In this episode, Richard Pater speaks with Professor Chuck Freilich about the fragile ceasefires with Iran and Lebanon and the current negotiations. Prof Freilich outlines Iran’s perspective on the talks and the status of their nuclear programme. They also discuss Hezbollah’s remaining capabilities as well as wider implications for US-Israel relations.
Prof. Chuck Freilich is a former deputy national security advisor in Israel and long-time senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School, he now teaches at Columbia and Tel Aviv University. He is also the author of three books on Israeli national security affairs. Prior to serving in the National Security Council, Freilich was a senior analyst in the Israel Ministry of Defence, a policy adviser to a cabinet minister and a delegate at the Israel Mission to the UN.
Transcript
(This transcript has been automatically generated by AI — please excuse any potential errors.)
00:00:06:24 – 00:00:29:17
Richard Pater
Hello and welcome to the latest BICOM briefing and podcast recording. I’m Richard Pater, the director of BICOM. And today is Thursday the 23rd of April. We are currently in a period of a fragile ceasefire, both with regard to Iran and Lebanon and to assess the current standing. We could not have a better placed expert than Professor Chuck Freilich.
00:00:29:18 – 00:00:32:03
Richard Pater
Professor, thank you very much indeed for joining us.
00:00:32:06 – 00:00:34:13
Chuck Freilich
My pleasure always.
00:00:34:15 – 00:01:06:07
Richard Pater
So, for introduction, professor is a former Deputy National Security adviser at Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office and a long-term senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School, with an affiliation as well to Columbia and Tel Aviv University. He is the author of three books focusing on Israel’s national security affairs, as well as numerous policy papers and academic articles, and he is currently working on his new book, which focuses on Israel US strategic relations in his role in the Israel National Security Council.
00:01:06:09 – 00:01:31:13
Richard Pater
He dealt with numerous issues, including Israel, US relations, the Iranian nuclear issue, Lebanon, and the threat from Hezbollah. Prior to the National Security Council, he was a senior analyst at Israel’s Ministry of Defence, as well as serving in the IDF on strategic planning and policy analysis. So, professor, perhaps we could start off and focus on the Iranian issue and the talks.
00:01:31:13 – 00:01:54:23
Richard Pater
The talks with Iran opinion are greatly divided both here and around the world. Some that see President Trump as a genius who has a master plan, others who see him woefully out of his depth when it comes to negotiating with the Iranians. And crucially, it appears at least the Iranians’ negotiating position hasn’t really changed from now since prior to the to the 40 Day War.
00:01:54:24 – 00:02:03:18
Richard Pater
So, if we could start off, just give us your assessment of the current state of negotiations between Israel, between US and Iran.
00:02:03:19 – 00:02:46:17
Chuck Freilich
Well, I think we’re in an unfortunate position where Iran believes, not without justification, that it has the upper hand and has even won the war. Now, from a purely military perspective, that’s obviously false. Iran has been hit very, very hard, and in at least some areas it will take it quite a long time to recover from this. But Iran believes that by virtue of closing off the Strait of Hormuz, it succeeded in internationalizing globalizing the conflict and forcing the US to back down and agree to a cease fire.
00:02:46:19 – 00:03:14:16
Chuck Freilich
From their point of view, merely being able to survive a war against the United States and forget Israel will were small fries in comparison. But being able to this is the nightmare scenario of the Islamic Republic ever since it was established in 1979, and they managed to stand up to the US from their point of view. Again, not without justification.
00:03:14:16 – 00:03:36:08
Chuck Freilich
They view that as a victory, so that I believe that if the war really ends on these terms, that is not good. It’s not good for the United States. It’s not good for Israel. I don’t believe it’s good for the UK. And then the international system, when a third-rate power can stand up to the United States.
00:03:36:10 – 00:04:03:20
Richard Pater
And I mean, if we look at the nuclear file, specifically Iranian in transients to do anything about the highly enriched uranium and Trump faces criticisms of potentially doing a deal not dissimilar to the to the to the to the deal that he criticized so heavily of the JCPoA. How do you see that those negotiations playing out and what can America afford to accept?
00:04:03:21 – 00:04:33:18
Chuck Freilich
Well, I think between the initial position and what, according to some reports, is still the American position, which is enrichment, there are still some room for compromise, in other words. But this is going back to the JCPoA, the 2015 nuclear deal, that Iran would be allowed to continue enrichment at the purely civilian level of 3.67%. That in itself does not present to danger.
00:04:33:19 – 00:05:04:17
Chuck Freilich
Of course, having any enrichment capability is a long-term problem. I think the US has to regain the upper hand here. It has to have greater leverage than it does at the moment. President Trump has issued some, shall we say, strong threats, but repeatedly backed off of that. And that has convinced the Iranians that he is the side.
00:05:04:17 – 00:05:16:04
Chuck Freilich
And it shouldn’t be this way that the US has decided that it’s more desperate for a deal than needs it more than they do. And so, they’re hanging tough. And.
00:05:16:06 – 00:05:42:03
Chuck Freilich
It may be necessary to renew military action, not because we’re going to destroy the nuclear program from the air. That’s not going to happen. What could be done has probably been done in the recent fighting. We’re certainly not going to topple the Islamic Republic that I don’t believe was ever a realistic objective. And.
00:05:42:05 – 00:06:11:24
Chuck Freilich
What we’ve done on the missile level is we can always take out some more. But their production capability was severely destroyed. The real reason for maybe going back to some limited military action is to force the Iranians to come back to the table today with a more compromising approach, a willingness to make some of the concessions from to remove the 440 odd kilos of highly enriched uranium from Iran.
00:06:11:24 – 00:06:42:12
Chuck Freilich
And there’s another couple of hundred less highly enriched, but also above the dangerous level to take that all out of Iran and to submit to it to other things, whether it’s long-term inspections and more. In any event, that’s one way of doing it and another way. And I think this is what Trump is counting on at the moment, is that the economic pain from the American closure of the Straits will force them back to the table.
00:06:42:14 – 00:06:52:09
Chuck Freilich
It’s unclear who has greater tolerance for the closure, the Americans of the Iranian closure, or the Iranians of the American closure.
00:06:52:14 – 00:06:56:23
Richard Pater
Which way would your which way would you put the balance of the risk there?
00:06:57:00 – 00:07:23:13
Chuck Freilich
That’s a tough one. I mean, ordinarily, I would say that the Iranians are the ones who are at greater risk here because so much of their economy is dependent on the oil exports, and they can’t do that at the moment. Somewhere around 40% of their entire economy. On the other hand, Trump is under great domestic and international pressure, and he has the midterm elections upcoming in November.
00:07:23:15 – 00:07:35:11
Chuck Freilich
He has not been known, let’s say, for his long-term persistence in various areas. So, we’ll see.
00:07:35:13 – 00:07:49:06
Richard Pater
I’m glad you mentioned before the issue of kind of the 20% enriched uranium, which isn’t really on the in the public agenda. How much do you think that features as part of the negotiations between the sides?
00:07:49:08 – 00:08:16:17
Chuck Freilich
Well, I certainly hope it’s part of the negotiations because to go from zero or even 3.67 to 20% is hard to go from 20% to 90% is actually quite easy or to 60%. So that people think, well, it’s well below the 60% of the rest of their arsenal. And it’s a smaller number, but it can be ramped up to their very, very quickly.
00:08:16:17 – 00:08:24:10
Chuck Freilich
So, it’s basically just as important as the 440 kilos of the 60% you.
00:08:24:12 – 00:08:54:12
Richard Pater
And just going back, we mentioned before about the, the threats of the closure of the Straits of, of Hormuz, just from a military perspective. I mean, some people were kind of the armchair generals were surprised that not more was done to target the Iranian navy and their capacity to kind of to maintain that hold just can you can you give us an explanation, a little bit of what that would take to kinetically reopen the straits and what the capacity the US has to do that.
00:08:54:18 – 00:09:23:15
Chuck Freilich
Iran has or had, maybe more correctly, when the war began, both the regular navy with naval vessels of the client that you would find in any country’s navy. They also have a large number of small craft of speedboats, a couple of few people, which they have turned either into suicide in some cases or just loaded them suicide vessels or loaded them with explosives.
00:09:23:15 – 00:09:53:04
Chuck Freilich
And they can. This is their hopes, sneak up on American vessels and cause havoc. I imagine that the US Navy has developed a fairly good capabilities for dealing with this. It’s not a new threat, I should say. The real naval vessels were destroyed during the war. Almost all of them were sunk. It’s these small speedboats which you can hit in any alcove along the hundreds of kilometres of the Persian Gulf that are very, very hard to find.
00:09:53:05 – 00:10:18:06
Chuck Freilich
And so, to take out, as I was saying, it’s not a new threat. The US Navy is known about this for the last couple of decades, but still, I think the fear is 99% of them, let’s say, will be shot out of the water. But if one gets through and an American naval vessel was sunk, that’s going to be a very different picture indeed.
00:10:18:08 – 00:10:38:19
Richard Pater
Your most recent book apart, I mentioned the introduction in your new book you’re working on, but your last book focused on cyber, cyber security and the threat. I wondered if you could give us an assessment of the role that kind of cyber played in this, in this most recent conflict and kind of what are the. What are the signs also to look out for in terms of Iran’s capability?
00:10:38:20 – 00:11:10:15
Chuck Freilich
Well, I think that this conflict has reinforced what has been my conclusion that ready appeared in the book and for what has happened in the three years since it came out. There was once this international narrative discourse about cyber war and how it was going to be incredibly destructive. And in point of fact, it seems offensive. Cyber, in terms of the ability to destroy things through cyber means, has been very limited.
00:11:10:15 – 00:11:40:12
Chuck Freilich
There have been very few successful attacks in the world of that type, where cyber has proven quite effective in two other areas. One is in the intelligence area because it’s become a primary means for intelligence collection today. And the other areas the information space, information warfare, disinformation, whatever you wish to call it. Now, we’ve seen the Iranians doing both in the course of this world, particularly in the information space.
00:11:40:14 – 00:11:46:01
Chuck Freilich
They have used cyber to help them.
00:11:46:03 – 00:12:12:11
Chuck Freilich
Enlist various people in Israel for intelligence purposes. What I have been surprised by that none of that was surprising. Or maybe the fact that they managed to find a number of Israelis. Yes, but I expected to see a lot more on the American side. And as a fact, on the Israeli offensive side. And again, we did not see that by either country at all in this war.
00:12:12:13 – 00:12:30:17
Chuck Freilich
And we haven’t even seen reports of anything significant in the intelligence area. We’re certainly losing the information war, but we haven’t seen use by the US or Israel of cyber in this conflict.
00:12:30:18 – 00:12:37:16
Richard Pater
Did you think we just haven’t seen it? Kind of. It’s happening. We don’t know about it. Or would you have an explanation of why it hasn’t been deployed?
00:12:37:18 – 00:13:15:03
Chuck Freilich
Well, on the Intel level actually, I mean, we do know that it was used as part of the efforts to take out the Iranian anti-aircraft systems. But maybe, maybe when it comes to Intel, it’s just a lack of reporting in the information space. I think both the US and Israel, and to a certain extent, Western countries as a whole have abdicated this, this area, maybe taking some defensive actions, but basically and not really competing with countries like Iran and China and Russia in this area.
00:13:15:04 – 00:13:38:22
Richard Pater
You where you were a bit dismissive before about the prospects of any regime change. I presume you were kind of implying, you know, it’s not in the ability of any other external powers. But there is, I suppose some still some hope that in the weeks or months ahead, kind of when the fighting presumably dies down, that the, the internal uprisings may maybe, maybe begin again.
00:13:38:23 – 00:13:46:21
Richard Pater
Do you, do you rate those prospects? And what a kind of what for you are the significant factors that we in the West should be, should be looking out for?
00:13:46:22 – 00:14:08:05
Chuck Freilich
Well, first of all, one of the things that Israel started doing, at least at one point in the course of the war, intensively, the US took the best of my understanding, did not and should be doing now if fighting is renewed is hitting regime targets. So, Israel was hitting the IRGC and the besieged militia targets, mostly in Tehran.
00:14:08:05 – 00:14:36:18
Chuck Freilich
From what I understand, we should be doing that we, both the US and Israel should be doing that in every city and large towns throughout Iran. Now, what you can target is headquarters, various local offices, stores, storehouses, weapons depots. That in itself doesn’t bring the regime down, but it weakens it and it creates greater space for people to come out onto the streets.
00:14:36:20 – 00:14:52:07
Chuck Freilich
We should be providing financial aid and weapons, whatever they need. We should be helping them in the information space, especially since the regime has closed down the Iranian internet.
00:14:52:09 – 00:15:19:12
Chuck Freilich
So, there’s lots that we could be doing in that area, even if I, I believe that if and when the regime falls, it would be primarily due to domestic developments, not outside intervention. But we should be doing what we can do. And I agree with the premise of what you were saying, which is over the next few months, we can see the people coming back out into the streets, at least at some point it’s going to take a while.
00:15:19:14 – 00:15:42:17
Chuck Freilich
They killed lots and lots of people and the level of suppression is horrific. But the economic situation, which was, shall we say, extremely bad before the war is going to be horrendous for the people of Iran now. So maybe that will encourage them back out onto the street.
00:15:42:20 – 00:16:05:10
Richard Pater
You think that the if there was to be, again, the vocal call from the outside, for example, by the son of the former Shah, to kind of to call people out onto the streets or potentially a call by President Trump or other influential international figures that can be the catalyst for that? Or do you think it has its own internal dynamics now?
00:16:05:16 – 00:16:38:15
Chuck Freilich
The Shah’s son does not have the standing and the credibility to be a major factor. He turned out to have more influence than I think most people had thought. But still, he’s not going to be the I don’t believe the rallying figure that could lead a revolution in Iran. And President Trump has, unfortunately, I believe, lost his credibility with the Iranian people because he had promised famously back in January that and just hold on a bit.
00:16:38:16 – 00:17:03:14
Chuck Freilich
Help was on its way, and it turned out to be too late. So, I don’t know that the people are getting heated again. And he did it again. And well, the estimates are I think the more credible numbers are that 7000 people were killed, but some people are using numbers of 30 to 40,000. Whichever it is, it’s a very large number of people.
00:17:03:14 – 00:17:19:05
Chuck Freilich
It took really remarkable bravery on the part of the people to come out in the way they did and have repeatedly over the years, but as they did in January. I think it’s going to take some time before people have the courage to do so again.
00:17:19:07 – 00:17:41:04
Richard Pater
Can we just turn our attention to Lebanon for, for a moment? First of all, a lot of Israelis were surprised that after kind of on and off two and a half years of warfare, Hezbollah still had so much capacity to bombard northern Israel communities. We used to buy that. And how would you explain that phenomenon?
00:17:41:06 – 00:18:09:18
Chuck Freilich
No, I wasn’t really surprised. I think the government oversold the impact of what had happened in the fall of 2024, when Hitler was decimated, whether it was by the killing of Nasrallah, who had been an extraordinarily effective leader, the beeper operation and then the bombing of.
00:18:09:20 – 00:18:37:18
Chuck Freilich
Rockets throughout Lebanon, and the assumption at the time was that we had taken out something like 80% of that Arsenal, but in Arsenal of 150,000, if you take out 80%, 20% still leaves you with 30,000 rockets and UVs and things. So, the fact that they were able to fire sometimes a couple of hundred a day for six weeks, they have it.
00:18:37:19 – 00:19:09:01
Chuck Freilich
They still have plenty left. I didn’t do the math here, but I mean, they could probably do another month at that at that level. So, I wasn’t surprised. I was a little bit surprised by the overall reconstitution, because I had thought that they had been weakened more from that point of view. But again, the government took what was an undoubtedly a tremendous success in 2024 and oversold it a bit for public consumption.
00:19:09:03 – 00:19:22:20
Richard Pater
And later today, we’re anticipating the second round of talks between the ambassadors in in Washington, between Israel and Lebanon representatives. How do you rate the prospects of those talks?
00:19:22:22 – 00:20:06:10
Chuck Freilich
We’re in a unique situation here. For the first time in 50 years, more. There is a Lebanese government which is truly committed, at least on the and sincerely and on the rhetorical level, to reasserting national sovereignty over all of Lebanon. For a long time, it was the PLO. For the last almost 40 years, it’s been the people of Lebanon, I think, have really had it with these separatist entities within the country, which have really destroyed what was once a prosperous and successful Middle Eastern state.
00:20:06:12 – 00:20:12:24
Chuck Freilich
And Lebanon had a horrific, bloody civil war.
00:20:13:01 – 00:20:42:21
Chuck Freilich
But the problem is the same one that’s been there throughout this period, which is the Lebanese government. For all the good intentions that this one for the first time has. They don’t have the military capability to take out. It remains by far the strongest military body within Lebanon. There’s no one on the outside who’s willing to I mean, no international force, no international power that’s willing to send in any military capability of significance.
00:20:42:23 – 00:21:08:15
Chuck Freilich
UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force, is essentially useless. And to be frank, it’s hard to imagine that somebody else is going to succeed in doing what the IDF hasn’t succeeded in doing. So, I don’t see that that problem is going to be resolved so quickly. There is talk about Lebanon being willing to go ahead with I don’t think we’re talking yet.
00:21:08:16 – 00:21:22:16
Chuck Freilich
Normalization, certainly not yet. Peace. But maybe some measures in that direction. And since we actually have no problems with the state of Lebanon, we have a great deal of trouble with this.
00:21:22:18 – 00:21:32:08
Chuck Freilich
This other body, which is based in Lebanon. But that would be a step in the right direction. That would be very nice if it can go forward.
00:21:32:10 – 00:21:45:21
Richard Pater
And the Israeli stated objective to sever the links between Iran and Hezbollah. Again, how realistic do you think that is kind of combining both sets of talks?
00:21:45:23 – 00:22:01:05
Chuck Freilich
Well, I don’t think in democracies you ever get too far by underselling your objectives, understating them. We’re not going to sever the link between Iran and we have weakened it. Okay.
00:22:01:07 – 00:22:25:15
Chuck Freilich
First of all, just by hitting both Iran and as hard as we have in the last few years, and the fact that what Israel did in 2024, in Lebanon contributed significantly to then to the downfall of the Assad regime and the rise of a new regime there. We didn’t know this at the time, but it turned out that is a vociferously anti-Iranian regime, anti-Israeli.
00:22:25:17 – 00:22:40:03
Chuck Freilich
And I wouldn’t say that they’ve completely covered the arm supply link that ran through Syria, but they’ve contributed to that significantly. So, yes, the link is weakened, but we won’t we won’t sever it completely.
00:22:40:05 – 00:23:04:13
Richard Pater
And what about kind of the optimistic perspective of kind of bringing in whether the Saudis or the Emiratis into the sphere of influence to replace the Iranians and to kind of to give a backing to the, as you said, the kind of the rhetoric of the current Lebanese government. Is that a prospect that is, again, woefully optimistic or realistic?
00:23:04:15 – 00:23:33:23
Chuck Freilich
I imagine that we’ll see the Saudis at least looking at the maybe the Emirati is looking at the situation and they already are, and they’re considering providing more aid. The Saudis pulled out about a decade ago. I mean, they had been putting a lot of money into Lebanon over the years, billions. And they eventually came to the conclusion that they were just pouring good money after bad, and they ended.
00:23:34:00 – 00:23:59:08
Chuck Freilich
So, they will have to be confident that they really are prospects for something good to happen. Now we’ll have to wait and see. I imagine that they were waiting to see what happens in terms of the cease fire, which is mostly holding in terms of the unfolding Israeli Lebanese negotiations, whether really can be taken down a few more pegs.
00:23:59:10 – 00:24:28:02
Richard Pater
Just one final topic. How concerned are you if we look at Israel, US relations? How concerned are you that the kind of the overwhelming support and backing that Israel receives from, from Trump and the current administration will face a backlash or a pendulum swinging back in in, in future ties, both in terms of the Democrats position and kind of the isolationist MAGA unit of the right wing of the Republicans.
00:24:28:04 – 00:25:09:14
Chuck Freilich
I’m very concerned about that. As a matter of fact, if you ask me, the issue that I’m most concerned about, it’s that one, because we needed the United States today for just about everything we needed for dealing with Iran, for dealing with for dealing with Hamas, hopefully future peace with Palestinians and other neighbours, regional normalization, arms supply, US diplomatic cover in every international institution, promoting Israeli ties with other countries around the world, as the US has helped us do over the decades, blocking UN votes.
00:25:09:16 – 00:25:41:07
Chuck Freilich
So, I’m I mean, I believe the relationship with the US is basically existential for Israel or pretty close to it. And there was a deep crisis brewing before October 7th, decades of pent-up American anger, mostly on the Democratic left at that point. It’s since expanded over Israel’s West Bank. Palestinians slash settlement policies. How can you guys be doing this?
00:25:41:08 – 00:26:12:15
Chuck Freilich
We give you so much support, and you go and take actions and policies that are directly at odds with American policy. And it also seems like you’re doing something which is simply counterproductive. Own interest if you want to remain a predominantly Jewish and democratic state. But how can you do this? Despite all our help? The October seventh massacre, I think, postponed the crisis by about a year.
00:26:12:15 – 00:26:43:14
Chuck Freilich
But then American criticism over the ways were prosecuted. The war led to a backlash, and actually it amplified the anger that was there. Then Trump’s election again gave us a breather. And while he’s president, presumably that breather will continue. But we see what’s happening in American public opinion so that today a majority of Americans sympathize with the Palestinians rather than with Israel.
00:26:43:16 – 00:27:19:07
Chuck Freilich
If you go back, let’s say to the 90s, it was about 80, 80 something percent to 5%, and then it was 8015 or something. There are fewer undecided people. Well, now it hasn’t reversed, but there’s a small majority that are more favourable to the Palestinians. We already see the initial stirrings of this in Congress, growing opposition to arms sales data after the midterms and certainly after the next general elections, will probably see even greater opposition in Congress.
00:27:19:09 – 00:27:51:15
Chuck Freilich
And we’ve already seen the likelihood that the current ten-year arms deal, which ends in 2028, will not be extended. Now, that’s something which is going to have to happen at some point and maybe should happen or should have happened around that time frame. But considering what’s happened in the last two and a half years where we are today, I’m not sure that this is the time when Israel really wants and is truly capable of winning itself off American aid.
00:27:51:19 – 00:27:53:03
Richard Pater
Well, thank you very much.