General Michael Flynn joins me to talk about the stunning developments in Iran, including the Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites, and the response from the United States, Israel, and other allies. He also talks about the impact of the strikes on Iran and the implications for the Middle East and beyond.
00:00:52.400And joining me now is General Michael Flynn.
00:00:55.660He, of course, served as national security advisor to the 45th president, Donald Trump.
00:01:02.600He is not only one of the country's leading geopolitical thinkers, he's also one of the finest Christian gentlemen and leaders has ever been my privilege to know.
00:01:15.440General Flynn, welcome to the Stone Zone.
00:01:18.120And I want to get your take on these stunning developments in Iran.
00:01:28.800And for just your life of incredible service to this country.
00:01:33.340And I know that you're continuing to do that.
00:01:35.560So, for your audience, you know, this is stunning developments, particularly what's happening right now.
00:01:43.720The time zone, so everybody understands, you know, in the United States, the Eastern Standard Time, Iran is about eight hours ahead.
00:01:53.940Israel is about seven, six hours ahead, give or take.
00:01:57.660And so it's in the early, late evening or early morning hours right now.
00:02:04.100And there, Israel, as I speak to you at this moment, Israel has had somewheres upwards of about 150 to 200 ballistic missiles fired at it in the last several hours, probably in the last six to eight hours, 150 to 200.
00:02:22.780But some of them are being engaged by the Iron Dome system that protects Israel.
00:02:28.980Some of them are being engaged by aircraft.
00:02:32.360And I have to believe, because we, the United States, have positioned a very sophisticated missile frigate, counter-missile frigate in the Eastern Mediterranean, we might even be providing some intelligence or maybe even some, certainly, or some defensive capability.
00:02:49.800So that's the current here and now, last six to eight hours.
00:02:54.940In the last, or in the last 48 hours, you know, the initial attack by Israel against nuclear targets in Iran, because it was clear that Iran has, in fact, developed the capability.
00:03:13.800And they were days away from matching, you know, matching up the capabilities for a nuclear device, a nuclear weapon, and weaponizing the uranium that they have been enriching for the better part of 10 years and trying to get away with it.
00:03:31.740And lying the entire time, the Iranians have been lying the entire time they've been negotiating the Iranian, you know, JCPOA deal for the last 10 years, right?
00:03:42.440They've been lying through their teeth.
00:03:45.100So Israel made a very sophisticated decision, very conscious decision, and very strategic decision to basically eliminate Iran's nuclear capability.
00:03:56.840In order to do that, Israel has to have endeavored to take on what I believe is a multi-layered campaign, a very offensive campaign, and a multi-day campaign.
00:04:13.700This campaign is probably going to last a couple of weeks because of the destruction that is going to be required.
00:04:22.380So the Iranian military can no longer, and political leadership can no longer have the command and control, the intelligence capability, the air defense capability, all of what we call battlefield operating systems that are necessary for a nation state to be able to have a functioning military.
00:04:43.640And clearly to completely destroy the Iranian capability to have any type of nuclear weapons.
00:04:52.960So that began almost 48 hours ago, and they have done at least two days of attacks against Iran.
00:05:01.920This counterattack that's occurring now was clearly something that the Netanyahu government did plan for.
00:05:12.520I 100 percent sit here talking to your audience today.
00:05:16.640I guarantee that they plan for this counterattack at probably a scale like this.
00:05:21.980Now, I also understand that the Houthi rebels down in Yemen have also fired some missiles, but what is up in the air right now, so just to give people a picture, particularly those that are listening on radio, in the Middle East region, you have Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel.
00:05:43.620You've got Iraq, Iran, the UAE, you've got all these different countries, if you can think about it as a map, Turkey, all of those nations right now have put up in the air massive amounts of their own aircraft to be able to provide protection and security along their borders.
00:06:06.520Because they knew and they were warned that the Iranians were going to launch a massive missile strike.
00:06:14.040Those missiles, some of them are, in fact, having some success getting through the Iranian or the Israeli Iron Dome system, which is this protective system over Israel, much to what Donald Trump is trying to develop here in our country called the Golden Dome, something akin to it.
00:06:33.320They have had some success breaking through that umbrella of air defense capability.
00:06:40.720So they've targeted essentially like the Israeli version of our Pentagon.
00:07:09.700But the level of devastation is not as bad as you would imagine.
00:07:17.560So the Israelis are very, very prepared for this, their ability to hunker down in very hardened bunker systems.
00:07:28.580And I'm talking about the entire population is, again, is a very sophisticated capability.
00:07:34.980And the level of surprise wasn't there.
00:07:37.420Bibi Netanyahu, two nights ago, put out a warning to all the citizens of Israel.
00:07:41.920There have been some people that were, in fact, evacuated from Israel.
00:07:47.600And so Israel has been preparing for this for a long time.
00:07:53.100Their strategic patience to wait until this moment is incredible because they basically gave, along with President Trump,
00:08:04.400they gave Israel as much or I'm sorry, they gave Iran as much a chance as they could possibly have to have a deal,
00:08:13.580not to have any kind of nuclear weapons system and not to have this level of attack.
00:08:18.720Right up until the, you know, Trump put out here recently, you know, they gave him Trump's warning was, look, we're going to work this for 60 days.
00:08:27.620And if you guys can't come to some sort of agreement in 60 days, then, you know, what is it, what will come is something that I, that could easily get out of control.
00:08:38.980And that's what I, that's my concern right now as I sit here talking to you, Roger, with your audience.
00:08:44.960I am concerned because war is something that once it takes on a life of its own, it really can get out of control.
00:08:51.680So this ballistic missile attack by the Iranians, I feel, and I believe that the Iranians do not have the capacity to continue this level of attack for too many days.
00:09:05.680I, my thinking is that they probably have a couple of days where, you know, they, they can fire, you know, some number of missiles, but they're going to run out at a certain point in time.
00:09:16.720And what the Israelis are continuing to do is they're continuing to pound, you know, the living, you know, what, out of multiple targets in, in Iran.
00:09:30.080And they started with the most difficult, the most hardened first, which was smart.
00:09:43.560Now, Israel's plan will likely go after more tactical sites like these ballistic missile firing locations, more barracks locations where, where some of the Iranian guards, coups force, army elements will, will be stationed.
00:10:02.260So there, Iran is, I'm sorry, Israel started with very strategic, high-end targets, and they are now going to tick down the list.
00:10:12.080And they're going to go after less and less strategic targets and more and more tactical targets to completely destroy Iran's military industrial complex capability.
00:10:24.140The response or the reaction that Iran is demonstrating right now is something that, you know, was no surprise, was something that Israelis have planned for.
00:10:42.080Some of this stuff is going to get through because you just can't stop it all.
00:10:45.460There's just so much and so much terror raining down.
00:10:48.920I did get reports of some casualties in Israel.
00:10:58.400You know, one Israeli, you know, killed is too many.
00:11:02.500But whereas on the other side, on the Iranian side, the numbers are actually minimal.
00:11:09.740I mean, they're very minimal because of the precision that the Israelis are using.
00:11:16.520So one of the things that is very clear, and I've seen some video, the Israelis have, I call it exquisite intelligence, bulletproof intelligence assets on the ground in military resources and other intelligence, human intelligence collection capabilities that are providing precision targeting to basically take out the leadership, right?
00:11:42.260I mean, they are killing the agenda, the general staff, like the chiefs of staff, the commander, you know, whereas like their command, their chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, as an example, they're on their second one already.
00:11:57.220And more than likely, and more than likely, that individual is going to have to go into hiding and not be as effective.
00:12:03.540Komen E, the current leader of Iran, the Ayatollah, right?
00:12:08.160I mean, this guy has got to be at the top of the list because he is part of the problem.
00:12:15.760He is a wartime leader, and he is a tyrant.
00:12:19.840Sadly, the people of Iran do not, you know, they are feeling the heat of this, where the people of Israel are 100% behind the state of Israel.
00:12:33.240The people of Iran are not behind their regime.