Hello, welcome to this Centre for European Reform podcast on the geopolitics of the War in the Middle East. I'm Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform. I'm joined today by Gidjan Rackman, the Chief Foreign Affairs commentator of the Financial Times.

Most of the podcast was recorded on June the 23rd, shortly before Israel and Iran reached a tentative ceasefire deal.

On June the 24th, it wasn't clear if the ceasefire was holding or not, but in any case, our conversation focused on the geopolitical shifts in the region rather than the details of the fighting.

The Gidgeon's analysis remains, in my view, highly pertinent.

Let's kick off with a bit of historical perspective, Gidgen.

22 years ago, the United States led an invasion of Iraq, which led to quite a good outcome for Iran,

because Iraq ended up with a Shia government that was sympathetic to Iran. Iran's

had 20 years of quite good news, really, doing quite well in Lebanon, Syria, the Houthis became allies.

His Bala and Hamas were helping Iran. For 20 years, Iran's been on a bit of a role in American influence

in the Middle East declined. Do you think the events of the last 20 months since

the Hamas attacks on Israel of October, 23, have really led to a big shift away from Iran's

power and influence in the region, perhaps back to America? Do you think Iran is a loser now?

Yes, I think Iranian strategy is pretty much in tatters now. As you say, it was very successful for a long time.

But it was reliant on being able to essentially lead and what they called an access of resistance to Israel without ever getting directly in a conflict with Israel.

So they could support proxies.

And the strategy was so successful that some of the Arab Gulf states also have, you know,

deep suspicions of Iran were complaining a few years ago that Iranian proxies were essentially in charge now in four Arab capitals in Baghdad, in Sana, in Yemen, in Damascus, in Syria. And so they had succeeded to some extent

in projecting regional influence without getting into a direct confrontation. But I think October

the 7th essentially changed that. Israel became much more radical, much more

determined that it could no longer tolerate Iranian proxies close to their borders. Obviously,

they smashed into Gaza with a horrible human toll that that has entailed, but it has severely

weakened to mass. They then attacked Hezbollah in Lebanon,

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