In this hard-charging interview-driven piece, Felice Friedson sits down with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter at a moment when the Strait of Hormuz, global oil markets, and the Iran war have collided into one high-stakes geopolitical drama. The result is part strategic argument, part personal testimony, and part warning shot.
Leiter’s core message is blunt: this war is not only about Israel. It is about stopping Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, preserving the free flow of oil, and preventing Tehran from using terror proxies and energy chokepoints to bend the region, and the wider world, to its will. His most arresting line comes when he asks what happens if a nuclear Iran controls Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which roughly one-fifth of global petroleum liquids consumption passes. That is not a theoretical question. It is the pressure point behind the entire interview.
Leiter also pushes back hard on the idea that President Donald Trump was somehow pulled into the confrontation by Israel. In his telling, the US president made a sovereign decision to lead, while Israel is acting as a “junior partner” and “model ally” in a campaign aimed at dismantling Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities. He describes Tehran as an apocalyptic regime, argues that its support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis has destabilized the region for years, and says its military infrastructure must be broken before something even worse emerges.
The interview ranges well beyond battlefield mechanics. Leiter discusses missile defense, cluster munitions, Iranian use of civilian sites, the prospect of “regime collapse” rather than imposed regime change, and why he believes no foreign ground invasion is needed. He insists the only “boots on the ground” that matter are Iranian boots, meaning the people of Iran themselves.
Then the piece shifts into something more personal. Friedson folds in Leiter’s biography, from Scranton to Jerusalem to Washington, and reminds readers that his public role has been shaped by private grief after the death of his son in Gaza. That gives the interview its emotional ballast.
There is plenty here to argue with, agree with, or wrestle over. That is precisely why this article works. Felice Friedson gives Leiter room to make his case in full, and it is worth both reading the piece and watching the full interview.
