IRAN WAR: Everyone loses if this ends now

President Trump said the Iran war objectives ‘near completion’ in a televised speech last night - But what does that actually mean?

In this episode of Conflicts of Interest, ACLED CEO Clionadh Raleigh unpacks the latest developments in the Iran war with ACLED’s Media Manager, Bron Mills — from Iran’s leverage over key shipping routes to the limits of Israel’s decapitation strategy.

They also explore how the conflict is reshaping global dynamics, with ripple effects reaching Russia and Ukraine, energy markets, and the fragile political landscape of the Horn of Africa.

With no clear endgame in sight, the bigger question remains: what would victory even look like?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

It is insane to think that there would have been a resolution by this time. It is super important to emphasize Iran has turned both the economics of the situation and the geography to their benefit, which would have been a worst-case scenario in almost all contexts. Conflicts of interest brought to you by ACLED. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Conflicts of Interest. My name is Cleaner Raleigh, and with us today, of course, is Bronn. Welcome, Bronn.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Hello, thank you again for having me back. I am desperate to ask you today, Clean. Trump is saying that his goals are nearing completion and he's vowed to finish the job.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Were we ever clear on what those goals were? No, and I think that it is it is a kind of rolling endpoint, that's for sure. That's what we would have gotten yesterday from the from the talk on the 1st of April. There is there's been this constant refrain that it's a few weeks away. So Marco Rubio said it last week, Trump said it last night, and I can't, for the life of me, understand how they've decided that they're halfway through anything because they're not at a particularly great place at the moment. But equally, if the Iranian regime thinks it only needs to hand like kind of hang on for another few weeks, then I think that all signs point to its ability to do so, and of course the worsening of the situation rather than it improving. The other important thing to recognize is that if this next few weeks will involve some sort of a ground invasion or some sort of a ground mission, it is very unlikely to be a few weeks. You know, this as Trump keeps on having to realize in different ways, this is not Venezuela. It's not going to be a few hours. So we will, let's say, maybe hold that with a bit of a pitcher of salt about the few weeks.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

So there was a piece in The Atlantic as well that have said after last night's speech, it might have been better off him not bothering because it's left more questions than it's answered. What do you think people are still wanting to know about this?

SPEAKER_02 2:09

He's never been the clearest speaker, right? I mean, all of his speeches are kind of characterized by contradictions and meandering and all the rest. But I think people want to know in the States, you know, I'm not there at the moment, but I was there just a few weeks ago. And in the States, people's big concern is like, when's this all going to get back to normal? Because they're not in the region. You know, if you this has always been a problem with the US wars, is that people in the US itself are not directly affected. So they just want things to return. They want to win, but they want things to return to normal as soon as possible. So that will be a big concern there. So part of this is like market manipulation of the energy prices, especially the oil price, because it has such a strong effect on Americans' sense of stability, right? And prosperity, which is always very important. For other audiences, like the Gulf, for example, or their allies, this speech will have been kind of probably another example of the frustration they feel about how this war has made almost everything worse. And there is not still an outcome that is going to be better than what it what it was on February 27th, which was that they could move their energy trading tankers and all the rest of it relatively freely, freely enough. And they didn't have a burgeoning extremist power in the middle of the region.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

You say relatively freely. There was another piece I spotted this morning that was about how Iran has turned a Tidy Island into what's effectively a toll booth along there to have a little bit more control over the strait. Has that has that changed in any way?

SPEAKER_02 3:53

No, I would say that, you know, that the Israelis in their decapitation campaign had killed the head of the Iranian Navy, I think it was maybe on Monday, um, of this week. But that's had no effect really on their ability to hold the strait. They've also mined the strait. And so their ability to hold everybody hostage effectively in that region is ongoing. Coupled with that, attempts to move around the strait, whether it is by using a different out um kind of outport in UAE or using the Red Sea has also been the subject of Iranian attention in that they're trying to make sure that there is no alternative to their top.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

And then another headline that I quite liked this morning was that the president had said to the Washington Post that the king would have absolutely supported him over his war in Iran. I wondered if you know any way that he could possibly know this, as in The King of England.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Right. Right. I've never thought about what the King of England has thought about or thinks about any of these matters. You know, I think that he's probably struggling for some friends at the moment. He's struggling for some people who think that this was a good idea. There and I think it's worthwhile stepping back and saying, yet again, I know I keep on doing this, but I think it's worthwhile stepping back and saying we're a month in. It is insane to think that there would have been a resolution by this time. It is also, of course, super important to emphasize that Iran has seemingly turned both the economics of this situation and the geography to their benefit, which would have been a worst-case scenario in almost all contexts, and it's it has come to pass. The decapitation strategy of Israel, always considered to be a very effective way of choking off resistance, that seems to have not been effective, in part because I think decapitation is almost always better when it's a non-state armed group rather than another state, especially Iran, which would have expected this type of engagement and strategy on the part of Israel and the US. It's very early. Iran is a significant threat in the region. It cannot be left to continue being a significant threat to the stability of the Gulf states, but also, of course, having having the global economy in this chokehold. So regardless of who supports it or not, it can't be left here. And I think that's the that's the main thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Because we're talking about how it's it's still quite early, but there are lots of conversations as well, aren't there, about how it's starting to really overlap with Russia and Ukraine?

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Yeah, I mean, all big conflicts go through a moment where there's another big conflict on the horizon that's that supersedes their global importance. And what happens in those cases, Ukraine in this case, is that the belligerents, if they're still if they're still active, such as Russia certainly is in Ukraine, is that they take advantage of the distraction of the world uh world to surge their activity. And that's exactly what has happened here. Ukraine has suffered, you know, a series of terrible weeks of drone attacks at the hands of Russia. And Russia, of course, is always is also believed to be supporting Iran both materially, diplomatically, and through intelligence. So there's a way in which Russia is certainly benefiting from this. Ukraine is suffering both from the lack of attention, but also, you know, threats from the US that they're going to cut off material supplies in order to reroute them to the Iran theater. That's a real and substantive threat that they have to live with. Europe, while being avid supporters of Ukraine, you know, and steadfast supporters, still do not have the ability to actually help it through military means, which is almost inexcusable four years in, to be honest. But that's where we are, which is that they're still dependent on the US for weapons and material. The Europeans have been paying for it, but there may not be anything to buy, which leaves Ukraine in a really terrible position.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

So that's where Europe is. Further afield then, in the other direction, lots of people are starting to talk about how its impacts are reaching the Horn of Africa and um what the what the situation is over there. And how how does it, I don't know, impact the horn's vulnerability? Is it is it all about shipping?

SPEAKER_02 8:39

No, but it's at the moment, shipping is a really important component. And and the shipping lanes or the shipping abilities within that region tend to exacerbate the regional tensions of which there are legend and many, right? So the reason that this has had such a huge effect is twofold. One is, of course, as I mentioned, that a number of ports that Saudi Arabia has wanted to use to swap out for the Strait of Hormuz need to be prepared in order to increase the level of global energy shipping that would come through there. However, they have um they have a similar to the strait problem in the Babel Mandab, which the Houthis have tried to control. It's a very, very narrow sea lane in and out of the of the Red Sea. The Houthis, of course, joined in the conflict on Saturday morning, you know, Friday night, Saturday morning, and have every intention, I think, of wielding their own type of control over the region that they wish. So that's the first problem, which is that this region that they were hoping as a substitute for the strait cannot cannot easily be a substitute because of problems there. But then on the other side of the Red Sea, of course, you have the Horn of Africa, and they are there are so many contorted political, violent, potential conflicts happening on that end that um the previous issue in the region, which was that Saudi and UAE had kind of come up with two different teams, if you will, and they were going to be contesting through proxies in the Horn about control over this important waterway, that has become upended a bit. And so, so all the characters in the Horn of Africa are are looking to make sure that they they can use this opportunity to the best of their advantage, but still don't exactly know who they're who their patrons, in this case, Saudi and UAE, where they're going to land, because of course they're they're also distracted by the issues in the Gulf.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Because it was only sort of 10 days into February, I think, when we first had a conversation about Saudi and the UAE on this podcast anyway. And then, as we know, all hell broke loose. But the impact on the kind of active conflicts that are going on in the Horn at the moment that maybe we're not hearing as much about directly look like.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

That's a really good point, because there are active conflicts and there are potential conflicts. They are they are very they are quite different. Active conflicts, we have, of course, what's happening in Sudan. The UAE, UAE Club, if you will, is supporting the RSF. Very brutal insurgent group that is that has only really surged when UAE has pushed quite a bit of funding or training. Ethiopia is believed to have set up a training base in Benishlung, which is on the far west of uh the Ethiopian state. I would put that maybe on ice at the moment, right? That that particular conflict. It's still ongoing. There's a lot of concern over whether or not there's Islamist elements within either Saf, which is the Sudanese armed forces and RSF, although those concerns seem to be inflated. This is important because that particular conflict and others, including Somalia, which is very active, the reason that the Gulf is partially involved in the Horn is because they want to dampen down any jihadi elements in the region. And so both Saudi and UAE want to do that. And so that's where they first became involved because the jihadi elements have relocated and embedded themselves within the continent for over a decade now, because it's one of the easiest areas to flourish in. But separate all that, Sudan is ongoing, it's receiving almost no attention, and it requires patrons, whether it's Saudi and Egypt for SAF, the current national government, or UAE and Ethiopia for RSF, the insurgent group. So in Somalia, it's a little bit more complicated. The US has basically said that they're not going to send any more aid to Somalia or military aid. And that's really important because they were moving well to contain al-Shabaab, but al-Shabaab simply just has more control over the territory in Somalia than the Somali national government does, the federal government, as it's called. The big issue there is Somaliland, which is in the north, which is being recognized as an independent entity from Somalia, and it's being recognized by Israel and Ethiopia. Israel is another one of the UAE Ethiopian group in that kind of, you know, that group really wants to change the horn to their advantage, whereas the Saudi, Egypt, Eritrea, Djibouti link, they want to really kind of keep the status quo. I will say that that, as you mentioned, has been a really big issue for now quite a few years, although tensions have risen a lot, and that's why we discussed it in February. However, this issue really depended on Saudi and UAE being on opposite sides of what they wanted as a future for the horn. I cannot say now that they are on opposite sides, because it's no longer one of their primary issues. In fact, it's in many ways a secondary issue, if not tertiary. And so the expectations of the players in the horn that they will be able to use this competition between the two to their advantage is all of a sudden quite in doubt. So I would wait to see what's going to happen there. But those are the main active conflicts at the moment, which is Sudan and Somalia, and the many conflicts within Somalia there. And then there's potential conflicts, which is, of course, how Ethiopia plans on dealing with Tigrae. There's been a movement to recruit and to potentially restart a conflict in the Tigray region, which has been really suffering after the Pretoria agreement. Ethiopia and Eritrea, I think, are going to also see some sort of tension rise up and potentially be violent, especially over the port of Asseb, which is a really key area for that Red Sea shipping that we previously discussed.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

So who might stand to gain anything from any kind of instability in the Horn?

SPEAKER_02 15:12

There's external players that will gain. I think China's gaining, I think Turkey's gaining, in part because it wasn't involved in these kind of much trickier competitions between Saudi and UAE. It's very hard to see a case that Ethiopia doesn't gain after losing a lot. I really want to emphasize that. And the reason being is that Ethiopia is kind of the natural regional hegemon there. And it has been curtailed in its ability to have quite an incredible amount of regional power by the fact that it's landlocked. It has made it very clear that that's not a situation it wishes to continue. So that's been also part of the tension here. Ethiopia provides about half of Djibouti's GDP in export or import fees for its materials, and it wants that to stop. It has a, you know, the Eritrean Ethiopian geography is incredibly strange. There's this long finger of land that basically makes Ethiopia landlocked. It's an enormous country. It has huge growth potential, and it has a leader in Abi Ahmed that has uh, let's just said, say, he doesn't suffer from low self-confidence. And he is trying to wield all of the players in the region towards kind of a greater Ethiopia and a and a just a much, much more powerful position within this really critical area. And he is likely to achieve it just by nature of the the overall position of Ethiopia and its demographic strength and its political positioning. But but as with almost all things in Ethiopia, right, it's going to come at an incredibly high cost to Ethiopians and potentially to its neighbors.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

It's interesting when you say leader that doesn't suffer from low self-confidence. I thought, don't all leaders not suffer from low self-confidence? And then one occurred to me.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Who might I think you might actually does have self-confidence, delusionally so. I think he is like a wet shopping bag, a wet, empty shopping bag.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yeah, and I I think that what he is saying at the moment is confusing quite a lot of people because it's Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

I'm super confused. Are they in or out?

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Yeah, so we're definitely out, but there are lots of updates about d various different kinds of support, and it's it's maybe he's assuming that people don't understand the difference between in or out, so he's got to say out in case he thinks, you know, that we might interpret that as we're in full-blown war.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Yeah, but I would say one of the things that I've noticed about you know, obviously the UK is not the you know, the main conduit for news here about this, but I but I agree with you in that like it's incredibly confusing to what degree or to in what manner the UK is contributing anything, if just empty words to this. But one of the things that are that is very clear is that the UK is a receiver of this global change, right? It is it is not shaping it in any way, shape, or form. It's not even being considered as a, I would even say a secondary player in how to maneuver through this crisis, which to be honest is pathetic.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Have your have your kids ever used the phrase NPC around you?

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Like a non-critical player, is that it? A non-clacked character. Non-player character, oh right.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

And so if you play a video game and you go and buy something from the shop or something, the shopkeeper is a non-non-player character. Yeah, they're just like a background, yeah? Yeah, but they're kind of there.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Uh they're involved, but you can't do anything with them.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Yeah, they're their surroundings. Yeah, I would say that I mean, Europe in general suffers from that potential in this conflict, although there's definitely players here that I think are trying to make some sort of a move, if only to save their own, um, to save their own kind of cost of living issues that are going to arise from this. Which is uh prerogative, right? Yeah, certainly. But I mean, I don't know this because I haven't looked into it. But for example, because France uses quite a lot of nuclear energy, it's unlikely to be devastatingly affected by some of these issues. But what we have in Britain is like such a perfect British situation, which is that everybody has a bad opinion about how to move forward, and all those people are in government. Right? And they're they're using kind of the scaffolding of the Labour Party as reasons as to why we all have to get poorer and effectively be stuck here, subject to their absolutely stupid party soap opera. I'm really actually quite cross about it, and I hadn't been in a while because I'd been avoiding all domestic British news in order to not get mad.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

And it makes sense because, as you say, like it's got so little to do with what's actually going on, so it is very easy, but then you kind of wake up and you remember where where you're lit, or where's relevant, or where's nearest, and you think, oh god, you know.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

You know what I think has happened here is that like I used to get super frustrated with listening to you know debates at Westminster and all the rest of it, because I thought quite a quite a lot of it was virtue signaling. And now it just is completely untethered to reality, right? You've got Ed Middlebent talking about how, I don't know, we're all going to go back to the Barcher system and grow our own food or whatever it is, right? And the the issues of today, right? What you know, what the mortgage rate is, or whether or not whether or not you're going to be able to book a flight to go to Spain, or if there's going to be any jet fuel, whatever it is, right? That those concerns, which I would imagine almost everybody has, are completely absent from the discussion happening amongst the people who make policies and rules. And I can't tell you how much I hate that. Like I said, I all feel like we're subject to some sort of university cafeteria debate amongst, you know, the young Labour Party. And I fecking hate it.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Yeah, no, I get it. I do get it. So lastly, we'll end with this then. At Christmas, President Trump said that uh those powerful and deadly strikes on Nigeria were a Christmas present. Would you anticipate an Easter present in the coming days in in similar packaging? 100%, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:43

I mean, they now have a build up of US forces in the region. They have made threats about, you know, putting Iran back to the stone age. I think that Trump risks being humiliated at this point unless he can do something big. I'm not sure that more force in the exact same way that has previously happened over the last month is going to be as effective as they wish. But as we've already said, like it can't stay as it is at the moment. My worry is that it will be more destructive and maybe the toll booth situation will be alleviated. But the ultimate question remains unanswered, which is there are no good outcomes here. So how are you going to contain whatever outcome comes from this, whether it's an Easter surprise, or maybe, you know, maybe it will take another month of pretty intense hitting, plus some sort of an occupation of one of these islands. But it's going to be pretty destructive even after that point.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Presumably the only thing that he can't do now is is leave after this five weeks, with the situation no better than it was five weeks ago.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Everybody loses if he leaves now. Everybody. The US, Israel, the Gulf, Iranian citizens. The only people who would benefit at this point are a very narrow strata of the regime itself. So yeah, they can't leave it like this.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

That was a really good last line.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

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