SPEAKER_04: 0:31

Welcome everyone. I'm David Halperin, CEO of Israel Policy Forum, and I want to thank you all for joining us for today's webinar, in which we are unpacking yet again more momentous developments in the Middle East. All of us at Israel Policy Forum are first and foremost concerned for the safety and well-being of U.S. service members, our friends, family, and colleagues in Israel and throughout the region, as well as the Iranian people, and we mourn the loss of the U.S. service members and Israeli and Arab civilians who've been killed in Iran's response, as well as the innocent Iranians caught in the crossfire of this conflict. The elimination of Ali Khameni brings to an end his decades-long reign of terror exported throughout the region and directed at the Iranian people. Iran and the Middle East are clearly entering a new era. But what that era will actually look like remains to be seen. And there are still many more questions than answers regarding what comes next. With our panel today, we'll begin to unpack some of these questions in search of some clarity, and we invite you to be part of the conversation. I'm so pleased to be joined today by our close friends and colleagues, Michael Koplow, IPF's Chief Policy Officer, Rachel Brandenburg, our Washington Managing Director, and senior policy analyst, Garrett Nada, an IPF policy fellow, and lastly, Shera Efron, a distinguished Israel policy chair and senior fellow at Rand, who of course previously served as Israel Policy Forum's Director of Research. And Shira, I really want to start with you first and foremost. Of course, we hope you and your loved ones remain safe and sane throughout this crisis and recognize that in the event of sirens, you may need to depart at any point. But uh, Shira, from where you sit, what developments in these early days of this war uh have been most striking?

Shira: 2:30

So hi everyone. It's good to be here with uh my friends at IPF. And um, and uh thank you for for including me. There are many surprises, right? And there's some more tactical ones and I guess uh that have to do with the different players. So I guess, you know, one of the um one of the tactical surprises, right? We all thought this operation will start at night and they surprised us with doing it in the morning. But I guess I'm surprised at the level of coordination between the Israel and the US. We've seen uh those two partners cooperate throughout the years, uh, knowing how to work together. What we're seeing now is unprecedented uh with uh coordination and deconfliction and uh dividing the labor uh in ways that seem to be uh operating to each player's uh strengths. And I think this is quite uh impressive uh to watch. I admit that I was surprised that Iranian, I'm not sure how to call it, is it negligence? Um, the fact that they made it so easy to take on their leadership and so quickly, and as if they have not learned any lessons from just eight months ago, right? June, the 12-day war, uh from the Hezbollah experience, the fact that they're convening in whether it's in a bunker or not. Um so, so, and that led to uh successes of taking uh Iranian leadership very quickly in the earlier days of the war. And President Trump acknowledged it, right? He said that they thought this would take them longer, but it was so quick because of Iranian uh failure and really not internalizing their uh situation. I think I'm also uh surprised at Iran's response uh and and and uh overreach uh aggression toward its neighbors. Um, it was clear that Iran was going to try to drag um its neighbors into this, sort of like striking US targets in neighboring countries so that they then turn the pressure on the Americans to stop the war. Um, but what so that is not surprising. I think what is surprising is that it's not just clearly it's not just US military assets in the region, right? We're seeing hotels and airports and very civilian assets. I think the UAE uh is suffering just as much as Israel in terms of the missiles and rockets being fired at it. I think I didn't expect um that. Um, attacking the very mediators that try to help the Iranians until now and pre prevent this war. I am, what else? I have a few more. I am surprised at Hezbollah uh giving Israel the perfect pretext to implement a plan that they wanted to do for a long time, right? The plan that Israel, and we can talk about this uh longer if if needed, but what Israel is doing now in Lebanon is a plan that Israel wanted to implement in late December and had to pull back because of US pressure. And Hezbollah last night just gave Israel this pressure. Um, and I guess I have two Israeli surprises. One surprise is really after being in war for two and a half years, the fact that Israelis are still stuck abroad, that Israelis, that that there are no uh solutions for uh disabled people and handicaps to get go into shelter. There are no solutions that on the domestic front, I think that's that's that's really disappointing and and probably a part of it because it's more convenient for this government to deal with external threats and not managing this country. So I think this is uh this is surprising. And I guess another maybe and probably can talk about is there's a US component also, but um the triumphant nature two and a half days into this, declaring that Israel will change the Middle East, that the Iranian people are gonna come, and Israel and the US will be there for the Iranians, right? Israel, a country of 10 million people, minority in the region, will uh help a country of 93 million people fix itself. Um I'm surprised at the uh lack of humility. Um so I I think that's sort of like the key, the key surprises, if you ask me this minute, but things here change so quickly. So might have a different answer in an hour.

SPEAKER_04: 6:51

Well, it's it's it's so much to unpack, and you've really uh uh really uh laid laid out so many uh uh of the many surprises. But Garrett, I want to bring you in because in your rapid reaction for IPF yesterday, you wrote uh that Iran's regime structure is more resilient than just its leader, and that succession planning had already been underway um in this moment of crisis for Iran. Who's actually making decisions into Iran now and and how cohesive is that leadership today?

SPEAKER_05: 7:20

Yeah, thanks for the question, David. I think it's important that we be humble about what we know and what we don't, being that we're on day three of a very vast uh changing set of events. At least we can say who's at the table, though. Uh Article 11 of Iran's constitution authorizes a temporary leadership council to assume the Supreme Leader's duties until a successor is elected. So who are the three? The first is President Masood Pazeshkian, a reformist who was a dark horse in winning uh Iran's uh last uh not so free and fair presidential election. Number two is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or Judiciary Chief, Khulan Hussein Mosseini Ijoyi, traditional hardliner that's shown no mercy towards protesters. Uh, and then the third is a member of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ali Reza Arafi, who is now name is now being circulated as being a potential contender for the job of being the next Supreme Leader, somebody who's held a number of different clerical bureaucratic posts, um, sort of quietly climbing uh the rungs of power over the last two decades or so. And so those are the three that are supposedly calling the shots. But of course, we know there are other influential players uh in the background that have managed to uh not have been killed in airstrikes. So two other names that I would flag to keep an eye on would be the uh Speaker of Parliament, Mohammed Bagar Khalibaf, former head of uh Iran's National Police Force, a former IRGC uh aerospace force commander, um, who sort of famously took off the uniform, put on a suit, ran for mayor, ran for parliament, and is a quite an ambitious um individual. And then uh Ali Larajani, who's now the head of the National Security Council, also a former IRGC commander, an experienced politician, uh a reputation for pragmatism and for working across um aisles uh in Tehran. And so these are the players that I would expect that are uh sort of trying to do things on a uh somewhat of a cohesive uh process to the extent that they can. Uh and then, oh sorry, one more name and not to give you a laundry list. Um, the newly uh uh minted, uh newly appointed head of the IRGC, Ahmed Bahidi, another veteran hardliner, brigadier general, former Rev Guards, former defense minister, former interior minister. Uh so uh this is the current goon squad.

SPEAKER_04: 9:40

So given given the those uh all those players that you just uh described uh just you know, yet yesterday, last night, we've heard a lot of messages from President Trump, including that the Venezuela model is the perfect scenario, uh, a model in which uh essentially the regime would remain intact, but he would begin to work with others uh within the regime. Is there a Venezuela scenario here? Uh particularly this morning with um the the Secretary of War at Hegseth and President Trump signaling the regime change is actually not the goal. Um, is there a Venezuela play here? And how are the scenarios different?

SPEAKER_05: 10:21

Yeah, I think uh Iran, uh as we mentioned, that this is a regime uh with a that's basically built on contingencies with overlapping ministries and uh labyrinth uh Byzantine bureaucracy. Uh and the one of the things that the Supreme Leader did over his 36-year rule was that he constantly reshuffled the top military leadership and other parts of the state apparatus uh to basically not allow another rival or anybody to get that independent of a power base to ever be able to challenge him and the revolutionary guards. So, I mean, anything's plausible in a country of 92, 93 million people. I am sure there are any number of opportunistic strong men that might be selling themselves as a potential uh solution uh to uh the this uh uh issue. Um I can't think of one particular individual or even three as one of the numbers that's been thrown out, uh, that would be able to really shepherd this along in a way that would be satisfactory to all the different players involved, whether it's the Israelis, whether it's the Iranian people. Um, this is a really, really complicated situation. And until uh the bombs stop, it's really gonna be difficult to see where the balance of power lies. Um but I would say for now it's still firmly in the security forces realm.

SPEAKER_04: 11:38

Uh Rachel, I want to bring you in uh to comment on President Trump's decision to go to war and the messaging thus far. Of course, the first announcement signaled a desire for the Iranian people to rise up and take their opportunity, um, a different tone this morning around regime change. What do you make uh of the decision and the communication thus far in the early days of this war?

Rachel: 12:00

Thanks, David. Uh certainly on the communication front, it's been far more garbled than I would have liked to see for a country who has just uh launched what is already becoming a pretty major war in the region. As you said, first President Trump said the goal was regime change, and he sounded pretty similar to what Prime Minister Netanyahu said the goal for Israel was. And then uh it was to contain the threats from Iran. And then this morning, I think it was Secretary Hegseth who said it was to contain so that Iran couldn't export dangers. And then finally, this afternoon, shortly before this webinar, I think they've kind of started to get on message, but it is now everything but regime change. As you said, it's um going after Iranian proxy capabilities, Iran's nuclear program, Iran's ballistic missile program, and interestingly, Iran's naval capabilities. Uh, so we'll see how long that sticks. So far, we've heard Secretary Heggseth, President Trump, and um General Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, say relatively the same thing. I will add, Secretary Hegeseth spent a good amount of time in the press conference he did this morning painting this as Iran having been the enemy of the United States for a long time. His quote was something along the lines of, we didn't start this war, but we're going to finish it. And he talked about all of the aggressions of America of Iranians against American service members since 1979. And so he sort of brought into this what has become a generational um pain point and a real pain point for US service members who have been targeted for the past two, three decades, uh, certainly since the 82 bombings in Beirut by Iranian militia. And so that brings in a whole new dynamic that says to me they're trying to bring this back to the homeland and trying to bring this back to American interests and um try and come up with an explanation for why President Trump decided to launch this war now in a big way that they really haven't given so far. And although we've started to hear more about the objectives and what they're seeking to achieve, we still really haven't heard an explanation of why the president decided that now was the time, amidst a whole laundry list of problems at home, to launch another pretty significant foray into foreign policy issues and in the Middle East, where he campaigned on wanting to get out of military entanglements.

SPEAKER_04: 14:22

Thank you, Rachel. I wanted to bring related to this, Michael. I wanted you to comment on, you know, Shira mentioned this extraordinary US-Israel cooperation in the early days of the war. And yet this signaling around regime change versus other goals. Um, I wonder if that signals the beginning of a strategic misalignment. Uh, to what extent do you see the US and Israel aligned about the goals uh uh of the the actual war aims here? Uh and we do have a question I wanted to pull in uh from reporter Josh Keating, who says that Rubio, Heggseth, and others are stretching the Khomeini's killing and the targeting of senior leaders generally were carried out by Israel, not the US. And is there any political significance to that? Again, this question of uh uh are the are the war aims aligned?

SPEAKER_03: 15:11

I think it's hard to say whether the war aims are aligned because as Rachel points out, the the rationale, at least on the US side, keeps on shifting. Um, you know, President President Trump famously likes to when he's speaking at rallies, he likes to describe his uh his style of moving from thing to thing as the weave. Uh and I feel like we're sort of seeing that now with regard to this war. Um, you know, depending on the day, it's about regime change and having Iranians rise up and overthrow the Islamic Republic. Or today it's not about that. It's it's about uh the nuclear program and proxies and missiles and the Iranian Navy. Um so you know, it really, and depending on the day, it's either going to be uh a couple of days of strikes and then the opportunity for the Iranians to negotiate, or it's gonna be a few months. Um it's gonna be airstrikes, or it's gonna be ground troops, which President Trump said uh he may do today as well. So there's really no way of knowing if they're on the same page when we're not entirely sure what the United States wants to get out of this. I think it's safe to say that Israel would love to see regime change. I think the US would too, but you know, the Israelis have spoken about this far, far more and for longer than the United States has. Whereas with President Trump, you know, you you raised earlier the the Venezuela, uh, the Venezuela analogy, there's certainly uh a world, and maybe it won't work given that these that these countries are very different, but there's certainly a world in which you can say, you can see Trump saying, All right, I have found my Iranian Delcy Rodriguez, and so the supreme leader is gone, and you know, we we're now going to find somebody we can work with. And as long as that person promises certain things with regards to the nuclear program and maybe even with regard to ballistic missiles, President Trump saying, All right, uh, you know, great, I I changed the regime behavior and there's no longer a threat to the United States. And if that happens, I don't think that that the Israelis will be terribly pleased. But the flip side to this is that uh nobody expects, or I don't think anybody can reasonably expect, that airstrikes, even if it's you know, four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks of airstrikes, is going to automatically change the regime. So without some sort of hardened plan to do that, and you know, with the president now talking about ground troops, maybe that's actually what he's thinking, or actual evidence that Iranians are rising up and also that there are cracks in the regime, because you know, we've seen now multiple times that having hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of Iranians in the streets doesn't automatically lead to regime change. Without some sort of sign that that's what's coming, it almost seems inevitable to me that President Trump is going to dial back whatever his more maximalist vision is and settle for something less than that, you know, not regime change, but perhaps a promise to change the regime's behavior. And if that's the case, then I think whatever gaps that are between the US and Israel will be exposed pretty quickly. With regards to Josh's question about uh taking credit, um, I'm not sure I see a political angle in there. Um I don't know if I don't know if Rachel Shear or Garrett uh agrees or disagrees, but not just a political angle. I think that's just uh a function of the fact that um the Israelis were the ones who conducted the strike that took out the Supreme Leader. And um, you know, as uh as Sheera said, we've seen this division of labor now between the US and Israel, where they're extremely well coordinated. Uh, and part of that is that they're each taking care of different aspects of things. So it may be as simple as that.

SPEAKER_04: 18:44

Uh Sheer, I wonder what your take is, uh, both on the comments about the duration that has been indicated four weeks. We've had questions uh in the chat about the missile defense capabilities, the duration of the war, and also uh just in the days to come, we've heard from President Trump describe that we've only seen the beginning, that there's going to be a major blow now. What what what are the what are you watching for in the days to come? What are the logical next targets? If you can comment a bit on the just the the defense capabilities uh as this war drags on.

Shira: 19:16

Right. So I'll just um I'll just talk to the credit uh question. I think in the division of labor, there are probably things to take out, you know, to decapitate, to assassinate a head of state who is also a religious figure. I still think that even under Trump, like the United States would prefer that Israel would do it. Um I think this is uh that that sort of explains to me why Israel was, you know, in terms of the division of labor, it was clear that Israel would take on this role. Um, not purview to any discussions, but it makes a lot of sense to me why Israel would volunteer to do this job. Uh, in terms of the duration and what we're talking about, I just want to say we're all not just Israelis, everyone in the world, right, or most people in the world would want like to see the regime in Iran changed. It's a regime, I don't think we need to go further in terms of the blood on their hands that they have of Americans and Israelis and Arabs and Europeans and Iranians themselves, right? Seeing them gone would be something very positive that all of us want to see. But in terms of the duration and the objective of the regime change, it rests on a lot of assumptions that I don't think are very robust and the timelines here don't make any sense, right? Because what we have here is a race against time. During this time, and what supposedly is going to happen during this time, after a few more days of strikes, then uh through covert and overt means, I presume the Israel and the United States would call on the Iranian protesters and the Iranian opposition representatives, whoever they are, uh, to come to the streets and take back their country. And then whether they do it, how they do it, can they do it effectively, as also Iran continues to target the region. Um, there's spillover today. There were sirens in Cyprus. So it's a European city, right? As the politics um in the United States uh is probably gonna get, I don't see pro-u-war, uh the pro-war movement uh growing. As people die here on the ground in Israel, we have to say there would have been 10 casualties already. I mean, we can expect this. There are going to be more service members. So it's a race against time since when when these outcomes happen. And I think it's very to the point that Michael was talking about, we're talking about sort of a regime change. What's supposed to happen is creating the conditions, which is an amorphous uh objective that you can't measure, right? Uh creating the conditions for the Iranians to take to the streets and to think that that externally, even if with um whether it's on the ground, ground forces or um through the airstrikes, you can engineer a political outcome that is favorable during a comp uh during a conflict in a big country. And Garrett knows here more about you know, what Garrett forgot about Iran, I will never begin to study, but in a country that's very very complex and structured is to me uh it just uh seems to be that the planning uh relies on I'll be diplomatic, assumptions that are. Are not very reliable. And I'm not sure it's going to work. We all hope it's going to work. And then sort of what is the end game afterwards? And you hear Israelis now reiterating the timelines of the Americans saying that until Passover, so we're talking about until April, discontinuing, not clear how. And there Israelis are saying there's going to be residual capabilities held by Iranians. You're not going to get rid of all the knowledge, not going to get rid of all the ballistic missiles. So what if this round doesn't achieve the intended outcome? We go back at this again, preempting an existential threat, right? We heard the same thing eight months ago. So there are going to be a lot of questions, I think, if this doesn't pan out as as as uh as the president and uh prime minister Netanyahu both wish uh to see.

SPEAKER_04: 23:13

Rachel, I want to come back to you. Uh, Garrett, did you have a comment?

SPEAKER_05: 23:16

Yeah, uh David, if I could just um add to uh Shira's emphasis on this being a race against time. There are a couple other factors here that really it is literally a race against time. One would be on this asymmetric nature of the Iranian threat, that being that the US is using multi-million dollar interceptors to try to shoot down drones. It could be manufactured for$30,000,$40,000,$50,000 a piece. Uh the US was all and Israel were both already um kind of pulling out all the stops to replenish uh those um those stockpiles that have been depleted um since October 7th, since uh Operation Rough Rider against the Houthis, which seems like that was already a couple different, you know, like uh lifetimes away from what we're talking about now. So on that too. And then the longer this goes on, the long the chances exponentially for not only battlefield casualties, but we saw the friendly fire incident over Kuwait. Uh some of these Gulf um uh Gulf uh military partners have a lot of American hardware, but they haven't really been battle tested or they haven't been battle-tested in quite a long time. And so there's just more and more opportunities for mistakes and for miscalculations the longer this goes on.

SPEAKER_04: 24:24

Rachel, I wonder what you make of the uh the Arab states that have been targeted quite widely by the Iranians and their reactions thus far uh and their calculations going forward as this proceeds.

Rachel: 24:39

It will be very interesting to watch the latter. I think um, as Shira noted among her surprises, that Iran went after the Arab states so quickly. And this wasn't just errant missiles falling on them, it was um clear targeting of regional actors who I think otherwise probably would have sat quietly and defended maybe intercepted missiles, but not gotten involved, can no longer do that. I did think it was interesting early on, I believe it was after the UAE was attacked and the Saudis came out very clearly and said, we've called our brothers, the Saudis, we're with them. You know, it showed early on we saw that the GCC alliance was strong. And despite tensions between the Saudis and the Emirates over the past couple months, when push comes to shove, they were united and the region would stand together and nobody condemned the war. Now, though that they've all been attacked, I think it's an open question how long they can sit and only play defense before they feel like they have to go on the offense. So if nothing else is achieved in this war coming out of it, I think Iran themselves have proven that the strategy that Gulf countries have been pursuing for a while of diplomacy first and thinking that they can manage the risks and manage the threats against them from Iran is not sufficient because in the end, within the first 48 hours of this war, it wasn't enough to protect them.

SPEAKER_04: 25:59

Garrett, I want to come back to you. We have uh like several questions in the chat about Iran's potential future in a positive uh uh uh scenario. In other words, there's a lot of questions about Reza Pahlavi. Is there any chance um that the Shah's son could uh somehow return to Iran and assert leadership? What would be a path to a best case scenario that would change the regime and not see Iran um splintered? Um, is there such a scenario? How would you thread that needle, you know, score that home run, however you want to uh uh phrase it?

SPEAKER_05: 26:36

Yeah. Um so first on Reza Pahavi, he has a name, he has recognition, in part because the diaspora has not really been all that organized uh in the past couple of decades, and being that like he is the name he consequently, it constantly gets recycled, and he is the main talking head in terms of people that are based abroad. So we'll give him that. It's undeniable that in a lot of the videos that were posted to social media on the most recent round of demonstrations that his name uh and the phrase Javid Shah, long live the Shah, were shouted. In some cases by people that are too young to have lived under the monarchy. So I am skeptical as very, very skeptical as to the level of support that Reza Bahabi has within the country. And some of those rose-colored ideas about what the pre-1979 period was like, I think is kind of a nostalgia for something that seems very um exotic and maybe now within reach, having a normal life and living in a different way where women have you know autonomy over their bodies and any number of other things. Um, but I don't know that that necessarily translates to real um political power for this one individual. And the rest of the opposition is either disunited or has its own baggage, um, namely the MEK, um, which I've seen been popping up in social media, the trolls that they can be. So, in threading the needle of what a more positive direction could look like, I mean, unfortunately, the most credible people that have been pushing back against this regime for years and for decades are basically all in prison. And actually, most of them are all specifically in one prison, Evine prison, uh, outside of Tehran. And you could see, I guess, and a lot of this really depends on what the IRGC and what the security forces end up doing and how that and how this plays out. But the conventional or the opposition names that we're used to hearing that have been under house arrest, the reformists and that sort of thing, have largely been discredited by the majority of the population. So it's really those human rights activists, those lawyers, um, some previous politicians that are really sitting rotting in prison, some cases in solitary confinement, that are the ones that maybe could put together some sort of representative transition council. Um, but otherwise, really, really hard to think of others that would have credibility and also want to steer the country in a way that would be um better for US interests, better for Israel's interests, and better for the interests of Iranians who just want to live a normal life. So not sure how satisfactory that is of an answer, but very, very tough needle to thread.

SPEAKER_03: 29:02

David, can I jump in on this for a second? I think one of the one of the things that makes Iran distinctive is that it's not just a garden variety authoritarian regime, it's also a deeply ideological regime. And if you want the regime to fall, one of the things that you have to do is to um poke at cracks and get uh get some of the folks who are currently part of the regime apparatus to defect to the other side. It's very hard to do that if the figurehead is somebody not only whose ideology is is the polar opposite of the current regime's ideology, but somebody who represents everything that this regime actually tried to overturn specifically in the revolution. So uh, you know, on top of the fact that that as Garrett points out, um, there may be rose-colored glasses about about Reza Papabi. And, you know, there's no way of knowing whether he actually has a huge base of support inside the country. Uh, I think in many ways he will be seen by the regime and uh across the board as uniquely threatening, even if he's just a figurehead.

SPEAKER_06: 30:07

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SPEAKER_04: 31:05

Garrett, is there a scenario in which there are factions of the IRGC or military that reject hardliner control and uh align with a more moderate uh approach that reject support for proxies, the nuclear program, and all the all of the kinds of things that are being described? One question from uh Michael Rotstein.

SPEAKER_05: 31:23

Yeah, I I think there is a possibility. The IRGC is definitely not a monolith. Actually, it's just too big to be a monolith, to be quite honest. Um, the IRGC is the most potent economic actor and has the most influence on politics, aside from being the more well-funded of Iran's um two uh militaries, just like everything in in Iran, there's two of everything pretty much. And so I could see a scenario in which some of the more business-minded IRGC, if they believe that their economic interests are kept intact somehow, their business empires, and it's not just like the state-run industries, it's also the old boys club, the alumni network of IRGC or alumni of IRGC-run businesses that control so many different parts of the economy. If those people feel that their uh their status can be preserved in that sort of way, um, and that the country could do better economically and being opened up, I mean, yeah, there could be some sort, some sort of a pathway there. But at this point, I mean, there's not really much talk about some sort of amnesty being offered and how that would work, or that there's really even like a side to defect to. Um, I think it's just it's really too early to see how those things bubble up. And then, of course, there's also, you know, any number of um scenarios in which some of the ethnic minorities, which happen to be uh positioned on the Iran's border provinces, um, live. And then, of course, uh also in some of the provinces where there's a lot of natural resources involved. So there's any number of scenarios that could go one way or the other.

SPEAKER_04: 32:52

Yeah. I want to turn actually to share a uh specific on Hezbollah for just a moment because we had a question from Dina Kraft about Hezbollah jumping into the war and of course Israel beginning uh to strike Hezbollah, as you mentioned earlier, but how does Israel go about that while not alienating a Lebanese government that seems keen on uh, at least rhetorically, reigning in Hezbollah and uh has not been overly hostile towards Israel?

Shira: 33:17

I mean, Israel um feels, and this has been the sentiment in Israel um all along, that they've given the Lebanese government a chance uh to disarm Hezbollah, that they are weak, uh weaker than anticipated. And in fact, by Israel coming in and clearing uh what's you know remains of Hezbollah, then they will help the Lebanese government uh take hold and strengthen them. So this is the move is not interpreted in Israel as sort of being anti-uh Lebanon, uh, but by but pro-Lebanon, eliminating sort of the enemy from within. And this, of course, has married this argument. The problem is that we know how these things start. And again, I go back, we don't know how they end. If there's a catastrophic strike, right, that hurts civilians, if this drags into not just aerial strikes, but it goes into uh a ground operation. You know, Lebanon is also a country reeling from who many know who knows how many decades of internal war and civil strife and and and occupation by different parties, and they're not don't they don't necessarily have the sort of resilience with this new government to cope with this. So it's not anti-Lebanon, it's anti-uh Hezbollah with the hope that this works. But I think this really depends on the nature of this campaign and and and its outcomes.

Rachel: 34:37

Can I add a thought to that, David? I think it will also depend on whether the United States or others are able to pick up the diplomatic end of this afterwards and actually use this as an opportunity because Israel, as Shira has said, Israel's been waiting to go back in and finish the job with Hezbollah. There are even factions in Lebanon who have said, let them come, let them, let Israel come dismantle Hezbollah, and let Israel come disarm Hezbollah because it's a really hard job for the Lebanese armed forces. That's not the Lebanese government's official line. But after this war is over and whatever shapes it takes, there's going to have to be a mediator, a um a third party to come and actually help the Lebanese government maintain and rebuild and gain authority that maybe Hezbollah will lose through this war. And there's already talk of the Lebanese government wanting to start a diplomatic channel with the Israelis directly, use this as a means to sort of push forward whatever quiet conversations have been ongoing for the past few months. Um, they're gonna need some help. Um, and I think I would put the question back on the United States how, amidst this military campaign, can they maintain a focus on some of the diplomatic channels that they've been trying to open and use whatever victories, tactical military hopefully come out of this to really cement some strategic gains through agreements and diplomacy?

SPEAKER_04: 35:58

Jared, I want to come back to you about actually Iran's capabilities because we had some questions about how long they can withstand uh the war and frankly, what their strategy has been thus far in this wide, uh these various uh drone attacks and missile attacks across the wider region. Um, what do you make of their strategy thus far? And how long can they sustain um this kind of conflict?

SPEAKER_05: 36:22

Yeah, uh it's gonna come down to a question of pacing. You'd have to come up with some sort of very fancy, maybe AI-driven algorithm, which I'm sure the Pentagon is doing, to try to figure out what the estimates and the stockpiles of missiles were. And by all reports, the Israelis supposedly took out about half of the um the long and probably medium-range ballistic missiles um during the June war. Kind of unclear how many Iran was able to produce since then. It definitely seems like Israel took care of quite a bit of the longer range ones, but the the short range ones are the ones that are problematic for Gulf nations, the medium range ones can still reach Israel, maybe not as um with quite as much accuracy or quite as dependable. So I think this could continue for a fair amount of time because some of these missile systems can be easily hidden in large garages or hangars, and they're on mobile tells, mobile launchers. The larger, like underground bases that are you know concrete and fortified and multiple, you know, stories underground, unclear right now, due to the fog of war, how many of those have been taken out. Uh, so it's really um difficult to say. But in terms of the strategy, there actually has been a little bit of a shift. The IDF, um, is from what I saw in the Israeli media, uh, saw that the pattern, at least in the last 24 or 36 hours, is that there have been more drips of some of the uh missiles that can reach Israel, which suggests that maybe the command structure has gotten a little bit more cohesive and trying to think about how to ration its missiles to keep this going for a longer period of time. Because the Iranian playbook, in this case, uh, if they follow what they've tried to do before, is that they'll try to drag this out and apply pressure that way. So they're not going to blow everything all at once necessarily.

SPEAKER_04: 38:08

Michael, I want to come to you on the uh the politics in Washington and particularly the discussion around the US-Israel coordination, um, the splintering uh clearly in both parties of uh questioning whether this is a wise strategic move or from different perspectives. The stakes are incredibly high. What are you watching? What are you concerned about? Where do you see opportunities uh in Washington around the notion of US Israel relationship today?

SPEAKER_03: 38:39

At the moment, most of the the opposition to what's going on is not focused on anything Israel related. It's been focused on whether the United States has the legal authority to do this and uh and whether whether Iran actually presents an imminent threat to the United States. Uh, you know, I think to um what Rachel mentioned earlier about Secretary Hexath talking about different ways in which the Iranians have threatened U.S. troops going back decades. You know, I read that as part of the effort to try to get around this conversation about whether the administration had to go to Congress, whether there had to be an authorization for the use of military force. Uh, you know, the the rhetoric that we heard over the weekend about Iran being very close to developing ICBMs that could hit the United States, which I don't think anybody believes, you know, this is this is all part of part of the legal argument, right? The idea that you had this not only an imminent threat, um, but also that uh Iran has been targeting the United States now for for decades. And so the US is uh is responding in in self-defense. That's that's what we're what we're seeing now in terms of the opposition. And so it's less focused on the Israel angle. But the longer this goes on, it's almost inevitable that the Israel angle is going to come into this, um, both for Republicans and and for Democrats. And what we're gonna see is uh the this gap between what the United States wants and what Israel wants. Uh, and you know, certainly I think on the Republican side in particular, given that we're already seeing this uh in mega social media spaces, the idea that the US was dragged into this by the Israelis and is fighting another war in the Middle East on Israel's behalf, you know, I think we're gonna see that uh we're gonna see that come up more and more. And I think on the Democratic side too, we'll see some of that. You know, around uh 10 years ago, when there was this debate in Washington over the JCPOA, the Iran deal, there were certainly supporters of the JCPOA who said, you know, the Israelis, the Israelis face a different threat from Iran than we do. And, you know, from our perspective, we just need to put the nuclear program in a box. So that's what we should be doing, and and that's the U.S. concern. And I think that, you know, we're we're gonna hear some of that again, that similar type of uh of rhetoric from Democrats. And the fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu was here uh in January, uh, December, January, uh, and by all accounts talking about Iran and trying to make the case that Iran was still a threat. And, you know, according to some reporting, um, specifically asking for a green light from Trump for Israel to be able to attack Iran if the US wasn't going to, you know, we're we're gonna see that play more of a role, I think, in the debate as well, the longer this goes on. And, you know, lastly, particularly if it becomes costly, because we've now seen uh, you know, there are a number of uh American servicemen, I think it's up to three who who have been killed. There were the planes that were shot down by friendly fire over Kuwait, which is, you know, three, three planes, that's that's pretty expensive business. Um, and certainly we're gonna keep on seeing targets uh that are that are hit by the Iranians around the Gulf that impact oil infrastructure, that impact the economy. And so the more that there are direct costs that people back here can actually can actually see and actually feel, whether it's in terms of American lives or whether it's in terms of higher gas prices or or the stock market plunging or economic pain of any sort, then you know, as much as as much as we we will want to uh hope this doesn't happen, I think that it's gonna be inevitable that there are questions about whether this is in the US interest and uh and whether the US should be going all out in this way, if it's more about uh Israeli interests than about American interests. Not that's not an argument I'm making, to just to be clear, but I think we're we're gonna we're gonna hear those arguments made. Yeah, makes sense. Rachel, did you want to add anything on this point?

Rachel: 42:34

Yeah, I think for all the reasons Michael mentioned, we're gonna be seeing Trump ask these questions soon enough. Even the rhetoric we've seen over the last 72 hours says to me that somewhere in there they thought this was gonna be easy and realized it's not. And so is trying to back away from the notion that the United States is in it for regime change, maybe just because it's technically illegal and he doesn't want to be nabbed by international law, maybe because he realizes that this may not be easy and it may not succeed. And he wants, as Michael said, to start the weave now. Um, but as the politics here get more difficult, I wonder if there's a point at which he says, this is no longer my fight. I didn't want to be dragged into war and I don't want this to drag on. And four weeks is sort of the same thing as 30 days. He said a lot of this will happen in two weeks, this will happen in 30 days, 60 days, right? It's kind of the timeline that he thinks about. Um, but what is magical about four weeks? Who knows? It's gonna start getting harder and harder, particularly as we get toward midterm elections in the United States, not only for public um rhetoric and sort of broader politics, but for Trump himself to keep at this whole effort.

SPEAKER_04: 43:45

Uh sure, I wanted to get your take on the on the internal uh decision making of the Gulf states uh as this drags on and as the stakes uh there's been some question about whether they would proactively join in military operations. I wonder what you make of that potential scenario.

Shira: 44:04

I agree with Rachel. Um, you know, they have prioritized diplomacy, they've worked very uh diligently over the past couple of months um to try to avert this exact scenario, which they really feared and expected, although I don't think that that scale. Um but this scenario of sort of like being on good terms with Iran. And prioritizing de-escalation, the Iranians are really, really leaving them no choice. In Israel, of course, I can't tell you how many times a day I get since Saturday. Saudi has joined the war with seven exclamation marks. We have not seen that. There is condemnation and very uh blatant condemnations. Uh, the there's pull pull out of withdrawal of ambassadors. Um, and I think the next natural step would be letting their territory be used. For them actually to put their militaries, and we can speak about which country there has an actual military uh to fight uh Iran. Uh, we're not there, maybe as sort of when we talk about the territory of Iran and we look maybe at the some some some areas where where Iran I I it it really depends on what happens. It's hard on, you know, we're two and a half days into this uh to say at the moment. But I think the next sort of natural step would be um to allow their territory being used because for both you know domestic, economic, and strategic cost. And you know, this regime in Iran, I mean, if theoretically it goes down, uh, there is no uh issue for these things. The cost of not participating in this campaign and somehow or completely uh turning away from this campaign would be higher than actually um having some sort of tacit uh participation. I still, and I think this is something that again in Israel, this is not the discussion, as per usual almost, there's an overestimation and exaggeration of how uh Gulf countries are appreciative of um Israeli uh achievement tactical achievements and seeing that the Iranians are bad, and therefore this would lead to normalization, expedite the the timeline on uh normalization. And I hope, right, we all wish for for that uh outcome to happen. But it's always been, you know, with with the Arab Gulf countries, there's more strategic flexibility. Their change in approach toward Iran didn't change from their views on Iran, right? It was more sort of like we try to fight, it didn't work, so we'll try something else for de-escalations. The tensions were always there. They were never thrilled to have Iran as uh on their um Iran as is. Uh it was always an adversary, even though uh we we didn't see adversarial ties in uh recent years. But that doesn't mean that now Israel is their best friend again. Israel continu is continued to be viewed in some, and I'm following Arab press, including in Al-Arabiya and more friendly uh papers, that with with come with commentaries that say that Israel is uh behaving as a regional bully, that it's Israel, uh there are a lot of their uh uh cartoons portraying Israel as sort of driving in Trump's head, dragging him into this war. And if the outcome, and again, we don't, we just don't know, we all hope for for a positive outcome, but if the outcome is um less transactional regime in Iran, um, or a spillover, right, of regional instability, uh Shia Sunni divides and other, you name it, all these effects, I'm I'm afraid that Israel is gonna be viewed uh even more of a regional spoiler than uh than as an enforcer of uh the security of the region.

SPEAKER_03: 47:53

Yeah, I was I was gonna answer that last point that um the reason that the good that the the Gulf states don't want this and don't like this is because they just want a quiet region. They want to do their business, right? I mean, we've now seen just in the last couple of days Saudi oil production getting shut down, Qatri um liquid natural gas production getting shut down. Um, you know, Dubai, which you have you have huge numbers of people who have gone to Dubai to work in finance and AI on the theory that um, you know, that Dubai is Dubai is going to be quiet, right? Um it's not gonna be part of this sort of thing. But now you've got uh you've got hotels being hit in Dubai and and you know airports being shut down. Um, this is the last thing that these states wanted to see. And so, you know, in some ways what the Iranians are doing is is more of a threat to the Gulf states than it is to Israel in the sense that Israel kind of you know has has priced this in. I'm not sure that the Gulf states had priced this in at all. But with regards to Israel, you know, they, as Sheira said, the fact that they don't like what the Iranians are doing doesn't necessarily mean that they're gonna say, oh great, we're we're on Team Israel unambiguously. I think that they probably also view Israel as having contributed to the regional instability, especially because this did start with an Israeli strike. And so, you know, it's it's not it's not necessarily a zero-sum game. Um, they may want the Iranian regime gone. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're all gonna flock towards normalization with Israel.

Shira: 49:18

Yeah, and I'll I'll add, right, this is also we need to remember, there's a prior context, right? There's the Israeli strikes on Doha, uh, which really rattled uh the Gulf countries. And because it's an IPF webinar, I can't just like not throw this out there. But you know, in they're under the fog of war, uh settlers today, violent settlers today, shot to Palestinians, um, Gaza, who knows what's happening there. We haven't heard about the Ward of Peace in about two weeks. The crossings in and out of Gaza have been closed. The UN is starting to warn that the dry food that there was plenty of could be running out soon. I mean, these are issues that when we talk about Israel's regional integration and Israel, you know, Israeli challenges and speaking about existential threats, right, to Israel's survival, nothing has been solved. Right? This focus on Iran allows Israeli public and the leadership to paper over everything. And, you know, I know that in the US, not obviously the people here on this call, but the US, I speak with American friends and they're like sort of like, oh, how did this happen? We were blindsided, we were taken into this war without paying attention. But for everyone here in the region, right in the last two and a half months, basically since January, since the protest in Iran started, but even before that, actually, when Etanyao went to Mar-a-Lago to speak about the ballistic missiles with Trump, that was, I think, around um New Year's, um, because there was a party. Um, it's all we've been talking about and not talking about anything else. And those issues, whatever the outcome in Iran uh may be, um it might be easier to solve them if Iran doesn't sponsor terrorists uh all over the place. That that would be a very good advantage, uh, but it does not solve the issues themselves.

SPEAKER_04: 51:09

Yeah, I think this was an important point in our rapid reactions yesterday from our colleague Dan Rotem, who made the point that we may be headed towards an opportunity for new regional cooperation, but we'll face the same stumbling blocks uh eventually uh around the Israeli-Palestinian uh file. Sure, I did want to just ask one more question. I know we're running a little bit low on time, and I want to get some final reflections from each of you, but there have been a couple of questions in the chat about the extent to which um the United States' motivation was also about China and curbing growing uh connection between China and Iran militarily or from cyber perspective. What do you make of those arguments? Um that that there is a motivation here in blocking Chinese influence.

Shira: 51:54

You know, I think I think that's probably a Chinese motivation in in everything foreign policy in the US. And speaking about um uh intelligence reports that indicated Chinese not as um not as um strong military support, but right, there is Chinese uh connection to the Iranians that gave them primarily an economic lifeline uh for the Iranian economy that helped uh the resilience of the of the Iranians, plus a diplomatic cover in the UN. Um, and then some elements and components uh for weapon systems and dual use uh stuff. And if the US looks at China as I don't know where we are in this construct of great power competition, if this still continues, but clearly with China being some sort of a near peer in a way that threatens the US, uh, breaking those ties between China and Iran, but also preventing China from gaining dominance in the region, especially when we come about AI and the other, you know, sort of the next frontier, I think this is very much uh in the mindset. So it's it's it's it's to to to make sure that the US remains the ultimate power in the region. But if you ask me, and and again, here I don't know, if you ask me if that's the primary motivation, I doubt it. If that's a motivation to bring people in the Pentagon who thinks that, who think that the focus should solely be on China. And if we go to the national security strategy and national defense strategy that basically said the Middle East is solved, we can focus on other issues. Um, I think to convince them, they probably have to put in uh an emphasis also on the Chinese angle. It's there. Uh, I don't know if it's a primary one.

SPEAKER_04: 53:37

Garrett, did you want to add something to that?

SPEAKER_05: 53:39

Uh yeah, I I I agree with what Shira said. I would just say that there wouldn't have been, I can't think of anything that would have made the China factor more imminent than last week, a year ago, two, even three years ago. This is a relationship that the Iranians themselves have been very, very unsatisfied with. This uh 25-year cooperation plan that was signed um uh back in, I guess it was 2021, really hasn't come to fruition, at least in the eyes of the Iranians. They often think that the Chinese are dragging their feet. Um, the investment that they hope for has never really materialized. The Chinese have never really are in recent decades haven't been comfortable selling wholesale weapon systems. Like Shira mentioned, it's mostly dual-use technology that honestly the Chinese end up exporting to a lot of other unsavory actors in in the region and across the world. So I don't see anything terribly specific there. And also, China has diversified its oil suppliers. It's not totally dependent on Iran, whereas Iran is quite dependent on China. So there's there's a disconnect there that I don't think makes that much sense from a US strategic perspective. Is it easier to cut off some oil going to China through military action rather than acting as a police force and trying to, you know, tamp down on the Shadow Fleet and sanctioning big Chinese banks? That's debatable.

SPEAKER_04: 54:54

Great. Uh we only have just a couple minutes left, but I did want to squeeze in two questions that are over-the-horizon questions that have been raised in the chat. And really, Michael, I want to direct them to you uh because it really it's a question of is it too soon to talk about the impact on Israeli politics? And is it too soon to talk about the regional vacuum uh that is being that might be created? Uh and what role does Turkey have in potentially filling that vacuum?

SPEAKER_03: 55:19

Yeah, um, not too soon. Uh so uh on Israeli politics, as as Sheer looks like she's about to jump out of her chair a minute ago. Um yeah, listen, Prime Minister, there's there's an election coming. Uh Prime Minister Netanyahu um is going to use this, especially if if it ends well. And you know, well can mean lots of things in the Israeli context. Uh if it ends well, he's going to use this uh as uh part and parcel, if not front and center, of his re-election campaign. And his argument, not only that he should remain where he is, but also his argument that um October 7th should not be the dominant thing for Israeli voters to look at, right? Uh if that's the thing that destroyed his reputation as and his reputation as Mr. Security, well, now he's gonna talk about the fact that since October 7th, effectively eliminated Hezbollah, um, got rid of the Iranian nuclear program, maybe toppled the regime. You know, we'll there's obviously a long ways to go, but we'll see. Uh, and so he absolutely is going to use this for his election campaign. Uh, I don't think that's the reason that this happened, but it's certainly uh it's certainly helpful to him and it's gonna be it's gonna be a dominant thing. And it also doesn't hurt that the Israeli opposition pretty much wall-to-wall supports this too. So this isn't even something that the opposition is gonna try to use against him. So this is sort of a perfect issue for him. With regard to the rest of the region, I uh when when the US went in and took out Saddam Hussein and Iraq, that really empowered the current version of the Iranian regime that that we've seen up until now. And if something happens to the Iranian regime, that you know, that that will that will be a good thing from my perspective, but it certainly will um create downstream effects, one of which uh maybe that Turkey, which is the second largest uh military in NATO and you know is sitting there with its own sort of regional hegemonic ambitions, uh Turkey may be empowered. And Turkey and Iran, even though at the moment they get along, um historically they they are they are rivals for for power. Uh and so I think that if Iran comes out of this much weaker, you know, no matter what, whether the regime is there or not, um, Turkey's gonna look to capitalize. And that doesn't mean that they're gonna take the same tack as Iran, but I think that an ascendant Turkey that is looking to impose its own vision on the region presents a very different kind of threat to Israel. And uh, even though it's different, it's not necessarily a good development.

SPEAKER_04: 57:45

Rachel, I want to give you the last word on what we should be watching in the days and weeks to come.

Rachel: 57:51

Sure. As I think we've heard from all of us, there are so many unknowns. And I think um the laundry list of things that I could name to watch on each side of the ocean and um the partisan divide, so many different things. I think one that comes to mind from our conversation in terms of where the region is going. Um, do we see Gulf states getting involved? Do we see Trump getting cold feet? I think we've heard from Shira and Michael, you know, the Israelis are in it. They understand why. The United States and different corners are going to continue waking up to headlines about American interests, people, maybe even homeland, getting hurt and wonder what we are doing in a war with Iran. Uh, and then across the region, we'll see if if some of the regional states that have been hit get involved in the war. But also, on one hand, this is showing that the region already is militarily integrated. CENTCOM has done a fabulous job, and there have been many opportunities to exercise in real life around shared defense, working together, as Shira talked about earlier, the um the cooperation between Israeli and American military planners and now execution is unprecedented. But when the dust settles, particularly if uh some of the Arab states continue to get hit and there's more destruction, people are gonna wake up and say, How did this start? And right now the shared threat is Iran, but I think there's high potential and high risk that when the war is over, the shared, the shared threat again becomes, as Shira mentioned, Israel and potentially the United States, because fingers are gonna point back to where this war started, regardless of where it ends. And whether Turkey fills the vacuum that Iran leaves, other militia fill the vacuum, that we we just don't know yet. Um, so I think there's a lot of risk. I am eager to see the United States articulate a strategy for the end game, not only the objectives, but how we get out of this war once some of the objectives are achieved. Um, and hope that as many people as possible stay safe in the meantime.

SPEAKER_04: 59:48

Yes, absolutely. Well, uh, I want to thank this really truly exceptional panel and really terrific questions uh that we receive. There are so much more to unpack, including uh discussing that last point, Rachel, which is where is a potential diplomatic uh uh political off-ramp um uh when those moments uh arise, we are going to continue to address those questions and more in the days and weeks to come. Uh, please continue to turn to Israel Policy Forum uh for clear-eyed analysis on how all of this will impact the future of Israel, U.S. Israel relations in the broader region. I want to thank Garrett, Shira, Michael, Rachel uh for really terrific insights and hope to be able to turn to you all uh very soon as these events continue to unfold. Uh and thank you all for joining us today.