What are Israel's war aims in Iran?
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 15 June 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Iran and Israel continue trading strikes, seventy-two hours after Israel launched an attack against Iran's nuclear infrastructure and key military figures. We speak to key figures in the region to understand Israel's aims, the role of US diplomacy and how Iran might respond in the future. Also in the programme: demonstrations take place across Spain, Portugal and Italy against over-tourism; and we talk to writer Hanif Kureishi about his creative process after becoming paralysed. (Photo: People drive as fire and smoke rise from Tehran's oil warehouse in Tehran, Iran, after it was hit by an Israeli strike. Credit: Shutterstock).
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in central London. I'm Tim Franks. |
| 0:10.6 | One way to track what's happening between Israel and Iran right now, this violent new chapter, is to track the language that's being used to report it. |
| 0:19.5 | Most of the headlines don't necessarily talk about |
| 0:22.1 | war. They talk about attacks, about strikes being traded. There's some accounting in terms of |
| 0:27.8 | numbers. Israeli officials saying at least 10 dead and overnight missile strikes on central |
| 0:32.3 | Israel, Iranian media, not reporting precise casualty figures, but saying instead that the majority of injured |
| 0:38.1 | and killed in Israeli strikes since Friday have been civilians, mainly, they say, women and children. |
| 0:43.4 | What we still don't know is how far Israel has gone and its declared aim of degrading Iran's |
| 0:48.3 | nuclear capabilities, and in particular what Israel says is Iran's proximity to being able to develop |
| 0:53.7 | a nuclear weapon. |
| 0:54.9 | And we don't know where this will end up after all. |
| 0:58.9 | Both sides are warning that if needs be, they are willing to inflict far, far more pain on each other. |
| 1:05.6 | They have the capacity, they say, for a prolonged conflict. |
| 1:09.9 | Israel's president, Haim Herzog, spoke, Isaac Herzog, forgive me, spoke this morning from the site of a missile strike in the central Israeli city of Batyam. |
| 1:21.0 | We are determined. |
| 1:22.7 | We are determined to change the fate of the region, to lead it towards peace, by undermining Iran's capability to threaten us existentially and threaten the region as a whole. |
| 1:35.3 | And may I add, tomorrow the G7 summit will start, |
| 1:39.3 | and I call upon the leadership of the free world. |
| 1:42.3 | You really want to de-escalate, then enable. |
| 1:45.8 | Enable us and work with us to get the nooks out of Iran. |
| 1:52.2 | From Tehran, the view is that this was a war of choice, |
| 1:55.3 | a choice made by Israel, but in which Iran will not back down. |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 27 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.