David Petraeus

A deadly strike on American troops in Jordan… and critical moments in the wars in Gaza and Ukraine… this week on Firing Line

 

PETRAEUS: This is the worst day we’ve had in the Middle East in a very, very long time. And we clearly have to retaliate. 

 

He commanded American and coalition forces in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan… 

 

“Red is bad. Red means al Qaeda”

 

General David Petraeus reshaped U.S. military strategy in those conflicts, then went on to serve as Director of the CIA. He’s co-authored a book entitled, “Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine,” which examines the transformation of military conflict.

 

Petraeus: We face the greatest number of challenges and the greatest complexity of challenges since the end of World War II. 

 

With a drone strikes killing three U.S. troops in Jordan…

 

PETRAEUS: They cannot get away with this. 

 

…high stakes in Gaza with American-led hostage negotiations…

 

PETRAEUS: There’s just nothing but bad choices.

 

…and questions looming about the future of U.S. aid to Ukraine…

 

PETRAEUS: This is as right versus wrong as it gets in life.

 

…what does General David Petraeus say now?

 

‘Firing Line’ with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by: Stephens Inc., Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, The Asness Family Foundation, The Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation, Kathleen and Andrew McKenna through The McKenna Family Foundation, Pfizer Inc., Charles R. Schwab, The Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Damon Button, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Roger and Susan Hertog, Cheryl Cohen Effron and Blair Effron, Al and Kathy Hubbard

 

INTERVIEW

HOOVER: General David Petraeus, welcome back to Firing Line. 

PETRAEUS: Good to be back, Margaret. Thanks. 

HOOVER: Last weekend’s drone attack in Jordan killed three U.S. service members and injured more than 40. This is the first time U.S. ground troops have been killed by enemy aircraft since the Korean War. Your latest book, which you co authored with Andrew Roberts, “Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine,” examines the last seven decades of warfare. How significant is this drone attack? 

PETRAEUS: Well, it’s very, very significant. Again, it’s the worst day we’ve had in the Middle East in a very, very long time. It was carried out by an Iranian supported Shia militia that is based in Iraq. And we clearly have to retaliate, and it should not be a one off. I think that this will be a campaign that has multiple strikes over multiple days, despite what Iran and its militias are now saying, that they’re going to take a knee, they’re not going to do anything else and so forth. They cannot get away with this. We have to degrade their capabilities very, very substantially. There has to be a very clear message that this is not going to be allowed to happen without a substantial response. And ideally, this would restore deterrence, although I want to be careful about that because they are individual militias, they don’t always take central direction from Iran, and they have their own agenda, which is to try to push the Iraqi government to push the Americans out of Iraq, something the government doesn’t want to do because we help them defeat the Islamic State. So again, we have to try to restore deterrence, noting that that’s very difficult given the number of individual actors and leaders here and who don’t always take direction from Iran. 

HOOVER: The administration has been retaliating against several attacks against U.S. positions throughout the fall by Iranian proxies. Is this an indication that so far the retaliatory efforts by the administration have not been effective? 

PETRAEUS: Well, they have not deterred further attacks. And so clearly…

HOOVER: So this needs to be–

PETRAEUS: …a much more robust series of strikes has to be carried out. And again, this won’t be a single day’s worth of strikes. I think this will be quite a campaign of strikes against those Iranian supported Shia militias that operate in Iraq and also in Syria. 

HOOVER: Do you think Iran knew about this attack? 

PETRAEUS: I don’t know, actually. Again, these elements have a degree of independence of action. There’s no question that Iran funds, trains, equips, and often does direct them, and gives overall guidance. But I don’t have any idea whether or not they knew that this attack was taking place or certainly directed it. 

HOOVER: You write in your book “Conflict” that Iran has historically tried to, quote, “straddle a delicate line” seeking to attack the United States in ways that would wound us, but not severely enough as to trigger a direct retaliation.

PETRAEUS: Yeah, that’s exactly right. What they are happy to do is fight to the last Houthi, or the last Iraqi militia member, or the last Hezbollah fighter, or the last Hamas terrorist, but not directly confront the United States. Because if they did, we would respond very forcefully, and they undoubtedly would be on the losing end of that. The problem is we don’t want to see that either, because we have lots of vulnerabilities in the region and even around the world. And this is a case where there would be– we’d experience problems and challenges, just as they would. 

HOOVER: The attack itself hit near the base’s living quarters. Do you believe it was the intent of the attack to kill U.S. service members? 

PETRAEUS: Oh, sure I do. Yeah. I’m sure that that was the case. Again, this is a first person view attack drone, suicide drone. So it went where it was directed by its operator. And the tragedy in this case is that our  normally quite good and effective counter drone systems didn’t engage this particular drone, apparently because it was thought to be a U.S. drone that was also in the area at the same time. 

HOOVER: Republicans in the United States Senate have been calling for President Biden to immediately strike Iran directly. Senator Lindsey Graham says hit Iran now. Senator John Cornyn says target Tehran. Senator Tom Cotton says anything less than, quote, “devastating military retaliation will confirm that Joe Biden is a coward and unworthy of being commander in chief.” Now, is it helpful in any way for the Iranians to hear this rhetoric? 

PETRAEUS: Well, look, it’s an election year. It’s much easier to offer thoughts on these actions when you’re not in the actual situation room. Politics are obviously at play here. I, by the way, I talk to all three of those individuals and have for decades actually– 

HOOVER: But is it helpful that they say it? Is it literally just politics, or is there some geopolitical impact for Iran and Tehran to hear really aggressive rhetoric, at least from some quarters in the United States? 

PETRAEUS: It’s not unhelpful, actually, in the sense that they should be on notice. By the way, if I were advising on the target option list, there would be targets in Iran, without question. It’s just I’m not certain that this is when you want to begin those targets. 

HOOVER: How imminent do you think a retaliatory strike or series of strikes should be? 

PETRAEUS: Again, I think we should do it, as has been stated, at the time and place of our choosing. You want to keep them on edge for a period of time as well. You want them to have sleepless nights. You want to degrade their readiness because of their concerns, their leaders have had to flee. When the moment comes, when we assess that it would most effectively achieve the objectives, that’s when you pull the trigger or begin to pull the trigger, because this won’t be a single pull of the trigger. This will be multiple actions and multiple strikes over multiple days. 

HOOVER: I’d like to turn to the Israel-Hamas War. 

PETRAEUS: Sure. 

HOOVER: You have said that you cannot think of any situation that has been as, quote, “fiendishly difficult” as what Israel is facing right now in its fight against Hamas. They’re fighting plainclothes enemy in hundreds of miles of underground tunnels, and civilians are being used as shields, and the lives of hostages are held in the balance. Recently, I’ve heard you say that it’s possible for Israel to still accomplish its goal of destroying Hamas. 

PETRAEUS: It is, I think. Again, keep in mind they’ve laid out three objectives. Two of these are in tension with one another. But the first is, of course, to destroy Hamas. I believe they should seek to destroy Hamas. I see Hamas as equivalent of the Islamic State. Yes, there’s a Palestinian nationalism element there that makes that analogy imperfect. But I think without question that this is, this is an enemy. This is a terrorist group with which you cannot reconcile. You can’t negotiate. They have to be destroyed. Second objective is to dismantle the political wing of Hamas. Clearly, they can never let that be allowed again to govern Gaza, because they would bring back the same kind of conditions and threats for Israel. And then, of course, to recover the hostages, recognizing that again. Objectives one and three are in tension. And if it requires a month or two month ceasefire to get back more, if not all of the hostages, then I agree with that. But this campaign is going to continue, I think, for many, many months. We’re three and a half months into this. The Israelis have largely cleared the northern part of Gaza. But that means that you have to clear and then hold areas and then rebuild them, and ideally, get the people back into them, keep the hospitals going, get humanitarian assistance, restore basic services. There should be a vision for the Palestinians, I think, as well, that should be laid out. And that is that we will make life better for you once we get Hamas out of your lives. It will be a tough sell, there’s no question. But hearts and minds matter in this kind of endeavor. But keep in mind, that’s just in northern Gaza. There’s operations ongoing in central Gaza, but a lot more tough fighting to do there. And then southern Gaza, which is where the leader of the military wing of Hamas and the leader within Gaza is suspected of being located, undoubtedly deep underground, surrounded by civilians and hostages. But this is the most fiendishly difficult. This is far more challenging than were Ramadi, Fallujah, Baquba. It’s a bigger area, much larger population, higher buildings, and this 350 miles worth of subterranean tunnels and infrastructure and everything else, often right underneath civilian sites– hospitals, schools, clinics, mosques and so forth. So very, very challenging. But I do believe that it has to be done. I’d also suggest that there needs to be a vision laid out for the day after. The Israelis are going to have to administer these areas. There’s no one from the region raising a hand, saying, we’ll help you with your problem. There’s not a competent, capable, trustworthy Palestinian government in a box waiting to be deployed into Gaza. So they’re going to end up owning this. And if you recognize that you’re going to own it, I think that there will be even greater attention, frankly, to the issue of civilian loss of life, to the damage and destruction done to infrastructure, which they’re going to own, they’re going to have to rebuild, and they’re going to have to take care of to provide a better life for the Palestinian people, noting that what they experienced was so traumatic and so horrific and barbaric, that one could understand why there is not that level of consideration. But I think inevitably it’s going to be an important part of this overall campaign.

HOOVER: General, you wrote the field manual, you helped write the field manual, the counterinsurgency field manual–

PETRAEUS: And then we implemented it–

HOOVER: And then you implemented it. 

PETRAEUS: –during the surge. And it worked. 

HOOVER: Yes. It was a success. You talk about holding areas and you talk about winning hearts and minds. And it strikes me that the American military started this two decades ago. Has the Israeli military had any experience with counterinsurgency in the past? Do they know how to hold areas, and do they know how to win hearts and minds of the Palestinians? 

PETRAEUS: I think those are very valid questions. If you look at the history, the IDF has not conducted anything like this particular campaign. And to be fair to them, it took us years, again, to recognize what we needed to do to, to distill the lessons we learned in the counterinsurgency field manual. So, yes, there is a lot of discovery learning undoubtedly going on on the ground. 

UNRWA

HOOVER: Israel alleges that 12 employees of the UN Relief Work Agency in Gaza participated in the Hamas attacks. And U.S. officials claim that this is actually quite credible. The UN has terminated most of those workers. Is the UN a trustworthy partner in humanitarian peacekeeping efforts? 

PETRAEUS: I think it’s sort of hard to sort of aggregate and just say yes or no. There’s no question that the UN has a history of problems that it has experienced in a variety of different ways. And in this case, what needs to be done is there needs to be a cold hearted, realistic assessment of the capacity of UNWRA, its shortcomings, its ties to Hamas and so forth. And they have got to take stock and take very quick action to remedy the situation so that there can be the continued provision of humanitarian assistance. And if we can’t develop confidence in them, there’s going to have to be some other organization established very quickly to ensure that what is already a humanitarian catastrophe, especially in southern Gaza, is addressed as quickly as is possible. This is part of, again, showing life will be better after Hamas is out of Gaza, is destroyed. Not allowed to flee, by the way, but has been destroyed, it’s out of their lives. And again, that should be done continually. It should, you don’t wait until after Hamas is destroyed. You do it as part of again, clear, hold and build. That build phase is, get them back into their neighborhoods, repair the damaged houses and destroyed infrastructure. It’s a huge task. Without question. We’ve seen the pictures. We know the extent of the damage and destruction. And this is going to be an enormous effort. But this is one that countries in the region and the U.S. and others will provide resources to perform. 

HOOVER: But are Israelis doing that now? 

PETRAEUS: I haven’t seen signs of that yet. And so, again, this is an area in which you have to examine again, you learn while you’re doing, and I think there will be a recognition that it’s better to get the people back into their neighborhoods, but those neighborhoods have to be secured. They have to be held. So we created gated communities, I think 12 or 13 in Fallujah alone. We got them back into their houses. We rebuilt the damaged infrastructure, reopened schools, markets, clinics and all the rest of that. And by the way, then they started to realize, my gosh, life actually is better than when we had this extremist element in our midst.

HOOVER: So that needs to be going on in northern Gaza now. 

PETRAEUS: It should be going on now. Sure. 

HOSTAGES

HOOVER: 136 hostages that were taken by Hamas are still missing. And American-led negotiators have drafted a new plan proposing that there be a two month exchange, a phased release of hostages. Is that actually time for Hamas to reconstitute? 

PETRAEUS: Sure. Anything that gives Hamas breathing room is going to allow them to reconstitute to a degree where they are. Again, I think it’s been said from the very beginning here that there are, there’s just nothing but bad choices. I think that’s a difficult choice, but one that is worth making, clearly, to get as many of those hostages out as quickly as can be the case, given how long they’ve already been in captivity. 

 

HOOVER: In 1971, William F. Buckley Jr. interviewed Seymour Hersh, the journalist who had exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. And they were discussing whether the U.S. had committed war crimes in Vietnam. Take a listen to this portion of their conversation. 

 

HERSH: There’s no question that we’re committing war crimes on an incredible scale. I think there is some question about whether it’s inadvertent or advertent genocide. I don’t know whether we really know what we’re doing at all times. I think that’s a real serious question; I don’t know what’s worse, and I’ll leave it to the social thinkers whether to kill somebody by plain stupidity or overpower or by design .. but I think the fact is that .. 

BUCKLEY: You mean this is a decision you’re not willing to make on your own, whether it’s worse to kill people accidentally or on purpose?

HERSH: I don’t know. It doesn’t seem relevant, terribly, to me. The fact is, they’re dying. 

PETRAEUS: There’s no question that My Lai violated the laws of land warfare. And that was affirmed, also in the court martial and so forth, subsequently. And worse than that, it was covered up by the levels of command above that particular incident. But I don’t, I reject the assertion that we were committing genocide or something like this. This was a mistake. But we make mistakes. There were– Abu Ghraib was a terrible stain on the U.S. military. There have been other, we made mistakes in combat when I was privileged to command in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it’s not the norm, and it’s not what we intend to do. It is rather, again, an error. 

HOOVER: General, I’ve had several people in your chair say this is not genocide the attacks that Israel is leveling against Gaza. They scoff at the notion that this is genocide. However, they all say, but I’m not a military commander, so I’m not equipped to judge the proportionality or the scale or the approach that Israel is taking and whether it is appropriate. Civilians in the news see 40 foot craters, huge craters, evidence of massive destruction, destruction in Gaza. How do you measure the Israelis approach and whether it is appropriate militarily for the scale of the battle out in front of that? 

PETRAEUS: Well, even having been a former military commander and having assessed targets and strikes and so forth, and determined the proportionality and the importance of the strike, because there’s always a tension between those two elements, I still find it difficult to evaluate these. Although the general sense is that I very much agree with the president, Secretary of State and others who have said that there has to be greater attention to reducing innocent loss of civilian life. And also, frankly, just damage to infrastructure, which, again– remember when I mentioned earlier, if you’re going to end up owning something, again, and that’s why that part of the vision, I think should be applied. 

HOOVER: You break it, you buy it? 

PETRAEUS: And to be fair, I think that they are already making adjustments. My sense is from seeing how they’re going about it in central and southern Gaza, that it is different, a different approach than from what they started in the north. 

HOOVER: But have you seen anything in your own estimation that suggests Israel has violated Geneva Conventions of warfare? 

PETRAEUS: Again, some of these are very substantial munitions in civilian areas. But again, without knowing what the target was, what was the target imperative, and what was the tension between that? What was the modeling? I mean, this stuff is actually very technical. And we would sit down and you can do three dimensional modeling of what is going to happen. You can assess it. But certainly some of these are, *it’s uncomfortable for me to see some of these. 

UKRAINE

HOOVER: Let me ask you about Ukraine. It’s been two years now, almost, since Russia has launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia now controls almost a fifth of Ukraine’s internationally recognized land. And U.S. aid hangs in the balance at the moment. Ukrainian troops are exhausted. President Zelensky remains firm in his goal to retake Ukrainian territory. Can Zelensky’s goal be achieved still? 

PETRAEUS: Well, American aid is imperative. 

HOOVER: But is Ukraine’s fate dependent on the U.S. passing continued support? 

PETRAEUS: Oh, I think that would be a reasonable assessment. Again, it’s crucial. The U.S. is the country that provides some of the most important weapon systems, some of the most important anti-aircraft and ballistic missile defense systems, the longer range precision munitions. So it is absolutely crucial that the U.S. get the additional authorization and appropriations, the $60 billion dollars, approximately, of additional assistance that the administration has asked for. And especially given that there’s bipartisan support for Ukraine in both houses of Congress. But, of course, it’s held up by a small element in the House of Representatives. *This is as right versus wrong as it gets in life. And I can assure you that if we don’t help Ukraine stop Russia in Ukraine, it has its eyes on Moldova, has its eyes on a NATO member, Lithuania. And for those that even say, well, that we really should focus just on the main event, which is deterring China in the Indo-Pacific region, nothing would undermine deterrence more than not showing that we’re going to support our ally, our partner, in Europe. In the face of this unprovoked, brutal Russian invasion. 

HOOVER: There seems to be a growing chorus of Republicans in the House of Representatives who are increasingly looking at the former president, who is likely to be the Republican nominee in 2024, Donald Trump, to not have any Ukraine aid unless there is a deal on the border. What is the fact that the Republican frontrunner appears willing to sacrifice aid to Ukraine, and to start that chain of events that you just described, say to you about the future, the possible future of foreign policy for the United States? 

PETRAEUS: Well, first of all, I point out to your audience that I am truly nonpolitical. I stopped voting and registering back in, when I was promoted to two stars in 2002 and have not since. I advised members of either party, including many of those on the Republican side–

HOOVER: And even as a private citizen you haven’t voted since–

PETRAEUS: I have not. No, I actually– and I don’t advocate that for others. In this case, I strongly believe that U.S. leadership is crucial in the world at a time of the greatest number of threats and challenges, and the greatest complexity of those threats and challenges. That includes support for Ukraine. It includes ensuring that deterrence is very solid in the Indo-Pacific. That includes what we’re doing in the greater Middle East to support our ally Israel and the other partner countries there against Iranian supported activity, continuing deterrence in North Korea. All of these are all present. And again, if the U.S. actually does not lead, the rules-based international order that we have worked so hard to sustain since the end of World War II is going to begin to crumble. We don’t do all this for charitable reasons. We do it for cold, hard national interests, our national security interests, and for the interests of our prosperity, because the trading system and so forth, in many respects, is sustained by this particular international system. And we need to do what we can, together with allies and partners– and it’s great to see the Europeans step up more and more, as they have, again, a lot of us having complained about that in the past. And we need to, again, continue to lead. 

HOOVER: Including Donald Trump, by the way–

PETRAEUS: Well, every president has, without question. So someone that does not agree with that, I find very concerning. 

CHINA

HOOVER: You said the U.S. military leaders face the most complex challenges since World War Two. And you warn in your book, Conflict, that there are a list of challenges that we have never seen before– 

PETRAEUS: Yes. 

HOOVER: –especially in terms of the future of warfare. What is the one that concerns you most? 

PETRAEUS: Well, I think the one that matters most, clearly, is that which is wrapped up in the U.S. and western relationship with China. And we have to ensure we are very firm, not needlessly provocative. And that we continue to ensure that every day the sun comes up in Beijing, there’s a look out to the east and they say, okay, well, not today. Because, again, hopefully we can get back to the kind of approach, maybe a decade or more ago, where there was a sense that this could be an increasingly mutually beneficial relationship instead of one that has become what has been described as severe competition by our national security advisor. 

HOOVER: But you don’t consider it a Cold War? 

PETRAEUS: You can certainly argue for that. There are elements of the Cold War that are present without question, but there is a major element that is different, and that is the economic relationship between our two countries. We had virtually no meaningful economic relationship with the Soviet Union. And China is our number three trading partner, right after Mexico and Canada. And they’re also the top trading partner for about 120 countries around the world. So the impact of any kind of true conflict, not just competition, would be catastrophic for the world. And we have to ensure, again, that deterrence is rock solid. 

HOOVER: General Petraeus, thank you for returning to Firing Line.

PETRAEUS: You bet. Thank you. 

END