Chaos in the Gulf

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07Today, chaos in the Gulf as Iran's future hangs in the balance.

0:18This Saturday started like any other for Ed. He has lived in Dubai for most of his life and says he's always felt completely safe there. I've always seen it as like a mixture of the best parts of Europe and the best parts of America kind of squeezed into one. And you don't feel like you're really, you don't feel like you're in the Middle East. When he first heard the loud bangs at work on Saturday morning, he thought it was building work. Then his friend showed him a text message. It was from the UK Foreign Office warning of rocket attacks and telling them to seek shelter. He was like, mate, it's all kicking off.

0:56and then from there it just kind of escalated. We were getting told to stay put, to stay indoors, stay away from windows and within like an hour it just went from zero to 100. Ed was rushing back to his apartment when more rockets hit the anti-missile systems right above his head. I have a sunroof in my car so I looked up and I could see these bangs through the sunroof and then that's when the Fairmont Hotel, which is probably 200, 300 metres away from where I live, that blew up, something dropped into that and exploded. I think a bit of shrapnel from one of the drones. And then I was running up to my flat and then the building's shaky and then I'm like, God, so I got my stuff and then got out of there, not knowing when I was going to come back.

1:49The war started with the US and Israeli assassination of Iran's supreme leader on Saturday. Hundreds of Iranians have already been killed, including more than 165 in a direct airstrike on a school. Iran retaliated with airstrikes on US bases in the UAE and across the Gulf. For years, many countries in the Gulf have worked very hard to market themselves as a luxurious safe haven for expats and holidaymakers. And now as the war arrives at their doorsteps, it could all be coming apart. I was actually sleeping. I just got woken up by an emergency alert on my phone. We heard these bomb sounds outside our window and the windows were shaking.

2:37You know, these people's lives are at risk as a result of these sort of decisions that have been made by people in some safe place somewhere. You never feel that pressure that we're actually very close to these countries that are going through conflict like Yemen and Syria and Iran. But something like this obviously makes you realise how close we actually are to it all.

3:02As the region reels, Trump says the worst days of this war may still be to come And we have, right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks But we have capability to go far longer than that We'll do it, whatever From The Guardian, I'm Annie Kelly Today in Focus Can the crisis in the Gulf be contained?

3:30So Julian Borja, you're a senior international correspondent here at The Guardian. We're speaking to you on Monday afternoon, and things are really moving at a dizzying pace since the US and Israeli strikes took out Iran's supreme leader, al-Khamenei, on Saturday. You've been covering this region for a long time, for decades. Have you ever seen anything like this? No, this is quite unlike anything we've seen in the past. Of course, there was the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But also, you can look back to Libya and the killing of Muammar Gaddafi. It's similar in some ways because it was done from the air.

4:07They bombed, they weakened the regime, and then ultimately it was Libyans, basically a Libyan mob who found Gaddafi and killed him. And it does look like that is what Trump is thinking would happen, will happen in Iran, that it will be the people who will rise up and bring down the regime. But what happened in Libya was it broke up into pieces, became a chaotic state, a failed state. If that happens in Iran, which is a much more powerful, more advanced state in an even more strategic position in the world, then the consequences are potentially far, far worse. And in terms of just the kind of audacious nature of that strike on the Supreme Leader on Saturday, did you see that coming?

4:57Did you expect that? I am really surprised that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei thought it was a good idea to invite all his top defense aides to a meeting in one place in central Tehran in his compound, labeled Supreme Leader Headquarters, at a time when it was clear that an attack was imminent. And that clearly triggered the attack on Saturday morning, the fact that these people came in at one place and offered this target of opportunity. And it's not really clear, is it, if the US or Israel expected Iran to retaliate or be able to retaliate, but they have done. How have we seen them strike back? They've struck back pretty much like they did last June, which is just to fire a lot of missiles.

5:47This time, they've fired off missiles and drones at a broader range of targets because they went after Israel, of course, but they also aimed at U.S. bases in the region.

6:03But just like in June, it hasn't really worked because the countermeasures, the defenses in Israel and along the Gulf are strong enough to intercept almost everything and just set a few. That must have been factored into the planning for this, that there would be retaliation. Iran would fire up everything it had, but there is growing confidence, you see among US and its allies, that it has the countermeasures, has ways of protecting against it to minimise the damage that Iran can do. And which countries have come under attack since Saturday from Iran? Pretty much all the Gulf countries, and even including Amman, which had been very much on Iran's side.

6:46This is what's so surprising about Iran's decision making. Amman was really its main advocate in Washington. But it is the site of a U.S. base, as has been Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, both Dubai and Abu Dhabi have all been hit. So pretty much the whole Gulf. And you said that their air defences have proven to be pretty effective. But what has been the overall impact of these strikes on the region so far in other ways? Well, first of all, the price of oil took a spike because of worries about attacks. And there had been a couple of attacks on tankers. Shipping companies and insurance companies are being conservative and not going through the Strait of Humus, which is really the choke point into the Gulf and the dangerous point in the transit.

7:37And then, of course, there is, for example, Dubai Airport has been hit, and that is one of the business airports in the world. It's a hub, international hub. So that has closed down. So the tourist industry, of course, along the Gulf, which is important to the Gulf, because the Gulf countries have really, over the decades, presented themselves as a sort of safe place for investment, safe place for expats and all that, safe place for tourists. And that, of course, has taken a real knocking. All my days over the beach club is f***ing mental. Look at that. They were so loud. In the safest city in the world.

8:17Wow. And that is really the question mark over what Iran thinks it is doing, because a lot of the population, certainly in the Gulf States, would have been very sympathetic to them coming under fire from the US and Israel. But after these counterstrikes by Iran, really turned that around. And Iran is now seen as the biggest threat. And it's possible that the Gulf Arab states will get involved now against Iran.

8:55And in terms of this, I mean, I think everyone's seen the videos over the weekend of tourists stranded in Dubai. in Qatar, you know, people on the beach kind of looking at missiles. I mean, the Gulf countries are going to want to shut that down pretty quickly, aren't they? Tourism is hugely important to them. Yes, they're going to want this to be over. And this is probably the argument that Washington is making, Israel is making. This will last a few days. It'll be a few days of disruption, but then we will have solved your problem and the security problem in the Gulf forever. The regime will have gone and we will have destroyed all the missiles and the nuclear program will be hobbled and this long festering saw in the Gulf will be solved once and for all.

9:41That is probably the argument that Washington is making now. We have hit hundreds of targets in Iran, including Revolutionary Guard facilities, Iranian air defense systems. Just now it was announced that we knocked out nine ships plus their naval building, all in a matter of literally minutes. I do think that would be a compelling argument that the Gulf countries would respond to. I think everything depends now on the resilience of the regime and how many bullets it has left in its magazine. What else does it have? For example, there was a thought at some time in recent weeks that they would have swans of underwater and surface and aerial drones that would close in on an American Navy vessel and overwhelm its defenses.

10:32They war game this over the years in Washington. They love a war game. And each time they did this war game, more or less, there would be one or two US ships that have gone down. We haven't seen that yet. And maybe that threat has been neutralized by, they've thought out of defenses, of countermeasures, and so it hasn't happened. Or it may be that Iran hasn't played that card yet. And you've kind of alluded to the fact that Iran seems to be making these fairly irrational decisions, for instance, attacking Amman. Can you just explain, is there a strategy behind that or is it just panic, do you think?

11:10I think if there is a strategy, it's not a good one. After their missiles failed in June to have much effect and get through the defenses, the Israeli defenses, they just went back to making more missiles and have followed the same route again, firing off a lot of missiles that haven't got through the defenses. And then in firing at the Gulf Arab states, they have made a lot more enemies in the world. I mean, they are pretty much totally isolated now. So, you know, there is question marks over the strategic thinking of the regime. But we sort of knew that, that these aren't necessarily great strategists.

11:51Right. But how dangerous a moment is this? I mean, even if Iran is hobbled by bad decision making and potentially very limited military capabilities, is this still a bit of a perilous moment for the region? Absolutely. Because of the great potential for chaos, for anarchy, for conflict, because once a great multinational nation state comes apart, as we've seen in Libya and Iraq, you don't know what's going to happen. And Iran is a cobbled together country ethnically. Obviously, you have a good chunk of Persians, but there are also Baluchi, Kurds, there's Arabs, Azeris. There are separatist movements along the borders.

12:41We don't know how strong. So there is that potential for implosion. And we don't know how close the regime and the country is in terms of falling apart and how long the regime can hold on. But it is really on the brink of something potentially very violent, very long lasting and very destructive.

13:13And tell us a bit about the recent history between Iran and the Gulf states. What's that relationship been like? Well, it has been a long-running enmity because Iran is a Shia power in a Sunni neighborhood, but a Shia power that has seen itself as the regional superpower, the hegemon. And that has for decades, well, ever since the Islamic revolution in 79 and before under the Shah being a source of tension. But in more recent years, there had been a certain amount of detente compared to the long history of the region. China brokered a non-aggression deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran and China then became kind of an important broker in the region and China has interests on both sides.

14:05So it comes at a time when the tensions with the rest of the Gulf, the Arab states, were not at a particular peak. They were somewhat, you know, they'd been somewhat stifled. But now all that enmity, of course, come back to the surface. And Julian, the Ayatollah was not just a political leader. He was also a religious leader for millions of Shias across the world. How could his assassination be a factor in what comes next across the Gulf, but also beyond? Yeah, I think that's a major factor looking forward in terms of global instability, because he was seen as a figurehead of Shia Islam, but also wider Islamic leader who stood up to the US and Israel in the way that other Islamic leaders hadn't.

14:55And so to many people across the Islamic world, he's a hero who didn't suffer under him. He has a much better reputation outside Iran than inside. And of course, you have a Shia majority in Bahrain. You have Shia minorities elsewhere in the Arab world. To what extent will they react to what they're seeing unfold in Iran? We've already seen unrest as far away as Pakistan. So I think there are many factors here in terms of the Islamic world, in terms of Shia Islam that we've yet to see play out. And what about the Gulf states and their relationship with Israel? Israel, obviously, major player in these strikes and seems to, in fact, have been kind of leading the US into the timing and the nature of what's been playing out.

15:45What's the relationship between the Gulf region and Israel like? Well, different for different states. The UAE, United Arab Emirates, very close to Israel, almost hand in glove on a lot of issues. We're hearing now that the Saudi monarchy played a part in convincing Trump to go in on this attack. So taking the same, you know, sort of backing up Netanyahu's arguments from Israel. Other countries like Qatar, certainly Oman, are aghast at what they're seeing. So it is very much, from that point of view, a divided region. So really complicated then. You've got this really complicated relationship between Iran and the Gulf.

16:29And again, you've got Israel's relationship with the Gulf very fragmented in terms of their different relationships. On this Saudi point, can you explain why would it be that Saudi would be encouraging Trump to go in and take out the regime's leaders at this moment? Well, I think from the point of view of Saudi Arabia, the long-term threat to the kingdom is Iran. It is the other major power. It has missiles. It has a nuclear program and the capability of down the line one day making nuclear weapons. And, you know, the Saudis have long hinted that if that happened, they would get nuclear weapons of their own.

17:12But this offers another solution to really nip in the bud Iran's ability to threaten Saudi Arabia and the region and really takes it down as a regional power. The question is what comes next, because what comes next, if it is not stable, if it's chaotic, could be much worse for Saudi Arabia. For example, just in terms of getting oil out of the Gulf and trade into the Gulf, if there is long-term instability, that could be disastrous for Saudi Arabia, but also for the rest of the Gulf. But maybe, you know, do you think it's in anyone's interest that Iran does descend into this kind of fragmentation and chaos?

17:50Well, I've seen some reporting in the Israeli press that that suits Israel and this government quite well for different reasons. Their focus is on the capabilities. So if you take out the missiles, make sure they've got no missiles to fire, and you take care of the nuclear program and make sure that's not going anywhere, then that feeling of existential threat that Netanyahu has always emphasized, that goes away, at least for the time being. And they don't really care if Iranians are killing each other. And chaos, to a certain extent, keeps Iran weak, which from Netanyahu's point of view is a plus.

18:29And of course, he's coming out to elections. If there is continuing instability going on in the region, then he can continue to present himself as this Churchillian war leader. He can put off the reckoning, A, for the corruption charges against him, but also that question mark about how much he and his government were to blame for letting their guard down and allowing the 7th of October attacks in 23 to happen. War, instability, bit of chaos, that suits his purposes very well. And how influential would his voice be in Trump's ear, do you think? From what we hear, he was able to shape Trump's view of Iran and told him what Iran was like, the only kind of language that Iran would understand and what would happen in Iran and how easy it would be to oust the Islamic Republic regime.

19:27So it does look like Netanyahu took the part of a senior aide, a senior advisor to Trump. And I mean, it's quite, you know, we talked at the top of this interview about how extraordinary it was that you saw the Ayatollah and some of the most senior figures in the Iranian regime taken out like this. It's probably worth pointing out that this is the first time that Israel has gone in and killed the leader of a country, along with the US. Yes, this is an extraordinary step to take, to go in and use assassination as a tool, especially at a time when you are in the middle of negotiations with that country to go and assassinate the leader of that country while negotiations are going on just not only throws away the rule books but sort of incinerates them and we are in a new world now.

20:21And that must matter as well in terms of how other countries, other nations can trust what the Americans are saying. We know that Trump has made, for instance, huge efforts to broker close relationships with the Gulf, both diplomatically and some would say for other personal financial reasons. Isn't this also a huge risk for him, dragging the region into a war that he can't control and they perhaps don't want? Absolutely, it's a risk to him, if not only just an oil price shock in the months leading up to midterm elections, that could be very damaging because really one thing that voters mind is the price of petrol at the pumps.

21:08It's historically been shown to be politically damaging. I mean, in terms of how much he's damaging America's place in the world, I mean, we've seen this unfold over, you know, an accelerating pace during his second term in office, and this really hits a high point. In the near term, I think countries are going to be very, and leaders are going to be very wary of making him cross. This is a very capricious, volatile, mercurial figure. So in the near time, everyone is going to play nice because if you can be wiped out if Trump wakes up in the morning and decides he doesn't like you and you'd be better out of the way, these are very risky times to be the leader of any country.

21:58But in the long term, it is not surely going to be in America's interest to have that role on the world stage. And you could see, I think, a gravitation towards China as an opposite pole that is a consistent power, that doesn't use random violence, that has a pretty consistent message and consistent economically-based interests. And what about Iran? We spoke a bit about their decision-making, like how they've responded since the strikes. We talked about how you couldn't really see much logic in, for instance, them striking Amman or doing these quite kind of widespread hits across the Gulf. But surely they don't want to provoke the Gulf states into retaliatory strikes while they're under fire from the US and Israel.

22:49Yeah, they did make it in the run-up to this. They did make a round to the Gulf and saying, if we strike back, it's only against the Gulf. So it's not against you. But of course, once the missiles and the drones start flying and they start hitting hotels and airports, all that talk is for nothing. And that is the great flaw in their deterrence strategy. But I don't know whether there was a workable deterrent strategy that they could have chosen against the overwhelming might of the U.S. and Israel. How can a country that does not have a nuclear weapon defend itself? And that is maybe one of the most worrying, disturbing, you know, when it comes to potential fallout is that other countries look at what's happened.

23:42They look at what happened to Iraq, Iran, Libya, and what hasn't happened to North Korea, and draw the conclusion the only way that we can defend ourselves is to have a nuclear weapon.

23:58Coming up, can Europe stay out of the war?

24:18And how willing is Europe to get involved more generally? I mean, we're talking about the fact that this conflict could escalate across the Middle East. You know, a UK base in Cyprus has already been hit after the UK government allowed the Americans to use that as a launch pad for strikes. Can Europe and the UK avoid getting fully drawn into this conflict and also keep Trump on side, which they also need to do? Yeah, in a way, the attacks on the Gulf Arab states have opened a door for the Europeans, Britain, France, Germany, to fix their rift with Trump because they didn't want any part in the initial act of aggression, the war of choice.

25:01But now their allies in the region have been attacked. They've now said, well, we will enter in a defensive way. And so that to some extent solves their problem with Trump. You know, to what extent it will be a problem for them domestically because the predominant view of this is a war of choice by Trump, deeply unpopular figure in Europe. And so it will be seen by many in the electorate in these countries as joining in Trump's war. I want to be very clear. We all remember the mistakes of Iraq. And we have learned those lessons. We were not involved in the initial strikes on Iran. And we will not join offensive action now.

25:50But Iran is pursuing a scorched earth strategy. So we are supporting... And it's been interesting, isn't it, the language that's been used around condemnation of Iran, but no condemnation of the US or Israel. Yes, very mealy-mouthed words of, well, we must stick out for international law, but without really sort of mentioning the US or Israel at all. I mean, the Iranian regime, diabolical in so many ways, the brutal, brutal repression of those protests a few months ago, just one indication of that. But when it comes to international law, these strikes are in no way compliant with the US or Israel's obligations, are they?

26:32No, but in a way, that boat has long sailed. You know, Trump has shown Israel under Netanyahu have shown they have no time for the niceties of international law. Obviously, in Gaza, Trump in Venezuela and so on. This is not something that concerns them. And to some extent, you know, Trump's creation of the Board of Peace was a way of getting around all that and all the complications and restrictions of the UN Charter and set up his own parallel organisation where he could get to make up the rules on the spur. Trump in particular has created a chaotic world. How do you think it's going to play out over the coming days between Iran, the Gulf, Trump and Israel?