MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And we are just learning that Iranian state media is reporting that the response to the supreme leader's funeral is so great - in their words - that it is being postponed without setting a new date. But now that this war has started, we wanted to hear more about the U.S.' military capabilities and what might be a possible endgame, so we've called retired Navy Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan once again. He's a former commander of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in the Middle East, overseeing operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen from 2015 to 2017. Admiral, thanks so much for joining us once again.
KEVIN DONEGAN: It's good to be here, Michel.
MARTIN: So we've heard President Trump outline four goals for the war - destroy Iran's missile capabilities, destroy its navy, stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, stop it from funding proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas. As you see the targets that the U.S. and Israel are hitting, does this line up with those goals?
DONEGAN: Well, Michel, it certainly does line up with the goals. So clearly, the remnants of the nuclear enrichment capability - whatever was left there - was attacked. In addition, you see that the focus of the attack - at least, what was given as the objective to the Central Command commander - was to dismantle the Iranian regime's security apparatus. And so for all of us, what that means is this group called the IRGC. And they control both the internal security apparatus - those that attacked the protesters - that's the Basij element you heard Carrie and others talk about - and then the external portion, which is what you're seeing now, which is wreaking this havoc by shooting these drones and missiles not only at the military bases in the region that the U.S. has been using, but also at civilian infrastructure to disrupt the economy, basically hold the population at risk and also disrupt the energy that flows out of the Straits of Hormuz.
So we are seeing the focus of both the Israeli and U.S. attacks being on getting at their Iranian capability to project this power outside their border.
MARTIN: I am curious about Iran's response, but before we move to that, I want to ask you about something that the president said. President Trump said that this war will be - with Iran - will be over in weeks. You served in Iraq. The U.S. government said that the second Iraq war - Operation Iraqi Freedom - would last a few weeks. It lasted nearly nine years. So when you say that President Trump says this will be over in weeks, do you think that's accurate?
DONEGAN: Well, the - what I look to to help me make that determination - you know, there's two things going on. One is the rhetoric that the U.S. leadership is putting out there. And I think they want to make clear that they have the will to take this as long as it takes, if that makes sense, Michel. But what you see from the posture of forces right now in the region - and we've all watched it kind of line up - is more that this is an air campaign that's meant to dismantle those things from outside, as opposed to putting boots on the ground.
So I think when you're talking about how long it'll last, it'll take as long as it takes to dismantle and blunt that capability Iran has to reach outside their borders. But I don't think, from what I see of the posturing of forces in the region, that you're going to look at something that involves the ground element - certainly not to the extent that we saw in Iraq.
MARTIN: And what do you make of Iran's response? It's noteworthy to me, maybe it - I don't know if it is to you - that despite the fact that their senior civilian leadership seems to have been substantially sort of damaged, they're still mounting this response. And what do you make of it - using drones to target airports, energy infrastructure, U.S. installations, etc.?
DONEGAN: Yes, and so I think that's what you're seeing play out, is this U.S. and Israelis being very successful at getting the leadership, also at getting a bunch of the targets that get at those things we're talking about. But yet, we're still seeing this retaliation from the Iranians that's - that is holding, you know, populations at risk, as you just described. And that's not unexpected, Michel, because the IRGC - it's hard for us to kind of put ourselves in the shoes of what it's like to be in Iran, but the IRGC is part of the fabric of the regime that goes all the way down to the local level. But also, when it comes to this external security apparatus that Iran has, it's embedded in their entire system. So they are spring-loaded to - and have for a long time had a game plan to use all this power they have.
And so I wouldn't say that's on automatic, but they're carrying out this game plan that they've had for a long time, and you're seeing it unfold. And it's - you know, it's certainly not good for the region and it's probably - and it's one of the reasons that you're seeing now these other nations come together to help defend Gulf allies - from U.K., France, Germany, you know, even the Gulf allies themselves - saying, you know, they may or may not agree with the reasons or the - you know, the start of this conflict, but they absolutely want to help protect the population and infrastructure and economies of the Gulf nations.
MARTIN: And - well, if you have a couple of minutes for me, I have a couple more questions for you, which is that we've already seen the U.S. sustain some casualties. What does that suggest to you? I mean, does it suggest that these - that the - that U.S. military facilities there were adequately prepared, and do they have the means to defend themselves?
DONEGAN: The president, when he started this, as you remember and recall, he said that, you know, there's likely to be casualties because this is - you know, this is a conflict that is of a large scale. So it's not unexpected that there's casualties. However, it's not good, and I certainly offer my condolences to those soldiers and brave men and women that have put their lives on the line every day. But you can't defend against everything. So part of this operation is to have the right defenses in place, as you described, but also attrit their capability to do these attacks.
And that's the challenge that you're seeing because they're - Iranians have thousands of these missiles, but they have even more drones, and they're very mobile. And so that plan that Brad Cooper and the CENTCOM commanders are working on is a difficult problem, but not insurmountable. But you're going to have these things that get through, no matter how good your defense, until they're able to continue to beat down sheer numbers and volume and mobility of those forces.
MARTIN: So before we let you go - we have about a minute for this - what is your - forgive me, I'm asking you to sort of project and in some ways sort of speculate - but given what you know about the assets in the region, given what you know about what you've seen so far, what do you envision as an endgame for this?
DONEGAN: That's - the question certainly everyone's asking is, how does this end? I think it ends when the president - and he's probably the lone decision-maker here - has decided that he's gotten at enough of those things that you mentioned at the very beginning - those four things, and then when he is happy that he's somewhat dismantled their capability to reach outside their borders. So you have an Iran that'll have to focus internally in the future and not be able to threaten its allies. I think that's going to be the decision of one person. But that's when you're going to see, in my sense, off-ramps start to appear.
MARTIN: That is retired Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan. He's the former commander of the combined maritime forces in the Middle East. And as I mentioned, he's overseen operations extensively in the region - in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen. Admiral, thank you so much for sharing these insights with us once again.
DONEGAN: Thanks, Michel.
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