A Turning Point in Middle East History

WSJ Opinion: Free Expression

Gerard Baker, Editor at Large, The Wall Street Journal

Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 591 Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Israel’s air assault on the heart of Iran’s nuclear program has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East. Iran’s bid for regional hegemony and the survival of the Islamic regime itself is now under serious threat. But can Israel finish the job on its own or does it need the U.S. to tighten the vise on Teheran? While Donald Trump still says he wants to see a deal made, his administration is also weighing whether to join Israel’s assault. As the conflict continues, who will eventually define the future of the Middle East? On this episode of Free Expression, Middle East policy analyst Marc Reuel Gerecht tells Gerry Baker how much more assistance the U.S. should provide Israel, how Russia and China are reacting to the conflict, and how Iran’s future might look. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the Opinion Pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.
0:08.4	Hello and welcome to Free Expression from the Opinion Pages of the Wall Street Journal.
0:12.1	I'm Jerry Baker, editor at large of the journal.
0:14.4	Thank you very much for joining us.
0:16.2	If you're not already subscribing, please do subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify,
0:20.1	or wherever you do your podcast,
0:21.8	listening and remember please to leave us a nice review. This week, we have war once again
0:27.8	in the Middle East. Maybe war has never really stopped in the Middle East over the last 30, 40 years
0:32.9	or 50 or even 60 or 70 years or so, I suppose. But of course, we are witnessing these remarkable scenes
0:39.0	right now. I'm recording this Monday afternoon. We're about three or four days into Israel's
0:43.5	extraordinarily effective attack on Iran, on its nuclear facilities, on its defense systems,
0:51.3	obviously on its leadership, remarkable success in taking out some of both the
0:54.8	military and intelligence and other leadership. Once again, Israel demonstrating its extraordinary
0:58.8	mind. Of course, it hasn't been without cost. Iran has retaliated, has fired back. And some of its
1:03.1	missiles have got through into Israel and have resulted in some significant number of casualties there.
1:08.6	But what's Israel trying to achieve? What we know, of course, this has been the longstanding goal of Israel and, of course, of the United States to essentially
1:14.8	to get Iran to end voluntarily or otherwise its nuclear program, Israel finally deciding that
1:20.6	both the timing and the opportunity was right to strike at Iran's nuclear capability. And so far,
1:25.7	as they seem to have enjoyed considerable success. But as we also know, it has been widely reported that as much damage as Israel can and has been able to do and is able to do to Iran's nuclear program,
1:36.3	it may not be able, given the defenses that Iran has, particularly at its facility, buried deep in furdo in Iran, that Iran may not yet have seen the
1:45.6	complete destruction of its nuclear capability. And indeed, there are many who argued that that
1:49.9	couldn't happen without the United States taking part, joining Israel. And so far at least,
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