What Would Escalation in Iran Look Like?

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2026

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The United States continues to ramp up its military presence near Iran, newly deploying three San Diego-based warships to the Middle East along with some 2500 Camp Pendleton Marines. Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, who served multiple tours in Iraq and commanded US Army Europe, is a critic of the U.S-Israel war on Iran, saying that it unnecessarily puts lives at risk, lacks any coherent political objective and leaves the U.S. vulnerable to cyberattacks and other forms of reprisal. We’ll talk to Hertling about the latest Iran developments and his own combat experience, which he details in a new memoir called “If I Don’t Return: A Father’s Wartime Journal.” Guests: Lieutenant General Mark Hertling (Ret.), former commanding general, US Army Europe; commander during the 2007-2009 Iraq surge; author, "If I Don't Return: A Father's Wartime Journal" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:49.5	From KQED.
0:52.7	Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. President Trump may have backed away yesterday from his threat to strike power plants in Iran and spoken recently of winding down the war. But the Pentagon, in the meantime, has been sending a surge of additional U.S. forces to the Middle East, including thousands of California-based Marines, and has requested
1:11.9	$200 billion in new funding for the war effort. Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hurtling has
1:17.8	been concerned about the administration's mixed signals and lack of clear objectives in Iran,
1:23.3	leading to the possibility of additional lives being lost unnecessarily, Hurtling is a veteran
1:28.6	of Desert Storm and the Iraq War, a military analyst for news outlets, and a columnist for
1:34.3	the bulwark. He also has a new memoir about his time in combat called If I Don't Return,
1:40.9	a father's wartime journal. General Hartling, welcome to Forum.
1:45.6	Mina, it's great to be with you. Thanks for having me today. Well, thank you so much for being
1:49.2	with us. So how do you interpret those latest developments on Iran? The president pulling back
1:54.1	from his threat to strike Iran's power plants if Iran didn't open the strait of Hormuz,
	...

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