US and Israel carry out joint attack on Iran

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. It's all about your entrepreneur's dream and start again for one euro per month on Shopify.nl. Stel je voor dat je in de veiligheidssector niet nog harder werkt, maar slimmer. Omdat je inspecteurs binnen een paar minuten een rapport kunnen bestellen. En zo per dag nog meer bedrijven uit de brand helpen. Ontdek onze slimme technologie op kpn.com slash slimmer werken. KPN, voor een beter werkend Nederland. Hello to you. Welcome to News Out from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London this Saturday. I'm Sean Lay. It was sometime before nine on Saturday morning in Iran that the sirens first sounded, warning that an attack was underway. Cities across the West, Central and Southern Iran have reportedly been the target of aerial attacks. Israel announced what it called a preemptive strike on Iran. It did not say what it was preempting. Just over an hour after the assault began, in the very early hours of the morning in Washington, D.C., Donald Trump published this message on Truth Social. A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas and our allies throughout the world. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops and the innocent people in many, many countries. The exchanges are not confined to Iran and Israel. The Iranians have hit back at countries which host U.S. military bases, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and here in Bahrain. In Iraq, the base of a pro-Iranian group was also hit, suggesting the Israelis and Americans are attempting to neutralise possible attacks from Iranian proxies in neighbouring countries. Mr Trump's message to the Iranian military, defect from the regime or face the consequences, and to civilians opposed to their government, this is your opportunity to bring an end to the 47-year-old Islamic Republic. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said now was the time to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons capability. In recent months, the tyrants in Iran have been plotting to rebuild their nuclear and missile capabilities and bury them underground, where we cannot hit them. If we do not stop them now, they will be immune. And to that end, their representatives in the negotiations are trying to buy time in fruitless and false negotiations with our American friends. But the tyrants in Iran have made a bitter mistake, because the United States does not buy their lies, and we will not sit idly by as the shadow of destruction hangs over us. Well, let's go live now to Israel. our Middle East correspondent, John Donison, in Jerusalem. John, how extensive do we believe the Iranian retaliation has been? Well, we know that dozens of missiles have been fired. That's what the Israeli military was saying a couple of hours ago. And just before we came on air, there was the sound of the air raid sirens going out and we heard loud explosions just to the north of where we are in Jerusalem. It's been the case all morning, really. We think most of those explosions are Israel's missile defence system shooting down Iranian ballistic missiles right above our hotel where we were. One was shot down a very loud bang. So it does appear to have been pretty extensive so far. I guess the question is, given that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Trump have both signalled that this will not be a limited operation, how capable and how willing is Iran to respond further? It was Shabbat, of course, and so presumably it being a Saturday morning when this bombardment began, the streets were relatively quiet. Have Israelis largely been staying inside? Yeah, certainly. We're actually in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of the city, and it's Ramadan at the moment. You can hear the call to the prayer in the background at the moment. So this part of the city actually would be pretty busy during Ramadan. But I think most Israelis are in their shelters or sit certainly pretty close to them because these sirens, they're going off, what, every 10, 15, 20 minutes. You're getting alerts on your phone urging people to get inside and get safe. What calculation do you think the Israeli government has made in launching this strike? Well, I think, as we heard from Mr Netanyahu, he believes that Iran poses an existential threat, and he has believed this for a long time. And we had the campaign last year, the 12-day war between Israel, Iran and the United States. And, you know, at the time, you'll remember that the Americans said they had obliterated the Iran's nuclear program. Well, what, six, seven months on, Mr. Netanyahu's basically saying, no, that wasn't the case. And they need to keep pushing because they believe Iran poses a constant threat. And as we heard from Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Trump, what they're looking for is regime change. Now, that's not going to come from airstrikes. To do that militarily, you would have to have boots on the ground. I don't think that's going to happen either. But what they're wanting is that Iranians see this as an opportunity to rise up and topple their government. John Donelson in East Jerusalem, thank you. Let's go to Barbara Pletasha, who's in Doha in Qatar, which has itself come under attack, Barbara. And there's quite a lot of reaction from countries around the Gulf, isn't there, as to what's happening. Yes, because they are being attacked as well. So the Iranians had been threatening to strike against U.S. military bases if they were attacked. And these bases are in the Arab countries in this region, 13 of them with some 30,000 to 40,000 troops normally deployed to them. The biggest one is here in Qatar, the Al-Odeid airbase, which the Iranians had targeted in June during the 12-day war, but in a very careful way they had telegraphed it ahead of time. It was mostly a symbolic strike, really, and they this time had been saying nothing was going to be symbolic and they would widen their reach, and that is what they have done. So here in Qatar we have been hearing round after round of explosions, which the Qataris are saying is the sound of their missile defence, that they are blowing these missiles out of the air. We are also hearing that the same thing is happening in the United Arab Emirates, in Qatar, in Bahrain, and to some extent in Iraq, in Erbil, where the U.S. has a base there. In Bahrain, it seems that one of the missiles or some of the missiles found their mark. The Bahrainis are reporting that the base there, which is a Navy base, the head of the Fifth Fleet, has been hit, although it's not clear what the damage is. but this seems to be ongoing throughout the day so far. We had the Armani foreign minister putting on social media that he was dismayed by the action because he believed that talks were progressing. Indeed, he's flown to Washington, D.C. to tell the Americans that. What do you think will be the reaction of, for example, the Gulf Cooperation Council and other countries in that area to the American decision to go ahead, notwithstanding that there were negotiations underway. Well, dismay as well, because the leaders of these Arab countries that formed the Gulf Cooperation Council have been very active in the last two months trying to mediate against a conflict like this breaking out. So the Omanis have been front and centre, of course, but they have all been making phone calls to the Iranians, trying to get in touch with the Americans to present their view, trying to find a diplomatic way out of this. So what's clear now is that the Trump administration has not taken the advice of its Arab allies. Instead, it has taken the advice of the Israelis who have been wanting to go after Iran and clear up the missiles and just give it a strong blow. So I think that the Arabs are going to, again, see if there's an opening where they can try to move towards diplomacy. They will try to see what is the outcome of these attacks and what effect it will have on them, because they are worried, on the one hand, that it will affect the oil and gas industry in the region, that it will affect their own stability, and that in a worst case scenario, now that President Trump has made clear he's going for regime change, which is at the far end of the spectrum of what he might have done, that the state could even collapse and you'd get waves of refugees and weapons across the border. So they will be calibrating what they can do. Barbara Platt-Oshar in Doha. Thank you. Let's cross to Washington, D.C. And our correspondent at the U.S. State Department, Tom Bateman. Tom Bateman, there is a calculated risk here, isn't there, for the Americans, not only that they achieve their objectives, but also that in achieving their objectives, they don't spark a wider regional conflict. Well, of course, that will be the calculation. And I think it was one that, according to all accounts, was set out pretty firmly to the president by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Cain, during the discussions that have taken place in the Situation Room in the run up in the days and weeks in the run up to this. So he, President Trump, is certainly very well aware of that. I think it's, you know, we're now in this uncharted territory, basically, where the, as you were hearing from Barbara, the sort of range of options that were being speculated around what military, what form military action might take is at the very far end. This is clearly now a war launched for the objective of regime change as the president is setting out. The idea appearing to be that if the Americans and the Israelis inflict enough damage that they can inspire an uprising, as President Trump seems to be urging, which would take down the regime itself. And, of course, that is a huge calculated risk by the Americans and one that already is seeing this congressional pushback, particularly from Democrats who are saying, one, there is no authorization for this. And two, it clearly risks the lives of American service personnel in the region. And that is a domestic political risk for the president, presumably. Very much so. I mean, polling has suggested consistently that there is a huge amount of opposition in the public at large to the possibility of foreign military entanglement. It exactly the thing that President Trump campaigned on not getting the United States into And here they are now at the front end of an attack that has that as a possible part of the outcome now I thought it was interesting when we heard from the president in Florida overnight that he once again raised this idea about the idea of imminent threat, that the Iranians were developing a missile that could reach the United States, something he said in his State of the Union speech, but something that is rejected by intelligence sources who say there has been no change to the US intelligence assessment from last year, that the Iranians are at least a decade away from developing the kind of intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States. So in that sense, we're seeing a rerun in some ways of the run-up to the second Gulf War when the idea of imminent threat was used and turned out to be false. And I think, you know, you're already seeing the president trying to preempt that argument by saying, look, you know, there is imminent threat to the United States, even though that has already really been debunked within the intelligence world. Tom Bateman, our State Department correspondent in Washington, D.C., talking to NewsHour here on the BBC World Service. Stay with us for the headlines. We'll then be hearing from inside Iran from people who are affected by the bombardment and we'll be getting some regional analysis. This is NewsHour. This is Sean Lay with NewsHour, live from the BBC studios in London. Among the casualties reported so far in Iran, according to state officials, are 40 people at a girls' primary school in Minab in the south of the country. During a pause in the attacks, I spoke to Fawad Izzadi. He's professor of American studies at Tehran University, the sort of post that would not be held by a critic of the regime. President Professor Izzadi told me what he'd heard and seen. We have heard lots of explosions. I live in the middle of Tehran. This was a normal day until the United States and Israel started attacking the city. Our children had gone to school in the morning. We had to go and get the children. We are expecting many civilian deaths like last time. Last time U.S. attacked Iran, we had over 1,200 civilians killed. We expect the same. Tehran is not the only city they have attacked. They have attacked many Iranian cities, killing many Iranians. Qom, Kirman Shah, Shiraz, Esfahan, most major cities in Iran have been hit. Right. So what advice has the Iranian authorities have been giving to civilians as a result of this bombardment? They have told people to shelter in. All the schools, universities closed. I had a class today at University of Tehran that was cancelled. So people are supposed to stay in until the segregation comes to an end. Right. The indications are that this could be a long-term attack, not something that is going to end in a day or two days. Yes. This is what Trump said. This is what Netanyahu said. They want to change Iran's government. That's illegal. You're not supposed to bomb your way out of changing some other country's government. If you want to attack a country, you need to get a UN resolution. They didn't have that. We were in the middle of negotiations again. Last time they attacked Iran in June. They were supposed to meet on a Sunday and they attacked Iran on a Friday. This time they were supposed to go to Vienna on Monday for technical talks. This is what the Americans called the technical talks in Vienna. And they attacked Iran today. So the whole diplomacy was a deception operation. I think they were planning to do this many months ago. And they thought that this time Iranians will be surprised. Iranians were surprised last time. But given who Trump is and who Netanyahu is, no one was surprised this time. The missiles over the cities began being reported at about 9.15 local time. Is the bombardment still continuing? For the last hour or so, I haven't heard any explosions. So it's quiet. It's basically quiet for the last hour or so. And is it quiet on the streets around you? You know, people are getting back to their homes. So we've got heavy traffic, except the unusual traffic, things are normal. Right. You know, this had been feared in Iran that there might be some kind of military action. There have been the signs of the military buildup in the Gulf. There have also been, of course, the various announcements by foreign governments to people to leave Iran or the relocation of diplomatic staff. Had people made preparations? Have they been stocking up on food supplies, for example? Many people have done that. There is this culture of resistance in Iran. People realise that their country is under an illegal attack. They know they're dealing with genocidal people. This is what they did in Gaza. They want to have Tehran look like Gaza. They're not going to be able to do that. We have this rally around the flag effect last time. We are going to have a rally around the flag this time. The aim was to change the Iranian government. They are going to fail miserably. Because that has explicitly been stated in Donald Trump's social media message, which was posted in Washington just a few hours ago. It obviously was the middle of the night there. And he said very explicitly the purpose of this is to weaken the military and the governmental structures of Iran. so that the Iranians themselves can take control of their country. The difference between this assault and the assault last year is that in the meantime we have had these extensive protests by people in Iran about the state of the economy and openly critical of the regime. You say this will unite the country. Is it possible it won't unite the country precisely because it is a country that feels very differently now because of those protests against the regime? The protests were reported on BBC to be extensive. We live in Iran and we didn't see extensive. These are very limited. The people who support the late Shah's son are very few in number. I don't want to say less than 1% because that would be too much. They know who Shah is. They know who his son is. He wants to be the king of a country and he's asking foreign governments to attack his country. You don't necessarily have to be a supporter of him to be unhappy with the way that the regime operates. Is that fair? True, true. But when you are given a choice between a fascist, Trump is a fascist, Netanyahu is a fascist, Pahlavi is a fascist. When you are given choice between fascism and a government that you dislike some of its policies, you go with the government that you dislike. You don't go with fascists. Professor Fahad Izadi talking to me from Tehran. Explosions have been reported across the Gulf region in the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain as the military operation against Iran spills into the wider region because Iran is retaliating against those places that have military bases. Indeed, fresh explosions, according to a Reuters witness in the last few minutes, have been heard in Doha. When the last hour, the foreign minister of Iman, Bader al-Basadi, who was mediating between the US and Iranian sides in Geneva this week, posted on social media, I'm dismayed, active and serious negotiations have yet again been undermined. Now the interests of the US and all the cause of global peace are well served, he writes. Well, Bader al-Sayef is professor of history at Kuwait University. He's an associate fellow at Chatham House. Thank you very much for being with us, Professor. Can I ask you, first of all, what you've heard where you are at the moment? Sean, continuous sirens, blows, attacks. We can hear the interception of missiles. Thankfully, they've been intercepted, a couple of them that flew in from Iran. The Kuwaiti forces were able to handle them. And it comes at the back end of us celebrating two days ago our 35th anniversary of the liberation from Iraq. So war and trauma is built in into the system of the region. And it's unfortunately an ongoing cycle that we need to wean off. How difficult is it for Kuwaitis? I'm thinking in terms of being able to kind of get away or be safe from possible targets. In other words, are these military bases bases that are in urban areas? They're secluded, as would be the case with military bases across the region. So they're not in the center of town and they're far from population centers. But look, Kuwait, Kuwait is a small town. I mean, we're talking about a very small state that has you can go from one end from one border to the other in one hour, one hour and a half. So it's really you can hear things. The issue of them being secluded will not dissipate the worry factor that we have when such an attack happens. And it's a really unwarranted attack. The Gulf states have been trying very hard to mediate between the US and Iran. We've been trying to avert the war and we've been trying our best to serve the purposes of peace and stability in the region. So Iran is not serving itself well by attacking us in the Gulf. Iran's not serving itself well in your view, but it's surely actually what it's attacking are US military assets that your countries host. And that's hardly surprising if it's coming under attack from the Americans directly. If those air spaces and bases were used, Sean, and they were not. And we made this very clear to the U.S. ahead of time and to the Iranians. And look, this is, whether it's U.S. bases or not, this is sovereign Gulf territory. And the attack is being held against another sovereign country. And that's, again, it's not going to serve them well. We're not going to go anywhere. We're their neighbors. We're here to serve everyone's purposes for better. So they need to recalibrate their approach and they need to focus on those that are targeting them. Professor Alsaif in Kuwait will have to leave it there. Thank you very much for talking to NewsHour. And if you want to buy a beautiful website, you're ready to sell it? Then you're ready for Shopify. Make your entrepreneur's dream and start today for 1 euro per month on Shopify.nl. Stel je voor dat je in de techniek niet nog harder werkt, maar slimmer. Omdat warmtepompen op afstand uitgelezen kunnen worden. Zodat je monteurs precies weten wat ze moeten repareren. Ontdek onze slimme technologie op kpn.com slash slimmerwerken. KPN. for a better work in the Netherlands. Scientists are desperately searching for penguin feathers on their satellite screens. They're worried it's a sign that thousands could have died because of melting ice. I'm Ikra, and on What's in the World, we're finding out how the emperor penguins molting, that crucial shedding of feathers, has become riskier because of climate change. What's in the World is a daily podcast from the BBC World Service. We go in-depth on a different topic every weekday in under 15 minutes. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts. And join me for a separate episode where I answer listener questions and how to make those markets work for you. Follow Merrin Talks Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. Welcome back to NewsHour We staying with today developing story The US and Israeli attacks on Iran and its attempt to retaliate President Donald Trump confirmed that major combat operations were underway and that America hoped it would provoke rebellion inside Iran Rob Geist pinfold lectures in international security at King's College London. Through their choice of targets, I asked him, what are the Israelis and Americans trying to achieve? We've heard it straight from both Donald Trump now and Benjamin Netanyahu. This is not apparently a limited operation. There was a fleeting hope that it might actually be just a limited series of strikes to get more leverage in the negotiations. What we're hearing instead is that this is a comprehensive series of strikes, not just against Iranian military assets, for example, air defense systems or missile systems, but actually against political and military targets. So what you're likely seeing targeted on the ground is basically anything with an Iranian flag on it that's a government institution that can range from police stations to military bases to government buildings. And the fact that both Trump and Netanyahu have said that the goal here is regime change suggests that this will be a very, very broad, long-lasting campaign. And those fears of a long campaign have been exacerbated by Iran's response now. We've heard that they've hit or targeted several Gulf countries, Qatar for sure, and Bahrain. We saw an explosion in Manama in Bahrain. We're also hearing unverified reports of strikes elsewhere in the region against the UAE, for example. So if that happens, if those Gulf states get dragged in, then that means that Iran is really going for broke here. It's always its strategy to stop an attack has always been to say, look, we can't hit you the same level that you can hit us, but we can cause so much chaos that we can basically destabilise the region to the extent that it's in no one's interest for a wider war. So Iran is going for broke and calling the US and Israel's bluff. And in terms of Iran's capacity, if it's under attack itself, what sort of ability does it have to continue launching missiles? This is the key thing here. Often we hear about the Iranian nuclear program. And it's true that the negotiations sought to tackle the Iranian nuclear program to stop Iranian uranium enrichment. But another item on the agenda has been Iran's ballistic missile program, because we know that Iran has pivoted away from some of its regional proxies, arming and helping groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, because those groups are in, frankly, a dire state after two years of war. pivoted away from helping them and towards using its limited funds and resources into improving its ballistic missile capabilities because this is all part of the Iranian strategy of deterrence, saying that we will not be able to threaten Israel the way that we've said we can threaten Israel in the past, but we can use these missiles to unleash chaos. That's Rob Geist-Pinfold, who is an international security specialist at King's College in London. This is NewsHour. Do stay with us. You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC World Service with me, Sean Lay. We're reporting on developments in the Middle East as a result of the US and Israel conducting military attacks against Iran. Israel says it was a preemptive strike. Both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Donald Trump say they hope that it will act as a catalyst for regime change inside Iran. And we are getting reports in the last few minutes from Reuters that Israel believes its attacks have killed several senior Iranian officials. That is a source who has been briefed on the military operation. Let's hear now from Israel and from Naftali Bennett, who was prime minister in 2021 and 2022. Mr. Bennett, thank you for being with us on NewsHour. Can I ask you first of all about your interpretation of what Israel has said as its reason for this? It says it is a preemptive strike. What would you say it was trying to prevent? Trying to prevent Iran from progressing in their nuclear program and their ballistic missile program. After the June attacks, they renewed and reconstituted their programs. We're seeing considerable work under Pixax Mountain near Natanz to rebuild the centrifuges. We're seeing in Isfahan that they block the tunnels again so they can enrich uranium. So we're seeing serious efforts of Iran to rebuild their nuclear and ballistic missile program. and this is bad and they were preempting it so they don't acquire that power and become immune to any future attack. We were hearing from our US State Department correspondent that experts there are still saying that Iran as a result of the last military action by the Americans and Israelis last summer is years away from having something that could threaten significantly and certainly its nuclear program had been, well the Americans said, had been destroyed. On that basis taking action now looks like it wasn't necessary at this point. Indeed, the Amanis are saying the two sides were at the point of making significant process and negotiations that the Iranians had offered enough concessions for progress to go forward. No, the Iranians are playing tactics and the negotiation tactics to buy time. They basically have a fundamental choice to make. Do they just want to be a peaceful nation that takes care of its people, focuses inward, or do they want to continue terrorizing the region, the entire region? Do they want to continue murdering their own people? And do they want to continue building a nuclear weapon? They had the opportunity to say, okay, we're done with all this mischief, but they chose the wrong decision. President Trump was very clear with them, and they made the wrong choice. I was just going to say the Israelis weren't in those negotiations. indeed the two sides weren't talking directly at all they were talking via the Amanis I just wonder therefore the calculation of doing it now while that opportunity remained when the military threat wasn't imminent that is something you are going to have to convince the outside world about and we have heard others like the UK government saying today very explicitly not giving support for the military action silent on that but saying we support negotiations yeah well negotiations their goal is to dismantle the threat. But if the negotiations goal is the contrary, to allow Iran to continue building its capabilities so later on we cannot attack when we need to, that doesn't make any sense. You've been very critical in the past of Prime Minister Netanyahu. It is an election year. Are you at all concerned that domestic political calculations may be involved, that Mr Netanyahu in doing this is looking to strengthen his prospects in the forthcoming election? No, this is about Israel and the region and our security. We are acting now, so my children won't have to act 30 years from now or 10 years from now under a nuclear cloud. We cannot allow Iran to acquire this. This is not about right or left opposition or coalition. we all stand behind this vital mission for the stability of the world. It's not only about Israel because Iran has ballistic missiles that reach Europe already today. And it is currently bombarding as part of his retaliation military bases that are based in neighboring countries around the Gulf region. You can start this conflict. There is a risk, though, isn't there, of escalation. France, among others, has warned of that. I just wonder what you can do in Israel, having started this military operation, to contain that risk of escalation. Well, this is prevention. It's not escalation. Escalation would have been reaching the same situation eight years from now when Iran has tens of thousands of ballistic missiles and a nuclear weapon. And then we would be helpless. So sometimes you have to act to prevent a situation where later on you would be deemed neutralized. You couldn't act anymore. And in terms of the options now, just finally and briefly, do you believe that this will go on for weeks, for months? I think it's up for the Iranian regime or the people. President Trump has provided an opportunity for the wonderful Iranian people, the great nation of Iran, these people who we have a relationship with for 2,500 years now, the Jews and the Persians, to rise up against their dictatorial genocidal regime, which has butchered 32,000 of them on the streets. I hope they seize the moment. This cannot be done from the outside. It's theirs to decide. It's theirs to act. Naftali Bennett, former prime minister of Israel in 2021 and 2022. Thank you very much for joining us. Well, in his video message, President Trump addressed directly both civilians and groups within the Iranian regime. To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity or in the alternative, face certain death. So lay down your arms. You will be treated fairly with total immunity or you will face certain death. Finally, to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations. For many years, you have asked for America's help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want. So let's see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass. President Trump's video message overnight. Let's talk to Ali Valles, who's Iran Project Director with the International Crisis Group, an independent organization. It works to promote peace. He's in Geneva, where, of course, The negotiations were last held on Thursday and there had been plans to continue technical talks in Vienna this week. Let me ask you, first of all, Ali, in welcoming you to NewsHour, to respond to what both Nathali Bennett and Donald Trump were saying. Here's an opportunity for the Iranians to rise up. What reaction do you think there will be inside Iran? It's good to be with you. Look, there are certainly some people in Iran who would be happy that their tormentors are being targeted by the U.S. and Israel. But we have to remember that there is no precedent in recent history that the use of air power alone has managed to dislodge regimes that are as entrenched as the Islamic Republic. Of course, bombs can degrade infrastructure. They can weaken capabilities and eliminate leaders. But they cannot manufacture organized political alternatives. One has to remember that the Iranian people are unarmed, fragmented and facing one of the most securitized states in the region. And so I think this policy is mostly wishful thinking And just in terms of the likely reaction from within the regime I mean we heard we understand that the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Hamunayi has been hit but officials say he wasn't there, he'd been moved to somewhere safe. Iran's issuing regular updates, says President Pazeshkin is safe. It also says that the army's leading general is in post, but we also hear from the Israelis, they believe they have successfully taken out a number of senior Iranian officials. Could that be enough to cause the regime to implode even without mass civilian casualties? It's very unlikely. Look, this is a regime that is not just deeply entrenched, but is also deeply benched. Let's remember that in the 12-day war last year, Israel managed to eliminate dozens of Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders in a matter of hours. and yet they were quickly replaced. And since the 12-day war, the Supreme Leader has mandated every civilian and military leader in Iran to appoint four layers of succession. But even in a scenario that, again, all of these networks are dismantled and the state is basically degraded by the United States, which will come at a very high civilian cost. As I said, what is this going to be replaced by? Secretary Rubio was asked in a Senate hearing just two weeks ago, and he said, I have no idea. So the expectation that the Iranian people can finish the job that the U.S. has started from above, from the ground, I think is wholly unrealistic. The more likely scenario is that Iran would descend into chaos and civil strife. And that presumably is what will be troubling other countries in the region. We heard Barbara Pletasha in Doha talking about the risk, for example, of significant refugee movement if there were to be chaos inside Iran. Absolutely. Look, Iran is a country of 92 million. If it becomes a failed state, radicalism, refugees, instability can spill over borders and adversely affect other countries. But it can also reach European shores. Of course, Israel might not care about chaos in Iran. It's a thousand kilometers away. But the consequences, I think, would be disastrous for the region and beyond. Does that mean that, in your judgment, the rest of the world just has to put up with Iran and what it has done, including, for example, its involvement in proxy military action by supporting armed groups around the region? Well, absolutely not. But look at what happened since October 7th. Israel managed to significantly degrade Iran's proxies in the region. Hezbollah has not managed to pose any significant threat to Israel in the past year. Even the Houthis are not as much of a problem as they were in the past. and Iranian people were managed successfully to extract a lot of concessions from their own regime. If you look at the... Sorry to interrupt. I was just going to say in the last few moments we have, Reuters is reporting that three sources familiar with Israel and US attacks say the defense minister, Nazar Zahra, and Revolutionary Guards commander, Mohammed Pakapur, have been killed in these attacks. Yes, again, there's no doubt that the US and Israel have extraordinary capabilities, both in terms of intelligence and conventional capacities. And so without any doubt, as we have seen in the case of Iraq, Afghanistan, the US can win in a tactical way. But the question is whether it can turn it into strategic victories in the long term. Ali Vaiz, Iran Project Director of the International Crisis Group in Geneva. Thanks for talking to NewsHour. Stay with us. This is Sean Lay with NewsHour, coming to you live from the BBC studios in London. Let me bring you an update on the situation. We are on air reporting the latest developments as Israel and the United States launch a joint military operation with the purpose, they say, of ensuring regime change in Iran. There are reports that several senior figures in the Iranian regime may have been injured and killed. Israeli sources, according to Reuters, are suggesting that the defence minister and a senior Revolutionary Guard commander may be among them. We have no confirmation of that at the moment. The impact around the region is significant with neighbouring countries in the Gulf, including Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, coming out of missile bombardment as Iran attempts to retaliate not only against Israel but also against countries that host military bases for the Americans that may provide some of the facilities, even though many of those countries had asked America not to use their bases as part of the assault on Iran. I'm going to get some reaction now from the US and from a Republican congressman, Congressman Don Bacon, who represents a district in Nebraska. Congressman Bacon, thank you for being with us on NewsHound. Thank you. I think it's fair to say you're not an unalloyed fan of the president. But on this occasion, what do you make of the calculation he has made? On the balance, I support the president's decision. Iran has been attacking United States and our allies since 1979. Remember the Beirut barracks bombings in 1983? They attacked our embassy. They've had an attempted assassination against our president. I had a friend murdered at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that was destroyed by a truck bomb there. Then I served in Iraq and 609 Americans, that's the best estimate, were murdered by roadside bombs and Iranian mortars. They've been attacking us and our allies. I get that. But making this calculation now, when negotiations were ongoing, when the Amanis were conducting their negotiations, saying, actually, the Iranians had offered meaningful concessions on nuclear enrichment. It seems a curious time to do it and one that's high risk. I mean, you served in Iraq. You know of the chaos that followed in Iraq by the American intervention because, oh, yes, it got rid of Saddam Hussein. But there was nothing left. And what filled the vacuum was chaos and a lot of extremism that ended up targeting Americans. You know, we made some mistakes in Iraq. For one, a large presence on the ground probably was a mistake. We shouldn't have gotten rid of all the Sunni folks that were in their police and this and that. There's a lot of lessons learned there. And there's no good time for war. And I think this is high risk. This is not an easy decision. And I think there's a lot of pros and there's a lot of cons to this. But in the end, Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979. Yes. I think it's time to help the Iranian people get rid of this regime. They just murdered 50,000 Iranians, some of them in their hospital beds. I just think we can't turn a blind eye anymore to it. Right. But it's not going to involve, we are told, American boots on the ground. So, again, that's an even more risky strategy, isn't it? If you're saying we're going to rely on civilians, we don't know how many of them are. Everybody says there's no there's no organized opposition in Iran. There's nothing ready to take control. I mean, it's kind of putting it kind of throwing a grenade in and seeing what happens, isn't it? I do not deny it's high risk. I'm not saying this. There's you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of arguments for and against this. I would rather have a void than have the Ayatollah Khamenei and his henchmen in charge. And they just murdered 50,000 of their own people. And what if they can't turn a blind eye to it? What if they stay in charge? I mean, the risk of blowback, for example, them using those proxies against Americans in the region and maybe in America. They have already. Right. I mean, they may be temporarily muted themselves because of threats of attack, but they have been attacking us all along. I mean, I have had good friends killed by these proxy groups already in my life. And I wondered why did we do this not earlier? Because they were killing us by the hundreds in Iraq. You'll get – because you'll understand your own party's dynamics better than somebody sitting in a London radio studio can do. But my understanding from the many supporters of President Trump I've spoken to over certainly the last year and a half and even at times during his first administration is that one of the reasons they supported him, not all of them, but a significant proportion, was because he said we're not going to get involved in other parts of the world. We're no more foreign wars, no more putting American interest at risk. Let's concentrate on the home front. Well, you're right. There are some folks who are discouraged that supported the president. I have not been the biggest supporter of President Trump. I feel like he's not been strong enough with our allies. We need to have strong alliances. I believe that we should have a stronger voice in support of Ukraine. I don't like how he's treated Canada or Greenland. So I've been critical. But I'm the guy that doesn't want us to say, okay, I don't like the president on everything, or I'm going to support the president on everything. I'd rather call balls and strikes and say I support this or I do not support this. And I think in this case, I feel like we've had to take action for a long time on Iran. And I think it's been a long time coming. And after they've killed 50,000 of their own people, I feel like there was no other choice but to go after this regime and try to knock it off its chair. And I think it is high risk. I think there's war is unpredictable and it should be last resort. I get that. But you think we had reached the point of last resort because you know that is going to be contested. Yeah, I believe it's I believe we've been past that point for a while. Here's the here's the tipping point for me. When the president told the Iranian people that we would be by them if they protest and they did. And now we have reports of approximately 50,000 Iranians murdered. Some of them in their hospital beds. They just go into hospital rooms and shoot those who are injured in the protests. I just, as a humanitarian, at what point does the free world, the Western world, not say this just has to stop? I mean, when you see people hanging off the light poles in Tehran, at some point, I just feel like the humanitarian side of us has to speak up. So this is unacceptable. But I have felt this way for a while. Like I said, when I was in Iraq, the Shia militias there were probably the most deadly, most effective enemies we had. The Al-Qaeda were bad. But the Iranian-trained militias were very precise, and they had the EFBs. I understand the point you're making. I just want to briefly, and finally, we've only got about 30 seconds. You can't overthrow a regime with airstrikes alone. Could it ultimately need boots on the ground? I would discourage it. I think keeping American soldiers and Marines out of Iran would be the smartest thing to do. I think our job is to help facilitate the Iranian people. But can you rule it out? You really can't tell. It's unpredictable, and we won't know. I do think there's a widespread desire in Iran to get rid of its regime, and they need our help. And we can do what we can from the air, but we don't know that it will work. Congress Don Baker from Nebraska. Thank you. Scientists are desperately searching for penguin feathers on their satellite screens. They're worried it's a sign that thousands could have died because of melting ice. I'm Ikra, and on What's in the World, we're finding out how the emperor penguin's molting, that crucial shedding of feathers, has become riskier because of climate change. What's in the World is a daily podcast from the BBC World Service. We go in-depth on a different topic every weekday in under 15 minutes. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.