Ed note: I listened to this conversation on “The Daily,” a New York Times podcast. It’s a very powerful conversation about what appears to be ahead of us in Iran.
David French talks with the retired general about the “great seduction” America fell for in Iran.
By David French
Did President Trump fall for the myth of surgical warfare? Gen. Stanley McChrystal joins the columnist David French, both veterans of the Iraq war, to discuss what may have been overlooked in the planning of Operation Epic Fury. McChrystal, who retired from the Army in 2010, argues that the United States often overestimates the decisive power of aerial bombing while underestimating the weight of historical grievance. And the general weighs in on the current culture of bravado coming from the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth.
Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the NYTimes app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.
David French: General, thank you so much for joining us.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal: All right. David, please call me Stan — even though you are a former JAG officer. We have to set the table at the beginning.
French: It’s going to be hard for me.
We served together in very different capacities. I was a JAG officer for an armored cavalry squadron in eastern Diyala Province during 2007-8. You were orchestrating one of the most effective and efficient Special Operations missions our nation’s ever seen, which really helped turn the tide of the war.
I want to actually begin our discussion of current events there, because there is something that I have seen since this most recent conflict with Iran broke out, which is that the veterans’ perspective on this conflict is different than the perspective of the folks who didn’t serve, especially in Iraq.
So, even if someone maybe objects to the way that this conflict began or has some questions about its prudence, there’s a lot of feelings about Iran and Iran’s role in the Iraq war and the losses and damage it inflicted upon us.
When I was in eastern Diyala, we lost guys to explosively formed penetrators planted by Iranian-backed militias.
So, General, if you could table-set, what has been the recent American experience in our long-running conflict with Iran?
McChrystal: If we go back to the American experience starting in 1979, I was a young Special Forces officer, and I remember that the American Embassy in Tehran was seized, and there were people chanting “death to America.”
That was upsetting. And that was only a few years after Vietnam, so I think America was vulnerable emotionally.
Then suddenly you had this country that had been our ally, at least in the minds of most Americans during the Peacock Regime of the Shah, from ’53 to ’78, we felt comfortable with that. They were the bulwark of stability — and then suddenly in ’79 we saw the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini. And he doesn’t want to negotiate.
We watched a war break out between Iraq and Iran, and most of us were far enough away to say: Wow. Good. Somebody’s taken on the Iranians. They don’t like Americans, so it’s somebody taking them on.
Then in 1988, the U.S.S. Vincennes mistook an Iranian airliner for an attacking F-14, and they killed 290 civilians. If you take that period, Iran seemed like a recalcitrant enemy that hated us for some reason that we couldn’t really understand.
Then we get into 2007, when you were in Diyala and I’m leading a counterterrorist task force.
We had to stand up an entirely new task force focused on the Shia militia that were supported by Iran — the explosively formed projectiles and all of the things that Iran did to give them capability — and it became a bitter fight.
So, in the minds of someone like me and my force, of course, they were the enemy. They were killing us and we were killing them. It looked as though they were also a threat to not just the mission in Iraq but the stability across the region.
It becomes emotional; Iran feels like our lifelong enemy right now. I’ll stop there. But I think that’s only part of the story. (continue on Page 2 or here)