'The Opinions': General Stanley McChrystal on Iran

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**Natalie** (0:29)
Hey, it's Natalie. There's no episode of the interview this week, so I wanted to share something else with you. An interview with General Stanley McChrystal from our colleagues in Opinion. He's the former commander of US forces in Afghanistan and ran special operations during the war in Iraq. McChrystal recently appeared on an episode of the Opinions podcast with the columnist David French. It's a thoughtful conversation between two veterans about the war in Iran, the challenge for American forces there, and the future of the conflict. To hear more conversations from our Opinion colleagues, you can subscribe to the Opinions wherever you get your podcasts.

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**David French** (2:50)
I'm David French. I'm a columnist at The New York Times. And I'm also a veteran. When I was thinking about who I could talk to about Trump's strategy in the world, with an emphasis on the current conflict in Iran, there's just a list of two or three people in the entire United States who I think would be most interesting on this topic. And one of them is General Stan McChrystal. General McChrystal is the former commander of US forces in Afghanistan. He's the former head of Joint Special Operations Command. He served in Iraq when I was in Iraq. He has been called by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as perhaps the finest warrior and leader of men in combat I have ever met. And he's got a lot of interesting things to say about this conflict, including observations about the origin of the conflict, the challenge American forces face, the nature of the enemy that the United States is confronting, whether Israel and the United States have similar interests and goals in this conflict. And then we're going to end with a discussion of leadership and service that I think that you will find very interesting. So without further ado, here is my conversation with General McChrystal.
Well, General, thank you so much for joining us.

**Stanley McChrystal** (4:13)
All right, David, please call me Stan. Even though you're a former JAG officer, we got to set the table at the beginning.

**David French** (4:20)
It's going to be hard for me. It's going to be hard for me. We served together in very different capacities. I was a JAG officer for an armored cavalry squadron in Eastern Diala province during 2007, 2008
You were orchestrating one of the most effective and efficient special operations missions our nation's ever seen that really helped turn the tide of the war. And I want to actually begin our discussion of current events there because there is something that I have seen since this most recent conflict with Iran broke out, and that is the veterans' perspective on this conflict, I think, is different than the perspective that a lot of the folks who didn't serve, especially in Iraq, have. And so even if someone is maybe objects to the way that this conflict began or has some questions about its prudence, there's a lot of feelings about Iran and Iran's role in the Iraq War and the losses and damage it inflicted upon us. And so when I was in Eastern Diyala, we lost guys to explosively formed penetrators planted by Iranian backed militias. So, General, if you could table set what has been the recent American experience in our sort of long running conflict with Iran?