The long game: General Petraeus on Israel's options
Power Play
POLITICO
4.2 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2023
⏱️ 37 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
The carnage on the streets of Gaza and mounting tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbours presented a bleak and chaotic backdrop for President Biden’s impromptu visit to Tel Aviv. Is this a conflict on the brink of exploding across the region?
In this week’s episode of Power Play, host Anne McElvoy talks to David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA and four-star general who led coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has co-authored a new book, "Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine," which draws on the lessons of warfare since 1945. His warnings about the prospect of an Israeli ground offensive will raise alarm bells around the world.
Anne is then joined by POLITICO’s “Power Panel” to reflect on the consequences of this week’s events for the U.S., Europe and the wider world. Alex Ward is POLITICO’s national security reporter in Washington, D.C. and Joshua Posaner is POLITICO’s senior defense reporter in Berlin.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today's episode is presented by Nova Vax. |
| 0:02.8 | Nova Vax is a global leader in vaccine development and research. |
| 0:06.8 | The company is working to make safe and effective vaccines available |
| 0:10.4 | to help protect those who need them around the world. |
| 0:13.0 | NovaVax is also collaborating with leading organizations across the global vaccines landscape, |
| 0:18.0 | including research institutions, government agencies, foundations, and industry to help ensure access and increase uptake of vaccines worldwide. |
| 0:27.0 | Learn more at W. W. Novavax.com. The president is getting off of Air Force One to begin his conversations with the Israeli Prime Minister going directly to Benjamin Netanyahu |
| 0:46.0 | and embracing him. |
| 0:48.9 | As the wheels of Air Force One touched down in Israel this week. Those on board and beyond shared a sense of foreboding |
| 0:56.4 | about the crisis unfolding in the Middle East. The deadly explosion at a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday has raised the stakes even further. |
| 1:07.0 | The causes and responsibility are still emerging from the rubble and the fog of war hangs over the troubled territory. |
| 1:15.9 | In the wake of the Hamas attack on southern Israel in the first week of October, which killed |
| 1:20.5 | over 1300 people and has seen 200 taken hostage, Israel has declared its intention |
| 1:27.4 | to stop Hamas operating from Gaza. |
| 1:31.0 | The methods, duration and human cost of that mission are, however, contested. |
| 1:37.0 | This will be a different kind of war, because Hamas is a different kind of enemy. |
| 1:42.0 | We will continue to have Israel's back as you work to defend your people. |
| 1:48.0 | Can President Biden's impromptu visit this week change the course of the conflict and stop it spreading to Lebanon and across the region? |
| 1:59.0 | One man who's advised several American presidents on wars and how to end them is David Petraeus, |
| 2:05.7 | former director of the CIA and four-star general who's led coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He's my guest on power play this week and he has |
| 2:16.6 | a start warning of what might lie ahead. |
| 2:19.6 | This could be Mogadishu on steroids very quickly. |
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