The US preparing to launch yet another round of air strikes against Iranian back militia in the Middle East. They followed dozens of strikes across Iraqan, Syria of Friday night in a major response to that drone attack that killed three American soldiers in Jordan, and with all going missile and drone attacks from Iranian back hoofy rebels in Yemen, the US and UK struck thirty six targets there late Saturday as well.
US officials restate they're trying to degrade the capabilities of Iranian back militias in this region without triggering a wider war. Crucially, not one US strike into Iran itself.
So according to the White House, the strikes that we talked about Friday morning and the strikes that happened over the weekend aren't related really at all. One was a retaliation for attack and our troops and kill on our soldiers.
The other one was for the Houthis attack and the ships.
But I gotta believe it's all died together in a Hey, if you mess with us, We're going to hurt you bad.
Stop messing with us message, because whoever you are and whatever you're cause By.
The way, Iran has put out a message in the last twenty four hours, don't you dare touch that spyship, which is kind of interesting given that the Wall Street Journal editorial board and we've played some clips of a variety of people saying the first thing we ought to do, this was a week ago, is sink that damn ship and put at the bottom of the ocean.
Wow.
Complicated situation, no matter how we try to simplify it. To discuss all of the above, please welcome Mike Lions, military analysts for CNN among other outlets.
Mike, it's always.
A pleasure of what's your take on the latest e.
Everyone, guys. I think it's a good start. The terms to be re established will take some time. I think that it's all about the consequences becoming so great that
the other side doesn't think that they can attack. We saw, though, what no one's talking about is an attack that was made from the Shia militia groups against a Syrian militia group that we've been aligned with, So that could be the next target for these individuals, so they could go after There are some of these groups that we're working with local groups in order defeat isis there inside of Syria, and you could see the Iraqi SA moist groups starting
to attack them instead of attack Ranian forces, So we might have to defend some of our allies there on the ground inside of Tierra. So I thought that was an interesting development that took place in the last twenty four hours. But overall, I think there are two separate lanes. Now. Clearly the Houthis were going after them proactively, which is another thing that's great. We're getting them before they launched their missiles or Ani see ship and she missiles us.
And then I thought what we did was good from a capability perspective to take away the capability, and we're going to continue to do it.
Well, is there anything you would like to see next that you think would really send the message of don't mess with us?
Well, I think that you know, the second that we find one of those Shea militia leaders that's that went into Iran, which is clearly a red line. We're not going to attack anywhere inside Iran. Now you know the plague, the sandboxes Syria and Iraq. The second that person crosses and steps foot back in a rock, I'd like to see a cruise missile with their name on. It's heading
right for them. I think, I think we have to go after the leadership of these organizations, and whether that's in six months like we did with Celemony, I think that's that's a good solution as well. So that's that's kind of the next step. We'll degrade some of this capability that they have. So there's this land bridge logistically, if you take, if you'll get a map, draw straight line from Iran through a rack into Syria that gets logistics and supplies along kind of road networks and supply
lines that there. So we've done a pretty good job of destroying that. We went after it initially a few months ago, but now you know, the kind of attack that we made with you know, eighty five separate targets is a super significant set back for them.
Mike, as a conservative talk show host, my job is to just say Joe Biden's week and a bad leader, and that's why we're doing this, that and the other.
But I have a feeling there's more going on than just that.
And I read some analysis in the Wall Street journalier're talking about how the new guy who is the CUDS for leader, his name's Connie. He is the kind of the guy who runs the Syria I'm sorry, the Shee militias and the you know, their proxies, and that they allege that he doesn't have as.
Much control of them as Sola Moni had.
So I just I find myself picturing Iran through back channel diplomacy saying to the US, look, we're trying to rain these maniacs in. We don't really have control. Hit them not us. Is that possible, Yeah.
It might, There might be something to that the back channel that is going on right now. We kind of made the mistake by taking Saddamus saying that when we did obviously and we saw the balance of power tip and I think that the Iranians are concerned that they want to stay in power. They have their own internal struggles with their people inside running an authoritative government that they do, so that wouldn't surprise me from a back
channel perspective. That's the message that they're sending is to you know, go after these d militia groups because we can't seem to get control of them. That's not to
say they still want, you know, Israel to win. They don't want the United States to have a tremendous influence there, but they don't want it to escalate from that perspective because they know if they escalate them, they're going to have internal problems gathering an army doing what they have to do to fight an external enemy like the United States.
Well, how about the other side of it, since we know that Iran at least an ideology is aligned with them, and it's certainly arming them and funding them.
You hit Iran hard, and they.
Whether they have control of them or not, they work really hard to try to rain them in because they don't want damage done to them. And do you agree would sinking that ship, as a lot of people have argued that spy ship there in the in the Red Sea, would sink in that be an attack on Iran in your mind, I think it would.
If you put the shoe on the other foot, if if somebody sank one of our ships, I think we would excellent points as an active war. So I mean not again always looking through the eye the lens of what's going on. You know, the attacks that were made for those those that were that were shot at the eighty five targets, I'm sure they thought that the United States is at war with them there as well. I think that that ship has got to be an overt
threat to our security. What I don't like is, you know the fact that our politicians are still not all behind this. Everything still still the War Powers Act, and everything is still an authorization U Samilitary force from from nine to eleven.
Still unbelievable. I mean, that's just unbelievable, exactly.
And and and you know, it's it's a big deal to launch the super Hornet off of aircraft carry and go hit a target in a sovereign country, whether they are our enemy or not, without you know, any not the legal side of it, but just kind of them all side, especially Yemen. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world. Now they have capacity. Again, we
allowed this to happen. We you know, we we allowed them build up to happen, We allowed the arms to go, and we allowed all those and now we're the situation where we have to take care of it and the result is not going to be good for that country. That country might never get.
Outs feet again, yeah man.
And then you know, if I get on this side of the argument that you were just referring to, for your average young many who is you know, too young for to even remember nine to eleven or any of that stuff. They just take the United States rerets of their lives because missiles came into their country.
Yeah, and they've been at civil war now for the past almost ten years, the Houthis versus the former sana government that was there. The Saudis tried to defeat them, weren't able to and that was another classic proxy war with an our ally being Saudi Arabia Orn on the side of the Houthis, and they harmed them very well because they have again thousands of these anti ship missiles that a couple of weeks ago, that missile got to win the like seven seconds of one of those destroyers.
I mean, that's what they're trying to do. They win the lottery if they get one missile through these defense systems. And they still haven't done things like swarm drones. All their drones are one white suicide drones. They all leave and they have no return address. And so again if they swarm them, if they do something and they hit a US destroyer or a carrier or a cruiser or something in the Red Sea, that's a complete lottery win for them.
But then we would go nuts, wouldn't we. I mean, that's a hell of a lot of nuts.
Yeah, But I'm talking on their side. So like anything, we have this tremendous air power, naval, sea power, but nothing changes until someone shows up on the ground. And so you know, that's what the armies are for now. I'm not advocating out on any level, but again, we can bomb them into submission, but as we've seen, it doesn't it's not going to change anything. So unless we're willing to do something, so yeah, we would go nuts for sure, and it would be a disaster, and it
would would. It's that's why we're playing with fire here, and that's why I think I think that's where we're going more proactive with regard to attacking these these sites. We saw the Sentcom report that they took four of them out before they even got off the ground. I think that's what we're going to be doing.
You know, Mike, I'd love to see you side by side on a panel within Economists to address the free navigation of the seas and what it means. I was reading another piece that was dealing with the fact that piracy was like the number one issue asking voters in seventeen ninety three, what's the year number one issue? It's that piracy was huge, hence Jefferson and the Barbary pirates and the rest of it. And we have had an incredibly long period of the free navigation of the seas
for the purposes of commerce. It's lifted everybody on our standard of living and it's been so peaceful so long. People forget that that's an enormous deal economically.
You know, it is. I've talked to my son about it, because he's been deployed to that part of the world, you know, on a destroyer and they peel off and they go and either help try to protect ships or go after ships that have pirated others. It is, and it gets back to gunboat diplomacy again, and we need
this is where we need allies. I think that's the best part of the Houthy attack plan right now is the Great Britain's on our side, and the European countries and some of some of them that don't have navies, but it's going to take larger navies, more ships in order to make sure that that transports. And they're they've shut down suic Canal that Egypt is hurting, not because of that obviously, so again, the economics behind what's going on hasn't impacted yet, but I think show.
Mike Lions, military analyst for CNN. Mike, we appreciate the time very much.
Thanks, Thanks guys for me Armstrong and Getty