“If I were Iran, I would want a nuclear weapon because then the U.S. and Israel would not attack me.” That is the stark warning from Professor Bernard A. Haykel, and it captures one of the most unsettling questions emerging from the current conflict. The war in the Middle East has entered its second weekend, and there are still no signs of the airstrikes slowing down. The United States and Israel have not clearly stated their final objective in Iran, while Tehran’s new Supreme Leader has vowed revenge for the killings that triggered this escalation. So what exactly is the endgame here? In this episode, Ananya Dutta speaks with Professor Bernard A. Haykel of Princeton University, one of the leading scholars on Middle Eastern politics and Saudi Arabia. Together, they unpack the strategic calculations behind the war: Did Washington fully think through the consequences of attacking Iran? Was Benjamin Netanyahu able to push the United States into a conflict that had been building for years? And what could “revenge” from Iran actually look like?
