This was an extraordinary military success. Not only is Israel's military superiority, but that Israel's not alone, that the United States actually he actually put the President put American fighter jets in the air actively defending Israel in harm's way. That goes a long way, and that sends a strong message about where Israel is in the region versus where Iran is in the region, which is increasingly oscillated now.
Was John Kirby on all the talk shows yesterday making the argument for the White House that you take the win. We just showed that the rest of the world is so much better than Iran. They are embarrassed. They took their best shot and they've been embarrassed by the rest of the world. You take the win. It was a
huge success. So one of the first places I went as I followed this news very closely on Saturday over the weekend for analysis was our friend Mike Lyons, who were about to hear from and he presented two options yesterday on his Twitter thread. The first option was to take the win, as argued by John Kirby and others there, but the second option was this from Mike Lions and
we're gonna ask him about it. Israel was attacked by another sovereign nation who violated the international airspace of other countries in an unprecedented attack of crews and ballistic missiles and a swarm of drones. This is an escalated and disproportional response to an attack Israel made against them. To restore at turns, Israel needs to attack the military and strategic targets, nuclear facilities to punish Iran. It's time for
war and to finally eliminate this threat. I don't know which of these Mike advocates.
That's what I want to find out.
Let's find out. CNN military analyst Mike Lyons joins us from his automobile. I believe to discuss the fairly complex geopolitical questions before us. Mike, how are you, sir?
Hey, good morning guys. Great to be back.
And I'm not trying to pretend that this is an easy decision. But of the two scenarios you laid out to take the win or the one we just read, which are you actually behind?
I think that you could take I don't want to tread the needle necessarily, but you could take a little bit of both. You could say was somewhat of a win, thank god. The fact that ninety nine percent of those rockets were fired and never made their target, and it does show a little bit of incompetence on Iran inside. However, the United States or anybody else, you have to respond militarily. This is a complete escalation here. The terrence has got
to be restored, so Israel will respond. I was disappointed that the administration felt that they had to leap the information that said, hey, we're one hundred percent bind you, but guess what if you decide to go on the offense, We're not going to help you with that. So I you know, again clearly the Israeli much respond to this. It was nothing sort of a miracle that most of those rockets were fired out of the sky. Yeah.
Putting aside the to my mind, shocking and disgusting passivity. It's almost beyond passivity. It's we won't do anything. Just trust us. We were doing anything off the table nature of the Biden administration. What did you make of the aid given to Israel will buy a number of countries around the region.
I think it was terrific. Jordan in particular. Now, we always knew that Jordan's was going to align itself more with visuals that if they don't want to be public about that. Other NATO countries were obviously involved as well, and that was good, but you know, but now the gloves are off from an intel perspective, So now the Uranians also know what Jordan's capability is because this was
an intel exercise besides just being a military exercise. They took notes on exactly what happened and how many interceptors were fired. And we were on the wrong side of this economic bell curve. We fired probably more missiles at them than they fired it up or at those rockets to take them down. And this from a sustainment perspective, can't keep going. What if what if the range decide to shoot another three hundred tomorrow or sneak a nuclear
around in one of those things. So again, it was good to see other countries involved, and I think deep down there's a lot of moral support for what Israel is doing. It's just that they still can't go public with in that part of the world.
So the reporting there was some reporting last night US officials saying they believe Iran's intent was a mass casualty event. As opposed to what I think a lot of us believed for some of the weekend that they like telegraph this so much with the idea that they would not be successful. They just had to show that they were, you know, trying to do this as a gesture, which do you think it was?
Yes, I don't buy that. I think the analogy is, we're going to rob a bank. We're going to tell you we're going to rob the bank, so we want everybody to get in bulletproof vests. We're gonna come in, We're gonna shoot everybody up, but you'll have a bulletproof vest and you'll be okay as we try to commit this crime. I mean, that's the issue here. What they did was an active aggression against another country, whether they warned them or not, or whatever the case may be.
They didn't fire one missile or ten missiles. They fired three hundred. I mean the stope and scale of it was tremendous, and the measure of effective this can't be well, we just didn't kill anybody, we didn't hit anything. That just can't be it. All that really did was give the Israeli cabinet top time to now decide what their response will be, which again I do think will be covertly in the shadows. We'll have some level of military
aspect to it. But if you're a nuclear scientist or a military official in Iran right now, you better have your head on a swivel because everyone is a target and that's how those targets are going to be inside Iran. I wouldn't be surprised.
Well, And it's worth keeping in mind that the Israelis respond when they desire. Might be by noon today, it might be in six weeks.
Yeah, and I still we haven't seen cyber, we haven't seen other you know, kind of soft ways that they can respond. Uh. And who knows. We know that there's challenges inside of Iran already with that with their government, they have significant internal conflict of maintaining their own power. So from their perspective, this might be a last gesture in order to show that they're still control of their government. It would be great if something happened in there, you
hat revolution again inside of Iran. I mean it would tip. It looks like it appears it would tip back towards at least some level of normalcy, let's say.
Uh.
But but for for what's happening right now. Israel is looking at Iron saying existential threat and nuclear facilities. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the target.
Yeah, that's the story that broke late in the week last week before this attack that Israel was that Iran is so close once again to a nuclear weapon.
And something to happen to because another thing could deliver it. And so from from that perspective, I mean, let's just say they can't go to North Korea and get a suitcase or get something and and launch it and put it, put it something and you know, kind of bring it together in order to make this attack on the next time, and that that has got to be what the concern is. So those are all in the realms of the possibilities. So that's when EMA Kirby systems like, let's take the
w here this is. This is not a baseball game where we're going to play another game tomorrow. I mean, this is a long term strategic objective. But what I don't understand about this administration is it's very siloed in how it's dealing with the same issue. There were all of a sudden, we're now iron plaid against Iran, but we're really not sure about what's going on with the Moss and Southern guys that you Israel could do a little better job of what's going on there. I mean,
it's the same enemy. It's the same enemy, and that's how Israel looks at it. It's one thing. For some reason, the two different research groups I have given the President or whoever the advice is not talking to each other because they think it's they're all separate, independent channels. It's the same thing. It's the same channel.
Yeah. I never want to come off as some sort of hyperpartisan, you know, bomb chucker, but I'm just astonished by the ineffectiveness of the Biden foreign policy. It just it shocks me. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Seeing in military analyst Mike Lions Mike, Hey, we sure appreciate you squeezing this and it's great to talk to you. Thanks for the insights.
Thanks guys, thanks for having me and Getty