Aftermath of Iran’s Attack on Israel, EU Talks Ukraine, India’s Massive Election, and More

MCMAHON:
In the coming week, Iran's attack on Israel raises concern over widening conflict. The European Union leaders discuss arming Ukraine. And, India holds the world's biggest democratic election. It's April 18, 2024 and time for The World Next Week. I'm Bob McMahon.

ROBBINS:
And I'm Carla Anne Robbins. Bob, let's start in the Middle East. Over the weekend, Iran launched three hundred missiles and drones at Israel in what it said was a response to Israel's April 1st airstrike on an Iranian consulate building in Damascus that killed seven Iranian military officers, three of them generals. Despite the size and intensity of this attack, it's remarkable no one in Israel was killed. One child, however, was seriously injured. The Israelis have strong air defenses, and the Iranians who don't seem to want a direct war gave plenty of advanced warning for this. Leaders around the world are now warning of the risks of this thing spinning out of control and are calling for both countries to exercise restraint. How likely is that?

MCMAHON:
First of all, we should point out as we're taping this on Thursday, some of what we say, maybe a lot of what we say could be overtaken within a day or two. We saw it happen last weekend, certainly, as there was ominous reports of an Iranian response to that attack that you mentioned, Carla. So now it's on the Israeli side to say, "Okay, what are you going to show in response?" Israelis have been clear they're going to respond using the language that you hear quite often in a time and manner of their choosing. They have many different ways of choosing as we've seen in the so-called shadow war in particular cyber, certainly, air power, certainly, missile power. But the expectation would be if they did it would be on Iranian territory. One of the speculations, Carla, has been maybe it's Iranian nuclear facilities that would be targeted.

As we came in to tape the podcast, there was an announcement from Iranian officials, Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials, that they were looking at changing their nuclear posture in some fashion. Iran has vehemently said their nuclear program is only for civilian purposes. They've said it again and again and again through all the years of negotiations, including the Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA, even while many experts have said, well, it's just camouflage. They can change rather quickly and weaponize that nuclear program that they have been developing. So there's a lot of concern about the nuclearization or the nuclear aspect of the Iran-Israel war coming out of the shadows. 

It's also worth saying, we used the word shadow war for many years now, this has been a bloody shadow war. It's not like it's a few little things have happened in the dark alleyways. There have been some nasty attacks by Iranian proxies on Israeli positions on U.S. positions for that matter, and vice versa, there's been effective cyber attacks that the Israelis have mounted. There have been assassinations that have been linked to Israel of Iranian nuclear scientists. So what could come next? It could be quite something. The Iranians made a statement with their attack and the volume of it, again, more than three hundred projectiles certainly seems like it's going to provoke some response from Israel. Finally, I would say Carla, there have been repeated reports about the U.S. saying there should not be a Israel attack on Iran or words to that effect. But as our colleague Steven Cook says, it seemed like more like a yellow light rather than a red light coming from the U.S., so that also remains to be seen what the U.S. has been saying to the Israelis.

ROBBINS:
It's interesting that Steven who knows an enormous amount about these things, so loathe am I to disagree with him. But I'm a little surprised, 'cause the vibe I've been getting from what the Iranians said was "We had to respond to what the Israelis did," because what the Israelis did do, it's unusual to hit what is sovereign territory. This is a consular building, and I'm not justifying the Iranians and the Iranians have been this quote, "shadow war." They've been backing every proxy group around the region in mayhem.

MCMAHON:
Right, and their proxies have attacked their share of embassy compounds as well, so we should not forget.

ROBBINS:
Yeah, and Argentina, all sorts of places around-

MCMAHON:
Right. Right.

ROBBINS:
...the world. But that said, the Iranians telegraphed this. Americans said they didn't get the message, the Iranians claimed they did, but they told lots of people this was coming. They sent some pretty slow-moving stuff as well, these drones. They said afterwards, "Okay, that's it. We asserted our right to respond, and let's back off here." What the Americans have been saying is, "Bibi, take the win."

MCMAHON:
Right. Right.

ROBBINS:
Israel has enough trouble between Gaza and what's going on on the border with Lebanon, and the impression I've been getting is that the Americans have been arguing pretty forcefully, "Let's back away here." The Americans, of course, have been ginning up new sanctions-

MCMAHON:
Right.

ROBBINS:
...arguing-

MCMAHON:
That's right.

ROBBINS:
...for new sanctions on Iran and that there are other ways to punish Iran. Now, we also know that sanctions are pretty ineffective, but the dangers here of this thing spinning out of control are very, very real, and this is not something that's easily calibrated. I don't know if the Israelis thought that hitting this consular building was somehow not going to provoke a response in the first place, that was a miscalculation. The danger is this is how big wars start.

MCMAHON:
For all of those reasons, Carla, there's been some speculation that the time and manner of choosing might be weeks or months away, actually, and it might be something that comes in a bit of a surprise, but is effective. There has also been some speculation that the precipitating Israeli attack that you mentioned was a little bit of a screw-up that the officials might have not targeted as skillfully as they should have at that moment. It's not clear. As you say, the Iranians telegraphed the response, again, three hundred or so missiles, drones and so forth is still a lot. But the Hezbollah proxy has more than a hundred thousand such missiles at their disposal. While there has continued to be Israel versus Hezbollah attacks going on, since the weekend and before and afterwards, it's not on the scale of what you might expect for a major ramp up.

So we're going to be treading very carefully. The Middle East has never been such a powder keg, or at least in recent years has not been such a powder keg, and so you are always tentatively approaching each day or each report of a new movement as we did last weekend. But there is some indication as you say that perhaps its response is being put off a little bit. Diplomacy is going to ramp up. The U.S. is working with G7 partners on new sanctions. Sanctions is this term that has become a little bit amorphous as it relates to oil. A number of people have pointed out if you really want it to go after Iranian sanctions, you go after the oil that's going to China, which is one of the primary now recipients of Iranian oil. There's concerns about what that could do to global oil markets and that the U.S. has been hesitant to go full scale on an Iranian oil embargo of some sort. So just today there was reports that Iran's oil exports actually during the first quarter of 2024 reached a six-year high with most of it going to China. So it gives you a sense of where Iranian oil goes and what could be effective. 

But still in all, there is major diplomacy going on in the region with EU partners. We'll have to see if they can come up with some other way to try to squeeze Iran in this capacity. Then finally, the Iranian leadership, they're getting from what we've seen, an interesting cross-section of feedback in some of these stage-managed street protests or they're cheering attacks on Israel, but there's also a bit of concern that they have taken away the pressure that Israel was facing on its Gaza war prosecution and that the pressure's a bit off. The Israelis have been victimized here and that they're not facing the really mounting pressure to ease up on Gaza, let in humanitarian corridor and move towards a ceasefire agreement that would bring some pause. It's not clear when that's going to happen at this point and what the leverage is to press for ceasefire in the near future. Obviously, Israeli citizens want the hostages home. They want some sort of deal that makes that happen. There are those that continue to pressure through international bodies, the cause of the Palestinians in Gaza. The U.S. is also continuing through various channels pressing for that. But this has taken the narrative away from that quite a bit, and it's focused on Iran and what can be done to pressure Iran.

ROBBINS:
I'm glad you brought that up, and just one final thought here, which is Iran's done the one thing that on the "Bibi take the win" concept here is that everybody was talking before this attack about how Bibi had alienated himself from the Europeans, from every Arab state that seemed to be moving and cozying up to the Israelis finally from...Even Joe Biden, everybody was utterly furious about what he was doing in Gaza. Once this attack came, Israel was being defended militarily by American, British, Jordanian forces were even knocking these things down. Saudi and UAE intelligence were sharing information with the Americans about the Iranian plans, which then the Americans shared with the Israelis. So you had this grand coalition helping the Israelis, and this coalition is not going to hold together very long if Bibi lashes back again. This is a time for Bibi to take the win. We certainly will see what happens there, but certainly we don't want this to spin out of control. Attention will shift back to Gaza, but right now...

MCMAHON:
Yeah, well, Carla, we're having discussions along a certain theme that will continue now, but we're going to go to Europe. EU leaders are meeting in Brussels as we speak in a special session with a focus that includes containing the war in the Middle East and arming Ukraine probably can be more effective on the latter. Those topics are supposed to continue in a ministerial level meeting next week. So what can the EU bring to bear? There seems to be a lot of interesting developments on the Ukrainian aid front.

ROBBINS:
So when we started planning the podcast, we thought we were going to be discussing next week's meeting of EU foreign and defense ministers, which was going to be important. But these times are so fraught that when EU leaders, the minister's boss convened in Brussels yesterday, Wednesday, and today what they were supposed to be talking about was economic competitiveness and the future of the single market and financial integration and things that they ended up talking about on Thursday. But a good part of the time was taken up with the dangers of escalation between Israel and Iran, what you were just talking about, Ukraine's increasingly dire military situation. 

On the Middle East, Europe's messages is like the American message, "Bibi take the win," and interestingly, very little conversation about Gaza and peace negotiations. A few of the countries, Ireland and Spain are pushing for recognition of Palestine immediately and the idea of an international peace conference. But really, it is all focused on ways to de-escalate this. Some talk about more sanctions on Iranian drone and missile programs, but not particularly effective, very little conversation about oil sanctions, as you said. But this has certainly diverted attention away from Gaza for now. 

Ukraine's president, he's everywhere, Zelenskyy, who has incredible instincts for these moments, spoke to the EU leaders virtually, and he tied these two conflicts together. He argued that his country needs and deserves the same level of allied protection that the Israelis got. He said, "Here in Ukraine in our part of Europe, unfortunately, we do not have this level of defense that we all saw in the Middle East a few days ago, when thanks to the combined power of the allies, they managed to shoot down almost all the missiles and drones that attacked Israel." 

Bob, you probably remember that in the early days of the war, Zelenskyy was arguing that NATO set up a no-fly zone over Ukraine. NATO said, "Well, we can't get directly involved. We can't shoot down Russian planes. That's going to be a direct war with a nuclear-armed state. We're not going to do this." Zelensky's argument now is, "You don't have to shoot down the planes, but why can't you shoot down the missiles and the drones like you were doing with the Israelis?" I've certainly been quite critical of the self-deterrence, but at the same time I've understood why we don't want to get into a face-to-face fight with the Russians, but the first time I thought, "Wow, that's really an interesting argument on Zelenskyy's part." Now I see no sign that anybody's taking it up for now, but I think it really is an interesting argument that he was making, so we'll see whether that one has any legs. 

So how desperate is the situation in Ukraine? No one is sugarcoating it. We talked last week how the top U.S. commander in Europe warned that the Russians are soon going to hold a ten to one advantage on artillery shells. Ukraine's commander-in-chief is now warning that the situation in the Eastern front is significantly worsened. Ukrainian officials are warning that without more weapons, their second-largest city Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, which the Russians have been pounding for weeks, could fall. And, is Zelenskyy getting through? At this meeting, EU leaders have so far only come up with a generic commitment to, quote, "urgently provide air defenses to Ukraine." But some countries are doing more. Germany said on Saturday that it's going to send another Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine the third one that it's sending. Interestingly, the FT reported that Germany's foreign and defense ministers have sent this really strongly-worded letter to dozens of countries in NATO as well as to the Gulf states and other countries arguing that everybody should be sending more Patriot batteries to them. You're seeing the Danish are behind it, the Norwegians are behind it. There's lots of countries that are out there basically trying to shame other countries into coming up with Patriots. 

More than anything else, people are paying attention to what's going on in Washington now and for the first time there is a ray of hope, Speaker Mike Johnson has released three aid bills totaling, remember this number, $95 billion in aid, exactly what the Senate passed? He's broken it up into three bills, $60 billion for Ukraine, $26.4 for Israel as well as the money for Taiwan. He says he's planning a vote on Saturday, and we know he's taking a major risk for his speakership. But he seems determined to push this forward and it looks like the Democrats are ready to not only vote for these bills, but even potentially save his speakership for the sake of this aid. So we're going to have to watch that space.

MCMAHON:
No, it's a really interesting set of developments. When you hear what he's saying this week, it is far different than what he has said previously. It's kind of hedged language. He's coming right out and saying, "Look, Ukraine is facing an axis of evil," I think is the term he used of Russia and China. He's very concerned about that, he said, "Better we send this aid over to them rather than our American soldiers," just paraphrasing. But he's putting this into a bigger conflict terms that we have not seen from House Republicans, certainly House Republican leadership in a long time, and it echoes some of the Senate Republicans, we should say. But they have been rather muted or trying to speak in a little bit of a vacant echo chamber on this. Now we're seeing a new set of marching orders potentially coming from the speaker. A U.S. vote this weekend, which the president said he would sign immediately, would certainly give a boost to the European efforts in the talks that we've been discussing, but certainly also Ukrainians, they're in need of a momentum shift.

You mentioned the uptick of Russian attacks, including just they're coming right out and just slamming apartment buildings in Kharkiv and Chernihiv which is near the Russian border. They are just not disguising it at all anymore. It's a combination of terror and infrastructure damage tactics. Ukrainians, we should say, are trying their best on their front to hit Russian targets as well, and we could get back to where they should be hitting. But one of the big items of discussion that's going to be coming up is whether they should be given sway to hit Russian energy terminals, especially oil terminals. Again, it gets back to that question of what does this do to global supplies and overall inflation concerns and everything else, but this is a country fighting for its survival looking at a tipping point right now.

ROBBINS:
Well, the level of loss of morale that has taken place as the U.S. Congress has dithered and all this reporting about trains leaving Ukraine filled with conscription-aged men, which are so different from a year ago of people who were willing to fight and getting ready for this offensive, this really has done such damage to the spirit of people who have been willing to suffer and fight incredibly. One hopes that if this aid passes, and let's face it, I have a ray of hope here, but betting on what the GOP caucus in the House is willing to do, let's see. But the morale issue is probably just as important as the weapons issue for Ukraine. One of the things about Johnson that's so interesting, his willingness to put his speakership on the line here is when he explained why he was willing to do this, he really echoed what Zelenskyy's been saying all along, which is, "We're fighting for you here so you don't have to fight."

MCMAHON:
Right. Right.

ROBBINS:
Johnson mentioned that his son who was about to go to school at the U.S. Naval Academy, that he'd rather have that fight be over there because our sons and daughters aren't going to have to go.

MCMAHON:
He apparently heard a fair bit about these general concerns during the recess when he was back home and talking to constituents and everything else, so it is not just a Washington bubble thing seemingly, at least from his perspective. Now again, he's facing a challenge from his own caucus, and that'll be an area playing out. There's a few other people who have signed on to that effort. But the Democrats have indicated carefully that they probably would support him, so lots to watch. A lot of drama playing out, and again, we're in this moment where what's happening abroad is very consequential for the U.S. as well. So it's an important moment for Americans to take notice of what's happening in the world.

ROBBINS:
One hopes that if the U.S. Congress comes through that the Europeans also come through because $60 billion is a lot of money, but it's nowhere near what Ukraine is going to continue to need. Let's face it, even sending them the money, we still don't have in our coffers all of the artillery shells they need, and this has got to be a whole of NATO effort here and beyond NATO, which is this letter of the Germans are sending out, they're sending it all around the world.

MCMAHON:
Right.

ROBBINS:
If they want to push back against Putin, everybody's going to have to get behind them. 

Bob, let's move south to India. Starting on Friday and over forty-four days, we feel like our presidential campaign goes on forever, their voting goes on for a really long time, more than 900 million people are going to cast their votes for India's lower House of Parliament. The incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP Party, widely viewed as the Hindu nationalist party, are expected to win the majority of seats. What does another five years with the BJP in power mean for the Indians, and what does it mean globally? India's a big player. It's part of the Quad, but it's also got cozy relations with lots of other countries.

MCMAHON:
Yes, really consequential staggering numbers. When you look at Indians elections by the numbers, it's been often mentioned, but it's still worth noting the size. As you said, more than 900 million are expected cast votes. There's close to 970 million registered voters, and it takes place over forty-four days. Because of the Indian election rules, there have to be polling stations within two kilometers of every habitation, so you have these incredible stories of Himalayan villages getting addressed and remote Indigenous groups being served with voting facilities and so forth. But this is about the consolidation or the seeming consolidation of Modi's power. He seems poised to win a third term, which make him only the second Indian Prime Minister after Nehru to have three terms in power. It's this combination of Hindu nationalism, which definitely plays in the very populous north of the country and economic populism as well in that area and in other areas. Those are very much on display. 

The unofficial kickoff to this election season was earlier this year when Modi dedicated a Hindu temple in Ayodhya, which a controversial site where a mosque had been torn down more than thirty years ago because it has significance going back in time for practicing Hindus, and it was an obvious play for this Hindu majoritarian theme that we've seen again and again. Let's recall after his sweeping reelection five years ago into power, one of Modi's earlier moves was to revoke the semi-autonomous status of Kashmir, the Muslim majority Kashmir, which is a partition between India and Pakistan control zones. That has been a concern his ongoing, what's seen as a real crackdown targeted at Muslims, which is a large population, so it's 15 percent of India is Muslims, about 80 percent are Hindus. That 15 percent means it's something like 200 million people, and there is a lot of concern about them being disenfranchised, elbowed out of privileges and powers and so forth.

There's certainly been concern about backsliding and democratic protections including control of the press, seeking control of judiciary, basically, a playbook that we've seen before. We've mentioned before in this podcast, whether it's the Erdoğans of the world or the Orbáns and so forth, there is a path to consolidating power and it's controlling levers of messaging, communications, and places that independent power are exercised. 

Now, the election itself, though, by many accounts looks like it will be conducted properly. India has a very robust electoral infrastructure, and so it's not that we should be seeing tampering and ballot stuffing and so forth, but it's the pressure to exclude or to try to minimize the voices of opposition figures. The main opposition party, which has been waning in recent years is the congress party. They've faced threats including investigations into tax improprieties and things like that that have sought to muzzle them. So there's a lot of concern that Modi is going to sweep into a third term with some questionable tactics, and that's going to tarnish things. 

Internationally, though, just to answer the second part of your question, Carla, India seems to still be on the ascent. They have had robust growth in recent years. While not an ally, they are certainly a partner of the United States in a number of ways while still incredibly maintaining very positive ties with Russia. They are a chief consumer of Russian crude oil. There's a fascinating piece in the recent Economist about how India's purchasing of Russian crude has had an incredible effect on global oil markets. It's also had an effect on India's economy. That's a classic case of Modi in particular's pragmatism in terms of trying to deliver for Indians.

He's keeping the government's ability to subsidize petrol, for example, and keeping prices down for rank-and-file Indians and being able to claim such, and maintaining a dialogue with Russia, one of its fellow BRICS members. It  still has this ongoing rivalry and competition, certainly border tensions with China, but still maintains lines of dialogue with China. And then sees itself as a voice for the Global South, the so-called Global South, which I still haven't seen a good description of. But it basically speaks to these countries, not part of the, let's say, Western power structures that have a voice on global affairs. So we're going to see a Modi coming back by all appearances for a third term, certainly energized globally. We'll have to see how divisive or how much of a message these elections send on other fronts within India itself. We should say, while we mentioned the Hindu nationalism theme over and over again, India is a vast diverse country. You cannot just start to label it one thing because India can surprise.

ROBBINS:
Well, on the national security in the inner global security front, he's a wizard. It is an incredible thing that...Part of it is an Indian tradition, this playing all sides while claiming to be neutral. The notion that you can be a member of the Quad, which is a clear security alliance, and at the same time you're a member of the BRICS, which was created as a counterbalance to the dominant north is just a fascinating thing. Certainly, the George W. Bush administration violated the most fundamental notions of the NPT. India is not a signatory, but they sold them, quote, "civilian nuclear material," because they wanted a counterbalance with China. He's a big country democracy in the sense that this will be a free vote, even though Freedom House only calls the country partly free for all the reasons you mentioned. He belongs to basically every club he wants to belong to and seems to exercise a lot of influence without ever committing loyalty to anybody but India, and that is a fascinating thing.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, and it's worth noting also, he does not come out of the dynastic politic structure that we're so used to in South Asia, especially in India and Pakistan. He's a self-made person who's basically fastened on to this Hindu nationalism theme, and it's been a huge contributor to his popularity and has allowed him to stride confidently in so many different ways. Again, he does have to navigate some challenges domestically, but he seems to be really poised to charge ahead and he's got a goal, or the BJP I should say has a goal of what's Viksit Bharat 2047, which basically means "Developed Nation by 2047," which you think about where India has come from and what it's already done, and it doesn't seem that far-fetched, actually, if they stay in their current trajectory, even with their immense challenges.

ROBBINS:
Finally, he manages to escape a huge amount of the criticism that a lot of other countries would, whether it's the suppression of the media that takes place there, the harassment of NGOs and the regular violence that takes place against Muslims in India. The U.S. would be calling this out in a lot of other countries. Really, Modi gets, he's everybody's favorite autocrat in the world's biggest democracy.

MCMAHON:
We will see whether he comes through this election looking like a supreme democrat or more troublingly autocratic. 

Carla, we've talked our way into the audience figure of the week. That bell means listeners have voted this Tuesday and Wednesday at CFR_org Instagram story. Our audience selected one as the figure as in one degree centigrade as in "1ºC Bleaches Coral Reefs." Carla, what is going on and why did our audience pick this?

ROBBINS:
This is just really a tragedy of global warming, bleaching of coral reefs happens when the water gets so warm that the coral gets stressed and it loses the algae that is its food and also is where it gets its color. We are looking at a massive bleaching event in the next few weeks. The definition of a global bleaching event is based on the percentage of reefs undergoing bleaching in the three oceans where they live, and that's in the Pacific, the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. At least 12 perecent of those reefs must experience bleaching over a certain period of time. 

This is the fourth mass coral bleaching event since 1998. According to Derek Manzello, an ecologist and head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch program, right now, more than 54 percent of the world's coral area has experienced bleaching level heat stress over the past year. 2023 was declared the hottest year on record. Now, coral can come back from this, but if the water stays too hot for too long and that's what's been going on, it can also die off. So we'll have to see what happens in this. These reefs aren't just beautiful, they protect coastlines and they're incredibly important ecosystems for some 25 percent of marine life. So this is one more reminder of the high cost of climate change.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, it's worth flagging that figure, and I'm glad the audience chose that. As you say, coral reefs, it's not just, "Oh, look at the beautiful panoply of colors," there is a function there, and as with other areas that are affected by global warming and climate change and ocean warming, the bleaching and dying off, and it's terrible when you see the images of what had a flourishing coral area, let's say, like off Australia's Great Barrier Reef, and then you see what happens with bleaching and it's just devastating. There's knock-on effects, and it's tough to build back from that. It's tough to change something like the temperature of the ocean when it's been cooking up recently, and we're in this trendline right now that is not going in the right direction. 

Well, that's our look at the warming world next week. Here's some other stories to keep an eye on. Ecuador holds a referendum on fighting organized crime. Venice holds a sixtieth Biennale International Exhibition of Arts, which is great. I've been there. And, the Balkan state of North Macedonia holds the first round of its presidential election.

ROBBINS:
Please subscribe to The World Next Week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review while you're at it, we appreciate the feedback. If you'd like to reach out, please email us at [email protected]. The publications mentioned in this episode as well as the transcript of our conversation are listed on the podcast page for The World Next Week on CFR.org. Please note that opinions expressed on The World Next Week are solely those of the host and not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. 

Today's program was produced by Ester Fang and Sinet Adous with Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. Special thanks to our intern Olivia Green for her research assistance. Our theme music is provided by Markus Zakaria, and this is Carla Robbins saying so long.

MCMAHON:
This is Bob McMahon saying goodbye, and be careful out there.