RESOURCES:
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
TRANSCRIPTION:
Caroline MacGregor: This is 89.1 WEMU. I'm Caroline MacGregor. And today, we are going to be talking about the events that happened over the weekend when the U.S. and Israel launched an offensive against Iran. It has now widely been reported that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been killed. Iranian officials are reported to have already formed some sort of transitional council to lead the country following the killing of their supreme leader. We've also heard that there has been confirmation that three U.S. service members have been killed. Clearly, they have been striking back, and it's a dynamic situation that's changing rapidly. With me today to discuss these escalating operations is Javed Ali. He's an associate professor at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, where he teaches courses on counter-terrorism and domestic terrorism, in addition to cybersecurity and national security law and policy. Thank you, Javed, for joining us today!
Dr. Javed Ali: Caroline, nice to be with you!
Caroline MacGregor: First of all, were you surprised this escalated so quickly into attacks following the failed talks in Oman and Geneva?
Dr. Javed Ali: So, Caroline, I have been watching these developments pretty closely for the past several weeks and have given a lot of media commentary, even in the run-up to this weekend. And throughout that commentary, I kept saying that the moment where the perception from the White House, where diplomacy is stalling out or it's not delivering results or the audience aren't taking it seriously, that then exponentially increases the prospects for military campaign, which the U.S. over this stretch of time has positioned to carry out a very significant campaign to aircraft carrier strike groups, hundreds of other additional planes sent to the region. And that's on top of the existing presence of 35,000 U.S. troops and personnel scattered around 13 different bases in the region, so tremendous amount of capability. So, I was always making this assessment that President Trump's patience was going to wear out. It did. There was a tremendous amount of military capability in the region. There is. And that once that order was given by President Trump to initiate a campaign, that it was going to be significant. And unlike anything we have seen the U.S. conduct against Iran in the past, even with the strike against Qasem Soleimani in January 2020 and the operation Midnight Hammer last summer. So, that's what has unfolded over these last 24-plus hours. So, none of it surprised me because I was making that assessment. On the flip side, I had also assess once this very significant U.S. and now Israeli campaign begins that Iran is not going to be restrained the way they were in January 2020 and last summer as well. And we have seen that Iran immediately broadened the scope of the conflict by targeting Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, I believe was also targeted, Kuwait, UAE. So, Iran, because of the pressure they're under the fact that the Supreme Leader has now been killed and other senior Iranian officials, either at the political level or within the Islamic Revolution or Guard Corps, this is an existential fight for the current regime. And then, I wrote about all these assessments at a piece that came out in the conversation yesterday. So, all my analysis had sort of been tracking up until yesterday. And then, the written piece I've put out yesterday, I think, sort of clarified where we are in this current moment.
Caroline MacGregor: A lot of people are obviously quite taken aback by this attack. There are those who are all for it. They understand the given reasons for it, but there's many also in the U.S. and elsewhere who are now legitimately concerned about retaliatory attacks. As you stated in your written piece, we don't know about the state of Iran's ballistic missile capabilities. You mentioned that they've been degraded. And, of course, with the potential for future terrorism, it's certainly a very concerning situation for everyone.
Dr. Javed Ali: So, Iran's ballistic missile and cruise missile and drone capabilities were significant up until last summer, and then in Israel's 12-day war, they destroyed and damaged a significant portion of that, and Iran also used a significant portion of it. Even on the ballistic missile side, Iran launched about 600 ballistic missiles against just Israel alone last year, so you have to try and do the math on that. But at the same time, there was media reporting, very recently in The New York Times, despite all the losses they suffered last year and the weapons they used, that, even on the ballistic missile front, they had managed to replenish some aspect of that inventory and still had a significant amount of it, probably in the several thousands of ballistic missiles. And I would assess an equal amount of cruise missiles and probably a higher amount of drones. And now we're seeing Iran use those, but not just against Israel, against this broad set of targets in the region. Again, this is a fungible resource that every time Iran uses a ballistic missile or cruise missile or drone, they lose it. And now, their production facilities are being targeted. The launchers themselves are being tracked and targeted. So, this is not an inexhaustible supply for Iran. And they could probably only keep firing at the rates they're firing now for a few more weeks, maybe a little bit longer than that. On the terrorism side, this is something that I used to follow very closely in my government career when it came to Iran and its partners in the region, most specifically Lebanese Hezbollah, this is where things can get very dangerous. And Iran has not used that capability, at least recently, against Israel or the U.S., but the capability is there, but that threat gets amplified exponentially by using the different partners in Iran's so-called "axis of resistance." And that closest partnership for terrorism has always been with Hezbollah. So, is now the time that Hezbollah and the Quds Force are actively plotting terrorist attacks against U.S. and Israeli or Jewish interests in the region and around the world? I would think that probability is higher now than it was 24 hours ago. It doesn't mean an attack is going to happen, but that's the kind of potential and capability that is there. And if a terrorist attack occurs, that's where things could also escalate very quickly and get very dangerous.
Caroline MacGregor: President Trump did not receive prior authorization from Congress for these attacks, and he since released some statements to the people of Iran saying their hour of freedom is at hand. There are those who celebrate this but also people who don't trust President Trump. So, what does this mean for the people of Iran and the regime change putting new leaders into place?
Dr. Javed Ali: So, the legal and the policy side here in the U.S. that, you rightly noted, there is no congressional authorization to use force against Iran, much like there was in 2002 when Congress gave President Bush an authorization to use military force against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. So, that doesn't exist on paper. And on the flip side, Congress has not declared war against Iran either. So, as I wrote in my article in the conversation yesterday, what I imagine has happened is that lawyers inside the White House have made the judgment that the President can initiate this military campaign under standing powers as commander in chief under Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution and, at least right now, does not need congressional approval. At the same time, that has triggered a 60-day requirement under the 1973 War Powers Act. So, if the U.S. is still engaged in hostilities against Iran two months from now, and these airstrikes are clearly hostilities, that that will come to some kind of decision point between the White House and Congress in terms of congressional declaration or authorization or cessation of hostilities. Turning to your question about what does this mean for the people of Iran, we're still in the early days of this. And as you noted, even with the death of the Supreme Leader yesterday, which was a major development, the Iranians have already named interim leaders to fill either the Supreme Leader's position or other senior folks in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. There is always a next-man-up philosophy, and that is what has happened over the last 24 hours. It also means these people are going to be targeted going forward, too. But Iran has a very deep bench of people who were in the Supreme Leader's inner circle, who understand what he was thinking and had been around him for decades. So, there's no shortage of people who could rise up. Will they be as capable? Will they have the same kind of vision Ali Khamenei did? But the regime has not collapsed, and it is still intact. And so, when President Trump says the hour is now for the Iranian people to rise up, that's a very risky proposition for them because two months ago, when Iranians were protesting and mobilizing the streets, we saw the ferocity of the regime's crackdown--thousands killed and probably just as many captured and arrested.
Caroline MacGregor: There's clearly deep divisions in Iran, but here in the U.S., we've seen people both celebrating and protesting, just like in other countries around the world. Everybody's asking about oil, how it's going to affect prices. The economy in general, there's a multitude of flights being affected, canceled. What are your thoughts on the consequences the whole world is going to experience?
Dr. Javed Ali: Wars are always fluid and dynamic, and nothing ever goes according to plan. And these kind of conflicts are relatively easy to start. I don't say that lightly, but it's always difficult to know when is the right time also to end or how do you know when you've achieved your objectives or what does victory look like? These are all things the White House has to consider right now. But the capabilities are there for the United States to continue this type of error-directed campaign for quite a long period of time. Is there the appetite though within the White House to do that? That's unclear. How high will the cost be that Iran imposes to change that calculus? And then, the ripple effects that you talked about, the economic ones, the diplomatic ones. The stock market is probably going to be very jittery tomorrow. The price of gas will probably rise significantly. So, these are all things that will happen when you have military conflict between Iran and the U.S. and now Israel expanding into other countries, and no one knows when this is going to end and how bad it's going to get. And it could get worse, so this is just the reality we're all facing. I think, if anything, we just have to watch this day by day and try not to get too far in front of the developments. This is going have global ramifications.
Caroline MacGregor: I've been speaking with Javed Ali. He's an associate professor of practice at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Thank you so much for joining us today!
Dr. Javed Ali: Thank you, Caroline!
Caroline MacGregor: This is 89.1 WEMU FM Ypsilanti.
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