CGTN Europe interviewed Dr. Laura James, Deputy Director of Analysis and Senior Middle East Analyst at Oxford Analytica
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00:00Well, let's pull all of this together now.
00:02Laura James is Deputy Director of Analysis and Senior Middle East Analyst at Oxford Analytica.
00:10It's possible the conflict could spread, but I think compared with five years ago,
00:15Iran is very unlikely to want to widen the conflict because if it brings in the United States,
00:21its nuclear facilities are much more at risk.
00:23And if it brings in the Gulf neighbors, it will break down some promising relationships
00:29that are actually providing it with protection in the region,
00:32not to mention annoying countries like China and other Asian countries that rely on oil coming from the Middle East.
00:39So Iran doesn't necessarily want to widen the war to the Gulf at this stage.
00:44An Iranian missile has damaged the United States Embassy in Israel.
00:49Donald Trump said yesterday that the full strength and might of America would be used against Iran
00:55if it targeted U.S. assets.
00:58What does America do next?
01:02I think the United States is still reluctant to get directly involved.
01:08That goes against a large chunk of the Republican Party and Trump's base.
01:13So I think that we haven't yet reached the critical tipping point where the United States does come in.
01:19But I would emphasize that Israel is very keen to bring the U.S. in, if at all possible.
01:24Can regional powers like Saudi Arabia or perhaps Turkey influence the trajectory of this war?
01:33I think not at the moment.
01:35I think that Israel is not open to any leverage except from Washington.
01:40Israel is implementing a very complicated and detailed and long plan.
01:47And I think only the United States could change its decisions in this context.
01:52Possibly even the United States can't do so, at least directly or at least without paying a price.
01:57Other countries could perhaps influence Iran to some extent, but Iran has very few options left at the moment.
02:03It's defending itself and trying to hit back and trying not to widen the war.
02:07It doesn't have capacity to do much else.
02:10And the kind of settlement that's being asked of it would be a surrender, which would be very, very difficult for the government to sign up to.
02:19So what would a sustainable peace framework between Israel and Iran require?
02:27At the moment, I'm not sure there is one.
02:30I think that what Israel and Iran are looking for in this scenario are radically opposed and that there is no possible meeting point.
02:39After the war has raged for some time, if things change internally in Iran, if Israel runs out of capacity in some respects, that could change.
02:49But at the moment, we're far from there.
02:52So regime change in Tehran or the fall of the regime?
02:58That is not on the cards at present, as far as we can see.
03:03It certainly increasingly seems that it's something that Israel would like as a war aim.
03:08The rhetoric is changing in that direction.
03:10But I think it's very, very risky to forecast regime change in Tehran, given how long the current establishment has been in place, how much it has deep connections throughout the country, how the security services, the multiple security services have been built up, their loyalties.
03:31The fact that there is a rally around the flag effect going on in Iran, as civilians have also been killed, I think that if there were to be some kind of change, then it would not necessarily be towards an orderly transition of the kind of government that Israel and the United States would be comfortable talking to.
03:49So what role then are Iran's regional proxies, Hezbollah and militias in Iraq or Syria, likely to play in the coming days and weeks?
04:02At the moment, they're being very restrained.
04:05And I think that's partly a reflection of the fact that they have been deeply degraded since 2023 through the Gaza conflict and the Lebanon war.
04:13So Hamas is doing all it can on its own account.
04:17Hezbollah is still there.
04:19But has suffered so much from the last war that it's holding back and it could lose its position in Lebanon if it tries to act at this point.