US–Israeli Military Operation in Iran May Need 3 More Weeks to Cripple Regime’s Capabilities:Analyst

Joining us now is David Wormser, an analyst for Middle East Affairs at the Center for Security Policy. Good morning to you. We just heard it. Israel says its aim in these strikes is broadly and systematically damaging the regime's command, control, and capabilities. And what we heard was the thousands of targets that Israel says it still has within Iran and it plans to hit soon. Considering the location and what we know of previous strikes, how far along is Israel in its goal? Well, I think it's gotten fairly far, but it has a long way to go. The problem when you're dealing with these command and control structures of the repression mechanism, or what the Israelis are now calling Operation Quds, which, by the way, is both internal and external, hitting the command, control, repression structures inside Iran, but also their proxy structure of the al-Quds force externally. It's a big country. It's about a third the size of the United States. I mean, imagine trying to deal with targets in a country the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River. And it's 90 million people, and there's over a thousand moderate towns and cities in the country. So you're dealing with a huge target list. So there's no lack of targets. The Israelis clearly do have thousands. The United States has thousands. And it'll take some time. I'd estimate at least another two, three weeks before you get to the point where confidently the regime's ability to suppress opposition is destroyed. And that is what Israel is also estimating at this point, planning for at least three more weeks of operations to address that threat from the regime. In a region already shaped by censorship, how significant is the danger posed by AI-generated misinformation coming out of Iran? Oh, that's a big and very good question. We've seen in the last three days a torrent of misinformation by Russian bots, Russians, Chinese CCP servers, and operatives, and, of course, Iranian. And you've seen everything from definitive reports that the prime minister of Israel has been killed, to the chief of staff, to Tel Aviv burning, and, of course, the big one that you discussed earlier was, before I was on, about accusing Israel and the United States of striking their allies in order to make Iran look bad. All of these are, you know, Grok and others are proving all of this is fake. But it's still, it sticks. The problem is you have such a volume, and we're talking an immense volume. Somebody plotted it out yesterday, one of the firms that monitors this sort of stuff plotted it out. You can see this dramatic, like, thousand percent increase in the last 48 hours of misinformation, disinformation. Incredible. Now, looking to the China aspect here, sources that spoke to the Epoch Times say that the communist regime has a backdoor route for buying Iranian oil, using a port east of the effectively closed Strait of Hormuz, or it was effectively closed. If that's true, what strategic considerations might the U.S. and Israel consider if they see it as another potential target? Well, it may be east of the Straits of Hormuz, but it's still a port, and the port will still be a target for the United States. The United States is the primary mover here in clearing the coastline of Iran, partly to keep the straits open, but also so that our navy doesn't face a threat altogether. Just because it's east of Hormuz doesn't mean that it's not a target for the United States, because it threatens our ships and it threatens the straits from the east. So if you're going to bring oil out from those areas, you're going to need anyway a port, and those are dangerous places right now in Iran. So China may have a backdoor that can be tolerated a bit, or if Iran really blocks the straits completely, then the Iranians aren't stopping the ships going out from their eastern port. But the United States, as I said, will probably do great damage to the ports. If the Straits of Hormuz are blocked, then we would essentially have to destroy the ports, which is where the instruments to block the straits come from. So I'm not sure China really has a great option there. Now, as Iran continues its attacks on Gulf states, do you expect to see a new era of stronger ties to Israel and perhaps a broader normalization of relations in the region? Well, first of all, we see the UAE, which has been a strong ally, behaving from day one very, very resolutely on behalf of the United States and Israel. They have relations with Israel. The Israelis are sending teams over to the UAE to help with their air defense. So you're seeing a tightening of existing relationships between Bahrain and UAE on one side and Israel on the other. The Saudis, it's a big question. There were those who would say, well, the Saudis really only were tolerating or discussing peace with Israel because they had a common enemy in Iran. And if that's removed, the incentive for peace is removed. On the other hand, there are others who argue, and I'd be more one of them, is that the Saudis really have a very limited window to make peace with Israel here on their terms. And they need it. They need the peace more than Israel does. Their economy is really not doing well. They don't have a future beyond the oil yet set up, and the oil will run out eventually. And then they're looking at Iran, where Iran is much larger than Saudi Arabia, incredibly educated and talented population. The moment this regime is gone in Iran, it eclipses all the nations around it in terms of economic power, performance, and even oil. So in many ways, the Saudis now face a very grim future if they don't make peace. So I think that actually Saudi Arabia's incentives to make peace after the war is over are even greater. David Wormser, thank you so much for your insights this morning. Thank you.