EMERGENCY EPISODE: AMERICA STRIKES IRAN - with Nadav Eyal and Amit Segal

You are listening to an art media podcast.

Whipping away, I am coming in.

It's 10.30 p.m.

on Saturday, June 21st in New York City.

It is 5.30 a.m.

on Sunday, June 22nd in Israel after what was certainly an eventful night for all of us.

Earlier today, on day 625 of Israel's Seven Front War, President Trump announced via Truth Social that the United States launched an attack on three Iranian nuclear sites, Natans, Esfahan, and of course the much-talked about Fordot enrichment plant.

Tonight, President Trump gave a public address from the White House.

He called the attacks on Iran, quote, a spectacular military success.

And he said that Iran's three targeted nuclear facilities had been, quote, completely and totally obliterated.

He warned of tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the past eight days, should Iran target the U.S.

in response.

This comes after days of intense uncertainty about whether America would join Israel's war against Iran's nuclear program.

In the hours leading up to the U.S.

attack, there were reports that the U.S.

was moving B-2 bombers, which carried the 30,000-pound bombs needed to destroy the underground Fordo facility, to the Pacific island of Guam alongside fueling tankers.

Trump told Fox News that six of these so-called bunker buster bombs were dropped by the B-2 bombers in this attack.

I want to welcome Nadav Ayel and Amit Segel, both Call Me Back regulars and among the most prominent journalists in Israel, to this emergency episode during this historic moment.

Nadav, Amit, thanks for being here.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Good morning from Jerusalem.

All right.

So, Nadav, what do we know about the military operation?

We know the U.S.

used six bunker buster bombs that have never been used before.

It used B-2 strategic bombers.

It also shot about 30 cruise missiles from submarines, submarines, and they hit Isfahan, Natans, and Fordo.

These sites have been completely devastated, and that Iran doesn't have a nuclear program as a result of these attacks.

I think that it would be prudent then to wait and see the satellite images in the morning.

Satellites all around the world, Israeli, Americans, British, all the rest, Chinese, Russian, they're going to take satellite photos of these sites specifically of Fordo to try and see what's the damage there but this is not what's remarkable here what's remarkable here is that the united states decided to be part of this war and if you listen to the statement made by president trump this evening thanking prime minister netanyahu talking about him working as a team with with israel thanking the idf for what it has done.

And of course, thanking the pilots of the United States of America and the team in the pentagon for doing this you see that this was a joint operation of taking out the nuclear program you see that the coordination was there all along the way that he was thanking israel for that and it's truly a historic moment for the middle east but seeing this seeing this happening considering the opposition in the united states considering the odds and the fact that this is a major decision for a u.s president with american interests across the region, American soldiers and bases in the Middle East and in the Gulf states, this is really history in the making.

This is a moment like no other.

Amit, Nadav talked about how this was a joint Israel-U.S.

operation.

And of course, the President Trump made that clear by praising Israel and thanking Israel for what it has done so far.

But to what extent was Israel involved in this specific operation tonight?

Maybe intelligence-wise, but I mean, it was quite ridiculous to follow the official statements by president trump over the last few days and of course the various reports on the international media uh when we already knew what uh it was following the the the israeli attack because we knew following june 13th the israeli attack the the beginning of the attack on iran that there is no correlation between what they say and what they do.

We know for sure that they had greenlighted the Israeli attack way before and at least

that the U.S.

had

greenlighted.

And now, how can you take seriously what President Trump says when you know that he uses his truth social networks network as a psychological weapon?

Because he said.

Meaning when he was talking about two weeks and time for diplomacy and all that, there was all you're right.

And yet, two hours before

B2 bombed Fordot, there was still a report in Reuters, I think, about a heated debate between the Prime Minister Netanyahu and J.D.

Vance.

It was all coordinated, not from day one on June 13th, but from day two, I would say.

Once the US saw that it was a great success, it was only a question of when and not if.

And all the process that we have seen over the last few days was not whether the US attacks or no question, but how to evacuate as efficiently as possible the US military staff and diplomatic staff from the Gulf, etc., etc.

So it was written on the wall, and I think we have an answer for the dilemma President Trump had faced.

On one hand, he promised, he had promised during the campaign not to begin new wars, but to end old wars.

And on the other hand, he actually ordered the attack on Iranians' nuclear facilities tonight.

And I think what President Trump has just said in his speech is that this, in his opinion, this is the end of the war.

He has no plans to further attack Iran unless Iran chooses to attack the U.S.

Now, according to the declarations from Iranian state TV, what left of Iranian state TV following the attack last week, they didn't get the memo.

They didn't understand the message from the last two times in which they chose not to coordinate with President Trump.

They had 60 days to negotiate and they thought they'll just muddle through and they got the Israeli attack and then they refused to talk and they got the American attack.

If they choose to attack America and Viet again, I think they know that we all know what the future that looms ahead.

Yeah, I will just say that while

there was much chatter about the Reuters article and some other things happening, the three of us and Alan, Amit Nadav and Alan, the four of us were online earlier today, and I was pointing out that Sean Hannity was suddenly on deck on Fox News to do a special emergency broadcast on Fox News on a Saturday night, which Hannity never broadcasts on a Saturday night.

And we all know that Hannity is very close to Trump.

So, actually, true analysts and insiders should not have been paying attention to Reuters.

They should have been following what Sean Hannity is doing.

Sean Hannity broadcasting on Saturday is like taking the tanks out of the

exactly, exactly.

Nadav, the 400 kilograms of enriched uranium that was supposedly in Fordot,

the Iranians have claimed that they've moved it out of Fordeau, I think in anticipation, I guess they're saying in anticipation of this attack, and they moved all the personnel out, that the enriched uranium was relocated somewhere else in a quote-unquote safe place.

What do we know about that?

Well, what we know is that at any rate, the U.S.

or Israel was not targeting the enriched uranium.

who was not trying to blow up the enriched uranium from several reasons.

One of these reasons is that even if you collapse a mountain on the enriched uranium, it's not going to crush these containers.

And secondly, if it blows out, it's a radioactive contamination that neither the US or Israel want to cause.

It's not about enriched uranium.

Or in other words, Dan, if they did know where the enriched uranium is, and I think they do know where it is, they wouldn't want to blow that up at this point.

It's about the centrifuges.

Okay, so that's key.

That's key.

That where the enriched uranium is matters less than

the centrifuges and the infrastructure that was that was doing all this enrichment.

This was the Israeli perception of the enriched uranium.

Okay, I want to be completely clear about that because I don't know what President Trump decided at the Oval Office as to the targets of this specific assault as of now.

But it was the Israeli perception and at the time also the American perception that you shouldn't try to target the enriched uranium itself, but the means to produce it.

And

as far as we know, I started talking with Israeli sources.

They're very optimistic as to the results of this strike.

They are sort of saying, you know, we need to look at the photos and the images coming out in the morning to see if you need to have another sort of finalizing maneuver there, maybe a few more bombs to just make sure that this has happened.

And we're also waiting then, I should say, the Iranian response to this.

I'm starting to hear about a response by the Supreme Leader, Khaminai, that's threatening the United States of America, saying that this decision will lead to consequences as far as the U.S.

is concerned.

But I don't see this as an official response of the Islamic Republic.

And that's a big question that is really out there.

Now, for me, at least, operationally speaking, the biggest question right now is whether or not Israel will say, okay, this is the first and last strike, as Amid said, as far as the U.S.

is concerned, for now.

And if the Iranians will respond, does it mean that the Israeli Air Force seizes its own activities over the Iranian airspace right now?

and uses this exit point in order to say, we've done what we could do.

I'm not sure about that.

Will this be the exit point of the war?

And that's that's a big one.

A very technical question, just so I understand this.

What can Iran do?

Assuming they did move the 400 kilograms of enriched uranium out of Ford before this attack, what can they do with it?

Well, basically, they can try and arm it.

They can try to break for a bomb if they still have the tools, the weapons group, the scientists to do that.

They can hold to that 400 kilograms of enriched uranium indefinitely, Dan.

And then they can always break for it.

So it's not over as long as they have that enriched uranium.

The crisis of Iran's violations of its obligations to the non-proliferation treaty is still there when they hold to that enriched uranium.

But could they enrich it to military-grade uranium?

And the answer is no.

Because right now it's not enriched to 90%, right?

It's enriched to much less than that,

60%, something like that if they don't have the facilities to do so if they don't have the centrifuges around to do that and if they don't have the scientists to place it in a warhead or in an installation of a primitive atomic bomb they have nothing to do with it right now but the question is even more dramatic because if they decide that they're going to attack American interests in the region.

I suspect, and I don't need to suspect because the president has said so, that this would lead to a very aggressive response by the United States, and that might lead to undermining the regime in a serious way.

So until now, when we spoke about undermining the regime and regime change in Iran, all the Israeli sources said the same thing.

Look, it might happen, but we're not really aiming for that.

We're damaging symbols of the government, but it is a decision of the Iranian people or some power brokers within the Iranian regime if it's a coup d'état.

But it's a completely different story when the United States is in this game now.

This is signaling to the Iranian opposition that it's not only Israel, it's also the world's only superpower that is attacking the Islamic Republic's most important assets, its nuclear program, damaging its prestige, completely destroying the type of elements that gave it some sort of an immunity internationally speaking and regionally.

And now the fact that they've been attacked in this way or maybe in the process of being in a conflict with the United States, this indeed changes the equation as to a possible regime change.

It becomes much more plausible.

Now saying that, I need to emphasize again what the president basically said.

This is a one-off.

This is not a campaign.

This is not a war.

There is not going to be boots on the ground as far as the president is concerned.

But much depends now on the mistakes or not the mistakes made by the Iranian regime as a response to this.

Amit, what would be considered success for Israel from tonight?

What has just happened?

Israel went on a mission, Mission Impossible, Mission Impossible 3 following the Iraqi nuclear reactor and the Syrian one.

But this was really impossible, a mission, meaning in 1981 with Pagan, 2007 with Omer, Iraq, and and syria respectively and now and each one

each one seemed harder than the one before it and now this one's a whole other level yes and this one i mean there was no way for israel to fully eliminate the nuclear reactor the nuclear facility in for dot and not only president trump attacks for dot he finished the job in isfahan and atans so mission accomplished in that respect now there are three remaining targets one

is to actually dismantle and destroy and hunt down each and every launcher of the ballistic missiles because this is the imminent threat on Israel.

Two-thirds of the launchers have already been eliminated, so I guess it's just a question of time.

By the way, touch wood, but this was the last, the calmest 24 hours in Israel since the beginning of the war.

There wasn't a single launch at Israel since Saturday, 5 a.m.

till Sunday, 5 a.m., which means something.

Second is to look for the enriched uranium, as Nadav said.

The nightmare scenario is not Iranians trying to have the traditional nuclear facility, but a dirty bomb.

And what's a dirty bomb?

Can you describe what a dirty bomb is?

It's a truck arriving at Alenby Passage between Jordan and Israel, thus exploding in Tel Aviv.

This is the nightmare scenario.

Meaning gets through the border and then blows up in downtown Tel Aviv.

Yes,

like Tom Clense is in Tom Clance's book.

To tell you this is is quite feasible, I don't think so, but no one wants to take the risk.

No one wants to take the risk in saying it's not a risk.

Exactly.

And that's why, I mean, if Iran decides to act like a terrorist organization and not as a country,

that's what they are going to try.

I don't think it's very feasible, but it's a threat.

So it's better for the world to find this enriched uranium through an agreement.

The other option is if they choose to attack the Americans in the Middle East, then it's a full-scale war, but not with Israel, but with Iran, but with the United States of America.

So for Israel, Israel just keeps doing what it has done for the last, what it has been doing for the last 10 days.

And, you know,

the target bank is almost quite empty once Trump is done with Fodor Natanz and Isfahan.

And I have a question for both of you.

What is Israel's role now?

What is Israel's role going forward?

This is the major decision that the Israeli cabinet needs to take right now.

And there are differences of opinions within the defense apparatus if you ask i think some parts of the israeli air force for instance they'll say look we we had the war aims we are achieving them now they can say we we achieved they they can always do more right it's like a candy shot for the israeli air force or for the idf it's iran it's an arch enemy you can always find another factory another quality target to hit in iran and there are always people within the defense apparatus who say if not now, when?

Let's use this opportunity.

Let's use this window in which they don't have air defenses, in which we have the support of the United States.

And as always, with Israeli wars in the Middle East, let's just grab some more time, just another day or two.

And there will be those who say, this is an excellent point to exit and to let the U.S.

lead this scenario from now on.

Now, as far as the Iranian regime is concerned, let's remember one thing.

These kind of regimes, they don't fall because of an aerial campaign.

They fall because either the people rise against the regime or there is a faction within the regime that wants to take control and it's actually a coup d'etat.

These are the scenarios.

Since Israel is not going to occupy Iran, the United States is not going to try and take Iran and put boots on the ground.

For the Iranians, it's also an exit.

You know, they lost their nuclear program, but now, if they're not going to attack the Americans, if they're not going to escalate, what's going to be Israel's position in this?

For the Iranian regime, it's really a great time to cut their losses.

They still have their 400 kilograms of enriched uranium.

Maybe they can rebuild, right?

This would be extremely rational for the Islamic Republic to do.

So usually they don't take that rational choice.

Right.

And as Karim, as Karim Sajapur, Nadav said in our conversation that you and I had with him the other day, every time once everyone, analysts want to project and strategists want to project onto the Iranians

a path of rationality, it's never the path they actually take, ever.

Before we wrap, I have a couple more questions.

I know it's hard to make predictions, but I will say that both of you, the three of us, actually, I should say, all believed that the U.S.

would get involved in some kind of quote-unquote final stage of this war, dealing with Fordot.

And

even even when all the chatter and

all the noise was pointing in the opposite direction, the three of us, I think, were all looking at the signal as to the signal being that the U.S.

was going to get involved.

So therefore, I'm going to ask you to make a prediction now.

I won't hold you to it, but is this the beginning of the end, the end of the beginning?

Like what...

If you had to just paint a picture of what you think, and again, you can caveat it as much as you want, where you think things will be heading, what would you say?

I'll start with you, Amit.

I think it's the the beginning of the end.

Even if Iranians try to attack Americans, it would be, you know, a bitter end and they can try and negotiate.

But at the end of the day, since Iran is no longer a nuclear superpower to be, I think we can see the light inside.

I'll just give you an example.

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Tel Aviv Stock Market, marked its best week since COVID.

Yeah.

In the week in which the original war erupted.

Why?

Because in the stock market, market you always look for the long run.

And what people saw a week ago in the stock market, and now I think everyone sees, is the end of the biggest threat to Israelis ever posed in the history of the country.

I just want to explain something.

Every time a child in Israel is frightened by terrorists,

there is an Iranian at the end of the sentence.

Every time a rocket was fired, a suicide bomber exploded in Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv, A Hamas

terrorist invaded Beiri.

An Israeli killed in a terrorist activity abroad over the last 40 years.

It was Iran.

So now when you see the fire erupting from Fordon, Atanzan Isfahan, it signals the end of this terror superpower that ruled the Middle East for almost two generations.

Very good news.

Nadav?

I agree with Amit.

It's the beginning of the end, but we're still not there.

And the reason for that is because we're very much dependent on the decisions made within the Islamic Republic regime.

And because Hamina

has always chosen a hardline position when he had the choice.

And because of that, he can still drag the region into a prolonged kind of an attrition.

And only if...

The regime is at stake will he back down.

And my worry is that he will will make the calculus that it's better for him to have some sort of an attrition out there

and that

the U.S.

would want to sort of disassociate.

And so I'm always worried about these kind of scenarios.

I'm worried, you know, this is a Jewish podcast, so I tend to be worried even if I, in our most happiest moments.

But in the end of the day, Israel decided to go to this specific phase of the war.

The war began on October 7.

Yahya Sinoar decided to launch a full-time invasion into the state of Israel and conduct a pilot in genocide against Israelis.

At the end of the road right now, the Islamic Republic has just been struck by a blow it has never seen before and no one in the world would have imagined.

In October 2023, Sinoar is dead.

Snassrallah is dead.

The chief of staff of the Iranian army is dead.

The commander of the Revolutionary Guard is dead.

And the scientists working on their nuclear program, they are dead also.

And Forduro has just been hit tonight.

And I think that the consequence of this is when you look at power in the region and when you look at Israel and the United States, the axis of resistance and actually the axis of terror has collapsed.

Amit, you mentioned the stock market and Israel's economy.

I will just flag for our listeners the most recent episode of What's Your Number, which is an ARC media podcast on the economy where we dealt, where Mikhail Levram and Yonah Tanaderi dove right into this question of why the stock market has been

doing so well during this, what seemed like a very existential moment.

And they go through four factors.

So it's very much consistent with what you're saying, but it's just, it's a long conversation.

I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about the domestic political implications of this development inside Israel.

Does Netanyahu call for elections tonight or does he wait till tomorrow morning?

So, actually,

in Israel, it doesn't really pay to call up an early election because it takes at least 90 days, three months, and in Israel, three months is eternity.

So, even if now we've just seen the most dramatic event in many, many years, it doesn't necessarily mean that this will be the issue on the agenda of the next election.

So, I think that at the end of the day, Netanyahu still wants to hold his coalition together.

Why?

Because now he has 66 Knesset members in his coalition out of 120.

It's a very stable

coalition.

According to the polls, at least on Channel 12,

he gets only 50.

So let's say even that thanks to this attack and the victory,

he'll get 61.

It's still less than he has attended.

So I think he has an incentive to actually keep his coalition till November 2026, the date of the election.

And the second question arises.

Now, after Netanyahu entered history, and not from the wrong side, from October 7 side, but as the one who actually spoke against Iran and then did what it took to dismantle its nuclear program, will he step down?

Now,

the cemeteries are full with the commentators who predicted the Netanyahu stepping down.

So I wouldn't say this.

I would just say that I would give it a 0% a week ago, and now I give it 2%.

Okay.

Nadav,

I know you're in touch with many people in the Gulf, including in Saudi Arabia, including some of your colleagues in journalism in Saudi Arabia.

So I would be remiss if I didn't ask you, if you're in Riyadh today and you're watching what happened tonight, what are you thinking?

The Saudis...

took an extremely cautious position on this and they condemned Israel and they gave the impression they're extremely unhappy with israeli operation against iran and i expect this position to change i think they were basically playing for the audience playing for the street and playing for iran not to hit them exactly and and now that they've seen that the u.s is very much in i suspect that mbs would be more forceful as to the real opinions of gold countries and saudi arabia as to the threat of iran they just can't believe it then one of their problems there is that they don't believe that the West is serious enough.

Their problem is not with Israel.

They know that Israel and Iran are mortal enemies.

Their problem is that the West or the United States might not stand by its conviction against Iran.

And then if they will have statements against Iran, positions against Iran, they'll be left out to dry.

Then the Iranians will take their revenge.

And now that they've seen that the United States has been part of this and has bombed Iran directly, I think they're going to be more truthful as to their own positions.

This is taking the major enemy to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and to the Gulf countries out of the equation.

And that's one of the things that the Saudis want to know about the future, that the U.S.

is still there.

UAE wants to know that too.

And that it's going to be playing a big part in the region.

And to that extent, President Trump's historic decision to bomb Iran was essential.

Globally speaking, I think China is watching, Russia is watching, and it's these ideas Trump chickening out.

These ideas are definitely dead

this evening, right?

And the model of this idea that if you think of the four biggest threats to the United States around the world, geopolitical threats, China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

Three of those four countries have a nuclear bomb.

One of them was on a pathway to getting a nuclear bomb.

And now it's not going to happen.

And that is just an extraordinary moment in terms of Israeli leadership, American leadership shaking up geopolitics and kind of reversing what was a very dangerous trend in terms of nuclear proliferation among enemies of the West, enemies of the United States.

Also, it's just a reminder for those friends of Israel around the world to keep in mind that Israel does best from a position of strength, when it is succeeding, not when it is looking like a victim and begging for help.

And I think nothing has brought that idea into sharper relief than the last few days.

President Trump got involved.

I mean, I think he was supportive of what Israel was doing.

He backed what Israel was doing, but he took a big risk.

And the United States was willing to take a big risk because Israel was dazzling in its performance, not begging for partnership and help.

And I just think this last few days is another exceptional case studying that.

And then finally, I just want to play quickly for you guys this clip of President Trump tonight praising Israel and the IDF.

Alan, if we could just play this clip real quick.

I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before.

And we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel.

I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they've done.

And most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades.

To have the American president praise the men and women of the IDF.

I'm moved by this because we just take for granted the IDF is just the object of

excoriation everywhere around the world.

Not just Israel, but the IDF especially is like like so toxic.

And then to see the president here, the president of the United States just unapologetically say,

you know, praising this, this force for good.

I just, I'm moved by it.

So I don't know if you, you guys, I don't know if you have any reaction when you see the president, any president, but especially right now saying something like this.

I think what we see now is the end of what began 625 days ago in Beri, and Eurozone from the most devastating failure of the Israeli army.

We see now

what can be what will be perceived, what history would see as the first and last Israel-Iran war.

It wasn't an Israel-Gaza war,

it was an Iran-Israel war.

And it started with Israel's Pearl Harbor, but it ends now with the end of the project that was aimed at killing millions of Israelis, millions of Jews.

We can't forget any of the 1200 victims of this day, but

this terrible price led to what we saw tonight in Fordon at Anz and Isfahan.

Dav?

I agree.

I agree with Domit, and I want to say something else, because we need to remember what has not been achieved yet, and that is the hostages that are still in Gaza.

We need that.

military might, we need that power, but there is something deeper that needs to happen within the Israeli society in terms of healing and rebuilding.

And that's very much associated not with military victories, but of getting everyone else who's still held by Hamas in those dungeons in Gaza.

For them, it doesn't matter because they're there and they're jailed and they're tortured.

And we need to get them back.

I think the military power matters, but it's not sufficient.

I think that to a large extent, even politically speaking, just very cynically speaking, the prime minister has now the chance to do basically whatever he wants in order to end the war on the best note possible and get the sort of agreement that will change the Gaza ship in the region forever and maybe lead to normalization.

It's certainly an inflection point.

declare victory.

Okay.

Nadav, Amit, thank you.

I know it's late, it's early.

And you guys both have reporting to do and writing to do.

So I will simply say good night.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

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