PBS News Hour - Full Show - What war in Iran has revealed and what remains unknown

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

The Iran war has spiked oil prices, triggered retaliatory strikes against Gulf neighbors and elevated a younger supreme leader. But will the regime survive? How will the war end? And were there military mistakes in the rush to launch the first strike? Compass Points moderator Nick Schifrin discusses the knowns and unknowns with Suzanne Maloney, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Ray Takeyh and Alex Vatanka. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

The knowns and unknowns of war in Iran. The war has spiked oil prices, triggered Iranian retaliatory strikes against its Gulf neighbors, and elevated a younger, even harder-line, supreme leader. But will the regime survive? How will the war end? And were apparent military mistakes the result of a rush to launch the first strike, as tonight on Compass Points? Hello and welcome to Compass Points.

The war with Iran is being waged across more than a dozen countries. We don't know where it's going. but the impact has already been profound. In Iran, an unprecedented degradation of the military, thousands dead. Across the region, countries that have not faced Iranian drones and missiles before, now struggling to shoot them down. And the largest disruption to energy in world history.

To discuss what we know about the war and the war's many unknowns, I'm joined tonight by Suzanne Maloney, the Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy at Brookings. Ruel Mark Grecht, former CIA officer focused on Iran, and a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Ray Take is a Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Alex Vitanka is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

Thank you all so much. Thanks for being here. Really appreciate it. As I said, let's begin a little bit with what we know, and that is that this war began with the largest ever American and Israeli air campaign in each of their histories. So, Ruel, why don't you start? Do you believe the campaign is working? Well, I think it's probably a little too soon to know that.

I mean, the timeline that the U.S. military has for this basically extends to the end of the month. And they have several different factors coming together. So they expect to degrade the Iranian military, particularly the Navy. substantially by the end of the month so that it would be possible, if necessary, to use convoys they could, to essentially bring the Strait of Hormuz back up online. So I say militarily, I would say yes, though there are issues, particularly in the straits that need to be solved sooner, not later, and it's unclear whether they anticipated clearly what the Iranians were going to do.

Alex, not only is the military goals described as degradation of the Navy, but specifically missiles and drones, the missiles and drones themselves, but also the production capability. Is the military campaign working? Nick, it really comes down to how you measure success. I mean, this is the thing that, you know, the military side in terms of, you know, taking out lots of different assets, clearly it's working. But to Ruel's point, how long is this going to continue? What is the end game?

I think that's what a lot of the military folks that I'm listening to on the U.S. side is saying what is our endgame because we can't keep going doing this. Look, the Iranians have been preparing for this. I just want to remind everyone, Ali Khan, one of these last speeches, he made that very clear

if they're going to attack us, meaning U.S. and Israel, this is all our war. So they've been preparing for this. In some ways, the Islamic Republic is preparing for this since 1979. So I don't know what their capacity will be in terms of throwing surprises.

they've already, to some extent, surprised a lot of countries. I wasn't surprised the fact that they went after Gulf countries because they pretty much telegraphed that in months in advance. We're weak. We're going to look for ways to take their world economy hostage to the extent that they might be able to force Donald Trump to back away. That's been their strategy so far. It might backfire on them, but that's where they are right now.

So let's talk about that strategy, and let's talk about the new leadership in Iran. We do have a new supreme leader, Mostabahe Mahomete, the son of the fourth. former Supreme Leader Ali Khanameh. And in his first statement this week, he said a few things. One, that Iran would continue blocking the Strait of Hormuz through its 20% of the world's oil travels. He warned of opening, quote, other fronts.

He vowed to avenge those killed, and he urged Gulf countries to kick out U.S. troops. So, Ray, meet the new boss, same as the old boss? Well, he certainly has followed his father's model of trying to call for eviction of the United States from the region and waging the war along what the Alex's has said, there was always some speculation about whether Murchtabar was different because there was not much known about him. I don't think there was a public speech of him on the record. So the only thing we knew about him was by his associations with the Revolutionary Guards

and being the backdrop and so forth. Now that he has come out, he has made his point very clear that he stands on the more reactionary wing of the Iranian politics. And so far that speech is not that dissimilar to any of his fathers. Suzanne Maloney, and I will mention in passing, you guys are married. Suzanne Maloney, is that how you see it? A reactionary speech and similar to his father? Yes, I think that there's a lot of commonality in the themes that Mojtabha evoked in his opening statement.

I think it's also notable, of course, that we haven't seen Mojtabha publicly. He's said to have been injured in the attack that killed his father, his mother, a number of other members of his family, including his wife. And, you know, I didn't think it was particularly hard line given that we, already understand him to be in that camp and that under the current circumstances, it's almost inconceivable that any statement from a newly named Iranian leader would be anything other than doubling down on the response and the retaliation and the readiness of the Islamic Republic to contend with this really unprecedented set of circumstances.

And as we've been talking about, this is the strategy that we've seen by Iran, right, not only the supreme leader, but trying to bring pain to Washington, pain to President Trump, whether by, through economic means, right, raise the price of gas or pain in the Arab countries around the region. I might add, I think this is the only tactic they have. I think their proxy strategy has been fractured. It may be beyond repair because of the loss of Syria. Terrorism, you know, they might get lucky, but certainly their terrorist apparatus seems to have passed into dissuitude. So it's not surprising they go for the strait of Hormuz.

And is it not only not surprising, but Ruel, were you part of a military campaign? Were you actually predicted this 20 years ago? I wasn't. Military war games. Yeah, I got to play the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, and this is exactly what I did, because it is the way that the Islamic Republic could conceivably, possibly win, is to create this type of mayhem and to test the resolve of the Americans and all also its Arab allies.

Alex, is the IRGC also want war? Does it help it consolidate power, especially as it has a new Supreme Leader? Just to build on what Ray and Suzanne said about Mosh Tabat, the way I look at him is he doesn't really have a political agenda of his own as of right now. I mean, this is a 56-year-old guy who they just sort of brought in. I mean, he's a known entity, but what I'm trying to say, he's the one who was groomed by the Revolutionary Guard, it's not the other way around. So they essentially own him by being an exaggeration, but he's beholden to the guards.

Now, this is the big decision the guards have to make. The old man, Ali Khomeini, spent 36 years bringing the country of Iran to this brink of disaster. His policies, his unwillingness to cut compromises at home abroad. Now, the Revolutionary Guards are now for the first time in their lives fighting this two-front war. One is external attackers, the United States, Israel, but the other one, which we shouldn't forget about, because they're not, we're not hearing about them right now, but it's the angry Iranian population, which could come out again in the streets,

like we saw in recent weeks. And that would be, I think, the challenge that IRGC has never been tested for, can they... You mean externally and internally. And exactly. So they might have to make that decision to say, look, we have muched up on now,

the face of a new era. Maybe this heartline is the best candidate to actually go in a different direction. I'm not saying he's going to do that, but that is one option they have for their own survival, not because they like anybody at home or abroad, but for the sake of reducing the pressures they're under.

That sounds like Muchabha does have options, and you were suggesting, Suzanne, that, well, this is kind of the natural position for any Supreme Leader to sake. I think it is the natural position, and certainly, you know, they may be looking for their own off-ramp because at a certain point, this is, you know, costly for them to maintain,

and they recognize that at some point the war is going to have to end, and they wanted to end on their terms. I am not anticipating that Mojitaba somehow comes out or that the Revolutionary Guard come out offering some kind of an olive branch, either at home or to their neighbors, because what they're trying to also demonstrate to the international community and to Washington and Israel in particular is don't do this again, because you will pay a price. And they probably recognize that they're not going to be in the current moment for very long, and they're not going to be able to recapture it, a moment where they have kind of turned the tables, at least briefly. on a campaign that was initially incredibly successful in terms of the very early assassination of Ali Khomey, the supreme leader, and the complete degradation of Iran's ballistic missile capability, its navy, and other military assets. So they're going to have to play this in, I think, a really careful moment. It's often been said that the U.S. and Israel especially are very good

at tactical successes, strategic successes being the larger question. We know also that Israel's long-term goal to that point is regime change. We heard it from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu multiple times. Surrey, let me start with you on the million-dollar question. Is there a way for Iran to rid itself of the regime and obtain some kind of different leader or not? Well, I make a couple of points. First, on the notion of whether Murchtabar will pursue a different course of action, is the Nixon going to China analogy? And frankly, since Nixon went to China, China, nobody else has. Everybody says, hardline rulers and pick the country are going to make that reorientation.

There is a reason why they're hardlines, because they believe in such an ideological vision and ideological precepts. The Israeli theory of the case is that if you pummel the security services much, or as Prime Minister Netanyahu said, break their bones, then when there is a next protest, the regime will be significantly weakened and the population is significantly boldened that the regime could topple. That's the theory of the case.

I live in the universe of probabilities, not certainties. Probability of that happening are less than probability of it not happening. So 51.49. Well, even more than that. Right. I think... Within the time frame that would be ideally... Within the time frame that would be ideal.

So I don't actually see that happening, but that's the theory of the case that Israelis are operating on. And it's not an unreasonable one from their perspective, because even if the government is not toppled, it's still profoundly degraded. 5149, give a take. I also think it's unlikely that we're going to see regime change in the near term. And I think that... I think he told one of my colleagues that it was not possible. I don't see a scenario under which, you know, we could see some kind of a... collapse of the regime, even if the military has been so heavily degraded. The regime itself

has certainly has used the military to its own advantage, both at home and around the region. But that's not what keeps it in power. What keeps it in power is an overlapping network of institutions that are deeply embedded and that are intended to control the political dynamics within the country. And there's really no counter-movement to that, except for individuals who are willing to go to the streets and risk their lives. I was going to say, given the sins that they have committed, given the number of people who have been slaughtered, I think the members of the regime know that there's no forgiveness, which is one of the reasons why if the president actually ever believed in the Venezuela model,

it simply didn't fit with the Islamic Republic. That segues to what I would call the biggest unknown, which is U.S. policy. And so the president has offered, shall we say, varying timelines and motivations for the end of the war. And perhaps one of the most telling was this one. I want a system that's not going to be attacking us. We want a system that can lead to many years of peace. And if we can't have that, we might as well get it over with right now. Get it over with right now.

Suzanne, what happened to helping the protesters? That seems to have been lost, really, the minute the president. President put down his phone with his access to truth social. Throughout the month of January, he was calling for Iranians to go to the streets, sees their institutions promising that the United States would be there to rescue them. He then pivoted to the nuclear negotiations. And in a lot of his statements over the course of the war itself, he has sort of focused on the nuclear issue as the issue that he's trying to solve. I don't think that there's a coherent theory of the case of what this war is intended to achieve other than the military degradation. And if that's all this

was about, then we have achieved it at a very high price to the world economy. Well, obviously, the president is an undisciplined thinker and speaker, so he has contradictory aspirations at times. I mean, again, I always think it's the Islamic Republic, what's happened to them, it's condemned punishment. So given the hundreds of American citizens they have killed over the years, given many other actions that they have engaged in, I think it would be unwise to allow them to develop more sophisticated weaponry, either conventional or unconventional.

But obviously this will come down to, I think, a question of perseverance. Whether the United States has the endurance to continue, I'm not sure the President does, or the Iranians. If we continue, and the United States has the endurance, I have no doubt the Islamic Republic is going to lose. But it is an open question, given all the market volatility and other political issues, whether the president would say this is enough, declare victory, and go home. On that, on an open question, let me give you guys another variable. So a senior U.S. official admitted to me early on that their strategy was not to choose the endgame ahead of time.

that as multiple officials have described to me, this is not an era of policymaking. It's an era of policymaker, the policymaker, and that therefore the president wanted the choice to decide at some point, whether it would be regime change or not regime change, would it would be the Kurds or not the world would be the Kurds. A lot of open questions, and that was purposely decided.

Alex, what's the impact of not choosing or not charting out the end game ahead of time? I don't think the impact has been good. I mean, if you believe that the United States looks at its toolbox and says, the one thing I have, other than the military force that I can bring to this fight, is that angry Iranian population,

this 92 million nation, most of whom really have had enough for the Islamic Republic. How do I mobilize that energy? How do I weaponize it against the system? The president, others have pretty much said that's what they want to see. So how did it go about weaponizing that, if you will? Nothing.

They actually did the opposite. One hand, they're talking about ethnic Kurds of Iran from Iraq going in to take territory. And the other hand, we're seeing Crown Prince Reza Pallavi de Monarchus being mentioned. And, you know, if they had asked us Iran watches, we would have said, sir, those two groups don't get along. It doesn't really seem to make sense. So the opposition, both outside and the Iranian public sentiment, has it basically left wondering, what is it? The Americans won. Is it regime change?

or, as some people suspect, particularly on the right in Iran, is that actually it's not so much the regime. It's just weaken Iran, so it doesn't pose a threat to anyone. And I think Iranian nationalism then kicks in, and it doesn't help the American case against the regime. Let's take a listen to how the president explained his varying motivations in a single speech this week. You know, you never like to say too early you won.

We won. We won the best. In the first hour, it was over. You don't want to leave early, do we? We got to finish the job, right? We don't want to go back every two years. Because, you know, there'll be someday when you don't have me as president. Will you want to try and translate that? Yeah.

Well, that's hard. I would probably cite something that Ray, a point he often makes. I'll steal it from him. And that is, you know, the 12-day war actually changed everything. And I don't think the Americans have fully appreciated that. We're not going to default back to diplomacy. We are going to be in a perpetual war with the Islamic Republic now. It may not be continuous, but it's not going away.

So until you realize that, I don't think you can adopt a correct strategy on how to deal with the Islamic Republic. And I think the president zigs and zags all over the place. So, right, is that the right strategy or is that just the reality? And is the U.S. really capable and willing to do that? Well, that's the reality. The June conflict led to March, and March conflict will lead to another one. If this war ends in a couple of weeks, both sides have a narrative of success. The American narrative of success will be they degraded Iran's capability,

decapitated its leadership, and did considerable damage. The Iranian narrative's success is, A, they survived, and B, they proved that as cemented, can actually impose costs on the United States and the global economy. That irrespective of how their capabilities were degraded and irrespective of the imbalance of power between they and their adversaries, they still manage to inflict sufficient costs on the international community, the global economy, and the regional actors to essentially cause some deterrence in the minds of their adversaries. Whenever you have a conflict with both sides come out with a victory, that means round three

is coming. Can both sides really have victory? I don't think both sides can have victory, but I also would take issue with the presumption that Ruel mentioned, apparently Ray has written about the inadequacy of diplomacy, because I think we are going to have to return to diplomacy at the end of this war, however it might end. And part of that is that our regional partners are on the front lines of this war. They are taking the hits, and that is what they are going to be pushing for in the aftermath, because they can't afford to have conflict after conflict. The entire social, economic, political, strategic model of the Gulf states in particular rests upon the ability to attract tourists, to attract

finance, to attract tech events. And you're seeing just one of the many hits on those at Gulf energy installations right now. Yeah, so I think that, you know, whether we like it or not, we're going to have to be back in some kind of a diplomatic arrangement with the Islamic Republic, which is, I think, anathema to many of us who felt that at this point in time, the regime was weakened, people were coming to the streets, we needed a different strategy with a long-term view of what might be possible for Iranians, a better future for Iranians. Instead, the president opted to undertake this war without apparently thinking about not just the day after the war, but the second day of the war, because everyone understood precisely

how the Iranians would retaliate. We didn't know what their capacity or how sustained it might be, but we knew that they would hit the Gulf, we knew that they would try to close the Strait of Hamos. And this is exactly what we're contending with, and it appears that the administration had no plan for dealing with any of that. Can the Gulf, and I'll add, you go first, can Israel keep going on this? If the president decides, you know, I'm done, call it a victory,

you know, we did X, Y, Z, thank you very much, BB's not going to like that, right? So, like, can Israel, can the Gulf dictate where this goes, or is this really the president deciding what to do with the military in the Israel? Well, I don't think the Saudis and the Emirates are all that influence. influential. Will they have weak knees? They already do about this, without a question. And

I agree with Suzanne, their entire model for the way their world works, they need to have peace returns sooner or not later. I don't think necessarily they'll get what they want, maybe, I doubt it. Although, I mean, Gulf officials before the war suggested me that the Saudis especially were worried that President Trump would not enforce his red line, and they actually sort softly encourage the president's key. Well, this has been the Saudi motif forever. Right, right.

You know, they want the Americans to be tough, but they don't want to pay the price for it. I think the Israelis have target lists, and they want to go through those target lists. You know, one hears their target list go to the end of the month. They have been working their way down. I think they're primarily now aimed at going after the coercive apparatus, to go after the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basiege.

Yeah, we saw the first. attacks on specific, you know, like almost police checkpoints. They want to go all the way down because they want to test the theory that six months down the road, eight months down the road, when there's another explosion, another eruption of public discontent, and there's no question that's going to happen again. We just don't know when. That they'll have a better chance of success. Now that's a dice throw.

I mean, there's no better way to put it. It is there, there's no guarantee of success. We saw that the regime was willing to kill thousands of Iranians with great brutality. I don't think they've lost their nerve. Alex, I think this will be the last word we got about a minute left. Dice throw? I mean, that's not usually how we go to war, right? Or I don't know, maybe sometimes we have.

Look, I mean, if you're sitting in Israel, the Iranian threat, you have to worry if they survive what sort of level of revenge they seek from you. That's one way. You mean internally? If the Iranian regime survives, what kind of regime would be? right now, again, revenge might be on the top of the agenda. But I also want to quickly point out, we don't know how long this war is going to continue.

We don't know how many more IRGC or so-called hard lines are going to be removed from the scene. And might be, again, I may be hopeful here, but if you believe in the idea of it maybe change from within Iran, maybe the balance of power also could change inside as a result of the impact of the war. I just very quickly cite former President Hassand Rouhani, to the extent that he matters, but he was saying, let's stay in this war, survive it,

but then we really have to make some fundamental changes going forward. Will people like him have a say? I don't know, but that will be interesting to watch out for it. Are you saying that the changes could go either way, that it wouldn't necessarily be more hard by him? Exactly. Well, look, fundamentally, the idea of opposition from outside going over, overtaking the country, that's not going to happen.

So we really have to look for forces within the Islamic Republic, if this system survives, that might be able to change course. Again, it's a big if, but it's something worth watching. All right. Alex Votanka, Ruel Markrecht, Ray Takey, and Suzanne Maloney. Thanks so much to all of you. And thanks to you for being here. That's all the time we have for.

I'm Nick Schiffran. We'll see you here again next week on Compass Points.