True Change In The Mideast Could Hinge On Regime Change In Iran

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agencies. Visit PCmatic.com. I'm Trey Gowdy. I'm Shannon Breem. I'm Stuart

Vaughnny and this is the Fox News rundown.

Wednesday, March 18th, 2026. I'm Evan Brown as the US war against Iran continues

so does Israel's and the Israelis are looking not just to beat the Iranian

regime but to make a permanent lasting change. Time to build their murderous

machine. They will not have this time. They will be pursued every day until they

have no capabilities. Intentions we cannot change their hearts but capabilities

is something that we can measure. It's something that we can see and after the

seventh of October, we decided no more. This is the Fox News rundown Operation

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questions. The US calls its war against Iran Operation Epic Fury. We've borrowed that for the

subtitle of this podcast for now. But the Israelis call it Operation Roaring Lion.

A reference to the emblematic lion of the Persian people. And that seems to be a goal for

the Israelis to see the Persian people empowered and ridding themselves of their Islamist rulers

after nearly five decades. A half century that has brought bloodshed to many and societal ruin

to Iran. Though that is not Israel's main goal. That remains to put a permanent end to the threat

that Iran's Islamist rulers so proudly and boisterously make to annihilate Israel the state,

to annihilate Jews worldwide and to end American influence and supplant it with their own.

So far, the Israelis are claiming a quick success. We look at the big picture.

So certainly we see great success. And actually the operation is ahead of its time.

Danny Ayalan is a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, a former member of Israel's

parliament and former deputy foreign minister. He is now chairman of the Silver Road Capital Group.

Regarding the Israeli objectives in terms of taking out their capabilities,

you know, their nuclear capabilities, their ballistic missiles capabilities. And also

as equally important, their capability to support their nefarious proxies, the Kisbala or the Houthis

or Hamas. And at this point, I think that the Israeli superior technology and intelligence

have also shown that we took out a lot of their command and control and of course the leaders

which are terrorists. And this is why they are targeted because they are not only responsible for

murders and taking lives, not only the Iranians, of course, lately, but also many, many around the

world in the last 47 years of this terror and and horror regime. Let's talk about those objectives

by eliminating certain command and control personalities, leadership personalities. It's one

thing to mark them off the list, so to speak, and to say, hey, we got these guys. But that translates

into a real goal accomplished from a military perspective to the idea of how to weaken that regime

and to begin to eliminate the threat that Israel and really the rest of the world has been

facing for, as you've mentioned, 47 years. So how does one target translate to a real world

objective like that other than just the, we got this guy, you know, a goal? Yes. Well,

Eben Well said, it's not just a matter of military success. It has to be supplemented or

complemented with political maneuvers. And here, of course, it's much more difficult, much more

intricate and very much depends on the will of the Iranian people. We know empirically that 80 percent

of Iranians would like to read themselves of this terror regime. About 20 percent are those who

are their cronies, those who actually live off the salaries of this regime and the families.

So this 80 percent, the challenge is how to empower them, not in terms of motivation. They do

have the motivation, but they were with all. And this could take a long time and maybe even months.

And I believe that the operation, the military operation will not need to take all this time.

But once the operation is over, and again, here, the benchmarks would be that we know that they

don't have the 440 kilograms of enriched uranium, 60 percent grade, which is very close to weapon

grade. When this is out of Iran, when we know that most of their ballistic missiles are eliminated,

and the same as the launchers, they are production aligns for all these ballistic missiles are

taken. Then I believe we can pretty much pull out from this operation and let the Iranians do whatever

they can. It may take a few months. If we go back to the 12 days war, even last year, after that,

it took about six to seven months until the Iranians took out to the streets. I'm not sure this

will be as long as that, but we will have to wait. And another possibility here, which we do not

discard, is that there will be some accomplices that would cooperate with us from within the regime

understanding that the only way for them to spare their lives is to actually turn against

their murderous bosses. And if this happens, and I think the candidates would be from the army,

the regular army of Iran is less dogmatic, and not in the grips of this ayatollahs, like the

besiege that the IRGC. So this is also an option. We'll have to wait and see.

I think much of the world knows at this point that when Israel decides to engage in

for lack of a better term of war, that it has its goals, and it has its techniques, and it has

its capabilities, and it's very well trained military, and no stones are left on turn. Israel strikes

and it strikes hard. But in previous wars against different factions, whether it's been Hamas or

Hezbollah throughout the years, and one can remember the Hezbollah war in 2006, sometimes those

goals don't necessarily get realized. And at some point Israel says, all right, well, we've

off. We've set back the enemy a certain amount of distance, both physically and metaphysically,

but it's never an eliminated threat. There seems to be a different motivation or a different

feeling this time that this is not seeking to just push back the enemy. Yes, and the difference is

what made all this difference is the 7th of October. This massacre by Hamas of 1200 civilians

Israelis, you know, babies and women at their homes and whole families. And at that time,

we realized that it's not enough just to wait for the enemy to attack first. Then you really lose

the advantage, but to preempt. And here the difference in the, I would say, in the entire

policy is not just to monitor the capabilities of your enemies, but also their intentions.

And believe in what they say, when Hamas said we want to kill Israelis, we want to eliminate

Israel. We should have believed it that they are actually working very, very hard to to bring

it into reality, which they tried on the 7th of October. The same is with Hisbalah. You mentioned

2006. Also, they made the first move by killing Israeli soldiers and kidnapping and all that.

And Iran. So they have said all along that they want to eliminate Israel. They even

bragged by saying that Israel is a one-bomb country. That means because we are so small territory,

then one atom bomb will suffice. And until the 7th of October, we were most in the defensive mode.

But this does not work. And this is the difference. So once you initiate, like we did in Lebanon

this time, or in Iran, you see a major, major capabilities and successes that also should

bring the message home to all those terrorist regimes and terrorist organizations that they will

not be spared and they should not be relaxing and having their own time to build their murderous

machine. They will not have this time. They will be pursued every day until they have no capabilities.

Intentions. We cannot change their hearts. But capabilities is something that we can measure.

It's something that we can see. And after the 7th of October, we decided no more. We're going to let

it into their own will to decide when to attack us. This change of policy or call it attitude requires

a lot of buy-in from the Israeli military as a whole, from the Israeli people in general.

Up until October 7th, there had been, you know, political disputes that have to do with the

prime minister and other things and things having to do with Israeli life. There was a sea change

after October 7th. And how well has that cohesion held up? I mean, we've seen the, you know,

especially when there were still hostages being held in Gaza. There were protests. There

were demonstrations so on. But there's a cohesion that I don't think gets enough attention. There's,

there's, how is that cohesion holding up socially? Okay. So I would say that on the sphere of,

let's say, social disagreements, political disagreements, Israel is a very, very vibrant country.

It's a vibrant democracy and there's not any agreement almost on anything. We have very biting

press and we have seen this all along. But when there is a threat, which is existential, you know,

even we are a small country. If you look at the entire Middle East, Israel, if you look at the

Middle East, it's just a, a very small, like a pinhead. And we have like less than one third

of one percent of the entire territory of the Middle East. We are one Jewish states surrounded by

22 Arab countries, which possess 99.7 percent of the territory. On the side note, the conflict

between us and the Palestinians is not a matter of territory. They have all the territories. We have

offered them even more. But what I'm trying to say here is that we are always very alert.

And when we see a threat, and certainly the 7th of October was an existential one, like many

in the past, we get together and we leave all the differences, political differences and others

aside, we have to get rid of the threat. And after this is done, we go back to our old ways

of bickering and shouting at each other in a political way. Our guest is former Israeli ambassador

to the United States. Danny Ayelani is now the chairman of Silver Road Capital Group. But he's

also been a member of parliament in Israel and he's a former deputy foreign minister. And we

are discussing the progress of Israel's war against Iran, as they call it Operation Rising

Lion. Here on the Fox News rundown Operation Epic Fury, please like, subscribe, and share this

podcast. We'll have more straight ahead. Instagram Tina counts, automatic protections for teens.

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instagram.com and slash teen accounts. One of the other sea changes that I think is incredibly

noticeable and certainly noteworthy has been the attitude taken and what has been said and

perhaps what has not been said by the Arab neighbors of the Middle East in this particular conflict,

these past couple of weeks. It is very noteworthy that the Iranian regime has fired at the Arab

nations. They have even fired at Qatar, which has perhaps been the least friendliest to Israel,

and has been accused of duplicity in its dealings with the West and whether or not it's helpful

to the West, whether or not it's more helpful to the Islamic rulers of Iran. And often we've

seen in other conflicts, these very long worded and far-reaching condemnations of Israel

before anything's ever gotten really off the ground. We even saw that immediately in October

7th that Israel was the first to be condemned by many of the Arab countries. That hasn't happened

this time. There have been calls for mediation, for political solutions, but there hasn't been

this outright condemnation of Israel. I'm going to ask what sounds like an obvious question,

but I really want to hear you expound on it. What's different?

Well, what's different now is that it's what has surfaced now is that the convergence of interest

of the Arab-Suni countries, the more moderate countries, and Israel vis-a-vis the extremists.

And now the extremists, where are they? They are in Tehran, they are in with Hizbullah, with Hamas,

with the Houthis. The Arab regimes in the region are very much happy to do business with Israel,

mostly under the table. It's not just a matter of defense, which they very much rely on our

deterrence capabilities, but it's also when it comes to the future of the Middle East, a country

which or a region, which is dry, no water, food security is an issue, water availability,

affordable energy, all these things, they very much rely and expect Israeli technology,

and we are doing that. So we have to, this is a given that they are on our side from a strategic

geopolitical way. They do have an issue with their own population, with a sentiment and solidarity

of the people with the Palestinians, and this is because an ongoing incitement by the Palestinians,

and their partners and accomplices, Iran is one of them, to actually poison public opinions

in these countries. So this is why these regimes are walking a fine line, condemning Israel for

anything that we did or didn't do. But now, when they were attacked directly, I don't think that

even their own self-respect cannot allow them not to react, and basically I think the Iranians,

in a very panicky move, have turned the conflict here, back to Suna and Shia, because who are

they attacking? They are attacking all the Sunni countries around them, and at the end of the day,

it's almost like a suicidal attitude that they have, and if I have to compare and to history,

the Ayatollah's regime is no different than the Hitler regime in World War II. Also, he had a

bunker mentality that the last days of Hitler even knew that he was losing, but he kept fighting,

because for him, it was till the end with this really inexplicable hatred, all the way to his

suicide in his bunker. This is the same attitude that this Shi'i clerics, and Ayatollah's,

that also poisoned the hearts and minds of the establishment, the IRGC. And for them,

it's due or die. They have their megalomaniac hegemonic wishes. They would like to see a Shi'i

dominance in the region and throughout the Islamic world, and this is why they took this opportunity

also to attack all their neighbors. They thought maybe that the neighbors, like Qatar and Saudi Arabia,

maybe will push on the United States or on Israel to stop. But I think it backlashed and he just

had a country, let's say, consequence and ramification than what they thought.

Why do you think they proceeded in that regard? Did they really just think that they had more

influence than what they ended up having? Did they think they were more powerful? Did they,

the American expression is, did they buy into their own hype? They must have known at some part,

you know, this is not a undeveloped country. This is rather advanced, at least from a technological

and military perspective, they must have known they would have been outgunned at some point.

Well, first of all, their hatred and ambitions pretty much clouded reason. But it's not only that,

they have been for the last 47 years, subtracted eight years of Iraqi-run war from 80 to 88. But

let's say for the last four years, they have been very studiously, very methodically,

building an apparatus, building a machine with the nuclear capabilities, with the missiles,

the liver resistance, and they really thought, and they do have the numbers, and they really thought

so far. Nothing happened, they were immune. The start in 1979, even when they took the American

embassy and American hostages for over a year. Nothing happened to them. A few years later,

in 83 in Lebanon, they killed 241 Marines. Nothing happened to them. And in between, there are

so many others. They have actually joined all the terror organizations against the U.S.

in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And their instructions and their material caused thousands of American

debt. And nothing has happened to them. They thought that the power of their oil or the power

of blocking the Hormuz trades in order to really, I would say, frustrate the energy markets giving

them immunity. And this is why they were doing what they were doing, probably until now. And again,

it's just like Hitler. Just like Hitler, we thought he can take the entire world. It's the same

mentality. It's the same methods. It's the same danger. And they have to be taken out as

early as possible in order to prevent much, much bigger wars and death all over the world.

Ambassador Danny Ayalan, you're the former Israeli ambassador to the United States. You were also

in the Knesset and a former Deputy Foreign Minister. Thank you so much for being with us on the Fox

News rundown. My pleasure.

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