What operation ‘Epic Fury’ means for the US, Iran, and beyond

0:00This message comes from Carvana, who makes car selling easy. Enter your license plate or VIN, get a real offer in minutes, and have your car picked up from your door. Sell your car the easy way with Carvana. Pickup fee may apply. Hi, it's Jen. Just a quick heads up before we start the show. We opened our phone lines for reactions from you about the United States and Israel at war with Iran. Our live phone lines are now closed, but you can always let us know what you think anytime by leaving a message at 855-236-1A1A or email us at 1a at wamu.org.

0:42The United States and Israel are at war with Iran. In a video early Saturday on his social media site Truth Social, President Trump announced the first strikes. Then in a second video on Sunday, the president said this. An Iranian regime armed with long range missiles and nuclear weapons would be a dire threat to every American. We cannot allow a nation that raises terrorist armies to possess such weapons would allow them to extort the world. These actions are right and they are necessary to ensure that Americans will never have to face a radical, bloodthirsty terrorist regime armed with nuclear weapons and lots of threats.

1:26I once again urge the Revolutionary Guard, the Iranian military, police to lay down your arms and receive full immunity or face certain death. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force General Dan Cain spoke to the press Monday morning. As of now, the president has not done a full media briefing about this operation. The Iranian Red Crescent Society says, at least 555 Iranians have been killed in the strikes, including Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other political and military leaders. Khamenei's death led to celebrations in the streets across much of Iran.

2:04Now, as Iran retaliates with strikes on U.S. and Israeli targets in the region, the U.S. military confirms four service members have been killed in the Iran operation. And overnight, the conflict widened with Hezbollah and Israel trading airstrikes. This hour, we bring you the latest, try to make sense of the why and what comes next in the region, plus get your thoughts and questions about this moment. I'm Jen White. You're listening to a special call-in taping of the 1A podcast. A quick note before we head into a short break. This is a rapidly moving story, so for the latest, please visit npr.org.

2:38Stay with us.

2:43Seattle, 1999. Teen reporters hear a troubling rumor about a beloved teacher. They report it. He later dies. I was one of those students. Now I'm uncovering what really happened because people said we killed a man. Listen to Adults in the Room from KUOW Focus and the NPR Network. Let's get started with our conversation with our panel for today. Joining us in studio is Nagar Murtazavi. She's a journalist and host of the Iran podcast and senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. Nagar, welcome back. Thanks for having me. Joining us from Riyadh, we have Greg Kralstrom, Middle East correspondent for The Economist.

3:24Greg, it's great to have you. Thanks for having me on. And joining us from the White House is Jeff Mason. He's Washington correspondent at Bloomberg News. Jeff, great to have you. Be with you, Jen. And let's go right to the phones. We have Dennis in Dover, Delaware. We are. Dennis, what's your question? Yes, good morning. I'm just trying to understand exactly what we're doing in Iran and why we're in Iran. I keep hearing different things. The first thing, of course, was we're trying to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. And it's my understanding, based upon some things that I heard from Iran, that they have no interest in that.

3:59Secondarily, I've heard that we're trying to prevent them from acquiring a long-range ballistic missile. Now, as far as I'm concerned, a lot of our adversaries have long-range ballistic missiles, and I don't see us attacking them. So exactly what are we doing? What is the point here? There's been no evidence of Iran trying to, that has been presented to the American people, at least, of Iran trying to acquire a long-range ballistic missile that they would use against the United States. Well, Dennis, let's turn to our panel and get some response. Now, we heard President Trump say Iran posed an imminent threat.

4:35He said the attack was designed to ensure Americans will never be, quote, threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran. But you'll also remember last June, he said the U.S. and Israeli forces had crippled Iran's nuclear development program. So at this point, and Greg, I'll come to you first. What is the objective here? Has the president stated that clearly? No, he hasn't. The objective changes depending on the time of day. I mean, over the past three days since Trump announced the beginning of the war, Saturday morning local time here, he has said variously that the goal is to topple the regime in Iran, to free the Iranian people.

5:13That's what he said to the Washington Post. He then also suggested this could all be over in a few days and America might go back to the negotiating table and make a nuclear deal with the Iranians. He said he's willing to talk to them. He's also said he has candidates in mind to take over the government of Iran. And then he subsequently said, actually, no, those candidates were killed in the first round of strikes. So they're not viable anymore. I mean, we don't know what he's driving at. I think ultimately what Trump wants is to be able to say Iran has been a problem for every president since Jimmy Carter.

5:47None of them could solve it. I solved it. But what that actually looks like in practice, we just don't know. Well, while announcing the strikes on Saturday, we heard the president say, quote, when we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations. But in the press briefing on Monday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hexed said, quote, this is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change. Nagar, what's been the response in Iran to the president's call for Iranians to take over their government? Well, just to add to what Greg was saying, this is, you know, 2002 pre-invasion of Iraq all over again, deja vu.

6:28I was a young college newspaper reporter back then, and I really encourage your listeners to go back and listen to some of the statements and some of the comments back then. It wasn't going to be a two-decade war with trillions of U.S. dollars spent, blood and treasure. And, you know, this can very much turn into something very similar to that. And I think Iranians in Iran also see that. They remember. They are literally the country is situated between Afghanistan to the east and Iraq to the west. And back in the 2001, 2002, 2003 era, there was a real serious talk of going for Iran next after Iraq.

7:09And so that fear of turning into really the next big, endless regime change war episode in the region is something that a lot of Iranians feel. At the same time, I think there's also, you know, it depends on what kind of Iranian you talk to. I think the society, I would say, is very split into maybe three major groups. One is the supporters of the current status quo, the regime, the supreme leader. We see people coming to the street grieving for him and really showing that kind of support to the status quo. I would put that at about maybe maximum a third of the population. There is a more radical extreme to the other end, the opposite end, where they want change under any circumstances, potentially even war, an end to the status quo.

7:55But there's a big chunk of the population in the middle, I would call them the gray and silent majority, that are just really worried, you know, and they hold both truths at the same time. No love, lust for the regime, no affinity for the now killed supreme leader. They may have even felt a sense of relief, but then at the same time being afraid of what's coming next and the uncertainty of what this war and foreign military intervention will bring. And I'll just wrap with one post I saw on Instagram from a friend in Tehran who just very simply said no to the Islamic Republic, no to Israel, and no to the United States.

8:32You can hold all of these truths at the same time and understand it. Jeff, the president was at Mar-a-Lago when the strikes began. You're joining us from the White House today. What's your read on the mood in the administration right now? Well, I think initially they're pleased with what they would see as a successful operation. And certainly the fact that, pardon me, that the president announced the death of the Ayatollah was, I suspect in his mind, a huge success. Obviously, there are a lot of questions that they haven't answered yet. And it's great that there was a briefing from the Pentagon, but there hasn't been one from the White House.

9:11The president's comments that announced the war were broadcast from a prerecorded tape that they put out on his social media. Looks like we lost Jeff's line there. Greg, can you kind of pick up with where Jeff left off about the initial response from the White House and what we're seeing now? Well, right. I think on the one hand, I'm sure they're satisfied with the initial results of having killed the Supreme Leader, which is something that Trump has threatened to do and so on. But I think you're starting to hear a lot of questions from allies in the region, from allies elsewhere in the world about, you know, where is all of this going?

9:56And you're also hearing that from Americans. I mean, the latest poll that came out from Reuters earlier today found that just one in four Americans support the war. And even amongst Republicans, it's only 55 percent in favor. It's not an overwhelming majority. So there are a lot of questions about why America did this, what America is trying to accomplish. And the president has not addressed those and isn't even really trying to, isn't trying to sell this to the American public. Well, Iranian President Masoud Pazeshkian says a leadership council composed of himself, the judiciary head, and a member of the powerful Guardian Council had temporarily assumed the duties of the supreme leader following the death of Ayatollah Khamenei.

10:37Nagar, in terms of governance of Iran in the immediate aftermath of Ayatollah's death, what happened? So Article 111 of the Iranian constitution has expected this in the case of the death or the killing of the supreme leader, which is what just happened. Immediately a council forms, an interim council, which is what we're seeing now consisting of the president, right now a moderate, Masoud Pazashkian, the head of the judiciary, a conservative or hardline cleric, Olam Hussein Mohseni Ejei, so two of the three major institutions of power, And then also one clergy member from the Guardian Council who was picked by another council.

11:14And this is Ali Reza Arafi, the person who now seems to be really primed, at least by part of this, the political apparatus to potentially be the successor to the supreme leader. And, you know, also a conservative hardline cleric. And that could potentially be the path that the Islamic Republic will go. I don't know if that can happen in the time of war, in this transition, but right after maybe whenever the war ends. I don't know how long this war is going to be, but a successor to the Supreme Leader will be elected by the Leadership Council. We're talking to Negar Murtazavi. She's host of the Iran podcast and a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy.

11:53Also with us, Greg Karlstrom, Middle East correspondent for The Economist, and Jeff Mason, Washington correspondent at Bloomberg News. And we're hearing from you. Amber shares this. My husband is a combat veteran of Operation and Enduring Freedom. He is so upset and angry about this action and is dreading boots on the ground. We need to hold all of our service members, active and inactive, close to our hearts as this unexplained war plays out. After the break, we'll hear more from our panel and from you. We'll be right back.

12:24Mary, what you reading over there? Oh, hey, Nick. It's the Planet Money book from NPR. I would love to meet some of the people behind that. Is there any chance that I could do that in the upcoming future? Nick, you're not going to believe this. The Planet Money team is going on tour. So we will be in a city near you. Tickets and information at planetmoneybook.com. Let's get back to our special call-in show today. Our live phone lines are closed. But you can always let us know what you think anytime by leaving a message at 855-236-1212. or email us at 1a at wamu.org. Now, on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqsh said this in his immediate response to the strikes.

13:09I don't know why the U.S. administration insists to start a negotiation and then in the middle of negotiation attack the other party. Nagar, briefly, what were the status of those talks? They were ongoing when this broke out. Yes, indeed. So we're talking about nuclear negotiations between Tehran and Washington. Three rounds happened in Oman and then in Geneva with mediation, with excellent mediation from the longtime partner and mediator between Tehran and Washington, which are the Omanis. And they really went that extra mile and tried to be proactive in their mediation. The Omani foreign minister traveling to Washington on the eve of these attacks, really making that leap, that final push for peace to prevent war.

13:55And it just, the deal didn't happen. I think the U.S. and Iran both. I mean, the Iranians, I think this time around, came to the negotiating table with a lot of mistrust because they were saying that last time they negotiated with the U.S., right in the middle of negotiations came the June attacks by Israel and then Midnight Hammer by the U.S. So they came back to the negotiating table, but as Iranian officials were saying, with their finger on the trigger, assuming they're going to get attacked again, which is also very unprecedented. And I mean, this is just very unconventional, if not bizarre style of doing diplomacy and then in the middle attacking and then doing it again.

14:29And I think it was sort of this ultimatum, like President Trump used that military threat, the threat of war as leverage for the negotiating table for what then special envoy Withkov later said for Iran to capitulate, to capitulate to the U.S. demands on the nuclear issue, to dismantle the program, even the civilian program, which the Iranians feel like it's their right because they're a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty. And as long as they don't want to have nuclear weapons, which they have said time and again, in the JCPOA, the nuclear deal signed with President Obama, it is stated that Iran will never develop nuclear weapons.

15:04The former supreme leader, who was a religious leader, had a fatwa, a religious degree, that stated, essentially banned the production, stocking and usage of nuclear weapons as weapons of mass destruction. And Iranian officials have said it time and time and again, including a few hours before that presser, that commentary from President Obama saying, from President Trump saying in the State of Union, saying that they haven't said the magic words that they will never develop nuclear weapons. They have, they have, and they came to the table essentially trying to make more concessions and learning maybe from the past.

15:38I would say the problem from the Iranian side also is that they didn't understand the style of President Trump. You know, direct negotiations matter for him. The photo ops matter for him, showing that kind of, I would assume, respect for the president matters. And the Iranians insisted on doing indirect. And I think that also really led to the unraveling of the talks. Well, let's go to the phones. We've got Cindy on the line from Cincinnati. Cindy, you have a question about where Congress plays a role in this. Go ahead. Hi, everybody. Thank you for your time. I'm actually more just true. I am curious about Congress, but more of my comment that I'd like to make is lies begin lies.

16:17So everyone's pointing at each other's countries and saying, oh, they're lying, so we got to do it because they're lying. And for me, and I think probably a lot of people around the world, we don't deny that the Iranian regime was pretty toxic, pretty bad. But that doesn't give us the right to lie. and then force a change. It feels like it's a garbage in, garbage outcome. And so for me, I'm just very disappointed and disheartened because it doesn't seem to end. It seems as though there's day after day a new lie that causes destruction and chaos, not just in our country, but around the world. And it's sad.

16:58Cindy, thanks for that call. Jeff, I want to come to you right now because we're seeing pushback in Congress against President Trump's actions against Iran. What are we hearing from congressional leaders about where they stand on this, what they plan to do, if anything? Sure. Well, it depends on which party we're talking about. Democrats are not happy that he went ahead with this operation without seeking congressional approval. The Constitution, of course, does give the Congress the right to declare war. And President Trump used the word war in his announcement about the attack on Iran. I saw, I think it was Lindsey Graham, who's, of course, a Republican, on one of the Sunday shows this weekend saying he wasn't sure if technically it was a war.

17:47Well, that language does not jive with the language that President Trump has used. Now, President Trump does say he informed the Gang of Eight that this operation was going to happen. Absolutely. And that is also a bit of a shift from the information that was shared with members of Congress anyway before the Venezuela operation. So you're right, he did. And I think the question that will at least be looked at in Congress is whether or not that alert to the gang of eight will be considered enough of informing Congress versus, I mean, if you compare it to the Iraq war, for example, when President Bush laid out a case ahead of time and then went to Congress and got a vote.

18:32That was not the case here. And I'm sure the White House would argue that that wouldn't have worked here, that they needed the element of surprise, and that aerial strikes are different, rather, from sending in a great deal of ground troops. But even so, it is creating a political conundrum and fight in Washington. And I should say, the Gang of Eight is the bipartisan group of House and Senate leaders and Intelligence Committee chairs. They're briefed on the nation's most sensitive security matters, and they were notified by Secretary of State, Marco Rubio shortly before the strikes began. But as you point out, Jeff, that falls short of formal authorization by Congress.

19:08The Constitution assigns Congress the power to authorize war under Article 1. Now, Greg, some lawmakers point to President Obama's strikes against Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia that he conducted under the 2001 authorization of use of military force. And that was passed after 9-11 to protect the country from those who aided in those attacks and to try to prevent any future attacks of international terrorism against the U.S. But from a constitutional perspective, is there a difference between the case President Obama made for his authority to conduct those strikes and the Trump administration's justifications for this war with Iran?

19:44I think it's also important that the Trump administration's justifications have not focused so much on urgent matters, on things that are happening now. I mean, if you listen to the statement that he made when he initially announced the war, when it began on Saturday, it was a litany of grievances, right? It went back to 1979, to the hostage crisis after the Islamic revolution in Iran. He cited Iranian support for militias across the region, you know, and these things are true and these things happened. But he didn't really make a case for urgency now. So I think that's one difference. And then I think the other difference, arguably, is the implications of what he's doing in Iran.

20:28This is not just the sort of limited set of strikes that have been confined to one country. This has very quickly turned into a regional war that has swept the entire Middle East. Well, and we should say that Hezbollah has entered this conflict now. They launched strikes into Israel in response to the strikes on Iran. Israel responded with strikes on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital. So what does Hezbollah's entry into this frame mean for the region, Nagar? Well, this is something that the Iranians had vowed as part of their essentially defense posturing or doctrine. Basically, the thinking in Tehran was that, well, this is the third time that President Trump is attacking Iran.

21:08Let me just reiterate that. I was just pulling up his previous tweets and comments attacking President Obama for wanting to attack Iran or go to war with Iran. and President Obama never did. And now President Trump has become the president that did it for the third time. First in 2020, the assassination of top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani last year, midnight hammer in June. And now this is the third time. And the Iranian thinking is that every time they have been attacked by this president and then also green light to the Israelis to attack them, they have shown restraint. They have offered an off-ramp.

21:41They have de-escalated or they have calibrated their response in a way that was predictable. This is when Iran attacked the U.S. base in Iraq in 2020. This is when they attacked the Al-Odair base in Qatar back in June in response to Midnight Hammer. This time around, their thinking in Tehran is that we have to be unpredictable, we have to escalate, and we have to make sure the pain is felt on the other side and the pain is spread. That's why they're attacking U.S., Israel, and these Arab neighbors where the U.S. bases are hosted, so that this doesn't happen again. The thinking in Tehran is that they have projected weakness, and that's why he keeps the—President Trump keeps coming back for them.

22:20And this time around, whatever is remaining of that so-called axis of resistance, Iran's allies across the region, including Hezbollah, this can potentially involve the Houthis, the Shia militias in Iraq. It may be all hands on deck because the Iranians see this as an existential threat coming at them. It really is. I mean, it's talk of the regime change, the assassination of the supreme leader, the top brass political leaders. And so I think they are going to welcome this kind of help from their allies. And we can potentially see more of this. This really turning into a regional war, I think, was serious.

22:53Well, let's go to a couple of calls. We've got Robert on the line from Fayetteville, Pennsylvania. Robert, you are thinking about the role Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is playing here, the role Congress should be playing. Go ahead, briefly. Thank you. It is horrifying to hear the undisciplined belligerence coming from the Secretary of War, so-called. This should shock every single American to his core. And the fact that Congress, and the next call is going to be to my representative, John Joyce, who has failed consistently to rein in what is happening in our country. And I think as we approach 250 years, we should remember that Rome almost fell at that point in time, and that World War I drove the nails into the coffin of that whole idea of what was going on with the dictatorship.

23:53and we should get rid of the Kaiser, get rid of Hitler, get rid of Stalin, and think of where we are right now. Mr. Haggis' comments were unimaginable to me. Where do we go with Congress and how do we get out of this mess that we have chosen to get into? Robert, thank you for that call. Let's go to Sam in San Antonio. Sam, you're a member of a military family. How are you feeling right now? Hi, Jen. So, unfortunately, very, very disappointed. Just because when we sign up to raise, you know, the hand for our country, we're doing it for perhaps, God forbid, a Pearl Harbor, for a World War II, for Civil War, but not for oil in Venezuela or Iraq or in Iran now.

24:52And to me, my question is why, and not for you guys, but for our listeners, why do we keep voting people who do not have or know the concept of public service and who themselves have never served their country or have children, potentially four or five boys who never will serve their country, but then we elect them only because they're a male but not a female. So I'm just very angry that if something happens to my family, we will be forever affected only because of oil. And that's it. Sam, you're in Texas. That's a state that's having primaries very soon. Do you think this will shift the conversation around what happens in those Texas primaries?

25:39I honestly hope so, Jen. And for example, I'm, you know, try to get my husband to vote last week, you know, a little too tired. I don't think that's an excuse for any of our family and for any of the citizens here. You can't be too tired to go stand up for what is right for the future of this country and for every single person that has raised their hand for their life. If you put their hand, they have a life in danger. And so I don't think there's an excuse anymore for every single Texan to go vote. I don't care how you vote, but to vote for what is right. And there's no right or wrong or gray.