Angry Planet - Making the Case America Was Winning in Iran

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

Recorded March 24, 2026. Subscribe at angryplanetpod.com to hear episodes first and commercial free.Last week an article published in Al Jazeera by an academic at the University of Doha in Qatar proposed something that felt crazy to some western war watchers: America and Israel’s strategy in Iran is working.On this episode of Angry Planet, author Muhanad Seloom is here to explain his position. Seloom is an assistant professor of international politics and security at the University of Doha. He’s also an Iraqi who lived through the Iran-Iraq war and both US invasions. From his perspective, the US has degraded Iran’s ability to hurt its neighbors in the long term and changed the regime.What comes next is a more complicated question.Why did this war even start?Setting aside morality and legality to look at ground truths“Iran is much weaker”Missile production, missile rangeThe highly enriched uranium is in one place“The regime has changed. Whether we like it or not, the regime has changed.”The case against the new KhameneiWhat is it like to live nextdoor to Iran?There’s a reason no one is standing up for IranWhy isn’t the GCC doing more?What happens if we pick up and leave?What’s the plan for what happens next?“It’s not easy to rise up.”Charging tolls on Hormuz“I have to say this: I am against the war in any way.”What about the JCPOA?A great unanswered question of historyAir campaigns don’t win wars…did America really lose in Afghanistan and Iraq?“War is hell.”Labelling Ethno-Political Groups as TerroristsThe US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is whySupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. Hello and welcome back to another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. I am Matthew Galt. We are again talking about Iran today. We're going to have a different perspective, but I think one that is necessary.

And I've got a great guest for it. Sir, will you introduce yourself to the audience? Well, first, thank you very much, Matthew, for having me. And my name is Mohanah Saluma. I am an assistant professor in international politics and security at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. I'm based here in Doha, Qatar. And before that, I was an associate lecturer at the University of Exeter in the UK. So we're here today to talk to you because I got sent last week, you published this thing in Al Jazeera,

the U.S. Israel strategy against Iran is working here is why. I think five different people sent this to me. And I had all kinds of different reactions from, can you believe this to what do you think about this, some people with more open hearts? But I think that it's, it has a lot of important stuff in it. And I think that in America, we tend to get obsessed with the domestic piece of this

and we don't pay attention to what's going on in the region and what's happening to Iran's neighbors. But this also was eight days ago, I guess nine days ago now that this published. And I've got to ask, has anything changed in the way you're thinking? Have you updated? Like, what are you feeling now?

Is this still working? Great. So, yes, it has been written now nine days ago. And then, just like everybody else, yes, you're based in the U.S. and the US has its own polarized domestic, if you like politics, just like everywhere else. But here we're watching the war very closely,

and we're living it. Doha has been attacked, and it is something that nobody wants. And the war in the first place is, you know, we tried everything we could here in the region to trying to avoid this war, and nobody succeeded, unfortunately. But that side of the world, of the story, and I will come probably to that later in more detail,

is irrelevant to the strategic achievements of the war itself in terms of its operational, if you like, aspects. So, yes, it is something that, you know, went probably against much of the mainstream reporting coming out of the region and that, you know, the U.S. is not doing very well. In not, you know, in summer, if you like, or in short, I don't think much has changed. So I still stand by the arguments that I made in that article. And the reason is, if you look at why the U.S. came to the war along with Israel,

they do have a compelling argument. While Iran tried to engage in the negotiations and there were mediators over the last, I don't know, 10 years, in reality. the U.S. concluded somehow that this is not enough. And, you know, maybe at the beginning of the war, and understandably, that there was a lot of criticism to the U.S. because there was no clear justification for why the U.S. and Israel would hit Iran, would go to war. Again, it's a country that is relatively massive with 90 plus million population. But as the war unfolded, especially in the first, if you like, 14 to 15 days of the war,

we could see that Iran, that, you know, why the war is going on, and why the U.S. went for that. And I would start with, you know, because we get, if you like, we get drowned in these, you know, all breaking the news and what's going on, and, you know, not day to day, minute to minute. But then if we step back and look at the, bigger picture, we would see that the war started because the U.S., and Israel is its partner. Let's look at the U.S. The U.S. is the major power that is keen on making sure that Iran does not own a nuclear weapon.

And the second thing is that Iran has been a threat in the U.S. interest in the region, and also there is history between the two countries that goes back to 1979, but also it goes back to post-2003, the invasion of Iraq, where Iranian agents and militias in the region targeted and killed U.S. personnel and diplomats. So, you know, if we look at the fuller picture, we will see that, you know, the two countries have not been friendly to each other, and also the U.S. feels that Iran is a crossing a red line, which is trying to own or, you know, manufacture and weaponize their nuclear system. Now, the Iranians still, even today, they cannot explain why they have enriched. to uranium up to 60%. And this was declared in Geneva during the negotiations. So what we are looking here, you know, we're looking at a war that has started. There are, you know, separate

debates that I am, you know, in my article and even today, I try not to engage with because, you know, there are better people to talk about whether this war is moral or not, whether this war is legal or I think there are people who are more qualified maybe to talk about this. And, you know, there are many compelling arguments for an agonist. But that, you know, we need to understand where this is started and where it is now. Now, when we move to the next phase where I make the argument, because my article is mostly about how this war has been achieving its set objectives. If we define what the U.S. and Israel wanted to do in the first place, they wanted to make sure that Iran does not develop or have a nuclear weapon.

And the second thing that they wanted to make sure that Iran does not have the capacity and the capability to threaten U.S. interests and U.S. allies in the region. And that has been, you know, accomplished to a large extent successfully. And we can start with basically the decapitation of the leadership. If you go back, today is the 24th of March. If we go back to the 27th of February and compared to today, who is left of the leadership, of the top leadership, the first, second, third, and fourth line. Not many.

A few. Probably we can count them in one hand. And this causes decision paralysis in the command and control in Iran. It also, you know, it causes loss of coordination capacity. And it's very clear now because over the last few days, we hear that the U.S. is trying to engage the post-HROMA crisis. They tried to engage in negotiations, and they're not finding many people to talk to. And, you know, this could be taken as a criticism, but that also means that Iran is much weaker. If we look also at Iran's capacity to produce and launch ballistic missiles, we would see that this has been reduced greatly.

Actually, today, just this afternoon, I was reading one report talking about that Iran's range of missiles now has been reduced to less than 15,500 kilometers. So the U.S. is, you know, is in the U.S. and Israel, obviously, they are going in that direction where they have disrupted the command and control, caused decision paralysis from the top down, and at the same time, they are putting more pressure on Iran capacity to launch attacks against the U.S. That is one side of the story, and it is, you know, these are obviously strategic objectives. And maybe the, these, these are obviously strategic objectives. And maybe the, the elephant in the room, which is the nuclear capacity, that part of the story as well, the U.S. and Israel at least reportedly, obviously I don't have any classified information about what is going on there, but at least reportedly, the 450 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, they are in one place and in gas form in cylinders. And the U.S. intelligence community is saying that they are trapped in one place under the ground, and there is only one narrow entry or entrance point to that place, and that the US and Israel are monitoring this entrance

point very closely, and they're making sure that they are not being taken away or, you know, to develop them into a nuclear bomb. So all of this looks, you know, to me, does not look like a failure story. That is one side. The other side is, and, where the media has been very much focused, and rightly so, which is the Strait of Hermes. It is a strategic chalk point, and it has disrupted the international economy. But that the strait itself was not the cause of the war. What the Iran did, basically, they went for the Strait of Hermes, knowing that this will take much of the attention because it causes a lot of disruption and also it raises the prices of

oil, which is affected everybody from the U.S., probably down to China and Japan. But the Iranians on the other side, they don't have the capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz for a very long time. Any country, even small than Iran, can disrupt the flow of vessels, you know, through the Strait of Hormuz. But to make sure that they control this for a very long time, I think the U.S. has the upper hand there and they could reopen the straight of hormones if they use force. And, you know, discuss in such a topic. And this is, you know, there are so many things to talk about here.

And I don't want to also, you know, go in different directions. I need, you know, to be focused here so that, you know, listeners to this podcast understand the complexity on the ground and how much the U.S. is superior when it comes to conducting this military operation. Imagine the U.S. does not have any place in the Middle East where it has its troops or its missiles or its jets stationed or refueling or having any kind of support. They're flying from far, far away either from the U.S. or from the Indian Ocean or from the U.K. or from Cyprus. all the way long, conducting aerial, you know, bombardments or targeting inside Iran, and then they have to go back or have aerial refueling.

And this is, you know, this signals how complex this operation is. None of the countries, as far as I know, in the region, especially GCC countries which are adjacent to Iran, have given green light to the U.S. to use their bases. And this is their argument against Iran. Why are you targeting us? So what the U.S. is doing basically systematically, since they won, they have targeted Iran capacity, they have targeted Iran command and control, and they have made sure so far that Iran does not go for producing that bomb. With the strait of Hermes, the U.S. is yet to reopen it. It's more complicated than it seems, and it seems to me that the U.S. has already sent almost 5,000 Marines to the U.S.

region. And also, as far as I have here from the reports coming out of the U.S., these 5,000 Marines have not been canceled. They are on the way to the Middle East or they have already arrived here, which means that, you know, the U.S. is, you know, having something planned for that. Maybe one of the criticisms and rightly, so again, the current campaign against Iran is that the U.S. has not been clear about its strategic objectives. What they want to achieve is it the, because, you know, President Trump has not been consistent with his communication. He has first said that he wants regime change and then he changed his mind to something else. Netanyahu has been saying different things as well. And this, you know, this is a valid criticism. And also the, probably

the more critical part of this is that the US and Israel, you know, both of them, they haven't told us, well, once this military campaign ends, what the political aspect of it would look like. Because, you know, you cannot resolve what is going on now in Iran by military might only. At some point, there have to be some kind of a political resolution to this. And do they have the plan in place to me and many others? It seems that the U.S. does not have that plan yet. But also, you know, maybe again, that's not a fatal, if you like, weakness, because this is not the first war that countries would wait to see what the battlefield would yield

and then they will adjust their political plan for later on. But to me, it seems that the U.S. have already achieved some of its subjective, strategic objectives. What they did at first, the regime has changed. Whether we like it or not, the regime has changed. And this regime, maybe we have also to, I should have maybe explained this early, for those who do not know Iran. Iran has two systems in one. They have the normal, formal system that every other country has on the planet,

which is the president, the ministers, council of ministers, speaker of parliament, and these people have not been targeted by decapitation. The president is still alive. The foreign minister is speaking. Speaker of Parliament, everybody else. And why they're not being targeted because the U.S. and Israel and everyone else, they understand that this would be a war crime, this would be against the international law, and it's something that only Iraq countries would do.

But then you have the IRGC, which is the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which is a designated terrorist organization. And that I would assume, or I would expect the U.S. to use this justification for going for this mass decapitation of leadership. And this is a religious organization. This is not a political organization in the first place. And the decapitation of Ayatollah Khomeini, the supreme leader, the father, causes so much disruption to the command and control of the IRGC and Iran's proxies outside. far beyond any other comparative case that we know in history. And the reason is, because he has religious authority on top of being the leader of the IRTC.

Now, all of these people have been decapitated in the first, second, and third line of command. His son does not have the same religious authority. And there are so many reasons for that. First, his son does not have the religious education to reach there. So he's not Ayatollah. You know, Ayatollah in the theology, in the Shia theology, basically it's like PhD in, if you like, in Western education. So they have a master degree, which is called the internal research, and then they reach external research, which gives them Ayatollah level. He doesn't have that.

The second thing that, he has been voted out by his own father. in May 2025, his father nominated three potential successors when he heard that Israel is targeting him and that Israel wanted to assassinate him. So he said there are three potential successors and Mishdaba, his son, who is the current Supreme Leader, was not one of them. And we don't know what is happening in Iran and how Mishdaba has been elected. And on top of that, we haven't heard from Mishdaba yet. he's in hiding. And this gives you, I think, a clear idea where this campaign stands. So maybe,

you know, these, in a nutshell, that, you know, this is where my argument comes from. The U.S. has achieved so much. They changed the leadership already and the campaign is going on. They have degraded the Iranian military capacity. They have caused a massive, decision paralysis in the command and control. And they made sure that the nuclear capacity or capability of Iran is being monitored and in check. And much of it has been destroyed last June. And this time around my understanding that the U.S. targeted Natanz site as well. And they're avoiding Bushahar, which is close to the region and could cause an environmental catastrophe. So this is in a nutshell where we stand, and this is why I think the U.S. and Israel so far have been achieving their strategic objectives.

All right. Let's start going through my questions. One is a bit of context and table setting. And I think it's important for people in America to understand. What is it like to have Iran as a neighbor? Okay. To whom? To like what I'm trying to say is that I think there's sometimes a perception that that I want to make clear that like Iran is not kind of what you were saying at the beginning. They've got they have regional proxies. They want to be an influence in the region. It is not as if they've been sitting, they sat on their laurels for for 20, 30 years and have done nothing in the area. So, like, from where you sit, what does it like to live next to this country?

Well, it's a trouble-making country, and that has been made very clear by almost every neighbor in the region. I recall, I think, five days ago, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, when he was asked about Iran, you know, why Saudi Arabia is not supporting Iran. Iran is, quote-unquote, Islamic country, and you're an Islamic country, and, you know, you have been supporting all the Islamic countries, why not Iran? And he said, well, what Iran has contributed to the Islamic community of countries? They have exported terror, they have exported militias, and we have many problems with Iran. Actually, most of its neighbors have been hedging with Iran. Very few countries have friendly relations with Iran. And I would probably today, we would have only Roman, the Sultanate of Raman, trying to maintain, you know, friendly relations with Iran.

Over the last few weeks, Saudi Arabia and Qatar expelled Iranian diplomats and today Lebanon as well. And for many people, especially in Lebanon, they feel that they have sensed for the first time in 40 years some kind of freedom that the Iranian ambassador in Beirut has been expelled. I don't know if he left yet because he might resist that, but the feeling there is liberated. And now you see also what happened in Syria and in Iraq. And so, yeah, it's not, Iran has not been doing very well in terms of maintaining good neighborly relations with its neighbors. And by the way, this is not exclusive to Arab countries to its west. In Afghanistan, Iran does not have a very good reputation. And in Afghanistan, imagine Afghanistan is one of the countries that are described as extreme.

They had al-Qaeda, and still today they have not normalized relations with the rest of the world. But when you talk to Afghani officials from Taliban today, they would criticize Iran and Iran's role and the IRGC role in their country. With Pakistan, you know, I think last year they exchanged some kind of missiles. and they keep each other in check. India and Russia, you know, and Iran, you know, maybe if you look, if you take a bigger picture and step back, it's surprising to somebody like me who has been watching, you know, security issues in the world that Iran did not manage to have any allies.

It's, you know, it's very surprising that Iran, even since last June, no country went to the United States. nation security council to call for a meeting, you know, discussing Iran's war. And I don't mean this recent war, because Iran went, there was some kind of a United Nations Security Council meeting last June after Israel attacked Iran. And it was called on by Iran itself, not by any other country. And Iran was not supported by China. It was not supported by Russia. And today as well, Iran is being attacked and nobody's coming to its help. If we compare this to its next neighbor, Saddam,

and Saddam really did not have the best of reputation. Saddam managed to pull some kind of support maybe from Russia, from China, but mostly it was France and some other countries. They really resisted the war against Iraq and there were some demonstrations. I think it was massive demonstration in London in 2003 against the war. But have a look at Iran this time. It's been attacked for almost a month now. This is the fourth week. And the resistance, again, is the war is not as much because Iran managed over the last five decades to really gain that bad reputation. Do you think that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, everyone or Kuwait could be doing more? Why don't they throw in? I mean, they're taking the damage, right? Bahrain got hit again.

this morning. There is a sense that they are sitting and waiting, and obviously conducting air defenses. Do you think that they should be doing more? Well, they should be or no, that's their decision. But what I see here is I don't see them going into this war any time soon, unless civilians are being targeted. So, you know, while there is escalation...

I believe some, like in Kuwait and Bahrain, civilians have died, right, as a result of Iranian strikes. Yeah, as collateral damage, they were not targeted, like, civilian areas were not targeted as a primary target as far as I know. But they were collateral damage, unfortunately, you know, and some of them are Bahraini, some others are workers or expats. And, you know, and in Saudi Arabia and in Qatar as well. So there were some kind of casualties, but not the kind of casualties you would expect in war. And so I don't see them, you know, joining the war unless something, you know, some of the red lives would be crossed, such as their infrastructures are

being targeted in a way that would disrupt their lives or civilians are, you know, would be killed. The other thing that is, you know, maybe not being talked about, that these, these countries have U.S. bases. And, and they're very, very, very, very. much anti-Iran. There is no doubt about that. Even Saudi Arabia that, you know, they have diplomatic relationships with Iran. They only had that a few years ago. And it was a brokered and guaranteed by China that Iran would never target Saudi Arabia again. And so the Chinese, you know, now I think they feel humiliated by the Iranians because they target the Saudi Arabia again and their guarantee means nothing. So what we are looking here is these countries are watching

they're not publicly supporting at least this campaign, but they feel very upset with Iran. And I hear reports that these countries are telling Iran that if you keep going at us, we might join this war. And I believe if these countries join the war, the Iranian regime would collapse. And the region is, just like I said, imagine the US is conducting this massive war.

Again, it's this massive country only from air. And they have nothing on the ground. They don't have the support in any of these countries. And these countries have borders with Iran or very close to Iran. And so if the U.S., if Iran manages to push these countries to war, then they would, it would be, I think it would be the end of them. And these countries, by the way, while some media reports depict them as weak or they don't have the muscle to do damage, that's not accurate. So imagine that these countries collectively, the GCC countries, they have around 2,000 jets, U.S. jets, from F-15s to F-18s.

And also they have the money. They have the capacity to do a lot of damage. But they don't want to get into this war. Now, the U.S. and Israel decided to do something about it and to force Iran to understand that there is a price for not complying with the international community and disarming or, you know, giving up on its nuclear ambitions. And I think the U.S. in that regard as well, they have been successful so far. And I want to say so far, and I want to make, you know, make it clear that this war is still ongoing. It has not stopped. And the U.S.,

this war for the U.S., I think it cannot afford to lose at this point. And for the region as well, for so many reasons. Imagine now if the war stops, Iran would hold the region as a hostage for many years to come. And these countries, while they're not part of the war, they want to see a clean end to this war. They don't want to, you know, the U.S. to just say that we're, you know, we're done and we're leaving. They want to make sure that this war, you know, ends with the fact that Iran is incapable of threatening the strait of hermers, incapable of, threatening its neighbors. And I would assume that Israel wants to make sure that its safety and security is guaranteed as well. Let's not forget that Israel got hit really hard.

And its national security is, you know, is being threatened. And Israel is a nuclear-capable country. And we don't know what is a threshold for Israel for using these nukes, because it's unlike any other country on Earth. So the definition of existential threat for Israel, I think it's different to the one the UK, US, and other countries have. If we've done such a good job of degrading their capabilities, how then do they hold the region hostage if we pick up and leave right now? That's a fair question. Because they can regenerate if there are no checks and balances.

And this is, you know, this refers to what I mentioned earlier, which is the main criticism of the campaign, that the campaign does not have a publicly available, because they might have something in mind, so a publicly available version of the day after. What is the day after the war? So the, and I would bring another example to a comparative example, to, you know, make this maybe clearer. When the U.S. and coalition forces came to liberate Kuwait in 1991, they had a clear idea what to do. So basically they expelled Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, made sure that Iraq's army was weak. They targeted the military infrastructure and you can see the comparative aspect of this. This is exactly happening

in Iran. And then they told Iraq that you would not be able to have any missiles beyond the 300 kilometers range. That's one. Two, there will be the UN inspection teams inside Iraq. And there will be also different teams in, you know, visiting Iraq regularly to make sure that Iraq does not re-develop and relaunch its military capacities and also its ballistic missiles, because Iraq also had a similar, if you like, ballistic system in Iraq where they were producing scored missiles that, you know, Russian made and they developed them. And also said they had, I think, some other sources for that Korean. And so this made sure that Iraq from 1991 to 2003 was under constant and continued monitoring. They even had cameras in a place all the way long. And then in 2003,

and that also a testament to the success of this regime, and I mean a regime of monitoring. In 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, along with the U.K. and other countries, they, they, you know, Iraq was accused of developing nuclear weapons, but they found nothing, which means the system in a place was successful and the war was unjustified. But that's another criticism for another day. But, you know, the system worked, basically. And so with Iran, if this happens, then, yeah, everybody would be happy except for the Iranian people. And the Iranian people is really, you know, I don't know if they would be able to rise

because people from outside might think of why the Iranian people are not rising up. After four decades of living under such a regime, it's not easy to rise up, especially with the economic conditions and with what happened in the last few months when the people took out to this street. But overall, yes, if the U.S. just leave without a clear regime of what is going to happen after the war, then yes, that would, Iran would definitely be able to hold the region hostage and they would cause a lot of trouble. You can see them now they're behaving like pirates. I just before I started this conversation, I was looking at the news and I said that the IRGC is imposing $2 million on

each vessel trying to go through the, you know, we are in 2026 and this is unheard of. but because the regime now is not in control. And you would hear, maybe I would end this part with this, you would hear the foreign minister, for example, talking of Iran, talking about restoring relations with the neighborhood. And one made an anecdote, there was a meeting of Turkey, the foreign minister of Turkey, some GCC countries in Riyadh, a few days ago, maybe five days ago.

And the foreign minister of Turkey said, said, Arakchi, the foreign minister of Iran, was with him on the phone, assuring him that there will be no attacks again, so it already from now on. And he said, while I was outside in the garden, I saw the Iranian ballistic missiles flying over my head, hitting Riyadh. So I don't see, you know, I don't see the normal feel like government of Iran is in control.

It is the IRGC, and the IRDC is un-predictable and it is, you know, a designated group. And, you know, Iran, how to say this, I am again as the war. You know, I started this conversation by being quite, you know, I might come across as if I am a pro this war. I am against this war and any war. But, you know, I think in analysis, we have to look at the campaign itself, you know, away from the moral.

and legal and other aspects. These things, you know, can be discussed. And, you know, and many other people are, you know, making very good conversation about that. Many, many good arguments for an agonist and mostly against the war. But still, the campaign is delivering on its strategic objectives and the Iranian regime as it stands now.

I think this war is not going in its favor. You describe, okay, first I got to ask. So do you think that then, if we go back to before Trump, you said like in the Iraq situation, that monitoring from 91 to 2003 worked, do you think the JCPOA was a good deal? Was that a decent monitoring regime?

that had been set up? Well, that's a massive topic that would require another two episodes, but... Fair enough. But, like, if we can get in, like, just a couple minutes. Yeah. So, but... I think the proof is in the pudding, as they say. Why would Iran have all this capacity now?

How would they... How did they manage to enrich uranium up to 60% if the previous regime was working properly? Because, you know, there's so many, I know, you know, I met with former Obama administration officials and here in Doha and elsewhere. And they do have very compelling arguments why the JCPA was working. But I think where we are today is basically it's, you know, it's going from one negotiations to another. And that gave Iran the space. to develop its nuclear system.

You know what is unsettling about this? And again, I think Iran has the right to have the nuclear knowledge and for civilian purposes, just like any other country on Earth. But the problem is that Iran today cannot explain why they have 60% plus enriched uranium. Because according to, I am no expert in nuclear, energy or nuclear systems. But, you know, what I have here from experts in the topic or, you know, nuclear experts

that have a 60%, it means that you have that 60% enriched uranium. It means that you're ready in these to, you know, weaponize them. So why would Iran need that? It's, it is, as far as my understanding, it is trivial to go from 60 to weapons grade. that's like the threshold number basically. It's kind of the number that you have if you want everyone to be a little concerned about what you're doing.

So basically, you know, for Iran, and this is, you know, to answer your question, it means that the previous system didn't work. And when we started comparing that with Iraq, Iraq did not have anything. After all, they couldn't find a single thing in Iraq. And I have met with with, you know, members of the team, of the teams, successive teams that were monitoring in Iraq,

and most of them, when I asked them, did you find any kind of evidence? They said nothing that is, you know, compelling that Iraq had anything. And in 2003, the U.S. was in full control of the whole country. They couldn't find anything. With Iran, it's a different story. And maybe, you know, why this latest round of negotiations in Geneva failed? And this. And this, you know, why this is a different story? And This is what Jared Kushner and Tom Barrack said. They said that the Iranian side told them that we have this many kilos, 450 kilos of enriched uranium, and these, according to our scientists, can help us make 10 nuclear bombs.

And the U.S. negotiating team said, okay, well, I think there is nothing else to talk about. Basically, it's implicitly telling them that we could go weapon. agree. I think the Iranians have said that, you know, everyone's going to tell their own story. I think the Iranians said that that meeting went a different way, that they had

said that they would downblend but that Whitkoff and Kushner didn't quite understand what that meant. Like that they could walk back the 60 percent and like turn it into a different, like downgrade it essentially. Yeah, that was...

Sorry, go ahead. No, that was part of the statements coming out of the Iranian team and probably that what they have said later but you don't start the conversation with that I have 450 kilograms that could help me make 10 nuclear bombs but you know as a starting point I'm I'm ready to negotiate if you give me what I want maybe I would down the blend them the US demand were that these 450 kilograms would be transferred to another country and they were open that these could go to Russia or any country that or China any country that the Iranians

chooses. But, you know, not to get into the integrity of the negotiations, what I'm trying to say here is that the JCPOA did not work. It did not work. It did not prevent Iran. And Iran was there in terms of having the centrifuges, in terms of having a rich uranium, and also in terms of not complying with the international community, with the Atomic Energy Association. I think recently the United Nations Atomic, I think, director or something, he said, I don't know the exact designation, what is his title, but I'm happy to share that with you afterwards. So he said something. He said Iran really did not comply with us, and we were unhappy about their compliance. I think this is going to be My pushback on this would be

And this is going to be one of those things Where it will be one of the great Unanswered questions of history Because it was agreed to in 2015 entered into force then And then like Trump gets into office And does away with it Was it given a chance to succeed

And after your negotiating partner Pulls out of their side of the deal What is the incentive for Iran To keep adhering to it? not and again, I don't want to, like, I don't want to defend Iran because they are, like, specifically on this, because they did play, they wanted everyone to think that they were going to go for a bomb. They absolutely did. They did everything short of, like, making them. Because, like, and I think that they thought that that strategic ambiguity was going to get them space to the negotiating table and it has not worked out super well. But, like, I think that, like, the JCPOA was killed before it was given a chance to work.

And maybe we, maybe, unless you've got a response, maybe we make sure the rest of the podcast is not about the JCPOA. Okay, well, in short, I think, you know, that is, that, that, that conversation would continue. But you don't go and ruin the trust with the international community. The nuclear file is not a U.S.-Iran file. even though the U.S. is leading the effort. This is vis-a-vis its neighbors. This is vis-a-vis Israel. This is vis-a-vis the international community.

Iran has commitments under international agreements. And, you know, just like what Iraq did then, and it's something that, you know, I have a paper coming out with, you know, on this very topic. And Iraq, what Iraq did, it broke that trust with the international community because of lying again and again and again, nobody trusted what Iraq had or did not have. And so with Iran now, I think the international community is asking around a very pointed question.

Why did you want us to believe that you had the bomb or you're capable of making it? If the main reason you need it is for energy and medical purposes, why would you go in that direction? So that is the short answer. All right, let's get back to your piece, because I want to go through some of this. Your argument, and I think you've made it pretty well, is that the jewels in Iran's military crown are degraded, right? So that is proxies and the ability to strike with missiles outside of their own territory. Yes?

Am I missing any jewels? Well, they still have that. The war is there. It's the target in that direction. It has been degraded, but it's still there. You know, you cannot. So basically the aim, the strategic aim of this war is not to end everything Iran has from error. You cannot do that.

You cannot change the regime from the air as well. But what you can do, you can make sure that it has been degraded. Iran's capacity today is nothing like on the 27th of February. I think that's a fact. Yeah. No, I'm glad you said that, that you can't finish this from the air. So I think that's important here. And it's, again, I worry specifically about the way the American military thinks about air power.

I am concerned because there's, like I see just from a purely practical military point of view, there's kind of two options here for America. And one is you just keep the air campaign going and you hope someone else goes in on the ground to finish pieces of this job or you have to go in on the ground and finish this job. Like one thing outstanding is the nuclear material. And if your goal is to make sure that that nuclear material is neutralized, you know where, yes, we do know where it is. You've got the exits monitored. But you have to go in there and get those gas canisters. and either pull them out or neutralize them on site.

Even if it is destroyed in the area, like it can still be scraped back together and like later maybe, you know, 10, 20 years down the line used again. Regime change doesn't, cannot happen just from decapitation strikes and an air campaign. So like, what do you see, what do you see is the next phase of this? Like everything's been degraded.

What happens now? Well, I think that's the one billion, not one million question. But the thing is that because I don't have insight into what the U.S. is planning, from where I stand, I see the U.S. continue in this campaign for the time being. The current pose, I don't think there is a pose, but whatever it is, there is a pose, at least not to attack Iran's power and installation. Sorry, it is a tactical pause. The U.S. is trying to give both sides, even Iran, you know, a breed in a space where would you like to talk?

Because the U.S. is not going to settle with the military successes. This, you know, this is not going to satisfy the U.S. This is not the strategic objective. The strategic objective is to make sure that Iran complies with the international community and that it gives up both on its nuclear and conventional military capacity that goes outside Iran. So, you know, Iran, just like any other country, they have to have some kind of deterrent capacity to defend their country, which is the right of every country, but not to have the capacity, for example, to hit 4,000 kilometers away or 2,000 kilometers away because of the conduct of the regime. Now, how this can be, it's either, and this is,

by the way, this is potentially possible, some kind of internal regime change. And it's not because of decapitation only, because decapitation in Iran is, I don't know, I haven't read, and I would put this out loud, any other country in modern history that has been decapitated this way, I would say, like the top, second, third, and fourth, a country in the size, you know, the size of Iran. I don't think there are many countries, but I haven't right, I don't maybe there are, but, you know, to have the Supreme Leader, to have the IRGC commander, the first and second, the replacement, the commander of the geospatial force, two of them were killed last, last June, and the third one was killed this time around. The IRGC commander, Pasam Sileimani was killed in Iraq,

and his replacement is seems he's, I don't know, he's not a target, and he's quite silent, Mr. Khaani. And the other, the Basij commander was killed. And so, you know, there is an ongoing, if you like, campaign of decapitation, which disrupted extremely the command and control of Iran. So the potential of having an internal change is out there. And the second thing is that the, at least this is according to CENTCOM two days ago, they have targeted 9,000 targets inside Iran and the campaign is ongoing. There is no assessment of how much damage these attacks have caused in Iran. We don't know.

I think we don't know in the public. I'm sure the U.S. and Israel have some kind of insight into that. But we don't know what kind of damage that has caused. if the war stops now for any kind of reason, I think Iran would wake up to a different Iran. The Iranian people and the Iranian leadership, they would look at their country in a different way. And that could cause also change. There is another aspect that is not being talked about as well. If you remember from last June, the Israeli intelligence, alongside obviously other intelligence

services that are friendly to Israel, they have. have had quite a success inside Iran. To the point, they were not only assassinating, conducting assassinations inside Iran, but also they were flying drones to disrupt air defenses. They had people running around the country, to the point that the director of Mossad replied to a tweet by the Iranian intelligence commander saying that we targeted Mossad headquartered successfully, and he responded that, thanks God, all my agents are in Tehran, so no one is harmed. So, you know, but this time around, there is nothing like that. So I would expect that they have also people on the ground.

The decapitation strikes of, like, one country is an interesting point, because, like, most of that kind of targeted assassination work that was done during the war, on terror was like against specific, uh, like extremist cells, right? But the, the thing that we kind of do know is that, um, like aerial campaigns like this, it's, it's extremely well studied, uh, like don't tend to foster, uh, they, they don't win the hearts and minds campaigns with the people. People tend to rally around even unpopular regimes and see the people that are bombing them as like invaders. I'm worried that I don't want a ground invasion.

Like you said, war is horrible. But I'm worried about half measures here. And I'm worried that whatever comes after could be. much worse. And that's the, like, because the, I would imagine that, um, the IRGC elements will probably be able to exert more power over civilian government, even more than they already do. Um, and that that civilian government will be even more, uh, like, in service of the IRGC. Like, I really worry about that.

Um, and I think that like, I don't know. I'm not hopeful about some sort of ground swell from the Iranian people here. I think that that just like it doesn't seem to happen during an aerial bombardment campaign. I hope I'm wrong, but, you know, I don't see it, unfortunately. And I think that there is a good chance here that like what you're laying out is, and not a good chance. I think like what you're laying out is compelling that like, you know, Israel especially has been extremely effective. in like disabling proxies over the past few years. America has hit like regime targets and like degraded their missile capabilities.

But like you can win those battles and then lose the war, right? And I think that America is really good at winning battles and losing wars. It has been in the past 30, 40 years. Okay. Rebuttal response. Great. So I, you know, what I want, the. The reason why I'm, you know, I'm smiling because I think I do not disagree with you in the sense that these fears are very much legitimate.

No one knows even the President Trump or the Israeli leadership that this campaign is going to succeed. Because just like any other war, they took a massive risk and they decided that, you know, the best course of action is to go now. And I think even the decision of the timing when to hit Iran came because of an intelligence, the intelligence report and a human source close to the Supreme Leader that gave them exactly the location of the Supreme Leader alongside his family and other leaders. Because on the first day, they call 39 leaders, including commanders or 39 members of the leadership, and including the Supreme Leader. But still, it depends, you know, I think we have to go back to what they wanted to do.

And I mean, the United States and Israel. But in this sense, because, you know, just like you said, the U.S. has not been, you know, doing well in terms of winning wars. They were winning, if you like, I don't know, battles. And in the battlefield, they do very well and then they lose. maybe other people would read this, other people within the different administrations would read this differently and also historians now and in the years to come might treat this differently. So if we look at Afghanistan, for example, I don't know how you see this and I think many America, I think people are divided on this. But in Afghanistan, the U.S., to me, they have

achieved their strategic goal of the war. which is decimating al-Qaeda. It was, the war was not against Taliban. So everybody now is citing that, oh, Taliban is back and Taliban is extremists. Yes, but Taliban was there before al-Qaeda as well. And the U.S. did not go to war with them. It was al-Qaeda that, you know, got hold of the country after, because al-Qaeda was there fighting against the Soviet Union,

helping Taliban, you know, defeat and kick out the Soviets. And they did very well there. but then they took over the country and attacked the United States. And the United States went there with one purpose only, which is to end al-Qaeda. And they did that, and then they decided to withdraw. You can debate that, you know, they failed to rebuild Afghanistan, but that was not one of their declared strategic objectives. In Iraq, it was Saddam's regime.

And Saddam had, for, you know, I am an Iraqi originally. I grew up in Iraq. I was in Iraq during the, you know, all wars, 1998 with Iran, the 1991 with Kuwait and 2003. All of these, I was in Iraq. And war is hell. And the damage goes to Iraq is really, is massive. And it will stay with Iraq for many generations to come. Who to blame for that?

That's, you know, that's so many conversations about that. But if I were to stand in the U.S. shoes, I would say that the U.S. has a buy. large, you know, achieved its objectives in going to Iraq. First, making sure that Iraq does not have these WMDs. Second, neutralize and Saddam to protect its interests and also Israel's interests. And whether that caused so much a human suffering, yes, it was that moral, obviously, that, you know, from where I stand as in Iraq, obviously I would say not. Thousands of Iraqis were killed and stopped also during the embargo. And the same conversations would go to Iran, whether this, you know, this ongoing campaign is moral, legal, or, you know, justifiable in that sense,

that, you know, that's a different conversation. But in terms of a military campaign from, you know, in terms of what the U.S. intentions are and strategic objectives, it seems to me that it is not a story of failure. The U.S. now, what has been, what they have been doing along with Israel in this campaign, it is delivering on its strategic objectives. I think what should worry the administration now is the tension between the military success and what is going on back home. Because military-wise and expenses-wise, the U.S. is more than capable of continuing the war and winning it. But in terms of time, I don't think the U.S. government has that luxury. Back home, domestic politics in the U.S. with the midterm elections coming up, I think this is

where the Trump administration would find a real challenge, you know, convincing the U.S. people that this war is, you know, should continue and that it is justifiable. So if the domestic politics would be pressure in Trump to stop the war short of achieving its ultimate objectives, then yes, that would be a failure for the U.S. And it is potentially

this could happen. And Iran knows that too. Right? So their sense would be if I were them survive for a year, keep the straight lake, operate the

rate of Hormuz is the pressure point and survive for a year and see where, see where things shake out. Definitely, yes. But, you know, the question is, you have two sides to this. It's not only one side. And both of them, they know how this would play out. So that's why the U.S. is, you know, is telling the Iran that, you know, if you want to talk to us, it is the time now.

If not, then we will put a lot of pressure. And the U.S. can do that because they have the capacity to do. so. And they have plans for this trade of hormones. And maybe at the beginning I mentioned that Iran does not have the capacity to keep this trade closed. Because there is an assumption that Iran can do that. I don't see Iran doing that. What Iran is doing now is basically why this trade is closed? Because they are raising the prices of insurance. And no company would go there because of that. And also there are like, you know, there's this sense that these vessels that transfer oil, and LNG, they are brutal and fragile. They're not. In the previous wars, actually, military ships

would hide behind these vessels because they are so strong and they can absorb a lot of shock. But, you know, these people are not military people. They don't want to be in the middle of war. So the US can do few things to make sure that this trade is reopened. They can force that as well and countries in the region might get involved. You know, you mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, that countries like Bahrain got really hit hard why they're not involved in this campaign. Bahrain is the only country now pushing the United Nations Security Council to use force to reopen the Strait of Horms.

So if they succeed in that aspect, then we might have a coalition form enough. And over the last, I think, five days, there is a change of rhetoric, at least, coming from NATO. you know, the President of NATO said that now we understand why the U.S. and President Trump went to this war and it's justifiable. I don't know if you hear them saying that, but he said this publicly. And basically, you know, you can see Europe joining and you can see the UK joining it. And they're not there because they believe this war is just or justifiable.

They have their own strategic calculations. You have Ukraine and you have other places. So maybe to, you know, to answer the question that, I answered before, but maybe in a different way in terms, what is the next day? There is this scenario. It's either the Iranian regime would come to terms with the fact that they, you know, they don't have the capacity to continue against the U.S. and would sit to negotiations and, you know, make sure that they give the U.S.

what they want, what the U.S. wants, or they continue this war with the, you know, and they would lose, definitely. I mean, I am not like 100 percent believer. in the U.S., but numbers don't lie. The U.S. has the most powerful army on Earth, and they are not under embargo, and they have the legal cover, and they have the most, maybe not, they have the most powerful also allies. You know, you have the U.S., sorry, you have the U.K., you have Europe, and you have regional

allies, so they don't have shortage in any aspect of conduct in the war. While Iran on the other side has every shortage you can imagine. I think that's a good place to wrap it up. Thank you so much for coming onto the show and walking us through this. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. It was a wonderful conversation. Where can people find your work?

What is the next thing you're working on? Great. So I have a book coming up with Cambridge University Press, and it's about intelligence, the history of intelligence services in Iraq and the intelligence community. It should come out next year. I have a book published a few months ago with Routley. on the usage of the label terrorist,

and it takes the PKK and other cases, studies, as, you know, it's testing a ground, and in which I argue that for countries, because, you know, after 9-11, many countries went for use, and to use the label tourist, again, is there are smaller groups that they feel and see as danger, and I argue that walking back from that is really hard and complicated. So I have these.

I also have, you know, papers published. My website is just my name, Mohannasalum.com, in which I think everybody, you can find everything about me. Excellent. When that book comes out, I'd like to have you back on

to talk about it. That sounds fascinating. Yeah, that would be my pleasure. That's all for this week. Angry Planet listeners, as always, Angry Planet is me, Matthew Galt and Kevin Nodell, who's created by myself and Jason Fields.

If you like the show, please go to angry planetpod.com, sign up for $9 a month. Get early commercial-free versions of all the mainline episodes. Get life during Trump time. There is a bonus episode up right now that is a talk with Aram Shabhanian, that is kind of the greater context of the war in Iran and adjudicating this claim that this is a 47-year conflict. It is much more complicated than that.

We will be back again soon with another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. Stay safe until then.