In this episode of Eurasian Connectivity, Dr. Kamran Bokhari hosts former CENTCOM commander, Retired Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. “Frank” McKenzie, Jr., for a discussion on the intensifying conflict between Iran and Israel, the challenge of Iranian efforts to alter the security architecture of the Middle East, and the implications for U.S. foreign policy in the region and beyond.
Kamran Bokhari:
Hello everyone. My name is Kamran Bokhari and I’m back with a new episode of Eurasian Connectivity here at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. And today I am very delighted to introduce my guest who is retired Marine Corps, General Kenneth F. Frank McKenzie Jr. The former commander of U.S. Central Command, which he led from 2019 to 2022 and after retiring from what is an extremely illustrious career in the U.S. military, General McKenzie became the executive director of the University of South Florida’s Global and National Security Initiative from where he’s speaking to us today. He’s also the author of a fascinating book that came out just this past May. It’s called “The Melting Point: High Command and War in the 21st Century”. General McKenzie is especially an expert on Iran with whom he’s had to deal with during his CENTCOM assignment. We didn’t plan it this way, but it’s fortuitous that we are speaking with him as Iran’s allies are about to launch their retaliation against Israel for the killing of Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh. General McKenzie, welcome to the show.
Kenneth F. McKenzie:
It’s great to join you today. Look forward to the opportunity to talk.
Kamran Bokhari:
Thank you, sir. So let’s go backwards. Let’s start with the here and now, and then we’ll go back to your book and the lessons you learned in the military about Iran and the region in general. So where do you think this is going? A lot of people are saying different things, but you are the expert. Please tell us what are the thoughts on your mind right now?
Kenneth F. McKenzie:
Well, let me just begin by saying I believe we are at a particularly dangerous period in the history of the region, maybe as dangerous a period as there has ever been. But in order to understand, I think what Iran might or might not do, I think we need to look at Iran’s objectives. And for Iran, it all begins and ends with regime security. Iran views their regime as a revolutionary regime from the late 1970s when they seized power and opposed the shah. They know and understand that revolutions have trouble outliving the revolutionary generation. So they are absolutely obsessed with the idea of ensuring that the revolution goes on to a new generation of leadership and that the leadership itself is protected. That’s an important thing to understand when you think about what Iran might or might not do because the overwhelming strategic imperative for the government of Iran, is protection of the theocratic regime and all that that means, that’s the No. 1 priority.
Now, there are other priorities that are very important to Iran, and there are two of them really, and in no particular order for reasons I’ll discuss in a moment, I would say that one of them is the destruction of the state of Israel. They’ve been very clear about this for a number of years. We have no reason to doubt them when they say that. And the second one is the ejection of the United States from the region. That too is very important to Iran. Now, sometimes Israeli priority is higher than the United States priority. Sometimes they’re so completely intertwined that it’s difficult to know which is a higher priority. But one thing is clear, neither of those two priorities will challenge the primary objective, which again is preservation of the regime. So when you look at what Iran will or won’t do, it’s important to understand that.
I mean within their own view of the world, which may seem very strange and perverted to us, they are rational actors. So Iran will make rational choices about what to do based on the prioritization of how it views its requirements in the world. Again, beginning with they’re not going to do anything that’ll threaten the stability of the regime. And so that brings some things. There are some actions they’ll take as a result of that. There are some actions they’re probably unlikely to take as a result of that. But I think if we view it through that prism, it goes a long way toward understanding what Iran’s going to do here in the days and weeks ahead.
Kamran Bokhari:
Thank you for that introductory remark, General McKenzie. For those of our listeners who don’t know, General McKenzie was the head of CENTCOM at the time when the United States eliminated Qasem Soleimani,the head and essentially the founder of the IRGC’s Quds Force. So I just want everybody to know that we are talking to a real expert here when it comes to dealing with Iran. So General McKenzie, based on that experience, it was a really tense moment at the time. It was four years ago and you were sort of right in the middle of it. And so you have a good understanding of what the Iranians can and can’t do.
Now, obviously this situation is very different. It’s actually very different from even the Iranian strikes back in April after their diplomatic compound was hit by the Israelis. So what are we looking at? If you could lay out some scenarios, what are the range of scenarios that we’re looking at and how do you see the United States military, the Israelis, our Arab allies responding to an attack? And if you can talk a little bit about Turkey as well, I’d really appreciate it.
Kenneth F. McKenzie:
Certainly. So let’s begin by just sort of examining broadly Iranian capabilities. I’m a little bit of an outlier in that it’s my view that Iran does not want to possess a nuclear weapon. Iran wants to be able to possess a nuclear weapon. I think Iranian policy is to continue incremental improvements in its fissile material and to threaten crossing that Rubicon of possessing a nuclear weapon. And here’s why, because when they’re right there dancing on the edge, they can operate against us for relief from sanctions, for other things, they can operate against the Europeans, they can operate against their neighbors. So Iran, certainly, and Iran, let me be very clear, is quite close to possessing a nuclear weapon. A weapon’s probably not the right word. They’re probably quite close to possessing a nuclear device, what we would call a test article, something that could be set off and result in a nuclear explosion, not weaponized.
So let’s just hold that thought for a minute. So that’s one element. Iran does want to be very close to that line. They do put resources against it. They talk about it mainly to see what our response is. On the other hand, what Iran has done over the last, I would say 15 years, a little bit in the shadows, not so much now, but in the shadows of the nuclear program, Iran has created a ballistic missile force. Now, ballistic missiles are weapons that fly out of the atmosphere and fall on their target. And theirs is a theater ballistic missile force. By that I mean they have weapons they can launch from Iran and some of those weapons can hit Tel Aviv. Some of those weapons can hit targets deep in Saudi Arabia, deep in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Jordan, a variety of places in the region.
They also have a variety of shorter-range missiles, numbering in the thousands that can attack targets closer in the Gulf countries and the Arabian Gulf. They have spent a vast sums of resources, in fact, and I would say they have actually perverted their economy in order to pursue this capability. They have also dramatically improved their land attack cruise missiles. Now they’re different. A ballistic missile, as the name implies, is launched. It goes into the atmosphere following ballistic principles and falls on its target. A cruise missile, a land attack cruise missile, or a LACM, L-A-C-M in the vernacular, is something that probably is air-breathing, might not be, but it flies at a much lower level and follows the terrain of the Earth to get to its target. It too can possess a very long range, long enough to get to Israel under certain circumstances. And the last category are drones.
These are all air-breathing systems. They might be propeller powered, they might be jet powered, but Iran has many, many thousands of these. And as we know, they’ve gained valuable expertise with these systems, sending them to Russia, seeing the results in Ukraine. So Iran has a vast and capable fleet of ballistic missiles, land attack cruise missiles, and drones. And when we think of the threat from Iran today, we need to think of that as the principal threat. Look, the nuclear threat might be in the future, and it’s a very real threat, and I don’t want to minimize it, but it is a threat that does not exist today and won’t exist until sometime in the future. So we should think about that when we consider Iranian capabilities. Now, Iran has a small and not very capable air force that is negligible in the region. It has a navy that can do certain things, but none of them very well and none of them at a very large scale.
It has an army that is only really capable of repressing its own citizens. They can’t project it forward. What does this mean? And the last point is they do have proxies that operate across the region, that can operate close in against their neighboring countries, typically Shia militant groups and occasionally further afield abroad. Those are a capability as well. But Iran’s real crown jewels, if you will, from where I sit, is this ballistic missile cruise missile land attack, cruise missile force. A war with Iran would be a fire’s war. It would be a war where the exchange of missiles and the ability to defend against those missiles is going to become this primary distinguishing characteristic. So what does that mean? We saw in April when Iran, I would argue, boxed into a corner by the tit-for-tat proxy war with Israel and fought out across the region, culminating in the attack on IRGC.
Republican Guard planners in Damascus chose to strike Israel with a substantial attack. Substantial attack: What do I mean by that? I mean that the Iranians launched between 100 and 150 or so ballistic missiles because while they have thousands of these missiles, they’re limited in throughput in that they have to take the missiles out, put them on launchers, and then launch them. So that what we would call their salvo rate is not very high. But the Iranian model is you attack with ballistic missiles, but you precede the attack with drones and cruise missiles, which are designed under their operational template to take out the radars that guide the defender’s missiles. In this case, in Israel, it would be the Iron Dome system, the David Sling system, the Patriot systems that defend Israel. Now the Iranians launched its attack on a major scale, and it failed.
Why did it fail? It failed because first of all, the Israelis are pretty good. They have a good defensive system. They knew what they were doing. It failed because we assisted the Israelis to some degree. It failed because the Iranians telegraphed the attack because it takes a little while to prepare. They did not telegraph it in the sense of trying to limit the attack. It just took them a little while to get coordinated to do the strike. And it was unsuccessful because the neighbors of Israel cooperated in the defense of Israel. And that’s a very important thing that we should not overlook as we look at why that attack failed. So the first time the Iranians employed this at great scale, it was unsuccessful. Now the Iranians will draw conclusions from that. The probable conclusion that they will draw is, we don’t have a map in front of us right now, but I think probably everybody listening is familiar with the geography of the region.
There is an entity that did not participate at scale in this attack that if they had participated would’ve made it harder for Israel. And that of course is Lebanese Hezbollah. Lebanese Hezbollah has engaged for months now in a tit-for-tat against Israel up around the northern border, but they have not entered with their most capable missiles and they have not entered at scale. By that I mean using hundreds of missiles against Israel, which would stress the Israeli defensive system. So as a lesson from the April attack, I’m sure Iran has thought about they need to open the different axes of attack against Israel if they’re going to fight them again. By that I mean certainly another attack from Iran is possible, but they would want to couple it with a concurrent or near-concurrent attack from Lebanese Hezbollah, that poses risks and opportunities for Lebanese Hezbollah, which we can talk about separately if you’d like here in just a minute.
But that would stress Israel to a degree that they were not stressed in the sole Iranian attack against them on 13 April. So when we think about what may happen going forward, those are the sort of things that we need to think about. And look, the other point is this, Iran observed the results of the attack, the failure of their attack, and they will draw lessons from it and they will try to improve their capabilities. And Israel has unique advantages. They are far away from Iran in the theater. They have a lot of what we would call strategic depth. Missiles, drones, and cruise missiles have to traverse a lot of ground to get to Israel, which gives Israel the opportunity to intercept them. If you’re talking about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, if you’re talking about Qatar, if you’re talking about the United Arab Emirates, or Bahrain or any several other states, they don’t have the luxury of distance.
So that threat is far more imminent, if you will, from Iran as you take a look at it. And I’ll close off this comment by saying as a result of that, nations in the region and particularly the Gulf nations have grown to recognize the nature of this threat from Iran. As a result, beginning really in 2020 and 2021, we saw a recognition of that and a willingness to come together and talk about coordinating regional air and missile defense. In 2020 and 2021, I had the opportunity to actually coordinate meetings that were held between Gulf chiefs of defense and the Israeli chief of defense. We talked about ways that we might work together to cooperate against an Iranian ballistic missile, drone, and cruise missile attack.
And what we saw in April was the actual fruition of those plans as a successful defense was executed. Now, if Iran attacks again, will it be replicated? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know that nations in the region clearly understand the existential nature of the threat from Iran and what it poses with that ballistic missile capability. And so we just need to be very much aware of that when we look at options that Iran might choose to execute as they look at how they’re going to respond to the latest Israeli… well, the Israelis did not claim responsibility for it, but what they allege are the latest Israeli actions. And I’ll pause there for a moment.
Kamran Bokhari:
So my next question is a follow-up to what you just said. So clearly they learned some lessons. There’s not enough time because April was just a few months ago. So you wonder how much time they had to prepare and operationalize those lessons to improve their strike capability this time around. But you did mention something about Hezbollah and it seems like Hezbollah, because its military chief was eliminated as well and we’ve had its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, basically threatening to wage war against Israel and even talking about annihilation.
So we know that rhetoric is rhetoric, but tell us what could be different this time around both from Iran, from Hezbollah, and expand upon that idea about Israeli defenses potentially being overwhelmed. And if I may throw in another variable, do you expect actors, pro-Iranian militias to strike from say, Syria, Iraq? What about the Houthis? I mean they’re a bit far afield, but we’ve seen the Israelis strike them in response to a recent drone strike that killed one person in Tel Aviv. So what is it, if we get it sort of a bit granular over here, what is it that the Iranians can do different?
Kenneth F. McKenzie:
Great question. So what the Iranians can do different is first of all, in terms of attacks from Iran, that won’t look significantly different because you’re right, they won’t had the time to change a lot of the tactics, techniques, and procedures that they use for their attacks. So that will be not unlike what happened in April, what will be different and would be very stressing for the Israelis would be if they’re able to convince Hassan Nasrallah to come in with the capabilities he has. Look, as you were aware, at least as well as me better, Lebanese Hezbollah is the largest non-state military entity in the world. They possess vast stocks of precision and other missiles that are capable of being fired into Israel. And so for him to come in would be a major, major change in the situation. Now, I would also argue that is not without risk for Hassan Nasrallah and Lebanese Hezbollah.
I think Lebanese Hezbollah is as weak as it’s been for a long time in terms of its relationship in Lebanon with the Lebanese people, with the government of Lebanon. A lot of people view them as complicit and the terrible economic problems that the country faces right now, the terrible corruption, the fact the country’s having difficulty feeding itself, and of course the terminal political gridlock that LH certainly has a hand in. So unlike in say 2006, 2007, its political situation is not as strong as it once was in Lebanon. So all of that will go into Nasrallah’s decision making. Additionally, it’s my belief that it will be hard to get him to come in just because Iran tells him to do it. Certainly he has been trained, his forces have been trained by the Iranians, they’ve been equipped by the Iranians, but they are not completely at a beck and call of Iran when it comes to making a decision to attack Israel.
That will be an independent decision because here’s the other thing, and this is a very important point. Israel has the ability to inflict vast, let me use that word again, vast punishment against Lebanese Hezbollah. And so if LH comes in, Israel has some capability to hurt Iran, and they can certainly choose to do that, but they can turn very quickly and punish Lebanese Hezbollah. Now, is Lebanese Hezbollah willing to be the leading edge of the Iranian response? That’s an interesting question. And now in balance, I think it’s more likely than not that LH will come into this fight because as you’ve noted that the Israelis have struck some key LH figures. On the other hand, if they come in with unlimited attack, they’re going to face a very strong and powerful response from Israel that is certainly, certainly going to result in the evisceration of Lebanese Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In my opinion, it will be a hard, ugly bloody war, but it will be a war that LH will not be able to prevail in should that happen. And it will have vast regional connotations. And I don’t want to minimize any of those things, but Nasrallah knows the scope of the potential Israeli response is very high. The risks are actually higher for him than Iran. And let’s go back to what I said at the beginning. What Iran will not do is they will not hazard the survival of their theocratic regime. They will be happy, I would argue, to hazard their survival of Lebanese Hezbollah. Nasrallah knows that. So it’s not a given order and LH is going to come in. Let me be clear. LH is dedicated to the destruction to the state of Israel. They seek it as a goal, but LH has also got to balance the potential destruction that will be visited upon them if they choose to come in.
The last point you talked about was the Houthis. Certainly the Houthis are all in. They’re the most enthusiastic of all the proxy groups right now. Their ability to hurt Israel is quite limited. We saw them have a little bit of success against Tel Aviv, as you noted a few moments ago, but I think they will not be able to significantly threaten Israel. What they will be able to do of course, is continue to close the Bab-el-Mandeb with its implications for global shipping and particularly an embarrassment for the United States. We should expect that to continue. But the Houthis are not going to be a particular factor in this. The big factor remains LH.
Now also, certainly factions in Syria, factions in Iraq may choose to enter the fight as well. I think we see something from Hamas, what’s left of Hamas. We see something from the West Bank as well, should this attack occur. And I believe it’s going to occur, it’s just a matter of timing and when it’s going to actually occur. All those will come in. But the big variable, the big variable that is above all others is, what will LH do?
Kamran Bokhari:
So to build on that question, so let’s assume worst-case scenario where LH doesn’t go all out, but at the same time it does come in forcefully, whatever that looks like. You are the expert here, and I’m just using sort of layman terms. Now in April, the United States and its allies did certain actions to deter the drones and the cruise missiles from hitting Israel. Let’s say Israel is hit from two different directions. What will be the U.S. posture? And if you would kindly also illuminate on let’s say the Iranians carry out their threat against the Gulf states, they’ve been warning them that if this time you got involved, then you could be hit. So what do you see in that scenario? Because everybody’s talking about an expansion of a regional conflict, and I just want to sort of be able to say what exactly does that look like?
Kenneth F. McKenzie:
Sure, that’s a very good question. It sort of sums up where we are right now. The United States, first of all is going to be committed to the defense of Israel. So I know nothing about planning that’s going on right now, but I do know that we’re committed to their defense and I think we would assist in that defense if Israel is stressed by the attack that they’re faced, I’m confident of that. Now, what that’s going to mean particularly, I don’t know, but we’ve moved more ships into the Eastern Mediterranean, ballistic missile defense ships, other kinds of combat power. So we would be able to act to assist in the defense of Israel should the president direct us to do so. And I think President Biden has been pretty clear that we’re going to assist in the defense of Israel should they be stressed and they be attacked.
And of course we were actually part of their defense in the April attack. So that’s clearly a factor. Now, if Iran comes in, let me back up a second. If LH comes in, the degree to which they attack Israel will dictate actually the scope and scale of the war that follows. If it’s a fairly minor attack that doesn’t go after a population center, then the Israeli response might be moderate. But if it’s a major attack against the city or causes civilian casualties, I think all bets are off on what the Israeli response could be. And the Israelis are capable of significant response again against LH. They’ve planned for it, they’ve trained for it, they have the capability to do it. LH knows this because they’re what I would call correlation of forces people. They know and understand what cards are on the table, what the game is.
So LH will take all that into account as they come in. If LH comes in at large scale, the Israelis will respond at larger scale because they’ve been clear about that and I would expect them to do that. So we’ll have to see actually what happens there. As for what Iran does with the Arab nations that assist in the defense of Israel, they could choose to strike them. That would of course be something that I think would go against objective one of Iranian foreign policy protection of the clerical regime because now you would array everyone in the theater against you. And Iran does not want to do that. They won’t believe they in fact are encircling Israel. To go very aggressive against the Arab nations in the region would be to undo all that work, which may or may not be true anyway.
But I think that would be a large step forward for Iran that they might not want to take. I think that would be something they would have to think about long and hard because that would really now increase the chances of a larger theater war. It would increase pressure on the clerical regime. It would make the possibility of regime change far higher than any other circumstance. And again, I apologize for being pedantic when I talk about Iranian priorities, but they’re very clear on these priorities and the priorities are very simple and we just need to know and understand that when we talk about how we predict Iranian behavior.
Kamran Bokhari:
Thank you so much. So let’s sort of zoom out into the distance of the future. So let’s assume this retaliation comes and whatever it looks like, if it takes days, if it takes longer, where do you see this ending? Because you’re basically saying, “Look, the Iranians and their allies, particularly LH, are not going to risk their survival for this action.” So that means that logically speaking, they’ll do something, what that something is we don’t know, and then hope to fight another day. And so what are we looking at if we look at the future, I mean is what kind of long-term threat are we looking at and how do you think we should deal with this? And I’d like to add that Iran internally is in transition. You mentioned regime change and regime collapse. So give us a sense of what the future holds.
Kenneth F. McKenzie:
So what Iran responds to, I believe again, is predictable. They’re not actually unpredictable. They’re very predictable once you understand their priorities, and again, their priority is protection of the regime, ensuring that there is an effective transition to the next generation of leaders. So they respond to clear and steady force. There’s a famous line from Vladimir Lenin that what you do is you stick a bayonet in, if it reaches mush, you continue to press. If you reach steel, you pull it out. You have to demonstrate to the Iranians that certain forms of behavior are going to be simply unacceptable and we’re prepared to act on that. And if you do that, then you can actually, I believe, modify Iranian behavior. Unfortunately for a long time, the United States has not chosen to do that and it’s very difficult to discern United States red lines when it comes to Iranian behavior.
And I would go further to say the highest priority of your foreign policy in the region can’t begin and end with the phrases, prevent escalation. You have to be willing to risk escalation if you want to prevent escalation, if you actually want to deter. And deterrence of Iran requires in the cognitive space of the opponent, in the cognitive space of the Iranians, the belief of one of two things, deterrence by denial is they can’t achieve their objectives because we’re going to stop them. We’re too powerful on the ground or deterrence by punishment. You may be able to pursue your objectives, but the pain we inflict on you is going to be insurmountable. You’re not going to be able to sustain that level of pain. We’re probably in the second category, not the first category, but the Iranians know and understand deterrence theory and they will be responsive to deterrence theory if you actually put enough chips in the game to demonstrate that capability.
Kamran Bokhari:
So let’s shift gears here. We’re running out of time and I want to talk about your book, which is I read and I found really fascinating, very illuminative, and very insightful for someone who’s never been in the military and to look at things from your perspective. So give us a sense for our readers. By the way, the book is called “The Melting Point: High Command and War in the 21st Century”. Folks, I urge you to get your copy of it. So General McKenzie, so what was the sort of thinking behind publishing this book and what is it that you want readers to take away?
Kenneth F. McKenzie:
Well, first of all, I enjoyed writing the book, thanks for referring to it. I think it’s a book that certainly was rewarding for me to write, and I wrote it because of this. In the United States system, military system, there are 11 combatant commanders. A combatant commander is a four-star officer, man or woman, general or admiral, who works for the president of the United States. Seven combatant commanders are geographic combatant commanders. That is to say they’re responsible for U.S. military actions in a portion of the world. My portion of the world was Egypt in the west, Pakistan in the east, Kazakhstan in the north, Yemen in the south. 21 countries. And that was a part of the world that I was responsible for. I worked for the president and I worked for the secretary of defense, didn’t work for anybody else. My chain of command was very short and very clear.
But as a combatant commander, you have the opportunity to give advice to senior leaders and then you have the requirement to execute that advice. And that’s a unique position that only the combatant commander has. So let me give you, what do I mean by that. I mean this. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the United States senior military officer. He’s a four-star officer by custom and by law, senior military officer. He’s the senior advisor to the president and the Secretary defense on military things. He is not in the chain of command. He cannot give an order. He cannot cause a ship to sail, a bomb to drop, an airplane to fly. He’s only an adviser whereas a combatant commander gives advice as a junior partner in that debate. You’re not a co-equal with the other people who are giving advice, but you do get to have your voice heard and my voice was heard.
And then you walk out of the room and you are uniquely responsible for execution, which no one else is. There are a lot of people that are responsible for advice. The chairman, the chiefs of services, the service secretaries, the appointed political leadership within the Department of Defense all give advice and that’s very, very, very important advice. But they are not responsible for execution. That’s the chain of command. And the chain of command is unique and it goes, as I’ve noted, from the president to the secretary, to the combatant commander. So you walk out now you have to execute, you have to transmute the policy guidance that you were given into actionable military orders that people then go out and carry out on the ground.
It’s a very unique place to be. And so I wanted to write about that because I thought it’s a good opportunity for people who have never experienced it to know and understand the uniqueness of that system, how it works. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work. But the key takeaway I’d like for people to have from it, frankly, one of the major reasons I wrote the book was to continue to assert the importance of civilian control of the military and the final analysis, civilians need to make these decisions and the military needs to execute them. We get an opportunity to give advice, but we’re not actually part of that decision-making process, and it’s important that we never become part of it.
Kamran Bokhari:
So you mentioned your experience as a combatant commander and having given advice and had the pleasure and the opportunity to actually execute it. And I want to link that comment of yours to the situation that we faced four years ago. And there’s a lot of people have a lot of misconceptions or just don’t know about the purpose behind the elimination of Qasem Soleimani, the IRGC QF commander, and I would appreciate it if you could shed light on what was the strategic imperatives or the challenges that you faced so that people get sort of a real-world understanding of how difficult it is to be a combatant commander and why you give advice and then you have to execute it if the civilian leadership gives the go-ahead.
Kenneth F. McKenzie:
Sure. So in the summer and fall of 2019, Iran had become very active militarily. They were under pressure from the presidential administration’s maximum pressure campaign and they sought to relieve that pressure by acting out militarily. They did that by attacking oil tankers around the Gulf. They did it by attacking oil facilities in Saudi Arabia in September, 2019. They did it by shooting down one of our RQ-4 drones over the Strait of Hormuz. And then in the winter of 2019, they did it by picking up attacks against our forces in Iraq and pressure against our embassy. And the leader of that was Qasem Soleimani, as you noted, the commander of the IRGC Quds Force. And he was a very effective leader for Iran in that regard. He was effective because he was good on the ground with the militant Shia groups. He could go in there and knock heads, make them all proceed on the same direction.
Not a lot of guys could do that, which then that was very important. He also had a relationship with the supreme leader that was outside the military chain of command. He was a familial father-son relationship. If he wanted to do something that other people in Iran didn’t want to do, he simply went to the supreme leader and argued his case. And often he did that very successfully. He was also very effective at killing Americans and had killed a lot of Americans. And in the winter of 2019, in December of 2019, it was evident to us through intelligence that he was planning to continue those attacks against Americans and he was flying into Iraq in order to coordinate those attacks. I don’t mean he was planning personally to run up and put a bomb against the U.S. Embassy, but he was going to coordinate the people that were going to do that.
So at that point it was clear to me that the risk of inaction was greater than the risk of action in that if we did not take action against him, Americans and other people would die. The president of the United States, President Trump, took all this information on board and he made a decision. He took the decision to strike Qasem Soleimani. I was aligned with that recommendation, given advice, and my advice was to take that strike. I felt that there’s a risk of Iranian response and the Iranians did respond again, attacking us at Al-Assad Air Base not very effectively, and so we’re able to get past that. But the strike on him was driven by the fact that had we not taken it, I believe there would’ve been a far greater loss of life. Interestingly earlier in the year, perhaps been more effective in responding to Iranian provocations in the summer of 2019.
In the fall of 2019, we might not have gotten to this point, but that’s a good thing to file away when dealing with nations like Iran. If you wait to the end, typically the cost of stopping them is far higher than if you’re aggressive at the beginning. We chose not to be particularly aggressive in the summer of 2019, the fall of 2019, which left us in a difficult situation the winter of 2019, where eliminating him did in fact appear to be the best option that would signal to Iran that we were not going to tolerate their malign behavior, their desire to kill more Americans, and at the same time to reset deterrence in the region. I would argue that largely deterrence was ultimately reset as a result of that action. I don’t regard that action lightly.
I don’t think killing someone is something to be cheerful about or to applaud. But I think at that point it was necessary and appropriate and the right thing to do. I felt that at the time, I believe it to be the right thing now. Over the passage of years from the night of 23, January, 2020 when we actually took that action and I think people are alive now that would not otherwise be alive had we not taken that action.
Kamran Bokhari:
Thank you so much for sharing that experience. I’m sure that our listeners will benefit from it. And we reached sort of the end of our conversation. So before I let you go, I wish we had more time. Is there something that we haven’t touched upon that you think is absolutely important that the world should know and what would that be if there is something on your mind?
Kenneth F. McKenzie:
I just go back to a point that I’ve already hit on before. I think it’s very important in a republic, and the United States is a republic. It’s very important that elected civilian leadership make the final decisions. That’s very important, and I think civilian supremacy is a consistent theme in my book. We’ve talked about it a little bit here today, but many nations in the world have it. I don’t think everybody gives it as great attention as we do. We talk about it, we study it all the time. They’re often grim pronouncements about the risk of the military encroaching on civilian leadership. I think that’s largely not the case. I think that we know and understand our role in this system and it’s an important but a subordinate role. If I were going to emphasize one thing, I would simply emphasize that.
Kamran Bokhari:
Thank you so much, sir. Folks, that was General Frank McKenzie, former head of CENTCOM, speaking to us here at Eurasian Connectivity with the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. I hope you will go out and purchase McKenzie’s book, “The Melting Point: High Command and War in the 21st Century”. This is Kamran Bokhari signing off for now. Take care out there.
