Iran war: What You Should Know

BRSL Weekly Brief, Friday, March 6th. In this episode of the BRSL Weekly Brief, BRSL Faculty Director Professor Andrew Reddie answers questions about the U.S./Israel war on Iran, and everything you need to know about the conflict thus far. 

Transcript

Vivian Bossieux-Skinner: 0:02

Welcome to the Berkeley Risk and Security Lab's new podcast, the BRSL Weekly Brief. We started this podcast in response to the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran. To bring you the latest information on the conflict. I'm the Lab's communications manager, Vivian Bossieux-Skinner, and here's BRSL Faculty Director, Professor Andrew Reddie.

Professor Andrew Reddie: 0:18

Perfect. Thanks, Vivian.

Vivian Bossieux-Skinner: 0:19

So it's been one week since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. Can you give us kind of an update on what's going on right now and what has happened this week?

Professor Andrew Reddie: 0:28

Oh, so many, so many things have happened over the last week. And I also preface by saying that there's still a lot that we don't know about the conflict, and there's a lot of kind of pontification in the media, and also, you know, amongst kind of Think Tank circles, and so I think it's really important to foreground that, you know, there's a lot that will kind of come out in the weeks and months ahead to help us kind of understand this conflict and kind of how it came about and what the various different sequences are. I think ultimately, what's important is that the attacks from the United States and Israel on targets inside of Iran continue primarily focused on government and military targets, but also leading to collateral damage, which we'll talk about in a little bit. You also have Iran's response to those attacks, both on targets in Israel, American military bases in the region, but also in other other countries throughout the region that host U.S., military bases, and indeed, that expansion of the conflict happened relatively rapidly, and is what is leading to a lot of concern about the potential long term impacts of this crisis. And then the last piece that I'll mention now, knowing that we'll kind of get into that kind of expansion and what that looks like across the region, there's also been very significant kind of alliance challenges that have really impacted international affairs over the course of the last week. It's probably fair to say that the relationship between the British government and the U.S. government's never been at lowest, lower ebb than it is currently. A lot of discontent amongst the Trump administration vis-a-vis, the amount of support that they were getting from the Brits to carry out and conduct their attacks on Iran and Britain, amid Britain's insistence that it only be used for defensive their bases only be used for defensive purposes. And then you have other NATO countries not allowing their bases to be used at all. And so you had just in the last couple of days, a lot of consternation between the Spanish government and the Trump administration as well, and so amid much broader concerns about the U.S. is position in the world, vis-a-vis, its allies and partners, this particular this crisis only kind of exacerbates that concern.

Vivian Bossieux-Skinner: 2:34

So where do you see possible next points of escalation? How is this war expanding within the region in general, and how much more do you expect it to expand?

Professor Andrew Reddie: 2:46

Yeah, so, like I mentioned, it expanded very, very quickly. I mean, all as far as far west as Cyprus. Just yesterday, we're we're recording this on Friday morning of March 6, just yesterday, you had an Iranian naval vessel torpedoed by a U.S. submarine. That's the first time that U.S. submarines actually taken a target since World War II. And so the regional conflict, right? It spans 1000s of kilometers. And so you have expansion in that way. I think what we're looking for in terms of next pieces of escalation are certainly Israel's push into Lebanon. So just yesterday, you had the expansion of their efforts to to address Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, and actually an evacuation of all of South Beirut. And so you really do have, right, this military conflagration leading to all of the, should we say, traditional hotspots in the region right, bubbling up once again. And then, of course, like I said, before you've got right the sustained Iranian attacks on oil infrastructure, you also have big questions about the future of what is one of the more significant maritime choke points that we have in the world, particularly vis-a-vis liquified natural gas and oil. And so Iran maintains that it has control over the Strait of Hormuz, and thus no tankers from us, Allied partner countries can cross the strait, which has significant consequences for the flows of LNG, in particular, out of Qatar. And so that's what's impacting oil prices across the globe. So that's another kind of flash point, if you will, that we're watching closely, and there continues to be concerns in the Red Sea as well vis-a-vis, the Houthi militias that have ties to Iran and what they're going to do, and that potentially having downstream consequences as well. So kind of three, kind of, three, three places that we're kind of watching very closely as this conflict kind of continues to roll out, and that's in addition to, obviously, like I said, the attacks on Iran itself, and then Iran's attacks on Gulf countries around it.

Vivian Bossieux-Skinner: 5:01

What are the differences in U.S. and Israel and Iranian strategy here?

Professor Andrew Reddie: 5:08

It's interesting. There's there's a lot of it that is relatively similar across both and there's also some important differences. So I mean, I think what's striking here is that ultimately, all sides in the conflict are relying on missile technology and subsequently they're also, you know, focused on using their missile defense technology in response. And so one of the things that kind of put a damper on the 12 day war that we had in June of 2025 was the fact that the Israelis were running out of missile defense assets, and the Iranians were running out of missiles, which led, kind of the the the end of that conflict to become, you know, a damp squib that nobody kind of expected. It was kind of over very quickly, following Iran's attack on the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar that belonged to the Americans, and that kind of surprised people that that was kind of it. And so that piece of it is similar. I think that maybe what varies between them is that, like I mentioned before, Israel's going into Lebanon and is actually going to be taking part and putting troops on the ground as part of that operation. It remains to be seen sitting here this morning whether the U.S. will ultimately put troops on the ground. There's been kind of mixed noises, and nobody can really predict what the administration is likely to do. But I think sitting here this morning, it seems unlikely that the U.S. is going to want to put troops on the ground if it can avoid it in Iran, you know, particularly as the kind of the politics of replacing Ayatollah Khomeini kind of continue amidst, you know, Trump administration saying that they want a voice and selected leader, etc. And so there's definitely some variation there. And I think the other piece of this that it's important to note on the on the variation as well, is that Iran's leveraging of drone technology and learning all of the things that they learned in Ukraine is having an impact on the conflict a little bit asymmetrically, ironically, America and its partners and allies in the region are now relying on Ukraine to provide kind of their expertise in dealing with Shahed drones come emanating from Iran, because they've been used in the Ukrainian context by the Russians. And so that's a little bit different as well. And then, of course, you've got the kind of gray zone, you know, cyber, pieces of this and what have you as well that might look a little bit different across both as well, but, but yeah, there's both similarities kind of and differences as well.

Vivian Bossieux-Skinner: 7:32

So what are the humanitarian impacts of this war so far? And how much worse do you expect this to get for civilians?

Professor Andrew Reddie: 7:39

Oh, sadly. I mean, ultimately, war is incredibly messy for for civilians, and you know, some humanitarian costs are are an inevitability, and we've already seen them. So a U.S. attack on one of the naval sites in Iran itself led to casualties out of a school, and that kind of made headlines across the globe very early in the conflict. And you also have the targeting of civilian sites, it would appear, by the Iranian regime. And so the Fairmont Hotel in Dubai, for example, right? That's a civilian target. That's not a military target. The U.S. tends to want to focus entirely on on military targets, and then right? You've got collateral damage that kind of comes from that. So there's no deliberate, deliberate targeting of civilians, per se. That's not as true on the Iranian side. But it's also important to note that part of that is driven by the precision of U.S. military assets compared to Iranian military assets. And so that's one of the things that, you know, the American suite of tools here, you know, does incredibly well. They've got precision capabilities that are unmatched across the globe. And Israel actually, by extension, also has access to some of those systems too. And so there is a bit of a kind of, like a capability gap there that impacts the types of targets, but I think unfortunately, we all expect that there will be significant civilian casualties should the conflict continue over the kind of four to five weeks that the administration seemed to think it last, although I think I heard an estimate yesterday that might be, now be eight weeks, rather than four to five. And whilst the administration has been very clear that they don't want to get into an endless war. There's been no political leader in history that thought that they were getting themselves into an endless war when they were walking into it. One recalls right in World War I, where the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom said, you know, we'll be, you know, this war will be over by Christmas, and then ended up lasting four years, four years plus. So, you know, I think, unfortunately, the humanitarian impacts are going to be significant and that, and of course, even more so given the new fronts that I mentioned before, particularly in Lebanon. But also too, if the U.S. military is very serious about trying to control the Strait of Hormuz, that's going to lead to a pretty significant naval conflict. Between the Iranian Navy and the U.S. Navy.

Vivian Bossieux-Skinner: 10:02

Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about that and what that would look like, and why that's kind of such a big touch point?

Professor Andrew Reddie: 10:09

Yeah. I mean, really, it's a big touch point, because so much of global trade and the oil markets and the gas markets rely on that particular strait. You know, I've been talking to various different logistics companies in the region. And you know, effectively, their trade in the region has gone to zero. And there's a significant amount of shipping that's just waiting in the Indian Ocean for the Strait of Hormuz to open. The Iranians were letting through Chinese and Russian tankers, which is incredibly interesting. And you know, it is the case that the geography, it's such a significant geographical choke point that it is actually potentially a place where Iran will be able to maintain physical control in a way that's not true in other parts of the region, where the, you know, the U.S. ability to project power is just so significant, there's no way that the Iranians will be able to hold and so, you know, if this becomes something that lasts weeks, you know, we're we've already seen the impacts on the stock market. We've already seen impacts on the global oil market. If those become more and more acute, then the pressure for the U.S. to actually open up that shipping lane is going to become very significant, particularly amongst its allies in the Gulf, right? Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and what have you. And so, you know, the Emiratis, the Qataris, the Kuwaitis, they all want, right? That that straight to open, and that shipping lane to open. And so it's, like I said, it's definitely something that is worth watching here in the weeks ahead, just given us importance for what it's worth. What's happening currently is that OPEC has effectively agreed to increase production to try to offset some of the losses from the closure of the LNG terminals and what have you in in the region. But you know, we'll, we'll see what that ends up looking like.

Vivian Bossieux-Skinner: 11:56

Yeah, how long could that offset be sustained? Or how much time would it buy?

Professor Andrew Reddie: 12:00

Incredibly unclear. Like, I said, like, prediction is definitely an exact science. You know, I think as of this morning, Brent crude was trading around $89 a barrel. I think the expectation is that it gets to 100 here in the next few days. And, you know, it, it is the case that for the U.S., for example, there's a lot of oil reserves that are actually in the United States, the U.S. controls, and obviously there's an oil reserve, and so we don't worry about it in the context of being able to sustain a military operation, etc. But countries across the region, from India to South Korea to Japan, who are actually U.S. allies, right? They all stand to be really significantly impacted by this shortage when those reserves kind of run out. And so, you know, any conflict has an impact on global trade. You can point to any number of examples, from the 12 Day War in June to actually even innocuous events, right? So we had the ship that crashed in the in the Suez Canal that ended up having a big impact on global shipping too. So, you know, the international markets are resilient up to a point, but really, it kind of depends on how long this is going to last and how much of an opposition the Iranians are really going to be putting up against this sustained pressure from the U.S. and Israel.

Vivian Bossieux-Skinner: 13:19

Yeah, I mean, and I'd imagine that kind of, depending on the government that's in charge, some of them would be more or less likely to care about these things, or kind of let that impact their decision moving forward.

Professor Andrew Reddie: 13:33

Yeah, yeah, particularly on the Iranian side. I mean, some are kind of pointing to the U.S. operation in Venezuela and the fact that they were able to kind of kidnap Maduro and get him, put him on trial in New York as kind of one of the reasons that the U.S. felt good about this adventurism. The important difference is that whilst there was no regime change per se in Venezuela, the leadership there effectively started to follow U.S. demands. That is not the case in Iran, there are big questions about whether, if, even if they were to actually take the demands of the Trump administration seriously, whether the Trump administration would actually be happy with the world in which they remained in power, right, rather than pursuing regime change. Because, of course, there's a backdrop to this, which were all of the protests that were happening a few weeks ago that led to on the order of 30 to 40,000 deaths on the part of the protesters that were pro democracy protests, and that were crying out for support from European countries, the United States, right, etc, in the face of a brutal crackdown from the Islamic Republic regime. And so I think there are really important differences between the Venezuelan case and the Iranian case that are worth kind of bearing in mind.

Vivian Bossieux-Skinner: 14:50

And then on the note of the regime change, what can you tell us about the potential future of that and how involved the U.S. is going to be?

Professor Andrew Reddie: 14:58

going to be involved. And so the Iranians are kind of taking part in a kind of the procedure of replacing Ayatollah Khamenei, as they would had he died of natural causes, rather than been decapitated by United States military operation. And so it looks likely that their clerics, in the Assembly of Experts, which is the body that selects the Supreme Leader is going to end up selecting Mojtaba Khamenei, which is the Ayatollah's son, and that's going to be, you know, business as usual. Nothing's changed, right? All of the various different institutional actors that have a great deal of power in the region remain the same, from the Revolutionary Guard to the clerics, etc, and so kind of status quo anti just with the new a new leader at the top. It's it's difficult to foresee a situation in which boots on the ground won't be necessary in order to actually implement that regime change. In the middle of the week, there were some conversations about Kurds from the north doing some of that fighting. But of course, the U.S. relationship with the Kurds is a little bit complicated by its erstwhile alliances in places like Iraq and Syria that didn't necessarily go in the way that the Kurdish would like. And of course, the U.S. relationship with Turkey also colors its relationship with the Kurds. And so suffice to say, it's all very complicated. But one of the things that was kind of interesting and early in the conflict, was messaging from the Americans to the pro democracy protesters that you know, stay away from industrial sites in Tehran as they're being attacked. And so there was some attempt to kind of protect them. It's also, it's also, has to be said, that some of those that led the pro democracy movement have actually been found and killed by the Iranian regime in this last week. Because effectively, what they're trying to do is get rid of potential leaders of that pro democracy movement. And so, you know, like I said, it's, it's very unclear what's going to happen. And, you know, the the history that we have of of regime change is not, it's not, it's not an easy one at all.

Vivian Bossieux-Skinner: 17:11

So is there anything else that I didn't ask about that you'd want to add to this?

Professor Andrew Reddie: 17:16

No, no, I think, I mean, I think this is, I mean, this is a lot to kind of depart. So, just like I said, I think, you know, I think a lot of humility in terms of, you know, where the drivers of what it was that happened and then what's going to happen in the future is definitely required here, as we, you know, continue to follow this really kind of pressing crisis that has, you know, all sorts of components to it. I guess one of the things that we didn't discuss was the kind of the nuclear angle. And so there's all sorts of justifications for the war that have come out of the Trump administration, and one of them is Iran's nuclear program. I think one of the reasons that a lot of a lot of us were surprised when, when this particular crisis started was that there were talks in Geneva on that Thursday before the attacks began on the Friday, and so and so, you know, that's it. That's a piece of this puzzle as well. And I think we know we can, we can come back and have another conversation about the lessons learned from the nuclear proliferation angle here. I think one of the fears that some of us have is that other countries that are thinking about proliferating nuclear weapons will look at this circumstance and say, well, here's Iran, and here's Venezuela, here's Cuba, here's Libya, all of which right decided on the Ukraine, all of whom decided to issue nuclear weapons. And then right are subject to all sorts of pressure. And then there's the North Koreans, who have a nuclear capability that are no are feeling relatively safe. So you know, that's well worth a much longer conversation. But I think that the Nuclear Shadow is definitely a piece of this as well. I say with bias, given

Vivian Bossieux-Skinner: 18:49

So yeah, I think we'll definitely that it's what I work on. have to do a follow up on that topic, particularly because, yeah, like you said, I think there's a lot to cover there.

Professor Andrew Reddie: 18:58

Perfect. Thanks, Vivian.

Vivian Bossieux-Skinner: 19:00

All right. Well, thank you everyone for listening, and make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and send to a friend if you know someone else that might be interested.