Jonathan Savage with the latest on unfolding situation in the Middle East

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is John Mountain, filling in for JT. And
President Trump is definitely ramping up the rhetoric against Iran.
Yesterday he said that the time for negotiating may be over.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
And then a real aand otassys fire and then giving
up entirely. This's okay too.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
We now go to our own or Fox News radios.
Jonathan Savage live from London. Jonathan, Welcome to Alabama's Morning News. Hello,
good morning, Good morning. So thanks are getting pretty serious
there in Iran. What's the latest?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, they really are. I mean, let's start with the
situation on the ground. Israel has carried out further strikes overnight,
more than fifty fighter jets carrying out operations on an
Iranian centrifuge facility, a missile production facility, and a university
linked to Iran's powerful power military Revolutionary Guard. Meanwhile, Iranian
drones and missiles fired towards Israel. They triggered sirens across

(00:54):
the country, though no people were reported killed or injured. But,
like you say, the world is really what and waiting
to figure out what President Trump wants to do, because
various media reports that he is considering one way or
another getting the US military involved in what Israel called
Operation Rising Lion.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
And now and this day, in age twenty twenty five,
war looks different than it did just five or certainly
twenty years ago. You know, there's not necessarily we don't
necessarily have to put a single boot on the ground
to wage all out war. We have drones, we have
all sorts of things. We can have people sitting at
senthcom in Tampa in a dark room pressing buttons and

(01:32):
making all sorts of problems rain down. I ran without
us getting involved. But still if America, if it's our
fingerprints are on it, there's a good chance that we
could get drawn into a larger conflict, isn't there.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, it certainly seems guaranteed that there would be an
Iranian response against US military targets in the region. A
Foreign Ministry spokesperson for around saying any American intervention would
be a recipe for all out war in the region.
Another diplomat saying, once the red line has crossed, the
response will come. That diplomat adding that President Trump's remarks

(02:06):
were completely unwarranted and very hostile. We've also heard from
the Supreme Leader of Iran himself the Ayatollah. He says
that if the US joins Israeli strikes, it will result
in irreparable damage for them. So clearly Iran trying to
warrant off the United States, trying to dissuade President Trump
from getting involved.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
But as sharp as his words are, I don't know
that they have the munitions to continue. We've heard that
the missile barges they're sending towards Israel are not anywhere
near what they were before, and at some point there
are going to run out of stuff. Do they have
any allies to help them restock?

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Look at the allies that Iran has. Lebanon is an ally,
but Lebanon is incredibly weak, has been weakened massively by
Israel's campaign against Hezbolla last year. Syria I used to
be an ally, but the government in Syria was overthrown
in December. Iran's main powerful ally is Russia, beside the
strategic partnership deal earlier this year, but that deal does

(03:08):
not involve a mutual defense pack does not require Russia
to come to Iran's defense. And while Russia is not
happy with what's going on and concerned about the escalation,
there is no sign that Russia is ready to leap
to the defense of Iran.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, and Russia's kind of already got his hands busy
going on right now with another conflict in the area,
So probably Iran isn't really the top of Russia's list
of things to deal with. That being said the Iotola,
I understand there's a lot of concern in the country
itself that the Ayatola might be losing his grip over
the country, and they could be we could see a

(03:46):
collapse from within, could we.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
I think some people are hoping for that, but then
some people are also very fearful of that. There's no
doubt that the structure around the Atola has been hollowed
out by Israel killing so many top gen rules and
intelligence leaders. They've obviously got thought about killing the Iatola himself,
President Trump saying on social media we know where he is,

(04:10):
but we're not planning to kill him, at least not yet.
If the Itola is killed, the concern is that it
could cause a massive collapse of society in Iran. Who
knows what would fill that vacuu. That uncertainty is concerning
to the international community.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
And Jonathan, we have seen that in other countries when
we destabilize things in say in Libya, we saw a
lot of situations where we destabilize, We take one bad
guy out and then the vacuum draws in an even
worse guy. You know that. They say in nature abhors
a vacuum. There will be somebody who will move into
that place. And what I mean we saw in Afghanistan

(04:45):
the way we destabilize things up there, So we do
run the risk of just because as bad as the
iotola how many is, we could get somebody even worse
in there. Jonathan Savage live from London, thank you so
much this morning for being on the show.