Is Trump about to attack Iran? – The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:09He's now in a position to actually come good on his threats because massive US assets are now sort of in the region. And by the way, there's another beautiful armada floating beautifully toward Iran right now. So we'll see. They should have made a deal the first time. The levels of instability in the region have just been so vast that there's a sense it really couldn't cope with any more right now. Donald Trump is sending a fleet of warships towards Iran. He says they're prepared to attack. From The Guardian's today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Nashi Nqbal.

0:47Joining me is Devika Bhatt, The Guardian's deputy head of international news. Devika, thank you so much for joining us today. It's obviously a very busy day for you. Now, it was just two weeks ago, it feels like a lifetime ago, that Trump said the US was about to strike Iran. We were all on edge. Nothing happened. And yet, here we are again. What's he said overnight? Yes, so you're right. So yesterday, he used Truth Social to sort of put forward this quite long post where he said that this fleet headed by the USS Abraham Lincoln is on its way, quote, with great power, enthusiasm and purpose. and he uses this as an opportunity to threaten Iran and says that if Iran doesn't come good on making a deal, then it could be deployed and that time is sort of running out.

1:36Now, it's very striking in this post that he does not once mention the protests that were the original impetus for the reasons he was giving as to why the US would hit Iran, the deadly protests in which we think thousands have died. The numbers are not exactly clear. Let's come back to his objectives in a minute because I am curious about this fleet. It's been reported there are warships, aircraft carriers, something called missile destroyers, as far as I'm aware. It doesn't look like an empty threat now. Those are advancing at speed. So what does it mean? How seriously is it being taken? Yeah, so I think that's right.

2:13I think this time he's now in a position to actually come good on his threats because these massive US assets are now sort of in the region and makes it much more likely that something could happen And the US has the capabilities not only to carry it out, but then to sort of defend itself in the case of Iranian retaliation, which is what it would be sort of preparing for. We've got this USS Abraham Lincoln. We think it's got several dozen fighter jets on it. We also think that there are other aircraft and assets heading to the region, to Qatar, to Jordan, to the big US bases there. So now we're in a position where the US could actually carry this out in a way it couldn't three weeks ago.

2:53Wow. And of course, let's look at the Iranian people for a minute, because as you said, there's been a brutal crackdown. Tens of thousands of protesters have been believed to be killed. If the US strikes Iran, what happens to the Iranians? What could come next? It's a really good question. And, you know, as I said, sort of the original kind of reason Trump was giving for going into Iran three weeks ago was the protest. Trump was sort of rallying them almost, you know, telling them to keep on the streets, telling them that help was coming. He sort of literally used that phrase. And then he sort of U-turned on that.

3:27But now he's not mentioning the protesters at all. And it does make you wonder where he thinks things are going to go for them and where the U.S. kind of is sitting on that front. And in terms of if there were a strike, I mean, it's really hard to know because it's such an opaque regime. But, you know, there's one school of thought that says far from sort of galvanizing the opposition, they are severely weakened now. They've just been brutal, had this brutal crackdown against them. But certainly what is the case is if the aim of this is to take out the regime at the very top, then that would have huge consequences, not just in Iran, but across the whole region.

4:02And what about the prospect of a military takeover? You know, the idea that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, who have been executing people, who have been carrying out this regime's actions, that they're in charge? Well, so, I mean, the Revolutionary Guard is already an incredibly powerful force in Iran. And we think today there's the possibility that the EU is going to take this somewhat symbolic but still significant action to kind of sanction the Revolutionary Guards to sort of formally designate them as a terrorist organization. If the regime were to topple from the point of view of the supreme leader being sort of taken out by the US, then that would have an absolute ripple effect.

4:38And it's very likely there'd be some sort of power struggle. How that would play out is really, really unclear because this is a regime that's been in place since 1979. Well, let's take Trump at face value and his objectives, because if we look at what happened last summer when the US launched this audacious attack on Iran. and he said completely and totally obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities. Now, if that was the case, why is it that there's suddenly so much heat from Trump on forcing the Iranians to the table to hammer out a deal for nuclear disarmament? And of course, that objective has changed from a couple of weeks ago when it was about freeing Iranian civil society.

5:21What's his objective here? So, yeah, it's really interesting because the move to focus on the nuclear programme is something that's a much more sort of traditional US concern. You know, previous administrations, this goes well back before Trump. Obama, you know, quite famously sort of did strike a deal over the nuclear programme with Iran, which was then sort of overturned by Trump. And so this is something that previous American administrations have tried to grapple with and have never quite sort of managed to do so. Yeah, he claimed he did. He ignored evidence that he hadn't, but he claimed he did.

5:53Yes, that is true. Yeah. So he's sort of going back to a much more sort of traditional US position almost on this. What has led him to that point now is unclear. To your point about the attack last year that was supposed to have taken out these three big military sites. So it's true. Trump did say, you know, in typically sort of hyperbolic Trump language said everything had been taken out, even by the US's own admission, a subsequent report done by the US administration sort of acknowledged that while there may have been significant damage done, it was unclear how far that extended. Yeah. Obviously, Trump weaponises his unpredictability.

6:31But what could be the objective for the Trump administration here, who are already facing quite a messy, difficult time at home, at least? Yeah, so that's one school of thought that maybe partly the motivation here is domestic concerns. We know that Trump is really concerned about his image. You know, in a lot of his thinking, the primary goal is to make sure it's playing well to a domestic audience. And right now he is in trouble at home. He's facing this huge crisis in Minnesota. He's had Republicans turning on him. He's had even the NRA, which is usually, you know, absolutely super faithful to the Republicans and to Trump.

7:11There are all kinds of questions over very American domestic concerns on gun rights and sort of liberty and freedom that are going on within the states now. Some observers might say this serves as a distraction. You know, he's been caught up in this for the last three weeks. And now he's returned to Iran when there's this moment of huge crisis going on in domestic politics. And where does it leave Israel? Because there were reports that on previous attempts to strike Iran that Israel had warned the US that it wasn't ready for retaliatory strikes and to please basically hold off. What's the truth in that?

7:45And where do you think they stand right now? It's really difficult for Israel, I think, because yes, I mean, Israel's been very mindful and conscious of its nuclear program. And, you know, last year's operation by the US, which we talked about hitting these three nuclear sites, that started as a 12-day war. It began with Israeli strikes on Iran. There is no doubt that Israel and the US will be coordinating really closely on this. Iran is facing a difficult time. There is some suggestion that it's a sort of existential crisis for the regime at the moment, that these protests have really roiled the country in a way we've never seen before.

8:20And the regime has sort of been caught out by them and caught out by the response and the scale of reaction within the country to them. And also their proxies in the region have been massively weakened. Well, quite, because it's existential for the regime, but also for the region more broadly. I mean, Devika, if the US strikes Iran and there is another war in the Middle East, how does that broadly affect the rest of the region? It would be of huge consequence. I mean, the region's already just had a really tumultuous time in the last couple of years with the Gaza war, with the war we saw last year between Israel and Iran.

8:55And I think there's a lot of fear amongst other countries in the region. So, you know, we know from our own reporting that countries that have traditionally been quite hostile to Iran, like Saudi Arabia, led by Saudi Arabia, have certainly in the last couple of months been really trying to push the US not to go in, not to attack, because the levels of instability in the region have just been so vast that there's a sense it really couldn't cope with anymore right now. Devika, I feel I should let you get back to your desk. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. That's it for today.

9:27My huge thanks again to Devika Bhatt, the Guardian's Deputy 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, of course, be back with you as usual tomorrow morning and we'll be back tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Nashi Nikbal. The producers were Bryony Moore and Nicola Alexandru. The lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

10:01This is The Guardian.