Iran could strike the US - at home or abroad
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Alex Dibble and Toby Gillis. Yesterday, we looked at the issues Donald Trump might be weighing up before deciding whether to launch military action against Iran or not. As we record today, it appears he is swaying towards that, saying that US patience with the regime there is wearing thin. He's also deployed more fighter jets to the region.

Iran says it will respond without restraint to America if the US does indeed become directly involved in Israel's military campaign. But what can they do to defend themselves and which American assets might be targeted? Our guest today is Professor Lina Khatib, Associate Fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the Chatham House Think Tank. Lina, Iran simply does not have the firepower of America, does it? Why?

what level of disparity are we talking about? Obviously, Iran has ballistic missiles. And in fact, as you know, this has been one of the big issues for Iran's destabilizing role in the Middle East, that it wasn't just trying to develop nuclear weapons. It also possesses a ballistic missile program that, frankly, had gone largely unaddressed.

by the international community because the focus was always just on the nuclear issue. And now we are seeing that the ballistic missiles are also a devastating problem, as many people in Israel will now testify. However, Israel last year managed to

practically destroy Iran's air defenses. And now it seems that the intensity of Iran's attacks on Israel, even when it tries to launch these ballistic missiles, has somehow lessened over the last few days.

To me, this says that even though Iran can still inflict significant damage, its firepower is being diminished. And that is because it has the might of Israel and the United States facing it. And ultimately, militarily, this is a losing battle for Iran. In spite of their diminishing capability, Iran does still insist it will attack the assets of anyone who joins Israel in its military campaign.

In the US's case, what are those assets and what damage is it possible for Iran to do to them? Iran can still damage US assets because the US has military bases. There's still US troops in Syria. There's US troops in Iraq. There are military bases in the Gulf.

Iran can target those. Now, will Iran be able to completely destroy them? Probably not. The U.S. is quite well prepared. However, we have seen Iran attack U.S. bases in Iraq in the past. The attacks, I must say, were limited. And I don't think Iran can do wide damage. However, even a limited attack is enough.

for the U.S. to say we are being attacked by Iran. It's also attacking our ally Israel, and therefore we need to intervene. Now, if Iran does that, of course, it would be suicide in the current context, because in the past, frankly, the U.S. has exercised a lot of restraint. But we are now in a situation in which this war is an existential war.

for Israel and for Iran. And the US cannot afford to just be restrained in this context. And therefore, we are talking about a very different set of circumstances for the United States. So if this is suicide, why would Iran bother with the attacks if they can't actually destroy the American bases?

Because this regime is very rigid. It has pitched itself as a competitor for U.S. dominance in the world, especially in the Middle East. It wants to present itself as a regional leader in the Middle East and to present itself as an alternative to what it calls a U.S. imperialist project. And so to maintain this credibility, Iran cannot be seen to be just

standing on the sidelines, not doing anything to show that it is in fact doing something active. And the reason why Iran feels compelled to do that is because if it loses this degree of legitimacy that it has cultivated for itself, it feels that the regime will then most likely collapse. And what we are seeing here is Iran doing everything it can at almost any cost to

for regime survival. Even if it's completely foolish militarily, it feels it's better to kind of fight to the last breath than be seen to compromise. Lina, what danger does Iran pose to the many US naval ships that surround Iran in the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and just north of Israel too? Could they attack those? They can.

can and they have in the past, for example, the Strait of Hormuz. And also, of course, we've seen activity in the Red Sea. However, again, it's a matter of scale and capacity. It's very difficult for Iran to fight wars on so many fronts at great intensity. And when it comes to the Red Sea, we have to remember that the Houthis in Yemen, who were a main actor in conducting attacks on ships in that part of the world,

have basically signed a de-escalation deal with the US and Saudi Arabia. So they basically said, yeah, OK, we're not going to attack ships in the Red Sea, although that did not stop them from launching missiles at Israel because that wasn't part of the agreement.

So Iran is, I think at the moment, militarily overwhelmed. And the number of ships that the U.S. is sending to surround Iran is now greater than before. So again, I don't think Iran will be able to win this war militarily.

So those are its military options. Does Iran, do you think, have agents on the ground actually in the US who could carry out terror attacks?

This is a high possibility. One of the things I've been looking at is the financial operations for Iran's proxies in Europe, for example. These networks remain practically intact. And these are the networks that are connected to some of the sleeper cells and agents for Iran that are present around the world, not just in Europe. I mean, the network is really quite global in its operations. And it is definitely possible

a likely scenario that Iran might be compelled to use that card if it feels that domestically it is losing the military battle. And therefore, you know, it's important for the international community to realize that this war against Iran is not just Israel's war. This is actually a global issue.

And can you guess how that might look? Are we talking things like cyber attacks or do you mean old-fashioned violence?

Well, both. Iran is already conducting cyber attacks. There have been many attacks that many organizations around the world have been fending off. And so that can happen. But also violent attacks are highly possible. And it's not like Iran hasn't done it before. There have been attacks by Iran and Hezbollah in Europe, in Latin America, and of course, elsewhere in the world.

And if that's covered potential offensive actions, Lina, what about Iran's defensive capability? Could they protect themselves against America's might, especially this powerful bomb that might get used to attack Iran's nuclear sites that are dug deep underground? Well, the...

bombs will do obviously irreparable damage. And so when it comes to Iran's defenses, I don't think Iran can do much when it comes to the use of such powerful weapons. And also Iran's outer layers of defense, its proxies in the region, have mostly been neutered, weakened. Iran can't rely on that anymore. It's left

I think, completely exposed. And also we have to remember that Israel would not have been able to achieve the goals of assassinating Iran's top leadership

Had Israel not had agents deeply infiltrating Iranian state institutions, and that means Iran has huge security vulnerabilities, which is only an advantage for the U.S. and Israel in this campaign.

Okay, Lina Khatib, thank you so much for joining us. It is worth sticking with the world in 10 over the next couple of days when we'll delve into a couple of the issues Lina mentioned in much more detail, including why Iran's allies appear to have deserted them and what Iran would look like if its regime collapsed. For now, thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. We'll see you tomorrow. ♪

And now, a few words from Finance about Marketing's latest campaign. Wow, that's a lot of impressions! That's what I'd say if we wanted impressions, but we don't. We actually want traffic. Wow, that's a lot of traffic!

Much better, right? Traffic. Much better. Ground Truth, the advertising platform for when you need real business results. Visit us at groundtruth.com. When you think of skyrocketing brands like Aloe, Allbirds, or Skims, it's easy to credit their success to great products, sleek branding, and brilliant marketing. But here's the overlooked secret. The real magic lies in the engine behind the scenes, the business powering their business.

For millions of brands, that engine is Shopify, making selling seamless for them and shopping effortless for us. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Alo Yoga uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash retail, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash retail to upgrade your selling today. shopify.com slash retail.