Lawfare Daily: The Gulf Widens
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the U.S.-Israel war with Iran continues, it is playing out across the Middle East, particularly in Gulf Arab states and the Strait of Hormuz.
In this episode, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Ariane Tabatabai sits down with Elisa Catalano Ewers of the Council on Foreign Relations to talk about Iranian intentions and capabilities, the U.S. response and capability gaps, and how allies and partners are participating.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | military success is is one measure and I think the administration has focused predominantly on |
| 0:08.3 | that at the expense of strategic success and so I think that's really where the challenge is |
| 0:14.7 | because there have been military successes it's an overwhelming military success and yet here here we are. It's the Lawfare podcast. |
| 0:23.2 | I'm Ariane Tabadabai, public service fellow here at Lawfare with Elisa Catalano, yours senior fellow at |
| 0:29.3 | the Council on Foreign Relations, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. |
| 0:34.8 | I think what we're seeing now is a European willingness to say you cannot hold at risk |
| 0:41.5 | the global economy. It is signaling to Iran and to its Gulf partners. We see this and this is not |
| 0:48.8 | okay. And we are going to take steps politically and otherwise to ensure that this does not continue. |
| 0:56.4 | Today, we're talking about the implications of the U.S. Israeli war with Iran for the broader |
| 1:01.1 | Gulf region. So, Alisa, I'm going to start with the basics here. In response to the U.S. |
| 1:07.9 | Israeli attacks on its territory, Iran has been taking a number of steps |
| 1:12.0 | to try to disrupt freedom of navigation, the Strait of Hormuz that's occurring at sea. |
| 1:19.1 | In terms of what we're seeing in the sky, there's been air strikes, there have been missile |
| 1:24.7 | strikes and drone strikes on our facilities and embassies throughout the region. |
| 1:29.9 | There have been strikes on energy and tourism infrastructure since the beginning of the conflict. |
| 1:36.6 | Iran has said that it would kind of stop some of these activities, but it really has not. |
| 1:41.8 | Can you talk to us about what Iran has been doing? And there is this kind of, |
| 1:47.1 | you know, we're hearing on a daily basis essentially from the administration that we've |
| 1:51.3 | depleted their capabilities. And yet we're seeing these activities continue. So how are they |
| 1:58.0 | doing all of this? Where are they doing and how are they doing it? |
| 2:06.8 | So I think the picture we're seeing unfolds is one that was entirely predictable. Right. |
| 2:18.9 | On the one hand, Iran is no match for the conventional power of the U.S. military and certainly not the combined U.S. military and Israeli defense forces. |
... |
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