Has Keir Starmer's Iran Response Been Too Slow?

Summary

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Newscast — "Has Keir Starmer's Iran Response Been Too Slow?"

Date: March 5, 2026
Host: Adam Fleming, with Jane (BBC), Mikey Kaye (BBC Security Brief), Lucy Fisher (FT Political Fix)

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Episode Overview

This episode probes the UK's response to the ongoing US-Israel conflict with Iran, focusing particularly on Prime Minister Keir Starmer's perceived caution and whether his government’s actions have been unduly slow. The hosts examine the sequence and impact of UK decisions—militarily, politically, and in terms of public communication—while unpacking the wider context of Iran’s missile and drone capabilities, regional instability, and how the crisis is affecting British citizens abroad.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Starmer’s Press Conference and Perceived Indecision

[02:42 – 04:07]

• Lucy Fisher explains the twofold aim of Starmer's Downing Street address:

  • To refute accusations of indecisiveness over the UK’s stance on Iran.
  • To clarify why the UK supports, but doesn’t directly participate in, US airstrikes—allowing use of UK bases but not joining strike missions.
  • To update on efforts to bring home hundreds of thousands of Brits caught in the region’s turmoil.

• Quote

  "I think he wants to try and refute the accusation that he has been indecisive in the way that he's handled the UK's position on Iran...make clear that, you know, it is a deliberate decision not to enter the war in an active sense to reassure people on that front." — Lucy Fisher [03:01]

2. Human Impact: Brits Stranded in the Gulf

[04:07 – 05:33]

• There are more than 100,000 British citizens in the affected region.

• Airports in Dubai are being evacuated amid missile/ drone strikes; ordinary people, including one of the panellist’s daughters, are stuck at airports.

• Quote

  “They're evacuating the airport in Dubai because there's been apparently reported a strike on Abu Dhabi Airport...it's all still very difficult for those British people and from all other European countries who are stuck in those countries." — Jane [04:21]

3. Cabinet Divisions and Delay Over UK Military Base Use

[05:33 – 06:19]

• Reports (via Tim Shipman, Spectator) suggest a group of Cabinet ministers (led by Ed Miliband) nearly blocked US use of UK military bases, only relenting after weekend deliberations.

• Starmer neither confirmed nor denied this at his press conference, suggesting internal disagreement and challenging his authority.

• Quote

  "It plays into the wider narrative...that, you know, his political authority is shot. Even in this matter of national security, you know, a foreign war, he can't really, or at least at the beginning, couldn't really carry his Cabinet with him." — Lucy Fisher [06:19]

4. Criticism From Allies and Military Delays

[06:19 – 08:13]

• Cyprus has expressed disappointment in the UK's lack of preemptive action, especially given the RAF bases on the island.
• UK warship HMS Dragon—crucial for air defense—won’t reach the region for two weeks; drone attacks have already targeted UK assets in Cyprus.
• Starmer is now dispatching additional Typhoon jets to Qatar to counter criticism.

5. Military Analysis: Was the UK Too Slow?

[08:13 – 11:22]

• Mikey Kaye: The public announcement of permitting US use of British bases immediately marked them as targets for Iranian retaliation.

• The UK should have established air defense layers before making such announcements.

• The timeline for deploying adequate defenses is insufficient to match the emerging threat.

• Quote

  "It would therefore make sense to make sure you had a tiered layered air defense system to protect RAF Akateri before you announce what the PM announced and therefore put RAFA category on a targeting." — Mikey Kaye [08:28]

6. Air Defense Limitations and the Drone Threat

[11:22 – 17:14]

• Complex discussion of UK air defense assets: Orcus system (counter-drone), LMM missiles, Typhoon jets, Type 45 destroyers with Aster missiles—all with inherent limitations, especially for round-the-clock coverage and intercepting mass-drone swarms.

• Iran’s Shahed drones, now mass-produced by Russia, are used to overwhelm expensive Western interceptors—a deliberate cost-burdening strategy.

• Quote

  “Iran’s strategy is quite simply bankrupt the west in terms of the cost it takes to develop these counter drone technologies and deplete their stockpiles as quickly as possible.” — Mikey Kaye [16:22]

• Human cost and psychological terror: Drones create ongoing fear for those under attack.

7. Political Parallels and Public Opinion

[11:45 – 13:55]

• Ed Miliband's hesitancy echoes Labour resistance to military intervention in Syria under David Cameron, but as Lucy Fisher notes, public opinion is on Starmer’s side: only 8% of Britons want direct involvement in attacks, vs. 46% favoring a defensive role.

• Quote

  “Starmer...is on the sort of same side as broad public sentiment.” — Lucy Fisher [13:55]

8. Underestimation of Iran’s Retaliatory Scope

[14:05 – 15:22]

• Iran’s aggressive, multi-country retaliation was more extensive than UK policymakers anticipated—strikes have even reached Azerbaijan and nearly Turkey.

• Quote

  "None of this was envisaged...there would be so many countries, some 10 of them involved, and so many drone and missile attacks." — Jane [15:22]

9. The Cost-Benefit Imbalance in Modern Warfare

[15:33 – 17:14]

• Engaging Iranian/Russian drones with costly Western interceptors is economically disadvantageous for the UK and allies.
• The West’s limited air defense munitions can be quickly depleted by mass attacks; psychological toll is significant as well.

10. Iran’s Missile Arsenal and Evolving Threats

[20:34 – 24:15]

• Iran has developed both ballistic and hypersonic missiles; the latter are essentially impossible to intercept with current US or UK technology.

• US and Israeli war aims now overtly include degrading Iran’s missile capacity, not just its nuclear program.

• Quote

  "Degrade is the maximum that is possible on Iran's ballistic missile program unless you target holistically what it takes to make ballistic missiles..." — Mikey Kaye [22:53]

• Much of Iran’s ballistic missile manufacturing is underground, adding to the complexity.

11. Intelligence, Legality, and Escalation

[25:03 – 31:10]

• Israeli forces anticipated a major confrontation with Iran weeks in advance, synchronizing operations with the US.
• Indications that Israelis hacked Tehran’s traffic cameras to construct target patterns.
• Legality: US Congress has not formally voted for this military action, and there’s been no meaningful UN Security Council process or GCC support—raising questions about the legitimacy of UK involvement.

12. “Regime Change” Speculation

[31:13 – 33:00]

• Axios reports that Donald Trump wants personal involvement in choosing Iran’s next leader, referencing the US approach in Venezuela as a template—a vision greeted with skepticism by the panel.

• Quote

  “It’s quite optimistic of President Trump to think that he might find a ‘Delsey’ in Iran. Who would that be? ...He has also said that they have killed most of the people they were potentially thinking of as becoming leaders after Khamenei.” — Jane [31:39]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Starmer’s Political Challenge:

  "His political authority is shot...even in this matter of national security, you know, a foreign war, he couldn't really carry his Cabinet with him." — Lucy Fisher [06:19]

• On Drones and Defense:

  “Iran’s strategy is...to bankrupt the West in terms of the cost it takes to develop these counter drone technologies and deplete their stockpiles as quickly as possible.” — Mikey Kaye [16:22]

• On Psychological Impact:

  "The neuro linguistic programming of hearing it [drone sound]...induces fear." — Mikey Kaye [17:42]

• On Paralysis at the Political Level:

  "If you're not targeting the components of what makes a ballistic missile...Iran's ability to make more of these is going to be untouched." — Mikey Kaye [22:53]

• On Trump’s Regime Change Vision:

  “Quite optimistic of President Trump to think that he might find a ‘Delsey’ in Iran...but how easy is that going to be?” — Jane [31:39]

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Key Timestamps

• 02:42 – Lucy Fisher on the purpose of Starmer’s press conference
• 04:21 – Jane recounts the situation for Brits in Dubai
• 06:19 – Internal Cabinet tensions and military base controversy
• 08:28 – Mikey Kaye on defense readiness and communication missteps
• 11:45 – Lucy on parallels with Ed Miliband’s Syria stance and public opinion
• 16:22 – Mikey Kaye explains Iran’s mass-drone "bankruptcy" strategy
• 17:42 – Psychological impact of drone warfare, both in Ukraine and Gaza
• 22:53 – Breakdown of missile program targeting limitations and terminology (“degrade” vs. “obliterate”)
• 25:03 – Israeli-US operational integration and intelligence gathering before the conflict escalated
• 31:39 – Jane on Trump’s ambition to shape Iran’s leadership post-regime change

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Conclusion

The episode presents a comprehensive exploration of the UK’s political and practical dilemmas in responding to the Iran conflict, highlighting mismatches between threat and readiness, the pressures of public opinion, and the complex specter of modern missile and drone warfare. The panel grapples with diplomatic legacies, political realities, and the sobering limitations on Western military response, all the while exposing the uncertainties and psychological pressures facing both civilians and leaders.

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Transcript

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[Mikey Kaye]

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[Adam Fleming]

hello. We're going to focus as usual on the US Israel war against Iran and the various consequences being felt around the world. There was a big political angle today here in the UK because Keir Starmer did a press conference from Downing street just after lunchtime and a few things emerged from that. And then of course, there's the ongoing events around the region. Iran's neighbors being hit by Iran and continued military action on quite a big scale by the US And Israel, particularly focused on the Iranian capital, Tehran. And we're going to be joined by One of the BBC's foremost military experts who's going to give us a proper cast, a complete assessment of the situation today.

[Lucy Fisher]

That's our newscast, newscast, newscast from the BBC.

[Mikey Kaye]

Fat Boy Slim and me in the classroom doing our violin lessons.

[Adam Fleming]

I was the tattletail in the classroom. Can I have an apology?

[Mikey Kaye]

Please trust almost nobody that daddy has to sometimes use strong language next time in mosque.

[Lucy Fisher]

I feel Delulu with no salulu.

[Jane]

Take me down to Downing Street.

[Adam Fleming]

Let's go have a tour. Blimey. Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio.

[Jane]

And it's Jane in the newscast studio.

[Adam Fleming]

And also sitting with us is Mikey Kaye from the BBC security brief. Hello, Mikey.

[Mikey Kaye]

Very good afternoon.

[Adam Fleming]

We will get some hardcore military data from you shortly, so thank you for being here.

[Mikey Kaye]

Pleasure.

[Adam Fleming]

But first of all, we're going to check in with today's politics because we're joined by Lucy Fisher, host of the FT's Political Fix podcast. Podcast. Hello, Lucy.

[Lucy Fisher]

Hi, Adam. Great to join you.

[Adam Fleming]

Thanks for being here. Also, you used to be the defense editor at the Times as well, so you've got lots of. Lots of a back catalog to draw on.

[Lucy Fisher]

Yes, that is theoretically right.

[Adam Fleming]

Yes. Well, let's put that to the test. So it's quarter to five on Thursday afternoon, just after lunchtime today, lots of our Westminster colleagues were scrambled to the dining street press briefing room for a press conference from the Prime Minister. Lucy?

[Mikey Kaye]

What?

[Adam Fleming]

Why do you think Starmer wanted to address the nation like this?

[Lucy Fisher]

I think it's twofold, really. I think he wants to try and refute the accusation that he has been indecisive in the way that he's handled the UK's position on Iran. I think there's a lot of criticism or confusion about his position that seems to be quite contorted in a way, this idea that the UK believes that Iranian missile depots and launches should be destroyed via strikes and that that is legal, but that the UK itself is participating in those strikes, only approving the use of UK air bases for the US to do it. So I think he wanted to try and explain a bit more the UK's position on that, make clear that, you know, it is a deliberate decision not to enter the war in an active sense to reassure people on that front. And also, I think, to give a bit of an update on what's going on with the several hundred thousand Brits stranded in the region amid a lot of concern about what the Foreign Office is doing to try and get at least the most vulnerable of those people home.

[Adam Fleming]

Also, I mean, there's loads of things we can pick up on. But, Jane, I was struck by the PM just emphasizing that this could go on for quite a long time, and it's affecting quite a lot of people. It's. It's more than a hundred thousand British citizens in, across the region.

[Jane]

Yeah. And of course, that was the point at which everything changed for Keir Starmer. So we believe that he, you know, didn't want to use British assets in an offensive scenario, but in a defensive one. And he's obviously said that this was because Iran started to attack so many of Britain's allies, some 10 Gulf countries in which many tens of thousands of British people are either based or live or work or are on holiday. So that's what made the difference for him. And, yes, there are still an awful lot of them stuck in those places. I've actually just been talking to some Brits in Dubai who were hoping to get out Tonight. But as we were speaking, the alarms were going, going. Missiles were coming in. I was trying to speak to my daughter who was flying into Dubai. She was stuck at the airport. They're evacuating the airport in Dubai because there's been apparently reported a. A strike on Abu Dhabi Airport, which is in the neighboring Emirates. So it's all still very difficult for those British people and from all other European countries who are stuck in those countries.

[Adam Fleming]

And is your daughter doing okay?

[Jane]

She seems to be all right. She seems quite happy. She's having a coffee at the airport. She can't go anywhere right now. They're evacuating. Apparently.

[Adam Fleming]

She's made of. She's from a family made of stern stuff, which does not surprise me. And then, Lucy going back to this idea of. Of the government's decision making about how much to support the US or not. Tim Shipman at the Spectator has been digging into the discussions at the National Security Council at the end of last week and over the weekend, and he is reporting that it sounds like it was a group of Cabinet ministers led by Ed Miliband, who almost vetoed the initial use of British military bases by the us. And it wasn't until later on in the weekend, when the NSC had another go at it, that they then gave their approval. And also, Starmer was asked about this at the press conference and he did not deny that that's what happened. I mean, he didn't confirm it, but he didn't deny it.

[Lucy Fisher]

No, really striking the very careful answer he gave at the press conference where he tried to make clear that the US only put in the formal legal request to use the airbases on Saturday. But as you say, Adam, not denying that the conversation had arisen at this important crunch meeting on the Friday. And of course, this is really damaging for Starmer because it plays into the wider narrative that that's now become quite entrenched in Westminster, which is that, you know, his political authority is shot. Even in this matter of national security, you know, a foreign war, he can't really, or at least at the beginning, couldn't really carry his Cabinet with him. So he's facing, you know, resistance and pressure internally. And of course, in the past couple of days, we've seen allies also beginning to publicly criticise the UK's response that it's been too slow. Cyprus in particular, making clear that, you know, given that the Brits have two military bases on the island, that they are very disappointed the UK hadn't deployed in advance more military assets to the region. To defend the island. And we now know that HMS Dragon, a type 45 destroyer, one of the most advanced warships in the world, that has sophisticated air defence capabilities to guard against drone and missile attacks that won't be getting to the region of the Eastern Mediterranean for two weeks. And this is after we've already seen a drone attack actually successfully hit one of these RAF bases in Cyprus on Sunday and other attempted drone attacks being intercepted over Cyprus on Monday. So it's all feeling quite slow in pace, which is another reason, reason I think Starmer wanted to tell the public today that he's sending four more Typhoon jets to Qatar and to try and give a sense of, a bit more of a sense of what the UK is doing amid all this criticism.

[Adam Fleming]

And Mikey, do you think this deployment of British resources into the Eastern Mediterranean and other Gulf countries is quite slow or is it understandable why it's happening at this pace? Or actually maybe it's going at the speed you would expect?

[Mikey Kaye]

No, absolutely not. I'm, I'm slightly confused as to the communication that's going on between number 10 and the ministry of Defense because the announcement by the Prime Minister on the U. S being able to use UK bases, not just in the UK So RAF Moulton Hall, Lakenheath, RAF Fairford, but also RAF Akateri and further afield, Diego Garcia, that was always going to initiate Iran putting those bases on the targeting list. Now, Iran doesn't have the ballistic missile range to reach the UK or France or Germany, probably Eastern Europe if it wanted to. I doubt it would do that. But it does have ballistic missile capability to hit RAF Akateri. And so by the Prime Minister announcing this, it was always going to put Rafakatiri on the, on the target list. So it would therefore make sense to make sure you had a tiered layered air defense system to protect Aria FA Tieri before you announce what the PM announced and therefore put RAFA category on a targeting.

[Adam Fleming]

And what, what is it? That tiered system tier layer?

[Mikey Kaye]

Well, so you have to look at what the threats are and the threats. There's a, there's a broad spectrum of threats from ballistic missiles. Iran has hypersonic missiles, but none of the UK or US inventory has the ability to counter a hypersonic missile. A hypersonic missile travels faster than five times the speed of sound. Some of them claim to go up to north of Mach 10. So you have hypersonics, but then you have. The stuff you can defend against are ballistics, cruise missiles, aircraft and drones. And that's, that's A very broad remit.

[Adam Fleming]

So you need a lot of stuff to counter it.

[Mikey Kaye]

Yeah, but you, it goes back to. So what is the stuff that we've got? We've got Orcus, which is a non kinetic counter UAS counter drone system, basically uses 3D radar jamming and RF wiggly amps to be able to either take down the drone through radio frequency or take control of the drone. Then you've got a kinetic capability that's called rapid sentry and that uses the LMM missile. That stands for Lightweight Multipurpose Missile. Those missiles can also be put on the Wildcat helicopters, which we know are coming there now, are coming imminently. But the problem with that is, is that when you've got the lmm, which has a range of about six to eight kilometers on an airborne asset, what's the problem? The airborne asset has only a specific endurance. Let's say the helicopter's endurance is an hour. My questions therefore are now, well, how many helicopters are coming out and how do you rotate and keep those helicopters in the air to provide 24,7 cover? I doubt you can.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah.

[Mikey Kaye]

So therefore there's an immediate limitation. And then, you know, more Broadly, the Type 45, that's the air defense system on the Type 45 is called the HMS Dragon. That's got two missiles that it can use as a 15 and as to 30, the Aster 15 does about Mach 3. The Aster 30 does about Mach 4 to 4.5 with a range of 75 kilometers.

[Adam Fleming]

Do you know what, Mikey, I might pause you there because I know Lucy's got to go because she's got lots of deadlines and things, but Lucy, just before you go rewinding back to our conversation and actually rewinding quite a long way back in British political history, if it is true that Ed Miliband was the one saying let's hold back here, you shouldn't be too gung ho. That's quite reminiscent of when David Cameron was Prime Minister and it was Ed Miliband's whipping of labor mps when he was leader of the Labour Party to not support military action in Syria against Assad, which then had a knock on effect in Washington that meant Obama didn't carry out military action. There's a sort of big echo there, even if we actually don't really know for definite what's happened just now.

[Lucy Fisher]

I think that's true, but I also think there's a little bit of revisionism that's come in regarding what happened over that vote regarding Syria, because at the time Ed Miliband thought he could carry his party with him and he was actually blindsided by a lot of his backbenchers. He'd given his word to Cameron that he would back back the Conservative government in that vote for intervention in Syria after the use of chemical weapons. So in some ways I think there is an echo here, but it's more that another Labour leader in the past wasn't necessarily able to kind of carry their party with them. What I would say, just finally, is that, interestingly, although, you know, the Conservatives and reform are very much taking to my mind quite a surprisingly hawkish in all this and sort of saying the UK should be part of the war and actively getting involved in the airstrikes, not just relying on the US and Farage calling Starmer's inaction pathetic. I think, you know what, Starmer, the chart forward that he has paved is in line with public opinion. And I know the Latest polling from YouGov shows that only 8% of people think Britain should actively be involved in the attacks, while 46% agree that UK forces should be involved in a purely defensive operational capacity. So it seems that Starmer here is, is on the sort of same side as broad public sentiment.

[Adam Fleming]

Lucy, thank you very much. And I know you've got to go and record your own podcast political fix now, so great metaphor for journalism in 2026 from one podcast to another. Thank you very much.

[Lucy Fisher]

Thanks for having me.

[Adam Fleming]

And Jane, this is a bit of a, a revisionist question as well and a bit vague, so I apologize in advance, but was there a world at where people were considering an Iranian response that wasn't as dramatic as this? And so actually you wouldn't have to think about sending more British fighter jets or a British ship to Cyprus, because actually Iran wouldn't have counter attacked in so strongly in so many places.

[Jane]

But actually Iran made it clear before the war and it made it clear last June when the original Israeli and American strikes hit the nuclear bunkers and the nuclear facilities in Iran. They made it clear then by hitting a U.S. base in the aftermath. And they made it clear this time that it was fair game that U.S. bases in neighboring countries were fair game. They made that very clear. But I think that probably nobody quite realized the extent to which they would retaliate, the number of countries that would be involved. I mean, today even we've been told there were strikes on Azerbaijan. There was a report yesterday of a missile heading towards, towards Turkey, a NATO member. And I think none of this was envisaged that it would be There would be so many countries, some 10 of them involved, and so many drone and missile attacks.

[Adam Fleming]

Right. Mikey, let's go back to what you were saying a couple of minutes ago. So you talked about these Shaheed drones, which are the Iranian produced drones but have also been used by Russia. But you said it's a little bit more complicated than that.

[Mikey Kaye]

Yeah. The Iranians gave the Shahed 136 blueprint to the Russians and the Russians are now mass producing on a serious scale, the same sort of design. It's called the Garand 2. And just to give you an idea of just how many they're producing, in 2025, Russia launched over 60,000 shaheds on Ukraine. 60,000. The higher estimates of Iran in terms of their capability and what they've got, the higher estimates are around 80,000 shahed 136s. I would put those lower, but still significant. So what this, all this all comes back to is something called cost benefit ratio. The Sea Viper, the air defense system on the Type 45, those missiles, the Asters, cost 1 to 2 million.

[Adam Fleming]

Right.

[Mikey Kaye]

An Asram, which is an advanced short range air to air missile that is currently strapped to a Typhoon. It's operating on what's called drone cap, drone combat air patrol out of RAF Akaturi. That's a 300,000 pound per unit missile. One of these drones costs $35,000 to $50,000. And so the Iran strategy is quite simply bankrupt the west in terms of the cost it takes to develop these counter drone technologies and deplete their stockpiles as quickly as possible. Because when you look at the swarming potential of the Shaheds coming from Iran,

[Adam Fleming]

in other words, loads and loads going over at the same time, heaps.

[Mikey Kaye]

It's not a sophisticated piece of equipment. You know, it's got a, almost like a 125 two stroke engine, it's got a 20 to 60 kilogram warhead and it's made out of carbon fiber. Therefore, because it's so simple, it can be mass produced at scale.

[Jane]

And it's frightening. I mean, I'm talking about people who are on the ground looking up at these things in these various countries. They're terrified.

[Adam Fleming]

And also when you talk about the cost ratio, I suppose you can't just look at the cost of using one weapon to intercept another and working out whether it's a good value for money. You've got to look at the potential cost of the damage done by the drone, which can also, as Jane was suggesting, have a psychological cost. Not Just a financial cost for whatever warehouse or oil terminal or hotel or hotel you managed to damage.

[Mikey Kaye]

Yeah. And, and that, that cycle, I was in Ukraine just before Christmas. And when you see them flying across Kiev, that psychological component that you've just alluded to is, is significant. So it's not just about the cost, it's the psychology as well. You're absolutely right. And when you hear these things, they've got a really distinctive noise. You don't even have actually have to see one. It's just the, it's just the neuro linguistic programming of hearing it that induces fear.

[Jane]

As, I mean, in Gaza too, the Israeli drones, I mean that. You're right, that very distinctive noise that a drone makes is really, really, you know, imprinted in the brain and very frightening.

[Adam Fleming]

And I was surprised when I, when I looked them up on the Internet. I was thinking they would look like classic drones, like bigger, scarier versions of the ones you could buy online. But actually they're not, they're more like little planes, aren't they?

[Mikey Kaye]

Yeah, they're about, they're about 3.5 meters long, travel at about 120 miles an hour. On the security brief we covered, the Ukrainians are using a tactic to use helicopters with guns out the side and forward looking infrared cameras so they can see them at night. And I was given some footage by one of the military commanders that I spoke to in Kiev and he gave me some what's called electro optic footage. So they've got an electro optic camera which allows them to zoom in with really high fidelity and granularity of this Shahed that was flying at about 30ft across Odessa. And the other thing as well is that if you want to intercept this thing, you can't intercept it over an urban area because it's going to come down and it's going to do damage. So they've got to wait for their time and intercept it at the right point and intercept it and then target it and shoot it down over an area where they know there's not going to be collateral damage. And if you're seeing Shaheds come into Bahrain or into Dubai, that's a significantly built up area. And if you're relying on a Patriot missile system, which again costs about 1 to 2 million per missile to take out, got 20 drones. There's going to be at least 10 of them to get through because the Patriots will go. The code word in the military is called Winchester. That's not classified. But Winchester means that you, you're out of salvos. There's nothing left.

[Adam Fleming]

Oh, you've just run out of interceptor missiles. Yeah, that's called Winchester. You've gone Winchester.

[Mikey Kaye]

Could be anything. Could be running out of ammunition for a gun. Could be running out of missiles. Could be running.

[Adam Fleming]

What have they got against Winchester, Winchester rifles.

[Jane]

What's the Winchester connection?

[Mikey Kaye]

It's just there's lots of code words we use in the military for the view.

[Adam Fleming]

The public school thing.

[Jane]

Yeah.

[Mikey Kaye]

For the viewers. I used to FL assault helicopters in the military and we used to do the targeted capture or kill an Al Qaeda. And so there's all sorts of terminology I used. I used to. Used to run the Top Gun score for helicopters in the uk. And so there, there are lots of code words you use for brevity when you're flying, because things can happen quite quickly when you're flying. And Winchester's mind.

[Adam Fleming]

Mind boggled. What about. So that. That's Iran's very effective drone capacity. You've sort of hinted at this already, but they're. They're missiles. I mean, we sort of threw around the words missile. What are we actually talking about in terms of what Iran has got?

[Mikey Kaye]

Yeah, I mean, just have to look at the. The footage over Tel Aviv at the moment, and you'll see a considerable amount of ballistic missiles coming in. What I'm trying to do, what I'm trying to identify and interrogate by looking at that footage is the capability of Iran in terms of the hypersonic missile, which is the fatter one and the fatter two. The fatter one isn't as sophisticated as the fatter two. The fatTER one goes hypersonic in the terminal phase of its delivery, which means when it's on the downslip type. What's interesting about the fatter to it is we think it's got what got what's called a hypersonic glide vehicle. And you're looking at me as if to say, what the hell is that? So hypersonic glide vehicle is sat on top of the booster, so the rocket. And when the warhead separates inside the hypersonic glide vehicle very high in the atmosphere, the normal trajectory of a ballistic missile is a parabolic. And so interceptors find it much easier because they can look at where the missile is, look at the parabolic trajectory of it, and it's just.

[Adam Fleming]

And it was geometry, in fact.

[Mikey Kaye]

Yeah, AI geometry. And it makes the. What we call PK probability of kill much, much higher. But these hypersonic glide vehicles, or hypersonic glide bodies, as they're being called, has the ability to steer itself once it leaves the booster, which means it's virtually impossible to target. And as far as I'm aware, there are no currently in service counter systems to our hypersonic that the US or any Western capability has.

[Adam Fleming]

And of course, Jane, one of the reasons this conflict is happening, and Trump has said this a few times, is because of Iran's missile capability and stopping it from getting any better.

[Jane]

Yeah. And you know, obviously we've heard different war aims coming from the Americans, from different members of the administration all week, but pretty consistently in the last couple of days, it's been about their ballistic missile capability and the sense that the Americans tell us that they were building that up, the Israelis agree with that and that action needed to be taken. So, yeah, I mean, ballistic missiles as well as the nuclear threat are right up there in terms of war aims for America and for Israel to degrade them to the point where they're no longer effective.

[Mikey Kaye]

Sorry, that's just a really important point James just made is terminology is really important. We heard Trump say after Operation Midnight Hammer, which was the 12 day war last year, he's coming out with this terminology like obliterated, destroyed. What, what, what was just said there was degrade. And it's degrade is the maximum that is possible on Iran's ballistic missile program unless you target holistically what it takes to make ballistic missiles. An example of that is ammonium percolate is a chemical that comes in from China on supertankers, that goes into Iranian ports and then is taken to a factory to the east of Tehran to make the solid fuel propellant that goes into the ballistic missiles. So if you're not targeting the components of what makes a ballistic missile, which are the engines, the warheads, the solar fuel propellant, so on and so forth, then Iran's ability to be able to make more of these is going to be untouched.

[Jane]

But then that leaves out, you know, the know how, the scientists, the designs, the blueprints. These are the things that are impossible to destroy unless, as happened in the June war, you take out the scientists, you kill the people with the know how, but impossible to take all of them out. And you know, as you say, it's the ingredients, if you like, or the components. It's the know how and it's the blueprints.

[Adam Fleming]

But maybe that's what Pete Hegseth, the defense now War Secretary and Donald Trump have been getting at when they say this is just the start and actually they're going to go further and they're going to go deeper into the country, maybe all Their targets have been quite security focused and quite obviously military and quite obviously leadership based. Maybe we're going to go into a phase where it's more factories and warehouses and roads and underground bunkers. Yeah. Less military targets.

[Jane]

I mean, Mikey I'm sure knows more about this, but a lot of the ballistic missile factories and indeed the launcher, you know, they keep them underground. They have mobile launchers and a lot of those have been taken out, so we've been told by the Israelis and the Americans. But a lot of the manufacturer is underground and they are keeping them underground.

[Adam Fleming]

Jane, this conversation has been very kind of hardware heavy, but you've been learning a bit more or hearing a bit more from the Israelis about the human side of their war effort.

[Jane]

Well, the intelligence side, I mean, there was a briefing last night from the idf, the Israeli military, and I think it became apparent from that military officer said that they had been told or they understood from the political level in Israel that three weeks before the war that they were heading for another confrontation with Iran. So they were really gearing up at that point. And also they, I think the Israelis wanted to, to sort of emphasize because there has been some debate about who bounced who into this war. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said that Israel had made it impossible for the US to do anything other than hit, hit Iran because they were going to do it anyway. And he was, he was worried that, that Iran would hit back at the States. Donald Trump said different things. So I think for the Israelis, they wanted to prove that they're hand in glove with the Americans. And they said that such was the level of integration with the US military in the run up to that first strike on 28 February on the leadership compound, that they actually not only were talking at the highest level every day, but that they were the US and the Israeli war rooms were synchronized in real time to allow for immediate adjustments based on the Iranian reactions at that point, when that very crucial from their point of view, from the Israeli and American point of view when that strike happened. And I think intriguingly, this official added that the IDF and the US had deliberately projected an image that the Israeli military was standing down for the weekend because it was Friday night over Saturday, which is the weekend for Israel and indeed in many Arab countries, and indeed Friday is a holiday in Iran. And so they deliberately, as he put it, released photographs and information suggesting the IDF staff and senior commanders were going home for Shabbat dinner. That's the sort of Friday night dinner to lull the Iranians into a Sense of, well, it's not going to happen, it's not going to happen over the weekend. And if it did happen, I think their feeling was it would happen at night. And of course it happened on Saturday morning when all those top leaders were

[Adam Fleming]

meeting in Tehran in broad daylight and.

[Mikey Kaye]

Can I jump in? I think it's also important to, to also acknowledge that there are suggestions that U. S. Intelligence official that had informed the Pentagon that there was no imminent threat and the threat was more an existential threat from ballistic missiles and the potential for enrichment of uranium, a more

[Adam Fleming]

long term thing rather than a it's about to happen thing.

[Mikey Kaye]

And Christian Fraser myself were outside the talks in Geneva last Thursday of which again there's a, there's a trend here, Operation Midnight Hammer. They were a day off from talks with Iranians and they, and they shrek them. This time they were a day into talks and they, and a couple of days later they shrek them.

[Jane]

So yeah, in June they said, Trump said you've got 10 days to sort this out and in two days the bombing started. And I think, you know, we really. That's still a very murky period that those few weeks, as you said. I also understand that, that the briefing to the American administration was that there was no imminent threat. Obviously negotiations were going on, but the Israelis clearly saw and obviously if this is, if we believe this briefing with the Americans, that there was a window of opportunity. These, these, this top leadership was meeting that Saturday morning and they decided to go for it.

[Adam Fleming]

Did we comment on those reports? And I think it was in the FT a couple of days ago, another plug for the Financial Times that, that the Israelis had hacked all the traffic cameras in Tehran and they'd been recording the footage for years.

[Jane]

Yeah, I think they, yeah, what they were doing was bringing together that data to know where the bodyguards were that were with the leaders and the top defense officials who were going, who parked their cars where, who was in the building where they were moving around. And they got that because they had hacked all the, you know, facilities that would enable them to gather that data and to create this very complex picture. And that is why I think that from their point of view that this was a moment that they couldn't afford to let pass.

[Mikey Kaye]

Yeah, I mean in, in the intelligence community they call that pattern of life. So it's understanding the behavioral tendencies of the target that you're going after is usually applied to what's called tst, time sensitive targeting on high value leadership such as the ayatollah and the heads of the irgc. But that goes across the entirety of what the main three tiers of intelligence are. It's human. Human intelligence, which is from informants, imagery intelligence, immin, which is usually from geo intelligence satellites or MQ9 Reapers drones. And then you've got ELINT electronic intelligence. And we saw in the buildup of US military capability, an asset called the RC135, which is the same as the KC135 tank. It's the same airframe, but it's jam packed full of electronic capability that can listen, look at radio frequencies, understand where certain capability is. So it's building up that intelligence picture. But I think, I think one of them, you know, talking about sort of of the, what triggered the strike and the initiation of the strike, and what we haven't spoken about is the, the legality of it all. You know, US Congress hasn't voted on this, the Senate have just supported it. But that's, what, five days on, there's nothing from the United Nations Security Council. Not that they're, not that there would be a resounding unanimous vote on a Security Council resolution, but for the audit trail, you know, it's good to have who voted for, who abstained and who didn't. And the Gulf Cooperation Council in the Arab countries did not buy into it because they knew what the consequences was going to be. So when it comes to the UK Getting involved and Keir Starmer getting involved, you know, there's a, there's, there's a huge question on the, the legality of it. You just got to go back to 2003 and the votes that went through Parliament on the, the legality of the UK Getting involved in the effort that

[Adam Fleming]

went into securing a U. N. Resolution.

[BBC Podcast Advertiser]

Right, yes.

[Jane]

Before action. Before action.

[Adam Fleming]

Critically, we were talking about the, the strike on the leadership compound over the weekend. And Jane, there's a little bit more kind of analysis about what Trump might be thinking about who will be the new kind of leadership structure for, for Iran. And it's the website Axios. Just as we started recording this episode, they put up a story saying that, that Trump wants to be personally involved in choosing a successor to Ayatollah Khamenei.

[Jane]

Yeah, I think he said we've got to essentially approve of who is chosen. And he made it very clear that the son of Ayatollah Khomeini would not be acceptable, is the phrase he used. But what would be acceptable is a sort of Delsey. And he was talking, of course, about Delsey Rodriguez, who was the President of Venezuela, who was essentially put in place after Maduro was removed by Trump's action. Now, to Trump, that's the perfect scenario. You remove a troublesome top person, but you leave the rest of it in place and you find someone you can work with. And of course, in Venezuela, everyone was a bit doubtful that the Americans could work with Del C. Rodriguez, but it turns out that so far, and in return, obviously, for America receiving the oil revenues from Venezuela, it has worked. But I think it's quite optimistic of President Trump to think that he might find a Delsey in Iran. Who would that be? And he has also said that they have killed most of the people they were potentially thinking of as becoming leaders after Khamenei. So I'm not sure what he's obviously casting around for someone that would suit the American view of what Iran looks like post this war, but how easy is that going to be?

[Adam Fleming]

Mikey, thank you very much. Would you like to do a plug for the security brief?

[Mikey Kaye]

I would love to. We're filming.

[Adam Fleming]

That's your fee for this, that is.

[Mikey Kaye]

Yeah, I wasn't aware of that. Yeah. Security brief. We have our own playlist now on YouTube. We'll be filming an update on Iran tomorrow that will go out on air tomorrow. It'll be played across the weekend. It'll be cut for YouTube and it'll be available on YouTube hopefully by tomorrow evening.

[Adam Fleming]

Lots of chances to watch it. And Jane, thanks to you too.

[Jane]

Thank you, Adam.

[Adam Fleming]

And that's all for this episode of Newscast. In the next one, Jane will be back accompanied by Lysa Doucette and Chris Mason to answer your questions about the conflict we have been reporting on all this week. So that will be the next episode of Newscast heading your way very soon. Bye bye. Newscast.

[Lucy Fisher]

Newscast from the BBC.

[Newscast Outro Host]

Well, thank you for making it to the end of another newscast. You clearly ooze stamina. Can I gently encourage you to subscribe to our US on BBC Sounds? And then, without having to do anything else, our meandering chat will miraculously make its way to your phone.

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