The Decibel - What the U.S.-Israel attacks mean for Iranian leadership

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

The U.S. and Israel are continuing attacks on Iran for the fourth day. Iran’s leadership has been devastated, hundreds have been killed and retaliatory attacks have been launched against Israel and neighbouring nations. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly called on Iranians to topple the theocratic government that has held power for 47 years. Thomas Juneau, professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, joins The Decibel to discuss why this is an existential war for the Islamic Republic, what calculations the U.S. and Israel are making and how this could be the beginning of a larger and longer war. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On Monday, the United States and Israel continued their attack on Iran and launched more missiles, hitting targets in Tehran and elsewhere in the country. We are now four days into a conflict that President Donald Trump says could last four to five weeks. But we have capability to go far longer than that. We'll do it. Whatever somebody said today, they said, oh, well, the president wants to do it really quickly. after that he'll get bored. I don't get bored. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamani, was killed during the first day of the strikes,

along with several top Iranian regime officials. Across Iran, there were screams. Some were screamed mourning the death of their leader. Others were screams celebrating Khomeini's death, hoping for an end to the regime's repression. Iran's retaliation has taken many forms. They've launched attacks on U.S. military. bases in the region, as well as towards some civilian centers, like Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which has forced massive flight disruptions. And on Monday, they threatened to set fire to any ship

passing through the Strait of Hormuz, an important shipping waterway. Iran has also attacked Israel, setting off air sirens in different parts of the country. And on Monday, Hezbollah also began attacking Israel. Israel has retaliated by striking Beirut. A full picture of the destruction and death is still coming into focus. We know several people in Israel were killed in a town outside of Jerusalem. The Iranian Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian group affiliated with the Red Cross, says the death toll in Iran is over 500 people. Several dozen people are dead in Lebanon. A few have been killed in the Gulf states, and at least six U.S. military members have been killed. Western allies of the U.S. have stated their support of the U.S. strikes, including Canadian

Prime Minister Mark Carney. Canada's position on the developments in the Middle East remains clear. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the principal source of instability and terror throughout the Middle East. It has one of the world's worst human rights records and must never be allowed. allowed to obtain or develop nuclear weapons. On Monday afternoon, Trump reiterated that these strikes were about stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, as well as destroying Iran's missile capabilities, annihilating its navy,

and preventing the regime from funding terrorist organizations. And earlier in the weekend, he also called on the Iranian people to rise up and force the Islamic Republic out of power. Finally, to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations. This military attack marks the largest U.S. offensive since the invasion of the invasion of

Iraq in 2003. A lot has already happened in 72 hours. So Tamajuno is back on the show. He's a professor with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and an expert on Iran. He'll explain how Iran is carrying on without its leader and what strategic calculations countries in the region are making as the US launches another war in the Middle East. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail. Hi, Tamar. Thanks so much for joining us again. Thanks for having me on again. So just a note that we are talking around 12 p.m. on Monday, and this is a very fast-moving file,

so I just want to put that out there. Tamar, I want to know how you're understanding this moment. Could you give us a sense of how significant this military conflict is, in your opinion? It is very significant. And as much as there is tremendous uncertainty in terms of what happens next, then we can break that down a lot in the next few minutes. Whatever happens next, things will be different. And it's easy to say that.

And it's a bit of a cliche. And, you know, things changed in the last couple of years when there was the war in June 2025 that we talked about. All true. Things will be very different moving forward. I don't know at this point if the Islamic Republic will survive, period. But even if it does survive, it will not be the same. It will be significantly different than what it's been so far.

That has implications, obviously, for Iran, for Iranians. but given the Islamic Republic's role regionally, given its support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and other violent and terrorist groups throughout the Middle East, this will change regional politics. Will it change it for the better? I would like to say yes, but I'm not even convinced at this point that that will be the case. And we'll get into what this might look like in a few minutes. Before we do, last time we had you on the show, you outlined three possible scenarios for a military conflict between the U.S. and Iran. One was that the U.S. would conduct limited, targeted strikes. Another was a prolonged, sustained campaign.

And then the third was decapitation strikes. What scenario are we in right now? We're in a mix of two and three. And in the scenario of prolonged intense strikes, decapitation was sure to be part of it. So in that sense, that scenario kind of subsumes the third one you mentioned. There could have been a scenario of only surgical strikes on the nuclear program. That was discussed as late as last week. there could have been only a couple decapitation strikes, but right now we are in a scenario of sustained

strikes. It's not clear how long this is going to last. One of the big questions that everyone is asking to which we don't have an answer as of Monday, but I doubt that as of Tuesday we will, is what is the end goal here? Is the end goal regime change? In that case, we are talking about weeks. That is not going to happen in the short term. Never say never, but very unlikely. Is the goal to weaken the regime to force its return to the negotiating table. In that case, that's completely different. That could stop soon. It could stop this week. I also see a scenario, is it 50-50? I don't know, but I see a scenario soon where President Trump actually says, you know what, I won. I killed the Supreme Leader. I decapitated the leadership. I significantly weakened their military infrastructure, which is absolutely the case

right now. And every day that goes by, it gets worse and worse for the Islamic Republic's power projection capability. And then if you believe some of the media reports, there are rumors of a return to negotiations at some point. Trump says I won. I forced them to return and to make more concessions. That could happen too. But in that scenario, the Islamic Republic survives. It's different. It's weaker, but it's not gone. Trump blows things up, sometimes literally, as he is doing to Iran now, or figuratively, where he just creates complete chaos. He sees where the pieces fall. then without much of a detailed plan, without much of a detailed endgame, and then he looks at how

he can seize the chaos to create an advantage for him. And by advantage, I don't mean a strategic or diplomatic advantage for the U.S. I mean a way for him to frame whatever is going on as a victory for him personally. To say I won. Even if the way that he's going to frame it is going to be loosely connected to facts at best. So for now, my best guess, and it is a guess, is that that's more or less the strategy. Do any of the past U.S. attacks on countries in the region, like the retaliation against Afghanistan in 2001, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, as well as the bombing campaign of Libya in 2011, do any of these past attacks seem relevant in terms of understanding what could happen next? In only a very limited way. Generally speaking, I have to be transparent here, and I'm fairly

skeptical of analogies like that. Comparing wars, comparing military interventions is always a bit risky because people become a bit too rigid in terms of what you can get from a previous analogy. People will pick and choose either the good or the bad of a previous military intervention or war and apply it to the current one. And it locks us into rigid mindsets that I'm always a bit reluctant to engage in. In any case, these interventions, Iraq 2003, complete disaster, Libya, 2011, the country has still not recovered disaster. But it was a completely different world. And I'm not saying that it won't be a negative outcome in this case. I very much fear that it will be, but Trump is completely different from Obama or Bush before that. The world we live in is

completely different. Iran, I would also say, is completely different. The Islamic Republic is a dictatorship like Saddam Hussein or Muammar, Qaddafi and Libya were, but the Islamic Republic is much more institutionalized, much more deeply entrenched in society and the economy in Iran, unlike the much more brittle one-man dictatorships of Gaddafi and Saddam. So, All that to say, very different. Yes, some lessons to learn, but in very narrow ways. What about Venezuela? Can we compare what happened there to what's going on with Iran?

Yes, in the sense that it's Trump, in the case of Venezuela, but no in the sense that, A, the system in Venezuela and the Islamic Republic are extraordinarily different. The region is different. Clearly, the intervention is different. Venezuela, it was three hours in and out, decapitate the leadership, not killing him, but taking the president only and then running out, whereas now we are talking about a days and perhaps weeks long intervention. Where I find the analogy of Venezuela is useful, more than one way, but one way that is useful is to understand what Trump may want as the endgame here. As I said, I don't know what the end game is for Iran.

But in Venezuela, clearly what we know now is that the end game was not democracy. Trump had absolutely no problem in leaving the system in Venezuela in a different way. way, but that country, as far as I can tell when I listen to actual Venezuela experts, is not on the road to democratization. What that tells us is that democratization is not a priority for President Trump, and it is unlikely to be in the case of Iran. So as much as I sympathize with democratic activists, obviously inside Iran, but also in the diaspora, including here in the Canadian diaspora, who very genuinely and rightly struggle for democracy in Iran, I very much fear an outcome. where they are thrown under the bus by President Trump. We've talked in the past about how much weaker Iran has been as of late, especially after the U.S. Israeli strikes from June 2025,

and then the huge protests and deadly crackdown from the beginning of this year. So how much weaker is the regime now that Ayatollah Khomeini and several top Iranian officials have been killed? Even much weaker. And I think you framed it right in your question. The last two, two and a half years have been very difficult for Iran. geopolitically the country has suffered serious blows. The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, it's only ally. Hezbollah in Lebanon has been weakened.

And in the past couple days, it's been hit even harder by Israel. Hamas is decimated. It's still alive, but far weaker than it was before. Pro-Iran militias in Iraq are not getting involved in this. They are way too busy making corrupt money inside Iraq and don't want to damage their economic prospects for Iran's war. Domestically, the Islamic Republic is extremely vulnerable, as we saw with the major protests in January, that were strangled only with an extraordinary level of brutality. And now the regime is decapitated, is being further bombed in an extraordinarily intense way.

I would make a point, though, that is important here. The Islamic Republican, this is where the analogy with Libya 2011, Iraq, 2003 are very limited. Libya and Iraq were one-man chose. Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Of course there were institutions and governments behind them, but they were what we call personalized dictatorships. That's not the case of Iran. Yes, the Supreme Leader was at the apex of power. Yes, power was very much concentrated in his hands.

And he had divided the system so that a lot of military intelligence law enforcement units would report to him, the judiciary, to prevent the formation of internal coalitions against him. That's all true. That will make the next steps complicated. and that's an understatement. But it does remain that this is a system that is deeply institutionalized and that was not completely dependent on one man. So now that Chaminé is dead, is that the collapse of the regime?

No. Does it make the regime weaker? Yes, but not more than that, at least for now. So who is in power now? That is a very good question. The Islamic Republic's constitution calls for the formation of a transition council that includes the head of the judiciary, who is a cleric, who might. be one of the candidates to be the next Supreme Leader, the president who currently is not a cleric

and therefore not a candidate for succession, who actually is a very weak and marginalized figure. And the third member is a member of the Guardian Council, which is one of the top clerical bodies that plays a very powerful role in the system of the Islamic Republic. And that member of the Guardian Council that is now in the Transition Council, Ayatollah Arefee, is one of the candidates for the Supreme Leader's succession. That's the theory in practice, as is always the case in the somewhat informed. politics of the Islamic Republic, the Revolutionary Guard and a number of other key institutions in the country are also being very influential right now in terms of framing the next steps,

including the crucial issue of succession. What do we know about how the regime coordinates succession planning? There is the formal answer and the informal answer to that question. The formal answer to that question is that there's a body called the Assembly of Experts, which is made up of 88 clerics, senior clerics, who, have the mandate of overseeing the work of the Supreme Leader, which in reality is never something they do, and the mandate of selecting, appointing the next Supreme Leader upon his passing or incapacity.

That's the theory. In practice, what we strongly suspect will be the case and what was the case in 1989 at the only other time of succession of the Supreme Leader when the original Supreme Leader, Khomeini passed away and Khamenei became his successor. In practice, a lot of the decision-making will be done in backrooms by a smaller number of key individuals, including senior IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard, officials, a few other power brokers. And in practice, the Assembly of Experts, the constitutionally mandated body, will more or less rubber stamp the decision that will have made in back rooms. We'll be right back. Trump has been explicit in calling on the people of Iran to essentially do the hard work of a regime change.

How realistic is it to believe that the Iranian people could rise up, especially in the midst of a military conflict and force political change? Well, in the midst of a conflict, it's very difficult because right now millions of people, and I say millions, obviously I don't know the number, but have fled Tehran because of the bombs. You might have seen, you know, the images of completely clog the highways and roads. So now that is not going to happen. Yes, there were multiple images of Iranian celebrating the death of the Supreme Leader on Saturday, on Sunday. expect that that will continue, but a large-scale protest is difficult as long as very difficult, as long as the war continues. The issue is when the war stops, what happens? Trump has called on the people to go back to the street. I strongly suspect that people will go back to the street. The problem is

that depending on when the strikes stop, so far at least, the Islamic Republic retains very strong repressive capacity. We do see reports in the media of Israel and the U.S. hitting not only military bases, nuclear sites, air defense sites, but also police sites, IRGC bases, besiege, which is kind of the reserve force of the IRGC, stations also being hit. We don't know the damage so far. But if we are in a scenario where the strikes stop soon, maybe this week within a few days, there is a very serious likelihood of the regime retaining sufficient repressive capacity. And then if the people do go to the street, it will be a bloodbath.

right? And this is where analogies are always imperfect, but one historical analogy is 1991. When the U.S. militarily expelled Saddam Hussein and Iraq's forces from Kuwait, the U.S. decided not to step into Iraq to overthrow Saddam. And George H.W. Bush, the father, called on Iraqis to go to the street and overthrow their own regime. They did go to the street. The U.S. did nothing to help. And it was an absolute bloodbath. And right now, that is one scenario that I am extremely, extremely fearful of. Given that the U.S. and Israel have said that this is about destroying the regime. And earlier we talked about how weak the Iranian regime is. How long can it sustain its attacks?

And what might be Iran's military strategy moving forward? Well, Iran's military strategy is in part to try to impose a cost on the U.S. directly, hitting U.S. military bases, hitting Israel directly, but also by, hitting American partners in the region. And a number of us have been surprised by the intensity of Iranian missile and drone strikes on the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain. And the strategy here is very clear, hit them, U.S. partners in the region, including their civilian areas, which has been the majority of the strikes, to make them suffer, make them pay a price, and then get them to pressure the U.S. to stop the war. The problem is that that is not working so far,

because these countries now are aligning with the U.S. even more than before. Tomah, last time we had you on, you talked about anything Iran would do in terms of retaliation would be something that you called calibrated. Would you call these attacks that we're seeing calibrated? No. The notion of calibrated retaliation over the previous rounds of violence were always in scenarios where both sides more or less wanted to avoid escalation. That was the case in June of 2025. It was the case also in April and October 24 when there were. yet smaller rounds of violence directly between Israel and Iran. Now that is not the planet we live on.

Now there is no more fear of escalation. Things have escalated. This is a war of survival. This is an existential war for Iran. Therefore, Iran is not calibrating anymore. That was true in the past, but it is not true now. As you said, Iran sent missiles and drones toward a bunch of Gulf states. And on Monday, there were reports that Iran has struck some of the region's energy facilities. So what are the considerations those states are making in terms of whether or not to retaliate? So there actually have been a couple reports in the media that Saudi Arabia is considering direct retaliation, i.e. its own fighter aircraft attacking back. I'm definitely going to keep an eye on that, though for now they are mostly directly staying out. They are focusing their energies on air defenses,

defenses against Iranian missiles and drones. In the days and weeks before this all started on in the of Friday to Saturday. A lot was said about how the Gulf states were pressuring the U.S. not to attack. The logic of that was that they were at the front lines. They wanted to avoid exactly what is going on now. They were no friends of Iran. They were not doing that to defend Iran. They view Iran as their main threat, their main enemy. And that was the case before. And that hasn't changed. If you look, especially at countries like the UAE and Qatar, and we talk a lot about Dubai and all the glitzy skyscrapers, and to varying degrees, that's also true of Abu Dhabi and the rest of the UAE and certainly of Qatar. These are

countries that have completely built their brand around them being havens of stability in the Middle East, where international investors, companies can go and do business in a fairly open and freewheeling way. These are countries that are extremely prosperous and that prosperity is very much reliant on that image of stability. So their nightmare was any direct war as we are seeing now that is damaging that image of stability. But now that that war is started, they have made the choice to varying degrees of siding with the U.S. to ensure that they can count on U.S. protection on which they remain very reliant, but also because they absolutely view Iran as their enemy. On stability, these kind of military conflicts can have ripple effects further afield than where the bombs land, right?

So what kind of destabilizing effect might these strikes have in the Middle East? Well, we are seeing a very destabilizing effect by civilian areas in multiple countries, the Gulf countries, but also Jordan and Israel being targeted. So it is important to emphasize that reality that's. civilians are being targeted in Iran as well in some instances that are increasingly documented. Another destabilizing aspect that has not happened so far, but that could happen if we are in longer term weeks of strikes and war is population movements. Will people start fleeing Iran? We are not there yet. But in worst case scenarios that are now not far-fetched, that could be catastrophic consequence as well. The other consequence, obviously, is the economic one. We are already

seeing as of early this week, oil and natural gas prices going up. In scenarios where this goes on for more than days, possibly weeks, oil and gas prices will go up even more because shipping will be severely curtailed in the Persian Gulf, where about 20% of daily oil production transits. Iran has started targeting a bit, but will likely do it more and more if things are longer, oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and its neighbors. And that becomes very concerning. And I would add, by the way, that this is really concerning in terms of domestic politics for Trump, who was really able to exploit the high inflation under President Biden and to use that against Kamala Harris at the time of the 24 elections.

If oil prices go up because this war goes on for a long time, this could hurt Trump domestically in a context where midterm elections are coming up in November. And that's pretty soon. Monday saw a new front to the conflict open up with Israel and Hasbullah in Lebanon and exchanging attacks. What do you make of this conflict widening? That was to be expected that Lebanon would be a theater in this conflict. Israel has severely weakened Hezbollah in the last two and a half years or so. Hezbollah is not the force that it used to be, but it is far from dead.

It still has an ability to hit Israel. Israel knows that. That is probably why in the last week, in anticipation of this starting, Israel was hitting Hezbollah last week as a warning and as a way to continue weakening it, The challenge for Hezbollah right now is that not only is it weaker, it has lost a lot of its fighters, it has lost a lot of its weapons stockpiles, it has lost a lot of its infrastructure in southern Lebanon, close to the border with Israel, but it's also that the Lebanese population is fed up. The Lebanese population is exhausted. War has been on and off for 50 years in Lebanon. It is an economic catastrophe. It is a social and humanitarian catastrophe. So Hezbollah, yes, it's a terrorist group. Yes, it's a militia. But it's also. a social and political movement that is deeply embedded into parts of Lebanese society. So Hezbollah has to be really careful here that if it really relaunches Lebanon into a war with Israel, the Lebanese population will suffer even more than it already has. That is something that really constraints Hezbollah.

And I would argue that that is something that Israel is really using as a reality to further pressure and choke Hezbollah. Just lastly to Ma, there's no doubt that the U.S. and Israel have achieved one of their tactical goals in killing the supreme leader. But will that be enough to give them a strategic win? Like, by that I mean, will that be enough to put an end to the Iranian threat as the U.S. And Israel see it? Well, Israel has been very clear that its objective is the overthrow of the regime. Okay. Netanyahu has said that recently, and he has said that for decades,

that he has actually partly built his political career, not only on that, but partly on presenting himself as the one Israeli leader who can protect Israel against the Iranian threat. his goal is regime change. On the U.S. side, like we said, I don't know what the objective is. I could very clearly see President Trump declaring victory. That would lead to tension with Israel, but ultimately I think he would impose a cessation of hostilities on Netanyahu. Would that put an end to the Iranian threat? No. Would it lead to a diminished Iranian threat? Yes, because it is so weakened. But in that scenario, one of the fears is that we are not quite returning to the status quo because no thing. wouldn't be the same. The Islamic Republic would be weaker, but it would still be the Islamic Republic. It would still be brutally repressing its own citizens. To some extent, yet to be determined, it would still pose a degree of threat to regional stability. So the fear in this scenario, if you go farther down the road, is a repeat of other types of cycles of violence and instability. Tamar, thanks so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me on again.

That was Tamajuno, a professor with the University of Auditorial. was Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Bianca Thompson joins us from the Canadian Journalism Foundation's Black Fellowship Program and is our associate producer. Our producers are Madeline White, Rachel Levy McLaughlin and Mikhail Stein. Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior producer and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor.

Thanks so much for listening. Thank you.