Trump ‘Totally Incapable’ Of Understanding Iran War | Retired US General

So General Anderson, it's good to have you with us as ever. Thank you for making time. Can I start you with this question? We see an escalation of the war in Iran. Donald Trump seems bent on an escalation. We've had 10 consecutive days of American bombing strikes. Now, critics and analysts are saying there's no sign of a strategy to win the war. Tell me, General, in your view, what are they missing? What is the plan here? Well, I believe that the critical element is they failed to realize the tenacity of the Iranian leadership. I mean, the IRGC are absolute religious fanatics, and they are not going to give in. And unfortunately, they have all the power. You know, their numbers may be somewhat small in terms of the population of Iran, but they control the weapons, the money, the power, the infrastructure. And they have shown a willingness to abuse their people, to kill their people in order to maintain power. And of course, this is an existential threat to them. I mean, they understand that if they do not succeed in you know, that they are going to die. And so, you know, we have failed from the very beginning to understand their tenacity and their commitment. And we have failed to know the enemy like we're supposed to. And unfortunately, that has led to the greatest geopolitical blunder in American history. Okay, so we're talking about a failure of analysis, a failure of intelligence. It does not make the case for continuing, let alone escalating the bombing. So why do it? I don't understand why they're doing it. I really don't. I don't support it at all. You know, that what they need to do is negotiate. And unfortunately, you know, the Trump administration has fired most of the key critical negotiators that we need. And now we've left the negotiations with a couple of real estate dudes that know President Trump, Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, and of course, Steve Whitaker. And that's why we're in the straight, you know, we're in. And of course, you know, President Trump has shown himself to be totally incapable of understanding the situation. And, you know, we are in really a lot of trouble right now, because President Trump has surrounded himself with essentially sycophants that tell him what he wants to hear, or don't tell him what he needs to hear. And we are in, you know, our government has never been in worse shape right now. We're incapable of handling the situation, and it's only going to get worse. And now we got the hoodies involved in Yemen, potentially shutting off the Bab el-Mandeb strait, you know, and making this global economic crisis even more so. So I mean, I think that we are just absolutely headed in the wrong direction. The only way to get out of it is to negotiate. And unfortunately, that's going to mean, that's going to probably lead to some kind of a big payout, payout, because that's really the only way that, you know, that we're going to be able to achieve our objectives, which is, of course, to open the Strait of Hormuz and restore the economic prosperity to the world. And unfortunately, the Trump administration seems incapable of doing that right now. Okay, now the Gulf states are being pounded now day after day. What sort of role, what sort of influence do you imagine they will try to bring to bear? Well, they're very upset, no doubt, with the Americans, because we have, you know, we told them that we would protect them, and that we put these bases in their countries in order to do that. And it shows that we've been really incapable of doing that, that we continue to misunderstand or fail to understand the tenacity and the capability of these people. They have incredible asymmetric threats. This is a huge country, three and a half times the size of Iraq. And essentially, it's a fortress surrounded by mountains. You know, there's no way that we're going to be able to bond them into submission. It's never worked in the past, it won't work in the future. So, obviously, the allies that we have in the United States, in the Gulf region, are struggling to understand what's going on. How come that we're not being protected like we need to, because the Iranians have these incredible asymmetric capabilities. They've got $20,000 drones. And, you know, the United States has provided $1 million interceptors to take out these $20,000 drones. And they just have mountains of these things, thousands and thousands of them. And oh, by the way, you know, Hezbollah has probably got a lot of them too, not to mention the Iranian supporters in Iran, or in Iraq rather. So, you know, there's all kinds of places that the support for the Iranians can occur. And unfortunately, they all have these incredible asymmetric capabilities that the United States seems unable to detect and to defeat. General, what do you anticipate America's allies, including the United Kingdom, with our new Prime Minister? What do you expect those allies to do if the war from America's side continues to escalate, even to the point of attacking civilian targets? And Donald Trump has spoken of attacking bridges and power plants, hasn't he? Well, you know, they have very rightly stayed out of this. You know, the United States, President Trump doesn't understand NATO, doesn't understand the importance of NATO. And unfortunately, we're showing ourselves to be unreliable allies. And so the British need to understand that they're going to have to go it alone, really, without the United States going forward, and that they're going to have to team and build relationships, continue to build relationships and strengthen the relationships with the NATO allies. Because the United States has shown ourselves to be an unreliable partner. What do you mean by going it alone? Because NATO still relies on a very substantial presence of the United States military in Europe, as well as other links too, with intelligence, for example. Yes, I mean, unfortunately, like I say, we've shown ourselves to be unreliable. You know, I believe that the defence spending needs to increase in Britain and in the other NATO countries, because the United States shows themselves, at least under the present leadership of the Trump administration, to vacillate completely to essentially their schizophrenic policies, you know, supporting NATO one day, not supporting NATO next, supporting Ukraine one day, not supporting Ukraine the next. I mean, God knows what the relationship is with the Russians and President Trump. So, I mean, with all that occurring right now, I believe that the British need to step up their game and NATO needs to step up their game and the United States showing ourselves to be unreliable allies going forward. Okay. Just imagine for a moment that I am the British Prime Minister and I'm calling you and asking you for your essential advice. What do you say to me in a nutshell? I would say go it alone, step up the game, increase your defence spending and we've got a new world order, unfortunately, before us right now. The United States has shown itself to be an unreliable leader, an ally, and the British people need to understand that. And, you know, it's a new world going forward. You know, I would like to think that the United States will return to normal after the Trump administration, but I'm not sure if we're ever going back to where we were before. The days of strong American leadership and a strong presence in NATO and support for NATO, I think those days are over. And unfortunately, it's a really, really sad occurrence because I believe that NATO alliance has led to the greatest economic prosperity in the world to include the United States over the last 80 years showed itself to be the strongest alliance in the history of the world. And it's sad the United States is just not supporting NATO like it needs to. So I would tell the Prime Minister, you know, buckle up, buddy, because you're going to need to step forward and the British are going to have to learn to go it alone. General, great to talk to you. Thank you so much. Great to be here. Thank you very much, John.