Iran is the source of all the problem in the Middle East. If it's gone, it's a huge opportunity. Where does that leave the 2.2 million people of Gaza, the 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank? You are failing to the same trap, the trap that the source of the problem in the Middle East is the Israeli Palestinian conflict. You think it's Iran? I think it's Iran. The regime collapse will be the
best result of this campaign. But you could get chaos as a result in Iran. You could get what we had in Libya or what we had in, you know, Afghanistan. Nothing will be worse than this regime. Welcome to this special edition of the Forecast from the hills above Tel Aviv. There's an awful lot going on, as you can imagine. We've got the continuing ballistic duel between Iran and ISO. We've got still the threat, or perhaps it's a promise of President Trump getting involved on Israel's side.
And the key question in all this is what would the blowback be from that involvement, but also what can the Americans actually achieve in terms of neutralising Iran's nuclear programme? Well, someone who knows the answers to both of those is General Amos Yaddin, the only human being alive to be involved in the neutralisation of two nuclear issues.
One was the 1981 attack on the Asarak nuclear reactor in Iraq, where he was a fighter pilot and then as head of Israeli intelligence in 2007. General Yaddin, it's a pleasure to have you on the on the forecast if the Americans get involved. But if Trump decides to get involved in this, what difference will that make? And what do you think? The reaction could be from Iran itself or from Hezbollah, for instance.
I think the importance of the American participation has to do on the technical issue of destroying most of the Iranian nuclear facilities. There is like 20 sites, Israel
can reach 19 of them. There is one important place called Fodor which is very much fortified against the most formidable bombs that Israel possess and it cannot be penetrate by Israel and the only Air Force that can destroy it is the American Air Force. So this is about the in generic part of the House, but the political part is even more important because if you destroy even 90% of the Iranian capabilities, the 10%, if you don't do any agreement and you
let the Iranians develop what they want to develop, they will have the nuclear bomb, not in six months, not in one year, but in two or three years. So what is important is to reach a different agreement on Iran nuclear ambitions. A political agreement. Political agreement. But can that be done if you push them into a corner?
No, On the contrary, when you push them enough to the corner, there will be negotiation and Mr. Witkoff will come like Popeye and they will come with a very weak cards. So this is the political objective of this campaign and the Americans, as I say, they can contribute to the in generica part of the House, but more to the political goal.
And if the Americans get involved, do you think that will enhance the political strategy of bringing them to the negotiating table in a weakened position, or could it have the opposite effect? Let's speak about the American intervention, because it must. It may be in two forms. One form is the surgical for door operation, a company with a message. We are not interested in destroying Iran. We are not fighting against the Iranian nation. We are only helping the Israelis
to complete the nuclear mission. Don't even think about retaliation because then we will go to a full scale war. The other option is to say the Iranians are going to retaliate. They may not listen to the message.
Let's pre empt at least on every element of the Iranian militaries that can attack our forces in Qatar, in Kuwait, in UAE and make sure that the Iranian retaliation will be as weak as it can be. From what you know about the Iranians and what you can imagine their current position to be like, what do you think they will decide to do? I think the Iranians were surprised very much from the
attack six days ago. They were in a state of shock, surprise, but they may getting out of the of the trauma and craft strategies that will try to take advantage of their strengths, which is strategic, patient, long wars that will make the price for the Israelis and for the American higher, hoping that they will do something like the eight years of the war against Iraq. However, don't mislead ourselves, it is not the same Iran.
Most of the Iranians now hate the regime, don't want to go to even 8 months of war and Iran itself. In 1988, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini say I'm drinking the glass of poison because the Iraqis are now firing missiles to nozzle and Tehran where the elite is living. So let's have a look. Israel have done it not in the in the eight years at the beginning of the war, in the first or second day. So I think there will be a lot of pressure on Iran to to end
the war. But we need I think about a week to see where the regime is going. What is the decision making process now? Is the supreme leader really understand what's going on? You know, in the dictatorial regimes, the bad news are not going up so quickly and he may see a different picture of the world that is really there. Was it helpful for Prime Minister Netanyahu to say, as he did the other day, that, you know, regime change could be one of the results of this?
Why not go for regime change? And he wasn't exactly calling for it. He wasn't saying that Israel was pursuing it, but he said it would be a welcome result. Was that a helpful thing for him to say? I think it was very smart not to put the regime change in the list of the objective of the campaign. Which he didn't do. Which he didn't do not. Publicly, anyway, yeah. And I think we are not good in having instrument to induce a regime change.
The lessons from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from anywhere Libya is is a is a bad lesson. So it is smart not to put it on the list. We are also not good in predicting when it will happen. 19901988 Nobody predict the collapse of the Soviet Union, nobody predicted the collapse of the Egyptian President Mubarak or Assad. So we have to be very modest on that, or after saying that a regime collapse will be the best result of this campaign. But you could get chaos as a result in Iran.
You could get what we had in Libya or what we had in, you know, Afghanistan. Nothing will be worse than this regime. This regime is very cool. He has the the goals of wiping Israel off the map is the source of non non stability in the Middle East. If there will be a chaos which I'm not sure. Iran is a state with a tradition of a state.
It is 3000 years old empire that know what they want and if it will come back to another regime it's maybe taking some time but they will be busy in their own and they will not endanger Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Yemen and the the western world. So nothing is worse than this regime point.
Again, if the Americans get involved, is it possible that the political landscape in the Middle East will be so disrupted that even those countries that are currently on Israel's side, or on the fence or on America's side might be forced to intervene against either Israel or America?
No way, no way. I just came from a defence conference in Prague. So the Arabs are calling for stability and we all understand what they want, stability as the main political phenomena of their regimes, their kingdoms, the export of oil. However, they will not shed the tear if Iran will be destroyed. Iran is a man's sweat to the Gulf States and to any Arab country, any Arab country.
So to your question, I'm I'm look at it exactly from the other side that if the Iranian regime will be toppled, it's a huge opportunity for President Trump and for the Arab countries to shape the Middle East in a new alliance, Arab American Israel that will end the war in Iran and the war in Gaza, go forward with normalisation, go forward with non religionist and Iran is the source of all the problem in the Middle East. If it's gone, it's a huge opportunity.
Where does that leave the 2.2 million people of Gaza, the 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank who are more angry, more bitter, more upset than they've ever been? I think you are failing to the same trap, the traps that the source of the problem in the Middle East is the Israeli Palestinian conflict. You think it's Iran? I think it's Iran. I think we cannot solve the Israeli Palestinian issue because Iran is encouraging the terrorist group Hamas, Islamic Jihad to spoil any any going
forward. So we have to finish the war in Gaza, absolutely. But how? What? But what's on the horizon for the Palestinians in Gaza or indeed in the West Bank, their own state, living as second class citizens in a in an Israeli state? What ideas do you have there? This is a subject for another interview. We're coming today to speak about the war, but. Is that also a problem that needs to be solved? Of course, of course. And that's what I said.
I said if Iran will be defeated, it's been be much easier to solve the Israeli Palestinian issue because the terror organizations that they supported with money, weapon, ideology will be weaker. And those in the Palestinian part of the the problems that there is no peace has to do with Israelis and Palestinians, you know, You know what the Palestinians are shouting in the in the street of London? Yeah, Palestine, from the river to the sea. We also know what the settlers think.
They say Israel from the river to the sea, I mean. So, OK, so let's weaken those who are against peace and it can be done only after we finish the war in Iran and we finish the war in Gaza, we will remove Hamas with against peace against Two state solution. Two state solution still has some leverage, so it has a possibility. Two state solution disappear on the seven of October, but it can
come back. It can come back after we defeat Hamas. I think there will be Palestinians that will do the thinking of where it LED them, the Hamas and the terror way. In my plan that I say you need another interview, but it was published in November 2023 that the Gaza Strip will be under an Arab mandate. It will be managed by Palestinians, technocrat Palestinians with some connections to the PA.
But it should change the the Gaza Strip into a non militarized region with an Arab education that is not inciting for terror and from Palestine, from the river to the sea. Then we will have a chance for peace. It's unfortunately a generation from now. Just getting back to Trump and Israel and Iran, do you think Trump's somewhat erratic, unpredictable behaviour is helpful to what Israel wants to achieve here or not? No, I think Trump is in a dilemma.
On one hand he is against forever wars. He has the MAGA people make America great against that, want isolation, don't want America to be involved in the global affairs. On the other hand, it's he speak about peace through strength and he thinks that America should deter Russia and China. This is make America great again. So who will decide what is the right interpretation? Who will make what is make America great again? It's Trump. So I think at that moment, Trump loves winners.
You know America in history came to rescue countries that fail. Like ours. Like yours in World War One, in World War 2, like going to to Kuwait against Iraq. This is the first time that America can join a war on national security goal for America but with a winner and
helping them to finish the war. On that question, if they don't get involved for whatever reason, whether it's the MAGA camp or they're worried about blowback in the Middle East, can Israel finish this war on its own terms without Trump's help? When you say finish, you may ask about achieving all the goals. This is not easy. It's not easy to destroy, as I say for though, is. So fordo stays basically.
Fordo may stay, Never underestimate the Israeli innovation on other means to destroy Fordo, not by the Air Force, but it will be much difficult to complete the missions. However, for me it's more interesting what is the right time that you are in a climax with your achievement and now you start going down. You know, even successful wars always look like a big victory in the beginning, and then it is, it may change.
So Israel must find the times that it achieved most of its goal and look for a mechanism to end the war. Of course there is the other side and we discussed the strategies that the Iranians may choose, but I think we have now a huge leverage against Iran. We achieve El superiority as a fighter pilot who believe in El superiority. What was achieved there is amazing. El superiority, which Israel has, doesn't mean that they still can't fire ballistic missiles in Tel Aviv.
No, this is another story. It's the story of the campaign against ballistic missiles. By the way, Israel has the best air defense in the world. Ballistic defense. The Iron David Sling arrow. And intercepting all the drones, about 99% of the drones, hundred of them that were launched against Israel were destroyed. So this is also priority in
defence. But we have also priority over the enemy strategic areas, which is I think will make it very difficult for the Iranians to adapt a strategy of long war, war of attrition. Just on their strategy, what do you think it is at the moment? Because they're still firing missiles every day and every night. But a relatively small number, I gather. Is that because they're worried about running out?
I think it has to do with with both their capabilities were destroyed, were reduced dramatically. Once again, as a veteran of 1991, I saw the Americans trying to to hunt the launchers. And during the whole War 0 success. Really. Yeah. And here about 50% out of 300 launchers were already. And without launchers, those missiles are useless, right? Yeah, exactly. So no doubt that their capabilities went down, but it also has to do with their intentions.
If they thinking about a long war, they have to have economy of launching. Yesterday it seems like they decided that they are going to a very low number of missiles in every attack to keep the Israelis running to the shelters and to disturb to disrupt our life. This morning it was more massive attack. And of course there is the other side. We have to make sure that we have enough interceptors and to do the right decision which of the missiles will be intercepted
and which one you can absorb. Technical question on Fodor, the the bombs, the American bombs, those NOP bombs, I think they have 20 of them launched by the B2 bombers. They can penetrate 60 meters into the ground. I'm told that Fodor is 80 meters in the ground. So how does that work? 1st 4 door is under a mountain and the mountain at the top is if I remember right 110 but you are not attacking them. Go to the side.
Yeah. You go to the side here, to the side here when you know that you can penetrate. And there is also a technique that you drop the first ball which is doing 60 and then in the same hole you drop the second ball, so another 60 done. Final question, much of the world sees this as a a really big moment of peril, you know, for your two countries, but also for the region ABS beyond. Is that the way you see it, or do you see it as a moment of
opportunity? I think all the grave predictions that if Israel attack Iran, there will be at least regional war and maybe World War Three. All these predictions were found two pessimistic and not connected to reality. And you still believe that even though we don't know whether the Americans have got involved or not I. Always said that no World War Three, no regional war, maybe more than Israel and Iran.
If the Iranians will decide to go after their threat to close the Strait of Hormuz or to attack Americans pay attention that they are very, very careful. So I think it's a moment of opportunity if Iran. Will change if the regime will fail and even if the same regime will not have this formidable instruments of nuclear program in the threshold and thousands of ballistic missiles and terror organization all over the Middle East. It's a wonderful opportunity to shape the Middle East towards
peace. Let me tell you the the last war President Trump want very much to have Nobel Prize for peace. I'm not sure the Norwegians will give it to him. They would drive him crazy that Obama got it in the first term in the first year one. 100 days, yeah. Without doing any contribution to peace. So he has a plan. His Nobel Prize for peace is a table with four legs. Ceasefire or peace in Ukraine, peace in Gaza, agreement with Iran on the nuclear issue and normalization of Israel and Saudi.
Each one of them is a Nobel Prize for peace. He want all of them. But pay attention, three of them are in the Middle East and to shape differently the Middle East. Iran should be removed and then the the sky is the limit opportunity wise. You're an optimist. Let me tell you something.
When I was Chief of Intelligence, I used to brief President Shimon Peres. And you know when you are chief of intelligence, you usually put forward the risk and President Peres, say, Amos, why you are so pessimistic. The pessimist and the optimist are dying the same but living differently. General Gandin, thank you very much indeed. That's it from the special edition of the forecast in the hills above Tel Aviv. I hope you enjoyed it. See you next time.