Matthew Levitt
What to Expect after the Targeted Killing of Hezbollah and Hamas Leaders
Summary
Matthew Levitt discusses the state of current events in the middle east and what we can expect after the targeted killings of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.
Matthew Levitt
Dr. Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler fellow and director of the Eli and Jeanette Reinhard program on counterterrorism and intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East policy. Matthew teaches at Georgetown University and literally wrote the books on Hamas and Hezbollah. He started his career in counterterrorism at the FBI, where he led the analytical team for flight UA175, the second flight to strike the Twin Towers on 9/11. He later served as a counterterrorism advisor at the Department of State and as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the Treasury Department. Matthew recently testified about Hamas financing and what to do about it before both the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee on back to back days.
A: There is a tremendous amount of garbage in particular about Phil Gordon, who’s the Chief Middle East Advisor to the Vice President, who I know personally. I disagree with him on some things, but he is a fantastic person. A very, very, very dedicated American. And has no sympathies, no sympathies for Iran. And you’ll see that the type of places that report this are places that are extremely, extremely partisan. There was an issue with a couple of people who were hired and had been involved in like track two thing. And I know some of these people. They’re good people. I think they made a big mistake. I do not believe for a moment that the, any significant number of people in the Biden Administration are pro-Iran. There are a few people in the administration who I think are soft on Iran. There are a few people in the administration, one in particular, who I think has a very questionable background. But, I do not think the Biden Administration is pro-Iran or that has been soft on Iran per se. I think a lot of people forget that whether the JCPOA, the Iran deal, was the best thing in the world or not. The idea behind it was to stop Iran from getting a nuclear capability. And I think that in the end of the day, my advice to the Trump Administration at the time had been, I understand all your concerns about Tehran deal. I share most of them, not all, but most of them. My recommendation is to enforce the hell out of this deal, which will get you much farther than pulling out of the deal. And I explained why that was the case and they did not listen to me and to others who were making this. It wasn’t just this point, not just me. Unfortunately, I was right. And by pulling out, we enabled Iran to get closer to where they are today.