Can Israel do it alone? - With Nadav Eyal

You are listening to an art media podcast.

As far as the mullahs are concerned, the ayatollahs are concerned.

If you're not coming there to Tehran and you're not, and Israel is not preaching for that, it's not pushing for that.

Nobody's talking about boots on the ground.

You know, so the country will be poorer, more devastated.

It will have less of a military power.

It will attack Israel in other ways.

It will try to fund terror attacks against Jews around the world.

It will seek its revenge, but they might not go for an agreement, but they will have less of an ability to develop nuclear weapons.

It's 12 p.m.

on Friday, June 20th here in New York City.

It's 7 p.m.

on Friday, June 20th in Israel as Israelis enter Shabbat after a day of extensive missile barrages from Iran.

On Wednesday, we reported in our news roundup that the damage resulting from Iranian missile barrages had lessened over the past few days.

And we had hoped that this was an indication of Iran's dwindling missile arsenal and the strength of Israel's air defense.

Well, at around 8 a.m.

on Thursday, a barrage of Iranian missiles landed three direct hits, causing immense destruction and some injuries.

But thankfully no casualties.

One of the missiles hit Ramatgan, another hit Holon, and a third directly hit the Soroka Medical Center, which is the largest hospital in Israel's south.

Though it sounds strange to say, there's actually a miraculous story behind Iran's strike on the Soroka Medical Center.

The head of Megan David Adom, Israel's emergency medical services, said this morning that just the night before the attack, Soroka had been instructed to evacuate patients from certain floors due to the threat of missile attacks.

The missile that struck Siroca Thursday morning hit one of the floors that had been evacuated the previous night.

The IDF has announced that at least one of the ballistic missiles within the barrage that hit Siroca was carrying a cluster bomb warhead.

These warheads carry multiple bombs designed to explode on impact and scatter indiscriminately when the missile carrying them reaches a low altitude near its target.

Cluster bomb munitions cause smaller explosions than typical ballistic missile warheads, but they pose a threat to a much wider geographical area.

Home Front Command said that officials had found and disposed of 20 bombs from this cluster, but warned that there could be more out there and that the public should not approach any remains they spot on the ground.

Earlier today at around 4 p.m.

Israel time, Iran launched another barrage of around 25 ballistic missiles.

One of the missiles impacted an area in Haifa, wounding 23 people, including a 40-year-old and a 16-year-old, who are now in serious condition.

Two other missiles hit central Israel and Beersheva, with no reported injuries.

Footage indicates that the missile that targeted Beersheva was carrying a cluster bomb warhead as well.

One of the munitions from this warhead, which again carries multiple bombs that scatter indiscriminately, hit a daycare center.

So far, the Home Front Command has not changed its guidelines in response to the discovery of a cluster bomb, but this type of warhead could significantly change the way Israelis experience daily rocket attacks from Iran going forward.

On Thursday, the White House press secretary said that President Trump will decide whether or not to join the war against Iran in the next two weeks.

The statement said the president was holding off due to, quote, the substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future.

Iran is, is, in fact, seeking diplomacy, with its foreign minister meeting today with diplomats from Germany, France, and the UK in Geneva.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to reject Trump's demand for a complete surrender.

Where does all this leave Israel?

Could Israel achieve its war aim of destroying Iran's uranium stockpiles in Fordeau on its own?

Would that entail a ground operation?

Before we get into the conversation, one housekeeping note.

We just released a bonus episode about the New York City mayoral election, which is set for Tuesday.

The primary is set for Tuesday and has enormous consequence, not only for the future of this great city, but for the Jewish community in New York and the Jewish diaspora and for Israel.

I highly recommend you take a listen.

It's a conversation with Howard Wolfson.

And joining us to discuss all of the issues related to Israel and Iran and the war is Call Me Back Regular and Senior Analyst for Yiddiot Ahronot, Nadav Ayal.

Nadav, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me, Dan.

All right, Nadav, it's been a week of missile attacks on Israel, including one today.

What can you tell us about the intensity of these attacks and also the mood in Israel in the face of all these attacks?

I'll be lying if I won't say it.

It's somber to an extent.

And here's the reason.

After the first thrill of the success that we have seen at the beginning of the war, the first six, seven days, the kind of success story that the IDF and specifically the Air Force had.

Israelis just learned that the White House is saying it might take two weeks, that negotiations are on the table.

And many Israelis in the public, while definitely giving this war the legitimacy, it's definitely a consensus in Israel.

are also tired.

It's been more than a year and a half.

It's 622 days in my count since October 7 when we're recording this.

And for many Israelis, they're thinking about the summer.

They're thinking about the losses, about their loved ones who are right now fighting, are in the reserve service, or the loved ones that unfortunately they have lost during this war.

And not knowing how this will end.

This is the main question I've been getting as a journalist in Israel from Israelis.

How and if it will end, they need to make plans to the future.

And when you're sleeping in the Tel Aviv or Gushdan area in the center of Israel, you know that these ballistic missiles are so big that if your building gets a direct hit, even if you're in the shelter,

that means that you can get hurt and your children can get hurt.

And we're not seeing this mass exodus from the center of Israel.

To an extent, it's somber.

I don't want to overplay this as though people don't feel that this is required, that this is essential to Israel's security, that this war is not supported.

Of course it is.

But I think that they want some sort of clarity as to how much time it might take.

And I'm not sure that there's clarity to supply them with.

As to the intensity of the attacks, so we're seeing barrages that are much more limited in scope right now.

It used to be 100 missiles or more.

And right now, it's a few dozens.

But they do manage, some of them do manage to penetrate the defense systems that Israel installed, the Arrow and the THAD anti-missile systems, and penetrate.

The devastation is just huge.

You know, I've been in several of these sites this week.

It's hard to describe, but you really see.

These are not sites that we have seen in Israel before, maybe during the First Gulf War when Saddam Hussein shot some of his Scud missiles.

But these ones are more accurate.

They're bigger.

And the devastation is substantial.

It only takes one to destroy sometimes more than one building with apartments in it.

And I've been speaking with Israelis near these buildings.

It's a different story.

You know, Israelis tend to, okay, so I'll go to the shelter room two minutes and it's over.

No, no, no.

Now many Israelis will go to actual bomb shelters, you know, the old bomb shelters, and they will leave their house.

And now you get...

two kinds of alerts in Israel.

One alert is an alert that it's coming and the other alert is you have two minutes or you have a minute and a half to reach the shelter.

So just so I'm clear, so the first alert is just like, get ready, get in position so you're near a place you can go if the siren goes off and you only have two minutes to get there.

Yeah.

And then you would see people that are definitely going to the traditional bomb shelters.

They're not counting on their shelter rooms in their own apartments because they fear a direct hit at the apartment.

Basically, it's possible.

We saw this in Ramatkan.

We saw this in Batyam.

We see the devastation in the Siroqa hospital in Beersheva.

It's very logical for Israelis to take their kids to shelters, to take them, for instance, in Tel Aviv to the light train stations underneath the ground.

Many Israelis in Tel Aviv would go there.

They feel more secure there because it just feels like a lottery.

If this missile lands on your building, even if you're in your safe room, you might get hurt and your kids might get hurt.

And just what is Israel's plan for dealing with this?

How successful has Israel's air defense actually been in intercepting missiles?

Israel is already taken out between third and half of the launchers.

The launchers are the issue.

The launchers are the soft spot of the Iranians.

And because the Israeli Air Force is flying over West Iran and Tehran rather freely right now, and also starting to fly rather freely in eastern Iran, and because this is where most of the launching is coming from, Israel is managing to hit in real time the launchers, sometimes minutes before they launch.

And this is the reason they don't manage to launch as much missiles as they tried to do in the first 48 hours.

The strategy is take away their missiles, attack the inventories of the missiles, attack the launchers, make it very difficult for them.

Now, we know from the Second Lebanon War, it's very difficult.

You can move them around, you can hide them, and Iran is a big country.

So this is quite a challenge for the Israeli Air Force, thinking that every time that it flies to Iran, it needs to basically take off from some place in Israel and then it travels for more than an hour and a half, two hours until it reaches the outskirts of Iran.

It's a difficult operation, but Israel is doing quite well in that sense.

Considering the kind of strikes and blows that the regime has had as a result of the Israeli Air Force, they're so humiliated.

They're so in distress that all they care about is seeing those pictures, which are really impressive of the Soroka hospital hit.

Who cares?

Then they can lie and say, you know, it's a military installation or something like that.

Will this go away?

When I speak with Israeli defense officials, they're saying, no, it's our assumption they'll have some sort of launching capability up until the last day of this confrontation.

We don't think it's going to go away completely, but we do think we can, you know, decrease this substantially.

There was a report in CNN a few days ago that Israel's inventory of interceptors is dwindling.

Israel denied the report strongly.

I should say, and I think I can say this by now, that Israel has invested the last two years and more than two years in building a very extensive inventory of interceptors.

Now, is it limited?

Of course it's limited.

Everything is limited.

I guess they have enough interceptors at this point of the war for at least a few weeks or more than that.

So I don't think it's about interceptors.

I think it's also about the Iranians learning the defense systems of Israel, learning how to try to bypass them, learning the right times of day, learning weather conditions.

Now, as to percentage-wise, there was an IDF general last week that talked about more than 90%

of interception.

I have to say, talking with my sources within the defense apparatus, no one was able to give me credible numbers or to verify that quote.

Okay.

Israel has been fighting militias and paramilitary groups, Hamas, Hezbollah, for as long as Israel's been a state.

In terms of its wars against sovereign states, like the war it's fighting right now, it has not really fought one since the Yom Kippur War, since 1973, primarily against Syria and Egypt.

But a war like Israel's fighting now

is different from what Israel has had to deal with for a very long time.

How is that affecting the strategy of the decision makers?

How are they thinking about it?

Because this is many of these decision makers have never had experience fighting a war like this.

I think it's an excellent question.

And when I asked them about this, my impression is that while the chief of staff is saying, and he just said today, Eyal Zamir just said today, we need to be ready for a sustained campaign, a prolonged campaign.

And we, as the Israel Defense Forces, we're ready for a prolonged campaign.

While they're saying that, I don't think that they're really thinking about this.

How will this actually be with the Israeli society?

I don't think that those decision makers that I spoke with since the beginning of the war, I don't think that they think about this as a campaign that should last for months.

I think that they're thinking in terms of weeks.

And although this is a war, and this is something that was made clear of this is a bombing campaign, right?

There is no threat of Israeli invasion to Iran and there is no threat of Iran invading to Israel.

You mean ground invasion?

Yeah, a ground invasion.

Okay.

So at a certain point, this aerial campaign will achieve its limits.

Now, I spoke with a senior defense official two days ago.

He told me, look, this is like a candy shop.

what we're seeing in Iran today.

Why?

Because it's an archenemy of Israel.

We can fly freely over Iran.

There are so many targets.

It's a big country.

There is the Revolutionary Guard.

Everything the Revolutionary Guard is doing can jeopardize Israel.

So then you can imagine how the intelligence branch of the IDF looks right now.

You have these meetings and you have these young officers that don't sleep, you know, pale under the neon lights.

And there's a few meetings during the day.

And then there's this officer who says, we need to hit this place.

And

that you know that lieutenant goes no no no let's not hit that factory this factory or this research institute for explosives or for nuclear energy that's more important because it's all about priority and they know that time is running out in what ways for instance if the us joins if the u.s joins it's the us that's going to decide whatever the Israeli Air Force can or cannot do over Iranian skies.

It's obvious that that the Americans would say, look, you either are not flying anymore, which is a possibility.

The U.S.

had joint campaigns with many Western countries, but I don't remember any joint, real joint military campaign with Israel flying side by side, bombing an enemy.

And then if the Americans are entering this war, they'll probably say to Israel, look, we're going to take care of whatever we're going to take care of.

And then when they decide to end this, as far as the US is concerned, Anne,

probably Israel would need to end this too.

And it would also want to end this too, because it's a perfect exit politically.

That's one of the reasons that Israel wants the U.S.

to join the war.

It wants the U.S.

to join the war because of FODO, but it wants the U.S.

to join the war also because think about this internationally and politically.

This is what it really means in terms of an exit strategy.

If they join the war, you as an Israeli decision maker, you don't need to think about it anymore.

It's the U.S.

president in the White House who are going to make the decisions for you when the war will end.

And you're just going to be a tag-along onto that.

And it's a very tempting prospect for the Israelis.

But then if you have some strategic targets there, you want to hit them before that.

So the Israeli Air Force is flying more or less freely over Iran skies, as you say.

It's about a 30, for our American listeners, it's about a 33,200 mile round trip from Israel to Iran.

How is that technically and logistically possible for Israel to fly that far back and forth with its aircraft?

First of all, because we have tanker jets, and that's, that's a big story.

We have planes that are 50 years old, 5-0,

that Israel fixed, put new installations on and these tanker jets and the people flying those tanker jets are real heroes of this war and this is one of the questions i asked my sources how did you manage to have 60 fighter jets bombing around tehran and of course i i'm not going to talk about the number of the tanker jets that israel has but it's a limited number that's one of the issues and of course making sure that these jets that are heavy are not going to be downed by the Iranian air defenses.

So technically speaking, this is a huge undertaking, the sort that not many armies in the world can do with the limited resources that the Israelis have right now.

We are seeing for the first time in history how high-tech is leading to a potential military victory in ways never seen before.

The military intelligence in Israel, you know, the sense of responsibility and seriousness and thoroughness that even as a really young lieutenant at the IDF, as an intelligence officer, and how committed they are.

These are a bunch of perfectionists.

And this is the reason why these were the hubs of the Israeli startups that you wrote so eloquently about.

This is where they came from, not only from combat units, and not mainly from combat units, but from A200 and those intelligence units.

And they have failed on October 7.

And from that, they've risen to the moment in a way in which Israel eliminated 22 nuclear scientists and army officials in the first two hours or an hour.

One of the stories have been just told this week is about how the new chief of staff of the Iranian army was eliminated.

So he was hiding in Iran's most secret command bunker that was built deep in the mountains.

And the Iranians thought that this is their most secretive base.

And of course, the intelligence branch knew about it.

A strike was made, but he managed to escape that strike.

Iranian officers died there, but he escaped to their second most secret command bunker that is in Tehran.

And there, in less than 24 hours later, Israel got in.

And this all is the result of superb intelligence.

Let me give you an example of what I mean by superb intelligence.

And I need to choose my words here.

Imagine that you have an intelligence branch that can tell you in the apartment of an Iranian army official who goes to sleep at what time, who is sleeping right now, and who isn't sleeping.

This is just an example of the kind of abilities that were developed by Israel.

Okay.

I want to talk about the U.S., what we know about what's going on with the U.S.

Iran's foreign ministers set to meet today, Friday, with diplomats from Germany, France, and the U.K.

and Geneva, as I mentioned in the opening.

At the same time, Iran continues to reject President Trump's demand for complete surrender, and yet the president is keeping open the option for possible talks, although he keeps saying that Iran missed its moment and it was crazy not to have reached a deal before day 61.

And as Karim Sajapur said in our conversation, Dav earlier this week, that the Iranian leadership will rule the day, that they didn't take a deal before day 61, because they will never get a deal like what was being discussed at the time.

That basically the only deal that would be acceptable to the U.S.

now and to Israel, possibly, would be a version of the Libya model, which is the entire nuclear program just gets taken out of Iran.

Iran, there's nothing.

for Iran as far as a nuclear capacity inside the country.

And I'm sure there would be other restrictions as well on its offensive military capabilities.

So if that's true, is your sense that from the Israeli perspective, is the Israeli sense, I guess, that the Iranians at this point are just buying time, that they still really won't cut a deal that will be acceptable to anyone, but they're just playing for time.

Or do they think there's a deal, they're so desperate that there is deal?

Remember, I was just struck in that conversation you and I had with Karim last, earlier this week, where he said, Khamene is never, this is not a man who capitulates.

And even he's capitulated like once in a blue moon throughout his close to three-decade history.

And when he has,

it has been an extremely generous offer to Iran.

And even that he viewed as a massive capitulation.

So the idea that he would go for something akin to the Libya model is just completely out of whack with how this man has operated and led for the entire time that he's been supreme leader.

So what's the Israeli perspective on all of this, what the Iranian strategy is at this point?

The Iranian strategy, if we just listen to Abbas Al-Ghachi, the Iranian foreign minister you just quoted, is basically trying to drag this into negotiations.

They're saying we won't negotiate under fire.

We're not going to agree to anything as a result of the Israeli attack.

And I think that they're also hearing the internal discussion in the US and to some extent they're encouraged, I think too encouraged, from what I know, as to the possibility that the president and the international community would lead again to some sort of prolonged negotiation path and will start pressuring Israel to stop.

And we know that there is a meeting between foreign ministers and Iranian representatives of countries in Europe as to 24 hours, and that is sanctioned by the White House.

The White House said fine as to that.

So for the Iranians, that's actually symbolizing the possibility that if they just hold out there, and they will, because Israel doesn't intend to again invade the country and topple the regime, then something's got to give.

And at a certain point, either the Israelis will feel that the devastation in their country is too extensive, or maybe the US will make its mind to try and negotiations and then they'll pressure the Israelis, for instance, to have a ceasefire during that time.

Now, Israeli senior officials have told me that this is for them the worst case scenario.

What they're saying is, yeah, of course, we want an agreement, but we want this agreement to be reached while we are still bombing in Iran, Iran, or the U.S.

will not have enough leverage to reach the right agreement.

So we are willing, says the IDF, to continue this until you reach an agreement.

We will fight this.

We will do the dirty work for you, to quote the German chancellor, but you need to reach an agreement while we are still having this targeted campaign.

in Iran.

This is the view of the IDF.

Now, as to the hopes of Iran, look, I don't know what's being said or not said.

I do know that I keep on seeing the fueling jets of the American Army and Air Force flying to the Middle East.

The American buildup in the Middle East continues as we speak.

The evacuation of civilians and non-essential staff is continuing from the Middle East and from Israel.

If I were the Iranians, and I wrote this on X, I think that the best strategy for the Iranians right now is basically take the offer.

The White House has said the offer that we have made to you is still on the table.

The White House spokeswoman has said that yesterday.

The offer is there.

All the Iranians need to do, the Islamic Republic, just needs to say we accept.

Even if it's we accept with one or two small but it's going to work.

And that's the best case scenario for them.

And why don't they do that, Dan?

Because they are so fixated

on notions of honor, sovereignty, resistance to the West, revolution, fundamentalism, that they're not doing what's best, not only for the country, but also for the regime.

Just listening to President Trump, President Trump, as I see it, I'd be happy to hear what you think about this, is looking for one of two images.

One image is what he called an unconditional surrender, which is basically agreeing to the offer he made to the Iranians.

Zero enrichment.

Yeah.

And the other image is an image in which the US is bombing Iran.

My assessment is that these are the two options out there, that the options of prolonged drag negotiations, the type that we have seen with the Iranians before, it's not out there.

The president wants one of these two results.

If I were an Iranian official in the government, I would have taken the offer of the president at this point because their assumption if you wanted to keep your regime intact and survive.

And if I would think about the good of my country.

Well, that's, I think, a bridge too far for this crowd.

Yeah.

That's like a different story.

Yeah.

But what do you think?

I think I will choose my words carefully, very senior officials around the president who are part of the conversation loop shaping, you know, that's that's informing the president's decision making.

But keep in mind, this is a decision that is made solely by one man.

So, to really know what's going on, you have to be inside the head of the president of the United States.

And Nadav is plugged in as you and I are.

Neither of us are inside the head of President Trump.

And it's sort of a statement of the obvious because any decision of this scale is all up to the president, no matter who the president is.

But I think it's especially the case in other administrations.

Sure, the ultimate decision about war is up to the present for warlike action, but military action.

But there's a whole system in place that inputs into the decision-making process.

There's the principals committee of the National Security Council, then there's the Deputies Committee, meaning the Deputy Secretary of State and the Deputy Secretary of Defense on the National Security Council.

There's all these decision-making bodies, and they just don't have the same kind of relevance in this administration.

So it's hard to read too much between the lines as it relates to what those entities are doing, the conversations those entities are having without knowing where the president's head is at.

And President Trump is very effective about keeping us all off kilter and not knowing exactly where his head is at day to day.

There are a handful of people talking to the president on a daily basis, if not an hourly basis.

The White House Chief of Staff, which is Susie Wiles, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State and acting national security advisor, John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, Pete Heckset, the Secretary of Defense, and of course, J.D.

Vance, the vice president.

That's basically it.

Tulsi Gabbard, as the president has made clear, is out of the decision-making loop.

There just really aren't many other people who matter that much.

I think he's talking to a couple of senators pretty regularly, more than a couple, but in terms of the people who are hour-to-hour in the decision-making, I just rattled them off.

And what you hear from them is the president is just fed up with the Iranians when it comes to negotiating, that he believes they are either incapable of making a decision, unwilling to make a decision, or that those who are negotiating on behalf of Iran have not been empowered to actually make a decision.

And this is a president who wants, remember, this was, he talked openly about how he was going to solve the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of being president.

Of course, that was not realistic but even when he got into office he started to work on the russia ukraine issue and he wanted results quickly and then he when he realized that wasn't going to happen he kind of got either disengaged or frustrated and i think that is exactly what has happened here he realizes there's not going to be a real deal with iran and he was persuaded that they were just dragging things out so if he gives them another chance to go back to the negotiating table and they don't move with the same kind of urgency that you think is the only logical way to go, which you would be prescribing if you were advising them.

I think he's just going to be very quickly.

I don't think it's going to take two weeks.

I think he's going to be very quickly say, are they serious this time?

Has their behavior changed?

No.

In fact, I think there's a potential, Nadab, for it to be even worse than before the war because you have the same limitations that the president identified in terms of the Iranians' willingness or ability to negotiate, combined with the fact that the dysfunction now in the Iranian decision-making loop, because so many key people have been taken out and the communications is all disrupted between leaders.

The whole chain of command is messed up.

It's a country under siege.

They're waking up every day not knowing what's going to blow up where,

which Israeli aircraft operation is happening over their sky.

So the idea that in the midst of that, they're going to become more efficient about making a decision about what they'd be willing to accept rather than less efficient, I think is unrealistic.

And the president is giving it time, but I'm not sure it's going to take a full two weeks for him to realize that what he had become fed up with before Friday, June 13th has not changed.

Unless, of course, they have changed.

If they have changed, Nadav, I think it'll be obvious to the administration quickly.

In other words, if it looks right away that it's the same old, same old, I think you're going to see they're just going to say, okay, nothing's changed.

I guess if they actually have changed, they're going to have to demonstrate it pretty quickly.

I tend to agree.

And I also think that for the president, in terms of appearances,

if this is going to develop into the type of negotiations that you have with Ukraine, Russia, after he made the statements he made after he put the u.s army and defense apparatus on high alert for this to end with maybe putin will somehow moderate or something like that be just or china it would be just terrible and considering the polls in the u.s

i just don't see this so we we saw this resistance within maga and the president crushed that resistance really crushed it to the extent of you know steve Bannon saying, basically giving it up.

And it's only Taco Carson, I think, who's really left out there with resisting any sort of campaign by the U.S.

But I think there's a misunderstanding, Nadav,

about

the president's understanding of how the Republican electorate thinks about Israel, threats to Israel, and that Israel and America have the same enemies.

And if Israel is fighting those enemies and we can do certain things to help them do that, that is definitely in America's interest and should be a priority, A, B, I think there is also a disconnect about how the president thinks about the use of force.

People say President Trump doesn't like to use force.

That's just not true.

I mean, he took one of the most aggressive, one could argue, relative, you know, as a historical matter, one of the most aggressive preemptive actions against the regime when he was during his first administration, which was taking out Qasim Suleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

So it's not that he's reticent about using force.

He's reticent about the U.S.

getting bogged down directly in wars, but that doesn't mean he's not prepared to, on an opportunistic basis, when he sees that the American military power can have huge impact with not no risk, but little risk.

I mean, this is a president who's invested over a trillion.

We're looking right now, there's a bill moving through.

I mean, we're talking about a trillion dollars in defense spending, close to it.

You You know, to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, speak quietly, but carry a big stick.

I think President Trump is comfortable with using the big stick of America's military on an opportunistic basis when all the stars line up.

And this is a situation where the U.S.

could say it has definitely relied on the capabilities of a very capable ally in Israel, to quote the German chancellor, to do the West's dirty work and do America's dirty work in the Middle East.

The U.S.

just has to do one part of it.

And the fact that, you know, no one's really planning or talking about regime change.

So, and the other part that's so different is no one here is really contesting whether or not Iran has a nuclear program, right?

With Iraq, there was a real legitimate debate.

Did the U.S.

really get it wrong?

And even in the lead up to the Iraq war, there was a debate about does Iraq really have a nuclear program?

Here, there's that's not the debate.

Where's the debate?

Is it weeks?

Is it months?

Is it no one is, no serious person is arguing that Iran does not have nuclear ambitions.

No one's serious across the political spectrum.

And by the way, this is exactly the point that's being made again and again by the president.

He's saying it's not about Israel, even disregarding Israel.

It's about the Iranians.

They cannot have a nuclear weapon.

They cannot have a nuclear weapon.

Just reading his posts and hearing what he's saying.

And for that, if he believes that they're advancing to a nuclear weapon, and I think he does because there is no reason, just leave the weapons group aside and all the arguments made by Israel as to recent developments in the last two years and just look at the enriched uranium and what they've been doing in building this system of enriching uranium with cascades of centrifuges across the country in bunkers.

Why are they doing that?

Everybody knows that they're playing with the idea at least.

And because of that, My feeling is that the U.S.

is still open for the Iranians to accept the offer made by Steve Witkov.

But if they won't, this can happen extremely quickly.

And by quickly, I mean, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if this happens in the next two days or three days.

It's not about toppling the regime.

It's not about trying to make sure that it becomes, you know, Operation Iraqi freedom.

That's not what we're going to see here.

What we are going to see is unilateralism.

And we're trying to escape this.

We're trying to tell ourselves at the end there's going to be an agreement.

As far as the mullahs are concerned, the ayatollahs are concerned.

If you're not coming there to Tehran and you're not, and Israel is not preaching for that, it's not pushing for that.

Nobody's talking about boots on the ground.

You know, so the country will be poorer, more devastated.

It will have less of a military power.

It will attack Israel in other ways.

It will try to fund terror attacks against Jews around the world.

It will seek its revenge, but they might not go for an agreement, but they will have less of an an ability to develop nuclear weapons.

Okay, Nadav, before we go, I do want to ask you about the headline question, which I tend to agree with you that the U.S.

is likely to join, but if the U.S.

does not join in any direct way, and I know you've articulated Israel's concerns about that, but if the U.S.

does not join in a direct way, can Israel finish this alone?

What are Israel's options militarily if it has to finish this on its own?

Israel will attack Fordo, will not remain as it is.

Now, I wouldn't have said that if Israeli officials didn't say this on the record, that Ford

will be taken care of either way, whether the US is in or out.

To me, it seems incredibly, how should I put it, unwise to say that from two main reasons.

First of all, you know, if you think you can do it yourself, why are you asking the US to do it?

That's a plausible question.

And Israel can try to tackle the Ford problem, but it has no certainty that it can do that effectively.

The president asked again and again, according to a report by Barack Ravid and Axios during the discussions in the White House.

It was very important for him.

And he was asking the right question.

If we do it, do we know for sure that we manage to get it, to get to Ford,

to the military base underneath the mountain and bomb the hell out of it?

Do we know it's going to be effective?

Now, that's, you know what, Dan, and President Trump doesn't get this type of credit that I'm going to give him now, usually, by commentators.

This is the type of question a decision maker should ask.

It's a very tactical question.

The generals come and say, we can bomb it.

We have B-2 bombers and we have these big bombs and they can penetrate it.

But then it's the decision maker that needs to go all the way to the product, as they say, in the tech sector, and ask, but will it actually work?

And the answer he got is yes.

So the Israelis can try to tackle Furdo, but only the U.S.

can do it with almost 100% certainty that it would be effective.

That's the big reason.

One way was put to me, Nadav, I'm curious what you think by someone on the American side, I won't say who, was that Israel can do it, but the odds of success if the U.S.

does it is much higher.

They pegged it at the odds of success if the U.S.

does it at like 90% plus, which gets to your point.

Secondly, if Israel does it, it could do it, but it will take longer, maybe a little messier.

It carries perhaps some collateral risk that anything does that takes time, takes a little more time.

Is that your sense?

It's my sense.

And one can only speculate this would need a very unorthodox approach, considering the weapons that we have, the ammunitions that we have, the way that the place is built.

It's a big problem.

And there is no way that we're finishing this without at least trying.

This is what the defense officials have been telling me.

They've been telling others.

This is what right now Israeli politicians are saying.

But to your question directly, in a few days, two, three, maybe four days, Israel can achieve its strategic targets that were rather limited.

Israel never said it's going to destroy the entire nuclear weapons or enrichment program.

It can do that.

It's not trying, for instance, to blow up the enriched uranium itself.

Israel never said, by the way, that the Iranians decided to break for a bomb, that there was an order by the supreme leader to break now for a bomb, and they did that.

If there would be an order like that, they would have exposed it to the world and said, Let's have a coalition there installed.

Israel was very worried, not only by the nuclear program, but also by the surface-to-surface ballistic missile program.

The Iranians having 8,000 to 9,000 ballistic missiles in less than two years.

And we are seeing now the devastation across Israel.

And this was a point made today about the final document that was sent by the IDF intelligence branch

to the rest of the army, to the defense ministry, to the prime minister.

This is the document in which the intelligence branch is saying our recommendation is to attack and attack now.

And in that document, they specify very technically where the nuclear program is at, including the strides made by Iran as to the weapons group.

But what they also mention is that this is a window of opportunity and there would be no other as to the surface-to-surface ballistic missile program.

And that was incredibly important for the decision makers and for the intelligence branch to make sure that if we miss this point and we don't tackle it now, we will have a huge problem in the future.

And that same deterrent that was built through Hezbollah will be built now through Iran, this wall of fire against Israel, and it will not allow us to do what we would need to do if they decide to break for a bomb in a a year and a half.

That document was the final enhancer to the decision of the Israeli cabinet to authorize this operation and this war.

If Israel does do it on its own, and I know you don't want to get into the specifics of what the capabilities are, is there a world in which one option for Israel is to go in on the ground to take out Ford?

Your guess as to that is as good as mine.

Okay.

I bet my guess is not as good as yours, but my guess is probably purely speculative, where your guess is probably probably more informed.

But some things we will have to wait, I guess.

Adov, thank you for doing this.

Thank you so much, Dan.

All right.

Talk soon.

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