00:00Well, let's return to our top story, the conflict in the Middle East.
00:03Samuel Romani is an associate fellow at RUCI Think Tank and CEO of Pangea Geopolitical Risk.
00:09Samuel, welcome back.
00:11So, strikes on Iran quickly followed by a range of attacks across the region.
00:16What's your assessment of the latest information we're getting?
00:20I mean, just how extensive is the spillover?
00:24Well, the spillover has been multiple layers, right?
00:27There was initially ballistic missile strikes against Israel, and that was swiftly followed by attacks on the major military bases
00:34of the United States in the Gulf.
00:36And now it seems to be something that's much broader than that.
00:39We started with tourism hotspots like the Fairmont in Dubai or the Crowne Plaza in Manama.
00:44And now it's energy facilities that we saw disrupting Qatar's LNG and also blocking the Strait of Hormuz.
00:50And we're now probably seeing the expansion of that to other areas like Aramco and Duran.
00:57And we've seen the engagement of the Iraqi and Lebanese allies of Iran, Hezbollah, and the Popular Mobilization Forces against
01:04the Arab countries.
01:05So, this is now a far-reaching attack on energy markets, Arab countries, and Israel, as well as U.S.
01:12military installations,
01:13in tandem with the U.S. and Israeli barraging all across Iran.
01:18We were reporting earlier on in the program on the mixed messages from the White House.
01:24What do you see as the United States and Israel's objective in attacking Iran?
01:31Well, the U.S. objective has actually been quite ambiguous to some extent.
01:36On the one hand, they do talk about regime change quite a bit.
01:39And they talk about, for example, like how this is a unique and historical opportunity for the Iranian people to
01:46rise up against their government.
01:47There seems to be a belated response to the protests that were very intense in late December and early January.
01:53By the other hand, there isn't much appetite for a ground invasion from the U.S., even though Trump won't
01:58close the door on it.
01:59And only about 25% of Americans approve of what Trump has been doing.
02:03Even Republicans are pretty divided on the issue.
02:06And so I think that, in general, the Americans will probably settle for the destruction of the Iranian Navy,
02:12the destruction of Iranian nuclear facilities, and ballistic missile facilities.
02:15And whether the Islamic Republic falls with it will be dependent on how hard they push.
02:20But I think that the military threats, as they see from Iran, will be the key priority in terms of
02:25their actions.
02:26Is there any sense that the United States might have underestimated Iran?
02:32Yes, I think that there's a tendency to kind of equate the Islamic Republic with the Ayatollah, Khamenei,
02:38and kind of assume that decapitating Khamenei and decapitating the senior leadership will lead to a collapse of the broader
02:43regime structure.
02:44So they were kind of comparing it, obviously, to the overthrowing Assad and the Ba'athist institutions in Syria collapsed,
02:52toppling Saddam Hussein, and the Ba'athist institutions in Iraq collapsed.
02:56Obviously, both those countries had very much personalist loyalty from their militaries,
03:00hollered out institutions.
03:02Iran and its government is many-layered.
03:04I mean, you've got the Ayatollah and the clerical establishment on the top.
03:07You've got the IRGC as an alternative power vertical.
03:09And you have a nationalist base, which may have swung against the government because of socioeconomic conditions,
03:16but could swing back either into apathy or in its favor in the event of an attack, like we saw
03:20in June.
03:21So I think that the Americans did underestimate the extent to which the Islamic Republic runs much deeper
03:26than just Ayatollah Khamenei and its inner circle.
03:30Samuel, good to see you.
03:31Thanks so much for your time.
03:32I'm Samuel Romani, the Associate Fellow at RUSI, the think tank and CEO of Pangaea Geopolitical Risk.
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