The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: How will Israel respond to Iran?

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. The following is a sample of the Munk Debates’ weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus. Today's episode begins with the disagreement between Israel and the US about how Israel should retaliate against Iran. While the US is trying to scale the response back to a series of limited strikes, Israel has waited for a long time to go after Iran - their biggest strategic threat - in a serious and meaningful way. Will they ever have a better moment? What targets will they go after? And will it be a conventional military response or a more covert operation? In the second half of the show Janice marvels at the groundbreaking research of University of Toronto's Geoffrey Hinton - this year's recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics - that developed deep neural networks, without which there would be no ChatGPT. His work has and will revolutionize every part of our existence. Janice argues that Canadian universities are not getting the financial support their world class researchers so desperately need. Why isn't Canada supporting their centres of excellence? To access full-length editions of 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.

The following is a complimentary excerpt of this week's edition of the Friday Focus podcast by the Monk Debates. To access full-length editions of each and every episode, along with all kinds of great additional benefits and perks, become a donor to the Monk Debates. You can do that for as little as $25 a year, and you'll receive each and every year 50 Friday Focus episodes at full length. It's all available right now on our website in just a few. few simple clicks. Triple W. The Monk Debates.com. Look for the Friday Focus option in our navigation bar, the top right of the website. Make your donation and we will send you each and every Friday a link to listen to the full-length edition of this program. Thanks in advance for your generous contribution. Welcome to Friday Focus. Rudyard Griffiths here, the executive director of the Monk Debates.

I'm joined as I am each and every program by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Janice, we always have to timestamp our recordings these days because events change so quickly. So I just want to let our listeners know this show is coming to you on the morning of Friday, the 11th of October, heading into the Thanksgiving weekend. Janice, what are your plans for Thanksgiving? You've got a big Jewish high holiday.

Turkey, it's got to be a busy time. You know, the old expression, feast and famine, we're reversing it this year, famine and feast. Literally after not eating at all for 27 hours, the next day you eat as much turkey as you can. And let me tell you, very few people will emerge unscathed from this experience. Oh, that sounds terrific. It is a great weekend for family and lots of thanksgivings to, to have but jennis i want to start the show by just catching our listening audience up on the last week in the middle east as we probably close in now uh to a tighter window for

an israel israeli retaliatory strike on iran for its second ballistic missile attack that occurred what is that now um more than 10 days ago right what are you hearing what are you seeing it there. What should our listeners be following? There is division. Surprise, Richard, right? There is division. First of all, the United States has said and listened to these words, Israel should retaliate proportionally. Now, what's different? They are not investing energy in trying to prevent a retaliation. They've seated that ground. They are trying to scale it back to a limited series of military installations. The Nizaniel government still arguing, although it was wholly predictable that nothing would happen

until the day of atonement was over. The last thing that Prime Minister of Israel wants, people in shelters during that day. So you're right, the window is opening. They're really torn this government, they have waited for a long time, this prime minister in particular for the chance

he has seen Iran as the big strategic threat now for 15 years. His argument is we will never have a better moment. It closes the day

of the U.S. presidential election, frankly. Once there's a new president, this window will close if we were ever going to do it, we should do it now. Of course, the problem with that, Rudyard, and we've seen it again and again, it's so easy, although this is complex militarily, it's so easy to attack, but what's the strategy the day after? Does Netanyahu really want to start a spiral of escalation that would be

like no other, with no end to it, no firebreak? Or does he want to use the time to get done, because that's a short window too, but he needs to get done in Lebanon so that displaced population can come back. And there is active pursuit of a ceasefire now behind the scenes going on in Lebanon again. So to think this through a little bit, you're right. It's clear that the Biden administration just weeks away from a presidential election would not relish the knock-on effects of a more significant Israeli strike. Those no doubtably would show up in oil prices, which translates to the price of gas at the pump, which we know historically as kind of kryptonite for any administration seeking re-election. The Americans have under Biden drained the strategic petroleum reserves

significantly over the last two years, so it's not clear how much wiggle room they have to affect energy prices. So I certainly see the case for why it's not in this administration's interest to see this conflict ramp up from here. But boy, Janice, I mean, there's a couple things that seem striking about what Israel's perspective must be. First, the seeming political unanimity around a retaliatory strike in a significant one. It is across the political map. No one is really urging publicly. None of the opposition parties. for the government to significantly pull punches. Maybe that's going on behind the scenes,

but nobody is communicating that publicly. And second, Janice, I mean, the insurance policy, the kind of loaded gun on the table that Iran had over Israel for, really since the Lebanon war in 2006, was Hezbollah and the fear of thousands of rockets raining down on northern and central Israel. And it seems as if significant portions of that arsenal have been destroyed, the command and control structures of Hezbollah have been seriously disrupted. Rocket fire is limited to, you know, a couple dozen rockets a day, sometimes more, but sometimes less.

And all reports on the ground is that Hezbollah troops along the northern border are only able to fight in small groups. They're demoralized. they are rolling back, Hezbollah, into southern Lebanon. So, you know, Janus, there could be an argument here for Israeli decision makers that, you know, fortune favors the brave. And right now, Israel has a unique opportunity to deal Iran a significant blow, specifically to that existential threat that Iran could hold over Israel, which is the acquisition of a nuclear bomb through its enrichment program.

While they might not be able to destroy all of that program in terms of some of the deeper buried centrifuges, there are, for example, new centrifuges complexes that are being built right now that are available for Israeli targeting because they aren't hardened sites yet. I don't know, Janice. I mean, you never want to see someone, someone in the form of Benjamin Netanyahu kind of roll the proverbial dice because you're right, what is the plan? But sometimes, you know, we aren't afforded the luxury of a future site. Sometimes decisions are forced on countries and leaders that require action because there is opportunity. And it's hard to argue that Israel does not at this moment have a significant

opportunity here, one that didn't exist in years past and one that could close in the future if Hezbollah is allowed to rearm through Iran, if Iran is able to go back to what Iran likes to do, which is encircle Israel with proxy armies and wage a war once removed against Israel for the purposes of the destruction of what it loves to call the Zionist entity. You just recapitulated the agonized discussions that are going on inside Israel. now or I did. And there are these conversations going on at peak intensity. And my hunch is that will be a significant retaliation.

I don't think, I think you're right. If you're listening to the public conversation by the leaders of the opposition who would be the site of any restraint here, they're not there. They're not there. So you're right? Let me just put on the table. One more thing. That's complicating the timing of it. And there's no cost to waiting. You know, Iran did that to Israel. They dragged it out. And that's entirely possible.

We're going to see, because this is the period of Jewish holidays. October the 7th, actually on the Hebrew calendar, occurs 10 days from now. So it's conceivable. This will go yet longer until those holidays are over. Two things happen. one, the deputy commander of Hezbollah, and who knows who has authority inside Hezbollah right now to speak for anybody, has signaled that he wants a ceasefire without. He did not mention a ceasefire in Gaza. That is a huge move on the part of Hezbollah. And there has to be a ceasefire there for people to come back to the border areas. that's a big, that's a significant win for the Nizanayo government.

And certainly in terms of Israeli domestic political opinion, that would really matter. So are you going to put that at risk if you make a major move against Iran? Second thing is a bizarre story, which is bizarre, which is playing out in Tehran right now, which is that the head of the Republican guards, Gunny, who succeeded Suleiman, when he was assassinated, is being accused in public of treason. And there are investigations going on inside Iran. What does this tell you, Richard? You know, who knows if there's any truth to it or not?

You have to have access to all the secret intelligence. but this is the most visible sign yet of the fear at the highest levels inside the Iranians, particularly inside the Republican Guard, which is their critical asset, that they're penetrated, that the commander of the guards could be a Mossad agent. That's in public. So there's an argument here that they are, frankly, in very sophisticated language. so spooked that you let this process play out because the internal damage inside as one faction turns on the other can be so great. Galant, the defense minister, kind of intimated that

when this strike happens, it will surprise and kind of awe the Iranian regime. And you go back to the beeper attack, Janice, and you kind of wonder, is there, is there, is there, is Are we thinking about this in maybe two kind of traditional ways of thinking that the strike is going to primarily consist of bombs being dropped on IRGC, you know, military facilities, possibly oil fields. You know, there is, as we know, huge cyber capability that Israel has, that it hasn't really used its scale against Iran. there are targeted assassinations, which, I mean, their ability to take apart the entire top leadership. And now multiple replacements of Nestoralla have been, you know, eliminated one after the other. I don't know, Janice. Is there a potential here for something truly, truly unexpected?

Or, you know, again, has Israel kind of rolled the dice on? Three big things, you know, eliminating the Hezbollah leadership, surging north of the border, a successful degrading of, you know, the special forces, the Radwan group of Hezbollah, all those things, you know, could have maybe would have not worked. They were all spectacular successes. And in a sense, do you take your gains now or do you roll the dice again? You know, that's the argument that's going on, right? Do you take your win, and it's a big one right now?

If they can consolidate the gains and get to C-Spire, it's a big win. It was really interesting, Golan's statement. He probably said too much there. And there's two components to a statement. Surprise. So not the obvious targets. This is not going to be why you think this is, right? Which suggests to me that there is some big covert asset.

There's something in place there that they have not used and that they are struggling with. Is this the moment to use that asset, frankly? And I think that's what probably we're front of. I don't think it'll be an attack against the nuclear installations simply because at the very best, what does that get you? You take a part of it. And these installations, the ones that are not buried and literally 20 stories underground, I mean, very deep into very rugged mountains are very close to civilian population centers. So I don't think that's on the cards.

I think straighting at the oil fields, first of all, the Gulf states don't want it. All the tacit Israeli allies, the Saudis, the Emirates, they do not want that as well as the Biden administration. So it leaves you with military installations, military bases of the kind that Iran's targeted in Israel. I suspect we're going to see something different. It will be much closer to the pagers and the walkie-talkies than it is to a conventional military response when it finally comes. But it'll come. He said too much. If I were the, if I were standing behind him, I would be kicking him and said, stop talking. That too much there. Yeah. Okay. Let's take a break. Say goodbye to our complimentary listeners. Join our monk.

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