CERL Executive Board Member General Joseph Votel joined NPR’s Leila Fadel on September 9, 2026, to discuss the state of the war in Iran. Following reports that the U.S. administration has not been transparent about American damage sustained in the region, General Votel weighed in on the balance between transparency to domestic constituencies and operational security, as well the reverse engineering risks presented by Iran’s recent seizure of an underwater military drone.

General Joseph L. Votel, U.S. Army (Ret.), is the former Commander of the U.S. Central Command. He is a Distinguished Military Fellow at the Middle East Institute and a member of the CERL Executive Board. Read his bio here.    

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