Follow the leader: Iran picks the son

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1:19Rosie Blau:Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Rosie Bloor. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

1:34Rosie Blau:American science has taken a battering since Donald Trump took office over a year ago. Now Republicans in Congress are beginning to fight back. And there's something of a shortage of tenors at the moment. Not£10 notes, but the higher male voices in a choir. Our correspondent looks for the key to the problem and asks whether ensembles may have to change their tunes.

2:11But first...

2:19Rosie Blau:Just over a week ago, Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in joint U.S. airstrikes. Now, a new supreme leader has been picked.

2:35Rosie Blau:Mushtaba Khamenei is the son of the last one, chosen by a panel of clerics as the battering of the country continues.

2:48Rosie Blau:With assaults on oil and other energy facilities and an Iranian response in kind. A new leader and a new phase of the third Gulf War begins.

3:00Daniella Raz:The choice of Moshtaba Khamenei as Iran's new supreme leader is a signal of continuity rather than change.

3:10Rosie Blau:Greg Karlstrom, our Middle East correspondent, is in Riyadh this morning.

3:14Daniella Raz:The regime intends it to show that it is still intact and it is not willing to bend. But I think it's also going to be taken by many Iranians as a signal that their government is simply incapable of any sort of change or reform.

3:30Rosie Blau:So how much do we actually know about this new supreme leader?

3:34Daniella Raz:We don't know much about him. He is a reclusive figure who worked for a long time in his father's office, but in a sense never really held a proper job. We do know that he is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime's Praetorian Guard. And he's a quite influential figure behind the scenes in what's known as the Beit, the office of the supreme leader that his father inhabited for decades. But beyond that, we don't know much about his political views. He hasn't spoken much in public. His clerical credentials are rather lacking. He's not an ayatollah, as the previous two supreme leaders were.

4:13Daniella Raz:He's a mid-ranking cleric at best. So when it comes to matters of theology, his views also somewhat a mystery. The sense in Iran is very much that he's going to be a hardliner, cut from the same cloth as his father, if not even more hardline. But exactly what he wants to do with the office of the supreme leader, we really don't know.

4:33Rosie Blau:What does the choice tell us about how the regime is actually coping with the attacks?

4:38Daniella Raz:Again, I think it tells you that the regime wants to show that it's business as usual and everything is still functioning and that they are not in the mood to moderate or bend the knee to the United States or to their own people. The choice of Mostaba is going to be very unpopular with Iranians, not just because his father was deeply unpopular, but even for regime supporters, The idea of dynastic rule is unpopular. Many regime supporters think that we really overthrow a monarchy in 1979 just to replace it with another monarchy. And so his popular support is going to be lacking. But the regime doesn't care about that.

5:18Daniella Raz:It wants to signal that it is still intact and still in charge. I think in practice, it's an open question how much power, how much control Mostaba is actually going to have. This is a moment when Iran is navigating a transition in wartime, when most of its leaders are in hiding, they're struggling to communicate with one another. And there are power struggles playing out behind the scenes where various factions are trying to take charge right now. So nominally, Mostaba is now the supreme leader of Iran. He's meant to be in charge of everything. But I think in reality, it's going to take him a while to exert his authority.

5:57Daniella Raz:and you're likely to see the Revolutionary Guard and other camps within the regime really pulling the strings.

6:03Rosie Blau:And what has been the US response to his appointment?

6:06Daniella Raz:Donald Trump is not happy. He previously described Mostaba as a lightweight and someone who was an unacceptable choice for supreme leader. He's talked about wanting to have a role himself in the selection of the supreme leader as if this is the Miss Universe pageant or something, which he used to run. He hoped going into this war 10 days ago that he might find some regime insider that he could cut a deal with the way he did with Delcey Rodriguez in Venezuela. That hasn't happened yet. There have been no signs of prominent regime figures breaking off and engaging in serious talks with the United States.

6:43Daniella Raz:And I think the fact that Mushtaba has been chosen as the supreme leader is a very clear signal that the regime doesn't want to make that sort of a deal and that Trump is going to be frustrated. it.

6:54Rosie Blau:And Greg, it's been a busy weekend. What other shifts have we seen in this conflict?

6:59Daniella Raz:We've seen increasingly over the past few days, both America and Israel on one side and Iran on the other, aiming at vital infrastructure across the region. Overnight, Saturday into Sunday, there were Israeli strikes on fuel depots in Tehran and then in another city to the west of the capital that's created just apocalyptic scenes, flames shooting into the night sky. When the sun came up on Sunday morning, it was basically dark in Tehran because there was so much smoke hanging over the city that the sunlight couldn't pierce through. People spent the day hiding from toxic fumes inside of their homes.

7:36Daniella Raz:And then we've seen similar escalation from Iran in its attacks on the Gulf states, which have continued hundreds of missiles and drones being fired every day. And Iran, more and more, seems to be aiming at their energy supplies and their vital infrastructure. Dozens of drones fired at a major oil field in Saudi Arabia. On Sunday morning, there was a strike on a water desalination plant in Bahrain, which is obviously a huge concern because Gulf countries rely on such facilities for most of their drinking water. And then on Monday morning, another drone attack in Bahrain, this one on the country's main oil refinery, which injured dozens of people and led BAPCO, the state oil company, to temporarily pause production.

8:20Daniella Raz:So this looks to be shifting into a phase where it is an economic war, it is a war on critical infrastructure, and it's going to be a test to see which side can withstand more of that pain.

8:33Rosie Blau:So if we're shifting into a new phase, what else can we expect to see?

8:37Daniella Raz:I think more of these sorts of attacks on energy, on power plants, water desalination infrastructure. I think for both sides, they went into this war thinking that they might be able to achieve a quick victory. Trump thought that the regime might cut a deal. And the Iranians thought if they caused enough damage in the Gulf states that the monarchs there would demand that Trump end the war. And neither side has been successful. The Gulf states, instead of urging Trump to end the war, the Iranian strikes have hardened their view of the regime. And many of them are privately telling Trump that he needs to finish what they started.

9:11Daniella Raz:And so I think we're going to see more escalation on both sides. We've watched these wild spikes in oil markets over the past couple of days with oil prices now above$100 a barrel, fears that it could go even higher. Goldman Sachs projecting that maybe it hits$150 a barrel. There seem to be some Iranian officials who think this strategy of targeting the Gulf states is a mistake. We heard over the weekend from Masoud Pizashqian, the president, who apologized for those attacks and said that he had ordered a halt to them. The problem is no one in Iran listens to the president who has complained for years now about being powerless.

9:47Daniella Raz:And sure enough, we saw in the hours after he supposedly issued that order, continued attacks on everything from oil fields and desalination plants to the international airport in Dubai.

9:59Rosie Blau:So Greg, does this all come down to who blinks first?

10:03Daniella Raz:I think it does. And it's a risky calculus for everyone involved. The politics of it are quite complicated, I think, for Donald Trump. He has midterms coming up in November, and this war is already unpopular. The Gulf states, they've kept the stiff upper lip so far. And I think if this goes on for a period of a few weeks, they can endure the pain. But if this becomes a months-long conflict, the economic damage, the reputational damage is going to accumulate. date, there's already been some grumbling from businessmen in the Gulf about what this means for their bottom line, and also grumbling from citizens who are enduring days and days of drone and missile attacks.

10:40Daniella Raz:How long can Gulf monarchs remain resilient? And then for Iran, if it keeps escalating, it has to bear in mind that its foes can escalate in kind, and not just America and Israel. Saudi Arabia has already threatened to join the war if Iran carries out a strike that seriously damages its oil industry. Other Gulf states have set their own red lines around things like desalination infrastructure. So there's a risk here for Iran that, yes, it can impose a lot of pain on its enemies, but they can do the same thing. And a regime in a country that has been through decades of economic mismanagement and sanctions and environmental crisis may not have as much capacity to be resilient as the regime is hoping.

11:23Rosie Blau:Greg, thank you very much for talking to me.

11:25Daniella Raz:Thank you, Rosie.

11:52Gregg Carlstrom:is here and it's the most McDonald's McDonald's burger yet. It has two quarter pound patties, three slices of cheese, tangy Big Arch sauce, lettuce, pickles, crispy and slivered onions, and a poppy and sesame seed bun. It's everything you love about McDonald's burgers between two buns. The Big Arch sauce is tangy, creamy, and it's the perfect pair to the Big Arch burger. Go grab a Big Arch burger today, but warning, you're going to need both hands to hold it. at participating McDonald's for a limited time while supplies last. You know what's wild? Most people are still overpaying for car insurance just because it's a pain to switch.

12:31Gregg Carlstrom:That's why there's Jerry. Jerry's the only app that compares rates from over 50 insurers in minutes and helps you switch fast with no spam calls or hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over$1 ,300 a year. Before you renew your car insurance policy, do yourself a favor. Download the Jerry app or head to jerry.ai slash ACAST.

13:17Rosie Blau:But one area that Donald Trump and his appointees have been particularly keen to cut has been scientific research. That has sparked fears. The Trump administration has been upending American science. In the past year, thousands of grants have been cancelled and billions of dollars withheld from researchers. That assault has provoked a rare reaction from Republicans in Congress who've rejected$30 billion in proposed cuts. But the threat to American science persists. So the moon in the science community has been really anxious in the past year. Daniela Raz is a U.S. correspondent and data journalist at The Economist.

14:00Joel Budd:What's happening in America does really matter because it's a kind of center of gravity for global science. Research funding has been cut and trust in the entire enterprise is really being eroded.

14:13Rosie Blau:so just talk me through the nuts and bolts of what's actually happened what does the

14:18Joel Budd:administration propose to do with scientific research so every administration when they enter office they will change their scientific priorities that part is not unusual but at the start of last year the administration proposed these really unprecedented cuts to almost every single scientific agency. Just as an example, they wanted to reduce the NIH, which is the National Institutes of Health, by something like 40 percent. They wanted to cut a ton of centers at the NIH. They even suggested cutting portions of some agencies entirely. So in Congress, Republicans, not just Democrats, really pushed back on this.