Iran war escalates: what’s Trump’s endgame? - The Latest

0:00Jamie Wilson:This is The Guardian.

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0:46Jamie Wilson:The kind of blowback has been pretty extraordinary, perhaps a lot more than the Americans thought it would be. This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change. On America first conditions of President Trump's choosing. Nobody else's as it should be. This is a war of choice. Chaos in Iran kind of works for Israel. We have seen a sort of falling apart of the rules-based order.

1:12Nosheen Iqbal:Today, escalation and retaliation as war rocks the Middle East. From The Guardians today in Focus, this is the latest with me, Nosheen Iqbal.

1:25Nosheen Iqbal:Joining me today is Jamie Wilson, the Guardian's head of international news. Jamie, we've just heard from Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of War, as he's rebranded the defence secretary position. Now, he's made his first statement since Israel and the US began this bombardment of Iran on Saturday. What did we learn?

1:44Jamie Wilson:I think crucially, we learned probably for the first time since the bomb started on Saturday morning, exactly what the US war aims are here. He was pretty clear this wasn't going to be a forever war, that the aim was to destroy the Iranian missiles, to destroy the Iranian Navy, with the ultimate aim of destroying any defences that Iran has that would allow them to build a nuclear weapon. He accused Iran of basically waging war on America and American people for 47 years, and said that this wasn't about regime change, they definitely were changing the regime. So it was a funny semantics. Yeah, it was typically Hegseth quite punchy, quite angry, very angry with the media who were asking questions as normal, saying that the media had no real right to know what was going on on the ground and what the American sort of what was actually happening in terms of the operation.

2:38Jamie Wilson:So yeah.

2:39Nosheen Iqbal:And of course, there are wider implications across the Gulf that the war has spread. that Lebanon has been hit by bombs from Israel, Hezbollah has been striking Israel, Saudi, Bahrain, Qatar. I mean, everyone seems to be embroiled in some way in retaliatory strikes. How do you think this plays out for the Gulf? And how do you think those countries will respond?

2:59Jamie Wilson:Well, yeah, I mean, he promised that this wasn't going to turn into some major, wider regional war that was going to go on for months or years. And that this was a matter of days or weeks rather than months or years. But the kind of blowback has been pretty extraordinary, perhaps a lot more than the Americans thought it would be. Iran has an awful lot of the Shahid drones that it's been using or that it's given to the Russians that they've been using in Ukraine for many years. They're very low tech, they're very inexpensive, but they're quite hard to defend against. And so they've managed to fire them at countries across the region from Kuwait to Saudi Arabia to Bahrain, and in Dubai, where we've seen these drones crashing into hotels that European and other tourists use throughout the year.

3:49Jamie Wilson:So pretty extraordinary scenes to see that happen. The Gulf countries have put out a statement this morning condemning the Iranians for their response. But it's hard to imagine that behind the scenes, they're also probably not quite angry with the Americans for having launched this war that has then led them to be under attack. I mean, And there's going to be, you know, certainly for places like Dubai, which relies on its tourist industry, seeing drones crashing into and exploding into hotels. It's not going to be great for that going forward. So imagine behind the scenes, there's probably quite a lot of anger.

4:21Nosheen Iqbal:And even from the American perspective, I mean, you had three fighter planes shot down in Kuwait and these extraordinary images of the pilots parachuting down. And that was actually done by mistake by the Kuwaitis. So you can just see this picture of chaos.

4:35Jamie Wilson:Yeah. I mean, that was kind of extraordinary images. video and of these planes falling out of the sky, as you say, shot down in a friendly fire incident by the Q80s. But yeah, it just shows that not everything goes to plan when you launch these kind of major wars against a country that does have certainly a lot less missiles and defences than it had before the war in June last year, when a lot of that was taken out, but still has an awful lot of capability to fight back. How long that capability lasts, We're not sure. And that's going to be one of the big questions for probably the next few days and weeks.

5:10Jamie Wilson:If it goes on that long, exactly how long can Iran keep firing back? The Americans and the Israelis have complete control of the skies over Iran at the moment, it seems. So, you know, and presumably the Iranians have a limited supply. But how big that supply is, we just don't know.

5:26Nosheen Iqbal:Right. And of course, there's also a wider concern in the UK that we may be embroiled in this conflict in some way or another. Because on Sunday, you know, you saw the prime minister saying that there wasn't going to be permission to the US to use UK military bases in the region to launch strikes on Iran. Now, that very quickly changed and the US did use UK military bases, of course, as we saw. Jamie, how realistic is it you think that the UK will be dragged into this conflict?

5:53Jamie Wilson:Yeah, it's I mean, I'm sure that Keir Starmer will be desperate not to get dragged into any further. But I mean, yeah, as you say, that kind of position has already changed just in a few short days. And we've also seen drones fired at British Air Force Base in Cyprus, which is pretty extraordinary. We don't exactly know where that drone came from. Possibly it was fired by Hezbollah in Lebanon rather than coming all the way from Iran. But you just never know quite what may happen next. And yeah, at some point it may be that the UK feels it has to get involved to stop that from happening. or to, yeah, I'm sure they'll be resistant to that.

6:31Jamie Wilson:But they've already got, you know, British has already got dragged into it far more than they'd like to, I'm sure. And interesting how furious Trump was not being allowed to use the British Air Force bases to begin with. He's already said that today, that Starmill was far too slow in allowing that to happen.

6:48Nosheen Iqbal:Yeah, well, he changes tune very quickly. And of course, our colleagues on Politics Weekly will be exploring that question a bit further. Jamie, when it comes to the global ramifications, There are further consequences when we look at, you know, the price of oil rocketing, when we look at, you know, the economic situation that this war may place many countries in.

7:05Jamie Wilson:Well, that's, yeah, again, that's a really big question is we've already seen the oil price go up considerably the longer this goes on, the longer the ships aren't getting through the straits of formers, then the straits of formers rather than, you know, the higher that's likely to go. So that has all sorts of major implications, really, not least for inflation, which has been a huge issue across so many countries and including in America. And that has potentially big implications for the midterms that Trump's winning everything he can to try and rein in the cost of living in the US. But gas prices go up, other prices go up, that potentially could play badly for the midterms.

7:44Nosheen Iqbal:And you do wonder how that tallies, though, with the midterms, with, you know, how the American electorate feel about the potential for this war and how it affects their pocket. I mean, is that a calculation, do you think, for the White House right now?

7:55Jamie Wilson:Because we just don't understand Trump's thinking entirely on this. It's really hard to know what he's thinking. He's not up for election next time around. But, you know, if the Republicans do really badly in the midterms, that's going to make the sort of last two years he's in office incredibly difficult for him. so you would think he's thinking about politics there are you know lots of people saying well actually you know the part of this is to try and kind of stop people from talking about the Epstein revelations is that true it's really hard to know I find that so to launch such a massive war for that I think is a little bit unlikely but you never know you never know.

8:31Nosheen Iqbal:Jamie how much do you infer that the agenda for this war has actually been set by Israel because it is a primary objective for Netanyahu to absolutely degrade Iran?

8:40Jamie Wilson:Well, yeah, I mean, certainly Netanyahu has Trump's ear, definitely feels like this is very much an Israeli-led war. Pete Hegseth, when he was speaking, kind of interestingly actually said that the sort of war aims of the US and Israel potentially were quite different. And for Israel, I think the aim is regime change in Iran, or even a civil war in Iran, that chaos in Iran kind of works for Israel in a way. It means that they're not a threat to Israel. And it means that Iran's proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, is not a threat either. So definitely, we know that Netanyahu is incredibly influential inside the White House.

9:23Jamie Wilson:And it does feel like, yeah, that they very much push this at this moment.

9:26Nosheen Iqbal:And meanwhile, of course, strikes are raining down on Iran. And Trump has claimed that They have killed 48 of Iran's top leaders, including, of course, the Ayatollah. Jamie, what do you make of this alleged invitation he's given to the Iranian people to take this once in a lifetime opportunity for generational change? I mean, how likely is it that the Iranian regime will fall?

9:48Jamie Wilson:I mean, we've seen an incredible sort of split screen moments in Iran over the last few days with some of the population jubilant at the killing of the Ayatollah, who they see as having kind of held them back for years. And, you know, we are just a few short weeks since these massive protests across Iran in which thousands of people died. We still have no real idea exactly how many thousand died, but, you know, an awful lot. so we've sort of seen kind of yeah kind of real jubilation from from part of part of the country but at the same time an awful lot of people out on the streets in mourning um and you know kind of absolutely furious at what's going on and very very angry with america and you know and which which of those two sides wins out at this point is really hard to say other than the the regime is still by far the heaviest, more heavily armed than the civilian population.

10:46Jamie Wilson:I mean, the civilian population doesn't have any arms. It's sort of, you know, one side is a real military force, the other one isn't. But at the same time, things can change very quickly. We saw that in Syria last year with the fall of the Assad regime, which crumbled incredibly quickly. So when these things do take hold, it can happen very fast.

11:08Nosheen Iqbal:And then, Jamie, finally, if we just pretend for a moment that we are living in normal times, what possible legal justification is there for these strikes? And what precedent does it set on a global political stage?

11:21Jamie Wilson:It's very hard at this point to see any kind of legal justification for this. This is a war of choice. There wasn't, I think pretty much all the US intelligence assessments were that there was no immediate threat from Iran at this point. So this was very much a war of choice carried out now probably because both the US and Israel saw that Iran was at possibly its weakest point that it could possibly be. as I said, following the attacks last June in which an awful lot of Iranian missiles and military defenses were taken out. And then the recent protests that has absolutely roiled the country. And presumably they thought if there is going to be a moment when the regime does fall, this is it.

12:10Jamie Wilson:Hence why to do this now. But there's no legal justification for that in that sense.

12:17Nosheen Iqbal:But just absolutely meets Israel and America's objectives.

12:21Jamie Wilson:Absolutely. Absolutely. And yeah, I mean, you know, we have seen a sort of falling apart of the rules based order. And since Trump took office for his second term, and how that plays out, yeah, that sort of, I guess, somebody like Vladimir Putin would, you know, seeing another strong man failed is not probably not something he's desperately keen to see either. But at the same time, kind of the sort of condemnation of his invasion of Ukraine becomes much harder when something like this happens. And I guess for China, you know, the kind of always the big question is, will they decide to at some point invade Taiwan?

13:01Jamie Wilson:And again, does this give them license to do that? I'm not sure, but sort of some certainly some people think so.

13:08Nosheen Iqbal:Gosh, Jamie, thank you for your time.

13:10Jamie Wilson:You're very welcome.

13:11Nosheen Iqbal:That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Jamie Wilson, The Guardian's Head of International News. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest, the new evening edition of Today in Focus. Today in Focus will be back tomorrow morning with more analysis of the situation in Iran. And we'll be back tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Noshin Iqbal. The producers were Bryony Moore and Annie Levespa. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin. And the lead producer was Zoe Hitch. This is The Guardian.

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