“The recent escalation between Israel and Hamas has sent shockwaves across the globe, igniting debates and raising critical questions about the stability of the Middle East and its far-reaching consequences for international security”. In this exclusive interview, we delve into these crucial matters with Dr. Michael Rubin, a preeminent authority on the region, whose insights are both timely and essential. A senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Director of Policy Analysis at the Middle East Forum, Dr. Rubin brings to the table a unique blend of academic rigor and firsthand experience.

Imagine a scholar who has not only studied the Middle East from afar but has lived and breathed its complexities, from post-revolution Iran to pre- and post-war Iraq, and even spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. This unique perspective allows him to dissect the current crisis with unparalleled clarity. For over a decade, he educated US Navy and Marine units on the region’s volatile dynamics, preparing them for the realities they faced.

His extensive body of work, including acclaimed books like “Seven Pillars: What Really Causes Instability in the Middle East?” and “Kurdistan Rising,” demonstrates his deep understanding of the forces at play.  In this exclusive interview, Dr. Rubin provides a vital analysis of the roots of Israel-Hamas conflict and its implications for global security, its potential for escalation, and the ripple effects it may have on international relations.

Arun Anand: The Middle East has changed, after the Israel-Hamas conflict started or the Gaza war started from October 7th, 2023. So, has the Middle East changed permanently and what has actually changed there? What are its implications for global security?

Dr. Michael Rubin:  Well, I think the Middle East has changed, though not necessarily permanently.

When we look at what happened, what has changed has less to do with the Palestinians and more with the temporary of defeat of Hezbollah and the simultaneous shedding of stigmas that prevented direct Iran-Israel conflict. Certainly, Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran defined themselves as adversaries but preferred to probe each other by proxy. The red lines that existed prevented a slippery slope to war. Such a broader Iran-Israel war is now a real danger.

I happen to believe, however, that the red lines that prevented a direct Israel-Iran war had a dark side: Artificial restraint protected protagonists from accountability for their actions. If aggressors like the ayatollahs in Iran faced direct accountability for their choices and sponsorship of terror, perhaps the Middle East could have avoided a descent into broader conflict.

But when it comes to the question that has the Middle East really, really changed? Look, there are several things we don’t know. Is Hamas going to rebuild? Is Hezbollah going to be rebuilt? There’s a new president and a new prime minister in Lebanon who are antagonistic to Hezbollah. But the real position, which is yet to be filled, is the governor of the central Bank of Lebanon, because that is how Hezbollah makes and launders its money.

In the United States, the Trump administration does not yet have an eye on the details of the Central Bank of Lebanon’s leadership. Traditionally, the U.S. Treasury Department signs off on the central bank governor of Lebanon.

But as we look ahead, what really is going to confirm change or not confirm change is the succession in the region. What happens when the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dies? He’s nearly 86 years old now. What happens when Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, who’s in the 20th year of his four-year presidential term and is 89 years old, dies. What’s going to happen to the Palestinian Authority then? Will Hamas take it over?

What’s going to happen in Syria? Is Ahmed al-Sharaa really going to last? There’s a lot of questioning, in Washington, in Europe, in Turkey about whether Ahmed Al Sharaa is as strong as he likes to project. So, as we always say, there’s a lot more unknowns than there are known ones right now.

Arun Anand:  We have seen the way Iran, used to hold a comparatively much stronger position, at least in terms of their military might before, Israel kind of, you know, handled them directly. And the way Hezbollah was destroyed by, the Israeli forces, do you see a weakening of Iran in the Islamic world? what’s your assessment? Can Hezbollah be regrouped? Can it again emerge from the kind of blows it has received from Israeli Defense Forces?

Dr. Michael Rubin: These are great questions. And the fact of the matter is that Iran has certainly had its position weakened, at least relative to Turkey, which seems to be on the rise. And, of course, if Turkey is the stronger country, if it professes to be the leader of the Islamic world, that’s a problem for India as well, because Turkey can be much more aggressive, especially with regard to Pakistan occupied Kashmir. So, I mean, certainly we see a repositioning and a competition between, between Turkey and Iran. But I want to pull back. I’m not sure whether Iran is as weak as people say, just because it had 293 out of 300 drones and missiles shot down by Israel.  While many in Israel and the United States said the downing of most of the Iranian barrage showed the defense capability of Israel, consider if any of those seven missiles had biological, chemical or radiological warheads: Would people really be saying that this is such a triumph of deterrence? The fact of the matter is that seven out of 300 got through, at least on the first strike at Israel back in April 2024, should be a real cause for worry. Now, Israel has shown that it can respond with precision, but the question now is whether it has the weaponry.

It needs to really take out the Iranian, nuclear program. Remember, Israel struck at Iraq in 1981, but it was really only one nuclear site, and Iran is four times the size of Iraq. Of course. You also have Israel striking at Syria back in 2007 and eliminating there a plutonium processing plant. But again, that was a one off.

If Israel is really going to go into Iran, a back of the napkin calculation is it would take at least 1300 sorties. And the reason for that is Israeli pilots aren’t suicidal. So even if they fly in with surprise, they’re going to have difficulty flying out with surprise. What that means is, before they can take out the nuclear sites, they need to take out the command-and-control and communications, enemy airfields, anti-aircraft missile batteries and so forth.

That’s why it becomes so complex. Now, the only good news from the Israeli standpoint is that they don’t need to eliminate the nuclear sites which are buried under mountains; they only really need to eliminate the entrances to those nuclear sites. I’m not being facetious here. Because if they turn those nuclear sites into giant tombs for the scientists inside, it has the same effect.

The big question now looking forward, of course, is whether the United States is going to allow Israel to do this and whether Israel has the munitions to do so. When the conflict erupted, the United States sent an aircraft carrier, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower to the eastern Mediterranean, in theory to protect Israel. That was nonsense. Why would an aircraft carrier need to protect Israel if we were going to insert our forces to help Israel?

There’s a better way to do it. It’s to fly them into Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, because Israel’s a friendly country. Rather, we wanted our aircraft carrier there to prevent Israel from striking at Iran. And I’m not saying the United States would ever physically interfere with Israeli planes. But if Israel relies on the element of surprise and suddenly you have American chatter from the aircraft carrier, Hezbollah is going to pick it up, Turkey’s going to pick it up.

And pretty soon that surprise is gone. Whenever I talk to any Chief of Naval Operations or any US admiral, they say that if the United States wants to make Iran understand that we’re serious about diplomacy, then the way to do this is remove our aircraft carriers about 600km away from the Persian Gulf into the northern Indian Ocean.

That may sound kind of counterintuitive, because isn’t that flight? But when you think about it, the Persian Gulf is very narrow and it’s very shallow. Its deepest point is only about 100m, and its average depth is only about 30m. Plus, you have a lot of islands in there with territorial waters.  Now, to launch an aircraft off a carrier takes 26 knots of wind speed. There’s two ways to do that. Either you can speed up the aircraft carrier or you can turn into the wind.

But because the sea lanes in the Persian Gulf are so narrow, we can’t do that, without violating territorial waters. Plus, the Iranians have suicide speed boats. They have mines, they have drones, they have anti-ship missiles. So aircraft carriers become huge targets inside the Persian Gulf. But if they 600km away in the northern Indian Ocean, we can strike at Iran, but they can’t strike at us. And the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would understand that because they’re military professionals.

So, if we wouldn’t put our aircraft carriers next to Israel, but if we instead put them in the northern Indian Ocean, then the Iranians would be very worried. And perhaps the Israelis would also see that as a green light, saying, hey, we’re getting out of your way. Do what you want.

Arun Anand: One particular question in the minds of a lot of people who are watching global geopolitics and especially this conflict and especially from India, they’ll be looking at, you know, Israel has effectively, kind of quite effectively tackled Hamas and Hezbollah. But what about Houthis? They continue to mount attacks even targeting American strategic assets? How much of a threat Houthis are to the peace process that seems to have started with ceasefire between Israel and Hamas?

Dr. Michael Rubin: Okay, look, the Houthis are a problem, but what we often forget in the United States, less so in India, is the ideology that motivates terrorism. It’s not just about grievance. It’s not as if there could be some adjustment to the land border here, or there some magic formula. And the terrorism will go away. It’s ideologically driven. And that’s also the case with the Houthis. When we look at the Houthis, the fact is the Israelis have shown that they can target them. They targeted Port of Hodeida. The fact that the Israelis took out the oil storage facilities was actually a serious blow to the Houthis. When we look at terrorism, there’s a cost benefit analysis.

It doesn’t really cost much to launch a drone at Tel Aviv. But if the response is $100 million in damage in losses that’s significant. So, this Israeli operation gave the Houthis pause. Now, when I look at the Houthis, I see, the question I ask is, how do they actually, acquire this weaponry? Look, I used to live in Yemen. There’s no shortage of small arms in Yemen. But the weaponry the Houthis are using is very, very sophisticated. Now, there’s three ways they can get the weaponry. One is through the Port of Hodeidah, which is the main port in the former North Yemen, on the Red Sea. The other, is through, the airport at Sana’a, which is under the Houthi’s control. And the third is across the land border from Oman, which is very tribal territory, very rough territory, and so forth. Unfortunately, we’re doing very little. The international community is doing very, very little to shut down these three mechanisms. There’s actually been Yemenia Air Flights, which we’ve tracked, which have gone from, Sana’a to Beirut when they were supposed to be going to Amman, Jordan.

But what’s the point of going to Beirut? I doubt it was just passenger traffic, but the real problem is the Port of Hodeida. Back in 2018 and 2019, there was discussion that there could be a United Arab Emirati attack on the Port of Hodeida, and the Houthis activated their network saying, ‘No, no, if you take over the Port of Hodeida there’s actually going to be a humanitarian tragedy.’ And so, the United Nations came in through something called the Stockholm Agreement.  Khaled Alyemani was the Yemeni foreign minister who was negotiating this. He actually quit in disgust at what the United Nations sought to impose there.

A lot of people say, oh, there’s an inspection mechanism, but the devil is in the details. Ships going into the Port of Hodeida can only be inspected if they report to authorities in the Port of Hodeida, but if they choose not to report, then they don’t get inspected. So basically, you have the ships carrying food that get inspected and the ships not carrying food that don’t.

And on top of this, the United Nations was supposed to take over the operation of Port of Hodeida and instead they just changed the uniform of the Houthi workers. And now the United Nations is paying the Houthi salaries. But the real problem I increasingly think is the Sultanate of Oman. And this we don’t often talk about. I don’t know if your listeners have been there. It’s a beautiful place. It’s a wonderful place. Unlike the rest of the Middle East, it’s neither Shia nor Sunni. It’s actually Ibadi which is, a faction which, descended from the Kharijites in the early days of Islam. And traditionally they take a neutral standpoint. Recently, however they have been to the Houthis, what Qatar has been to Hamas or the Taliban by offering their good offices to negotiate.

The problem is just like Qatar mediated but wanted Hamas and the Taliban to win, so too do the Omanis want one side to win, and that side is the Houthis. And there’s a historical reason for this. Back when South Yemen was a communist state, it sought to create an insurgency inside Oman and Dhofar that lasted until 1976.

And the Iranians came and helped Oman put down that insurgency. So, the Omanis still harbor deep distrust to South Yemen. They don’t want a South Yemeni government to take over unified Yemen, and so, they’re allowing the smuggling of very significant weaponry across the desert.

Now, there’s a looming battle for Marib, which is a town in north Yemen, in the desert interior region where the oil is. And unfortunately, a lot of the weaponry going to the Houthis preparing for that battle is coming from Oman. So, what we’ve got to do is shut down the port of Hodeida, shut down the Sana’a International Airport and tell Oman enough of the double dealing. We’re not going to allow the Houthis to win. And if you continue to allow the smuggling of weaponry, you are going to be sanctioned. In this regard, we have to see whether the Trump administration has enough focus.

Another point, which a lot of people forget about the Houthis is that they are Iranian proxies. When the Islamic Revolutionary Guard acts, they often try to kill more than two birds with one stone. They’re not going for a single purpose. So, when we look at the Houthis, we often look at it in the West in terms of, oh, they’re expressing solidarity with the Palestinians, with Hamas. It’s the Israeli conflict, but they’re also targeting India purposely.

Because if you remember, at the G20 summit back in New Delhi in September 2023, a month before this war broke out, we had Prime Minister Modi announce the IMEC- Indian Middle East Economic Corridor. And when you think about it, the ships would go across the northern Indian Ocean. They would offload cargo in the Emirates which would then be sent across Saudi Arabia and Israel and then into the Mediterranean. In other words, they would bypass Iran. And when you look at Iran, who controls the logistics, the trucking and so forth? It’s the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. So, if the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps can have its proxies somehow disrupt shipping, then what they can do is say, hey, look, maybe you should be putting all your investment in Chabahar and the northern corridor instead of working through the Emiratis and the Saudis.

So, the Indians basically need to tell the Iranians, “hey, we know your game and we’re not going to tolerate this”.

Arun Anand: Is it a fact that while the Islamic radicals and terror groups might have lost battle on the ground during Israel-Hamas conflict but they won the battle of narratives and they seem to be having an upper hand in the information warfare elsewhere also? If so, why this happening?

Dr. Michael Rubin:   I actually share your assessment. In the United States, we teach in American military academies that every strategy should have diplomatic, informational, military and economic components. We call it the DIME paradigm or the DIME model. The fact of the matter is, however, in the West, we often forget the ‘I’ component of this i.e. the information. We see it as propaganda. Somehow, we look at it as secondary and we constantly lose out because of it. You know, when the Chechens were fighting the Russians, they would have cells of five Chechens who were doing the fighting. And every time, one of those five would include a cameraman, and if the cameraman was wounded or unable to go, then the operation wouldn’t go forward, because what was the point of doing an operation unless you could film it for propaganda purposes? We see the same with regard to Turkey when it comes to, TRT, which is basically, an arm of Turkish propaganda.

Meanwhile, of course, the United States has Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. But let’s face it, Voice of America is more of a joke at this point than anything else that, I mean, it may broadcast three hours a week or something like that, but it’s not serious.

Arun Anand: Do you think that United Nations has become on obsolete and redundant organization as depicted recently in its failure in Israel-Hamas conflict? Do we need a new global mechanism to check terrorism?

Dr. Michael Rubin: You’re absolutely right here now when it comes to the United Nations. I’m going to sound radical here but I think that India should actually withdraw from the United Nations.  I think it’s humiliating that India has been asking for a Security Council seat since 1994, has had every single permanent member of the UN Security Council say, we think this is a good idea and we endorse it, only to have it not occur.

It’s clear that we’re not treating India well, that we’re treating India sincerely. And when I say we, I mean in Washington, Paris, London, Moscow and Beijing, not just the West. India is the world’s largest democracy and the world’s largest country, and it will soon be the third largest economy. The United Nations needs India more than India needs it.

Now, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have some sort of international organization. Look, the League of Nations did some good, before it failed spectacularly. I mean, for example, it didn’t prevent World War II, but it did resolve the conflict between Iraq and Turkey, for example, with regard to the Mosul vilayet and a number of other smaller disputes.

The United Nations has also done some good, but it’s become too big, too ossified, too dysfunctional, and it’s locked in this notion that the powers of, the post-World War II era, the immediate powers of that era are the ones that matter even 80 years later. The fact of the matter is the United Kingdom isn’t even a power in the Mediterranean anymore, let alone throughout the world. So why the heck should Great Britain have a United Nations Security Council seat? Look, I think Israel should withdraw because Israel is treated wildly, unfairly. But if Israel withdrew, people could ignore it because it’s so small.

If India withdrew (from United Nations), that would be the death blow. But if India even announced it was withdrawing, if it played high stakes poker with the United Nations Security Council and United Nations secretary general, then I think they would recognize they would be out of all their jobs because if India left, Israel would leave, a number of other countries would leave as well, and the United Nations would come crashing down.

So rather than playing nice as Indian diplomats have done for too long, I think it’s time for Prime Minister Modi to say, look, if we’re not a permanent member on the Security Council when the next session starts, we’re not in the United Nations anymore. And then what India could do is to take the lead on forming a new grouping.

And honestly, I think especially under the Trump administration, the United States would join that new grouping, the United Kingdom might. Many in Europe, the so-called members of the quad and so forth would also join. We could leave Canada out for now because they’re basically a terrorist sponsor. But let’s put that aside. The fact of the matter is that you could create something much more effective.

When the United Nations formed, what it tried to do was repair where the League of Nations had failed. So, what we need to start is having a real discussion about what a new international organization would look like and how we could repair the damage, or the inefficiencies that we’ve seen coming out of the United Nations and the United Nations Security Council.

It might be easy to say, give every country an equal vote. But let’s face it, the United States is never going to accept the same vote as Montenegro or North Macedonia, or Malawi. So how do you create a mechanism in which you balance, population power with national sovereignty in order to have perhaps a multiparty organization?

Personally, what I value most about the United Nations is simply having a place where all countries can get together without stigma to discuss issues, not necessarily to vote. For example, the United States doesn’t have diplomatic relations with North Korea. But we can talk in Europe. The United States doesn’t have diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. We can talk in New York. India has a more mature relationship with Pakistan. But you can talk in New York, you can talk in Geneva. So maybe what’s worth saving from the United Nations is simply the General Assembly and nothing else.

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The interview can also be viewed below on ‘The Nationalist View’  YouTube channel.