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What is the justification for hitting these sites in Iran
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I think we need to understand what we were dealing with up until yesterday
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This is a double existential threat on Israel. Not only has Iran over those past few years been preparing and building up in secret its nuclear program
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getting very close to building substantial nuclear abilities that threaten substantially the people of Israel
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But putting the nuclear threat aside, Iran has hundreds of ballistic missiles that even without nuclear warheads are capable of erasing entire cities and communities off the earth
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And Iran's leaders, the people that we have targeted and eliminated in these strikes, are the very people that have been saying openly to the media, to their people, the Iranian regime has been openly aiming to erase Israel off the map
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They're saying death to Israel. They're saying death to the West. And within these strikes, we have eliminated the top ranking commanders in the IRGC army
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We have eliminated Haji Zadeh, the head of the IRGC air force, responsible for not only, you know, something like 100 UAVs that are flying towards Israel earlier today
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but the attacks on Israel with ballistic missiles and UAVs in last October
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Yes, although those attacks of ballistic missiles and UAVs were as a result of Israeli strikes in Iran as well
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So what evidence is there that you can share with us that says Iran was preparing to imminently strike Israel
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and Israel took legal defensive action to take out Iran's capability of doing that
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Well, actually, earlier today, we have shared visuals of us striking trucks with ballistic missiles on their way to be fired towards Israel
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and we have eliminated that threat before they had the chance to shoot them at us
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Why do we need to have the missiles flying towards Israel? So how do you know that those missiles were being prepared to be shot
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Sorry, how do you know that those missiles were being prepared to be fired at Israel
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if they're in the back of a truck somewhere? It's a truck that is going, based on our intelligence, to a launching post
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to launch ballistic missiles towards Israel. This is not a days-long effort that we just launched an operation
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This is an operation that has been preparing for months. The entirety of the IDF took part in preparing that operation
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And that took extensive intelligence. And the Israeli intel in that case is very precise and very accurate
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showing that those abilities have been building up, spread out throughout Iran
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and hidden underground underneath civilian buildings because this is what the IRGC does And is that intelligence made public Captain Is that intelligence made public for the world to see A lot of that intelligence have been made public We been making it public as soon as we get information that is declassified
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We put it out. We have put out Iran's plan to destroy Israel that has been advancing now for months, if not years
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And Iran, openly, you don't even need intel, has in Tehran a clock
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that is counting down to 2042, the destruction of Israel. How much more evidence do we need
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How long is this warfare activity, this kinetic action, going to take place for
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Well, I'm not going to go into timelines. I don't want to give our enemies more information than they already have
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We know that they watch the media, but this is an ongoing situation. Things are still developing on the ground
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We're prepared to keep this going for days if need be. We need to make sure that this threat to Israeli civilians is no longer there
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Can I just butt in here again to say we're now getting reports that there have been fresh explosions across Iran just in the last few minutes
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And I see that the Israeli Air Force has said that it is continuing to, and I'm quoting, attack missile launchers and infrastructure in Iran
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So when what is the stated aim then of this ongoing operation
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When will it finish based on what parameters? I'm not going to give you a finished timeline
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I think what we're doing is we're assessing the threat as the situation is developing
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But so long as there is a nuclear threat to Israel and there are missiles pointed at Israel, we will eliminate them
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There were talks set to be happening about Iranian nuclear proliferation, which I see the Iranians have now pulled out of
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How actually helpful is it then to have committed this act of war, as the Iranians call it
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if it means that those negotiations are now over? I'm a military spokesperson
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I won't go into negotiations, but we have been saying openly for years
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we have been diverting the world's attention to Iran for years. It's not only a threat to the Middle East and to Israel
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it's a global threat. And we have reached now the point of no return
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where Iran has enriched enough uranium and has gained enough capabilities to a point where they're very close to building
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anywhere from nine to 15 nuclear warheads. And at this point of no return
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if we had not acted when we did, every day that would have passed, we would have known less and less and less
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And this would have put the state of Israel and its people in greater danger. So is Israel sort of officially and legally then
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at war with Iran? That is not my place to declare war
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We said that this is an operation targeting a specific and very imminent threat to the people of Israel And that what we dealing with Thank you for coming on Captain Masha Mikkelsen spokesperson from the Israeli Defense Forces
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Ten past five. Listening to that is Tala Abdul Razak, independent defense and strategic ysis yst specializing in Iranian affairs
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Thank you for coming on the program, Tala. Your thoughts on what has happened in the run-up to this act of, whether we're calling it war or warfare or kinetic action
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What has brought this to a head in the last few hours? I mean, there's no doubt in my mind that this is an act of war
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And the thing is, Iran actually has a large role to play in this
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So if we're looking at the history of the nuclear negotiations, by continuing to enrich uranium to a degree which is much higher than is required for civilian purposes
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effectively what Iran was doing was telling not only the United States but the world
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that should we need to, we can achieve a breakout and achieve a nuclear weapon in a short space of time
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So you only need about 3.5% enrichment of uranium for civilian purposes
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They got something like 70%. So they were trying to highball it. I actually don't believe, and this may surprise certain viewers
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or listeners who know my views on Iran, I actually don't believe Iran wants a nuclear weapon
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because it knows that by the time it can actually achieve it
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it may well be bombed. It's exactly what's happening today. But there's no doubt, sorry, Tala
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there's absolutely no doubt that the Iranians were enriching uranium for the purposes of trying to make a nuclear weapon
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even if you think they didn't actually want to. So, yeah, yeah. I mean, the purpose behind it, in my view
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was that they were trying to highball negotiations with the Americans to say, look, we can do this at any moment
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You know, you need to cut us some slack, get rid of the sanctions. etc. But by doing so, by putting on such an aggressive posture, they actually fed into the
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narrative that they are this massive threat. And I've always held the view that they're basically
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a paper tiger. And we're viewing this right now before our very eyes. You know, you've got
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Hussein Salami, for example, the former head of the IRGC corps, killed. Just, I think it was
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about 24 hours ago, he was saying that if Israel strikes us, we're able to fight them on a full
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spectrum warfare basis. And he was taken out within the first moments
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The chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces also killed. The Khatim al-Anbiya headquarters chief, he was also killed
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These aren't like small people. We're talking also about Fereydoun Abbasi, who was one of their chief nuclear scientists And he was actually publicly saying we need to pursue a nuclear breakout He dead So when you looking at this and you looking at the Iranian rhetoric
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they fed into the narrative. And they did this, by the way, for structural reasons. Like just how Israel has kind of stepped up its schedule in terms of bombing Iran
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and taking action because of structural issues faced by the Netanyahu government in Israel
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internal pressures that force them to take these sorts of actions. Iran has something similar going on
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You know, you've got hardliners, for example, who want to take a more aggressive stance towards Israel, towards the West
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You know, they're kind of still charged by the religious zeal imparted upon them by Ayatollah Khomeini, the predecessor of Khomeini
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since 1979. And they are against the kind of the so-called reformists
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who wish to kind of pursue a more intelligent strategy of making amends with the West and kind of getting sanctions relieved
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Do you think, Tal, with that very useful, helpful background, do you think then it is the case that Israel is justified
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sort of from a defence point of view, forget the morality for a moment
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but purely on defence grounds, self-defence grounds, of hitting these nuclear sites
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And as we understand it, literally this afternoon, more missiles have been hitting near nuclear silos in and around Iran
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So I wouldn't say they're justified from a defense perspective. This is a purely political gambit on the part of the Netanyahu government
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We have to bear in mind as well that some of his right-wing allies in the Israeli Knesset
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were planning to table a motion of no confidence in the government or even to withdraw from the government
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which would have absolutely sunk his chances at continuing as prime minister
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There would have been new elections and it would have created chaos and havoc
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All of a sudden, there's a chain reaction of events. So you've got the U.S. government and President Donald Trump applying pressure, telling, for example, the U.S. embassy staff to withdraw from Baghdad, which is well known as being directly influenced by Iran
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Staff in Iraq, in Erbil as well, in northern Iraq, were asked to withdraw
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So then the IAEA, the UN's top watchdog for nuclear activity, they came out and said that Iran had been in breach of its non-proliferation obligations
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And then immediately the strike happens. So a lot of things have been shelved in Israel politically on the basis of all of this
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So I don't think, though, that they were in any imminent danger. I mean, we saw their previous two attacks from Iran, the ballistic missiles that they fired, the drones
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These are very slow-moving drones, by the way. We're talking about 120 kilometers an hour
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It takes hours to reach Israel. They were all shot down