Iran’s Next Move - with Raz Zimmt
Over the past few months, and especially in recent days, we have seen Iran’s decades-old proxy system and strategy collapsing.
What are Iran’s options?
To help us understand how Iran is dealing with this crisis, our guest is Raz Zimmt, one of Israel’s top experts on Iran.
Raz Zimmt is a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and a research fellow at the Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. He is the author of the book "Iran From Within: State and Society in the Islamic Republic" published (in Hebrew) in 2022.
Recent published pieces by Raz Zimmt discussed in this episode:
Full Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
RZ: They certainly underestimated the capabilities of Israel. And I think they also overestimated the axis capabilities and their own. I think that what happened in recent years was that due to the development of, uh, ballistic missiles and drones and the progress made in Iran's nuclear program, they got the sense into Tehran that finally they managed to compensate for their military conventional weakness. There was a sense of we can do whatever we want because we have finally reached a kind of strategic balance with Israel.
DS: It's 9:00 AM on Wednesday, December 11th, here in New York City. It's 4:00 PM on Wednesday, December 11th, in Israel, as Israelis are winding down their day. Here are some of the latest updates on the situation in Syria. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has accused the United States, Israel, and likely Turkey, of orchestrating the fall of Bashar Assad's regime in Syria, calling it, quote, a joint American and Zionist plan. Interestingly, Khamenei criticized Syria for ignoring prior Iranian intelligence warnings. Turkey, a NATO member, has supported the anti Assad forces and now actually controls some parts of northern Syria. After a swift operation in which 320 Israeli fighter jets destroyed Syria's remaining military, the IDF has moved several miles into Syrian territory, which it now controls, at least temporarily. Despite Assad's fall, Iran has pledged ongoing support to Syria and emphasized strengthening the resistance movement against Israel, vowing regional expansion. Syrian rebels, including led by Mohammed al Bashir, a senior rebel leader in Idlib, have formed a transitional government and are working with representatives of the ousted regime to manage the transfer of authority. It has been reported that already five weeks ago, Ukrainian intelligence sent drones and operators to assist Syrian rebels in weakening Russian influence in the region and following the overthrow of Bashar Assad, Russian naval ships have left their base at Tartus on Syria's coast, and some have dropped anchor offshore. As we've been saying in the recent episodes, these past few months have seen Iran's decades old proxy system and strategy falling apart, especially in recent days. Hamas and Hezbollah and Syria seemed to be falling like dominoes, leaving Iran exposed and the regime in Iran vulnerable and fragile. So this begs the question, what are Iran's options, because desperation could have dangerous consequences. A regime under siege and vulnerable could be a regime that acts out. It could be a regime on the march. So to help us understand how iran is dealing with this crisis internally, our guest today is Raz Zimmt one of israel's top experts on iran. Raz Zimmt on iran's next move. This is call me back And i'm pleased to welcome to the podcast for the first time Raz Zimmt. He is a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, INSS, a think tank I turn to quite frequently. Raz is also a research fellow at the Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. He's the author of the book, Iran From Within: State and Society in the Islamic Republic, published in Hebrew in 2022. And he is a real authority figure inside Israel on intra-Iran decision making at the official level and intra-Iran societal dynamics. He joins us today from his home in Netanya. Raz, thanks for being here.
RZ: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
DS: Raz, over the past 14 months, we have had a lot of conversations about Iran, but admittedly, we've been evaluating Iran from the outside in and trying to understand just how they're thinking about their foreign policy options. And you have dedicated your career to understanding Iran from the inside out. And I think that one of the most interesting questions on the minds of world leaders, geopolitical experts, the media, following events of the last several months is what are Iran's leaders thinking? How are they evaluating this new environment that they have, these new, um, landscape? Now that their security doctrine, their proxy system seems to, for the first time really in a long time, to be, I don't want to say it's collapsed, but it is collapsing potentially at a minimum it looks fragile and under threat. So I want to get a sense for how you think at least their thinking may be evolving. I want to start with asking you as a researcher and an expert on Iranian society and politics, what is the most important thing that you think we in the West don't get about Iran and that we don't get about how Iranian leaders and the regime perceives itself?
RZ: Well, there are 90 million Iranians in Iran, so they think differently about different things. But when it comes to perception, I think that perhaps the most important thing to understand about Iran is that there seems to be a paradox between the way they perceive themselves as former empire, which deserves the right to be recognized as at least a regional power in the Middle East and the fact that they're surrounded or at least they think they're surrounded by threats and challenges. You know, I was once told about a western journalist who went to Iran. She got into a taxi, and on the, the driver asked her, where are you from? And she said, I'm from Rome. And she said, oh, and he, he told her, oh, uh, you are from Rome. Well, uh, never forget that both Rome and Iran used to be empires. On, on the other hand, I have to tell you that when I was working almost a year ago on my, uh, research, uh, on Iranian involvement in the Middle East, I read a lot of papers published and articles published by the Imam Hussein University, which is affiliated with revolutionary guards. And I read their perception about the region and about the so called Zionist threats. And it amazed me that they think about Israel more or less the same as Israel thinks about Iran. As a country surrounded by enemies, they were kept saying that the Zionist regime tries to encircle Iran from northern Iraq, from the Persian Gulf. It goes back to the Iran Iraq war. You know, in Persian, in Farsi, Iran Iraq war is called uh, the war which was imposed on Iran, and they still go back to the Iran Iraq war as the national trauma. And I think it's very important on the one hand to understand that they want to be regarded as equals. And on the other hand, we have to understand the disconception of, of threats. They really believe that they have to preserve the national interest because they might face the same reality they faced during the 1980s with with Iraq.
DS: Okay, I want to stay on that for just one moment. So the Iran Iraq war, can you just give two minutes of background on the Iran Iraq war, why it started and how it ended? When I was working in Iraq on behalf of the US government, they would often describe the Iran Iraq war as Iran's Vietnam and the toll it imposed on, on Iranian society, on the Iranian people and on Iranian government and the regime's decision making going forward. So can you just talk a little bit about the impact of that war on Iran?
RZ: Yeah, well, there are a few things one has to remember about the Iran Iraq war, which erupted in September 1980, which means just a year and a half after the revolution in Iran. And what was most important in Iran about this war was not just the fact that it lasted for eight years, eight devastating years, but that first it was attacked by Iraq, principally about territorial disputes between the two countries. But it was very obvious, at least for the Iranians, that Saddam Hussein, then the leader of Iraq, tried to make use of the weakness of Iran following the revolution. In order to gain some territories in, in the Southwestern of Iraq. And then of course, at certain stage, Iraq began to use chemical weapons against Iranians as well. And that created this trauma that we should never be at the same situation where we face existential threat and we can do nothing about that. At the end of the day, uh, after eight years, the then leader of Iran, the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, had to admit that it was impossible for Iran to win the war, and he went on national TV and he admitted, uh, there is no way we can win this, that war, and therefore I will have to to accept a ceasefire. Although for many years he said we will never agree for a ceasefire with Saddam Hussein as long as the Ba'ath regime, as long as Saddam Hussein is still in power in Baghdad. And one of the lessons, or I think the main lesson Iran has learned from the Iranian war is that it has to produce a reliable deterrence to make sure that it will never face the same situation as it has to face during the Iran Iraq war.
DS: And how many casualties did Iran suffer during this eight year war?
RZ: Hundreds of thousands. Both Iran and Iraq suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. So it's, it's still a major national trauma until today.
DS: Yeah, I was in Iraq 2003, 2004, and I have returned to Iraq since then. I remember Iraqi leaders pointing out to me that there was a certain age demographic, basically men who were in their late teens and early twenties, during the 1980s, you will be struck by how many of them are permanently disabled, have some kind of permanent wound. You can see how pervasive it is at a certain age demographic that this war touched and transformed their lives. You know, the same thing obviously was in Iran. So this really was like this standout, defining trauma for Iran. I know you're a reader of Farsi and you are a consumer of Iranian Persian media. So in terms of how Iranians are seeing this war now, over the past 14 months, a lot has changed going back to October 7th. How would you describe the mood and discourse inside Iran during the first few months after October 7th and then compare them to now? And I say now following the fall of Assad, the crippling of Hezbollah, the crippling of, if not complete evisceration of Hamas, can you describe what was and what is now?
RZ: I think that one of the most interesting thing is to see the very significant change between the mood or the state of mind in Iran in the days or weeks or even months after October the 7th and what's going on in recent weeks and month. Because at the beginning of the war following October the 7th, there was this sense in Iran that this is an historical moment for the first time and we can speak later on about the surprise in Iran from October the 7th, but still there was a sense that this was an historical moment in which finally Iran and the pro Iranian axis in the region, the so called axis of resistance, got a chance to implement the ideological vision of getting rid of Israel and annihilating Israel. There were many positive things back then from the Iranian point of view. Normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia collapsed. The Palestinian issue got back to the center of the agenda. both in the region and international community. For the first time, Iran managed to implement the so called unification of the fronts against Israel, meaning to take its proxies from Gaza, from Lebanon, from Yemen, and use them all against Israel under the umbrella of, we are fighting for the sake of the Palestinians. That was back then. I think that what happened during the last few weeks and months is a growing sense of, I wouldn't say despair, but there are certainly doubts concerning the so called axis of resistance or Iran's proxies. Iran can no longer enjoy or preserve its deterrence vis à vis Israel. Because one, as you said, this axis became weakened. Even today when I heard Supreme Leader Khamenei speaking, giving a speech in Tehran, he actually admitted the axis of resistance he said today is weaker than it used to be, following the blows suffered by Hezbollah. Following the collapse of the Assad regime, following what's going on in Gaza. There are more and more voices in Iran saying, well, perhaps our whole security concept, not just the proxies, but also our ability to preserve a deterrence through missiles and drones no longer works. But, you know, I think we have to be very cautious because Khamenei looks at things from an historical point of view, we were discussing the Iran Iraq War. Actually, you refer today to the Iran Iraq War. And he said, look, people ask me whether Iran is going to be weakened following the blows suffered by the resistance camp. And I have to say them, Khamenei said, look at the improvement or look at the situation today in Iran compared to the situation we were during the Iran Iraq war. During the Iran Iraq war, he said, the Iraqi airplanes bombards Iran, and we, we had nothing to do. We had no aerial defense. Today we are much better than before. So I think that despite the fact that there are certainly changes in the sense of self confidence in Iran. They still believe, or at least the leadership in Iran, and particularly Khamenei, still believe that there are ups and downs and they can deal with that. How? I'm, I'm not sure, but if you would ask me six or seven months ago, what is the assessment in the Iranian leadership concerning the situation, I would say basically quite well, today I'm not so sure about that.
DS: Just one question, because I get asked this question a lot. We tend to talk about conflict in the Middle East as along this Sunni/Shiite divide and that the Middle East is divided between, you know, Shiites versus Sunnis. The only real exception to this rule is Iranian support for the Palestinians and specifically Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. So is the Iranian support for Sunni extremists, is there anything ideological about it? Is there anything beyond just that the Palestinians serve a tactical purpose for Iran in that they are just like another proxy that Iran can use to pressure Israel and pressuring and threatening Israel subordinates everything else. And so if we have to work with Sunnis, we'll work with Sunnis. The fact that we're working with a part of the Islamic population that we otherwise would be up against doesn't matter because we need them to create this ring of fire around Israel, which is the priority.
RZ: So, first, I don't underestimate the importance of the Shia Sunni rift. Basically, Iran prefers to work with the Shiites. Now, Hamas has never been a real partner within this so called axis of resistance. You know, after the civil war in Syria erupted, everyone remembers that Hamas made a decision. They faced the dilemma whether to support Assad and his axis, the Iranians and Hezbollah, all whether to join most of the Arab states, more of the Arab, most of the Arab Sunni states, including Saudi Arabia, who supported the rebels. And Hamas made a strategic decision, which of course the Iranians didn't like, to support the Sunni Arab states. And then after Saudi Arabia began to attack in Yemen, again the same dilemma, whether to support Saudi Arabia or the Houthis and Iran. And again, Hamas made the decision to support Saudi Arabia. Now, this is a kind of, on the one hand, you can say, yes, there are certain ideological issues which are being shared by all members of the so called pro Iranian axis, they all share the idea that they should have a new Middle East, which has two major characteristics. One is the need to replace Israel with Palestine. And the second issue is to get the Americans out of this region. So there is kind of ideological vision shared by both Hamas and Iran, but it's also about interests. Hamas certainly at a certain point required and needed Iranian support. So if Iran wants to increase its influence around Israel with this ring of fire, it has to work with Sunnis as well. By the way, over the last few days, there are more and more reports, for example, that Iran is trying to establish channels of communication with the new government in Syria, with the rebels. So it's not that they don't share a common friendship with their Shia allies, but they certainly know how to work with Sunnis as well.
DS: So now let's go to October 7th. In light of everything you're saying, there's lots of ongoing debate about how much Iran's leadership knew about October 7th. Some have said that they were aware something was in the works about the October 7th massacre. They just didn't know exactly when it would happen and the exact details, but they certainly were, were aware and were briefed on, but can you describe again, just based on how you read the Iranian dialogue, both among policymakers, decision makers inside Iran and then Iranian society writ large, I know that's a very broad category, as you said earlier, given the size and diversity of the population, but how did Iran react to October 7th?
RZ: So, I share the assessment that they were aware of those plans. Everyone who followed the meetings taking place either in Damascus or Beirut for at least one or two years before October the 7th, between elements in Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad with senior officials of their revolutionary guards in the Quds Force and Hezbollah, they were not talking about the weather. They were certainly talking about operational plans. The question was whether Iran was aware of the timing of the event and here I have to say my sense is that they were surprised. I do believe that this report, I think it was published by Reuters, uh, in late, uh, 2023, saying that in the first meeting between Khamenei and and Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Khamenei actually told him, look, uh, you, you should not have, uh, surprised us. You should have waited because if you, if you would wait for another year or two, we would have prepared ourself better. Hezbollah was much, much better prepared to launch its own attack against, against Israel. But even if it was surprised with the timing, the Iranian leadership, as I said before, considered that as an historical moment in which Iran cannot remain indifferent. So it didn't want to engage itself directly into a full scale confrontation with Israel. It also didn't want to engage Hezbollah back then in a full scale confrontation with Israel because it was well aware or was very much concerned with the fact that it might lose not just Hamas, which is less important for Iran, although it is significant for Iran, but it was most concerned with possibility that it might lose Hezbollah, which has always been the most strategic, significant element in Iran's deterrence vis a vis Israel. Iran certainly didn't want to be engaged in a direct military confrontation either with Israel or the United States, but it couldn't remain indifferent. Now, concerning the Iranian population, there were, of course, different opinions. Those who support the regime were actually supportive of Hamas. Others were against. And you know, I would say that in general, following the Iranian society, I can say that basically the Iranian society is much less obsessed with the Israeli Palestinian conflict in comparison to the Iranian regime, that the ordinary Iranian, and I know it's very difficult to speak about the ordinary Iranian, but ordinary Iranian just doesn't understand why Iran has to be so obsessed with Israel and with the Palestinians, which are so distant away from Iran. The majority of the Iranians who really believed that it was the most important issue for Iran to concentrate inside Iran and to try and solve the internal and domestic problems of the Iranian people.
DS: The Iranians, it sounds like, were, the Iranian leadership was right to be worried, it turns out, about the implications for any confrontation with Israel would have for Hezbollah. Turns out they were right to worry about that, given that Hezbollah is basically wiped out now, 14-15 months after Sinwar launched his war against Israel.
RZ: Yeah, but I think that the Iranian assessment, and I think that was also the assessment of Hezbollah, was first that the war will not last so long. And the Iranians and Hezbollah thought that it was possible to engage Israel in a kind of attrition war which will not impose ceasefire perhaps on Israel, but will inflict damage to the Israeli society, to the Israeli economy, which will degrade Israeli status in the international community, and then Israel will be forced to accept ceasefire before Hezbollah will have to pay a more significant price for it for this conflict in Israel. I certainly think that they were surprised with the capabilities of Israel to inflict such a damage on Hezbollah in case of a full scale confrontation between, between Hezbollah and Israel. But they do think it would, it would go to this stage.
DS: So what did they get wrong? If you extrapolate out what you're saying, this helped shape Iranian security doctrine more broadly. The idea that like, wait a minute, Israel's 15 months after October 7th, they're still in a war. And not only they're in a war, they're not worn down, but actually it's in the later months of this war that Israel is actually on offense and systematically taking out Iranian proxies and even really threatening, you know, Iran itself, the regime. So what did they get wrong? Like, what was the miscalculation?
RZ: So I think the first day they certainly underestimated Israeli capabilities, certainly after October 7th. They really believed that Israel is collapsing, that Israel is declining. That was their historical vision. You might remember the speech given by Khamenei in 2015, where he said that by the year 2040, in 25 years, Israel is going to be gone. Israel is not going to survive the next 25 years. Not just due to its confrontation with the so called axis of resistance, but also because of Israeli domestic internal weakness. So they certainly underestimated the capabilities of Israel. And I think they also overestimated the axis capabilities and their own. I think that what happened in recent years was that due to the developments of, uh, ballistic missiles and drones and the progress made in Iran's nuclear program, they got the sense in Tehran that finally they managed to compensate for their military conventional weakness. There were even assessments, by the way, not just in Iran, even in Israel saying that there was a sense of self confidence in Iran, there was a sense of we can do whatever we want because we have finally reached a kind of strategic balance with Israel. I think we can't explain, for example, the first and then the second Iranian attack, directed attack against Israel in April, if you don't get this. But what happened during the last, I would say one year or even before the war, was that they got the sense of self confidence, even hubris in a way, due to their assessment that Israel is becoming more and more weakened, the Iran and its partners and proxies become more and more stronger, and that enables Iran to make decisions which in the past were unacceptable or considered to be too risky.
DS: Okay, Raz, this now begs the question how vulnerable the Iranian regime is today. There was lots of speculation and analysis that it was vulnerable due to popular unrest within Iran over the last several years combined with a very weakened Iranian economy. But there wasn't this sense that Iran, the regime was overstretched in the region. If anything, it was, it had a lot of support and redundancy, you know, built into its reach within the region, including, especially due to these proxies that it had. How vulnerable is the regime today?
RZ: The Iranian regime is very vulnerable, but I think one has to explain this vulnerability not just due to the recent developments in the region, not just to the impact of the recent Israeli attack against Iran, which certainly managed to hit Iran's aerial defense and expose Iran's vulnerability to Israeli military force. And not just because of the recent developments in the, in the pro Iranian axis, but also because of domestic issues. Now, on the one hand, I would say the Iranian regime, in my views, suffers from a major crisis of legitimacy. Most assessments, including my own, is that the Iranian regime does not enjoy more than 20-25% support from the Iranian population. Due to the fact that, for many years, the Iranian regime has not delivered solutions to most problems shared by the Iranian population. Either the economic crisis, which is just terrible inflation of over 40%, a huge budget deficit, a lack of economic growth, in addition to a growing gap between the younger generation in Iran, the second and third generation of Iran, and the Iranian regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran. You know, even you can see that during the recent elections in Iran, the presidential elections in which even the concern of many Iranians that someone as radical as hardliner as Saeed Jalili will win the elections. Even that did not encourage more than 45 or 47% of the Iranian population to come and vote. So they certainly have to face this crisis of legitimacy. But I would say that when you look at the power, I would say, relations between the regime on the one side and the protest movement on the other side, as, as we also during the, the ‘22/’23, uh, massa, I mean, these protests, I still believe that the Iranian regime enjoys a significant coherence. They still are very much determined to fight for their lives in case if they see that necessarily they look at what happened in Syria. And I think one of the major differences, at least for now between Syria and Iran, is that the Syrian regime and the Syrian army seems to have lost its vitality. We saw that whenever, wherever the rebels arrived, the Syrian army retreated. The revolutionary guards are still very much loyal to the regime. They are still much, very much dependent on the regime. They know that if the regime is gone, they're going to go as well. On the other hand, when you see the protest movement in Iran or the so called, uh, dissidents against the regime, they still don't have the ability to do two things. One is to mobilize millions of Iranians to go to the streets and call for a regime change. And the second thing, which I think is a very big weakness of the Iranian protest movement is that they have not yet come up with a coalition of sectors or forces within the Iranian society working together. Teachers and students and middle class and workers and ethnic minorities. They didn't manage to work together in order to bring the regime change in Iran. So as long as this, those problems are not solved, I don't think, and I'm not sure there is an immediate threat to the stability of the regime, despite the fact that they certainly suffer from vulnerability, economic crisis, and crisis of legitimacy.
DS: What lessons does the regime take from the speed with which the Assad regime fell? To me, it's another reminder to how brittle these autocratic, totalitarian regimes, however you want to characterize them. The Soviet Union wound up, for all the predictions and analysis that it was durable and it could withstand enormous pressure. The moment there was a little bit of pressure, it all came tumbling down very quickly. The Shah in Iran before the Islamist revolution was thought to have a strong hold on the country, he fell very quickly. Gaddafi in Libya was viewed as untouchable. Once there was some pressure, he fell very quickly. Obviously we know what happened to Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath leadership in Iraq. I give example after example, after example, which these leaders seem incredibly durable and their regimes seem incredibly durable. And then they're durable until they're not. And when the not comes, it actually comes very quickly and you blink and you're like, how did that just happen? And the reason I'm asking you this, Raz, is because I think there are two reactions that many of us are having in terms of what we think the lessons are for Iran from this Syria experience. One is if Syria could go this quickly, if Assad could go this quickly, then what are we waiting for in Iran? The Iranian regime can fall very quickly. Anyone who tells you that the Iranian regime is so much stronger and has so much of a tighter hold on Iran. That's what we hear every time, including what we've heard in recent weeks about Assad. And then, and then it just comes tumbling down. The other reaction is that it is actually different. Assad was much weaker. At the end of the day, Assad was not a standalone strong regime in its own right. It was, it was just a proxy. Uh, it was just like a satellite office, if you will, of Iran's, and you can't compare the two, which is it?
RZ: Look, uh, you know, when, when I was asked and I'm being asked for many years, what do I think that there is going to be a regime change or a revolution in Iran? I tend to say, well, uh, right now I don't think that there is an immediate threat to the stability of the regime, but if tomorrow morning I will hear that there was a revolution in Iran, I could give a very good explanation for the revolution, because all this, all the reasons are there. We all have to wait for the trigger. I think that the Iranian regime and the Iranian opposition could learn different lessons from what's, what, what is happening in Syria. They were certainly surprised, as most of us. Uh, they still try to figure out what are the lessons which have to be learned from the experience of Assad. I think that what I've been seeing in, in the last two or three days, are different lessons learned by by different elements in inside Iran. So for example, the more pragmatic reformist elements inside Iran are saying, look, the major reason why Assad fell was because of this gap between the regime and the population. So if we have to learn one lesson from his experience is that we have to try and close this gap between the Iranian regime and the population. There were already some reports in recent days that there are more and more criticism about this recent bill passed by the Iranian parliament to impose more sanctions on women who do not observe the hijab, the Islamic code dress. And many in Iran, including the President saying, well, this is not the right time to go with this bill because it will only jeopardize even further, the national unity inside Iran. But I have to say that when I heard today Khamenei's speech, uh, he, again, blamed not himself. He didn't look for any kind of consolidation with the Iranian people. He actually said, look, what happened in Syria was the result of the Zionist American conspiracy and, uh, one, and he said, if we want to learn one lesson from his experience, well, that we have to be very aware of our enemies. We should not be surprised by our enemies. And so, uh, his lesson might be we have to be even more regressive. We have to increase the cohesiveness of the Iranian elite. We have to strengthen the revolutionary regard in a way which will not permit protests to erupt in Iran. So there are many lessons which could be learned. You know, there is the issue, for example, of the succession of Supreme Leader Khamenei. Some in Iran are saying in recent days, look what happened to a regime where Hafez al Assad decided to nominate his son as successor. Now, as you probably know, there are more and more reports about a possibility that Khamenei wants his son Mujtaba to become the next Supreme Leader. There are already doubts saying, well, perhaps we should not go there because succession like that doesn't usually work. So I think it's too early to say, you know, uh, I remember back in 2018, during the, or ‘19, during the protest which erupted in Iran following the increase in the gasoline prices in Iran. And then one of the phases of those who do not support the Iranian regime were saying Iran is not Syria, we should, we should be very careful not to use too much violence against the Iranian state and the Iranian regime, because we might find ourselves in the same civil war, chaotic situation like Syria. This is a big question today, whether the use of weapons, for example, could actually encourage regime change in Iran. Many in Iran still wait to see what kind of a new Syria will erupt, whether it will turn out to be another Libya or Sudan or Somalia or Iraq, which could actually discourage Iranians from going to the streets, or whether we'll see some kind of settlements in Syria and stabilization, which could certainly encourage more Iranians to go back to the streets and, and try to carry out a regime change in Iran.
DS: This begs the question, does Iran race to a nuclear bomb at this point? Because there are two ways to look at this. Either they're incredibly vulnerable and naked, if you will, as one of our previous guests put it. That they're totally exposed as a result of Israel taking out some of Iran's key defense capabilities. The S-300s and others, are they curled up in a fetal position or are they about to actually race to a bomb because they've lost, they're losing all their insurance policies, at least in the region, that have up until now deterred Israel or anyone else from striking a Iran, because they're worried about Iran's capacity to light up these, to activate these proxies. Now it doesn't have these proxies, or at least can't depend on them to the same degree. So the only ultimate insurance policy it has, the only real proxy, if you will, it has, or the tool that could have the same effect as what they once hoped that proxies would have, is everyone worried that Iran has a nuclear bomb. What is your sense in terms of how they play that card now?
RZ: My sense is that the Iranian leadership faces a huge dilemma between two options, one is bad and the other one is very bad because there are certainly more and more voices inside Iran saying, look, the last few months showed us that we cannot, uh, rely, at least in the foreseeable future on our, uh, proxies, uh, because they are much weakened than, uh, than before. We have lost our ability to impose a new equation on Israel through our missiles and drones. The fact that Iran is still not retaliating to the recent Israeli attack by itself shows you that they certainly don't want to, uh, to carry out an attack against Israel when they're so exposed. So there are more and more voices in Iran saying, well, perhaps our ultimate deterrence would be not through proxies or missiles, but through breaking out to nuclear weapon. Uh, the problem is that if they decide to do that, if there is a decision by Supreme Leader Khamenei, by the Iranian leadership to break out, uh, you know, they can't reach nuclear weapon in, in, in, in days or weeks. It, uh, they can certainly, uh, accumulate enough fissile material to produce weapons in less than two weeks, but it will take them at least a few months, probably more than a year, uh, to, to produce nuclear weapons. And this should be, would be a very risky, uh, decision, especially due to their vulnerability, the fact that Israel, uh, at least in their eyes, is just looking for any kind of excuse to hit the nuclear facilities in Iran with now Trump going back to the, to the White House. All those, uh, developments make it even more difficult, even more risky than before to do that. So, uh, I'm not sure if they're willing to take such a risky decision, uh, unless they have to.
DS: Okay. So, final question, Raz. With all that context, what do you think Iran's next move will be? And I won't hold you to it, so I know this is speculative, but it's informed speculation.
RZ: I think Iran has three main options on the table. One is the option, uh, which I refer to in my, one of the, my recent, uh, articles as Iran first option, meaning, uh, Iran should stick to try and, and, and, and focus on on dealing with its domestic problems before it goes back to support its proxies and before it goes to improve its regional influence again. So this is one option. The second option is the option of doing more or less what they did until now, trying to look for solutions to the problems they are facing. So, for example, if they don't have Hamas in Gaza and longer, they might try to increase their involvement and deliveries of weapons to the West Bank in order to compensate for the loss of Hamas. If they don't have the ability to rehabilitate Hezbollah, they might say, okay, let's try to strengthen our other allies, the Houthis in Yemen, the pro Iranian militias in Iraq. So doing more or less the same, continue their efforts to, uh, improve their nuclear missile and drones capabilities, but without, uh, crossing the, the threshold. So this is the second option. The last option is the option we, we, we discuss, uh, uh, breaking out to nuclear weapon in order to create the so called ultimate deterrence. My sense is that due to the fact that Khamenei is still in power due to the fact that the majority of the of the decision making in Iran is still dominated by conservatives, hardliners. The president seems to me quite weak. The revolutionary regards, on the other hand, is much stronger. It plays a significant role in the Iranian decision making. My sense is that the end of the day, they will have to choose between the second and the third option, meaning either to try and survive somehow the next few years until they manage to get out of this predicament or to make a very risky decision to break out confrontation with Israel and the United States in order perhaps to improve in their eyes, uh, their deterrence.
DS: Alright, Raz, we will leave it there. Thank you for this, uh, the piece you wrote for INSS, I think I you're referring to that you read, we'll, we'll post, we'll, we'll post a couple of your recent pieces, and direct people to you and to INSS. And thank you for joining us. We look forward to having you back.
RZ: It was a pleasure. Thank you very much.
DS: That’s our show for today. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Our media manager is Rebecca Strom. Additional editing by Martin Huergo. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.