Front Burner - Trump joins Israel's war in Iran

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Days into the Iran-Israel war, the United States has carried out a series of limited strikes centered on three Iranian nuclear sites. U.S. President Donald Trump has referred to the strikes as a “spectacular military success” and the Israeli government has made clear there was “full co-ordination” on the operation. Iranian officials claim to have removed enriched uranium from the facilities before they were bombed. Negar Mortazavi is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy, and the Host of the Iran Podcast. She joins the show to discuss the American strikes on Iran and whether this escalation from Trump was about addressing Iran’s nuclear capability, clearing a pathway to regime change, or something else. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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President Trump and I often say, First comes strength, then comes peace. Hi everybody, I'm Jamie Ploesson. When we last spoke about Iran, some seven days ago, US involvement in Israel's campaign was not exactly clear. In the day's sense, that has changed drastically. As of late Saturday evening, the United States conducted a round of strikes on three key Iranian nuclear facilities, marking a new and escalated phase of this war. Donald Trump has referred to these strikes as a spectacular military

success, though there is still much that remains unknown about how successful it really was. Negar Murtazavi is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and the host of the Iran podcast. She joins me now to talk about America's entry into conflict in Iran and what it could mean for the future of the country and the region. Nehgar, thank you so much for coming on to the show. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. So Saturday night, just before 8pm, Donald Trump announced that the US bombed these three nuclear sites in Iran, joining Israel's war in the country.

And just what do we know about the attack so far? If you could just take me through it. Sure. So it sounds like US forces went in through the air and dropped multiple bombs on three main nuclear sites in Iran. Fordow, Netanz, and Esfahan. Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. Iran's nuclear program or sites have been sort of scattered around the country in various different sites, possibly anticipating a day like this.

So it wasn't concentrated in one location. And the big sites or the important sites were actually outside population areas. So Natanz and Fordow especially were a little far from population areas. And it sounds like these bombs went in. The US caused a total destruction of the Iranian nuclear program that is still to be seen. Nuclear experts have time and again said that this is not a possibility to just destroy the nuclear program with aerial bombing, and certainly it's not possible to destroy the knowledge and the know-how that the Iranians have acquired.

And finally, it's impossible to destroy the determination. So Iranians had been warning that if their nuclear program does get attacked, which still remains a civilian program per US intelligence reporting as late as this week, that if they get attacked, they would potentially reduce this inspection and international monitoring and could even change the nature of the program from civilian to something that may be weaponized. Do we have a sense right now, like, any independent analysis of what damage was actually done?

And I take your point on how difficult it would be to eradicate the program, but just maybe, like, how damaged or how far set back it might have been. Just say the US side seems, or at least US administration seems to be overplaying the ultimate results, short and long term result of what they did through aerial bombing. And Iranians seem to be downplayed. So they're saying they had already removed material, they enriched material from these sides. They're saying that the damage is not completely irreparable and it sounds like they don't want to sort of provide that total victory

in messaging to the US. But as far as independent assessment, so far the statements that I've seen from some incredible expert organizations is how they've called this a reckless decision that would draw the US not just into a war but could also have consequences, you know, for the environment, health consequences, potentially toxic material or radiation. Right. And whatnot. But I think it's still early to sort of judge because I don't want to just rely on the Iranian messaging or the U.S. messaging, which seem to be not really matching. I want to come back to Iran's options with you in a minute, but first, just two days ago,

Trump said in a statement via his press secretary that, Based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks. He later told reporters that he was giving the Iranians just a time to see whether or not people come to their senses. and time to see whether or not people come to their senses. Were you surprised by the decision to bomb on Saturday night? Like, what was going through your head at 8 p.m.? I was surprised, yes, very much. I was actually being called by the media saying,

there is an important meeting happening at the White House, and do I think there will be a message of war coming out of that? And I was leaning more towards diplomacy because also on that same day, Secretary Rubio had said that the US prefers to resolve this diplomatically. But at the same time, looking back at the past precedent, sort of the US now were understanding either green lighting or at least yellow lighting Israel for the attack two nights before they had nuclear talks scheduled with Iran. When at the middle of negotiations with us they gave green light to Israelis if not instructed them to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. I think they have proved that they are not men of diplomacy and they only understand

the language of threat and force. Going back to President Trump's first term when he assassinated the top Iranian general Soleimani, really out of the blue. In the early hours of January 3rd, 2020, shortly after arriving at Baghdad International Airport, Major General Qassem Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike. Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him. At this point, I would say nothing should surprise us as far as the decision making.

Is it strategic? I don't think so. Is it going to bring good outcomes? I don't really think so. But as far as that surprise element, it seems like that's one thing that the president really likes and has been pursuing despite by pushback sometimes from his own senior advisors. After the attacks, the strikes, Trump said on social media, quote, now this is the time

for peace. How are those words likely to land with Iran's leadership? President Trump, he called himself the president of peace. He's been critical and mocking past presidents for starting forever wars in the Middle East. Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big fat mistake, all right? George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq.

We have destabilized the Middle East. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction. He's even attacked past presidents for wanting to go to war with Iran, which nobody did,

until he did. And he promised to end the war between Russia and Ukraine immediately. He promised to bring peace to the Middle East. Well, Russian-Ukraine war didn't end. Peace didn't come to the Middle East. The war in Gaza continues. And now he just let a third war start under his watch a week before with the Israelis initially attacking and now the US joining. And it's only June. He came in January. Let's remember that. So I think that messaging of bringing peace, and

he he's even said many times that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. Well, they should give me the Nobel Prize for Rwanda and if you look the Congo or you could say Serbia, Kosovo, you could say a lot of them. You could say, I mean, the big one is India and Pakistan. You could, I should have gotten it four or five times. I should get it for the... You don't get a Nobel Peace Prize by starting wars, and this is exactly what he's done. And to call that, you know, the motto that comes from the administration, peace through strength.

The president wants to resolve this diplomatically and peacefully. He gave them a chance to do that. They delayed, they had all these kind of delay tactics. They wouldn't even meet with us directly. I would just call it peace through war. How are you going to make peace through war? I think the understanding of what diplomacy actually means, which is you go in, you negotiate, you take something, you also give something. You're supposed to make concessions. I think this administration is not ready for the concession part, for the giving part. They just want to take, that's their understanding of diplomacy, and they didn't take what they wanted

from the Iranians, which was an elimination of even the civilian program. And then President Trump let green-lighted or yellow-lighted Israelis to start attacking. And then throughout the week he also posted on social media asking for unconditional surrender and looks like this is what he means by peace through strength or bombing the nuclear sites with really heavy bombs and then calling for peace and diplomacy. So maybe the Iranians would be the pragmatic party at this point. I'm hoping they would as they did in 2020 when they retaliated against the killing of Soleimani. They did it in a way that helped both sides take an off ramp and de-escalate instead of escalating it further.

If anyone forgets, they attacked a US base in Iraq with a few hundred missiles from their soil but it wasn't a fatal attack. So it was a combination of advanced notice, also luck or the precision, whatever you want to call it, or a combination of all of that. But that episode ended in taking an off-ramp because the two countries were in the brink of war. It could have escalated into much, much worse. Even if they respond, if it's not in a way of a major escalation, I think there's still a chance for an off-front. But certainly what President Trump did was an escalatory step,

which is definitely not towards peace or diplomacy. Decades ago, Brazilian women made a discovery. They could have an abortion without a doctor, thanks to a tiny pill. That pill spawned a global movement, helping millions of women have safe abortions, regardless of the law. Hear that story on the network from NPR's Embedded and Futuro Media, wherever you get your podcasts. At a press conference, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that... This mission was not and has not been about regime change.

The president authorized a precision operation to neutralize the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program and the collective self-defense of our troops and our ally Israel. How is that message being heard inside Iran? I don't think the Iranian regime believes that, especially because Israeli messaging very much contradicts that. The Israelis have said even before their attacks and during the past week, they have conveyed sort of this messaging of regime change. They even put out messages to the people saying you should rise up against your regime and this is your moment, sort of that kind of messaging towards a revolution or a revolt, which is not really resonating

with the population because at the same time, people are trying to flee homes and cities from bombing to save their families and their lives. But this has been the messaging coming from the Israelis throughout these attacks and also beforehand. Defense Minister Israel Katz taunting Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with the ghost of Saddam Hussein. Remember what happened to the dictator in Iraq he's saying.

We pray for a regime change you know we know that the Iranians are suffering under the regime. 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 that both oppresses you and impoverishes you. This is your opportunity to stand up and let your voices be heard. At the same time, I think the Iranians are viewing this very carefully, This is your opportunity to stand up and let your voices be heard. At the same time, I think the Iranians are viewing this very carefully and here in the

US, every poll has shown that there's no interest in the American public for another big regime change war in the Middle East. And you've seen that echoing in the president's own messaging, vice president throughout the campaign. And since he became president essentially mocking everyone else for not being able to making deals and calling himself the best deal maker and and saying that he would resolve the issue through deal making. So I don't think regime change is the path that the US intends to go but

that intention is one thing and sort of getting sucked into a situation is another thing. We're talking about a situation is another thing. We're talking about a fog of war situation. We're talking about escalations that can get out of control. And you know, it's a volatile region, volatile environment conflict has been brewing for two years and only expanding. It's not just in Gaza. It also expanded to Lebanon, partially Iraq, the Houthis, the Red Sea, all of that. So, not everything is going to be in control of the multiple parties that are involved, and things can always escalate out of hand

and get to a point that you didn't intend. Extremely unpredictable. Huge gamble. Um, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, he's 86 years old. He's been in power for 36 years now, right? Um, he's not been known to submit to outside pressure, and he presides over the IRGC,

which has a standing force of nearly 200,000 people. His regional partners, as you just kind of alluded to, they've been sort of decimated or hamstrung, Hezbollah, Hamas, um, the Houthis to some extent. And now his nuclear program, nuclear program appears to be in serious question as well. These are kind of his political projects of the last many decades. They're now at risk.

And what do you think his next move will stand to teach us about his attitude towards this moment? Well, there's a lot of criticism coming at him, both from within his own circles, the various political factions, because Iran's political system is also not a monolith. They're ultra hardliners, conservatives, reformists, or moderates. Some believe in more posturing towards the US, engaging further. Some believe in more dialogue, diplomacy. The current president is a reformist or a moderate within the system. He's been talking about resolving issues with the US diplomatically, or some believe in more dialogue diplomacy. The current president is a reformist or a moderate within the system.

He's been talking about resolving issues with the US diplomatically has restarted negotiations which were going on with the Trump administration under his administration. But the Supreme Leader, as you said, is very old and potentially would be replaced by whoever the successor is. And now we're hearing serious talks of a succession plan, of potential names being put out and

a succession plan being discussed, which means he's taking it, him and the people around him are taking this moment seriously. There have been threats of potentially assassinating him, Donald Trump himself even posted on social media that the US knows exactly where he is. Israelis have done that. And then also that he's old, you know, no one lives forever. But so that succession is being discussed. Now, this could be a transformation. It will be a moment of transformation, a watershed moment for Iran, but I don't, I can't predict that it would necessarily be for the better, you know, it doesn't mean that the next generation of whoever the leadership is, is going to be more moderate or more democratic or more secular. This moment could very much lead the way to a more militaristic grip on power.

But nevertheless, there will be a generational change. So whoever comes after him would potentially be the next generation of leadership. You mentioned the hope for this kind of off-ramp, right? Some sort of response that would, I guess, allow them to save face, but also not put them, drag them further into war with the United States. What could they do though? Like what options does Iran have at their disposal? Well, they don't have a lot of good options. Let's start with that. Because again, not responding is not a good option because they think it will show weakness and potentially invite more strikes by Israel and maybe even the United States. But responding also has to be, they understand it has to be calibrated

in a way that is a response, but is a one-time tit for tat and it doesn't escalate. They were able to communicate that back in 2020. So they attacked that US base in Iraq, and then immediately through diplomatic channels, they said, this is it, and we're done, tit for tat. I think that something similar potentially can be what they're looking at This time and I in some way I also see that echoing in messaging that's coming from the White House and the president

Sort of framing this as a one-and-done attack Iran the bully of the Middle East must now make peace if do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier. So I'm hoping that the US also is not looking at further escalating this and can sort of anticipate a tit for tat situation from Iran that would then provide that off ramp for the escalation So I would say a red line a major red line that they should be able to not cross And be careful and I think they are and understand that is US fatalities. So any attack that would Result the death of US personnel and service members could potentially change the public opinion in the US, which right now is against war.

If they can, so their bases across the region, they're actually, the US getting involved has provided Iran with a lot of options as far as targets because they were just going for Israel this past week and now they can go for many, many US bases and interests that are across the region. But how to do that, how precise the attack can be, are there any empty or strategic locations that they can hit and claim victory without really escalating? And they have said in their messaging

that they will respond in an appropriate time, which signals it may not be immediate. And I think the understanding from the US side is also that the US will just wait sort of for the ball as it is in Iran's court, and they're not just going to continue with more attacks. I wonder if you could give me a sense, a little bit more of a sense of what's happening on the ground in Iran. People have been fleeing major cities. I know that it's been difficult to reach family for many outside the country. How is Iranian society reacting

to all this from what you were hearing and unable to observe? So from day one, from the first day of the Israeli attack, it was absolute shock and horror. It came in the middle of the night. People woke up hearing explosions, the ground shaking, jets flying overhead and bringing back memories of the 1980s that brutal air war with Iraq. Since then nothing like this has happened in Iran, especially in major cities and particularly in the capital Tehran. So it was unclear, it was confusing, and the messaging coming from the Israeli side

was that this is an attack on Iran's nuclear program, on military targets, on political targets, but that wasn't the result. So civilian toll has been going up in Iran. Right now reporting is somewhere between maybe 400 to 600 according to official sources, some diaspora human rights groups that are taking the tally. And we've seen homes being destroyed, apartment buildings.

Sometimes there's a unit that was targeted of let's say a nuclear scientist who was sleeping at night, first of all, with their own families. So families, children of the targets, and then their neighboring units and apartments, sometimes the entire building, sometimes just the neighbors, cars that are parked on the street.

So the civilian toll has been high on the Iranian side and it's growing, car bombs are going off on the street, and people try to get to safety. There isn't really an infrastructure of shelters as there is in Israel. So Israeli citizens have sort of this, they're lucky essentially to be provided with that system of sirens, of shelters, availability and the readiness. Iran doesn't have that.

So the state was also shocked, local government scrambling to provide shelters, telling people to take shelter in mosques or to metro stations or the basements of their own homes and then whoever could especially after the social media post came from President Trump he posted on social for everyone to immediately leave Tehran and this is we're talking about a metropolis of almost 10 million people it's more people live in Tehran than the entire country of Israel. And how can you evacuate overnight a city

of 10 million people with women, children, disabled, sick people, elderly? So whoever, I would say the lucky few who have houses outside or family or places they could go stay outside Tehran and neighboring cities and towns have tried to leave. And then we're also seeing sort of a string of people trying to flee the country because

the airspace has been closed. They're trying to flee the country through land borders now. So Iran neighboring a few of these countries, Turkey, Armenia, et cetera, and people are trying to drive out with cars or buses or whatever. But fuel is also a problem. So I know of a family who was trying to leave Tehran for a city that's just three hours outside.

They had to wait in a gas station line five or six hours just to fill up the tank. And then they had an overnight drive of 12 hours to just get to a city that's normally three hours away from Tehran. So getting out of Tehran and establishing sort of a shelter for yourself elsewhere is not something everyone can do. The majority actually can't do that. And it's just confusion and uncertainty of how long this is going to drag and what people

can do to keep their families safe. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on kind of the raison d'etre for these bombings from the Americans, which was to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. As we talked about on the show, like earlier this year, Trump's director of national security, Tulsi Gabbard, told Congress, The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003. Trump recently said that she was wrong.

Who in the intelligence community said that? Your director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. She's wrong. I see now that Gabbard is now saying that Iran could have produced a nuclear weapon within weeks. How are you thinking about this question of Iran's nuclear capabilities? How credible do you view the threat of Iran and nukes as a justification for direct US involvement here? Well, I think whatever the threat was is just increased. So I tend to lean more towards the expert analysis

and the intelligence. And I feel like now we're having political decisions being mixed in sort of an after fact of an attack that now needs that justification but before that the US intelligence reporting had been saying that Iranian the Iranian program remains a civilian one and they haven't made that decision and they haven't really made the leap to weaponize it they were close to it they were producing enough material that could potentially one day be used if they decide to make a bomb. But I think that's the important distinction to make. You can have a civilian program and acquire material, sort of enrich the material.

But you still have to make that decision to weaponize your program and use that fuel to build a bomb and to deliver that bomb you need to be able to mount it on something and so it's not an instant overnight decision and a process and I tend to sort of lean more towards the professional intelligence and expert you know nuclear expert view and also the UN monitoring the UN watchdog nuclear watch like the IAEA all of which had this consensus that it still remains a civilian program. But the political decision in Tehran could be impacted now because the Iranians had been warning that if their nuclear program, which is a declared program, safeguarded with international

monitoring and inspection, some challenges and some back and forth, but still there is international monitoring and inspection oversight essentially over the program. Iranians have threatened that they would leave the NPT, sort of that international agreement, the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and they would reduce that visibility, that international UN visibility over the nuclear program. And then that can potentially even make it easier to go for a clandestine nuclear weapons program in the long term. I don't know if that is going to happen. I hope it doesn't. But if that does happen in a medium or long term, we can thank Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump for it. Right. Because sorry, not to say the obvious here, but the argument that you're making is that there will be people in the Iranian leadership that will come to the conclusion

that the only deterrent worth anything is a nuclear weapon. And that if Iran was nuclear capable, both Israel and the US would have been far less likely to oversee these attacks. I mean, I've seen this argument made not just about Iran, but actually about other countries and what they might be thinking the world over right now. Absolutely, Libya, potentially even Ukraine. And before this attack, the Israeli attack and also the US, this was a hypothesis that some were arguing

and pushing into Iran, but it was only a hypothesis. And now they have evidence. They say, look, what happened and what could have been prevented if the situation was different. So I hope they don't go down that route, but it's not an impossible. Netanyahu is referred to this moment as a, quote, Pivot of history that can help lead the Middle East

and beyond to a future of prosperity and peace. What do you think he means? Well, it certainly is a pivot of history, but in which direction and what outcome is going to come after this? I think that's not clear. I mean, his messaging throughout the past week has been that this is an attack on Iran's nuclear program to sort of turn it back or destroy it. There's also been regime change messaging in the Israeli position, senior officials, and also the messaging that was aired from state TV, et cetera.

And also the fact that maybe the Iranian people would want a moment like this to take sort of the matters into their hand and bring an end to the regime. I think it's not clear which it is or none or a combination of all of these is but I just I need to understand how this regime change for example is going to come about because I don't think regime change is going to happen through sporadic aerial bombing or you know know, targeted assassination of some officials. But we've also seen that the top brass who was assassinated was immediately replaced by others.

And what would come after that? I think this is sort of the uncertainty and the confusion that is now echoed in the civil society. And we see that even the most anti-regime segments of the society, who also see their own government, their own state, their own regime responsible for bringing about this moment onto itself, onto the country, but they also are echoing an anti-war message and saying, this is not the way, you know, may not like this regime when fact we hate it and we would like it to change but this is not the way to do it and War is not the answer and and that's I think that an interesting sort of unity that came out of these

Attacks out of this war that started that an anti-war message is what we're hearing echo in the population and also in the civil society and activists. Ngar, that seems like a good place for us to end this. Thank you. Thank you so much for this. Thanks for having me. All right. That is all for today.

I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson.

Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.