Front Burner - Israel-Iran strikes: What comes next?

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Longstanding tensions came to a head last week when Israel launched a missile attack on Iran, targeting the country’s nuclear facilities and killing several high-level military personnel and nuclear scientists. In the days following the two countries have exchanged missile strikes, killing at least 78 in Iran and 13 in Israel. As the conflict continues to escalate, what will it mean for the region? And as the bombardment derails Iran-U.S. nuclear talks, will the U.S. be pulled into an active war? To discuss this perilous moment and its dangerous implications, we’re joined by Greg Carlstrom, a longtime Middle East correspondent with The Economist and author of the book “How Long Will Israel Survive? The Threat From Within.” Fill out our listener survey here. We appreciate your input!For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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Get ready to pull it off the stick. Get off the sticks. All right, let's go. Time to go. Okay. Guys, come on. What you're hearing is a live feed from Fox News as a team positioned in what appears to be a high rise building watches as hundreds of Iranian hypersonic ballistic missiles pour through the night sky in Tel Aviv early Friday morning. In other video, you can see missiles making contact in the city's downtown core.

It was retaliation for Israel's unprecedented series of attacks in Iran the day prior, which are reported to have killed a number of Iran's most senior ranking military leaders. Israel says they targeted Iran's nuclear sites, while the retaliatory strikes staged by Iran are said to have targeted Israel's energy supply centers. This incursion on Iran has been many years in the making,

and much of this has come down to the country's capability to build a nuclear weapon, which Israel has been warning is imminent since 1992. The threat of a nuclear-armed Iran has defined much of the last 30 years of foreign policy with the country. Remarkably, Iran has spent the last few weeks engaged in negotiations with the United States on this issue. Here's one senior Iranian official with NBC just two weeks ago. Yes, we are ready. Shamhani said that Iran is willing to commit to never having a nuclear weapon, to getting rid of its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, to only enriching to a level needed for civilian

use and to allow inspectors in to oversee it all in exchange for lifting all sanctions immediately. He said Iran would accept that deal tonight. Reaction in the U.S. to this escalation with Iran has been split. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied American involvement, while conservative media personality Tucker Carlson called that a lie, saying in part, the United States should not at any level participate in a war with Iran.

Drop Israel, let them fight their own wars. To discuss this perilous moment and its dangerous implications, Greg Carlstrom is with me. Greg is a long time Middle East correspondent with The Economist, and author of the book, How Long Will Israel Survive? The Threat From Within. Greg, it's great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for making the time. Thanks for having me.

So let's walk through the events of last week and then of course this weekend. Why don't we start with Israel's attack on the Iranian capital, Tehran? It's been reported that the attack targeted Iran's nuclear facilities and a network of military leaders. We struck at the heart of Iran's nuclear enrichment program. We struck at the heart of Iran's nuclear facilities and a network of military leaders. We struck at the heart of Iran's nuclear enrichment program. We struck at the heart of Iran's nuclear weaponization program. Israel's assassinated senior leaders of Iran's military and nuclear institutions during the strikes across the country,

including the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, Major General Mohammed Bahari and Hossein Salami, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Ferdun Abbasi, the former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and top nuclear scientist, Mehdi Tehranchi, have also been killed in Israeli strikes. What we know today is that at least 78 have been announced dead and hundreds more injured, most of whom are reported to be civilians. Can you walk me through the shape of this attack, whether this kind of escalation was expected

and its immediate implications? I think what we're seeing on the Israeli side is a steadily expanding and steadily escalating set of targets in Iran. The first day of this campaign, most of what Israel struck was either military or nuclear sites. They assassinated the top leadership of the Iranian military.

They attacked command and control centers, air defense facilities, and then they bombed the nuclear facility at Natanz in Iran. As the war has gone on, Israel has expanded that there were strikes on Saturday against energy infrastructure on the Persian Gulf Coast in southern Iran near the main gas field from which Iran exploits natural gas. Sunday in Tehran, there were reports of car bombs targeting, it seems to have been targeting,

nuclear scientists. There were reports of further assassinations, but then also a reported attack as far away as Meshad, which is in the far northeast of Iran, about 2200 kilometers away from Israel, reports of a drone attack on the airport there. So what began again as sort of more narrowly focused on military and nuclear targets, it's now expanding to encompass infrastructure, energy facilities, a much broader set of targets in Iran. I wonder if you could put the scale of what we are seeing there into context. Like how does it compare to other moments of conflict between Israel and Iran and or even like where it sits in the modern history of conflict in the region?

Well, there's never been anything like this between Israel and Iran. They have been in a de facto state of war for decades now. What was often described as a shadow war by diplomats and spies in the region. And they would act through proxies. In the case of Iran, they fought Israel through militias like Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza, groups like that, which Iran armed and equipped for many, many years.

And the Israelis would carry out actions in Iran, but they were usually sort of covert actions carried out by the Mossad. There were assassinations, but one person, two people, you know, limited, limited, uh, assassinations. Uh, there were other espionage efforts aimed at sabotaging, uh, nuclear facilities in Iran. It was conflict, but it was well below the threshold of all-out war. And what we've seen over the past few days, Israeli jets in the skies over Tehran, Iranian ballistic missiles crashing into Israeli cities.

There were several direct hits on the cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv. It's something that we have never seen before in the history of their conflict. One of the core questions here revolves around the degree to which the US was involved with or party to or even knew about these attacks. Marco Rubio categorically denied any American involvement, though President Trump seemed to kind of contradict

that sentiment, saying that he had given Iran a chance to strike a deal and seemed to suggest that this attack was like a product of their failure to reach an agreement with the U.S. And what do we know if anything about U.S. involvement or knowledge here? Well, I mean, as usual, with the Trump administration, is is clear as mud, but I think there's two questions There's what did the u.s. Know and then there's what was was American involvement On the first question the u.s. Did know about this before it happened. The u.s. Was not taken by surprise Well, I don't want to say eminent, but it looks like it's something that could very

well happen. Well, you've heard some very conflicting stories about when exactly Donald Trump gave Benjamin Netanyahu the green light to go ahead with this. My suspicion is that it happened quite late, sort of hours, if not days before the strikes began. Trump probably had some reservations about Israel doing this, but Netanyahu convinced him to do it. And then when it seemed to go well on the first day on Friday, Trump suddenly got very enthusiastic about it and took credit for it and acted

like this had been his brilliant plan all along. But I think regardless of when he approved it, he knew about it in advance. Whether there's been an American role, there is not a direct American role in the sense of taking part in these airstrikes. There aren't American fighter jets involved in this or American refueling planes refueling Israeli aircraft. But you have American air defense batteries that are helping to shoot down Iranian missiles over Israel, American spies who are sharing intelligence with the Israelis, America of course resupplying Israel. It's the main source of military equipment for Israel. So, you know, in all of those ways, America is involved. It's not involved in the offensive part of the war, the fighting itself,

but in everything else, there is an American role. In what ways are the American and Israeli priorities in sync here? In what ways might they be in conflict? I think where they're in sync is the belief that Iran's nuclear program is a concern, is a threat, is something that needs to be stopped somehow. Trump had tried to do that through diplomacy. There were five rounds of meetings between American and Iranian envoys to try and renegotiate a nuclear deal to replace the one that Trump abandoned back in 2018.

But I think the US and Israel have a similar view of Iran's nuclear program as a threat. And so if the Israelis are acting against it, if they're striking it militarily now, that's something that the Americans are going to be broadly supportive of. I think where they might diverge is the question of where does this go from here and where does this end? I think it's increasingly clear if you listen to the Israeli prime minister, to other Israeli officials that they don't just want to hit Iran's nuclear facilities. it's increasingly clear if you listen to the Israeli prime minister, to other Israeli officials, that they don't just want to hit Iran's nuclear facilities.

They are gunning for regime change here. Netanyahu, he was asked about it on Sunday in an interview on Fox News whether that was his goal. And he said, you know, could certainly be the result because the Iran regime is very weak. I think it's basically left with two things. It's plans to have atomic bombs and ballistic missiles. That's basically what Iran has. They certainly don't have the

people. 80% of the people will throw these theological thugs out. I mean, they murder them. If that's what he's saying in public, I suspect that in private really his goal is regime change. And I think that is going to worry some people, at least within the Trump administration, because they're going to worry about the second order consequences of that, of a big war that might get Iran to lash out at American allies in the Gulf or at American bases in the region, American assets in the region or that might lead to chaos and instability in Iran. At Desjardins Insurance, we know that when you own a nail salon, everything needs to

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It's time to turn campaign promises into health care policy that delivers better outcomes for patients, doctors, and communities. It's time to fix the system with real solutions to real health care challenges. The Canadian Medical Association is ready to help you get it done. Learn more at cma.ca slash fighting for care. I'm curious to hear your thoughts also on the timing of this from Israel's perspective. You know, it strikes me that public opinion on Israel has been reaching a critical point. You had countries sanctioning Israeli leaders, the state of hunger in Gaza, and people like Thomas Friedman in the New

York Times saying that the Israeli government is a, quote, danger to Jews everywhere. These attacks were also launched by Israel as the Knesset was set to vote on whether to dissolve Netanyahu's coalition government. And just, yeah, what do you make of the timing? Well, if you take the Israelis at their word, the timing is based on intelligence. The timing is based on intelligence they received that Iran was making some sort of a major stride in weaponizing its nuclear program. Now, the Israelis have not provided any evidence that I have seen to substantiate that claim.

And that claim conflicts with what many foreign intelligence agencies, including the CIA, have assessed for many years, which is that Iran wants to be a threshold nuclear weapon state, but it's still some distance away from being able to build an actual working bomb. So if you don't take the Israelis at their word on that, I think you can look at almost a constellation of reasons why they might have acted now.

This is something that Netanyahu has wanted to do for decades. He has dreamed of striking Iran's nuclear facility, going all the way back to the 2000s. So it's a long-held dream for him. He has a sympathetic administration in Washington now, which he hasn't for much of the time that he's been in power, whether under Barack Obama or Joe Biden. I want to thank President Trump for his leadership in confronting Iran's nuclear weapons program. He has made clear time and again that Iran cannot have a nuclear enrichment program.

Today it is clear that Iran is just buying for time. It refuses to agree to this basic requirement of peaceful nations. That is why we have no choice but to act. He has a different Israel right now after October 7th, where people are much more willing to accept losses, to accept conflict, to accept the state of war that Israel has been in for the past 20 months. You have changes in the region, Hezbollah being badly weakened after its war with Israel last year, the Assad regime no longer being in power in Syria.

Those things enable something that wasn't possible. And then you have a bit of diplomatic cover almost in the form of the IAEA, the UN's nuclear agency, voting on Thursday to censure Iran for not meeting its nonproliferation obligations. So you put all of those things together and one other thing actually, which is Donald Trump had given the Iranians a 60-day deadline to negotiate a new nuclear agreement. That deadline lapsed the day before these strikes started. So Netanyahu could point to that as well. You put all of that together and it probably seemed like, even if this intelligence isn't

what it's cracked up to be, it probably seemed like an opportune time for the Israeli prime minister. Can you tell me a little bit more about the IE, the nuclear commission's announcement on Thursday and where that kind of fits into this conversation, how serious it was? So Iran has been, since Donald Trump left the JCPOA, the old nuclear deal in 2018, Iran has been gradually escalating its nuclear work. And what we've seen it do in the past few years is start enriching uranium to 60% purity, which is very, very close to weapons grade. Weapons grade is 90%. That sounds like a big gap, but it's a non-linear process, uranium enrichment. So if you're at 60%, you're

really just a short hop from weapons grade. Iran has 400 kilograms of that now, which if you refine it to 90%, it's about 10 nuclear bombs worth. And it has no civilian application. It has no use other than refining further to make a nuclear bomb. So it's taken these big strides in its nuclear program and that has been reflected in successive IAEA reports over the past few years. The agency monitors Iran's nuclear facilities

as it does with nuclear facilities in all member states, although Iran has been restricting some of its access in recent years. That's part of it. The other part of it is the IAEA has been doing this years-long investigation into what it calls Iran's undeclared past nuclear activities. That's a really boring sounding euphemism for some things that Iran was doing in the early 2000s that were part of an over nuclear weapons program.

The IAEA has been trying to get some answers from Iran on exactly what it was doing, where it was doing it, and what happened to that program. It hasn't received satisfactory answers from Iran. And so this vote by the agency's Board of Governors earlier this week was a vote to censure Iran for not cooperating with that investigation. How much does all of this bolster Netanyahu's claim that Iran's nuclear capabilities are imminent? Well, you know, with the caveat that there's always things we don't know about the intelligence, but the assessment, again, of most agencies in

the world before a few days ago was that Iran, if it made the decision to enrich uranium to 90% purity, it could do that in a matter of days. It could make a bomb's worth of weapons-grade uranium in a matter of days, but it couldn't actually make that into a working nuclear bomb. The enrichment is only one part of building a nuclear bomb. You also have to fashion that uranium into a device, a warhead, which involves being able to make triggers and all sorts of other complicated components. And then you have to fit that warhead onto a missile or some other delivery system so

that you can actually use it. Iran had mastered the enrichment part of that, but the consensus was that on the other parts of that bomb-making process, Iran was probably still about a year away from being able to make a working weapon. And then what do we know about the state of the negotiations with the US? I know that there was a 60-day deadline, but they were supposed to be going back to the table, right? They were supposed to be going back to the table, right? They were supposed to be.

The sixth round was meant to happen on Sunday, three days after Israel started this campaign in Iran. We were engaged in rounds of negotiations with the U.S. The sixth round of talks was supposed to be held in Oman. The Zionist entity is not willing to see us reaching an agreement or a diplomatic solution with the United States. The negotiations had been hung up on one big issue, which is whether a new agreement would allow Iran to enrich uranium at all. What the administration, the Trump administration was demanding was that Iran for swear any domestic enrichment capability.

It could build nuclear reactors for nuclear power or for research purposes, but the uranium that it would need to fuel those reactors would have to be imported from abroad. Now, this is an arrangement that some other countries have even in the region, the United Arab Emirates, for example, which has working nuclear reactors that provide about a quarter of its electricity, has an agreement with the United States where it forgoes domestic enrichment in exchange for American help to build those reactors. But Iran, for many, many years now, has refused to give up on enrichment. It argues that this is its right, which it is under the nonproliferation treaty, and that it's a point of national pride. I'd like to ask you about Tehran's response and capacity here.

So almost as Israeli missiles were hitting targets in Tehran, the official ex-account of the Iranian armed forces posted a tweet which read, quote, remember we didn't initiate it and within 24 hours Iran responded with this volley of missiles in Israel's largest city, Tel Aviv. What can you tell us about Iran's retaliation, the targets they hit? What have you made of the size of their response so far, the scope of their response? It's been smaller than I thought. Actually smaller than I expected it would be.

Iran is thought to have around 2,000 ballistic missiles that have the range to reach Israel. And the expectation on Friday, right after Israel started this campaign of airstrikes, was that Iran would retaliate with a big barrage of missiles. A statement from Iran's supreme leader was read out on television promising revenge on Israel. The regime must expect severe punishment. The powerful hand of the Islamic Republic's armed forces

will not abandon it. With this hand of the Islamic Republic's armed forces will not abandon it. With this crime, the Zionist regime prepared and will receive a bitter and painful fate. It took almost 24 hours for Iran to organize that response, which suggests that Israel not only had disrupted its command and control by killing its leaders, but the leaders of its military, but also had damaged parts of its ballistic missile program, either the depots where it keeps those missiles or the launchers from which it fires them. its retaliation and start firing these barrages is 40 or 50 missiles at a time, smaller than the barrages it fired at Israel last year in April and October when it was 150 or 200 missiles in one go. Many not all of them, many of them have either fallen short, missed their targets or been

shot down by Israel's air defenses, you've had a handful that have gotten through. But it is not quite the response that Israeli officers had been expecting in the run-up to this when they were forecasting what would happen. Going forward, it seems as if Iran is either, it doesn't have as many missiles as we thought it did because again, some have been destroyed in Israeli strikes or it is trying to ration what it has because it expects this to be a prolonged conflict. Something I've been reading about is Israel's penetration of Iran's security apparatus. The assassination of Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh, for example, was an enormous intelligence

victory for Israel. There was also the bombing of the Iranian consulate last year in Damascus, which killed a number of generals. The number of assassinations of Iranian military leaders and scientists over the last few years has been pretty incredible. There was also this report published Sunday alleging Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to assassinate the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. And does this show real weakness on the part of the Iranian regime that Israel has been able to penetrate it like this?

I think one of the things that happens when you have your whole domestic intelligence and security apparatus sort of set up to focus on domestic repression, on policing your own people, is that you're often not very good at dealing with external threats. I think when you look at the state of Iran now, you have a regime that is not very popular, that has spent the past couple of decades fighting off one protest movement after another, from the Green movement in 2009 after a rigged election to the mass protests that started in favor of women's rights a couple of years ago, all of which have been violently, violently suppressed.

That engenders a lot of opposition. And then you add to that a recurring economic crisis in Iran, hyperinflation, high unemployment, really dire economic conditions. All of that, I think, makes for fertile ground for a foreign intelligence service that wants to recruit assets. And then also, you've sort of touched on this, but they're really quite isolated in the region too, right?

The so-called Axis of Resistance, which includes Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis have all been locked in conflict with Israel for some time now. Iran formerly had something of an alliance with the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, though that now appears to be challenged as well given the regime change there. Iran has famously difficult relations with the likes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. So who can Iran rely on in a moment like this? No one is the short answer.

I mean, you're right, in years past, they would have relied on Hezbollah as their first line of defense against Israel, but they can't do that because of how badly weakened Hezbollah is right now. They do have other proxy groups in the region, the Houthis in Yemen, for example, but they are so far away from Israel that their capacity to do any real damage is quite limited. Militias in Iraq also, you would think Iran could call on them, maybe it can, but some of them seem like they want to almost let this one out, stay on the sidelines. And then in terms of state allies, Iran does have a good relationship with Russia.

It's become a better relationship over the past few years because of how much Iran has done to provide military support for Russia in Ukraine. But does that mean the Russians are going to go to bat for Iran? They're going to actually join in a conflict on Iran's behalf? They're not going to. They will issue statements of support. They will send condolences, but they're not going to do anything more than that. Iran really doesn't have any state allies that have both the capacity and the willingness to fight on its behalf. Given all of this, I'm just trying to get a sense of what Iran's options are at this point. Like, is there a scenario in which they try to go back to the table with the

US? Can they, given how things have transpired here? I think they have sort of three paths that they can take, and none of them, from their perspective, are particularly good. One of them is negotiations, and Trump so far seems open to that. He keeps tweeting about how he wants to make a deal between Israel and Iran. Iran could really capitulate here, agree to relinquish large parts of its nuclear program in a deal with America in exchange for obviously a lasting ceasefire with Israel. They might get to a point where they have to do that, but that would be an absolute humiliation for the regime and it's not something they want to do right now. So that's one option.

The second one is to try and widen the war, strike at Gulf states, hit the Saudis, hit the Emiratis, for example, or hit American bases in the region and hope that they can do enough damage to Israel's partners or to America's partners that Donald Trump will eventually get spooked and tell the Israelis, you know what, rein it in. I don't want any more American troops getting attacked by Iran. The risk in doing that is that it might backfire. Trump might decide, well, you know, we're going to get involved in the war directly and then this becomes a much bigger threat for the Iranian regime.

And then the third option is almost to try and muddle through this, to, you know, endure whatever pain the Israelis are going to throw at you, to hope that at some point either Israel has to stop fighting or Trump compels it to stop fighting, and then to really double down on your nuclear program. You know, try to rush for a bomb, try to carry out a nuclear test so that no one can attack you again. And if you do that, you know, maybe you protect yourself in the long run, you buy yourself protection from future attack, but you also turn yourself into North Korea, you turn yourself into a pariah state that is going to be permanently isolated.

And that's not a good outcome either for Iran. And just on the first scenario, would there have been like a big breakdown in trust between the US and Iran over like just over the last couple of days since they believed that they were sitting back down at the table? Well, I think there wasn't much trust to begin with, with America in general and with Trump in particular, right? He ditched the old nuclear deal, he assassinated Iran's top general back in 2020. And then he turned around and seemed to double cross Iran with these negotiations. So there was very little trust to begin with. There's none now. At the same

time, if you're Iran, who else can you negotiate a deal with that would be able to actually restrain the Israeli government. Only the U.S. has the capability to do that. When we're talking about the long-term goals here for Netanyahu, you talked about regime change. In the last year, he has conducted operations in Syria, Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, now Iran. He has marked what could be the end of the axis of resistance. What else might we expect from him here in terms of his goals, do you think?

Well, I mean, this was the goal for a long time, right? Everything else, Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, all of that was in service of this broader goal that Netanyahu again has had for many, many years. I think where we go from here partly depends on what happens in Iran, whether this ends with an agreement that is satisfactory to Israel.

If it doesn't, if Israel thinks that in a year or two, Iran is going to reconstitute its nuclear program, then Netanyahu will want to do this again in a year or two. He will want this to be a recurring thing. Whereas if this ends with something more enduring and real strictures on Iran's nuclear work, then that might at least put a lid on that. But I think the question for Netanyahu is when this ends, however this ends, what happens to him at that point politically? There is still a Gaza war going on, which is deeply unpopular in Israel. Two-thirds of the country for months now has wanted it to be over, has wanted to do a hostage deal and ceasefire and end the war in Gaza. That is still going on, even though no one's paying attention to it right now.

And then Netanyahu is still a historically unpopular Israeli prime minister. I'm sure he will get a temporary boost out of this politically. But when the war ends, he still has to contend with not just Gaza, but with an ongoing criminal trial for corruption and the fact that much of the Israeli public wants him gone. And what about the American public too? I found it interesting watching some of the public reaction to these attacks in the US. Conservative media personality Tucker Carlson has previously referred to the prospect of war with Iran as a profound betrayal that would quote end Trump's presidency. Following these attacks he said Trump should drop Israel and that the US should not be involved in Israel's war. Steve Bannon has issued

similar warnings. Go for it. You make your own decision. You decide it. We've got to do it. We've got to do it now. They've got 15 nuclear weapons. Then go for it. But then why do we have to come in air defense? And please don't use, oh, because we have things in Tel Aviv.

Then get them the hell out of Tel Aviv. This is how we get sucked in. On the other hand, you have the likes of people like John Bolton and others kind of actively campaigning for American intervention and increasing force deployments in the region? Well, thank God for Bibi Netanyahu. He has cut through the fog and done, frankly, what should have been done as long as 20 years ago. This is a very important step.

It's far from over. The split on the question of Iran, how could that influence what the Trump administration may or may not do here? I think it really depends on one choice, right? Whether or not there are going to be direct American strikes. Israel is asking America to get involved to carry out airstrikes on Fordow, which is this uranium enrichment plant dug into the side of a mountain.

It's too deep for Israeli jets to bomb. You would need American bunker buster bombs to have a chance of actually getting to this underground facility. The Israelis have asked America to join that. The fear for Trump's more isolationist supporters is that it won't end there, that America will get dragged into this open-ended campaign, the goal of which will be regime change. And if that happens, I think it's politically devastating for Trump. He specifically campaigned on, as you say, ending wars and people are sharing clips of

him about 15 years ago denouncing Obama for his efforts to negotiate with Iran saying, Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective. If Trump ends up being the guy who does that, it's going to cost him a chunk of his support, I think. But it's not clear that he's going to do it. chunk of his support, I think. But it's not clear that he's going to do it. Some of his advisors are urging him not to even go along with limited airstrikes in Iran. So we have to see what he decides. Great. Thank you so much for this.

Really helpful. Thank you. My pleasure. All right. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you soon.

Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.