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Unholy: Two Jews on the News
Iran War: What Comes Next - with Dr Suzanne Maloney
00:41:21
Forty days of war with Iran. Four weeks of an uneasy ceasefire. And one verdict that nobody in Washington wants to say out loud: the Islamic Republic came out of this stronger. Dr. Suzanne Maloney, Vice President of the Brookings Institution's foreign policy program and one of America's most trusted voices on Iran, joins Yonit and Jonathan as US warships attempt to escort vessels through a Strait of Hormuz that Iran still effectively controls. They get into whether the ceasefire can hold, why the nuclear threat was never really addressed, who is actually making decisions inside Tehran now that the supreme leader is gone, and what a realistic deal — if one exists — might look like. Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/D_P_lca1OzQ
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- [00:00]
A
Yanni it's unholy. I'm Yanit Levi in Tel Aviv.
- [00:03]
B
And I'm Jonathan Friedland in London.
- [00:06]
A
And it's 8:30am in Washington, 3:30pm in Israel, 4pm in Tehran. We are, it seems, on the brink of war again. Four weeks after President Trump declared a ceasefire with Iran. These are the latest developments. The US President significantly raised the temperature in the Gulf with his decision to send warships to escort trading ships crossing the Hormuz Strait. The this coming after weeks of Iran essentially refusing to sit at the negotiation table, Iranians responded to the US Escalation by firing missiles at the United Arab Emirates, not at Israel. Here to break all this down is Dr. Suzanne Maloney, one of America's foremost authorities on Iran, the vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institute focusing on Iran and Persian Gulf energy. She's advised both Democratic and Republican administrations on Iran policy and the person we always turn to take to know what's actually going on inside Iran and towards Iran. Suzanne, thank you so much for talking to us on Unholy today.
- [01:02]
C
I'm always glad to be back with you.
- [01:03]
B
Unit And Jonathan, very, very good to see you again. And as we're speaking, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth alongside general the man they call raising Cain are briefing reporters on where things are. But one thing I've just wanted to pick up on that Yonit mentioned there about this decision of the US President to send warships to escort shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. We're going to get into the politics of it, obviously, but just purely as a practical matter, and you know the geography as well as anybody, just purely practically, is this something that can be done? Can the United States or any foreign actor open up the strait by force in this way? And what do you think? Because again, you know this regime so well, what do you think they, the Iranians would be likely to do in order to stop Trump opening up the strait in this way?
- [02:01]
C
Well, it's a very interesting operation that the president announced over the weekend and that we saw go into effect just yesterday. It's not strictly an escort mission. It is in fact, the announcement was that the United States would guide ships that were stuck in the Gulf unable to transit out through the Strait of Hormuz to the lanes that were those that are not mined, where the Iranians have less access and where they could pass safely. And at least as of today, I believe two ships have in fact made that route successfully. But of course, the decision to announce this mission was re. Was responded to by the Iranians with force. They struck the United Arab Emirates. And, and they are, you know, I think, very much risking the ceasefire at this point in time, because what they want to do is to essentially keep the strait bottled up and prevent the normal transit so that they can maintain their leverage. The question, I think, is how many ships can the United States move through this way? And can we actually not just move those ships that have been stuck in the Gulf out of the. Through the strait, but actually bring in new tankers and, and resume the kind of normal pattern of anywhere from 130 to 160 ships transiting through the strait every single day? I don't think we have enough force in the region to do that. I think it's more likely that we're going to see another bout of violence before we actually get to a point at which the strait is fully open.
- [03:37]
A
So a little bit like those ships in the Hormuz Strait, we are. It feels kind of stuck, as you say. And you think that the next logical development here is actually another kind of cycle of violence between the two sides. There is no chance that at this point a negotiation could lead anywhere.
- [03:56]
C
Well, look, there's been a lot of diplomacy going on behind the scenes. Iranians appear to be quite active in terms of outreach to some of the interlocutors who have been trying to broker some sort of an agreement. Not just the Pakistanis, but also the Egyptians, the Saudis and others. We see that the Foreign Minister is now bound for Beijing. That is essentially on the eve of President Trump's much awaited and once postponed summit with Chairman Xi in Beijing. And so the Iranians are, in fact, I think, trying to bring about the conditions for some kind of an improvement in the situation. They must realize that essentially they can't go on forever like this. The blockade that the US has imposed to prevent Iran from Iranian ships from moving through the Gulf and essentially throttling all of Iran's seaborne trade is beginning to bite really hard for Iranians. And so they're looking for some kind of a way out. But the difficulty is that the Iranians aren't prepared to give very much. And they really do want to maintain some degree of sovereignty and control over the strait in perpetuity at this point. And that's a point I don't think they're prepared to compromise very much on. And so we haven't really been able to come up with a formula that is persuasive enough for the President to back away I think that we will continue to try, but I would not be optimistic.
- [05:22]
B
So again, because while we're speaking, General Kaine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Defense Secretary of Defense, self styled Secretary of War PX of the briefing is, it's interesting what they're saying is that on the one hand General Kaine has said, yeah, there have been these Iranian attacks, but they fall below the threshold of restarting major combat operations. Hegseth himself saying that the ceasefire is not over, you know, that this, what the Iranians have been doing, amounts to harassment rather than a full blown return to hostilities. Interested to know your take on that. But should we read into that a real reticence, a reluctance in Washington to move back into full combat operations to escalate and if that is right, that they don't want to, does that mean that even though we're all saying how difficult it is to bridge the positions between the two sides, there might be some way that they get to that because they both want to or certainly signs are that Washington wants to?
- [06:26]
C
Well, I think you're right. The President does not want to resume major combat operations for a variety of reasons, including the domestic politics of the matter. Just last week he pronounced the war terminated in order to alleviate pressure in Congress for a vote on the War Powers act, which is required after 60 days of hostilities in which the American military is engaged. And that debate is ongoing. But he's trying to thread the needle effectively there and enable requirements Republicans on the Hill not to be forced into a position to have to make a determination on whether to support or oppose the war that the President launched back in late February. He's also watching markets, I think, and obviously we have seen significant escalation in the price of gasoline in the United States. But it is still, you know, within the realm of the tolerable, at least for the broader economy. If this crisis goes on for another month or two or if we see a return to major combat oper, you know, the markets are likely to panic in part because we are now beginning to feel the supply disruption in the United States. It hit Asia first, it hit Europe. But for the United States, because of our own production and because of all the oil that was already on the water when the war began, we haven't really felt the actual physical supply constraints, but that's coming very soon. And the President wants to keep the markets calm. He wants to ensure that we don't see the escalation in gas prices, you know, become so sharp during the summer months that it really becomes a political issue for him coming into the midterm elections in the fall. And so I think it's very, very true that the United States would like to get to a diplomatic resolution of this situation. But, you know, the challenge that they have is the President went in with a number of war aims, some of which will not be achieved. One of those is the regime change that he announced on the first day of the war. But he does need to come out of this with some kind of set of arrangements around Iran's nuclear stockpile and its nuclear infrastructure that enable him to make good on what he's been proclaiming that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, that he is not going to be prepared to negotiate something that looks like the jcpoa. And he not only has to get those concessions from the Iranians, he has to get them to agree to some kind of tolerable arrangement in the Gulf that enables a return to normal transit. And that is something that I think that those two sets of concessions from the Iranians are going to demand a very high price and it puts the President in some political jeopardy.
- [09:04]
A
Before we get into that whole issue of regime change, which we obviously have a few questions to ask about, I am interested just on the negotiating level. I mean, who is calling the shots inside Iran now? So the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei is gone. Larry Jani is gone. Who is his right hand man? Is it, Is it indeed his son, Mujtabahomeenei? Who is, what do we know about him in the sense of how much he is in control? Is it Kalibaf? Is it, I mean, who is actually running the show, so to speak?
- [09:32]
C
It's always been run by a senior leadership group that has a high degree of consensus amongst them. And so it's never been a sort of one man show in terms of decision making in Iran. What we're hearing at this point is that Mujtaba is indeed alive. He appears to be grievously injured. He has not appeared in public, but he is deeply engaged. From what what we've read and heard. There have been some interesting reports in the New York Times and elsewhere about his condition and, and the fact that he is being kept away from the rest of the leadership for his own safety and presumably for whatever recuperation might be needed, makes it more difficult because they're trying to communicate through couriers and through methods that can't necessarily be intercepted by the exquisite intelligence capabilities that Israel Imprison Particular has demonstrated in Iran. That has slowed things down. And I Think there, you know, there are diversity of views always within the Iranian leadership, particularly at times of crisis. Mohammed Bakr Talibaf, who is a former Revolutionary Guards member, current speaker of the parliament, but obviously very directly engaged in not just the governance of the country, but the negotiations. There are a number of other senior officials, Vahidis Olcador, these are all people who are very, very hardline figures who are in senior decision making roles and they appear to be part of the senior echelon of officials who are making decisions. Abbas Arakchee is the longtime foreign minister and has been deeply engaged in the nuclear negotiations throughout the past decade. And he is the person who's doing most of the shuttle diplomacy right now. But we saw the talks that Islamabad Kaliba was sent. I think that was a very important, important signal that the leadership is that there is a degree of consensus amongst them, but also that the military is firmly in control.
- [11:28]
B
I mean, this point about the lack of clarity. Donald Trump has been saying this, this is just recently, I think overnight saying this is one of the big problems. Not just that we, there's a lack of authority, but there's kind of infighting. He suggests they're squabbling over the leadership and that makes it hard. I mean, I'm interested to know your take on that. But the, you know, let's say there was a single controlling authority and there was clarity. I'm, I'm interested to dig into where there could be some kind of meeting place between these two sides who are so far apart. You know, you've got a clear decision maker in Trump. Let's say there was an equivalent in Tehran. You spelt out before to us what, what the two huge sort of cards in a way Tehran hold both in the form of their nuclear program which they do not want to budge on. The enriched uranium which is still there, big sort of 900 pound lump of that that's just there. And then this economic nuclear weapon they have in terms of this chokehold on the global economy, would they, whoever's in charge, and I can see it's harder because hardliners seem to be in the ascendant. But could they back down on, you know, compromise on even just any part of those things? For example, on the straight of Hormuz, might they say, okay, it becomes a joint toll in which you, the United States get a share. I'm just, you know, think freewheeling here and similarly on nukes is, you know, there was some discussion when they met in Pakistan that Maybe it was 10 years, 15 year moratorium, the argument is then just about years and you can always compromise on that. Just, you know, is there a zone, a landing place here for these two sides that you, as a diplomat, you've advised presidents of both parties. If you were in the room, as it were, would you be able to see an area where these two sides can come together? Or is this really an impossible task?
- [13:28]
C
I don't think it's impossible, but it's a pretty tall order. I think that there is a zone of agreement that could exist and maybe even appears to exist around enrichment levels. The Iranians have, you know, essentially spent the past 25 years demanding the right to continue enriching uranium. That has great importance to this leadership and it's unlikely that they're going to give that up. But they're not currently enriching uranium, thanks to the success of the June War, the 12 Day War last year, and you know, some arrangement that extended that non enrichment despite withholding the right to enrich for a number of years, I think would be an improvement on the jcpoa, obviously, and that would be something that the President could trumpet. What that timeframe looks like, I think is the kind of issue that could be haggled over by both sides and probably come to some form of agreement. There are differing views from what we're hearing on how to dispose or handle the stockpile of highly enriched uranium. I think that there are many who would point to the fact that it's not just the HEU that we have to worry about. And that is a big problem because some of it is buried under the ground and would need to be extracted in a, in a fairly sensitive operation. But there's also a lot of low enriched uranium stockpiles that the Iranians have and we have to be concerned about that. Given what we're hearing from US and Israeli intelligence about the extent to which the program has been set back, it has been marginally set back since the, the June war by this current war. But we're not in a, a situation in which we can leave Iran in possession of the kind of material that with further reprocessing could give it nuclear fuel. So all of this is something that can be haggled over. I think, you know, we have a lot of experience with this. We, it's not clear we have the most experienced team from the United States doing the, the actual negotiations. I think that the broader challenge is this question of how to handle the strait because, you know, this is just something we've never dealt with before. It is an international waterway. But of course the strait is within Iran's territorial waters. And so they're, you know, they are demanding that retain the right to effectively manage all traffic through there. What a toll would look like, how that would be implemented. Could it be arranged as a kind of reconstruction fee for both sides of the Gulf? Could there even be an American profit incentive there? The President early in the war seemed to suggest he would be amenable to something like this. But you know, this is, has huge implications for the global economy and of course, for other strategic waterways around the world. And so I think that that in effect is probably the most difficult part of the negotiations, which is saying something because we've spent 20 plus years negotiating on the nuclear issue, indeed saying something.
- [16:28]
A
I want to maybe look back at those 40 days of intense war that of course affected this country, Israel and the region and affected Iran as well. I would like to quote to you things that Tamir Hyman, who is the head of IDFC military intelligence, a few years ago and also now in this current war, he was in reserve duty this week. He said on the nuclear issue, we barely touched it without something significant on the nuclear issue, whether an agreement or a strike, we're in a situation similar to the one in which we were when the war opened. He said if the operation was about removing threats, then the most significant threat is the nuclear threat. That threat was not addressed. So the whole question arises, what did we actually do here? And I wonder if you agree with what he says. And then the question still remains, what happened during those 40 days of war?
- [17:16]
C
I would wholly agree with Tamir's characterization of the extent to which we manifestly changed the status of the nuclear program. It was set back significantly last June. We have, I think, kind of done a little bit more damage over the course of this war, but it is not a sea change. It is not a sort of outcome where the President or anyone who is an informed observer of Iran's nuclear enterprise can say that this is a program that is completely shuttered and that the Iranians would not be in a position to rebuild and to reconstitute an industrial scale nuclear program. So I think that that remains a significant concern. You know, this is going to be a conflict that I think strategists study for a very long time. The misconceptions that went into the initial plan. You know, even though it was technically flawless in the early days, to see the, the, you know, ability to strike at particular targets within the leadership with such deep information, the ability to actually you know, follow and track the bodyguards of the senior leadership of the Islamic Republic. It's absolutely brilliant. But as I was speaking alongside General Mattis, who was, of course, the first secretary of defense in, in President Trump' and he pointed out that targeting is not strategy. And I think what we've found through this conflict is that the strategic aims of the war were not, in fact, matched with reality. And we still are, I think, struggling because we, you know, in order to deal now with the Strait of Hormuz, this is just a huge. It would be a huge undertaking to open militarily. And so I think, you know, across the board, there's really no option except for diplomacy. And, and at this point in time, the Iranians haven't been willing to concede as much as the president would need or like to be able to walk away with, with even the kind of image of some kind of victory.
- [19:25]
B
I mean, what you've just said there is pretty damning, but it's even worse than that, isn't it? Because it's not only that one problem has not been solved, the nuclear threat, this new and additional problem has been added. There is this other weapon that they didn't wield before, they could have done theoretically, but they didn't wield before and now do. And I'm talking about that economic chokehold. So you've got this situation, I mean, Marco Rubio, I think, said the other day that it is an economic nuclear weapon that the Iranians have now, which they didn't before. And so, putting it all together, is it your view that the Iranian regime strategically is stronger or weaker now than it was on February 27?
- [20:12]
C
At this moment, it's absolutely stronger. I would hesitate to predict where they will be in a year or two years, because we know that the damage to the country is quite significant. We know that the economy is reeling at this point in time. And, of course, Iranians were out in the streets in large numbers in January to demand regime change precisely because of the economic pain they were experiencing. So, you know, they are. The Islamic Republic remains firmly in control at this moment. And it has, you know, in effect, become empowered and emboldened by the conflict, both by elevating hardliners and accessing this new capability, something Iran had never actually done before, despite threats almost ritualistically at times of tensions, to close the Strait of Hormuz. That is something that the world is going to be dealing with for a very long time. And even if this were to end tomorrow, the tail of this crisis is going to be very long, because we know it's impacting not just oil and natural gas, but also all kinds of commodities, especially fertilizer, that flows normally through the Strait of Hormuz that will have an impact on global food prices, on agriculture. And we're just going to see this, you know, Hormuz tax essentially priced into everything that we buy for the foreseeable future.
- [21:33]
A
You say that they are stronger, but you don't know where they will be in a year or two. And when you talk to anyone in the defense echelon in this country, they will tell you that they're still optimistic that the regime will indeed collapse. Highly optimistic. Will say one year. The others will say three years. Is that still an option on the table?
- [21:52]
C
Look, we just don't know what the inner workings of the regime are like at this point in time. We don't know to what extent there. There is a viable plan forward past the war. And we also don't know if the regime can end the war in a way that is going to enable them to stay in power. I think that, you know, one of the questions I continue to have is whether they're going to be tempted to overreach just to maintain control of the Strait as long as they possibly can until the entire world, including potentially the Chinese, come to the conclusion that this simply cannot. They cannot abide by this. And, you know, we've seen them do that in the past. At times of crisis, I think we have to hold out some expectation that things can change. But at this point in time, there's no clear pathway, there's no evident friction point that is going to bring down the regime. And of course, you know, we've been anticipating some possible change in Iran for 47 years, and almost every prediction has been too premature.
- [22:55]
B
Every prediction except yours. I have to say, Suzanne, because whenever this subject comes up, I always remember your words to us long before February 28th, when you said, if attacked, this regime will simply replace itself. And that sentence, I think, was entirely precinct. And I think to myself, the war planners only had to listen to you on unholy. And they wouldn't have made this terrible mistake because the warning was there loud and clear. But just on this point, about the one year or three years and the possible falling of this regime, the agent for that, this sort of active pressure for that would have to be from the Iranian people themselves. And I just wonder what you're picking up, sources you read and the things that come across your desk about the state of the Iranian opposition. There was A thought that actually almost if nothing had happened, they would have given it another push after the terrible massacres in early, early January, should we assume that the street process protests that we saw in January would resume the moment the war finishes? Has that movement been quelled, terrified, and therefore on some level destroyed? Or is it there? What is the state of the Iranian opposition as you read it?
- [24:10]
C
Unfortunately, I think even as they've been emboldened on the regional stage, the regime has also been careful to try to crack down at home and to ensure that there is no opportunity or license for dissent or any kind of mobilization on the streets. They've continued executing those who were arrested during the January protests. They have put other dissidents behind bars. Nargis Mohammadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 6th of 2023, is currently not simply imprisoned, but also experiencing very, very dangerous health conditions. And we don't know about her state at this point. So it has been, I think, a huge setback, this war, for any prospect of near term unrest or near term mobilization against the regime itself. You know, I think unfortunately, some of the diaspora activists have also been to some extent discredited because they appeared to come out early in support of the war. And there I'm thinking of Reza Pahlavi, the erstwhile crown prince, who, who certainly has been a source of inspiration for many Iranians, especially during the most recent protests. But I think what we've seen over the course of the war is his somewhat mixed position toward the war itself has probably left him in a weaker position, certainly in terms of being able to connect with people on the ground who are experiencing not just the horrors of the conflict, but also this horrific repression by the regime and are unlikely to be sympathetic to those who were perhaps cheering on the initial strikes.
- [25:53]
A
I'm tempted not to do this, but I will ask what do you think went wrong then? Because again, when you speak to Israelis here, they will say that there was a plan, parts of it didn't actually transpire because the Kurds, an insinuation that Erdogan stopped Trump from giving a go ahead to the Kurds and all other manners of things that didn't actually happen. What do you think went wrong in this 40 day war?
- [26:19]
C
I think it was just a fundamental misconception by the President of the United States. I think there is already a temptation to try to pin the failure on an overly eager and overly ambitious Israeli prime minister. I don't think that that's necessarily fair or accurate. I think what we have is A president who became enamored of his ability to use force quickly, decisively, in limited fashion and achieve spectacular ends, or at least not find himself in a quagmire of his own making until this very moment. And I think, in effect, we saw him first get on social media about the Iranian protests just in the hours before the operation in Venezuela was undertaken. And I think that the success of that operation, the sympathy that the world had for the Iranian protesters on the street, as well as, you know, his. His sense that he could essentially do no wrong at this point in time, gave President Trump the. The idea he could go off on a very ambitious undertaking, something that every president had been prepared to do under certain circumstances, but understood was not going to be a silver bullet or an easy conflict. And he dismissed all of that. I think the other. And here again, I would lay blame here in Washington, the other issue is that the president has not surrounded himself as he did during the early years of his first term, with people who are prepared to push back, to even threaten to resign if they disagree with the decision. And I've heard from many who are talking to the senior echelons of the White House that, you know, senior officials in this administration see their role as providing the president with options, and he is the decider. That is not how a healthy national security bureaucracy operates. There needs to be cabinet officials who understand their brief and are prepared to give the president the best advice at that moment for U.S. interests. And in this case, they did not.
- [28:20]
B
I wanted to go a bit global on this because, you know, the vantage point here in London is relevant, which is just in the last few hours today, there's been another reported, we don't know the details. Attempted arson attack on a synagogue in East London last week. There was two men stabbed in a Jewish neighborhood of North London. String of attempted arson and arson and attacks on Jewish buildings and targets in Britain and claims of responsibility from a group that appears to be allied to Iran. And there are at least some indications that the hand of Iran might be behind these attacks. I'm curious to know whether you think this would fit the mo, the modus operandi of Iran, for it to be staging these attacks, recruiting people on the ground, sometimes with people with histories of mental instability or criminal records, to attack Jewish targets, not Israeli targets, I stress, but Jewish targets, to do it at night so it doesn't seem as if the obvious intention is loss of life. There was this different thing last week, you know, the MO of these people and which bit of the Iranian state might Be involved. What's your take on it in Britain?
- [29:37]
C
Biddle sales with well, we know that Iran has a long history of recruiting, as you say, ne' er do wells, people with mental illness, people who are associated with criminal gangs to try to harass opponents of the regime or even to target former officials who might have been involved with policies that the regime did not like. So I think it's entirely consistent what you describe as happening over the course of recent weeks in London with something that could be connected to the Iranians. But of course, Iranians also are deeply involved, the regime, at least in stoking antisemitism around the world. This is a huge aspect of their ideological worldview and has been consistent for the past 47 years. So one way or another, or perhaps in both, both in terms of stoking antisemitism and in fact, arming and inciting deranged individuals to commit attacks on both individual targets and institutional targets, the Iranians have responsibility for the climate that's been created in the UK and also, I would note, in the United States as well.
- [30:51]
B
And just from the point of view of their own interests, we get that they are implacably opposed to what they call the Zionist regime and the Zionist entity. But from their point of view, what is gained for them by attacking a synagogue in East London?
- [31:09]
C
Unfortunately, the Iranian regime believes that the west is doomed to fail, and they have latched upon different movements at different points in times as evidence that the governments, the democratic governments in the United States and Europe are illegitimate and bound to collapse at some point. They have often, you know, sort of invoked the cause of those around the world who don't have access to resources as a kind of broader sense of their own revolution, which was very heavily influenced by some Marxist ideology in the 1970s. And so it would. It would be consistent with the Iranian regime worldview to try to undermine, create chaos, create public dissolution, and really just simply to try to make Western societies appear as chaotic and as violent as possible.
- [32:10]
A
Can I ask one thing about the irgc? Because in one of these endless broadcasts that we've had on during the war, one of the people who knows Iran well told me that of course there's. There's a core of people who are part of the IRC and protect the regime, but there are like millions who hold a card for the ijrc. They're part of a club or part of, you know, membership that gives them all kinds of perks. He said. It's a whole net of people. Can you talk a Little bit about how entrenched they are in Iranian society today, perhaps more than ever.
- [32:43]
C
Well, the Revolutionary Guard was created in the aftermath of the revolution and as a kind of parallel military. But of course, over the course of the war with Iraq, it became completely integrated into the state. Iranian, you know, the Revolutionary Guard includes conscripts, so it will include ordinary people who are simply drafted into that role. But at the highest echelons, the, the Revolutionary Guard has been deeply involved with Iran's economy since the, the end of the war with Iraq, so for about 30 plus years, and has developed a, you know, an intense industrial and economic powerhouse across the country. And many of its senior commanders have become quite wealthy. So it is, you know, it is once a military, but also an economic force and also, I think the, the kind of backbone of the crony capitalist state that is the Iranian economy.
- [33:41]
B
So kind of like the, the role that the pla, the Chinese army plays in China, or the old nomenclature in the old Soviet Union, where it's part politics, part money, part who, you know, Exactly.
- [33:56]
C
That's exactly how Iran has operated. And I think that the role of the Revolutionary Guard and the control over the economy is only going to be strengthened as a result of this war and the fact that they now really have the upper hand within the regime itself. There's always been a kind of symbiotic relationship between the clergy who were kind of formally the leadership, and that is still, at least with Mujtaba, still the case. But I think we see front and center. It is the Revolutionary Guard, in many cases a generation who did fight in the war with Iraq and now have risen to senior positions and have also amassed considerable empires. That's often said about Qali Baf and a number of others who are still standing, as well as some of those who were targeted in the early days of the conflict.
- [34:42]
A
So we are, after 40 days of war, four weeks of a ceasefire. How do you think this ends? As we kind of sit here at the beginning of May 2026, how does this current situation end? And just in general, where are we heading from now?
- [34:59]
C
I think it ends with the Islamic Republic still in power in Iran, still very much emboldened and probably in a better economic position as a result of whatever kind of arrangements we are, we might be able to secure that reopens the strait to normal traffic. I think that will take months, if not years to actually achieve in reality. But simply the agreement itself is going to be important to essentially provide some confidence to the global economy. I think we'll also see, as we're already beginning to see, an investment on the part of some of the Gulf states, both in the strategic relationship with Israel, but also in alternative routes. The Saudis, of course, have been the best protected because they have the Red Sea alternative. And I would expect that we'll see the Emiratis and others look for to invest and build up their infrastructure so that they are not as beholden to ships moving through the Gulf. That's not going to help the Kuwaitis, it's not going to help the Qataris. But they're, you know, they will all be looking for ways to be more resilient because they are going to have to live with this regime on their, in their neighborhoods for the foreseeable future.
- [36:11]
B
And that means they will have less cash in their coffers to spend, for example, on the reconstruction of Gaza, which was something that was envisaged that the Gulf countries would foot that very big bill for the rebuild of Gaza after the devastation of the last couple of years. They're not going to have the money to do that, are they? They're going to be preoccupied with their home front, as it were.
- [36:35]
C
I think that's true. I mean, look, they're still very, very wealthy states, but they're going to have domestic priorities that loom much larger. We've already seen the Saudis essentially claw back a major gift to an American institution and I think we'll see more of that, that simply the ability of essentially the west to often go, we call it tin cupping in government, often officials going to the Gulf looking for support for whatever crisis du jour. It's always been a strain, it's always the region kind of resents, but they simply won't have the ability to pivot and direct as much of their largess to other crises. And I think, you know, the domestic priorities are going to be absolutely at the top of the list because, you know, their long term economic transformation is also threatened by the war and by the continuation of a hardline, radical, violent regime in Tehran. The Saudis, the Emiratis especially were investing in technology, bringing, seeking to build big data centers in cooperation, frankly, with the President and his family and their private sector activities. I don't know how viable all of that is going to be if it can be destroyed with an Iranian drone.
- [37:51]
A
A lot of open questions, but you made us smarter as always. Dr. Suzanne Maloney, not much more optimistic, but definitely smarter. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.
- [38:02]
C
Well, thank you.
- [38:08]
B
Well, as you said, it is Always enlightening to speak with Suzanne Maloney. And like I said then, I really wasn't making it up. I mean, the number of times I have had either quoted back to me or I have quoted back to them, people from Suzanne saying this regime will simply replace itself. That was a warning she gave on unholy long before this war started or before we knew it would start. And I, as you know, I think it would have been sound and wise for people to heed that decapitation was not going to work, she said. And I just think she's a very, you know, she's not a kind of polemical figure. She's not a partisan figure. And yet in her very sober, very well informed assessment, she's telling us that as of now, may not be forever, but the regime in Tehran has been left strengthened by this war, not weakened. And that is that, you know, that is sober at the very least.
- [39:01]
A
I mean, it's always so good to talk to her. And as difficult as it is for a country who went through 40 days of war and not the only country in this region, obviously, that went through those days of war, to hear the fact that she assesses that the regime is stronger than it was before isn't an easy thing to process. But I think it's important to look at it with sober eyes. I think it was fascinating the way that she said it was Trump who was in love with the idea of regime change. It wasn't the Israeli prime minister that pulled him in that direction, although there's many people in Washington who say the opposite. I think it's important to listen to her voice on that. The fact that you said that Reza Pahlavi, who was looked at as someone who would be the kind of leader of opposition, is very much weakened by this war. Very interesting tectonic shift. So we probably don't, you know, we're just seeing the tip of them. But it's really fascinating to hear her
- [39:53]
B
very, very much just on that point about the did Netanyahu, you know, bring somehow trick Donald Trump into this war? You know, you listen to Tucker Carlson, recent interview with the New York Times, more or less saying that, that he casting Donald Trump as this sort of bewitched figure. And she's saying, look, no, Donald Trump had his own reasons. And that fits always, I have to say with my own intuition, which is Donald Trump is a grown up, he's a big figure. He, he, he, you know, makes up his own mind. Other thing to notice. I thought she said China could be the player that eventually says enough's enough here, that if global traffic, particularly traffic it relies on, is impeded through the Iranian blockage of the Straits, for me it may be Beijing that finally blows the whistle and says enough's enough. So things to look out for. Really enlightening overview from from Suzanne Maloney. And yes, dispiriting to hear that what we are witnessing here in London is may well indeed be absolutely would fit with the handiwork of the Iranian state, spreading mayhem and chaos and hate all across the world. So lots there for us to think on. We will be back with a regular episode at the end of the week and I suppose we have our thank yous.
- [41:13]
A
As always, a big thank you to Michal Porat as usual. And indeed we will meet on Friday. Jonathan as usual show.
- [41:21]
B
See you then.