NATO defenses shoot down missile in Turkish airspace amid U S Israeli war with Iran

Let's go to the region now. We have MSNOW International reporter Inez de la Quintera in Israel. Also with us, editor of the Insider, Michael Weiss and retired Army Major General James Spider Marks. Great to have you all. Let me start with you in the reporting on the ground there. Inez, this weekend, Israel suffered its first military deaths. Saudi Arabia also saw its first deaths from this war. Oil prices, as we just discussed, are spiking after Israel hit Iranian oil infrastructure. And now we have a missile just shot down over Turkey. Is the scope of this fight expanding? Yeah, I mean, that is the concern on people here, certainly bracing for additional fighting. It's why we're seeing preparations being taken across Israel, like this hospital where we're at, which has turned into an underground hospitals. We're actually in what used to be the parking lot. You can see it's been completely transformed. This is an area where they are conducting chest surgery. So you can see people here recovering. And obviously, part of the thinking here is to keep inpatients safe when those sirens go off, but also to prepare for additional attacks and the possibility of mass casualty events. We've seen a number of hospitals across Israel taking these steps, moving underground earlier today. We were in Haifa up north near the border with Lebanon, where they have also moved underground and where they've been treating IDF soldiers, the IDF announcing that two soldiers were killed in the fighting against Hezbollah since the beginning of this war. And since that new front has opened up on Israel's northern border. Now, Israel and the U.S. say that the war with Iran is moving into a new phase. It's unclear just what that means. But we did ask the IDF about that earlier today. I'll let you listen to what they had to say. We've had an accurate strike against a few fuel sites. They were fueling literally the Iranian war machine. It was it was one case. Then that was the decision the decision made. And we'll see what happens next. They've named a new supreme leader. Is Israel going to continue going after every successor to every target? We have different considerations and a thought process and approval process, and we'll leave some things unknown. But anyone who carries out a war against Israel, who tries to annihilate us should know that eventually he will find his death. And of course, we are watching for a reaction to news that a new supreme leader has been named in Iran, the second son of the late Supreme Leader Mostafa Khamenei. We know leadership in Iran is pledging allegiance to him. The public is also being called on to pledge allegiance to him. He's a 56 year old cleric, someone who is a hardliner, someone who is very much believed to be in line with his father's policies. And so his appointment does appear to send the message that the Iranian regime is not prepared to reform in any way, that they are going to continue doubling down on their anti-Western, anti-U.S., anti-Israel views. The Israelis, like you heard there, have said that they're going to continue going after any successor to the Ayatollah. President Trump has called Mostafa Khamenei an unacceptable choice. Inez de la Quintera live for us in Tel Aviv. Thank you for that report. General Marks, after a missile was shot down heading toward Turkey last week, I asked Iran's deputy foreign minister if they were targeting that NATO member. Here's how he responded. NATO forces shot down an Iranian missile heading toward Turkey. Were you trying to hit Turkey? Not at all. By the way, we want to have best of relations with all of our neighbors in the southern, in the Persian Gulf area, as long as all other neighbors, including Turkey. With Turkey, we have best of relations. We are investigating the case and definitely that is not the intention to to, you know, start the war with Turkey. Now, NATO defenses just intercepted a second missile over Turkey. General, can this really be unintentional? No, this isn't an attempt at a false flag. Look, this is a direct operation conducted by Iran against a NATO partner. But also bear in mind, I mean, Iran initially lashed out at Qatar and Oman, which was somewhat surprising. Those have routinely been friendly to Iran. So what Iran is doing is I think it really is a Muhammad Ali rope a dope. They're going to try to last as long as they can take the punishment. Continue to lash out until Western powers, the GCC and then international condemnation against Israel and the United States for for the strikes against Iran, which is a page from their book, which is what they did, which is what Iran did and Hamas did after their illegal and brutal invasion of Israel. Look, it took two weeks for the world to say Israel, you're way out of bounds. This is unnecessarily punitive against Hamas. It's exactly what we're seeing right now. There was already diplomatic friction, of course, between the U.S. and allies over this war. Now you have the Strait of Hormuz basically shut down the price of oil surging, a NATO ally now getting sucked in. Michael, are Gulf partners and U.S. allies going to start pushing Trump and Netanyahu to find an off ramp? Well, I think like the general said, that certainly seems to be the Iranian strategy, you know, firing rockets at Incirlik Air Base, which is the target of at least the first missile strike. And I think also now the second one, that's where U.S. forces are based. It's also where the United States keeps some of its nuclear gravity bombs. That's a real message that the Iranians are sending. And because Turkey is a NATO ally, you know, they have the right to invoke Article five if they were attacked by hostile forces. So this could turn into something even more internationalized, dragging in more European powers who have been hitherto reluctant to join the fray. So I think Iran is playing with fire itself here. But yeah, I mean, look, I just read an item in The New York Times that Ukraine is sending anti drone technicians and they've already arrived in Jordan to help help Arab allies basically shoot down the Shahid drones. You know, the Shahids are a real mess, even to the United States and our air defense systems, because they're smaller. They're not the kinds of things you use. Patriot missile systems to shoot down. But the Ukrainians have quite a lot of expertise and know how in this area. So already we're seeing on, you know, allies that we did not anticipate getting into this fight being essentially welcomed into it to help the United States and Israel. I'm looking at the markets just above you on the screen, and we see the Dow is now down nearly 900 points this morning, largely because of everything we're talking about involving the oil situation in the Gulf. General President Trump had said the U.S. Navy would provide escorts for oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. It doesn't appear that that's happening at this point. How do you secure the Strait of Hormuz? Is the U.S. escort play realistic? Oh, it is. Look, we have experience as recently as twenty nineteen, the Maritime Security Construction Plan, which included both U.S. and GCC naval vessels escorting tankers through the Straits and also bear in mind the the Iranian Navy is at the bottom of the Gulf. The Iranian Air Force doesn't exist anymore. The United States and Israel has severely attrited the the missile capabilities of the Iranians. So Iran has the capacity to threaten closure of the Iran and of the Straits and to possibly disrupt traffic, which is what we see right now. But they do not have the capability to close it. The United States Navy understands what that looks like. Iran cannot do any mining capacity. They don't I mean, that capacity doesn't exist. They don't have the capability. And it's just a matter of time before a decision is made. To begin the escort operations and as indicated, look, this is a policy decision, whether it takes place. It's not a military decision. The military commanders on the ground and, you know, the maritime and air capabilities exist to conduct those operations. I think we're really at the end of the beginning of this campaign. Look, we had suppression of air defenses, the simultaneity of attack. And now the U.S. forces and the Israeli forces are working through the air tasking order. This is kind of a mechanistic procedure of addressing targets, high value targets that exist and continue to go after those. And I can tell you, migrated to the top of that HVT list is Mousaba Khamenei. Well, let's talk about this new supreme leader, Michael. He's a hard liner. What do you make of this pick? Well, he's not just a hard liner. He's also very much a creature of the IRGC, which has backed his candidacy. So, I mean, it goes to show you that, you know, they were already a lot of allegations and speculation that the IRGC over the last several years has been kind of waging a soft coup or push to take over from the clerical leadership of Iran. This would be an indication that they are indeed inheriting that file. The IRGC has no interest in making a deal or negotiating a ceasefire. I mean, they are one of the most ideological sort of spearheads of the Islamic Republic. And I think this this is a signal to the Trump administration. If you thought you were going to just sort of decapitate the regime, take out senior leadership and, you know, call it a day and try to make some kind of transitional government arrangement a la Delsi Rodriguez in Venezuela, which, by all indications, Donald Trump was emboldened to go to war with Iran because of the success of the Venezuela operation. You've got another thing coming because the IRGC is now firmly in control. And, you know, another thing the Iranians are doing, and we knew that they were going to do this, is they had this atomized command and control structure. So in the event that their headquarters get attacked, which they were, in the event the supreme leader is taken out, you know, they fan out across this country, which is four times the size of Iraq. And they have their own kind of mobile not nodules or nodes, rather, which is one of the problems, I think, because it means that they're going to be launching things that not everyone in the Iranian regime is aware of.