Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on Israel-Gaza, Russia-Ukraine, China, and the 2024 Presidential Election
Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta spoke with Burn Bag host A’ndre Gonawela on Wednesday, March 13th.
This week, A'ndre chatted with former Secretary of Defense (and CIA Director, and Chief of Staff, and Congressman!) Leon Panetta on a litany of key national security and foreign policy topics relating to the Israel-Gaza War, Russia-Ukraine, the U.S.-China relationship, and the 2024 Presidential Election. A'ndre and Secretary Panetta spent a good chunk of the interview discussing the ongoing War in Gaza, his views on a ceasefire, Benjamin Netanyahu, criticism of the Biden Administration, and why the U.S. needs to take a more proactive role on a two-state solution. Secretary Panetta also provides his take on the potential conditioning of U.S. military aid to Israel, particularly if the IDF enters Rafah and civilian casualties continue to mount. Secretary Panetta reacts to the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and answers if he is more pessimistic about the War in Ukraine today than he was a year ago. The former CIA Director also provides strong criticisms of congressional inaction on continued funding for Ukraine, and why polarization will damage U.S. credibility. A'ndre and Secretary Panetta close out with a brief conversation on China, and the Secretary 's thoughts on the intersections of foreign policy and the 2024 Presidential Election.
KEY QUOTES
ON ISRAEL-GAZA, A PALESTINIAN STATE, AND CONDITIONING MILITARY AID
2:20 — “Absent a ceasefire, Netanyahu has threatened to go into Rafah and complete the devastation of Gaza in the hopes of being able to go after Hamas leaders that may or may not be there. If that happens, I think a lot of people will die. A lot of innocent people will die, and I’m not sure where that takes you, because frankly I think ultimately even though Netanyahu keeps talking about destroying Hamas, the reality is he’s not going to destroy Hamas. Hamas is going to be around for a long time. What you can go after are the leaders of Hamas who basically led what happened on October 7th, and continue to make sure they’re not around — similar to what we did after 9/11, in going after Al Qaeda leadership. That’s going to take time. If in fact you really are just targeting the leadership, the likelihood is that that will take a prolonged period of time. But the Israelis are pretty good at that kind of thing, and I think that’s the one way they can insure that what happened on October 7th will never happen again. Right now it’s not clear what direction we’re going in.”
4:10 — “I’m not sure where all of this lines up, because the key, as far as I’m concerned, is whether or not ultimately you really can develop a Palestinian state, to provide the right leadership for that state, and the right security for that state… ultimately, that’s the only way you can make sure that in the Middle East we are not facing constant war every few years.”
6:30 — “Ultimately, Netanyahu has to think long and hard about what is the next chapter, and I get the impression that politically he doesn’t want to say what he wants to do, he wants to look like he’s hard-line and it’s all about the war, but the bottom line is that he’s gotta think about Chapter 2, and what that’s going to look like, and what’s going to happen with Gaza, and what’s going to happen with the idea of a Palestinian state, and what type of leadership can be brought together." Another piece of this is if Saudi Arabia could be brought into the Abraham Accords, and try to resurrect the hope of the Abraham Accords, which right now is a little shaky. If you could have the UAE, Jordan, and others become part of the Abraham Accords, recognize Israel, but also become much more involved in establishing the right kind of leadership for the Palestinian governing body (whatever that looks like), I think if people could work on that, that would be the key not only to a permanent ceasefire, but they key to what is the only way to find peace in that region.”
9:40 — “The one issue that’s hanging out there is in providing military arms to Israel, which has been critical to giving Israel the weapons that it needs in order to go after Hamas. If the decision is made to go into Rafah and blow up that area and just have additional casualties among innocent men, women, and children, then the next step is to put conditions on military aid — that it cannot be used for that purpose. And that’s a possibility.”
ON PUTIN, UKRAINE, AND AID
24:30 — “If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, that would send a terrible message to the world about our leadership and our direction. It would send a terrible message to Xi with regards to Taiwan, it would send a terrible message to all of our adversaries in the world. That’s unacceptable.”
25:13 — “We have got to push the Congress of the United States to agree to the supplemental package of assistance to give the Ukrainians what they need in order to regain the initiative. Right now, this thing is at best stalemated, at worst giving Russia the advantage. We can’t allow that to happen. Frankly, anytime you have a stalemated conflict, you’re losing it. I think we got to get beyond that, I’m glad that POTUS agreed to $300m in immediate assistance of weapons to Ukraine… but ultimately we got to get agreement on that supplemental to provide the additional aid. If we do that, I’m convinced Ukraine is strong enough and courageous enough to be able to regain the initiative, and if they can regain the initiative, that’ll send a signal to Putin that he’s going to lose, and that the only way for him to get anything out of this is to negotiate some kind of approach that is acceptable to the Ukrainians and acceptable to Putin.”
ON XI, CHINA, AND TAIWAN
33:10 — “There are those in Washington who are saying we shouldn’t provide aid to Ukraine, and those same people talk tough about China. If you’re weak on Ukraine, you’re going to send a message of weakness to China. I honestly believe that Xi, after Putin marched into Ukraine, was looking closely at what was happening there to determine what he should do on Taiwan. I think because that invasion went badly, and because Putin suffered a defeat in not taking over Ukraine in the timetable he wanted, and the fact that the United States and our allies were unified in that effort to not only penalize Russia with sanctions but to also provide weapons to Ukraine, the training that they needed, and to reinforce NATO, as a matter of fact, Putin’s in a weaker position… and Xi’s paying attention to that.”
36:10 — “Xi, like Putin, initially sensed weakness on the part of the United States… and really took advantage of that. When the U.S. walked away from the trade agreement with countries in the Pacific, he sensed an opportunity to fill that vacuum, and he sensed weakness on the part of the United States. We suddenly got into a trade war with China, that probably hurt our relationship as well, and frankly some of these balloon incidents probably impacted the relationship as well. Xi suddenly realized, as did Biden, that this can’t continue to go on, and we need to get back to dialogue, we got to get back to talking to one another, having our military talk to one another — we can have our differences but we still need to have our communication because there are a lot of dependencies on both sides. I feel better about where we’re at right now, although obviously Congress decided to vote to get rid of TikTok, which probably didn’t help, but that’d been playing out for a while. I’m a little more hopeful right now, that as long as we’re able to have a dialogue… our relationship would not be as volatile as it was a few years ago.”