The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Dialogue with Gregg Carlstrom: Israel and Iran's shadow war explodes into the open

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

The Middle East, a region already mired in conflict due to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, just got a lot more dangerous. In response to a recent Israeli strike on an Iranian consulate building in Damascus, Iran sent hundreds of drones and missiles to attack Israel, setting the stage for a potential military escalation. The world is now watching closely as the long shadow war between Israel and Iran - which has played out with proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen for years - threatens to turn into a full blown war between the two regional enemies that could draw in the surrounding Arab States, the US, and even Russia.  To unpack this unfolding crisis we are joined by Gregg Carlstrom. Greg is a Middle East correspondent for The Economist, and has covered the region for more than a decade, with stints in Cairo, Beirut and Tel Aviv. The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 15+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Executive Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Senior Producer: Daniel Kitts Editor: Kieran LynchBecome 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.

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that are driving the public conversation. The Middle East, a region already mired in conflict due to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas just got a lot more dangerous. In response to a recent Israeli strike on an Iranian consulate facility in Damascus, Tehran has sent hundreds of drones and missiles to attack Israel, setting the stage for a potentially region-wide military escalation. The world is now watching closely as the long shadow of war between Israel and Iran, which has been playing out, for decades with proxies in Gaza and Lebanon now threatens to plunge the region into an era of unprecedented chaos and strife. To unpack this folding crisis, we are joined on this special edition of the

monk dialogues by Greg Kahlstrom. Greg is a Middle East correspondent for the economist who has covered the region for more than a decade with stints in Cairo, Beirut, and Tel Aviv. Greg, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Greg, for coming on the show on short notice. Let's begin by asking you, what surprised you the most as a considered observer of the Middle East when it comes to this weekend's surprise attack by Iran on Israel? I was surprised, and almost everyone I've spoken to was surprised that Iran decided to retaliate directly and in such a big way against Israel. This is a country that for decades has preferred to fight through proxy militias in the Middle East.

It's been waging this shadow war with Israel for many, many years, but it's never done so directly. And the fact that they were willing to change course on this long-held policy and to do it not in a small symbolic way, but to do it with a massive barrage of almost 350 missiles and drones, I think took many, observers by surprise and also took the Israeli government by surprise because the theirstrike that they carried out in Damascus two weeks ago on the Iranian embassy compound there that precipitated these events. They did that on the assessment that Iran wasn't going to retaliate directly. And I think they were a bit taken aback that Iran did what it did. Why do you think, Greg, that Iran wasn't deterred? Detered by President Biden in the sense that,

Well, he said it. Iran don't do this, yet that's exactly what they did. They went out and struck Israel, and they did it in a significant way, much larger than many observers thought. Why do you think American deterrence did not prevent this attack from happening? I think there are two big reasons why it didn't work, why Iran did what it did. One of them is that when the Biden administration or any American president really in recent years has told Iran not to do something and has made sort of vague threats, as much as the Iranians don't want to directly get involved in a regional war, neither do the Americans. And aside from the assassination of Qasem Soleimani in 2020, America really has tried to avoid direct military confrontation with Iran. So I don't think

they take very seriously these sorts of warnings from the White House. I think the other issue is the nature of the Israeli attack in Damascus. I mean, Iran had absorbed up until that point, almost six months of intensifying Israeli attacks on its interests in Syria. Israel had wiped out almost the entire leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Syria, and Iran had mostly let that pass without a direct response. But by choosing to strike the Iranian embassy compound, what is effectively Iranian territory, Israel did something that Iran saw as an unacceptable provocation. And that caused a lot of domestic pressure inside of Iran from hardliners in the government in the Revolutionary Guard, but also from some segments of society, some ordinary

people demanding a response. And so I think that put the Iranian leadership in a position where they felt like they had to do something. They couldn't just let this pass unanswered or do it indirectly, respond indirectly through proxies. Greg, what I'm hearing from you, if I'm correct in my understanding, it's about reestablishing deterrence. Iran felt that it was suffering a lack of deterrence, the ongoing assassinations of its generals by Israeli planes, the extent to which Israel was seemingly bombing with impunity in Lebanon. In no way am I saying this to excuse Iran's actions, but the reality was that Iran was forced, wasn't it,

into a bit of a corner here, in terms of having to restore some credible deterrence in the face of persistent Israeli attacks? It did feel that way. I think if you look at Israel's actions in recent months, and from talking with Israeli officials in recent months, there's a pattern whereby Israel seemed to think Israel acted as if Iran was deterred. Israel was able to carry out, again, this series of assassinations in Syria,

and it went on the assumption that it could do this, and Iran would just let this pass. There would be no point at which Israel would escalate far enough that Iran would be forced to respond. And that assumption held true for months. Again, the Israelis, going back to December, have been carrying out this very intense campaign. And they've mostly been able to do it without repercussions. But at some point, that logic was not going to hold.

Inevitably, there was going to come a point when the Iranians would not just keep absorbing these hits. And they would, as you say, feel the need to try and restore deterrence. And so I think that was the goal of these strikes on Israel. on Saturday night, I don't think they've achieved that goal, but that is, I think, what they set out to do. Well, let's talk about that, because that's where I wanted to go next. Right now, we're recording this show on Sunday, around 1 p.m. Eastern. Reports are coming out that a potential Israeli retaliation that might have occurred last night were seemingly derailed by a conversation that Joe Biden had with Ben, Netanyahu. Iran is now threatening the United States with retaliation against its bases in the region if it's involved in any kind of Israeli attack on Iran. And according to reports by Axios, President Biden told

Benjamin Netanyahu this weekend that the United States will not participate in any form of counterstrike against Iran. Taking that all into account, Greg, could we not say that At least for now, for the time being, Iran has restored credible deterrence with not only Israel, but the United States also. I'm not sure it has deterred Israel with this strike. I think if you look at what Iran was trying to do, on the one hand, it was trying to restore deterrence and also satisfy a domestic constituency. But at the same time, it was trying to do that by carrying out a strike that would not automatically trigger. Israeli retaliation. And so we ended up with the situation where what they did was quite big. They fired 350 missiles and drones at Israel. That's a significant attack. But they telegraphed it for two weeks in advance. And they started the attack with very slow-moving drones that took hours

to reach Israeli territory. So they gave Israel and its Western and Arab partners ample time to prepare. And that's why in the end, no one was killed. Only one person was. injured and the damage was quite minimal because most of these projectiles were shot down. So Iran was trying to juggle these two competing interests of restoring deterrence, but simultaneously not causing Israel to escalate even further. And it was impossible to reconcile those two. So the fact that this strike was as militarily ineffective as it was, I think means that instead of deterring Israel, it might actually reassure Israel that it could.

can continue to carry out strikes on Iran with some degree of impunity. It's a different case for America and for other, again, both Western and Arab countries, which are very determined to avoid escalation. They don't want to see Israel respond against Iran because they are worried that Iran will then respond again against Israel and will be in this escalatory cycle that will lead to an even bigger regional conflict than the one that we are already in. So there's pressure coming from outside on Israel. And if anyone is going to deter Israel here, ironically, it's not going to be the Iranians. It's going to be the Biden administration and other Israeli allies who will do it.

The use of ballistic missiles in Iran's attack on Israel has rightly drawn, Greg, some significant comment and attention this weekend. You know, it's one thing to send slow-moving drones. Another, though, to use Iran's advanced ballistic missiles, over 100 of them fired on Israel. And, you know, while most, if not all, with an exception of just one or two, were taken out by Israel's arrow missile defense system, these missiles and the platforms that they use to launch, are they not, Greg, the very system that Iran would hypothetically use, to launch a nuclear weapon at another country. They are, as we know, from extensive reporting,

potentially two to four weeks out from taking their current uranium stockpiles and enriching them into weapons-grade material. It does, and it's quite significant that they chose to use those weapons. I mean, as you say, there's a huge difference between drones that took hours, six to eight hours in some cases to reach Israel, and ballistic missiles where the lag time is measured in minutes from the time that they're fired from Iran until the time that they reach Israel. If Iran had just used drones, even cruise missiles, which are faster than drones, but not as fast as ballistic missiles, even if they had done that, you could say there was a desire to keep this attack. symbolic more than anything else. But I think the fact that they used more advanced weapons, the fact that they used ballistic missiles and also the numbers of missiles that they fired, it tells you that this wasn't just symbolic. There's been some commentary over the past 24 hours,

some people saying that this was a gesture on Iran's part and they didn't intend to do any damage at all and it was just meant to send a message to Israel. And I don't think that's accurate, again, because of what they used and how much of it they used. They were trying to do some damage here. They weren't trying to perhaps cause mass casualties in major cities. But this was a real attack. It was a significant attack. It wasn't just some symbolic gesture.

So, Greg, given the very real and high stakes of this confrontation with Iran and Iran again on the verge of becoming a nuclear power, what does this say about Israel's upcoming actions? Is this the moment for them to turn the proverbial other cheek and not retaliate? Maybe try to build a consensus amongst Western powers to further contain and constrain Iran, or is some kind of equivalency in response to Iran's attack necessary for Israel to reestablish its deterrence over Iran? Give us your sense. I would be very surprised if Israel turned the other cheek. That is not usually what the Israeli government does. I mean, there is a precedent in 1991 when Saddam Hussein fired scud missiles at Israel during the Gulf War,

and the Americans asked Israel not to respond. And in that case, it complied, but it complied because the Americans were busy fighting a war against Saddam Hussein and ultimately we're able to evict him from Kuwait and impose sanctions and a no-fly zone. So Israel didn't feel the need to take action unilaterally because there was an international coalition taking action on its behalf. It's a very different situation now where the Biden administration is asking Israel not to respond, but it is not doing anything directly to confront Iran to diminish Iran's military capabilities and nor are, any of America's allies. So I would be surprised if Israel did nothing. I think the least that they might do is strike at Iranian targets elsewhere in the region, perhaps again in Syria, to demonstrate

to the Iranians that they weren't deterred by these missile and drone strikes, but to try and do it in a way that would have less risk of escalation than attacking directly on Iranian soil. But that's a very real possibility. It's still, despite the warnings from America, from elsewhere, it's still a real possibility that the Israelis will do that. They could strike at the bases in Iran, where these missiles and drones were fired from. They could strike at Iran's nuclear facilities, which they've been threatening to do for many years now. There is a real chance of that, but I think there's almost certainly Israel will do something in response to this attack. How do you think this weekend's events kind of raises the stakes for Israel and the rest

of the world in terms of Iran's nuclear program. We know that the international atomic energy agency has effectively been unable to comply with international agreements around the auditing and surveillance of Iran's nuclear program. We know, as we've discussed before, that these stockpiles could be refined into weapons grade material very quickly in a matter of weeks. And now we've seen a demonstration, the very first ever direct attack on Israel from Iran using the very ballistic missiles that potentially could carry a nuclear warhead. So what does this all mean for Iran's nuclear program? Is this going to get renewed attention and pressure from the international community to do something here to head off the threat of a nuclear Iran? It does certainly up the stakes.

And you're right, even before the events of the past two weeks, even before October 7th and the start of the Gaza War, we were getting to a point where you couldn't keep kicking the can down the road because Iran had accelerated its production of highly enriched uranium, not all the way up to weapons grade to 90%, but it was producing significant quantities of uranium to 60% purity, which has no civilian use and only serves as a way station to enrich up to weapons grade. So they were getting to a point where they were on the threshold of being able to make enough uranium for a dirty bomb. They had made significant progress, as we've seen now in the past day, on their ballistic missile program, the delivery system for a nuclear weapon. The only thing they really had left to do was to work on the process of manufacturing a warhead, taking that enriched uranium, fabricating it into a warhead, and fitting it onto a missile, but they were getting close to a point where, as you say, conceivably, they were weeks away from having a bombsworth of highly enriched uranium. So we were at a point

already where there was a crisis brewing. And I think also what's happened now over the past six months, which heightens that crisis, is that Iran's sense of its security doctrine is probably changing at the moment. They have these nuclear facilities. They have invested, quite heavily in these nuclear facilities. They've suffered through many, many years of sanctions in order to run this rogue nuclear program, but they don't yet have a nuclear deterrent as a result of it. So these facilities are vulnerable, their targets, they could be potentially struck by Israel in the coming days or weeks. And so that gives the Iranians a sense of vulnerability. They're now worried about not just a strike on their nuclear facilities, but on their military

bases, they're worried about a direct strike from Israel, which is not something they've had to worry about in recent years. And so that might, for certainly some elements of the government, the Revolutionary Guard, that might lead them to argue that what Iran needs is a nuclear deterrent. It needs to take that last step and build a functioning weapon to act as a safeguard against attack by Israel or by America or by other external powers. So again, we were already getting to a breaking point with Iran's nuclear program. And now we have a moment where the events of the past six months are going to reinforce for some Iranian policymakers why they might want to acquire a nuclear weapon. In the last 12 hours or so, we've heard comments from Benny Gantz

and defense minister Galant talking up the idea of creating an international alliance against Iran. I'm struggling to understand the purpose of such alliance. How would this serve Israel's interests if it wasn't ultimately directed at eliminating the threat of Iran's nuclear program? What do you see here is there potential for Iran to create a military alliance? It was discussed under the Obama presidency, specifically with U.S. cooperation, to strike Iran's nuclear facilities and take this threat off the board. I think certainly for Benjamin Netanyahu, any talk of a coalition would be linked to Iran's nuclear program. You know, he has threatened for more than a decade now that Israel would carry out a unilateral

strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, but he's never done it. And one of the reasons he's never done it is that he is aware and the Israeli army is aware that they can only do so much damage to Iran. nuclear facilities. They only have so much military capability. And so at this point, given how dispersed Iran's nuclear sites are, given how well fortified some of them are, Israel could carry out a strike that would perhaps set back Iran's nuclear program by six months a year on the outside. That's all. And what it would also do is give the Iranians added incentive to develop a nuclear weapon to prevent any future Israeli strikes. So what Netanyahu has always wanted is,

for the Americans to do the job for him. He wants the United States, which obviously has much more military capability, to carry out a bigger strike that would do years worth of damage to Iran's nuclear program. And I think now any talk of a coalition from him, that's certainly one thing that he has in mind is that he would like to see military action against Iran's nuclear sites. But I think the problem is that almost none of the participants in this coalition, want to take that sort of what they would see as offensive action against Iran. America doesn't want to do it. It has no desire to get dragged into a war with Iran.

Other Western countries don't want to do it. And Arab states, even the ones that either have official relations with Israel like the UAE or are friendly with Israel and private like Saudi Arabia, the last thing they want is a regional war because they're worried. They're going to end up on the front lines of that. They are right across the Persian Gulf. from Iran, and they are worried that they could be targeted. So Israel would like to cobble together some kind of coalition, and there's been some talk of that, you know, in Washington in recent years as

well. But there's a fundamental issue here, which is that Israel sees that as an offensive military coalition against Iran, and almost none of the participants in that coalition want to take those sorts of actions. Sign up now for a complimentary monk membership. As a free monk member, you get all kinds of great perks and privileges, including streaming of select debates, dialogues, and podcasts on our website, a 24-hour advanced ticketing window to access seats to our in-person debates before the general public, written transcripts of all of our content,

and email updates on special offers and promotions, You can grab your complimentary monk membership right now at triple W monk debates. That's MUNK Debates with an S.com. Simply click on the membership tab in the top right of our navigation. Grab your monk membership and open your mind to a world of great debate. Let's talk a little bit about where the Biden administration's policy on Iran goes from here. We know that they have struggled. in their relations with Ayatollah Khomeini.

They tried to bring the Obama-era agreement on halting Iran's nuclear program back into force. That didn't work. They've released aid dollars to Qatar that were in the form of seized money of Iran. And they've continued to allow Iran to sell oil onto world markets. Yet all of this seemed to have little or no effect.

on Iran's decisions this weekend to attack. Israel has the Biden administration really run out of rope, gas? You pick the analogy when it comes to managing the Iranian threat. For the Biden administration, it has been three plus years of failed attempts to manage Iran. They came in saying that they would revive the JCPOA, the nuclear deal that Donald Trump exited when he was president and the Biden administration spent its first months in office trying to revive that deal with the Iranians, only to have a change of power in Iran. The more moderate president who negotiated that deal was left office and a hardline president, Ibrahim Raisi, replaced him

and had no interest in making a deal with the Americans. And so the effort to revive the deal failed, the administration then pivoted to trying to contain Iran and trying to not go back to the full JCPOA, but strike a lesser deal that would give Iran access to a bit of money in exchange for de-escalation in the region. And that was what Biden pursued up until October 7th when that spectacularly imploded. So the administration has never been able to find a way to deal with the Iranians. And that's not entirely their fault. Some of that has to do with this real shift towards hardline politics in Iran over the past several years. It's not entirely on America that they weren't able to revive the nuclear deal.

But they have struggled, really struggled to figure out how to handle the Iranians. And I think now they have to balance between, on the one hand, having made this very public commitment to Israel's security and obviously wanting to uphold that commitment, also wanting to restrain the Israelis from. carrying out any significant attack on Iran and having to deal with the competing interests of their partners in the Gulf, again, countries like Saudi and the UAE, which have tried to improve their relations with Iran in recent years as a way of insulating themselves from conflict. And so Biden is caught between an Israel that is very, very hawkish on Iran at the moment, an Arab world that is surprisingly doveish on Iran at the moment. And then, of course, America's own domestic politics, where any effort to talk to the Iranians is seen as tantamount to treason within the Republican Party.

And this is an election year to boot. So I think he's really going to have a hard time finding any constructive way to engage with Iran at this point. What do you expect it's going to happen with oil markets in the coming week with these threats now of a potential regional conflict brewing? We also know that this part of the world is pretty important to global shun. shipping global supply chains, the straits of Hermuz, after all, go right through this area, bordered by Iran. What's the potential here in terms of a new threat emerging to the global economy? You know, on the one hand, I think we've all been a bit surprised that how sanguine oil markets have been over the past six months. You know, if someone had told me a

year ago that there would be a regional war in the Middle East that had drawn in half a dozen countries across the region. And there would be a de facto blockade of the Red Sea. And Israel and Iran would be trading blows directly. And oil would still be below $100 a barrel. That would have been a somewhat surprising assessment. But here we are. You know, it ticked up earlier this month because of concerns about how Iran might retaliate against Israel and whether there would be increased conflict in the region as a result. But then, you know, we got some, some unhappy inflation numbers out of America and a report that America had larger crude oil stockpiles than anyone anticipated and oil prices promptly dropped by a dollar or two. So it's been

very hard to predict what's going to happen. It's not just about conflict in the Middle East. It also has to do with what's happening with economies in America, in Europe, and China. It's a very complicated picture. I think if there is not a significant Israeli response, if it doesn't look like we're heading for the war to end all wars in the Middle East, then I think the only way it could have a significant impact is if Iran keeps doing the other thing that it did on Saturday, which was hijacking a cargo ship transiting through the Strait of Hormuz. I think that sort of thing could actually have.

more of an impact on oil markets than whatever tip for tat is going on between Israel and Iran. What do you think the likely Israeli responses are going to be? It's hard to guess right now. There's so many moving pieces. Events could quickly overtake us in the hours and days to come. But do you think Israel will pursue a strategy of building an international alliance against Iran, trying to contain Iranian power through a process of kind of consultation? partnership or is there the potential here that Israel acts on its own, understanding that ultimately it's responsible for its own security? With the caveat that I could be spectacularly wrong in 48 hours, I tend to lean towards

the first option, the more pragmatic approach. I mean, there are a lot of voices within the Israeli security establishment right now who are counselling that, who recognized that they were wrong in their assessment of how Iran would respond to the original strike in Damascus on April 1st and who think as a result of that they shouldn't rush into a big reprisal against Iran. They should take some time. They should, as you say, coordinate with allies to whom they owe a debt now. I mean, America, Britain, France, Jordan, other Arab states, all of them played a role

in shooting down some of these Iranian drones. And I think that earns them a right to have some say in how Israel chooses to respond. So the logical thing to do is to wait a beat, to consult with allies, to figure out a more considered response. And that is what some people, again, within the Israeli establishment, are pushing for. I think the wild card here is that ultimately the decision comes down to Benjamin Netanyahu, who has historically throughout his career been reluctant to use military force, has been actually quite cautious. But we've seen over the past six months, his primary concern is staying in power.

His primary concern is heading off early elections for as long as possible. And to do that, he has been catering to the interests of his far-right coalition partners. So I can tell you what makes sense. I can tell you what's logical. But what Netanyahu is going to decide, the end of the day, it's a bit harder to predict now than it would have been a year or two ago. And that's my final question. Netanyahu's entire political career has really been bound up in his obsession with Iran. This is someone who has seen Iran as a strategic challenge for Israel that has gone unanswered, one that he is committed to trying to limit, contain, remove. Why doesn't the events of this weekend finally provide Netanyahu with the moment, the set of ingredients

that allows him to act on what he might see as his kind of ultimate purpose as one of Israel's longest serving political leaders to once and for all deal with Iran. It's been his obsession for many, many years. You're right. I mean, there was a funny moment. I think, more than a decade ago now, where the state comptroller put out a report on the cost of living in Israel after mass protests about the high cost of living. And Netanyahu held a press conference to address the report on the day that it was released. And he started the press conference by saying, I want to talk to you about the cost of living. But before that, I want to talk to you about something that threatens life itself, and that is Iran. So, you know, even a report about housing prices

and the price of cottage cheese, he found a way to spin that back into being about Iran. And I think it's a dangerous moment in some ways right now where you have this prime minister who has been obsessed with Iran, who sees an opportunity now to do something about Iran and to enlist allies, particularly the United States, in doing something about Iran. At the same time, as you say,

that prime minister has a short-term interest, in maintaining this state of war because it prevents early elections. At least he thinks it will and it keeps him in power. And also a prime minister who has no trust and has no credibility. I mean, amongst Israelis, if you look at the polls, just about every poll says 75% of them want him gone, want a new prime minister. Certainly when you talk to foreign diplomats, they are sick of him and their governments want to deal with a new Israeli prime minister.

There's no trust. there's no credibility. You put all of those things together, and I think it's a very worrying confluence of events right now. Greg, thank you so much for coming on the program today. Just terrific insights. You brought real balance consideration to your analysis and views. It's a credit to you and your writings.

If people want to find out more about your views on the emerging crisis, where can they go? Social media, the web, tell us. Twitter is the best, G. L. Carlstrom on Twitter. Excellent. Thank you, Greg. I am following you, and I really urge our listeners to do so also to get your thoughtful analysis, the very type of commentary that you've heard today. Thanks so much for coming on the program. Thank you. My pleasure. Well, that wraps up today's dialogue. I want to thank our guest, Greg Carlstrom. You've certainly given us a lot to think about. If you have feedback or reflections on what you've just heard on this or any of our podcast, please send us an email to podcast at monk debates.com.

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