In this episode, recorded during a media briefing on 3 March, Richard Pater speaks with Danny Citrinowicz about the trajectory of the campaign so far and what may come next. Citrinowicz explores the strategic logic behind targeting Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure, pressure on Gulf states, and who could become Iran’s new Supreme Leader.
Danny Citrinowicz is a Senior Researcher in the Iran and the Shi’ite Axis Program at the Institute for National Security Studies. He served 25 years in a variety of command positions units in Israel Defence Intelligence (IDI) including as the head of the Iran branch in the Research and Analysis Division (RAD) in the Israeli defence intelligence.
Transcript
(This transcript has been automatically generated by AI — please excuse any potential errors.)
00:00:06:18 – 00:00:29:02
Richard Pater
Today is the 3rd of March. It’s the fourth day of the war with Iran, and we are focusing on that war. Our speaker, Danny Citrinowicz is a senior researcher at the excellent INSS. He’s actually the head of the Iran and Shiite Access program at the institute. Before that, he had a distinguished career of 25 years serving in IDF military intelligence.
00:00:29:04 – 00:00:47:13
Richard Pater
Amongst his roles was head of the Iran branch of the Research and Analysis Division. So, I think Danny’s expertly placed and primed. If I could start, if you want to give an overview of your assessment of the operation so far, and perhaps a little bit about what we can expect to come next, and then we’ll open it up into questions.
00:00:47:14 – 00:00:50:10
Richard Pater
But Danny, thank you. And over to you.
00:00:50:12 – 00:01:12:02
Danny Citrinowicz
Sure. But again, thank you for inviting me. I’ll say that, again, we are in, well, there’s the war, so everything can change, and, we don’t have a crystal ball, so we have to. And we are in a very new situation and a pivotal moment in the military. So, we have to be very careful in how we assessing things will go forward.
00:01:12:04 – 00:01:39:23
Danny Citrinowicz
But I’ll say that, to understand where we are right now, if we come back half a year ago or eight months ago for the ending of the 12 day war, what we call Rising Lion, when, actually, what happened is the fact that, Israel succeeded in, significant limiting the uranium use in the US in limiting the Iranian, nuclear capacity and missiles.
00:01:39:24 – 00:02:10:00
Danny Citrinowicz
But strategically, nothing has changed from the end of the war. Iran returned back to the force buildup, especially on the missiles. That is actually what, happened. No. Because of that, Prime Minister Netanyahu went to see, President Trump, just a week before the demonstration started discussing with them the need to, attack, Iran again.
00:02:10:02 – 00:02:28:15
Danny Citrinowicz
And he got the green light, more or less. So, we have to understand that the fact is where we are right now is because the fact that strategically, nothing has changed things since the 12-day war. In between, of course, the with the demonstrations, President Trump decided that he doesn’t want to see to be Obama or Biden or perceived as such and needs want to help them.
00:02:28:17 – 00:02:59:09
Danny Citrinowicz
In terms of, the demonstrations that that happened in, back in two, 2029, 2022. And he thought that given what happened in Venezuela, they can do the same thing with Iran. So actually, those along those lines merged. So, we have, Israel pushing for understanding that there is a need to change the regime, because if there was this was you will check will state, it will rebuild capacity, the nuclear one and the missile.
00:02:59:11 – 00:03:26:18
Danny Citrinowicz
And you have President Trump understanding that the, the, the regime is very weak and their ability to change or to force the regime, to surrender, to capitulate, whether through negotiation or through a war. So, what we so after the minimal I go and then the tweets of President Trump, I think the US really thought that while bringing the vehicle carrier to the area, you have to have you have the ability in a way, to actually force the United to, to capitulate.
00:03:26:19 – 00:03:58:21
Danny Citrinowicz
Europeans won’t capitulate, didn’t capitulate in the past and won’t probably in the future. And the negotiation was actually, discussed of the deaths because, the Iranians were willing to show, compromises on the nuclear front. But from the US standpoint, it’s all about, dictating to the Iranians how agreement should look like, including the missile, the proxies, because in their assumption or the assumption they are, we are on the threshold of what’s stronger than Iran.
00:03:58:21 – 00:04:31:05
Danny Citrinowicz
You one is weak, so we want you to surrender. It’s very businesslike model. But what do you want us to put in the ideology and everything else? They couldn’t show. They couldn’t let go the missiles, of course. So, the, the administration decided to act. Of course, Israel was very happy to because, for instance, the struggle moment that the US administration actually leading the way in attacking, Iran, this is something the dream of Netanyahu, the starting, decision point to start, the attack was just to find a way to, the cabinet dominate the senior leadership.
00:04:31:05 – 00:05:05:10
Danny Citrinowicz
And Saturday morning, we had a chance. We attacked, two main, meeting one we will harmony one killed him and the staff and the other one, the defence committee headed by Ali Shamkhani were killed. The defence minister, the IRGC commander, and also the Trump. So, Mousavi so, actually, when you have, in fact. So same thing as have, oh, eight months ago, we then, the starting point of the war was, the computation of senior leadership within Europe itself.
00:05:05:10 – 00:05:27:05
Danny Citrinowicz
And then we started attacking, mainly the missile committees of Iran. Everything related to the manufacturing and also the launching pads. And of course, the, related to the nuclear. Not that much left, but whatever they try to build during the half a year we bombed, but especially in the in the thousand, it’s fine.
00:05:27:07 – 00:05:51:13
Danny Citrinowicz
And, where we stand right now, so we are in a situation where, the Iranians are retaliating. Their way of thinking right now is some sort of a war of attrition, meaning that what they’re trying to be trying to extend the time of the war and inflicting damage. So, actually, what does that means?
00:05:51:15 – 00:06:28:24
Danny Citrinowicz
It means that, and everything related to, to the cold surroundings of the regional countries, Oman, UAE, Saudi Arabia, they’re attacking the US presence in the region in those places, compared to that in Qatar, because they want to take damage the US, but also the using that, you know, putting pressure on those countries, assuming, you know, everything related to the fact that they are not deviating from those bases, it’s actually, it’s directly, in terms of, actually agreement to harm those countries.
00:06:29:01 – 00:06:50:04
Danny Citrinowicz
Adding to that, that closing the straits. So, the increasing the, the price of oil barrel and liquid gas and attacking a force Israel not as they did in the past, not like big barges, small barges, but almost all day long. What they’re trying to do and of course, attacking U.S. forces in the region or trying to, what the left for them is.
00:06:50:04 – 00:07:19:04
Danny Citrinowicz
Of course, if, if situation will, actually deteriorate there, they can attack also the energy sectors, and factories in those countries. And then we need increasing the oil. The price of oil barrel. Now it’s $85. Probably it will be more or less towards 100, by the end of the week, I think, given the escalation now, so this is where we stand right now, Israelis and us to continue hammering them.
00:07:19:06 – 00:07:39:06
Danny Citrinowicz
And of course, trying to actually undermine the stability of the regime. It’s not only attacking missiles and nuclear, but also the IRGC headquarters, the, the procedures quarters, the police headquarters, thinking that that will undermine the situation and allow people to go to the streets and take over Iran. Now, so this is what we meant.
00:07:39:08 – 00:08:03:00
Danny Citrinowicz
It’s a very, well, when we are discussing, a simulator to, to the possibilities, I think that this is something very, elusive in the, in the target list because it’s not something military concrete. You’re not depriving of something. It’s very elusive and how we describe it. But we’ll have to wait and see how things will develop, towards the near future.
00:08:03:00 – 00:08:27:05
Danny Citrinowicz
Now we are in, so the war continues. The running is talking about attrition. We are bombing them day and night, night and day. And the question is, what will happen next? There is a growing pressure within the US, from of course, Mark, another element that actually see this war is, something that is very hard to explain because actually, there were that right.
00:08:27:05 – 00:08:48:01
Danny Citrinowicz
There was no imminent threat to the US like Iran. You have to say that the Iran was no close to building a nuclear weapon or, ICBM that will hit the US would have to mean means that it’s, stay true to our analysis, but they are very, so they are very, angry that, at least some elements within the US politics.
00:08:48:01 – 00:09:20:20
Danny Citrinowicz
So, the real question is the times of clocks, who will be two? Meaning that, one possibility is the fact that, the Iranians would hold on, and then they were forced to come to some sort of a ceasefire. Does it look like that? Because but because the pressure coming from inside, the, inside, obviously related to, the US politics or outside coming from, the regional states, that can happen or, or what will happen eventually.
00:09:20:20 – 00:09:39:09
Danny Citrinowicz
There was, being toppled. It was very hard to do. It’s very hard to topple regime from the air. But this is what we are trying to do, with the overwhelming power or superiority of personal security that we have, that in general, terms, I think where we are right now, we don’t know how things will develop.
00:09:39:09 – 00:10:08:20
Danny Citrinowicz
We have to say that Iran is a new country in terms of, the new supreme leader. But we have to say something about it that despite there is no supreme leader and that we are waiting for the election of a new one. The country is, run more or less collectively. Yes, there is, I know Johnny the circuitry of the, the of the SMS, the Supreme National, council of Iran and Ali Buffy’s the speaker of the judges.
00:10:08:22 – 00:10:30:01
Danny Citrinowicz
Both of them are, actually, working together to running the country in a way. But it’s a very collectively, in so many ways. But this is something that, where we stand right now and we have to see how things will develop in the near future. Again, we don’t know what will happen.
00:10:30:01 – 00:10:50:16
Danny Citrinowicz
I think that personally, I think it will be very hard to topple this regime. And I think we have to think what will happen if people won’t go to the streets and this regime won’t be toppled, because if this war will end with this regime staying, in power, then goes without saying that they will rebuild the capacity, but the top of them will, will be something interesting to see how we can do that.
00:10:50:18 – 00:11:06:20
Danny Citrinowicz
One other element that we have to remember is it’s the relations between the Gulf countries and Iran. They have a very good relationship to the war. They are overwhelmed for what the Iranians are doing right now. It’s not. The unions did it by accident. He meant to do that because they know it will increase the pressure on the US.
00:11:06:20 – 00:11:24:05
Danny Citrinowicz
But, after the war, we don’t see well, I don’t know how things will develop over there. I’m not saying that they’re going to disconnect those old relations with Iran, because you want to be country, and I’m not sure they want to find themselves in the crash with them. But from the other side, definitely. Things will change though as well.
00:11:24:05 – 00:11:51:21
Danny Citrinowicz
So, this really was, shaking the Middle East. The whole and not only the Middle East, canonical markets, the oil, the gas and everything. And the thing is that we don’t know when is going to end. Trump talking about two weeks, in Israel, talk about two months. My guess is, next week something. Well, I think that’s, I think eventually, we have to remember that we have also problems in Israel in terms of, interceptors and other stuff that we can hold that forever.
00:11:52:02 – 00:12:13:15
Danny Citrinowicz
Yes. The Iranians prepare for the war. They’re not launching a lot of missiles, but I think they are calculating that in order to have some sort of attrition. So, I don’t think we can sustain that for a month. But let’s see, things are developing a new future. But that’s really in a nutshell how we see the, the situation between us and, the Iranians and of course, the US.
00:12:13:17 – 00:12:29:08
Richard Pater
Thank you. I mean, open up for questions in a minute. Just if I can ask you just 1 or 2 follow ups. First of all, we’ve seen Israeli officials talk about that. They’re looking in the days ahead to intensify the campaign. What do you think that if you just to unpack that, what do you think that means?
00:12:29:08 – 00:12:33:01
Richard Pater
Because it seems to be pretty intense so far.
00:12:33:03 – 00:12:54:22
Danny Citrinowicz
Yeah. I think it’s much more than what you’re doing right now. Every day they what we call three trains that are going train, meaning, multiple airplanes flying back and forth to Iran. So, I think we, aim to increase that, creating more damage. I think more damage in, in, big cities. Tehran is Farhan, Qom, Shiraz, Tabriz.
00:12:54:24 – 00:13:09:19
Danny Citrinowicz
Just actually too weak to, demand, undermine, undermine this regime. I think that toppling the building is not something that really can help us in a way that I don’t think it would change. Definitely it’s undermining. But I don’t think in a way that they would allow people to go to the streets. This is my way of thinking.
00:13:09:19 – 00:13:26:20
Danny Citrinowicz
But we have to wait to see. But it would be much more than what we are already doing. And of course, trying really to limit their ability to launch missiles. We’re doing that today in a very in a high success rate. Of course it’s in those, those zero that. But I think we’ll just intensify what already we are doing.
00:13:26:20 – 00:13:33:19
Danny Citrinowicz
So instead of three trains we have five trains, six trains going back and forth to Iran from Israel.
00:13:33:21 – 00:13:52:18
Richard Pater
And one last question for me. You can you just came out the potential, runners and riders to take over. Once the committee of, of leadership, the council, decide. So, who are the lead candidates? And one of what are the ramifications for the war in the run itself.
00:13:52:20 – 00:14:15:21
Danny Citrinowicz
First of all, the rumours right now that we tried to hit the Council of Experts, the people that actually were elected to, to elect the Supreme leader. So, I don’t know if it’s true or not. They supposed to elect it, but everything is, actually, decided behind the scenes. It’s not going to they’re not going to elect, surprisingly of the I would say will be behind the scenes.
00:14:15:23 – 00:14:33:16
Danny Citrinowicz
They have multiple candidates. First, I have to say that you don’t know what the status would be and the and the capabilities of the new Supreme leader. Yes, we had Khamenei and company and nobody saying for the next three there will be a supreme leader the way that he will have executive orders or capabilities in Iran, maybe it will be shifted.
00:14:33:17 – 00:15:00:00
Danny Citrinowicz
Maybe it will be like the emperor of Japan. I don’t know, but we have to take that into consideration. The second thing that we need to discuss is the options. We have multiple options. Hassan Khamenei, the grandson of Khamenei, that is more moderate than his grandfather. And he was highly connected to Harmony itself. We have Sadiq Larijani that was the head of the Judicial Council and today is, of course, the brother of Ali Larijani,
00:15:00:06 – 00:15:18:21
Danny Citrinowicz
who by the circumstance may be the strongest, the strongest guy in the world today. We have possible Hassan Rouhani, that used to be the president. And he was a very moderate guy. And we have also, if he was still alive Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Khamenei, is supported by the IRGC. But we’ll have to wait to see, because Iran is not a monarchy now.
00:15:18:21 – 00:15:45:16
Danny Citrinowicz
So, it’s very hard for him to elect, there is a guy named Alireza Rafithat was the, the head of Lusophone diversity. The biggest academical is, okay. Academia of, of Iran and, he is another, candidate he was elected to be, to be representative in the council. That the interim council that running allegedly Iran.
00:15:45:18 – 00:15:57:10
Danny Citrinowicz
So those are the main candidates, but we don’t know. There can be surprised over there. But again, we don’t know exactly what which kind of destruction or capabilities you have. So that’s more or less where we where we stand right now.
00:15:57:12 – 00:15:58:24
Richard Pater
Great. Thank you very much.