Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
CFR experts discuss developments in the Middle East a year after the October 7 attacks in Israel.
LABOTT: Thank you very much. And thank you to everyone for joining this media briefing. I’m Elise Labott. I am the Edward R. Murrow press fellow here at the Council on Foreign Relations. I’m pretty new. You can see by my empty bookshelf, as Elliott reminded me. But looking forward to working with you all this year. And so glad to be with this panel today to discuss the developing situation in the Middle East, but also just kind of, as we approach the anniversary of the October 7 attacks, look at how we got here and where we’re headed.
There’s a lot to unpack, and I couldn’t think of a better panel to be discussing this today. I’m going to get—talk with the panel for about a half hour, and then we’ll get to your questions. Let me introduce the panel. You have their bios there, but I’ll just introduce everybody.
Elliott Abrams is the senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies here at the Council on Foreign Relations. His new book, If You Will It: Rebuilding Jewish Peoplehood for the 21st Century.
We will be having Steven Cook, the Enri Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies joining us momentarily. His new book, The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East, is out right now.
Farah Pandith is an adjunct senior fellow here at the Council on Foreign Relations.
And Ray Takeyh is the Hasib Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle East studies.
So, as you can see, I mean, there’s just a wealth of knowledge and insights here to discuss what’s going on.
Now, we were going to, you know, talk about how we got here, October 7, and the evolution of the situation in the Middle East. But clearly the developments over the last two weeks have really, I think, taken a lot of people by surprise. We knew that, you know, there could be an escalation, but I don’t think anybody really foresaw what would be happening. You know, after the killing of Hassan Nasrallah and several other Hezbollah leaders, Iran fired at least 200 ballistic missiles at Israel last night, marking a real sharp escalation in this simmering conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, but also Israel and Iran. Here we have Steven. Thank you so much, Steven, for joining us. We’re just going to dive in.
Elliott, let’s start by talking about how, you know, these miracle workers in Israel over the last two weeks that killed all these Hezbollah leaders failed so badly with what—in a way that they weren’t able to go after Hamas and prevent the October 7 attacks.
ABRAMS: Thanks, Elise. The IDF, for one thing, has been preparing for at least a decade for war in the north. They’ve been preparing to go after Hezbollah. I think still remarkable the degree to which they permeated Hezbollah and knew where everyone was. But they’ve been mapping and charting exactly where, you know, arms depots are, where small bases are, where tunnels are, in a way that they were clearly not doing for Gaza. They were preparing for Lebanon. That’s one huge difference. The other, though, is hostages. I mean, if you—if you think of what the Lebanon conflict right now would be like, what the IDF would be doing, if there were a couple of hundred Israeli hostages held by Hezbollah, it would be a very, very different thing. So I think those are two of the main differences.
The other, of course, is the—I guess a third, what’s the role of Iran? And while it’s true that Iran has more and more over the last couple of decades been financing Hamas, been helping arm Hamas, the relationship is not the kind that Hezbollah has always had. Hezbollah is a creature of Iran. Hezbollah is Shia. Hezbollah is, or was—(laughs)—Iran’s deterrent against a direct Israeli attack on the nuclear program. Personal relations between Nasrallah and Khamenei were a quite personal, and close, and direct. So it’s a—it is a very different story than the story of Hamas and Gaza.
I’d add one more thing. There was a perfect storm on last October 7. That is, in a sense, everything that could possibly have failed in the Israeli system did fail. You know, who was on duty and who was not on duty? Who was in the office, who was not in the office? What happened to communications? I mean, everything failed. They will do need a commission of national inquiry to go over this, but it was a kind of perfect storm.
LABOTT: Steve, you want to pick up on that? I mean, we were here. I was saying before you came on that we were here to talk about the kind of evolution of the situation in the Middle East since October 7. But I think, you know, events clearly have overtaken us over the last two weeks. And we find ourselves kind of—you know, not a lot of—you know, there was a strike in the last twenty-four hours in Gaza. But now we’re kind of looking at a whole new dynamic in the region. Set the—you know, set the scene for us a little bit.
COOK: Thanks, Elise. And my apologies for calling in late. It’s been a—it’s been a busy morning already for me. Look, I think—you know, I was in Israel two weeks ago. And essentially the message that I was getting was that major military operations in Gaza are winding down. Hamas has been broken as a fighting force. There are Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip, but Israel is going to retain a presence there. And, very much unlike the last eighteen years, is going to continue terrorist—anti-terrorist operations throughout the Gaza Strip for as long as is necessary.
And this often makes the discussion—it seems that it has made the discussion about a ceasefire superfluous. Of course, there is this urgent issue of hostages, but the Israel Defense Forces and security establishment writ large are essentially turning the page and looking towards the north. And their view is that, you know, to not undertake operations against Hezbollah is to essentially surrender part of Israeli sovereignty to Hezbollah and Iran. And that’s why they have done the things that they’ve done over the course of the last two and a half weeks, and seem intent on continuing to do it.
Now, what does that mean kind of regionally? Does that mean that there’s going to be a regional war that, you know, people have been—have been talking about? I think a lot of this depends on, first, how the Israelis respond to the ballistic missile attack from yesterday. My assumption is—and I think it’s a pretty good one—is that the Israelis are going to go up the escalation ladder in order to try to reestablish their deterrence and strike some fear into the—into the hearts of the Iranians, which would forestall a regional conflict.
But also keep in mind that, as the Israelis have done significant damage to Hezbollah and are now poised to engage in direct confrontation with the Iranians, they have support. They have support from regional partners. That may not be out front, but it’s hard for me to believe that the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Bahrainis, and others don’t believe that a region without Hezbollah, without Hamas—or, a much diminished Hamas, a much diminished Hezbollah—is a better region.
So they have—they have that support. The United States has—it seems to me that the Israelis have, one, stopped listening to the advice of the Biden administration, though continued—
LABOTT: You think?
COOK: But continued robust coordination with CENTCOM, which is to their great advantage. And so they feel like, you know, the Biden administration, from Rafah to Iran, have been interested in striking deals, rather than Israel really reestablishing its sovereignty and its security. That’s the Israeli perspective here, whereas the White House has broader concerns about a regional conflict. I think that those concerns are real, but the idea that, you know, this would be an all-out war with the Saudis, Emiratis, you know, it seems to me that that’s an unlikely—an unlikely outcome here.
So the Israelis are determined to press their advantage. As I said, they’re not listening to the administration on this. And it will be a function of how the Israelis respond and how the Iranians perceive that response that will tell us much about what’s to come in the coming months. But this is not something that is going to end. Hezbollah is not over, even if the Israeli estimate that it has taken out 50 percent of its ordnance. That leaves, what, 75,000 missiles, rockets, and drones, plus tens of thousands of fighters. And, of course, the Iranians have a very significant ballistic missile force as well. So this is something that we’re going to be with for some time.
LABOTT: Right. Far from over. OK, Ray, a lot going on. Let’s talk—we’ll talk about where Iran’s headed and, you know, what you think its strategic calculation is now. But talk about what the last couple of weeks have done to Iran. Has it hurt their stature among their proxies? Has it—you know, this was the crown jewel in their kind of axis of resistance, so to speak. Talk about, you know, where Iran is right now, not only a year after October 7, but particularly in these last two weeks. You kind of saw that, you know, they’re vowing revenge, but you’ve seen a rather muted, you know, if you call 300, you know, missiles muted. But, you know, you would expect Iran to—one might expect Iran to retaliate immediately, very harshly. Are they playing the long game? Set the scene for us in terms of Iran’s calculations now.
TAKEYH: Well, Hezbollah, as I think Elliott mentioned and Steven mentioned, it was the crown jewel of the axis of resistance. It was actually coordinating between various proxies. And Nasrallah himself had very close relationship with the Iranian hierarchy. He had—he was in the 1990s Hezbollah’s representative to Iran. He lived in Tehran. He was trained in the theological centers. He actually spoke Persian. So there was a close connection between the leadership and Nasrallah as well. So the kind of decapitation of Hezbollah’s leadership was bound to elicit some kind of a response, because there are a couple of audiences that the Iranian regime is playing toward—in front of.
Number one, attempting to establish some sort of a line of deterrence with Israelis, because this comes at the top of the August targeted killing of the Hamas leader in inauguration ceremony in Iran. Second, they had to reassure their proxies in some way that they’re not entirely on their own. That actually, the relationship between proxies and patron can be a complicated one, especially when the sacrifices are usually one side. And finally, there’s a domestic audience that people aren’t really focusing attention to. This is a regime that governs by fear and enforces its authority by frightening its population. And being embarrassed and emasculated internationally would compromise its domestic standing as well, in terms of controlling its population, potentially.
So all these things had to be part of a calculation in terms of eliciting some kind of a reaction. The Iranian attack last night, yesterday, that was a very serious attack. It was 181 ballistic missiles, the most sophisticated variety of missiles that Iran has in its arsenal. It was designed to do significant damage. And its failure, of course, again, the Israelis have to make a decision whether they judge the operation by its intent or its logistical failure. At this point, we’re in a situation—we’re in a potential escalatory dynamic where if you can look at it from the perspective of the two adversaries, it’s sort of in their mutual interest to escalate.
The Israelis need to establish their line of deterrence. They’re well within their right to respond aggressively toward what the Iranians did. It seems to be the Islamic Republic’s thesis that whenever it doesn’t like something that is happening in the region, it has a right to throw 180 ballistic missiles over Israel. That’s unacceptable from Israeli position—any Israeli government, or any other government. And I think the Iranians feel in their interest, given all the competing audiences they have, to continue the ladder of escalation.
There is one sort of an off ramp that the Iranian regime always offers itself, namely lying. Abbas Araghchi is on airwaves in Iran saying that 90 percent of our missiles hit their target. (Laughter.) If their target is earth and dirt, he’s not entirely wrong. So the mendacity that the Islamist leadership is so expert at could actually come in handy, to use the Biden administration term, for de-escalation. So, but we’re in a—to add cliches upon cliches—uncharted waters. (Laughter.)
LABOTT: Well, I want to—I want to just pick up on that before we go to Farah. So you said, you know, obviously the missiles failed. And they did on April 13.
TAKEYH: Correct.
LABOTT: So was this kind of a show of force that they—you know, when we saw what happened on April 13, it was almost a Kabuki dance, because the Iron Dome took all those missiles down. Did they kind of know that that was going to happen again, but they—you know, yes, it was, in theory, designed for a lot of damage. But, you know, it’s a pretty good bet that between the United States, Israel, and their Arab—and that coalition, they were going to be able to take them down. So were they really intending to, you know, do damage and escalate this? Or were they determined to, you know, show some force but not escalate at the same time?
TAKEYH: Well, in my opinion—just my opinion—this recent attack was designed to do significant damage. Because if you look at the rhetoric of the—of the regime prior to the attack, it wasn’t a rhetoric that we’re going to escalate and damage Israel. It was essentially, Hezbollah has to be rebuilt. Hezbollah still exists. Hezbollah’s still strong. It was essentially toward re-strengthening Hezbollah, as opposed to revenging Israel. That was the rhetoric that was coming out of the country. So obviously decision making in private was different than the messaging that they were doing in public.
Second of all, honestly, I don’t think any government, including the Iranian government, will like its vaunted defense force to be so radically emasculated. The Iranian regime has spent billions of dollars on its missiles. It has refused to compromise this missile trajectory and ordinances in any negotiations. So I don’t think they actually said, well, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to have a barrage of missile that fails. It will emasculate our military. It’ll make us look silly. But I think it’ll be a good PR move.
I don’t think what happened last night was a good PR move. I don’t think what happened in April was a PR—was a good PR move. It reflects the fact that the Islamic Republic’s first line of defense, which was significant projectiles, second line of defense, Hezbollah’s significant missile force, is no longer as much of a deterrent or a powerful force as they once thought. And these two episodes have crystallized that deficiency, to the detriment of the regime, I think.
LABOTT: All right, well, we’ll get back to that because I think there’s some more to unpack about that.
Farah, let’s talk about, you know, first, the impact of October 7, and then how that’s compared to the last two weeks in terms of extremism in the region. I mean, if the October 7 attacks might have fueled extremism, does the kind of success of, and Nasrallah’s assassination diminish it? What impact might these events have on the recruitment and radicalization efforts of other extremists? And do you foresee a shift in how they approach everything in the wake of these setbacks?
ABRAMS: You’re muted.
PANDITH: That’s not good. I said that was a really important question, and I wanted to thank you for it. Two of you talked about jewels, maybe even three of you have talked about jewels. So let me tell you what al-Qaida said about October 7. Al-Qaida said that it was the jewel of attacks in Islamic history in modern times. So we are—we are looking at the last year of an effort by groups that use Islam for their nefarious ends, whether it is ISIS, whether it is al-Qaida, whether it is Shabaab, to, as you just said, radicalize and recruit. And the way in their—the way they’re doing it is it’s carpe diem. They are seizing the day. This is the moment that they can use online and offline tactics to be able to build the ideological dimensions that are not just for today, but for the longer term.
So we’ve been talking about tactics, about what Iran is doing, and what Israel may do. And that’s vitally important. But I take a longer view here because we all know, in the last two decades of dealing with the aftermath of 9/11, that you can’t kill an ideology. And what has happened, as we as we look at the trajectory of events that have happened since the brutal and horrific attacks of October 7, is that each one of these groups have utilized the ecosystem for their—for their purposes. So whether you’re Shabaab and you’re using a pro-Palestinian and, you know, anti-colonial framework to sort of, you know, cozy up to those who are looking at this event in one way, or you’re al-Qaida using it to support Hamas but also saying go after Israel, go after the United States, or whether you’re ISIS, that hasn’t, in fact, congratulated Hamas for the attack, but has used the moment to be able to say, it’s the—it’s the West, stupid. Go after Americans. Go after Jews. Go after Israel.
So from the terrorism ecosystem, and Avril Haines said, this is a once a generation—a one-time generational event. And as we look at the global impact, it’s not just what’s happening in the region. It’s what’s happening across the world that have looked at this event and have been catalyzed to think a particular way. And that’s the danger here. It isn’t just that how do we contain these groups? It’s what’s the ripple effect that it’s going to have on generations of young people around the world who are watching this in real time? And that emotional trauma is one component, but also the components around how they feel about what they’ve seen on their smartphones, what they believe, how they’ve been duped with the myths and disinformation online.
Seventy percent of Generation Z gets their news from social media. They aren’t reading—you know, they aren’t watching CFR panels. They’re not—this is—they’re going to TikTok. They’re going to Instagram. They’re learning about things from the perspective of actual individuals that have an opinion about something. And I’m not trying to make light of what is an unbelievably serious moment, but you can see that if you’re—if the people who are delivering news to you are not factual, or if foreign influencers are going online and manipulating facts and changing videos and making you believe that there weren’t hostages, or making you believe that there wasn’t sexual exploitation, and you grow up believing that none of that really happened, what does that mean for the threat environment longer term for countries like the United States, or Israel, or anybody in the region, but in fact the larger ecosystem of terrorism?
So when you’re asking these important questions about sort of what’s happening around us, I look at it from that perspective. And I look at it—and I’ll be quiet in a minute, but there’s one piece that is terrifying to me. And that is this. When 9/11 happened, we were looking through the lens of a group called al-Qaida. And we were going deep on who al-Qaida was, what they believed, and what are the narratives we could use to stop that ideological pull. In 2024, we now see a cross-pollination of ideological forces. So it is not just a Shabaab, or an ISIS, or an al-Qaida. It’s also the neo-Nazi groups that are finding common cause with groups that are not ideological aligned on other things, but they all converge on one important thing. Which is, they hate Jews.
And which is why, as we look at the rise of antisemitism in our country and in Europe, and you see the anti-Jewish, anti-Israel momentum that has been built over the last year. And I hope that you will follow up and talk about this. But there are societal implications for what’s happening in the Middle East that are right here, right down the street.
LABOTT: I just want to have a quick follow, because—and I’m glad you brought up the youth, because that’s something—and how they get their information on foreign affairs. That’s something we’re going to be looking at at the Council over the next few—over the next year. So everybody stay tuned for that.
But, Farah, you made an interesting point about antisemitism and, you know, these groups. And I found what’s interesting is that you saw a lot of anti-Israeli sentiment and, in fact, antisemitism with what’s going on in Gaza. I mean, over the last couple of weeks it’s almost kind of dissipated. And I feel like it’s hard to, you know, maybe people that have had opposition to Israel—you know, on one hand, it’s been, you know, the innocent killing of innocent Arabs and Palestinians. It’s almost a different narrative that’s hard to square with what’s going on in in Lebanon. And what do you think that is? Do you think it’s because there’s not a clear antisemitic narrative that people can use? Or why do we see this different narrative?
PANDITH: So I’m not sure I agree with you, because I think that maybe headlines are saying that but what we know statistically on the ground is that the rise of antisemitism hasn’t gone away. You’re seeing—and anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, everything is all mushed together.
LABOTT: Right. It’s been conflated, but I feel—and I want Elliott to weigh in—in the last—I don’t know, in the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen less of that as the attention from Gaza to Lebanon, I think, has changed a little bit.
PANDITH: Well, I want to say one other thing, though, Elise, on sort of the way people are perceiving information. I clearly know, and you know too, the horrors of what happens when you don’t believe real things, the disinformation, misinformation component. So what they believe that they are seeing is important for us to keep our finger on. The kinds of hate that comes out of that, whether it’s antisemitism or anti-Israel hate, or, in fact, anti-Muslim hate that’s also a byproduct of this—of the of this last year as well. There is an important component here in terms of how we understand not things in a flash, in a moment, but over the longer term. And that’s what I’m trying to get at here, that the kind of hate is—it’s naturally progressing. Even if you may see a spike up or down, there has been a consistent movement of anti-Jewish, anti-Israel sentiment, and, in fact, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment as well.
LABOTT: Got it. Got it. Elliott, talk about the U.S. here. We know the U.S. has kind of been cautious supporting Israel, but warning against escalation. Talk about that key challenge in terms of in balancing military support for Israel while trying to avoid this wider conflict, because, you know, they’re advising Israel to, you know, take the win and avoiding escalation. Does this—what does this do to Israel’s calculations? And does it—does it help? Or does it just—Israel seems to be ignoring it anyway, so.
ABRAMS: Before I get to that, I do want to follow up on what you and Farah were just saying, because I think—I do think, Elise, you’re right in saying that it’s been remarkable that the demonstrations, the anti-Israel demonstrations, for example, on campus, seem to be diminishing now when Israel’s victorious in the last few weeks. And I think—and it gives me no pleasure to say this—but I think many of these crowds were energized by the idea of seeing Jews killed, humiliated, raped, murdered, tortured. They liked it. And it gave them new energy. And now the Jews seem to be—all of a sudden, they’re victorious. Now those crowds quiet down and stay home. It’s pretty disgusting.
On the role of the United States, I think you rightly characterize the Biden administration. Of course, there is a problem, which is we are in an interregnum. Normally it would last from election day to January 20, but it started months early when the president decided not to run for reelection. So the Israelis, I would say, from that point of view, dealing with a lame duck president, are a little bit less likely to take his advice.
Secondly, they thought he gave them bad advice in April, the take the win. And they’ve reached the conclusion—and this is not just Netanyahu—I think it’s—I think it’s Israel—that this is bad advice. That they’re in an existential conflict, and they need to show victory. They need to hit back. They believed, as they characterized it, you know, they were fighting this ring of fire, that Iran was surrounding them with its proxies. And people were writing things, like, what’s the future of the Jewish state? It’s going to be strangled by Iran and the ring of fire.
And now they’ve seen their way clear to break it. First, Hamas. Now, the crown jewel, as we’ve said. Now, the strongest proxy seems to have been, I was going to say decimated—even more than—more than decimated. So they’ve seen their way clear now. And they’re striking the Houthis, again, part of the ring of fire. And now the Iranians have responded by attacking Israel directly. And in a certain sense, opening the option to Israel of a direct attack on Iran. And, you know, Jake Sullivan said yesterday that we know the Israel—I’m not quoting—but we know the Israelis are going to respond in a strong way, and basically approved it, in principle.
Now there will be, or certainly are, discussions about what does that mean. But I think the Israelis now as a country have seen a way out of the terrible events of October 7 to reassert their independence and reassert themselves as a dominant—a dominant power in the region. One of several. And put—in a certain sense, put October 7 behind them. They can’t, because of the hostages. But from a military point of view, from a defense point of view, they can. And they’re going to.
LABOTT: Steve, pick up on that. Like, what is the regional kind of perception route? Obviously, no one’s, you know, crying any tears for—Steven. I’m sorry, I keep calling you Steve and I know that I should be calling you Steven.
COOK: It’s OK.
LABOTT: But we’ve been friends for twenty years, so. But, you know, nobody’s shedding any tears for Nasrallah. Nobody’s shedding any tears for Hamas or Hezbollah. You know, a few months ago there was more talk from the region about a ceasefire, bloodshed, we need to stop the killing. And now with this kind of last two weeks, with a little bit of the success of the Israelis in terms of going after Hezbollah, is the dynamic changing a little bit? And now, you know, kind of the Gulf Arabs, you know, it’s kind of you want to be with a winner because the Israelis are saying, hey, we’re killers. And do you want to be with us against your enemy Iran?
COOK: Well, before I get into the regional response, let me just underline something that Elliott said. Is that, you know, my experience in talking to Israelis a number of weeks ago was that they did not think the United States was providing them good advice at all. And that, you know, whether it was Rafah or, you know, the pause after the World Central Kitchen accident, those kinds of things were things that delayed what they considered, you know, Israeli victory. And that now I think we see clearly in Lebanon that the United States’ advice on this is—has not been taken.
Now, maybe the advice of other partners is being taken in Lebanon. I think that, as I said before and as you just intimated, no one in the Gulf is shedding a tear for Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah, Yahya Sinwar, or Ismail Haniyeh, or any of the leadership of Hamas. Although there is, and there continues to be—particularly among populations—particularly among governments that have really extended themselves, though in partnership with Israel, to do what they can to provide humanitarian relief. There’s an extensive Jordanian field hospital, an extensive Jordanian humanitarian pipeline into the Gaza Strip. The Emiratis have a field hospital there and are in discussions to establish the second one. So it’s not as if people have, you know, turned their back on what’s happened and the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza—in the Gaza Strip.
It’s just that now the Israelis themselves are turning the page. And there is—doesn’t seem to be a real, urgent need for a ceasefire that nobody really wanted anyway. Really, the United States was the one that needed and wanted it. And then, of course, the families of the—of the hostages. And, of course, Palestinians caught in the crossfire. But—(laughs)—where those decisions were being made, the conflict was not necessarily ripe for resolution or diplomacy, in terms of a ceasefire. Clearly Yahya Sinwar has made—does not want a ceasefire. And Netanyahu’s partners on the right have clearly wanted him to prioritize victory over the return of hostages.
Now, when it comes more broadly to the Gulf response to Hezbollah and Iran, there is—I’m not necessarily sure there’s, you know, a sign up with us, but this is a kind of manifestation of the strategic consensus that has developed in the region over the course of the last decade, particularly as the discussions in Washington about withdrawing from the region, pivoting to Asia, things like the JCPOA, President Trump’s non-response to Iranian provocations in the summer of 2019—all of these countries have come together to believe that they may be on their own to confront the exercise of Iranian power, including those of its of its proxies.
A senior Saudis said to me: We think Iran is a paper tiger with iron claws. And that’s driving this consensus. And the fact that the Israelis are going about doing things to defang the paper tiger of its iron claws—is that a mixed metaphor? I don’t know. But whatever—you know what I mean. It’s something that I think that they can be supportive of, certainly more supportive of the Israeli military operations than the Gaza Strip that has hurt so—and killed so many people. Even if you dispute those numbers, they’re still quite large. But, you know, when the Israelis, you know, undertook a daylight raid on the port of Hodeidah in July, the response from the Gulf was: Finally someone is doing something about this. We’ve been waiting too long for the United States to do it. So kudos to the Israelis for doing it.
LABOTT: So, Ray, how does Iran perceive that? Given the weakening of Hezbollah, you know, the weakening of Hamas, which is lesser to some extent, this kind of new narrative of, you know, Iran on the back foot, and how does this—does this reignite cross—so we see now, like—you know, Lebanon, you know, fractioning into more of a civil war, and Iran taking a back step? I saw Zarif the other day say some—Javad Zarif, the foreign minister say, well, maybe Hezbollah makes its own decisions now. And kind of, like, taking—I don’t know if they were taking a little step back. That’s something that might hurt the hardliners. Talk a little bit about Iran’s kind of strategic goals now. What does this do to its nuclear ambitions? Does it—you know, is this—does this make that more urgent? And how—what does this mean in terms of diplomacy? Is there an opportunity for diplomacy with Iran, if it’s in a little bit of a kind of, you know, shell shock right now?
TAKEYH: I suspect the first order would be the long-term strategy of rebuilding those proxies, particularly Hezbollah, in terms of trying to refurbish their missile arsenal, replenish their coffers, essentially reconstitution of Hezbollah in some way. And that would be a long-term project. How it’s going to be achieved, logistically and all that, of course, remains to be seen. But that’s a long-term attempt to, once again, rehabilitate what Steven called the iron claw. There are other proxies militias in Iraq that are still intact. And in some way, they are more important to Iran’s security, because Iraq was always more important to its immediate security.
But the overall strategy of relying on axis of resistance in order to encircle your enemies with the rings of fire and compel concessions out of them, that only works if the targeted country exercises self-restraint, as the United States did in Iraq, as we had done before. It doesn’t really work when there’s a determination to respond and decapitate the proxy in question. So that was always the case. The Iranians had hoped by actuating the axis of resistance the international community and the United States would impose an armistice on Israel. And the international community and United States did try to impose an armistice on Israel. (Laughs.) It was not—it was not a wrong calculation. Except the Israelis did not want to stop, and Sinwar didn’t want to stop, most immediately. I suspect if he was more forthcoming, you might have had a ceasefire of some sort. I don’t know.
The nuclear issue is interesting here, because the logical outcome of this is that the nuclear deterrence becomes more significant and more important. But that argument is rested on a certain assumption. And that assumption is that there’s an inverse proportion between the axis of resistance and the nuclear issue. The better the axis of resistance does, the less important the nuclear issue becomes. If you look at the way that Iran has expanded its nuclear infrastructure, when axis of resistance was doing well the nuclear infrastructure expanded. When it’s not doing well, it’s expanded.
Now the critical decision that the regime has to make at some point, and some point soon, is whether to detonate. That’s really where we are. And a lot of factors will go into that. And what is happening in the region will certainly inform that, the level of Iran’s penetration by outside intelligence services will certainly go into that. And all these factors have to kind of figure out where and how, if to cross the nuclear threshold. That is a big question out there.
In terms of diplomacy, President Pezeshkian had tried to essentially have a diplomatic opening. Now there are certain explanations for that. Number one, he wants a diplomatic opening because he believes sanctions relief can only come through nuclear negotiations. Number two is, a diplomatic process is necessary to shield the nuclear program at the time where you’re about to detonate or move forward. It’s very difficult for anybody to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities when there’s active diplomacy taking place between United States and Iran. And that’s true about—certainly about the United States. It’s certainly true about Israel.
There’s two things that are very difficult for the United States to do.
LABOTT: Would they be open to that?
TAKEYH: Well, I think there is an attempt to resume nuclear negotiation. That offer has been made. And I suspect that they’re waiting for the next president to take that offer up. And I suspect the next administration will take that offer up. So some of—the purpose of that diplomatic opening, to me, is more cynical. I don’t know if they’re looking for an agreement, but it is a very effective way of shielding your program from a potential retribution at the time when that program is surging forward. But, you know, that’s just my opinion.
LABOTT: OK. We’re going to open it up to questions in one minute. I just want to grab one more question from Farah. But we particularly welcome questions now from members of the media for the CFR media briefing. Remember, this is on the record. If you raise your hand, they’ll get you in the queue. And while we get some questions going, Farah, what happens now in the region? Do you expect a cooling effect on extremist groups, given the last couple of weeks? Or do you expect further radicalization, especially with groups like the Houthis and Shia militias stepping up their rhetoric and action?
PANDITH: I think what we can expect is an escalation of the threat environment the way we’ve watched it progress over the last almost twelve months. And I think the consequences of the emotional impact on people around the world is going to play out. I mean, you’re seeing—you’re seeing weird things happen. So, for example, in the Netherlands, Dutch police, it’s been reported that they are changing their rotations to protect synagogues and houses of worship because—or anything—any Jewish organizations, because they are morally objecting to doing that. You’re seeing societal changes in our country and in other countries around the world, the us versus them. It’s been heightened. The societal fabric is tearing. You’re seeing—you know, we all watched what was happening in the U.K. with the riots that were taking place over there.
These are not planned things that we could have expected to have happen. But the follow-on effect to the—to the changes that have happened in the Middle East, the escalation of events, can present itself in a lot of ways that we haven’t planned for yet. So I mean, you heard the other day the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, say he really thought that what had just happened in the last couple of days was really going to have and play out in in in the U.K. in a very dramatic way. You are seeing changes in even the United States, in the way people talk about each other and about what is important. So you’re talking about—you’re talking about an unknown, Elise, honestly. But it is important that we keep our eye on the ball in terms of the lessons that we’ve learned from this kind of event when it happened on 9/11, which is expect the unexpected and be prepared for the societal impact in ways that we would not have predicted.
LABOTT: And, clearly, we saw that after October 7. OK, we’re going to open it up to questions now. As a reminder to ask a question, please click the raise-hand icon on your Zoom window. When you’re called upon, please accept the unmute now prompt, then proceed with your name, affiliation, followed by a question. We’re going to have a lot of questions. Please keep your questions short. Let’s get as many questions in. No long statements or proclamations. Let’s just keep the questions going, and allow this stellar panel to answer them for you. We particularly are welcoming questions from members of the media. This is a CFR media briefing. So I’m going to hand it over to Monica and Anya, who will go for the questions.
OPERATOR: We’ll take the first question from Chase Winter.
Q: (Off mic)—doing this. I’ll try to keep this quick.
Can you—can you discuss a little bit more sort of U.S. policy and the evolution of it? Maybe how you see it going forward? Because we’ve—you know, the—it appears Israel is kind of—really climbing up that escalatory ladder. And I’m kind of wondering at what point, you know, do we fall off of it or, you know, it leads to conflict. Because, as you kind of alluded to, Sullivan yesterday, you know, appeared to be on board for sort of a fairly robust Israeli response, anything against, you know, the nuclear program. You know, you have Naftali Bennett yesterday calling for strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure, and the like. So, kind of, how are you sort of viewing this situation playing out a little bit? And how—
LABOTT: Elliott, you want to go to that?
ABRAMS: Well, I think part of the problem, again is the interregnum. That is, what are we talking about? Who’s president? We’re in the last months of the Biden presidency. And Biden’s own, I think, personal influence here is quite diminished. And we just—you know, if you can—I can’t predict what Trump policy really would be. I assume it would—he would—he would be less likely to be trying to restrain the Israelis. But so is the Biden administration. And maybe that is a Biden-Harris policy. I would say, though, you know, the enemy gets a vote. That is, it was Nasrallah who decided on October 8 I’m going to attack Israel. He didn’t have to make that decision. It’s the Iranians who decided, you know, in April and now again, let’s not use proxies. Let’s do a direct attack on Israel. So in a sense, Israel is on the escalatory ladder only because Iran has decided that that’s what they want.
I think the problem for the U.S. here is if we were not to respond we would really lose credibility. And I think the best example here is the Houthis. The Houthis have two-thirds closed the Suez Canal to traffic. And the United States is not really doing anything about it. Got this huge naval task force that is defending itself, that’s playing defense. The Israelis, in a certain sense, have done more in—you know, in two weeks than we’ve done in months. And this is not sitting well with the Navy or with CENTCOM, which has asked for more activity. That’s the Biden administration. Does that continue into a new administration? Because the Houthis are still going to be there blocking Suez Canal traffic. I think, hard to predict.
LABOTT: OK. We’ll take the next question. And a reminder, please share your name and affiliation.
OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Judith Goldstein.
LABOTT: Judy, are you muted?
Q: I’m muted. But I didn’t ask for a question, so I think you should pass on to somebody who has a question ready.
LABOTT: OK. OK. Maybe we’ll come back to you. Next question.
OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Selina Wang.
Q: Hi. This is Selina with ABC News.
I just wonder if you could elaborate a little bit more on Biden’s diminished influence here, and what influence, if any, he has. I know, Elliott, you mentioned before that the Israelis believe he gave bad advice. And then, secondly, we’re just learning from an Israeli official that the response to Iran’s attack will be significant and come fast. What is your prediction on what that response could actually look like?
LABOTT: Steve, you were—Steven, you were just there. So why don’t you let us—why don’t you take that one?
COOK: Well, I think—I think Elliott is right. President Biden has diminished influence over Israel. But I think we overestimate his influence to begin with. I think that when he went to Israel last October, he thought he was buying himself a significant amount of influence. And perhaps the Israelis misinterpreted—or he misinterpreted what he was doing, because the Israelis saw this as essentially a green light. But again, I think over a period of time the Israelis have come to believe that the administration has not given them good advice, that they are determined, as they said on October 8 and 9 and 10, to change the rules of the game. That they would not live—return to a situation in which they had to live under the threat of Hamas, and now obviously also Hezbollah.
And I think, in addition, it’s important to recognize that as the Israelis have turned the page on Hamas and have turned their sights on Hezbollah and Iran, that it’s actually an easier political thing for the president to do, especially this president. Essentially, the Israelis are fighting Iran. And there are certainly civilians who are caught in the crossfire, but not in the same way that they have in the Gaza Strip. And even those members of the Democratic Party who have moved in this way to be quite critical of the Israelis over their operations in Gaza have been quite mute over what the Israelis have done, if not supportive of what the Israelis have done, with Hezbollah, given Hezbollah’s bloody record with the United—in spilling American blood. And the fact that it is the crown jewel of the axis of resistance, a designated terrorist organization.
So I think that there’s not that much advice to give, and that the administration’s policy has been that a strike on Israel would be met with a severe response. So I don’t think that there’s a tremendous amount of effort being put into necessarily restrain the Israelis from responding. I think it’s—the question is what the what the target list will be. And as to the follow-up on that, I think the Israelis have a long list. And to the extent that they want to make a point and go way up the escalatory ladder in order to reestablish their deterrence, I wouldn’t—just as an observer—I wouldn’t really rule much out.
LABOTT: OK. Do we have any more questions?
OPERATOR: At this time there are no questions in the queue.
LABOTT: OK. All right. We’re going to keep talking. And if you have a question, remember to raise your hand and unmute the button, and name and affiliation.
Ray, what happens now in Lebanon? I mean, talk about the destabilization there. Can this all reignite these kind of cross sectarian movements that we saw in 2019? How does—you know, with Hezbollah facing these kinds of devastating losses can we see this—you know, these factions splintering? How does this change Iran’s calculation with Hezbollah? You said that they would, you know, try to reconstitute. But does this power vacuum lead to internal factionalism that might affect Syria? And then, you know, obviously makes Iran a little bit more—a little bit more vulnerable.
TAKEYH: I’m prepared to yield to Elliott, if he wanted to say something, but—
LABOTT: Elliott, do you want to follow up?
ABRAMS: I just want to follow up on Steve and really go back to Selina’s question. Two things. One, why does President Biden have diminished influence? One, because he’s a lame duck. We’re approaching the U.S. election. Two, because, candidly, this is the Joe Biden of the Trump-Biden debate. He has diminished influence everywhere. He had diminished influence at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. So this certainly plays out with Israel.
As to the target list, I’m with Steve. I think nothing’s off the list, but they need to decide, the Israelis. Political target, of the sort of—the sort of thing they did in Beirut. Military target, hit bases. For example, try to knock out locations where missiles are produced. Nuclear target, do they actually want to go for one of the nuclear—one of the nuclear sites? They gave a warning of this in April. Remember when they hit back, they hit the Russian-supplied air defense system around Natanz, if I remember correctly. That was a message to Iran, we can get through. So maybe they try that at this point. They do have a long list, but I think that is the discussion. Agreeing with Steve, that’s the discussion now with the U.S., what’s the target?
TAKEYH: I’ll just say, very briefly, how diminished Hezbollah is in the public imagination of the region. In 2006, it was viewed as a sort of an Arab force that resisted Israel with some degree of success. But then Hezbollah became involved in the Syrian civil war, where it was complicit in slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Sunnis at the behest of Iran. Nasrallah, as Elliott said about an incursion into Israel, he didn’t have to do that, but he did. And how unpopular Hezbollah is within the Iranian public opinion today. It is diminished because it’s viewed as an auxiliary force of a repressive regime. And there are some rumors that Hezbollah fighters were actually participating in the suppression of the Women’s Life Freedom Movement. I tend to be skeptical of that, but nevertheless the fact that that story has gained currency in the popular imagination reflects how diminished Hezbollah has become.
So Nasrallah is not the same figure he was today as he was in 2016. He’s a much more divisive figure. He was a much more divisive figure. So in that particular sense, Hezbollah has diminished its political fortunes, its standing in the region, and now, of course, its capabilities. The Iranians will try to rebuild it, will try to give it money, will try to revive it and revitalize it. But it’ll be a long-term project, and arguably a rather unsuccessful one because Hezbollah may never actually get to the peak of its power and popularity that it was before the 2006 war.
LABOTT: Farah, do you want to pick up on—
ABRAMS: One thing to add on that—
LABOTT: Go ahead, Elliott.
ABRAMS: One thing about Lebanon, one way of measuring this, for two years Lebanon has had no president. It has had no president because Hezbollah has blocked the selection of a president. It’ll be very interesting to watch the next, you know, say, nine months till next summer. Does Lebanon get a president? And my bet is, yes, because of the diminished power of Hezbollah.
LABOTT: Farah, you want to pick up on that? You’re muted. You’re muted, Farah.
PANDITH: I don’t know why that keeps happening. I was going to echo what Elliott said, but I would like to say this: The predictive—our predictive imagination about who the next generation of leaders are going to be is not sharp. And what we need to remember is that influencers from millennials and Gen Z will come from their peer group. And we don’t yet know how that’s going to manifest.
LABOTT: Good point.
PANDITH: So I think that that’s an important thing to consider.
LABOTT: Yeah. That’s a great point.
Steve, we haven’t really talked about Gaza. Why don’t you—you were—again, you were, you know, just in the region. Talk to us about, you know, the situation on the ground there, and what—you know, we really don’t have any answer still to who’s going to run Gaza, how are we rebuilding Gaza? You know, with everything that’s happened over the last month, I think attention not just in the public but also in the administration has moved towards trying to cool this situation in the North. Bring us back to Israel and the territories, and the future of Gaza. And then if I might kind of broaden that, the West Bank is still kind of bubbling under but, you know, it really hasn’t exploded yet. What do you think of that, and how that could affect neighboring Jordan?
COOK: Yeah. It’s a lot of questions in a short period of time, but I’ll do my best to just give you a flavor of it. You know, when it comes to Gaza I think I articulated the Israeli perspective, which is that it’s time to turn the page. Hamas is not gone, but it’s certainly broken, and it cannot threaten Israel in this way that it did on October 7. But in order to ensure that that doesn’t happen, the Israelis will stay in Gaza along the Netzarim Corridor, which is this east-west axis that bisects the Gaza Strip into north and south, and possibly on the Philadelphi corridor, although that is very contentious with Egypt because it violates a 2005 accord between Egypt and Israel, governing Israeli forces in the management of the border between Egypt and Gaza.
But, nevertheless, what’s going to happen in Gaza is much closer to the status quo in Gaza than some new kind of revitalized Palestinian Authority taking over and an international force coming in to provide security and reconstruction. I think what’s going to happen is that the IDF is going to ring Gaza with military force, establish a broader security zone there, retain for itself the freedom to go in and conduct counterterrorist operations—as they have been doing on the West Bank. Which brings me to the West Bank. Which is, you know, there have been ongoing and continuous Israeli security operations in the West Bank in Jenin and elsewhere, in order to prevent that explosion that everybody is worried about.
And it is ongoing and continuous. And it will be. And I think that the Israeli perspective is, it’s about time. And, again, I go back—I keep going back to October 8, 9, and 10, when the Israelis said: We’re changing the rules of the road. We’re changing the equation here.
LABOTT: In the entire region.
COOK: In the entire region. And you had to take—and that’s happening. And it was important to take them seriously then. And I’m not sure, getting back to the U.S., whether the Biden administration understood that this wasn’t just rhetoric, that the Israelis really were determined, given the nature of the attack on October 7, to change the rules, and that they wouldn’t live with Hezbollah up on its border, with Hamas up on its border, under the threat of Iran’s axis of resistance. And they’re going about changing that equation in the West Bank is one of those. There are tremendous risks to Israel there. But so far, at least beginning in the last three weeks, they have gained—they have gained the advantage.
LABOTT: OK, we have a—we have a last question. But I’m just going to ask Elliott for a very quick follow, if you want to follow up. And then we’re going to take our last question, and we’re going to finish up.
ABRAMS: Go ahead.
LABOTT: OK. Let’s get that last question in.
OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Christina Bouri.
Q: Hello. Thank you, all. I am a research associate in Middle East studies here at CFR.
And I just kind of wanted to raise a question but begin it with a comment. So we saw recently a sitting U.S. senator making a pretty Islamophobic comment in a hearing. And among many people my age, in the age range between eighteen to thirty-five, that wasn’t obviously perceived well, given that it’s been a year and still are seeing—regardless of what the numbers are on the ground—still seeing innocent children, women being killed in Gaza, and now that is spreading to Lebanon. I wonder how you see that playing out when you look at Islamophobia, anti-Arab sentiment, which has been discussed, how that’s going to play out, as we’ve been seeing a lot in the news, in the upcoming election? Because you have been seeing a rise in either the uncommitted vote or votes that might be going towards, for example, Jill Stein among that community in the United States.
LABOTT: Good question. Thanks. Farah, you want to take that one?
PANDITH: (Off mic)—going to have a problem with this Zoom.
Christina, thank you for raising that really important question. I think that there’s going to be a continued drumbeat of hate across the board, whether it’s antisemitic hate, anti-Arab hate, anti-Muslim hate. It isn’t going away. The statistics are showing that across the world. And importantly in our country, as you just outlined, you’re seeing people respond to images that are very hard to see on the ground in Gaza, with the death of civilians. And also, I want to be really clear, that as we—as we were seeing that that conversation that’s being played out in the political arena, obviously CFR is a nonpartisan organization. So I am—I’m trying to be, you know, very clear about this.
In the middle of the—of this very complex moment, five weeks before the election, you just talked about the fact that there is an uncommitted movement, but at the same time there are American Muslim organizations like Emgage and others who have—who have supported Harris as the candidate. So it is a complex environment domestically, but it is echoing things that you are seeing and conversations that you are experiencing with America—with Muslim communities in Europe. And I think that’s a very interesting component to what’s happening domestically. There’s a bridge of conversation that’s very similar. And I think that’s important to outline.
LABOTT: OK. Listen, we—Steven had to run. Elliott, I’m just going to ask you very quickly, we really didn’t talk about Netanyahu. You know, he’s got—had a lot of ups and downs, you know, since—over the last year. Does he live another day? He seems to be getting a lot more support.
ABRAMS: Yeah. You know, the conventional wisdom in October-November last year was, boy, is he finished. He’s done. But he didn’t agree with that. And—
LABOTT: He never does.
ABRAMS: He never does. And he’s still there. And he’s just reinforced his coalition with, I think, four more members. And his polls have gotten a little better now. Well, why? Obviously, the last few weeks. Victory has enhanced his position. I believe that Israel will have to have an election next year. And I would say, do not count Netanyahu out. Polls rise and fall. His coalition doesn’t have enough votes. His coalition does have enough votes. But it’s been one of the most amazing comebacks from last October and November that I think we’ve ever seen in a democratic political system.
LABOTT: OK. Well, this was—we could go on for another hour, honestly. This was an amazing panel. I want to thank my wonderful guests, Steven Cook, Ray Takeyh, Elliott Abrams, and Farah Pandith. Thank you to all of you in the media and others for tuning in. And thank you to CFR for setting up this very timely briefing. We have so much information on our website from our scholars. We are on TikTok. We are on social media. So any young people out there, you can find your information—if you’re looking to TikTok for your information, you can find us there. Thanks, everyone. And we hope to see you again next time. Bye-bye.
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