BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Last weekend, Iran launched a direct drone and missile strike against Israel.

It was their response to an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus a couple of weeks before,

which killed seven people, including a top commander.

Israel's military chief of staff has said the Iranian attack will not go unanswered, though

as of right now, there's been no retaliation. But retaliation begats retaliation, and the risk of the

Israel-Gaza conflict escalating into a regional war involving Iran seems real.

So what does Iran want?

And what will it risk to get it?

Step inside the briefing room and together we'll find out.

Let me introduce you to my guests.

Shashank Jashi is Defence Editor at The Economist.

Dr. Roxanne Farman-Farmyon is a lecturer at Cambridge University,

specialising in the politics of Iran and the Middle East,

and Ali Vez is Iran project director at the International Crisis Group in Washington.

Shashank Josh, if I'm going to ask you first, since the weekend, what more have we learned

about Iran's attack on Israel? And is there anything in what we've learned that should surprise

us?

Good afternoon, David. I think the striking thing about this attack is that it was at the same

time, both unprecedented and calibrated. It was unprecedented in its size. This was

probably the biggest one-day missile attack we've ever seen, bigger than anything Russia has fired

at Ukraine on a single day, including 120 ballistic missiles, which is an extraordinary

...