U.S. And Israel Strike Iran While European Allies Seem To Lack Support

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I'm Brad Bear.

I'm Maria Bartor-Remo.

I'm Brian Kilmeade, and this is The Fox News rundown.

Wednesday, March 4, 2026, I'm Evan Brown.

The joint military operation against Iran by the US and Israel

seemed to be making headway, but it could also rewrite

how the world is divvied up from economics to alliances

and maybe even stability.

It's pretty much how the conventional wisdom has been wrong.

That the supreme leader was untouchable.

That the regional proxies would ignite this broader regional war

in the Middle East, that we would get dragged into.

That Israel would be isolated in the Middle East,

and then that the United States would be isolated on the world stage.

And it would benefit Russia and China.

This is The Fox News rundown, US and Israel's Strike Iran.

In just under a week, the United States and Israel

have put Iran's Islamic Republic regime onto a deathbed.

Its brain trust has believed to have been killed.

Its infrastructure is being spared while its military assets

and its vast missile and drone stockpile

is being obliterated.

But on top of that, the reaction from the rest of the world

has been a bit puzzling.

Some allies are arguably not allying themselves.

Other nations are stepping in to fight the battles.

And in the chambers of power in Washington, D.C.,

a certain view of America's role in the world

is being arguably vindicated.

It's my opinion that the career folks both at state and defense

actually did not think this was possible.

Victoria Cotes with the Heritage Foundation

once served in posts such as at the National Security Council

in President Trump's first term.

It's pretty much how the conventional wisdom has been wrong

that the Supreme Leader was untouchable

that the regional proxies would ignite this broader

regional war in the Middle East that we would get dragged into

that Israel would be isolated in the Middle East

and then that the United States would be isolated

on the world stage and it would benefit Russia and China.

I mean, I've directly heard those arguments being made

from folks who honestly believed it to be true.

And so it's a little bit like the embassy move.

Everybody says it's impossible.

It can't be done until Donald Trump does it.

You mentioned some interesting things about being isolated.

America being isolated.

Israel being isolated.

What is a bit striking to me is that

the United States is getting a lot of buy-in

from Gulf Arab countries here

that seem to have a big change of heart in the past couple of days

and there has been little to none in terms of buy-in

from European allies, the traditional allies,

the NATO tent poles.

That to me is a bit peculiar.

The UK and France have kind of kept it but at arm's distance away

and Spain has been vocally against everything to the point

that President Trump has said,

hey, we're just simply not going to trade with Spain

if that's the way they feel about us.

No, it is a really interesting dichotomy.

And so on the one hand, we essentially have

the GCC, Egypt and Jordan lining up and Turkey

lining up behind the United States and Israel.

And I've had folks in DC say to me in all seriousness

over the last couple of days,

do you think UAE and Israel will be doing joint strikes

against Iran?

Because UAE has been the most targeted of all the Gulfis.

And I don't actually think that's particularly likely

but the fact that folks are talking about it

shows you how far we've come.

And the Abraham Accords endure.

So we have that in our favor.

And then by contrast, you have some extremely weak sisters

in Europe, which I think has to do with the fact

that they know they can't participate in this.

They don't have the capabilities today

in the House of Commons.

Keir Starmer announced that they might get

to 2.5% of GDP for defense by 2027.

I'm sorry, that's too little too late.

And that's why Russia, a $2 trillion

a year economy, is so terrifying to the U.K.

combined U.K. EU, which is over 20 trillion.

That math should work for them.

But they're not investing in defense.

And so they're very, very vulnerable.

There have been some real vulnerabilities exposed here.

I think in terms of readiness among our European allies,

the idea that Cyprus would be targeted by Iran.

And Greece has its own limitations.

Cyprus is its own nation, of course.

But the U.K. promising to defend Cyprus

and its interest there and says, well,

we can't even get one naval ship there for another week.

They're a lot closer to the Mediterranean

than say the United States.

I mean, when we said the Gerald Ford would move into theater,

we expected it to take a week or 10 days or something

like that's a big boat to move.

And it was coming from the Caribbean.

And it was coming from the Caribbean,

which is, you know, that's at pretty far distance.

You would think the British would have the ability

to get something to Cyprus in the Mediterranean

in less than a week.

Maybe I'm misjudging the distance

or the capabilities here,

but this seems awfully weak on their part.

No, it is.

It's catastrophically weak.

And a lot of these big economies,

and that's why this is so dangerous for NATO,

is we have wonderful partners and allies

in the Baltics, in Poland,

in what my old boss, Don Rumsfeld,

used to call New Europe,

who are getting to 3%, 3.5%.

It's even as high as 5%.

And on GDP on defense,

but we need the big economies.

We need Germany, France,

and the U.K. to step up to the plate here

and also get to where the United States is.

And so, if they don't do that,

even with all the wonderful,

smaller countries doing it, we're not at scale.

And we're not going to be able to fulfill the NATO plans

everybody has agreed to,

even if the United States is spending at 5%.

It doesn't get us there.

And, you know, these economies have built their welfare states

on the assumption that they're going to get cheap defense

from the United States and cheap gas from Russia.

And both those things are now being called into question

and they don't know what to do.

And I think the opposite side of this whole discussion

is how prepared these Gulf Arab nations

have turned out to be.

I mean, the UAE, I think, is the big surprise here

that they are able to defend themselves first of all

and may have some offensive capabilities

that they haven't, you know, telegraphed just yet.

The fact that Qatar would actually put its hand up

to Iran and say, nah, ah, you know,

I mean, Qatar started taking fire.

And they've been their biggest, you know,

I don't know if it's appropriate to call them cheerleaders

of Iran, but certainly they've been running cover

for Iran diplomatically for so long.

There's been a real turn of tides in the Middle East here

and that is also pleasantly surprising.

Well, I would say about UAE,

the nickname for NBC's country has been little smarter.

They're actually quite capable.

And, you know, they have had this relationship

with Israel now for six years.

And the other piece of that is you have Israel

integrated into Sankham and to Central Command.

And so they are now coordinating

with the other members of Central Command,

which are the Arab states, you know, down at Tampa.

And I think what we're seeing in this very seamless

coordination between the United States and Israel,

remember, this is new.

We've never done this before,

where we've done a joint operation with Israel.

And Secretary Hegseth was just glowing in his praise

of how well it is going and how effective we have been.

So, you know, UAE has really benefited from that.

I agree, you know, Qatar is a little surprising,

but bear in mind they halted natural gas production yesterday.

And today, Qatar energy declared force measure

or rather that they cannot satisfy their contracts

because there's a war.

And then it's outside there's force.

There's events outside their ability to control

that are preventing those shipments.

That's bad for business.

And that is essentially down in the heart of it,

what Qatar is.

It is a very, very large natural gas business.

And so they are not going to be very tolerant

of the kind of disruptions that are on as causing.

Our guest is Victoria Coates formally

with the National Security Council

in President Trump's first term.

Now with the Heritage Foundation,

we're discussing the progress and the implications

of the military actions against Iran

by both the U.S. and Israel

here on the Fox News rundown,

U.S. and Israel strike Iran.

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Ultimately the world real lines with this.

I don't think there's any,

I don't think it takes an advanced degree to realize this.

But there are ripple effects that maybe some people

haven't fully realized or cognizant of

unless you're kind of really entrenched in this stuff.

But in Iran that may be more amenable to American needs

or pressures might not sell drones to Vladimir Putin.

That affects things, doesn't it?

Well, and won't sell cheap energy to Xi Jinping either.

So that is also helpful.

I think the president's been quite clear.

You know, the goal here is neutralizing the threat

to the American people.

And that is the mission that we're on.

And they're being very, very effective at that.

But at the same time, you know, there are these other effects

that are protecting the Jewish state, protecting Israel.

And then there's improving the situation

of the Iranian people.

And then ultimately, I mean, the big prize

would be a friendly Iran.

You know, if you think back to the 1970s,

what a great partner Iran was,

how important they were in our counter Soviet activities.

And you know, it's a fantastic country,

a fantastic people.

And you know, nothing would make me happier

than to see them under new management thriving

and secure the way they should be.

And selling their oil on the open free market.

For a market price.

Yeah, for a fair market price,

which is, which is what levels everything out.

You know, I think a great way to sort of circle back

on this here is there were people

who in the state department and in the Pentagon

and in politics who said, as you mentioned,

this would never be possible.

But there have been forces that have been lobbying

against any kind of involvement with Iran at all.

In some cases, painting Israel as the aggressor.

Have these people all perhaps lost their jobs this week?

I mean, that's a bit interesting to me

because there has been a rhetoric that has been growing,

especially I think in Republican circles.

But in Democrat circles as well,

that the fault lies with Israel,

it is Israel that is the aggressor.

Israel is somehow manipulating American foreign policy.

There's been a lot of water thrown on that.

Well, and I would argue that is pervasive

on the American left at this point.

That is pretty much the accepted position.

Now, on the right,

there certainly are some of those voices.

I think they are themselves,

not only isolationist, but increasingly isolated

because what they're saying over and over again

proves not to be true.

The Israelis didn't drag us into this war.

These Israelis argued against doing it in January.

And they are putting a lot of blood and treasure

on the line as well.

They're not asking us to fight the war for them.

They're fighting right alongside us

because this is an existential threat to them.

And especially if the president is successful in,

as I said, neutralizing the threat

and bringing a conclusion to these hostilities

and not deciding that our mission is to turn Iran

into Virginia as much as I would like it to do so.

You know, that is going to disprove this narrative

that somehow Iran has superpowers

and is going to murder hundreds of thousands of Americans

and is somehow going to compete with the kind of force

the President Trump has put into the Middle East

over the last six weeks.

That's just not true.

I guess a great way to end is just what a demonstration

of American military might.

And Israeli military might.

I think they realize they're a little bit like Mighty Mouse

who are the big lion.

But no, everyone else around the world,

first of all, has to be watching this

and going, whoa, wait a second.

And all of a sudden, China's rapidly growing navy

might not be as formidable or as frightening

as we thought a couple of weeks ago.

And Russia has to see how we have been defeating

their air defenses that they have installed around the world,

also in Venezuela.

And that has to give them some great pause.

The bad people should be shaking in their boots, I would say.

They should be.

But that doesn't mean we should become complacent.

And I think the combination of Venezuela in the Caribbean

and then Iran in the Middle East and the ability

to project force into both of those theaters

in rapid succession should be a cautionary tale

for both Xi and Putin.

However, we just released our index

of military strength at Heritage today.

And while we are better, we are in the yellow zone.

We're moving from the red zone, where

we've been for the last couple of additions to the yellow zone.

But that's not enough.

Not for a protracted conflict with China.

I think we'll be just fine in a multi-week Iran expedition.

But if we get into a serious war with China,

we are not prepared.

And so this is a very serious conversation going back

to the Europeans.

We have to have with them and with our own Congress.

We had Senator Banks here today, August Flugar.

And so it's just a really great group of lawmakers

who are committed to spending the $1.5 trillion

the president proposed strategically and responsibly.

Talk more about that preparedness and that report for a bit.

What is being in the red zone mean compared to the yellow zone?

And I guess what would eventually be a green zone?

What if that's the right color scheme?

It's essentially that is correct.

And it's essentially weak to strong.

And the yellow zone is OK.

It's getting better.

It's on the right trend line in the first year of Trump's second term.

But it's not fast enough.

And it's not where it needs to be for potentially multi-theater

wars.

What happens if Xi makes good on his threat in 2027 to invade Taiwan?

And at the same time, having concluded the theoretically,

the Ukraine war sometimes this year,

at the same time a reconstituted Russia

goes after one of the Baltics.

And you can see that sort of metastasizing.

The Europeans are in no position to counter Russia

on their own at this point.

And I don't care what Macron says.

And that is a huge problem for us.

So the index goes through all of the areas

where we have specific weaknesses,

the report on the Air Force is particularly terrifying.

It is smaller now than it has ever been since its inception.

We are not building ships fast enough.

That's a more widely recognized problem.

The Chinese are building lots of ships.

You're correct.

Our ships are better, but we need more of them.

Especially if we're going to try to project force

into the Pacific closer to China.

They have less of a problem then.

And then finally, our ammunition stocks are severely depleted.

We're going through a ton now.

We gave a ton to Israel during the Gaza war.

And we've given a great deal to Ukraine.

And we're not making it fast enough.

We have to figure that out.

How to both reinvigorate our industrial base.

But then also do something that's a little heretical here

in Washington, DC, which is realize we need our partners

and allies to produce too, particularly in the ammunition field.

Where we simply cannot make enough fast enough.

Do you think the events of these past few days

might motivate policymakers, lawmakers in that direction?

I mean, they're seeing what we're capable of.

Imagine what we could do with that much more money

and that much more of an industrial base.

We could get where we're at.

We need to be rather quickly.

We can.

And we would do it not under emergency circumstances.

Do you think about the buildup before World War II?

When World War II broke out, after Pearl Harbor,

which came as a huge shock to our system,

we were utterly unprepared, mobilized a national response

and were able to win the war, which was fantastic.

But at the same time, we should not

have let ourselves get into that position of weakness.

And if the Iran engagement inspires lawmakers

on both sides of the aisle, one will hope,

and along with the Trump administration,

to do this necessary work now, we will

be, as you say, so much better prepared.

Victoria Coates, formerly the National Security Council,

now at the Heritage Foundation, also the author

of the Battle for the Jewish State,

how Israel and America can win.

Thank you so much for being with us once again

on the Fox News rundown.

It's exciting to see that victory play out in real time.

Thanks for having me.

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