00:01:28.000A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.
00:01:37.000Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.
00:01:51.000Trump's eight minute address denounced the leadership of the Islamic Republic in Iran.
00:01:55.000He called on members of the Iranian military to surrender, to lay down their weapons or, alternatively, to help the people topple the regime.
00:02:03.000He told the Iranian people that help was arriving and that in time they should rise up and take back their country from the oppressive government that's been in power since 1979.
00:02:13.000Hello and welcome to the Full Comment Podcast.
00:02:17.000We were supposed to bring you an episode about what could happen in Iran.
00:02:21.000Two great interviews were recorded last Friday with Jonathan Panikoff, a security expert, former intelligence officer for the U.S. government,
00:02:28.000and currently director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council.
00:02:33.000We also spoke to John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations and Donald Trump's national security advisor from 2018 to 2019.
00:02:42.000Well, of course, hours after those interviews were recorded, the bombing started.
00:02:47.000Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, was killed along with many others in positions of senior leadership.
00:02:53.000So, a new podcast episode had to be created.
00:02:56.000Over the weekend, I was lucky enough to speak with Canada's former ambassador to Israel, Vivian Berkovich, from her home in Israel as Iran was still carrying out their retaliatory attacks.
00:03:06.000I spoke with former Israeli spokesman, Ilan Levy, to freelance journalist Adam Ziva, both of them in Tel Aviv, and with Canada's former chief of defense staff Rick Hillier.
00:03:16.000This is going to be a different type of episode, but you will hear from each of these individuals as we explore what happened, what it means, and what comes next.
00:03:26.000The position on the developments in the Middle East remains clear.
00:03:30.000The Islamic Republic of Iran is the principal source of instability and terror throughout the Middle East.
00:03:36.000It has one of the world's worst human rights records and must never be allowed to obtain or develop nuclear weapons.
00:03:44.000Prime Minister Mark Carney's quick and strong support for Donald Trump and the attacks on Iran was surprising.
00:03:49.000He rightly pointed out, what many other world leaders would as well, that Iran could not be allowed to get a nuclear weapon.
00:03:56.000The Iranian regime and their supporters in the West have long claimed that Iran's nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes only.
00:04:04.000I put that claim to Jonathan Panikoff and asked if he believed it.
00:04:08.000No, I certainly don't. Look, the problem with Iran's nuclear weapon is multiple.
00:04:15.000Number one, we've seen what a hostile actor they are, not only to Israel, but even to Gulf allies,
00:04:23.000when they don't like how the Gulf is acting, how it's coordinating with the US, with the UK, with Israel.
00:04:31.000And so I think that becomes something that can't be undone.
00:04:35.000Once Iran has a nuclear weapon, turning back the time on that becomes very, very difficult.
00:04:41.000And with a regime like this that is fundamentally ideological, that is theocratic more than anything,
00:04:48.000I think that is something that we all should recognize.
00:04:51.000You're not going to have the same controls like the US has, frankly,
00:04:55.000or the Brits have in terms of what it means to launch a nuclear weapon.
00:04:59.000There's an ideological aspect to this that is fundamentally religious and how the regime exists that is incredibly dangerous.
00:05:07.000And it's why it's always been viewed in Israel as a potential existential threat.
00:05:12.000But there's also a second part to this, which is the idea that Iran getting a nuclear weapon is somehow going to make, you know,
00:05:19.000the region more balanced is really a falsity that you hear propagated a lot by the regime, but also by others who've been influenced by it.
00:05:28.000It will not only make the region much less stable, but it's going to lead to proliferation.
00:05:33.000The Saudis have already been clear. If the Iranians get a nuclear weapon, the Saudis also are going to get a nuclear weapon.
00:05:41.000If the Saudis get a nuclear weapon, I would be very surprised if you do not see other countries, including Turkey, for instance, get a nuclear weapon.
00:05:49.000I think the last thing we need in the Middle East is more states with nuclear weapons.
00:05:54.000I think we need to be, frankly, trying to diminish any other states from wanting them.
00:06:00.000In Panikov's view, President Trump was acting to stop Iran from developing their nuclear capabilities further.
00:06:06.000He also had made a promise to the Iranian people that he would help them, and that kind of backed him into a corner.
00:06:12.000But to Panikov, there's also another reason he had to act, sending the right message to countries like China and Russia.
00:06:20.000Then your only alternative right now is probably to strike, because if he's back down, it's not just a message to Iran.
00:06:26.000It's a message being sent, frankly, to China that the U.S. is actually not going to keep its word and its commitment.
00:06:33.000And so, by the way, most of East Asia is open for the Chinese to advance in the way they want to.
00:06:38.000It's a message sent to Russia that, look, in the end, Ukraine and the deal is going to it's obviously hard to come by.
00:06:46.000But Ukraine is also available to push maybe even more.
00:06:55.000And of course, it's a message to the Iranian regime that they can kill thousands, if not 10,000, maybe more people of their own are slaughtered on the street.
00:07:06.000And there really is not going to be a repercussion, despite the U.S. saying they would.
00:07:11.000That becomes very difficult for U.S. global leadership.
00:07:14.000It would be akin to Barack Obama's red line in Syria.
00:07:20.000And I mean, that was violated repeatedly.
00:07:23.000And I think that cost President Obama an awful lot of credibility on the world stage.
00:07:31.000Look, that red line in the middle of the second term, you know, I think you'll get some people who say, well, a lot of the chemical weapons were removed.
00:07:41.000But the reality was we actually have found out, unsurprisingly, I think to a lot of us, that no, Assad held on to some of the chemical weapons.
00:07:53.000No, that President Obama's decision not to strike when we U.S. had jets on the tarmac ready to go, probably didn't create greater U.S. leverage or frankly, a safer and more peaceful world.
00:08:07.000All of us, I think, would prefer diplomacy.
00:08:09.000All of us would like to see diplomatic and peaceful solutions.
00:08:12.000But there are times that military force is necessary.
00:08:16.000And if you're going to commit to using military force, at least implicitly, as President Trump has and as President Obama did back in the mid teens and not follow through, then that might not be necessarily the wrong decision in the moment.
00:08:32.000But it tends to have lasting and usually negative implications for U.S. global leadership around the world.
00:08:38.000Now, last June, the Americans had struck at the end of the 12-day war between Iran and Israel.
00:08:43.000They dropped bunker buster bombs on Fordow nuclear facility and claimed victory.
00:08:48.000So why then were they going back at Iran now?
00:08:51.000Is this just political or did they not fully destroy the nuclear program last June?
00:08:56.000That's a question I put to Ambassador John Bolton.
00:08:58.000Well, I think the question of the bunker busters depends on what the target is.
00:09:02.000I think in the times where some of the bunker busters were dropped, that was not very deeply buried and not nearly as hardened as some other facilities.
00:09:12.000And I suspect that the damage to the enrichment chambers that we know about because IAEA inspectors went in there back in days gone by.
00:09:22.000So we had a pretty good idea of what they were, and the Israelis had kept tabs on it.
00:09:27.000So I think there the damage was pretty great.
00:09:29.000What happened at Fordow, which is the Iranian facility buried under a mountain, the bunker busters performed better than anybody could have expected.
00:09:39.000They didn't have to penetrate solid rock to get down to where the enrichment equipment was.
00:09:49.000Now, they may have been a little bit bigger than the air shafts, but it obviously makes a huge difference in their ability to penetrate if most of what they face in front of them is just more air.
00:10:00.000So being able to drop a bomb that big and have it go down several air shafts is a great credit to the Pentagon.
00:10:08.000And I believe it could be at Fordow that that is a target that you could say was obliterated.
00:10:14.000Now, Trump claims the whole program was obliterated.
00:10:18.000But I do think that those attacks, combined with what the Israelis had already done, really did constitute a significant setback for Iran.
00:10:29.000We've seen the reaction from Iran since the attacks began, striking out at their neighbors, the Arab Gulf states.
00:10:35.000They've hit the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, even a couple of missiles aimed at Cyprus.
00:10:41.000Ambassador Bolton says that despite the Gulf states not participating in the strikes on Iran or allowing Americans to even use their bases or airspace,
00:10:50.000these countries still support this attack and the desire to change the leadership in Tehran.
00:10:56.000Well, I think I think as a general proposition, the oil producing Gulf Arab states would like to see the threat to their livelihood that Iran and or instability in the region poses.
00:11:09.000Back before the Shah fell in 1979, all they did was compete in the sale of oil on price.
00:11:16.000And of course, that was the time of the Arab oil embargo and the formation of OPEC.
00:11:24.000They are as much threatened by the regime in Tehran as Israel is.
00:11:28.000And that has helped explain the tectonic shift in the geopolitics of the region that's produced formal diplomatic recognition of Israel by the United Arab Emirates, by Bahrain, by Morocco.
00:11:42.000Jordan and Egypt had previously signed peace agreements.
00:11:45.000I think the region is is more closely aligned on the nature of the Iranian threat than politics in the U.S. and much of the NATO alliance.
00:11:56.000So so this is something that although they won't shout about it, it's it's something that it very much in the interest of the Gulf Arab states to have this storm cloud around them removed.
00:12:09.000One of the questions I put to Ambassador Bolton is why this regime in Tehran has survived for so long when so many people have been describing it as weak.
00:12:17.000They largely have a monopoly on force with some notable exceptions.
00:12:22.000And, you know, is the past couple of months have demonstrated they're willing to machine gun their own people in the streets of their cities.
00:12:29.000I think that's really a sign of desperation on their part.
00:12:34.000But it also shows the opposition, which is very widespread.
00:12:38.000These demonstrations were taking place in all 31 of Iran's provinces is evidence of just how weak the regime is.
00:12:47.000But what you need is is to have the regime fragment at the top and to have people who command forces in the regular military and even in the Revolutionary Guard begin to think the life expectancy of the regime is getting short and they want to end up on the right side of history.
00:13:04.000Not not a noble motivation, but self-interest can can help out the opposition in many ways, which is why if you if you if you target the instruments of Iranian state power that can threaten us, Israel, the Arab states, and also threaten their own people, degrade those assets, I think you can expand the instability that already exists.
00:13:28.000So a lot my first target list would be Revolutionary Guard headquarters and bases and facilities of the Siji headquarters, the ballistic missile programs and and the Iranian Navy, just for good measure, because that does pose a threat to the Gulf.
00:13:45.000Arabs are deployed forces in the region and has the capability to mine the Strait of Hormuz, which would not be good for the global price of oil.
00:13:54.000So that would be my first target list.
00:13:56.000And and as people in Iran saw during the 12 day war last year and and really concluded, I think, very broadly at that point, the regime could not protect its most important assets, the nuclear program and the ballistic missile program.
00:14:12.000And it's a pretty easy, logical job, as the people made to say, if they can't protect their most important assets, they can't protect themselves.
00:14:21.000And once you draw that conclusion, the one that follows that is their days are numbered.
00:14:40.000I think that's the that's the way that would happen.
00:14:42.000Now, the one part of the population that is armed is the Kurdish population.
00:14:46.000And it is part of the very large ethnic population in Iran that's very dissatisfied.
00:14:54.000Now, depends on whose senses you believe.
00:14:57.000But Persians only constitute 50 or 60 percent of the total population.
00:15:03.000The Zeris, Kurds, Arabs, Balukis, others are something like 40 to 50 percent of the population.
00:15:11.000So it's a it's the kind of thing that once once the regime begins to crumble at the top, it could crumble quickly.
00:15:19.000We've heard stories, for example, in these demonstrations and earlier demonstrations back when the women of Iran went out to protest the murder of Masi Amini, the young Kurdish woman three years or so ago who refused to wear the hijab,
00:15:35.000who challenged the really the legitimacy of the Ayatollahs themselves, that in local police stations and in towns and villages and small cities, the police were on the side of the demonstrators.
00:15:47.000I think that if if they if they saw that the outside world knew and understood how strongly they felt against the regime and provided some tangible assistance, military and other, that that that would it would give them more of a sense that this is really doable.
00:16:06.500Now, a real question is how far Donald Trump will go here when he sent troops into Venezuela to arrest Nicolas Maduro.
00:16:13.640Maduro was widely expected that he would try to change that regime, but he didn't.
00:16:18.360Ambassador Bolton calls that a mistake he hopes isn't repeated here.
00:16:22.440Well, I would just take Venezuela as a quick aside.
00:16:25.040I think it was wonderful that we captured Maduro, but I think we stopped too soon.
00:16:29.420The people this is not really remember the Maduro regime.
00:16:35.960Everybody else who's left in at the top of the government in Caracas, starting with acting president Delce Rodriguez,
00:16:42.000is just as much of a Chavista as Maduro ever was.
00:16:47.220And I'm very afraid that by kicking the opposition to the side, Edmundo Gonzalez, who, by the account of International Observers, won 70 percent of the vote against Maduro in 2024,
00:16:58.840and Maria Karina Machado, the leader of the opposition, you know, that delegitimizes them.
00:17:07.460And they're really the basis on which I think overthrowing Maduro was a legitimate thing for the United States to do.
00:17:14.660In Venezuela, I would have argued there was an alternative in the wings.
00:17:22.640Well, let me finish the point, because the idea that Trump might make a deal where somebody of the current regime, Iran, is left in charge will produce no change, in my view,
00:17:36.380and therefore will not be worthwhile undertaking, just as I think he made a mistake in Venezuela.
00:17:42.460The odds are that the successor regime in Iran would be very temporary, and it could consist of officers of the regular military.
00:17:56.160There's not just the Revolutionary Guard.