← The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
Have America and Israel just started a forever war with Iran?
00:26:55
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- [00:03]
Yalda Hakim
Sky News, the full story first. Hello, it's Yalda and I'm in Jerusalem
- [00:19]
Richard Pallardy
and me, Richard in Tel Aviv. Ayatollah Khamenei is dead. Iran is striking back hard across the region and is trying to choke the world's economy. All while the United States says the the biggest hits are yet to come. There is a lot to get into. Yalda, welcome to the world podcast.
- [00:40]
Iranian Official / Military Voice
Combat operations continue at this time in full force and they will continue until all of our objectives are achieved.
- [00:50]
US Military Official / Pete Hegseth
The hardest hits are yet to come from the US Military. The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now.
- [01:18]
Yalda Hakim
Richard. I got here to the region on Saturday night after those bombs dropped on Iran and we realized this war had just begun. I got the last flight to Amman from Heathrow and then crossed the border over to Jerusalem. It's been been non stop since. And of course Iran has been sending those ballistic missiles over the skies of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, other communities. But how are you?
- [01:45]
Richard Pallardy
I'm, I'm doing well, running on fumes like you are. We're just going non stop, trying to make sense of it all because it's happening everywhere. It's not that this is like when you're in the war in Ukraine or in Russia. There's two sides obviously, there's international complexities, but this war is so spread out, so complex and developing each day. I just came from a bomb site and we're talking to diplomatic sources a lot to unpack. I want to focus on the people you have been speaking to, Yalda. You've spoken to members of the Iranian government, also intelligence officials on the other side, on the Israeli side. So help us get to grips with what you understand is next for Iran. I would really like to get your take on that.
- [02:31]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah, absolutely, Richard. I've been speaking to a multitude of people, generals, military experts, Iranian officials, American officials, Israeli officials as well. And what seems clear is that an aerial campaign alone cannot get them to, you know, the outcome that they want to, even though they're saying that. In the last few days we've heard US and Israeli officials say that, you know, they're not ruling out boots on the ground, for example. So I don't think there is clarity about how this ends as we see it escalating across the region where energy infrastructure is hit, civilian targets, airports, luxury hotels targeted as well.
- [03:11]
Richard Pallardy
A lot to get into. And very quickly I did a bonus episode when you were out busy doing your reporting, Yalda, and it was a deep dive, Q and A with the producers of this podcast on the current situation and everyone out there, try and take a listen to it.
- [03:27]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah. It's in your feeds and you can listen to it on YouTube. And we're going to answer a lot more questions today. And of course, don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcasts on Apple and Spotify.
- [03:37]
Richard Pallardy
So let's get going. Okay, Yalda. So this bombing campaign by the United States and Israel has been nonstop since Saturday and it has spread significantly and quickly outside of Iran with strikes by Iran in Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, of course, and others. And now Israel is not only going after Iran, but targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon. The United Kingdom is allowing the United States to use its bases. But let's focus on Iran. They've lost the ayatollah, the supreme leader. They've lost many of their senior leaders. And a lot of the military infrastructure at this stage is decimated. So let's kick off with our first question from Dean Halton, who emailed in to the worldsky.uk hey, Richard Nyalda, how long can Iran continue to fight back if none of its allies come to help? Why don't you take that one for us?
- [04:44]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah, Richard, it's a good question because I don't think that the United States and Israel anticipated how quickly Iran would try and suck in other countries and start targeting Gulf states, start sending drones to British bases in Cyprus, for example. And so already we're seeing an escalation here and Iran clearly had a plan. I think one thing that people need to understand is that the Islamic Republic was not created as a one party or base. It isn't a personalities regime. They have managed to distribute power across the board. And from the very beginning of the revolution in 1979, it has been about survival. So they have prepared for this moment the entire time since their creation. So the idea that you would take out the Supreme Leader and 49 other top leaders and somehow the entire thing would crumble, well, we've seen that that was false and perhaps the United States didn't quite anticipate that. That's why we've seen President Trump change his language in an almost dizzying way over the course of the last three or he started off with that video message on Saturday saying we are going to launch these airstrikes and then it's up to you, the Iranian people, to
- [06:09]
Iranian Official / Military Voice
take over all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom, to seize this moment, to be brave, be bold, be heroic and take back your country. America is with you. I made a promise to you and I fulfilled that promise. The rest will be up to you, but we'll be there to help, assuming
- [06:30]
Yalda Hakim
that as soon as they hit the Supreme Leader, the whole thing would unravel. And in fact, what we've heard from Iran's foreign minister is the Revolutionary Guard is basically acting independently of the rest of the regime. They have a plan, a plan that was prepared before the Supreme Leader was killed, anticipating something like this that they would get attacked, and they're now executing that plan. So what we are seeing and what has left most of the international community shocked is the pace in which they've targeted these Gulf states, targeted energy infrastructure, the fact that we've seen the Qataris now shut down one of their liquid fide gas plants, the fact that it's impacting energy prices in the global economy the way it has. And what they're hoping is that they put enough pressure on the Gulf states where eventually they will say to the United States and Israel, you have to stop. You have to come up with some kind of solution. So for me, I see this as almost a contest of will. And I believe that the Iranians think they have the time, whereas when you look at Washington or Donald Trump, he's saying three or four days, then he said four weeks, now he's saying, I'll go for as long as I want. He's moving the goalpost all of the time. Whereas the Iranian regime seems to be quite focused on trying to do maximum damage to other countries in the region
- [07:54]
Richard Pallardy
and is fighting a war for survival. It's fighting war on its own territory for its survival.
- [07:59]
Yalda Hakim
Richard, we've got another one of these questions and I want to put it to you because of course you've recently been in Iran. It's from Ben Jones via email, who says, hi, Yalda and Richard, I hope you're staying safe. Just a quick question. We hear that the people want regime change in Iran. However, we see mixed evidence of this in video footage. Is it a case that the population is divided?
- [08:21]
Richard Pallardy
Yes, the population is divided. There are many people who don't like the current government, don't like this Islamic revolutionary system that has been in power since 1979. And Iran is a young population. Most people only know the Islamic revolutionary system. They talk about the Shah and the Shah days, but most people never lived under the Shah. And the lives that Iranians have lived since 1979 have been very difficult. They had the Iran Iraq War. They have faced sanctions, they've now faced repression at home, including very recently when people went out onto the streets and were met with gunfire, the economy is in terrible shape. It is basically impossible to do business with Iran. If you're there in Tehran, and this was a few weeks ago, you couldn't really get money out of the banks. Very difficult to do any kind of trade. Credit cards don't work, they're angry, they're isolated, they're cut off. That's a baseline. But there are people who believe in the system, who still believe in the dream of a theocracy. And then there are people who have vested interests. And there are a lot of people who have vested interests because this government has been there since 1979 and Iran is a huge country and it does trade. It does trade with China and it does trade with other regional countries. And when you force a country into a box, it doesn't just disappear, they find other ways. So almost the entire economy of Iran is based on the black market, black market trading of oil. So in that kind of economy, there are a lot of people who've grown phenomenally rich and that class of empowered people who are in the military, who are in the elite, who have power, who have connections, who have access to money, clearly don't want to lose it. So although there is dissatisfaction, there are believers and there are vested interests in Iran. So the idea that this government would just go, go quickly and easily, is that probably a fool's dream?
- [10:33]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah. And Richard, what we saw during the 12 Day War and frankly, what seems to be the sentiment within Iran, when you look at the death toll and the Iranian Red Crescent has said today that the death toll has gone up well over 700. Now, Iranians want to see, many Iranians want to see this repressive regime gone, but they don't want death and destruction in their country. And when bombs start falling, you know, there is, there is a, of nationalism which gets created, which is what we saw during the 12 Day War as well. So while this is a divided nation, you will see people rise up and say, we don't actually want body bags in the streets.
- [11:12]
Richard Pallardy
So, Yalda, let's get to another question, and this one comes from Amy and Brian Crop via email. Somebody is clearly in charge. Who is it who is giving orders now that the Ayatollah is dead?
- [11:24]
Yalda Hakim
Well, obviously they had a plan in place. Right. And that's why we haven't seen everything crumble in the last few days. We were told they, that a leadership council was put together that would basically take temporary control over the country made up of two clerics and the president of the country, Masoud Pezeshkian. Now, the two clerics are known to be quite hardline clerics. And so the question is whether one of those clerics will actually end up taking over. But for now, temporarily, this leadership council has been formed to look out after the day to day political affairs of the country. Separately, as we said, the Revolutionary Guard are continuing their operations and targeting key sites. So it isn't like the country has disintegrated. And just to pick up on what you just said about the protesters, on the first day of the strikes, some protesters went out on the streets to celebrate the killing of the Ayatollah. They were immediately pushed back into their homes because don't Forget, there are 180,000 Revolutionary Guard and then their henchmen, there's almost a million of them, the Basij, who go out on these motorbikes and terrorize the population. And we saw what they did on January 8 and 9, where they basically were shooting at protesters and the death toll was insane. I mean, thousands of people were killed during those protests and during wartime, are they going to be much more brutal and is the crackdown going to be much tougher? Well, all of those protesters who came out on day one rushed back into their homes. So it just gives you a sense that things haven't crumbled or fragmented in the way which perhaps the west anticipated. When I say the West, I mean the United States and Israel. So a lot of questions about what the objectives of this conflict are. And Richard, people have been asking me, and no doubt asking you, and I'm sure our listeners are wondering as well, is that what is America actually trying to achieve here? Let's have a listen to what the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, Benjamin Netanyahu, and then a Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, have had to say in the
- [13:29]
US Military Official / Pete Hegseth
last few days, if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties. And so the president made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.
- [13:52]
Marco Rubio / US Official
And we're going to create the conditions
- [13:54]
Richard Pallardy
first for the Iranian people to get
- [13:57]
Marco Rubio / US Official
control of their destiny, to form their
- [14:00]
Yalda Hakim
own democratically elected government, which will make
- [14:03]
Marco Rubio / US Official
Iran a different Iran altogether. But we are creating America and Israel together, are creating the conditions for them to do so.
- [14:10]
Richard Pallardy
This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission. Destroy the missile threat, destroy the Navy, no nukes. I think what Rubio said is quite profound. He said that Israel was going to attack and the United States joined in and decided, better join in than to find the United States under attack and responding to a situation better to go along with it. And there are politicians in the United States are asking, is it up to Israel to declare war and bring the United States along for the ride? That's quite a powerful statement.
- [14:49]
Yalda Hakim
It's extraordinary listening to Pete Hegseth say that this is a clear operation, a clear mission, when in fact, in the space of 72 hours, we've heard them give a number of explanations as to why. So first, regime change. Then Pete Hegseth says, no regime change. Netanyahu says, yes, they want regime change. Then they talk about targeting the Navy and dominating Iran from the air, the land and the sea. Then they talk about targeting the military infrastructure. Then they talk about taking out the nukes. Then they talk about, you know, ensuring that Iran doesn't have any proxies in the region. There've been four or five different explanations. It's unclear exactly what the clearest of objectives is here. But let's just take a break, and when I come back, let's talk about how this conflict could spread further than it already has.
- [15:53]
Iranian Official / Military Voice
Your country's in big trouble.
- [15:54]
Neil Patterson
The world is a pretty confusing place right now.
- [15:57]
Richard Pallardy
How long have you known about Andrew and X?
- [16:00]
Neil Patterson
I'm Neil Patterson, and after 20 years reporting and presenting for Sky News, one thing's become clear. People don't just want to know what's happened. They want to know why. Our new daily podcast takes one story at a time, explains what's really going on and why you need to know. This is why. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
- [16:30]
Richard Pallardy
Welcome back to the world podcast. I think a lot of people rightly are worried whether this conflict will spread beyond the Middle east. And we've got some questions for you about that. So here's one email from Michael, and why don't you take this one, Yalda. Given the current turmoil across multiple fronts, including Gaza, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, do you believe we are on the precipice of World War three? Especially considering the conflict in Ukraine has lasted nearly as long as World War I? If so, how can we step back from the edge? If not, why do you believe these conflicts will remain isolated? Big question.
- [17:11]
Yalda Hakim
It is a big question because, frankly, we shouldn't rule anything out. And when you listen to Pete, hegseth and he sort of says, you know, we don't believe in the rules of engagement and all the red lines are gone.
- [17:22]
Richard Pallardy
No stupid rules of engagement, no nation building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win and we don't waste time.
- [17:33]
Yalda Hakim
And you know that the Iranians are operating in a way where they are deliberately escalating this situation, trying to suck in regional and global powers into this conflict. Conflict, of course, even by closing the the Strait of Hormuz and targeting those shipping lanes which does impact the global economy. You know, it leaves countries like China who rely on the shipments coming through the Strait of Hormuz. They're suddenly going to be asking big questions. We know that the Russians are talking to the Iranians all the time about what's going on. And these are all partners and allies of Iran. So. So there is great concern about how much this conflict could spread. But there's also, I think, a wariness, Richard, from the foreign policy establishments and establishments in the Western world in general. And that's why perhaps Britain and other European countries have been so cautious about entering this conflict. You know, if you think back to the war in Iraq, the United States first went to the Security Council. They then went in to try and convince the them. They then went to Congress and got votes from Congress. They then put together a coalition of 49 countries and then they went and invaded Iraq. This time it is the United States and Israel. No discussions with the UN Security Council, no discussions with Congress. And they've gone in there and they basically said we need to do this because of this existential threat coming from the Iranians. But people's memories are long and they do think about the fact that there was boots on the ground in Iraq. And you know, that intervention, look at the way it ended in Libya. No boots on the ground, but strikes. And we saw how badly that ended in Syria. No one intervened and we saw how that ended in the end. And so I think the foreign policy establishments of these countries are really concerned because they've seen how these movies have played out before and when there isn't a plan, a strategy, these things can spiral beyond your control. So as much as the United States wants to contain this and says it's just a mission for three or four days, or it's a mission for three or four weeks, or we're not ruling out boots on the ground, this is how things start to really escalate.
- [19:43]
Richard Pallardy
So not World War 3, Yalda, but a world at war.
- [19:48]
Yalda Hakim
Absolutely. And yesterday Richard, I had a really fascinating conversation with a man called Professor Robert Pape who's really studied the way that these conflicts escalate. He studied aerial campaigns going back to the First World War. And if you can even achieve regime change through aerial campaigns alone, he described it as an escalation trap.
- [20:10]
Marco Rubio / US Official
Problem is that once we drop those bombs and once we announce regime change is our goal and we had no other tools trying to do this from the air. This has never worked in over 100 years. This is not like it works sometimes or rarely works. I'm choosing my words carefully. President Trump is up against the weight of history here. And it's the illusion of the smart bombs being near perfect in destroying their target. And the problem is when those bombs fall, they inject, they change politics in the target, they inject nationalism into the regime, they inject nationalism into the society, and they essentially fuse the regime and society against the air power attacker.
- [21:01]
Richard Pallardy
Well, it's important to listen to historians and people who spend their lives crunching the numbers, looking at all these previous conflicts. And I wish some of our policy leaders and our decision makers would spend more time thinking about history and reading and being more thoughtful than just acting.
- [21:24]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah, absolutely. It was, it was quite a confronting take when he laid it out about, you know, President Trump being up against history and, and what history tells us about these sorts of campaigns in the past. Richard, I've got a really interesting question here and I want you to take this one. It's from Philip via email. Philip says, my understanding is that Iran helps supply Russia with drones for its war on Ukraine. Will the attack on Iran impact the war in Ukraine as a result?
- [21:52]
Richard Pallardy
Well, interesting. I don't think it's going to be a problem for Russia in terms of drones because Russia had already started making its own drones and had already been starting to make the Iranian model drones, the shaheds. So I don't know if it's necessarily going to slow Vladimir Putin down in a significant way. If anything, this could help Vladimir Putin because now the United States, instead of, of focusing on supporting Ukraine, is mainly focused on defending itself and fighting this war with Israel against Iran and putting out fires in the Middle East. So if I was Vladimir Putin right now facing Ukraine, facing Zelensky, I'd be quite happy that the United States is using all of its weapons and its firepower and getting involved in an open ended war against the weight of history in Iran. But in terms of drones, there's a really interesting development and we're not a technical war blog or podcast, you can listen to those and there are plenty of them. But the Shahed drone, which both Russia and Iran are using with great effect and we've seen them very much in action in this conflict. The United States is also starting for the first time ever to use its own drone, which is modeled on the Iranian drone and they call it a Lucas. And the LC in Lucas comes from low cost. So the, the problem with the, the US military or a problem that the US military had identified among itself is that the US was good at producing things that cost millions and tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars, like aircraft carriers and tanks and guided missiles, but that countries like Iran were able to produce inexpensive drones that were highly effective. So for the first time in this conflict, learning the lesson from Iran and Central Command explicitly mentioned that it had learned the lesson from Iran. The US is firing drones. These low cost drones, they're described, they cost about US$35,000 to make. So relatively speaking that's low cost for a military piece of hardware. And they're launching them at Iran, so firing back at Iran. The same kind of weapon that Iran has been using to, is using now and which Vladimir Putin has been using to fire on the Ukrainians.
- [24:19]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah, and actually one military analyst said to me that using a million dollar Patriot to shoot down a $50,000 Shahid is insane. So they need to find alternative ways to deal with this. Richard, before we go, I just wanted to share a conversation I was having with someone from the Israeli security establishment and they described it as, as this scenario not being regime changed. Even before the strikes were launched on Saturday, they said regime change was just not something that they thought was possible. Unless there is a major surprise over the course of the next few weeks, there will be no regime change in Iran. They described it in a way that we've heard about other places that Israel has targeted. Mowing the lawn. So smashing everything for a few weeks, going away and then perhaps coming back in six months, nine months, just as we seen. I mean the, the 12 day war was eight months ago, just as we saw then. And then when, you know, the Iranians basically re emerged and, and regrouped and re established themselves, they've come back to, to mow the lawn again and they expect to basically do it that way for the foreseeable future.
- [25:31]
Richard Pallardy
Oh my gosh, Elda, I, I'm not easily depressed. You're leaving me terribly depressed. So the idea is not even to try and have regime change. It is just to have a constant war, to have regime failure. And then when the Iranian government tries to reconstitute, you launch another war and knock it down again. So a series of wars to keep it in a constant state of failure. That's really the strategy they thought this was telling you was going to be a successful strategy.
- [26:02]
Yalda Hakim
Well, it's kind of Gaza pre 2023 and it's what they're doing in Lebanon at the moment. They decapitated Hezbollah and they go in and control the and take out Hezbollah leaders where they feel they need to. And Iran will just be another theater that turns into that. So if the regime regroups, rearms and becomes a threat again to Israel, they have air superiority. We've seen that now over the 12 day war and this time round. And they will continue to take them out and decapitate the leadership.
- [26:34]
Richard Pallardy
Okay, so let's leave it on that and all of our listeners who are of age will probably want to know how go have a stiff drink right now. But hey, these are difficult times. We have conflict from the Mediterranean, if you include Russia and Ukraine, almost all the way to the Pacific. A world at war. So much to talk about. Thank you all for your questions. We're going to be getting to more of them. We're going to be doing more bonus episodes. Please keep writing in the email. Once again, is the world at Sky UK? Or leave a comment on our YouTube channel, which you should all subscribe to.
- [27:12]
Yalda Hakim
Richard, really good to see you and thank you to our listeners for listening.
- [27:15]
Richard Pallardy
Thank you. Great to see you as always. Yelda.
- [27:27]
Iranian Official / Military Voice
Your country's in big trouble.
- [27:28]
Neil Patterson
The world is a pretty confusing place right now.
- [27:31]
US Military Official / Pete Hegseth
How long have you known about Andrew and X?
- [27:35]
Neil Patterson
I'm Neil Patterson and after 20 years reporting and presenting for Sky News, one thing's become clear. People don't just want to know what's happened, they want to know why. Our new daily podcast takes one story at a Time, explains what's really going on and why you need to know. This is why. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.