Plain English with Derek Thompson - Is the Middle East on the Verge of All-Out War?

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

Since October 7, 2023, many have feared that the conflict between Israel and Hamas would bloom into a wider war that would consume the Middle East. Today, we are dangerously close to that reality. In just the last month, Israel carried out several attacks against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which, like Hamas, is backed by Iran. Israel is widely believed to be behind the remote detonation of pagers and communications devices that were implanted with explosives, killing and injuring scores of Hezbollah members. Israel assassinated the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and systematically killed much of its other leadership. It has launched a ground invasion of Lebanon—its first in nearly 20 years. It has bombed the Iranian consulate in Syria. Iran retaliated this week by launching nearly 200 missiles at Israel. In the Middle East, no stranger to warfare, this may be the most treacherous moment for interstate conflict since the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. Natan Sachs, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, is today's guest. We begin by visiting each theater of the Middle East conflict: Lebanon, Gaza, Iran. We talk about Israel’s strategy, Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, and Iran’s next steps. We talk about the odds that today’s conflict will tip over into a full-blown regional war—and what that war might look like. And we talk about the United States, what the Biden White House is trying to achieve through private and public channels, and what levers Biden has left to influence the Middle East in his final weeks in office. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [e-mail]. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Natan Sachs Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Today, war in the Middle East. Almost one year ago to the day, Hamas militants on October 7th attacked southern Israel, killing more than 1,000 people, and taking several hundred hostage. Ever since then, Israel and Hamas have been engaged in a brutal war that has killed tens of thousands of Hamas fighters, along with tens of thousands of Gaza citizens, before accounting for the untold more who may have died due to starvation or lack of health care. What has happened in Israel and Gaza over the last 12 months has been a humanitarian disaster. In the last few weeks, however, the conflict seems to be transforming into something even more dangerous, complicated, and chaotic. For the last year, many have feared that the conflict between Israel and Hamas would bloom into a wider war that would consume the entire Middle East.

Today, we are dangerously close to that reality. In just the last month, Israel has carried out several attacks against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by the Shia state of Iran. Israel has remote detonated pagers and communications devices that were implanted with explosives, killing scores of Hezbollah leaders. They assassinated the chief of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and systematically decapitated much of its leadership.

They launched a ground invasion of Lebanon, its first in about 20 years. They bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria. And in response, Iran retaliated this week by launching nearly 200 missiles at Israel. In the Middle East, no stranger to warfare, this may be the most treacherous moment for interstate conflict since the Arab-Israeli war of 1967.

So what happens now? Today's guest is Natan Sachs, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. We begin by visiting each theater of the Middle East conflict, Lebanon, Gaza, Iran, We talk about Israel strategy, Gaza's humanitarian crisis, and Iran's next steps. We discuss the odds that today's conflict will tip over into a full-blown regional war and what that war might look like.

And we talk about the United States, what the Biden White House is trying to achieve through private and public channels, and what levers Biden still has to influence the Middle East in his final weeks in office. I'm Derek Thompson. This is plain English. Natanz, welcome back to the show. Thank you. It's very good to be with you again, Derek. We're speaking almost a full year after October 7th.

You've just come back from Israel. I would just like you to reflect on what you saw, what Israel is like, what the feeling in Israel is like one year after October 7th. Well, it's an extremely somber time. This has been easily the hardest year, most difficult year, that Israelis remember. perhaps back in 1948 there were harder times. But this eclipse was anything else,

including the horrific years of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s when I was in Jerusalem, my hometown. The mood is very somber. There is mourning, daily, new, you know, on a daily basis. It's easy to miss, I think, from abroad because we see so much destruction in Gaza and in Lebanon, and understandably there's a lot of solidarity with the people there.

Israelis, like absolutely everyone, including Lebanese and Palestinians, look at themselves first at their own people, and they're grieving. They're still grieving for the people lost a year ago on October 7th. They're still discovering new things. Israelis are talking about new stories, new people, discovering, you know, as of two weeks ago for myself, discovering new people you knew indirectly who were affected in a big way. And this is very prevalent in the mood.

And, as one person put it, it's not exactly a post-traumatic. syndrome, it's still a complex trauma ongoing because the hostages are still there, 101 and accounted for, and still, of course, the fighting. I hasten to say, although this is a sign of the time, I guess, of how difficult it is, that's of course true of Palestinians. It's true now of Lebanese as well. But again, for Israelis, the way they look at themselves, at their country, a very difficult time. And I'll add two points to that. One is a deep domestic crisis. It's cliche in Israel to say that the external threats are severe, but that the real threat would always be domestic if Israel could not stick together. And today is a real, or now is a real time

of testing for that. Israel's coming off several years of political crisis. And this year, of course, is no exception to say the least with Prime Minister Netanyahu likely sicking around. And for many Israelis, say about half, they have a deep level of mistrust in Netanyahu, which is an extremely difficult position to be in in times of extreme war. And the second point that this affects is it's not only those affected on October 7th or during the war, but tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated from the northern border, from the border with Lebanon immediately after October 7th for fear that the same would happen to them in the hands of Hezbollah along the Lebanese-Israeli border. Hezbollah joined the fight on October 8th, the day after. And when Israel evacuated these tens of

thousands, it was an expectation in Israel that they would return soon. And here they are a year later not returned. This, I think, can be overlooked from abroad, but it's very important to understanding the Israeli actions right now, even. There's a political imperative, absolute imperative for the government to allow the civilians on the northern border to return home and to return home with some sense of safety. Let's talk about several fronts of this war. Lebanon, Gaza, and Iran. And I want to hit them in that order, because while I think they are tied together in several ways, they're also distinct in their own right. So let's start with Lebanon. Since we last spoke, Israel's war, to your point, has broadened to the north. They're taking on Hezbollah. They've

assassinated their leadership in Lebanon and beyond. I'd love you to just help me understand what is Hezbollah and what is their relationship to the governments of Lebanon? Lebanon and Iran. It's a great question, and it's a very hard one to answer. I don't think there is a definitive one, which speaks to how good it is. Hezbollah is a party. It's literally the party of God. A party of the Shia sect or the Shia group within Lebanon.

Lebanon is a very complex society, a large Shia group, which originally was counted as a minority. It's now probably a plurality, easily a plurality, alongside a Sunni Muslim group and Christian groups, Drew's groups, and others. Among the Shia community, there was a party already, Amal Hope. And then in the early 80s, with very strong influence from Iran, emerged a new party, a rival to Amal, called Hezbollah. And it grows very much with Iranian support and very much tied to Iran.

Of course, Iran is the one big Shia power at the time. and very shortly after the Islamic revolution in Iran that brings the Atollah Khomeini to power. His people, including with some connections to the current Supreme Leader Khomeini, have ties to clerics from Lebanon who would often gone to study either in Iraq where there are very important Shia centers

in a Shia population or in Iran. After the revolution, this becomes to a certain degree an outshute of exporting the revolutionist people refer to it often. So in one sense, it is a proxy. of Iran, but it is not correct to just define it as a proxy of Iran. It is also very much a Lebanese party, a party of this Shia group, Shia minority or Shia part of Lebanon. And in that sense, it's also a Lebanese party. So a proxy of Iran and a Lebanese party. Now, it emerges in a time

of the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, which comes on the back of the civil war in Lebanon, and with sex armed groups fighting each other in a very bloody, very, very difficult war. Israel enters then to push out the PLO, Fatah, especially, the Palestinian groups among the refugee camps in Lebanon. And in the beginning, with some support, in fact, from the Shia population that had some hostility or rivalry with the Palestinians. But then Hezbollah emerges and with Iranian support becomes Israel's main foe in the 18 years between 1982. and when Israel finally withdraws from Lebanon completely in 2000, and long after that, in fact, until today. When the civil war in Lebanon ends,

a lot of the armed groups disarm, and there is a peace of sorts achieved, first with a Syrian occupation. They were the hegemon that came in to enforce the peace, and with the Lebanese state that includes all these different factions, although it is non-denonational. the state itself is very denominational. The prime minister is always a Sunni.

The president is always a Christian, etc. But Hezbollah does not disarm. And Hezbollah creates sort of a state within a state. It slowly comes in also to Lebanese politics and becomes the kingmaker. Now the senior leadership positions in the Lebanese state itself, which are not officially part of Hezbollah and are not part of Hezbollah, but they cannot be determined. They cannot be chosen.

A president can't be elected without acquiesel. essence of Hezbollah leadership, or at least until recently, by Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. And most importantly, they are by far, or they were by far, but probably still, the strongest military force in Lebanon. So if you ask in the most cynical sense, who holds the gun, there is a Lebanese armed forces, and they are significant, but they are not significant, if you compare them to the power of Hezbollah. And Hezbollah became de facto, the armed force of Lebanon, but taking sometimes orders from Iran. And briefly, before we get to the present day,

how would you describe the state of and the frequency of military interactions, military conflict between northern Israel and Hezbollah in the last few years? So between 82 and 2000, Israel has a security buffer in Lebanon with a local militia, known as the South Lebanese army,

that it supports fighting against Hezbollah. In 2000, Israel withdraws from Lebanon, with the UN kind of sanction that is withdrawn from everything. Hezbollah then claims a certain area that, in fact, was previously Syria, but Hezbollah claims as part of Lebanon, the Shabba farms, as a cause to continue the fight of resistance against Israeli occupation. Be that as it may, the fight continued. And in 2006, after fighting began in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Israel,

with the kidnapping of a soldier, Gilad Shalit, and the killing of others, Hezbollah joins the fray, attacks across the border northern Israel, and kidnaps the bodies of three reservist Israelis. Israel didn't know if they were alive or dead, but that started the second Lebanon war, as Israelis call it, 82 being the first. A very bloody war, a very difficult one, that comes to something of a stalemate. Israel succeeds in defeating on the battlefield, but there's not much success otherwise in terms of scaling back Hezbollah. it does end with deterrence. So for many years after 2006, we see a very tense but mostly quiet border for many years. In recent times, very recently it has eroded. We see more firing from Lebanon into northern Israel and then responses, and a ratcheting up of tensions up until October 7th, which likely took Nostrala by surprise. But October 8th, he decides to join the frame, not in a full-fledged invasion or attack, but in very significant firing that across both sides led to, as I said, dozens of thousands of evacuees on both sides and a lot of damage, many casualties to northern Israel and, of course,

to southern Lebanon. In the last few weeks, obviously, the news has been full of updates about Israel's attack against Hezbollah, the exploding pagers, the assassinations of top Hezbollah leadership. What is Israel trying to accomplish now that they've invaded southern leaders? Lebanon, moved into southern Lebanon, in order to occupy it. And could you also explain why now, of all times? Israel is involved, and somebody even said bogged down with a devastating war in Gaza, why at the same time press north into Lebanon? So in these long years, again, 18 years since 2006, Israel has been preparing, as has Hezbollah been preparing for what they expected to be

another fight. And we now know, with all of this happening, the page of the... the handheld walkie-talkies, the assassinations with very precise intelligence. We can see the investment of billions of dollars, enormous amount of effort, enormous amount of risk as well in acquiring this kind of intelligence, intelligence on Hezbollah and on Iran probably, and likely the two helping each other, with the ability, as we see now, to really strike heavily at Hezbollah. There was until October 7th, one over-reux,

fear of Hizbalah, which was that Hizbalah with over 100,000 rockets can cover most of Israel and overwhelm Israel's defenses, missile defenses, the Iron Dome, but not only that. And more importantly, that Iran was very heavily trying to improve Hizbalah's rocket arsenal into a precise missile arsenal. And that would be one that can hit, say, within a 10-meter radius, so just a few yards. Israel is about the size of New Jersey, and that means that if you have several thousand precision missiles covered by many, many more imprecise ones that could overwhelm a defense system, you could shut down a country the size of New Jersey.

If you think of New Jersey, and I wish New Jersey well, you could easily hit all the main parts of New Jersey and shut it down completely. So this from the Israeli mind was a strategic threat really unprecedented in nature, and second only to the Iranian nuclear program. This was their top priority, save, of course, for the Iranian nuclear program. And they expended an enormous amount of effort in what they call the campaign between the wars, trying to strike these supplies from Iran, usually via Syria, and into Lebanon, often, to try and prevent that, and prevent Hezbollah from producing their own precise munitions.

This was for them the top priority. Since October 8th, the second priority, the second priority with a very immediate one was to return the Israeli civilians north. So those are the two main goals, degrading Hezbollah as much as possible, and in that so far they have been very successful in terms of decapitating the whole leadership, not only in the political side, but also a lot of the military side, and secondly, in striking against precise munitions and other, a lot of the rest of the infrastructure. The second point of returning the civilians is complicated. It necessitates, on the one hand, degrading the capacity of Hezbollah to invade from the north, something which Nasrallah,

has promised to do. So he for years, long before Hamas, made preparations dug tunnels, in fact, into Israel that were exposed in 2019, and declared very clearly the next war would be fought in the Galilee, which we would call northern Israel. That is what Israel is trying to undermine now. And in southern Lebanon, they are striking against the stations of the Radwan force, which is the elite force of Hezbollah, trying to take out tunnels, not cross-border tunnels, but defensive tunnels. And the whole infrastructure that would allow an invasion of northern Israel, which is fundamentally the fear of the residents along the Israeli border,

that their fate could be somehow similar to the fate of those affected on October 7th on the Gaza border. We're just about to get to Gaza, but before we do, I'd love you to reflect on a juxtaposition that will be obvious to anybody listening. Gaza has been a, I think, humanitarian and strategic disaster. But it seems to me that with your description of Israel's remote explosions, assassination of Hezbollah leadership and military strategic leadership, it seems like you think this is a military campaign that is going relatively successful for Israel. And perhaps that's downstream of the fact that this is something they have been planning for years,

as opposed to the attack from Hamas, which seemed to come out of nowhere and completely catch Israel by surprise. Let's hold on to that feeling of optimism that Israel's campaign against Hezbo has been successful, but spit it forward just a bit because, you know, I'd love you to, I'd love to understand better Israel's long game here.

Once their soldiers are in Lebanon, occupying southern Lebanon, sooner or later it seems to me, they're very, very likely to be shot at. And when they're shot at, they're going to shoot back. And at that point, you have news headlines, not just news headlines, a reality of a hot war, hot battles happening in southern Lebanon. What happens then? What do you see as the long-term plan of an Israeli semi-occupation of southern Lebanon, even if the purpose of that occupation is, in your word, simply to clear out the military capacity of any militant group to

reign terror upon northern Israel? Yeah, this is the key question, right? Is what is your tactics and operations? What kind of strategy do they lead to? And the short answer is it's too early to tell. And if I sound optimistic about the Israeli operation, that's completely as of this moment. It could change, first it could change very fast. And second, it will come to not if it's not utilized for a strategic goal. In the case of Gaza, we saw a strategic goal, which was very expansive. But in the case of Lebanon, the strategic goal is not to get to Beirut. Israel made that horrific mistake in 1982, and it's not about to do that again. It is in debate whether it plans to leave soldiers on the very southern tip of Lebanon. I think that's in play, and I would not at all

be surprised. I hope that Israel will try to undermine the infrastructure built by Hezbollah, and of course, Hezbollah itself, as we've already seen, and we'll continue to see. Of course, at great expenses to Lebanese civilians, we should note, but then get itself out. Lebanon in Israel, in Israeli parlance, Lebanon is almost synonymous with Quagmire. So the Lebanese mud, it was known as. Lebanon is north of Israel. It's cooler. There is mud in the winter, northern Israel as well.

That is the Lebanese mud, the Quagmire, that Israel was in from 1982 till 2000. And that is a huge fear. It's a huge fear in Israel as well. And there's a real danger now with this just insane year that we've all been going through, that judgment and wisdom will not prevail on this. I do think, however, that given the fact that, as you said, this has been prepared and thought through for many, many years, there is a real hope that after they manage to degrade Hezbollah positions in the South,

and they are already fighting, there have been casualties on both sides in this fighting in combat already, that a political, diplomatic arrangement can be reached via the Americans and the French, who have a lot of, say, in Lebanon, with Lebanon, and especially with the Lebanese armed forces Lebanese government, there might be a possibility for Israel to withdraw, perhaps in short order. It depends on the other arenas, of course, but it is not out of the question. This invasion of Lebanon, of course, this invasion is not necessarily a prelude,

certainly not to conquering much of Lebanon, and perhaps not to staying long term either. Let's move to Gaza, where deaths number in the tens of thousands, at least civilian infrastructure, has been completely or at least severely damaged. I think 70% of croplands and roads by one estimate have been destroyed in the statelet of Gaza. At this point, what do you think Israel is trying to achieve? Well, in Gaza, the military objectives have been achieved, and they've been achieved for quite a while for Israel, which is part of the immense frustration that also many Israelis feel

about the government's decision not to move as fast as possible and as forcefully as possible towards a ceasefire deal that would include the return of hostages to Israel. The hostages are the one issue that in the Israeli political life are even a higher imperative than the return of civilians to the northern border. Of course, it does not depend only in the Israeli government. It's often forgotten. It's been forgotten essentially every day since October 7th. It depends on Hamas's leadership, on Sinwar agreeing, and he has not agreed.

But nonetheless, for Israelis, they demand of their government to try to do. all they can. So in terms of the military objective of degrading Hamas, that has largely been achieved already, with one glaring exception, and that is that Sinwar is probably still alive. He has not been heard for a while, but there's no clear indication or strong indication that he's not still active. And if he is, that's the one major kind of headline, you can say, that has not been achieved. What should be happening is now, months late, a shift towards the day after, towards a question of not just bringing down Hamas, but what can replace it. And there are tools. There would be tools to do that, in particular bringing in Gulf states who are willing to do things, not just the

Saudis, which a lot has been talked about, but also the Emirates perhaps, and bringing in secular Palestinian actors, with the acquiescence at least of the Palestinian Authority to start and govern and rebuild the Gaza Strip. I say the Gulf in part, because as you describe, no one's bringing back the dead but in terms of building back the civilian infrastructure that would allow the living to start rebuilding things that is going to be an enormous

financial undertaking and it's a little crass to talk about money but it is true there is no source for that the United States is not paying that kind of money for this Israel cannot no one else is going to volunteer to do it there is one place that could do it and that's the Gulf if the political

mechanism were in place that would involve the Palestinian authority but a reformed one and they would allow them to play a hand in the future of Palestinian politics, leading eventually, at least nominally, towards Palestinian independence of sorts. You just alluded to this, and I think it's absolutely essential, that it is right and reasonable and even morally essential to describe the devastation of Israel's military incursion in Gaza. Israel has an enormous amount of power and agency when it comes to or when it came to responding to the October 7th attacks. But a lot of this analysis, I think, continues to treat Hamas, the government of Gaza with what George W. Bush called the bigotry of low expectations, assigning very little agency to state leaders who I think in fact have an enormous amount of decision-making power and have now for more than 360 days. Hamas, to your point, still holds more than 100 hostages, if they are living.

Its leaders, to my ear, have struck a defiant and antagonistic tone, even as the state of Gaza has been smashed to pieces. As my line of questioning already reveals, I think Israel's response has been an absolute humanitarian catastrophe and a strategic quagmire. But in a war, one side's moral failings don't imply the other side's moral virtue. To the best of your ability, how would you, in good faith, describe what Hamas leadership says it once now? How would you describe Hamas's willingness to negotiate at this point? It's a very hard thing to do, and I'm not completely objective on this. And Hamas is a bit of a black box, right? There are different parts to Hamas there were.

Some of them have been since killed. But the person who counts the most, who is now normally the... head of the political wing and of the military wing in the Gaza Strip War, at least of Hamas operation in Gaza, is Yihisinwar. He is the mastermind behind October 7th, and his revealed preferences. What he has shown to be willing to do is not only a truly unspeakable atrocity. It bears repeating, but also the willingness to subject his own people to what's happening here. Now, I want to be careful with what I'm saying.

I'm not trying, you know, there's a usual trope you'll hear on either side. Well, why is Hamas doing this war? It's all Hamas's choice. I'm not trying to say there's not two sides. Exactly as you said, there are two sides or 15 sides. There's agency to go around, and Israel is more powerful in many ways it has more agency. But in terms of Palestinian decision-making, Hamas and its government were the government of Gaza. And just as Israelis demand of Nathaniel, that the hostages come home, irrespective of how evil

they all believe Sinouard to be. So it would seem to me that Sinwar, or any Palestinian leader who claims the leadership, owes something to his own people. And so his willingness to subject the Gaza Strip and the people of Gaza to all this, not only in initiating October 7th, but also since then, not even contemplating for a moment the possibility that he might go into exile, that he might surrender, that he might hand over his weapons to the Palestinian Authority or the UN or the Norwegians or.

anyone you could imagine. All this is completely outside the realm of possibility. We haven't discussed any of this. And there's no demonstrations about it anywhere. As you can tell, I'm frustrated by it, because I do think there's an understandable desire not to assign agency to the weaker party, but it is absurd in the context of a war. Not only absurd, it's a moral failure in the context of war, because leadership in any context, if it wants leadership, has responsibility and agency towards these people. And so what does it want? As you can say, see, I'm struggling. It wants to strike Israel. That's clear. It also seems very clear that before October 7th, they thought, as others in the axis of resistance, as it's known, the Iranian-backed

axis of resistance believe, that Israel is weaker than it seems that if you strike it for long enough, from enough directions, it will weaken from within and crumble because they believe it is an artificial, illegitimate construct in the Middle East, that is bound to crumble because it is simply in their mind doesn't belong there. And its own contradictions will bring it down. And so I do think there was a very strong belief that enough strikes, hopefully from their perspective, also from the north, which only happened partially from elsewhere, but now we saw from the Houthis, from Iran, that that could bring down Israel, perhaps not in the short term, but in the long term. And secondly, to bring the Palestinian issue back to the global stage,

to thwart the possibility of Israeli Arab reconciliation, especially with the Saudis and the Emirates. In terms of bringing back the Palestinian issue to the global stage, it was a resounding success. Israel is in a deeper, a more negative image than it has been at least since the 1970s. And it's become a central cause, I think, for many people in the West, especially younger people, a very central political cause, part of their own political identity now. And in that sense, it's been a success. It's very far from what Hamas actually is, or what its vision is for Palestine. But in that sense, it's been successful. I would argue if it seems to be the second biggest disaster Palestinians have faced, to my mind, it seems like a humongous failure. But I am not

the audience. I'm not the constituency there thinking of. I want to hold on this issue of agency because I think when it comes to the agency of Israel and Israel's military strategies over the last 30, 40 years, there's a troubling pattern here that I find quite hard to ignore when you look at history in a certain way. In 1982, as you said, Israel's war in southern Lebanon destabilized the area and led to the creation of a new militant group, Hezbollah, which was backed by, is still backed by Iran. In 2005, 2006, Israel's occupation of the West Bank in Gaza led to the first intifada, and that conflict fed into the creation of Hamas, a militant group, again, backed by Iran. Now Israel is in the process of destroying Gaza, absolutely flattening the entire area

with the stated purpose of driving out extremists, just as it is killing off Hezbollah leadership and reoccupying southern Lebanon. I am concerned, however, that yet again, in an extension of the historical pattern, where every Israeli victory is also a kind of catastrophic and puric victory in which its short-term win ends up merely sowing the seeds to create a long-term antagonist, it seems to me almost inevitable that despite the prediction you made of, not prediction, the possibility that you described of Arab states and secular Palestinians coming into Gaza and creating a, new,

co-o-litional government that builds the area, it seems inevitable to me that what's actually going to happen is that the political response that grows

from the rubble in Gaza will be even more militant. It will be more Hamas than Hamas. And so Israel will find itself yet again engaged

in military campaign to itself. Am I wrong to see this historical at least 40-year-old trend of Israel defeating one generation's antagonist to merely sow the seeds of the next generation's antagonist? So I think there's a lot to it, and I fear very much the same in the Gaza Strip.

The main alternative to a productive future is the more likely trend. I don't think it's inevitable, but it's certainly more likely, and that is a failed state at best, sort of almost a non-state of vacuum, a chaos. And that would easily breed extremists, especially since they need no new motivation. There are so many dead and so many people mourning their own that the ground is simply ripe for any kind of extremist to grow. And so therefore, the necessity for creating some kind of alternative is even bigger. Again, I think, I'm not saying it's likely by any means, but I do think it's possible. And I think that is where all of us of goodwill, I hope, should be striving for, is how can we build something there that is different

or allow them to build something there that is different with the support of those who are willing to help from the outside? I'll say about the pattern two important points, or three. One is that in Lebanon, it is somewhat different. The Gaza Strip, and to a certain degree, the West Bank, after the first Sintifida, there wasn't the political mechanism to create a livable future that, whether or not it resolved old grievances. Of course, it does not. It allows people to build a future with a different kind of horizon. Lebanon has enormous problems of its own, and it's in a very bad state as a state,

but there is a state there. There is a society. There is a lot else to be done there. And if Hezbollah is dramatically weakened now, there are other forces that could, in theory, step in. And I'm not saying it's likely again. But there, there is much more of a chance. The question is what happens.

is Iran the one rushing in, as it did after 2006, rushing in with money and building things up and again supporting Hezbollah, it will still be Hezbollah, or will someone else be able to do more? And in terms of Israel, in its own decisions, will it decide to be in southern Lebanon and a large part of southern Lebanon for a long time again? Or will it try to strike and pull out, which it has also done in the past. In 1978, it entered for one week to fight against then-Palestinian militants who were firing in northern Israel, and it pulled out. And that can be done much more sensibly, and there's perhaps hope for it. The other point, that's two points, is that when you see these kinds of military victories and then strategic failure, it also has to do, of course, with two other elements. In some cases, there has been a real alternative.

So after the first intifada, yes, Hamas grew, but then not too long after, after not a result of the first intifada, but of domestic patterns among Palestinians and Israelis, a peace process. There was a real alternative. There was a real possibility of a Palestinian state. It was on the table. It was on the table in 2000, certainly.

And not the Palestinian state, the Palestinians were dreaming of in all ways, but a real Palestinian state. It was on the table again. And so there is a real alternative. And if we're not close to that, the Israeli society is very far from that right now, as is Palestinian society given everything that's happened.

but that is something we should all hope for. But it was true in the 90s and it's true today. We should not forget how powerful and how clever the spoilers are and how determined they are to undermine exactly that. I'm not trying to demonize Iran, and certainly not Iranians, by any means, but the government, the regime in Iran has had a very clear line. They oppose the idea of a secular reconciliation with Israel or secular deal with Israel, whether it includes full of reconciliation or not.

They did not found Hamas by any means, but they supported it later. And when they found out, their aim was to undermine all of this. They objected completely to the peace deals between Arab states, such as Egypt or Jordan, with Israel, or between the PLO and Israel. And they are not disappearing. They will continue to try to undermine things in Gaza, if they can, and certainly in Lebanon, where they probably will be able to. And so if we want to produce a more stable, hopeful future in any of these realms,

it also means we have to have a cold-headed or hard-headed and at times hawkish view on Iranian involvement and how we might counter it in soft and hard terms. All right, let's bring Iran into the picture then. So last week, Iran fired this barrage of missiles into Israel, most of which Israel intercepted. Knowing what you know about Netanyahu and his coalition, his, far-right coalition, Israeli leadership, what do you think will be the next step? The reply to Iran's barrage.

I see the choice set here as being pretty chaotic, but I think we can imagine maybe three doors, three buckets. Number one, de-escalate. Number two, engage with proportionate force. Or number three, engage with disproportionate force, which would include something very dramatic, like taking out Iranian oil production facilities or even taking out the Natanz facility,

where Iran is enriching uranium to near bomb grade, at least according to reports. Between de-escalation, proportionate reply, and disproportionate force, what path do you think is most likely in the next few weeks? I think the least likely is no response at all. I think the lessons Israelis learned right or wrong, but one of the lessons they learned is that they have to appear tough, they have to appear strong. they believe their stock in the Middle East, not just among themselves, has risen because of what they've been able to do to Hezbollah recently, and that therefore Iran must understand that it will be met with superior force anytime it tries to strike. And the last attack was a considerable one. It was far better missiles, ballistic missiles, than it used back in April, and caused probably some very minor damage.

But that was at enormous cost for the defense system, which would not be. able to withstand any kind of attack. So I expect some kind of response. I can't tell you between the two options of sort of de-escalatory or semi-de-escalatory and a more major one. And I say this because there are two very different worldviews about a lot of what's happening in the Middle East. And I think it's true about the commentary here in the United States or in the West as well. One is the Palestinian-centric one, which is to say the core problem of the Middle East is the Israeli-Palestian conflict. And in fact, we have many, many organizations and papers and institutions built around Middle East peace, where what they mean is Israeli-Palestinian peace.

And they call it Middle East, even though, of course, the Middle East has just a few other problems. There's another worldview which the Israeli leadership often tends to hold, which is an Iran-centric worldview, which is to say the Palestinian issue is tangent, is marginal almost in some of their eyes. And really, this is about in recent years, Iran versus the rest versus the source. Sunni Arab world, or much of it, and Israel. And hence, the closer alignment between the Sunni Arab countries and Israel, hence a lot of what we're saying. And hence, this war happening not between secular Palestinian groups and Israel, or between

anyone except the axis of resistance, the so-called axis of resistance, of Iran back loosely or more or less loosely groups. And that's Hamas, which is rather loosely backed by Iran, Hezbollah much more closely. the Houthis, a militia in Syria and Iraq and Iran itself, that is where the war is happening. And this led many Israelis to think even as early as October 11, 2023, so just a few days, four days after October 7th, that they should strike first in the north because they saw this is a war with Iran and with its network. And the strongest element of that being Hezbollah, not the weaker one, Hamas. And they argued even then that Israel should go north and probably do what we've seen

to do right now. So in that sense, there are quite a few in Israel who are saying that they should take the fight to Iran and that a more escalatory step, yes, it would be inconvenient. Yes, it would raise tensions and gas prices would go up, but it would go in their mind to the core of the issue. Let me just end by saying, what frustrates me, of course, is that both can be true. Of course, the Palestinian issue is extremely important, extremely emotive. It's important in its own right. It's also extremely emotive for the rest of the Middle East and much of the world today. And of course, a lot of the geopolitics and what we're seeing is about Iran versus the rest. Both can be true at the same time.

It seems cheap in a sort of news-Kyron way to ask about the worst-case scenario here. But then again, the situation on the ground is a fits and starts regional war between Israel and this axis of resistance, Iran's proxies. And it's becoming a direct conflict between Israel and Iran. what do you see as a plausible worst-case scenario for the next few weeks and months? Well, I hate to say it almost because I don't want to verbalize it into reality, but you could see a full-blown war, full-blown regional war, which is to say that a lot, even though we've seen so much, both sides have held back a lot. Iran has held back a lot because it is trying to defend two core assets.

One asset it lost now to a certain degree in Hezbollah. Isbala was its most important deterrent against Israel. As it often has done, was using a Lebanese militia to defend itself from Israel in a doomsday scenario with an all-out war. The second, of course, is the nuclear program, which is put so much effort and also subjected itself to so much international opprobrium and sanction to promote. And the third, which is the core of everything, is the survival of the regime itself. And so if they felt that now after losing Hezbollah, they are in danger of losing at least elements of the nuclear program. Or most importantly, the regime itself, they may pull out all the stops. And that doesn't mean they can conquer Israel.

They cannot. But they can do an enormous amount of havoc. They have shown in the past, via Hezbollah, a willingness to conduct terrorist attacks abroad in Argentina against not just Israeli targets, but Jewish targets. and of course they've attempted to attack Western targets unrelated to Israel many, many times. We could see a lot more of that. We could see a firing of many, many more ballistic missiles that could penetrate, perhaps overwhelm the Israeli defenses,

a lot of damage in Israel, which would necessarily bring about a much, much bigger Israeli response, which could be quite devastating to the nuclear program or to much else. I also fear that if they pulled out all the stops, that they may be holding back some in Lebanon. And if nothing was held back, we could see an even more devastating war, which could, it's hard to say this, but could have been much worse and still could be, unfortunately. This could also have aspects of cyber war. It could have aspects of terrorism, as I said, and it could engulf many other parts of the region, in particular where Iran has been successful, not just in Yemen, but also in Iraq and in Syria, where sort of liminal areas

of government control. This could be far worse. If I understand you correctly, regional war, full out war between Israel and Iran, doesn't necessarily look like what people might think of as war if they're historians of or book readers of histories of World War I and World War II, where you have adjacent countries crossing, moving troops over a border and invading and occupying certain territories. it will look like a new kind of war that combines long-term, long-distance ballistic missiles, terrorist attacks, proxy battles because Iran has this axis of resistance and has its fingers in a number of pots around the world. Is that right? I think I'd like to just to clarify the distinction between what all-out war today, between Israel and Iran would look like

versus what people might think of as war if they're thinking of a kind of 19-teens or 1940s conflict in the world wars. That's an excellent point. Iran and Israel are two countries apart. There is Jordan and Iraq between them, and Jordan is not about to start a war with Israel.

It hasn't even abrogated its peace treaty with Israel, but even if it did, it is an ally of the United States. In fact, it helped defend Israel against the Iranian attack just last week and in April as well. The same is true of other Arab countries, certainly of Saudi Arabia and the UAE and others in between. And so you're not seeing any, there's no armored corps waiting to fight. If you look at actually big armor core, which is kind of the core of, sorry for the pun, but the core of previous wars that you're describing, the real big ones are the Turkish and the Israeli ones. There are not giant capable armor

Corps around that could do this. And the same is true of air forces. The really capable air forces are the Israeli and the Turkish ones. So could I imagine some scenario in which Turkey got involved in some way? After this year, I can imagine anything. But Turkey is a NATO ally, we should remember. And although Turkey would be an enormous threat to Israel, then vice versa would also be true. So I don't expect any war like that. I'll also note that Turkey is also a country away from Israel. there's Syria in between. And so we don't expect that kind of war, not armor cores. Yes, Air Force strikes, certainly on the Israeli side.

And the counter to that from the Iran-backed access has been mostly these ballistic missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, other means of projectiles trying to counter air superiority of Israel. And second, unconventional means, such as terrorism, including using Palestinians and Lebanese, to carry out the fight for Iran, which it has been doing for a long time. We saw an attack in Israel yesterday, a deadly attack in Israel yesterday, and I expect that to continue. I want to take this inside American politics to close. It's difficult for me to identify any large and loud contingency that thinks the White House is doing a good job here. The right thinks this war makes the president look feckless. The left thinks America's support of Israel is akin to secondhand genocide.

I think that when it comes to U.S. policy toward Israel, there are are several questions here that are sometimes merged into a single complaint. One question is, what's our strategy for the region? What's the end result we're aiming for? And another, I think, very separate question is, are we doing an effective job executing on that vision for the Middle East? So I want to take those questions apart a little bit. With the first question first, Politico is reported that the White House is sending two very different messages publicly and privately when it comes to Israel's engagement with Hezbollah. Publicly, the White House has urged Israel to chill out and de-escalate, but privately, it seems

like senior White House officials have been giving the okay for Israel's moves against Hezbollah. When it comes to the way that you think the White House is looking at this entire campaign, because obviously Hezbollah doesn't exist in a vacuum. This is part of a larger ideological and military conflict between Israel and Iran. What is U.S. strategy right now? what do we want out of this current situation? Well, I think if you look at the administration, its response immediately from October 7th,

you can see several consistent trends that haven't actually changed all that much. President Biden almost immediately identified personally with the not only with the plight of Israelis on October 7th, but with the strategic goals that Hamas cannot anymore govern a statelet adjacent to Israel. We discussed this in the past. And I think that in that sense, that hadn't changed. but after a few months, the White House concluded that that had mostly been achieved.

Whether Sinwar was alive or not, they thought Israel could have stopped much earlier. Israel argued that for the same objective, it could not. There was a major difference there and has enormous ramifications in terms of everything, human life and everything else. But in terms of the fundamental strategic goal, it's not different. Whereas it is very different is in terms of the day after. So what I was describing earlier of a golf role, in the Gaza Strip that could allow for a future to be built.

This is sort of the cornerstone of how the administration in Washington has been viewing it, and that depended in their mind on a ceasefire, a formal ceasefire in Gaza, that would then allow the Palestinian Authority to be reformed, to invite Gulf states to come and help, and then a future to be built. So an alternative to be built around this kind of cornerstone, and here there has been the biggest divide, I think, between Netanyahu and the biore. administration more than anything else. In the north, from the very beginning, the administration identified correctly to my mind, and partially successfully, I think they deserve quite a bit of credit,

that they had a unique role in trying to stave off or perhaps prevent full-out regional war. And we have not quite seen it yet, although we're much closer than we were, of course, but they were able to deter Hezbollah, for example, in probably what was a real dilemma for Hezbollah, do they join in at that moment when Israel was in genuine disarray in some ways, and the military in Israel was not deployed properly in the north? It was just as it was around Gaza. Although intelligence about Hezbollah was so much better than it was about Hamas, where we saw an abject failure of intelligence, the military preparedness on the ground was lacking in the north as well. And it was in part President Biden's words, but also carrier groups that he sent,

that were able to deter Hezbollah and Iran behind it from joining the frame a big way early on. And I think that was very important. I think in terms of Hezbollah, there's a mixed bag. On the one hand, the administration very much wants to avoid major regional war. President Biden and many of his aides are veterans, especially his aides, are veterans of the JCPOA, the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal. And although they don't, I don't imagine they think that's possible right now, the JCPOA is by now dead letter and also partly obsolete.

in terms of timeline, they do believe fundamentally in a diplomacy around the nuclear program. But let's remember, Hezbollah has an enormous amount of U.S. American blood on its hands. Many of the people who were assassinated now were not only wanted by the United States, but had enormous cash dollar prizes on their heads. And so certainly the American administration is not going to object to the taking out of the people responsible for bombing the Marine barracks in Beirut in the 80s. or anything like that. So there's no love loss for Hezbollah,

and I think once Israel is successful, and right now it is, that that could change in a week, right now, once it is successful in degrading Hezbollah at least a certain degree, I think most people in the West, I would say most sensible people, see that as a net positive, notwithstanding, of course,

that there are many innocent people affected by it and hurt by it. And so there's a mixed bag. The administration has had all that in terms of objectives. In terms of the tools to do it, that's a harder one. They have limited tools in their hands. They, of course, have been working closely with Israel, partly as an ally, partly, I think, out of genuine worldview of the president, of Joe Biden, who believe in standing by Israel and believe in mostly the Israeli age of this war.

But their leverage with Benjamin Netanyahu has been lacking, has been certainly mixed. That partly has to do with the fact that Israelis, including Nathaniel, Netanyahu, view this war as existential, and therefore pressure could do quite a bit, but it would not prevent everything. When you're fighting for your life or you think you are, you're not about to succumb to pressure to stop. But it also has to do with this very special, very troubling position Netanyahu is in domestically, a position that even if you are a fan of Netanyahu is a very troubling one. A prime minister who lacks the trust of about half his country or more is in a very, very troubling position to lead the country in its perhaps biggest historic crisis.

Well, it seems to me that we're looking at the collision of two domestic policy crises here. On the one hand, you have Netanyahu, who's extremely unpopular, although I think it's important to point out that, at least according to CNN, polls of Netanyahu's popularity seem to rise meaningfully after the Hezbollah assassinations and attacks. And so that might in some way give him succor to continue along that path. On the other hand, there is an election in, I'm not very good at the math here, but something like 32 days. And Biden certainly doesn't want a regional war breaking out in the Middle East a fortnight before his vice president goes up against Donald Trump. So summarizing U.S. grand strategy here, or at least U.S. sort of key points, they want to avoid regional war. They want to de-escalate in Gaza. They want to optimistically set the stage for re-engagement with Iran somewhere down the line, which would involve not a direct attack against their nuclear development facilities. What are Biden's break glass in case of emergency?

levers here. If the policy of the outgoing Biden White House, because no matter what, on January 25th next year, there will be no Biden White House, what is, what stops can he pull in the next 30 days to ensure that you don't have a full-on Middle East war on the eve of an American election? So first, so there's two sides of it. One is what levers can they pull, especially with Iran, which is the decision maker on the other side to a large degree. And the second, of course, with Israel. So with Iran, there is carrots and sticks, mostly sticks. There is deterrence via troops, via carrier groups.

And as I said, I think it's been quite effective in the past year. And they deserve quite a bit of credit for it. But of course, there is also diplomacy, some of it quiet diplomacy, some of it indirect. There was diplomacy with Iran before October 7th, and there certainly has been since then. We don't have an embassy in Tehran, but we do have a lot of other channels by which to convey messages. I'll note that both in April and now Iran telegraphed its attack on Israel. That does not diminish the fact that these were massive attacks, but they telegraphed them to the Americans and tried to, which clearly suggests they were not fully escalatory or Iran was trying

to find a way in which they could attack, perhaps cause real damage, but then leave a window for de-escalation. On the Israeli side, the same is true to a certain degree, but much more so. America has a lot of levers with Israel, positive and negative. We've seen in the past the withholding or the partial withholding of some of the bigger munitions, a very small amount. But we also see a lot more pressure that I think does not reach the news. I think we discussed this as well, you and I before. There's a lot more pressure that can be done on the margins that is far more effective, that, for example, had enormous effect on the entering of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Not enough by any means, but much more than was before. And that partly had to do with American pressure on the more private side. there's a catch here politically. On the left, it seems like America is simply supporting absolutely everything Israel does. And of course, it is very supportive of Israel. There's no question of that. But of course, any kind of pressure, the American administration also has an interest, a political and other kind of interest, to keep quiet.

If they publicize the pressure they put on Israel, that also can embolden Hamas or others to harden their position in a negotiation, for example. So when the White House pressures Israel, it doesn't want to telegraph it to the world because it is hoping that Hamas will not harden its position. In other words, I think there's a lot more happening than we think, a lot more pressure and some of it quite effective, albeit, of course, within the context of large support. And finally, when you look at the interests of both sides, the Israelis and the Iranians here, the Israelis, they don't necessarily lead to de-escalation, right?

Israel wanted to degrade Hezbollah. That's not the same as de-escalating within existing Hezbollah. And it did not have a de-escalation approach to Hamas. it thought Hamas should not govern Gaza. That's not de-escalation. But it does not mean that Israel is now prepared or interested in a full-scale war, which I don't think it is. And in that regard, there is a lot to work with. So although the threat of what I described before is real, there is also very real reason to believe that Israel had very clearly laid plans prepared for years now in the north,

just as it was neglecting intelligence on the South, and that its ability to carry out these plans and to expend them to a certain degree, also could lead to a situation where Israel views de-escalation positively. I do think that's the more likely scenario. It will not make things nice, but it does mean that we have a real chance to avoid major escalation.

The American political timeline may not fit that. Many people think that's not coincidence. I'm not so sure. I don't know. I'm not trying to be Polyanish or... I'm just saying I often don't know, and I think we ascribe political motivations often more than we think. They could be there, certainly. All these people are political animals.

Ntonia was absolutely a political animal. But a lot has to do with other things. Let me give one example for that. A lot of this happened when the pager attack started. That sort of led to a lot of what we're seeing right now. As I said, on October 11th, Israel was considering this kind of northern front first. It was dissuaded from that, and its leadership decided to go first to Gaza. There are reports probably correct.

know that the pager operation was about to be exposed by Hezbollah and Iran, and therefore it was a use-it-or-lose-it situation. Therefore, Israel used it. Therefore, it had to use its capacity with the handheld walkie-talkies. Therefore, everything else fled, sort of flooded from there. And, of course, answering a domestic demand to finally allow tens of thousands of Israelis to go home. All this had nothing to do with the American political cycle. Maybe it did. I'm not saying it did not. But I'm not as smart. as all the other commentators I see on Twitter who know exactly why Nathaniao decided to do one thing or another.

Well, we always appreciate your intelligence nonetheless. Natan Sachs, thank you so, so much for coming back to talk to us about this whole mess. And I appreciate the fact that even though you're willing to outline the possibility of worst-case scenarios, you still hold hope for the possibility of a way through at least avoiding something like a regional war. So thank you very much. Thank you, Derek. It's a pleasure to talk to you, and I hope the coming year now will be a far more pleasant conversations. So do I. Thank you for listening. Today's episode was produced by Devin Beraldi.

Our summer schedule for plain English for the next few weeks will be one episode a week on Fridays. We'll see you next week.