Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Episode Summary
President Trump’s call for naval assistance in the Strait of Hormuz has not been answered by European allies. Does this signal a growing crisis of confidence in the West? Former MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove and international journalist Rosanna Lockwood examine the latest developments in the war with Iran, as well as rising political polarization in France and the UK, fears of domestic terrorist attacks in the West, and the critical importance of Kharg Island to the global energy market.
In this episode:
01:48 – The divisive dilemma at the Strait of Hormuz
04:05 – Fears of Iranian proxy terror attacks in the West
06:14 – Political polarization in European elections
12:45 – Iran’s internal media strategy
14:47 – The strategic importance of Kharg Island
Hosted by Sir Richard Dearlove (former MI6 Chief) and guest co-host Rosanna Lockwood (International Journalist)
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Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Lockwood: We are entering the third week of war in Iran. The United States has made a call for help. What happens when European allies don't answer that call? This is One Decision in Brief. I'm your host, Rosanna Lockwood, and I'm joined by host, Sir Richard Dearlove. Hello, Sir Richard. Hi, Rosanna. Yes. A lot going on. I think the way to characterize it
ANALYSIS WITH SIR RICHARD DEARLOVE
Dearlove: is the Iranians are using their limited means, but those are quite sophisticated. If you reach out, you know, through the media, any way of sort of spreading chaos, spreading their message. And there are all sorts of concerns being generated. And I think the one that relates to the Straits of Hormuz and the request from Trump for naval assistance is potentially divisive and is a dilemma for the main European allies of the United States because their economies are hugely affected. I mean, you've got Trump saying he's knocked out the Iranian navy, but he hasn't knocked out the IRGC capability to disrupt. And then you've got extraordinary rumors on social media about drone attacks on California, terrorist attacks driven by Hezbollah or other Iranian proxies. And we've just had this extraordinary demonstration in London. There was this group of sympathizers for the Iranian regime, and it's caused huge comment in the media and the press here that that couldn't be allowed to go ahead and that the government, you know, for freedom of expression pretty much has to tolerate it. But it was hugely controversial.
Lockwood: So many points. I wanna pick up on that, including the sort of the rising security threats across Europe and the US. Let's come back to that because I think it's very important at the moment. But on the point about President Trump calling on the US's allies to come and help either escort ships out or come help, you know, basically take a big role in this, and he's been very clear that he feels that first, the UK was disappointing, then he fell out with Spain. He's just been disappointed across the board by allies. To me, it's redolent of a conversation we had last week on this podcast with some Israeli guests who, when I asked them about why the US and Israel weren't potentially providing more defense for the Gulf States who are currently receiving a bulk of the attacks, including places like the UAE. One of our guests who was a former IDF spokesperson said, well, look. They've bought the weaponry. They've got the means to defend themselves. They're sovereign countries. They're rich. They can defend themselves. And in this conflict around the world, that's what we're hearing a lot of. It's sort of like, well, it's up to you, but also can you join forces with us? And I think that's what a lot of Europe is feeling. We didn't want this war. We didn't ask for it. We didn't advise you to do it. And now we're being asked to somehow take a big active role in it to help escort ships, to become allies, to everything else. And it's no wonder that we're seeing slight divisions across Europe because different European countries feel differently about this, don't they? They certainly do. And, you know, we've already had Japan and Australia say they're not gonna help immediately or they not yet.
Dearlove: And, of course, there are technical issues. I mean, minesweeping, for example, which is going to be very important. I'm not a naval man, but I know enough about the sort of background. It's a very complicated and difficult thing to do, which requires special equipment, special training. Actually, the Royal Navy is pretty good or is very good at minesweeping. But to get the kit to the Middle East quickly, the boats are small. They travel slowly. I mean, there are all sorts of logistical problems which no one is actually talking about because everybody is in such a hurry for big news. They forget to consider the details which hold back solutions to these problems. Perhaps in Europe, the most, I mean, apart from the fact of the war and the economic impact, I think people are really worrying about the terrorist threat, the heightened terrorist threat. And a combination of either a planned attack by an Iranian proxy or some lone wolf event like you already saw with somebody in the States driving a car into a school, a Jewish school. Those sorts of risks are hugely heightened. And there was an aspect of this static demonstration in London in favor of al-Quds, which was very unpleasant in terms of its expressions of antisemitism.
Lockwood: On the point of homeland security threats, because it's something I've been thinking about a lot recently with all of this. As a journalist, you know, I've covered the knock on effects through 2017, 2018 of ISIS inspired attacks throughout Europe, and we felt very heavily in the UK with lots of attacks. US, of course, has received huge domestic terror attacks over the years. But in terms of what you'd be looking out for right now with your colleagues at MI5. MI5, for those listeners who aren't from the UK, you know, governs all the homeland security issues, if you like, for the United Kingdom. Sir Richard, being the former chief of MI6, was more focused on the outward affairs. So what kind of terror threats or alerts would you be looking out for at this time with your colleagues at MI5 in terms of where the threat level is being raised in the country?
Dearlove: Well, I'm not sure technically today in the UK which threat level is in operation, but it's certainly, I think, been raised recently. It's at moments like this when you do begin to worry because there's more activity, there's more noise around these issues, and you see people who've been radicalized becoming more vociferous and more active. And I think the difficulty always that the security service has in a case like this is how to prioritize their targets. You know, which ones are the biggest threats? Are they letting someone through because they're focusing their attention slightly to the right or to the left? I don't mean that politically. I just mean that metaphorically. The other thing I think it's important to mention is the impact now visibly in the UK of Muslim communities and particularly in France on voting and on elections. And we have just seen the first round over the weekend of the municipal elections in France. And it's quite clear that the impact of, you know, Muslim voters on the party systems, particularly in France. You have got Mélenchon on the extreme left who is absolutely courting the Muslim vote and being incredibly supportive of issues around Palestine, Hamas, and related, but I mean, maybe not Hamas directly, but maybe implicitly. Then you've got the extreme right, the, or should we call it maybe the hard right in France. And you've got this polarization in the political system, which is now being reflected in municipal elections quite strongly and quite clearly. And in those cities with a very big Muslim diaspora in the South of France, I'm talking about places like Marseille and Toulon, then you suddenly have the Rassemblement National, the party of Le Pen and Bardella doing incredibly well in the elections. And we've just had a by-election in the UK, which I won't go into in detail, where the Muslim vote in that particular constituency in Manchester was especially important in the result that eventually came out where the Green Party won having courted specifically the Muslim community.
Lockwood: Yeah. I think it's very interesting to think about those sort of, I can't really call them local, but national political movements that are happening and how that changes the way that European countries are dealing with the US right now and their relationships. And I'm stateside at the moment. And I wanted to mention that I've spoken just briefly to Anthony Vinci, who we interviewed here on One Decision Podcast about his book, The Fourth Intelligence Revolution. He's just launched an AI backed kind of prediction model for geopolitical events. And he was talking about the threat of homeland attacks. And I'm very careful about the way that I use language here as a journalist because you don't wanna say that you're fear mongering or saying something's gonna happen. But their current forecast when I last spoke to him last Thursday was it's now up to 71% for the probability of a large terror attack on America with plus a 100 dead. That's based on symmetrical motives from the Minab school strike providing clear target for retaliation. Foiled NYC TATP plot aimed to exceed a 100 fatalities. Iran's military threatened US economic centers and banks in March, and various other factors as well. What do you make of these kind of probability models, Sir Richard? I'd be interested to get your take on them.
Dearlove: Yeah. Well, I understand how they're developed and how they're based. But what I would say they don't really take account of, and it would be very difficult for them to do so, is the efficiency of the state security apparatus in taking account of these sorts of threats. I mean, we have come miles since 9/11. And, of course, the 9/11 report talked not about a failure of intelligence. It talked about a failure of imagination, which was quite an interesting concept. But what I think now is that if you look at the aggregated experience of services like the security service in the UK, MI5, the FBI, certainly the French service, which is extremely efficient, and the degree to which they coordinate and work together, even if there are political tensions, counterterrorism doesn't usually get sort of affected. It gets carrying on at the working level. They are good at taking down conspiracies. They are good at taking down plots. So some big terrorist event, the likelihood is because it's big and because it's planned, there are much more points of entry through intelligence to discovering it and stopping it. I'm not being overoptimistic. I'm just sort of explaining a practical issue. I think the difficulty now and the bigger danger is like that terrible shooting that took place at that Jewish event in Australia, where you had two lone wolves who were not involved in a broader conspiracy and had sort of planned the attack on their own. And that, I think, is the bigger danger that we face. And if that's the danger, I don't quite agree with the analysis of these big casualty figures because it's an opportunist event. Okay. It's gonna be tragic and lethal, but it isn't going to be, you know, massive. That's my sort of pragmatic response to what you're saying. I'm a little bit concerned with those sorts of predictions that Vinci is making. I somewhat disagree with it. But on the other hand, we're talking about possibilities. We're not talking about actualities. And we're making informed guesses. And I think the precaution is they are all informed guesses.
Lockwood: Once again, I wanna reiterate. Hate talking about this. I hate raising that topic because I think it plays into, one, the war strategy of fear and sowing fear in the West, but also it, you sort of, one can fall quite easily into the trap of, I am mainstream media, but the mainstream media kind of discussing the worst possible outcome and getting people to stay engaged through scary prospects. But that is intelligence, isn't it? It's sort of looking ahead at some of the scariest and worst things that could happen and trying to prevent them. So you're saying the copycat stuff is potentially the harder to catch.
Dearlove: It is. And it's that person who gets up in the morning and runs out and does something on their own. You know, maybe it's someone who is identified and known, but no one expected them to be active and violent.
Lockwood: And you mentioned at the start of this in brief chat about Iran and its media capabilities and what it's been doing. And I've been watching this too because I think it's such a huge part of this war, how they're communicating it. And they've not been holding back for years on platforms like X and the rest. But there is a story today as we're recording in the Financial Times about how they're using media domestically in Iran to target domestic dissent. Because another big topic of conversation is why aren't Iranian people taking to the streets yet? Why aren't the protesters back out there? Perhaps people will understand a little more when they hear about the text messages that have been sent out by the IRGC to people in Iran. People of Iran, it said, the wicked enemy desperate to achieve its goals in the battlefield is once again seeking to instill fear and instigate street chaos. Internal traitors to the homeland who take to the streets in collusion will face, quote, a blow stronger than January 8, which was, of course, the date that Iranian security forces launched that deadly attack and killed thousands. Reportedly, the message ends hashtag the final battle. So you can see they're using that media internally as well to try and stop people taking to the streets. I mean, that's gotta be effective, right, in terms of stopping people, wouldn't you think?
Yeah. It's terrifying.
Dearlove: And, of course, they're very good at exploiting the media beyond Iran. And I think everybody who's involved in these conflicts understand that the military dimension is just one aspect because the media social dimensions are, in their own way, just important. I think we've said in previous podcasts that you can win militarily and lose politically. And, you know, the media dimension to the political dimension is just as crucial and important as the military one. So one has to think through all of those aspects when one is looking at how this conflict will play out over the coming weeks, maybe months.
Lockwood: Finally, Sir Richard, when we think about the media, Kharg Island, because that's been, I sometimes feel like watching the media and being part of the media that sometimes these ideas take hold and they sound sort of interesting to editors in the newsroom and to the public, and it's real. You know? President Donald Trump did decide to strike Kharg Island this weekend. But now we're getting people like Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who's very outspoken, of course, with his social media posts saying, he who controls Kharg Island controls the destiny of this war. What do you make of all of this? How critical is Kharg Island to the outcome of all of this, or is it just something that's been picked up and run with?
Dearlove: No. It's hugely critical because it's the port through which the energy is exported. And I'm amazed, actually, that the Israelis hitherto, you know, before the Americans joined this attack, hadn't attacked Kharg Island themselves because they certainly have the capability to do it, which strongly suggests to me that there was probably an Israeli agreement with the US not to attack Kharg Island because of the impact it would have on the international energy market. But I think now that is on the cards, and maybe this marine expedition that's coming from Japan, I don't know how many boots on the ground. You could conceivably see the Americans in extremis taking over Kharg Island. You think that could happen? Well, I think it depends on how the war plays out. It's such a complicated issue. I'm not sure I wanna speculate further than that, but I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a core location in the future days of the war.
Lockwood: Not just fodder for headlines, then. Kharg Island is the one to watch. It's been great speaking to you as ever, Sir Richard. That's all for this episode. Do join us on Thursday for our conversation with Helena Croft, ex CIA economic analyst and current head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets. For more conversations with leading decision makers and thinkers, do check out 1decision.com and our YouTube page where you'll find additional commentaries, conversations, and explainers. I'm Rosanna Lockwood. Thank you for listening.
