Military analyst Cedric Leighton. First to that question there, what does that sound like to you? If Iran communicated to Turkey about options it was considering, it would know, Turkey's a NATO ally, that Turkey might pick up the phone and call Washington and say, Here, what we're hearing. Is that deliberate?

I think it is, Jim. The way I look at it after I heard that report, it was like, yeah, the Iranians were clearly sending a signal to the US through the Turks. Like you said, Turkey is a NATO ally. The big thing here is that we have so many different elements. This is Turkey right here, border Iran. The main thing that the Turks do, of course, is they have an integrated defense system with us, and they've had a relationship with us as well, even though that relationship has been rocky of late. But the Uranians knew that they were going to talk to the US, and they, I think, clearly wanted to telegraph this.

As I understand it, this defense was multi-part, multi-part You have multiple partners coming from several directions. You have Israel here, of course. You had US assets in the Eastern Mediterranean, US assets down here in the Red Sea. I'm not sure, in the Persian Gulf as well? Yes. Involved?

There were certainly assets, and it's pretty clear to me that specifically at Al-Youdid Air Base in Qatar, they would probably have been involved, possibly out of Kuwait as well.

We believe Jordan fired as well. That gives you a sense of the net of defenses that were able to shoot down these missiles and drones as they were coming from Iran.

Absolutely. They had, this is about a thousand miles from here to here. They had that whole area in which to actually see what was going on and to actually take a look at the different types of projectiles here. You had 170 drones, over 120 ballistic missiles, 30 cruise missiles. In fact, 70 of those drones, as we've reported, were shot down by the US assets. So that really does make a big difference.

Drones don't fly particularly fast.

No, they do not.

They give It gave you time. And by the way, cruise missiles, they're faster, but you could see them. When I was in Ukraine, I could see them in the sky. You could pick them out. That gave time to target and defend?

Absolutely. It gave time because that 1,000-mile distance right here, Jim, that gives you time to do this. Now, the one key thing, though, is when you look at, for example, what is happening here, this is gun camera footage from the IDF as they're blowing a drone out of the sky.

And by the way, we know that fighter jets were involved, not just Israeli, but US fighter jets, and I believe, British fighter jets That's correct.

And there were other assets that were out there. Then, of course, they have that capability. Then with the Iron Dome, of course, you have the capability to shoot things down from the ground. So you've got air assets that are engaged in this, and you've got ground assets as a part of this air defense network that the Israelis have, the Iron Dome being the short-range version. They have two other systems that do medium and longer range. Those systems, of course, provided an entire picture for everybody.

The Arrow, which shoots down ballistic missiles, that's the highest altitude defense as well. That involves shooting down a missile that went into space.

That's right. What's interesting about this is that there were so many ballistic missiles. These are the quickest ones. These are the ones that can basically cover this distance within a few minutes. The drones take up to nine hours to reach this particular distance, depending on the specific drone. Then, of course, you have cruise missiles. They take about two hours or so, depending.

Let me ask you this, because there's been talk for years about Iran's missile capabilities, not just fired from Iran, but also fired from, say, an Iranian proxy here in Lebanon, where they have many thousands of them. The concern had been so many, whether it's from Lebanon here, of course, Hamas has its own rocket capability then from Iran, so many that they would be able to overwhelm Israeli defenses. Based on the response tonight, does that show you a shortcoming?

Yes, I think it does show a shortcoming on the part of the Iranians because They did try to do what amounted to a sworn attack. When you look at the quantity that we're dealing with here, you can see that there are so many different things that the Iranians could have done, and they thought they could overwhelm the system. But because of these kinds of things happening, we were able to actually intercept this, or the Israelis were able to intercept this in this particular case, and they were able to take out a really large proportion of both the drones and the missiles.

What strikes me throughout this is that this is exactly the attack that Ukraine is enduring every day from Russia, a mix of drones and missiles and cruise missiles with far more limited defenses. And by the way, shortage is now of some of these air defense missiles.

Absolutely. And one of the key things to think about here, everybody talks about Ukraine going it alone and doing those kinds of things that the Israelis did. Remember, the Israelis had a very sophisticated air defense system, a three-layer defense system, as we talked about, and they had a lot of help in doing it. So if you want the Ukrainians to be as successful as the Israelis, there are several factors involved here. They have a lot more space to deal with. But if you want them to be successful, you need to help them. That's the difference here.

You certainly don't have US or UK assets directly shooting down Russian missiles and drones coming in, even as they devastate Ukrainian cities. Cedric Clayton, thanks so much as always. You bet, Jim.