← Iran: The Latest
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- [00:04]
Venetia Rainey
The telegraph.
- [00:09]
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- [01:05]
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Christy and Kelly (Dance Moms Podcast Hosts)
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- [01:19]
Venetia Rainey
Well, this is Back to the Bar,
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the podcast where we drag out every insane, chaotic and iconic moment from the show. We're spilling the tea, calling out all the BS and sharing stuff you definitely didn't see on tv. New episodes drop every week. And yes, we're laughing through the trauma for once. Follow, grab a drink and join us as we go back to the bar.
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- [01:54]
Venetia Rainey
This has been a really impressive, like, militarily impressive campaign. US Central Command says it's hit 11,000 targets, destroying key components of Iran's nuclear program, military infrastructure, leadership facilities and elements of its energy sector.
- [02:07]
Donald Trump (Archive Clip)
A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.
- [02:15]
Christy and Kelly (Dance Moms Podcast Hosts)
Today, President Trump says Iran's Supreme Leader,
- [02:17]
Venetia Rainey
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the attacks.
- [02:26]
Roland Oliphant
The Pentagon is weighing a takeover of that island as a way to force the reopening of the strait for loos. Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on. I'm Roland Oliphant.
- [02:40]
Venetia Rainey
And I'm Venetia Rainey.
- [02:41]
Roland Oliphant
And this is Iran. The Latest. It's Tuesday 31st March, 2026, the 32nd day of the war between Iran, Israel and the United States.
- [02:52]
Venetia Rainey
On today's episode, we're going to be looking back at a month of of war, what's been achieved compared to the original goals and what's gone wrong? But first, let's start with some updates. Roland, where do you want to kick off?
- [03:01]
Roland Oliphant
The very latest from Iran. The latest is that while we've been in the studio, Donald Trump has taken to Truth Social to essentially attack the United Kingdom and other transatlantic allies over their failure to get involved in the war. All of those countries that can't get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran. I have a suggestion for you. Number one, buy from the U.S. we have plenty. Number two, build up some delayed courage, go to the strait and just take it. You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself. The USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your oil. President djt and it's not just the United Kingdom catching stray bullets. The country of France wouldn't let planes headed to Israel, load it up with military supplies, fly over French territory. France has been very unhelpful with respect to the butcher of Iran who has been successfully eliminated. The USA will remember President DJT underlining there the immense strain that this war has put on the transatlantic alliance. It was not in a very good place even before this war began. Elsewhere, Benjamin Netanyahu has also been speaking. He says the war is beyond the halfway point. But lady clarified. He meant in terms of missions, not of time. We still have no real clarity on how much longer this operation will continue. He says that thousands of members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards have been killed and that Israel and the US Are close to finishing off Iran's arms industry and the nuclear program. Said that regime change is not the goal. Once again rowing back from that initial objective that the Americans and the Israelis clearly hoped to achieve in the early days. But he voiced with confidence that the Islamic Republic would collapse internally. An Israeli military spokesman followed up by saying that the IDF is ready for weeks more fighting, but said it was entirely up to the political leadership to set the actual objectives.
- [04:56]
Venetia Rainey
We've also heard from the Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz. He said that Israel is going to occupy Lebanon even once the war with Hezbollah ends. So he's essentially outlining a plan similar to what we've seen in Gaza, where they're going to implement a permanent security buffer zone in southern Lebanon. I'll just read you what he said at the end of the operation, the IDF will establish itself in a security zone inside Lebanon on a defensive line against anti tank missiles and will maintain security control over the entire area up to the litany, he said. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese residents will be completely prevented from returning until North Israel's security had been ensured. All the houses in the villages adjacent to the border in Lebanon will be demolished in accordance with the Rafah and Beit Hanun model in Gaza from the
- [05:37]
Roland Oliphant
war on the ground in Iran. Video footage verified by the AFP showed at least two very large explosions and columns of smoke in Isfahan in central Iran. Initial investigations indicate that some military locations were targeted. Isfahan is a key hub for Iran's defense industry and a host of major nuclear facilities, including the Natanz nuclear plant. We'll be talking more about that later in the podcast. Iran also says one of the desalination plants on Kesham island in the streets of Hormuz is out of service after being hit by an airstrike. That follows reports of an Iranian strike on a Kuwaiti desalination plant yesterday. Iran said earlier in March that one of the desalination plants there had been targeted in strikes. Qeshm, like many places in the Gulf, is largely or almost entirely dependent for drinking water on its desalination plants. Elsewhere in the Gulf, four people were injured by debris from an interception over Dubai. In Saudi Arabia, falling debris from a missile or a drone interception damaged some vehicles, according to Saudi Arabia, and in Iraq, a very large explosion heard in the vicinity of Erbil Airport. Journalists there also said debris from an intercepted attack fell on cars and homes nearby, causing Dam. A base in northern Suleimaniya province that hosts the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Armed Forces was also targeted overnight by a missile and rocket attack. And in southern Iraq, security officials said a drone had fallen on an oil field, but there had been no explosions or injuries reported.
- [07:12]
Venetia Rainey
Just two more things to add. While we've been speaking, Pete Hegseth, secretary of Defence or war, depending on what you want to call him, has been speaking. He's said that the coming days will be decisive in the war against Iran, and he's also said if Iran is wise, they'll cut a deal. He's repeated the claim that regime change has occurred, that this is a new Iranian regime and that they should be wiser than the last. And then just finally here on the home front, if you like, here in the uk, the NHS chief executive has said it's only days away from some supplies running out because of the Iran war. We'll be speaking more later in this podcast about the global impact. But Sir Jim Mackey, the head of NHS England, said health bosses were really worried about supplies, including syringes, gloves and IV bags, and that these pieces of vital equipment are being affected by Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz or the knock on effect of having to be rerouted around the world.
- [07:58]
Roland Oliphant
One little thing to note, on the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, two ultra large container ships belonging to Cosco, the Chinese state shipping line, appear to have passed through the strait after securing Iranian clearance. There's a huge amount of opacity around the deals countries and shipping lines are cutting with the Iranians to get through. But that has been flagged by experts as possible signs of a diplomatic breakthrough between Beijing and Tehran.
- [08:25]
Venetia Rainey
And on that, Tehran's parliament has formally approved plans to impose tolls on ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz. It's being called the Tehran Toll Booth.
- [08:40]
Roland Oliphant
That's the latest news today. Now let's turn to the month of war that has already passed.
- [08:48]
Venetia Rainey
So we wanted to take a step back and just look at the bigger picture. What's happened over the month of March? What were the objectives and how have they gone? You might remember it seems like a lifetime ago now, but on February 28, Saturday, the day the war began, Trump put out a long video announcing the start of the war and what America's war goals were. Let's hear some clips from that.
- [09:07]
Donald Trump (Archive Clip)
We are going to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again obliterated. We are going to annihilate their navy. We are going to ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces and no longer use their IEDs or roadside bombs, as they are sometimes called, to so gravely wound and kill thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans. And we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. It's a very simple message. They will never have a nuclear weapon. To the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.
- [10:18]
Venetia Rainey
And then Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War Pete Hegseth came out a few days later and he trimmed those war goals down slightly. Here's what he said on March 2,
- [10:26]
Roland Oliphant
the mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser focused. Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile
- [10:33]
Acast Marketing Voice
production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure, and they will never have nuclear weapons. We're hitting them surgically, overwhelmingly and unapologetically so, Roland.
- [10:47]
Venetia Rainey
There's three to five war aims which we've consistently heard about, depending on the day and the person speaking. Missiles. The Navy proxies nuclear weapons and regime change.
- [10:59]
Roland Oliphant
As you note, the American war aims, there is a core to them and the core that doesn't seem to change. It's military degradation of basically of Iran's ability to project force across the region and against the United States and its enemies. They always talk about degrading the missile stocks. They always talk about the navy. They probably have achieved, largely achieved a great deal of that. They've inflicted an enormous destruction on the Iranian military.
- [11:23]
Venetia Rainey
I think we have to start off by saying that this has been a really impressive, like militarily impressive campaign. US Central Command says it's hit 11,000 targets, destroying key components of Iran's nuclear program, military infrastructure, leadership facilities and elements of its energy sector. It's flown 10,000 combat flights. It's put out new technologies, the US use of low cost uncrewed combat aircraft systems, precision strike missiles and an artificial intelligence driven battle management system. And reading some analysts look back this month, they say that one of the biggest achievements has been the joint integration of at least six combatant commands and thousands of soldiers. So it's an impressive display of military might. But let's dive into some of these war goals and let's start with missiles because I think there's been some key achievements here. I was reading a Reuters report and this was confirmed by Bradley Cooper, that the US has destroyed about a third of Iran's missile and drone arsenal. And another third is thought to be damaged or buried in underground tunnels and bunkers. So that's two thirds destroyed or inaccessible. And a similar assessment was made about the country's drone arsenal. Of course, that does mean that the country still has a sizable stockpile. It can't access all of it. Can only access about a third, we think. But some of that might still be accessible once they can dig it out of wherever it's buried. The drone and missile launch rate is down 90%.
- [12:40]
Roland Oliphant
So I was speaking to a good Iran analyst today. It is down roughly 90% from the first couple of days of the war, but it has remained pretty much consistent at about 10% of that level ever since.
- [12:54]
Venetia Rainey
Exactly. So it speaks to that high peak at the beginning, but since then it's dropped, but it has continued a sustained
- [13:00]
Roland Oliphant
pace and that raises the question of how long they can continue to do so.
- [13:05]
Venetia Rainey
Yeah, a RUSI report put that Iranian missile and drone attacks have averaged 33 to 94 strikes per day since those first few days. So it is down 90%, but they're still firing at a consistent rate. So that's missiles. Where should we look next?
- [13:19]
Roland Oliphant
Look at the Navy. So we know that Iran lost the majority of its naval capability in less than 10 days. 92% of all of Iran's says 140 vessels. According to Centcom, 92% of Iran's largest vessels. Brad Cooper, Admiral Brad Cooper again speaking last week. Iran has lost the ability to meaningfully project power. And of course, Ali Reza Thanksiri, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy separate to the regular navy, was killed last week by an Israeli strike. He was the man who was meant to be responsible for the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
- [13:55]
Venetia Rainey
So that sounds impressive, but what about, and we've mentioned this multiple times on the podcast, what about their unconventional navy, their fast attack boats?
- [14:01]
Roland Oliphant
That was really where the Iranian strength lay or was believed to lie. General Dan Cain, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, says that a 10 warthogs, those are those slow moving planes with a massive rotary cannon mounted on the front. And Apache helicopters are now actively targeting the Iranian fast attack boats. We haven't really seen them in action as far as I can tell, but they always were the major threat in this Strait of Hormuz. That was the threat that the US Navy, the Royal Navy, other Western navies practiced against for years and years. That along with things like those mini submarines that we haven't heard much of, but we know they have, and of course marine mines, those are the threats, the remaining maritime threats that will have to be accounted for to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. We've talked about drones and missiles as well. That's obviously another threat that targets Hormuz. So that's what we know at the moment about the fast boat situation. The Americans say they are engaging it. Don't know how much the Iranians have left or even if they'd be able to put them to sea safely. I somehow doubt they would be able to, even if they retain any. That talks about the American objective of degrading Iranian capabilities. But of course, it's a regional war. Now. Iran has activated as it threatened to many of these proxies across the region.
- [15:21]
Venetia Rainey
Yeah, so this is one of, of the American and Israeli goals has come and gone. It's not always mentioned, but it was mentioned by Trump in that very first speech. So I think it's worth just taking a quick look at. Most of Iran's proxies in the region were already heavily degraded by Israel. Ever since Hamas's brutal attack on October 7, 2023, Israel has taken Iran to task across the region. They went in heavily against Hezbollah and they assassinated their former leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah has now been heavily degraded, but we're now seeing a renewed conflict in southern Lebanon and they are still firing missiles at Israel, at northern Israel. So they clearly still have some capabilities we can look at. Bashar Al Assad obviously has been ousted. That happened at the end of 2024. So Syrian support for Iranian objectives has pretty much disappeared with his replacement by Ahmed Al Sharra. We've then got militias in Iraq. Sophia Yan has done lots of reporting on that for us over the course of this podcast. They are still causing problems for the West. They are still firing missiles at American bases. And as we'll get onto Iraq has actually taken one of the highest death tolls in the region, more than 100 people, much higher than what we've seen in other places in the Gulf. And that's mainly linked to these Iranian linked militias in Iraq. And then finally in Yemen, we've got the Houthis. Obviously they were quiet for most of this war, for most of this month, but over the weekend they have entered the war. They've only fired a couple of missiles at Israel. No damage was caused. They were intercepted and a couple more drones. But the threat of the further destruction and damage that they could cause if they started targeting shipping in the Bab El Mandeb Strait on the other side in the Red Se, that would be really significant if they did start to do that. So Iran does still have some capabilities in its proxies. It does still have some leverage there.
- [17:04]
Roland Oliphant
All right, so the proxies still exist. They are heavily degraded, but they're still there. What about the nucleophile? It is on the 15 point list that we believe the Americans have passed to the Iranians is a peace proposal. You give up any nuclear ambitions and you give up enrichment. The Iranians always denied they had any plans to build nuclear weapon. Of course, Venetial, where are we with Iran's nuclear capability?
- [17:28]
Venetia Rainey
It was pretty much the main stated reason as to why now this war with Iran, that they had imminent capabilities to be able to develop nuclear weapons. And we've spoken a lot about this 60% enriched uranium which is Far beyond what you'd need for civilian capabilities. Although, as you say, Iran has always maintained it's a civilian purpose nuclear program. Now, we think a lot of their nuclear capabilities were heavily damaged in the 12 Day War last year with Israel when US joined as well. But we have seen some targeting of their nuclear sites again this time around. So earlier this month, Israel and the US Bombed the Natanz nuclear installation. There was a strike near Iran's Busheh nuclear power plant. And this week we've seen a strike on the Kondab heavy water complex in northwest Iran that produces heavy water which is used in nuclear reactors. Does have civilian and scientific purposes as well. The UN Watchdog has confirmed that heavy water complex has suffered severe damage and is no longer operational. We don't know about the status of the other two plants. And then crucially today we've heard news that the US has hit military site somewhere near the central Iranian city of Isfahan. It sent a massive fireball into the sky. Trump shared a video of it. Now, Isfahan is home to one of the three nuclear sites that was attacked last year. And we think some of Iran's highly enriched uranium has been stored or buried there. There were satellite images that were taken just before the 12 Day War last year. They showed a truck loaded with 18 blue containers going into a tunnel at the Isfahan Nuclear Technology center about two weeks before the US Bombed the site last year. So we think that's where this 400 kg that we keep mentioning of highly enriched uranium is. It's a short technical step to get that to weapons grade level of 90%. We hear a lot of talk about a special forces raid to try and retrieve this stuff. Not clear how viable that would actually be.
- [19:14]
Roland Oliphant
Not viable. I'm calling it now. That's my opinion. All of the discussion about what's been put into the public space, about what that would involve is just so extraordinarily risky and difficult. They were talking about, you know, taking over a vast area and then having to dig for a week to find this stuff because we believe it's buried. And then it is buried in 18 blue containers. It's 460kg. That's 25 kilos in each container. Each container itself is going to be very, very heavy. It's going to take more than just a soldier throwing that in his backpack. You're going to need moving equipment. You're going to need extra containers to hold it. So you're talking about a week long operation in the middle of Iran surrounded by hostile forces. I Think all the discussion of a massive special forces raid is hot air and may be meant to distract us. That's what I think may be proven wrong. They may go ahead and do it. I don't know. The tricky thing is there's the physical achievement. The physical achievement is that probably, you know, it's buried. It's difficult to get at probably realistically, because I think that that special forces raid we're talking about is implausible. There may be at the end of this when there is some kind of peace deal, maybe Iran formally gives it up and it's excavated and handed over to the IAA or something. But the reality is, I think in terms of physical capability, Iran is very, very far now, much further than it was from being able to build that bomb. But there is the question of intent. And we've seen debates already. The Iranian parliament is talking about leaving the Non Proliferation Treaty, which they'd never done before. And we've spoken at length about Mosh Tabahomeneh, if he is really in charge, may well order a push, a rush for a bomb in a way that his father did not. And we know that there are more kind of more junior hot headed, hawkish figures in the IRGC who may have risen to points of leadership now that the top leadership is dead, who really thought that the previous Supreme Leader's hesitance about ordering the rush for a bomb was a mistake. So therefore you're in a situation where you've probably got more intention or determination to get a bomb, but perhaps less capability to get there.
- [21:29]
Venetia Rainey
I think that's a really important point. I was listening to the former head of Iran research from Mossad on a podcast and she was saying that exact point, that the capabilities have been heavily degraded. That's an operational success. But the motivation has probably been doubled because now the Iranian regime will plausibly think that to avoid a future war like this, they will need to try and get nuclear weapons. How capable they will be of doing that. It's very complex to set this program up. And even by the way, we should point out once you get highly enriched uranium to weapons grade level, you still need to put it into missiles. That's another complicated step. So I think there's two aspects to that nuclear file that need to be taken into consideration when we think about the success of this war.
- [22:12]
Roland Oliphant
On that note, I think perhaps when particularly the Israelis are thinking about the nuclear file, maybe the intention is simply to rely on that remarkable intelligence penetration and assume that if they do try and build something Israel or America will learn about it early enough to then bomb wherever it is they're trying to make it happen. I wonder if that's the rationale in Jerusalem, in Washington, should we move on
- [22:35]
Venetia Rainey
to the final aspect, which another one that comes and goes, regime change. And we have heard Trump claiming, as we mentioned on the podcast yesterday, that there has been regime change because they've not knocked off so many layers of the Iranian regime. Roland, can you just run us through who has been assassinated over the course of the last month? Because it's quite a lot of people,
- [22:52]
Roland Oliphant
so we're probably talking about many, many more people than are on this list. But if we're looking at the very top Iranian leaders who are no longer with us. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, of course, died on the first day of the war. Beneath him, the most powerful person of him, was Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ari Larajani. He is also dead. Secretary of the Defence Council Ali Shamhani died alongside Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war. Abdul Rahim Mousavi, the chief of staff of the armed forces, is also dead. Further casualties include Mohammad Pakhpur, who was the IRGC's commander in chief this week. IRGC Navy Commander Ali Reza Tangsiri was killed. The commander of the Basij as the irregular militia used by the IRGC to maintain control of the streets. Gholam Reza Suleimani is also dead. Head of the Defence Ministry Aziz Nasizadeh is also dead. So those are the real top figures we know who are deceased, those reported dead, but two have survived. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who we initially reported dead and was reported dead by Iranian television, his office insists is still alive. And there's even a suggestion that the strike, and actually our own sources, sources in Tehran we spoke to confirmed this. The strike hit not his house, but the house of the IRGC bodyguards down the street.
- [24:14]
Venetia Rainey
Who else is still alive? I mean, Masoud Petashkian, most of the political figures have been left untouched. Right?
- [24:20]
Roland Oliphant
Petashkian is still alive. That's the President of Iran, the elected president, Gholam Hossein Mohsini Ajay, Chief justice of Iran, he's still alive. And Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, all those three are still alive. They are no longer running the country or filling in for the supreme leader, because, of course, Mojtabahenei is now supreme leader. The son of Ali, he is still alive, we think, although injured. We don't really know how badly injured. Other key figures who are still alive and the One who I think is gaining the most attention, Mohammed Baga Galabouf, the Speaker of Parliament, but also a former IRGC commander, an extremely influential politician, and we've been told the quote, unquote, pragmatist who Donald Trump is meant to be in talks with. He strongly denies being part of any such talks, but he is still alive, still prominent, and tweeting, occasionally in English in a trollish manner, about what he calls, he would describe as the failures of the American war effort.
- [25:19]
Venetia Rainey
I guess the big question is, has the regime been damaged, critically damaged? We haven't seen the protests erupt that Trump called for on that very first day that we heard at the top of this podcast. The people have not come out onto the streets. We haven't seen a repeat of what we saw in January, for example. So the regime is still in place in that respect. But I do think it's worth pointing out that all the domestic challenges that the regime was facing have been intensified by this war. The economic issues, the social dissatisfaction. None of that stuff has gone away, even if people don't feel able to do anything about it right now.
- [25:53]
Roland Oliphant
No. And presumably things will be much worse. So we're all hurting economically because of this war. Things will be as bad, if not worse, in Iran, it was social pressures are going to be worse, economy is going to be worse. The regime continues to flood the streets with its supporters and with, you know, members of the Basij, the irgc, the police, specifically, to preclude that scenario of a street uprising and a street revolution. I was speaking to an analyst. He says he's been keeping a list of kind of not just these guys we've mentioned, but of the kind of second, third, fourth echelon people, the deputies and so on who've been killed. He says it's running to more than 50 now. The kind of attrition of leadership is, I think, a very interesting thing. I don't think we've yet seen how that's going to play out, how that's going to influence post war Iran. And while the regime may have a grip on the streets at the moment, when it comes out of this, it'll have lost a lot of its experience, a lot of its most capable people, and it's going to be facing, as you say, similar kinds of stresses that the Islamic Republic has seen for a very long time.
- [27:03]
Venetia Rainey
The regime has probably been made more hardline by this war. A lot of the sort of people who are more used to making deals and doing these sort of deals with the west, we've got much more inexperienced people now probably in control and more hardline. But does it make the regime stronger? Has this war made the regime stronger? I don't think so. I think it will have accentuated the cracks that were already there. The other thing we should quickly say is that talk of Reza Pahlavi, the axiled crown prince, seems to have completely disappeared.
- [27:30]
Roland Oliphant
Yes. I mean, this was always who would rule afterwards. I think that's disappeared partly with the failure of the initial regime change operation. I think there was clearly an objective to, and you could see it from the rhetoric both from the Americans and the Israelis in the early days of the war. There was clearly a hope that by killing Khamenei and some of the other top leadership, you would end up sparking a general collapse, an internal revolution, uprising, and essentially a regime change. And of course, Reza Pahlavi's name was often mentioned in a breath as a potential leader in waiting. The Americans always seemed quite skeptical about him. There is very little discussion of his role, but then very little discussion, I think, at the moment of regime change in general. And that's not to say it's not going to happen. It's not to say that the impacts of this war on the regime have not somehow caused cracks that will prove fatal later on. But right now, as we speak, it doesn't look like the regime is going to buckle under the pressure, under the direct pressure of this immediate war after the break. Why is it that both sides of this war seem to think they're winning?
- [28:45]
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- [29:40]
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- [30:16]
Venetia Rainey
Welcome back. You're listening to Iran. The latest. So we've discussed the war goals, but maybe it's worth also looking at what's gone wrong, what the US didn't plan for but has happened anyway. In terms of casualties, we've heard of at least a thousand people dead in Iran. Those estimates range higher depending on whether you're listening to US Based Human Rights Observatory Harana or the Health Ministry, but at least 1,000, maybe up to 2,000. We don't know the full extent of the damage and death and destruction on the ground in Iran because there are reporting restrictions. There's no one on the ground reporting independently. Satellite images are being delayed by 14 days. So we just don't have the full picture of what's happened on the ground in Iran. There have obviously been death tolls across the region. At least 20 Israelis killed, plus 10 Israeli soldiers. Those have all been killed in Lebanon. The U.S. has suffered 13 fatalities. Six of those worth noting were killed when a U.S. refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq and one service member died of a health related incident in Kuwait. Lebanon is the country with the second biggest death toll, at least 1,200 killed, according to Lebanon's health ministry, and 1 million people displaced since the outbreak of the war. And then I think it's worth lingering on the impact on the Gulf because apart from Israel, Iran has launched strikes across nine countries, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saud Arabia and the UAE. 26 people have been killed, most of those in the UAE, plus at least 100 in Iraq, according to local authorities. That's the death toll, but it's the economic destruction that has been wrought by this war that is really, really significant. So the region's three economic powerhouses, that's Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar, they've suffered direct and indirect damage that has been estimated at at least 20 billion, possibly 25 billion. Saudi Arabia has suffered the largest losses in absolute terms, but it's probably in the strongest position. It has another port that it's able to ship some of its oil out of that's so far not affected by the Strait of Hormuz stuff. The UAE has absorbed a less severe hit to its energy revenues, but has suffered a much bigger hit to, for example, tourism, its airlines. And Qatar has been the most strategically affected. It's suffered some really long term damage to its core infrastructure. For example, the Raslafan Iran industrial facility that we were talking about last week that's been heavily hit and I think is going to take five years to get properly back online. We've also seen attacks on US military bases across the region. Iran has struck 104American bases. The ones in Kuwait have suffered the most hits. That's probably because of its proximity to Iran. The New York Times has reported that many of the 13American bases across the Gulf have become close to being uninhabitable as a result of persistence strikes. That's a really significant impact on American military presence in the region. And we haven't even got onto talking about the economic impact. Roland, do you want to try and summarize what a month of war has done to the global economy?
- [33:05]
Roland Oliphant
Well, the short answer is there's a general consensus that we're looking at the world's largest energy crisis in living history, certainly in post war history. So the International Energy Agency is now warning that the supply shock as a result of the war could outstrip Both of the 1970s oil shocks combined with and what's interesting to me is that you can see the impact is hitting different parts of the world with different speeds. The immediate impact has been particularly in Asian countries relatively close to Iran, which would receive Iranian oil fairly quickly. And it's been exacerbated by countries like China banning re export. So a sample of the kind of things that are happening and particularly in the poorer countries, the one that really strikes me is what's happened in Myanmar where they've introduced an odd even rule rule for private cars. If the registration number of your car ends with an even number, for example, you can drive on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It's such a compelling kind of colorful illustration of what's going on. But we've seen chief executives from the oil majors warning that this is going to move through Asia, through East Asia, down to Australasia. Eventually it's going to hit Europe and the Americas. As the timing of those oil futures get to us, the average national gas price in America has gone up for dollars dollar from $2.98 in February. And we're being told no one is going to be immune to this. So you're looking at whichever way this goes, really serious inflation off the back of this oil shock. Also probably towards the end of the year, a Food shock. And we spoke about this as well with the Fertilizer well food program estimates next to 45 million people could fall into acute feud insecurity or worse in 2026 if the conflict does not end by June. Now, a little note on this. Iran is now earning nearly twice as much from oil sales each day as it did before the bombs started falling. And there's a reason for this. I just got off the phone from Michele Bachmann, an analyst at Windward commercial shipping analytics outfit. He pointed out that although the Strait of Hormuz is closed, the Iranians are still exporting just as much oil as they were before because the price has pretty much doubled. They're doing quite well out of all of this, oddly enough, Russia also seeing a windfield. So really dramatic stuff. And you'll see the front of our newspaper obviously talks about what Keir Starmer is saying about what's going to happen in Britain. We've also seen emergency meetings in Australia. You've seen ministers in Vietnam, in Japan, in all kinds of countries beginning to consult with their governments, but also to consult with one another about resupply deals, about ways to to keep aviation fuel in particular moving along. So a real crisis kind of up there with COVID in a way. In a way, it looks like it's going to affect pretty much every government on the planet and pretty much every citizen.
- [35:56]
Venetia Rainey
And that just speaks to how another war goal has been added that didn't exist previously, which is reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Obviously, Trump did not start this war wanting to reopen. It was already open. But that's become a core war goal now because it's having such massive worldwide economic impacts. You mention Myanmar. There, Egypt has ordered shops and restaurants to shut by 9pm to save on energy. And we're seeing queues for petrol in Kenya. South Sudan has already begun rationing electricity. In two Australian states, public transport will be made free in order to incentivise people not to drive. And my other personal favorite, the Thai government has asked people to take their jackets off as part of measures to cut down on the amount of energy consumed by air conditioning units. It just goes to show how wide ranging these impacts are. I think the final thing that I want to flag in terms of the impact of a month of war is the impact on munitions, which are being used up at an extraordinary rate. We've covered repeatedly on this podcast the defence industrial complex and how it's struggling to keep up with the demands in Ukraine. America have been trying to stockpile Munitions in anticipation of a potential conflict over Taiwan with China. But this Iran war has really thrown a lot of that stuff, stuff out of the window. I was reading a RUSI analysis that showed that the US had expended more than 11,000 munitions in the first 16 days of the conflict. So roughly halfway through the month at a cost of around 26 billion. And what they noted was really interesting was that these munitions are being used up in uneven rates. Right. So some stuff is running out a lot faster than others, basically. So ATACMs, which are offensive missiles and TADs, defensive missiles, they're expected to run out sometime in mid April. I mean, they're being used up at a really, really fast rate. We'll link to the full story in the show notes because there's a lot of granular detail in there that our listeners might be interested in. We had Ryan Metals CEO, he noted halfway through the month on the 19th of March that global stockpiles are empty or nearly empty. And if the war continues for another month, we have nearly no missiles available. That's the German defence manufacturer there. And we also heard someone from the U.S. government Accountability Office who gave testimony to the Department of Defense in America this month. She said the Department of Defense has been unable to sustain its weapon systems to meet its goals across all domains and faces challenges providing logistical support to US forces, especially in contested environments. We've also spoken on this podcast about the interceptor missile stocks running low. We don't have precise numbers on that. They're closely guarded secrets in Israel, in the Gulf by the Americans. But this has been a month of really intensive conflict and those stockpiles will be starting to run low and you're not able to manufacture fast enough to keep up this rate of conflict as well as supply. For example, the conflict in Ukraine as well as have stockpiles in case something happens in Taiwan or anywhere else in the world.
- [38:45]
Roland Oliphant
The question everyone's asking is how long is this going to go on? And I think that speaks to the timeline on this. So when the war began, Donald Trump talked about it lasting about four weeks. Weeks. So we're roughly around that mark. Now, Benjamin Netanyahu, who said today that it's more than halfway. The Israeli military has said we're willing to carry on fighting for weeks, although they made clear that that's subject to political decisions. So I think there is a sense actually that despite some of the reporting that said, you know, this has gone on longer than expected and they thought it would be over in three days, seems to be more or less. Actually, this seems to be roughly the time the Americans and the Israelis were thinking about. The question is whether they can now bring it to a close in the manner they hoped. And it seems to me in this debate about who's winning or who's ahead in this war, you kind of have two sides talking past each other. And we've seen the huge amount of damage that America and Israel have wreaked on Iranian military capability. But then I'll remind you that we published a few days before this, Iran's own war plan, or Iran published their war plan. We picked it up, up. It was a five step plan. The first was to endure the first wave of attacks. Not to save everybody, not defeat it, but preserve enough force to be able to retaliate. They achieved that. They were able to retaliate. The next stage of the plan was to expand the war to neighboring countries, create a multi front confrontation by hitting U.S. bases and neighboring countries in the Gulf and so on, and to activating what they call their axis of resistance. Hezbollah militias in Iraq, the Houthis, they've done that. Third level is cyber war. We haven't really looked at that, to be honest. But I've seen reports that the Iranians are indulging in such behavior online.
- [40:27]
Venetia Rainey
Well, we have seen the hacking of emails of, for example, the head of the FBI and also less reported by Saur in Israeli media, former head of Mossad.
- [40:36]
Roland Oliphant
And then stage four, hit oil and gas supplies, close the Strait of Hormuz with the objective of making this war, war, too expensive for the Americans to continue to prosecute. And then stage five, wait for the cost of that war to force Washington to stop. If you look at those two, if you put the American plan alongside the Iranian plan, we're kind of looking at completely. They seem to be fighting kind of separate wars, if you see what I mean. And you can see there how both the Americans and the Iranians can consider that they're kind of winning this on their own terms, they're kind of achieving their objectives. So the question now is, I think it seems to me maybe the problem for the Americans is that okay, we are achieving our goals, but they can't walk away and appear like they're handing the Iranians some kind of victory as well. So they can't leave the Iranians in charge of the Strait of Hormuz and so on. I think that's why what we've heard about peace talks, which is not very much that is confirmable, but we know that the Pakistanis in particular The Egyptians and the Turks are acting as intermediaries, are trying to pass messages between one or the other. Those talks, I assume from the American point of view, are aimed at getting a deal that looks like an Iranian capitulation. And we've seen the 15 points. We've had an accurate guess at what the 15 points are that the Americans are proposing. A lot of them are things that are just already achieved and as status quo. So if Donald Trump can get an agreement like that with Kalaba or whoever he's talking to, he can convincingly say that he's won this war. So the question is, how close can the Iranians and the Americans be brought together on that question over the next few weeks? And I think that is also going to feed in to this question of the next stage of escalation.
- [42:27]
Venetia Rainey
I think just finally on that question of who's winning after a month of war, War. Is Iran less dangerous than it was a month ago? Yes, the capabilities have been severely degraded. But the straight up Hormuz being used as a weapon, which they've done pretty successfully, I think we have to argue that's a worry. The Iranian regime, of course, will say they're winning as long as they survive. We've heard that multiple times. They just need to survive. We saw the same with Hamas, seen the same with Hezbollah, same with the Houthis. They just need to still be able to fire something at their enemy and they consider that a victory. They're still there. The question really for me, and I think we've gone over a lot of it over the course of this podcast, is at what cost to the rest of the world and what will the long term consequences be that we don't fully appreciate yet?
- [43:13]
Roland Oliphant
And that brings us to the arrival of two US Marine Expeditionary Units, the 82nd Airborne, all those assets being massed in the Gulf for what we think may be a land assault on one or other of the Iranian islands. You talked about the munitions running out towards mid April. I'm told that most of the American assets will be in position to go on those potential operations by mid April. It strikes me that that is when Donald Trump is going to have to make the decision about whether he's going to settle this or turn things up one more notch with ground operations.
- [43:49]
Venetia Rainey
Let's leave it there. That's all for today's episode of Iran, the next latest. We'll be back again tomorrow. Until then, goodbye.
- [43:54]
Roland Oliphant
Goodbye, Iran. The Latest is an original podcast from the Telegraph, created by David Knowles and hosted by me, Roland Oliphant. And Venetia Rainey. If you appreciated this podcast, please consider following Iran the latest formally battle lines on your preferred podcast, Apple and if you have a moment, please leave a review as this helps others find the show. To stay on top of all our news, subscribe to the Telegraph, sign up for our Dispatches newsletter or listen to our sister podcast Ukraine for latest. We're still on the same email address battlelinestelegraph.co.uk or contact us on X. You can find our handles in the show Notes the producer is Peter Shevlin, the Executive Producer is Louisa Wells. Foreign.
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