June 16, 2025 • 15 mins
On Friday, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, sending roughly 200 fighter jets to hit more than a hundred sites across Iran – including parts of its nuclear program.
Israel says the attack was “pre-emptive”, meant to address an immediate and inevitable threat on Iran’s part to construct a nuclear bomb.
As attacks from both countries continue, scheduled talks between Iran and the US over the future of Iran’s nuclear program have been cancelled.
Today, Middle East correspondent for The Economist, Gregg Carlstrom, on why Israel chose this moment to strike, how it’s angling for regime change in Iran and what it will take to de-escalate the conflict.
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Guest: Middle East correspondent for The Economist, Gregg Carlstrom.
Photo: AP Photo/Leo Correa
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military
operation to roll back the Uranian threat to Israel's very survival.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
On Friday, Israel launched what it says was a preemptive
strike on Iran meant to address an immediate and inevitable
threat on Iran's part to construct a nuclear bomb well.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Israel's military says two hundred fighter jets completed strikes on
more than one hundred targets, including nuclear facilities, in different
areas of Iran. Israel's military claims Iran is advancing a
secret program to build nuclear weapons, and says Tehran has
the capacity to make a nuclear bomb within days.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I want to assure the civilized world we will not
let the world's most dangerous regime get the world's most
dangerous weapons.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
The strikes killed key military figures in Iran as well
as several nuclear scientists, Promising payback would be severe, Iran
launched attacks of its own.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
When Iran's Supreme leader I Tolder Ali Kamini issued this statement,
he said, the Zionist regime opened its filthy and bloody
hand to commit a crime in our beloved country and
revealed its evil nature by striking residential centers more than
in the past.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
All this comes as talks were scheduled between Iran and
the US over the future of Iran's nuclear program, which
have now been canceled. From Schwarz Media, I'm Ruby Jones.
This is seven AM today, Middle East correspondent for The
Economist Greek Carlstrom on why Israel chose this moment to strike,
(01:47):
how it's angling for regime change in Iran, and what
it will take to de escalate the conflict. It's Tuesday,
June seventeenth, So Greg, let's begin with the strikes the
Israeli government launched last week on Iran. It was calling
(02:08):
them preemptive, saying that there was an immediate, inevitable threat
from Iran to construct a nuclear bomb. So is that true.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
We don't know, is the short answer.
Speaker 6 (02:20):
The Israeli government has not provided any evidence to substantiate
that claim. It's not to say there isn't evidence, but
they haven't provided any, and what their claiming contradicts what
just about every foreign intelligence agency had estimated in recent months.
The American Director of National Intelligence said just as recently
(02:43):
as March in congressional testimony that America didn't think Iran
was actively trying to build a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
The assessment was that even though.
Speaker 6 (02:53):
Iran was close to being able to enrich weapons grade uranium,
it didn't yet have the capabilities to fast that into
a working nuclear bomb. That would have probably taken a
year to a year and a half. So, again, what
the Israelis are saying very very different from what everyone
else in the intelligence community has said.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Okay, and so in terms of the I guess achievability
of being able to wipe out Iran's nuclear capability, what
do we know about whether or not Israel has the
capacity to do that.
Speaker 6 (03:26):
Well, it certainly has the capacity to set back Iran's
nuclear program if you look at some of the targets
that it has struck so far. It seems to have
destroyed the above ground enrichment facility at Niton's, which was
one of the facilities that Iran used to enrich uranium
to sixty percent purity, which is a short hop away
(03:48):
from weapons grade. It also seems to have destroyed, for example,
another facility near Isfahan that converts uranium gas into uranium metal,
which is a large component in a nuclear warhead.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
That seems to have been destroyed.
Speaker 6 (04:04):
These things will take many months, if not a year
or two for Iran to rebuild, and it doesn't have
replacements for those facilities. So it has set back what
we know of Iran's nuclear program. But then there are
a bunch of questions. For example, the stockpile of highly
enriched uranium that Iran has, where is that?
Speaker 5 (04:25):
Has it dispersed some of that to facilities.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
That we don't know about that the IAEA, the UNS
Nuclear Agency doesn't know about. It's possible that there is
a clandestine piece to Iran's nuclear program that Israel won't
be able to destroy that Iran could then use to
try and rush towards producing a bomb.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Now, so why do you think Israel chose this moment
to strike and also chose to assassinate the specific Iranian
leaders that it did.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
I think there's two goals there.
Speaker 6 (04:56):
One is a short term tactical goal, which is to
make harder for Iran to organize a response a retaliation,
and we saw that on Friday. It took the better
part of the day for Iran to put together a
ballistic missile attack on Israel, in part because you know,
the commander of the missile force had been killed, and
so there was no one to authorize that response.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
That's one thing.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
And then I think the second motivation, and this is
becoming increasingly clear if you listen to Begnimi, N'taanno or
other Israeli officials, the second motivation is I think they
would like to destabilize, if.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
Not change, the regime in Iran.
Speaker 6 (05:35):
And I think the calculation is that wiping out the
military and security leadership of the country is going to
make the regime unstable, and for Israeli policymakers, the hope
is that it will bring down that regime.
Speaker 7 (05:48):
Tonight, I wish to speak to you, the proud people
of Iran. As I said yesterday and many times before,
Israel's fight is not with you. It's not with you,
the brave people of Iran, whom we respect and admire.
Our fight is with our common enemy, a murderous regime
(06:09):
that both oppresses you and impoblishes you. Brave people of Iran.
Your light will defeat the darkness. I'm with you. The
people of Israel.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Are with you.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah. As you say, Israel is being quite explicit about
its intentions there and Iran, you know, it's a huge
place in the country of ninety million people, So what
could happen in the next few weeks and months.
Speaker 6 (06:37):
That is a very good question for which I don't
have a definitive answer. I mean, I think in the
very short term right now, there's going to be a
bit of a rally around the flag effect in Iran.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
People dislike the regime.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
It is deeply unpopular, particularly amongst the young people in Iran,
But that doesn't necessarily mean that they want a foreign
country to come in and bomb the regime and change
it by force.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Those are two different things.
Speaker 6 (07:08):
So I don't think, you know, in the sort of
immediate term, we're going to see unrest in the streets.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
But I think the slightly longer term question is, you know, what.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
Does this do to the stability the legitimacy of the regime.
It has spent decades telling its people that, you know,
it is preparing for exactly this sort of moment. It is,
you know, defending the homeland, and it's invested heavily in
a missile program and a nuclear program and building up
proxies in the region. It's neglected it's domestic responsibilities of
(07:40):
you know, focusing on the economy and building infrastructure and
things like that in order to build up what it
said was a defense against foreign threat. And then when
that foreign threat arrives, you know, the regime turned out
to be absolutely shot through with intelligence leaks and security failureism.
So what does that do to the legitimacy of the regime?
What does that mean politically in Iran going forward? We're
(08:03):
not sure yet, but I think there are going to
be some ripple.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Effects coming up after the break. Will Iran pursue its
nuclear program after this? Greg These attacks came as talks
were scheduled to take place between the US and Iran,
So tell me what they were supposed to be discussing.
Speaker 6 (08:28):
So a decade ago, in twenty fifteen, the US and
other world powers signed a deal with Iran, the JCPOA,
which put limits on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for
easing some of the economic sanctions on Iran. Trump abandoned
that deal in twenty eighteen. He called it the worst
deal ever negotiated. He promised to negotiate a better one.
(08:51):
He failed to do that in his first term. Joe
Biden failed to negotiate a new deal when he was president,
and so Trump has been trying again to revive that agreement.
There were five rounds of talks between the United States
and are On between April and the start of the
war a few days ago. But the talks had really
(09:12):
been hung up on a sort of fundamental question of
whether this agreement would allow Iran to continue enriching uranium
or not. The Iranians insist, and they're not wrong, that
enrichment is a right under the Non Proliferation Treaty, and
they see it as a point of national pride, and
they want to keep enriching uranium domestically. The Trump administration
(09:34):
had said it wasn't willing to accept that, and if
Iron wanted to have nuclear reactors or research reactors, it
would have to import enriched uranium from abroad. They couldn't
get past that very fundamental disagreement in what kind of
deal they were trying to negotiate.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
So, I mean Trump is still saying that a deal
will happen.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Well, I hope there's going to be a deal. I
think it's time for a deal, and we'll see what happens.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Sometimes they have to fight it.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Out, but we're going to see what happens.
Speaker 6 (10:04):
I think there's a good chance you'll.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Be a deal.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
But I mean, what kind of deal could be reached
at this stage? Do you think that talks will resume?
Speaker 5 (10:13):
I think in the very near term. I think that's
wishful thinking.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
I think the Israeli government convinced Trump that military strikes
on Iran would make Iran more amenable to negotiating a
deal into making concessions, and I think right now that
is just a fundamental misreading of the Iranian regime. It
doesn't want to negotiate under fire. It doesn't want to
be seen as capitulating to its enemies in Israel and
(10:40):
in the West. So I think no surprise that the
most recent round of talk scheduled for Sunday was canceled
that the Iranians refused to show up. The question going
forward is at some point does the damage in Iran
get bad enough that they feel compelled to negotiate. The
regime doesn't want to concede on its nuclear program, but
(11:02):
it also wants to survive the war and stay in power,
And so is there a point at which they decide
the only way to survive is to make big concessions
in a new nuclear deal.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
We're not at that point.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
Yet I'm skeptical that Israel by itself can push the
war to that point. But I think that's going to
be the key question going forward.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And just to talk a little more about the US position,
I mean, to what extent does Israel have the implicit
backing of Trump as it takes his action in Iran.
Speaker 6 (11:37):
I think there's no doubt that it has American backing.
I think there's no doubt that Donald Trump not only
knew about Israel's plans ahead of time, but approve.
Speaker 8 (11:48):
Then just hours before the initial Israeli strikes. The President
publicly ward is Real not to do this, saying an
attack could derail long gooing US raw nuclear talks. But
now President Trump is calling those Israeli strikes excellent, saying
he gave Arond the chance to make a deal and
they quote got hit about as hard as you're going
to get hit, adding there's more to come, a lot more.
Speaker 6 (12:10):
And even though America thus far hasn't taken an offensive role,
it hasn't joined Israel and carrying out air strikes, it's
supporting Israel.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
In myriad other ways.
Speaker 6 (12:20):
You have American air defense systems in Israel right now,
helping to shoot down. Some of these are on the
in ballistic missiles. America is sharing intelligence with Israel. It
is obviously resupplying the Israeli army. America is Israel's main
supplier of military equipment, so it is playing a huge
(12:41):
supporting role. The question in the next few days is
whether Israel can convince it to join the war in
an offensive capacity as well. Israel would like American help
to strike at four Dough, that deeply buried enrichment facility.
It has asked America to join air space strikes on
four Dough. Trump so far has not agreed, but the
(13:03):
Israeli government is trying to make the case that this
war will only be successful with American military help. It's
really pushing Trump to get involved.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
For years, greg Israel and the Allies, they've warned about
the axis of Iran and Hezbola, and the Asside regime
in Syria. But over the course of the last year
we've seen now all three of these either wiped out
or massively degraded. So just how much at this point
has the Middle East been reshaped?
Speaker 6 (13:35):
If this had happened two years ago, Israel striking Iran
Hezbola would have been the first line of defense. That
is why Iran spent so many years arming it, funding it,
training it was so that it could, in a moment
like this, unleash thousands of rockets and missiles on Israel.
It hasn't done a thing because it has been so
(13:57):
badly weakened than because now it's in a much weaker
position domestically. Not just its military capabilities have been damaged,
but it's in a weaker position politically in Lebanon, and
I think it's nervous about taking the risk of dragging
Lebanon back into a war. So again, Iran feels like
it can't rely on these proxies. It still has Houthis
(14:18):
and Yemen who can fire the occasional drone or ballistic
missile at Israel. It still has militias in Iraq, although
so far they haven't seemed keen on getting involved. But
Iran finds itself having to defend itself in a way
that it never expected to.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Well, Greg, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Also in the news today, Australian officials are working on
plans to help Australians leave Iran and Israel, but Foreign
Minister Penny Wong ones it may take time due to
airspace being closed. Senator Wong says about three hundred and
fifty people in Iran and three hundred in Israel have
already registered for assistance and the government is working on
a plan for assisted departures when it is safe to
(15:13):
do so. And Prime Minister Anthony Alberinezi will open form
more talks for Australia to join a new EU security
and defense partnership. The Prime Minister will use this week's
G seven summit to hold talks with the EU Commission
President to explore areas of greater cooperation, including foreign interference,
counter terrorism and defense capabilities. I'm Ruby Jones. This is
(15:33):
seven am. See you tomorrow.
Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military
operation to roll back the Uranian threat to Israel's very survival.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
On Friday, Israel launched what it says was a preemptive
strike on Iran meant to address an immediate and inevitable
threat on Iran's part to construct a nuclear bomb well.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Israel's military says two hundred fighter jets completed strikes on
more than one hundred targets, including nuclear facilities, in different
areas of Iran. Israel's military claims Iran is advancing a
secret program to build nuclear weapons, and says Tehran has
the capacity to make a nuclear bomb within days.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I want to assure the civilized world we will not
let the world's most dangerous regime get the world's most
dangerous weapons.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
The strikes killed key military figures in Iran as well
as several nuclear scientists, Promising payback would be severe, Iran
launched attacks of its own.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
When Iran's Supreme leader I Tolder Ali Kamini issued this statement,
he said, the Zionist regime opened its filthy and bloody
hand to commit a crime in our beloved country and
revealed its evil nature by striking residential centers more than
in the past.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
All this comes as talks were scheduled between Iran and
the US over the future of Iran's nuclear program, which
have now been canceled. From Schwarz Media, I'm Ruby Jones.
This is seven AM today, Middle East correspondent for The
Economist Greek Carlstrom on why Israel chose this moment to strike,
(01:47):
how it's angling for regime change in Iran, and what
it will take to de escalate the conflict. It's Tuesday,
June seventeenth, So Greg, let's begin with the strikes the
Israeli government launched last week on Iran. It was calling
(02:08):
them preemptive, saying that there was an immediate, inevitable threat
from Iran to construct a nuclear bomb. So is that true.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
We don't know, is the short answer.
Speaker 6 (02:20):
The Israeli government has not provided any evidence to substantiate
that claim. It's not to say there isn't evidence, but
they haven't provided any, and what their claiming contradicts what
just about every foreign intelligence agency had estimated in recent months.
The American Director of National Intelligence said just as recently
(02:43):
as March in congressional testimony that America didn't think Iran
was actively trying to build a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
The assessment was that even though.
Speaker 6 (02:53):
Iran was close to being able to enrich weapons grade uranium,
it didn't yet have the capabilities to fast that into
a working nuclear bomb. That would have probably taken a
year to a year and a half. So, again, what
the Israelis are saying very very different from what everyone
else in the intelligence community has said.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Okay, and so in terms of the I guess achievability
of being able to wipe out Iran's nuclear capability, what
do we know about whether or not Israel has the
capacity to do that.
Speaker 6 (03:26):
Well, it certainly has the capacity to set back Iran's
nuclear program if you look at some of the targets
that it has struck so far. It seems to have
destroyed the above ground enrichment facility at Niton's, which was
one of the facilities that Iran used to enrich uranium
to sixty percent purity, which is a short hop away
(03:48):
from weapons grade. It also seems to have destroyed, for example,
another facility near Isfahan that converts uranium gas into uranium metal,
which is a large component in a nuclear warhead.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
That seems to have been destroyed.
Speaker 6 (04:04):
These things will take many months, if not a year
or two for Iran to rebuild, and it doesn't have
replacements for those facilities. So it has set back what
we know of Iran's nuclear program. But then there are
a bunch of questions. For example, the stockpile of highly
enriched uranium that Iran has, where is that?
Speaker 5 (04:25):
Has it dispersed some of that to facilities.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
That we don't know about that the IAEA, the UNS
Nuclear Agency doesn't know about. It's possible that there is
a clandestine piece to Iran's nuclear program that Israel won't
be able to destroy that Iran could then use to
try and rush towards producing a bomb.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Now, so why do you think Israel chose this moment
to strike and also chose to assassinate the specific Iranian
leaders that it did.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
I think there's two goals there.
Speaker 6 (04:56):
One is a short term tactical goal, which is to
make harder for Iran to organize a response a retaliation,
and we saw that on Friday. It took the better
part of the day for Iran to put together a
ballistic missile attack on Israel, in part because you know,
the commander of the missile force had been killed, and
so there was no one to authorize that response.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
That's one thing.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
And then I think the second motivation, and this is
becoming increasingly clear if you listen to Begnimi, N'taanno or
other Israeli officials, the second motivation is I think they
would like to destabilize, if.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
Not change, the regime in Iran.
Speaker 6 (05:35):
And I think the calculation is that wiping out the
military and security leadership of the country is going to
make the regime unstable, and for Israeli policymakers, the hope
is that it will bring down that regime.
Speaker 7 (05:48):
Tonight, I wish to speak to you, the proud people
of Iran. As I said yesterday and many times before,
Israel's fight is not with you. It's not with you,
the brave people of Iran, whom we respect and admire.
Our fight is with our common enemy, a murderous regime
(06:09):
that both oppresses you and impoblishes you. Brave people of Iran.
Your light will defeat the darkness. I'm with you. The
people of Israel.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Are with you.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah. As you say, Israel is being quite explicit about
its intentions there and Iran, you know, it's a huge
place in the country of ninety million people, So what
could happen in the next few weeks and months.
Speaker 6 (06:37):
That is a very good question for which I don't
have a definitive answer. I mean, I think in the
very short term right now, there's going to be a
bit of a rally around the flag effect in Iran.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
People dislike the regime.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
It is deeply unpopular, particularly amongst the young people in Iran,
But that doesn't necessarily mean that they want a foreign
country to come in and bomb the regime and change
it by force.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Those are two different things.
Speaker 6 (07:08):
So I don't think, you know, in the sort of
immediate term, we're going to see unrest in the streets.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
But I think the slightly longer term question is, you know, what.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
Does this do to the stability the legitimacy of the regime.
It has spent decades telling its people that, you know,
it is preparing for exactly this sort of moment. It is,
you know, defending the homeland, and it's invested heavily in
a missile program and a nuclear program and building up
proxies in the region. It's neglected it's domestic responsibilities of
(07:40):
you know, focusing on the economy and building infrastructure and
things like that in order to build up what it
said was a defense against foreign threat. And then when
that foreign threat arrives, you know, the regime turned out
to be absolutely shot through with intelligence leaks and security failureism.
So what does that do to the legitimacy of the regime?
What does that mean politically in Iran going forward? We're
(08:03):
not sure yet, but I think there are going to
be some ripple.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Effects coming up after the break. Will Iran pursue its
nuclear program after this? Greg These attacks came as talks
were scheduled to take place between the US and Iran,
So tell me what they were supposed to be discussing.
Speaker 6 (08:28):
So a decade ago, in twenty fifteen, the US and
other world powers signed a deal with Iran, the JCPOA,
which put limits on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for
easing some of the economic sanctions on Iran. Trump abandoned
that deal in twenty eighteen. He called it the worst
deal ever negotiated. He promised to negotiate a better one.
(08:51):
He failed to do that in his first term. Joe
Biden failed to negotiate a new deal when he was president,
and so Trump has been trying again to revive that agreement.
There were five rounds of talks between the United States
and are On between April and the start of the
war a few days ago. But the talks had really
(09:12):
been hung up on a sort of fundamental question of
whether this agreement would allow Iran to continue enriching uranium
or not. The Iranians insist, and they're not wrong, that
enrichment is a right under the Non Proliferation Treaty, and
they see it as a point of national pride, and
they want to keep enriching uranium domestically. The Trump administration
(09:34):
had said it wasn't willing to accept that, and if
Iron wanted to have nuclear reactors or research reactors, it
would have to import enriched uranium from abroad. They couldn't
get past that very fundamental disagreement in what kind of
deal they were trying to negotiate.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
So, I mean Trump is still saying that a deal
will happen.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Well, I hope there's going to be a deal. I
think it's time for a deal, and we'll see what happens.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Sometimes they have to fight it.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Out, but we're going to see what happens.
Speaker 6 (10:04):
I think there's a good chance you'll.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Be a deal.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
But I mean, what kind of deal could be reached
at this stage? Do you think that talks will resume?
Speaker 5 (10:13):
I think in the very near term. I think that's
wishful thinking.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
I think the Israeli government convinced Trump that military strikes
on Iran would make Iran more amenable to negotiating a
deal into making concessions, and I think right now that
is just a fundamental misreading of the Iranian regime. It
doesn't want to negotiate under fire. It doesn't want to
be seen as capitulating to its enemies in Israel and
(10:40):
in the West. So I think no surprise that the
most recent round of talk scheduled for Sunday was canceled
that the Iranians refused to show up. The question going
forward is at some point does the damage in Iran
get bad enough that they feel compelled to negotiate. The
regime doesn't want to concede on its nuclear program, but
(11:02):
it also wants to survive the war and stay in power,
And so is there a point at which they decide
the only way to survive is to make big concessions
in a new nuclear deal.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
We're not at that point.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
Yet I'm skeptical that Israel by itself can push the
war to that point. But I think that's going to
be the key question going forward.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And just to talk a little more about the US position,
I mean, to what extent does Israel have the implicit
backing of Trump as it takes his action in Iran.
Speaker 6 (11:37):
I think there's no doubt that it has American backing.
I think there's no doubt that Donald Trump not only
knew about Israel's plans ahead of time, but approve.
Speaker 8 (11:48):
Then just hours before the initial Israeli strikes. The President
publicly ward is Real not to do this, saying an
attack could derail long gooing US raw nuclear talks. But
now President Trump is calling those Israeli strikes excellent, saying
he gave Arond the chance to make a deal and
they quote got hit about as hard as you're going
to get hit, adding there's more to come, a lot more.
Speaker 6 (12:10):
And even though America thus far hasn't taken an offensive role,
it hasn't joined Israel and carrying out air strikes, it's
supporting Israel.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
In myriad other ways.
Speaker 6 (12:20):
You have American air defense systems in Israel right now,
helping to shoot down. Some of these are on the
in ballistic missiles. America is sharing intelligence with Israel. It
is obviously resupplying the Israeli army. America is Israel's main
supplier of military equipment, so it is playing a huge
(12:41):
supporting role. The question in the next few days is
whether Israel can convince it to join the war in
an offensive capacity as well. Israel would like American help
to strike at four Dough, that deeply buried enrichment facility.
It has asked America to join air space strikes on
four Dough. Trump so far has not agreed, but the
(13:03):
Israeli government is trying to make the case that this
war will only be successful with American military help. It's
really pushing Trump to get involved.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
For years, greg Israel and the Allies, they've warned about
the axis of Iran and Hezbola, and the Asside regime
in Syria. But over the course of the last year
we've seen now all three of these either wiped out
or massively degraded. So just how much at this point
has the Middle East been reshaped?
Speaker 6 (13:35):
If this had happened two years ago, Israel striking Iran
Hezbola would have been the first line of defense. That
is why Iran spent so many years arming it, funding it,
training it was so that it could, in a moment
like this, unleash thousands of rockets and missiles on Israel.
It hasn't done a thing because it has been so
(13:57):
badly weakened than because now it's in a much weaker
position domestically. Not just its military capabilities have been damaged,
but it's in a weaker position politically in Lebanon, and
I think it's nervous about taking the risk of dragging
Lebanon back into a war. So again, Iran feels like
it can't rely on these proxies. It still has Houthis
(14:18):
and Yemen who can fire the occasional drone or ballistic
missile at Israel. It still has militias in Iraq, although
so far they haven't seemed keen on getting involved. But
Iran finds itself having to defend itself in a way
that it never expected to.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Well, Greg, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Also in the news today, Australian officials are working on
plans to help Australians leave Iran and Israel, but Foreign
Minister Penny Wong ones it may take time due to
airspace being closed. Senator Wong says about three hundred and
fifty people in Iran and three hundred in Israel have
already registered for assistance and the government is working on
a plan for assisted departures when it is safe to
(15:13):
do so. And Prime Minister Anthony Alberinezi will open form
more talks for Australia to join a new EU security
and defense partnership. The Prime Minister will use this week's
G seven summit to hold talks with the EU Commission
President to explore areas of greater cooperation, including foreign interference,
counter terrorism and defense capabilities. I'm Ruby Jones. This is
(15:33):
seven am. See you tomorrow.
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