STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Let's assess an Israeli strike on Iran's military and nuclear facilities. Israel hit numerous targets in Iran. We do not know the full results, although Iran says some of its own military leaders were killed. In fact, Iran says Mohammad Bagheri is dead, the chief of staff of Iran's army. Israelis attacked just as the United States was talking with Iran about restraining its nuclear program. The U.S. says it's not involved in this attack, although President Trump is responding on social media this morning, saying that Iran should still be making a deal to avoid further pain. James Hider is NPR's Middle East editor. He's covered the region for decades, and so we brought him on the line. James, good morning.
JAMES HIDER, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: What did you think about when you heard this news?
HIDER: Well, obviously, I was quite surprised. This attack came just hours after President Trump had said he didn't think an attack was imminent, and just days ahead of scheduled talks between his Middle East envoy, Steven Witkoff, and the Iranians in Oman. But Trump said yesterday he thought an attack could happen, but he was still insisting he'd prefer to try for a diplomatic solution to stop Iran's nuclear program. And it's still not clear how much warning the Israelis gave to the Americans. In the past, it has been very short notice on some occasions.
But it wasn't as surprising as when the two countries first fought this kind of long-distance but direct air war. In April last year, you might remember, Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in response to an Israeli attack on one of its diplomatic missions in Syria. And that was the first time the two countries had ever gone head-to-head. Before that, there'd been years of Iran using proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, and now the Houthis in Yemen to attack Israel.
INSKEEP: Yeah, there have been all kinds of different incidents back and forth, but here we have a direct strike at nuclear facilities. Is there a precedent for this kind of attack?
HIDER: Well, Israel says the scale of the attack is unprecedented. It says 200 warplanes were involved in the operation. But it has carried out this kind of high-risk, long-range operation before. In the early 1980s, it bombed Saddam Hussein's fledgling nuclear plant in Iraq to prevent his regime from going nuclear. And it has carried out countless raids on neighboring countries in the past 20 months of war, which has led to the decimation of Hezbollah in Lebanon. It's hit Iranian forces in Syria, who were said to be smuggling weapons into Lebanon, too, and it's hit the Houthis in Yemen.
INSKEEP: Why do you think they struck at the nuclear facilities now?
HIDER: Well, I think Israel saw both an opportunity and a threat here. And the opportunity was that since the war began in Gaza in 2023, Israel has all but destroyed these Iranian proxies right across the region. Its bombing raids in Syria even led to the collapse of the pro-Iranian regime there of Bashar al-Assad. And, of course, the removal of Syria's air defenses has provided a new flight path into Iran itself.
INSKEEP: Oh.
HIDER: And while that loss of proxies may have left Iran weakened, it's also increased the chances that Iran might finally be tempted to build a nuclear weapon as the ultimate last line of defense. And Israel said that it was taking out what it called a secret weapons program to build multiple nuclear weapons. And of course, the White House had not ruled out the use of force against Iran - even if President Trump had said he preferred diplomacy, he'd also said repeatedly that the time might come when military strikes would be necessary, and Israel is now saying that that moment had come.
INSKEEP: I guess we should note, Iran always denies they have an actual nuclear weapons program, even though they clearly are enriching uranium. What does the damage of this attack - killing top security chiefs, for example - do to Iran's ability to retaliate?
HIDER: Well, it has retaliated to some extent. It launched more than a hundred drones last night in response to this Israeli attack, but it has always been reluctant to retaliate directly. Even when it launched those massive missile and drone attacks last year in April and October, those were well-flagged in advance and, in the end, didn't do too much damage to Israel. But Iran is hugely weakened now. Israel has attacked its air defenses without losing a single aircraft. Iran is warning it will carry out widespread revenge. But it also just lost most of its top brass, and the leadership will now have to do the math on whether it can afford to escalate this conflict further at a time when its economy has been weakened by sanctions, or whether, perhaps, that deal that President Trump has been offering looks more attractive after this. And, in fact, President Trump just now re-upped that off on his social media channel.
INSKEEP: James Hider is NPR's Middle East editor. Thanks for your experience and your insights.
HIDER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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