A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran after the largest military build up in the Middle East in more than twenty years. On the weekend, Trump's threats turned to action. He launched a war in the Middle East with the stated aim of toppling Iran's regime.
When we are finished, take over your government, it will be yours to take.
This will be probably your only chance for generations.
And in a shocking development, Iran Supreme leader i Toola Ali Hamoney was killed in a joint US Israeli air stride.
The president announcing Comedie's death in a lengthy social media post, he says, Kamedi, one of the most evil people in history, is dead.
Iran has lashed out, striking Israel, Jordan, the UA, cut up Bahrain, Saudi and Kuwait.
See the problem is when they intercept these missiles, some of their parts just fly off to weird places. One of them landed ten minutes away from my place, and you never know if you're out there and then something hits you.
I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to seven AM today Vada Al Safe from Kuwait University. On Trump's gamble, the Middle East moments of peril and more countries in the Gulf. Pick a side. It's Monday, March too, Barda. You're in Kuwait and there's been drones and missiles come across the Gulf from Iran. What is it like where you are? What's happening.
It's a second day of sirens that are activated on and off. And Wait is a small state, so the bar though they are targeted at certain facilities, whether it be the military bases or the airport for that matter, we've been hearing them all. So it's a fragile situation, you know, and it's if we can tie it to the larger event. It's a pity that our neighbor Iran has decided to strike at us when we are not the cause of the commotion. I mean, this is a
war that was started by the US at Israel. And this is a war where the US was clearly told by all Gulf states that our airspaces will not be used to attack Iran and that the military bases will also not be used. So for Iran to wholly focus on the Gulf, not only is it a miscalculation, but it tells me how desperate the Iranian authorities are they're scrambling for answers, But or if we could.
Talk about the really big news, of course, the death of Iran Supreme leader Hamone.
I'm just being told that the US President Donald Trump has now said that Ali Hamine, Iran's supreme leader, is indeed dead.
Clearly a major moment, not only for Iran but for the entire Middle East. Could you take us through how that unfolded in some of those conflicting reports that we had yesterday where we didn't even know for a while whether he'd been killed or not.
Yeah, well, now the Iranians confirmed his death and here was a moment the news broke on Iranian state Tvamio muriaslamiron Sh. Then look, this will come down as one of the most consequential events in the modern Middle East. This is a man that has been synonymous to the Iranian revolution. He has marched in arms with Romania and the others back in seventy nine, in prison many times during the Shahs regime, a person who has been at the helm of leadership starting from nineteen eighty nine up
to the present. And why do I say there are far reaching consequences because Iran decided not to focus on its internal dynamics. It didn't focus wholly on developing its country, on building good relationships. But they invested heavily in proxy networks across the region that was colored in the first
phase with a whole sense of exporting the revolution. You know, they were bragging about, you know, controlling five air capitals at one point in their heyday in the two thousands, and we're talking about Bardad, Damascus, Beirut and Yehmen lately. So this is concerning. It's not a good recipe for coexistence, and hence his disappearance will have an impact. Now, mind you, the scenarios are plenty, will we because as we know from the last attack in June twenty twenty five Famina,
he has prepared a successor's list. I mean, succession planning is something that they've gotten used to, given them many deaths that have come across their leadership layers. So the question, the open question is how solid will the regime be without his presence. Will they continue on his path or will they take this as an opportunity for a reset so that they can continue and work with the US
without any further damages. This is the open question that we're going to see unfold in the next hours and days.
Trump's been threatening the Iranians for weeks, ever since those mass protests that we head in January.
Amid reports of the mass protests and Iran turning deadly, President Frump now warning if you run shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States will come to the rescue, locked and loaded and ready to go.
And he's called on them to rise up against the regime. Do you see any sign of that happening?
Those we are mixed? I mean, I mean the regime seems to have a constituency in Iran. I mean, let's not fool ourselves that these have been around for forty seven years. They have a base. I think it's a mixed narrative in Iran. And though you know it's regime change, and you know, all these dynamics are up to the Iranian people. But I think where our eyes should go to next is the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard. They are
the ones that hold the arms. They are the ones that hold the levers of the economy and various elements of society. So how are they going to go ahead? And control the scene moving forward. We've seen the Iranian regime unfortunately, unabashingly, you know, killing its own people. And I think because people's basic needs are not met Nicole. You know, when you are an oil rich country with such an expansive space, yet inflation is sky rocketing and
you can't make ends meet. This is a serious question of governance and that's where they haven't been focusing. They've been focusing on other files that have brought the region into chaos. Now let me add an addendum to this, because this is important. We've been talking Iran mostly, but we cannot separate the aggression and questionable behavior of Israel from all of this. And I sit here in Kuwait City, where in the Gulf States we feel sandwiched between two belligerents,
Iran and Israel, and this just has to stop. Israel has been trying to also displace its problems onto other countries where the original issue there is providing the palace sinions with the dignified living and the two state solution that the whole world has been you know, rallying behind. And why do I mention this. I mentioned this because the likes of Iran have been using this as an
excuse to carry out whatever they've been carrying out. So we need to go to the root issue to try to see how actors like Iran would act after those issues are resulted.
Coming up, what's it take to topple a regime? Butter if we could zoom out from Iran to the wider region. And over the last few weeks, we've had this huge US military build up in the Gulf as Washington weighs up what to do next, one of the American military's largest aircraft carriers with up to fifty fighter jets on board, has arrived in the region. The nuclear talks have also been underway, but clearly President Trump was impatient. His on voice Steve Whitkov made that pretty clear.
I don't want to use the word frustrated.
It's almost because he understands he's got plenty of alternatives, but it's curious.
He's curious as to why they haven't.
I don't want to use the word capitulated, but why they haven't capitulated?
And so now the US and Israel have launched this war. Trump has said he wants regime change. Do you think that that is even possible?
I mean what a turnaround for someone to have, you know, ran on an election manifesto that criticized regime change, and someone that came in and said we respect people's choices to then go full forcedly into putting this platform. I mean, look at the facts. The US has tried regime change in Afghanistan, and look at what happened the minute they pulled out. Everything went back as if we were back in two thousand and one with the Taliban back in power.
They've tried it in Iraq and you ended up with a civil war, with hundreds of thousands killed and maimed and displaced, and with the rise of ISIS for a couple of years. So you don't get really regimeed change, you get regimeed chaos, and that chaos promises, unfortunately to bring bad things with it, you know. And in the
case of Iran, the stakes are even higher. We're talking about a ninety plus million population, so you're talking about spillovers when it comes to not only possible refugee flows and exits, radiation leaks. We don't know where the enriched uranium is. We're talking about nuclear risks. We're talking about chaos, commotion, the possibilities of civil war. This is a multi ethnic country, so change is not the actual to be used here. I would say it as more of a chaotic change.
And that's unfortunately the lesson that the US doesn't seem to have picked up, and they continue to be willing to do this on and on again with you know community, I mean, no one is helding them accountable.
What really struck me on the Iranian side was that they moved very quickly to target the Gulf, really within just a few hours. What sort of targets are they hitting? And how do you think countries in the Gulf, Kuwait, the Emirates, Saudi how would they respond?
I mean, look, the hitting the Gulf hasn't come as a full surprise because it has been signaled in the past. And this goes back to an old debate that we and the Iranians have had for the longest time concerning the sovereignty over US bass in the region. And if you go into international law and if you look at how people view them in normal circumstances, these are sovereign
Gulf states, sovereign lands. So it's you're hitting us, You're not hading the US bases and What makes us even more interesting Nicole is it wasn't limited to such bases. I mean, look look at the news. I mean, most of the airports in the region were hit. The airport of Kuwait, of Bahrain, of Dubai. It's not a US airport. So even their rationale doesn't bode well. I think they're
trying to play pressure. They think we have enough access in the US administration to change course if we get attacked. But I think they're misreading the situation.
That this has become a regional war and Netnya, who's in there right behind it as well.
For forty seven years, the Ayatula regime has been cooling out for death to Israel, death for the Americans.
Israel's being attacked also, but there doesn't seem to be any sign that the Iranians, the Israelis, all the US are ready to back down. So what next? What's it going to take for the Middle East and for all these players to try and find a way through this and to get out of it.
I mean, no one knows what's next. This is very open ended, open ended, unprecedented. We haven't been in such a situation before, even the Twelve Day War was not like that. But we can take some cues from the Twelve Day War, and they did end up freezing that conflict when they felt that some of their ammunitions and some of their capabilities have not been up to speed, namely on this very side, by the way, and that rationalizes the build up that we saw in the last
few weeks. So could we get into a situation where that happens again, that's possible. Could we get into a situation in which Iran's new guard I wouldn't take capitulate, but try to come to and understand to resume the negotiations, that's also possible. Or this can continue for some time. I mean we're just in day two and that could drag for some time. And we're trying to show that this is not our war, we're not invested in it, and we've been holding this line for some time now.
But if this continues, and by this I mean the unnecessary, unreasonable, irrational Iranian attacks continue on the Gulf and they escalate. If Hotmos gets closed the strait that gets twenty percent of the oil flow of the world outside, I mean things like that, plus casualties. I think if we see those elements. The Gulf has to change course and I think its choices will be you know, they need to deal with the belligerents that they're facing from Iran.
But thank you so much for joining us during the war and during Ramadan.
Thank you for having me.
Also in the news, travelers at Australian airports have described chaotic scenes, major delays and cancelations to flights to and from the Middle East. Australians have been told not to travel to a number of Middle East countries, including Israel, Lebanon, Bahrain, Kuwait, Kata and the United Arab Emirates, and Australians in Iran a being advised to leave as soon as possible if
it's safe to do so. Foreign Minister Pennywong says airspace closures in the region are likely to limit the Federal government's ability to organize repatriation flights for Australians stranded in the Middle East, and Prime Minister Anthony Alberanzi has reiterated Australians support for the United States military action in Iran, saying US action was necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining
a nuclear weapon. Questioned on whether the attack on the weekend was legal and if he was concerned this might further aroad the international rules based order. The Prime Minister said those judgments were for the US and those involved directly. He also stated Iatola Hamonaey's death will not be mourned. I'm Nicole Johnston. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.