00:00So much is happening, whether it is the Houthis drawing a different front, whether it is the
00:05wider conflict, and whether it is the expectation that we have for elections in Israel. So let me
00:11start by focusing in on Israel and what Prime Minister Netanyahu wants out of this at the time
00:18being, even if Israel is no longer as involved in the wider conflict as at the start of it, of
00:24course.
00:27Thank you, Abir. Good morning. So I think you hit the nail right where it is in the short
00:33term, in the current moment, where there is no negotiation, there's no active diplomacy
00:39with Iran. Iran is paying a heavy price, a heavy economic price, and it's escalating but
00:46not involving Israel. This is not a bad place for Israel to be in the short term. However,
00:52as you remember, Israel went to this war not to open or close the street of Hormuz and
00:58Bab el-Bandeb, but to destroy Iran's nuclear program, to make sure Iran doesn't have ballistic
01:07missiles that can reach Israel, and to weaken, if not to completely sever, Iran's proxy network
01:17and look where we are. You mentioned, and you spoke to the IAEA director, Bloomberg has, there's
01:24suspicious activity around Pickaxe Mountain. This joins Wall Street Journal report from last night
01:31here that Iran is again producing its ballistic missiles. And obviously, the proxy network, with
01:39what we're seeing with the Houthis now, but also Hezbollah and the Shia militias in Iraq are not gone.
01:43So, strategically, none of the problems has been solved.
01:48Precisely. And when we talk about the IAEA saying that they might have observed some kind
01:54of construction at a nuclear facility, how do you think that changes the equation right now
02:00for Netanyahu, especially with the elections looming very close in Israel? And that promise
02:06to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities might have been achieved, but we're now going back to seeing
02:12an Iran that is still persistent on that path.
02:16Iran is persistent, that is emboldened, and from a Netanyahu's perspective, what he has promised,
02:22his constituencies, was a total victory across every front, right? We're talking about Gaza,
02:27and Syria, and Lebanon, and Iraq, and Yemen, the Houthis, and obviously with Iran. And this promise
02:34falls short, especially as he's not faring well in the polls now, heading to the elections,
02:39in short of two months from now. So this is both a genuine strategic military threat,
02:45but also it's a political issue for him. And therefore, Netanyahu has an interest in some
02:51sort of escalation and showing that the struggle is not over, definitely not interested in any
02:57diplomacy or a short or narrow agreement that would solve the problem of Hormuz, but would not solve all
03:03the other problems that he promised the Israeli constituents to solve, including, which was not
03:09something that the Israeli public prioritized, but were oversold, regime change at the onset of this
03:15campaign.
03:17So, Shira, going forward with the elections in sight, do you think he then becomes more emboldened
03:23or more constrained?
03:28Constraint is not something we've seen on the military front on the part of Israel in the last
03:34three years. The only restraint is President Trump and what President Trump basically okays the
03:40Netanyahu government to do or not do. And so far on Iran, it's very clearly that Israel cannot act
03:46freely and preemptively strike. Otherwise, Netanyahu would have done that already.
03:51President Trump said himself that he ordered Israel to step down. There is, you may have
03:58seen, there's been a big operation, Israeli operation, yesterday in Lebanon, and we're
04:04seeing hyper-activism on the Gaza front and the Syria front. So we're not likely to see
04:10reigning in. If there's going to be an Israeli strike in Iran, you hear from Israeli Defense
04:18Minister Israel, and Netanyahu hints that if Iran even dares to cross into Israel, even
04:24by mistake, with a missile fired at Jordan, Israel will strike back hard.
04:31Shira, just briefly, quickly, what does the region look like ultimately if there's no clear
04:36winner in sight, whether it's the U.S. or Iran?
04:41I mean, we're in this tit-for-tat, this new normal where both sides ironically think the
04:46time is on their own, is on their side, and each is seeking to impose costs in the pursuit
04:55of diplomacy. So unfortunately, I see us closer to a growing escalation, even though it seems
05:02like both sides would like to avoid that. And adding to this, what we are seeing with the
05:07expansionism on the hooty parts, we are in real danger connecting to Bloomberg's sort of bread
05:12and butter, right? We see oil prices, we see the global economy. Nothing good is threatening
05:18us in the short term unless those sides can come to some sort of compromise on diplomacy in
05:23the near future.
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