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All right, let's do it around the world foreign policy buck brief here with our friend bridge Colby. He's a former Pentagon official. He's got an awesome book on foreign policy strategy of denial.

Check it out bridge great to have you back on the program. Let's start with this for a second because you know we're speaking at a time when the world is still reeling from the terrorist attack in Israel by Hamas.

Iran's fingerprints are all over this we know that what does Iran think it can achieve with the actions that it engages in is it just ideologically driven sadism and hatred or is there a long game here that they think they're playing by supporting these militant groups that is in some way achievable as a nation state.

Well great to be back back with you buck always a pleasure to be with you and even on this really difficult day or time look I think there is plenty of rage and ideology in the Islamic Republic the regime there.

But I also think they appear to be pursuing a strategy and I think that's my sense of the Israeli assessment as well it's based on you know the exploitation of terrorism and human suffering and so forth but it is.

It is a strategy I mean I don't know exactly what they're going I mean it's too clear that Iran benefits from this to say that they've had no role obviously they've been heavily complicit in arming Hamas and Hezbollah and so forth but they also benefit from interrupting the Israeli normalization with the Saudis and others in the region and the the quiet that I mean I was in Israel in June and you know there was a sense that that things were pretty much probably more secure in Israel than ever been that the kind of

West Bank and Gaza were under control and I think what I assume Hamas is trying to do and backed by Iran is to reintroduce fear and uncertainty and anxiety into it Israeli life obviously taking hostages and they're trying to probably establish more control over the Arab population in both Gaza where they have been ascended but also in the West Bank and use that to to just over time erode life in the Jewish state and ultimately.

You know I think their ultimate goal is is as they say to recapture that that territory.

Do you think that they just view this as an incremental approach to the eventual eradication of Israel I mean that really is their strategic goal that's not just bluster and chest something from a bunch of psychopaths.

I mean I think they say it consistently and you know the people who were prepared to conduct acts of terrorism liners in the 1970s but were more secular or maybe had more incremental objectives even even then they might have been more aggressive or ambitious I think those people seem to have been pushed aside and Hamas and Hezbollah were the radical groups and the Islamic revolutionaries in Iran and you don't look I mean obviously these analogies are always kind of limited but.

How long did the crusaders stay or how long did very in the British day you know you look how long.

Colonial anti colonial rebellions that they're probably modeling themselves not to suggest that Israel is in any way a colonial state but.

But I think that's probably the model they haven't you know that as Ho Chi Minh said you know we have time and you can kill 10 of ours for everyone we kill of you but in the long run will I'll ask you.

Yeah I mean I know they take this is very long view at the expense of the present that's a common theme in a lot of Middle Eastern states unfortunately the you know the some.

Some amazing future will come about if they're willing to engage in.

Painless acts today and justify a lot of tyranny repression and things that generally you would want to avoid.

But I'm just wondering at this stage if is it possible for Israel to allow a thing called Hamas to continue to exist.

Well I think they've said I think Prime Minister Netanyahu did say that they are going to destroy Hamas I mean I think that the that makes a ton of sense and I mean I totally support Israel's.

You know basis and desire to to retaliate and restore that deterrence there's also an element of course of justice but from a strategic point of view they have to be able to say that if you do these I mean barbaric acts some of which in some sense are on press and since the Holocaust I mean.

Really horrible stuff that there will be punishment way out of proportion to you know the benefits for the attacking actor the problem of course is what does it mean to destroy Hamas and I assume the Israelis are wrestling with that.

So I think they'll probably need to come up with a definition of that that is you know significant enough that it means something but also attainable at a reasonable cost because you know I mean I think they're mobilizing 300,000 Israelis huge impact on the Israeli economy on Israeli society it is a free society.

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