Mark Hertling and Ruben Gallego: A Rush to War | The Bulwark Podcast

General Hertling notes that the US White House is sending mixed messages about the end state of military operations in Iran. While some officials speak of destroying naval and missile capabilities, Israel appears to be pursuing 'true decapitation' of Iranian leadership without considering the aftermath. This lack of a unified, clear objective complicates military planning and risks an amorphous political outcome.

General Hertling states, 'there's more messaging of exactly what the end state is and that's important to the military commanders.' He contrasts US goals with Israeli actions: 'The Israelis, I think, have maybe even a different mission set based on their actions. They are looking at true decapitation without any kind of thought about what comes next.'

Iranian leadership has characterized the conflict as a 'war without rules,' a 'game without red lines,' and a 'contest of endurance.' They believe they can outlast the United States, exploiting perceived American fatigue with prolonged news cycles and military engagements.

General Hertling reports, 'I heard this morning that the Iranian leadership is is now causing this or calling this, I'm sorry, a war without rules, a game without red lines, and a contest of endurance that they think they can win uh over the United States because they know how quickly we get fatigued and tired of the news cycle.'

The US is expending highly expensive precision weapons and air defense missiles (e.g., Patriot missiles at $1.5 million each) against Iran's significantly cheaper Shahed drones (ranging from $5,000 to $10,000). This cost imbalance is unsustainable, as these defensive munitions are hard to reproduce and are being used at an unplanned rate.

General Hertling explains, 'A Patriot missile cost about a million and a half dollars a piece. So when you shoot that thing, you're you're you know the the chuch-ching goes up in terms of the real scratch... you can't afford to shoot a $2 million Patriot missile at a $20,000 Shahed drone.' He also notes, 'we've been especially using a lot if you're talking 2500 strikes in a 4-day period which we've conducted that's a whole lot of precision weapons.'

The administration's justification for military action, as articulated by Marco Rubio, was based on the premise that Israel was going to attack Iran, which would then precipitate an Iranian attack on US forces. The US preemptively struck to mitigate anticipated casualties. This reasoning is criticized for framing Israel's actions as the 'imminent threat' and for not allowing the US to control the timeline or adequately prepare.

Tim Miller plays a clip of Marco Rubio stating, 'There absolutely was an imminent threat and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked and we believe they would be attacked that they would immediately come after us and we were not going to sit sit there and absorb a blow before we responded because the Department of War assessed that if we did that if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked and by someone else Israel attacked them they hit us first and we waited for them to hit us we would suffer more casualties and more deaths.' General Hertling responds, 'That makes no sense at all to me.'

Six US service members were killed in a 'makeshift operations center' in Kuwait due to an Iranian strike, with no warning sirens. General Hertling clarifies that these centers are often administrative logistics hubs, not heavily fortified structures, and were vulnerable to drone and missile attacks, indicating a lack of proper pre-conflict hardening despite anticipating war.

General Hertling describes the operations center at Schweba, Kuwait, as 'not a tent. Uh it's it's like one of those temporary aircraft shelters... fortified means it probably has a fence around it... but when you say fortified, you think of this grand fort with large boulders around. It is not.' He adds, 'an errant drone or missile got in there and killed six people.'

The US State Department issued a chaotic, all-caps memo for Americans to evacuate 14 countries *after* the war began, highlighting a failure in pre-conflict non-combatant evacuation operations (NEO) planning. General Hertling attributes this to 'a whole lot of hubris in our government' and a misunderstanding of Iran's complexity, believing a 'surgical strike' like in Venezuela was possible.

Tim Miller notes the State Department memo for Americans to evacuate 14 countries. General Hertling states, 'when you're doing an evacuation after a war started, you're asking for trouble. That should have been part of the preconlict plan.' He concludes, 'there was a whole lot of hubris in our government in terms of this attack plan against Iran.'

Senator Ruben Gallego expresses deep emotional distress over the current conflict, drawing direct parallels to the Iraq War where he lost friends and company members. He emphasizes that military action should not be driven by personal feelings or revenge, but by clear national security risks, and laments the leadership's apparent disregard for the human cost and the impact on military families.

Senator Gallego states, 'my friends died uh my best friend died. you know, the 23 men of my company uh died in a another war that was hastily uh you know, decided to go to a war of choice.' He adds, 'I don't need revenge and I don't want another generation of veterans dealing with the consequences of war in my name.'

Amidst the escalating conflict with Iran, 12 FBI agents and staff, including an elite counter-espionage unit specializing in Iran, were fired. These agents had been involved in the classified documents investigation against Trump, which included Iran war plans. This move is seen as a dangerous removal of critical expertise during a time of heightened geopolitical tension.

Tim Miller references a story about Kash Patel firing 12 FBI agents, 'Among those 12 were an elite counter espionage unit that investigates threats from uh foreign adversaries but specializes in Iran.' Senator Gallego calls it 'even crazier than that.'