For a regime infected by the Muslim Brotherhood, an extreme movement that hates America and chants death to America from that side of the spectrum, I don't think they should be given F-35s or the engines for their fighter jets because that'll upset the power balance in the Middle East, which is ultimately guaranteed by Israeli air superiority and also by I think by America's posture in the Middle East. And that is Benjamin Yahoo with me earlier this week, I think on Tuesday, where he said do not sell the F-35s to Turkey and the president indicating he might. Michael Rubin joins us now, Director of Policy Analysis for the Middle East Forum. Michael, welcome back. You think the president should sell?
Those uh those F thirty five's? No, Brian, I actually think the President shouldn't. But I'll actually give a different reason than Prime Minister Netanyahu. Iran Turkey has A with it. A growing Defense industry.
And they haven't been shy about their desire to compete with American arms. transferred drones to Turkey. They were reverse engineered, and now Turkey sells tens of billions of dollars worth of drones not only to our allies, but also to our adversaries. What I'm afraid is Turkey talks about its own stealth jet fighter. That it wants to reverse the F, reverse engineer the F-35.
and use everything which the Americans have invested in. for their own industries. I don't think that's making Amer America great. They would give it to Iran perhaps 'cause they're friends with Iran, right?
Well, Trump himself said, Brian, that he talked Erdogan out of joining the war on Iran's side. But if we want to go back, the Turkish Air Force has run war games without forewarning NATO first with both the People's Republic of China and also with Pakistan. That's not the type of. Ally that we should be allowing to have the F-35 joint strike fighter. Have you heard that before, that Turkey wanted to join the war with Iran?
Yeah. I'm not sure whether I believe it, but President Trump himself had said that in the context of talking about how persuasive President Trump was to talk President Erdogan out of this. This was in the same speech when he talked about bringing a big gift bag. to Erdogan when he came and visited him at NATO.
So, you have a recommendation of what Israel should. They look at Iran as an enemy, should they?
Well, certainly they already look at Iran, but I think they need to look at Turkey as well. No, I mean Turkey, excuse me, on Iran. It's Turkey as an enemy, should they? Let me put yes. The short answer is yes.
More more directly, Brian. I think countries are at their strongest when they calibrate their foreign policy towards reality rather than wishful thinking. And what do you think? People just say, member, NATO can't be a problem as opposed to reality, how they're acting.
Well, you know, it's both how they're acting, but it's also the question of listen to other NATO members. Turkey has been harassing Greece, it's been claiming Greek territory, it's been harassing the European Union. recently transferred F sixteen s to Northern Cyprus without in violation of the American end use agreements. It increasingly looks that like Turkey is more intent on harassing European states and Greece, a NATO member, than it is in fighting Russia. And remember, Turkey doesn't really sanction Russian oil.
It's become the major money laundering hub for Russia today.
So let's talk about. What we learned today, we know the President's now meeting with the Syrian leader. How do you view Syria and this leader? We know about his al-Qaeda background, unfathomable that he's running the place, but he has been more of a stabilizing force than Assad, I'll tell you that. He's not barrel bombing his people.
He's trying to stabilize his country. Where do you rank this leader, ally or enemy? Um I'm still undecided. Look, Brian, you know I went to Syria recently, and I'm sitting here talking to you from Benghazi, Libya. The fact of the matter is, when I went to Syria, what was very clear is that Ahmed al-Shara only controlled certain neighborhoods of Damascus.
And then idlet. When he doesn't even have control over his whole true faction, the Hayat Tahir al-Sham, and therefore I just wouldn't want to put all our eggs in one basket for someone that's afraid to drive across the city of the capital city of the country he says he runs.
Well, the one thing we like is Iran no longer has a presence there, correct? That we do like. The question is whether Turkey is becoming as much of a problem. And you know, while Iran had long cultivated groups like Hamas, Today, Hamas's headquarters is in Istanbul, Turkey, just a couple hundred miles from where President Trump is in Ankara, Turkey.
So we believe that they are sustaining Hamas, correct? They absolutely are sustaining Hamas, not only sustaining Hamas financially, they're allowing Hamas to plan terrorist attacks from on Turkish soil. Where would you say the Gaza rehab is right now? The Gaza rehab is certainly out of limelight, but look. When we're talking about the deal and the peace agreement, The second Item that was supposed to be accomplished.
Was disarming Hamas. If Hamas isn't disarmed and if we don't hold their feet to the fire, then ultimately they're going to reconstitute. While I'm a little bit pessimistic about Gaza, this is why I'm a little bit more optimistic that President Trump isn't allowing the Iranians to do the same thing when they're purposely testing the red lines of his Memorandum of Understanding.
So, when we look at Hezbollah's presence, how have they got rearmed since the devastating Pager attack and the Walkie-Talkie attack? You going after their missiles, killing Nassarella? How have they been able to sustain themselves? Have we been watching money in arms flow through? even though Iran has been under economic distress?
Let me tell you this, Brian. You know that I go to Lebanon quite often. I went to Lebanon in the wake of the beeper attack, which you said. I went to Dahia, the main Hezbollah neighborhood in southern Beirut, and I was counting people with one eyes and missing fingers from that beeper attack. And there was not a Hezbollah flag in sight.
That was last November. I went back a week and a half ago. There were Hezbollah banners all over the place. On the airport road, there were big signs, billboards, that said thanks to Iran. I saw flags of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and I saw posters of Qasem Soleimani, the late head of the Quds force that Donald Trump had killed in Baghdad back on January 3rd, 2020.
The point of this is, I didn't see a single Lebanese flag. And so, from a Lebanese point of view, a Hezbollah point of view, they've been looking at this memorandum of understanding as snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. And that's why perhaps Donald Trump is right to reconsider.
Now last year, I went to Cote d'Ivoire in Western Africa. And of course, across many of these West African states, the largest business leaders are actually the Lebanese diaspora. And what I was looking at was money laundering going into Lebanon, from West Africa, from South America. Here's the point. While Israel had taken out much of Hezbollah's military, They hadn't taken out the economic network, nor had we.
I was meeting with a senior Lebanese official a week and a half ago, and he said the biggest problem he has with the United States is that the U.S. Treasury Department, because of its own bureaucratic inertia, is so slow at designating Hezbollah money launderers when the Lebanese government provides the Americans with information about it.
So I do think we need to be much more serious and holistic if we expect to have a victory over Hezbollah. Lori! Yeah. Ever heard of Warren Chi? It's an energy someone gives off when they have an American Home Shield warranty.
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So here's President Trump on how he feels about Iran right now after they hit thr uh five merchant ships in two days cut two. That's a very interesting question. To me, I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them anymore, they're scum. You know what scum is?
They're scum, they're sick people, they're led by sick people. And uh they're vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon they'd use it. As far as I'm concerned, it's over. I'll speak to our negotiators.
So And then he said, you know, negotiators want to talk, they can talk. I look at it as over. The markets don't like that, down 500 points. The President says I'm going to hit him again tonight. What do you think, Michael Rubin?
Well, you know, I think the President is right to do this in this case. You know, Brian, that from time to time I talk to the Iranians. And what I've always told the Iranians is that President Trump is different from every other President because he's much more willing to talk to people. But unlike Joe Biden, unlike Barack Obama, he's also much more willing to walk away, if he senses, insincerity. He walked away from North Korea.
He's walked away from others. In this case, the Iranians were testing him, and he's going to teach the Iranians a lesson. That said, I think that President Donald Trump's negotiation with Iran was bound to fail for a simple reason. He was negotiating, I mean, to make a real estate analogy, he was negotiating with the doorman of a skyscraper rather than the owner of the skyscraper. The fact of the matter is, Mohamed Bakr Khalabaf, the Speaker of the Parliament, doesn't have the power.
He's not in charge inside Iran or in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and therefore any promises which he makes were meaningless.
So who do you deal with? Who would be a dealer? This is what I would deal. The person in charge of Iran is Ahmed Vahidi. Who used to be the Minister of Defense.
But you really have two choices. He's with the IRGC now, right? All of these guys are somehow affiliated with the IRGC, but you're absolutely right. He's with the IRGC.
Now you have two options. One is if you want to deal with Mohammed Bakr Khalabaf, you have to understand that the knives are out for him inside Iran, and you have to eliminate all of his competitors so he's the only person in the room. Otherwise, what you need to do is have a list of people ranked by power. You ask Ahmed Vahidi, will he negotiate? He says yes or no.
If he says yes, you negotiate. If he says no, you eliminate him and go to the second in the list. And I guarantee you, by the time you get to point person three, four, or five, you're going to have someone who's going to negotiate with you. And if you have someone who's not going to negotiate with you, Then ultimately, you shouldn't pretend that they don't exist because, as we saw with three ships getting attacked. They do exist.
One other thing I would do if I were Donald Trump, Brian, is I would ask, or I would have Steve Witcoff, his chief envoy. Ask Mohammed Baker Khaliboff. Who was the one who gave the order to hand them over? And either. Colabov Ken.
Or he can't. But if he can't, that's a sign that Kalaboff is the wrong person.
So who gave the order to hit the merchant ships? Yeah. Um that's interesting. The only people that are really good at eliminating Iranians are the Israelis. The presidents were reluctant to maybe get the Israelis back in the fold at this point.
Even though I think they're going to act on their own behalf at some point when it becomes clear what we're doing.
So What would be your next move?
Well, I always try to remind people, and I say this as a military analyst. Um that the Israelis drive more German submarines than the German Navy does.
So, the Israelis are capable and they have the intelligence to do what they're going to do. What I'm told. Is that during Operation Epic Fury, the Americans and the Israelis worked together with such interoperability, it even exceeded the way the United States and the United Kingdom worked together during World War II? We were that close, and if President Trump wants to farm out certain missions to the Israelis in the Venn diagram of national interests, I have no doubt that the Israelis could probably accomplish what's needed.
So, Michael Rubin. in the weeks that they were fighting together. Was there something wrong with, and I asked Netanyahu this, the Prime Minister, this on Tuesday. Was it in retrospect? Was there something about that battle plan?
Or about the Iranians' resistance that surprised you or that fell short?
Okay. Um first of all There is a discrepancy between Trump and Netanyahu on what came next. Netanyahu really liked the former crown prince, Reza Pahlavi. As far as Trump was concerned, that guy failed his audition. Number two, there is genuine surprise that Iranians didn't come out to fight in the street.
Number three, however, was strategic patience. The Israelis had it. The Americans didn't.
Now, you know, I actually talked to some American targeting officers and war planners about this, and they said, no, we disprove this notion that Americans have no strategic patience because for 30 years we had been updating targets and we managed to decapitate the regime in the last weeks.
So maybe I'm wrong to talk about strategic patience, but we certainly didn't have the political patience. And look, when you have a hornet's nest, you have two good options. One is to leave it alone. The other one is the other good option is to get rid of it. But you don't want to come down the middle, lightly tapping it with a stick and then walk away.
And it seems, unfortunately, that's what the United States did in this case. Even when we were fighting, as opposed to when we walked away, while we were fighting, you thought we could have hit harder? While we were fighting, the problem was political statements that gave the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps confidence that they could outlast us, and that impedes any notion of surrender or people defecting. Uh and now that the Internet's back together, if you hit them again, you wonder if the people were able to communicate, if that had something to do with it. Also, Michael, in the defense of the Iranian people, they're not armed and between twenty and forty thousand were just killed in cold blood.
So that does tend to disparate a population. You're absolutely right. I am reminded of what happened in Serbia when Bill Clinton, however, bombed Serbia back in 1999. When that bombing campaign ended, Slobodan Milosevic remained in power. But the next year he was overthrown because Slobodan Milosevic wasn't able to pay his salaries and many of its constituencies, the top generals, had been killed.
I sort of wonder whether something could happen in that case. But my biggest fear is what you just voiced, Brian. We've never seen a regime aside from North Korea with the degree of cruelty that Iran has. They are the worst. Michael Rubin, thanks so much.
Every word you said was valuable. Truly appreciate it. Thank you.
