The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus Emergency Episode: a game changing moment in the Middle East

Episode Date: June 22, 2025

The full version of today's Friday Focus is available to all members.  In this emergency Friday Focus episode, Rudyard and Janice assess what the US strike on Iran's nuclear facilities mean for the future of the Middle East. What are the big takeaways from this game changing moment in the region? Has Iran's capacity to enrich uranium been permanently disabled? And finally, and perhaps most importantly, how will Iran respond? Iranians are a proud people with a culture of resistance. Its leaders believe that Trump deceived them twice. If the US President is serious about peace he needs to open backchannels to Iran immediately, reign in Israel's regime change ambitions, and show he is committed to a deal.   To support the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to a special edition of not Friday Focus, Sunday Focus, on the 22nd of Sunday, 2025. I'm Rudyard Griffiths, joined by Janice Gross Stein. Hello, Roger. It was a long night for me. Was it a long night for you? Yes, at all, what we're talking about, listeners, unless you have been blissfully disconnected from the internet and every other form of communication that bombarding. We now have a confirmed US strike on Iran's atomic facilities, three of them, combination of cruise missiles and so-called Moab, the massive 30,000 pound ordinance dropped on Fordor. Janice, we can get into some of the permutations coming out of this, and they are many, and part of the reason we want to have this

additional Friday focuses amongst your many areas of academic expertise as a lifetime of looking at and studying the Middle East. So give us your top line assessment of what this means in the context of America's fraught involvement in the region. Roger, this was one of these moments in which the Middle East can pivot. It's a game-changing moment in the region. Two big takeaways here, all right, to start us off. One, this was not tackle Trump. This was not Trump always chickens out,

which is the meme that is going around about him. this was a pretty ruthless pursuit in which he warned. There was a time deadline. He actually acted on it. And he executed. And in the region, there's nobody who didn't get the message. And there's two messages here. One, American military might, the capacity to do these all arms operations is unsurpassed.

in the world. This was a really impressive execution. And regardless of your politics, you look at that. And everybody in the Middle East is looking at that today. I can tell you that. The second is it's a mistake to discount Donald Trump. What there is now around Donald Trump is uncertainty. When does he mean it? When doesn't he mean it? But this was a display. of an example where he did mean it and he executed. And that's meaningful in the broader region, too. There's no question. Thirdly, despite all the morning after talk that we've had,

nobody knows the full extent of the damage that was done, especially to Farno. Nobody knows. We're going to have to wait. Actually, you know, the only people who will truly know would be the IAEA inspectors. It's entirely conceivable. they may not get back on the ground.

So we will certainly know more by the end of the week, but right now nobody knows whether Iran's capacity to enrich has been permanently disabled. Is this a setback of months or is it something much more serious despite the flawless execution? And the third point, just quickly, And I think you talked about this this week when I did. There were trucks at Farnell this week.

And why does that matter? It's almost inconceivable to me that they would not have moved some of its novel, some of the enriched uranium out before this happened. Yeah. So we'll get to that because it's an important aspect of this that both could produce the basis for some leverage on part of the Iranians to actually have a negotiation and in fact that therefore might facilitate some kind of negotiated settlement to this conflict but let's move immediately to the ukraine at the Ukrainians the you the Iranians this morning what are their options and what do you think is

likely they're clearly uh president trump uh pete hegeseth his defense minister at a press conference this morning trying to project strength, trying to in a sense deter Iranian attacks. But Janice, if we think of historical precedent, the U.S. strike that killed Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guard commander, the kind of hero of their expeditionary force throughout the Shia Crescent that killing almost a decade ago elicited Iranian attacks on American bases hard to see Janice how the scale of this attack so much bigger an assault in a sense on the crown jewel of this regime its nuclear program something that has put billions of dollars into foregone tens of billions of dollars of economic benefits

because of sanctions. What's your bet, Janice? Are the Iranians going to strike? Yes. It's inconceivable that there will not be a retaliation. So the real issue, for me, Roger, how big? What scope? So if we look back to the example,

you just talked about the response to the assassination of Soleimani. Yes, there were attacks against American bases, but they telegraphed them in advance. And yes, 100 American servicemen had brain concussion and brain traumatic injury from the blast, but the casualties, I don't believe anyone was killed. They were injured but not killed. That would be what I would call a low-level retaliation.

It would be a signal if we could not. That for the moment the Iranians are standing down. Now, what do I say for the moment? Because it is difficult to describe how badly commanded control inside Iran is compromised right now. How many is in hiding. Despite the, you know, we know where you are, Todd. He's in hiding. He is, they are not using any electronic communication.

They are communicating only by career with his senior commanders. He's left, you know, he's designated people to replace every one of the senior commanders. he's designated three possible replacements for him. If you can't communicate by electronic communication and your command and control is completely disrupted because nobody's gathering in what place, how do you in fact mount a serious response in the short term? So I'm going to go on a limb here, Redyard, and say we're going to get a modest response in the short term until, and which they're hoping.

get the Israelis out of their skies because they're still there monitoring and allow some resumption of command and control so that they can think about a larger response six months for now. I don't think it's the next week or two that are critical. It's interesting what we've seen since the U.S. attack. We saw an Iranian missile attack on Israel, including significant damage. to a housing complex in Tel Aviv, just jaw-dropping photographs of this kind of shredded and I guess some people wondered, as you've often said, Janice, when we speak about the war in Gaza, that, you know, starting a war is one thing, ending it is something else. Exits really matter,

off-ramps really matter. There was some conjecture that once the Americans stepped into this war in whatever shape or form, the Israelis would have to take dictation to no small extent. This has now happened. The Americans have stepped in, yet what we've seen in the ensuing 18 hours or so is continued Israeli bombing. In fact, three more assassinations, significant missile launcher and other bomb. in western Iran. Is this a sign, Janice? It's hard to read all these tea leaves here, but is this a sign that the Americans have forgone,

let's say, the opportunity to make a request, a demand of Benjamin Netanyahu, which is, okay, we're going to take care of these facilities. Now it's time for you to change your posture vis-a-vis the state of Iran. It certainly does not look like that this morning. I think that would be huge missed. huge missed strategic opportunity by Trump.

If he does that, you know, let's put that in the context of the speech he gave last night, that four-minute speech, which I have to say, Rudid, was one of the worst. It was his triumphal speech. There was no restatement. We are not, this is limited. We have no issue with the Iranian people. We are looking for an opportunity. to engage Iran at the bargaining table.

That's what I would expect him to say last night. He didn't do that. The second part of it is, what does Israel do on the ground in the next 48 hours? You know, if he wanted Iran to come back to the table, you tell the Israelis to stand down for 48 hours, frankly. The risk is very low. You could argue, yes, they're going to rebuild their missile defenses. Yes, they're going to pull out some of their long.

That's true, but a 48-hour stand-down, a relatively low risk. And ultimately, and let's come back to this record, there's no solution to this without inspectors on the ground monitoring and verification. So for the U.S., especially Donald Trump, who doesn't want to get involved in a forever war, it has to be how do we create the conditions now to bring Iranians back to the table. That as great as the military execution was, that's, I think, how poor the time since the attack has been in terms of pursuing that attempt. But certainly doesn't seem, Janice, like that is either the intention of the Israelis or the Americans. It makes one wonder, while the president, obviously, for reasons of his own domestic politics and the so-called Maga base, who have opposed, forget regime change, they oppose simply the strikes on these Iranian.

atomic facilities you have to wonder is there is are they not saying the quiet part out loud which is is there a hope a belief a desire on the part of the Trump administration for regime change in Iran and that the extent to which they are allowing seemingly right away as you say no no reprieve from Iran large scale uh Israeli attacks um today uh in Iran Janice one has to wonder you know are there are there agendas going on here that you're seeing in the early hours after this big American attack that make you worried possibly that that there's both the Israelis and the Americans are going to roll the dice um yeah they want to put this regime under more pressure i heard one Israeli senior officer quoted anonymously saying

every day we wake up and it's Christmas, there are hundreds upon hundreds of targets for us in Iran that we've been studying for years. And our opportunity now to go well beyond maybe the initial parameters of this war, which was Iran's ballistic missile capacity, significantly degraded. Over 50% of their launchers arguably destroyed. their nuclear pack capacity seriously degraded you could check that box yet Israel seems quite committed this morning to you know continuing to bomb continuing to again conduct these attacks on senior Iranian military officers you know rogert in my job in social science those of us who are truly honest with ourselves brutally honest with ourselves we don't know that much, right? We don't have the same kind of evidence that the natural scientists have. But let me tell you, we know one thing. Regime changed out of the barrel of a gun fails. We know that. And if the Americans have learned anything over 25 years in Middle East, they should have learned that. And you know, to Donald Trump's credit, he gets that. He gets that.

it's not a MAGA base. It's a much broader sense among people who watch this stuff, but also among the public. Those wars for regime change failed over and over again and lasted forever. If Donald Trump cannot stay focused on what he said he was going to stay focused on last night, that goal, this is about nuclear weapons. by implication we're saying it's not about regime change. And if he can't rein in an ally Israel whose goal might well be regime change, if he can't ring that in, this will fail and this will become a forever war, frankly.

That was always the risk with American military engagement. That's what the critics on the left in the Democratic Party and in his MAGA base were saying. And it's up to him now. Iran doesn't have a lot of cards to play, but one of them in some ways is that maga base. Janice, do you think the president is a little bit of a box here in terms of Iranian retaliation? Because if he responds to that retaliation, and again, they've indicated they're going to respond seemingly with the overwhelming force, that sets up a an increasing amount of paradox for, you know, his, his, most ardent supporters who didn't favor the attack on on these nuclear sites in the first place and now he said well that's what it is where you know we don't have bigger objectives we don't

want to have a war with Iran but but then there's large-scale bombing by American planes inside Iran of military infrastructure and and other targets in response to an Iranian threat so could the Iranians potentially use that as some kind of leverage here that maybe this president is a little more constrained and maybe there is a way for them to as you say calibrate in a response that comes just under the under the line that allows the president not to launch his own massive retaliatory response their honor is served at least in the moment And then I guess they would hope Janice to go away. And as you say, have some breathing space to regroup. But I guess all that depends. You know, just playing this three-dimensional chess out.

All this depends, again, on Israel stopping an air campaign that they're indicating could go on for another couple of weeks. Yeah. Look, that's what I would expect. Roger frankly, is a calibrated response. Because the Iranians clearly need time now to regroup, regardless of whether they have managed to hide away, some enriched uraniums somewhere.

It doesn't really matter to this. They need time to regroup because their communications, their command and control is so disrupted. So those in Israel say, whoa, what an opportunity. Command and control is disrupted. I can go down my target list. That to me is tactical thinking and the expense of strategic thinking, frankly. There should be a concerted effort now by people in the Trump administration

and by a lot of people adjacent to it who have back channels to be reaching out and saying to the Iran, yeah, yeah, yeah, we expect a low level. Go ahead. We know you have to do it. But the real goal is to get these negotiations started again. And Trump people should stop anybody that's getting in the way of that in the near term future. So for me, that's the first test of where we're going. So watch the Israeli campaign.

Does it continue? Does it intensify? That could be a sign that the U.S. administration and Israel are aligned around a degradation strategy towards Iran. That they're not serious, frankly, that this was only about the nuclear sites, right? Yes. That's right. Let's talk in our remaining moments about the enriched uranium, most likely, that was taken

out of these sites. It's enriched to 60-odd percent or possibly more, we don't know. My understanding, Janus, is that you don't need a lot of this 60 percent uranium 40 to 50 kilograms to enrich up to 90% to create enough fissile material for a bomb. And to do that, you need a couple dozen centrifuges at most. You don't need these large centrifuge farms that are required. In other words, the process gets easier as you get further through the enrichment. Yeah.

Is this, as bad as that sounds, is this in fact an opportunity? because there is something to negotiate about, that this fissile material, in a sense, is something that Iran could give up in return for concessions. It could create the pretext for those who want to have negotiations versus a war of attrition, because I think that's the scenario, Janus, isn't that we should all be the most concerned about,

war of attrition between Iran, Israel, possibly Iran, the United States, involving the Straits of, Hermos, evolving international shipping and oil. That's a nightmare, Roger. That is the nightmare study. You know, so how do we avoid that nightmare scenario? And is this, you know, this remaining materials that Iran has?

Is this the key to both face saving on their part and a meaningful negotiation with the West that in a best case scenario normalizes relationship at some point in the future? Look, let's just for example. sake of argument for a moment, assume what you've just said, right, that there is some facile material, this could go to dramatically different ways. We could wake up, five months from now, with the Iranians saying, we have a bomb, we have a bomb, right? That's what the Indians, you know, the Western world was totally surprised by the Pakistanis and the Indians, so let's not forget that. And they need one bomb. We have a bomb and we have a capacity to put that bomb on a plane and deliver it. That's not off the table as a result, so far as a result of what

happened last night. That's the second nightmare scenario, frankly. The other scenario is just what you described. We know how to enrich. Killing from 19 scientists doesn't stop us from restarting our program. So we have leverage here. We are not flat on our back. Let's let's let's see where serious negotiation can get us over a reasonable period of time. And it all comes down running. In any tough negotiation, you know this. It's about saving face, right? And, you know, let's come back to what Steve Woodcoff put on the table. It was remarkably creative. You know, he's not a professional negotiator, but he understands his proposal. There'll be a regional enrichment center. United States, Saudi Arabia, Iran, whoever else you want in there, not Israel, right?

And they run the enrichment center and then they distribute the enriched uranium that Iran says it needs for peaceful purposes, which is risk to 3.7%. And in the last round, he even said them, well, it could be in Iran. Now, if you seriously want, if you're serious that you're not moving, toward a nuclear weapon, and you really need it for civilian purposes. That's the outlines of an answer. There's a regionally run enrichment center on Iranian territory where the amount and the level of enriched uranium is accounted for by people other than Iran. That is the way out, frankly, and it's tragic that we have to go through this,

if that's where we end up. That is a really optimistic scenario, the one I just painted. I put the dark one on the table before. We don't know which it's going to be. Well, what are you going to look for in the coming days to understand which way this goes? I am certainly going to look for a reduction in Israeli strikes because as long as Iran is being attacked because Israel has control of the skies. It's impossible, impossible for any government to agree to anything but continued escalation. So it's really, really important that there be a pause now in order to explore whether there's any possibility for an escape from that war of attrition and the escalatory response.

And let me just make this point, Roger. you know, Israel's economy is totally close today. Schools are totally close today as they're waiting for a month. So everybody bears the costs. You know, escalation doesn't only hurt the escalator. Everybody bears the cost of a war of attrition that could start as a result of this. That's why people were rightly concerned about what the consequences might be. And then just finally, Janice, in terms of that,

Iranian attack if two scenarios let's say it's the it's the calibrated one is that something that happens within the next few days are we waiting weeks for that and if it's not the calibrated one if the more radical elements in the Revolutionary Guard holds sway and they decide that let's say it is time to close the Straits of Hermos or it is time to attack American allies in the region Is that something, again, that is another shoot of fall at a later date if that's what they're ultimately committed to doing? Yeah. So the calibrated one, I think that's soon, right?

That's soon. Because the, you know, the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Republicans have to say, we're here. Because right now they're hiding, right? And that's very dangerous in terms of your own. public because you encourage dissonance to come out in that situation. So they're going to want to show everybody they're here and they have the capacity to inflict damage. And that's why you've got that 40 missile barrage earlier today that hit Tel Avic. The more escalatory one, that's probably a few weeks away. The worst one would be blocking the streets of hormones. It would be

it would require a U.S. response. They would have to go in and break that blockade and de-mine. There's no question. They wouldn't stand by with oil shipping. You know, just think about Donald Trump for a moment. What would it do to inflation if you cut back on it? You know where I'm going. No one knows better than you.

That is just anathema to him. He would respond. And then we're in it. And Iran would lose. Israel would lose. The United States would lose. And that's, in fact, a scenario that everybody's trying to avoid here. But not clear which way the Iranians go.

They are a proud people. And, you know, they have a culture of resistance. They're a revolutionary state with a culture of resistance. That's very important to remember. Finally, I mean, how do we have a culture of resistance? Finally, I mean, how do we avoid a war of attrition? How do we avoid a scenario, let's say, where Iran, there is no regime change in Iran, three to four to six months from now.

They're lobbying the occasional rocket at Israel to, as you say, keep the Israeli economy, schools, businesses, either closed or right on the precipice of the edge. psychologically and otherwise. You know, they're threatening American allies. They're basically becoming the hooties on steroids. I guess that's what I worry about as a scenario that comes out of this, that you have an intransigent, recalcitrant, deeply ideological regime that may just decide

that it'll do what it does best. If you look at its history of its use of its proxies against Israel or even against the United States in Iraq, they do seem to often take the long view that struggle is not about a defining victory, a culmination. It is instead about their relevance and the power that they command, a bit like Vladimir Putin, through their ability to disrupt, through their ability to be chaos agents in this, you know,

interkid Faberge egg that is our kind of global, hyper-globalized world. How do we avoid that outcome? Donald Trump said one thing. You correct me, right? You're wrong because my sense of time is slightly off. Was it Friday after that disastrous meeting in Geneva? with the Germans, the French and the British, he said the Iranians didn't want to speak to the Europeans.

They want to speak to us. He's right. You know, they got nothing out of that deputy foreign minister. And when you send a deputy foreign minister, you know you're going to get nothing in advance, frankly. The way to avoid this is to get a back channel going ASAP between somebody who speaks for the president and somebody who is well connected to Chominy and say we did that.

Because right now, just think about this for a second, Roger, they believe that Trump deceived them twice. All right. So he's got a hill to climb now in order to get a negotiation going. That should be the highest priority. Reach out to some, and they're well known. Reach out to somebody. Get that back to the.

There is a back channel going on right now. There is private communication. They said that this morning, but invest in that and do what you need to do to show that the president is really serious. He wants a deal as well as Iran needing the deal. That is the only way of it. Not easy. Well said. We will continue to watch this.

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