Iran Retaliates After U.S. Military Strikes. Now What?

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Speaker 3 Nobody wants that. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.
I'm Tam Rekeith. I cover the White House.

Speaker 5 I'm Greg Myri.

Speaker 4 I cover national security, and I'm Domenico Matanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

Speaker 3 Iran has launched missiles at a U.S. Air Force base in Qatar.
All were intercepted, and a U.S. official tells NPR there are no reports of U.S.
casualties. This comes in response to the U.S.

Speaker 3 airstrikes on three of Iran's nuclear facilities over the weekend.

Speaker 3 We're going to break down what all of this means, but Greg, let's let's start with what we know about today's missile strikes from Iran.

Speaker 5 Yeah, so Iran announced that it launched these missile strikes.

Speaker 5 The U.S. and Qatar have acknowledged that they've taken place.
It seems like this was not a heavy response. Iran wanted to show that it was responding pretty quickly to the U.S.

Speaker 5 attack on its nuclear sites, and it's done so. But it was done at Al-Udid Air Force Base.
It's a huge U.S. military installation outside the capital, in the desert, outside the capital of Qatar-Doha.

Speaker 5 And so the U.S. was already on high alert.
It was well prepared. These missiles were shot down, no injuries.
And again, there seems to be a bit of an orchestration going on here.

Speaker 5 There have been reports by others, NPR hasn't confirmed this independently, that the Iranians notified the Qataris, and those two countries have pretty good relations, and it was passed on to the U.S.

Speaker 5 So yes, it's a retaliation and I don't want to make light of missiles. These could do real damage, but it's a pretty easy catch for a major U.S.
military base there to shoot them down.

Speaker 5 So it seems like maybe we have the Iranian retaliation. Iran can say to its own people that it's responded and perhaps Iran wants to leave it there.

Speaker 5 We'll have to see how this plays out, but that's the initial read we're getting right now.

Speaker 3 And certainly there is some symbolism there. President Trump was just at that air base in Qatar on May 15th, delivering a speech to U.S.
troops, and today it was fending off Iranian missiles. So

Speaker 3 is symbolism part of this?

Speaker 5 Oh, absolutely. I think that might be the main part of this.

Speaker 5 Again, the U.S. has multiple bases in the region that could have come under Iranian fire.

Speaker 5 This one, a very large base. The U.S.
really ran its air campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan to a fairly large extent out of this base. The U.S.
has U.S. Central Command.
It's sort of the forward

Speaker 5 operating base for the U.S. there.
So it was a big, obvious target. Also one very well prepared to guard against an attack.
It wasn't near an urban area. It's very isolated, very well equipped.

Speaker 5 So it's not hard to imagine that

Speaker 5 this is the kind of orchestrated event that we've been discussing here. And now we'll have to see, is symbolism enough? Has Iran made its point that it could respond even if it's in a pretty weak way?

Speaker 5 And is that the end of it, at least for this round?

Speaker 3 Well, what are they saying?

Speaker 5 So what we're hearing is from the state media in Iran. They're saying they launched this missile attack on U.S.
bases in Qatar and Iraq. But we're not getting any word that U.S.

Speaker 5 bases in Iraq came under attack. The Iranians also say that they caused a lot of damage there.
Again, no indication that that's true. The U.S.
and Qatar say all these missiles were shot down.

Speaker 5 No injuries were reported.

Speaker 5 So it looks like Iran is trying to present this to its own people, that it carried out a large response fairly quickly, although the U.S.

Speaker 5 military will see this as a relatively limited response that was pretty easily handled.

Speaker 3 Dominico, administration officials have been emphasizing that Saturday's action was a targeted mission, that there were not plans for further attacks unless Iran retaliated.

Speaker 3 They warned of grave consequences if Iran did that. So how does this

Speaker 3 now seemingly limited, and we're still in the middle of this story happening, but how does this seemingly limited retaliation affect the narrative?

Speaker 4 Aaron Ross Powell, yeah, I don't think it changes the narrative very much.

Speaker 4 I mean, we, you know, the White House, I think, would likely be pretty happy as long as this is the full extent of the Iranian retaliation,

Speaker 4 especially considering no Americans apparently been killed or hurt in these missile strikes.

Speaker 4 So I think that at this point, if this is the limited nature of what Iran's attack is, I think that Trump would be pretty happy with that, move on from it, and not feel like they need to do a whole lot more.

Speaker 4 Because I think that's where the potential political problem comes for Trump, is getting so involved with Iran that you wind up

Speaker 4 having not just his base, but Americans who are concerned about having more

Speaker 4 intervention in a place that they don't think the U.S. should be intervening for a very long period of time, that that would be more political risk.

Speaker 3 Aaron Ross Powell, Greg, I was looking for some sort of precedent for this moment. And while it is still early, I was taken back to the U.S.

Speaker 3 strike in January of 2020 that took out General Qasem Suleimani, who was a key key Iranian general. Afterward, Iran did retaliate, targeting two U.S.

Speaker 3 bases in Iraq, including one Trump had visited earlier in his term, but no Americans were killed. President Trump quickly moved on.
He tweeted, all is well, exclamation point.

Speaker 3 So is that instructive for the moment we're in now?

Speaker 5 It very well could be. Again, we'll have to wait a little longer.
But yeah, I think the Iranians wanted to show that they could respond.

Speaker 5 Trump has talked about hitting Iran very hard, which he says took place over the weekend. And that part of it, U.S.
offensive operations in Iran, may well be over in Trump's mind.

Speaker 5 I would just add, of course, that the U.S. is helping Israel play defense.
U.S.

Speaker 5 ships and planes and forces on the ground manning air defense batteries are helping Israel shoot down the ongoing Iranian missiles coming into Israel. More came in today.

Speaker 5 Israel Israel also carried out attacks inside Iran. So that part of it, the Israel-Iran shooting match, which has been going on about 11 days now, is still going ahead full speed.
But the U.S.

Speaker 5 involvement in direct attacks on Iran and Iranian responses, it may just be this brief little thing we've seen. It may be over.
Don't want to say for sure, but that's certainly a possibility.

Speaker 3 All right, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back with more when we return.

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Speaker 3 And we're back. As of this taping, President Trump hasn't yet weighed in on the Iranian response.

Speaker 3 But while American televisions were filled with images of missiles streaking through the skies, he put out a message on Truth Social about Saturday's mission, insisting it was a success.

Speaker 3 Dominica, what's going on there?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, it was kind of defensive about the narrative of whether or not the American mission in the first place was successful.

Speaker 4 You know, he said in part, the sites that we hit in Iran were totally destroyed and everyone knows it.

Speaker 4 He then went on to really blast, of course, what he calls the fake news of those of us in the media, said said that certain members of the media are working hard on this falsehood, that it wasn't a great success.

Speaker 4 He said it never ends, and that's why their ratings are at an all-time low, zero credibility. Clearly, he's watching TV.

Speaker 4 He's seeing how things are being reported out, and he wants everyone on the same page to say that that was a resounding success. And when you did watch

Speaker 4 some right-wing media outlets, that is exactly how it's being framed. Very red, white, and blue.

Speaker 4 And of course, our own reporting has shown that we don't quite know the extent of it just yet, and that there has to be more examination of that.

Speaker 5 And I'll just add a bit here that this is standard procedure when the U.S.

Speaker 5 or anybody carries out a bombing operation in a foreign country and you're trying to determine from long distance from satellite photos or

Speaker 5 other means when you're not physically there, it always takes a couple days or more to figure out the full extent of damage. And in this case, the U.S.

Speaker 5 was bombing a facility that's about 300 feet underground. So it's impossible.
And the military has said that.

Speaker 5 The chairman of the Joint Chiefs came out at the Pentagon news briefing and said, we're still assessing. So realistically, this is something that takes a little time.

Speaker 3 But President Trump wants the narrative to be totally obliterated, mission accomplished.

Speaker 7 Moving on. Moving on.

Speaker 4 Right. And look, I think that there are a lot of Americans who rightfully are a little bit more skeptical of the information coming from their government after the Iraq war.

Speaker 4 It's not certainly the Trump administration, and Trump was critical of the Iraq war himself, but after hearing that there were weapons of mass destruction and all things could end in a mushroom cloud and didn't want to do that, I think there are a lot of Americans who are skeptical of that and certainly in the media less likely to just take the word of the government and want to wait for some results to have some measured

Speaker 4 understanding of what happened. But that's not really the pace of our modern information culture.

Speaker 3 Aaron Trevor Burrus: Yeah, and leaning into that very rapid pace, Dominico, you have been going through some very interesting polling data about how Americans feel about the U.S.

Speaker 3 getting directly involved in the Israel-Iran conflict. So, what did you find?

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's super interesting because before the attacks, there were some polls on this, and what it had shown is that most people thought that Iran posed a degree of a threat, and it was actually higher than it had been in previous years.

Speaker 4 They also then, when you asked them, do you think that it would be okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon? Most people said, absolutely not, right?

Speaker 4 So what the White House then is able to do is after these attacks, take those two things and create a narrative that says that Iran is a serious threat to the United States, that they were on the cusp of having a nuclear weapon, despite what the administration had said previously, not necessarily ringing the fire alarms on Iran being close to having a nuclear weapon at this time, but being able to use that has certainly turned the numbers with Republicans.

Speaker 4 Just give you an example. Before the bombings, The Economist and YouGov did this poll and they asked people

Speaker 4 about whether they thought that the U.S. should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran.
Only a quarter of Republicans thought that the U.S. should.

Speaker 4 When they did a snap poll right after the attacks, 69% of Republicans said that they approved of the attacks.

Speaker 3 Because Republicans approve of President Trump.

Speaker 4 They do, and they heard the narrative, right?

Speaker 4 And depending on who they're watching and if they're watching those right-wing media outlets that are saying Iran was a major threat, the United States put out these very precise attacks to stop them from having a nuclear weapon that could have been used against the United States, and they were on the cusp of having one, whether that's true or not, there's a large degree of people who voted for President Trump who want to believe that that's the case and have clearly shown that they're rallying around this president.

Speaker 3 You know, we've talked about this before on the podcast, but President Trump campaigned on ending forever wars and getting the U.S. out of prolonged military engagements.

Speaker 3 And many MAGA Republicans have reacted with caution and even concern about Trump's decision to get involved.

Speaker 3 I'm thinking of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman from Georgia, among others, you know, worried that even though President Trump said he wanted this to be a one-off, you know, please don't retaliate, worried that it could grow into a protracted conflict.

Speaker 3 So where are they left now?

Speaker 4 I think that that's the real issue is the risk of it growing into a protracted conflict is when the president then has to sort of look over his right shoulder to see those people who are saying, we didn't vote for that.

Speaker 4 You know, we voted for someone who was going to keep us out of wars in the Middle East. Of course, the United States is, as Greg noted, the U.S.

Speaker 4 is still helping Israel defend themselves against attacks from Iran. But if this were to go further and the U.S.
got more involved, I think that's when Trump has the most political risk.

Speaker 4 Right now, he's certainly hoping that these responses by Iran will be it and that he can say it was a resounding success, be able to move on and maintain his political stature with his base.

Speaker 3 Greg, what are you watching for in the days ahead?

Speaker 5 So, on the one hand, the war has taken on a bit of a pattern now that Israel really controls the skies over Iran and seems to be able to bomb at will.

Speaker 5 Iran is still firing back. So, there's no end in sight to that.
The U.S. is still going to be involved in helping defend Israel, talking to Israel about how they may want this to end at some point.

Speaker 5 Trump has talked about Iran surrendering or trying to make peace. Israel may want to keep pushing its advantage and military momentum that it has right now.
I'll be looking to see if the U.S.

Speaker 5 and Israel stay in sync about how they might want to end the fighting here.

Speaker 5 Both sides will have a strong vote in that. And Iran too.
Iran may not be willing to quit even if it's being pounded pretty hard. And then the question becomes, would the U.S.

Speaker 5 get involved or put more pressure on Israel to stop the war, try to do something to Iran to speed this up? But the longer it drags on, the more unexpected consequences you can have.

Speaker 5 So I'll be looking to see, I think, primarily at U.S. and Israel alignment and if they're stating the same goals and what would be an acceptable end to the conflict.

Speaker 4 And Trump has even held out this threat of regime change against Iran, posing it as a question on his social media platform. You know, and I don't necessarily think that that's what he's saying.

Speaker 4 That's the end goal, that that's what he wants. Of course, he's calling it MIGA, make Iran great again,

Speaker 4 you know, but he's saying this because it's the one bit of leverage that the United States has left because the leverage he had previously was whether or not he would bomb these nuclear facilities, and he's already done that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, well, we're going to leave it there for today. I'm Tamar Keith.
I cover the White House.

Speaker 5 I'm Greg Myri. I cover national security.

Speaker 4 And I'm Domenico Montanero, Senior Political Editor and Correspondent.

Speaker 3 And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

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