CNN Newsroom: Interview with Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA)

Interview

"Well, I think that's right, Jim. I think it's is pretty clear we all know what is coming which is an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza and there are a lot of different ways this could go.

But as the veteran of a few ground invasions myself, four tours in Iraq, I can tell you there are a lot of mistakes that Israel can make in the coming days. And so it's going to be a very tough operation. It's not going to be easy to fight through an urban environment like that. It would be very difficult.

And if Israel is not careful to make sure that as many innocent lives are preserved as possible, then they run into this problem that we call insurgent math where they risk creating more insurgents, recruiting more people to the cause than Hamas fighters that they actually kill.

So in other words, how Israel conducts this operation is critical not just for the safety of the people of Gaza, for the safety of the people of Israel, but ultimately for their success in this war.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

That's right. I mean we went into Afghanistan thinking it would be a few weeks, maybe a couple of months. We went into Iraq thinking probably it would be a few months longer than that. And 20 years later we were still in those wars.

The problem again is that if the mission is to destroy Hamas, but by being there and essentially antagonizing the civilian population, killing innocent people, you are going to recruit more people to the cause.

So you might be killing Hamas fighters but they are busy recruiting more people and it is not that hard to recruit, you know, fighters for the opposition if they see their families getting wiped out.

So this is a very difficult operation. It really is a counterinsurgency operation. In the First Marine Division in Iraq, we had our division motto which is "No better friend, no worse enemy than a United States Marine".

Now, of course, that meant that you know, for our enemy, for Hamas in this case, you'll find no fiercer foe. We will hunt you down. We will kill you. Don't oppose us.

But on the other hand, the first part of that phrase, "no better friend," is really important, too.

If Israel doesn't show that they can take care of the civilian population, fundamentally, it is smarter for the civilian population to side with the IDF then to side with the Hamas terrorists, then they are not going to win the long war. They are not going to win the long battle.

What I hear out of Israel, a lot of talk about the tactics on the ground for how they take out Hamas, I don't hear much about this bigger picture strategy to produce a long-term viable political solution for all of the innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip.

The innocent civilians need to see a future that is not just a war or they will simply join the other side.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

There is significant. They are in two big categories. First of all, we can't do anything as the United States Congress.

We can't even pass a simple resolution to affirm our support for Israel. We can't pass bills to get aid to Israel, any additional aid they might need that requires congressional support.

Of course, we haven't been able to provide any additional aid for Ukraine or any of the other international issues around the globe. That is the fundamental problem that we face right now.

But the other problem is that our adversaries, Russia and China, for example, are looking at the United States right now and just seeing this dysfunction.

The GOP civil war that has consumed the House has the risk of consuming American politics at large.

And that's how our adversaries are making it out. They're saying, the United States, this democracy is dysfunctional. They cannot work.

I think, in the long run, we are going to see that part of the reason Hamas chose this time to attack Israel is because of all of the domestic political dysfunction in the Netanyahu government.

So we are at a national security risk ourselves in America if our adversaries see us as politically week.

When you don't have a speaker for the first time in American history in the House of Representatives, it is kind of hard to argue that we are not experiencing some serious political dysfunction.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

We will try to work with anyone. Democrats have been offering to Republicans from day one to produce a compromised speaker, someone we can make a deal with.

Democrats might even support in a speaker election, something you never see in the House of Representatives. We are going way out there as Democrats to help the GOP solve this problem.

But speaking to some of my Republican friends yesterday, as they were leaving Washington for the weekend, they are incredibly frustrated to the point of just being angry, despondent at the total dysfunction in their conference.

This is a GOP civil war. Jim Jordan is on one extreme side of that. He is an extremist that Republicans somehow think was going to get enough votes to be speaker.

What my Republican friends say -- and they tend to be more moderate -- is that he is not going to have the votes to be speaker. So he probably won't be speaker.

But we might go through several more days of dysfunction within the GOP caucus as they try to figure out if he can get the votes on the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Good to see you, Jim.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT"

Source