00:00Welcome back to World Roundup on France 24. Here's a reminder of our main news headlines.
00:06Doha confirms there were no casualties after Iran fired 19 missiles towards a US military base in Qatar in retaliation for the bombing of its nuclear sites.
00:16The attack is being dismissed as very weak by Donald Trump.
00:20A million seek shelter across Israel as Iran conducted a ballistic missile attack with sirens sounding across the country and blasts heard over Jerusalem.
00:32Meanwhile, Israel is expanding its campaign, targeting sites symbolic to the country's theocracy, saying it's carried out its most extensive wave of attacks ever against Iran.
01:20It's the largest US military installation in the Middle East.
01:23Well, for more, let's bring in Dr Gavin Hall, a NATO expert and also a teaching fellow in political science and international security at the University of Strathclyde.
01:33Thanks so much for being with us this evening, Gavin.
01:36So in the last little while, we've heard from Donald Trump.
01:39He's given us some reaction to the developments today in Qatar, saying he hopes now that Iran and Israel will proceed to peace.
01:48Were you expecting this kind of response from Donald Trump or something perhaps a little more bellicose?
01:54What do you think?
01:57Good evening.
01:58First of all, I'd say I think Donald Trump's response, dismissing it as being weak, is a fairly predictable response and is probably what most commentators and the Iranian government themselves would have expected.
02:15Because what they've effectively done in targeting this base in Qatar with the pre-warning and everything else is exactly the same as what they did in January 2020,
02:26after the United States had effectively assassinated General Suleiman, who was their sort of a top military commander of their Revolutionary Guard.
02:36So at that point, then similar response and then there was no further action from Donald Trump at that point.
02:45So the Iranian government's probably calculated that this could very well be a way to signal to their domestic audience that,
02:54hey, look, we've actually responded to the attacks here.
02:58We've demonstrated our capability.
03:00We now expect sort of no further action and we can potentially help to bring this series of attacks between Israel and Iran to a close.
03:13Has Donald Trump's gamble paid off then in terms of the decision to strike those Iranian nuclear facilities?
03:19Possibly. Part of the analysis will come in is what actual damage has been done, how much impact is the strikes going to have on the ability of the Fordow nuclear enrichment plant to be able to carry on operating.
03:42It will be probably a good while until the level of damage, if there is any, is actually known or whether indeed Iran had actually moved out some of the uranium from the site beforehand.
03:58Even if they had moved out some of the uranium beforehand, though, it still needs a facility to enrich it, to be able to make it usable for a potential nuclear device.
04:13So it's almost certainly it's had an impact and will have delayed Iran's potential to acquire a nuclear weapon.
04:23So the United States will probably be able to claim this is a great success.
04:29And after all, it's demonstrated a high level of capability to carry out a precision attack.
04:36But what it actually means in the slightly longer term, say, behind five or six months, is probably a lot less clear.
04:45And what kind of capabilities does Iran have at this point?
04:49Would you have expected to see it targeting the straight-off Hormuz?
04:53We had been speculating about that as well since the weekend attacks.
04:57Or is it just simply now going to refocus its attention back on Israel?
05:03Well, essentially, that's going to be a big question for the Iranian leadership.
05:07And it's going to be a scenario that Vladimir Putin in Russia is going to be watching very closely,
05:14seeing how the United States primarily is sort of managing and responding to the escalation chain that's going on
05:23and trying to draw potential lessons and insights for how it is conducting future operations within Ukraine.
05:31The closing or potential closing or threat to close the Straits of Hormuz and impacting around about a quarter of the world's oil supplies
05:46and other trade and logistics moving through that straight has a potentially quite sort of lasting potential ramifications.
05:57But it's very much something that would be expected.
06:02So whether there have been mitigations from it, I know from the United Kingdom side,
06:09we had three warships operating in the Gulf within the past sort of week to 10 days
06:16that were due to sail over to the Far East that didn't leave to go there.
06:21So they stayed in the region.
06:23Why?
06:24Probably because they were expecting they might have to do something to protect shipping in case of some sort of escalation.
06:30So there seems to have been an element of pre-planning and pre-preparedness to cover off a potential closing of the Straits
06:40to ensure the safety of shipping.
06:43Gavin, we have Donald Trump, as I say, talking about how it's now time to proceed to peace, as he put it.
06:48EU leaders as well, including the French president, calling for a return to negotiations.
06:53Is there any likelihood that that's about to happen?
06:55Whether there's a likelihood of it happening in the very short term, probably not,
07:05because we've seen Israel has been targeting Iran today, including the roads leading up to the Fordow side.
07:13Iran's been targeting Israel with the launch of missiles towards Tel Aviv.
07:19We've we've also seen President Macron and Prime Minister Storer in Oslo today saying that the risk of escalation is obvious ahead of the NATO summit,
07:33but also making it clear that there shouldn't be regime change within Iran.
07:38So there seems to be a sort of a clear setting out of what different countries parameters and objectives are ahead of the NATO summit, which starts tomorrow.
07:50So there's going to be potential for further developments within the next 24 hours.
07:56And Gavin, Israel, meanwhile, it's been expanding its campaign today, saying it's carried out its most extensive wave of attacks ever on Iran, also widening the net.
08:08How emboldened is Netanyahu here by Donald Trump's decision to join in with those strikes over the weekend on Iranian nuclear facilities?
08:16Yeah, so it certainly demonstrates that the United States is prepared to deploy military force to support Israel or at least to contain what it considered to be a potential serious threat coming from Iran.
08:37So in that's in that sense, it is supporting Netanyahu in Israel.
08:45However, Trump is also trying to be clear that he's expecting a sort of peaceful outcome to this and negotiations to happen very much in the same way as he's been making similar points in Ukraine and Russia.
09:00But as in Ukraine and Russia, there hasn't actually been much follow through on that other than words.
09:07So is there reason to expect something similar to occur in Israel?
09:14Probably not.
09:16And that's kind of leading towards an assessment that Netanyahu has no reason to stop his actions unless there's a substantive change from Iran,
09:27which probably means giving up some of its uranium that it may or may not have siphoned away from Fordow in the previous few days.
09:40And Gavin, this all comes as NATO leaders are about to meet.
09:43Just how much is at stake here?
09:45If Donald Trump does attend, it'll be his first time being there since he was re-elected.
09:51Yeah, well, NATO's got a couple of big things to consider starting tomorrow.
09:57First of all, one of the key things to look out for is what is actually put forward as the number one, the main outcome of the summit.
10:08Is it still going to be Russia that is deemed the top threat and the main priority?
10:14Or are we going to see a sort of shifting focus towards more towards China and the Far East, which would align a lot more with US interests, where the European countries are a lot more focused on Russia?
10:28We've already had the Secretary General, Mark Reuter, signalling that there's going to be some kind of an agreement on a 5% defence investment pledge,
10:40which is many interesting things about it, not least the choice of adding the word investment into that,
10:46because that's a very broad term that can include a whole range of things.
10:50For example, you can argue that building a new train line is defence investment because it enables troop movements and things,
10:59whereas the previous agreement from the Wales Summit in 2014 was very clear it was just defence.
11:06So it's a little bit more nebulous and broader.
11:09So there are a lot of potential areas for negotiation.
11:14So exactly how the summit communique is worded will be something we can draw quite a bit of inference from, I believe.
11:23And of course, Ukraine had been expected to be very high on the agenda there during that NATO meeting.
11:28Do you expect that to still be the case if Donald Trump is there?
11:33Could there be a risk of rouse breaking out between him and his European allies?
11:38Well, I think there will certainly be some heated discussions away from the public eye.
11:46Quite often these are taking place at sort of the ambassador's dinner and lunches and things outside of the actual summit.
11:54So the presenting of unity is something that will be absolutely key and central.
12:02But we'll get a sense of that as to what actually is agreed, because NATO, of course, operates on consensus.
12:09So everything that's done is done without the objection of any one ally.
12:14And if it's a slightly more vague and nebulous document,
12:20then it's going to potentially indicate that there's been a little bit of discord behind the scenes.
12:26Whereas if it's very clear and strong in its choice of language,
12:31labelling Russia as an aggressive entity, for example,
12:37or whether it's just going to be a strategic competitor, as it has been in the past,
12:42then that will start to tell us something about whether,
12:46how closely aligned the European nations and the United States are
12:52in their view on how to deal with both Ukraine and also Israel, Iran and China as well.
13:01And just finally, Gavin, while these calls are ongoing from Donald Trump from Europe
13:05for talks to begin negotiations for Iran to get back to the table,
13:11so to speak, it's actually been meeting Vladimir Putin in Russia.
13:16The Iranian foreign minister was there earlier.
13:19Where does all of this leave Russia?
13:21What kind of position is it going to be in, given the ongoing situation in the Middle East?
13:26And how isolated really is Iran at this point?
13:31Well, Tehran is semi-isolated.
13:36It's been in sort of competition with Saudi Arabia
13:41as the sort of dominant security actor within the Middle East for a number of years.
13:46The conflict in Yemen, for example, is essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
13:53So it has a degree of influence, not least in its ability to supply and develop drones,
14:00which are highly capable, which it's been sending to Russia for them to use in Ukraine.
14:06But I think President Putin views Israel, Iran as a potential opportunity.
14:15Is it going to be a distraction that's going to take focus away from what's going on in Ukraine,
14:20in which case it will benefit him?
14:22Or is there some way he can place some form of role to try and reintegrate Russia into the international order?
14:34It was only two or three days ago, I think, Putin actually offered to mediate between Israel and Iran
14:42to try and draw out a peace close, as opposed to Donald Trump,
14:47which, of course, would elevate his importance,
14:49because he does have a sort of the years of both Israel and Iran from that.
14:57OK, Gavin, we'll have to leave it there for now.
14:59Thank you so much for being with us on the programme this evening, though.
15:01That's Dr. Gavin Hall, a Teaching Fellow in Political Science and International Security
15:06at the University of Strathclyde.
15:09Well, that's it from us for now.
15:11Do stay with us, though, for more world news.
