In a short interview on Mario Nawfal’s show, retired US Army colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (former chief of staff to Colin Powell) makes a series of high-stakes predictions about Israel, Iran and US policy. Wilkerson says he foresees Israel “disappearing as a Jewish state”, while still allowing for the possibility of a democratic state in the Levant that includes Jews. He predicts Benjamin Netanyahu will be forced out of office and ultimately imprisoned, and argues that successors could be “worse” in the sense of being less adept in dealings with Washington.
Wilkerson’s central forecast is that a future Iranian attack on Israel will be “unbelievable”, and he claims the US is concentrating assets — including “tankers” — in Israel, creating what he calls a “target-rich environment” that Iran may seize upon, potentially using Lebanon as a pretext. He adds that he believes Israeli political-military leadership is uncomfortable with such exposure.
The conversation also turns to nuclear escalation: Wilkerson says he fears Netanyahu could use Israel’s submarines in a nuclear scenario, while acknowledging uncertainty about the specific technical means. He references reported historical remarks by Golda Meir about using nuclear weapons if Israel faced existential peril. Nawfal raises reports on West Bank settlement expansion, proposals for settlements in Gaza and beyond, and cites current reporting on risks to Palestinian banking links and Oxfam’s estimate for rebuilding Gaza; Wilkerson responds with strong moral condemnation of the war’s toll. The episode closes on the question of why US officials continue current policy despite the imagery and reporting from Gaza.
Lawrence Wilkerson says his “deepest worry” is that Netanyahu could use “one of those submarines” that he says has the capacity “to launch nuclear,” and he speculates about a scenario in which a submarine surfaces and fires from its platform. He adds he does not think an SLBM or an underwater nuclear weapon capability has been perfected.
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