00:00Let's continue the conversation now with Freddie Khwairi, global security analyst Amina Adrain,
00:05who joins us from Beirut, which is also another front that is opening up this morning.
00:08First of all, let me just go back to Freddie, really, how long you think this will go on for
00:15or can go on for?
00:19Good morning, Jumana. Thank you for having me and hope everybody's safe. I know that you're
00:24hearing loud blasts outside. Essentially, we are entering the phase of the war of attrition,
00:33basically. We're still early on in the race. The Iranians are still being able to launch
00:38widespread attacks on many countries. It's almost now 10 countries now, including the Gulf states,
00:46U.S. regional bases, as well as Israel. So essentially, they're trying to impose heavy
00:52costs on the United States, Israel and the Gulf in hopes that if in a week from now they're
00:59continuing this pace of intensity, I would say, in their attacks, there would be they could survive
01:05and there would be some sort of a resolution that keeps them at least somewhat intact. At the same
01:11time, the Israelis, the United States, are trying as fast as possible to complete their objectives
01:17before they run out of air defense ammunitions, which is a key variable here. And at the same time,
01:24we know that the United States is certainly risk averse when it comes to American casualties
01:29abroad, especially in another Middle Eastern war. So essentially, I think that we're still in the
01:36sort of early phases of the conflict. I wouldn't say it'll last more than a couple of weeks,
01:44I would say, maximum, because we're seeing a high intensity pace of operations. But we certainly
01:50are in this attritional phase right now. Okay, you make a good point on the attritional phase.
01:58Look, it's pretty obvious, and this has emerged from the language that President Trump has used
02:04alongside the Israeli prime minister over the weekends, that the change of regime is one of
02:09the stated objectives. Is that even possible without the U.S. committing ground troops?
02:17Well, usually air power alone is not enough to change a regime. And we've seen past precedents
02:23with that in prior years and past decades, so on and so forth. I can go about an hour talking
02:30about
02:30how air power alone cannot change a regime. However, they do see that there's maybe a window of
02:37opportunity that hasn't existed for the past three decades of the Islamic regime's existence.
02:43They see that the Islamic regime is struggling with internal dissent. They're struggling with
02:48economic mismanagement. We've seen a lot of protests, and the latest ones were one of the
02:53most intense. And they think that by striking and decapitating the Islamic regime's leadership,
03:00there may be space for the people to take the helm, so to speak, or the opposition to unify and
03:08sort of
03:09lead regime transformation, I would say, rather than change. There are a few scenarios that I can give
03:15you, Jumana, on how this is more likely to play out. The first most likely scenario is that from what
03:21we've seen until now, hardliners are more likely to take the helm, hardliners even more than the late
03:30Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, because we've seen some appointments like the new IRGC commander, General
03:35Vahadi, who's a known hardliner, and they're still alive, basically. The second option is that reformists,
03:43if the hardliners are decapitated moving forward in this campaign, there's a good chance,
03:49if especially people mobilize on the streets, reformists may take the helm, and those are the
03:55ones who may concede to some American demands to reach some sort of a ceasefire or nuclear deal.
04:02And the last scenario is total collapse of governance in Iran. The opposition may be taking arms,
04:08although we haven't seen this materialized yet, but these are some of the particular scenarios that
04:13we are watching for.
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