Former Israeli ambassador on the possibility of ground troops in Iran

With us now in Jerusalem is Michael Orin, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States. It's good to see you, Mr. Ambassador. You said welcome to another war. This is one you clearly support, but do you have concerns at this point? >> First of all, always good to be with you, Martha. And yes, it's the latest war. It's actually the continuation of the war that began on October 7th, 2023. And there's direct connection between Hamas' attack on the southern Israel and what's going on now. Um, and yes, I have concerns because in many ways, Iran, the Iranian regime is a lot like Hamas. In order to win, they have only not to lose. And at the end of the day, they really don't care how many casualties line up, what kind of destruction is caused. If they can emerge from the rubble at the end and do a V sign, then they've won. And so, it's very difficult. And uh and in order to win this war, the United States and Israel and other allies are going to have to press this campaign perhaps for a long time unless there is a popular uprising in Iran that will result in a regime change. >> And when you say press it for a long time, are we talking months? I mean, how does this go in the long run? That in the long run, they have decimated missile sites, missile launchers, they have decimated, so they say these nuclear facilities, but in the long run, what happens? because you've seen things occur over and over again. >> I think that the pressure has to continue on Iran. It may not have to continue at this intensity. For example, if the missile launchers can be eliminated, if the nuclear threat can truly truly be neutralized, and that includes not just the facilities, but that 400 kg, almost 800 lb of highlyenriched uranium, which the Iranians have buried underground. >> And how do you get your hands on them? >> Oh, somebody can. But I don't think I don't think the Iranians are going to get their hands on them. I think that the United States and Israel are going to have to figure out um perhaps with special forces ways of getting that. >> So that would I would think require special forces or somebody going in on the ground. >> Wouldn't rule it out because the idea was originally that this this material would be shipped out to a third country, but apparently the Iranian negotiators refused to do that. Now keep in mind, as long as you have that 400 kgs of highlyenriched uranium, it only takes a few days to enrich that to missile grade to military grade. And that can be put into a warhead or it can even be put into a suitcase. >> You know, we talk a lot about forever wars in the US. President Trump has said he he will not get involved in a forever war. Is this war different or could this also be a forever war? >> I think it depends how you again I'm going to sound very picky here, but it sounds like how you define forever and how you define war. I mean, the Cold War was a forever war, too. It doesn't mean you're actually engaged in in daily combat intensely as you are now. Again, if you can reduce Iran's ability to shoot at us, to shoot at our neighbors, to shoot at our allies in the region, to conduct terrorist attacks around the world, uh, but you haven't really affected a regime change, you haven't the regime remains in power, then you just maintain the the pressure on that. It It's not so dissimilar to what's going on in Gaza right now. >> Well, well, let's talk about regime change. The Israelis are saying, "We're going to shoot anybody that the Iranians put in. We're going to kill them. Already killed the Supreme Leader." So, how does that work? and how do you expect the opposition to rise up? >> So, I'm I'm not a spokesman for this government or or the United States for certainly that matter, but it seems to me that any leader who comes up and says, "I'm going to uh continue the campaign to destroy this country," then Israel is duty bound to try to eliminate them. uh if there's a different leader who comes out and says, "Listen, I'm going to change the way Iran react re interacts with its with its neighbors and the way the way the way it looks at the world, the way we see Iran's role in the region and globally, then Israel would have no problem with it." >> Do you think that leader exists in Iran right now? >> Potentially, it's very different with this regime. The regime, the DNA of this regime is jihad. That's what they're about. They're about regional domination and expanding that domination across the globe. That's who they are. And to say they're going to give up terror, to say they're going to give up their ballistic missile system is is virtually impossible for this regime. It's basically talking about identity suicide for them. So it has to be someone different. It has to come from a different segment of Iranian society, a different segment perhaps of the military. And uh you know the IRG was IRGC was in many ways created as a watchdog for the Iranian military. They didn't tr they didn't trust their own army. So perhaps somebody from within the armed services could rise up and take over control or somebody from the opposition >> and and the opposition itself, it's not organized in ways it doesn't seem that they could really take over and go up against the IRGC. So how do you see the opposition organizing at this point? The US says we've laid the groundwork. The Israelis say we've laid the groundwork. How does that happen? Well, you know, I before I was ambassador, I was a military historian, and I'll tell you that, you know, revolutions are are are always impossible to occur until they do, in which case they become inevitable. We don't know. We don't know what the tipping point is. We don't know if they're defections. Now, the the Iranian opposition outside of Iran report is now reporting massive defections within the IRGC and within the military. We don't know. And there's going to be there could be a tipping point at some stage in this campaign where the opposition which seems disorganized in fact can make that type of move. And we've seen it happen repeatedly in history. We're now about to celebrate I think the 250th anniversary of the time when it actually did happen because the revolution when it started against Great Britain was very unpopular and it was a small group uh that was able to rise up and and gather the type of uh international support and domestic support to declare America's independence. So there are many examples, not just the American example. That doesn't mean it's going to happen here, but it also doesn't mean it's not going to happen. >> Well, we will be keeping our eye on it and on you. Thank you so much for joining us this morning, Mr. Ambassador

ABC News’ Martha Raddatz interviews former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, on “This Week.” ––– Subscribe to ABC News on YouTube: https://abcnews.visitlink.me/59aJ1G ABC News is your daily source of breaking national and world news, exclusive interviews and 24/7 live streaming coverage. https://abcnews.com Download the ABC News app for the latest headlines and alerts: https://abcnews.com/devices Connect with ABC News on social media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ABCNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abcnews TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@abcnews X: https://twitter.com/ABC Threads: https://www.threads.net/@abcnews WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VajTNakKWEKkXoAPIR11 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/abcnews