OK now live to Tehran and Abbas Asllani, a journalist and senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, as I think he's been with us. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Now, how does it work from your point of view? How is the story being reported there? Given the government's tight control over the media, is that indicative of where the government actually stands right now? And try to play down this story? Well, John, what we have been hearing here in Iranian cities or capital is that there has not been a significant or at least any foreign meaning is really strike against Iranian targets. And what has been said is so far is that some unidentified flying objects or small drones have been intercepted by Iranian defense system. And in Iran, the feeling is that Israel is trying to save face by accepting a media campaign or a psychological operation against Iran. In a way that to avoid an escalation. And this could be maybe a pave the way out of this escalatory situation in order to put an end to this tit for tat process. In recent days, the Iranian leaders had warned that any Israeli attack would trigger a swift and severe response. So very public about that, saying it almost every day or amping up the rhetoric almost every day. How do they walk that back now? I it doesn't seem to be walked back now because there has been no confirmation of this attack so far. And it seems that this is just somehow similar to sabotage attacks in the past that the Israelis have been trying to do against some Iranian targets. And now they're saying that they have been able to intercept some flying objects on the sky. But what is important for Iran is to maintain that deterrence, you know, equation, because Iran in terms of the scale of its retaliatory operation against Israel, used hundreds of missiles and drones. And this is somehow incomparable to what even if there was a limited action today with the Friday morning's incident. So this doesn't seem to be changing that balance And this is quite important for Iran. But this somehow is interpreted into Iran as Israel trying to save face, but not to engage in a significant direct conflict with Iran. Yeah, that's the point, because U.S. intelligence and others have been warning for a while now warning, but indicating that, you know,
Iran did not want a war with Israel, although it was okay with escalating and just wanted to stay away from a direct confrontation. So in many ways is a sense of relief almost in Tehran that they were given this off ramp by the Israelis Well, in the past days, we have been seeing that Iran trying to have a turning point in its engagement with Israel for the first time it tried to directly act against Israeli targets, but there was a chance that this might, you know, provoke a response from the Israeli side. But I think if there is no clear and visible or significant, you know, if this strike was not from the Israeli side, this cannot change that equation. From Iranian perspective. So that's important for Iran to stop any, let's say, significant strike against Iranian interests in the region. So by the time that this is in place, I think we might see a way out of this escalation but we have to wait again for more updates in the coming hours or days. And it's a bit early to judge that if it's over or not. But to the moment that we are speaking, I think it doesn't seem to be a a regional war emerging. But however, even little bit chances are there yet in the grand scheme of things, it's often
difficult to gauge Iranian public opinion. But is this a conflict which is driven by the hardliners and the elites within the government who want a much tougher stance on Israel? Well, this is sort of the general public opinion on all of this. It seems that far more concerned about the economy and US sanctions. And you know, wanting a better life John, when it comes to external pressure or threats or even even its military threat, you know, it is mostly the case that brings people rally around the flag. And that was a kind of letting mostly a national pride for Iran to respond to Israel. The operation which happened a few days ago, whether they like the government policies or not, but when it comes to the security issue, many people would support that because they think that this can work as a deterrence, you know, preventing further Israeli attacks in future. Sometimes that if Iran didn't respond sooner or later, maybe in future, they would there could be war, but they could see this somehow stopping that crisis. That's why they somehow supported that response. And also, that's so much of the national pride and the whether they are reformists or conservative is critical of support of the government because that's the issue of the security. They have been mostly supportive of Iran's action against Israel. But as Lenny, in Tehran, we appreciate you being with us, sir. Thank you to your lifetime in Jerusalem. And Yaakov Katz, senior columnist and editor with The Jerusalem Post. It's good to see you. Hi, John. What's your assessment? First of the strike by Israel? And what about Iran's decision? That seems not to respond I think Israel has been trying to balance everything at once, which is not always easy. On the one hand, it felt the need to retaliate to the weekend attack of over 300 drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and it wanted to hit something that would get a message across to the Iranians that attacks of that kind will not be tolerated, but not to lead to a wider escalation. The fact that the Iranians are staying also a bit quiet about what was attacked and they're trying to downplay the significance is also their attempt to try to contain it. So I think everyone has an interest right now, it seems so far. And in the Middle East, we know John that things can change very quickly. But so far, it seems that both sides want to call it a day. Say we got in our blows and now we can move on. There was some reporting that Israel was ready to strike Iran on Monday, but it was sort of postponed or cut off because of operational issues. That's all we know. I'm just wondering if this limited strike was sort of plan B, if you like, Well, Israel, we know in the security cabinet, there have been some debates over the past five or six days of exactly what the appropriate response should be. And I can tell you that within Israel, there were people who looked at that attack this past Sunday morning as the justification essentially for Israel to finally go after Iran's nuclear industrial complex, that that threat that we've been hearing about for so long, as well as other key facilities in Iran. And there were others who didn't want to see a response at all. Add to that the pressure that this government was under from President Joe Biden, from the U.K., from the European officials to basically what they were calling take it a win of what the interception of that Iranian assault was, even though it was just a defense, it was not no win. It was just a successful interception. But Israel felt that it did need to do something. And I think that this is probably, like you said, the compromise. It is a way for Israel to get a shot across the bow at Iran and show them that something has been done. Don't learn a bad lesson from what you did on Sunday. But also, we in Israel don't want this to go any farther right now. I mean, there's two views of what happened on Sunday morning here. That was an overwhelming failure by the Iranians because everything got shut down essentially there. You know, from ICBC the drones and Israel stood firm or it was a, you know,
a message by Iran that was that limited in scope because they say they did not target population centers. I mean, the common sense answer is it was it was the former, not the latter. And that actually sort of played into this decision by itself for a limited strike. How do you see it? Yeah, I mean, you know, just because you have a good defense doesn't mean that that is necessarily a victory. Right. Israel was able to intercept all of those missiles and drones that pretty much 99% that were making its way together with that
regional collective partnership that involved the Americans, the British, the French, the Jordanians, the Saudis, and possibly others. That's a great success, but it's not a victory. And I think that the way to really look at this is just I actually tend to look at it, John, as we should view every single one of these missiles and drones as if they actually landed, damaged and even killed people because just because something was shot at you and didn't hurt you doesn't mean it wasn't shot. It was. And there's an intention by Iran to, as we know, because they clearly stated they want to wipe Israel off the map. They've been supporting proxies throughout this region. Hezbollah, which is fired since October 7th, almost 5000 missiles into Israel. Hamas, of course, in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen. Israel is the most attacked country today in the world. And we can't contain this, those days of where we just pretend just because it was intercepted that it didn't really happen. Well, it did happen, and it needs to be met with force. I think on the other side of the equation, though, the Iranians would be looking at that weekend attack as a complete and dismal, colossal failure. And then you come to this attack by this kind of strike by Israel. Clearly, there has to be a calculation there that they don't want to get into a wider conflict with Israel right now because the strike of the weekend was a failure and the one hand it was a failure because most of it was just intercepted on the other hand, they could say we struck Israel's Air Force base. We know that some of those missiles landed at this base where the F-35 is. Israel's most advanced fifth generation fighter jets are based and they could claim that they actually penetrated and were able to strike inside that base. And even though most of it was intercepted, it did get Israeli air sirens going it got Israelis into a week of mass hysteria. John, we Israelis were in fear of their lives, I would say, in a way that we haven't been in a long time with unfortunate Ali. And this is not a good thing. But we've gotten used to rockets from Gaza.
We've gotten used to rockets from Lebanon getting fired from Iran. After all these years of hearing of how strong and powerful and dangerous they are. Did not make Israelis feel safe. And there still is a lot of concern of what comes next. So I don't think that necessarily they view this as a failure. Not yet. Okay. Yaakov Katz, as always, good to see you, sir. Thank you for your time.
