 for the world, I should add. Today I'm going to talk about Biden's bombing campaign. We're going to look at the benefits and the risks with my co-host, Tim Apichella, and our esteemed guest, who joins us from far away on the mainland, Gene Rosenfeld, independent published scholar. OK? Let's begin with you, Tim. I would like to get the environment settled here. What is going on? What's the latest news? How is the bombing campaign doing? The latest news is the Pentagon just held a news briefing. And we had a three-star general from the Pentagon basically talk about the precision drone strike that took place inside of RAC that killed one of the top Hezbollah leaders. And that was quite the strike because there was no collateral damage. And it hit its intended target. And that was a vehicle on the main street. So it wasn't a building or anything like that. It was just a precision strike, which is very rare sometimes when it comes to drone strikes. But that is seen as a pretty big hit and a pretty big statement as far as retaliation for the three Americans that were killed. I think we have over 85 other strikes that targeted Houthi installations and warehouses and sites that were basically aiding in the attacks on the American fleet and on the Red Sea. Let's look at the implications here. Is this a good idea? Was it a good idea for the United States to start this campaign? Well, first I have a question and a fact for Tim. Was that a Hezbollah leader that we struck? Or was it an Al-Quds leader? I believe it was. The media cited it as a Hezbollah leader. OK. Well, it's a slight distinction there. Hezbollah, of course, is a Shiite militia aligned with Iran in Lebanon. And Al-Quds is a branch of the Iranian army. And Soleimani, I believe, was his immediate predecessor. And he was, I believe, the Al-Quds director. But I could be wrong, Tim. I don't know. Anyway, back to Jay's question of the bombing campaign. Well, bombing campaigns send a message more than anything else. They don't complete a campaign. They have a specific objective, which is to send a message to the hostiles. And in this case, we cannot bomb Iran directly for reasons that are pretty obvious. We don't want to start a war. And Iran already contacted our government beforehand, knowing that something was going to be bombed, and said, please don't bomb us. And we reassured them we wouldn't. So we bombed an associated militia member and other sites, including the Houthis, who are part of the self-named axis of resistance to Israel. And it depends on what the intent of the government was. What did they intend to accomplish? One opinion writer that I read about this felt that Biden is trying to create his own vision of a revitalized Middle East. Like it or not, the Hamas campaign has gotten us back involved in the Middle East. And I think what the primary objective of the Biden administration is, is to resume the normalization process between Saudi Arabia and Israel. And in order to do that, they are basically we are targeting Saudi Arabia's enemies, the Shiite axis of resistance. Hamas is not Shiite, but it's joined this axis of resistance. So it's not quite obvious what we're attempting to achieve here, except to send a very strong message, cease and desist. This is part of trying to eradicate or undermine or neutralize Hamas in Israel and its campaign against Israel. It is also sending a message to other players in the Middle East, let's go back to square one and restart the normalization process. Iran is holding back, and we're holding back. There's an irony in all of that. At the same time, Tony Blinken is telling the Israelis they got to reduce the level of violence. The ICJ is telling of that. But the United States is increasing the level of violence. What do you make of that irony? In a war-type situation, violence waxes and wanes. It is part of the dialogue, so to speak. It becomes a factor in the ultimate outcome. I think what Blinken and Biden are trying to do at this point is to wind up this war as much as possible. Jim. You know, I think there's another component here at play, and I think it's a domestic one. You know, we have over 85 strikes as a retaliation to the three Americans that were killed, and I think well over 50 that were seriously injured by that drone strike. And I think the message that Joe Biden is trying to send is that his administration is strong, and he will respond, as he said, at a place of our choosing and a time of our choosing. But I think what's involved here is a statement of strength to ward off Donald Trump's criticism that he's a weak leader and he doesn't know how to respond to a military crisis. Yeah, but this is going to have implications back at home. Can we talk about that? Isn't Donald Trump going to criticize him anyway? Sure, but he could foil, excuse me, he could foil most of the criticism with the fact that he's struck at least 85 times. And in addition, he's taken out this Hezbollah leader. So what effect so far? Has this softened Hamas? Has it softened the Houthis? Has it softened the Hezbollah? I don't think so. You asked before the show, does this ever stop? And my response was when the Somali pirates stopped their activities. No, this is something that will be ongoing. They'll curtail their activities. Certainly they will, but they'll never stop. ISIS came up in the discussion with this Pentagon briefing that ISIS is now starting to get more active as a result of these bombings. And also, Jean, just to answer your question, I remember during the briefing, they specifically said no Iranians were killed. So that would tend to say that this leader was not an Iranian top command. Thank you. Jean, I want to go over the military, for example. This is like remember the main, remember the three military members who were killed. Query, how important is it that we are dealing in response to the killing of those three members? And there's Joe Biden standing on the tarmac as the plane comes in with their bodies. And with his wife, he's there. And he's making a dramatic statement. And I wondered at the time, would he do that again and again? Because there may be more bodies coming back here. So from a military point of view, how we do it, is it appropriate to send heavy bombers in that flew all away from the United States to do bombing runs? Are we overdoing this? How does the military, how do you think the military feels about it? Maybe they like this. Maybe they're ready to go on this. So what about the military aspect? Prior to this retaliation on the part of the United States were the three soldiers we lost. And yes, we do need a response when soldiers are killed overseas. We do. Or we look weak. And that's domestically and globally. I think that the military has its own set of plans. It informs the president. The president then decides on options with the military. So I suspect that the military is okay. But prior to this, criticism was mounting in the media and military commentators on TV and social media were stating that we had to strike, do more than just these little pinpoint things every once in a while, that we had to have some sort of a strategy. And we had to look stronger. So I think this is all part of the plan. Without escalating to war, we send a measured message. The military has provided the options. The president has taken the options with the consultation with the military. And I can't say specifically what that is, because we're not privy to it. But apparently this has to go hand in glove at the same time with all the negotiations that are going on among the multiple parties. So the war is a complicated effort that is proceeding on both fronts as I've said from the beginning. Negotiation on the one hand, military responses on the other hand. We have two things happening, maybe three. Number one is the Houthis are saying, you will not deter us. We are going to keep on pounding the Red Sea. We are not afraid of you. We are not intimidated yet that happening. Two is Israel is still pushing in the south of Gaza that hasn't really stopped. In fact, I read that it had a bombing campaign going on as we speak. And there are various factors. And the question is, A, is this campaign by the United States increasing, decreasing, remaining the same? Do we have any idea about where it's going in terms of intensity? And B, is it having an effect, a desired effect, or are they just thumbing their noses at us? Well, it's hard to know if it's having an effect or how much of an effect. Our purpose is not to address the deeper problems of the Houthis civil war in Yemen. I think our main objective is to get back to where we were before the war in Gaza started. And that means that Saudi Arabia becomes a much bigger player in the region. And we align even more with Saudi Arabia and let that proxy, so to speak, deal with increasing stability in the Middle East. Right now, we've been drawn into it, which was, of course, the objective of Iran and the access of resistance to draw us into an arena where we really are trying to limit our direct participation. We're there for support, but this is really something we want to see enacted through other players. And we want to align the Middle East along a Sunni axis with Saudi Arabia as a major player, making peace with Israel and between the two of them, and Egypt and Jordan, bringing back a measure of stability and United States influence in the Middle East. We'll have to come back in a few weeks, circle back, and see whether it's working that way. Tim, what about Iran? Jean, I think she's right, is saying that we don't want to go after Iran because that would expand the war. But Iran's going to continue to do what it does. It's determined. And it's going to continue to feed and direct all these terror organizations. Aren't there benefits to going after Iran? How would we do that? Could we do that in a constrained way? In a constrained way? Yeah, I think the Pentagon probably could answer that better, and certainly I could. But yeah, I mean, come on. We've got sanctions against Iran, and we've lifted some of those, but not all of them. Remember, it's just not the funding of global terrorists that Iran is working with is also Russia. Remember, they're the chief primary supplier of drone technology to Russia. So that's a bur under the United States saddle right there. And I suspect that if conversations are taking place behind closed doors, and I think it's interesting that Iran says, hey, if you're going to bomb us, just don't bomb Iran. Bomb something else. It's interesting. It's almost like Mother May I bomb the Houthis, but don't touch Iran. So interesting stuff. But I'm sure it's come up before that the Pentagon's talked to Iranian leaders and said, hey, knock off the drone technology and quit suppression. But why would Iran care? Gene, you mentioned that this maybe is an attempt to get closer to normalization of Saudi Arabia, but there are countries around the region, as you indicated, that don't like this bombing at all. And I wonder how that works, because some of them, and maybe including Russia, really hate it. And we're not making friends with them. Shouldn't we be concerned about that? Well, of course, if you pan the camera back far enough, you really do see a confrontation, again, between Russia and the United States, or Russia and the West. The radical Islamists in the Middle East, throughout the Middle East, have a common enemy with Russia, which is the West and Western influence. And interestingly, they both object to mainly our social progressive ideas about human sexuality, about religion. Both the radical Islamists and the Russian nationalists and traditionalists are against the West for the same reasons. So what I think we're attempting to do is align ourselves with legitimate states in the Middle East and have those states work out degrees of at least neutralization and cessation of hostilities. For example, between Iran and Iraq, there was a horrible war during the time of Saddam Hussein, which killed a million Iranian soldiers. And I don't think Iran and Iraq want to go back to war, but they're both jockeying for hegemony over the other. And Iran, of course, is the bigger brother here. And Iraq is now telling the United States, if you bomb an Iranian proxy on our territory, we're going to have to ask you to leave. So it's a war of stabilization versus destabilization. It's to Russia's advantage to destabilize the Middle East and align itself with the Shia who are, at this point, more aggressive and to try to geographically and politically control that arena, that arena which is to the south geographically of them. Turkey and Iran are the two states. I think that Russia is most concerned about not aligning with the United States. And certainly Iran hasn't done that, but Turkey's up for grabs right now and has to play a very interesting game. So there's a much bigger geopolitical strategy going on behind all of this. Well, it sounds like it's very hard to plan this game because all the players are not necessarily reliable. And it could go this direction or that direction. I can see the war room in Washington where they watch it minute by minute trying to figure out who's changing direction. I mean, Erdogan in Turkey is a good example of that. You don't know what that man's gonna do from minute to minute. He's gonna change his mind based on his own current perception of self-interest. The other thing I wanted to ask you, Jean, let me take one more question with you and that is the UK. The UK is with us. We do have an ally. I don't know if we have other allies from the EU, but we have the UK. And that's to our credit and to their credit. What does it mean? What does this whole affair mean to the EU, to NATO? Not as much to NATO and the UK as it does to Israel and to us. Our alignment is with Israel in this case. With respect to Ukraine, it's just the opposite. It's of more concern to Europe, by far, and to NATO. But I think the Middle East is out of NATO's zone of influence and participation. But Israel's future hangs in the balance here. And we have to understand that as we were talking about before the show, the United States shares global intelligence services with a company of five nations, five eyes they call it. But we really have to add a sixth eye to that. And that is Israel's military intelligence has been critical to us. We've been involved in two major wars in the Middle East recently. And Israel has been our ally throughout that, one way or another. So we are destabilized when the Middle East is destabilized, more so than Europe and NATO. And UK, by virtue of being our ally, and any coalition we put together among European states with respect to the war in Gaza, yes, they are involved. But their immediate future is not so threatened, and they are not feeling quite so attacked and undermined as we are. Although Britain does have a history, of course, with the establishment of the State of Israel. But it is very pro-Palestinian. The people of the UK are even more pro-Palestinian than the United States. Yeah, I recall that demonstration in London a few weeks ago, where 100,000 people showed up. Scary, and our friend of mine was in London at the time. And he said, I've got to get out of here. I can't be here. I can't be with this 100,000 people. It's dangerous. Anyway, turning to the United States, Tim, you can't fly a B-52 halfway around the world and drop bombs on a foreign country without spending some money. What's the problem here? I mean, do we have a budget for this? This is an expensive campaign. We're going all the way on this campaign in terms of using our equipment, our technology, and spending a lot of money. Where's that coming from? Given that Congress allocated any money. Jay, when the military represents 51% of our GNP, I don't think this endeavors taking a whole lot of resources out of that 51% of all our tax revenue dollars. They've got more money than they know what to do with. I'll put it that way. So I don't think the budgetary issue is really influencing our decision-making one way or the other. In the background, though, I wanted to mention that, remember, although Iran's on our radar screen here domestically, remember, we still have an olive branch out there somehow, or at least the Biden administration has an olive branch out there to get them back onto a nuclear armament agreement or arrangement. I don't think that's dead. I think that's in the background that we are not privy to, but I don't think the Biden administration has given up all hope on that, that which Donald Trump destroyed. Well, the last word is that there may be separate bills regardless of the immigration issue that are cooking around in Congress. And it's a hypothetical question, but with or without an immigration bill, Congress may allocate some money to Ukraine, to Israel, for that matter, to Taiwan. But query, how would that change the calculus if all of a sudden there were tens of billions of dollars of weapons and funding going to Israel? How would that change this campaign, if at all? Well, in my opinion, it sends a statement that the United States has taken a black eye multiple times, particularly when we're getting out of Afghanistan and we pulled out of Syria, is that we weren't a nation to be relied on or our credibility was horribly shaken. And I think if this bill were to pass, I think the Senate is working on it and they've agreed to move it forward. And that is serious funding for our allies. And I think that enhances the United States' credibility and certainly it relieves a lot of concern, be it those countries in NATO or other where, that the United States can be dependent on. And we're trying to overcome some of those deficits that we experienced in the last early years of the Biden administration and the late years of the Trump administration. Yeah, going back to the reaction of the GOP and Trump in their ongoing effort to discredit Biden, what are the political implications of this bombing campaign for the election, which is now nine months away? Are you asking me, Jay? Okay, all right, I'll bite. Yes, Jane, I'm asking you. I think that Biden is walking a tightrope between his extreme left and the independents and the moderate conservatives who are not pro-Trump in terms of the votes he wants to keep from the left and the votes he wants to win from his right. And to do that, he has to, on the one hand, express sympathy for the Gazan civilians and try to modify the way in which Israel is conducting this war. And he, on the other hand, has to show strength to those on the right with respect to the aggressors in this case, which have drawn the United States and its military into this battle. So I think by having a limited objective in the Middle East in terms of military strikes and not striking Iran, that's one way to look strong without looking irresponsible. And on the other hand, to try to express sympathy for the Gazan civilians and the hostages that Lincoln is doing and to bring about an end to hostilities or at least a ceasefire and exchange of hostages on the other is a bone he's throwing to the left. Now, I don't think this is really too far off from what he himself wants, because Biden is not, he's been very careful not to embroil the United States in a major war, falling short of that. And he's been really challenged by Russia in that regard deliberately. So I think this is a difficult time that these limited strikes do, in essence, also send a message in the United States that we're not gonna tolerate the killing of our soldiers overseas, and we are gonna show that we are a superpower. Yeah, but like we were talking before the show, I think with all that war room intelligence, the fact is that we have to recognize and we're probably learning that it's not so easy to deal with organizations like this. They are relentless, they don't give up, they keep on doing terrorism. And one thing that goes to the media, I guess, is that this all started because of the attacks on the ships in the Red Sea, didn't it? And that was the unacceptable conduct that the United States was reacting to. But what I haven't seen is any change in that. And unless you tell me otherwise, I would assume those attacks are still either being made or threatened to any ship who wants to pass through the Red Sea to the Suez Canal. And the ship owners, the ship operators, the Marine carriers, you're not likely to make that trip. Tim? Well, they are gonna make the trip, and they are continuing to make the trip. That's why we have a presence of the United States naval presence in the Red Sea. So is there concern? Sure. Has it reduced some of the flow of goods and services? I suspect some, but it's not at a standstill, and I don't suspect it will be. Yeah, okay. Where I'm at. Gene, to you on this, it seems to me that Tony Blinken is in the paper nearly as much as Joe Biden. He's out there, I don't know how many trips he's made. I don't know how many statements he'd been quoted to make. Is the Secretary of State, the role of the Secretary of State becoming more important, especially with a complex game like this? The role of the Secretary of State has always been to be involved in geopolitical global affairs in a visible way. In addition to Tony Blinken, we have special envoys who are working very hard toward a ceasefire in the Middle East. I don't recall the gentleman's name, but he has been mentioned, but he's not visible. Also, we have the CIA, head of the CIA meeting and negotiating also. So we have other players that are doing the hard work, but Blinken is the face of the administration globally and visibly. And yes, Secretaries of State have played these visible roles very much so in the past. We have, you know, the Marshall Plan comes to mind. And that is the role of the Secretary of State to be the administration space in a visible way to the world and to carry the message of the president to the parties. The president cannot be every place, everywhere, all the time. And this happens to be a role that the Secretary plays in matters of war and peace. And what would you agree with me that say from the time of Golda Maier, and I'm thinking of that movie where Henry Kissinger was involved, but sub-Solendio. Henry Kissinger would make these, you know, quiet trips to Israel and make promises that were not in the press, and then the US would work with Israel on a given level. And this is not like that. This is out there in public every day. Would you agree with me that the role of the Secretary of State has changed? And just as you said, it's public, but it's more public than it was, do you agree? I'm not sure whether the situation calls for it. And it's the same as it would have been in any other time had these events occurred, or as you say, the role of the Secretary of State has changed. I'm not sure about that. It kind of depends on how you look at it. I'm more of the persuasion that it hasn't institutionally changed, but rather that the period we're in right now, which not only I, but others have compared to a pre-World War III period calls for this visible role. Chamberlain, for example, in Britain was very active before World War II with Hitler and all of that. Instead, we have Tucker Carlson going to Putin. I think that's very funny. I do too. Versely funny. But aside from that, I'm not convinced it has changed that much. Okay, well, Tim, one thing of interest is that this all started with the massacre, the atrocities of October 7th, and the Israeli attack into Gaza and its effort, and Netanyahu's effort, he made a, I thought it was an articulate speech the other day about how he wasn't gonna stop his effort to eliminate Hamas. And it's been about that for over 100 days. Now we have a different view of it, a different perspective. We have this bombing campaign going on. We have statements made by Joe Biden and for that matter, Tony Blinken about what is happening. We have the press covering that. And it kind of takes the heat off Netanyahu and the IDF and the war, so to speak, in Gaza proper. My first reaction was, good, it'll take the heat off the Israelis for a little while and they won't be the only aggressor in the news. What do you think? Well, take the heat off of Netanyahu so good earnest negotiations can take place. If Chuck Crumpton was here on the show, he'd say that negotiations go best when they're kept out of the news. Because the second they become part of the news, they're picked apart, they're criticized. And before you know it, the negotiations that you thought you had in your hand, you don't have in your hand because it's been tattered and torn through scrutiny and criticism. So it's good that maybe Netanyahu and what's taking place behind closed doors is doing just that. You know, I'm reminded of the back channel that the United States had with Russia. I can't remember if it was a reporter or not, but that back channel or that closed off to the media back channel really averted the nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia during the Cuban Missile Crisis. So it's really good that we have back channels and it's very good that, you know, the media is not allowed everywhere where it thinks it belongs. That's how you get the work done and that's how you get the credibility before the deal is hammered out. You can trust your partner and know that it's not gonna appear in the news. And again, pull it apart. Yeah, that's very wise. Jean, you mentioned earlier that there's some people out there that think we're on the cusp of World War III. What role does the media play in approaching that possibility? It tends to polarize. It tends to the whole old phrase, yellow journalism in the Hearst newspapers during the Spanish-American War. The media has a tendency to take a hot topic and intensify it and broadcast it more. And this tends to polarize the audience even more. And then there's a feedback mechanism that polarizes the coverage even more. It becomes more and more difficult to get alternative views into the media. Alternative media don't have the audience that major media have in general. So it follows, it doesn't lead, but it follows the sentiments and the intensifications and the polarizations that are taking place and just leads forward into that. Yeah, and all this on top of the polarization that's taking place in this country increasingly, the Supreme Court has sort of suggested that it will rule in favor of Trump on the Colorado ballot case. And I think that's just gonna lead to more polarization in this country. And the great possibility that Trump will be the nominee, will be on the ballot, and very likely elected. Oh, so we have sort of a global fragmentation going on. Anyway, time for wrap up here. Tim, you first, what's your summary of this? What's your suggestion as to the real possibilities? I'd like to go with a comment Jean made a few minutes ago and that's the tightrope that Joe Biden is walking. It's not just internationally and also domestically and it's also politics. And remember, we have two swing states. We have Michigan and Wisconsin that have a heavy, heavy American Muslim population that have turned away from Joe Biden and his popularity. And I think Joe Biden needs their support and he needs their votes come November. And these two swings are critical to his reelection. And so that's part of the tightrope that Joe Biden walks. And he's trying to appease all sides and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. Thank you for that. And Jean, what is your suggestion? And I hope you don't say anything that is raw meat news because we here at ThinkTech would not like to provoke a third world war. So events will overtake us one way or the other. Initiatives will either stand or fall. We'll see if attempting to take a middle approach to these hot challenges will work. And it is possibly going to depend on the various electorates in 40% of the globe that are voting this year and particularly in the United States. Well, I get there's two possibilities. Best case analysis, we normalize the affairs in the Middle East and have peace. And the second possibility is we have a global conflagration and a third world war. So I never know when you wake up in the morning what's going to happen. Well, thank you very much. Both Jean and Tim really appreciate this conversation. I am sure to a moral certainty we will have more of it. Thanks very much. Thank you. Aloha.