The Daily - The Threat of a Wider War in the Middle East

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

A recent string of attacks across the Middle East has raised concerns that the war between Hamas and Israel is spreading, and might put pressure on other countries like Iran and the United States to get more involved.Eric Schmitt, who covers national security for The Times, discusses the risk that the conflict is becoming an even wider war, and explains the efforts underway to prevent that.Guest: Eric Schmitt, a national security correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: Attacks have heightened fears of a wider war for the Middle East and U.S.After a Red Sea barrage by the Houthis, a militant group in Yemen, the U.S. and its allies are considering how to retaliate.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Katrin Benhold, in for Sabrina Taranisi. This is The Daily. A recent string of attacks across the Middle East has raised concerns that the war between Hamas and Israel is spreading and might put pressure on other countries, like Iran and the United States, to get more involved. Today, my colleague Eric Schmidt, on the risk that the conflict is becoming an even wider war, and the efforts underway to prevent that. It's Thursday, January 11th.

Eric, welcome back to the show. Thank you very much. From the moment that Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th and Israel responded to Gaza, the United States has been very concerned about an escalation of this war into the region. And in the last few weeks, there have been a series of strikes and counter-strikes in different parts of the Middle East and in the Red Sea. And so I come to you, Eric, as our national security correspondent, to ask, is this the moment this conflict is turning into that wider regional war that we've all been worrying about? Well, Katrina, I think you're right.

This is a moment of concern. I think you're right. This is a moment of concern. Ever since the October 7th attacks in Israel, the Biden administration has been relentlessly focused not only on responding to that war, but specifically on how to avoid having the war widened beyond Gaza. The president himself and his top aides feel that a wider war in this region would be an economic disaster, a security catastrophe, and would be very damaging going into an election year to have that kind of conflict running, particularly one in which it'd be hard to see how it'd be contained. So from the very beginning, the president ordered the first of what became two aircraft carriers and doubled the number of American strike aircraft in the region, basically to warn off anybody else who would try and take advantage and try and widen

the conflict in the region. So let's unpack some of this. It's messy. Talk us through these recent events, Eric. What has happened beyond Israel and Gaza? Yeah, I think all you have to really do is look kind of at the events of the last 10 days or so to really underscore this concern about a wider regional war in the Middle East. And first off, I think it's important to lay out that one reason the events of the last few weeks are concerning to U.S. officials is because most of them are tied to Iran in some way. And the concern here is that Iran may not want to get directly involved, but it has all these proxies that it'll activate in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen itself. So, for instance. Tonight, a senior Hamas leader is dead amid serious concerns the war in the Middle East

is about to get bigger. On January 2nd, the deputy leader of Hamas, Saleh al-Aroui, and two leaders of its armed wing were killed in an explosion in a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. Israel was responsible for the attacks, according to U.S. and Western officials. Who does it benefit? It benefits the Israelis to kill him, and they did so, almost certainly. Hard to imagine anybody else. This is significant in a couple of ways. One is Israel's fight against Hamas. It goes outside of Gaza itself, and they're reaching into Lebanon. But more significantly, it's on the home turf of Hezbollah, which is the largest and most formidable proxy that Iran has in the region.

It's been financed and equipped by Iran for years and years, and it's very much of a concern there. In a statement released by Hezbollah, it says its hand is on the trigger. So that's kind of the first thing. The second thing is... The U.S. military killed a high-ranking Iraqi militia leader in Baghdad today. You have a mysterious explosion in Iraq. The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned the bombings.

On January 4th, it turns out a U.S. special operations drone killed a senior figure in an Iran-linked militant group that is actually part of Iraq's security apparatus there. The ministry, quote, reserves its right to take a firm stance in all necessary measures to deter anyone who tries to harm its territory. But American officials defended the strike as a self-defense attack against a key commander in this militia that has carried out more than 120 attacks against U.S. troops inside of Iraq and Syria since the October 7th assault. So this is very much of a concern for American officials there, for their own personnel. Hezbollah is claiming a top commander has been killed in an Israeli

airstrike in Beirut. Then on January 8th, you have a strike in southern Lebanon, again, in Hezbollah's stronghold, kills a Rod 1 force commander. This is a strike that's been carried out by Israeli strike aircraft. Clearly, the Israelis are deliberately trying to send a message to Hezbollah that they are in no mood to be messed around on the border. And basically, this is kind of the latest in a series of back-and-forth cross-border attacks between Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel that the United States is very concerned could turn into a much wider campaign. Today that Hezbollah could ramp up their strikes against northern Israel following

this strike that took place this morning. I think at the moment with tensions as they are it's more likely that things will flare up. And this Radwan force is basically the military, the sort of most elite military wing of Hezbollah. That's right. And they're right up on the border. And this is a big concern for Israel because Israel has had to evacuate tens of thousands of residents in the northern part of the country because that territory is coming under consistent rocket missile attacks from Hezbollah. And even before October 7th, this was the area that Israel and the United States, frankly, were most concerned about. So once you have the October 7th attacks, once you have Iran activating its proxies, Israel, of course, is very concerned that a next step might be some kind of retaliation by Hezbollah. So far, that has not happened.

And intelligence sources indicate that Hezbollah does not want to engage in a wider war. But this escalation that we've seen of cross-border attacks could lead to a miscalculation, could lead to one side or the other deciding they have to go forward, and that could basically engulf that part of the country in a second front. In the last area where we've seen a lot of activity is in the Red Sea. Houthi militants have launched 25 attacks on commercial ships since mid-November, including one today. This is this key waterway where 12% of the world's commerce flows through it. And what you've had since the October 7th assault is Houthi rebels in Yemen have launched

a series of attack drones, missiles, and rockets at commercial shipping, basically saying and vowing to continue these attacks against commercial shipping until Israel withdraws from Gaza and ends the war there. This has had a dramatic impact on the shipping lanes. Five of the world's largest shipping companies have announced they're suspending sailings through the route. While the Houthis say they're targeting Israel-bound ships, but experts say they're firing indiscriminately. So what you have here is the Houthis, which are another one of these proxies, launching a series of attacks, the most recent of which came on Tuesday night.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have carried out their largest attacks so far on shipping lanes. The Ministry of Defense says a British warship and U.S. warships fought them off. And this was significant because just last week... The U.S. and its allies have warned the group to stop or face potential military action. The United States and a dozen other countries basically gave the Houthis an ultimatum. Cease and desist these kind of attacks or else was kind of the ultimatum. Now, the coalition did not specifically mention military strikes, but our reporting indicates that the Pentagon has been drafting target lists

of Houthi radar sites and missile storage areas and all sorts of things should President Biden and some of the other coalition countries that are involved here decide that they want to launch retaliatory strikes. In the meantime, the United States has led an effort to create a maritime security force. These are ships that are specifically designed to knock down these attacks that are coming in from the Houthis, and they've been, by and large, relatively successful. The Houthis have seized one container ship and still hold it in the Red Sea, but you now have a coalition of more than 20 countries operating ships in the Red Sea and sometimes escorting commercial vessels through the waterway to allow them to reach their destination.

Okay, so it really does sound like the answer to that earlier question I asked about a wider war. Is this it? Is yes? It feels like things have really spread in the way that people feared when the war first started. Well, again, it's certainly a central worry for President Biden and his top aides in Washington and for other allied officials who were involved in this conflict. And it's a central concern for the U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, who is currently in the region on his fourth official visit there since the war started. But despite these incidents and this kind of stacking up that we saw so ominously in the last 10 days or so,

there are some kind of large forces at work that may keep these incidents from spiraling out of control. We'll be right back. So, Eric, you mentioned some big forces that are keeping this conflict from spinning out of control. Walk me through those. So there are at least two factors. One of them is the news from earlier this week, Israel announcing that it plans to wind down some of its intensive operations in Gaza, and particularly in northern Gaza, by the end of January. But what does scaling back actually mean exactly,

given that they just killed a Hezbollah leader? Right. So what it means in Gaza, at least, is you would see, if this actually happens, a lessening of this massive aerial bombardment that Israel has conducted, particularly in the northern parts of Gaza. And you would see much more targeted raids by special operations forces going after Hamas leaders, specific operations going after the tunnel network that's still there. This is something that they have told American officials

and they've announced publicly just as early as this week. Now, interesting enough, the Israeli officials are really giving two messages. There's one message to the international community. That's what we just talked about, how they're going to be ramping down some of these heavier operations, particularly in the north. That's to basically assuage some of the international community's concerns about the loss of life. But there's a very different message that these same leaders are giving to the Israeli public, and that is the war is not going to end. This is going to go on for months, if not years. We are going to try to hunt down and capture all the leaders responsible for the October 7th attack

and we'll do whatever is necessary to restore security to the country and re-establish deterrence in this area. So it's really a twin-focused dual messages, one for the international community, one for the domestic Israeli audience. Got it. So how do you explain this dual messaging, Eric? Well, I think it's the Netanyahu government obviously responding to the heavy criticism

and the pressure from the United States and other governments with the growing number of civilian casualties. It's just untenable. And the pressures that those governments are facing back home to continue their support of Israel. At the same time, you have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanting to signal that, you know, we're not scaling back on the larger ambition to eradicate this terrorist organization that was responsible for the attacks, nor are we giving up on recovering

all the hostages. You said that there were two factors. What's the second element here that might slow down or stop an outright regional war breaking out? So the second one is actually, this is kind of paradoxical, but it's Iran itself. Iran wants this kind of chaos, but it wants a kind of controlled chaos or a controlled escalation. It is the puppet master for most of these proxies that it's supported and equipped over the years. But it's also in Iran's interest, and they've made this fairly clear that it doesn't want the conflicts to spin out of control and then, you know, drag either its principal proxy, Hezbollah, into war, or even worse, engulf Iran in a direct conflict

with the United States or Israel itself. Why not? Well, I think this has a lot to do with the Iranian government's popularity, or lack thereof, and the weakness domestically. I mean, one of the things we haven't talked about was in the midst of this series of events that happened in the last 10 days, there were twin explosions at a commemoration ceremony for the death of a very top Iranian general, General Soleimani. This killed more than 100 people in this procession in a city in Iran. Immediately, there was some suspicion that Israel might be behind it, but in the end, it turned out to be an arm of the Islamic State. This was actually a terrorist strike that kind of revealed perhaps some of these deficiencies in the domestic security apparatus inside of Iran that they

couldn't protect their own people against one of the worst domestic terrorist attacks in Iran's history. So this idea of controlled chaos that you mentioned basically means that Iran wants to make life difficult for Israel and the U.S., but it doesn't want a regional war because that would pose an existential risk to the regime. It's basically about survival. That's right. You know, they don't want Hezbollah dragged into another very costly war like they were in 2006 that ultimately could force Iran's hand to have to support them, could drag the United States in to support Israel and something like that. So, you know, there are these factors that Iran can't totally control that could heat this war up. And I think most immediately, besides what we see in Lebanon and

Hezbollah, is this potential conflict with the Houthis, because that is the proxy that the Iranians have the least amount of operational control over. So basically, all of this adds up to a situation with a lot of uncertainty, including how much control Iran has over its proxies, and perhaps also how much control the U.S. has in the mix here. That's right. And if you look at some specific examples, this is where the concern really lies in miscalculations in one form or another that people can't necessarily predict. Another factor that keeps the White House up at night, and they

really don't like to talk about it very much, is what happens if American service members are killed. As I mentioned before, there have been over 60 that have been injured, at least one critically, in these rocket and drone and missile attacks that the militias have fired at troops in Iraq and Syria. But there have been a number of close calls that the Pentagon has not wanted to talk about at all. There was one instance where a missile landed in a barracks and it failed to explode. Had it done so, it probably would have killed a dozen or more troops that were there. There have been a couple of other instances like this just by sheer luck that some of these attacks, which aren't necessarily always the most precisely targeted by these militias, could have killed American forces on the ground. And if that were to happen,

that would immediately put pressure on President Biden to respond, not just perhaps to the proxies who actually carried out these strikes, but perhaps against Iran itself for providing the equipment, the supplies, perhaps even the intelligence that enabled those strikes to happen. But as you said, the U.S. is also sending more troops and warships to the region. So it could be creating a scenario where they're increasingly making themselves targets in this. Well, perhaps. But the administration has been very clear that the additional ships, the two aircraft carriers, one of which has since left, been replaced by some marine ships, as well as twice the number of attack aircraft that have been sent to the Middle East and the Persian Gulf region since October 7th. Those are there as a deterrent.

And by all accounts, that deterrent has worked. It's worked at least so far. Iran has gotten the message and has tried to calibrate its responses through its proxies. But as you say, as you have more troops in the area, particularly ships and planes, those are more targets. So, Eric, the jury is still out on whether this will turn into a full-blown regional war. But from everything you've said, it's already pretty clear that this war and its ripple effects are reshaping the Middle East. Yes, I think that's right. We've seen, after years of being an international pariah, Iran is reasserting itself. It's obviously the center of this post-October 7th conflict and managing

its proxies in the region. You have the United States being drawn back into the Middle East after, for years, trying to kind of wind down after the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and pivot to the Indo-Pacific. And you have Israel trying to obviously re-establish security for its population and deterrence in the region after this historic attack. You have efforts, I think, on all sides, the U.S. side, even the Iranian side, the Israeli side, to try and contain this. But there could be miscalculations that lead any one of those actors down a road and one that they're not planning on, that they don't desire, that could drag them and the other

actors in the Middle East into a much wider conflict. Thank you very much, Eric. Thank you. On Wednesday, after American and British warships intercepted the latest barrage of drones and missiles fired by Houthi rebels at commercial ships in the Red Sea, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that the U.S. and its allies would respond. We've made clear, we've been clear with more than 20 other countries, that if this continues as it did yesterday, there will be consequences. And I'm going to leave it at that.

The attack, one of the largest staged by the Houthis since October 7th, came a week after the U.S.-led coalition gave an ultimatum to the rebels to cease their near-daily attacks or face retaliation. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, President Biden's son, Hunter Biden,

surprised Republicans on the House Oversight Committee when he briefly appeared in the hearing room where a vote to hold him in contempt of Congress for failing to sit for a private deposition was about to take place. Hunter Biden has repeatedly offered to testify publicly before the committee, which is leading an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, but he has refused to be interviewed behind closed doors. His appearance infuriated several Republicans on the committee, including Republican Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who addressed Hunter Biden directly. You are the epitome of white privilege coming into the oversight committee,

spitting in our face, ignoring a congressional subpoena to be deposed. What are you afraid of? Her remarks drew a rebuke from a Democrat on the committee, Representative Jared Moskovitz of Florida, who replied that Hunter Biden would be happy to testify so long as it wasn't public. Mr. Chairman, point of inquiry. Mr. Chairman, if the gentlelady wants to hear from Hunter Biden, we can hear from him right now, Mr. Chairman. Let's take a vote and hear from Hunter Biden. And hours after former Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey suspended his campaign for president,

two of the remaining Republican candidates, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, clashed during the last debate before the Iowa caucuses. We're going to find out tonight that there's going to be a lot of Ron's lies that have happened. There are at least a couple of dozen so far that he's done. While Haley called DeSantis a liar, he described her as a liberal in conservative clothing who could not be trusted with the values of the Republican Party. Nikki Haley is basically a carbon copy of what Biden is. of the Republican Party. Nikki Haley is basically a carbon copy of what Biden is.

The difference between... Former President Donald Trump, also running for the Republican nomination, appeared at the same time in a town hall and announced that he had made his decision on a running mate, though when asked who it was, would not give a name. Today's episode was produced by Sidney Harper, Thank you. and Will Reed, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wanderley. That's it for The Daily. I'm Katrin Benhold. See you tomorrow.