Former CIA official Dan Hoffman: We are on high alert to deliver intelligence to our war fighters

John Hoffman, former CIA station chief and a Fox News contributor. Dan, there’s there’s some notion that if Iran does attack on Israeli soil, it might be some sort of military facility away from big cities. What, what do you expect Iran will do? And how would you expect that Israel would respond to that? I’m sure that they have a number of contingencies based on what might happen. Yeah. And I think Israel began this planning, John, back when they struck Mohammed Zahidi, the IRGC commander responsible for Iran’s lethal operations in Lebanon and in Syria targeting Israel. I think when they took that strike, they had to have factored in the likelihood that Iran would, would, would respond. And I think, you know, Israeli intelligence, the US intelligence community is on high alert. Key collection requirements are the targets that Iran might choose, perhaps military bases, maybe Israel’s nuclear facility, potentially civilian sites as well. But that would certainly invite a a a different kind of response from Israel. And then the second issue, the launch sites, does Iran target Israel directly from Iranian territory? Do they use their proxies? They’ve got lots of those proxy terrorists in Yemen, Iraq, in in Syria, and obviously in Lebanon with Lebanese Hezbollah. And then the date and the time also key for us. So this is where, you know, collection matters so much. And I can tell you from my own experience running the CI AS Near East Division that that we’re on high alert mounting a full court press to deliver the intelligence to our to our war fighters. You know, if if Iran were to launch a ballistic missile directly from Iranian territory into Israel, that would be an unprecedented escalation. But General Jack Keane doesn’t think that Iran is going to take any action that could provoke a a wider war. Listen to what he said. They have a weak Air Force. They have a weak Navy. They’ve got a lot of troops under arms, but they’re not particularly well trained, nor are they particularly well equipped. What they do have is a lot of offensive missiles and drones. Iran knows that war with them would destroy their regime economically and also they would likely lose it. So the leverage has always been on the side of Israel, the United States and and the West. But we absolutely refuse to use it. Did you agree with the general’s assessment and and why would we not use what leverage we have? Why? Why wouldn’t Biden stand up and say to to Tehran, don’t you dare do this because the consequences for you will be unbearable. Yeah, we’re not really playing our strong hand when it comes to deterrence. I do agree with General Keane. I would add only one point and that is Iran has faced a lot of domestic unrest and and that has also got to be a concern for the regime. They would lose in a direct conflict with Israel or with the Israeli in the United States. So they don’t want a direct conflict, but they do have to do something because the IRGC has failed to deter Israel from launching a key strikes against IRGC leaders. And so that’s where we stand. The key, John, as you outlined, is what about the day after What happens after Iran launches their strike? How does Israel respond? How do we respond? And to, to quote, you know, Margaret Thatcher, to paraphrase her back in the day, it’s not a good time to go wobbly if you’re the president of the United States. This is one of those times when when leadership really matters and message discipline matters. So as we saw back in January 2020, when the Trump administration took out Soleimani, there was an Iranian response at al-Assad air base. The president, Donald Trump, had been advised through intermediaries that it would be a limited strike, more of a show than anything. There were some US personnel who were injured, but it was fairly limited. Do you expect that Iran might follow a similar model, though perhaps more limited this time around? It? It’s awfully hard to predict. There are a lot of different calculations that Iran made back then and they may be different now. I would highlight that strike where Iran’s response was pretty faint and when Israel launched a successful kinetic strike against the head of Iran’s nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, back in November of 2020, same thing. The Iranian response was pretty faint in that case as well. But Iran, I think is going to take, is going to mount the largest counter strike that they feel like they can get away with without risking A wider war. And that’s going to reflect the extent to which we have deterred Iran. So we’ll have to see how it plays out, John. All right, well, I’m not sure they’re waiving $10 billion in sanctions is deterrence, but we’ll see. Maybe the president thinks he can get them with honey instead of vinegar. Dan Hoffman for us. Dan, thank you.