The CENTCOM Playbook for Iran?: Gen. Joseph Votel

I think it's a very dangerous time for us right here and we have to pay attention to what the IRGC does. I'm host Michael Allen with Beacon Global Strategies. Today I'm joined by General Joseph Votel, a former commander of U.S. SentCon. General Votel has also served as the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command. General Votel joins us today for discussion on the rapidly developing conflict in the Middle East, including the state of hostilities, Iran's blocking of the Straits of Hormuz, and the possibility of a Special Operations raid into Iran to recover the 400 kg of highly enriched uranium. Please stay with us as we speak with General Joe Votel. General Joe Votel, welcome to Netsack Matters. Michael, it's great to be with you. Well we're honored to have you. You're going to be well qualified, not only as a four-star general, but as a former commander of Special Operations Command to discuss plans, at least as claiming the newspapers, to possibly do a Special Operations raid to recover the soot called 400 kg of H.U. We obviously want to talk to you as a former sent-com commander about the Straits of Hormuz. But let's just start generally. You must have seen quite a few war plans through the years, not only our own, but also maybe what the Israelis were always thinking about doing. Tell us a little bit about what you think so far of the way the war has been prosecuted against the Iranians. My view on this is, I think from a military standpoint, I think at least what we've seen over the last 11 or 12 days, I think kind of our strikes, large from the air, from maritime resources here. I think you've been pretty effective. I think that's been well orchestrated. I think there's been a high degree of collaboration between the United States and the Israeli Defense Forces. I think that's a relationship that has continued to move forward militarily in terms of our collaboration, cooperation with them. And that seems to be, from a military standpoint, seems to be going pretty well as we're executing this. I think what we've seen from the Iranians, I think is about what I would have expected. I think it's important to appreciate from their perspective that this is existential. That's exactly how they are looking at it. And they are going to lash out in as many different ways as they can. There's no doubt that their military capacity has been diminished, but there still remain some missiles. And certainly these drones that are going to continue to be a factor in the war as a moves forward. I think initially good work here, but the more to be done. I think we're engaged with a country here who is feeling an existential threat to them and will respond that way. I've read a bit about a division of labor between the Israelis and the United States on targeting, not only geographically, but also, and I'm interested to see if you can help us understand this. The United States is apparently hitting more of the military infrastructure, whereas I've read the Israelis are bombing runways. They're doing a lot of regime change type targets from police stations all the way through the IRGC. And we're also hunting missiles, which understand is time consuming, and I'd love to understand more about that. But tell us if you can what you understand to be the division of labor between the Israelis and the United States. Yeah, I think what I've observed here is kind of in line with what you have outlined. I think certainly the initial Israeli attacks were really focused on civil leadership and disrupting that, clearly trying to paralyze command and control and leadership. At the very top of the nation, making it difficult for them to respond or orchestrate any kind of response in terms of this. So they very much are doing that. I think the Israelis have a different view. Perhaps have a different view on this war than we have. Certainly they have been a primary object of Iran's IRGC. So their nation is being attacked. They are absorbing missiles and drone attacks and have now for some time. So I think they look at this much differently. And so perhaps the public acceptance of going after civil targets may be greater in Israel than it actually might be in the United States. And the United States, I think, is as traditional, I think, really been focused on kind of taking away the war fighting, war making capabilities of the regime. And I think that's been very clear from what's been communicated to us. Certainly, it's the Department of Defense, every briefing that we've seen so far, the three or four that we've seen, has really emphasized the focus on military targeting. I think that's where the division of labor has been. And as you point out, I think there's also been some geographic division of that. Although that probably is dissipating a little bit more now as we get into the later parts of the campaign. And we're going after targets in a variety of different areas. Help us understand a little bit about Israel's defense doctrine and why they need to go after the ballistic missiles. I think they have a number in mind that if Iran gets close to it, it's threatening to them. And then if you could help us understand, obviously the missiles and their launchers aren't laying out somewhere on plain sight. It sounds like they go back and forth in and out of hiding. And that I keep reading, we're having to quote hunt them. I assume that means some electronic signature they give off and it's easier said than done. Yeah, those are great questions. I mean, I think Israel's concerned about the missiles. I think is one that's fairly straightforward here. I mean, they are extraordinarily vulnerable to missile attacks. This is a threat that they deal with on a regular basis, certainly from Hezbollah in the past and actually in the present from Hezbollah. And then most recently from Iran and the Houthis, as we've seen over the last couple of years. So this is the whole idea behind the creation of the Iron Dome defense and other layers of air defense capabilities they put in. These can these can wreak havoc on a small nation like Israel. It can cause lots of casualties. So they are very, very concerned about removing that capability not not even to mention the fact that the that you know the missiles a primary way that primary platform that a nuclear weapon would likely be delivered to to Israel and replace else in the region. So the missiles take on a very unique focus for them. And that's why I think we see them pain, you know, high degree of attention to making sure we take that capability down on the hunt for these things. I guess the way I think about this and I kind of think about it in the way that I think about going after terrorist organizations that the missile missiles missile launching it's a system and we have to look at it like a system. There are places where their manufacturer, there are places where they're stored, there are places where they are moved into launch locations. There are places where they kind of scoop scoop back to there are command and control nodes that support them. There is a sensor network that provides the Iranian speed back on how effective these missiles are. So in order to take that whole, you know, take that down, you have to really have to go after the whole system, a fuller with that. And so I do think you see a lot of our targeting is focused on that. You know, the certainly we are making use of all of our intelligence, you know, means to gather information, you know, the measures intelligence, Mazin, say, and everything else that we're using to do this. But I also would just add that, you know, a lot of this, I think, is good analysis work by our, by our intelligence professionals. I mean, I think we are probably tracking every place we see a launch come from whether it's from a missile or a drone. I think that becomes a mark on a map and that becomes another, I that gives another point in the, in the network that we are trying to not only diagram, but disrupt. And out of that, I think we're trying to identify patterns of how the Iranians are moving the times that they are attacking the amount of exposure time to have. So very much like we would do with the, with the terrorists network, we're trying to understand as much as we can about how, how these, how these, how these missiles and drones are being employed so that we can begin to take that network apart. Of course, that also includes removing command and control nodes, making it much more difficult for them to, to do that and removes, it includes removing leaders who are going to make decisions about these things. But I also think one of the things that may be complicating this now is that there may be more of a disperse plan for how these are being launched, much more, you know, provincially here, a way without necessarily direct direction from, from Tehran. So I think that makes the challenge that's just a little bit more difficult as we, as we contend to this, but I think the way I would encourage people to think about this is like a system. And we're trying to put together the pieces, we're trying to gather all information we're using. I'm sure we're using things like artificial intelligence to help us predict and look at locations for this. I mean, we did the same thing with improvised explosive devices and Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, a couple decades ago, trying to understand this and trying to understand the patterns that are associated with what they're doing so we can predict and be ready to go after the whole system that's been launched. It supports launch of these missiles and drones. Fascinating. Does that mean because these missiles and launchers give off some signatures that they're comparatively easier to hunt down than drones? I mean, drones seem more hideable. Yeah, yeah, I think that's true. I mean, you know, and if you've seen some of the reporting on this, I mean some of the news channels, if showed, you know, the mentions of these launchers and missiles associated. These are huge, these are huge pieces of equipment, you know, they approach the size of semi trucks. So you can't just hide them very easily. They have to kind of be exposed. I mean, I guess missiles could be fired from subsurface, you know, edits and stuff like that. But in most cases, what we do see these is having to move some type of firing position where they are exposed. They're large. They can be identified. Of course, all these things give off some signal that can potentially be intercepted. And of course, we have the exquisite intelligence capabilities that allow us to allow us to pick that up. But yeah, I think that that is a big difference. I think between the missiles and what we're seeing with the shot heads and the flexibility that is associated with moving, moving drones around and launching those with a much lower signature than certainly that they are. Certainly, then the missiles have. So when the White House and the Department of War say one of the objectives of this operation is of course to degrade or eliminate the ability of the Iranians to project force. It certainly means missiles, but it may not mean drones, right? Is that the best way to think about it? I think it means all forms of threat that they can do. I think it's missiles, I think it's drones, I think it's proxies, it's certainly a nuclear weapons capability. I mean, what I the way I kind of interpret that is is that we are trying to take away Iran's ability really to employ any of their military capabilities that I've just kind of outlined there beyond beyond their own borders. So that they aren't a threat to their neighbors and not a threat to the to the region. They're certainly not a threat to the United States. So I think that it's I think that it's much more inclusive in terms of the different things we are going after. So tell us this is probably a good point to get time to raise the timeline given that we're talking about how long it takes to take out a lot of these military assets and nuclear assets. We hear two to three more weeks. We've already been going something like a week and a half for 10 days. Does all this sound about right to you? I mean, I know political appointees sometimes have a different schedule than the military would, which is working a target list. Tell us a little bit about how we should think about the duration of of this conflict. Well, I guess the way that I think about it, I mean, I think there's been there's certainly been a lot of damage done to the Iranian military capabilities here in the first first week, first 10 days. You know, I think we all have heard the chairman, you know, talk about the 80 to 90% reduction in the number of missile launches and, you know, slightly below that, you know, 70, 80% of drone launches, which this is significant. I think that's to be expected in a very intensive opening phases of a campaign like we just see. But I think what's going to take more time is going to be hunting down the remnants of capabilities that the regime has at their disposal. I mean, I think part of the challenge we have right now is that a lot of the a lot of the big things have been, have now been destroyed or attacked or taken off the, taken off the battlefield, so to speak. And now we are trying to get after the remnants of is the rest of the of the of the drones that are easily hidden and are continuing to be launched. You know, the remnants of a missile capability that are out there that are not maybe not as plentiful, certainly in terms of launchers or ability to launch as they as they once were. But still, if they have launched can can can cause some problems as we've seen in the last couple of days as they continue to hit US embassies or or, you know, other other targets, particularly in the golf. So, you know, this I think will take it will take a little bit longer hunting this down this this I think this phase always is, you know, in terms of the timing of this. I mean, I think this is, you know, in my estimation to have some confidence that we have removed this. I think it's measured certainly in weeks to months of doing that. I know that there are some different estimates that are coming out of this. I'm just my own estimate is that I think this phase has to last a little bit has to last a little bit longer to make sure that we that we do it. Of course, that does it being complicated by things that were seen in the straits of our moves right now. Where we've got a very serious threat to, you know, commercial shipping and, you know, potentially to some of our maritime assets that might be in the might be in the golf. So, these kinds of things can can delay it. I mean, we're engaged now and we've got to kind of got to see it through. So, I mean, I think in order to do what we need to do here against the objectives that I've heard. I think we're good weeks to months here. Yeah, I can see there being a tension between the White House wanting to get something over faster to get oil prices back in line. And the uniform military saying, well, if you want us to be effective here, we've got it. We've got to get through this list. Okay, well, I think that that helps a lot. Let me ask you about munitions. We read all the time about profound shortages we have. And a lot, the Congress has done a lot of late to try and speed this up. The administration is seized of this. Talk to us a little bit about it feels like we have now air superiority or air supremacy as they say. So we're able to stop using standoff weapons, which are expensive and drop dumber bombs, if you will. On to targets. Is that true? And that seems encouraging. And then the defensive piece is the one that seems to be really acute. We only have so many interceptors and they're so hard and so expensive to build. Is that an accurate shorthand? I think that's I think that's right. I mean, I think one of the one of the early military objectives between the between the Americans and the Israelis has been the creation of air superiority over over Iran so that we can operate with Burl, Burl, more intense purposes with impunity and where we need to conduct the operations we have. And what this has allowed us to do is to get our to get our aircraft much closer into into the areas of our targeting so that we can make use of a much more plentiful gravity, you know, gravity driven bombs that we have, which we have thousands in our inventory. And so we have a much more plentiful supply of those the more exquisite standoff weapons that we saw in the early early days of this. Of course, are much more expensive. They're much longer lead times in terms of this. There's a much more finite quantity of those. And the use of those in this fight is, you know, it's a while necessary. Also, you know, there is a there is a cost to it, meaning that we there are magazines are become become depleted our ability to stockpile for other contingencies or to maintain readiness in other areas is is affected in terms of this. So those those are those are much more expensive. They were much more sophisticated and they're much much longer in terms of the lead times to develop those. So yeah, there's some munition math here that I think we certainly I think the Department of Defense is is paying attention to, but certainly having air superiority and ability to bring the you know where our greatest volume of capability to bear. I think is also been important and what air superiority is also does is loud as to get other systems in there be 52 is for example dropping the 2000 pounders these are of course, as you can imagine, very, very devastating weapons. And that's when they you know when they hit the ground. So that you know that's an example of what what air superiority is has has done for us, but you do highlight I think the critical the critical piece and there's there's not a lot of great reporting on this right now and I know there's a lot of concern and that is the interceptors. And you know not just our ability intercept that we have with our Patriots and thads and other systems we have out there, but those of our partners across the region, I think you have to remember that many of our countries partner countries in the Gulf, the Gulf area of countries also have similar US systems that basically drawn the same interceptors and they are being attacked. So it is putting a strain on theirs. I would imagine that we in going into this, I think there's you know been reporting that you know chip the chairman highlighted the potential risk associated with munitions going into this. So you know in order to offset that I would imagine we husband a lot of our a lot of our resources from you know not just in theater but out of theater to make sure we had what we needed to you know for hopefully is going to be a lot of the way to do that. And so as long as we need to continue to defend ourselves, but again, these are everybody is using these now there's a huge demand on them. So it's likely that we're going to we're going to ask them we could have some challenges there. But if this persists, the good news is is that you know missile strikes and drone strikes are from from the Iranians are down somewhere you know in the range of 80 to 90%. So the bad news is they're still coming through and we still have to be prepared only one of those has to hit a vulnerable target to create a greater real problem for us. Or for our partners. So you know we've got to be ready we've always always got to be 100% in the in the defensive aspect of it. So making sure we have the interceptors. You know available and distributed where our systems are I think is that is going to be a key consideration going forward. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with more of our discussion with general Joe Votel. 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Why is the United States in so many different places cutter by rank weight you a Saudi Iraq I think we're out of. We're out of Syria now but Jordan as well that that's a big presence well you know and you think back about it I guess what we we have seen in our interest to to have relations and partnerships with our with these different countries across the Gulf and then the Middle East and of course in most of these locations we do have some important national security interest that we are keen to. keen to keen to protect and in the way that the design of our of our security apparatus across the Middle East has been to you know kind of anchor our different capabilities in different countries so if you go to Kuwait for example you will see that really that's kind of the headquarters and really where we where we muster most of our US Army capabilities although we have them of course things like that batteries and Patriot batteries. spread across across the reason but our big logistics hub is is kind of located in in Kuwait and some of that is a legacy from. from Geysert storm and some of it is a legacy from 2003 you know operations in in Iraq but that's kind of where the Army is the you know Bahrain has been for a long time the host to the United States Navy the fifth leaked and so they they have the port facilities they have the locations that's where that's where that's been traditionally that's where we operating that from cutter. you know is is become the home for the you know the forward the forward sent con headquarters as well as our is our air capacity at how you the air base they have you know as part of our long term defense arrangements so that they they built literally everything that we. operate from for us because there was a shared concern about this and then other countries like the UAE why we don't you know the Marines have had some some presence there in the past but there are. there are a couple of air bases there are some excellent ports that we make use of in the in that country and and then you've got so you know that that kind of accounts for kind of the the majority of our military capacity and where it where it fed down where it beds down and where it operates from across the region and of course we have interest in other areas Iraq we you know we've been we've had a long term relationship you know now especially since the campaign against ISIS to continue to state partner. with the Iraqi security forces to make sure that they can keep a lid on the terrorist right there that's it that's in our interest it's not a huge it's not a huge commitment of people but it's an important one that that serves our purposes so we do keep people in on on bases and for example in Baghdad and then of course the whole region we've got these you know diplomatic locations of we maintain the season these of course are very vulnerable so and then on top of that let's say we have a lot of people. on top of that layer on the you know our commercial interests across the region you know we have very deep commercial interests across the region so you have American business represented in a variety of other things that you know smack of America across the region so yes as you suggest the the surface is very large our capabilities to protect all that are always challenge so we always have to prioritize those things that are most critical to us and likely that means that some of these are always protected. so I guess it's a combination then of our geo strategic interest in the region our bilateral relationships and training and other that's right that's said much much much cleaner. no no no I'm learning from you here let's go to the Straits of Hormuz I assume you weren't a bit surprised to hear that the Iranians were not only striking some ships but declaring it effectively close this has been Roman numeral one in their playbook for a long time right now that's right and I mean this is a vulnerable location they could they could they clearly recognize a significance of this you know 20 percent of the global LNG goes through here you know 15 to 20 million barrels of oil crude oil or oil products go through every day and that are absolutely essential for a number of nations particularly some in Asia and include China for their for their economy so it's a it's a critical location and it's shut down really is a is a pain point that that we can we can't do it. we can't ignore and and of course when you look at the straight of our moves by having sailed through that a couple of times on US naval vessels I'm not a marinara you know a naval officer but even I as an army officer can appreciate the significance of that I mean that's at its most vulnerable point it's 25 miles wide but the but the main traffic pattern through which ships move is only to you know the traffic deconfliction scheme there is only two miles wide. that is really really limited and of course when you enter into it you literally either come in or going out you literally make up 90 degree turn in order to do that and the advantage is to the attacker. you're exposed to short based systems your exposed to mines it's very easy to to have an effect there so yeah I exactly expected what we're overseeing right now it seems that. President Trump of course would like the navy to be escorting oil tankers through sooner rather than later is I understand the navies position to it's. you sure we can do this mission but we need a two or three more weeks of prosecuting targets especially drones because if we just rushed into this mission now we would be quite vulnerable going through as you say this you know two mile wide channel in a 20 mile. isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation isolation capabilities that Iranians have without the additional burden of having to at the same time escort ships through the straits of hormones and do everything that is necessary to do that. So I think it really becomes a priority issue here for the U.S. military and I think what's probably being communicated or what's being discussed now is where are the priorities and how do we balance these things going going forward? Can we do both? We probably can to some extent but there is there are risks that come along with that. Taking some resources away from what we're trying to do to address the remnants of missiles and drones will come at the cost of perhaps additional attacks that we have to deal with. So you know this is really comes down to a choice of what your priorities are. I think everyone can appreciate the impact on the economy and oil prices and the concern of more and more tankers and ships being tied up in the Gulf waiting to get out and then get back in so we can continue the flow of resources in here but you know there are some fairly significant military considerations that have to be taken at this time. And by the way now that there are reports that there are mines in the straits of hormones this becomes an even more difficult challenge. I mean it isn't the surprise that they're using mines. I think we clearly expected that but now we have to deploy systems in there to make sure that you know we have confidence that our ships and those were escorting we may be escorting aren't going to be vulnerable to the mines in the water and those those as we've seen in the past are our easy ways to really cause some problems for us. Tell us about the mines. I think I have some prehistoric memory from a movie of a floating mine but I'm reading that there are underwater mines and it's they're pretty sophisticated and it's easier said than done to sweep them up or find them. Is that about right? I think that's the way that I look at. I mean I'm not an expert on all the mine technology here but certainly the the Iranians have paid a lot of attention to this and you know there are certainly mines that we've seen in the past that are pretty much surface laid that can be visually identified but we also know that there are some that operate below the surface so you know are magnetically driven and have the ability to detect threats as they are objectives as they're passing through so they you know can be even more effective these things and of course these things were our attacking ships at the perhaps most vulnerable points of the ship and and of course you know once you have a hole on the side of one of these tankers or a ship going through you've got a you've got a real problem now not just have a ship that's disabled but you have you have you have to get it out of that you have to get more resources to recover it to rescue it to get it out of the area so I mean the mines I think you know present a very very significant threat to us and of course the sophistication of these things we haven't dealt with them like we're dealing with drones or we've dealt with IDs in the past so you know we're likely to learn a lot more about how just how sophisticated these are as we continue to prosecute this and it sounds like President Trump is trying to preempt this in part by blowing up ships that he believes would be used to put them out there but it really sends up a warning sign and I bet everyone slows down tremendously they're thinking on going through yeah I think that's right I mean I've I've served this in the reports of the US going sent going after mine laneships and that's that that's good that's to be expected we should be doing that but you know there's lots of ways that these things can can be deployed they are they are not easily but relatively easily deployed and it only takes a couple to really cause a cause concerns for shipping through a such a narrow and confined location talk to us about the military requirements around military escort through Hormuz is it is there air force cover a combat air patrol above is it a destroyer is it several ships is it how many how many would you escort it at one time like it give us some sense of how it would work well is that I think there's a variety of different ways this could be done I mean it could be that we that we grouped together you know a number of a number of tankers a number of ships or escorting into into a convoy and then we you know we kind of escort that through the through the through the through the straights of Hormuz to a point where they can then begin to navigate on their own and it couldn't be that we you know we set up kind of stationary you know stationary security you know outposts so to speak so that ships can actually move through that as well so I think there's a variety of different ways that that this can be done but I do think I mean when I think about this I mean this is a this is a security operation and so not only does it involve security on the surface but it does involve you know providing some level of air cover you know certainly the direction of intelligence resources that might be used one place into into this area to make sure that we are monitoring you know communications other collection means here so we know how the Iranians are thinking about this we know how they are prepared to to respond and we've got you know resources that are dedicated at so again I think I think that the way I've kind of been talking about is this is you know escorting tankers through the straights of Hormuz is an operation in and of itself just like going after missiles and drones and so we have to make sure the military will make sure that it has all the capabilities all the capacity that needs to accomplish that mission to the very best of its ability so you know again these these are trade-offs and they'll have to be some prioritization and certainly the president may say what's most important to us right now is giving these ships out of here and and then I think you'll see a you'll see a shift and what the Navy and what sent comms doing to to make sure that we have you know provided a level of security so that we can move groups of these ships through or we can you know I'll post it in such a way that ships can move with some some confidence to you know to get out of the golf. Gotcha all right that's so interesting let's move to the 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium this is the um we haven't talked about enough problems. I know this is even harder I left this at the end just to keep our listeners on the on the edge of their seats so we're aware of the Iranians having enriched 400 kilograms of uranium to 60 percent so highly enriched uranium. We believed at one point coming out of June that it was in the extremely deep tunnels of Ves Phahan I think we assumed or maybe there was some intelligence that suggested it was all there together and that it was buried very deeply and it would be hard for the Iranians to get to it was sort of beyond our ability to to further blow it up. There have been reports of late and it just sort of gradually slipped back into the media coverage over the last few months that well you know what maybe it's not buried so deep and a lot of people that have looked at open source imagery have noticed that there've been you know dirt being moved around this particular location. So now the New York Times reports in light of this this was of course Sunday the United States and Israel have discussed a special operation style raid to go to S-phahan at least S-phahan either figure out a way to neutralize the H-E-U or take it outright now that's a couple of tons I think so this seems then I'm no military man but this seems really hard to do it almost seems like you'd need a thousand troops to set up a perimeter earth moving equipment some heavy lift to get it at there you know you were the head of special operations command what would you have said if someone had brought you this idea. Well yeah I mean it certainly is a significant problem there is kind of highlighted it pretty pretty well no so I think the first thing that I would kind of just a couple points I would make about this first foremost I think it's important to appreciate that we probably know what maybe know we don't know everything about the condition of this highly enriched uranium but based on what we did last summer and what our intelligence community has likely done over the ensuing months here in conjuncts with the Israelis we probably we probably know more now about the condition of the potential condition of that so I give a lot of credit to the intelligence community and while we may not know everything we probably don't as impossible of people on the ground or sensors on the ground to do that I would imagine our assessments of the damage we've done the likely status of this is probably not perfect but probably better now than it was last summer after we after we did the strikes and I think that's an important thing to to appreciate it we haven't just been we haven't forgot about it and now all of a sudden we're worried about again I would imagine there's been a continuous assessment of the effects that we had against this and what what the what the conditions are under which these these materials you know remain in in Iran I think the second point that I would make is that the United States special operations command and I won't get into a whole lot of details and it does possess very unique capabilities to deal with missions of you know of a strategic nature that would include you know this this matter right here obviously this isn't the first time we've been concerned about about you know dirty weapons or things that are you know can can have an have an outsize effect you know weapons of mass destruction and so you know this is this is not something we're thinking about for the first time and so we have capabilities we have people that are trained that are equipped to operate in in you know in deeply buried underground situations in the event that we have to go do something so there is there is capability in terms of of of doing this and it is it's something that is I think routinely trained and that we routinely pay attention to so we should have confidence in in in in our ability to do some of these things if it's if it's ordered I think that I think of course the conditions here are I think the big unknown how deep is this how much how extensive is the damage that has been rendered by our by our previous strikes and what we've done just the last 10 or 11 days against these occasions that certainly will pose an issue but again like we talked about the Straits of our moves and operation like this this is a big commitment this isn't we're not just sending a small special ops raid in overnight with a few helicopters and uh to go in and do this this this would be a significant operation so you know we would have to come in we would have we if we were doing this during the while we're still trying to address some of the current you know current situations again this would be up we'd have to prioritize this and we have to dedicate the resources to it and there would be an offset with other things that we are we are doing but we know essentially you have to create air superior to this location you have to get people and equipment into that location you have to secure that from the ground side so there would have to be a security force you would have to make sure you had a lifeline to sustain them these are intensive operations these are very hard on people operating in this environment so you would have to have enough forces to be able to sustain yourself and continue to move forward as you as you begin to work in this underground environment and then of course you have to have the means to collect and evacuate these hazardous materials you know as you as you pointed out there is about a for you know for discussion purposes are about a thousand pounds of of you know of 60 percent highly enriched uranium which is what we're most concerned about but there's other uranium there as well that we'd have to be concerned about though these are you know these aren't easily transported out we would have to be able to get them to a location get them on some type of conveyance whether that's a helicopter and you know you very quickly overcome the overcome the allowable cargo load of helicopters with what these types of materials so could we get it on a fixed-wing aircraft and again that involves a lot more so this I think is a is a is a pretty sophisticated operation to do is it impossible no it's not but it takes a lot of planning it takes a lot of resources and whether we do it now or whether we do it when at some point in the future when we have we have declared you know kind of an end to our objectives and the regime is the remnants of the regime is not in a position to to respond to this and we can basically go in and dominate an area for as long as we need to and perhaps bring in some of the international community IAEA who has you know kind of you know global cognizance for these types of of activities as part of this you know it could be a consideration so the timing of this I think is important but I certainly understand the imperative here nobody wants to leave these in the hands of what is going to be a weakened a weakened regime or a weakened government and that's likely going to experience some chaos and again these falling into the hands of terrorists or others here are I think are always of some concerns so I understand the concern with this but this is a big operation big operations so if the president of the United States looked at you and said general what are the what's the likelihood of success of this operation what what would your answer be I'm what I would highlight is is first of all the scope of the operations that with with time and with the right resources I think we have a you know certainly a greater than 50% chance of being successful with this and again if we can we can get people on the ground I'm pretty confident in our problem solvers to figure out ways to address this but again we can't look at this like something that we're going to be able to go in and do in a day or so it's this is a this will take some time well how to do in my estimation wow more than a day so we would have to hold this territory you think for a few days to do all this I think we would need to be prepared to maybe we would we would get in and we'd find we'd have you know kind of strategic you know kind of strategic success that is much more accessible than it is but I don't know that we know that so we have to be prepared for the worst case situation which would be keeping troops on the ground for you know for an extended period of time and I'd want to be prepared for that I wouldn't want to think we can get in and do this quickly and discover though this is a much harder problem because then then we then we do it we get on a much more risk for this so I think in these types of operations you have to plan for the worst case situation that you may encounter and in my view this would be an extended operation on the ground we have to secure ourselves and we have to plan for the evacuation of of this material which will not be easy or easy to transport yeah I'd be worth me looking at a map to see how close and exactly and yeah these are these aren't these aren't along the coast these are well inside the country so not only do we have to project combat power in there but we have to maintain kind of a line of communication to them and you know be prepared to sustain that for some period of time I know the Pentagon has said come has planners for this type of thing but any idea it was this is this 2000 troops we're talking about for three or four days I mean I think this yeah I would I would say that it's a you know a certain sizeable number of troops that go all involved in this probably you know in the thousands that would be involved in some aspect of this on the air on the ground at the site you know supporting this so I think it's a significant significant operation of course again I think it is it's you know days to maybe a low number of weeks for us to to do this based on what we know and what we don't know for this so I don't you know hopefully it would be much quicker but I think again yeah in my view I would be thinking about works case scenarios to make sure that we were able to accomplish the mission and overcome the inevitable obstacles that we are going to confront on the ground now this has been helpful because yeah you you've painted a picture of just how much logistics and force this would require well general as we begin to wrap up you of course have got a tremendous amount of expertise in the region and I think what we hear the most probably is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a fierce guardian of the regime many think it's the power behind the throne especially as we move into a new supreme leader tell us a little bit about them as your foe when you were the commander of sent comm I mean how professional and sophisticated are they are they 10 feet tall or you know the the United States of America can deal with them well they're they're not 10 feet tall but the but I think you know one thing that I think military military leaders learn over the course of their careers is that you have to respect your adversary and you have to give them credit for for being professional for being capable for for a dedication to their mission so you know they're they're not 10 feet tall they can be dealt with as we've seen certainly you know they're the proxies which they have what you have created over a long period of time and couldn't pretty much it's estimated in several locations so you know they they can be they can be defeated and as we've seen just in the last 10 days we can certainly bring our our assets to bear but as we're being reminded every day they're they're still fighting their kill chain is still in place despite all of this and they're able to launch drones and they're able to launch missiles against us so you know we have to respect the the capabilities of our of our enemies our adversaries and when we don't do that then we are setting ourselves up for for a for a failure I think it's important for people to appreciate that you know the the IRGC that this connection between the clerical leadership and the security leadership and the form of the of the IRGC is a very deep one and in many ways these leaders of the IRGC are are all bought in they are true believers in the revolution they have been committed to it and their their authority has been derived from the close relationship that they have kept with the clerical leadership the previous supreme leader certainly and and perhaps in the future the the you know the the the new one as well so they derived their authority they derived their strength from that the the IRGC is the center of gravity here and as long as they remain in place and although there's been a layers of leadership that have been removed from this they are there is some depth to this organization and they have people that can step up and apparently are doing so with this and they have had plans in place for this for a long time and I think we're beginning to see these plans be executed perhaps in a more decentralized way than we might have expected but nonetheless it is it is being so we have to we have to respect the the IRGC and and the level of you know I hesitate to use word professionalism but in many ways they they do represent a professional ethic maybe not one that we aspire to but certainly one that uh that I think represents their capability so we have to we have to respect that and I think you know they are going to be very important for this new leader in you know Votes view on the on the regime here is this has been a regime that has been in decline for a number of years they have lost some of their legitimacy certainly the things that happen with the protests just a couple of months ago you know we're another another example of how the regime is is going down this new supreme leader is not the last supreme leader but he is the supreme leader he's not as strong he doesn't have the religious bona fides and he doesn't have all the leadership characteristics yet of his father uh which which means that he will be much more dependent upon military leadership and the military leadership in the form of the IRGC will exert their influence so in many ways they become actually more uh more influential on uh on the current government uh and as they and their legitimacy has been called into into question here with protests and other things here so you know I think it's a very dangerous time uh worse right here and we have to pay attention to what the IRGC does whether a pragmatic military leader emerges from this is yet to be seen uh somebody that we could potentially deal with that understands the situation um I think is yet to be seen uh and for that for that reason I think we have to really take them very very seriously general thank you that was a tour de force thank you so much for joining net sec matters thanks uh thanks Michael great to be with you that was general joe votel i'm michael alan please join us next week for another episode of net sec matters net sec matters is produced by Steve dorsi with assistance from ashley bary net sec matters is a production of beacon global strategies