable that's just not me saying this this is something that's echoed by um Israeli generals men who although they're not an active duty today uh recently were recently are are totally familiar with Israel's military cap abilities their plans their methodologies and they've said that Israel can't win this war not only Israel can't win this war Israel is losing this war um The Mad former mad leaders make the same assessments uh any military analyst who understands um both Israeli military capability and Hamas military capability and and it has to be a military analyst that also knows that you can't separate the military from the political that um war is an extension of politics by other means and that um when examining Israeli military capabilities you have to link it to the political reality that exists in Israel at the time uh and when you talk about hamas's military capabilities you have to link it to the political reality as it exist for Hamas at the time um you know Hamas another goal of the Israelis was to um nullify Hamas as a political entity um they failed on that so you know hamas's continued military resistance only strengthens Hamas as a political entity Israel's failure to accomplish their stated objectives of eliminating Hamas both as a military and political entity weakens Israel politically and that in turn weakens them militarily so I think the assessments are all wrong um that any assessment that talks about a military Victory on the part of Israel of Israel's ability to achieve a military Victory is far off the mark so recently uh the US military forces began building a pier off of the coast of Gaza and we were told in advance before the uh assembly of that peer began that the purpose was to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian Aid to uh the civilian population of Gaza and we were also told that this pier was being assembled with the consent of the Israeli government uh which uh I think in my mind immediately raised a question about whether this could possibly be in the best interest of the civilian population of Gaza uh but in any event uh it seemed quite obvious that if they were really serious the US and Israel governments of delivering sufficient humanitarian Aid to sustain the population of Gaza they could do it through uh land entry points ringing the Gaza Strip and there was absolutely no reason uh for them to assemble a appear in order to achieve that objective uh at the same time we've received reports and outright quite Brazen declarations from the leadership of Israel that they want to rid Gaza of Palestinians and they've even revealed that they've had discussions with some countries including the government of Congo to receive displaced Palestinians from the Gaza Strip so uh looking at this from my perspective one plausible uh interpretation of what is going on here is that they are building this pier in order to facilitate the removal of Palestinians uh from Gaza now I don't know whether that's obviously obviously I have no idea what's in their heads and whether that's in fact the objective or part of the motivation but I'm very curious to know what do you think this pier is all about what are they trying to achieve by constructing this thing the uh the concept of a pier was introduced at a time when the United States was um in you know caught up in a um you know in in in the the facing the reality that their policy uh was collapsing um they were facing the the reality that Israel was its close Ally and friend was carrying out genocide and that a large part of that genocide wasn't just the bombs being dropped but the denial of sufficient humanitarian Aid to the gazin population and Joe Biden um you know being a candidate for reelection this year um always holds up his finger to the political wind and sees which way the wind is blowing and at that time a um the decision for the peer because let's just be honest it's a nonsensical um decision what does the pier accomplish it doesn't accomplish anything as you pointed out the far more efficient way of getting the goods in is H through ground operations uh through you know ground points of Entry um you know the container ships that um you know deliver that that that bring in these Goods um can be brought in more efficiently through existing Port facilities this pier is not um an efficient um you know mechanism of delivering Goods it's a political gimmick that was put together by the United States at a time when it needed a gimmick to uh show the American voters that they were concerned about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza um like any gimmick though it quickly outlives its usefulness and today we have a situation where nobody knows what to do with this thing um you know and and so now they're talking about turning it over to private military contractors American mercenaries so to speak um but what are they going to do um how are you going to get Goods loaded off on this pier onto the shore in um in Gaza and distributed to a population that the Israelis don't want uh to have food distributed too uh Israel is not in the business of sustaining life in Gaza Israel's in the business of eradicating life in Gaza of driving the Palestinians out I don't believe that the pier was conceived with the evacuation of the gazen population in mind um I think it was a political gesture made by a president to appease a domestic political audience but once the peer has been built I wouldn't put it past um Israeli planners because Israel is confronted with the reality that no neighboring state wants to allow the Palestinians to leave Gaza and and come to them so the Egyptians aren't in favor of the jordanians aren't in favor of it uh nobody's in favor of it um but Israel still wants to get the Palestinians out of Gaza and so that Pier now becomes um you know a a potential solution to the problem because uh all you have to do is load up the ships and uh and frog March the Palestinians onto the ships and uh you know and get them out whether or not the Palestinian people would allow themselves to be frog marked onto these ships and uh stuff we don't we don't know I would imagine that the U that this is one of those things that um given the intellectual quality of the people who are putting together Gaza policy today for the United States and Israel and I say that as factiously as possible because there is no intellectual quality to them um this is one of these plans that uh looks good on paper when it's being shuffled around the desk in the situation room at the White House with the deputies meeting and everybody going oh yes yes yes and it looks good in Tel Aviv and the Kira with the American delegation across from their Israeli Partners but but the moment they try to implement it becomes the dumbest thing in the world because the Palestinians simply won't play along the pier will be subjected to attack will be destroyed it'll become a nightmare security of the pier um and I predict that this pier will be disassembled and removed uh in a far more expeditious fashion than it was assembled in the first place so uh I'd like to switch to the question of the uh uh the missile attacks that Israel has sustained uh since Iran attacked Israel with drones and missiles almost four weeks ago uh a lot has been said about Israel's air defenses Israel and supporters claim that Israel's air defenses performed fabulously in that attack others I don't think dog agrees with Israel's assessment but others including you uh argued that the Iranian attack proved uh that Israel is vulnerable uh in the meantime I mean there was obviously a lot of attention paid to the Iran Iranian attack but what's received much less attention in the past few weeks is that Hamas and Hezbollah have launched successful missile and drone attacks uh and so for example yesterday Israel's military announced that two of its soldiers were killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack in Northern Israel and they say that they tried but failed to shoot down the drone that killed them a few days ago four Israeli soldiers were killed in a Hamas rocket attack at car Shalom which is near Rafa numerous other Israeli soldiers were wounded and on April 17th 14 Israeli soldiers were killed or wounded by Hezbollah in a combined attack with guided missiles and explosive drones on a new military reconnaissance Command Center in Alami which is an Arab majority Village of Northern Israel near the Lebanese border uh these and other successful attacks suggest that Israel's air defenses are much more porous at least to a lay person like myself uh than we have been LED to believe based on what you've seen what is your assessment of Israel's air defenses how well protected is the Israeli population and particularly it's the country's military assets from missile and drone attack first of all we have to understand that Israel is a very um technologically advanced military power um they have their own indigenous um military industries that are populated by um extremely uh intelligent and capable Engineers scientists technicians uh they are backed up by the United States and its Collective military industrial capacity uh and again we have some of the best scientists engineers and technicians in the world uh so when you pour enough money into uh such a well staffed military defense uh you know infrastructure you're going to produce capable weapons um and the uh air defense system that Israel has produced is designed to protect Israeli population centers and uh Israeli strategic military uh targets based upon Israel's understanding of the threat arrayed against it but you can only build weapons you know Christopher cavoli the Commanding General of American forces in Europe and also the ground commander of NATO forces when speaking about the Ukrainian conflict back in early 2023 said that the um the scope and scale of the violence that was taking place on the battlefield uh exceeded the imagination of NATO the NATO couldn't imagine that and that's important because how do you how do you prepare for war you what the planning that you do the weapon systems that you build everything is premised on imagining what the future conflict will look like uh you you you you say what is that my enemy going to do what capabilities do they have um when you deal with military Technologies especially something like ballistic missile defense um you are sort of limited to the reality as you understand it um no one's going to spend whole lot of money on um on Concepts they'll do research and development on Concepts but when you field A system that system is supposed to perform to certain parameters those certain parameters have to be related to reality and so the Israelis and the Americans are finding themselves where when you initially conceive of a need um you know to give you an example the Israeli Iron Dome grew out of 2006 and the experience in 2006 when Israel was flooded with katushka rockets and other um low technology missiles being fired by hesah there was no defense for this and Hezbollah was able to re these missiles and Rockets down on Israel throughout the entire I think 33-day conflict in August 2006 um and the Israelis said we we can't allow this to happen so we need a defense against this threat and so they they built the Iron Dome and the Iron Dome um is predicated upon a threat model that has relatively unsophisticated uh rockets and missiles coming at them in large quantities over a period of time um and on the surface it's a fairly effective system I mean we've seen it get flooded with missiles coming out of both Lebanon and out of Gaza and we've seen the fireworks in the skies as they go off and they intercept the radar is sophisticated because it can do predictive analysis of where things are going to impact to prioritize intercepts um missiles that look like they're going to impact on the ground in the desert away from uh human life they don't waste a u a missile on they strike the missiles that are heading towards populated centers and for the most part Iron Dome performed um it performed based upon a employment and delete deployment uh strategy of Israel where the weapon would have the greatest impact against the threat models arrayed against it but again those are existing threat models um two things happen or then we also know that the Israelis have put together the the arrow system Arrow two Arrow three and they have David sling we know that they've Incorporated uh Advanced models of Pack 3 um you know modific ations of the Patriot system we know the United States has deployed The Fad um intercept system there uh We've brought in our AIS capable ships that use sm3 sm6 Interceptor Rockets uh the AIS uses sand Radars The Fad uses an x-band radar that we've brought in the Israelis have their own radar capabilities and we've integrated these all into a singular ballistic missile defense um you know structure a system um in while we'd like to believe that the um the true capabilities of the system are classified um they are for people like you and I for foreign intelligence Services um and the intelligence Services of U non-state actors like Hezbollah like Hamas um you know they know everything there is to know about this um the Israelis test it the testing is detected the Israelis published reports about this it's it's detect and the Iranians are on top the Iranians have some of the finest technological capabilities in the region in some cases they exceed that of even Israel and the United States I want to remind everybody that it was Iran after all that intercepted the satellite um you know guidance of uh of the Beast of kahar an advanced stealth drone that we operated out of Afghanistan after years of tracking the operation of this the Iranians broke the code on how we uh passed off control of the Drone from Ground Control station to a satellite station uh took control of the Drone in the air and landed It On The Ground uh that's not your average Boy Scout merit badge project this is um something of far more capability the Iranians are very good um and so the Iranians are advising hezb they advise Hamas um the Iranians have their own BC missile development um and so you know what happens when you invest so much money into a ballistic missile defense um structure like the Israel and the United States did is it rapidly gets outdated as missiles advance and it's very expensive once you've built something to go in and modify it a modific the modification of existing system is not something that um is easily done and it may lead to break down and how the system works how the system coordinates Etc um in short what Israel has built is the modern day equivalent of the magino line that the French built at the end of World War I to stop German attacks but the Germans said well we're not going to go through the rolling plains of uh of France we're going to go through the ardin forest where the imaginal line doesn't exist and we will outflank it get behind it and now it's useless as every time Hamas and hezb has fired a salvo against Israel uh they have done it to study the Israeli response um when the Iranians launched their Massive multi-wave Attack they did it with an eye on studying the Israeli Allied response how do they respond what are they doing um and I think what we're seeing now is that both Hezbollah and Hamas have found seams in the um in the Israeli defense the way Israel has laid out its defenses um they found the seams they've adjusted where they launched from they found the right angles uh they found you know different operational characteristics maybe if you fire missiles at a shorter range using a less of a ballistic trajectory The Radars get confused I'm not I'm just speculating right now on some of the things that can be done um you know different approach models if you uh if you vary the height and and the direction of a drone can it confuse the system they've they've tested it out and they found weaknesses and you see them exploiting these weaknesses um and I think you're going to see uh exploitation like this further the Iranians you know they've been studying this um the the Iranian attacks I think people need to focus Less on the delivery system and more on the Warhead itself the Iranians did not use their best missiles those were kept in strategic reserve for the next F on strike what Iran did use though are Warheads that separate from the um the main body of the missile Warheads which employ decoys which um confused the living hell out of the Israelis uh and Warheads that used accelerating Warheads meaning that you separate from your ballistic missile you deploy decoys out to confuse the system and then as all the Iron Dome and other missiles adjust to this new flood of decoys your Warhead has a propellant charge on it and it accelerates through because the entire system got focused on one problem set was busy doing memory told you the Iron Dome picks targets so now you got the computer going into the pick Target mode and all a sudden incomes an accelerating Target that the computer cannot adjust to it's already been programmed to do this it can't readjust they didn't keep a system in reserve and Wham the Warhead comes through it Maneuvers at the end just to provide one last level of defense against any potential man pads and Bam hit the target within five meters of what it wanted to what it wanted to hit can I just stop so those images we saw of you know these Warheads it look to me like missiles streaking down towards the neim air base and striking it uh were those these accelerating Warheads that you're talking about that we saw in these videos that are widely circulating um there are some that appear to be accelerating Warheads there's others that appear to be taking out um Iron defenses um uh that you that employed decoys and then the maneuvering Warhead you can see the Warhead at the end make at least two um adjustments um but that's after it accelerates through you can even see as the Warhead comes in you see the decoys um deployed and you can see the glow of the Warhead as it as the decoys get in front of it and then as the system is adjusting to it and starts to fire the Interceptor you can suddenly see the the acceleration of the Warhead through the decoy Shield making two Maneuvers and hitting the um the the WarHeads that struck the um nevatim Airfield um I think may have been fired from a different system um and may not have employed decoys and may have just employed um an accelerating um maneuverable Warhead but again until I can travel to Iran and interrogate the Iranian uh milary planners we won't know for certain and I doubt they're going to let me interrogate them maybe they'd let me have a conversation with them but um you know the point is the Iranians put a marker on the table that said we can reach out and touch you anytime we want to any place we want to and there's nothing you can do to stop us and that's a signal that wasn't just sent to Israel but to the United States as well uh understand that the Israeli technologies that they put together for this ballistic missile defense system are the exact same Technologies the United States uses in the Pacific to protect South Korea and Japan and Guam uh the same system the United States has superimposed on Europe to protect Europe and uh what Iran just did is prove that Any Nation with a ballistic missile capability especially one that incorporates maneuvering Warheads or effective decoys or or self propelled accelerating Warheads h Sonic missiles that there is no missile defense system in the world now that can stop this and that all the money the United States and Israel and its allies if poured into ballistic missile defense has been money that has been literally flushed down the toilet so on that note it's been approximately 19 days uh I checked the calendar since uh this purported retaliatory attack by Israel uh in is Isfahan which is a Central Iranian City I believe it's just next to Iran's major nuclear facilities um I haven't been able to figure out by reading the Press reports what really happened there whatever did happen there doesn't seem to have been particularly dramatic I think there's some rate some satellite images suggesting that a an air defense system was struck uh certainly nothing that I would think would be particularly concerning to the Iranians and since that time as far as I know there have been no attacks at least none that have been reported uh of the Israeli military on Iranian targets anywhere including in Syria where the the Israeli military over the last few years has repeatedly struck uh what it says are Iranian targets and so and I I appreciate that 19 days isn't a lot of time you know who knows maybe tomorrow Israel will launch some kind of strike on an Iranian Target but is it your sense so far that they they have established the Iranians a new level of deterrence and that Israel is exercising a degree of restraint uh that we haven't seen in recent memory because of this vulnerability that Iran has exposed there's two aspects to this one um Iran has exposed the Israeli ballistic missile Shield to be um pores um and Israel again when I I used to work um with the Israeli um Intelligence on ballistic missile issues and um at that time we were focused on the Iraqi scud problem um and the Israelis have a team of um technical intelligence people who um gather the debris and uh put it together in what they call the um the missile uh graveyard excuse me or Boneyard and I've been taken there excuse me take your time it's a danger of doing so many interviews that my poor pathetic voice gives out I'll try and um find the appropriate uh tone that doesn't challenge my vocal cords as much but um the um now I've been to the Boneyard I've seen the um the missile Parts I've worked with them as they uh with the Israelis as they U assess every aspect of it and they're very good they're very good at what they do um they were able to read into the debris um you know facts about Iraqi ballistic missile development that the Iraqis have been denying to us as inspectors and so by going to the Boneyard working with Israeli um intelligence um officers um we were able to get an understanding that empowered us to go into Iraq and sit down with the counterparts and um when I would listen to their story about missile development I would say well you're lying they said well why I said 'w and then I'd give them I'd say you know because the the ring that joins the Warhead here can't meet with the body you had to do an adaptation and they're looking at and going how the hell do you know this and um the answer is because the Israelis are pretty damn good um and the reason why I bring that up is that um I believe the Israelis have gathered the debris uh of the miss that attacked and while Israel May Lie To The World the Israeli intelligence officers are not lying to their leadership and I believe the message they have sent their leadership is that the Iranian missiles can't be stopped by our existing missile defense capabilities that if Iran were to flood Israel with these missiles or missiles of similar capability or better capability um that a lot of damage would be done to Israel and there's not much we can do to stop it and that's a wakeup call to Israel now Israel has a way of dealing with that which is called um overwhelming military response um basically to get engaged in a uh in a war of attrition with Iran that would U wear Iran down before it would wear Israel down um the problem is the plans that Israel has assembled for that um and they've been tested in the last two years uh in joint military training exercises with the United States um even after the training exercise when you know Israel could best case everything there was a recognition that they could not meaningfully interdict uh either Iran's nuclear program or their ballistic missile uh programs um no matter what they couldn't do anything without the United States that the United States had to be a partner in this a leading partner and what happened uh in in in in April after the Israelis attacked the Iranian consulate provoking the Iranian response is that the Iranians called up the United States and they called up America's allies in the region and said uh we'll Reach Out And Touch you too we'll send you a special delivery package that will annihilate your air base and American forces on there and there's nothing you can do to stop it this wasn't just rhetoric because the United States in the aftermath of the assassination of kasum sulamani back in January of 2020 um you know this precipitated an Iranian response up to 10 missiles were fired against the al-assad airbase each one hit its designated Target with a level of precision to sent a clear signal to the United States that we hit what we aim at there's nothing you can do to stop us from doing this the goal of the Iranians wasn't to inflict casualties it was to send a message to the United States that you don't get to get away with this again so Iran actually in January of 2020 established um deterrence dominance over the United States um a lot of people don't talk about it because uncomfortable to talk about but the United States from that moment on had to be very careful in what it did in terms of military response because if it triggered an Iranian response um in the United States sought to strike Iran proper um the results would be devastating for the United States they would have facilities struck with missiles that the United States can't defend against so the Iranians already achieved a deter dominance over the United States prior to this April event Israel continu the United States however continued to lead let Israel believe that we were behind them 100% not because we were trying to provoke them into attacking but we were trying to have Israel operating from position of strength that maybe would restrain them um but after after the Iranian attack um the Israelis had to respond and the um politically they wanted I believe to respond with a decisive strike against Iran but again a decisive strike against Iran requires American tankers uh to refuel aircraft it requires American um fighter protection for those tankers it requires American electronic warfare capabilities to pave away into Iran um and sustained American uh combat strike capability in ass you know to to assist the Israelis so that the Israelis could send a strike package in drop a bomb on a location and send a strike package out um even then if everything worked um at the end of the day you Israel and the United States didn't have the ability to blanket the Iranian Target deck and the Iranians will still retain the ability to strike back and for the Americans that meant that they would lose every base in the Middle East and for the Israelis that meant that they would suffer casualties um amongst critical targets that were unsustainable from an Israeli political perspective so the United States told Israel that um look you can retaliate but we're not going to be with you and that meant to the Israelis that they really what can they do U because any retaliation they did against Iran proper would never be sustainable and would only open them up to an attack they already knew would succeed they know the Iranians would succeed uh but they had to do something because politically speaking netanyahu's government wouldn't survive if it received the Iranian attack and wasn't seen as conducting some sort of retaliation and so the Israelis did launch a strike I believe it was two um F-15 aircraft uh each armed with two um existing missiles of a type Israel is already used several times against Syria um and they fired these missiles uh into um Iran to strike a Target near esphahan an air defense radar Target um whether or not they successfully struck that or not I don't know the Iranians claimed that nothing happened who knows this is a you now we're getting into a game of perception management you see because Israel did this attack um it didn't acknowledge it it didn't it didn't didn't brag about it but it did it in a way that Iran knew that Israel fired missiles against Iran um but it was done also in a way that Iran said well nothing really happened um and so and and Iran also said that that was the most pathetic response I've ever seen in my life it wasn't a real response by Israel uh it was a face- saving gesture by Israel and the Iranians were very happy at that point in time to say we're going to call a day we've already made our point in the Israeli response proves that they that they received the point we were trying to make um Iran has established deterrence dominance over Israel uh Israel will not be able to strike Iran in the future either directly on Iranian soil or Iranian Targets in Syria Lebanon and elsewhere um until which time they have um built a defense capable of stopping an an Iranian retaliation or they've assembled offensive strike capability they can launch a viable sustainable military strike against Iran independent of America American uh military involvement right now neither of those conditions exist which means Iran has achieved uh deterrence dominance just as a footnote uh would it would it be fair to say that this uh last retaliatory strike by Israel uh would have been required to use Jordanian airospace um actually no what I would what I would say is that um the Israelis probably have done what they've done in the past um and have entered um Syrian airspace uh using um Lebanon um or even coming in over the Golan Heights and um and launch the attack from um from the Eastern Syrian deserts uh Israel has on numerous occasions flown into that area to strike um um Abu Kamal I think is a is a town on the border with Iraq opposite of Alim that the Iranian revolutionary guard has built a number of warehouses and and and such there and Israel has struck that place before using um you know manned uh aircraft so the flight profile that got Israel into Eastern Syria I believe was the fight profile they would have used in this case to launch the missiles from Syrian airspace not Jordanian airspace because you know Israel wasn't in the business of creating even more diplomatic problems and it would have been problematic for Israel to violate Jordanian airspace and fire fire missiles that attacked uh that that struck U Iran when I was in Lebanon recently uh you know someone told me of a speech that uh Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan nazala had given where he said that Hezbollah has a nuclear weapon and when he was questioned incredulous incredulously about this he said what I mean is that we have the capacity to destroy the Demona nuclear reactor uh I don't know whether that's true or not it certainly sounds plausible but I think what's more interesting was that after uh you know Iran retaliated for the destruction of its consulate which was a flagrant violation of the Vienna convention and a clear Act of War um a member I believe it was of the Iranian Parliament said or it might have been a senior military official that if circumstances warrant Iran might revisit its policy of not developing a nuclear weapon um based on what you know how quickly do you think the Iranians could actually develop a viable nuclear weapon if they made that decision are we talking weeks months years yeah well let's let's parse it out first of all um I when that report came out I ran with it I mean I I I try to avoid traps this nature um where you on Twitter especially where something comes out that's so shocking and you do a superficial examination of it and you say all right I'm running with this and so I put out a tweet that talked about the danger of U you know nuclear escalation in the region because if Iran decides to go nuclear and then it was brought to my attention that that was um not a that was a fake site it wasn't the real Iranian lawmaker um it was a provocation um so we have to walk that back um look people have done technical analysis that I don't disagree with um when Iran made the decision to accumulate um uh 60% enrich uranium at certain stockpile levels um they have a theoretical capability if they modify a Cascade system to uh to do so to rapidly transform the 60% enrich uranium into to um in uranium enriched to above 90% which was fiza weapons grade um material and that um they could convert this stuff inside um a week or so I mean there would be more time involved in modifying the Cascade and you'd hope that people could detect that but let's just say they got the Cascade modified without detection you know the iaea wasn't able to detect this then um you know within within a week they could assemble the um sufficient physi material but now you know now would I I would say they they would go probably the route of um of South African uh nuclear program u meaning that rather than um build a sophisticated implosion device um that requires the testing of explosive lenses and you have to get everything right because if you don't get it right um it's going to fizzle not you know not not not go U critical um that they would use a gun design so they need to convert this enriched material into a metal um and then they need to um you know it's just simple physics you don't even have to test this weapon because the physics is what it is but you you you assemble a gun A gun design which is you have a mass of um phys material you you take a slug of it out and you assemble it in a in a you know in the chamber and then at the appropriate time this is going to fire the slug is going to come in and when it impacts it goes critical and you get an explosion it's a very sloppy weapon it doesn't it doesn't U consume the totality of the potential um but it will give you a yield of um 15 20 25 kilotons how does this compare to for example the bomb that was dropped on uh Nagasaki or Hiroshima that's exactly what you're going to get you're G to get depending on the the amount of um phys material um you're going to get a um weapon of about that design I would say that if Iran ever did this seriously that the weapon might even be less you might be looking at 10 to 15 kilotons just because Iran knows that if ever made this decision ision it's literally a race against the clock literally a race against the clock that um they will need in order to Forstall an Israeli um American interdiction they would need to deploy um you know a dozen Warheads um enough to say that um we will take Israel off the face of the Earth if you attack us using nuclear weapons so now theyve achieved a level of U strategic deterrence uh that then buys them time to then perfect the weapons design to go back and and perfect it now having said all this um I can say that as of September of last year um I can personally attest that the president of Iran um reiterated that U nuclear weapons are Haram uh yeah Haram is that the right word haram I think I believe that's right yes yeah I said hamam once and I got a lot of trouble because I know her is a bath but uh the name of my friend but because I'm a marine and my brain just juggles languages as it is u i I sometimes say things that don't make any sense in the English language as well but I think Haram means prohibited prohibited you know by uh by law by fatwa he's issued several fatwas that say um that we will not pursue this that's the supreme leader and the president of of Iran and and people need to understand this to the Iranians take religion very seriously you may not agree with them uh you may not be a theocrat you may think that vaki which is their concept of the supreme leader is absurd and ridiculous not that's your that's your opinion some people believe that the pope is a ridiculous entity as well um that's their opinion but for Catholics they take the pope very seriously and they take their religion very seriously and for Shia of Iran and of Lebanon and other areas they take vaki very seriously the supreme leader very seriously so in the supreme leader who is the supreme leader of an Islamic Republic that's predicated upon um their their their faith um says that this is prohibited under Islamic law it's it's it's it's a an insult to Islam to talk about a nuclear weapon he can't lie I mean I guess he could lie he say Well everybody's human he could lie the moment the the supreme leader is in the business of lying to the people of Iran the faithful about religion making a mockery of everything he claims to stand for is the moment the Islamic Republic collapses because it stands for nothing at that point in time Ibraham risi the current president um The Insider money is is that he is one of the viable candidates to replace um you know f um if and when his time comes um well when his time comes because it's not if we're all human no matter who we are um so here's a man who is now the president of Iran but he's positioned to become the supreme leader of Iran um he's not going to play stupid games when it comes to the religion of of Iran and so when he reiterates that it is forbidden that Iran will not consider this that's what I focus on I mean I can sit here and spend all day coming up with scenarios of gun designs and all that but to me that's a wasted effort because Iran isn't doing that and what I will say is this that instead of a nuclear weapon what Iran has done is build a deterrence based upon its ballistic Miss capabilities now in September this was hypothetical as of April 14th it's no longer hypothetical right it's real and that's the posture of Iran they are not pursuing nuclear weapons they are not going to pursue nuclear weapons what they have done is achieve a bistic missile capability of such quality and quantity that it has has created a conventional deterrence capability that is every bit as powerful when it comes to deterring the actions of its immediate adversaries and enemies Israel and the United States right and one other consideration which doesn't get talked about much is that assuming the Iranians are serious about saving the Palestinian people which I believe they are at least trying to um how could they destroy Israel in a nuclear strike without destroying the Palestinian people so that would rather be contrary to what their stated objectives are which are to Def defend the people I think I think the you know the the question about striking Demona um I can't you know I haven't found Nala speech but that's just probably because my uh Google skills need to be improved um because maybe some of the search results come back in Arabic and as I told you I'm somebody who mixes up hamam with Haram and so I you know it's it's not the my strong suit but I will say that the um Iranians have done a exercise where they built a um mockup Target in the deserts of Iran that is based upon the the design of Demona and they have fired their missiles at this Target and they did it I think um first of all the fact that I know they did it is because they published it so they did it for informational Warfare purposes to put Israel on notice that as Nella said we don't need a nuclear bomb you gave us one and it's right there in deona and if you want to play the nuclear game understand that we will detonate a nuclear device on Israel that's a that's a um a threat of Last Resort um that I don't think Iran as you said would do uh precipitously or um you know as their initial move because once you do that you put you know Demona is Palestine and if you want the return of then they give to Palestine um you you can't go polluting the environment with the you know nuclear fallout and radiation that will impact everybody there so I think it's more of a um of a threat to Israel to put a marker on the table that there are consequences potential dire consequences for their actions I I have two more questions I want to take up with you do you have about 10 or 15 more minutes sure great thank you um uh I'd like to switch to more geopolitical uh con considerations uh I read a report I follow by the way a channel on telegram called resistance News network uh which uh was commended to me by a a longtime Palestinian friend and uh I find it to be a uh a tremendous source of information about the resistance's perspective on what is happening both on the ground and politically in the region uh a lot of it of course is beyond my capability to confirm uh or refuse cute uh but you know much of it sounds interesting it presents their perspective and a lot of the things uh they say or disclose on this channel uh is accompanied by uh authenti by video evidence which appears to confirm what they're saying particularly when they're talking about military strikes and I saw a report on the uh the resistance News Network a couple of days ago about a resistance group I'd never heard about before and it's in of all places uh Bahrain uh and as I understand I've never been to Bahrain but I understand it's very small uh it's overwhelmingly a Shia population uh that the ruling family it's a an autocracy the ruling family was more or less a Saudi transplant that was put there to rule over the Shia population I believe during the Arab Spring there was a lot of unrest in Bahrain as I recall the autocracy resorted to some extremely repressive measures to put it down um and also I also I correct me if I'm wrong here but the US has major military installations there including I think the largest naval base in the region if not the world outside of the United States but in any event this group calls itself the ISL Islamic resistance in bahin or Sarah Al Asar and it claimed uh on Thursday that it fired a drone at Israel apparently from the territory of bahin are you aware of this and do do you think this is real that this group actually exists and that it did launch a drone and if so what do you think the sign significance of this is any I mean it's quite striking if this is happening that it's happening from the territory of bahin when I was a un weapons inspector we operated out of bahin we um we would assemble our teams in Bahrain um and we would train in Bahrain and then we would fly to Iraq and so I've spent a lot of time in Bahrain and um what I can say is that U it is a um heavily Shia uh place um that the Khalifa family um is not loved by the Shia uh it is seen as a uh an extension of the of the of the Saudis um there are significant American bases there we have a muhar air base we have U the um the port facility of Manama where the fifth Fleet is um you know it's and Bahrain is also just an important um economic Center in the region too they have um you know a a a oil production capability not as big as its neighbors but it's it's there but they also have provide banking services Etc uh because of its Shia population Bahrain um has uh or had um you know a significant Iranian banking presence um and after the Iranian Revolution in 1978 79 the Revolutionary guards command um uh created a um a wing in Bahrain a resistance movement in Bahrain that has been in place uh ever since then so um there it would not surprise me that that resistance movement has been operationalized U has been provided with weapons um and uh that they fired a drone from uh from Bahrain towards uh towards Israel that none of that is far-fetched it's uh remarkable it's extraordinary um but none of it's far-fetched it is reflective of the reality of the situation as I understand it in Bahrain when it comes to Iranian um influence on that island having spent as much time there as you do how how solid do you think the regime's grip is on power in that country particularly now with all of the fury the Grassroots level in the in West Asia about what is happening to the Palestinians it's very solid we saw the um the level of violence that the regime was willing to um to undertake to uh suppress the Shia Uprising the the the the anger of the Shia population um and we saw the willingness of Saudi Arabia and uh other Gulf um cooperation Council GCC members to assist Bahrain because uh they know that they're but for the grace of God goes them they can't allow a popular Uprising uh to remove you know a minority autocracy um and so it's it has a they have a very solid grip on uh on power um they try to rule benevolent benevolent benevolently there we go there's a word that I was getting wrestling with but um you know and they do so by maintaining um a viable economy um you know you can you know you have a high standard of living you you you have high quality of life but um at some point in time you know me it's obvious that there's a class structure there there's the halves and there's the have knots and the have knots are almost exclusively Shia there's also a large um expat population there um a lot of the work that's done in Bahrain is done by you know Filipinos by pakistanis by Indians By Thai um expat workers there's a large Western expa Community as well especially in the banking Financial um Industries um but the uh the regime has a very efficient um intelligence and you know internal security um service they monitor the internet uh very effectively uh they have human intelligence uh throughout and so they they do have a solid grip on power so if this drone was actually launched uh I think what it's not reflective of is a a massive military capacity on the part of the resistance on Bahrain but literally smuggling one drone and launching it to you know have a PR um Victory I think that's just part his his extensive as that one gets right so my last question and it's uh it's a doozy uh is about the negotiations that have been going on between Hamas and uh what I tend to call the genocidal regime so um there have been countless stories of course about these negotiations uh they did uh result in a temporary truce and a very limited ex uh release of hostages um but since then it's been a roller coaster and from one day to the next they seem to be on the verge of a deal and then the deal is collapsing and this has been going on for months uh meanwhile horror is being inflicted upon the civilian population of Gaza and at various points we've heard uh the prime minister of Israel Netanyahu and others described the demands of Hamas as extreme or over the toop and as far as I can tell they've been very consistent in their demands and I understand there to be five of them the first one is a permanent ceasefire the second one is the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza the third is a credible plan for the rapid reconstruction of the strip uh the fourth is an end to Israel's suffocating blockade of Gaza which I think has been there now for some 15 to 20 years and the last is an all forall prisoner exchange which would involve thousands of people including uh Marwan baruti a very important figure politically uh in exchange for the dozens of hostages that uh that the Palestinian militants continue to have in their custody and um from my perspective Scott this is a rather modest set of proposals and I I'll tell you why uh first of all Hamas isn't demanding as a condition of the release of the hostages that they that the Palestine people be given a state it isn't even demanding that there be uh you know a commencement of a credible process towards a state um and in fact the Israelis have been very clear that they have no interest in giving the Palestinian people a state um secondly they're not demanding an end to the settlement Construction on the West Bank which is almost universally acknowledged to be flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and they're not they're not demanding that any of the war criminals in the Israeli cabinet be held accountable and you can contrast that to vadir zelinsky's so-called peace plan where I believe he was demanding as a condition of talks not as a condition of doing a deal but talks that the sitting president of the Russian Federation be prosecuted for war crimes and the West seemed to think that that was an eminently reasonable precondition to talks so they're not asking for any of that um so I'd like your thoughts uh to close it out about what do you think about these demands are they reasonable am I correct in my assessment in your view and um is there any reason to believe that the Israelis are seriously interested in doing a deal with Hamas at all on any terms that could be remotely acceptable to the Palestinian resistance well I think we have to start off as a you know starting point um Israel has said from the very beginning that um its goals and objectives for this war are the physical elimination of Hamas is a in terms of its military capability and the elimination of Hamas is a viable political entity so understand that if you have a ceasefire and you freeze in effect freeze the conflict you're freezing Hamas with a viable military capab ility and Hamas not only with a viable political um capability but a dominant political capability meaning that if there were elections uh held amongst the Palestinian that Hamas would uh Prevail this is a strategic defeat for Israel it's a humiliating defeat for Israel this is why Israel uh why Benjamin and yahu uh can't accept this because it would be admitting that Israel has failed uh across the board um and and that's that's the bottom line here is that um you know I believe that the modified Egyptian proposal that was put out there that Hamas agreed to um has a a permanent ceasefire um and Israel can't accept that this is why and the lifting of the blockade I understand uh lifting the blockade is even the problem is Israel won't be willing to lift the blockade if there's a viable Hamas military uh capability because Israel will maintain well then Hamas will rearm and be able to do October 7th all over again um and they can't trust the Hamas leadership that still maintains political control to honestly uh broker you know um the transfer of humanitarian Goods that uh somehow you know the Iranians would resupply Hamas militarily Etc this is the Israeli concern and it's not it's not a it's it's a reasonable concern I mean if I I just telling you if I were Hamas and I had my military capability I'd be doing I'd be planning October 7th all over again is you're at war with Israel Israel is an illegal occupier of your territory um you know so war is war but you know you wouldn't be doing it immediately but the idea that Hamas would never consider launching an attack against Israel again is absurd as long as it has a military capability which is why Israel says that military capability has to be eliminated but it's not Israel has shown that it can't um what Israel's playing for right now I believe is you know it didn't get as much attention in the west as it it should have but you know Russia uh invited um Hamas and fat of the PLO to come to Moscow to begin discussions about creating a new political entity that had fat absorbing Kamas into something that wouldn't be called Kamas but would still be influenced by Hamas um Israel I think is is playing for a face saving way out of this to where uh what they what they The Entity that they eventually make a ceasefire Arrangement or a conflict ending arrangement with isn't called Hamas um and I think Israel would be looking for a um an arrangement where the military wing of Hamas was um verifiably dismantled under some sort of international um you know framework uh if if that could be done um I think Israel would be able to hold its nose on the rest of it I mean it's a humiliation for Israel because everything that's listed there is what Hamas wanted from the very beginning it's an absolute diplomatic and and strategic and Military victory for Hamas from a standpoint of politics standpoint of humanity how do you ever live with the amount of death and destruction that's been dealt on uh on the people of Palestine who have been used as pawns by both sides I mean I don't mean to be too harsh on Hamas but they knew what the hell they were doing from the start they knew that they were sacrificing the people of Palestine to achieve this Victory um and I believe that many of the Palestinian people knew that but it's one thing to understand that conceptually it's another thing to bury your baby daughter your baby son your wife your father your mother your cousins um not just to bury them but to recover their bodies from you know where they were killed uh that uh tears at the soul and the Palestinian people have suffered so much but I will not sit here and pretend at all that Hamas is not blameless in this Hamas did this just like France allowed the United States Great Britain uh to kill 12,000 French civilians on D-Day and kill 60,000 French civilians in the campaign to liberate Normandy um they knew upfront that they were going to lose these many people but they signed off on it because that's the price you had to pay for Liberation um I think the Palestinian people know that if you are going to get a Palestinian State um that you're going to have to pay for it in blood uh because I'll tell you why Hamas didn't insist on a Palestinian State the rest of the world's insisting on it Hamas doesn't need to make that a precondition of conflict termination because the rest of the world has said there must be a Palestinian state that debate's already engaged in Hamas doesn't need to distract the world's attention by making that a precondition for conflict termination the world's talking about a Palestinian State um and there's nothing isra could do to change that uh that is a dialogue that's happening right now that will be part and part of conflict resolution is a widespread recognition by the world that West Bank settlements cannot be allowed to exist that eventually Israel is going to have to dismantle the West Bank settlements just like it dismantled the Gaza settlements and that's a discussion that's being held globally and here's the thing the reason why those discussions are being held is because of the sacrifice of the Palestinian people none of these discussions would be on the table if the Palestinian people didn't suffer the way they did um all Hamas is guilty of Frankly Speaking is letting Israel be the Israel Hamas initiated an action on October 7th that was designed to bring Israel into Gaza they were seeking a decisive confrontation with Israel but a military engagement where you're just killing IDF soldiers and they're just killing Hamas Fighters doesn't achieve the large larger political objective in fact it could backfire because the world would have sympathy for Israel because of the number of Israeli civilian casualties that took place on October 7th the world will continue to gravitate towards Israel the only way you get the world to gravitate towards Hamas towards the Palestinian cause is to let Israel be Israel Hamas knew what Israel's policies were they knew the genocidal Tendencies of Israel and all they did is give Israel an opportunity to show it to the world which Israel has done it's Israel that murdered the Palestinian people not Hamas it's Israel that bombed the children Israel that killed hindra RAB that six-year-old girl in a car who was crying for help as the tanks came in and murdered her Israel did that they killed the two Palestinian paramedics who came to rescue H RAB they murdered them even though they gave them permission to go there only Israel uses children as bait to lure in paramedics to murder them this is what Israel do they have snipers that kill women with white flags holding the hands of their son they have snipers that shoot doctors in surgery in a hospital Israel is a criminal regime Israel is a genocidal regime but the world hadn't recognized Israel for what it was on October 6th and had Israel just been limited to a military action on October 7th Beyond Israel the world wouldn't have recognized it Hamas gave Israel a chance to demonstrate to the world the horrific reality of this the Zionist who have seized control of the Israeli government who have made it part of the Israeli DNA um tactics that treat the Palestinians as human an animals when you have an Israeli leader invoking AMC from the Bible from the story of Isaiah um or Samuel I'm sorry um you know uh and and you have Israeli soldiers um acting on this to actually treat the Palestinian people as the seed of AMC to annihilate them to wipe them off the Earth the world has woken up to the reality of Israel this is a huge Victory on the part of Hamas it wouldn't have happened without October 7th when people keep talking about why October 7th why don't you condemn Hamas how can you condemn Hamas you can't condemn Hamas because what they did on October 7th is exposed the reality of Israel to the world they did the world a huge service October 7 isn't something to be condemned is one of those tragic things that had to happen so that Israel the genocidal Maniacs that govern Israel and Frankly Speaking a nation of people that condone genocide not just in Israel but around the world the various Zionist entities around the world in the United States in Europe that continue to run political cover for the crimes committed by Israel this wouldn't have been exposed without October 7th so humas did something knowingly but it had to be done just like Charles deal had to sign off on the sacrifice of 60,000 French civilians there's a reason why de gal never attended a D-Day anniversary is because of the sickness he felt in his stomach knowing that he signed off on the deaths of 60,000 French civilians and I happen to believe in my heart of hearts that senoir the head of uh of Hamas is sick to his stomach by the decisions he's made but he also knows that it was the only decision that could be made if they was ever going to have a chance for a free and independent Palestine these ceasefire negotiations are just conflict termination but they're not conflict resolution conflict revolu resolution will come afterwards done on the international stage by a world that's been awoken to the horrific reality of what Israel is who Israel is what they can do and what they will do if they're not stopped by concerted Global intervention and I wholeheartedly agree and uh I have to add one last thought Scott and that is that we our governments put the leadership of the Palestinian resistance in the position where they had to make this horrible decision yeah what other choice did they have what other choice did they have absolutely I really uh can't thank you enough for taking the time to speak with me today uh Scott it's been a fascinating discussion and I hope I'll have a chance to speak to you again in the future thank you so much absolutely thanks for having me okay

Channel: Dimitri Lascaris

Views: 109,961

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Id: IAYTN42vN2I

Length: 76min 23sec (4583 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2024