The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Israel waits for Iran's response and Ukraine's surprising offensive into Russia

Episode Date: August 9, 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. As Israel waits for a response from Tehran following the assisination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Rudyard and Janice discuss the possibility of a last minute ceasefire deal and whether a Haris/Waltz win in the US would deter Iran's nuclear ambitions and bring more stability to the region. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice talk about the surprising Ukrainian incursion into Russia. Can this morale booster for a beleaguered Ukrainian army turn the tide of this war?The final topic of today's show addresses a tale of two dictators: Bangladesh's autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina Wazed has been forced out, while Venezuela's Nicholas Maduro cracks down on dissent after fraudulent elections. How was one dictator able to hold on to power, while the other was forced to flee? 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. you 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 the Friday Focus podcast. Rudyard Griffiths here, the executive

director of the Monk Debates. I'm joined by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. It is the morning of August 9th when we're recording this program for our valued monk community. Well, Janice, got to start where we left off last week's show, which is the continuing standoff in the Middle East between Iran, Israel, Israel, Hezbollah. I'm surprised, Janice, that a week later, we're still kind of in wait and sea mode. What does this all mean, read the tea leaves for us. And we really are reading the tea leaves here, Reddard, because we're getting leaks from the Americans and the Israelis and some from the Egyptians, but not a lot from Tehran, in all honesty.

So everybody's got to be mindful of that. What seems to be happening here, first of all, Redyard is Iran has pulled back just a little bit. new president domestic reform agenda. After all, Ayatollah Khamani allowed him to win because he's aware of the

pressure points inside around around inflation and a frankly wrecked economy. So this couldn't have come at a worse time. And so they are looking for a way to walk this back just a little bit. So out of

Iran comes the falling statement. Oh, we thought that Hania was killed by a missile, so we needed to retaliate with a missile. Oh, that didn't happen. It was a bomb, so it's not necessary to use our full arsenal of missiles to respond. Now, I doubt that any sophisticated Iranian fully believes that story, but just my intuition here is they are walking it back. And what is clear now from Hezbollah, and so we can believe this part of the story, they have said they're going to go before the Iranians. They are not going to wait for the Iranians. So it's clear Iran is dragging its feet to some degree.

You know, Hezbollah has a formidable arsenal. And what are you seeing? You are seeing advanced civil defense preparations in Israel. Hezbollah has said that it will attack the Ministry of Defense. She's called the Kyria. That is in North Tel Aviv, but it is in the middle of civilian areas. You can't attack that area unless you have really advanced precision missiles without causing civilian casualties. And so this is still hanging by threat record because if there are civilian casualties,

and, you know, civil defense inside Israel, which they normally do not do, have said water generators, safe houses, make sure food, the population on the streets much thinner than usual. And part of this is what the professionals call psychops. You know, in a sense, the longer this goes on, the bigger the consequence for the Israeli economy. And the population becomes really apprehensive. Yeah, reports this week that the Israeli deficits soaring over 8% of government spending over government revenues to fund the war in Gaza and obviously everything else that's happening everywhere else. Is there some good news, though, here in this Janus? Because we talk a lot about deterrence on this program because we think it's pretty important to how countries interact with each other in these kind of high-stakes moments.

And could you say in effect that Iran, despite all of its bluster, and despite as we know, its role in funding this so-called axis of resistance from the Houthis to Hamas to Hezbollah, is now, in a sense, deterred by the combined threat of Israeli and American power. And it's being deterred in a very kind of stark and frankly public way, that it is walking back. Yes, it wasn't a missile. It was most likely a bomb. Yes, it wasn't planted by Israeli agents. It was most likely humiliatingly planted by the regime's own revolutionary guard officers or someone who was flipped by the Israelis.

The result still, though, was a terrorist attack, at least the, the Iranians would see it that way in the equivalent of Blair House. You know, think of the most secure part of a national capital where foreign dignitaries, you know, stay when visiting. So, you know, the humiliation, the clear kind of threat that that attack represented, all of that now suggests, though, doesn't it, Janice, that maybe Israel has a larger ambit of action going forward. You know, I agree with you, Richard.

It is more than mildly encouraging because it shows an Iranian regime that is responsive to two things, to its own domestic politics, which are really, really pressing on the regime right now. This is probably the lowest support that the regime has had when we measure public sentiment, which is very hard to do inside Iran in all honesty. But more important, the fact that the United States and Israel

have now had a week to coordinate the defense, surprise is a huge advantage. And Hezbollah and Iran have sacrificed the advantages of surprise allowed a coordinated defense in response. The United States has warned. warned and run repeatedly. This is not the path. And they're using language like you could be jeopardizing your regime,

which is ambiguous enough. So the strategy is proven very effective. Let's put one more mildly optimistic thread to the story on the table. This week at the same time, Biden, the president of Egypt, and the prime minister of Qatar said, we're done. we are putting a final ceasefire offer on the table on Thursday, and we expect both sides to come to the table. Now, is it final?

Certainly no agreement will be signed, but they are under the umbrella, this escalating tension. They are saying to everybody in the region, there's a way out here, get this facefire agreement sign before all hell breaks loose. we'll see whether that has, as we say, any looks.

Yeah. And I don't know, Janice, I mean, not to extrapolate too much here, but if Iran is, in a sense, deterred now in a way that is more explicit, certainly than in the past, can the West, in America in particular, also start to take a harder line towards Iran? Because the policy of the Biden administration, you know, has been one of, I don't know, let's charitably call it accommodation, allowing Iran to sell its oil. Refunding to Iran, you know, large amounts of money, yes, that have to be used for humanitarian purposes,

but nonetheless, providing the regime with, you know, bread and butter to stave off possibly economic collapse in the tune of billions of dollars funded through the Qataris. So there's lots of things that Biden administration see. seems to have done to kind of try to certainly not normalize relations with Iran, but have a relationship with a regime that we know is dedicated to the destruction of Israel that is weeks away from the breakout of a potential nuclear capacity, who's doing lots of bad things around the world with lots of bad people like Russia in Ukraine. is it time for the rest of us to grow a bit more of a spine when it comes to Iran and follow the

Israeli example and understand that this is a very weak regime. This is this is a paper tiger. Its economy is a complete mess. Politically, it is fragile to say the least. Clearly, its top security forces are being flipped by foreign governments to kill visiting, you know, dignitaries. I mean, come on. Why are we handling Iran with kid gloves? Well, first of all, as far as the foreign forces being flipped by foreign governments, I have to say the Mossad is unique in its capacity to penetrate Iran. And it is driving the Iranians absolutely crazy, frankly. But it is their senior levels, the Republican guards, they are spending so much time, Reddard, hunting for agents that have been flipped.

That itself is so dysfunctional. But the bigger picture is here. Deterrence usually works if you've got the capability and you signal the resolve that you're going to use it. But there's a second strand that we often forget. Offer these governments an off ramp. Because if you don't offer the operam, no deterrence is stable over the long time. And boy, it's Russian example of that.

one, frankly. So there was a deal on the table before President Trump arrived. It was not a great deal, but it was a deal. It pushed Iran back from a week or two away to a year away. I think actually, if we can avoid this one in the next few weeks, and we have a Harris-Waltz administration in the United States, the more likely thing is that those nuclear talks will begin again. It's in everybody's interest in the area not to have an Iran that is with its finger on the nuclear threshold. It really is. Let's take a quick break here. We'll say goodbye to our complimentary listeners. Join our monk curators and supporters on the other side. Let's talk, Janice, about this Kirst,

incursion, the military of Ukraine pushing into Russia proper in a dramatic way. These last few days, we'll have that analysis for you right after this break. Thanks for listening to this excerpt of the Friday Focus podcast. To get full-length editions of each and every episode of this program, simply go to our website, triple-w, the monkdebates.com. click on the Friday Focus tab in our navigation on the top right of the site. Make a donation as little as $25 a year of 50 cents an episode. And we'll send you not only the full-length editions of each and every Friday Focus podcast, but all kinds of special offers, perks, access to events, and additional content.

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