War on Iran

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For short time ago,

the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.

This weekend, after several weeks of threats and tense negotiations,

the US and Israel began a war with Iran.

The developments have been seismic,

from the assassination of Iran's supreme leader

to Iran's retaliatory attacks on neighboring Gulf states.

To unpack this moment, what led to it

and go through with the future of the Middle East

could look like in the aftermath,

I am joined by Valley Nasser,

Professor of International Affairs in Middle East Studies

at the John Hopkins University School

of Advanced International Studies,

and the author of Iran's grand strategy,

a political history.

Valley, thank you so much for coming on to the show.

Really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me. It's good to be with you.

There is, of course, a lot to unpack from the last couple of days,

but I want to start with the most consequential development,

which is the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He was killed in his compound on Saturday

and the US is really joined attack.

And just how major is this event?

It is a very consequential.

First of all, because it was the reason why I think President Trump was very interested

in this war, because he thought that if you killed the Iran's supreme leader,

that then the regime in Iran would fall or would change significantly.

The president announcing Khamenei's death

in a lengthy social media post just now,

I want to read through you to you what the president is saying.

He says, Khamenei, one of the most evil people in history is dead.

This is not only justice for the people of Iran,

but for all great Americans and those people

from many countries throughout the world

that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his king.

So for him, I think the real war aim was killing of Khamenei,

which happened right at the outset of the war.

For Iran, it's a very major development.

I mean, Khamenei has ruled Iran for 36 years as its supreme leader.

That makes in the third longest running leader of Iran since the mid-19th century.

So what is today the Islamic Republic, its worldview,

its attitude towards this population, the structure of the state,

everything is really his imprint.

He served two terms as president in the 1980s

before becoming supreme leader after the 1989 death of Ayatollah Khamenei.

Early on, he expanded the Shiite clerical class

and empowered the revolutionary guard.

He shifted Iran from conventional warfare to supporting proxy forces,

Hezbollah in Lebanon,

Houthi rebels in Yemen,

Hamas in Gaza,

and support for former President Bashar Assad in Syria.

He held a deep...

He didn't rule as an absolute ruler

the way we see in some Arab countries or some other countries developing countries,

but the system as a whole basically followed his lead,

particularly on issues of foreign policy,

postures towards America, posture towards the region.

So his removal is a major turning point for Iran and for the region.

I want to come back to what it means for the regime,

but just first...

What did you make of the fact that he was located and killed in his compound

instead of like a safe house somewhere?

It was quite a surprise that he chose to be in his office,

in his compound, not in a hideout, not in a bunker,

particularly at a moment where an American attack,

an American Israeli attack looked imminent,

which to me suggests that he was preparing himself for this moment,

that he didn't want to die in a bunker,

he didn't want to die looking like he was hunkering down

or trying to evade death.

He actually embraced it.

It was a martyrdom, if you would,

in a cause that he had fought for most of his life

and definitely had made it the cause of Iran

during the his time as supreme leader.

And I think he was comfortable in the sense that he had prepared the system

to function without him,

that decapitation would not mean the end of the regime.

And so he essentially, in a way,

I don't want to say welcome that, but he was prepared for it.

And just tell me more about how the regime

has prepared for this moment.

I mean, generally the Islamic Republic from the get-go

was not created or didn't strive for popularity.

It was created for resilience.

I mean, as soon as the revolution happened,

Iran found itself in war with Iraq,

there was a campaign of assassination of many of its early leaders,

President, Prime Minister, large numbers of its senior revolutionary leaders.

So it basically evolved as a state

which has many nodes of power,

which has a delegative authority.

It has different institutions, economic, legal, and political,

each with a great deal of authority,

all of whom work through the supreme leader,

but often operated independently,

not just rivaling one another,

but actually with decision-making capability.

And this kind of structure was very evident,

even in the June war,

when Israel surprised Iran by killing 30 revolutionary guard commanders, 30 plus.

Israel launched its most brazen and far-reaching attack on Iran,

hitting nuclear and military targets,

but also airports and residential areas.

According to Iranian state media, at least 78 Iranians have been killed,

including three top generals and several nuclear scientists.

And yet, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was able to engage in the war

and retaliate against Israel. It didn't collapse.

Iranian ballistic missiles.

Some of them piercing Israel's missile defense.

And between June of 2025 and the start of this war,

Iran did even more to disperse authority,

create redundancies, create more nodes of power,

and the supreme leader delegated a lot of operational day-to-day decision-making

to this structure.

So, in a way, the system can go on without its head.

Harmony was not indispensable to the state functioning.

What about these other high-ranking officials that have

reportedly been killed, including the Army Chief of Staff?

What impact will this have?

Not much, I think, because these figures were actually only in these posts since June of 2025.

Their predecessors had been there much longer and were more important statesmen slash generals.

Their elimination did not really hamper Iran's ability to engage in war with Israel.

And so, I think these ones are more dispensable than the ones were in June.

And again, the Revolutionary Guard's Iran's military is now built to function with decapitation.

No, decapitation has been taken on board in the Islamic Republic

as something that it has to prepare for and plan around.

Now, it cannot do this indefinitely.

At some point, you have a threshold is crossed where the system cannot work.

But that threshold has been made to be much, much higher than it is for other states.

I wonder if you could tell me more about some of the other targets that we have seen

the U.S. and Israeli air strikes hit.

Of course, that school over 150 people have been killed so far, including many children.

The aggressors have also targeted a school in the city of Minab,

who are most gone, prevents killing more than 100 children.

The number of innocent civilians continues to rise.

As it appears, the school is in session at the time.

The scenes from that have been gut-wrenching, blood-stained,

backpats, parents screaming at the site of destruction.

Which is what else have we seen from these strikes?

So, we can only go by reports that either the U.S. or Israel are putting out

or what at least is coming out of Iran in spurts because of the internet shutdowns that it's

experiencing. It's very clear that the first wave of attacks was directed at killing

the leaders of the Islamic Republic.

In fact, perhaps the attack came when it did in daytime

was to surprise the leaders that might have expected an attack at night.

And also, the first day of the week in Iran that they would all be in their offices,

they would look more likely to be reached by the missiles that were sent in.

So, the first wave was designed at killing key people, including Khamenei.

I think after that, they have targeted a lot Iran's air defense systems.

And then they're probably going after Iran's missile capabilities,

which are very important to Iran's ability to retaliate missiles and drones.

And then, thirdly, finally, I think they have started going after

the regime's capability to manage inside the country.

Bases were police, this force, it's just called the Basit, which is used to suppress

population and uprisings and right control, et cetera, that they have been hit.

Bases of the revolutionary guards have been hit, which is to sort of incapacitate the regime,

not only to wage war against United States and Israel, but also to be able to suppress any

kinds of domestic dissent to be able to police the population.

Trump just posted that the U.S. has sung nine Iranian naval ship and ships, and what's the

significance of that? I think that's important too, and that's that has been on the target,

because this time around, there is worry that Iran could use these naval ships to either

close the streets of Hormuz or to hit tankers, which it has done already, and that it is to

degrade Iran's ability, Iran's Iranian naval forces' ability to actually either attack U.S.

naval assets in the Gulf or to attack tankers or to be able to close the streets of Hormuz.

So it's to take away from Iran the ability to use attacking energy supply chain as a way

of putting pressure on the United States and global energy prices.

To dig a little deeper into that, the state of Hormuz has been severely restricted because

of these events, and could you walk me through more of its significance as the world watches with

oil prices? So the streets of Hormuz is a very narrow waterway, a bottleneck that connects

the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea, which then goes on into the Indian Ocean. Now most of

Middle East oil is produced at the end of the Persian Gulf, on its western dead end,

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, even Iran, and all of that oil for it to come, and even some of

the oil of UAE, the gas of Qatar, they're all sort of on the west side of the streets of Hormuz,

deep inside Persian Gulf. So all of that for it to get on tankers to be able to get on the

world markets has to pass through the streets of Hormuz and get into the Arabian Sea and the

Indian Ocean. Now the northern part of the streets of Hormuz is Iran, the southern part of it is

UAE. It's a very narrow waterway, and it's not very difficult to close it down, either by

deploying ships that would prevent tankers and other commercial ships to actually get through,

or by actually trying to sink a large tanker or a number of ships at choke points that then

does not allow large tankers to be able to get through the streets. Because of the world's

dependence on oil, ever since the 1970s, it is an incredibly important strategic waterway.

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you get your podcasts. Iran has retaliated by attacking Israel in a number of Gulf cities

in the region that are home to US military bases. First, we saw strikes on those bases themselves,

but later on, we saw strikes on tourist centers like Dubai and Abu Dhabi, targeting hotels,

and the Dubai International Airport as well. And what are Iran's aims here? What is it trying

to do right now? Well, I think at one level, it's trying to signal that it's part of its defense

strategy and deterrence against the United States to say that this war will not remain between

Israel, US, and Iran. There is going to become a regional war. And a regional war does not mean

that only that Iran's proxies are going to join, like Hezbollah, Houthis, Iraqi militias,

but that also that Iran will fight the United States on the soil of the rest of the region.

And I think partly it is to increase risk and cost to the United States. So when the United

States calculates what are the risks and potential costs of attacking Iran, it may not have calculated

what does it mean if the Gulf is damaged greatly, if it's services business, if it's energy,

if it's infrastructure are also damaged. And therefore, the Iran's hope is that it will change

the calculation that the United States has in waging war against Iran, particularly in calculating

when is it that the United States should look for a ceasefire? When is it good enough?

They've killed harmony, they've destroyed Iran, how much farther should the US go? And the Iranians

are deliberately trying to expand the geography of risk to the United States and the geography of

the conflict to the United States. They think that the United States has calculations is based on a

much narrower geography of risk and geography of conflict, which is focused on only attacking Iran and

the Israel part of it. For instance, the United States has brought the its largest aircraft carrier,

the Gerald Ford, to Israel's shore outside of Haifa to defend Israel. But it does not have the same

capacity to defend Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, etc. So as a result,

in flaming that frontier, it forces the United States to sort of spread itself more than

and to have to calculate a very different proposition about how it would de-risk the war in the Gulf.

So far, three US service members have died in the operation against Iran.

We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the

families of the fallen. And sadly, there will likely be more. Before it ends, that's the way it is.

likely be more, but we'll do everything possible,

where that won't be the case. But America will. Trump told the Atlantic on Sunday

that he and Iranian leaders have agreed to resume negotiations, right? He hasn't said when

those talks are expected to resume, namely because some of those involved from Iran, I think,

have been killed. But what do you think of the fact that he said this kind of 48 hours after he

called for regime change? I'm not even sure if it was 48 hours afterwards.

It suggests that his, first of all, he's looking for a way out already. And he also said separately

that I could stay there a very long time, or I can get out right now and tell the Iranians,

I will be back in two years if you restart your nuclear program, which if people in Iran are

listening to this, they're saying that, you know, he was looking, he's looking for a clean war,

he came in, he killed Hamine, he wants to now find a way to declare victory and move on.

And he's not willing to put effort in actually overthrowing the regime or doing something

much more decisive in Iran, particularly if the costs are going to be high. If Iran is going to

bloody the Gulf as a whole, hit Dubai, hit Abu Dhabi, create a shadow of risk over the region that

will impact its economies going forward, or to kill American service people. At another level,

it also would tell the Iranians that he's not really serious about anything. He's not serious

about negotiations, he's not serious about war. He enters negotiations without actually being

committed to them and then goes to war in the middle of them. He goes to war calls for regime change,

calls for a drastically different Iran. And then two days into the war, he basically says,

I'm already talking to them and I want to weigh out. But the Iranians think that it is too premature,

because if the war stops now, Trump will be back six months from now again with another war.

I think they are now of a belief that they really need to create enough risk in the Gulf,

incur more cost on the United States. So Trump begins to think about war with Iran in

fundamentally different ways. I mean, they think that either this war will break them completely

or that this has to be the last war for a long period of time.

I want to understand where talks were left before these attacks, right? The foreign minister of

Oman, who is helping mediate the talks, what on CBS news, to share where they left off and he said

that Iran will never ever have a nuclear material that will create a war. This is I think a big

achievement. This is something that is not in the old deal that was negotiated during President

Obama's time. This is something completely new. So I think that means like zero stockpiling

as he put it. And just why wasn't that enough to prevent these attacks? I mean, at some level,

you could say the decision to go to war had been taken a while back and going through the negotiations

was performed, which is one reason why Iranians did not want to give too much at the table,

because they didn't think he's actually serious. I mean, he sends two on voice without real

preparation to discuss technical details for a two hour meeting, three hour meeting after which

they're going to go talk about a piece in Ukraine and between Ukraine and Russia in the same day.

And I think that the very fact that the Omani foreign minister and Omani is extremely quiet and

taciturn. You never hear them sort of raise their voice in international diplomacy, et cetera,

came all the way to Washington and went on television to say this to me was an act of desperation

that he knew that didn't matter what was achieved at the table that there was a march to war

and that he decided to basically reveal that there was a real breakthroughs.

And in the hope that somebody would be less listening. And if I can Washington, the only

person who met with them of consequence was Vice President JD Vance. And the president's reaction

a few hours after this interview, I don't know whether he saw it or not, was to say that he's

very unhappy with the negotiations. And he Iranians are not giving him what he wants, which is

the magic words we don't want nuclear weapons. Now, again, this lacks seriousness because

Iran for four 20 years has said they don't want nuclear weapons. Now, you may not believe

them, but they have said it. Omani had issued a religious fat war banning nuclear weapons. Now,

you may dismiss his fat war as irrelevant as untrustworthy, but he had said it. That's the

highest thing he could do as a religious leader of Iran is to issue a fat war that we will not do

that. So, you know, to say that Iranians have never said it or are not saying it was just not true.

I mean, it literally was not true. So, I think the achievements in in in Geneva was was

important and it's significant. And one day when they go back to the table, if that happens,

I think they would the Americans would actually grab at what the Omani said as a base point.

Because if Iran says they will give up the right to stockpile, in effect, they cannot really

enrich. Because you enrich, you have to give it up immediately. And so, if as a matter of national

honor, the Iranians need to hold on to the idea that they have a right to enrich, you could give

him that and say, but de facto, you really cannot enrich because you cannot stockpile.

This idea that the decision to go to war was a foregone conclusion from the US and Israel.

Like, to what end? Like, what is it that they wanted to achieve here?

Well, for Israel, I think, is more straightforward. Israel sees a unique opportunity.

Iran has been its main regional rival, even if we put aside the adjectives that the two sides

use against each other. It has been for a while, a decade, that the Middle East has been basically

in a sort of a great power rivalry between Israel and Iran. Iran had these proxies around

Israel, which served as a deterrence against Israel attacking Iran. They ministered Israel,

they attacked Israel. They supported and armed Palestinians, which eventually ended up in the

October 7 attacks on Israel. And Israel, after October 7, became determined to basically end this

situation. And it was successful. It was successful not only because it battered Hamas and really

in many ways has completely sidelined the Palestinian issue or the idea of a two-state solution

altogether. But then its greatest success was to defang his will to decapitate, to destroy

its missiles, destroy its ability to threaten Israel. Without Israel, without his will to threaten

Israel, Israel's hand is free to attack Iran. And Israel has decided that this is the enemy,

this is this rival. Now that it has the opportunity, it has to finish the job. Now, the United

States has not, you know, maybe subscribed to this idea. But the United States has also other

equities, which is that it has to look at the security and safety of the Gulf, which even if

Iran were to collapse into chaos would impact the Gulf. And the United States is not as threatened

by Iran's missiles and menace as Israel is. And so has had a lesser set of goals and these

has been around the fact that, okay, Iran should not have nuclear capability or Iran should not have

long-range transcontinental missiles. But the United States did not quite share the goals of Israel,

but more so under President Trump, he actually really did not even articulate an objective.

But the United States on the President Trump has vacillated from wanting a nuclear deal.

Then when he bombed Iran's nuclear facilities, he thought that that issue is taking care of,

it doesn't need to talk to Iran. Then all of a sudden, the reason for war became protecting

protesters and helping him bring about regime change. Then he didn't intervene then and then he

went back to the nuclear deal again in an urgent way that Iran must sign this deal right now.

Otherwise, this is I'm going to go to war, which was now very clear. And then after the attack

started, he basically went back to regime change. The real reason we're doing this is because

this is a bad regime that since the capture of the American diplomats hostage in 1979 has been a

danger in the menace. And I'm going to be a president that's going to get rid of this. And again,

called on the Iranian people to rise up. When we are finished, take over your government. It will

be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations. Even his regime change

strategy is not clear how you're going to get from point A to point B. And what does the day

after look like? How exactly are you going to bring about regime change? Who is the person who's

going to take over in Iran? And so to me, it seems like that the United States policy in that

sense is rudderless. The United States is enormously powerful. It's wielding its sword. But it's not

clear what the purpose is. Where does it want this to finish? And what does it expect to be

the end game here? And the fact that the president looks like he's looking for an exit already,

I'm talking to the Iranians. Again, you know, suggest to you that he's veering from regime change

and the worst regime on the planet needs to go yesterday to all of a sudden I'm talking to them

about ending this war. Yeah. What do you think is the most likely outcome here?

I mean, once you start a war, any outcome is possible. And it's possible that eventually under

the battering of American Israeli bombardment, tipping point is passed and the regime in Iran collapses.

And if the regime in Iran collapses, Iran can become a much larger version of Libya or Syria.

In other words, internal strife, civil war, nuclear government, a failed state,

one cannot rule that out, particularly if you bomb a country and its infrastructure and

institutions of state ceaselessly and with effect. The other alternative is that at some point,

and let me say this, there is no alternative to the Islamic Republic that if it collapses going

to take over, there is no political movement or political leader in Iran with organization

that is able to actually govern Iran in a day after of the collapse of the Islamic Republic,

not easily. And the other alternative is that at some point you basically have a ceasefire

and then with the supreme leader in Iran killed, there is an opening that Iran that a new leadership

at the helm in the Islamic Republic will decide to change course and the man that basically was

the anchor of the ideological and foreign policy outlook of this regime not being there,

there is that opportunity to change course, but that also will depend greatly on the international

community of how they react to that moment, particularly the United States, that does it

win that moment in the right way, or that we may lose that moment and then Iran could go

in a much more darker direction. Okay, Falli Nasser, thank you so much for your time today,

really appreciate it. Thank you.

All right, that is all for today. We're going to be on the story all week, so please do

stay tuned. Talk to you tomorrow.

For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.