Palestine – Israel | Armageddon, or have we had enough?

The former Fox News flagship host opened the interview with a recent television clip of Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina threatening Iran with bomb strikes against its oil refineries if its allied militant group in Lebanon, Hezbollah, “launches a massive attack on Israel” from the north in response to Israel’s fiercest-ever assault on the heavily populated Gaza Strip.

“Iran, if you escalate this war, we’re coming for you,” Graham asserted.

Israel’s continued bombardment of the enclave is in response to an unprecedented October 7 attack by the militant Islamist group Hamas, which governs the strip and is designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, the European Union, Canada, the UK, Australia, Japan, Egypt and Paraguay.

According to Israeli authorities, the militants killed 1,400 people, including civilians and children, with Human Rights Watch verifying videos revealing cold, deliberate murders (war crimes) during the attack. Israeli citizens are still facing missile bombardments and terrified that far worse may be endured as the conflict escalates and some larger, radical Islamist forces might join Hamas in attempting to destroy their nation.

In another interview on London Real, Macgregor made it clear he shares the view that Hamas is a terrorist organization that has to be eliminated.

“Everyone who had looked at what Hamas did agrees that Hamas has to be eradicated. I haven’t run into anybody who disagrees with that. That includes, for instance, King Abdullah of Jordan. General Sisi in Egypt feels the same way, even Mr. Erdoğan, who has changed his view, spoke against Hamas initially. I don’t think anyone disputes that,” Macgregor said.

However, he added, “The problem is that campaign to eradicate Hamas has rapidly turned into a campaign to effectively eradicate the whole Gaza population and that’s not going down well in the rest of the region … so whatever moral ground the Israelis have is eroding quickly.”

Macgregor indicated that his criticisms include serious concern for what will happen to Israel as a result of the U.S. and Israel response to the Hamas attack. He stated in the London Real interview, “My greatest concern at this stage is that Israel will be destroyed.”

On the Gaza side, Hamas health ministry authorities report a much larger 7,028 individuals killed by Israeli military air strikes since October 7, including 2,913 children and 1,709 women. Additionally, OCHA reported about 1,600 people missing and presumed to be trapped or dead under the rubble, with 1.4 million having been displaced within the sealed-off 141 square mile region that has been under a tightened Israeli blockade since 2007.

As Palestinians in the West Bank protest the Gaza bombardment, Israeli soldiers have reportedly killed 102 and injured 1,889. Israel reports two deaths and 14 injuries of their own personnel in these two occupied territories.

READ: Foreign policy experts argue Israel has endangered itself by maltreating Palestinians for decades

On October 9, Israel cut off water, food, fuel, and other resources to this enclosed population of over 2 million people, stating these measures would remain in place until the around 200 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 were returned. Human rights and military experts have said that these actions by Israel, along with their bombing of civilian areas in Gaza, are classified as “collective punishment,” a war crime under international law. Other commentators, such as Jewish Voice for Peace, call these measures genocide.

Macgregor explained that if such a scenario that Graham threatens plays out, in all likelihood, we will be faced with a “global war.” Should the United States enter this conflict as a “co-belligerent” with Israel, “it’s going to be very difficult for Russia and Turkey not to also come into this fight against us because they will not tolerate the sort of collective punishment that Israel plans for Gaza.”

Furthermore, the combat veteran from the first Iraq war went on to explain that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other decision-makers at the top in the U.S. government seem to be under a misconception believing the disparity between American military capacities and those of their potential adversaries are similar to what they were in the early 1990s.

“We are not the power we were in 1991,” Macgregor assessed. Additionally, “you have to look at the arsenal of missiles that Iran possesses, and they can reach out 1,200 miles with great precision, [delivering] very high explosive conventional warheads that would do enormous damage, destroying whole city blocks in places like Haifa [and] Tel Aviv.”

If the U.S. bombed Iran, Macgregor said “all of the bases that we have in Iraq and Syria … would be targeted and this time they would target them accurately and this destruction would be wholesale.”

He also warned that terrorist attacks at home “potentially worse than 911” could become manifest, stating there are “many Hezbollah agents inside the United States.”

Furthermore, if the Israelis go into Gaza, and Hezbollah intervenes in the north, triggering an American attack upon Iran, “we will end up in a fight with Russia. Russia will not sit by quietly and watch Iran destroyed by the United States air and naval power in the region,” he said.

This would make American aircraft carriers and other warships in the eastern Mediterranean, carrying many thousands of U.S. soldiers, “vulnerable to the Kinzhal missiles and other missiles, cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles that the Russians have.”

“And I doubt seriously at that point that the Turks would be able to stay out,” Macgregor continued. The Turks are “the de facto leaders of the Sunni Muslim world. They have the largest armed forces in the region. They are in close proximity to Israel. They could move forces south through Syria very rapidly” and unimpeded.

Macgregor: ‘I encourage Americans everywhere to listen to King Abdullah of Jordan’s speech’

What is pivotal here, again, is “the issue of collective punishment,” the retired colonel reaffirmed. He criticized Blinken for stating Israel and the U.S. were going to do “whatever it takes” to destroy Hamas in clear disregard for international law that demands the protection of innocent civilians in armed conflict. And understanding the likely response from neighboring nations, this policy from the neoconservative–dominated Biden administration indicates a clear intention for igniting a regional and even global war.

Macgregor went on to “encourage Americans everywhere to listen to King Abdullah of Jordan’s speech in Cairo from several days ago.” While condemning the violence against all civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, the monarch “goes on to point out that collective punishment meted out to 2 million people is unacceptable, both under international law and for humanitarian reasons. That’s the problem.”