Western Standard - Beyond the bombs... why airstrikes may not topple Iranian junta

00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show

00:00:21.840 of the Western Standard. It is Thursday, March the 12th. President Trump says it's almost all

00:00:27.960 over in Iran. The next day, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth says they've just had their most intense

00:00:34.540 day of attacks. Whatever is going on in Iran, there can't be much left worth blowing up. But

00:00:41.460 maybe this wasn't just about Iran. With us tonight is Casey Babb. He is the director of

00:00:48.200 the Promised Land Project with the MacDonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa. A fellow with the Royal

00:00:56.680 United Services Institution in London as well, and a widely consulted expert on security at home

00:01:03.000 and abroad. Welcome to the show, Dr. Babb. No, thanks very much for having me. Oh, you're very

00:01:09.820 welcome. So what do you make of it? When President Trump says the U.S. is nearly done in Iran and

00:01:16.040 Secretary of War Pete Hexeth says the next day that they've just had their most intensive day

00:01:20.800 of attacks, the default reaction from people who don't like Trump is that confusion reigns.

00:01:26.680 On the other hand, the U.S. has just essentially disarmed Iran, sunk its navy, destroyed its

00:01:32.440 air force, blown up most of its missile launchers, eliminated the senior cadre of leadership.

00:01:39.360 So what do you think was the goal, and has Trump achieved it?

00:01:44.800 Well, my sense is that that statement, in terms of the war being possibly near the finish

00:01:54.400 line was was possibly uh the president's way of of trying to stabilize the markets to a certain

00:02:00.960 extent and i believe that that may have worked um at least temporarily um however if we zoom out a

00:02:08.080 little bit and we ask ourselves well what's been achieved thus far what does jerusalem what does

00:02:17.040 dc what do they want to achieve over the long term um and and what does victory look like at

00:02:23.040 at the end of this war.

00:02:24.260 I think you're actually probably quite a ways off

00:02:28.020 in terms of this being over anytime soon.

00:02:31.560 My sense is that this is going to take many, many weeks,

00:02:36.400 probably months, and the goalposts of victory

00:02:41.320 could move incrementally as time goes by

00:02:45.120 and as certain geopolitical

00:02:46.740 and military realities become clearer.

00:02:50.920 You know, you mentioned massive hits to the regime's military forces, their navy, their ballistic missile program, their abilities to launch drones, and so on and so forth. That's all great.

00:03:04.720 but does that do a lot for the people of iran over the long term who want to be

00:03:11.040 liberated from the islamic republic probably not has it done anything in terms of getting

00:03:18.840 the actual enriched uranium out of iran not yet um are we on the brink of a regime change

00:03:29.520 It doesn't seem so. So, as I said, the goalposts could move. The metric of success could change. But right now, it still feels like there's a lot of work to do. And I think this is going to drag out for quite a while.

00:03:46.340 Now, in the Straits of Hormuz, we have a number of ships stranded.

00:03:53.220 The Iranians have still got some way of controlling that waterway.

00:03:59.920 The fact that a number of small mine layers were blown up yesterday suggests that there may be others,

00:04:07.980 because I don't think we knew about them earlier in the week.

00:04:10.460 um also drones how many drones do you need to retain to still pose a credible threat

00:04:18.760 how is that what are your predictions for that in the next week well my sense is that the iranians

00:04:27.140 the regime that they're going to really start taking a lot of people off um by these attacks

00:04:34.840 in the Strait of Hormuz.

00:04:38.640 That message has been clear

00:04:40.160 that they are not to do that

00:04:41.840 and that they are not to disrupt

00:04:43.560 the flow of energy out of that part of the world.

00:04:47.160 And that's exactly what they're doing.

00:04:49.540 And I think that there are a lot of people

00:04:51.760 who are going to become increasingly irritated with this

00:04:55.640 unless the regime stops.

00:05:00.200 And this is an administration

00:05:02.280 that you don't want to irritate.

00:05:04.840 Um, cause as they've said, they'll find you and they'll kill you.

00:05:09.100 Um, and you know, the Americans are now, um, signaling that there could be some strikes

00:05:15.000 in, um, those port areas of Iran.

00:05:20.120 And that's what I would expect to see soon.

00:05:22.220 And I think we're going to continue to see very, very heavy airstrikes.

00:05:27.060 Um, and I should also note that the Israelis have mentioned, um, at the highest levels,

00:05:34.180 that there could be something quite spectacular around the corner.

00:05:38.460 We don't know what that is, what that looks like.

00:05:42.100 But I'll say this, the beeper operation that is now quite well known,

00:05:49.500 that's not the end of it.

00:05:51.680 The Israelis, the Americans, they have other tricks up their sleeve.

00:05:57.500 And when you start disrupting global energy markets

00:06:01.760 and things of that nature um you might nudge those parties towards using you know other tools

00:06:09.980 in their toolkit so to speak all right well we'll watch the scanners for that in israel i presume

00:06:18.280 people are sleeping a little easier knowing that the the iranian regime has been set back so far

00:06:24.660 in its weapons program.

00:06:27.740 Could you speculate on what this means in Beijing?

00:06:33.120 The Chinese got a lot of their oil from Iran.

00:06:36.640 I think it was something like 13% of their supply.

00:06:39.940 Right now, they're not getting that.

00:06:41.820 They've also just lost Venezuela.

00:06:44.580 So, that's got to hurt.

00:06:48.140 Is this actually more about China than it is about Iran?

00:06:54.660 That's a great question. And I think you're really on to something there that people need to be paying closer attention to. And that, of course, is the China angle. But for now, Nigel, I would say that the China element is more of a downstream situation that people should probably park for now because there's just so much to do and so much that could happen.

00:07:24.660 between Iran, the U.S., Israel, and other parties in the region, Gulf states.

00:07:30.120 Obviously, you mentioned China's imports and what this is doing for them.

00:07:36.220 You know, China's watching this, and this is obviously sending a number of signals to Beijing

00:07:40.740 and to the Communist Party there, but it's also not all bad for China.

00:07:48.880 There could be opportunity here.

00:07:50.600 There could be other states in the region or across the world that are saying, well, you know, look at the U.S., look at Israel, look at some of these these these Gulf states that are tied up in this mess.

00:08:05.340 People could governments could potentially pivot towards Beijing and we're seeing some of this.

00:08:10.100 Right. So the that anti-American sentiment could be sort of accelerated by this war, which could actually be to the benefit of China and other unsavory regimes.

00:08:21.200 So it's it's it's a lot to unpack. I would say, yeah, keep an eye on the China element here.

00:08:28.500 um but right now there's just so much that needs to be done in iran and i i like i said earlier i

00:08:34.980 think um jerusalem and dc are so far away from achieving um what what could be you know long-term

00:08:43.300 success that the the priority should be watching what they do right now um as opposed to to

00:08:49.160 following beijay okay well uh i just asked the question because the china has bailed out iran

00:08:57.480 before. In fact, they have made them a very significant player in the region. They probably

00:09:04.920 think they were before, but after China had armed them and developed an ongoing relationship with

00:09:10.040 them, even helping them get back on their feet after the Israelis attacked in 2025 and 2024,

00:09:20.600 Memory fails me, but the Israelis had a go at the Iranians a few years ago.

00:09:29.800 Okay. I think the Chinese played quite a large part in putting Iran back on its feet. Now,

00:09:35.560 of course, they have had this. You could make the argument that in pushing back on Iran,

00:09:43.560 which of course was used to destabilize the whole area, the United States has actually

00:09:49.320 dealt China with a blow. I don't know what you think of the Hudson's Institute. They're certainly

00:09:55.800 a conservative institution, and they go all the way back to Herman Kahn, who I had to study when

00:10:01.240 I was at university, so I have given them some credibility. They make the point that

00:10:08.440 described as an extraordinary assault on the world's leading state sponsor of terror, which

00:10:14.280 is true but it misses this critical dimension for years beijing has spent billions of dollars

00:10:20.520 building iran into a structural asset by striking iran directly the trump administration is

00:10:27.480 dismantling whether by design or by consequence a pillar of china's regional architecture

00:10:35.080 and of course they dismantled some more when they when they lifted maduro out of venezuela

00:10:41.000 grand strategy playing risk but for real what do you think yeah i think there's a lot to be said

00:10:49.140 about that and i think uh folks at hudson they know what they're talking about um and uh i would

00:10:54.940 agree with all of that um look over the last uh number of years the last couple of decades there's

00:11:00.640 really been a decoupling of um global powers global economies um and and allies um you know

00:11:08.680 those that are with America and those that are with China or Russia. And we're seeing these sort

00:11:13.540 of these clicks proliferate and these siloed dynamics take hold. And China and Iran are very

00:11:23.940 much aligned and they've supported each other. China, as you noted, has invested hundreds of

00:11:30.000 millions of dollars in Iran. They have really enabled Iran to build out that oppressive

00:11:36.740 of infrastructure that they've used so savagely and barbarically to subjugate the great people

00:11:46.520 of Iran and to control freedom of movement, freedom of thought, access to information

00:11:53.500 and surveillance.

00:11:56.260 And so, yeah, this is the U.S.

00:11:58.620 They're going in there and they're hitting the Iranian regime.

00:12:02.860 But of course, yeah, they are sending a message to Beijing.

00:12:04.880 They're punching Beijing right in the mouth.

00:12:06.900 And they're saying, look, you've wasted hundreds of millions of dollars in this part of the world.

00:12:14.440 We're not going to allow this to go on for much longer.

00:12:19.420 And you don't have, this isn't your sandbox to play in and make sort of a vassal state for Beijing.

00:12:28.620 So yeah, Nigel, there's no doubt about it

00:12:30.620 that this sends a message to China

00:12:32.820 and that it weakens their grip in a country

00:12:37.640 that they've probably seen as a very important part

00:12:42.540 of their chessboard for years now.

00:12:46.920 But like I said, I think it's still too early to tell

00:12:51.060 what this will mean for China or Iran over the long term.

00:12:54.520 I mean, if indeed in a few weeks or a few months this war sort of fizzles off or comes to some sort of strange conclusion and Khamenei's son is all of a sudden the new hardline supreme leader and he's in power and the regime is back up and operating and you still have enriched uranium on the ground and the regime would now be more emboldened than ever.

00:13:20.660 They would take this as a victory, as almost a holy victory in many ways, a divine victory.

00:13:32.120 That's not going to hurt Beijing at all.

00:13:34.160 If anything, it's going to open up greater opportunities for China.

00:13:38.540 So I think China could be hurt through this.

00:13:42.020 Yes, of course.

00:13:42.720 And they're probably looking at the situation now going, well, this isn't great for us.

00:13:46.560 But over the long term, it might not be as significant as we think right now.

00:13:50.660 Well, they certainly have a reputation for taking the long-term view of things.

00:13:55.120 In the short term, does this make a Chinese intervention in Taiwan more or less likely?

00:14:02.800 I don't think it makes it more likely or less likely.

00:14:06.520 I think China is probably in a bit of a holding pattern right now.

00:14:11.020 They probably want to see what happens like everybody else over the coming weeks and months.

00:14:15.580 um although you know the case could be made and i'm sure there are analysts out there saying this

00:14:21.900 that with um america so heavily tied up in iran you know it's this could be an opportune time to

00:14:30.140 go in and and uh um achieve what they've they've said that they wanted to do from for many many

00:14:36.780 decades now in taiwan um because uh the americans are distracted and they have infrastructure and

00:14:43.100 assets that are in theater right now that would be difficult for them to uh to to pull out and

00:14:48.600 to pivot so um you know that argument could be made as well but i i wouldn't i don't think

00:14:54.360 beijing um wants to do that and they're seeing what's happening in iran iran the regime is

00:15:01.380 getting absolutely annihilated um the the chinese don't want that um i think that they're probably

00:15:09.420 seeing some of these historic operations, these precision strikes, these really devastating blows

00:15:15.100 to Iran's military infrastructure. As strong as China is, no leader in their right mind is going

00:15:22.160 to watch these videos and look at these developments and think, yeah, I could go up against

00:15:26.860 that. America has the strongest military by far in the history of the world. And China's probably

00:15:34.280 taking notes right now and if if anything i would imagine it's probably making them

00:15:39.640 pause a little bit more than anything else okay let's talk about israel and the middle east

00:15:47.800 how does israel exploit this situation to their own benefit and what does success look like for them

00:15:57.080 yeah it's really tough nigel um you know i think in the early days of this campaign

00:16:02.520 there was real shock and awe um there was some you know sense of jubilation and excitement not

00:16:09.700 just in Israel but beyond I mean you're seeing key leaders just get removed uh like immediately

00:16:15.960 you're seeing key military installations being turned into dust uh you're seeing essentially

00:16:22.500 whole um elements of their military such as their navy which you've talked about just

00:16:27.440 gone in the blink of an eye. And so those early days, a lot of people, myself included,

00:16:34.580 were watching this going, wow, I mean, this is really unfolding more dramatically and faster

00:16:40.220 than we expected. Victory is around the corner. Victory is probably a regime change. Victory is

00:16:47.320 probably a no ballistic missile program any longer. Victory is probably a nuclear program

00:16:53.960 that is not just punted down the road, but that's been vaporized.

00:16:59.040 And I think a lot of those illusions have now disappeared

00:17:04.400 because it's coming into clear focus now that to actually do a lot of that,

00:17:09.920 you can't just bomb your way into all of those objectives

00:17:14.680 or into all of those successes.

00:17:16.460 You can bomb your way very, very far and very close to achieving those things.

00:17:21.840 Don't get me wrong.

00:17:22.600 People often underestimate the power of military campaigns. Don't do that. If you're listening to this, I wouldn't want this to be taken the wrong way. Trust me, the US military and the Israeli military can do a lot just by carrying out devastating airstrikes.

00:17:45.300 but you know if you look at the enriched uranium that's buried under mountains of concrete and

00:17:53.040 steel and rubble um well how do you get that out of there that's not just a simple task

00:17:58.120 um do you arm militias on the ground there what's happening there again that's just not going to be

00:18:04.920 done overnight um how do you replace a regime well you can't really that has to sort of come

00:18:12.080 from within? Are the people in a position now to do that? These are things that we don't know.

00:18:19.060 And so I think victory, not only is victory, regardless of what that looks like, probably

00:18:25.540 quite a ways off, I think victory really looks different to a lot of people. I would imagine if

00:18:33.100 you're in Israel, and I know some of my colleagues at the Institute for National Security Studies

00:18:37.860 would echo this. This is a lot to go through. The Israelis have gone through a lot. This didn't

00:18:45.800 start 14 days ago. It started like closer to three years ago with October 7th. And so you have a

00:18:52.480 population that's exhausted. You have a population that's traumatized. And for them, at the end of

00:18:58.940 all of this, when it's all said and done and the sirens stop wailing, is it going to be enough

00:19:04.440 when analysts stand up there and go yeah we've bought ourselves three years i don't think so

00:19:10.720 um i think they want something a heck of a lot more substantive than that so i think victory to

00:19:15.640 them um looks like um a complete removal of the nuclear program and end to the ballistic threat

00:19:22.340 and maybe a regime change and when you ask um the iranian diaspora what what does victory look like

00:19:30.380 to you. It doesn't look like the Supreme Leader being eliminated and his son just replacing him

00:19:37.020 and becoming a hardline, tyrannical, religious fanatic for the next 50 years. That's not what

00:19:45.560 they want. So victory to them, I think, is a long way off as well. So Nigel, this has to go on,

00:19:54.060 I think, like I said, for weeks and months. And some more things need to be put in motion.

00:19:59.900 One thing that I would tell people to keep an eye on is

00:20:02.240 if there are reports of pretty large-scale defections,

00:20:07.640 that would be a good sign that maybe the regime is weaker

00:20:11.100 than it appears to be right now.

00:20:13.260 So those are the sorts of things that you might want to watch for.

00:20:17.320 Internal clashes would be another one.

00:20:19.880 So there's a lot of dynamics here at play,

00:20:22.960 but it's not a simple we went and bombed them

00:20:26.980 and we won sort of situation.

00:20:29.420 Well, I guess we should leave it there.

00:20:33.000 There is no certainty, but something has certainly changed, and I have to think that the ability

00:20:41.020 of Tehran to place markers around the region, fund Hezbollah, fund Hamas, fund the Houthis,

00:20:50.940 it's going to take, I'll use three years, it's going to take some time before, if ever,

00:20:56.460 they can do that again.

00:20:58.080 They're out of ammo.

00:20:59.420 should we we'll we'll take that as a good sign and hope for the best i guess any any last words

00:21:06.980 on it before we before we go well i would just say this you know um right now of course and for

00:21:13.860 obvious reasons people are focused on the military the military situation right now the strikes

00:21:19.100 um what assets are being removed what military leaders are being removed from the battlefield

00:21:24.080 field. And that's all fine. And I understand that. But the Iranian people right now are in a terrible

00:21:31.220 situation. Both inside Iran, there's a lot of anguish and anxiety and turmoil and outside Iran

00:21:40.020 too. So if you're watching this and you're a part of the Iranian community, please know that a lot

00:21:44.840 of us are with you and we support you. And while all eyes seem to be on the military campaign,

00:21:52.240 There are a lot of us, myself included, who are paying attention to your situation in particular,

00:21:58.500 and I just hope that there are brighter days for the great people of Iraq around the corner.

00:22:03.420 And I think we all echo that aspiration.

00:22:08.160 Good people.

00:22:10.100 Thank you, Dr. Bab.

00:22:12.020 For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.

00:22:21.680 You

Western Standard - March 13, 2026

Beyond the bombs... why airstrikes may not topple Iranian junta

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