The Iran War Explained: Nuclear Threat, Ballistic Missiles, and What Comes Next | The Brief

It's the largest air operation in the history of warfare. What is the United States' long-term strategic plan vis-a-vis this war in Iran? This is an evil regime which we must shut down if humanity is to survive. The leader of Iran led his people in chants, death to America. How is this war different than the 12-day war in June? When Iran says they're going to develop enriched uranium to weaponize ballistic missiles, you've got to take them seriously. And once they develop intercontinental ballistic missiles, they'll hit the United States. You're damn right it's imminent. How will you know when the stage has been set? How will you know when it's mission accomplished? And welcome back to The Brief. We are joined today by Yechiel Leiter. Ambassador Yechiel Leiter is Israel's ambassador to the United States. As you can imagine, he's been a little busy the last few days. Ambassador, thank you so much for joining us. Well, it's good to be with you, Chavez. Thank you. So I want to start with the breaking news. Literally just in the last hour, there were well-placed military and diplomatic sources, according to Fox News, who've revealed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is close to allowing its air force to strike targets inside of Iran. I mean, this would be unprecedented in the 21st century. I'm just curious, can you give us and our listeners an update on whether Israel or the United States believes that other countries will join in this coalition to strike the Iranian regime? Well, I can't tell you if Saudi Arabia is on the verge of attacking Iran directly. I know one thing, that Saudi Arabia was attacked directly by Iran. Iran has attacked not only Saudi Arabia, but Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Bahrain, and Europe. They actually hit Cyprus with ballistic missiles, and they have the capability of reaching Germany. So this is what we warned about for many years. Their attainment of ballistic missiles is a threat as large as their potential attainment of nuclear weapons, because when they use these ballistic missiles in large numbers, they can overwhelm missile defense systems. That's what they're trying to do. That was part of their game plan. That's what we're trying to shut down now, which we must shut down if humanity is to survive, because this is an evil regime that has no compunctions about killing innocent people. We saw what they did to their own people. But it's an important question you ask about Saudi Arabia, because many people have posed the question, why would Iran do this? Why would they suddenly shoot at their Arab neighbors, not just at Israel and the United States? I think there's two answers to it. Number one, the chain of command is beginning to break down within the security edifice in Iran, because when you take out the heads of command, it's very difficult to get messages down or orders down throughout the system. And remember that in the first 40 seconds of this operation, we took out 40 of the leaders. We took out more over the past three and a half days. We're taking out more today, and we're persisting in that goal. So we're seeing cracks in the system. This is very important to see this whole apparatus come apart. There's another reason as well, and that's that murderers don't think rationally. And people are surprised by why would they fire missiles into their neighbors? Well, because murderers lie, as they were doing through the negotiations, and because murderers don't always think rationally. There's a lot to unpack there. I do just want to talk about my generation just for a moment. Gen Z in America are increasingly skeptical of the U.S.-Israel alliance. In fact, there was a CNN poll conducted the day of the war. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of the U.S. decision to take military action in Iran. So what would you say to those Americans, particularly my generation, who are skeptical of what they would see as another forever war, what they would see as regime change in the Middle East? So I guess in the most rudimentary way I can ask, what is Israel's, what is the United States' long-term strategic plan vis-a-vis this war in Iran? There are a few things to unpack in your question. Look, I don't believe that Gen Z is fundamentally different than previous generations. Yes, they have to contend with news that's conveyed in split seconds in the digital age. But I think that ultimately when people stop and think and educate themselves to greater depths of understanding, it's quite clear that you want to live freely, and you don't want to be threatened with death. It's just elementary. And Iran, Chance, the leader of Iran, led his people in Chance's death to America. One thing that the Jewish people have learned since the Holocaust is that when somebody says they intend to kill you, you might take them seriously. It's a good idea to take them seriously. We didn't take Hitler seriously, and we lost a third of our people. And the world was thrust into a world war in which 65 million people were killed. When Iran says they're going to develop enriched uranium to weaponize ballistic missiles, you've got to take them seriously. And now they've proved how much we have to take them seriously. They shot missiles at Cyprus, for crying out loud. They can shoot the rest of Europe with their ballistic missiles. And once they develop intercontinental ballistic missiles, they'll hit the United States. They're not going to hit China. So Gen Z, just let's look at the facts. Let's stop and think for a moment. Let's move the digital age aside for a moment. Let's look at the facts. You want to live freely and peacefully in the United States of America. There are people who want to prevent you from doing that. And they began with Israel, but they don't end with Israel. Jews have been the canary in the coal mine, like anti-Semitism. It starts with us, it doesn't end with us. So look, there is a—and here's the longer answer, okay? I'll try to be short. There's a contest within Islam over whether or not to accommodate Judeo-Christian civilization, the West, what we call the West, okay? Now, they're in a dilemma, having a debate. In 2020, in President Trump's first term, he created the Abraham Accords 1.0. What were the Abraham Accords? The Abraham Accords were moderate Islam saying, we're ready to reform and live side-by-side with Western civilization. The result of that was that the extremists, the Islamists, who said, no, we go back to the source, to our fundamentalist understanding of Islam. We have to dominate the world, okay? It's hard for, you know, for us to understand, for my kids and my grandkids to understand that there's an ism that can really believe in dominating the world. I grew up in a world where there was a different ism. It was called communism, which set out to dominate the world. Well, Islamism believes they have to dominate the world. So if you're married to that idea, that everybody has to sign on to Islamism, then the first thing you're going to do is destroy Israel, because Israel is this Judeo-Christian transplant in the heart of Islam. And if you're going to accommodate Judeo-Christian civilization, if you're going to accommodate the West, the first thing you're going to do is accommodate Israel, because it's that transplant in the West. So that was the essence of the Abraham Accords. Iran saw this coming. They saw more Arab Muslim countries aligning themselves with Western civilization, with Israel, and they said, this has to stop. So they created this ring of fire around Israel to try to destroy us. On October 7th, Siddharth jumped the gun. But it was part of a much larger plan where the Houthis and the Hezbollah and the Assad regime and the Hamas and the Hezbollah-Iraq would all attack Israel at the same time, while ballistic missiles from Iran came raining down in the middle of the country. That plan was foiled, and we are in that battle right now to destroy the head of the snake, the evil regime that planned this attempt to eliminate all of Israel. And the United States is defending itself, not Israel. I mean, President Trump just said this morning, he said, it wasn't Prime Minister Netanyahu who pushed me. It was maybe myself who pushed Prime Minister Netanyahu. President Trump has taken the lead. And, you know, this nonsense that I see on social media sometimes about Prime Minister Netanyahu schlepping. I don't know, does everybody know that expression, schlepping? It means to drag, you know, it means to drag somebody. You know, I've been at dozens of meetings with President Trump. I've never seen him wear a sign on his forehead which says, I'm here for the dragging. I mean, what an insulting way of relating to President Trump. He's not for the dragging, he's for the leading. And he has led the world in this battle against evil. You know, Chancellor Mertz, who's visiting the White House now, just said a few weeks ago that Israel is doing the dirty work for the free world. Well, right now, Israel is aligned with the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, to keep the world free. So let's talk about President Trump then just briefly. This is where I think some of the misinformation lies. In June of 2025, President Trump launches Operation Midnight Hammer, right? He targets three main Iranian nuclear facilities, Ferdow, Natanz, Isfahan. So just explain and educate to myself and to our viewers, how is this war being fought against Iran now? How is that different than the 12-day war in June if Trump himself noted that the nuclear sites were obliterated? So why do we need to go back into Iran? Just educate our viewers why it's different. Sure. Well, President Trump wisely said at the time that if they try to reconstitute after we've destroyed these three sites, we're going to have to go back in again. I mean, he repeated this time and again. If they didn't get the message in the 12-day war, they're going to get the message. They're getting the message now. I mean, he is, you know, what he calls heaven with 72 versions. You know, good luck to him and all the rest of his crew that have spread mayhem, death, and destruction around the world. What they immediately tried to do after what they were doing functionally after the 12-day war was reconstituting their enrichment program. And anybody who saw Hannity last night saw Special Envoy Steve Whitcock reveal what we've known now for many months. And that is that the Iranians actually told him in the first meeting. They said, unequivocally, we've got 642 kilograms of enriched uranium, and we can race out at 60%. Now, when you have 60% enriched uranium, it takes a week to move that to 90%, which is weapons grade. Okay, people have to understand that. I'll tell you something. Gen Z can understand that better than my generation because they understand numbers and, you know, arithmetic. This goes very quickly. Okay, it's like, you know, a digital message. From 60% to 90% in weapons grade takes a week. Okay, they had enough for 11 bombs. 642 kilograms is 11 bombs. Now, they could do that in a week. Now, tell me that's not imminent. But at the same time, we see that they continue to develop at a faster pace their ballistic missiles. They were actually producing 100 ballistic missiles a month, and the intention was to produce 300 ballistic missiles a month. Wow. Now, imagine that the ballistic missiles had just hit the Emirates, okay? The airport in Dubai, okay? A shopping center in Bahrain. A hotel in Manama. Saudi Arabia bases. Jordan. Cyprus. If all of these missiles that they fired at these countries had nuclear-tipped warheads, imagine where we'd be today. Nobody would be saying, why did we act so quickly? Everybody would be saying, why didn't we act earlier? So now the question is, was it imminent or not? You're damn right it's imminent. When you have a country that's married to the idea of taking over the world and disrupting anybody who lives in a liberal democracy and wants to destroy the West, then you better take it seriously. That's what they had in mind, and that's what they educated their population. And the difference here between this war and previous wars in the Middle East, like Iraq and Afghanistan, which is, of course, rightfully of concern to your generation, Chavez, is that there is no comparison. There's no intention here to use boots on the ground. And the most important difference is that here we're talking about 80% of the population of Iranians are opposed to this regime. So now it's just a matter of setting the stage for these people to rise up and take responsibility for their country. That wasn't the case in Iraq. It was a very divided country between the Sunni and the Shia, and they had a tremendous issue there. It was also, by the way, uprooted. Any attempts to make change, it was uprooted. By whom? By Iran. Who thwarted the efforts of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan? Who blew up American soldiers and sent them back in body bags? Iran. They created the IEDs, the roadside bombs. The maimed and murdered American soldiers were actually the products of Iranian violence and roadside bombs. So taking out Iran now, taking out this government, not the Iranian people. Iranian people want change. We saw what happened last month. Tens of thousands were killed after hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, came out onto the streets. We have to give them the opportunity to express themselves. So I want to piggyback on that last point. We have seen the systematic removal of top Iranian leadership. Chief among them, as you said, is the Ayatollah, who's been leading the country since 89. But we have also seen someone like Mohammad Popkor, the commander of the IRGC, who, interestingly enough, had the role since last June when his predecessor, ironically, Hussein Soleimani, was killed by an Israeli strike during the 12-day war. So when you say we need to set the stage in order to allow the Iranian people to take control of their own destiny, in Israel's eyes, A, what more needs to be done practically? And then, B, how will you know when the stage has been set? How will you know when it's mission accomplished? Because, again, if I'm talking to my generation, they'll think of that infamous George Bush mission accomplished sign in 2003. Meanwhile, we were in Iraq and Afghanistan for years longer. So when will we know when it is, in fact, mission accomplished? Look, Chavez, there's no intention, not on Israel's part, but I understand from the administration's part, and I've been in all of the meetings between our two countries, there's no intention to enter Iran to take part in their electoral process of appointing officials to run the country. We'll know it when this edifice of violence and chaos and spreading of terror collapses. And the estimate that the president is talking about is four to five weeks. It could be a little less. It could be a little more. We're talking about weeks. We're not talking about years. And I think we're already beginning to see, as I said, there are cracks in the system. During the June operation, the 12-day war, there were far more missiles that they were able to get off. They're able to get off much less right now. The reason for that is because, A, the United States is covering a huge area of southern Iran, not leaving it to us. The Americans are in full battle gear right now, and we're taking the western area of Iran, with double the amount of warplanes we had in operation in June. So you put all of this firepower together, it's the largest air operation in the history of warfare. The two largest and most professional, most accomplished air forces in the world are collaborating together. There's never been a level of collaboration between any armies or any countries as there is right now between Israel and the United States. And I personally think it's a sign of things to come. I think this level of collaboration is really fantastic, and it's going to enable us to finish this war efficiently upon reaching the goals that we've set for ourselves, which is eliminating this tyrannical regime, the terror-sponsoring regime coming out of Tehran. So in the last few minutes I have with you, as it stands now, based on what you just said and based on what you're hearing, does Israel believe there's a strong enough consensus amongst the Iranian people living in Iran today to topple the regime? And then kind of the follow-up to that is, well, who? In the U.S., probably the de facto leader of the Iranian diaspora community is the crown prince, Reza Pahlavi. Does Israel have a favorite? Does Israel think that he can be a practical successor to the 95 million people living in Iran today? No. Again, we're not involved with regime change. We're involved with regime toppling. We want to pull this regime down. The people of Iran will have to get their act together. The biggest problem that the Iranians have had – I mean, remember, they're talking about a country of over 90 million people with a glorious civilization, with a glorious past, with a rich, rich history. By the way, once this is over, the Iranian people are the most pro-Western people. If you ask which is the most pro-Western country in the Middle East, obviously the first one is Israel. The second, people are surprised to hear, is Iran. We're going to have a tremendously prosperous relationship with the Iranian people, but they have to choose. Their problem has been that they haven't been able to unify. This is their opportunity, as President Trump said, this is their opportunity to rise to the occasion, to get their act together, to form a transitional government that will run the country for the next year or so, and then spin into open and free elections so that they can have a constitutional government that is representative of the people and that is accomplished through open, free, and fair elections. That's where they're in, and people want to go. We've actually seen the numbers on this. Eighty percent of the people are not in favor, oppose this regime, and we saw them come out to the streets. We saw them willing to give their lives. There's some 30,000 to 40,000 people that were killed in 72 hours opposing this death cult, and they want freedom. And I think that once we accomplish what we've set out to do, bringing this regime of terror and death down, the people will change the regime, not us. Last question, and then I will shut up. We have seen just a flood, an avalanche of disinformation and misinformation, particularly on social media. I want to give you a chance to respond to some of these seemingly bizarre accusations, chief among them from Tucker Carlson, who has already been fact-checked by Al Jazeera, by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, by Qatar themselves, when he accuses Mossad agents of being arrested in Middle Eastern countries for planting false flag operations. We have seen these unconfirmed accusations that Israel had deliberately dropped a bomb on Iranian girls' school in Minab. So I just wanted to hear directly from you as the ambassador if you can respond to some of these accusations. Is it Israel's intention to deliberately target civilians in Iran? Well, it's just nonsense. There are certain things you just don't want to respond to because you don't want to even give it a second of credibility. Look, Tucker, he even said in his interview to Mike Huckabee that he's dealing with anger management. Maybe he should do some good therapy before he goes back on the air. We're dealing with somebody who is obviously not well. He's either very stupid or corrupt. I hope he's stupid because that's better than being corrupt. And the stuff that he's propagating on social media is simply obscene. And this is conspiratorial. It's classic anti-Semitism. I know you're not allowed to say anti-Semitism because all you're accusing me of. Yes, he's an anti-Semite. He's a rabid anti-Semite. And the stuff that he's propagating goes into the category of the big lie told against the Jews. You know, the Jews are responsible for everything from black death to covid. I mean, what what are we not responsible for? And now we're bombing girls schools. OK, so we don't we don't do that stuff. We don't spread covid or we don't bomb girls schools and we don't pay too much attention to lunatics on the air. I have a family in Israel who are currently in bomb shelters because, of course, Iran is retaliating not just against the Gulf states and throughout the Middle East, but of course, they're targeting Israel as well. What is the mood amongst the people of Israel today? What is their resolve been like as they are facing this onslaught from the Iranian regime? Well, Chavez, here's the thing. We're celebrating Purim today. Purim is a holiday which celebrates a victory over a tyrannical regime in Persia. Twenty five hundred years ago, that was intent on destroying the Jewish people. And many people gave up hope. Twenty five hundred years ago. And we went through two and a half millennia of suffering, of persecution. Nobody ever thought we'd come back to the land of Israel. We've come back. And that fills our veins with promise and confidence in the future. So we're going to get through this, even if we have to spend long hours in bomb shelters. We're very resilient. We've we've suffered loss. I personally suffered the loss of my oldest son who fought, actually led forces into Gaza against Hamas. But we we come through. We know what they sacrificed. These soldiers of ours gave their lives for. We know that this is part of writing Jewish history. We're confident in the future and we're going to come through this and make the world a better place to live in. That's what our job is, making the world a better place to live in. That's what our contribution is to humanity as people, as individuals throughout history and as a state. And people come to understand the uniqueness of the state of Israel in the heartland of the Middle East, spreading democracy, spreading liberal ideas, spreading the ultimate goal of shalom, of peace. You know, to your point, we may not be able to say anti-Semitism, but we can certainly say God. And I personally, as a Jew in the United States, I've seen the hand of God at play. And your son's memory should be a blessing. I want to thank you not just for making the time today, but for everything that you, the prime minister, the president and really the state of Israel, have been doing not only to beat back Islamists and this regime that you've been describing, but to also advance Judeo-Christian values, advance the message of Western civilization. So God bless. I'm wishing you a happy, healthy and a safe Purim and hope to speak with you soon. Thank you, Shabbos. The best to you and yours.