Although Israel’s military has killed many of Hamas’ top leaders and armed fighters, the Palestinian militant group “has not been destroyed” and remains capable of continuing asymmetric warfare in Gaza, the former U.S. Central Command said this week.
“There’s no end in sight” to the war that began Oct. 7, 2023, said the recently retired top officer in Central Command told attendees at the United States Naval Institute and Coast Guard Academy keynote on Wednesday.
Israel announced on Oct. 24 the death of Yahya Sinwar, a chief architect of the attack that sparked the war in Gaza. This comes on the heels of Israeli strikes in Lebanon that killed many high-ranking Hezbollah leaders in recent weeks, including Hassan Nasrallah, its leader.
At the academy and in an earlier Naval Institute podcast, McKenzie called Iran “uniquely dangerous” for its fixation on preserving its Islamic revolution at all costs and destruction of Israel. To achieve those goals, he noted Tehran’s backing of Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
Looking at the Houthis’ success in closing the Bab-el-Mandeb strait to almost all commercial shipping, he said, “we can’t tolerate that.” The attacks have effectively closed the Suez Canal to tankers and merchantmen transiting between the Indo-Pacific and Mediterranean.
McKenzie, the author “The Melting Point” about his years leading CENTCOM, added, ”we have destroyers out there, playing catch” with Houthi-launched missiles and aerial and now sea-borne drones.
The Houthis “haven’t beaten the U.S. Navy and elements of the joint force,” he said this week.
But the “lack of political will” allows the Houthi to continue attacks in the strait and the Red Sea. In the podcast, McKenzie said the United States has the capability to “make them stop,” adding “we just need to make a policy decision.”
In the podcast, he said in discussing Iran but would also apply to is proxies, “you have to demonstrate … will” and “be willing to use our capabilities” to deter aggression.
McKenzie said, “I believe the risk of escalation is minor” if the United States acted.
Where the risks of escalation – directly with Tehran and not a proxy– were high, the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the elite Quds Force in the Iranian Republican Guard. He was killed in an American drone strike “on the only road out of the airport” in Baghdad in December 2020. Soleimani was on his way to a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi.
The road was called “Route Irish” by the Americans. “Soleimani killed a lot of Americans” on that road,” McKenzie said. For the Iranians, “a strong battlefield leader is gone.” At the academy and the podcast, although he was succeeded in Quds command, no one other officer had the combination of access to the leadership and proxies like Soleimani/
McKenzie said Soleimani had “ear of the Supreme Leader,” Ali Khamenei, but coordinated the actions of Iran’s strongest proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon and the others in Gaza, Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
“I felt the risks of inaction were greater than the action,” he said in making the case to President Donald Trump. He added in the podcast and academy event, “I felt and knew the Iranians would respond” because Soleimani “was the guy who made things happen.”
Tehran responded with its largest missile attack on American forces at al-Asad air base in Iraq on Jan. 20. “Their missiles were very accurate” in targeting facilities where service members lived and worked. McKenzie said about 90 service members were treated for Traumatic Brain Injury and at least one Iraqi was wounded. “But nobody died” in the attack.
“The Iranians tried to kill me,” he told the attendees. “I’ll be taking precautions the rest of my life.”
The role of a regional combatant commander is unique in the military. He or she answers only to the secretary of defense and the president. “You’re a junior partner in that relationship, but your voice will be heard” before a decision is reached. After that the commander’s job is “to execute the policy.”
“Politics and policy, they’re just inseparable,” McKenzie said. He cited Lincoln’s presidency in the Civil War, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman in World War II.
“We carry out the mission from constitutionally-elected leaders,” he said in the podcast. “The principle of civilian control [of the military] remains.” Resignation is not the answer when there is a disagreement between the civilian leadership and the military advisors, McKenzie said.
“It’s very important the military remain apolitical,” as Army Gen. George Marshall did in World War II when his advice on not invading North Africa was rejected to build up forces in Great Britain. McKenzie called Marshall “selfless” for not trying to overturn FDR’s decision to name Dwight Eisenhower to command Overlord, the invasion of Europe.
