Hugh Hewitt interviews Lt. Gen. Victor Renuart, Mark Steyn, and Victor Davis Hanson about IRAN

Hugh Hewitt / radioblogger.com | April 27, 2006 | Hugh Hewitt

[Tolik]

Hugh Hewitt and Gen. Victor Renuart, the director for strategic plans and policy of the Joint staff at the Pentagon

http://www.radioblogger.com/#001577

HH: Joining me now on the Hugh Hewitt Show, Gen. Victor Renuart, who is the director for strategic plans and policy of the Joint staff at the Pentagon. And General, today you concluded something called a multi-planners conference, involving 90 countries. What was that all about?

VR: Well, this is the fourth in a series of conferences that we've had, inviting planners, and I say planners. These are the directors of strategy and policy and planning for the militaries of, this year, about 92 countries. This was our largest group. We had about 20 new nations participate this year. So a really successful event. The focus is to allow us to discuss...it began as a discussion of difficult issues around the world. This one focused primarily on counter-terrorism, and how we can continue to keep this a global effort against these kinds of elements.

HH: And for the benefit of the audience, General, could you explain to people what the Joint staff does? It's the sort of overall Pentagon planning department, isn't it?

VR: Well, we have a variety of areas, but you're right. It is the Chairman's staff, to allow for sort of an integrated joint planning, budgeting, operations oversight of the military elements of the Department of Defense.

HH: All right. What I'd like to ask you, General, is to go back to a very famous memo. Secretary Rumsfeld's snowflake of October 16, 2003. Since you've just concluded a big conference on counter-terrorism, I want to go back and see how the questions are being answered now that he posed two and a half years ago. The first one is, really, is the United States and its allies winning or losing the Global War On Terror?

VR: Well, I think the real answer is, we are making great progress. We should not be tricked into believing that the War On Terror is going to be something that that will be won or lost in a year, or two, or even three. It is, as General Abizaid has described it, a long struggle, a long war, and we have to be patient. It's not just about military. It's about economic development, it's about education, it's about taking away the advantage of a terrorist organization to use ungoverned spaces. And so all of those go into the assessment of how successful you are. I think it was the consensus of the participants, these 92 nations, that we are making great progress. They appreciate the U.S.' leadership. It's important to them that we help them build their own capacity, so they're not. they don't feel that U.S. has to do all of the operation. They're happy to participate and help, but they do need our assistance to built their own capacity, and we're engaged in that.

HH: General, you mentioned ungoverned spaces, which I think is a very critical concept. And I'm wondering year to year, do you think the amount of that ungoverned space is growing less or more?

VR: Well, that is a difficult question to assess, because for example, we had a good discussion about cyberspace as an ungoverned space. And of course, that can grow immensely. Every time you look, we expand our ability to move in the cyber world. But in terms of physical locations, I think we're making great progress, and I'll throw a couple of examples out. Our joint task force Horn of Africa, working in the Eastern portion of Africa, has really done great things to help Kenya, Ethiopia, Eretria, to improve their counter-terrorism forces, to help...we've worked intelligence sharing to help them interdict small terrorist elements that had been in their country. And so, that's been a success story. We've seen more cooperation on the part of some of these countries to combat piracy, a big issue in the Horn of Africa. So in those areas, we're seeing success.

HH: General, in this famous October 16, 2003 memo, there's one paragraph which I reread frequently. The Secretary of Defense wrote, "Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the Global War On Terror. Are we capturing, killing, or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the medrasas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training, and deploying against us?" How do you see that equation, General?

VR: Well, I think the Secretary was exactly right. We struggle to develop the kinds of metrics that would tell us how we were accomplishing this mission. But I think we've come a long way in that regard. And interestingly, it should not be about how many terrorists do you kill, but rather how do you prevent the next terrorist from becoming a terrorist. And in that regard, the issue of coalition capacity building had been at the forefrong of the Secretary's concern as we move throught this year, certainly helping, as an example, in Afghanistan and Iraq, build their military capacity to fight the insurgents. That's come a long way. But more importantly, working with the smaller countries who are what might be called nations at crossroads. They're having difficulties in the economic development, and in education development, new governments that are getting their feet on the ground. And how do we help them keep terrorists from gaining a foothold. And that goes to foreign military financing, it goes to international military education and training, a variety of very low cost, but high payback kinds of efforts, and we fortunately are increasing our ability to help countries in each of those areas.

HH: Do you see net progress, though, along that line of that metric? Are there more jihadists today willing to use violence to destroy enemies than there were a year ago?

VR: Well, I wish I had a crystal ball that was good enough that could count those numbers. I guess I'd put it this way. I think we're seeing more countries willing to get at the root causes of terrorist development, more countries interested in creating professional counterterrorist capabilities, more countries focusing on their own border security, border control, stamping out illicit trade and trafficking, and more interested in getting at some of the social concerns that may have allowed a terrorist cell to grow. So in the aggregate, I think the ability to get at the root causes is improving. I think it will take some time before we know how many terrorists that has eliminated.

HH: General, going back to the subject of Iraq, it is often asserted that Iraq has become a "breeding ground for terrorists," implying that by virtue of our being there, we are creating more terrorists than were there before. Did that come up at the conference? And do you believe that to be true?

VR: Well, that specifically didn't come up in the conference. I think we had a wonderful presentation by my counterpart from the Iraqi military, who went to some length to describe the Saddamists, if you will, the insurgents as certainly the principal part of their challenge, but clearly acknowledging that there is a terrorist element as well, foreign fighters that we have to eliminate. In terms of my assessment of whether or not our presence is causing more or less terrorist activity, I think I'm not really in a position to be a very good judge of that. But I think I would say that certainly we're seeing an element of foreign fighters there. It's not clear whether they are coming to the sound of the guns, if you will, or rather they may have been there all along, and they're just finding the opportunity to raise their head.

HH: Now in a column published today at National Review, Michael Ledeen from the American Enterprise Institute, presents evidence that the i.e.d.'s that are killing and wounding so many civilians, and even soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, are in fact being manufactured in Iran. Do you understand that to be the case, General? And if that is the case, does that give the United States the right to strike against such manufacturing centers?

VR: Well, you're carrying me down a pretty slippery slope there. But I guess what I'd say is that we've also read the reports. It's troubling if that's the case. We're really focusing on ways to improve our capacity against i.e.d.'s, and you're absolutely right. They have been the principal weapon of both terrorists and insurgents. And I might make one other point, kind of going back to the last question as well, and that is that if you look at...clearly, there is a loss of U.S. life, but it's important to remember that the vast majority of the lives that are being lost right now in Iraq and some other places are Muslims. And Iraqis and Afghanis, and others who are trying to allow their country to stand on their own two feet. So they are standing shoulder to shoulder with us, eager to bring their country forward.

HH: A couple of last questions, General. I know your time is limited. This is a weekend when Americans are focusing on the beginning of the war, because of United 93. By the way, will you see that movie, United 93?

VR: I hope to, yes. I think it's a moving story of great heroism, but a difficult one for people to watch, I've been told. I listened to NBC commentators last night talk about how emotional it was for them. And so I do hope to see it, but I'm also understanding that it will be an emotional experience for all of us.

HH: Well, in that context, and against the backdrop of the conference you're holding today, I think it's fair to say that Americans, while supportive of what has happened before, are weary of the war, and wondering, to take from Churchill, are we at least at the end of the beginning? And this lack of metrics make it very hard to say, and the threats in Iran make it very gloomy to predict. But what do you think in this Global War On Terror? Are we even at the end of the beginning yet?

VR: Well, Winston Churchill's way smarter than me, but I will tell you that we are certainly at the beginning of a new phase in Iraq. We have a new government in place, a prime minister, a presidency council and speakers. The new prime minister is working aggressively to put his cabinet in place. We see it's multi-ethnic. It is Iraqi. It is not sectarian, and I think that's the face that we're seeing more and more on the streets of Iraq. So that's hopeful for me, and I view that as a very optimistic beginning for a new phase in the country. And hopefully, that will allow us, as the President said before, as the Iraqi capacity builds, we'll build down, or draw down, and I look forward to that.

HH: Well, General Renuart, I want to thank you for your service, and the time. I'm going to sneak in one last question, because I've got thirty seconds left.

VR: Go ahead.

HH: The military that you were in on September, 2001. Is it vastly different from the military at which you're serving in the highest ranks five years later?

VR: I think the military is different. We have become much more agile, we have improved the quality of our intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. We've become interdependent among the services. This is truly the most joint military that we've had in our history. I think that comes as a result, certainly, of lessons we've learned on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, but also because we have great leadership among the senior military officers in our services. And they understand the importance of joing war fighting.

HH: Lt. General Victor Renuart, thanks for spending some time on the Hugh Hewitt Show.

VR: My pleasure, Hugh. Thank you.

HH: Thank you.

End of interview.

Posted at 11:59PM PDT

Hugh Hewitt and Mark Steyn

The following is excerpt dealing only with Iran. Read the rest of the interview here:  http://www.radioblogger.com/#001574

04-27steyn.mp3

HH: Now I want to switch subjects to the menace at hand, and go back to Iran, which I imagine we'll talk a lot about over many, many months and weeks ahead, and years perhaps, Mark Steyn. The fact is, I have in this spot next hour, a conversation with Lt. Gen. Victor Renuart, who is the head of planning and strategic design for the Joint Staff. And I asked him about a Michael Ledeen piece today in National Review, which says look, the i.e.d.'s that are killing American troops and scores of Iraqis are being made in Iran, and we know that. And he demurred. But I do think at some point, you've got to fight a war like a war. What do you think?

MS: I agree, and what's distressing to me is that people talk about Iran as if we're not at war with them. And they say oh, well, if we do this, they'll respond by harming our interests in Iraq and other places. They're already doing as much as they can do in Iraq. They're effectively supplying and manning a lot of the opposition in Iraq. In fact, they seized some British troops in the Straits of Hormuz a year or so back. And when a regime has basically been openly at war with you from their side for 27 years, as the Iranians have been, it's ridiculous to keep insisting that this is not so, and that you have any choice in the matter. Essentially, the Iranian regime regards itself as being at war with the United States. So the United States doesn't really have a choice about whether it's at war with Iran. That was the mistake we made, by the way, before September 11th, that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden had declared a jihad and holy war against the United States, and Bill Cohen, in his famous response in a Clinton cabinet meeting, said oh, it didn't rise sufficiently to the level to be worth a response. By the time it does rise to the level to be worth a response, thousands of people are dead.

HH: The New York Times article today on the Iranian challenge to our challenge, where it begins, "The Iran supreme religious leader vowed Wednesday that Iran would retaliate two-fold if it were attacked by the United States over its refusal to comply with demands regarding its nuclear activities. This is Khamenei. This is their supreme religious leader. So the question becomes, are we...in 1936, I've been rereading the Manchester biography of Churchill. Hitler did this every time the West said anything. He simply shouted them down, and faced them down. And he won as a result.

MS: I think the lesson of that ought to have been learned. And unfortunately, it doesn't. I mean, for example, you look at their latest declarations. They claim to be able to have missiles that can hit Europe. They say they're going to disseminate the technology to Sudan, which is another Islamist terrorist state that is an impoverished, economic basket case, but nevertheless exports quite a bit of manpower and terror around the world. They're being openly contemptuous of Western weakness. And we keep thinking that it's about going back to the Security Council, and trying to talk China and Russia into agreeing to something they won't veto. To get something that China or Russia won't veto will mean ultimately that it's meaningless. So going that route means that Iran will become a nuclear power, and that much of Europe, which is already contemptible and spineless as it is, will be even more so, because it's living in the shadow of Iranian nukes. I mean, this is a terrible situation. In some ways, it's worse than 1930. Imagine what Hitler would have been like with this technology in 1936.

HH: Which brings us to the last minute and a half of the conversation, and the key question. Does the Bush administration rouse itself to do anything? Or is it exhausted?

MS: I think it does seem to me exhausted. And in a strange way, a lot of the things that he's getting into trouble with over the moment, like the $3 a gas pump, is, I think, a reflection of...it doesn't even have the sort of strength of will to drag its own party with him. I mean, I thought the Senate bill, that the Senate Republicans proposed on energy, is completely preposterous. If the Republicans cave in on energy, which is a national security issue, and which is something where the Democrats are even more witless than usual, because they're not in favor of any kind of energy. If you were to say we should all go back to wood-fired steam trains on the Atchison, Topeka and the Sante Fe, they'd say oh, no, sorry. We're opposed to logging. We can't even have that. They're opposed to all kinds of energy. And if you've got a Democrat Party that's not serious, you've got a Republican Party that is frivolous in Congress more than half the time, then it's no wonder the administration is just exhausted.

HH: Mark Steyn, always bracing. Steynonline.com for all the columns from the columnist to the world. Thank you, Mark.

End of interview.

Posted at 4:20PM PDT

 

Hugh Hewitt and Professor Victor Davis Hanson:

The following is excerpt dealing only with Iran. The rest is about Hanson's ordeal with a ruptured appendix in Libya http://www.radioblogger.com/#001575  (also posted here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1623063/posts?page=13#13)

HH: Let me ask you about the Iranian challenge to our demand for responsibility. It in many ways reminds me of the period of 1936, and the year prior to that, when Hitler eventually just marched into the Rhineland, even though he was not strong enough to do so, and could have been repulsed. But he was bold when the West was weak. Is it an imperfect or a pretty good analogy?

VDH: Well, they sense something, that there's a big domestic divide here in the Unites States, and that Mr. Bush, even though I think Iraq will work out pretty well, is on the defensive about these things like preemption and unilateralism. And they're going to press...they're almost sounding like North Korea now, as lunatic as they can to cower us. We should remember the 1980's, the late 1980's, during the Iran-Iraq War. When we flagged ships, the Iranians were very bold in mining the harbors, and actually a U.S. frigate was attacked. So they're not...this isn't completely braggadocio. They're able to do certain things that would make life very uncomfortable, and I think that they understand that with Bush's poll ratings at 36%, that they can talk themselves into a nuclear bomb.

HH: Do you think if the United States stands up to them, that that regime can be dispatched in relatively quick order?

VDH: Well, if the United States has the political will...I mean, if they're going to stand up to Iran, ultimately that's going to be ultimately a military option, and the American people have to understand what that would entail. That would entail CNN with collateral damage every five minutes. It would entail large oil prices. If they're willing to put up with that, I think then you can talk tough. But it won't do any good to talk tough unless you realize that that's what it ultimately may devolve into. And there's China and Russia in the picture.

HH: Now Victor Davis Hanson, then, how significant are the days in which we are living? Because the alternative to doing that, and you make it sound remote, and I have to agree if it was a different president, I would think it was remote. The prospect of a nuclear Iran is really extraordinary.

VDH: I think it is, and more importantly, this is a man who says that he's the biggest supporter of Hamas, and yet from his rhetoric, you understand he's willing, probably, to send a missile into East Jerusalem as if 50 kilotons can tell the difference between East and West Jerusalem. I mean, that's how he treats his friends like the Palestinians. He says I'll help you by nuking the people right next to you. I mean, it's crazy. He listens to a voice in a well. He thinks people can't blink, and we don't know to what degree this is staged or real. So we don't have a lot of options. It's bad and worse. Oddly enough, the people who don't want to use military force under any circumstances in Iran should be the biggest supporters of what's going on in Iraq. Because with this recent presidential change, there's a good chance that we could end up with a government that would prove very destabilizing to the theocracy in Iran. But to say you can't use force in Iran, and yet you're not for what we're doing in Iraq, then you really don't have any options that are peaceful.

HH: At this point, when you talk to senior military officials, as you frequently do, Professor Hanson, do they expect military action against Iran, if not by us, then by Israel?

VDH: I think they've come to the conclusion that we're going to exhaust the multilateral option with the Europeans. We're going to try to cajole the Chinese and Russians. We're going to try to use the U.N. as much as we can. We're going to try to hope that dissidents in Iran are empowered by the experiment across the border in Iraq. And then at the 11th hour, when those things are being armed in a year, two years, we're going to act. And they hope we don't get to that, because they see it as a public relations nightmare, but something that we could pull off. It would be, really, an act of war, and we'd be in a war with Iran.

HH: Do you think we have that much time?

VDH: I think we have about a year, myself. But I'm not an expert at it. Remember, this is a person who says that Israel is a one bomb...I think the exact term was a one bomb state.

HH: Right. That it would be blown away with one strong wind.

VDH: There's not going to be a second Holocaust. If you're an Israeli prime minister, and you know that the Iranians have threatened to wipe you off the map, and you know that they may have, months away from a nuclear bomb, you're not going to go down in history as a person who ensured a second Holocaust. We've got to remember that.

HH: So Iran is driving, one way or the other, towards a confrontation?

VDH: One way or the other. And it's hard to know to what degree it's bluff, and to what degree, once they get the weapon...I mean, it's a win-win thing for them if they get the weapon. They can bully the Arab world for oil concessions, cut back some production, they can threaten Israel, they can threaten our bases, they can pass themselves off as an ancient Persian, nationalistic force...It's just win-win if they get it.

HH: So that cannot happen. Victor Davis Hanson, congratulations on your successful return, and God speed on your recovery. I look forward to talking to you again soon.

End of interview.

Posted at 8:49PM PDT

[Tolik]

Very Interesting!

This ping list is not author-specific for articles I'd like to share. Some for the perfect moral clarity, some for provocative thoughts; or simply interesting articles I'd hate to miss myself. (I don't have to agree with the author all 100% to feel the need to share an article.) I will try not to abuse the ping list and not to annoy you too much, but on some days there is more of the good stuff that is worthy of attention. You can see the list of articles I pinged to lately  on  my page.
You are welcome in or out, just freepmail me (and note which PING list you are talking about). Besides this one, I keep 2 separate PING lists for my favorite authors Victor Davis Hanson and Orson Scott Card.  

[hsalaw]

Three great interviews by HH. His interview with the General on the War on Terror was particularly interesting.

[kalee]

bttt

Thanks for posting this.

[Rummyfan]

VDH: There's not going to be a second Holocaust. If you're an Israeli prime minister, and you know that the Iranians have threatened to wipe you off the map, and you know that they may have, months away from a nuclear bomb, you're not going to go down in history as a person who ensured a second Holocaust. We've got to remember that.

HH: So Iran is driving, one way or the other, towards a confrontation?

VDH: One way or the other. And it's hard to know to what degree it's bluff, and to what degree, once they get the weapon...I mean, it's a win-win thing for them if they get the weapon. They can bully the Arab world for oil concessions, cut back some production, they can threaten Israel, they can threaten our bases, they can pass themselves off as an ancient Persian, nationalistic force...It's just win-win if they get it.

Very sobering read. I don't think the President is planning anything till after the midterms. But I think he's wrong there: the people who supported him on Afghanistan and Iraq would support him 100% in an action against Iran. Everyone wants them taken out (save Russia and China), but no one wants to do it.

[Rummyfan]

Essentially, the Iranian regime regards itself as being at war with the United States. So the United States doesn't really have a choice about whether it's at war with Iran. That was the mistake we made, by the way, before September 11th, that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden had declared a jihad and holy war against the United States, and Bill Cohen, in his famous response in a Clinton cabinet meeting, said oh, it didn't rise sufficiently to the level to be worth a response. By the time it does rise to the level to be worth a response, thousands of people are dead.

Exactly Mark Steyn. Thank you.

[hershey]

Wonderful read! Interesting, thought provoking, doesn't pull punches. Thanks for the post!

[kellynla]

“Essentially, the Iranian regime regards itself as being at war with the United States. So the United States doesn’t really have a choice about whether it’s at war with Iran. That was the mistake we made, by the way, before September 11th, that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden had declared a jihad and holy war against the United States, and Bill Cohen, in his famous response in a Clinton cabinet meeting, said oh, it didn’t rise sufficiently to the level to be worth a response. By the time it does rise to the level to be worth a response, thousands of people are dead.”

Mark Steyn