Media Briefing: Israel, Iran, and What Comes Next for the Region

CFR experts discuss Israel's strikes against Iran's nuclear program, Iran's possible response, and further implications for the region, including the potential for war.

CHANG: Good morning. Hello, everyone. My name is Ben Chang. And I am the Council on Foreign Relations’ VP of global communications. Welcome to today’s Council briefing on the fast-moving situation in the Middle East. This briefing is on the record. After our experts weigh in, we will take questions for the back half of the session. Please raise your Zoom hand at that time and we will do our best to accommodate as many questions as possible. A recording of this session, of this briefing, will be posted online at CFR.org and its YouTube channel at the conclusion. Thanks very much. 

And over to Mike Froman, president of the Council. 

FROMAN: Thanks, Ben. Thanks everybody for joining us, particularly on short notice. We, at the Council, are privileged to have a deep bench of experts on the Middle East, some of whom are here. There are actually more than this, but we’re delighted at short notice we were able to pull this group together for the benefit of our friends in the media and our corporate and individual members. You’ll be hearing from Elliott Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies, Henri Barkey, adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies, Steven Cook, Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies, and Ed Husain, senior fellow, and Ray Takeyh, the Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle East studies. 

We’re also very lucky to have Elise Labott as our Edward R. Murrow press fellow. And she will be moderating this conversation. So let me turn it over to Elise. And I hope you all will continue to look to the Council as a resource as this, and other related stories, unfold. And we stand ready to be supportive and helpful to you in any way that we can. Over to you, Elise. 

LABOTT: Thanks, Mike. And thanks to everybody for joining us. And thanks to you for turning in where, if you’ve joined our—this crew before, you know we’re going to have a very thoughtful conversation. And I’m just going to kick it off with Elliott.  

I think, you know, some of the questions we want to hit today, Elliott, as you said, what did the Israelis do last night with Iran? Why now? And what’s next? So let’s start with what the Israelis did last night. You know, and let’s just put it in the context of what—you know, over the last couple of weeks President Trump, Steve Witkoff, they’ve been trying to negotiate with the Iranians. You know, President Trump was not very thrilled about—a couple of weeks and months ago—about this attack. Why now?  

ABRAMS: Well, big questions. First, what did they do? They have been attacking the Iranian nuclear infrastructure. But from the reports I’ve seen, mostly Natanz, not Fordow. Fordow is very deeply buried. And it may be that they’ve decided they can’t reach it. It’s too deep. It’s possible also that, you know, they’re waiting and that they’ll do that on day two, or three, or four. But it may be that all the people who said they can’t do Fordow were right.  

They are attacking the nuclear infrastructure. They are attacking Iran’s offensive military capability—ballistic missiles, which could be shot at Israel—and they’re attacking a number of scientists and top generals. 

It’s worth noting what they’re not attacking. They’re not attacking economic targets—for example and primarily, Iran’s ability to export oil—and they’re not trying to decapitate the regime. They killed Nasrallah, but he was not a head of state or government. I’ve seen no evidence that they tried to kill or are trying to kill the supreme leader or President Pezeshkian. Now, again, days are coming, but so far I think that’s the basic structure of what they’re doing.  

Why now? Trump’s sixty days were up. I think that actually is meaningful—meaningful to the Israelis. It looks like it’s meaningful to President Trump. 

On Thursday, yesterday, you had the board of governors vote in the IAEA to censure Iran, following the IAEA staff report that said Iran is violating all of its promises to the IAEA, not answering questions, not letting inspectors see what they need to see. And I think the Israelis thought, we have a window. We have a window because we’ve destroyed the Iranian air defenses. They’ll rebuild them sooner or later, so if this is ever going to happen, it should happen now. And they made a bet on President Trump. I’ll just take thirty more seconds.  

This is a little bit reminiscent to me of the 2007 Israeli attack on the Syrian nuclear reactor, because President Bush—George W. Bush said to them, we’re going to do diplomacy; we’re going to go IAEA, we’re going to go U.N. And the Israeli response was, no, no, no, no, that’s not good enough; we’re going to take it out. And Bush’s response was, OK, you do what you have to do.  

You know, here Trump for a long time—I mean, most of the time he’s been in office has been saying, no, we’re negotiating; no, don’t do it, we’re negotiating. And then the Israelis strike, and today Trump called it excellent. So it looks a little bit like the same pattern.  

LABOTT: Ray, let’s talk about, you know, how the Iranians see this, what you anticipate the response will be. And Elliott said they were going after mostly the nuclear facilities and not going after the regime, you know, not going after the supreme leader. But it seems by going after the head of the IRGC, the army chief of staff, other top Iranian commanders—there is more than one way to, you know, destroy a regime. And it does seem as if this is more than just taking out the nuclear facilities. It seems like it’s a lot more the weaken Iran. And if you could just throw in, how close was Iran really to having a nuclear weapon—talking about this imminent threat, we saw this opportunity. How imminent was it? 

TAKEYH: First of all, in terms of the people the Israelis have eliminated, they essentially have gone after the military leadership, and there’s been a succession of appointments to those positions as an indication of continuity of command. That was probably to create some sort of a disarray within the Iranian command structure as a means of retarding their ability to retaliate, and you did that with the missile encampments and so forth and so on. So that essentially is trying to create that kind of a disarray. The regime at this particular point probably is trying to assess the damage in this very chaotic situations.  

Director General Grossi has suggested that he has detected no radiation in the air. I don’t really know the technical aspect of it, but I don’t know how you destroy 90 percent enriched uranium without corresponding radiation in the air, but that’s something that needs to be sorted out and it’s maybe one of those details that can come out.  

What I suspect will happen next—and there are competing pressures on the leadership of the country—there’s civil-military relations and there’s civil society’s leadership or relations. There’s compounding pressures coming. There will be a lot of voices within the regime that will call for leaving the NPT, perhaps not in—even not in form but in practice essentially kicking the IAEA inspectors out and so forth. So the Iranian nuclear program will go into some kind of a dark, whatever is left of it. And as was mentioned, if Fordow is alive, then there is IR-6 and IR-8s which are stored there, continue to be. It’s—bulk of the Iranian centrifuge machines were actually in Natanz, so if Natanz—at least the top layer—is destroyed than many of those operational centrifuges are destroyed. I don’t know how operational the cascades in Fordow were. And in Pickaxe, the bottom—the Natanz that the Iranians were constructing, I don’t believe there’s any operational centrifuges there. But that’s something that we’ll sort out. 

So from now on I think we may enter a new chapter where counterproliferation efforts against Iran are no longer using IAEA and international diplomacy, but kinetic action; that you have to revisit this issue militarily. That is the instrument of counterproliferation now if Iranians are no longer abiding by their NPT obligations, perhaps not formally but at least in practice. So that essentially means in some way we may have entered a new era of counterproliferation. 

LABOTT: Steven, I think you have a little bit broader of a picture of what the Israelis are doing here. You have a great piece out in Foreign Policy this morning, and you note that, you know, after October 7 Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that Israel would, quote, “change the Middle East.” And they have been doing that, you know, since then, whether it’s Hamas, Hezbollah—you know, the Houthis, you know, not so much. But Israel, you say, is—you know, was in this much stronger strategic position. And what do you think is going on here with what Israel did last night? And they’ve said this is just phase one; where do you think this is going? 

COOK: Yeah. Thanks, Elise. And thanks for mentioning the piece. And— 

LABOTT: Always. 

COOK: I think there’s a bit of daylight between Elliott and me on this. I think that the Israelis are seeking to greatly weaken the regime, if not by use of its military force, to actually create the conditions in which it could be overthrown by the—by the Iranian people, of course. But I do think that the—you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu has talked about the regime, about the Iranian people, et cetera, et cetera, combined with his vow to change the region, combined with the idea that the Israelis needed to change the security environment around them, combined with the constant patter about having to cut off the head of the snake. It seems to me that the Iranians have come to the—the Israelis have come to the conclusion that there can’t be a deal—there can’t be a deal with this regime, the regime is the problem, and that creating the conditions where either they weaken or the regime can be overthrown is really the best option for it. 

Now, it’s a risky strategy, and who knows whether it will be successful? As Ray talked—mentioned, a number of senior people have been killed, but they’ve been now—replacements have been—have been appointed. But I think there’s no doubt that the regime is in chaos. And if the Israelis continue to press their current advantage and have neutralized the ability of the Iranians to respond massively on Israel, I think that they will continue to, one, go after the nuclear program—which is the kind of crown jewel of the regime—as well as continue with targets that would weaken the foundations of the Islamic Republic. 

LABOTT: Ed, larger context here in the region. The last time Iran hit Israel, there was this coalition of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, to some extent, with the United States to really thwart any type of retaliation. Right now we’ve seen this kind of muted reaction from the region. Jordan said that it wouldn’t take any violation of its airspace—wouldn’t stand for that. But other than that, I think people are starting—or, you know, are kind of waiting and seeing what happened. Talk to me about where you think the region will be as this, you know, clearly is not the end of it. Where does the region—do they just sit back? Do they come to Israel’s defense? What happens?  

HUSAIN: I think already this morning, Elise, you’ve seen voices of condemnation, at least officially. You’ve heard from the Saudis and the Emiratis condemning Israeli actions last night. And I think for those of us on the call, we should read those condemnations in the context of genuine concern that Iranians and Iranian proxies may come— 

LABOTT: Go after them. 

HUSAIN: Yeah, in Bahrain, in the UAE, in Saudi Arabia, and, indeed, other parts of the region where there are pro-American allies and American bases. But we shouldn’t take their public statements as an indication of their private intent. And that’s where it’s really important to understand that there’s genuine concern and fear, because the Iranians have claim on multiple islands belonging to the Emiratis, on the island of Bahrain, and the Saudi eastern province. So for them this is not just a geopolitical external event between the Israelis and the Iranians. It’s domestic for them because they have a Shia population in most of those countries. And they have Iranian-backed proxies in some, or if not all, of those countries.  

I think, you know, Steven and I were talking earlier, it’s interesting to see President Erdoğan’s muted response, his daughter coming out almost in jubilation on Twitter, or X, celebrating what’s happened in Iran. But I’d like to make two other broader points, if I may, Elise, and then listen to other colleagues and take questions. One is that Israel has done this before. Elliott mentioned the attack in 2007 in Syria. And Israel was condemned for that. But there is another precedent that we ought to bear in mind, which indicates a degree of consistency that whenever Israel detects an existential threat to its prosperity, it does, and it will go after it. And that other instance is the Osirak attack in Iraq in 1981, when Israel was, again, considered to be an international pariah for attacking Saddam Hussein’s attempts to develop a nuclear reactor.  

And it was Menachem Begin who went in and took it out. And there was reservation here in America for having done that. But I think the free world, the civilized world, the Arabs, and most of us in the West, were grateful that Israel attacked, both in Iraq and in Syria, and thereby preventing stronger forces that are anti-American and anti-West. Ideologically, I think it’s important to understand that Iranians are led by a government that has a very extreme version of what it means to be Muslim in the modern world, the Velayat-e Faqih model. And the man who heads up this regime, the supreme leader, he was the one who translated the books coming out of Egypt in the 1960s talking about our battle against the Jews.  

If any of you are interested, you should look up the translations of Sayyid Qutb done by Khamenei called the—(speaks in a foreign language). Not against just the Israelis, or what they call Zionism, but against all Jews. And I think it’s worth bearing in mind that Israel is dealing with an enemy that is dedicated to seeing not just the end of Israel, but the end of multiple Arab regimes that are allies of America and uphold a security infrastructure in the region that the Iranian government wants to see destroyed. So on balance, what the Israelis have done last night is, I think, helped, consolidated America and its allies, and upheld an American security infrastructure in the region. 

LABOTT: And, Henri, you know, let’s go even wider. You know, there’s been this kind of reconciliation on a couple of fronts. You have the Abraham Accords. Then you have the UAE and Bahrain, you know, and Saudi, you know, not normalizing with Iran, certainly, but there’s been this kind of effort at a little bit of a, you know, rapprochement, just in terms of regional stability. So, you know, let’s talk about this war, as you pointed out, you know, is existential kind of for everybody. There’s been this war that’s been going on between Israel and Iran for a long time. Where are we headed with this?  

BARKEY: Well, that’s a good question. I mean, when you look at the Israelis, I mean they are—and operationally, tactically, they are always brilliant. The problem is, strategically you can—they’ve been very weak in terms of defining a strategic objective. And what I don’t know in this particular case is this—where is it that they they’re going on this? They started an operation. It can go on for a while. Is it, as Steve also mentioned, regime—they want to weaken the regime so that the Iranian people get rid of the regime? I mean, clearly we know that the regime is not very popular at home. But that’s not something that they can decide or influence. 

So what we never know—even when you look at the war with Hamas, there is no strategic objective. We don’t know when this is going to end because they haven’t figured it—they haven’t articulated the strategic. And that has been, essentially, Israeli policy—I wouldn’t say all the way back to 1948, but certainly for the last couple of decades. And they are paying a price for it, in a sense. 

Now, it is true that this war with Iran started a long time ago, and the Israelis also have taken advantage of mistakes that were made by Iran and others. I mean, let me put it—yes, Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. It’s a monumental event. It is changing the Middle East. But it did not have to come to the point that we are here today. That is to say, Hamas attacked. Hezbollah decided to join the war the next day, right? Essentially, you had another actor, another Iranian client, attacking Israel. The Israelis took the—Hezbollah out after a certain time period. And what did the Iranians do? They retaliated. Why did they have to retaliate? I mean, Hezbollah, after all, is—yes, it’s an Iranian client, but it is a Lebanese organization, right? So they essentially opened themselves up to an Israeli strike that eliminated their air defenses, which enabled today’s operation, right? You would not have been able to do today if you—if October 2024 had not happened. 

LABOTT: Elliott, Henri makes the point that there’s no strategic objective. I would say, you know, going back to what Steve wrote in his excellent Foreign Policy piece— 

COOK: (Laughs.) 

LABOTT: I’m just going to keep, you know, pimping you out. 

I would say there’s a strategic objective, but the tactical, you know, moves that they’re making to reach their strategic objectives sometimes, you know, what—talk to me about that. 

ABRAMS: Yeah. 

LABOTT: Wait, wait, wait. And then I want to—you know, we talked about what they were able to do, which is considerable, and they’re going to continue. We don’t think they can really reach Fordow because the U.S. never gave them those bunker-buster bombs. Where is the U.S. on this? Yesterday, Rubio said we didn’t do anything, we’re protecting our people. But there is a concern that, you know, then again, we don’t know—we don’t really know what the U.S. kind of said. Did they say do what you got to do where they said, you know, go for it but leave us out of it? What happens when Israel responds, does the—when Iran responds? Does the U.S. then get dragged in and is forced to respond with—to defend— 

ABRAMS: The U.S. is going to be—will be directly involved, in my view, only if Iran drags us in. That is, if Iran kills Americans, then we’re in. 

LABOTT: That’s the only red line? If they kill a lot of Israelis, they won’t? 

ABRAMS: No. We will help defend Israel. The president has already said that. 

LABOTT: What does that mean? What does that mean? 

ABRAMS: That means—that’s defense. That’s what happened last year. That’s helping them shoot down incoming ordnance. It’s not attacking Iran. 

LABOTT: OK. 

ABRAMS: The only thing, in my opinion, that gets us to attack Iran is they kill Americans or try to. And I don’t think they’re—I still don’t think they’re crazy enough to do that. They made threats this week, you know, if we’re attacked we’re attacking all the U.S. bases. I don’t believe it. I hope I’m right. 

I’m not sympathetic to the view that there’s—you know, there’s no strategy here. Look— 

LABOTT: Well, there is clearly a strategy. I mean— 

ABRAMS: The strategy is to—your greatest enemy, which says death to Israel every day, is acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. So you’re not going to let them do that. I mean, I think that’s enough of a strategy. 

Now, does it bring down the regime? That would be nice, but as I’ve said, so far at least there’s no evidence they’re trying to decapitate the regime. And I would imagine they’ve shown sufficient ability—intel ability to convince us that they could kill Khamenei if they wanted to. They don’t seem to want to. Maybe that changes tomorrow, but so far they don’t seem to want to. So I—this, it seems to me, is a military effort to deprive Iran of military capabilities to strike Israel today and to build a nuclear weapon. 

Now, where does this go? I think when this is over—maybe it’s a week—does Iran—then or three months from now, does it come back to the table? Does it immediately try to rebuild, and faster, its nuclear capability? What is the impact of this—and these are questions. I don’t have any magic answers. 

What’s the impact on Gaza? Does Hamas think, well, we lost one great patron—Hezbollah; now we’re losing militarily another great patron, Iran? Maybe we’d better make a deal. Or do the guys on the ground—maybe that’s the view of the Hamas guys in Doha, but not the ones on the ground. 

LABOTT: Right. 

ABRAMS: I’d just make one other point: When we say, you know, the United States view, the Washington view, I think we’re seeing today that we need to draw a distinction between President Trump and a lot of the kind of isolationist-restrainers around him. 

LABOTT: A hundred percent. 

ABRAMS: There are such people, from Tucker Carlson maybe to Vance, maybe to Hegseth, who knows? 

LABOTT: Not maybe, yeah. 

ABRAMS: And the—and the administration has a lot of people in it coming from the Koch-Soros restrainer school. That’s not Donald Trump. That’s not— 

LABOTT: That’s a great point. Yeah, I mean, I feel like he’s in—he’s kind of in contradiction. You know, he’s not really an isolationist, yet his base is.  

ABRAMS: I wouldn’t say they’re isolationist. I would say, to use the Walter Russell Mead characterization, they’re Jacksonian. Leave us alone; we don’t want to intervene anywhere, but if you make trouble, we’re going to kill you. So no endless wars, but threats. And I would hope that messages have been sent to Iran: You’ve got a lot—you’ve got a lot of nice, juicy economic targets. You hit us—I would think the Israelis should say this, too—watch out with this retaliation or you will not export oil for years. 

COOK: Well, they did say if you retaliate in a massive way we will target and kill the supreme leader.  

ABRAMS: When did they say that? 

COOK: In the Israeli press. It was in the Israeli press that they—  

ABRAMS: But in the Israeli press that they think it, or—Netanyahu hasn’t said that. 

COOK: No, that the Israelis—that the Israelis have messaged to the Iranians, if you retaliate in a big way we will kill the supreme leader. 

ABRAMS: Oh, OK. OK. 

LABOTT: Were you going to make another point? And then I want to go to Ray. 

COOK: No, no, go to Ray. Go to Ray and we can wrap around, because—please do. 

LABOTT: Yeah. Ray, take—pick up on what Elliott said. And then also, as—you know, I just want to go back to what I said before. Elliott disagrees that this was—he says this is just a military operation. But if you’re weakening the regime to the extent by going after their military leadership, is there an opportunity here for the Iranian people that wasn’t there before? And what happens, like, if that happens? Is it like—I said last night on TV—(laughs)—like, is this a Wizard of Oz “ding-dong, the witch is dead” situation where, you know, if you just go so far the people are rejoicing? And you know, I think that’s—in Israel and maybe the U.S.—the U.S. mind, that was—is what would happen. But where do you think the Iranian public is right now? 

TAKEYH: Well, that’s certainly a regime concern, which is why they have introduced censorship of the media. They have essentially declared a state of emergency and have—and decided to enhance the domestic controls. The regime is certainly vulnerable—has always been vulnerable to popular insurrection. Its domestic controls have thus far held, and we’ll see if they hold again. 

I would say that in terms of—there was kind of a disturbing status quo, namely that for whatever sort of reasons—technical concerns about vulnerability—Iran had not crossed the threshold and assembled a bomb. We may be in a very different situation today, and those old calculations may no longer apply. I think we always tend to forget that other countries have politics as well. 

ABRAMS: (Laughs.) 

TAKEYH: There’s going to be politics here within the regime itself when you have decapitation of its military personnel. Within the scientific establishment, some curious choices were made about who Israelis decided to eliminate. Fereydoun Abbasi, that they killed, who was a parliamentarian, hadn’t been a member—head of the atomic energy organization for ten years. Ali Khamenei’s principal bomb-maker and the person he will turn to today is Ali Akbar Salehi. As far as I know, nobody even thought about targeting him. So there’s some curious choices made. I don’t believe the Iranian nuclear program can be debilitated by a targeted assassination of a scientist simply because it’s so multilayered and expansive in terms of that cadre. 

I just want to kind of step back and say we may be in a different moment today whose entire ramifications I’m not sure at this particular point. We might have embarked on a new journey today which, all I can say is, its conclusion is uncertain. 

LABOTT: Do you want to pick up on that, Ed? What do you think—depending on what Iran’s response is, how does the region respond? 

HUSAIN: By “the region” we should be—we should be very clear in delineating the fact that some of the response, be they public or private, out of Turkey have been—jubilant is too strong a word, but have been joyous that what’s happened in Tehran strengthens the strategic enemy that they’ve had for many centuries. I think in Damascus, under the current government now, you also see a degree of joy that there’s been a weakening of the Iranian nuclear capabilities, and therefore its assets. But I would kind of caution us, and by extension the Israelis, from trying to decapitate, kill, destroy the supreme leader, for the following reasons.  

One, I think you popularize the regime internally when you go after a man who is seen to be both holy as well as a political leader. Two, you give him martyrdom status. And the Iranian Shia mindset when it comes to martyrs is—you know, it’s one that the rest of the world finds hard to understand. So we should be careful about creating martyrs. And three, I think Israel sends the wrong message, just to the globe in general, that you can go after a leader of a country, however much we despise him or her. I mean, that should be a redline that we don’t cross, no matter how much stability or instability we see, or otherwise, in the region. So that should not be—that should not be on the cards for the Israelis, I don’t think. 

LABOTT: I just want to go quickly to Henri and Steven. Henri, yes, that’s true. But at the same time, is there a sense that, like, you can weaken the regime to the extent that the Iranian people can kind of, if you will, take it from there? 

HUSAIN: Look, I think the head of the regime, especially in the case of Khamenei, given how old he is and how long he’s been there, I don’t think he’s being necessarily is what holds the regime together. It’s, like, you can eliminate him and the regime can still continue. So I don’t think the Israelis need to essentially kill him. I mean, we don’t know what—Steve mentioned a warning to be sent to the Iranians. But I just want to say one thing about—I’m looking—I looked at Erdoğan’s reaction. It was very tough. I don’t see any jubilation. I mean, and his sidekick, Devlet Bahçeli, came out saying Israel’s next target is Turkey, all right? So the Turks are not being happy—are not necessarily happy about this, because in their mind it makes the Israelis much stronger. So I just wanted to make that point. 

LABOTT: Steven. 

COOK: Look, I think that the paradigm shift that the Israelis had in their thinking about their own security is culminating in the attacks on Iran. I think that not enough people in Washington had taken very seriously this change on the part of Israel. And that they have done that. They have done it in Lebanon. They have accomplished much in Gaza. I think the death and destruction obscures the fact that there’s, like, two Hamas leaders that are alive in Gaza. And they’re fighting a bunch of seventeen-year-olds with AKs in flipflops. And now they are—have perceived this threat from the Iranians that they crossed a certain threshold, and now is the time.  

But it’s not just about the nuclear weapons—nuclear weapons development. It’s about the regime more generally. Whether they kill the supreme leader or not—and I take Ed’s point very, very well—that they may not do that. But that is not—that is not the only thing that would bring the regime down. I think it’s hard—we’re, you know, like, twelve, fifteen, sixteen hours into this—to make any kind of—draw any kind of conclusion about the stability of the regime. But I think that there is clearly, if we’re talking about the, you know, tactics and the strategy, I think that if you look at the tactics and who they’ve attacked, who they at least believe are important, the idea here is to weaken this regime and create conditions so that Iranians can take matters into their own hands. 

LABOTT: We’re going to go to questions in a minute.  

(Gives queuing instructions.) 

Ray, pick up on that. Again, what—you know, is the regime—if the regime is weakened to the extent, you know, how did the Iranian people feel about this? Are they—taking Ed’s point that you don’t want to go and kill the supreme leader—are they—if there’s not a lot of, you know, civilian casualties, how is the Iranian—how are the Iranian people going to feel about the regime being weakened? Are they happy about it? 

TAKEYH: Well, speaking on behalf of the Iranian people—(laughter)— 

LABOTT: Speaking on behalf of your polls of the Iranian people. 

TAKEYH: What I would say is the regime has privileged the nuclear issue and has paid a considerable economic cost to it—in order to maintain it. At least significant portions of that nuclear program have been destroyed, as far as one knows. Obviously, there will be an attempt to revive it. That further chips away at the authority and legitimacy of the regime. And when you have paid such a price for what was viewed as a national asset. In terms of other problems that the regime has, its pathologies are too numerous to be chronicled in this short period of time. The bonds between state and society have been severed, have been severed long ago.  

Now, the question is, can the society overwhelm the state even in its weakened condition? I don’t have the answer to that question. I think it’d be too glib to offer an answer to that question. I don’t know. I would say one thing about elimination of Ali Khamenei. Ali Khamenei’s authority within the regime is indisputed. We don’t even know what the succession process is and who will emerge as a successor. But whoever emerges upon his elimination, if, in fact, anybody, he will not be able to impose a consensus on the regime the way Ali Khamenei did. And one of the consensus that Khamenei did impose on the regime was that they would not cross the nuclear threshold and actually assemble a weapon.  

In the aftermath of the October 7 events, the Israelis said, as Steven suggested, that the rules of the game have changed in the Middle East. There were a lot of voices within Iran, particularly among the Revolutionary Guards—I know that because of their publications—who were saying that we should change the rules of the game from our side as well. And we should actually go ahead and assemble a nuclear weapon. Those voices were tampered down by Araghchi and Pezeshkian, and others. Saying, oh, no. Our strategic doctrine remains that we’re not going to do it. All those questions are going to be relitigated today in light of what has happened.  

They may arrive at the same conclusion as the past, that their economic vulnerabilities and other sort of ability of the Israelis and Americans to exact an economic price upon them still militates that restraint. But again, I don’t think they know the answer to that question. And I certainly don’t know the answer to that question, because everybody’s trying to sort this out in real time. Ali Khamenei is still—within the regime, at least, his ability to impose order is there. Now whether he’ll have a successor at that time with a similar degree of authority, I don’t think so, in the short term. Which means other centers of power will have their own prerogatives. And the regime will be much more chaotic in its decision making.  

LABOTT: OK. I think we’re going to go to questions now.  

(Gives queuing instructions.) 

Over to you, Will. 

OPERATOR: We will take our first question from Jim Himes. 

LABOTT: Hi, Jim. 

Q: Hi, all. Jim Himes, U.S. representative for Connecticut-4, and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. Thank you so much for pulling this together. 

I want to have the group perhaps test two propositions which have been a big part of the conventional wisdom. The first is, we were sort of just talking about this, but this idea that this is the—this is the one way to, if not unify, at least align the Iranian population behind the regime. And then the second trope I’d love to hear some reflections on is, certainly inside the policymaking apparatus there was a great deal of agreement that all of the more subtle calculations go away when the regime feels that they are about to topple. And at that point, all buttons get pushed and all bets are off. What is never explained is what does that actually look like? What are the conditions that would, you know, sort of cause that more apocalyptic scenario? Thank you. 

LABOTT: Who’s going to take that one? 

ABRAMS: Ray should take that one. 

COOK: Took the words right out of my mouth. 

TAKEYH: The first one was, would this attack strengthen the regime? I think it’ll actually accelerate its delegitimization. I don’t believe the regime can be strengthened by external attack. It no longer has the ability to mobilize nationalism around its national prerogatives. So in that particular sense, I think this is actually bad for the regime. Another question is whether it’s detrimental. 

The second question is, can the regime still exercise domestic controls with its overlapping security services and intelligence services and so forth, and a lack of organization on behalf of opposition where opposition sentiment is wide but it’s not cohesive and organized? And again, I want to be careful, and I say I don’t have the answer to that question. I believe the Iranian domestic situation just became much more complicated. The regime is certainly weaker, and the opposition—to the extent that there is—may be more emboldened by this in terms of its morale. But I also think the ramifications of this event will reverberate in the next couple of months and years if the regime, in fact, has that kind of a lifespan. So we’ll see this issue come up, given the fact that trillions of dollars have been lost in terms of expenditure and economic opportunity in order to build up a nuclear program that I think at this point has at least been damaged—how much we don’t know—and also the ease with which Israelis have done so and the inability of the regime to retaliate in a meaningful way. So, basically, this is a regime that only is strong—is strong enough only to make sure women wear chādors, but nothing beyond that. (Laughter.) 

LABOTT: Yeah. 

TAKEYH: That’s not a good place to be if the principal ingredient of your rule is fear. If you’re ruling by fear—you’re not ruling by providing for the material benefits of your public, you’re not ruling by providing them political representation, you’re not ruling them by judicious foreign policy whose costs are less than its benefits, the only thing that you’re ruling by is fear, and that barrier of fear at least today has been diminished. Has it been diminished to the extent that causes the extinguish—extinction of the regime? I don’t know. 

COOK: Elise, can I just get into one piece of this? 

LABOTT: Yeah, sure, but we have a lot of questions. Yeah. 

COOK: Yeah, one piece of this, to the congressman’s question. I’ve just been struck—I mean, this is to your second question—I’ve just been struck at within kind of official policy community circles the distinct lack of imagination about what is possible, and what the Israelis could do, and what the Iranian response then. I’ve been hearing the same thing for a long time. I was told forever that the Israelis couldn’t possibly take on Hezbollah; it would devastate and lay waste to much of Israel. That didn’t happen. I’ve been told that an Israeli strike on Iran will result in a regional war. It may, but I think that there’s a lot of—that not enough weight has been given to the counter-narrative there that the Israelis may engage in a strike that so disarms and weakens the regime that they can’t muster the kind of a response— 

LABOTT: Yeah. Let me just quickly pick up on that and then I want to move on to other questions. 

Ray, you know, Iran is so weakened and the possibility of a response, of doing serious damage, you know, is questionable. So do they do something mild and the Israelis just kind of—you know, Elliott maybe can quickly pick up on that. Is it a mild response to save face, Israel, you know, does something small, and we move on? Or is this a, you know, bigger— 

TAKEYH: Well, as—well, as someone who lacks imagination and like(s) to defend people who lack imagination that Steven just chastised— 

COOK: No, no, I was talking about—I was talking about people within the official, not you. You’re a very imaginative, creative person. 

TAKEYH: No, I’m not, actually. I would— 

COOK: I’m talking about U.S. officialdom. 

TAKEYH: I would say the Iranians do have some options across the Gulf, which may not necessarily be just targeting the Gulf states. They could disrupt the shipping in the Gulf, not necessarily by attacking American vessels but some Norwegian oil vessel. The effect will be the same. We say, well, it wasn’t an American vessel. (Laughs.) But you know, that will still have an economic penalty to it, but it won’t meet the threshold of American retaliation, as Elliott identified it, being an American target. Now, whether the United States will step in at that time like it did in the 1980s and assume the protection of the Gulf for all maritime shipping; or will say, we’ll protect that American vessel, oh, Norwegian you’re on your own, oh, the Dutch, well, losers—(laughs)—you know? 

LABOTT: Right. 

TAKEYH: So that’s—there will have to be some kind of a retaliation against Israel, even if it’s ineffective. They’ll say it’s effective. But they do have some maritime options as well that could cause some economic penalties globally. 

LABOTT: OK. Next question? 

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Steff Chávez. 

LABOTT: Go ahead, Steff. 

Q: Oh, OK. Hi. Steff Chávez of the Financial Times. 

I’m wondering just if we could get a little deeper into what you guys think the U.S.’ level of involvement was last night, and what maybe President Trump’s strategy might be here. You know, do you think he wants to know all the details about this from the Israelis, or do you think he wants to kind of more remain in the dark and have almost, you know, just— 

LABOTT: Plausible deniability. 

Q: Yeah, exactly. (Laughs.) 

LABOTT: Yeah. Elliott? 

ABRAMS: I go back to 2007 when the Israelis said, you don’t want to know in advance exactly when and what. But that’s different from an after-action report. And I think certainly the intelligence community and the military will want to know exactly what happened and present that to the president. The president’s immediate reaction was commercial: See, American weapons are the best! It was a little bit of salesmanship. But I think he’ll want to know precisely—well, he’s not a detail guy, but I think he’ll want to know what is it that Israel did. 

I don’t think we knew exactly in advance. I do not think this elaborate plan of what they had on the ground and, you know, getting drones into Iran to use, I don’t think the U.S. government knew that. 

LABOTT: OK. Next question? 

OPERATOR: We will take the next question from Ira Stoll. 

Q: Yeah. Hi. Ira Stoll from the Editors. 

You hear a lot from Netanyahu’s bitter critics in Israel and America that he somehow wants to prolong the war or he’s using the war to avoid elections in Israel. How absurd is that relative to this particular action against the Iranian nuclear program? 

ABRAMS: Let me just say very quickly I think it’s completely irrelevant here. One difference between 2025 and, say, 2012, when the Israelis were seriously contemplating an attack, is the security establishment in Israel was divided. In 2025, they are united—Mossad, the military, the air force, the army, everybody united that this was something that needed to be done soon. 

HUSAIN: And just to back up— 

COOK: (Inaudible)—Middle East. 

LABOTT: Yeah. Go ahead, Ed. 

HUSAIN: Just to—just to back what Elliott is saying, even the opposition factions inside Israel are deeply hawkish when it comes to combating Iran’s nuclear program. So this—as much as we’d like to see it as Bibi prolonging his time in office, this is, for Israel, existential. This is proving to—the failures of the Israeli strategy in the past that you could do a deal with Hamas, and Hamas could contain the PIJ and other more extreme elements. This is Israel going further upstream to ensure that there is no threat to the Israeli people and Israeli interests around the region. 

I just want to say just a couple of very quick things in response to points being made. One is that yesterday was day sixty-one. Trump gave the Iranians sixty days for negotiation. So this has something to do with President Trump being aware, knowing that this attack was on the cards, and the Iranians playing that old bazaar-y game of negotiating in bad faith. Remember, while the negotiations were going on Khamenei was online on X, which is mostly banned inside Iran, but attacking the American president and the American people. 

And on the questions of economics, I think just two names or two nations ought to be mentioned here that we haven’t mentioned so far. One is that the Iranians have already said or the Iranian regime has already said that Pakistan, the nuclear Muslim Sunni power, is an important ally of theirs, and we should wait for a reaction from Pakistan. We don’t know what that means, but the fact that you would have reference to Pakistan should—I mean, obviously, the Israelis would counter that with a reference to India, but that’s worth bearing in mind. 

And the last point that we ought to bear in mind is how does China react to this? If there is, indeed, the kind of blockage that we anticipate in naval terrain, what does that mean for Chinese interests and the Iranians continuing to supply China with oil, and therefore getting around the sanctions? 

So I don’t think economic difficulty is enough to topple this regime because it succeeded in worse economic terrain, you know, for the past forty-plus years. So there are real concerns as to China and Pakistan.  

Remember, when Qasem Soleimani was killed—you know, President Trump eliminated Qasem Soleimani, the regime wasn’t less popular as a response. The regime became more popular. Even diaspora Iranians here were saying, “hands off Iran.” So we— 

LABOTT: Yeah, but Soleimani—and I don’t want to go down another rabbit hole—but Soleimani was a much bigger figure in the country than—you know what I mean—than the ones that were killed last night. I mean— 

HUSAIN: Than the supreme leader?  

LABOTT: No, not the supreme leader. I’m talking about the military leaders that were killed last night. OK, let’s move on.  

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Ryan Chua. 

Q: Hi. I’m Ryan from Bloomberg News.  

How much of an impact do you think the strikes had overall on Iran’s nuclear program? Has it been significantly weakened? Thank you. 

LABOTT: I don’t—I think we were saying before, if anyone wants to pick up—I think we were saying before that it’s too soon to know. Ray? 

TAKEYH: It is too soon to know. If Natanz has been damaged, then significant number of centrifuge cascades have been destroyed. Now there are still centrifuges cascades somewhat operational at Fordow. And the regime has vast amount of networks to rebuild those centrifuges, and so forth. But there is clearly—the question is how much delay is this, is how long would it take them to reconstitute and rebuild those machines? That is a contingent question. How much effort they put in it? How much technical expertise do they have? Do they go on an accelerated program? Do they hunker down and try to revisit their assumptions?  

And so the pace is as much a political decision at this point as a technical component to it. But it is essentially are they going to get to the point and say, we are no longer going to be restrained and we’re going to go for it? And if they choose to do that, they probably have sufficient infrastructure to do that. Or are they going to step back—their strategy previously was to have an elaborate nuclear infrastructure that made a sneak out operation possible and undetectable, given the inspection modalities in place. That is not the calculation, obviously, today.  

So it’ll be something different. And I suspect they’re sorting that out right now. 

LABOTT: OK. Next question.  

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Stefanie Bolzen. 

Q: Hello. Thank you for this briefing. The president—I work for the Die Welt, German media.  

The president posted this morning saying Iran might perhaps have a second chance. What does the president mean when he says—talks about a second chance? And secondly, what do you think—how will this land with Netanyahu? Thank you. 

LABOTT: Henri, do you want to—you want to take this one? 

BARKEY: I mean, I think for President Trump, this is a target of opportunity. He has to say something. He wanted—he kept saying that they were very close to a deal. So in a way, he’s trying to also bolster his own position, in some ways. But, on the other hand, he’s also maybe pushing the Iranians and saying, look, you’re not going to win this fight with the Israelis. You’re much better off coming out clean, making a deal with the rest of the world. And he said also last night, we want to make Iran not great again, but something like that. In that engage Iran economically, politically, stop Iran from being a pariah state. So Trump is looking at this as an opportunity, an opportunity that just fell on his lap. So I don’t—it is quite—may taking advantage of the opportunity. I don’t—I don’t think he has thought much about that.  

LABOTT: Steven, do you—go ahead, Elliott. Go ahead, Elliott. Then I want to— 

ABRAMS: Just one word about—one word about Netanyahu. His popularity will be strengthened this week. But I do wonder if, as the months go by, it’s going to be a kind of Churchill 1945. You’re Mr. Iran. OK, now you’ve done it, so now we don’t need you anymore. 

LABOTT: We’re safe now. That was the only thing you were good for. Steven, does President Trump have the statesmanship—(laughs)—if you will, to be able to reach out now to the Iranians and make this case: Look, you’re weakened. Let’s make a deal. There are economic opportunities for you. Where do you think Trump goes now?  

COOK: Well, he’s already hinted as much in his Truth Social posts, that he said, you know, come to the negotiating deal—table and make a deal, because there’s more coming. There’s more strikes coming and you’re going to suffer more damage, unless you do. What the—and so I think, you know, he’d be perfectly willing if the Iranian said, sure, we’ll sit down. They have now said that the talks are off.  

I wonder—I mean, that could just be the Iranians—you know, a number of hours after being hit by the Israelis.  

But I wonder whether we—if there is another round of talks, whether we go back to the dynamic we were in a few days ago, in which the Israelis are advocating, saying, look at all the damage we have done. We must press our advantage. Why are you negotiating? And I think that the Israelis at this point will continue to press their advantage, unless the administration really, really flashes a red light and proposes something that would really restrain them. I think that they have a lot of advantage right now. 

LABOTT: And, quickly, picking up on the point we were talking about before, given that there has been some mild reconciliation with Iran and the region over the last year or so, can the regional partners kind of pick up on that and say to Iran, listen, you know, there are opportunities in the region for you, make a deal?  

HUSAIN: I think that’s very real. I think we’re going to see those overtures—forgive me—we’re going to see those over—sorry, I have a technical problem here. I’ll defer to colleagues to take that question.  

LABOTT: Yeah, yeah. Henri, just quickly, yes or no. Do you think the region picks up on this?  

BARKEY: I mean, definitely. I mean, look. It is in the interest of the region for this to end, and then as soon as possible. You don’t want this to continue for weeks and months of bombings, et cetera. So it a—the region would like Iran to go back to the negotiating table. But it’s also possible that Iran can go and say to Trump, yes, we are going to negotiate with you. But tell the Israelis to stop bombing us. That will be part of a condition. But that doesn’t mean that the Iranians will not continue to—or try to continue to take exact a price on Israel by using, you know, the Houthis or some other proxies, or they’ll invent new proxies. So you can have a situation where they negotiate with the United States but still continue the fight with Israel. And that will be actually a very delicate and unpredictable situation.  

LABOTT: OK. We have time for one more question. 

OPERATOR: And last question will be from Keith Richburg. 

LABOTT: Hi, Keith. 

Q: Hi. It’s Keith Richburg from the editorial board of the Washington Post.  

Two very quick questions. Henri, you were talking about this a bit. Do you think the Trump admin—do you think Trump and Netanyahu are playing good cop/bad cop? Do you think they’re coordinating this? And then a question for whoever, but, Ed, you mentioned China, which I was glad you mentioned. But I was wondering about Russia. Iran had been supplying Russia with drones, with ballistic missiles, with munitions. Will they still be able to do that, do you think? And could this attack on Iran have any effects on the Ukraine conflict? 

 

LABOTT: Henri, you want to? 

BARKEY: Very quickly. Apparently, yesterday Trump and Bibi talked a number of times. So obviously Trump knew this was coming. Whether or not he tried to dissuade the Israelis, we don’t know. But Trump is the kind of person who will try to take advantage of the situation. And actually, you’re right, play good cop/bad cop. You know, that’s his—that’s his MO. He always does that. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he was trying to do that.  

LABOTT: Elliott, quickly, what do you think?  

ABRAMS: Yeah. I think that’s right. I think Trump and Bibi have apparently kissed and made up now. It is interesting. I guess was it the New York Times that had the story today that suggests that, oddly enough—though maybe unintentionally—the idea that there was going to be another round with Witkoff on Sunday turned out to be a terrific cover for the Israeli attack. 

LABOTT: Ed. 

COOK: On the—oh, I’m sorry. 

HUSAIN: No, no, please, Steven, go ahead. Steven, go ahead. 

COOK: I just wanted to point out that I think the—paying attention to the Ukrainians, and what Ukrainian government, and what people are—Ukrainians are actually posting online, Ukrainians online are posting “am Yisrael chai,” the people of Israel live. I mean, they’re very, very happy that the Israelis have done this damage to the Iranians, because of the relationship between Russia and Iran and how much support the Iranians have given to Russia in its war effort against—war effort against Ukraine. It’s interesting to see the two operations—the bomber—the Ukrainian bomber operation. It’s almost as if these things were done with some sort of exchange of information. Or, you know, the Ukrainians did it and the Israelis said, hold my beer, let me show you how it’s really done, kind of thing.  

But I think it does—the Russians have been very muted today, and they have had to rely on the Iranians for a lot of firepower, and they may not get it any longer.  

LABOTT: Ed? 

HUSAIN: No, I agree with everything Steven’s just articulated on the front in relation to Ukraine and Russia, but I just don’t think we should underestimate the fact that Iran is part of that axis that includes Russia and China, and there will be some kind of bringing together of forces, be it public or be it military, that illustrates that Iran is not as isolated as the West, i.e. us, and our Arab allies would like it to be. 

LABOTT: Good point. 

Ray, you want to bring us home? 

TAKEYH: We’re in an unpredictable situation. 

LABOTT: What should we be looking for from Iran? 

TAKEYH: I think the critical thing to look for in the next few weeks is their—how they treat their obligations to the NPT and the IAEA; whether they formally withdraw from the NPT or they don’t but they kick out the IAEA inspectors. That leads you to believe that their program is intending to go dark, with all kinds of ramifications for that.  

LABOTT: And then, Elliott, that would mean even more attacks by Israel. 

ABRAMS: Not necessarily right now, but yes. I mean, Ed Koch once said about a situation like this, mug them again. If they start rebuilding—the idea that the Israelis might attack is now a lot more real than it was two days ago.  

LABOTT: Well, and then also, just super quick, and then I want to—and then we need to end. But the Trump administration has said Israel can’t get a bomb. Did they give the Israelis the bunker—if they do what Ray said and withdraw from the NPT or go dark, does the U.S. give them bunker-busting bombs to go after Fordow? 

ABRAMS: I doubt it, and you need planes the Israelis don’t have to deliver those weapons, and there seems to be no great desire to give the Israelis those weapons—B-2. 

LABOTT: OK. Well, look, we got a lot—we covered a lot of ground here in this last hour, and I think that shows that CFR is really the place to go for, you know, all of these developments on Iran, the Middle East, every other issue. 

Thank you so much to the panel and thank you everybody for joining us. Please check out CFR.org. I think there will be a transcript and a video of this, and there will be lots more from our panelists in the media. Check out Steve’s article on Foreign Policy.  

And Mike, you want to say some closing—no?  

No, he doesn’t. He just wants to say thank you and goodbye.  

Thanks, everyone.  

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