The fear, the concern would always be that this whole crisis
would push them further towards accelerating the drive towards
getting a nuclear bomb because that they'll see that's the only
thing capable of of ensuring deterrence and and perhaps the
regime's survival. One of the things we've learned
over the years is that any kind of military intervention, it has
unintended consequences and we just don't know what those are
going to be. There are all sorts of doomsday
scenarios as well-being speculated about, around the
possibility of dirty bombs, asymmetric warfare, Iran, you
know, activating terrorism cells.
What? What's the calculation there?
Hello, and welcome to the forecast.
Somewhere between total obliteration and significant
damage. That's what the American
administration is saying it has done to Iran after its weekend
air strikes on its nuclear facilities.
But it may be a bigger phrase than that in terms of the
significance for the region and the wider world for this special
forecast. This morning, I'm in Washington,
DC. Our international editor,
Lindsay Hilson, joins us from London, and our correspondent
Sakunda Kamani joins us from Jerusalem.
Lindsay, the Iranian foreign minister is going to Russia
Today, and there have been air strikes by Israel on Iran.
I mean, where does it look like this is going today?
Well, at the moment, what the Iranian foreign minister is
doing is he's trying to get as much diplomatic support as
possible. And the Russians have been a
little bit equivocal, really, in their support for Iran.
But today, Putin seemed to be more condemnatory of the
Americans than he had been before.
But, you know, diplomatic support, What is that going to
do for Iran at this point? The Israelis are just banging
away. They have hit Evin Prison, which
is where many political prisoners are being held, some
of whom were apparently injured. They've hit the headquarters of
the Revolutionary Guard. There are many targets which
they're going for, which are very much not the nuclear
facilities or even military facilities.
They are regime targets. And so it looks as if the
Israelis are trying to weaken the Islamic Republic as much as
possible, while the Americans are sort of pulling back a
little bit. So President Trump and but what
President Trump says, it's sort of varies because JD Vance's
vice president was very clear, saying yesterday, we are not
going for regime change. This is about the nuclear
program. And then President Trump tweets
today. Well, you know, maybe it is
going to be regime change. So, as ever, when you put
President Trump into the mix, what seems clear suddenly
becomes not so clear after all. What about the actual damage
done to the nuclear sites? Because it's now seeming clear
that Iran had had time to move some of its facilities.
It might well have got the uranium and the centrifuges out.
All all we've seen are pictures of essentially holes in the
sand. So.
So how confident can we can we be about what's actually been
done? I think it's very, very
difficult. I mean, President Trump
yesterday was very keen to say, you know, the Iranian nuclear
programme has been obliterated. But even then, the head of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff was saying, well, you know, we'll
have to wait for the battlefield assessment.
And one of the problems is if you hit a facility which is
deeply underground, well, the satellite pictures aren't going
to show you very much, are you? You need to be able to have a
camera that goes deep into the earth and they don't have that.
Now the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency has said
that there's no question that there is serious damage to
Fordo. That is the, the Jeep
underground facility. But they don't have the ability
at the moment to really make that assessment.
And yes, there is a, there are reports that there are 400
kilograms of highly enriched uranium.
That's uranium which has been enriched to 60%.
You need 90% for a bomb, but it's, it's a short step from 60
to 90 apparently. And yes, we don't know where
that is. Was it in the underground
facility or did they move it some weeks or months earlier?
As yet, we just don't know. Secunda, I mean, what's the
reaction been like in Israel? Are they all Cocker hoop?
Well, look, certainly the Israeli government had been
wanting President Trump to carry out these strikes.
They know, as all analysts have been saying for the last couple
of weeks, that it's only these huge 30,000 LB American Buster
bust, bunker Buster bombs that we're able to take out or cause
significant damage at least to the Fordo underground nuclear
facility. So we'd had Israeli officials
calling on the Trump administration to to get
involved. And so yes, they are, I think
absolutely happy. We've in fact seen President
Prime Minister Netanyahu's popularity rise as a result of
this. The war with Iran is has a lot
of popular support here in Israel.
Many here are now at this stage divided about the war in Gaza.
And majority, around 70% of the population would be willing to
see an end to the conflict there in exchange for the return of
the hostages. But support for the war with
Iran is, is much, much higher, but 70 to 80% of people and, and
anytime certainly I've spoken to people, even those living at the
sites that have been struck by Iranian ballistic missiles that
have managed to penetrate the Israeli air defence systems.
They say that we consider the possibility of a nuclear armed
Iran as an existential threat. And so this is something that we
believe needed to happen at the moment.
I think that's the, the kind of main feeling here, both
politically and at a grassroots level.
I mean, interestingly, even Netanyahu's political opponents,
some of those on further to the left of him have been praising
his, his actions and his decision going on board with his
decision to, to, to attack the Iranians.
We'll have to wait and see. I think as, as you and Lindsay
are pointing out about exactly how much damage has been caused
to Iran's nuclear capabilities, because you know, the, the, the
fear, the concern would always be that actually the what if
the, if the regime retains any ability to, to carry out further
enrichment, that this whole crisis would push them further
towards accelerating the drive towards getting a nuclear bomb.
Because that they'll see that's the only thing capable of of
ensuring deterrence and perhaps the regime's survival.
And if there is perhaps deliberate ambiguity here in
Washington about the aims of the American strikes, are the war
aims becoming any clearer in Israel?
Well, I've asked the the Israeli foreign minister whether regime
change was one of their aims. He and Prime Minister Netanyahu
have both said that it is not that their aim is to destroy the
nuclear capabilities than ballistic missile capabilities
held by Iran. But it does seem a little bit
more vague than that, just as you've had that confusion around
Trump's own stance. So there's been images that that
I think Prime Minister Netanyahu's put out on, on, on
Twitter to show the Iranian monarchs flag the, the royal
flag of Iran. And, and so I think certainly
the Israelis would like to see a regime change in Iran.
But I and, you know, we've seen actions that are probably
undertaken by them, for example, hacking of the Iranian state TV
broadcaster with calls for people to come out to the
streets. We've had repeated calls by net
Yahoo to the Iranian people to overthrow their regime.
So they certainly would like to see it happen.
Whether they're capable of doing it, I think is another question.
I mean, I can't think of another example in history, perhaps you
and Lindsay can, of when regime change has been implemented by
an outside power that does not have ground troops invading a
country as it seems out of the question and without any kind of
local allied opposition force ready to swoop in and and take
on the the, the existing the existing government.
Lindsay, what's going on in Iran?
Well, look, we're seeing through a glass darkly, but the voice
messages that we're able to to get from there suggest that
there is a lot of consternation on the part of people who are in
the central part of Tehran. Evin Prison is right in the
centre of Tehran. So, you know, people heard that
go up and was scared and and then we've had messages.
There was somebody, a political prisoner who was in there who
called his family and there was a recording of that who just
described, you know, the terror of it.
You think about it, you're a political prisoner.
You've been put away for being against the government, against
the Islamic Republic. And then suddenly the Israelis
who are probably trying to destabilize, if not overthrow
the regime, are bombing you. I mean, in that sense people are
totally confused and as couldn't assess there's no organized
opposition. So Raza Paklavi, who is the the
son of the last Shah, he's trying to sort of set himself up
as some kind of opposition leader, but he's in, in
Washington, you know, he's a Pallavi on the Potomac.
Maybe you'll go and see him. I mean, there he is.
And this whole operation by these, they've called it rising
lion. Well, the lion is his symbol,
but he doesn't really have any following in, in Iran, almost
none. And people are, you know,
they're worried about water, they're worried about
electricity. There's electricity blackouts in
some of the city. The Internet is down.
Most of the time we're only able to get messages sporadically
because most of the time people can't communicate and so people
are scared and. Are there still foreign
prisoners in Evin Prison? I mean, this is obviously where
Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe was held, isn't it?
Yeah, there are two, I know of 2 French prisoners who are in
there. And interesting, I was in Geneva
on Friday and the French foreign minister was talking about them
and saying that one of the things they really want is
their, their people back. Now they're both intervene.
And I'm sure there are others as well, because often countries
don't publicise what's happened to the to their people in Iran
because it's, it's deemed that quiet diplomacy will do better.
So yes, there are definitely foreign prisoners.
Now, in, in terms of what Iran might do next, I mean, it hasn't
really done very much so far other than its diplomatic, you
know, moves and saying it it it will, it will respond in the
manner to which it chooses. Now, the parliament has talked
about closing the Straits of Hormuz.
What what's the significance of that?
Can it do it and how would it do it?
Yeah. So Iran has a number of options.
So the option which would cause a lot of economic damage is
closing the Straits of Hormuz. Now, this is a narrow waterway
through which a large proportion of the world's oil comes.
But that if they close that, which they could do while using
sea mines or, you know, small boats or whatever, that also
affects the oil, which is going to their allies, including
China, so as well as obviously to, to Western countries.
So that is quite a, that's quite a difficult thing to do.
But they can do that. And the parliament has said that
they will do that. The Iranian parliament doesn't
dictate what happens, but it, it, it gives its advice.
Now then you've got U.S. forces, about 40,000 of them across the
region in places like Bahrain and Qatar and the UAE and Iraq.
They could attack those facilities because but of
course, those facilities are well prepared for attack.
They knew that might happen. And interestingly, after the
Americans killed Suleimani, you know, the leader of the the IGC
a few years back, the Iranians, they wanted to retaliate, but
they didn't want to start World War 3.
So they warned the Americans that they were going to attack
facilities, particularly in Iraq.
So the Americans knew to get their people out.
So in a sense, it was almost symbolic.
They could do something like that or they could go for it and
they could, you know, they have cells in different places.
They may be weaker in the region than they were because their
proxies like Hezbollah and so on are much weakened by Israel over
the last last year. But, you know, they may well
have terrorist cells in different countries which could
attack Israeli or American targets.
I mean, there have been Iranian journalists here working for
opposition channels who have been attacked.
And Scotland Jihad has said that the Iranian government is is
behind that. So, you know, you could see all
sorts of little attacks like that.
Little in the sense of not being complete outright war, but
attacks nonetheless. So come to how much damage is
actually being done in Israel now.
I mean, you know, we, we keep hearing about how depleted the
Iranian ballistic missile battery is, but they're still
sending things over and they're getting through.
They are. They are at times.
So Iran was said to have had around 2002 1/2 thousand
ballistic missiles prior to the start of this conflict.
The latest figures we have from the Israeli army are around it
that around 500 of them had been fired.
So that would suggest that there's, there's a substantial
number still there, even if you account for a number which the
Israeli army are likely to have managed to destroy with their
strikes. The military here also says,
however, they've destroyed around half of all Israel,
Iran's ballistic missile launches.
And we have certainly seen a very significant drop off in
the, in the scale of the attacks that Iran has been launching.
So, you know, in the in the initial few days of the war, we
were seeing dozens and dozens of missiles being launched up to,
you know, 100 Times Now, you know, around 3:00 in the morning
this morning, we had a single ballistic that was intercepted.
I think around 10 were fired later in the later in the day.
Yesterday was one of them in the morning.
So kind of the first initial perhaps reaction to those
American strikes in Iran, we saw a barrage of around 20 to 30
ballistic missiles. So there's definitely been a
drop off. The Iranians I think might
suggest that they're perhaps conserving some of their stop
for a longer war. But given the scale of Israel's
attacks on on Iran, and I think it's quite possible that they
they have now a very significantly reduced capability
to to strike as well. Of course, you know, you've been
here, both of you. So, you know, the, the Israeli
air defense system is very sophisticated, very powerful.
It is not 100%. And so we see on occasion some
missiles managing to get through the death toll here, around 24
people, I believe is the, is the still the current figure.
I mean, that's, that's significant by Israeli
standards. And of course every death
anywhere in the world of a civilian is a, is a, is a
tragedy, but it's much, much lower than the number of people
who were killed in Iran. I think the latest figures I saw
from human rights groups working there were suggesting around in
excess of 600 people at least, at least around or approximately
around half of them civilians being killed.
So, you know, the, the damage that's been done to Israel has
not, has not at at this stage reached a proportion that's
making ordinary people or politicians rethink their
decisions. There was reporting to the the
beginning of the war saying that Israeli intelligence officials
had when devising plans for an attack on Iran, which of course
had been, you know, being prepared for, for for many
years. They've looked at potentially
casualties being and fatalities being in the thousands.
And we certainly not at a stage like that.
And whilst everyone here I think is expecting that there will be
some Iranian military retaliation that could take the
form of, you know, a ramping up of the of the missile barrages.
At the moment people here I think are feeling fairly
confident. I mean, I was very struck by
your report last night actually, where where you had a a man
who'd lost his home, but he seemed incredibly sanguine and
quite confident that it was the final stage of the war.
Yeah, I think most Israelis, I mean, I was speaking to some in
a in a shelter earlier this morning near where we were when
when sirens went off and was chatting to them about how they
were feeling. And of course people, many
people do feel afraid. But a lot of them also said that
they believe they hope that there's now a kind of off ramp
possibility and that once Iran has conducted some kind of
strike, which they hope will be largely safe face saving rather
than escalatory, then there could be the possibility of, of,
of negotiations. I mean, the Trump administration
has certainly held out that possibility.
And you know, you guys have been talking about the, the stockpile
of around 400kg of enriched uranium that is probably still
exist somewhere in Iran. So I would have thought it would
very much be in the US and Israel's interest to try and
strike some kind of deal with the Iranians to ensure that that
is not enriched to the 90% weapons grade quality that that
it could be were there to be a complete breakdown in, in, in
any kind of communications with the Iranians.
And and they take their and they take their nuclear program
completely underground. Lindsay, I mean, there are all
sorts of doomsday scenarios as well-being speculated about
around the possibility of dirty bombs, asymmetric warfare, Iran,
you know, activating terrorism cells that there was there was a
report here in America from NBC who was saying that the Iranians
are already warned Trump indirectly that they had sleeper
cells in the United States. What?
What's the calculation there? Well, there's there's a number
of calculations out there. So you've got the supreme
leader, Ali Khamenei, who's 86. So what does he want?
Well, he wants the regime to survive and to survive after his
death, which will presumably come at some point in the next
few years. And he has.
But he built up this system of having the proxies across the
region and so on and having this strength through the nuclear
program, much of which has been destroyed.
And so, you know, arguably his life's work has it has come to
very little in the end. So there is one argument which
says that, you know, he will just go down fighting, that he
wants to be seen as as a fighter and a master.
He doesn't care what comes after, but he's got a son who
might inherit the role. There's all sorts of
calculations which we don't really know about.
There's manoeuvring within the regime.
We understand from, you know, rumours in the way that these
things are that different people saying that they are, you know,
they now want to to take over because they are weakened.
And and then of course, there is the possibility that the regime
might actually collapse. Now, if it collapsed, what would
replace it? Well, probably chaos because I
think Sekunda was saying this is earlier.
You know, you, it's, you cannot see a way in which the Islamic
Republic collapses. And what you get in its, in its
place is some kind of marvellous democratic system.
You know, you might get a coup or you might get complete
disorder. So a lot of it depends on, on
what the people in charge are afraid of and what the, you
know, what kind of fractures there are within the Islamic
Republic between the army and the, and the, and the
Revolutionary Guards. And a lot of this we just don't
know. And, and at the beginning we
mentioned this meeting with Russia.
I mean, Russia could in theory completely change the game,
couldn't they? Because they could supply Iran
with more weapons. It doesn't look like that's
going to happen. President Putin has quite a good
relationship with Netanyahu and with the Israelis, and he
absolutely, and he also has another war to fight to
remember. He's been getting the drones
from Iran. Although the Iranian drones
which are used to to fight in Ukraine, they now produce them
inside Russia. So, yes, he could do that, but
nothing indicates that he wants to do that.
Nothing indicates that he feels that the Iranian cause is worth
a lot of expenditure of diplomatic and financial capital
at all. I think what he would like would
be some kind of negotiation. That was what he's been
indicating today in his meeting with the with the Iranian
foreign minister. And is it conceivable that Iran
could enter negotiations without hitting back or first or, or or
do they have to do that to save face effectively?
I think that they would be more likely to hit back in some way
first because not just about saving face, it's also about
negotiating from what appears to be a position of strength.
And yet it is quite clear and everybody knows that the
Iranians will not be negotiating from a position of strength.
They'll be negotiating from a position of weakness because
this war has weakened them thoroughly.
So I think that they will be reaching out at, you know, the
meeting with the Russians today. There's it's they're trying to
build up this kind of greater diplomatic strength, which would
compensate for their military weakness.
But the problem is what would they be negotiating for?
Because President Trump has said 0 enrichment and the Israelis
are saying an end to their ballistic missile program.
Now, that leaves them extremely weakened in the region and as a
as a, as a government, as a regime, because what sovereignty
would the country have if it cannot have any effective
military force, not just a nuclear program, but a military
force that's the basic on basis on which most countries operate,
that they can defend themselves. Iran, at the moment, it seems,
can't defend itself. So they're an extremely
difficult situation when it comes to diplomacy as well.
Just finally, Secunda from from Israel.
I mean, when I was in Israel a couple of weeks ago, there were
more voices of criticism of Netanyahu.
And politically, the voices of Netanyahu against Netanyahu have
been very, very consistent. People are still very angry with
him, regardless of what's been going on in Gaza.
Has has he helped himself and shored up his position
politically by extending the war in Iran?
Yes, I think he has. I mean, I was looking at some
reports suggesting that Netanyahu is currently more
popular than he's been at any stage since October the 7th
when, you know, his popularity took a massive, massive dip.
You know, it's interesting. Some of those figures
politically, for example, who have been very critical of
Netanyahu and have been associated with the the protest
movement against him, Yaya Galan, for example, who's a a
leading left wing politician. I saw him at the the the of an
Iranian missile attack and I asked him what his thoughts
were. And he said he said no, we
aren't supportive of the war with Iran.
Because I believe that there was no choice about this, that he's
remained a critic of Netanyahu. But certainly, I think that's
representative of the vast majority of people who are
opposed to Netanyahu, that they might not like him, they might
not necessarily trust him, but they they support this war and
they believe that the intelligence that led to it was
correct because it was furnished by not just Netanyahu, but by
the Israeli army and security services who they do have more
faith in. Interestingly, I was just
speaking to earlier today actually with a father of one of
the the Israeli hostages who's still in Gaza, someone who's
been also very critical of Netanyahu.
He too, you know, didn't think that, that, that he thought that
the war in Iran was, was, was justified, but he was upset and,
and, and angry that the, the cases of the, the hostages,
their plight has been very much overshadowed and clearly
doesn't, doesn't seem much of A priority for the government and
for Netanyahu at this stage. And it's kind of fallen a bit
away from public discourse as well.
And, and of course, you know, the civilians living in, in
Gaza, for ordinary people there, the situation remains
absolutely, absolutely awful. I mean, the, the death toll, the
daily death toll, frankly in, in, in Gaza completely out
shadows anything that we're seeing anywhere else in this
troubled region. It's not getting the kind of
focus and headlines that it, it once was.
But it's it the situation on the ground there is much, much, much
worse than than than anywhere else and.
And Lindsay, I mean, internationally, I mean,
obviously again, Netanyahu was facing a lot of criticism from
Britain and France and Canada over Gaza.
The, the British statement on the Iranian bombing over the
weekend was, well, I mean, it, it was just a sort of a
statement of fact. It wasn't really expressing any
opinion one way or another. Has, has, has Trump managed to
pull, you know, to silence Britain and pull them back in
behind? Look, I think that there's been
a massive outbreak of hypocrisy because the Europeans and also
the Gulf Arab countries and so on, I will say that they were
against this. And I think that a lot of people
within those, within those governments are breathing a sigh
of relief, thinking, oh, jolly good, they've set back the
Iranian nuclear program or destroyed the nuclear program.
But then there will be other voices within those countries
say, but what is the cost of this?
And the cost is international law.
Do you remember you went back to Iraq in 2003?
Do you remember there were weeks of going through the UN and
talking about the legality and UN Security Council resolutions
and also trying to get some kind of international consensus?
All of that is gone by the board.
We're now in a world where Vladimir Putin can invade
Ukraine and he just does it, where the Israelis can attack
Iran and then the Americans can attack Iran as well.
And, you know, international law, the, you know, the system
where you had some kind of rules where things went through the
Security Council, all of that is gone now When you have the
Europeans who are choosing, you know, not to say very much or
just to say a little because actually they're kind of a
little bit in favour. I'm also just a little bit
worried about it. What does that mean?
It's about the future as well. So what about when China invades
Taiwan? What happens then?
What is there? Why shouldn't they, given that
the Russians have done what they wanted to do, the Israelis and
the Americans have done what they wanted to do?
And these statements, these sort of, you know, milk toast
statements from from the Europeans, it just makes them
look, she's anonymous and weak. Yes, I mean, Mark Rutter, the
NATO chief, has apparently just said that the US strikes on Iran
were not in violation of international law.
I've no idea on what basis he's saying that there was no UN
resolution, there was no imminent threat.
You know, how could it possibly be in line with international
law? I don't know, but you can find a
lawyer to tell you anything, can't you?
Which was the kind of argument which we, you know, which we had
before the before the Iraq war. And and just finally on Trump
then, I mean, you know, obviously he's impossible to
predict, but do you think he's likely to do anything more
militarily? Look, you know, I can predict
anything apart from the future, and I certainly can't predict
what Donald Trump is going to do.
I mean, he said, you know, he said himself last week, doesn't
he? Nobody knows what I'm going to
do. I'd like to make up my mind a
second before I do it. So if he can't even predict what
he's going to do himself, how could I?
But obviously, the Americans have a choice at this point,
which is to pull right back, leave it to the Israelis to do
whatever we can. The Islamic Republic possibly,
you know, 'cause it's collapse and push for negotiations, which
is what he has indicated that he wants to do.
But if the Iranians do hit back, and if, for example, they kill
Americans somewhere, then there are going to be voices around
Donald Trump to say, well, you know, we need to bomb something
else. We need to go in again, we need
to do more. And that's what his sort of
isolationist MAGA wing, the people like Steve Bannon and so
on, are worried about. They're worried about the
Americans getting pulled into a wider war.
He has said he doesn't want to do that.
But one of the things we've learned over the years is that
any kind of military intervention, it has unintended
consequences, and we just don't know what those are going to be.
Indeed. And I mean, it's worth
mentioning that it it appears that Trump had lunch with Steve
Bannon on the day that he ordered the strikes.
And the American reaction here has been quite, quite remarkable
really. And it's it's quite
illustrative, I think, of how how weak Congress is at the
moment and that there are a lot of Democrats who were saying
this was unconstitutional. The American president doesn't
have the power to carry out this kind of military action without
congressional approval. And some Republicans are saying
the same thing, A very small, small number.
But the president and the administration have absolutely
no doubt that they were within their rights to do this.
They're showing no sign of taking this to Congress in the
near future. And so they will just carry on.
We'll leave it there. Secunda.
Lindsay, thank you very much indeed.
That's the forecast. Until next time, bye bye.