Last weekend the United States and Israel launched a blistering aerial assault on the Islamic Republic of Iran, starting with a decapitation strike that killed dozens of the regime’s top leaders, and then hammering missile launch sites, internal security targets, naval and air assets, and more.
Tehran hit back at Israel as well as a range of other neighbors, including the Gulf monarchies. Saudi Aramco took a missile, Incirlik over in Turkey got hit, and the Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. Oil is through the roof, approaching $100 / barrel at publication time.
Unlike the 12 Day War over last summer, this isn’t a clean surgical strike story with a limited objective. Trump has made it clear that this is for all the marbles: the Islamic Republic, at least as it has stood to this point, must fall.
So why would Iran hold anything back? After some initial successes, including the death of Supreme Leader Khamenei (which he may have in fact arranged, to ascend to martyrdom and fortify the regime), the day-after problem is already here. America’s Gulf allies only have so many interceptor missiles, and roughly twenty percent of the world’s oil transits the Strait of Hormuz. Right now that corridor is a war zone.
We welcome Prof. Andrew Leber of Tulane University, who just wrote an article on this subject for the Carnegie Endownment for International Peace, back to the show to talk us through the escalation ladder—what Iran’s retaliation tells us about their strategy, why the Gulf states are furious, and whether this remains a regional exchange or turns into the opening chapter of something much larger.
