- 1 week ago
We are joined by Dr Rex Brynen, Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University, and a leading expert on Middle East politics, conflict, and international development.
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00:15Welcome to Beyond the Headlines. It's where we take a deep dive into the top and trending
00:20stories. I'm Urvashi Tawari-Rupnarain and tonight we're joined by Dr. Rex Brynon. He's
00:26a professor of political science at McGill University and a leading expert in Middle East
00:32politics, conflict and international development. Professor Brynon's work focuses on how international
00:39aid, security dynamics and political structures intersect in conflict-affected regions. From the
00:46West Bank and Gaza to broader regional tensions, he has written extensively on foreign assistance
00:52and peacebuilding in the Middle East and frequently provides expert analysis on events shaping the
00:59region. With the ongoing U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict escalating following recent military action and
01:06strategic shifts in the region, his insights are especially relevant as we look at how
01:13international development, security policy and geopolitical pressures are evolving. We're pleased
01:19to have him with us to unpack those issues. Dr. Brynon, Professor Brynon, thank you so much for
01:24joining us. Thank you for having me. Let's get straight into it. Professor, can you summarize the
01:30current state of the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran? How exactly did we get here
01:39and what are the major developments? Well, we got here after a U.S. military buildup, failed negotiations between the
01:49Iranians and the Americans over their nuclear program, other issues, ballistic missiles, and then an Israeli U.S. attack on
01:56Iran.
01:57I think there's some question as to whether those negotiations were ever serious or whether it was simply to buy
02:03time to prepare for the
02:05the attack, but Israel and the United States attack. The goals are rather unclear. We've seen a Trump
02:10administration oscillate between it's for regime change, it's to go after Iran's ballistic missiles, its nuclear capacity, etc.
02:21But the war is ongoing. The U.S. and Israel have achieved almost complete air superiority over Iran.
02:29Iran has struck back not only Israel and the United States but Gulf states as well, clearly trying to raise
02:36the
02:37regional and global costs of the conflict, and the conflict could go on for many days or many weeks as
02:43we see it right now.
02:44What are the key geopolitical goals behind the U.S. and Israel's military action against Iran, and how credible are
02:53those claims that regime change is an objective?
02:58Well, let's start with Israel. Israel has long seen Iran as its major regional threat. It fought a 12-day
03:04war with Iran last year.
03:06That war did damage to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missiles program, but not as much as Israel wanted.
03:12So Israel was looking for an opportunity, I think, to have another go at Iran, and also to bring the
03:17United States in as it had done during the 12-day war last year.
03:21For the U.S., the goals are less clear on the part of the Trump administration.
03:25We had major anti-regime protests in Iran earlier this year. They may have been hoping to push the regime
03:31over the edge and achieve regime change that way.
03:34They may have just seen an opportunity to further weaken Iran. It's being very unclear exactly what the U.S.
03:40end goal is.
03:41And to some extent, they may have been propelled into it by the Israelis. That is to say, the Israelis
03:46saying, we want to do this anyway. Are you on board?
03:50It's always very hard to tell Donald Trump's foreign policy calculations. He's very material. He doesn't always think things through.
03:56But the net result is we now have a major war in the Middle East, and we will likely have
04:00one that goes on for a while.
04:02Goes on for a while. I'll come back to that point in a short bit.
04:06Let's talk about the nuclear threshold. Now, under the 1968 Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,
04:14there were only five nations which were officially recognized as nuclear weapon states.
04:20The United States, Russia, China, France, and the U.K.
04:24How close are we to a nuclear inflection point? Not necessarily weapon use, but weaponization or even doctrinal shifts?
04:36I think we may well see more countries developing nuclear weapons in the coming decades because we live in a
04:43very insecure global environment.
04:45With regard to the Iranians, the Iranians did not have a nuclear weapons program in the sense that they were
04:53trying to build a weapon,
04:55but they wanted to have the capacity to build a weapon if they felt they had to build a weapon.
05:01So they were kind of positioned a strategic ambiguity.
05:04During the Obama administration, of course, there was an international agreement to restrict Iran's nuclear program.
05:10That was then torn up by the first Trump administration.
05:13So if that deal had been in place, there would be no concerns about Iranian nuclear weapons.
05:19So in many ways, Donald Trump is cleaning up the mess he created during his first administration.
05:25Certainly, military action can severely degrade Iran's nuclear capability.
05:30But on the other hand, Iran being attacked like this is a lesson to other countries that perhaps they need
05:36nuclear weapons or more nuclear weapons.
05:39We've just seen the French announce that they're going to increase their nuclear stockpile
05:43and that they're in discussions with the Poles and the Germans and the Swedes and others about extending French nuclear
05:50deterrence across Europe.
05:51I think we're at an era where some of the old calculations about bipolarity or multipolarity no longer hold.
05:58And what happens in Iran may actually encourage other countries to think serious about nuclear weapons acquisition.
06:04Now, I'm grateful that you mentioned France.
06:08France did say that they do not think Iran ought to be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
06:14Why is the international community so fearful of Iran developing nuclear weapons as opposed to any other territory?
06:22I think there's a concern that Iran has meddled in the affairs of many of its neighbors in Iraq, Yemen,
06:29Lebanon, through Hezbollah and so on and so forth.
06:32I think generally no one who has nuclear weapons particularly wants to see nuclear proliferation.
06:39So that's another reason I think is a concern about instability in Iran in the long term.
06:46But it needs to be remembered, too, that the Iranians had pledged not to build a nuclear weapon.
06:50However, they enriched uranium and developed nuclear capabilities as a bargaining chip.
06:56Again, with the although the agreement JCPOA, the previous agreement under the Obama administration wasn't perfect, but it would have
07:04seen the Iranians agree to a whole series of safeguards that got ripped up.
07:09And, of course, a major driver of this has been Israel, which views Iran as a major strategic threat and
07:16has ever since October 7th in the war in Gaza, in a sense, has been able to engage in military
07:22actions that would have been more difficult for it to do so.
07:25In the past, did very well in the 12-day war last year and I think saw an opportunity to
07:30press its advantage whilst Iran was still weakened.
07:34Now, let me ask you, could these military strikes that we are seeing against Iran, in fact, accelerate their nuclear
07:42ambitions rather than constrain them?
07:45Well, I think the Iranians are going to learn the lesson that if they'd had a nuclear weapon, this wouldn't
07:50have happened.
07:50North Korea developed a nuclear weapon and no one ever thinks of attacking North Korea.
07:55Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union collapsed.
07:59It inherited some.
08:00It gave those up to the Russians.
08:02The Ukrainians probably wish they had hung on to nuclear weapons as well.
08:06So we may see more nuclear proliferation going forward because of growing global instability.
08:12Now, Professor Brynan, we see some level of division among global leaders, even here within the Caribbean region.
08:20Now, how are governments generally responding to this escalation and what does it reveal about diplomatic priorities?
08:28We see countries that have U.S. bases suffering attacks like Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan, and
08:38they have aligned against Iran.
08:40But there are other non-involved countries which also support it.
08:45Is it because they are necessarily right-winged France, Canada, Germany, and even the U.K., they have been saying
08:52that Iran must never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons and, in fact, support the escalation of activity against Iran?
09:02Well, I think what you're mainly hearing out of Europe, and it can be a bit confused, but you're hearing
09:08it from the French.
09:08You're also kind of hearing it on and off in the Canadian government, is that they don't want Iran to
09:14have nuclear weapons.
09:15They're not particularly pleased with the U.S. using violence, using war in violation of international law, but also we
09:25have a very mercurial and unpredictable Donald Trump, and therefore it can be dangerous to object to what the U
09:32.S. does.
09:33We saw the Spanish, which have prohibited the U.S. from using Spanish bases to support this effort, and Donald
09:39Trump immediately said, I'm going to ban trade with Spain.
09:41He's not going to ban trade with Spain, but you see the problem.
09:44In Canada, we have to worry a great deal about what the U.S. does.
09:49We're in trade negotiations as our biggest economic partner, and I think you see the Canadian government not wanting Iran
09:56to have nuclear weapons, unhappy that the U.S. has violated international law,
10:00believing that negotiations were the way forward, not forced, but unwilling to directly criticize the United States because of implications
10:09that has portrayed Arctic sovereignty and a whole range of other issues.
10:13So I think a lot of countries are caught between not wanting Iran to have nuclear weapons, but also not
10:20favoring the U.S. initiating a war in violation of the U.N. Charter.
10:24We've seen Hezbollah side with Iran, and they have said openly that they are ready for open war.
10:32What is the likely impact of this alignment?
10:35Well, I mean, Hezbollah is very closely connected to the Iranians.
10:39The Iranians provide massive support.
10:41They're ideologically extremely close.
10:43They're very close allies.
10:44However, Hezbollah was badly damaged by Israel in the previous fighting in Lebanon.
10:49It has fired a few drones off, a few rockets off at Israel and possibly at other targets, but there's
10:57no support in Lebanon outside Hezbollah supporters for that.
11:02Indeed, we've seen the Lebanese government calling for Hezbollah to permanently cease any military activities.
11:08There's a real backlash against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hezbollah is in a very weak position.
11:13So I think what we've seen from Hezbollah is a little bit of demonstrative support for Iran, but the organization
11:20is so damaged and so unpopular amongst most Lebanese communities outside the Shia community that they have to be very
11:27careful what they do.
11:29And, of course, we've seen Israel respond with bombing attacks in Lebanon, which are continuing up until today.
11:35Now, we've talked about Iran's nuclear ambitions, right?
11:40But let's just, aside from that, let's just say the U.S. is after regime change in Iran.
11:47Now, my synopsis is that it may be quite unlikely at this time, because we're seeing with the death of
11:53their supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Council of Clerics.
11:58Just today, they have put forth the name, I think he's yet to be officially elected, of the son of
12:04Khamenei, Mojabbatah Husseini Khamenei, to be the next leader.
12:07Now, this would mean that the Shiai are still in control of Iran, and then there will be no effective
12:13regime change.
12:15So that's my question.
12:18Do you expect there to be a regime change?
12:21I think these things are hard to know in advance.
12:25I think my bet at the moment would be no, or at least not quickly.
12:31Obviously, as the U.S. and Israel continue attacks on the Iranian leadership, on police stations, on security stations, on
12:38the military, the regime gets weaker.
12:41We know that the Iranian regime is very unpopular amongst a great many Iranians, but we also know the Iranian
12:47regime has many tens or hundreds of thousands of supporters, too.
12:51Well-established, loyal security forces.
12:53It's hard to overthrow a regime if the security forces remain loyal anywhere in the world.
12:58We know that the U.S. and Israel are probably supporting some Iranian Kurdish groups, hoping to start an insurgency
13:06in western Iran, but that insurgency won't really grow beyond western Iran, even if it occurs.
13:11I mean, there are several scenarios.
13:13I mean, something could happen that the regime cracks.
13:16We could get protests or uprisings in parts of Iran in which the regime partially loses control.
13:23And that could lead to a very messy situation, as when we had regime change in Libya, as in the
13:29Syrian civil war, in which, you know, either the regime collapses and there's a power vacuum and there's a civil
13:35war, or the regime becomes weaker, loses control of part of the country, is facing multiple insurgencies.
13:41That could be very destabilizing, having very adverse consequences for the Iranian people, even if most of the Iranian people
13:50would like to be free of this regime.
13:51Now, even given that Mojbata Khomeini's sister, his wife and son were all killed in the same strike that killed
13:59his father, is it likely you would say that he would be a sort of Delce Rodriguez of Venezuela and
14:06be a little more willing to work with the U.S.?
14:09I don't think so.
14:11I don't think you have that willingness to cut a deal with the U.S. that we will agree to
14:16a series of concessions in exchange for keeping us in power.
14:19I think the regime is much more systematized.
14:23I'm not even sure that the new supreme leader, when it formally happens, will be the only decider.
14:29I mean, there's a lot of power centers.
14:31There's a lot of important figures in the regime.
14:33And I think at the moment, the regime is convinced, perhaps wrongly, that time is on its side.
14:38And this is the real problem.
14:40The U.S. feels that time is on its side.
14:43It's winning militarily.
14:44It has almost complete control of the sky.
14:46Iran's ability to retaliate is declining.
14:49They can keep fighting.
14:50The Iranians may feel, we just won't lose.
14:52We just won't surrender.
14:53We could just go on and on and on.
14:55We can attack neighboring countries.
14:57We can interfere with Gulf oil supplies.
14:59We can support armed groups abroad.
15:02And we can outlast the Americans until they get bored or exhausted.
15:06Now, if both sides think time is on their side, then a war never ends.
15:10Both sides are playing for time.
15:11So at this point, I fear that both sides think time is on their side.
15:16And as for the Israelis, they're perfectly happy to have a free opportunity to strike Iran for as long as
15:21they can do so.
15:21Now, even if there were some Iranians siding with the U.S. action and they themselves wanting regime change, something
15:32happened.
15:33There was the single deadliest strike took place at that girls' school in Minab, southern Iran, killing some 175 schoolgirls
15:44and staff on Saturday just gone.
15:47Now, the U.S. Secretary of War, Pete Hegg said, just today said that they are investigating, but that the
15:53U.S. does not target schools.
15:56Now, we know that Israel was, well, the unofficial agreement, Israel attacks the northern part of Iran and the U
16:05.S., the southern part.
16:07What do you think really happened?
16:08Now, we also know that that school was very close to an IRGC base.
16:15Could it have been a mistaken target?
16:17So I think a lot of times that civilian targets get hit, it's because someone missed, right, in either the
16:25weapon system malfunctioned or they had inaccurate intelligence.
16:29I suspect that it's one of those two possibly wrong intelligence in the case of the attack on the school.
16:34But we also know that as wars go on, more and more civilians get killed because this happens in war.
16:42I think most Iranians would still like to see their regime go, but equally, they don't like to see the
16:49devastation.
16:49So I think a lot of Iranians are pleased that the supreme leader was killed in a bombing strike, but
16:55they're not pleased when civilian casualties occur.
16:58And I think as the bombing of Iran continues and in some ways becomes more extensive because the Iranians have
17:04no defenses at this point, we're going to see more and more cases of significant civilian casualties from bombing, even
17:12if that bombing, even if that's largely accidental, so-called collateral damage.
17:17Now, at some point, does that change?
17:20Does that create a rally around the flag effect in Iran?
17:23Does it actually strengthen the regime?
17:25I don't think so.
17:26This is a regime that just killed 30,000, 40,000 of its own people, open-fired on demonstrators in
17:32the street.
17:33This regime is very unpopular.
17:35But as I said earlier, unless you lose control of your security forces, it's very hard for a popular uprising
17:42to unseat an authoritarian regime.
17:44Now, just to go back a bit, the U.S. did say, Pete Hegs said, did say that the U
17:50.S. will be investigating this matter.
17:52How confident are you that this investigation will be transparent and whoever is responsible for that tragedy is going to
18:00claim it?
18:01Well, I think we will find out who dropped the bomb.
18:05I think it will be blamed on target error or possibly they'll blame the Iranians for having a military base
18:13next to a school, although that's hardly unusual around the world.
18:16Our military headquarters in Canada is across the street from a shopping mall.
18:21The Israeli military headquarters is in the middle of downtown Tel Aviv.
18:24The Pentagon is in Washington.
18:26I think we're going to find out who dropped the bomb.
18:30It's going to be said it was a mistake or it was the Iranians putting a school too close to
18:34a military facility.
18:35These things will continue to occur, hopefully not too frequently.
18:39And some of the targets that the United States or Israel will want to go after will be in densely
18:45populated civilian areas.
18:47Similarly, some of the Iranian drones that have hit civilian targets may well have not been aimed at those targets.
18:53I suspect the attacks on the airports were deliberate, but some of the hitting of downtown office buildings might have
19:00been accidental.
19:01But again, that's going to occur in the midst of a war.
19:04Professor, what are the likely impacts of continued conflict, particularly on oil prices, inflation and trade?
19:13So if the Straits of Hormuz remain closed, through which about, I think, 20 percent of the world's energy flows,
19:20oil prices are going to go up.
19:21If oil prices go up, inflation goes up.
19:24The effect is particularly hard on countries that import their energy, don't have their own oil and gas supplies.
19:31There will be pressure to try and open the Straits of Hormuz.
19:35That is difficult because they're very narrow.
19:37The Iranian Navy at this point has largely been destroyed.
19:40But with drones and shore-based missiles, it can still be quite difficult to move tankers through there.
19:46It's dangerous to escort them.
19:49The Gulf states were hoping by not allowing the U.S. to operate strikes from their countries, they would stay
19:57out of this.
19:57But the Iranians didn't accept that.
19:59There are U.S. bases in those areas that went after them anyway.
20:03I think it's going to look more or less like it does now.
20:05But with economic uncertainty, energy prices continuing to go up, particularly as it's apparent that the war won't be over
20:11tomorrow or the day after.
20:14And that's going to push inflation up and affect economic growth around the world.
20:20How likely is it that oil energy could have been a subliminal reason for this war?
20:28I don't think so.
20:29I mean, I don't think the U.S. has serious resource ambitions in Iran, nor could it really fulfill them.
20:35Now, anything that happens in the Gulf has partly to do with oil because it's a strategic part of the
20:40world because it has oil.
20:41So things that happen in the Gulf are always important to everyone.
20:44That's why you're interviewing me.
20:46That's why the Chinese are watching it closely.
20:48It affects global oil prices.
20:50It affects global energy prices.
20:52It's a region with countries with nuclear weapons, Israel.
20:56So it's a strategic part of the world.
20:58I don't think oil was a reason.
21:01But I think because there's oil there, what happens in the Gulf has far more effect on the rest of
21:07the world.
21:07And as we close, Professor, how do you see this war ending?
21:11Does it end in the four weeks as premised by U.S. President Donald Trump?
21:16I think it will go on for weeks.
21:19It is possible it doesn't have a definitive end.
21:22It just kind of winds down a bit with occasional strikes.
21:25We should remember that the war in Lebanon never really ended.
21:29There was a Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire, which Israel has violated almost daily, which Hezbollah violated a few days ago.
21:36So that's a war that never quite ended.
21:39We have a war in Gaza that's still not over, and people continue to die every day.
21:44So it is possible we get a winding down of the hot part of the conflict, but there continues to
21:52be conflict in the area.
21:53We could have a destabilized Iran that's facing insurgencies in Kurdistan or Balochistan or elsewhere.
21:59So I'm not sure we'll necessarily get a definitive agreement out of this.
22:03We may get something far messier and prolonged.
22:06Professor Rex Brynon, Professor of Political Science at McGill University, let me thank you so much for joining us, for
22:12sharing both your time and your expertise.
22:14All the best to you.
22:15Thank you. Thank you very much for having me.
22:17And of course, to our viewers, there's more news after this break.
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